tools for it. And we trust that what has been said may serve in
some degree for the practical guidance of those who would like to
reach the great moral achievement of our text, but feel that the
tendencies and desires of nature are too strong for them. We know
of no other way by which to keep the love of the world out of our
heart than to keep in our hearts the love of God--and no other way
by which to keep our hearts in the love of God, than by building
ourselves on our most holy faith. That denial of the world which
is not possible to him that dissents from the gospel testimony, is
possible, even as all things are possible, to him that believeth.
To try this without faith is to work without the right tool or
the right instrument. But faith worketh by love; and the way of
expelling from the heart the love that transgresseth the law is to
admit into its receptacles the love which fulfilleth the law.
Conceive a man to be standing on the margin of this green world, and
that, when he looked toward it, he saw abundance smiling upon every
field, and all the blessings which earth can afford scattered in
profusion throughout every family, and the light of the sun sweetly
resting upon all the pleasant habitations, and the joys of human
companionship brightening many a happy circle of society; conceive
this to be the general character of the scene upon one side of his
contemplation, and that on the other, beyond the verge of the goodly
planet on which he was situated, he could descry nothing but a dark
and fathomless unknown. Think you that he would bid a voluntary
adieu to all the brightness and all the beauty that were before
him upon earth, and commit himself to the frightful solitude away
from it? Would he leave its peopled dwelling places, and become a
solitary wanderer through the fields of nonentity? If space offered
him nothing but a wilderness, would he for it abandon the home-bred
scenes of life and cheerfulness that lay so near, and exerted such
a power of urgency to detain him? Would not he cling to the regions
of sense, and of life, and of society? Shrinking away from the
desolation that was beyond it, would not he be glad to keep his firm
footing on the territory of this world, and to take shelter under
the silver canopy that was stretched over it?
But if, during the time of his contemplation, some happy island of
the blest had floated by, and there had burst upon his senses the
light of surpassing glories, and its sounds of sweeter melody, and
he clearly saw there a purer beauty rested upon every field, and a
more heartfelt joy spread itself among all the families, and he
could discern there a peace, and a piety, and a benevolence which
put a moral gladness into every bosom, and united the whole society
in one rejoicing sympathy with each other, and with the beneficent
Father of them all. Could he further see that pain and mortality
were there unknown, and above all, that signals of welcome were hung
out, and an avenue of communication was made before him--perceive
you not that what was before the wilderness, would become the land
of invitation, and that now the world would be the wilderness?
What unpeopled space could not do, can be done by space teeming
with beatific scenes, and beatific society. And let the existing
tendencies of the heart be what they may to the scene that is near
and visible around us, still if another stood revealed to the
prospect of man, either through the channel of faith or through
the channel of his senses--then, without violence done to the
constitution of his moral nature, may he die unto the present world,
and live to the lovelier world that stands in the distance away from
it.
CAMPBELL
THE MISSIONARY CAUSE
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
ALEXANDER CAMPBELL, prominent in the body known as Disciples or
Christians, was born in Ireland in 1788, and received his education
in Glasgow University. In 1809 he emigrated to the United States
and took charge of a Presbyterian congregation in Bethany, Va. He
did not long remain in this pastorate, but proceeded to institute a
society based upon the abolition of all confessions and formularies
and the acknowledgment of the text of the Holy Scriptures as the
sole creed of the Church. In 1841 he founded Bethany College
(Bethany, Va.), and remained its president until his death in 1866.
In 1823 he founded the _Christian Baptist_, changed its name in 1829
to the _Millennial Harbinger_, but abandoned it three years before
his death. He was a prolific controversial writer and published over
fifty volumes, among which were hymn books and a translation of the
New Testament.
CAMPBELL
1788-1866
THE MISSIONARY CAUSE[1]
[1] Delivered to the American Christian Missionary Society,
Cincinnati, October, 1860.
_He that winneth souls is wise._--Prov. xi., 30.
The missionary cause is older than the material universe. It was
celebrated by Job--the oldest poet on the pages of time.
Jehovah challenges Job to answer Him a few questions on the
institutions of the universe. "Gird up now thy loins," said He; "and
I will demand of thee a few responses. Where wast thou when I laid
the foundations of the earth? Declare, if thou hast understanding.
Who has fixt the measure thereof? Or who has stretched the line upon
it? What are the foundations thereof? Who has laid the corner-stone
thereof when the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of
God shouted for joy? Who shut up the sea with doors when it burst
forth issuing from the womb of eternity--when I made a cloud its
garment, and thick darkness its swaddling band? I appointed its
limits, saying, Thus far shalt thou come, but no farther; and here
shall the pride of thy waves be stayed.
"Has the rain a father? Who has begotten the drops of the dew? Who
was the mother of the ice? And the hoar-frost of heaven, who has
begotten it? Can mortal man bind the bands of the Seven Stars, or
loose the cords of Orion? Can he bring forth and commission the
twelve signs of the Zodiac, or bind Arcturus with his seven sons?
"Knowest thou, oh man, the missionaries of the starry heavens? Canst
thou lift up thy voice to the clouds, that abundance of waters may
cover thee? Canst thou command the lightnings, so that they may say
to thee, Here we are? Who can number the clouds in wisdom? Or who
can pour out the bottles of heaven upon the thirsty fields?"
If such be a single page in the volume of God's physical
missionaries, what must be its contents could we, by the telescope
of an angel, survey one single province of the universe, of
universes, which occupy topless, bottomless, boundless space!
We have data in the Bible, and, in the phenomena of the material
universe, sufficient to authorize the assumption that the missionary
idea circumscribes and permeates the entire area of creations.
Need we inquire into the meaning of a celestial title given to the
tenantries of the heaven of heavens? But you all, my Christian
brethren, know it. You anticipate me. The sweet poet of Israel told
you long since, in his sixty-eighth ode, that the chariots of God
are about twenty thousand of angels.[2]
[2] This is an exact literal version of _Rebotayim alphey shenan_.
The Targum says, "The chariots of God are two myriads--and two
thousand angels draw them." A myriad is 10,000--two myriads 20,000.
"To know this," Adam Clarke says, "we must die."
And what is an angel but a messenger, a missionary? Hence the seven
angels of the seven churches in Asia were seven missionaries, or
messengers, sent to John in his exile; and by these John wrote
letters to the seven congregations in Asia.
Figuratively, God makes the winds and lightnings his angels, his
messengers of wrath or of mercy, as the case may be.
But we are a missionary society--a society assembled from all points
of the compass, assembled, too, we hope, in the true missionary
spirit, which is the spirit of Christianity in its primordial
conception. God Himself instituted it. Moses is the oldest
missionary whose name is inscribed on the rolls of time.
He was the first divine missionary, and, if we except John the
Baptist, he was the second in rank and character to the Lord Messiah
Himself.
Angels and missionaries are rudimentally but two names for the same
officers. But of the incarnate Word, God's only begotten Son, He
says, "Thou art my son, the beloved, in whom I delight." And He
commands the world of humanity to hearken to Him. He was, indeed,
God's own special ambassador, invested with all power in heaven
and on earth--a true, a real, an everlasting plenipotentiary,
having vested in Him all the rights of God and all the rights of
man. And were not all the angels of heaven placed under Him as His
missionaries, sent forth to minister to the heirs of salvation?
His commission, given to the twelve apostles, is a splendid and
glorious commission. Its preamble is wholly unprecedented--"All
authority in heaven and on earth is given to me." In pursuance
thereof, he gave commission to His apostles, saying, "Go, convert
all the nations, immersing them into the name of the Father, and
of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit; teaching them to observe all
things whatever I have commanded you; and, lo, I am with you always,
even to the end of the world." Angels, apostles and evangelists
were placed under this command, and by Him commissioned as His
ambassadors to the world.
The missionary institution, we repeat, is older than Adam--older
than our earth. It is coeval with the origin of angels.
Satan had been expelled from heaven before Adam was created. His
assault upon our mother Eve, by an incarnation in the most subtle
animal in Paradise, is positive proof of the intensity of his
malignity to God and to man. He, too, has his missionaries in the
whole area of humanity. Michael and his angels, or missionaries,
are, and long have been, in conflict against the devil and his
missionaries. The battle, in this our planet, is yet in progress,
and therefore missionaries are in perpetual demand. Hence the
necessity incumbent on us to carry on this warfare as loyal subjects
of the Hero of our redemption.
The Christian armory is well supplied with all the weapons essential
to the conflict. We need them all. "We wrestle not against flesh
and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the
rulers of the darkness of this world, against wicked spirits in the
regions of the air." Hence the need of having our "loins girded with
the truth"; having on the breastplate of righteousness, our feet
shod with the preparation to publish the gospel of peace, taking
the shield of faith, the helmet of salvation and the sword of the
Spirit, the Word of God, always praying and making supplication for
our fellow-missionaries and for all saints.
The missionary fields are numerous and various. They are both
domestic and foreign. The harvest is great in both. The laborers are
still few, comparatively very few, in either of them.
The supply is not a tithe of the demand. The Macedonians cry, "Come
over and help us;" "Send us an evangelist;" "Send us missionaries;"
"The fields are large, the people are desirous, anxious, to hear
the original gospel. What can you do for us?" Nothing! Nothing! My
brethren, ought this so to be?
Schools for the prophets are wanting. But there is a too general
apathy or indifference on the subject. We pray to the Lord of the
harvest to send our reapers to gather it into His garner. But what
do we besides praying for it? Do we work for it? Suppose a farmer
should pray to the Lord for an abundant harvest next year, and
should never, in seed-time, turn over one furrow or scatter one
handful of seed: what would we think of him? Would not his neighbors
regard him as a monomaniac or a simpleton? And wherein does he excel
such a one in wisdom or in prudence who prays to the Lord to send
out reapers--missionaries, or evangelists--to gather a harvest of
souls, when he himself never gives a dollar to a missionary, or the
value of it, to enable him to go into the field? Can such a person
be in earnest, or have one sincere desire in his heart to effect
such an object or purpose? We must confess that we could have no
faith either in his head or in his heart.
The heavenly missionaries require neither gold nor silver, neither
food nor raiment. Not so the earthly missionaries. They themselves,
their wives and children, demand both food and clothing, to say
nothing of houses and furniture. Their present home is not
"The gorgeous city, garnish'd like a bride,
Where Christ for spouse expected is to pass,
The walls of jasper compass'd on each side,
And streets all paved with gold, more bright than glass."
If such were the missionary's home on earth, he might, indeed,
labor gratuitously all the days of his life. In an humble
cottage--rather an unsightly cabin--we sometimes see the wife of
his youth, in garments quite as unsightly as those of her children,
impatiently waiting "their sire's return, to climb to his knees the
envied kiss to share." But, when the supper table is spread, what a
beggarly account of almost empty plates and dishes! Whose soul would
not sicken at such a sight? I have twice, if not thrice, in days
gone by, when travelling on my early missionary tours--over not the
poorest lands nor the poorest settlements, either--witnessed some
such cases, and heard of more.
I was then my own missionary, with the consent, however, of one
church. I desired to mingle with all classes of religious society,
that I might personally and truthfully know, not the theories, but
the facts and the actualities, of the Christian ministry and the
so-called Christian public. I spent a considerable portion of my
time during the years 1812, '13, '14, '15, '16, traveling throughout
western Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Ohio.
I then spent seven years in reviewing my past studies, and in
teaching the languages and the sciences--after which I extended my
evangelical labors into other States and communities, that I might
still more satisfactorily apprehend and appreciate the _status_,
or the actual condition, of the nominally and profest religious or
Christian world.
Having shortly after my baptism connected myself with the Baptist
people, and attending their associations as often as I could, I
became more and more penetrated with the conviction that theory
had usurped the place of faith, and that consequently, human
institutions had been, more or less, substituted for the apostolic
and the divine.
During this period of investigation I had the pleasure of forming an
intimate acquaintance with sundry Baptist ministers, East and West,
as well as with the ministry of other denominations. Flattering
prospects of usefulness on all sides began to expand before me
and to inspire me with the hope of achieving a long-cherished
object--doing some good in the advocacy of the primitive and
apostolic gospel--having in the year 1820 a discussion on the
subject of the first positive institution enacted by the Lord
Messiah, and in A. D. 1823 another on the same subject--the former
more especially on the subject and action of Christian baptism,
the latter more emphatically on the design of that institution tho
including the former two.
These discussions, more or less, embraced the rudimental elements
of the Christian institution, and gave to the public a bold relief
outline of the whole genius, spirit, letter and doctrine of the
gospel.
Its missionary spirit, tho not formally propounded, was yet
indicated, in these discussions; because this institution was the
terminus of the missionary work. It was a component element of
the gospel, as clearly seen in the commission of the enthroned
Messiah. Its preamble is the superlative fact of the whole Bible.
We regret, indeed, that this most sublime preamble has been so much
lost sight of even by the present living generation. If we ask when
the Church of Jesus Christ began or when the reign of the Heavens
commenced, the answer, in what is usually called Christendom, will
make it either to be contemporaneous with the ministry of John the
Harbinger, or with the birth of the Lord Jesus Christ. We will
find one of these two opinions almost universally entertained.
The Baptists are generally much attached to John the Baptist; the
Pedobaptists, to the commencement of Christ's public ministry.
John the Baptist was the first Christian missionary with a very
considerable class of living Baptists; the birth of Christ is the
most popular and orthodox theory at the respective meridians of
Lutheranism, Calvinism, and Arminianism.
But, by the more intelligent, the resurrection, or the ascension
of the Lord Jesus Christ, is generally regarded as the definite
commencement of the Christian age or institution.
Give us Paul's or Peter's testimony, against that of all
theologians, living or dead. Let us look at the facts.
Did not the Savior teach His personal pupils, or disciples, to
pray, "Thy kingdom"--more truthfully, "Thy reign--come"? Does any
king's reign or kingdom commence with his birth? Still less with his
death? Did not our Savior Himself, in person, decline the honors of
a worldly or temporal prince? Did He not declare that His kingdom
"is not of this world"? Did He not say that He was going hence, or
leaving this world, to receive or obtain a kingdom? And were not the
keys of the kingdom first given to Peter to open, to announce it?
And did he not, when in Jerusalem, on the first Pentecost, after the
ascension of the Lord Jesus, make a public proclamation, saying,
"Let all the house of Israel know assuredly that God has made (or
constituted) the identical Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Mary, both
the Lord and the Christ, or the anointed Lord"?
Do kings reign before they are crowned? Before they are anointed?
There was not a Christian Church on earth, or any man called a
Christian, until after the consecration and coronation of Jesus of
Nazareth as the Christ of God.
The era of a son's birth was never, since the world began, the era
of his reign or of the commencement of it. It is a strange fact,
to me a wonderful fact, and, considering the age in which we live,
an overwhelming fact, that we, as a community, are the only people
on the checkered map of all Christendom, Greek, Roman, Anglican or
American, that preach and teach that the commonly called Christian
era is not the era or the commencement of the Christian Church or
kingdom of the Lord Jesus the Christ.
The kingdom of the Christ could not antedate His coronation.
Hence Peter, in announcing His coronation, after His ascension,
proclaimed, saying, "Let all the house of Israel know assuredly
that God has made--_touton ton Ieesoun_--the same, the identical
Jesus whom you have crucified, both Lord and Christ"; or, in other
words, has crowned Him the legitimate Lord of all. Then indeed His
reign began. Then was verified the oracle uttered by the royal
bard of Israel, "Jehovah said to my Jehovah"--or, "the Lord said
to my Lord,"--"Sit thou on my right hand till I make thy foes thy
footstool."
Hence He could say, and did say, to His apostles, "All authority in
the heavens and on the earth is given to me." In pursuance thereof,
"Go you into all the world, proclaim the gospel to the whole
creation; assuring them that everyone who believes this proclamation
and is immersed into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of
the Holy Spirit, shall be saved."
Here, then, the missionary field is declared to be the whole
world--the broad earth. They were, as we are afterwards informed,
to begin at the first capital in the land of Judea, then to proceed
to Samaria, the capital of the ten tribes, and thence to the last
domicile of man on earth.
There was, and there is still, in all this arrangement, a gracious
and a glorious propriety.
The Jews had murdered the Messiah under the false charge of an
impostor. Was it not, then, divinely grand and supremely glorious to
make this awfully bloodstained capital the beginning, the fountain,
of the gospel age and mission? Hence it was decreed that all the
earth should be the parish, and all the nations and languages
of earth the objects, and millions of them the subjects, of the
redeeming grace and tender mercies of our Savior and our God.
What an extended and still extending area is the missionary field!
There are the four mighty realms of Pagandom, of Papaldom, of
Mohammedandom and of ecclesiastic Sectariandom. These are, one and
all, essentially and constitutionally, more or less, not of the
apostolic Christendom.
The divinely inspired constitution of the Church contains only
seven articles. These are the seven hills, not of Rome, but of the
true Zion of Israel's God. Paul's summary of them is found in the
following words: "One body, one spirit, one hope, one Lord, one
faith, one baptism, and one God and Father of all."
The clear perception, the grateful reception, the cordial
entertainment of these seven divinely constructed and instituted
pillars, are the alone sufficient, and the all-sufficient,
foundation--the indestructible basis--of Christ's kingdom on this
earth, and of man's spiritual and eternal salvation in the full
enjoyment of himself, his Creator, his Redeemer, and the whole
universe of spiritual intelligence through all the circles and
the cycles of an infinite, an everlasting future of being and of
blessedness.
The missionary spirit is, indeed, an emanation of the whole Godhead.
God the Father sent His Son, His only begotten Son, into our world.
The Son sent the Holy Spirit to bear witness through His twelve
missionaries, the consecrated and Heaven-inspired apostles. They
proclaimed the glad tidings of great joy to all people--to the
Jews, to the Samaritans, to the Gentiles, of all nations, kindreds
and tongues. They gave in solemn charge to others to sound out and
proclaim the glad tidings of great joy to all people. And need we
ask, is not the Christian Church itself, in its own institution and
constitution, virtually and essentially a missionary institution?
Does not Paul formally state to the Thessalonians in his first
epistle that from them sounded out the Word of the Lord not only in
Macedonia and in Achaia, but in every place?
No man can really or truthfully enjoy the spiritual, the
soul-stirring, the heart-reviving honors and felicities of the
Christian institution and kingdom, who does not intelligently,
cordially and efficiently espouse the missionary cause.
In other words, he must feel, he must have compassion for his
fellow man; and, still further, he must practically sympathize
with him in communicating to his spiritual necessities as well
as to his physical wants and infirmities. The true ideal of all
perfection--our blest and blissful Redeemer--went about continually
doing good--to both the souls and the bodies of his fellow men;
healing all that were, in body, soul or spirit, opprest by Satan,
the enemy of God and of man.
To follow his example is the grand climax of humanity. It is not
necessary to this end that he should occupy the pulpit. There are,
as we conceive, myriads of Christian men in the private walks
of life, who never aspired to the "sacred desk," that will far
outshine, in eternal glory and blessedness, hosts of the reverend,
the boasted and the boastful right reverend occupants of the sacred
desks of this our day and generation.
But Solomon has furnished our motto:--"He that winneth" or taketh
"souls is wise" (Prov. xi. 30). Was he not the wisest of men, the
most potent and the richest of kings, that ever lived? He had,
therefore, all the means and facilities of acquiring what we call
knowledge--the knowledge of men and things; and, consequently, the
value of men and things was legitimately within the area of his
understanding; or, in this case, we might prefer to say, with all
propriety, within the area of his comprehension.
Need I say that comprehension incomparably transcends apprehension?
Simpletons may apprehend, but only wise men can comprehend
anything. Solomon's rare gift was, that both his apprehension and
his comprehension transcended those of all other men, and gave him
a perspicacity and promptitude of decision never before or since
possest by any man. His oracles, indeed, were the oracles of God.
But God especially gave to him a power and opportunity of making
one grand experiment and development for the benefit of his living
contemporaries, and of all posterity, to whom God presents his
biography, his Proverbs and his Ecclesiastes.