Sovereign Grace and Good Works (Trott) 1845

Sovereign Grace and Good Works

When I first saw the proposition, I shrank from it as a task less befitting me to undertake than others of our brethren, seeing that my practice or feelings seemed less corresponding with the gospel than was the case with others. But on further reflection, I thought that my experience in the case might have its use, and would be more consoling to some of the children of God than would a treatise from those who have been enabled more uniformly to keep under the workings and corruptions of their nature; if indeed mine is the experience of a child of grace. I therefore commenced writing on the subject previous to brother Jewett’s death; and I have since thought that perhaps what I had written might not be unacceptable to some of the readers of the Signs; I have therefore finished what I had to say on the subject, and changed the address to the Signs. I have no doubt that some positions which my experience will oblige me to occupy will astonish some brethren.

Brother Jewett rightly qualified this subject by defining it as a spiritual reception of the doctrine of Christ; for a mere theoretical reception of sound doctrine, or having only the natural judgment convinced of the truth of it, is but a dead faith, and of course brings forth no spiritual fruits. A connection between the doctrine of Sovereign Grace and Good Works was evidently understood, by Paul, to exist; for after making a full representation of the sovereignty of God as manifested in the experience of salvation, (Titus iii. 3—7,) he immediately adds; (verse 8,) “This is a faithful saying, and these things I will, that thou affirm constantly, that they that have believed in God might be careful to maintain good works.” He thus teaches not only that this doctrine has a tendency to good works, but also that this is the good works themselves to excite believers to them. How different thus, from the notion that this doctrine tends to licentiousness! When the natural judgment alone is convinced that salvation is by grace, and there is a reliance on that, only for escaping future punishment, there may probably be a tendency to licentiousness. And it is no wonder that the opposers of this doctrine, who know nothing but natural reason as their guide, should view the doctrine of grace in this light. But we may be assured, that whoever can deliberately draw such a conclusion and act under its influences, gives decisive evidence that he is ignorant of that hidden wisdom which God ordained before the world unto our glory, even that mystery that, “had the princes of this world known, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.”

In coming more directly to the subject in view, I will first try to determine what good works are in a gospel sense.

The old scholastic definition of good works is, “that they are such as are done from a right principle, by a right rule, and to a right end;” but I would prefer a definition more simple. Indeed, good works do not require so much to be done by rule; they are not like positive institutions which require a strict observance of the letter of the command. Hence our Lord has resolved all religious rules upon this point in one, “Therefore all things that ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them.” Matt. vii. 12. The Lord himself thus explains himself, for good works are such words as are kind and useful to others. Hence the apostle defines them by saying, “These things are good and profitable unto men.” Titus

iii. 8. Many seem to suppose that good works principally consist in religious exercises. Hence they lay great stress upon a round of what they call duties, or upon a certain kind of bodily exercises; and being attentive to these, are not careful to avoid covetousness, dishonesty, hatred, &c. They suppose that they are to do good to God, and that for this goodness he will reward them; as though if they kept the Sabbath strictly, or gave their money for religious purposes, God was thereby benefited. Even Eliphaz, the Temanite, had a better view than this of these things; he says, “Can a man be profitable unto God as he that is wise may be profitable unto himself?” So Eliphaz, “If thou sinnest, what doest thou against him? Or if thy transgressions be multiplied, what doest thou unto him? If thou be righteous, what givest thou him, or what receiveth he of thy hand? Thy wickedness may hurt a man as thou art; and thy righteousness may profit the son of man.” Job xxii. 2; and

xxxv. 6—8. The Psalmist in evidently personating Christ, says, “O my soul, thou hast said unto the Lord, Thou art my Lord: my goodness extendeth not to thee; but to the saints that are in the earth, and to the excellent, in whom is all my delight.” Psalm xvi. 2 & 3.

Religious exercises, such as waiting upon God, have come more properly under the idea of privileges, than of works; though there is an obligation resting upon the believer to observe the institutions of the gospel, and to honor God in all his ways. Good works are set forth in the scriptures as carrying out the spirit of the second table of the Decalogue. Thus Paul in his exhortation to the Romans, since all up by saying, “Love is the fulfilling of the law.” He before said, “For this, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not kill, &c., and if there be any other commandment, it is briefly comprehended in this saying, namely, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself;” and adds, “Love worketh no ill to his neighbor.”—Rom. xiii. 9 & 10. By an examination of all that is said on this subject in the New Testament, we shall find they are presented to view as both positive and negative: that is, they consist in being beneficial to others, or in doing good unto all men, especially unto those who are of the household of faith, as we have opportunity; and also in a filling up of the relations we may sustain, both civil and religious; as well as in refraining from whatever would be injurious to others. But then good works, in a gospel point of view, or as evidences of a gracious state, consist in something more than a mere performance of the act. Many acts which in themselves are beneficial to others, are performed in a spirit or from a motive that is not good, but evil. Such is the case manifestly with much of “charity and self-denial” made of what they call charitable societies, &c., by the religious multitude at this day. They are done either to be seen of men, or as a means of bringing those to whom they are done, in some way under their influence; or to make up a sum of righteousness on which to rest their hopes of salvation; or perhaps in a real infidel spirit, to show how good they can be and how much better human nature is, than those who believe the scriptures describe it to be.

There is a meekness, a kindness of feeling in doing good works, a fear of God and regard to the honor of his cause, in shunning to do wrong, which are more decisive evidences of a gracious spirit, than the mere doing or shunning the act. Yes, the humility and self-condemnation frequently manifested by the children of grace, for doing what they ought not to have done, and for not doing as they ought, gives more assurance to others of their true love to God, than would the not doing or doing the acts. The child of grace does nothing for mere ostentation and show, but from a sense of duty and a love to righteousness.

Neither is a studied austerity, unless on some peculiar occasions, necessary. Some are so shy in what they do for the poor, and for the support of the gospel ministry, as almost to lead to the belief, that they are ashamed to have it known that their religious impressions disposed them to kindness to the one, or fellowship for the other.

But to come to the existing connection between a spiritual reception of the doctrine of Christ and good works; we will remark,

First, that such reception of the doctrine of Christ implies the being born again—not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible; consequently it implies that the law in its spirituality has been written in their hearts, so that the love of God has been implanted therein. In this change is at once presented the principle of good works. Love to God leads to a desire to be like him, and to a delight in his law after the inward man. This change also produces an equal repugnance from a loathing of sin and of ourselves on account of it, and consequently we desire not to be under its influence. But the inquiry looks to the tendency whether soundness of doctrine as received by faith tends to the maintaining of good works. Its direct tendency evidently is towards the maintenance of good works. The notions of conditional acceptance with God, by observing the holiness of God, in supposing that he can let possessed with imperfect obedience, and by hiding the exceeding sinfulness of sin so as to make the creature satisfied with his imperfect and unholy performance of duties, tends to make him careless about motives, so long as he can keep up the appearance of religious devotion, and about the performance of good works or religious duties, any further than he expects to be rewarded for them, or than he supposes necessary to secure his acceptance.

But the doctrine of Christ gives such enlarged views of the holiness of God as to lead those who receive it so to feel the hidden abominations of their own hearts in contrast therewith as to destroy all confidence in any of their own acts, and to pant after more holiness in heart and life. In addition, sound doctrine gives such a view of the riches of the love and grace of God towards vile, unworthy sinners, that whenever faith gives a glimpse of it, every power of mind is captivated thereby, and they are made earnestly to desire to glorify God in their bodies and in their spirits which are his.

Again: a belief in this doctrine, by giving us a deep sense of the deceitfulness of our hearts, and the depravity of our nature, leads us to be guarded against trusting to our own hearts, or depending on our own resolutions and strength, and to seek frequent supplies of grace and strength to resist temptations, and to overcome the corruptions of our natures, and to do that which is right. And “what was Paul’s experience, is the experience of every believer.” “When I am weak, then am I strong.” 2 Cor. xii. 10. And again, “I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.” Phil. iv. 13. Whosoever we go forward carelessly or with self-confidence, we are sure to come short or fall; but more so even confounded in what manner this weakness, this heart so readily trusting in God. Once more, that faith which receives and rests upon the doctrine of Christ is that which overcometh the world, even our faith. “I John v. 4. Faith, taking hold of the immutability of God in his purposes and promises, leads us forward as disciples of Christ, to face the frown and scorn of the world; presenting to us the certainty and fulness of salvation in Christ Jesus; it stifles us from the fiery darts of the adversary, and strengthens us to meet the sword and the fury of the persecutor; assuring us of the love and mercy of God to our souls, and the bounteousness of the Savior, it drives away these death-like chills which the world by its influence tends to throw over the graces of the Spirit and our soul’s comfort; and presenting to our minds the declarations of God’s word, it fills the tempted in his motions to ensure us, as for instance, when satan would persuade us that we might indulge in this gratification of the flesh, or that, without regarding to the cause of Christ, as it would not be known, &c., faith brings forward such antidotes as these, “Be sure your sin will find you out.”—Num.

xxxii. 23; “You only have I known of all the families of the earth, therefore will I punish you for all your iniquities.”—Amos iii. 2; or as temptation is varied, so faith brings from the treasury that which meets it.

There may be subdivisions of tendencies connected with the reception of sound doctrine, to maintain good works. 1st. As already noticed, the love and mercy of God invites us to gratitude, and a strong desire to show our love to him by a denying of ourselves, and a walking in obedience to his ways. 2d. From our love to his doctrine, the very reproach and opposition it meets with, tends to increase in us the desire to show forth its holy and beneficent nature in our lives and conversation, and to avoid occasioning reproach to it. 3d. The promises of grace and strength, and of escape in the time of temptation, which this doctrine shows to be “Yea and Amen in Christ Jesus,” encourage us to pursue the paths marked in the New Testament, regardless of the difficulties we may meet with. I will add, the fear of experiencing the frowns of our heavenly Father, and of being left to ourselves, and to mourn in darkness, is a strong inducement to those who have known what it is to have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, to watch, fusses and prayer against temptation. So that these and the like inducements, the children of gospel liberty need not go back to the letter and bondage of the law, to find in its demands and threats that which will excite them to good works.

I have thus sketched the direct tendency of sound doctrine to good works, and the consequent connection between them. But do we at this day see this connection fully manifest in ourselves and others generally, with, we hope, believe the doctrine of Christ? I think we; though in some it is there as great a deficiency, perhaps, as in myself. How are we to account for this failure? I think briefly answer, from the weakness of our faith, and the prevalence of that sin which so easily besets us, viz: unbelief. But I wish to be indulged in some extended remarks on this point.

In the first place, we are to bear in mind, and we shall be often reminded of it in our sorrows, that whilst we are made partakers, if children of the kingdom, of a life that was created in Christ Jesus and good works, and therefore in the new man delight in holiness, yet the old, the Adamic man is not changed, but is in itself as earthly, sensual, and devilish as ever. Hence the warfare in the believer, between the flesh and the spirit, between Christ and Adam. Here I wish, if I can, to present the subject of the warfare in its different bearings in a true light. For just here it is that the formalist who, turning the grace of God into lasciviousness, bolsters himself up in his own self-importance, and trusting to his own self-taught belief of the doctrine of Christ, he walketh after the flesh without remorse of conscience.—And here it is, that the child of grace finds an abundant source of doubts and fears.

The position I have above laid down, that there is no change of nature, is correct; but still the implanting in us of that life which is the light of men, has given us to know the hidden depravity of our hearts, ins convinced our natural judgement, that these are evil and bad; and that the commandment is holy, just and good, and that a departure from the principle of love to God and love to our neighbor, is evil and sinful. And we know, as men, that an indulgence in sin, and a neglect of our obligations as christians, bring darkness and sorrow, and convinced of the truth and consistency of the doctrine of Christ, and our minds and affections participate in the joys and sorrows of the new man. Yet after all this, our passions, appetites, self-love, &c., are left in their natural strength and depraved bias; and not only show themselves as such in the breasts of the believer, but come forward with their demands for gratification. I am led to the conclusion, from this confidence which natural persons have in their power to keep themselves, and from the equanimity of mind and the strict morality that many such are able to maintain, contrasted with the bitter complaints the children of grace make of themselves, that the depravity in believers is frequently stirred up, and made in one shape or another, far more turbulent in their breasts, and impudent in its demands for gratification, than in others, so that if it were not for the opposition of the new man, and its leading them in their draughts to look to God for deliverance, they would be overwhelmed in their corruptions. Not only are their sins reversed, stirred up at first by the demands of the law being set home, but God, as in the case of Israel in the wilderness,

(Deut. viii. 2,) will have his people from time to time know what is in their heart, and therefore suffer Satan to stir up their corruptions.

At one time a temptation will be presented for indulgence, under so much disguise, and with so much plausibility, and at another time it will come so suddenly and unexpectedly, that the poor believer is almost swept away by it, and would have been quite, had not the Lord made a way for his escape. At another time some temptation from without will unite with some inward corruption, and make and present its demand for indulgence in such an insinuating manner and with such pertinaciousness, notwithstanding all the remonstrance of the judgement, and all the abhorrence of the spirit of the thing and perhaps at times the spirit and judgement both appear to be asleep, and the affections seem to contemplate with pleasure the indulgence, so that when the mind is again aroused to a sense of the danger, the poor, unarmed, and confounded soul, concludes that he is gone, and carried away he must be by the temptation, and becomes discouraged, and almost arrives at the conclusion that it is of no use any longer to contend against it. Perhaps in this state of the confusion of his mind Satan tempts him with the suggestion that the only way to escape being led into open sin, and from disgracing his profession, is to put an end to his existence.

Thus the believer is at times tossed in his little bark upon the billows of his corruption, raised by the winds of temptation, and his Lord appearing to be asleep, or to care not for him, yet in the end, at the last extremity, he will be made to cry for help, and the Lord will appear to hush the storm and give peace. Hence I conclude that it is not grace, or the Spirit of life, in the believer, that will keep him from being overcome by his corruptions, and the temptations he meets with, but special grace is manifested in calling his faith into exercise; or otherwise encouraging and strengthening him to maintain the conflict, or in some way providing for his escape. Hence the evidences of being a child of grace, though it is ground for hope that the Lord will keep him, is no just ground for the individual to conclude he can keep himself from falling; nor on the other hand, is his being tempted a just reason for him to conclude that he is not a child of grace. Watchfulness and prayer, and enduring hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ, are important duties of believers—they are essential to his enjoying the consolations of the gospel, and to his glorifying God in his body and spirit. But still the believer’s strength and security for living thus to God, is not in himself, but alone in God, and his having a spirit of prayer is as God is pleased to impart it.

I think I am sustained in my views above expressed, both by the experience of the believer and the language of scripture; thus, for instance, (Rom. viii. 20.) For the creature (the new creature) was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope; and John xv. 5, “For without me ye can do nothing.”

In the second place, if the facts are so as we have endeavored to show from experience, and this sustained by scripture, then the conclusion must be, that the present low state of the churches, and the severe conflicts which many of the children of God are experiencing at this day, with the world, the flesh, and the devil, are of God’s appointment and permission. Whether this be as a chastisement for their ingratitude in being kept from being swept away by the anti-christian flood, and for too great a disposition to yield to the influence of the world, or whether it be for the purifying of the churches, by separating from them all who are not kept by the power of God, and for disciplining the saints to a sense of their own weakness, and of their dependence on God to keep and sustain them, preparatory to the great struggle with the men of sin, which may be shortly approaching, or both, I am not prepared to say.

In conclusion, I would say that I would like to see some of our brethren on this subject, and particularly on the struggle between the flesh and spirit, and of the believer’s being kept not by any power in the new man, but by the power of God through faith, &c. Brother Burton knows something of fighting without old fears within, so does brother Buck, and others, if they would write.

In my former draught, I referred also to brother West, but his pen is laid silently by being happily for him, exchanged for a harp in glory, having passed victoriously through the great tribulation, having washed his robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. Though we may miss the wholesome productions of his pen through the columns of the Signs, and many a scattered sheep grieve the loss of his ministerial labors, yet for him we have no ground to mourn. But may such be the case with some of us who are yet in Bochim?

Yours, &c., S. TROTT.Centreville, Fairfax Co., Va., Nov. 18, ’45. For the Signs of the Times.

Pleasant, Ohio, Nov. 8, 1845.

EDITORIAL 1845

 

EDORIAL

NEW-VERNON, NEW-YORK, MARCH 15, 1845.

WHEN OLD SCHOO DIVIDED AGAIN

 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0HFDYKZ5M

A Division Almost Forgotten

 

FOREWORD

There are books written because an author wishes to win an argument. There are others written because something has begun to trouble the conscience so deeply that silence is no longer possible.

This book belongs to the second kind.

The Old School Baptist standpoint. This is, deliberately, an Old School Baptist appeal. That designation is not used as though every Old School or Primitive Baptist church, association, or writer has expressed every question in identical language. The standpoint advanced here is the older insistence that spiritual life is given immediately and sovereignly by God; that the gospel ministry, Scripture, prayer, baptism, the Lord's Supper, fellowship, and the other appointments of Christ serve the instruction, comfort, obedience, and edification of those whom God has made alive; that no ecclesiastical mechanism mediates regeneration; that Christ alone is Head of the church; that Scripture alone may bind the conscience; and that the gathered body, not a clerical class, is to be built up through the gifts Christ supplies.

I have not written these pages because I despise Reformed Baptists. I have written them precisely because I take their claims seriously.

When men declare that Scripture alone is the final authority, I want to believe them.

When churches insist that Christ alone is Lord of the conscience, I want to rejoice with them.

When preachers proclaim the sovereignty of God, the helplessness of fallen man, the finished work of Jesus Christ, justification by grace, the perseverance of the saints, and the absolute sufficiency of divine mercy, I hear truths for which Christians have suffered, struggled, preached, prayed, and died.

There is much in the Reformed Baptist tradition that deserves respect.

There is seriousness there.

There is theological depth.

There is an unwillingness to reduce Christianity to entertainment.

There is a determination to recover doctrines abandoned by much of modern evangelicalism.

There is reverence for Scripture.

There is concern for holiness.

There is appreciation for church discipline.

There is insistence upon doctrinal substance.

There is a refusal, at its best, to make salvation depend upon the unstable will of fallen man.

These are not small things.

And precisely because they are not small things, the questions raised in this book cannot be small questions either.

For somewhere along the way I began asking a question that would not leave me alone:

What if a movement created to defend Scripture has itself accumulated traditions that Scripture never required?

What if a confession intended to summarize the Bible gradually becomes the lens through which the Bible must be interpreted?

What if a theology designed to exalt sovereign grace begins describing the work of God through categories more rigid than Scripture itself provides?

What if a principle intended to remove human invention from worship ends by reproducing a seventeenth-century form of worship and calling that form apostolic?

What if the sermon becomes so exalted that the preacher's exposition begins receiving honors belonging properly to the inspired Word?

What if a church that loudly proclaims the priesthood of all believers gathers every week in a manner that leaves nearly all believers silent?

What if elders who are supposed to equip the saints gradually perform so much of the ministry that the saints become spectators of ministry?

What if a confession intended to protect Christian liberty begins determining the boundaries within which Christians are permitted to interpret Scripture?

What if a theology can become extraordinarily precise while Christians themselves become less prayerful, less tender, less patient, less free, less participatory, and less conscious of their immediate dependence upon the Spirit of God?

And then came the question behind all the other questions:

Have we confused what is Reformed with what is apostolic?

That question is dangerous.

It is dangerous because Christians become attached not only to truth but to systems by which truth has been organized.

We inherit vocabulary.

We inherit categories.

We inherit confessions.

We inherit forms of worship.

We inherit assumptions about ministers, sermons, church buildings, membership, ordinances, conversion, assurance, sanctification, and authority.

After several generations, these things cease to look inherited.

They simply look biblical.

The tradition becomes invisible.

We no longer say, “This is one way our fathers attempted to obey Scripture.”

We begin saying, “This is what Scripture requires.”

And eventually the difference between the apostolic command and our historical application of that command almost disappears.

That is precisely where reexamination becomes necessary.

The great tragedy would be for heirs of the Reformation to become unwilling to reform.

The men of the Reformation challenged inherited ecclesiastical authority because they believed Scripture stood above it.

The early Baptists challenged the dominant Protestant understanding of baptism because they believed Scripture stood above Protestant consensus.

Particular Baptists themselves were willing to borrow language from Presbyterians and Congregationalists where they believed those men were correct and alter that language where they believed Scripture required something different.

Their courage did not consist in possessing a perfect system.

Their courage consisted in their willingness to ask again:

What has God actually said?

That question must never become dangerous in a Baptist church.

It must never become dangerous in a Reformed church.

It must never become dangerous in any church claiming that the Bible is its final authority.

If an elder cannot ask it freely, something has gone wrong.

If an ordinary believer cannot ask it without being regarded as rebellious, something has gone wrong.

If an inherited confession determines beforehand which exegetical conclusions are permissible, something has gone wrong.

If the words “historic Reformed theology” end a discussion that Scripture itself has not ended, something has gone wrong.

And if asking whether something is apostolic is interpreted as hostility toward the church, we have forgotten that the church belongs to Christ.

This book therefore does not ask Reformed Baptists to become less serious about truth.

It asks them to become even more serious.

Do not merely defend sola Scriptura.

Practice it.

Do not merely confess liberty of conscience.

Protect it.

Do not merely preach the sovereignty of the Spirit.

Leave room for his sovereignty.

Do not merely proclaim the priesthood of believers.

Allow believers to function as a priestly people.

Do not merely teach that the saints possess spiritual gifts.

Give those saints meaningful opportunities to use them.

Do not merely say that elders equip the saints for ministry.

Ask whether the structure of the church actually permits those saints to minister.

Do not speak of preaching, Communion, or any other ordinance as a “means of grace” without distinguishing the gracious edification of living believers from the immediate sovereign act by which God gives spiritual life.

Ask why it is so often infrequent.

Do not merely call the church a body.

Ask why most of the body is silent during its principal gathering.

Do not merely call the congregation a family.

Ask whether hundreds of people sitting in rows facing a platform can meaningfully live as one.

Do not merely defend the regulative principle.

Turn that principle upon Reformed tradition itself.

Do not merely say that preaching is subordinate to Scripture.

Make certain that the preacher remains subordinate to Scripture in practice as well as theory.

And above all, do not permit our love for theological precision to become greater than our hunger for the living God.

A man can understand the covenant of works and hardly pray.

He can distinguish active from passive obedience and treat his brethren harshly.

He can explain effectual calling while barely recognizing his own dependence upon the Spirit.

He can defend the perseverance of the saints while leaving tender believers terrified that their failures prove they were never saved.

He can explain the Lord's Supper with exquisite theological accuracy while celebrating it four times a year.

He can preach the priesthood of believers from a pulpit while the believers sit silently beneath him.

He can preach for an hour about the body of Christ while the body itself is permitted almost no voice.

And a congregation can subscribe to the same confession while knowing astonishingly little of the unity of the Spirit, the bearing of one another's burdens, the confession of faults, the sharing of gifts, the breaking of bread, the prayers, the fellowship, and the mutual edification that breathe through the pages of the New Testament.

That is why these pages had to be written.

The question is not whether Reformed Baptist theology contains truth.

It contains much truth.

The question is whether every structure built around that truth deserves the same confidence.

This book recognizes the distinction. It argues that the movement is at its strongest when sovereign grace is magnified, Christ is magnified in preaching, the local congregation is respected, and confessionalism guards biblical truth; its concern arises when the theological system becomes the controlling framework through which the apostolic church is reconstructed.

That distinction is essential.

This is not an attack upon doctrines merely because they are Reformed.

Neither is it an attempt to romanticize every feature of Old School Baptist history.

Old School Baptists were men.

They could be wrong.

They could become traditional.

They could become narrow.

They could mistake their own applications for apostolic commands just as readily as anyone else.

No historical party deserves immunity from Scripture.

Not Presbyterians.

Not Particular Baptists.

Not Primitive Baptists.

Not Old School Baptists.

Not Reformed Baptists.

Not the Puritans.

Not the Reformers.

Not the church fathers.

Not this author.

The moment any Christian tradition becomes incapable of being corrected by Scripture, that tradition has ceased functioning as a servant and has begun functioning as a master.

That is why the questions at the heart of this book are deliberately simple.

Did Christ command it?

Did the apostles institute it?

Can it actually be demonstrated from the New Testament?

Does it preserve the sovereignty of God rather than enclosing divine action within ecclesiastical machinery?

Does it preserve liberty of conscience rather than binding believers through deductions that Scripture itself never makes obligatory?

Does it build the church—or merely strengthen the institution?

Does it equip Christ's people—or gradually replace their ministry with professional ministry?

Those questions summarize the book's final challenge.

But there is one question even deeper than these.

When Christ walks among his churches, what does he see?

He does not see our confessional labels first.

He does not stand impressed before our theological libraries.

He does not tremble before our systematic precision.

He does not measure spiritual life by the length of our sermons.

He does not confuse doctrinal sophistication with holiness.

He sees whether we love.

He sees whether we pray.

He sees whether we forgive.

He sees whether the weak are cared for.

He sees whether the proud are humbled.

He sees whether the wounded are restored.

He sees whether truth has made us more like him.

The Ephesian church could detect false apostles and still hear Christ say:

“Nevertheless I have somewhat against thee, because thou hast left thy first love.”

That should terrify every orthodox church.

It means that doctrinal vigilance can survive after spiritual warmth has begun to die.

It means that the ability to recognize error is not proof that everything is well.

It means that one can guard the walls while the fire on the altar is growing cold.

This book identifies this danger precisely: theological knowledge can become identity and status rather than humility, love, edification, and obedience, and doctrinal precision can coexist with the weakening of prayer, tenderness, dependence upon God, and experiential fellowship with Christ.

I therefore offer this book neither as an enemy throwing stones over the wall nor as a partisan defending another denominational fortress.

I offer it as an appeal.

Return again to the text.

Return again to Christ.

Return again to the apostles.

Read Acts without first imagining the church service you have always known.

Read 1 Corinthians 11–14 without assuming that the modern sermon must occupy the place it now occupies.

Read Ephesians 4 and ask who is actually supposed to perform the ministry.

Read Colossians 3 and listen carefully to “one another.”

Read Hebrews 10 and ask what believers are assembling to do for one another.

Read the accounts of the Lord's Supper and ask whether the meal has become a ceremony.

Read the New Testament descriptions of elders and ask whether later pastoral structures have exceeded them.

Read the passages concerning the Spirit and ask whether our doctrine of divine sovereignty has somehow become more predictable than the wind of John 3.

And when Scripture unsettles something we inherited, do not be afraid.

That unsettling may itself be reformation.

There is no dishonor in discovering that our fathers were wrong somewhere.

There is dishonor only in discovering it and refusing to follow the truth because the cost is too great.

The Baptists whose history we honor once stood against immense religious consensus because they became persuaded that baptism belonged to professing believers.

They could have said:

“But the Reformers believed otherwise.”

They could have said:

“But the great confessions say otherwise.”

They could have said:

“But the established churches say otherwise.”

Instead, they asked what Scripture required.

Their descendants should possess enough courage to do the same thing—even when the tradition requiring examination is now their own.

That is the spirit in which this book should be read.

Not with bitterness.

Not with denominational arrogance.

Not with delight in discovering fault.

But with an open Bible and an uncomfortable willingness to allow Christ to contradict us.

Because the church is his.

The sheep are his.

The table is his.

The ministry is his.

The gifts are his.

The Scriptures are his.

And the glory must remain his.

If these pages lead even one congregation to ask whether its traditions have begun speaking more loudly than the apostles, they will have served a purpose.

If they persuade one minister to distinguish more carefully between his sermon and God's Word, they will have served a purpose.

If they persuade one church to make room for the ministry of the whole body, they will have served a purpose.

If they lead one believer away from endless introspection and back toward the sufficiency of Christ, they will have served a purpose.

If they cause Christians to approach the Lord's table more frequently, more joyfully, and more conscious of one another, they will have served a purpose.

And if they compel us all—Reformed Baptist, Old School Baptist, or otherwise—to place every beloved tradition once more beneath the searching light of the New Testament, then perhaps this book will have accomplished something more important than winning an argument.

It will have called us back to the only question that finally matters:

Not, “Is this Reformed?”

Not, “Is this Baptist?”

Not, “Is this confessional?”

But:

Is this truly apostolic?

And behind even that question stands the Lord of the church himself:

Did Christ command it?

If he did, we have no right to neglect it.

If he did not, we have no right to bind it upon his people.

And if our traditions have somehow obscured that distinction, then whatever the cost, whatever the history, whatever the reputation of the men who taught us otherwise, we must return again to the Scriptures.

For the church does not belong to our systems.

The church belongs to Jesus Christ.

Guillermo Santamaria

https://a.co/d/00TTgm4n

OLD SCHOOL BAPTISTS IN THE WEST,

FOREWORD

There are histories that are forgotten because they were insignificant. And there are histories that are forgotten because the people who lived them did not build the institutions that later wrote the histories.

This book is about the second kind.he story of the Old School Baptists in the American West is not merely the story of a few stubborn preachers who resisted change. It is not simply an appendix to Kehukee, Black Rock, or the better-known controversies of the eastern states. It is the story of men and women who crossed mountains, rivers, prairies, and eventually an entire continent carrying with them a conviction that was more precious to them than institutional success: Christ had already given His church everything necessary to be His church.

They carried that conviction west.

They carried it into Kentucky and Tennessee.

They carried it across the Ohio and Mississippi.

They carried it into Illinois, Missouri, Iowa, and Texas.

And eventually they carried it in wagons across the plains and mountains to Oregon.

Some of them left behind farms they had cleared with their own hands. Some buried husbands, wives, children, and friends along the way. Some preached after working all week as farmers, carpenters, cabinetmakers, merchants, or laborers. Their meetinghouses were often small. Their congregations could be smaller still. Their names rarely found their way into the histories of great American religious institutions.

Yet they went.

And wherever they went, churches appeared.

That fact alone forces us to reconsider one of the oldest caricatures of the Old School Baptists.

They were not opposed to the gospel traveling.

They traveled with it.

They were not opposed to preaching in distant places.

Their ministers rode and walked extraordinary distances to preach.

They were not opposed to constituting churches.

They constituted churches across an expanding frontier.

They were not opposed to cooperation.

Their churches corresponded, sent messengers, organized associations, received visiting elders, assisted ministers, and maintained fellowship across enormous distances.

What they opposed was something much more specific and much more profound.

They questioned whether the church of Jesus Christ needed another organization standing beside it—or eventually above it—to accomplish the work Christ had entrusted to His people.

That question is the heartbeat of this book.

The western evidence makes it impossible to dismiss the Old School resistance as merely an eastern reaction that began at Kehukee in 1827 or Black Rock in 1832. In Illinois, Baptist opposition to missionary-board patronage had already become an associational issue by 1824. Daniel Parker had published his attack upon the Baptist missionary-board system in 1820, twelve years before Black Rock. The western controversy was therefore already developing while the eastern struggle was still taking shape.
That changes the story.

The Old School movement did not arise at one meeting, from one address, under one preacher, or in one region. The evidence in this volume points instead toward something broader: Baptists in widely separated places were confronting the same transformation and asking remarkably similar questions.

Who had the right to direct the work of the gospel?

Who should call and recognize ministers?

Who should support them?

Who should determine where they labored?

Could a society composed of contributing individuals perform work Scripture had committed to churches?

Could an educational institution gradually become the gatekeeper of the ministry?

Could efficiency establish authority?

Could necessity justify an institution for which these Baptists believed they could find no apostolic warrant?

Those were not trivial questions to them.

They touched the very identity of the church.

And there were sincere Christians on the other side.

That must be said.

John Mason Peck looked upon the vast western frontier and saw settlements without churches, churches without pastors, children without schools, and enormous opportunities for evangelization. His answer was organization—missionary societies, Sunday schools, educational institutions, denominational cooperation, publications, and eventually national home-mission machinery.

The Old School Baptists often looked upon the same frontier and reached almost the opposite conclusion.

If Christ had established His churches, called His ministers, given His ordinances, and commanded the preaching of His gospel, they asked, why should another permanent religious corporation be necessary to accomplish His work?

The disagreement was not between people who wanted the gospel preached and people who did not.

Both sides preached. Both sides traveled. Both sides planted churches.

The question was what stood behind that work.

The manuscript repeatedly demonstrates that rejecting the missionary system did not mean rejecting itinerant preaching or church planting. David Badgley, for example, had actually participated in organized missionary work, received society support, and traveled as an appointed missionary before rejecting that arrangement—and then continued helping constitute churches afterward.

That is one of the reasons this history matters.

It allows the Old School Baptists to speak from within their own world rather than forcing them into categories created by their opponents.

Their story becomes even more remarkable as it moves westward.

In Texas, Daniel Parker's people did something almost unimaginable today. They did not wait for a missionary society to identify Texas as a field and send an agent there.

An organized church moved.

Families, members, minister, faith, order, and congregational identity crossed the frontier together.

The church itself became missionary in the oldest sense of the word—not through a separate missionary corporation, but through the movement of the body and the subsequent constitution of other churches.

The pattern appears repeatedly in this history:

believers move,

ministers move,

families gather,

the gospel is preached,

churches are constituted,

associations follow.

The church came first.

The machinery did not.

And then the story reaches Oregon.

There is something deeply moving about Isom Cranfill crossing the Oregon Trail in 1847. He had been a cabinetmaker. He had made coffins during a terrible period of disease in Illinois. Then he placed his family among thousands of emigrants moving toward an uncertain western future. His surviving diary records the journey, and after reaching Oregon he worked with his hands while traveling through the Willamette and Umpqua valleys preaching among scattered believers.

He did not arrive backed by a national denominational apparatus.

He carried his faith with him.

So did John Stipp.

So did other Regular Predestinarian Baptists.

And while they were building churches in Oregon, something else was happening farther south.

Osgood Church Wheeler arrived in California as a commissioned missionary of the American Baptist Home Mission Society. In 1849—the very year the Siloam Association of Regular Predestinarian Baptists was taking shape in Oregon—Wheeler was beginning institutional Missionary Baptist work in California and organizing what became the First Baptist Church of San Francisco.

There, on the Pacific Coast, thousands of miles from the controversies of North Carolina and Maryland, the two Baptist visions stood beside one another again.

One came through a national society.

The other came through migrating churches, elders, and families.

One saw organization as a necessary instrument for meeting the demands of a growing nation.

The other feared that every new religious institution transferred a little more of the church's work into hands Christ had never appointed.

That is the tragedy—and the grandeur—of this story.

These people were brethren before they became parties.

They shared Bibles.

They shared Baptist ancestry.

They shared ordinances.

They shared much of the same theology.

They often shared the same meetinghouses, associations, families, and memories.

Then came the societies.

Then came the theological disputes over gospel means.

Then came questions of ministerial education.

Then boards, agents, salaries, schools, conventions, publications, and competing definitions of Baptist cooperation.

Churches divided.

Associations divided.

Ministers who had once sat together ceased corresponding.

Congregations that had once broken bread together declared one another out of order.

And from those divisions emerged two Baptist worlds.

This book does not need to pretend that every Old School Baptist was correct about everything. They were not united among themselves. Parker's Two-Seed doctrine created serious controversy. Later disputes over predestination, gospel means, church discipline, and other matters produced painful divisions even within the Old School ranks. The manuscript itself acknowledges these internal differences rather than manufacturing an imaginary golden age.

Nor does this book require us to question the sincerity of every Missionary Baptist.

The issue is not sincerity.

The issue is history.

And history demands that we hear the forgotten side.

The institutions built by the Missionary Baptists survived, expanded, accumulated resources, trained ministers, established colleges, published histories, and became enormously influential. Inevitably, much of Baptist history came to be narrated through the institutional descendants of the victors.

The Old School Baptists left something different.

Minutes.

Church books.

Circular letters.

Associational correspondence.

Personal diaries.

Old newspapers.

Graveyards.

Fading meetinghouses.

Names buried in county histories.

And sometimes nothing more than a sentence recording that an elder rode into a settlement, preached the gospel, baptized believers, and helped constitute another church.

Those fragments matter.

Behind every faded name was a human life.

Behind every associational minute was a congregation of people who had buried their dead, raised their children, worked the soil, crossed rivers, survived disease, endured loneliness, and gathered again on another Lord's Day because they believed that Christ would preserve His church.

Their story deserves to be told.

And perhaps the most powerful conclusion of this entire work is that the western Old School Baptist movement was not merely an eastern protest transplanted to the frontier. It was also a western response born from western experience. Illinois Baptists had encountered missionary organization and reacted against it before Kehukee and Black Rock. Parker resisted the board system in the West. Missouri divided. Iowa inherited the Regular Baptist network. Parker's congregation physically moved into Texas. Cranfill and Stipp carried Predestinarian Baptist life across the Oregon Trail. Meanwhile Peck, the Home Mission Society, Wheeler, and others carried west another Baptist future built upon organized societies, education, and denominational coordination.

Thus two Baptist migrations crossed America at the same time.

One effectively said:

Send the gospel west through organized institutions.

The other answered:

Let the churches go. Let the ministers go. Let the families go. And wherever God gathers His people, let churches arise according to the order Christ has already given.

The manuscript reaches this very conclusion: two Baptist westward expansions were occurring simultaneously, one through organized institutions and the other through churches, ministers, and believing families reproducing churches according to what they understood as apostolic order.

That is why this history should not be read merely as a denominational curiosity.

It asks a question that has never gone away.

Is the church sufficient for the work Christ gave the church?

Every generation answers that question, whether it realizes it or not.

The old meetinghouses may be gone.

The wagon roads have disappeared beneath highways.

The frontier graves are weathered.

Many of the associations recorded in these pages have vanished.

The voices of their elders have been silent for more than a century.

But the question they carried across the mountains still lives.

And before we dismiss their answer as backward, primitive, or obsolete, we owe them the dignity of listening.

That is the purpose of this book.

To recover their names.

To reopen their records.

To follow their footsteps west.

And, for a little while, to hear again the voices of those forgotten Baptists who crossed a continent believing that they did not need to reinvent the church in order to carry the gospel to the ends of the earth.

Guillermo Santmaria