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THE BAPTIST WORLD ALLIANCE ITS MEANING N AND I WORf^ ER
John Clifford, Apostle of Religious Liberty, Receives Indescribable Ovation at Conwell’s Temple, Philadelphia
V.
In speaking of the work of this Al
liance it is important, at the outset, to
recall the limitations imposed upon
us by our ecumenical character. From
sheer necessity we are not competent
to judge one another’s local work
with accuracy. We lack sufficient
data. We miss the special point of
view. We are too far apart and we
have the enormous difficulty of the
“personal equation.’ Britishers do
not know the United States and yet
some of them do not hesitate from
passing sentence upon the American
churches, stating their problems, and
showing how they could be solved,
even though they have only had the
opportunity of paying a flying visit to
these climes; and they do it apparent
ly unaware that their verdicts are no
more than thinly disguised assertions
of their own prejudices and presuppo
sitions. Nor can Americans estimate
the weight of the social pressure on
Baptists in England, and the enor
mous resistance we have to overcome
in following the light we see. You
do not see the diminished returns in
the till of the village shop, and the
persecution in the village streets con
sequent upon State patronage and
support of one particular church. To
know that you must get into touch
with our village churches as I have
done for more than fifty years.
Physicians tell us there are no cli
matal diseases now. They are goqe,
or rapidly going. They used to say
that diseases were tropical or sub
tropical, and designate certain geo
graphical areas as the homes of chol
era, malaria, sleeping sickness and
yellow fever. Now, it is found that
these diseases are in all latitudes, and
that the question is not where you
are; but in what hygienic conditions
you are living. No doubt it is so; and
it is some advantage to know that
“climate” is only one of the possible
contributory causes of disease, and
that the whole set of conditions must
be dealt with in order to eradicate the
disease. So the conditions under
which principles have to be wrought
into the life of the world differ im
mensely, and we are bound to take
them into account. In one zone the
disciple of Christ is perfectly im
mune from the microbes of despotism
and intolerance; in another they in
fest everything he touches and nearly
all that he is. England offers temp
tations of incredible strength to
avoid our churches, or to leave them
if you have become attached to them.
Our law, for example, penalizes the
citizen seeking to enter into or to
rise higher in the ranks of State school
teachers, if he is a Baptist. In Hun
gary our churches cannot own, hold
and administer property except on
terms that fetter their free action as
Christian communities. But in cur
Australian Colonies, and in your free
commonwealth such difficulties do not
occur, or if they do arise, it is in a
most attenuated form.
These and similar facts must of
necessity shape the character and de
termine the contents of the advice
given with regard to specially local
conditions, and compel us to move on
high and broad planes opened out to
us by the historic and universal prin
ciples of the gospel of Christ on which
the Alliance is built. These it is our
business to maintain in their integrity
and propagate with zeal, generosity
and self-sacrifice; so that we may
carry them, at the earliest possible
hopr, to their pre-destined place in the
whole religious life of mankind.
(2) Our all-inclusive work is that
of bringing in the kingdom of our
God and of is Christ. That one
thing we must do. It is for that we
have been laid hold of by Christ, and
called by His grace. We have a gos
pel for the world. We begin at the
cross, not at the baptistry. God has
sent us to preach the gospel, not to
baptize men in platoons or in their
unwitting infancy. We have to medi
ate the truth to men that the power
at the back of all things is the Eternal
Father, eager to enter into a direct
and conscious relation with them
through His Son Jesus. We preach
Christ and Christ cruified. We stand
at the cross, see Jesus in the awful
light of Gethsemane and Calvary, “as
the propitiation of our sins, and not
for ours only.” “Not for ours only.”
There is nothing limited or partial in
the love of God. It sweeps the hu
man race within its embrace. God
Himself commends His love towards
us, in that whilst we were yet sinners
Christ died for us. “Not for ours only,
but for the sins of the whole world.”
With one hand on the cross, we reach
out with the other to the circumfer
ence of the human race. We are
therefore missionary. We do not keep
silence. We cannot. We have to bell
all men of the Father’s love and
grace; that God was in Christ recon
ciling the world unto Himself, not im
puting to men their trespasses. Neces
sity is laid upon us. We are debtors
to all men. Whether we be beside
ourselves, it is God, or whether we
be sober, it is for the cause of man.
For the love of Christ constraineth
us, for we judge that He died for all,
that we who live should not live unto
ourselves, but unto Him who died for
us and rose again.
It is a source of unfailing joy to us
to feel that this our primary work
links us with the “holy church
throughout the world, relates us to
every believer in Jesus, in any church
or in none; makes us one with the
self-forgetting missionaries of all so
cieties who hazard their lives for the
sake of the gospel of Christ; and yet
in our witness on behalf of the sim
plicity and purity, fulness and suffi
ciency of the salvation offered to men
in Christ, we have to repeat and main
tain the protest our fathers started
against all the corruptions of Chris
ianity. Everywhere we repudiate the
teaching that entrance into a visible
church is either salvation in itself or
a condition of receiving it. If men
would only believe it, our emphatic
witness as to the place of baptism is
entirely due to our antagonism to the
notion that sacraments have any sav
ing efficacy, and that the so-called
“developments” of the “germ” of orig
inal Christianity are at variance with
the teaching of the New Testament,
contradict Peter and John and Paul,
cloud the vision of God, check the
free outflow of the Divine mercy, de
base the religious ideal, lower morals,
add to the power of the priests, and
derogate from the authority and glory
of the Redeemer of men.
(3) Everybody knows that this pro
test involved separation from other
churcnes at the first, but does it ne
cessitate separation still? and separa
tion at a time when the forces making
for ecclesiastical federation and unity
are working with unprecedented
strength?
First, this must not be doubted, that
we rejoice in the efforts now being
made on behalf of unity of the follow
ers of Jesus Christ, and gladly co
operate with these endeavors. We
crave it. We pray for it. We should
hold ourselves guilty if we created or
upheld any ecclesiastical division on
mere technicalities of the faith or on
insignificant details of the practice of
The Golden Age for July 20, 1911.
churches. We endeavor to keep the
unity of the Spirit in the bonds of
peace.
But with equal frankness we say
that a visible, formal and mechanical
unity has no charm for us whatever.
It is not the unity Jesus prayed for;
nor is it the unity that increases spir
itual efficiency, augments righteous
ness, or advances the Kingdom of
God. Nor can we forget that the
welding of the churches together by
bands of State gold mostly leads to
slavery and not freedom, to subservi
ency and not manliness, to stagnation
and not life. As to the unity of Rome,
the unity of an ecclesiastical empire
rigidly ordered under one priest as
emperor, history has juuged it, and
condemned it, out and out. We dis
tinctly disavow any hankering after
a world-wide unity of organization on
the platform of that of the Seven
Hills, on the one hand, or that of
Moscow on the other, confident that
it would suffocate originality of
thought, block boldness of initiative,
quench enthusiasm and fetter souls
in what ought to be the very citadel,
and best defence, of freedom. Unity
of life, of love, and of governing ideas
and ideals, let us have by all means,
but unity of “order,” of “machinery”
or of “creed,” is not in keeping with
the “unity in diversity,” either in Na
tore or of Grace.”
Besides it avails nothing to make
light of the fact that we do not think
as Christendom thinks on the vital
elements of Christianity. The great
historic churches are against us: the
Roman Catholic, the Eastern, the An
glican, and some other commuions;
and against us on subjects that go to
the uttermost depths of the soul of
the gospel of Christ; and therefore
“Separation” is one of the inevitable
conditions of faithfulness to our ex
perience of the grace of God, to our
interpretation of the claims of Jesus
Christ, and to the principles He has
given as the ground and sphere of
our collective life. It cannot be
helped. We accept the isolation, and
all the penalties it involves.
For it is most unthankful work? it
means sacrifice; it shuts us out of al
liances we would gladly join, and ex
cludes us from circles of rare exhil
aration and charm, but it is useful as
well as necessary. Christianity owes
its continuance amongst men to the
insuppressible race of protesters. It
would have remained in the swaddling
bands of Judaism and oeen cradled
as a Jewish sect, if the Spirit of God
had not pushed Peter into the protest
ing line. Nor would it have become
in the first century a universal re
ligion, had not that matchless states
man, the Apostle Paul, vigorously re
sisted all the traditional and conven
tional defenders of the racial and sec
tarian religion. “In Tertullian’s cen
tury there seemed some prospect that
every characteristic feature of the gos
pel would be so ‘re-stated’ as to leave
the gospel entirely indistinguishable
from any other eclectic system of the
moment.” But Tertullian would have
none of it. His protest was strong
and clear. “Let them look to it,” he
said, “who have produced a Stoic and
Platonic fend dialectic Christianity.
We need no curiosity who have Jesus
Christ; no inquiry who have the gos
pel.” The Lollards were protes
tants. John Huss and John Wy
cliffe, could only save the gospel by
exposing the falsehoods under which
it was buried. Luther burning the
Pope’s bull, which was the chief ex
pression of the current Christianity, is
a dramatic demonstration of the way
he made room for the saving truths of
the Reformation. Robert Browne left
the Church, and “without tarrying for
any’’ gave an impact to the reforming
movement which it never lost. Bish
op Hall wrote to Robinson, the Pil
grim Father: “There is no remedy.
You must go forward to Anabaptism,
or come back to us He (and the
Bishop is speakingof our John Smith),
tells you true; your station is unsafe.”
It was unsafe, and so they left it in
order to give security to the truth of
the gospel of God. Hitherto it has
been the only way of keeping the soul
of Christianity alive. There is no oth
er effective method. Puritanism en
deavored to dispense with it. Separa
tion seemed harsh and hard. It wore
the garb of self-assertion. It exposed
to censure. It looked like schism; but
it was the only way to escape a creep
ing paralysis followed by death. The
Evangelicals in the Anglican Church
tried it. Hating Rome and battling
against it; they remained in the Prot
estant Church under the terms of the
compromise effected between Rome
and Geneva in the days of Queen
Elizabeth. They were Protestants,
and wished the Church to be Protest
ant in reality, as well as in name.
’They saw the truth of Bagehot’s dec
laration that the “articles of the
Church of England were less a com
promise than an equivocation
A formula on which two parties
could unite and go their separate
ways under an appearance of unity;’’
but they believed they could purify
tne Church of England by staying in
it; but the result of 300 years is that
the Roman elements are more defin
itely paramount than at any time
since the reign of Queen Mary. The
Separatists felt they could do little
or nothing from within, and there
fore they came out, and followed the
churches of the New Testament as
the model of the new society they
created. Wakeman, in his “History
of Religion in England,” uses this sig
nificant expression as to the origin
of the Free Churches: “When men
became really instead of decorously
religious, they broke away from the
established order and sought the real
ization of their deeper faith in the or
ganization of a more primitive type.’’
It was separation for the sake of life
and usefulness.
Hence, for generations to come,
eager as we are for the unity of all
believers in Christ, and resolved to
remove wherever we can the grounds
and causes of division, yet necessity
is laid upon us, “to go forward to An
abaptism,” as Bishop Hall said, and
not to go back to any other church.
We have to lift up our voice against
that capital error of Christendom,
that source of immeasurable damage
to the gospel and to souls, the magical
interpretation of baptism and the
lord’s Supper, the treatment of the
baptism of the babe as obedience to
the will of the Lord Jesus, as ex
pressed in the New Testament and as
away of salvation. We must stand
aloof from it. We can have no part
or lot in it. In a word, we must be
in a position to give a full, clear, un
confused witness to the cardinal prin
ciples of our faith and life.
(4) Again, we have not only to con
tend earnestly for the faith once for
all delivered to the saints, and form
ing the old gospel and for the pure
gospel, stripped free of the accre
tions of the ages; but if we are to be
true to the earliest Christianity of all,
and to the spirit and work of the
creators of our Modern Baptist de
nomination, we must also advocate
and work for the Social Gospel.
The acts of the Apostles give evi
dence of the arrival of a new social
ideal and impulse in the Christianity
Os Christ. That is admitted. Nor is
(Continued on Page 16.)
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