It is as truly a violation of the independence of the churches, and the right of private judgment, when several hundred brethren meet in some public convention, and manufacture public opinion, and adopt courses which their brethren are called upon to follow, on pain of the displeasure of the majority, as when they establish a formal representation, to whose decisions all the constituency must submit.
These have always been favorite ideas with our Baptist churches. In this we differ essentially from our Presbyterian brethren. With them, every church is represented formally, and legally, in its Presbytery, by which its acts may be reviewed and reversed. The Presbytery is, in like manner, represented in the Synod, and also in the court of final ecclesiastical appeal, the General Assembly. This form of church government, as it is called, appears well enough, if we look upon a church of Christ as a civil organization. We, however, take very different views of the theory of the church of Christ, and in practice, we have never seen any thing in the representative form to recommend it. If any of our Christian brethren like it, we are glad to have them adopt it. We, however, have ever looked with great disfavor upon any practice which, in the remotest degree, violates the great principle of the independence of the churches.
Jesus Christ left his church without any general organization. Throughout the New Testament we can discover not a trace of organization beyond the establishment of individual churches. Their bond of union was sympathy with him through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in each individual. Is it not probable that as he left it, so he intended that it should continue to the end of time? The object of the church of Christ on earth is very simple: it is the conversion of souls. This object, it seems to me, can be accomplished without the use of the complicated, cumbrous, and frequently soul-destroying machinery, with which his disciples have for so many ages been burdened.
Under the old dispensation there was an established and formal organization, and every thing respecting it was definitely prescribed, even to the minutest particular. As, in the New Testament, no trace of this kind can be discovered, is it not reasonable to suppose that nothing of this kind was intended, but that the Master chose that it should remain just as he left it? Moses was commanded, saying, " See that thou make all things according to the pattern showed thee in the mount." As Jesus Christ has showed us no "pattern," is it desirable for us to make one for ourselves?
... Though the Triennial Convention was thus restricted to its appropriate object, the work of Foreign Missions, its representative character remained. It was, by the community at large, considered to be the grand meeting of the Baptist denomination in the United States, a sort of General Assembly, to which all our affairs were brought for decision. Hence, if for any cause it was deemed desirable to commit the whole Baptist membership to any course of action, this was considered the proper place in which to make the attempt. I well remember that on one occasion, a series of resolutions was introduced, of which the only object was to express our approbation of General Jackson's measures for the removal of the Cherokees. Hence, though missions were the ostensible object for which we assembled, missions were frequently the last thing thought of. Propositions for amendments to the Constitution, of course, occupied a considerable part of the session. Then the attempts of brethren from the East or West, the North or the South, to procure an expression of the denomination in favor of this matter or that, totally unconnected with missions, must be disposed of. When any of these exciting questions were discussed, the house would be filled to overflowing; but when nothing but missions was under consideration there was room enough, and to spare. A large part of the time of the meeting was thus wasted in angry altercation. Hence this attempt at representation, intended to unite us all as one denomination, proved the source of manifold alienation, and, I fear, injured the very cause of missions which it was its avowed object to promote.
Things had arrived at that point, that every member who loved the cause of missions, or even the peace of our Zion, looked forward to the meetings of the Convention with fear and apprehension. Our best men were becoming glad of an opportunity to be absent from its meetings. When the separation between the North and the South took place, every one saw that a totally different organization had become absolutely indispensable. The Constitution of the present Missionary Union, which is formed on entirely different principles, was unanimously adopted. This was the end of the only representative organization ever attempted among us. The result showed it to be utterly alien from all our principles, and calculated to work nothing but division and dissension among us. ...
