Memoir of Rev. Joseph Badger / Fourth Edition

by E. G. Holland

During the time of its publication at Rochester, Mr. Badger discharged jointly the duties of pastor and editor; and in the rural town of his after residence he did the same, being early and late in his office, often, as creditable testimony affirms, sixteen hours a day; and on Sunday, no sentence of his sermons was languid or weary. It is moderate to say, that his manifold resources were not exhausted by the different and various directions in which they were used.

In the closing number of Volume II, Mr. Badger expressed the opinion that the ground occupied by the Christians is a medium between the wide extremes which several sects have assumed. It is probable, indeed, that, were the two general positions of doctrinal orthodoxy and rationalistic reformers brought into contrast, it would be found that the position of this denomination is midway between the two extremes, having in it the evangelical element of inward salvation through Christ, and the operation of the Holy Spirit, and with it the rigid demands of reason in regard to the accordancy of theological statements with themselves, and with all known truth within and without. They discarded Socinianism and the mere religion of the intellect on the one hand, and, on the other, the unquestioning submission of the mind to the authority of time-honored and creed-embalmed opinion. Whilst they rejected the supreme and self-existent deity of Jesus as inconsistent with the eternal supremacy of Him whom Jesus worshipped, they revered the unmeasured presence of the high divinity that dwelt in him; and, whilst they denied the doctrine of arbitrary grace, they affirmed the full dependence of man on the direct agency of God, of his illuminating word and sanctifying spirit, for his salvation. They seemed to unite, to a large extent, the light of the reason on subjects of belief, with the most earnest piety and zeal for the salvation of sinners, regarding, in all discussions of sacred themes, the Scripture testimony as final and supreme.

The Christian Palladium, now at Union Mills, by the agreement of a general convention, representing different parts of the country, did not, as was contemplated, become a weekly paper, but a semi-monthly. In this form, Mr. Badger was its editor until May 1, 1839, making in all seven years' service in the editorial field. Though there had been and were several periodicals published under the auspices of the Christian denomination, the Christian Herald, of Portsmouth, N. H., the Gospel Luminary, of New York, the Christian Messenger, of Georgetown, Ky., and the Christian Banner, of Vermont, none ever wielded the influence, nor displayed the same continuous course of mental energy and interest, as did the Palladium, when under the control of Joseph Badger, its first editor; and perhaps we might, taking all things into view, add to this title the name creator and founder, for, though it sprung out of the necessities of the denomination, under the assistance of several minds, it was his laborious toil and managing genius that gave it permanence and successful progress.[51] We would not claim that Mr. Badger was free from editorial faults and errors; these he had; but, what is not small in the success of any person, he had the ability to make even his errors interesting and entertaining; nor were his truths ever dull or drowsy. His friends wanted to read what he had written from the magnetism common to friendship when it centres in an original man, and his opponents and enemies,—for he had not a few of this class,—would, from some other attraction, hasten to the perusal of his lines, as if they were impelled by a curiosity to know what would come next. I judge that friends and foes, on opening his newly-issued paper, were very much in the habit of first reading what he had written.

At the General Convention already spoken of, there originated, in the merging of many local interests into general, and especially in the importance ascribed to questions touching the general weal, the idea so often alluded to in Mr. Badger's editorials, under the name of "General Measures." By consent of all, his paper was the representative of the general interest, in contradistinction to whatever was local; and to overcome local prejudices was one of his determined aims. Among the methods he adopted to unite the east and the west in the bonds of a stronger amity, was that of inducing young ministers of talent in the west to locate in New England, and men of influence in New England to take western fields of labor. "I wish," said Mr. B., in May, 1835, to the writer of this memoir, "to get all the ministers I can in the west to settle in the east, and all the eastern ministers I can to settle in the west. In this way I can conquer the local prejudices."

"Religion without bigotry, zeal without fanaticism, liberty without licentiousness," are the words that blaze on the flag of Mr. Badger's editorial ship, which, though usually accustomed to peaceful cruising, was by necessity, at times, a man-of-war. In exposing imposition, in opposing formidable ability if arrayed against what he regarded as vital in religion, Mr. B. was very decided; and none who had to contend with him much or long, ever looked with indifference on his power to achieve his ends. His weapons of war were various; if they were not always polished with the finest logic, they were such as did execution and brought success. Satire, humor, wit, not unfrequently lent their aid to his controversial labors; yet it is difficult, it is even impossible, to find a single article in which these abound, that does not, when divested of those qualities, possess a sufficiency of substantial argument to render his position a strong one.

In glancing over these pages, of 1834-5-6, it is evident that the subjects discussed are those in which the feelings of the writers were strongly engaged. Education for all men and education for ministers was very independently vindicated, though the idea of the competency of schools to impart all the qualifications needed by a minister of salvation, was justly and strongly denied; instead of an entire human reliance, the minister was advised to remember his dependence on the Holy Spirit, whose office to illuminate the human mind beyond the teachings of man, and to purify the human heart beyond the power of earthly guardians, has never yet ceased on earth. Mr. Badger's writings show him to be a decided friend of general education, of the cultivation which science and literature impart. They declare him to be an active friend of this culture for young ministers, for it has not only the advocacy of his words, but of his deeds also. In June, 1839, he aided the introduction of a resolution at the Conferential Assemblage, held at Rock Stream, Yates County, N. Y., which called for the appointment of a number of persons to investigate the practicability and the propriety of establishing a literary institution in the State of New York, in which the common and higher branches of science should be taught, for the intent, as explained by the speakers who discussed the question, that young men who were to devote their lives to the ministry might, unembarrassed by the narrowness of a sectarian platform, secure to themselves the accomplishment of a good education; also, that the friend of liberal Christianity in the State and elsewhere might enjoy the same privilege. Beyond the benefit of the culture of science, he spoke cautiously, thinking it no benefit for a young man to learn and to drag after him through life, a dead, dogmatic system of theology. I remember to have heard him say on that occasion, "Let it not be thought that the end of this institution is to teach theology. We will make men, and let God make ministers." These were his words. It is well known that the movement at that time made resulted in the establishment of the Starkey Seminary, which, embosomed in the elegant scenery of the Seneca Lake, continues still to be active and prosperous. At Union Mills, he took no common pains to give influence and character to the Academy, which, under his encouragement, and the encouragement of a few others, had opened in that place. In 1844, he became one of the trustees and a member of the visiting committee of the Meadville Theological School, which offices he held until his death. But, perhaps, in some other place in this memoir, we may state more fully his ideas of ministerial education. It was indeed characteristic of his taste, the republication, in 1833, of Mason on Self-knowledge, and Blair on the Grave, which he so generally introduced among young ministers. Instead of giving them a dry bone of theology to pick, he handed them a live book to read, and "to place, for a season at least, next to their Bibles," in esteem, which was founded on the old Grecian text, "Know thyself."

But reverting back to the pages of the Palladium, we find that Mr. Badger, as editor, not only presided over, but took part, in a discussion on the subject of Divine or Spiritual Influence; a subject which, in those years, claimed attention from the somewhat successful agitation of Mr. A. Campbell's system of theology, in the west. Mr. C., from the commanding talents with which he advocated his positions, from the reputation he had gained as a controversialist,[52] and from the liberality of his new views in some respects and their originality in others, it happened that a large number of ministers and churches who belonged to the Christian denomination, in the west and south, together with a few minds so inclined in the Eastern and Middle States, began to look to Mr. Campbell as the light of the age—as a new spiritual Moses sent to lead Israel through his wilderness. It is not uncommon, indeed, for the uneducated to magnify the powers, and to assign undue consequence to an originally endowed and educated mind, especially when such a mind is possessed of eloquence and boldness, qualities that always impress strongly the mass of mankind. Many churches in Kentucky, and some in other States, embraced his views; nor can it be questioned that Mr. Campbell presented many truths, and in an attractive dress, to the people of the west.

In this system it was premised that divine influence reaches man wholly through the intellectual powers; that conversion is wholly from the force of knowledge and motive offered to the understanding; that the Holy Spirit which once inspired the ancients, never in these years directly reaches man as once it did; that God only penetrates the sinner by the agency of the word recorded in the Old and New Testaments; that it is only through these ancient words that the Eternal Spirit works upon the world's darkness and degradation. To these ideas we may add two others, which are, that there is no divine call to the ministry; that in or through the act of water baptism, in the form of immersion, sins are remitted. Whilst Mr. Badger and his associates agreed with Mr. C. in reverence for the Scriptures, in the free investigation of sacred themes, and in the rejection of human creeds as tests of fellowship, ideas in whose conception and utterance they were many years his seniors and predecessors in the field of theological reform, they took religious experience as their basis, affirmed the free present agency of the Holy Spirit in the world, man's free access to God, and the forgiveness of sins on the conditions of faith and repentance, previous to, and independent of, the outward baptismal rite. Without attempting to enter upon theological investigation, that being foreign to our purpose, we would say, that we seem to deny that God is a sun, we impair the force of his eternal rays, by obliging him to shine forever upon the world exclusively through the atmosphere of ancient Palestine. The sun pours out each day afresh. So is God a sun, radiating for all men, not through the ancient word-medium exclusively, but through many media. His deeds certainly ought to be as expressive of his spirit as his words; and are not creation and providence full of his deeds? God governs the material universe not by ancient but by present agency and action. Let this fact stand as the type of his manner of ruling and blessing in the universe of moral and intellectual being; for it renders no injustice to the past, since the condition of both nature and spirit in this nineteenth century holds its lawful and inviolable connection with all the past eras and epochs that either nature or spirit have known. What is religion worth if it opens no fresh and living communication with Heaven? Is there nothing but a word-ligament to unite the living soul with its living God? Is the Holy Spirit a retired agent, no longer mindful of his ancient offices? Are his abilities lost? Are there no fresh inspirations of holiness and truth?

Mr. Badger's remarks on the word-theory of Mr. Campbell are various; sometimes one or two paragraphs only, sometimes several columns are employed. Though these are not thrown into systematic argument, they were pointed and effective, and through them all, one idea is prominent, that religion of the inward life, that a true religious experience, are opposed to a system so intellectually speculative, and which tends to chill and discourage faith in a free access to God, and in his direct holy influences on the soul. This idea, based in experience, was his principal reliance.