Theater at Ephesus-seen by Paul and John 113 Zoar Street Chapel, Southwark. 80 Zwickhau... PORTRAITS. PAGE 295 327 324 479 354 Anderson, Martin B.. Angus, Joseph... Backus, Isaac.. Baldwin, Thomas... Booth, Abraham... Brown, Hugh Stowell.. Castle, John H.... Conant, T. J................ Ellis, Robert.. Fuller, Richard. Gano, Stephen Guild, Reuben A. Hackett, H. B............. Haldane, James Alexander... Hall, Robert..... Harris, Joseph.. Havelock, Henry.. ✓ Horr, G. E., Jr. Hovey, A.... 540 616 935 facing 872 ... 324 facing 893 561 857 .facing 893 Milton, John... 904 Morgan, William.. 926 Newman, Albert H.. 783 Northrup, G. W... .facing 872 Oldcastle, John.... 616 Osgood, Howard.. 610 Rippon, John... facing 619 Sharp, Daniel 590 Smith, Samuel F.. 584 Spurgeon, Charles H... 760 Stillman, Samuel.... 854 Strong, A. H............... 866 Thomas, Joshua.. .facing 893 Thomas, M...... 575 Thomas, Timothy... 593 Vedder, H. C............. .facing 607 Watkins, Joshua.. 591 Weston, H. G..... .facing 619 Williams, John.... .facing 872 Williams, William R.. INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. HAVE WE A VISIBLE SUCCESSION OF BAPTIST CHURCHES DOWN Ο FROM THE APOSTLES? N the western coast of India, near Goa, and also in the Mediterranean, springs of fresh water, which do not rise to the surface but are run off by the undercurrent, rush out of the strata at the bottom of the sea. But in the Gulf of Xagu, on the southern coast of Cuba, a wonderful fountain of fresh water gurgles up in the open sea; forcing aside its salt waters, it passes off in the surface-current and is lost in the ocean. From this spring navigators often draw their supplies of pure water in the midst of the briuy waste. Here nature lends us a forceful type of the fact that there may be a flow of visible succession without purity, and that there may be a continuous purity without a flow of visible succession. Is an unbroken, visible, and historical succession of independent Gospel Churches down from the apostles, essential to the valid existence of Baptist Churches to-day, as apostolic in every sense of the word? This question suggests another, namely, Of what value could any lineal succession be, as compared with present adherence to apostolic truth? From these two questions a third arises: Whether true lineage from the Apostolic Churches does not rest in present conformity to the apostolic pattern, even though the local church of to-day be self-organized, from material that never came out of any church, provided, that it stands on the apostolicity of the New Testament alone. The simple truth is, that the unity of Christ's kingdom on earth is not found in its visibility, any more than the unity of the solar system is found in that direction, for its largest domain never falls under the inspection of any being but God. So, likewise, the unity of Christianity is not found by any visible tracing through one set of people. It has been enwrapped in all who have followed purely apostolic principles through the ages; and thus the purity of Baptist life is found in the essence of their doctrines and practices by whomsoever enforced. Little perception is required to discover the fallacy of a visible apostolical succession in the ministry, but visible Church succession is precisely as fallacious, and for exactly the same reasons. The Catholic is right in his theory that these two must stand or fall together; hence he assumes, ipso facto, that all who are not in this double succession are excluded from the true apostolic line. And many who are not Catholics think that if they fail to unroll a continuous succession of regularly organized churches, they lose their genealogy by a break in the chain, and so fail to prove that they are legitimate Apostolic Churches. Such evidence cannot be traced by |