The Campbells and Walter Scott

I. Thomas Campbell (1763-1854)

A. He was born in County Down, Ireland, on February 1, 1763. B. His father was Archibald Campbell.

1. He had served with the British Army in the capture of Quebec.
2. Though a member of the Roman Catholic Church in his early years, he returned to Great Britain after the war to renounce Catholicism and become a member of the Church of England. a. He sought to rear his family in the traditions of the Anglican Church but its formal worship lacked warmth and there was a general lack of concern on the part of its members to make Christianity a vital and meaningful part of life. b. Thomas, repelled by the Church of England, sought to hear and associate with the Covenanter and Seceder Presbyterians.

C. After having a “religious experience,” he resolved to give himself to the ministry and become a Seceder Presbyterian minister.

1. His father, because his son was under age, insisted that he devote his talents to a ministry among the Anglicans.
2. Temporarily prevented from pursuing his own course, he delayed his decision.

D. Having received a good education at a military school near his home, he answered a call for teachers in southern Ireland and established an academy in the province of Connaught.

1. Although his teaching was greatly needed and well received, his father, still exercising parental authority, called his son home.
2. He began teaching in a school at Sheepbridge near Newry. a. John Kinley, a Seceder Presbyterian, was instrumental in obtaining this appointment for him. b. Knowing of Thomas’ desire to be a Seceder minister, Kinley offered to supply the necessary funds for his ministerial education and Thomas’ father reluctantly agreed and allowed him to enroll at the University of Glasgow.

E. He attended the University of Glasgow from 1783 to 1786.

1. He then entered a school maintained by the Anti-Burgher Seceder Presbyterians for further study which was devoted to systematic theology and the Confession of Faith.
2. Having completed the required course of study, he was licensed as a “probationer” by the Seceder Presbyterians.

F. In 1787 he married Jane Corneigle.

1. She was a descendant of the French Huguenots who had located in the area of Ballymena, Ireland.
2. He also conducted an academy in order to supplement his income.
3. Even in Ireland, he was exposed to influences which prepared him for the role he would have in the American restoration.

H. In April of 1807, at age 45, he left his family behind and came to America.

1. Excessive labors at working three jobs—preaching, teaching, and farming—had impaired his health so his doctor recommended a sea voyage as an aid to restoring it.
2. He instructed his eldest son, Alexander, to take care of the academy and his family.
3. When he was settled in America, he would send for his family.

J. The Associate Synod of North America of the Seceder Presbyterian Church was meeting in Philadelphia when he landed there on May 13, 1807.

1. After examining his credentials, it assigned him to the Chartiers Presbytery in southwest Pennsylvania.
2. Within six months, though he became a respected minister in Washington, Pennsylvania, charges were brought against him in the Chartiers Presbytery and after a series of church trials which dragged on for a year, he renounced his church and its jurisdiction. a. The charges were brought against him because he had visited a frontier settlement and invited non-Seceder Presbyterians to commune with the Seceders. b. The charges included an accusation that he believed there was no divine authority for confessions of faith, that had an erroneous belief about the nature of faith, that he upheld the right of laymen to exhort when no ordained clergy was present, and that he believed in the right of Seceder Presbyterians to hear ministers of other denominations.

K. The Chartiers Presbytery suspended him from the ministry.

1. He appealed his case to the highest authority in his denomination, the Synod, but in May 1808, after considering the charges against him for a week, it decided he had departed from some of the doctrines and practices of his denomination. They sentenced him to be “rebuked and admonished,” a mild punishment considering the circumstances.
2. After his public rebuke, he was allowed to preach in Philadelphia for two months.
3. Upon return to Washington, Pennsylvania, the Chartiers Presbytery made it clear he was no longer welcome.
4. On September 13, 1808, he “declined the authority” of the Presbytery, thus withdrawing from the Presbyterian Church.

L. He continued to preach to his friends and sympathizers whenever he had an opportunity.

1. He stressed the sinfulness of sectarian divisions, the need for a wider circle of Christian fellowship, and the importance of following the Scriptures rather than creeds or confessions of faith.
2. Nearly a year after his withdrawal from the Presbyterians, he and his friends decided to form an organization to “give more definiteness” to their movement.

M. On August 17, 1809 he and his associates organized the “Christian Association of Washington.”

1. It was never intended to be a church. It did not function like a church for it only met semi-annually.
2. It was a group of “voluntary advocates for church reformation…formed for the sole purpose of promoting simple evangelical Christianity.”

N. He was authorized to prepare a formal statement explaining the purposes of the Christian Association.

1. The result was the Declaration and Address—the most significant document in the history of the Restoration Movement in America. (See its full text on pages 38 and 39) a. It was intended to set forth the purpose, policy and program of the new religious society. b. The core of the “Address” is a series of 13 propositions that center in three basic concepts: 1) Division and schism in the body of Christ is sin, being anti-Christian, anti- Scriptural, and anti-natural.

2) The Bible is all-sufficient as God’s ultimate revelation and is the only adequate standard for doctrine, polity, and life. 3) A truly Christian spirit is manifested through mutual love and forbearance. 2. When the association met on September 7, 1809, he addressed the group and summarized the Association’s purposes in the statement: “We speak where the Bible speaks, and we are silent where the Bible is silent.”

II. Alexander Campbell (1788-1866)

A. Born near Ballymena, County Antrim, Ireland on September 12, 1788, he was the son of Thomas and Jane Campbell.

1. His boyhood was spent on a farm near Rich Hill, some 10 miles from the town of Newry.
2. His education began in an elementary school at Market Hill, was continued in an academy taught by his uncles, Archibald and Enos Campbell, and was, at all times, supervised by his father. a. In his early years he manifested little devotion to learning and study. b. Because of his lack of interest in educational pursuits, his father set him to labor with those hired to do the farming, hoping that he might benefit both physically and mentally. c. In a few years, he turned his attention to study and, under his father’s guidance, read extensively in literature, philosophy and religion.

B. His parents’ home was one that emphasized things spiritual.

1. The Bible occupied a prominent place in their home and family worship was conducted daily.
2. “Each member of the family memorized a selection from the Bible each day, recited it during the period of worship in the evening, and discussed it afterward. These verses were given again in the family worship conducted during the evening of the Lord’s Day.” (Enos E. Dowling, The Restoration Movement, p. 44)

C. Alexander was 17 when his father opened an academy in Rich Hill. There he served as an assistant and continued to study under the direction of his father. D. After having a “religious experience,” as taught in the Calvinistic Seceder Presbyterian doctrine, he was received into the Seceder Church at Ahorey where his father was minister.

1. Thomas made known his desire for Alexander to become a minister.
2. Even though he was not fully persuaded that he should give his life to the ministry, he turned his attention to the reading of theology and church history.

E. In March, 1808, his father wrote for his family to join him in America.

1. A smallpox epidemic, which affected the children in the family, delayed their departure.
2. On October 1, 1808, they set sail on the Hibernia from Londonderry. a. It was blown off its course and then brought into a bay of the island of Islay where it anchored for three days. b. On the night of October 7 the winds became so strong the ship’s anchors would not hold and it was blown upon a rock and began to fill with water. 1) For a time it seemed that all would be lost. 2) That night, Alexander solemnly vowed that if God spared his life he would dedicate it completely to His service. c. The inhabitants of the island, perceiving the plight of the ship, succeeded in saving all of the passengers. 3. Since their journey could not be continued immediately, the Campbell family decided to spend the time of waiting in the city of Glasgow.

F. Alexander enrolled in the university in Glasgow for study in Greek, French, logic and philosophy. While there:

1. He read widely in poetry, ethics, natural history, philosophy and theology.
2. He taught classes in Latin, grammar and arithmetic thus providing funds to pay for the expenses of his education.

G. Alexander took letters of introduction with him to Glasgow.

1. He presented one of those letters to Greville Ewing, head of the Haldanean theological institute in Glasgow and minister in an Independent Church. He proved to be a good friend.
2. He learned of the Haldane movement through Ewing who was a former minister of the Church of Scotland.

H. The Haldane movement was led by Robert and James Alexander Haldane, wealthy members of the Church of Scotland.

1. They started a movement in the 1790’s for an evangelical revival and greater missionary zeal in the Church of Scotland.
2. Discouraged by a lack of response, they withdrew from the Church of Scotland in 1799 and began establishing “independent” churches.
3. They practiced congregational independence and the weekly observance of the Lord’s Supper.
4. By 1807 they became convinced that the New Testament churches did not sprinkle infants and started practicing immersion.

J. Alexander’s association with the Haldane movement weakened his loyalty to the Seceder Presbyterian Church.

1. Near the end of his Glasgow residence, he refused to participate in a Seceder communion service.
2. He would never again be a member of the Presbyterian Church.

K. The Campbells left Scotland aboard the Latonia on August 3, 1809, and arrived in New York on September 29, 1809.

1. They took the stage from New York to Philadelphia, arriving October 7.
2. After spending Sunday and most of Monday in Philadelphia, they departed by wagon for Washington, some 350 miles away.
3. At the same time, Thomas Campbell had set out to meet his family.
4. The family was reunited somewhere on the road in western Pennsylvania. Three days later their journey ended at their new home.

L. At the time of their reunion, neither father nor son knew that the other had renounced Presbyterianism.

1. The father soon recounted his experiences in America, including his trials before the presbytery and synod, his repudiation of both, and his continuing work as an independent minister.
2. The son shared his religious experiences and his decision at Glasgow.
3. They rejoiced at their unity of religious convictions.
4. Alexander was delighted with the principles and program incorporated in his father’s Declaration and Address. a. He knew he wanted to give his life to the principles stated in it. b. His father had penned this bold call for restoration, but it would be the son who would seek its accomplishment.

M. Though without a church, Alexander wanted to give his life to simple New Testament Christianity.

III. The Brush Run Church

A. Alexander preached his first sermon on July 15, 1810.

1. In the span of a year, he delivered more than 100 sermons.
2. His father, rebuffed by the Presbyterians when he asked to be accepted as a minister in the main Presbyterian Church, saw his only alternative was to transform the Christian Association of Washington into a church.

B. The Brush Run Church was organized on May 4, 1811.

1. It began with thirty members, one elder (Thomas Campbell) and four deacons.
2. The principle which was its undergirding was the autonomy of each local community of Christians—their right to organize themselves as a church without appealing to any ecclesiastical structure for authority and without subscribing to any creed other than the Bible.
3. Two practices which became distinctive to the Restoration Movement were accepted by the Brush Run Church from its beginning: the weekly observance of the Lord’s Supper and immersion. a. New members were immersed. b. Thomas Campbell believed it was unnecessary for anyone who had been sprinkled in infancy to be rebaptized.

IV. The Campbells on Baptism

A. Alexander Campbell spent nearly a year in a study of baptism. He found no New Testament command or example for infant baptism.

1. In a sermon on November 1, 1810, he argued that infant baptism was nowhere expressly enjoined, and that it should be made a matter of forbearance, even as circumcision was in the apostolic church.
2. In June, 1811, he said, “As I am sure it is unscriptural to make this matter a term of communion, I let it slip. I wish to think and let think on these matters.” ( R. Richardson, Memoirs of Alexander Campbell, Vol. I, p. 392)

B. After his study, Alexander approached his father about the subject of baptism.

1. Thomas admitted the New Testament was silent on sprinkling infants but he opposed “rebaptism” and insisted it was not necessary for Christians to “unchurch” themselves and put off Christ just to be able to make a new profession in immersion.
2. Alexander yielded to his father’s views until his marriage to Margaret Brown and the birth of their first child in 1812.

C. Alexander concluded, by 1812, that sprinkling was not New Testament baptism and that he “was then, in point of fact, an unbaptized person.”

1. He felt he could not conscientiously preach to others what he had not obeyed.
2. On June 12, 1812, Alexander Campbell and seven others, including his wife and father, were immersed by Matthias Luse, a Baptist minister. a. Alexander refused to submit to the usual Baptist examination as to whether he was a proper candidate for baptism. b. He insisted that baptism should follow a simple confession of faith in Christ.

V. The Campbells as Baptists

A. Alexander attended the annual meeting of the Redstone Baptist Association in 1812 even though he had no intention of uniting with the Baptist Church at the time.

1. After the Baptists had made several overtures, the Campbells finally consented to unite the Brush Run Church with the Redstone Association in the fall of 1813.
2. They made it clear they were not typical Baptists for they submitted a lengthy written statement saying they would unite with the Association provided they would be free to teach whatever they “learned from the Holy Scriptures regardless of any human creed.”

B. The Campbells spent 17 years among the Baptists (1813-1830) but the union was always an uneasy one for Baptist leaders sensed from the beginning that the Campbells were spreading non-Baptist doctrine throughout the Association. C. During this time, Alexander used three major avenues for pleading reformation among the Baptists:

1. Sermons. a. He became a popular preacher among Baptists but his sermons mostly reflected important differences between him and the Baptists. b. His most famous sermon was his Sermon on the Law delivered at the meeting of the Redstone Association in 1816. 1) Based on Romans 8:3, it pointed out the meaning of “the law,” limitations of “the law,” reasons for these limitations, how God remedied the defects of “the law” through Christ, and how the complete Law of Moses was nullified and superseded by the gospel of Christ. 2) “This unfortunate sermon afterwards involved me in a seven years’ war with some members of the said Association, and became a matter of much debate.” (Millenial Harbinger, 1846, p. 493) 3) At the next meeting of the Redstone Association this sermon was brought forth as sufficient cause to try Alexander on charges of heresy. The charges were dropped at that time but were repeated before the Association for several years. 4) “It is, therefore, highly probable to my mind, that but for the persecution begun on the alleged heresy of this sermon, whether the present reformation had ever been advocated by me.” (Ibid.)
2.  Debates. Of his five public debates, twice Alexander defended Baptist views in debates with Presbyterians. He debated: a. John Walker in Mt. Pleasant, Ohio in 1820. b. W.L. Maccalla at Washington, Kentucky in 1823. 3. The Christian Baptist. a. This was a monthly journal he published that was soon widely read in Kentucky, Virginia, Ohio and elsewhere. b. Its theme was “a restoration of the ancient order of things.” c. Its real emphasis was on measuring everything by the New Testament and rejecting whatever it did not specifically authorize.

VI. Walter Scott (1796-1861)

A. During the winter of 1821-1822, Alexander Campbell became acquainted with Walter Scott who was to become Alexander’s closest fellow-worker in the Restoration Movement. B. He was born in Moffat, Scotland, in 1796. His parents were members of the Church of Scotland. C. Scott was educated at the University of Edinburgh. D. At the request of an uncle, George Innes, Scott came to the United States in 1818.

1. He found employment in New York as a Latin tutor in an academy.
2. In 1819 he traveled to Pittsburgh where he became an assistant to George Forrester in the academy that he conducted.

E. George Forrester, also from Scotland, was a preacher for a small church associated with the Haldane movement.

1. Through Forrester he learned of the restoration concept and was immersed.
2. Thus when he met Alexander Campbell in 1822, he was already prepared to join in the work of restoration.

F. When Campbell started the Christian Baptist in 1823, Scott suggested its name and then wrote frequent articles for it. G. His greatest contribution to the Restoration Movement came as an evangelist in the Mahoning Association.

1. Having moved to Steubenville, Ohio in 1826 to open an academy, he attended the meeting of the Mahoning Baptist Association.
2. In 1827 he was appointed evangelist for the association being encouraged by Campbell to undertake this work who, because his critics in the Redstone Association were bent on excommunicating him, became a member of the Mahoning Baptist Association which was located in the “Western Reserve of Ohio.”
3. The churches of the Mahoning Association had been more receptive to Campbell’s ideas and several of them had discarded their creed and resolved to follow the Bible as their sole guide and authority.

H. Several years earlier, Scott read a tract by Henry Errett, an elder in a Haldanean church in New York, which taught that baptism is for the remission of sins.

1. It made such a deep impression on him that when Scott became a Mahoning Association evangelist he saw an opportunity to put it into practice.
2. He preached that anyone could believe the New Testament testimony that Jesus was the Messiah and upon this faith be immersed for the remission of sins. J. Scott began a careful and thorough study of the New Testament discovering the following “order” in conversion: faith, repentance, baptism, remission of sins, gift of the Holy Spirit (later to be known as Scott’s “five-finger exercise”).

K. Under Scott’s influence a great evangelistic movement based upon the Messiahship of Jesus and a clear presentation of the “plan” of salvation revealed in the New Testament swept the Western Reserve. L. Upon hearing Scott preach, Thomas Campbell wrote that even though they had understood the gospel correctly for a number of years, it was now being put into practice for the first time. “We have long known the former (the theory), and have spoken and published many things correctly concerning the ancient gospel, its simplicity and perfect adaptation to the present state of mankind…but I must confess that, in respect to the direct exhibition and application of it for that blessed purpose, I am at present for the first time upon the ground where the thing has appeared to be practically exhibited to the proper purpose.” (Thomas Campbell quoted by William Baxter, Life of Elder Walter Scott, pp. 158,159) M. Scott’s proclamation of “baptism for the remission of sins” supplied the Campbell movement with an essential it lacked—a successful evangelism.

1. It was an evangelism that emphasized reason instead of emotion and belief in the New Testament testimony rather than the direct working of the Holy Spirit.
2. It was this evangelism which strained the relations between Campbell’s “reformers” and the Baptists to the breaking point.
   

   VII. The Campbell’s Break from the Baptists

A. The tension between the Campbells and the Baptists came to the breaking point between 1827 and 1830. B. One of the most important events in the separation process came in 1829 when the Beaver Association of western Pennsylvania adopted an “Anathema” condemning Campbell and the Mahoning Association.

1. It was published in many Baptist journals.
2. It was used as a pattern by other associations in withdrawing from the “reformers.”
3. The “errors” which it condemned included: a. They, the Reformers, maintain that there is no promise of salvation without baptism. b. That baptism should be administered to all who say they believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, without examination on any other point. c. That there is no direct operation of the Holy Spirit on the mind prior to baptism. d. That baptism procures the remission of sins and the gift of the Holy Spirit. e. That no creed is necessary for the church but the Scriptures as they stand.

C. When the break with the Baptists became final in 1830, the Campbell reformation had churches scattered over several states with well over 10,000 members, most of them ex-Baptists.