Origin of the term "landmark"

In an earlier post, I defined Landmark ecclesiology as I see it. A reader has brought up the question of the origin of the terms "Landmark", "Landmarkism", "Landmark Baptists". I think the following is basic and fairly accurate.

Baptist minister J. M. Pendleton wrote a series of articles which appeared in The Tennessee Baptist, a periodical whose editor was J. R. Graves. These articles dealt with the "recognition" of Pedobaptist (infant-baptising) ministers, and were later published by Graves as a pamphlet titled An Old Landmark Re-Set. Pendleton and Graves agreed that Pedobaptist ministers should not be allowed to preach from Baptist pulpits. Evidently, Southern Baptists who disagreed with Graves and Pendleton on the issue of Pedobaptist ministers, took the initiative in labeling those with such convictions "Old Landmarkers". Even if so, Graves had no problem adopting and using it -- and possibly relished it. Read, for example,Graves' preface
to Old Landmarkism, What is it?, a book he wrote in 1880.

From Cathcart's Baptist Encyclopedia: "The origin of the term old-landmarkism was as follows: about the year 1850, Rev. J. R. Graves, editor of the Tennessee Baptist, published at Nashville, Tenn., began to advocate the position that Baptists cannot consistently recognize Pedobaptist preachers as gospel ministers. For several years he found but few to sympathize with this view. Among the few was Rev. J. M. Pendleton, then of Bowling Green, Ky., who in 1854 was requested by Mr. Graves to write an essay on this question, 'Ought Baptists to recognize Pedobaptist preachers as gospel ministers?' The essay was published in four consecutive numbers of the aforesaid paper, and afterwards in the form of a tract. The title given to it by Mr. Graves was 'An Old Landmark Reset.' The title was considered appropriate, because there had been a time when ministerial recognition and exchange of pulpits between Baptists and Pedobaptists were unknown. This was an old landmark, but in the course of years it had fallen. When it was raised again it was called "an old landmark reset.' Hence the term 'old-landmarkism,' and of late years, by way of abridgment, 'landmarkism'."

Dictionary definitions and Bible verses may also provide context for those unfamiliar with the term as used before its adoption to describe a Baptist ecclesiology.

Landmark: "a prominent or conspicuous object that serves as a guide; something used to mark the boundary of land."

Deut 19:14 - Thou shalt not remove thy neighbour's landmark, which they of old time have set in thine inheritance, which thou shalt inherit in the land that the LORD thy God giveth thee to possess it.
Deut 27:17 - Cursed be he that removeth his neighbour's landmark. And all the people shall say, Amen.
Prov 22:28 - Remove not the ancient landmark, which thy fathers have set.
Prov 23:10 - Remove not the old landmark; and enter not into the fields of the fatherless:

This question intersects with another point that I want to make about the two previous posts. These historical excerpts do not prove the validity of Landmark ecclesiology. One must turn to the Bible to prove or disprove it. But the excerpts do call in question the oft repeated mantra that "Landmarkism" began with Graves and Pendleton. Certainly the terminology and certain refining points of ecclesiology can be traced to them (particularly Graves), but they did not create something that at least some Baptists before them did not already believe.

More of the same

Similar to yesterday's post, here are a couple of more examples of "pre-Landmark" Landmarkism. A couple of years ago Bro. Mark Osgatharp called attention to the first one on the Baptist Board.

In his autobiography, Jeremiah Jeter mentions an incident that took place at the 1824 session of the Portsmouth Association in Virginia. Jeremiah Jeter was an opponent of Landmarkism, but his testimony here stands as evidence of "landmark" principles among the Portsmouth Virginia Association. This was before the rise of the movement named Landmarkism.

"Of the proceedings of the [1824 Portsmouth] Association I recollect nothing, except a discussion on the validity of Pedobaptist immersions. In this conflict I fleshed my youthful sword, and was ingloriously defeated. I had associated with Semple, A. Broaddus, and others among the fathers who maintained the validity of such baptisms, and had adopted their views. As this side of the subject seemed to be feebly supported, I ventured, with probably more courage than discretion, for the first time in my life, to engage in religious controversy.

"My rashness evoked the chastening rod of Richard Poindexter. He was about fifty years old, of medium size, of swarthy complexion, possessed of a mind remarkable for astuteness and great self-possession and readiness for extempore debate. Dr. [A.M.] Poindexter, with greater culture and breadth of mind, bore a strong intellectual resemblance to his sire. It may be reasonably supposed that I was overmatched in the debate.

"I remember but a single illustration in the speech of Elder Poindexter. 'Roundness,' he said, 'is essential to a bullet; beat it flat, and it will cease to be a bullet. So certain things - an authorized administrator being among them - are essential to baptism, and without these things it cannot be baptism.'

"I made, so far as I can recollect, no attempt to reply. The association decided by an overwhelming vote that Pedobaptist immersions are not valid baptisms. I was defeated, but not convinced."

This second illustration is from the Elkhorn Association (org. 1785, KY).

"In 1802, the question as to what constitutes valid Baptism, which had been evaded in 1793, was brought before the Association in a different form, and answered as follows:

"'Query from South Elkhorn. -- What constitutes Baptism? Answer. -- The administrator ought to have [been] baptized himself by immersion, legally called to preach gospel, [and] ordained as the Scriptures dictate; and the candidate for baptism should make a profession of faith in Jesus Christ, and be baptized in the name of the Father, of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, by dipping the whole body in water.'"-- From A History of Kentucky Baptists, Volume II, John Henderson Spencer, 1886

"Pre-Landmark" Landmarkism

In his Landmarkism: Doctrinaire Ecclesiology among Baptists (1964), Hugh Wamble concludes that the essence of Landmarkism is belief in the "sole validity of Baptist churches." Others state it this way -- "Baptist churches are the only true churches." It has been (and still is) popular to date the rise of this ecclesiological belief among Baptists with J. R. Graves, J. M. Pendleton, and A. C. Dayton. Yet the following excerpts from The Autobiography of Elder Wilson Thompson show the concept well established before Graves was born and while Dayton & Pendleton were "still in diapers."

This incident following, according to Wilson Thompson, took place at "'Caldwell's Settlement', on the river St. Francis, not far from a village called St. Michael, about sixty miles from the Bethel Church (of which he was a member). The time frame was "during the war of 1812", and "There never had been a Baptist preacher in all that part of the country." He was invited to preach there by a couple living there who were members of the Bethel Church. "A considerable congregation had gathered, and I delivered as plain and pointed a discourse, and as definite as I could. I then explained the circumstances which had led to that appointment, and that I was authorized by the Bethel Church, of which I was a member, and which was located in the district of Cape Girardeau, to give an invitation to any persons wishing to be baptized and become members of the Bethel Regular Baptist Church. I added that if they could give full and satisfactory evidence of the hope that was in them, I was ready and willing to baptize. But I would wish all to understand, that the Baptists alone were by us considered a gospel church, and therefore they received none into their fellowship or communion, except on public profession of their faith in Christ, according to the doctrine of His grace.

"No probationers of six months, no infants who were sprinkled on the profession of their parents, nor any others but believers in Jesus Christ were received. Therefore, all who joined this church must renounce alliance with all other denominations. They should treat all men friendly as men, but have no communion or fellowship with any but the Baptist Church of Christ; for they should look upon all others as the daughters of mystic Babylon. 'I have been thus particular, as I wish to deceive no one,' said I. 'We wish to be understood to say, as did the Lord in reference to this "Mystery, Babylon" (if any of God's people be ensnared by her), Come out of her my people, and be ye separated from her." pp. 152-154

The next account relates Thompson's comments to a young Lutheran. The young man related his experience and desired to join the church, but had been told by his mother "'Cursed is he that is baptized over again'. 'Sprinkling is not baptism,' said I, 'and even the immersion of an unconscious infant is no gospel baptism; nor can any man administer gospel baptism without the legal authority of Christ. This authority He has vested in the true church, as the executive authority of His kingdom, to see to the proper execution of all His laws and ordinances. The proper authority, therefore, is indispensable to gospel baptism, and this no Lutheran has. so you need have no more trouble on that account.''' p. 194

The date of the second incident is not as clear, but probably occurred circa 1816. It happened before Thompson first met missionary to the Indians, Isaac McCoy (cf. p. 196). Both took place 35 years and more before many historians date the inauguration of the Landmark movement (ca. 1851). Both incidents show that at least some of the Regular Baptists in the Midwest believed only the Baptists were valid churches. Perhaps the fact that Thompson identified with the Primitive Baptists after the missions controversy (circa 1830) has caused missionary Baptist historians to miss this source.

Source: Wilson Thompson, The Autobiography of Elder Wilson Thompson, His life, travels, and ministerial labors (Greenfield, IN: D. H. Goble) 1867 [reprint, Old School Hymnal Co. Conley GA 1978]

Resources Online:
Chapter 13, Churches Added in Missouri
Chapter 16, Labor in the Ohio Churches; A Revival

Fuller & baptist antiquity

Bart Barber, aka Praisegod Barebones, posted on Andrew Fuller and Baptist antiquity.

He highlighted how Fuller was able to easily consider that the baptist faith was so insignificant to historians that they could have forgotten to mention it or not known it. Click above link to read from Fuller's letter.

On the late massacre in Piedmont

ON THE LATE MASSACRE IN PIEDMONT
by: John Milton (1608-1674)

VENGE, O Lord, thy slaughtered saints, whose bones
Lie scattered on the Alpine mountains cold;
Even them who kept thy truth so pure of old,
When all our fathers worshipped stocks and stones,
Forget not: in thy book record their groans
Who were thy sheep, and in their ancient fold
Slain by the bloody Piedmontese, that rolled
Mother with infant down the rocks. Their moans
The vales redoubled to the hills, and they
To heaven. Their martyred blood and ashes sow
O'er all the Italian fields, where still doth sway
The triple Tyrant; that from these may grow
A hundred fold, who, having learnt thy way,
Early may fly the Babylonian woe.

'On the Late Massacre in Piedmont' is reprinted from English Poems. Ed. Edward Chauncey Baldwin. New York: American Book Company, 1908.

John A. Broadus on "Should Women Speak...

...in Mixed Public Assemblies?"

Broadus' answer was "no". He also wrote "As to crying out against the Bible for teaching 'the subjection of woman,' leave that to Ingersoll."

I think the following is interesting in light of the recent SWBTS/Klouda controversy and other controversies over the basic premise.

"One other point. Some will say, 'if we undertake to carry out such strict views, they will be found to conflict with the work which some women are almost everywhere doing as teachers of male Bible classes, as professors in co-educating colleges, and sometimes as missionary workers in foreign fields.' I shall not now inquire how far these practices conflict with the apostle's prohibition. But if any of them do thus conflict, then instead of being relied on as precedent to set aside the apostle's authority, they ought themselves to be curtailed and corrected."

http://www.geocities.com/baptist_documents/women.speaking.html

Still Sacred Harp out there

I guess I've been on a mission with "Baptist blogs" lately and haven't written much about singing. I have attended two good Sacred Harp singings in the last two weekends -- County Line at Cut-n-Shoot and Pine Grove in Rusk County. This coming weekend will be the annual Southwest Texas Sacred Harp Singing Convention at Bethel Primitive Baptist Church in McMahan, Texas. This is always a great singing. Y'all come!!

The church and child molesters

In Such Were Some of You, Matthew Hall blogs on the church and child molesters -- recently in the news re Baptists, and a continuing concern for all.

Thoughts on this?

"Keeping the law"

"Those who think that they can somehow keep the law or fulfill conditions of obedience are ignorant of both the rigors of the law and the weakness of their own flesh." -- Mike McInnis (elder) Grace Chapel, O'Brien, Florida (e-mail Fri 15 Dec 2006)

4 days late

Four days late = right on time

Compare John 11:21, 32, 39-42

Baptist origins -- straw poll

I'd like to ask my readers to participate in a straw poll concerning Baptist views of Baptist origins. If you are familiar with the writings of any on the following list of Baptists, would you give your opinion of what view of origins that you think they held -- Outgrowth of English Separatism, Influence of Anabaptists, Continuation of Biblical Teachings, Succession of Baptist Churches, or Chain-link Succession?

Some of the views are readily discernible (e.g. not many hesitate on Whitsitt or Carroll), while others may be justifiably placed in one category or another (e.g I've seen Newman classified as Influence of Anabaptists and Continuation of Biblical Teachings). I just want to get your opinions. I realize that some of the names may be obscure to some of you, while others are well-known to all. A few are not historians, but have written works investigating a view (or views) of Baptist origins. Even if you don't know about some of them, please don't fail to comment on those you do know. If you want to just list them as you see it, do so (e.g. Gilpin = Chain-link Succession); or if you want to justify your choices, feel free to do that. If you'd like to add someone you feel is significant, please do that also. Finally, if you'd like, give your own opinion of when Baptists originated. I’m looking forward to your thoughts. Thanks.

Thomas Armitage
Robert A. Baker
David Benedict
William H. Brackney
J. M. Carroll
John T. Christian
Milburn Cockrell
J. M. Cramp
Thomas Crosby
William Davidson
William R. Estep
John R. Gilpin
James Wyatt Griffith
Sylvester Hassell
Jack Hoad
Winthrop S. Hudson
Michael Ivey
Joseph Ivimey
Ollie Latch
Bill Leonard
H. Leon McBeth
Albert Henry Newman
G. H. Orchard
Ernest Payne
Adam Taylor
Robert G. Torbet
A. C. Underwood
Henry Clay Vedder
W. T. Whitley
William H. Whitsitt

P. S. If you know of someone who is well-qualified to comment on this, please invite them over to the blog to give their opinion.

Barber on Gonzales versus Carhart

Gonzales v. Carhart, Bart Barber's take on the Supreme Court decision on partial birth abortion.

Humility, O sweetest grace

Humility, O sweetest grace
ere unto mortal given
Did ever in all the earth
or even up in heaven
Expression find in any act
so grand as at the time
When Jesus washed His servants' feet,
how humble and sublime.

Oh King above all other kings,
before whom angels fall
The Master of the Universe
the ruler over all
The Master washed the servants' feet
thus by example taught
That we should wash each other's feet
and plainly said we ought.

Oh is there now in all the earth
a scene so passing fair
As when the faithful of the Lord
to upper room repair
Where peace and joy from round the throne
come down our souls to greet
While gladly there we honor Him
and wash each other's feet.
-- H. M. Riggle

Be present at our table

Be present at our table, Lord;
Be here and everywhere adored;
Thy creatures bless, and grant that we
May feast in paradise with Thee.

We thank Thee, Lord, for this our food,
For life and health and every good;
By Thine own hand may we be fed;
Give us each day our daily bread.

We thank Thee, Lord, for this our good,
But more because of Jesus' blood;
Let manna to our souls be giv'n,
The Bread of Life sent down from Heav'n.

John Cennick (1718-1755) published 1741.

Ordinance of Baptism (Baptizing the dead)

“Can any man forbid water, that these should not be baptized, which have received the Holy Ghost as well as we? And he commanded them to be baptized in the name of the Lord,” Acts 10:47, 48

The ordinance of baptism, in reference to the church of God , sets forth something of an experiential character very strikingly. In the first place, as baptism is a burial, it is not normal to bury anyone until he is dead. No living person is put into the grave and buried. In like manner, no sinner has a right to the ordinance of baptism until he is dead. I speak not of the death of the body. Of what death, then, do I speak? The death of which the apostle speaks: “I was alive without the law once; but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died.” It is the soul that is dead to the law, dead to all hope of salvation and justification by works of righteousness. Are you dead, my friends? If you are not dead in this sense, you have no right to the ordinances of God’s house; the command does not belong to you.

About eighteen years ago…,I met an aged pilgrim in a narrow passage, quite unexpectedly, and having shaken hands with me, he said, “I hear you are going to baptize before you leave the town.” “Yes,” I said, “I am, on Thursday night.” Then, in a rather sharp and hurried manner, he said, “Well, Sir, are you going to baptize the dead or the living?” The question came to me in a rather novel form, and I was for the moment at a loss for an answer. After a short pause, however, I saw the old man’s design, and I said, “I hope I am going to baptize both the living and the dead. They are dead to all hope of saving themselves by works of righteousness, but they are alive to God by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.” -- JOHN KERSHAW, 1853

From Shreveport Grace Church bulletin, March 11, 2007

MY opinion on continuation/succession

I presented a series of posts on various views of Baptist origins, attempting to present these views fairly without inserting my own views and opinions. Whether I accomplished this will be for the reader to decide.

It does not follow that I have no opinions on the subject of Baptist origins. Here are a few of them.

I believe in a continuation of the New Testament faith from the life of Christ to the present.

I believe that at present such as view is not historically demonstrable.

I believe in said continuation based on my interpretation of certain Scriptures (e.g. Dan. 2:44; Matt. 16:18; 28:18-20; Eph. 3:21) and not based on history.

I believe that attempts to force the promise into an ecclesiological system -- such as chain-link succession -- can be detrimental to the churches holding the New Testament faith. I believe the Scriptures present the promise of continuation but not exactly how God would do it. To become dogmatic on the how is to go beyond the Scriptures.

I also have the following idea on tracing continuation/succession.

The study of Baptist history begins with Baptists in the present and attempts to follow them backwards as far as possible. I believe this is good and proper. But I believe the tracing of the promise of Jesus to be always with His church would properly begin in the New Testament and move forward. If I were doing this (though I don't have the time, means, or skills), I would begin with a New Testament study formulating the identity of the New Testament church. It might look something like this -- a body that would have a view of God as sovereign and creator; which sees the sacrifice of Jesus the Son of God as efficacious and atoning (including rejecting works for salvation and salvation totally of grace); which holds to the sufficiency of Scripture, with emphasis on the New Testament, as the rule of faith and practice; which understands the church as a gathered body of immersed believers, and holds the ordinances to be without any saving power; and maybe a couple of other things. Then I would begin looking for this kind of visible representation of the New Testament faith from the N.T. and progressing through history.

Just an idea on which I've been thinking.

Really weird situation

Savannah State University in Georgia says washing feet endangers students.

Ending Baptist succession

I thought the following was both pointed and humorous, and appropriate in light of the posts I've been making.

"If Baptist succession be the bad thing some brethren say, then certainly it ought to be given up. There should be no more of it.

"The churches now in existence ought to have no succession. When a new church is organized, it should have no sort of connection with other churches, or relations to them. Let churches be organized anywhere, anyhow, by anybody. Just let people be believers, and let them baptize each other and start a church. This does away with Baptist succession. And if it be the bad thing that is charged, it ought to be done away with at the earliest moment. Those who oppose Baptist Succession have no logical ground to stand on in organizing a church out of material furnished by other churches, and with those baptized by regularly ordained Baptist ministers." (T. T. Eaton, quoted by Milburn Cockrell, in Scriptural Church Organization, Second Edition, pp. 57-58).

Thanks to Mark Fenison, who posted this on the Historic Baptist Symposium

Why are Baptists still discussing their origins?

Why are Baptists still discussing their origins? For the last hundred plus years, major Baptist seminaries, though varying on minor details, have fairly consistently taught that Baptists originated in England in the early 1600s. Why does anyone think otherwise? I can think of a few possible reasons why we are still discussing the when of Baptist origins.

The theological/historical divide. There is a great divide at the far ends of the spectrum. For some Baptists, their understanding of certain verses of the Bible require a perpetuity of the New Testament faith throughout the centuries. For others who think the Baptists are no more the New Testament church than the Methodists or Presbyterians, there is no theological motive to question the prevailing notion of Baptist origins. Also, the nature of historical argument is that of research, discovery and interpretation. Historical argument is always subject to revision; it is written by fallible humans. For even those not driven by theological concerns, there will always be the changing winds of reinterpretation of the evidence. Historians enjoy being the discovers of new things. Or as Samuel Butler said about historians altering the past...

Barring major new discoveries of original documents, there will probably always be, from the historical standpoint, a seeing through the glass darkly. Both historians and non-historians notice this, as a writer in an internet forum observed, "It seems to me that Baptist denomination doesn't have a very clean beginning like our Lutheran friends or our Wesleyan friends who can point to a founder. We can just point to groups of founders and churches." Even historians who hold the 16th or 17th century origin of Baptists have pointed this out. In Baptist Origins Revisited: a Study of the Dual Influence of English Separatism and Dutch Mennonite Theology upon Seventeenth-century English Baptists (Doctor’s Dissertation, New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, 2002, p. 1) Matthew D. Wohlfarth noted, "As opposed to Lutherans, Anglicans, and most other distinctive expressions of Protestantism, the emergence of Baptists is shrouded within a variety of influences and movements." William H. Brackney, in The Baptists, writes: "There will never be an answer which satisfies all or even most Baptists since there is no date, no place, and no person to whom all can look with complete confidence as the locus classicus of the movement." (p. xvii)

Finally, there is the lack of agreement on Baptist identity -- "What is a Baptist?" If we cannot define what a Baptist is, how will we know when we see one in an historical record? Within the varying camps of Baptist origins, there are varying ideas of what constitutes Baptist belief and a Baptist church.

And...

I am adding the following as a compliment to the above post on why Baptists are still discussing their origins. I just finished reading The Historiography of Baptist Origins in Selected Southern Baptist Historians: William Heth Whitsitt, John Tyler Christian, and Albert Henry Newman, a PhD dissertation by Donald Alan Cureton. I think the following is apropos. Each man in Cureton's study is representative of a different view of Baptist origins: Whitsitt - English Separatism; Christian - Succession; Newman - Spiritual kinship. What Donald Cureton describes concerning these men as "three realms of diversity" is probably generally true of others.

"...differing historical methods, superimposed biases, and divergent definitions of Baptists." (p. 166)