ELPIS ISRAEL’S WANDERING STAR.
The Bethanian Professor of “Sacred History”—Divinity says, that “the Wandering Star of ‘Elpis Israel,’” has had “administered to him his second or third baptism;” and predicts that the administrator “may yet dispense to him another into repentance of all his day-dreams about a returning Lord to the ruins of the old Temple.”
We quote the above from the Millennial Harbinger for September, which has fallen accidentally into our hands. It is another specimen of its sly hits at Elpis Israel, which being invincible, vexes its editor as a prick in his eye, and a thorn in his side. Hopeless of effecting anything against it argumentatively, he shoots his unpointed arrows at its author with the most convenient secrecy. We have given him a copy of the work, and sent him the Herald for six years, being equal to fourteen dollars, yet we cannot obtain from him even a copy of a number in which he unbends his bow with full intent to slay us. Such warfare as this is unfair, and unworthy the pretensions of Mr. Campbell to superior sanctity and intrepidity.
“The wandering star of Elpis Israel,” as he styles us, has been immersed twice, not three times, as he insinuates; and has no intention of being immersed again, though the administrator of his second immersion should sell himself to Bethany for a mess of pottage! For what purpose has Mr. Campbell, in former years, re-immersed persons who applied to him? Why was Mr. Walter Scott, his colleague and former leader, immersed a second time? To speak of more honourable men, why were the twelve Ephesians re-immersed by Paul? Why, but for the simple and obvious reason that they had not believed “the truth” when first immersed. Mr. Campbell has said that “the popular immersion is no better than a Jewish ablution;” and that “the popular preachers preach another baptism.” (Chr. Bapt., page 656.) Will Mr. C. say that the believers of such a gospel and the subjects of such a baptism should be content when they come afterwards to believe the true gospel? That they should not be immersed a second time? That belief of the truth after such an immersion will react upon it, and make that effective which was worthless before? This is too absurd even for him to affirm; on the contrary, in his better days, when he believed in “the Lord’s return to the ruins of the old Temple,” he has said, “The truth to be believed is one thing, and the belief of the truth another. Both are pre-requisites to immersion. The truth must be known and believed before we can be benefited by it—Ibid, page 446. This is precisely what we contend for. When ignorant of “the truth,” we were immersed into what we now see was mere Scotto-Campbellism; but when we came to understand Moses and the prophets, and, by consequence, the writings of the apostles, we attained to the belief also of “the gospel of the kingdom” promised in the Old Testament, and preached in the New. Enlightened by this, we perceived that the Campbellite gospel and baptism administered by their inventor, Mr. Walter Scott, were as much “another gospel and another baptism” as any administered by “the popular preachers;” and believing with Mr. Campbell, that “the truth must be known and believed before we can be benefited by it,” we determined to renounce his baptism as worthless; and to be immersed a second time, that we might be benefited by the gospel of the kingdom then as now assuredly believed. As we have said elsewhere, we repudiate the repetition of an immersion on any other ground than this. If a man have believed “the truth,” that is, the gospel of the kingdom in the name of Jesus as its covenant, priest, and king, before immersion, he should never be immersed again; but if he “understand not the word of the kingdom,” immersion endlessly repeated, will leave him unbaptised, dead in trespasses and sins, and without any scriptural hope of resurrection to eternal life. If such an immersed man come to understand and believe the truth after his immersion in his ignorance, let not such an one deceive himself by supposing his immersion is any better than a Jewish ablution. It is no better. It is utterly worthless; and being convinced of this, we were immersed a second time by one who had been re-immersed, and who declared to us he believed the gospel off the kingdom we desired to obey. We permitted him to do nothing but pronounce the words of Christ, and, having put us under the water, to raise us up again. We confessed to God before we went down into the water, and with our own voice called upon his name. We accepted neither prayer nor exhortation from him; but confined him strictly to the act defined. It is certain, for many reasons, he will never dispense to us in any form or shape again. He is in the hands of him who will deal with him according to his deeds; and there we leave him, being well assured that whatever may become of him, truth will be vindicated, and malice put to shame.
Mr. C.’s supposition of a third immersion into repentance of all our “day-dreams” detailed in Elpis Israel and the Herald, is childish and vain. If our “day-dreams” were to vanish as the morning dew, whither should we turn? Scripture, reason, and experience, all concur in testifying the absurdity of the Bethanian system. We could not, therefore, turn to that as a vision of peace and righteousness. Nor could we turn to any other form of sectarianism, for they are all vanity alike. There is then for us but one alternative—the gospel off the kingdom in Jesus’ name, or infidelity. The latter has no charms for us. Twenty years’ study of Moses and the prophets, &c., and a constant advocacy of their testimony, have made faith an essential part of our inner man. The gospel promised to Abraham, and preached by Jesus and his apostles, is the bright particular star of our voyage through life. The longitude of our faith is always 55 degrees east from Ferro, where Abraham and his seed sojourned in hope of an everlasting possession there. We dream of this by day. It is a pleasing and a truthful dream; and will not, we trust, vanish from our heart’s tablet until its foreshadowed reality shall bless the sight of all the sons of God. Let Mr. Campbell, then, and all other friends of the present world, use their pleasure in blaspheming the Lord’s truth, and in heaping injustice and calumny on his brethren who believe it—their time is short: we hold on to Israel’s hope, for “Salvation is of the Jews.”
EDITOR.
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