10 If Wisdom And Comity Had Dominated

10 - IF WISDOM AND COMITY HAD DOMINATED "PERHAPS THEY WOULDN’T " THE Rev. Doctor Brierly, in writing of the providential closing and opening of doors, though referring to the experience of others, describes the crisis that Mr. Randall had reached. He says:

How often do we seem, in our private fortunes, to be brought to a loose end! Some source of supply has been stopped; some door of career has suddenly been slammed in our face. The well-defined track we had followed has all at once disappeared. We are | faced with the wilderness, wherein we must strike a road of our own. Most of us who have lived any time in the world have had a touch of that experience. It is one of the greatest tests of character. We have been good enough for routine; what good are we for this crisis of the unexpected?

It is here that strong men prove their strength. How often has that moment proved the starting-point of mightiest things! It was so with Wesley when he found himself in hopeless conflict with the Anglican authorities, and he must choose some other way. And with General Booth, his true successor, when on that fateful morning he left the New Connection Conference, his terms rejected, his career as one of its ministers closed, and himself in the face of a new, untried world. Spurgeon had his moment when, by the strangest of accidents, he missed a collegiate training. But these men " made good." When Whitelaw Reid was American ambassador to Great Britain he was very popular with the highest social and political circles. On one occasion, when he was dining as a guest in common with the high-titled, including King Edward, one present had the bad taste to say, addressing his remarks to the ambassador: " The American colonies belonged to England, and had no right to establish a separate government." For a moment the breathless attention of all present centered on Mr. Reid. But his diplomacy was equal to the occasion. He courteously responded: "If King George had been as wise as his royal great-grandson," bowing low to Edward, "perhaps they wouldn’t."

Now, if any are of opinion that those of Free Baptist sentiments ought not to have established a separate organization, it might be answered: If those represented by the ministers who tried Mr. Randall for heresy had been as wise and courteous as the leading men of the present Baptist body, " perhaps they wouldn’t."

However that may be, they did, and no just biography of Benjamin Randall can be written without giving at least a passing statement, not only of the fact, but of the reasons why. But it will be a help to mutual charity if it be remembered that those were times which, in all matters pertaining to religious difference, polemics had the ascendency over comity.

Now we make haste to rejoice with representatives of high Baptist authority that "the reasons why" are dying, if not already dead issues. From an editorial which appeared in a June, 1905, issue of " The Watchman," a Baptist paper, the following paragraph is selected: At the time of the separation from the Baptists by Benjamin Randall in 1780, the controversy was wholly about Calvinism. Mr. Randall was accused of preaching anti-Calvinistic doctrines; and the number of his followers increased until, in 1827, the Freewill Baptist General Conference was founded. It is only necessary to mention this controversy to show how obsolete it is to-day. The Freewill Baptists dropped the middle word from their title years ago, and are now known as simply Free Baptists. And there are probably as many among Baptists who would refuse to be called Calvinists as there are among the Free Baptists. This, the original cause of separation, has simply taken itself out of the way, and calls for no consideration whatever. At a meeting of the Joint Committee of Baptists and Free Baptists, held at Brooklyn, November 22, 1905, Nathan E. Wood D. D., president of Newton Theological Seminary, was chosen chairman. In the course of his introductory remarks. President Wood said: In spirit the Baptist churches were never more tolerant than to-day. At the time when Free Baptists went away from us hyper-Calvinism prevailed, and Free Baptists had grounds for going away, and ought to have gone. But we have no hyper-Calvinism now, but a very moderate Calvinism. On the matter of communion there has been no great change in the last twenty years. On immersion we stand as rigid as ever we did. The Baptists made a tremendous fight on baptism, and close communion was an expression of it. The editorial referred to in a preceding paragraph has this respecting communion:

It is doubtful if there is a Baptist church in the North to-day which would refuse to allow a Christian, who wishes to do so, to partake of the Lord’s Supper with it. In the last chapter of Vedder’s very excellent "History of the Baptists" we find these statements:

Though Baptists have thus powerfully influenced other bodies of Christians, it would be a mistake to infer that they have themselves escaped modifications in belief and practice through the influence of other Christian brethren. That both Calvinism and Arminianism have been so modified as to bear little relation to the systems once passing under their names, is so well understood, and so little likely to be questioned, that it is not worth while to waste space in more than a statement of the fact. Each has reacted on the other, and between the latest statements of the two opposing systems a Critical student can discern little more than a difference of emphasis.