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CHAPTER VI
WITH THE BAPTISTS, 1813-30

After the Brush Run Church had joined the Redstone Baptist Association, Alexander Campbell began to preach more widely among the Baptist churches of the region. Thomas Campbell, who was more occupied with teaching than with preaching, rather rapidly dropped out of his position of leadership, which was taken over by his son. Alexander had married the daughter of a well-to-do farmer, and his father-in-law had deeded to him the farm which was to be the nucleus of his large Bethany estate, part of which became the campus of Bethany College thirty years later. Even at the age of twenty-five he enjoyed economic security and was well on the way toward becoming a substantial citizen.

At a meeting of the Redstone Baptist Association in August, 1816, Alexander Campbell preached his famous “Sermon on the Law.” There seems to have been some scheming to keep him off the program, and he was called in only at the last moment to fill a vacancy. But the content of the sermon, if not its form, had evidently been the subject of long and careful study. The central point of it was that the Christian system is not a continuation of the Jewish regime but is based on a new covenant which, though prepared for and prophesied in the religion of the Old Testament, is a radically new thing. Therefore, he said, no arguments can be drawn from the Old Testament about the nature or form of Christian institutions. The law of the Sabbath has nothing to do with the observance of 77 the first day of the week; baptism cannot be understood by considering it as taking the place of circumcision; paying tithes and keeping fasts are no part of a Christian’s duty; and any alliance between church and state, as in the old covenant of God with the Hebrews, is alien to the spirit and nature of Christianity.

Some of these conclusions—especially separation of church and state and the denial of any analogy between baptism and circumcision—were pleasing to the Baptist audience. But the basis of the argument, the complete abrogation of the Old Testament law, seemed to many a dangerous doctrine. The preachers who heard the sermon went out to spread among the churches their fears that this bold and brilliant young man might be a disturber of Baptist usage. Thereafter he “itinerated less” among the Baptist churches and confined his labors to “three or four little communities constituted on the Bible, one in Ohio, one in Virginia and two in Pennsylvania.” But he also made one or two preaching trips a year among the regular Baptists. He opened in 1818, and conducted for four years, a boarding school for boys, especially with a view to finding and training candidates for the ministry.