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LANDMARKISM
BEFORE
J. R. GRAVES
By Thomas Williamson
3131 S. Archer Avenue
Chicago, Illinois 60608
The modern Landmark Baptist
movement, as we know it today, began in 1851in Cotton Grove, Tennessee, when
John Robinson Graves offered these Cotton Grove Resolutions:
1st. Can
Baptists, consistently with their principles or the Scriptures, recognize
those societies not organized according to the pattern of the Jerusalem
Church, but possessing different governments, different officers,
a different class of members, different ordinances, doctrines and
practices, as churches of Christ?
2nd. Ought
they to be called gospel churches, or churches in a religious sense?
3rd. Can we
consistently recognize the ministers of such irregular and unscriptural
bodies as gospel ministers?
4th. Is it
not virtually recognizing them as official ministers to invite them into our
pulpits, or by any other act that would or could be construed into
such a recognition?
5th. Can we
consistently address as brethren those professing Christianity, who
not only have not the doctrine of Christ and walk not according to His
commandments, but are arrayed in direct and bitter opposition to them?
These resolutions
were published far and wide throughout the South, and in 1854 James Madison
Pendleton, an associate of Graves, published his essay “An Old Landmark
Reset.” The Landmark movement rapidly gained influence within the Southern
Baptist Convention, as a reaction to the laxity and ecumenical spirit that
Baptists had fallen into, cooperating closely with Pedobaptist churches and
ministers. (Pedobaptists are those who baptize infants as opposed to the
Baptist practice of believer’s immersion).
The Landmark movement
eventually gave rise to two great associations of Landmark churches, the
American Baptist Association and the Baptist Missionary Association of
America. Many Independent Baptist churches, some of them preferring an
“unaffiliated” status outside of any association, adopted Landmark
principles.
Nowadays there are thousands
of churches in the SBC, ABA, BMA and Independent Baptist movements that
identify with the Landmark movement. Thousands of other churches in these
groups are non-Landmark - they are unaware of, indifferent to, or vocally
opposed to Landmark teachings.
There is an obvious
difficulty for Landmarkers, that needs to be addressed. If the Landmark
principles are in any sense based on Scriptural principles, how is it that
no one, over a period of 18 centuries, noticed that these principles were in
the Bible? How is it that all the great men of God missed these obvious
truths, until the time of J. R. Graves and J. M. Pendleton? Perhaps the old
principle applies here: “If it’s true, it’s not new, and if it’s new, it’s
not true.”
Did Graves, Pendleton and
their associates invent an entirely new system of theology in the 1850s?
Or
did they codify and provide organizational expression to ideas that had
already been expressed and practiced by Baptists in preceding centuries? That is the question that I desire to address and explore in this essay. The Landmark movement as initiated by Southern Baptists in the 1850s will
gain credibility if it can be shown that these ideas were previously held by
other Baptists. It will lose credibility if no historical background for
these ideas can be shown.
Of course, our final
authority is not what Baptists have believed over the years. The teachings
of the Bible, the Word of God, are our final authority. The only purpose of
this essay is to attempt to determine whether or not Baptists prior to the
time of Graves understood and interpreted their Bibles to teach Landmark
principles.
Some historians have given
the impression that the tenets of Landmarkism were unknown prior to 1851 and
were first proposed by Graves and his associates at that time. For
instance, Dale Moody has stated,
Many Southern Baptists, unaware of the
facts of Southern Baptist history and unmoved by the plain teachings of the
New Testament, have followed the innovations of Landmarkism which
infiltrated into the South from the North through such personalities as J. R.
Graves and J. M. Pendleton.
James Tull says that Landmarkism
embodied elements of innovation which made it, not only in total scope, but
also in separate details, a movement alien to those ecclesiastical
traditions which were formulated by English and American Baptists in the 17th
and 18th Centuries.
The purpose of this
booklet is to show that Landmark principles were not an “innovation” in the
mid 19th Century, but rather were known and practiced by some
(not all) Baptists in previous centuries. My purpose is to provide
historical information that will place the Landmark movement in its proper
historical context.
It is NOT the purpose
of this booklet to attack non-Landmark believers or to deny the validity of
the Kingdom work of non-Landmark preachers and churches. To those readers
who are non-Landmark, I affirm that your Christian work is of great value in
promoting the cause of the Kingdom of Heaven, and I rejoice in that. I do
not expect or desire that all Baptists or other Christians embrace all
aspects of Landmark doctrine. After all, Landmarkers differ greatly among
themselves as to what principles they uphold, and how strictly they enforce
them.
The publication date of this
booklet is 2014. This booklet is not copyrighted and may be freely
reproduced in any form.
UNIVERSAL CHURCH VERSUS
LOCAL CHURCH ONLY
Did any Baptists
prior to the time of J. R. Graves reject the doctrine of the Universal
Church, and hold to the Landmark principle that the true church is local in
nature? There is evidence that some Baptists before the time of J. R.
Graves conceived of the Church in purely local terms. The Dordrecht
Mennonite Confession of 1632 states that
We believe in and
confess a visible Church of God, consisting of those, who, as before
remarked, have truly repented, and rightly believed; who are rightly
baptized, united with God in heaven, and incorporated into the communion
of saints on earth.
The insistence on proper baptism foreshadows the later Landmark emphasis on
this issue, suggesting that Christians who have not been “rightly baptized”
are not part of the Church. See also John Smyth’s confession of 1609:
The church of Christ is a company of the faithful, baptized after
confession of sin and of faith.
Article 33 of the First
London Confession of 1644 (Baptist) gives a local-church definition for the
Church:
That Christ hath here on earth a spiritual kingdom, which is the
Church, which he hath purchased and redeemed to himself, as a peculiar
inheritance: which Church, as it is visible to us, is a company of visible
Saints, called and separated from the world, by the word and Spirit of God,
to the visible profession of the faith of the Gospel, being baptized into
that faith, and joined to the Lord, and each other, by mutual agreement, in
the practical enjoyment of the ordinances, commanded by Christ their head
and King.
Article 7 of the Articles of
Faith of the First Baptist Church of Newport, Rhode Island, adopted in 1727,
states:
A church is a company of believers organized for the observance
of the ordinances and the promotion of Christ’s kingdom. Each church
is independent and self-governed though in fraternal fellowship with
other churches.
There is no hint of a Universal Church to be seen here.
The 1800 Doctrinal Statement
of the Green River Association of Kentucky stated,
We believe that the
visible Church of Christ is a congregation of faithful persons, who have
obtained fellowship with each other, and have given themselves up to the
Lord and one another, having agreed to keep up a Godly discipline
according to the rules of the Gospel.
The Sandy Creek Association Confession of
1816 stated
That the visible Church of Christ is a congregation of
faithful persons. . . .
This same language was adopted by the Barren
Creek Association in 1830.
LeRoy Hogue’s
treatise “A Study on the Antecedents of Landmarkism,” submitted in 1966 as a
doctoral dissertation at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, is a
valuable source of information documenting Landmarkist beliefs among
Baptists prior to the time of Graves. Hogue reports on the position of the
Broad River Association of South Carolina:
The Broad River Association,
asked in 1812: ‘What is a Church?’ said in reply: ‘We believe a Gospel
church consists of an indefinite number of saints joined together by
consent, yet we think not complete without a minister.’
Isaac Backus, a New
England Baptist and church historian, stated,
Christ has instituted none
but particular churches. . . . Is any other visible church state instituted
in the gospel, but a particular one? The church spoken of by our Lord in
Matthew 18:15-18, is such an one as a brother can tell his grievance to,
and whoever thought that could be to any other than a particular
community. (Isaac Backus, “A Discourse Concerning the Materials, the Manner of Building
and Power of Organizing of the Church of Christ,” 1773, pp. 17, 145)
J. Newton Brown,
editor of the New Hampshire Confession of 1833, wrote these words prior to
the beginning of the Landmark movement:
Christ has had, for 1800
years past, a visible church in earth - made up of the entire body of
particular churches formed under the general constitution of the New
Testament. . . The term ‘church’ is here used, it will be seen, not for
the whole body of the elect which is ever invisible on earth. . . . (Quoted by Robert
Ashcraft, “Landmarkism Revisited,” Mablevale, Arkansas, Ashcraft
Publications, 2003, pp. 116-117).
Article 13 of the New Hampshire
Confession states,
That a visible Church of
Christ is a congregation of baptized believers, associated by covenant
in the faith and fellowship of the Gospel.
There is no hint whatsoever of a Universal Church in this
confession that has been very widely used by various groups of Baptists in
America from 1833 to the present date.
AUTHORITY TO BAPTIZE
Landmark Baptists have been
preoccupied with questions of which individuals and churches do, or do not,
have the authority to baptize. They do not take the position that any
religious society has the authority to administer the ordinance of baptism. Landmark churches will not accept “alien immersions” that they regard as
irregular or without the authority of a true church behind them.
This emphasis did not
begin with J. R. Graves - it can be found as early as the time of Roger
Williams, founder of the Rhode Island colony who made a short-lived attempt
to found a Baptist church in Providence in 1639. Richard Scott, who was a
member of Williams’ church, later stated,
I walked with him in the
Baptist’s way about 3 or 4 months, in which time he brake from the society,
and declared that their baptism could not be right because it was not
administered by an apostle.
Isaac Backus, in his
“History of New England” (1777), p. 89, commented on this policy thus:
After gathering a Baptist church in Providence, Mr. Williams’ mind got so
blundered, with that notion that many try to propagate to this day, of the
necessity of a local succession from the apostles to empower persons to
administer ordinances, and not being able to give in to the absurdity of
deriving this power through the long scene of antichristian corruption, that
he desisted from traveling with that church.
I heartily
agree with Backus that it was and still is a “blunder” to believe that
scriptural baptism can be administered only by an apostle or by a church
that can document chain-link succession from an apostolic church to our
time. The records that would be needed to demonstrate such a succession
simply do not exist. Roger Williams erroneously concluded that, in the
absence of a clear chain of title from apostolic time to the 17th
Century on the part of any church, therefore no true baptism could be
administered. He was the forerunner of some ideas held by extreme Landmarkers today who would insist that only churches that can document
their succession from apostolic times can administer the ordinances. No
such Baptist church today can provide the documentation to prove that they
have such an impeccable chain of title.
Nevertheless, we see here
the seed of the idea that not all churches or ministers are scripturally
qualified to administer the ordinance of baptism, going as far back as the
early 17th Century.
In 1843 J. S. Reynolds
published a study on English Baptists of the 17th Century, in
which he stated:
The conclusion is irresistible, that they did not
consider even immersion valid, when it was the act of an unimmersed
administrator. The principle of action, doubtless, was, that there could be
no valid baptism unless the administrator was authorized to baptize by a properly constituted church. Hence, in a vindication of the Baptists of
London, published in 1615, the ground is taken, that all baptism, received
either in the church of Rome or England, is invalid; because received in a
false church and from ANTICHRISTIAN MINISTERS. - Crosby, vol. 1, p.
273. They refused to sanction the acts of any administrator, who derived
his authority from churches which perverted the ordinance of baptism. This
is firm Baptist ground, and the position is impregnable. (Cited in
Graves, “Old Landmarkism - What Is It?,” p. 116)
Meanwhile, the records of
the Philadelphia Baptist Association, organized in 1707, show that Baptists
in the 18th Century did not accept all baptisms as valid. In
1732, the question was asked,
Whether a person, not being baptized
himself, and presuming, in private, to baptize another, whether such
pretended baptism be valid or not, or whether it might not be adjudged a
nullity. Resolved, We judge such baptism as invalid, and no better than if
it had not been done.
Admittedly, the Philadelphia
Association, which affirmed belief in the Universal Church, was not a
Landmark group. The Association sometimes gave non-Landmark answers to
queries. For example in 1765, this query came from Smith’s Creek:
Whether it be proper to receive a person into communion who had been
baptized by immersion by a minister of the church of England, if no other
objection could be made? Answer: Yea, if he had been baptized on a
profession of faith and repentance.
Few if any Landmark churches today
would accept anyone into its communion on the basis of Anglican or
Episcopalian baptism, even if by immersion. However, we still see here the
implication that baptism, to be valid, must be by immersion and must be
administered to those old enough to make a profession of faith, which would
clearly exclude infant baptism.
In 1788, the Philadelphia
Association responded to the First Baptist Church of New York concerning the
validity of baptism administered by an unimmersed and unordained person,
that such baptism was null and void:
First, because a person
that has not been baptized must be disqualified to administer baptism to
others, and especially if he be also unordained.
Second, Because to admit
such baptism as valid, would make void the ordinances of Christ, throw
contempt on his authority, and tend to confusion: for if baptism be not
necessary for an administrator of it, neither can it be for church communion
. . . and if such be valid, then ordination is unnecessary, contrary to Acts
14:23, 1 Timothy 4:14, Titus 1:5, and our Confession of Faith, Chapter 27.
Third, Of this opinion
we find were our Association in times past; who put a negative on such
baptisms in 1729, 1732, 1744, 1749 and 1768.
Fourth, Because such
administrator has no commission to baptize, for the words of the commission
were addressed to the apostles, and their successors in the ministry, to the
end of the world, and these are such, whom the church of Christ appoint to
the whole work of the ministry.
The Broad River Association
took a similar view in 1801, declaring,
We believe that no minister has
a right to the administration of the ordinances, only such as have been
called of God, as was Aaron, and regularly baptized and approved of by the
Church, and come under the imposition of hands by the Presbytery.
The Georgia Baptist
Association ruled against acceptance of Pedobaptist immersions in 1788, as
described by Hogue:
In 1788, only 4 years after its organization, the
Georgia Association was faced with the troublesome question of the validity
of Pedobaptist immersion. A Methodist preacher by the name of James
Hutchinson appeared at this session of the body and related his experience
of grace, asking to be received into the fellowship of the church in that
locality where the association was meeting. Having been immersed on his
profession of faith by another Methodist preacher, he did not wish to be rebaptized. Thus his question was brought before the association. Could
his baptism be accepted as valid?
Evidently impressed with
his profession of faith and his complete renunciation of the Methodist
doctrines and discipline, the body ruled that his baptism was valid. But
this was not the end of the matter. [Jesse] Mercer says that many were not
well pleased with the action taken and that it led to strife and confusion. In a short while, Hutchinson went to Virginia and commenced preaching in a
remote area where there was no Baptist church. Experiencing a great success
in his ministry, he baptized about 100 persons and gathered them into a
church. But the Ketocton Baptist Association refused the church admission
to their fellowship because they considered Hutchinson’s Baptism invalid,
the Georgia decision notwithstanding. In addition, the baptism of his
people were ruled invalid because they had not been baptized by a qualified
administrator. At this point, Hutchinson submitted to rebaptism, and his
people with 2 or 3 exceptions followed his example. Thus the controversy
ended. Mercer’s comment on the matter was: ‘So much for admitting a
paedo-baptist administration of the ordinance of baptism!’
Jesse Mercer, who has been
described as a “pre-Landmark Landmarker,” followed up on this issue in 1811,
in response to a request by the Georgia Baptist Association. Hogue
summarizes this letter:
In 1810 the Georgia Association resolved ‘that
the subject of the next circular letter, be our reasons for rejecting
Methodist, or Paedobaptist baptism by immersion, as invalid,’ and Mercer was
requested to prepare the letter. In compliance with the order of the
association, he produced what was evidently considered to be a most
significant statement of Baptist views on the matter. More than 30 years
later the letter was still being quoted by Georgia Baptists in their
discussion of gospel order. An examination of the letter affords the
clearest indication as to why Graves felt justified as referring to Mercer
as an ‘Old Landmarker.’
Mercer began the letter
with the declaration that the only true gospel church is that church which
is in direct descent from the apostolic church. Such a church recognizes
Christ only as its head and as the true source of ecclesiastical authority. In a gospel church, the ministers are the servants of the church and ‘have
no power to lord it over the heritage of their Lord.’ In the second section
of his letter, Mercer says that those churches that have originated since
the apostles and are not in succession to them cannot be acknowledged as
being in gospel order. Those ministers who have been ordained to the work
of the ministry by such churches as these, cannot be considered as the true
servants of Christ or His church, and they therefore have no right to
administer for Him. ‘Those who have set aside the discipline of the gospel,
and have given law to an exercised dominion over the church, are usurpers
over the place and office of Christ, are against Him; and, therefore, may
not be accepted in their offices.’ Furthermore, those who administer
contrary to their own faith or the faith of the gospel cannot administer for
God and their administrations are ‘unwarrantable impositions.’
Having laid the above
foundation, Mercer then came to a precise declaration of the reasons for the
Baptist rejection of those immersions performed by Pedobaptist ministers. The first reason is that the Pedobaptist churches are not in the line of
succession from the apostolic church and they therefore have no part in the
apostolic commission. This constitutes a denial that the Pedobaptist
churches are true churches. Further, the Pedobaptist ministers have derived
their authority ultimately, by ordination, from the church at Rome or from
self-appointed individuals, and consequently they lack divine authority for
their ministrations. A third reason is that the ministers of the
Pedobaptist churches maintain an unscriptural authority over their churches
and are not subject to the authority of gospel churches. Lastly, they fail
to administer in accordance with the pattern of the gospel. In Mercer’s
judgment, any one of these defects was sufficient reason for the Baptists to
hold the Pedobaptist administrations as invalid.
James Whitsitt, a
pioneer Baptist preacher in Tennessee who died in 1849, came to the same
conclusion with regard to the validity of Pedobaptist baptism:
We object
to receive the baptism of Pedobaptists because we think it a dangerous innovation. We have no recollection that the history of the Baptists
furnishes an example of the kind, and we are well assured that the common
sense and piety of the Baptist [sic] were as strong 100 years ago, as they
are now. This question we have before us must be a new comer, we hope it
will not be very obtrusive. . . . We say again we think this is a dangerous
innovation. (Southern Baptist Review, September, 1859, p. 388)
In 1845,
Spencer Cone, pastor of the First Baptist Church of New York City, issued a
letter to fellow Baptist preachers stating,
In my opinion, valid baptism
could only be administered by a duly authorized minister; . . . the ‘regular
Baptist Churches of England and the United States’ had long held the same
sentiments. . . .
The First Baptist Church
in this city, of which I am pastor, was founded in 1745, and as the Bible
has not changed, she still adheres to her original confession of faith. The
article on baptism closes thus: ‘That nothing is a scriptural administration
of baptism, but a total immersion of the subject in water in the name of the
Holy Trinity, by a man duly authorized to administer gospel ordinances. ‘
(Matthew 28:19-20, Acts 2:40-42). The action of this church for 100 years
has been to reject as invalid baptism administered by an ‘unimmersed
administrator.’
TERMS OF ADMITTANCE TO
THE LORD’S SUPPER
Landmark Baptist churches
today take the position that baptism is a prerequisite to participation in
the Lord’s Supper, and that not all baptisms are accepted for that purpose -
the candidate must be “rightly” and scripturally baptized. There is nothing
new about that - many Baptists, prior to the time of J. R. Graves, took that
position.
Admittedly, there are and
always have been many Baptist churches that have allowed for a form of open
or “mixed” communion, in which Pedobaptists were allowed to participate in
the Lord’s Supper. But J. Davis, in his “History of the Welsh Baptists,”
page 95, states that most Baptists in Wales in the early 18th
Century did not allow such a practice:
After the death of John
Williams, the [Wrexham] church was a long time without a pastor. They were
laboring under two inconveniences: they were advocates of mixed communion,
and there were but very few ministers in Wales, who sanctioned that
practice.
Davis states that this was the policy at the “latter end
of the reign of Queen Anne,” who died in 1714 - this was a long time
before the start of the Landmark movement by Graves.
The Philadelphia Association
dealt with this issue in a query from Cohansie in 1740:
Whether a pious
person of the number of Pedo-Baptists, who forbears to have his own children
sprinkled, may be admitted in to our communion without being baptized? And
doth not refusing admittance to such an one, discover want of charity in a
church so refusing?
Given to vote, and
passed all in the negative. Nemine contradicente.
Reasons annexed. 1. It is not for want of charity that we thus answer. Our practice shows
the contrary, for we baptize none but such as, in the judgment of charity,
have grace, being unbaptized, but it is because we find, in the commission,
that no unbaptized persons are to be admitted into church communion. Matthew 28:19-20, Mark 16:16. Compare Acts 2:41, 1 Corinthians 12:13.
2. Because it is the
church’s duty to maintain the ordinances as they are delivered to us in
Scripture: 2 Thessalonians 2:15, 1 Corinthians 11:2, Isaiah 8:20.
3. Because we cannot see
it agreeable, in any respect, for the procuring that unity, unfeigned love,
and undisturbed peace, which is required, and ought to be in and among
Christian communities. 1 Corinthians 1:10, Ephesians 4:3.
The Philadelphia
Association dealt with the issue again in 1786, responding to the church in
Philadelphia asking if the Lord’s Supper could be administered to Christians
who were not yet organized into a distinct and regular church:
First, That the Lord’s
Supper ought not to be administered to persons who are not members of any
church, though baptized.
Second, That this
ordinance should not be administered to members of churches in a scattered
situation, without the consent of one or more of those churches; but
permission being first obtained they may proceed.” The issue
appears yet again in a query from the church at Great Nine Partners in 1791:
“Does any person, merely by virtue of being baptized, become a member of
a particular visible church? Answered in the negative. 2. Is any such
person in a proper circumstance for church communion? Answered in the
negative.
LeRoy Hogue,
commenting on this query and response, says,
While it is evident that
baptism was not considered as being, of necessity, initiatory to church
membership, even so, a person thus baptized and not entering into the
fellowship of a local church could not partake of the Lord’s Supper. Church
membership, as well as scriptural baptism, was considered as prerequisite to
the commission at the Lord’s Table. The churches of Shaftsbury Association
obviously tended toward a communion of the strictest order. . . . At this
initial meeting, the [Bowdoinham] Association also voted that it was not
agreeable ‘to receive unbaptized persons at the Lord’s Table or to
hold fellowship with those who do make this their practice.
The Bowdoinham
Association was organized in 1787, long before the time of Graves and
Pendleton.
Hogue goes on to say,
Valid baptism seems to have been an issue in the 1835 decision of the
association to ‘recommend to the churches composing this body to
discountenance the practice of admitting to the communion of the church
individuals [having been immersed] who belong to other denominations.’ The
implication seems to have been that their baptism was not considered valid. Possibly, however, the rejection of these persons from the Baptist communion
tables was recommended simply because they lacked membership in a Baptist
church. If so, the action serves to indicate still further that church
membership, particularly Baptist church membership as well as baptism, was
considered essential to participation in the Lord’s Supper.
The very first Baptist
church planted in Illinois, constituted in 1796, was at New Design, Monroe
County. Opposition to “mixed communion” with Pedobaptists was expressed
there, long before the time of J. R. Graves:
Elder Jones informs us that Badgley had an indisposition of body for several months, and during that
time the New Design church changed a rule they had previously adopted - that
of working by a oneness - agreeing to work by a majority and to commune with
the Methodists. This caused much distress among them, and when Elder Badgley’s
health returned he was called upon to administer the Lord’s Supper to
the said New Design church, but refused, believing it to be contrary to
the sentiments of the United Baptists to commune with other orders; in
consequence of which he was taken under dealings by a number of the
members, but a majority sustained him. . . . This was in the year 1800.
(“A
Brief History of the Regular Baptists, Principally of Southern Illinois,” by
Achilles Coffey, pp. 130-131)
In 1804 Isaac Backus noted
that some Baptist churches had practiced “mixed communion,” meaning that
persons who had been “baptized” by sprinkling as infants were allowed to
partake in the Lord’s Supper along with those who had been immersed as
believers. This compromising practice was gradually dropped:
Though the
communing of all real saints together, appeared to be of great importance,
yet many found by degrees that it could not be done in that way, for they
saw that if they came to the Lord’s Supper with any who were only sprinkled
in their infancy, it practically said that they were baptized when they
believed in their consciences that they were not. And practical lying is a
great sin. (“An Abridgment of the Church History of New England from
1662 to 1804,” page 192).
In 1773 Backus wrote,
And though our opponents hold with us, that it is the law of Christ, that
all should be baptized before they come to the Lord’s table, yet many of
them accuse us of rigidness, of unchurching all but ourselves, only because
we will not meet such persons there, as we cannot believe in our
conscience to be baptized. (“A Discourse, Concerning the Materials, the Manner of
Building and Power of Organizing of the Church of Christ,” p. 142)
Robert Semple, in “History
of the Baptists of Virginia “ (1810, republished by Church History Research
and Archives in 1976), reported on opposition to open communion in the
Appomattox Association in Virginia in 1805:
A query respecting the
propriety of admitting unbaptized persons to communion was introduced at
this session. The question was answered by a large majority that none but
persons baptized upon a profession of faith were proper communicants. The
subject of open communion has been more agitated among the Baptists in this
part of Virginia than in any other; arising, as was supposed, from the high
opinion which they entertained of the piety of some other Christian sects in
the adjacent parts. Some respectable Baptists were induced from this
consideration to think favorably of a mixed communion. It was certainly a
very erroneous mode of forming an opinion. If open communion be wrong in
itself, it cannot be made right by the practice of men, however
exemplary they may be in other respects. (p. 274)
The question of
restrictions on participation in the Lord’s Supper came up again in 1821, as
described by Hogue:
Baptists and close communion, as well as the
doctrine of the church, continued to be the basic issues of disagreement
between the Baptists and Pedobaptists. This is indicated by the numerous
articles on these subjects appearing in the American Baptist Magazine. In an article by ‘Simplicitas’ entitled ‘Address to the Baptists on
Communion,’ published in the July, 1821, issue, the writer sets forth the
fundamental reasons for the Baptist practice on communion. He insists on
‘particular communion’ because this was the practice of the apostolic
churches. Speaking of baptism, he decries the tendency on the part of some,
in the interests of harmony and a ‘general communion,’ to treat baptism as a
matter of indifference. He points out that to receive Pedobaptists to
communion is practically to recognize their christening as valid baptism. Throughout the article the emphasis is placed upon the obligation of the
believer to have his doctrines and practice on the positive commands of
Christ and on nothing else. Pleas for charity, fellowship, and union are
not sufficient cause to set aside the commands of the Lord.
In 1818 the Broad
River Association dealt with the issue of whether or not to receive new
members who had been immersed by Methodist preachers, as described by Leroy
Hogue:
Accordingly, 1818, William King wrote on the subject, ‘On a
Baptist church receiving members into fellowship, who were baptized by
immersion in Methodist Societies.’ King took the ground ‘that as certain
priests anciently failed to show their genealogy among the lawful priests,
and were rejected; in like manner should all administrators of the ordinance
of baptism be rejected, who fail to show their own baptism according to the
gospel, by a minister who has himself been baptized in a regular line from
the Apostles down to the present day.’ Here, then, is not only a clear
rejection of non-Baptist immersion but also the strongest possible assertion
of the necessity of a baptismal succession from the apostles. Again, in
1829, the association affirmed that, in its judgment, immersion administered
by an administrator of another denomination was not valid.
In 1839 the Sandy Creek
Association took the same position as the Broad River body in its rejection
of non-Baptist immersion, advising the Pleasant Grove church by a unanimous
vote that it would be inconsistent with the spirit of the gospel for a
Baptist church to receive into the fellowship immersed members of other
denominations without baptizing them again. The grounds on which this
rejection was based are of particular interest:
‘We cannot admit the
validity of their baptisms without admitting they are true and scriptural
gospel churches - if we do this we unchurch ourselves, for God never
set up or authorized but one Christian denomination. . . .
‘The Baptist is the only
denomination that can claim descent from the apostolic churches, through the
true persecuted and witnessing church, that fled into the wilderness for
1260 years. . . .
‘That the Baptist have
descended from the true church is susceptible of the clearest proof. This
is not true of any other denomination. . . . Ordinances cannot be validly
administered by both Baptists and Pedobaptists. God is not the author of
but one of them, consequently, we cannot receive members upon baptism
administered by them, without repudiating the ordinances administered by
ourselves.’
Hogue goes on
to cite the prohibition by the Charleston Association on Baptists and
Pedobaptists sharing the Lord’s Supper together:
In 1802, the same
association declared that Baptists could not commune with Pedobaptists
because to do so would be equivalent to an acknowledge of the validity of
infant baptism and the power of a church to alter the order which Christ has
established in his churches. The practice was therefore deemed to be
inconsistent with gospel order. In 1804 the Broad River Association advised
that a church member who communes with Pedobaptists ought not, by the rule
of Scripture, be held in fellowship. The Bethel Association, on 4 separate
occasions from 1797 to 1822, expressed itself as being in opposition to the
practice of open or mixed communion and in 1802 declared that there were no
grounds ‘under present existing circumstances’ on which Baptists might
fellowship with Pedobaptists at the Lord’s Table, as desirable an object as
that might be.
Hogue cites the
position of the Georgia Baptist Association, organized in 1784:
The 5th
article says that ‘none but regular baptized church members have a right to
communion at the Lord’s table.’ This signifies that church membership
(particularly Baptist church membership), as well as baptism, was considered
by the Georgia Baptists to be prerequisite to a proper participation in the
Lord’s Supper. The 6th article states that it is the duty of
every ‘heaven-born soul’ to become a member of the visible church and to be
‘legally baptized’ so that he may properly partake of the Lord’s Supper at
every ‘legal opportunity.’
Tennessee Baptists came to
the same conclusion, rejecting mixed communion with Pedobaptists, as
recorded by Hogue:
The Holston Association considered the question of
the McPheter’s Bend church in 1803: ‘Shall all unessentials in religion be
made terms of communion in the church or shall nothing be made a term of
communion in the church but essentials in religion?’ The answer of the
association evidently went right to the heart of the problem that had
prompted the query: ‘We think it is not according to Gospel direction to
commune with any who have not been regularly baptized by immersion on
profession of their faith.’ The Tennessee Association responded to a
similar query in 1806 by saying: ‘We think none have a right to commune with
us but those of our own faith and order.’
Clearly, opposition
to open communion did not begin with the Landmarkers. James Tull says,
Open communion was largely repudiated by the Baptists in America from the
beginnings of their history. By the time Landmarkism came upon the scene,
Baptists in America were almost universally close communicants. (“The
Landmark Movement in America: An Historical and Theological Appraisal,”
Baptist History and Heritage, January, 1975, p. 12)
PULPIT AFFILIATION
Pulpit affiliation is
the practice of allowing non-Baptistic (Pedobaptist) preachers to share the
pulpit in, and preach to, Baptist congregations. Many Landmark churches
oppose this practice, and it is forbidden in Article 3, Section 2 of the
Statement of Principles of Cooperation of the Baptist Missionary Association
of America.
The American Baptist
Association requires each missionary to give “a statement of his
doctrinal beliefs concerning salvation by grace, security of the believer,
the body of Christ, alien immersion, the Lord’s Supper, pulpit affiliation,
and ecumenism.” The implication here is that ABA missionaries will
declare themselves in opposition to pulpit affiliation.
J. R. Graves, in his book
“Old Landmarkism: What Is It?” page 176, cites the protest by J.
M. Pendleton
against this practice:
My opinion is, that the number of Baptists in the
United States would be larger by a million today if it had ever been the
understanding that there could be no ministerial affiliation between them
and Pedobaptists. How strange is such affiliation! The exchange of
pulpits makes the impression that these are small matters, and this
impression has led many to become Pedobaptists, who would otherwise have
copied the example of Christ, who said, concerning His personal immersion,
‘Thus it becometh us to fulfill all righteousness.’
It is freely admitted that
many Baptists prior to the rise of Landmarkism practiced pulpit affiliation
- the Landmark movement began partly as a reaction to this common practice. However, there were those among the Baptists who objected to this practice
prior to the time of Graves and Pendleton.
Robert Semple, in his
“History of the Baptists of Virginia,” stated that between the
Presbyterians, Methodists and Baptists of the Blue Ridge area,
a good
understanding subsists, insomuch that a considerable party were of opinion
in the Association that they ought to invite the Presbyterian and Methodist
ministers to sit with them [New River Baptist Association] in their
Associations as counsellors, but not to vote. This subject underwent a
lengthy investigation, and finally was decided against inviting. This was
assuredly a very prudent determination - first, because it might tend to
confusion; and secondly, because it would probably rather interrupt than
promote friendship. Seeing, in most cases, as it respects the intercourse
between man and man, too much familiarity often ends in strife. (Page
350)
We see here that some
Virginia Baptists were willing to accept Pedobaptist ministers as valid
clergymen, but that others objected to such recognition.
James Tull states that
pulpit affiliation was practiced “infrequently” among Baptists in the
colonial period:
In the South during the colonial and early national
period there were instances of pulpit affiliation, however infrequent. Widespread practice of pulpit affiliation did not occur until Baptists
gained legal freedom, social parity, and public respect. This trend was
developing when Graves took residence in the Southwest.
Historical information
does not indicate how widespread such pulpit affiliation was practiced.
Graves conceded that such ‘union meetings’ were frequent during the
period. . . . The Landmark appeal to the Southern Baptist community in
particular was to ‘come back to the old stand points,’ ‘to occupy the
ground consecrated by the blood of our martyred fathers, and dare to be
consistent.’. . . This appeal to the conscience of the Baptist people
would hardly have received a sympathetic hearing it if had not
incorporated many of the doctrinal positions which Baptists had long
occupied. (“High
Church Baptists in the South,” pp. 13, 57, 62)
In other words, Graves’ stand
against pulpit affiliation was not something new, but it was a call to
return to previous Baptist policies.
J. R. Graves stated
that
It is a fact that the oldest and most successful Baptist ministers,
as the venerable James Whitsitt, and George Young, deceased, and Joseph H. Borum, now living, for 40 years a pastor in West Tennessee, never affiliated
with Pedobaptists or Campbellites, and they testify that affiliation is a
new practice, and the forerunner of open communion.
Graves, in the
introduction of his book on “Old Landmarkism,” represented himself to be the
first man in Tennessee to lead the charge against pulpit affiliation, but
also insisted that he was only arguing for a return to previous Baptist
doctrine and practice:
I was the first man in Tennessee, and the first
editor on this continent, who publicly advocated the policy of strictly
and consistently carrying out in our practice those principles which all
true Baptists, in all ages, have professed to believe. . . . In 1846
pulpit affiliations, union meetings, receiving the immersions of
Pedobaptists and Campbellites, and inviting Pedobaptists, as ‘evangelical
ministers,” to seats in our associations and conventions, even the Southern
Baptist, had become, with few exceptions, general throughout
the South.
We should emphasize the word “become.” These practices, including
pulpit affiliation, were not originally practiced by Baptists on a wide
scale, but were a recent innovation.
The seeds of
opposition to pulpit affiliation in Tennessee go back way before the time of
Graves. Even Baptist preachers in Tennessee were not considered eligible to
preach unless they were in good standing with, and authorized by, a Baptist
church. Hogue comments on this policy, saying,
No man could be esteemed
as an orderly and properly authorized minister of the gospel, qualified to
preach and to administer the ordinances, unless a church had placed some
degree of sanction upon his ministry, either by license or ordination. This
is illustrated by the action of the Sinking Creek church in 1789 stating
that ‘it is the mind of this Church that any man coming in the name of a
Baptist and not bringing a good authority from his Church is not permitted
to preach in this Church.’ It was this principle of church control that led
the Holston Association to say in 1813 that it is ‘not justifiable’ for a
church or members of a church to invite a preacher to preach in their
meeting house who is excommunicated. In a similar case 18 years later, the
same association had stated in their minutes that a certain William Reno ‘is
preaching in disorder being excommunicated, which if he persists in will
necessitate us to advertise him.’ As an excommunicate, he lacked church
authority for his preaching. These instances furnish a clear indication
that preaching was considered an official act of the church and could be
done in an orderly manner only through the permission of a gospel church. It has been pointed out earlier that this was the basic principle underlying
the Landmark doctrine of non-pulpit affiliation.
Logically, if even a
Baptist could not fill a Baptist pulpit without the authority of a Baptist
church, then preachers of Pedobaptist groups, not having valid baptism or
church authority, would not be welcome in Baptist pulpits.
In the 1840s, a
Congregational clergyman of Norwich, Connecticut named Hall complained that
Baptists did not recognize Pedobaptists such as himself as true clergymen:
Treat us as new converts! Then they do not recognize us as members of
the church of Christ! Our churches they recognize not as churches of the
Lord Jesus Christ! Our ministry are no ministers of the church of our Lord
Jesus! Our ordinances are not ordinances of the Lord’s church - but all is
usurpation presumption, and unhallowed handling of most holy things.
It is evident that
J. R. Graves, starting about the year 1851, took a strong stand against
pulpit affiliation, in contrast to the weak stand that Southern Baptists had
taken prior to that time. But the seeds of opposition to this practice had
already been planted, which explains why many Baptists were so ready to
follow Graves when he raised the standard of opposition to it, calling for
Baptists do their own preaching, ordaining and baptizing
BAPTIST SUCCESSION
All Landmark Baptists hold
to a form of Baptist Succession or Baptist Perpetuity, meaning that true
Baptist or Baptistic churches have always existed on earth since the time of
Christ until now. There are many shades of opinion on this issue. Many Landmarkers are content to affirm that true churches, with beliefs similar
to ours, have always existed and have passed on the torch of the true faith
through the centuries, in ways that we cannot always trace or document
because the original records have been lost.
Then there are those
who have taken this concept to extremes, freely claiming various oddball or
heretical groups from past ages as having held to modern Baptist
principles, in the face of all evidence to the contrary. Some have claimed
to be heirs to a link-chain succession of churches from John the Baptist
until now, and have put forth bogus, undocumented chains of title. Some
have gone even farther, stating that the only way to plant a scriptural
church is by vote of a mother church which can trace its perpetuity back to
the First Century. In reality, no Baptist church today can document such
perpetuity, so if we accept such extreme teaching, that would mean that
Roger Williams was right all along in the 17th Century, when he
said that true churches could no longer be planted in this age.
For the purposes of
this study, I wish only to point out that there were many Baptists who
believed, prior to the time of J. R. Graves, in some form of Baptist
Succession. Like Landmarkers today, they disagreed as to the exact manner
in which Baptist principles were perpetuated through the Dark Ages, but they believed that their Baptistic forebears existed long before the
“politically correct” date of 1641 which is now commonly given as the time
when the first Baptist churches came into existence.
Thomas Crosby, a Baptist
historian whose “History of the English Baptists” was published in 1738,
taught Baptist Succession.
In discussing the claim still made by modern
day historians, that John Smith was the first English Baptist practicing
immersion for baptism, [Crosby] flatly refuses to accept such a theory. In
following the debate on the matter of authority in baptism, he refers to
‘the foreign Anabaptists, who descended from the ancient Waldenses in France
or Germany.’ Thus we have a most respected historian, well over 100 years
before Landmarkism was ever heard of, recognizing Baptists as being the
descendants of groups on the continent of Europe who believed themselves to
be of ancient heritage. . . . In a note to the reader in the beginning of
his history he indicates clearly that the Baptists, or Anabaptists as they
were then often called, were of age-long existence when he says, ‘Those
heretical persons of the denomination of Baptists, on whom the sword of the
magistrate fell so heavily, are yet upon record . . . and so exposed to the
view of men from age to age.’ (I. K. Cross, “The Battle For Baptist
History,” pp. 171-172)
Virginia Baptist
preacher John Leland, at a time before the year 1790, published his
sentiments on Baptist origins and perpetuity:
The New Testament is
introduced with the history of a famous Baptist preacher and his order of
baptizing. John, the forerunner of Jesus, is called a Baptist 15 times in
the Four Evangelists. Is it ignorance or ill will, that so often reproaches
the Baptists with novelty? Is it not certain that the first preacher spoken
of in the New Testament was a Baptist? Why should they be called a new
sect, when they can name their founders antecedent to the founders of any
other society. Did not Jesus submit to John’s baptism, to fulfill all
righteousness? Was not Jesus, therefore, a Baptist? These things are so. .
. .
I have human testimony
to prove that a number of reformers were Baptists, and, particularly, John Wickliff,
the great reformer in England, called by way of eminence, the Morning
Star. (“Writings of the Elder John Leland,” pp. 79, 89-90)
“Ecclesiastical Researches,”
published in 1792 by English Baptist Robert Robinson, is generally regarded
as teaching and upholding Baptist perpetuity. On page 311, Robinson quotes Limborch as saying,
To say honestly what I think, of all the modern
sects of Christians, the Dutch Baptists most resemble both the Albigenses
and the Waldenses, but particularly the latter.” Robinson adds, “A
striking likeness undoubtedly there is; for, beside denying the doctrines
and ceremonies of the church of Rome in common with all Protestants, [the
Waldenses] held some articles peculiar to the Dutch Baptists.
In 1811,
Georgia Baptist Jesse Mercer clearly took the position that Baptist churches
were in a succession from the Apostles, and that Pedobaptist churches were
not:
All churches and ministers who originated since the apostles, and
not successively to them, are not in gospel order, and, therefore, can not
be acknowledged as such. . . .
Our reasons, therefore,
for rejecting baptism by immersion, when administered by Pedobaptist
ministers, are-
That they are
connected with ‘churches’ clearly out of the apostolic succession; and,
therefore, clearly out of the apostolic commission. . . .
But it should be said
that the apostolic succession can not be ascertained, and then it is proper
to act without it; we say that the loss of the succession can never prove it
futile, nor justify any one out of it. The Pedobaptists, by their own
histories, admit they are not of it; but we do not, and shall think
ourselves entitled to the claim until the reverse be clearly shown.
In 1826, William Jones
published his “History of the Christian Church.” A review of this book in
the Western Baptist Review, January, 1849, stated:
The main
question at issue between our historians is, whether the Waldenses were
Pedo-Baptists or Baptists. The editors of Peyran and Perrin affirm that
they baptized infants: this Mr. Jones denies, and maintains that they were
Baptists.
In 1835, R. B. C. Howell made
this statement of belief in Baptist Succession:
Those who are now called
Baptists, have been in different ages of the Church, called by various
names. Let it be observed, however, that . . . from the days of John the
Baptist until now, they have ever maintained the same doctrinal and
practical tenets by which they are still distinguished. They were first
called Christians at Antioch, afterwards Donatists, then Cathari, then
Waldenses, Albigenses, Mennonites, Petrobrussians, Waterlanders,
Anabaptists, and finally Baptists. (The Baptist, I. No. 5, May,
1835, p. 70)
T.J. Bowen, in 1846, wrote
that
the origin of the Baptist denomination . . . can not be found in
any age of the world since the days of Christ and His Apostles. . . .
[Protestants] have come out from the church of Rome; we were never in it. They have corrected many Roman abuses - they yet adhere to many other
abuses, such as ecclesiastical legislation, unscriptural forms of church
government, affusion instead of baptism, infant sprinkling, etc. - but from
these errors the Baptists have ever more been free. (“Origin of the
Baptists,” The Baptist, III, No. 3, September 12, 1846, pp. 45-46)
David Benedict, in his
“General History of the Baptist Denomination,” published in 1813, upheld a
Baptist Successionist position. For instance, on pp. 127-128, he says,
We find that the Waldenses, by whatever name they were called, were
constantly, for the space of many centuries, charged with the heinous crime
of denying infant baptism, and that the reasons which they gave for so
doing, as taken from the mouths of their enemies, were many of them
verbatim, and all of them in substance, just such as the Baptists now give. Have not then the Baptists good reasons for believing that the Waldenses
were generally of their sentiments?
English Baptist
minister G. H. Orchard, author of “History of Baptists,” a Successionist
work, first stated in 1823 his belief that
from the days of John the
Baptist, until now, I believed our denomination had had an existence. . . .
After some years’ reading, and making extracts from authors, on the subject
of my investigation, I resolved on throwing my materials into chronological
order, to exhibit the feature of a connected history. This done, I became
fully satisfied; and established the proof of what Robinson conjectured,
that the English Baptists, contending for the sufficiency of Scripture, and
for Christian liberty to judge of its meaning, can be traced back, in
authentic documents, to the first Nonconformists and to the Apostles. . . .
‘The Baptists may be considered as the only Christian community which has
stood since the times of the Apostles; and as a Christian society which has
preserved pure the doctrines of the gospel through all ages.’ This
statement we consider to be proved in the following pages, where authors are
quoted, supporting these facts.
Enough has been
presented here to show that the doctrine of Baptist perpetuity or succession
from the time of the Apostles was not a new invention by Graves and his fellow
Landmarkers. Such convictions were held by many Baptists prior to the time of
Graves.
CONCLUSION: LANDMARK
PRINCIPLES WERE NOT INVENTED BY GRAVES
The foregoing documentation
shows that the doctrinal structure of Landmarkism was not originated by J. R.
Graves and his contemporaries. Graves helped to codify and popularize beliefs
that had already been held and taught by Baptists for centuries, and followed
those beliefs to their logical conclusions. But he did not concoct Landmarkism
out of thin air. This, in my opinion, helps to give more credibility to the
principles of Landmarkism.
It is not my intention to give
the impression that any of the individuals or associations quoted in this
booklet were consistent followers of all the beliefs of Landmarkism. It would
be difficult to come up with a generally agreed-upon definition of the
“consistent principles” of Landmarkism, since Landmarkers disagreed among
themselves as to the essential tenets of Landmarkism back in the 1850s, and they
still do today.
My opinion is that the Landmark
principles are still relevant and worthy of our consideration today, as a
helpful guide for churches seeking to maintain scriptural purity and to avoid
the pitfalls of ecumenicalism. However, it is not my desire that any of us
should hold to Landmark principles in a spirit of pride or divisiveness, or that
we should separate from or contend with Landmark or non-Landmark brethren who do
not agree with us on all the fine points of theology.
The two leading figures of
Landmarkism, Graves and Pendleton, disagreed with each other on a number of
weighty issues, such as the Universal Church, closed communion and slavery, and
yet they worked together. We too ought to be able to work together and
fellowship with one another in a spirit of charity.
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