Walter Scott, the “Gospel Restored”

But the events which were most decisive in changing the Reformers from “Reforming Baptists” to an independent group to be known as Disciples occurred in the Mahoning Association in eastern Ohio. The man who had most to do with these events was Walter Scott. Born in Edinburgh in 1796 and educated in the university of that city, Scott was still a member of the Church of Scotland when he came to New York immediately after his graduation and to Pittsburgh the next year. Here he taught in a school conducted by a Mr. Forrester, who was also the leader of a church of immersed Haldaneans—locally known as “kissing 84 Baptists.” Scott joined this church. To gain a better understanding of the restoration of primitive practices, he visited similar churches in New York, Paterson, New Jersey, Baltimore, and Washington. He found that they did not entirely agree as to just what the practice of the primitive church was. He returned to Pittsburgh much depressed, but resumed his teaching and studied the writings of Locke, Glas, Sandeman, and Haldane to clarify his religious ideas. The sudden death of Mr. Forrester threw upon him the care of the little church. His first meeting with Mr. Campbell, his senior by eight years, was at Pittsburgh in the winter of 1821-22. They met occasionally during the next year, and the contact brought Scott out of his fog. When Campbell was planning his magazine, it was Scott who suggested the name, “Christian Baptist,” as an indication that the aim was to work with and through the Baptists, not to promote a defection from them.

Scott’s chief interest was in defining the process by which one becomes a Christian. That had really been the central point in Thomas Campbell’s original concern, for this, in his view, would define the terms of fellowship and become the basis of union. But attention had been diverted to developing a complete pattern for the restoration of the church on the primitive model. To the first four issues of the Christian Baptist, Scott contributed a series of articles on “A Divinely Authorized Plan of Preaching the Christian Religion.” The plan of preaching it and the plan of accepting it must naturally be the same. There must be the right elements in the right order. He found that the exact steps, authoritatively given as constituting the way to salvation, were these: (1) Faith, the persuasion of the mind by rational evidence. “The messiahship 85 rests on demonstration,” and everything else follows from that on authority. (2) Repentance of sins, under the motive of the promises. (3) Baptism, in obedience to divine command. (4) Remission of sins, and (5) the gift of the Holy Spirit, both in fulfillment of God’s promise, which is conditioned on man’s completion of the first three steps.

These became the five points of Scott’s standard sermon and the outline of a tremendously effective evangelistic appeal. These points were all implicit in what Campbell was teaching, but so long as they remained implicit they could not win converts; they could only change some regular Baptists into Reforming Baptists, and divide Baptist churches and associations. The Mahoning Association was more thoroughly imbued with Campbell’s views than any other; yet at its annual meeting in 1827 all its churches together (excepting Campbell’s own church at Wellsburg, which did a little better) reported only twenty-one additions for the year—and there had been twelve excommunications. It was agreed to appoint an evangelist to “travel and teach among the churches.” Scott, who had moved to Steubenville, Ohio, within the boundaries of the association, and who had visited its meetings twice at Campbell’s invitation and preached before it once, was asked to accept this appointment. He was not a member of the association, not a Baptist, not an ordained minister. With the Mahoning Association in 1827, evidently being a Reformer counted for more than being a Baptist.

It was a good appointment. Scott began his work at New Lisbon, Ohio. The first convert under his new presentation of the “ancient gospel” was William Amend, who, according to Scott’s biographer, Baxter, “was beyond all question the first person in modern 86 times who received the ordinance of baptism in perfect accordance with apostolic teaching and usage.” That was on November 18, 1827. The force and freshness of Scott’s appeal, the exciting sense of discovery, the thought that an ancient treasure of divine truth was just now being brought to light after being lost for centuries, the sense of witnessing the dawn of a new epoch in the history of Christianity—these things gave to the campaign an extraordinary quality. It was different from other revivals. Here was no debauch of emotion, but an attractive blending of rationality and authority. It appealed to common sense as well as to Scripture. It assumed man’s rational ability to understand what he ought to do and why, and his moral ability to do it. The first three steps were man’s; the other two were God’s. When the convert had believed, repented, and obeyed (i.e., been baptized), he could be perfectly sure that he would be saved by the remission of his sins and the gift of the Holy Spirit and eternal life. He had the promise of God for it.

Scott’s work extended throughout eastern Ohio. Besides completing the conquest of the Mahoning Association for the Reform, it gained great numbers of converts—many from other denominations but many also, probably more, who had been members of no church. New churches were organized. Some of the Baptist preachers entered vigorously into the new movement, and some of the new converts—such as William Hayden, A. S. Hayden, and John Henry—became preachers of great power. The first year of this new evangelism brought more than 1,000 additions to the churches of the Mahoning Association, more than doubling their total membership. Scott was assisted at times by Joseph Gaston, a “Christian” preacher who was, Scott says, the first of that church who “received the gospel 87 after its restoration.” At the 1828 meeting of the association, William Hayden was added to the staff, and the next year Bentley and Bosworth.