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THE ORGAN OF THE NORTH CAROLINA BAPTISTS-DEVOTED TO BI&IM RELIGION, EDUCATION; LITERATURE AND GENERAL INTELLIGENCE. , U" ; I..;.., ,': RALEIGH, N. C, WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY lO, 1892. Number 32, "tfSHED EVERY " WEDNESDAY, OFFICE l ,j(up stairs1 Fayettevllle Street, Raleigh, N. 0. TBRM8 Of BUB8CanTt3l! lmv gii months i ..... i ...... l.1 ?tarften (copy extra to sender) . 80.i rmmmunicatlons will always find Mwij to the waste basket. No exceptions. L Mtuliiur letters of business, It is absolutely neo- Mff tua JUU jl I O JVUI RUUIVOV ftU ru date on the label of your paper 'Indicates .Wwt4-4fn Ami aloft lafirAiM TOUT BUUBC ..v. ot. , w owptiorjouruiuiwjr. abltaarlw, ixty words long, are Inserted free of When they exceed this length, one cent ,ioh word must be paid In advance when writing; to have your paper changed, please . the poetoinoe ec woicu jruu rewiv uia paper, nil u the one to which you wish it changed. n(Mnces must be sent by R centered Letter. atoffloe yroer, rwy-l"" mNM to me oruur ui tue i uuuouri, au uui kuu lumps. of Pioneer Baptist Preachers in North Carolina. It JOHN W. M00EK,. STATE HISTORIAN. Memoir V Rev. Lemuel Burkitt. ' -CHAPTER'' I00B. The war of the Revolution was a great interruption and obstacle to many others of h godly laborers in , the Lord's vineyard besides Elder Lemuel Burkitt. - So direful jjrew the struggle in p irts of North Carolina 'M even the pitiless sou! of Col. Banastre rarletoQ grew sick of such butchery as mark ed the forays of David Fannin, and declared in lii memoirs of the. period, that another year, xh as 1781, would depopulate In State, fhile the Albemarle region was almost holly exempt from such evila, still British atrages at Suffolk in Virginia were so close X hand that the alarm that was occasioned A to the suspension of the sessions of the lehakee Association for several years, lany church-members of that fold were 'ithex in the Continental army, or they were enrolled under the standard of Gen. Greg ory.1 It was during these stormy years of blood and confusion that a great bond of lore and confidence was formed between Mr. Burkitt and Godwin Cotton. : So close was ihirtie7the-rat--preiumeiLjbflngh!a farm alongside that of his friend and brother In the Lord. They were nearly the same age, and to both the cause of the Baptist people was paramount to all other human affairs. Not that either felt for a moment in any way indifferent to the freedom of America. On the contrary, their brightest hopes for ie emancipation of their faith. were bound 'P in the success of the revolted Colonies, 'fith the overthrow of King George's con trol in America, they had much reason to. aelieve there would come at the same time ie downfall of tlwr Church Establishments ill over the Republic. Gen. Washington are noble testimony to the united and seal' ins support given him in his fieven years of lerilous combat, and as the first President & the United States certified to the world. iow they had been alike strenuous as soldiers Qthe field and in yielding loyal and unques ioued fealty to the revolutionary officials o civil affairs, When British violence and brutality to ward the people of Suffolk and its vicinity iad with other reasons resulted in the sus ension of the sessions of the Kehukee As ociation, the heart of Mr. Burkitt was widv wed of many of its chiefest joys. He not &ly pined for the presence of so many to mom his soul was knitted. The valiant oldiers of the Lord, who were ptill waging dubious conflict for emancipation in Vir inia, as well against the ecclesiastical ty ants at home as the King beyond the seas o longer met in annual Conclave to concert leasares with their Carolina allies. All his "any plans for missionary concert of action "long the preachers and the churches were complete abeyance. To that reverend ther in the Lord, Elder McGlamre as the loderator, and to .Mr, Burkitt as the Clerk, w Kehukee Association had committed au aontv to call another meeting - whenever tey should think such action prudent and roMr. v For some reason now unaccountab le in its strangeness, the chapel of St, John Hertford county was first selected as the lace where the session fihonld.be held in Ctober, J783. ; Capt. Arthur Cotton, the nher of Mr. Burkitt's peculiar friend, as a of the church wardens of old St John's; given, his consent to the nse of the Epis pal chapel, but just before the arrival of e delegations, Col. Robert Sur-uer, the her warden, made such violent objection what he said would be a profanation of 18 anci.ent fane, Capt. Cotton Invited the aPUst people to bis own spacious brick res? ence- There under the shade of wide, reading mulberry trees, arrangements ba4 'en made for the comfort of the delegates w visitors. The village o St 'John's an4 '8 many farm-houses of j Ahoskie Ridge ve ample entertainment to all the .many m people who gathered there to rejoice er the renewal of old Kehukee'i power usefulness, , - " Just a year had gone by tfnee along with all true Americans the Baptist people of the Kehukee churches first heard the glad ti-"dlffgrof"!- Yorktown, The ablest and most effective of all the British commanders had, after a no ble career of victory, at last came to such entire defeat that the seven years of war were virtually ended. We can not in our day appreciate the feelings that actuated our forefathers on that occasion. In our pleni tude of power and safety from all apprehen sions of invasion from foreign nations, we fail to remember how feeble in comparison were the thin settlements strung along the Atlantic Beaboard. With all the conjoined dangers of Indian and servile insurrection, added to the bloody work of the British sol diers and Tories, the wonder is that men could be found brave enough to risk such an aggregation of perils. But the men who thus dared so much to be free, were not to be balked in the line of duty by any sugges tion 6f evil to come. They had an unfalter ing trust in the God of battles. They felt assured of that divine protection promised to all who, in the direst grief and danger, put their trust in the Lord. Had they been modern agnostiss with their sneers and doubts, they would have, prated about the maxims which tell us that God is neutral in such bumaja complications, and that the sole arbitors of every conflict, at arms are the heavier battalions and larger purse of those wno may be so fortunate as find themselves possessed of such advantages. The war had largely circumscribed, during Its pendency, the area of Mr. Burkitt's ac tivity as a missionary. With the return of peace; he put on a double portion of that wonderful activity that was so largely char acteristic of the man in every portion of his career. Like his noble compeer in grace, Elder Silas Mercer of Halifax county, he was no longer to be circumscribed by State lines. No pent up Utica should longer con fine his powers. Strange peoples and un known lands were to be now visited and thrilled by his eloquent appeals. This same distinguished Baptist divine, the Rev. Silas Mercer, was present at the Association of l?8i. He was one of the foremost preachers ever born in North Carolina, and the great. crowds gathered beneath the spreading trees at Mulberry Grove were enraptured with his splendid discourse on Sunday. Another of the foremost American Baptist preachers was seen and heard on the same occasion in the person of Elder Abraham Marshall of Georg'a. He was the son of that Rev. Daniel Marshall whose life and services were commemorated in the preced ing memoir. .With broader culture and a more 'finished elocution, Mr. Marshall was" even more powerful in the pulpit than his honored father in his palmiest days. But he or some one else brought great loss to North Carolina by inducing Mr. Mercer to leave our limits and make' Georgia his future home. With the return of peice to the American people, Mr. Burkitt was further cheered by the continued applications of the different revolted churches f old Kehukee, which had gone off on a tangent at the Fills of Tar river in l775rSoon'the vast christian broth erhood had with hooked shields again formed their phalanx of old. But the body got to be so huge and. unwieldy that in ' 1790 the Virginia churches withdrew and formed the PortsmQuth;Assoeia.ion. A year or two later the churches around Kewoern oiiowed this example in the formation of tbe Neuse Association. These movements curtailed the amount of Mr, Burkitt's labors as Clerk of the Kehukee Association, but tbe favor of his brethren soon more than restored the sum of his labors by making him the histo rian of the great Association he so pauch loved. We have only to read the chronicle he was thus induced to prepare and compare it with the rapid and jejune continuation by other hands, to see how remarkable a man he must have been. Confined by the di rections of the committee who had the pro posed history in charge to a mere skeleton of a narrative, he yet managed to store it with many incidents of movement and in his terse style was always abounding in pun gent and pertinent observations. The little fragment, meagre as it is in size and detail, is still the onlv source from which we can recall the Baptist movements in eastern Vir ginia and North Carolina for the period em braced in its pages. Thus as leading preacher and man of affairs in the Kehukee Associa tion, besides his great role as reformer, Mr. Burkitt had bargained out into still anotnet great department of usefulness. It was thrice fortunate for his own fame and memory that he thus left his imperishable record; for great as he was without this book, we should have but a mutilated tors), instead of the full statue of the man. No doubt many traditions would have handed down to after generations dim glimpses of his power and usefulness," but at. bpst these would have been vague and snadowy. Rut Mr. Burkitt had ereat sorrow along with manv of his brethren that the late war had so completely steeled the hearts of the people to any religious mnuences. wa all in vain that the most moving discourses were delivered in the hope of a revival I religion, It seemed, on the contrary, that French skepticism and atheism were poison- i.ng and blighting tbe hopes of heaven over large part of ;lhe new wuerai , union. Wan had criven auch' noble and timeiy aid to the suffering Colonies in their late struggle that great love and gratitude was flt bv all the American people for their late gallant allies in the bloody struggle, This sentiment, so natural hum muuuhuw m was used by French emissaries of the infidel philosophers to debauch the minds and souls of the trusting American people. Alas I the 4asfcmd bWloo the old trust in God doubt and biasphemjr" were heard all over the jand in the little de bating clubs which were organizedlo spread abroad this foreign contagion. '-It was all in vain for Iiemnel Burkitt to expect God's blessing on a people thus perverted and ap parently undone. When the Associations met, there was only a meagre list of addi tionsto the churches toHe reported. He gives these reports for a umbr of years, and so small were they that f the loss by death and dismission must have more than countervailed such small gains, The future of America seemed overcast with a hopeless gloom. Men of God were on every side de- Dressed and with onlv one hone left Thev never forgot that " Christ is able to save to tha uttermost part of the world," and th-y trusted, in good reason, their hope would yet be realized. f At last came tidings from Tennessee an 1 Kentucky that the Lord had visited his peo rle. A erreat nentecostal season of refresh ment and conviction flowed in upon the new countries like some mighty tidal wave of God s grace. : The careless and skeptical multitudes came flocking by thousands and myriads to find the Lord they haa learned to doubt and neglect. The great ' spiritual revival of 1801 and 1803 ii yet one of the wonders of our history as a nation. From dead apathy and distrust of allthings heav enly and pure, the same communities awoke to newness of life. - jvrom the Atlantic sea coast to the wilderqess beyond the1 Missis sippi, the great tide of grace rolled on, and America was saved from the foul embraces of a creed which had already deluged France in blood and ruin. -" ? The glad tidings from the West filled the soul of Mr. Burkitt with suchi joy that he mounted his horse and set out for tbe thea tre of such glorious blessings. J How, as be went on his way, he found the great gather ings of men and women seeking the way to life ; and. how, through both of the new States, he thrilled so many thousands with the magic of his eloquence and zeal, is yet a household tradition in many a family whose ancestors found peace in his- preach ing and prayers. He had long prayed lor and lo 1 here was what surpassed and dwarfed his loftiest dreams. Thus in a continuous round of abounding grace, Lemuel Burkitt lingered until, when duty .called him home, he came back with a light in his face that had never been seen .there before. He was like Moses when he descended fcomSinai, the glory of the Lord had not yet ceasecLta illume bis features. : Spuvgeon atRestr Charles Haddon. Spurgeon has passed awav. T .e faithful preacher, tne devoted pas'.or, the noble philanthropist, the beloved college president, anu me voluminous au thor and writer his finished with earth and has entered into that Sabbath-rest that re mains t( the pfQpla ftf-flwi- ; fi v Mr. Spurgeon was literally worn out by untold labors. He fell, but without any rust on his armor ; buckler, breast plate, shield and sword burnished and gleamin&r, is the panoply. which be left to the earth when he was wafted to the skies. " ; v.: There were twenty-four departments of labor connected with Metropolitan Taber nacle, Mr. Spurgeon's great church in New ington, London. These labors in mission fields, Sunday schools, orphanages, &c., em ployed thousands of workers, and hundreds of thousands of dollars were expended anc nually. London throbbed with his influence reaching all classes, high and low. 4 England, Scotland and Ireland know him personally, while all of the civilized nations, and some that are not, have read his sermons and books, which have brought thousands of souls to, Christ. We are almost led to say that the sum of all this ereat soul's labor for Christ would. equal, if not surpass, that of many entire nations who are called christian. Counting the last thirty-six years, has not this one man equalled in influence for good, the labors with their results, of the millions of Baptists of the South! How do yon account for these results of one mau's life t Why couldn't you do so? WhyCouldn't I do so t Is the n swer, Because we didn't try f Or, in other words, Because I did not want to do so? The question has been often asked. What is the secret of Spurgeon's power?. The an-' swers have been as various as their numbers,. He possessed great versatility of talent, or, in other words, be did well so many things,. He perhaps had in him the gifts of twelve first-class intellects, enabling him in as many directions to play the master. He could not have discovered these gifts had he not tried.t Do we try ? He was not classically educated,; and yet he trimmed tbe sails of sceptical au thors and scholars, as only few critics cooldV His monthly periodical, 'The-Bword and. Trowel, folly attests this remark. t The secret of Paul's, and even of Christ's. success as preachers, we all know. It was consecration, wwfjytiHWe shall not miss it much if we say, it was Spurgeon s also, -i Inhla inaugural address before hiaPas tor's College-in-188i, he said to the young preachers s "It is dreadful work to listen to a sermon, and reel an tne wnue as u you were sitting out in a snow-storm, or dwelling in a house of ice, clear but cold, orderly but killing. You have said to yourself, 'That was a well-divided and well-planned sermon, but I cannot make out what was tbe matter with it,Vthe secret being that there was tne wood, but no fire to kindle it Everything gives way before fire. Let the fire be kindled by "the. HbTynDffiosra the desire of honor, emulation, of others, or the excitement of attending meetings. Burn, because you have been in solemn fellowship with the Lord our God. Recollect; also, that the fire which you and I need will con mme us if we truly possess it. , 'Spare your self,' may be whispered by friends, but it will not' be heeded when the fire is burning. We desire to be whole burnt offerings and complete sacrifices to God, and we dare not shun the altar, , Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone, but if it die, it brings forth much fruit?; We can only produce 'life in ethers by' the wear and tear of our own being. Fruit can only come of the seed by its spending and being ppeBt even to self exhaustion. All men who are eminently useful are made to feel their weakness in a supreme degree. When God visits u with soul-saving , power, it is as though devouring flames come forth; from heaven, and made its abode in our bosoms ; and where this is the case, there may well be a melting away of all strength. 1 Yet let it be so ; we humbly invite the sacred burn ings. ,. We have.Aj'boice between these two, to beaten up by our corruptions, or by the zeal of God's house. . He that savt-th his life loseth it : ' but he that losetli his life for Christ's sake shall find it unto life eternal." We have selected this extract from Mr.' Spurgeon's inaugural address, to prove our remark that be wore himself out, for be practiced what he nreached. : 1 : y We were in London in 1864 and heard him once every Sunday, besides many delightful interviews which it was our privilege to en joy. At that time it was published that he preached regularly eleven times a week, and not less than twenty thousand people heard him weekly. . We. felt as easy in his presence as we could in that of Dr. John Mitchell or any other brother in aorta Carolina, lie would ply me with questions, and, Yankee-like:, we re turned the compliments On one occasion, we asked, " Brother Spurgeon, aren't you. doing too much work ? Will you not cut short your, usefulness., by oyer taxing your constitution?' His answer readilvr came, "My constitution and my woik all belong to the Lord. I ll do the work with his help, and he must take care of the constitution." He did not care to live lone, or to be known as great, but to do the work of the Lord while it is day, because, the night cometh when no man can work. . He was of power ful build, a Very strong man physically, and he-endured wonderfuilywhenwe consider his labors and their variety. As Demos thenes said, (Not action) '.'Energy is the first thing in oratory, ana the second thing is energyr and the third thing is energy," nd so Spurgeon said, I am sure that as a mat ter of fact, energy is the main thing in tbe human side of preacnnig.?fc Aet action, run ning from one. side of the platform, shaking your fist and. saying nothing, but soul en ergy. Like the priests at the altar,' said Yik veto ' nanV- An toeiihinn mifnn. fir. Brethren, speak, because you believe the gospel . of Jesus : " speakr" because-you feel its power : speak under the influence of the truth which you are delivering ; speak with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven, and the result will rrot be doubtful,-' - . . The correspondent of the Washington Pvtt mutt be corrected in some of his animadver sions: regarding Mr. Spurgeon. After say ing many good and true things, comes this : "Only word about his eccentricities, On one occasion be gave out as his text. ' Its dd hot,' and then proceeded to say that this was the remark he beard a young man say, on entering bis chapel, and thereupon he preached a sermon on blasphemy' , Now, in the fin-t place, there-is no. such text ; and, secondly, the same thing was at tributed to Mr. Beecher in 1851 while this writer was a student in the Seminary in New York City, Mr. Spurgeon never said such a thing. But much more serious is the statement of this same London correspondent in these words.- "Spurgeon was more ridiculed and abused during his life-time than most preach ers are. During the early part of his career, bis sermons on regeneration by baptism ex cited a world of opposition and censure, and. he was for many months attacked all along the line of established orthodoxy, hundreds of papers and ; pamphlets devoting them selves to the exposition of the current theo logical quack, as they were fond of calling him. - " ; Now, we may be mistaken, but we sub mit to the candid and intelligent reader that this statement is calculated to mislead and cause one to, think that Mr. Spurgeon was trying to prove the Scriptural truth of regen eration by baptism, especially when in the same article the London, correspondent de liberately . Bays : " He believed that unless you are baptized you will be damned.'' "There is to be no mitigation ox punish ment" The Post must have very cheap and unre liable men to write for Its columns, since every intelligent person must know that the Baptist churches of ' the world do not be lieve that "unless yeu are baptized you will be damned." but. ou the contrary, they hold and preach tb at baptism cornea after con-, version, and (hat. only regenerate persons, 6t those already saved by repentance and faith in Christ, are authorized by the Scrip tures to be baptized. , Salvation by faith must precede the ordinance, and therefore the ordinance cannot be saving; because the subject ' of baptism ' must be regarded . as saved by fiitb in Christ before the subject can be accepted by the church; for baptism. This is a great slander on Mr. Spurgeon. We -wi8h to oall special attention toJthis mif rep-. 3nd, and News and Obsemery Feb. 8rd, copies the article of the London correspondent of the Washington Pout, and ;thuB publishes in North Carolina what the ill informed and, careless correspondent of London chooses to f cribble. We were in London when Mr. Spurgeon preached and published bis scathr ing sermon against Baptismal Regeneration, as taught by the Episcopal . church of Eng land, or as it C tiled there, the estasblished church: - This sermon of Mr. Spurgeon was answered by over one thousand of the pul pits of the establishment, and this explains the correspondent's statement with regard to the censure and opposition by the clergy ministers of the establishment " be ; was for. months attacked all along the; line of tstablished (italics ours) orthodoxy. : . . ' One more correction. The London cor respondent has in his head lines '' The build ing of tbe Tabernacle and his secession from the Baptists." ,? Mr. Spurgeon lived and died a Baptist. He 'did not secede from the Bap-" tists. 4In October,; 1887," says the corre spondent ''Spurgeon withdrew from the Baptist Unlonrgiving' as his' reason, to pursue union at the expense of the truth is treason to Jesus ; to tamper with his doc trine is to become traitors, 7 to him... We have before ns the wretched spectacle of professedly orthodox christians publicly avowing union with those who deny the faith and deny the personality of the Holy Ghost'" The Baptist Union is not ah ecclesiastical body. It is a missionary society, like the Southern Baptist Convention. What would be thought of us if the Southern - Baptist Convention should receive delegates from churches who rejected the divinity of Chrht or denied the personality of the Holy Ghost ? The world and the Established Churches of State in Europe know nothing of tbe sepa rate, independent and sovereign constitution of the original gospel; churches, notwith-, standing their own Archbishop Whately's views to the contrary. The Metropolitan-' Tabernacle church, of which Mr. Spurgeon was pastor, is as much a true gospel church, -without any representative connection with the Baptist Union, as if it was represented in that Union. The correspondent is not to be blamed rperhaps for not . understanding our Baptist church polity even though it be.-., the New Testament polity. , , We rejoice in the fact that Mr. Spurgeon did not leave the world witbon t'-ccn vey ing to ns in express form bis belief or creed of -hia church and of himself, "which the corre spondent was thoughtful enough to embody . ; in his sensational account of this unequalled man, who really is cosmopolitan and belongs to all nationalities, creeds and centuries, as one of the Almighty's greatest gifts to the church of his Sou. .W"will reproduce it. Mr. Spurgeon,' not more than- six-months - -ago, in con junction witb-a large number of ministers, issued the following confession of faith:.,;., '" vi - ' : "We the undersigned, banded together in fraternalrnion,iobservin2iwith growing pain and sorrow, the loosening hold of many -upon the truths of Revelation, are constrain ed to avow our firmest belief in the veibal -inspiration of all- holy Scriptures as origi- j nally given. . ' 4 k " I . ' v ". To us, the Bible does not merely contain . the word, of God, but is the word of God. From beginning to end we accept it, and " continue to preach it v " ; 1 ' " To us; the Old t Testament is no less in spired than tbe New. The book is an or ganic whole. Reverence for the New Tes: lament, accompanied by scepticism as to the Old Testament, appears to us as absurd. The ? book la an ? organio whota Tbe two . must stand or fall together . , , : ; . ? . V We accept Christ's own verdict concern ing 'Moses and all the prophets' in prefer -. ence to any of the supposed discoveries of so called higher criticism. .We hold and maintain the truths generally known as 'the doctrines of grace.!v The electing love of, God the Father, tbe propitiatory and substi- -tutionary sacrifices of his Son Jesus Christ, regeneration by the Holy 5host, the impu tation of CL-Mst'a; righteousness, the justifi-" cation of the sinner (once for all) by faith, his walk in newness of life and growth in , grace by the active indwelling of the Holy Ghost, and the priestly intercession of ' the Lord Jesus, as also the hopeless perdition of all who reject the. Saviour according to the word of the Lord in Matt 25:46, 'These shall go away intoeternal punishment' These are, . in our judgment, revealed and fundamental truths. Our hope is tbe personal premu Ienial return of the Lord Jesus in glory.11 This is.no mean creed. It was intended,. doubtless, to meet the intimations of many, of Baptist and Pedobaptist views, which are now being aired in the ecclesiastical synods and other forms of ecclesiastical anthority. One thing the Baptist brotherhood of the world may coqnt on aj true, that bur people, the sect everywhere SDoken airainst intend to believe, teach and defend these views to the last and this is what Mr. Spurgeon did, from the first to the last, insist upon, and we also insist upon. ' i , ' Thomas E, fc'siNrri. There is no velvet so soft as a niT r s lap, no star so lovely as her smi!?, r o r so melodious as ner voice, no r- f - grant as the memory of ber love. 1 vidxm.
The Biblical Recorder (Raleigh, N.C.)
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Feb. 10, 1892, edition 1
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