Two missionary spirits in the world

“Some think that the Baptists were always a missionary people; that the command to ‘go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature,’ proves that fact. To this, in part, we agree; but let us understand things, and not be deceived. The devil is a scriptorian; he tempted Christ in that way, and no doubt tries to deceive the saints by scripture quotations. There is evidently two opposite contending religions in the world. The devil has his ministers appearing as the ministers of righteousness; and Christ has his faithful watchmen, or ministers; and of course there are two missionary spirits in the world, one of God, and the other of the devil, both claiming the Bible on their side, and to be the worshipers of God, and to do good to be their object, with equal apparent zeal. Paul was as zealous when a persecuting Saul, as when a preaching Paul. Now which is of God? The present ‘mission effort spirit,’ reduced to a system unknown to the Bible, as pertaining to the gospel, without church authority, or us, anti to that course of things, who are contending for scriptural ground, church authority, and gospel order, in sending or spreading the gospel.”

Daniel Parker to David Benedict, in A General History of the Baptist Denomination in America by David Benedict, 1848, page 788.