My friends, I do not intend to speak long at one time, perhaps not more than five or ten minutes, and will, therefore, come to the point at once: I maintain that baptism came into the room of circumcision; that the covenant on which the Jewish Church was built, and to which circumcision is the seal, is the same with the covenant on which the Christian Church is built, and to which baptism is the seal; that the Jews and the Christians are the same body politic under the same lawgiver and husband; hence the Jews were called the congregation of the Lord; and the bridegroom of the church says, “My love, my undefiled is one”—consequently the infants of believers have a right to baptism.
In response to this speech Mr. Campbell said that the pedobaptists acted as if they did not themselves believe infant baptism to be true, since, in point of fact, they did not put baptism in the room of circumcision, as they did not confine it to males only and extend it to servants as well as to children, perform it on the eighth day, etc.; and then proceeded to point out various differences between the two institutions which rendered the supposed substitution of the one for the other impossible. Among these he particularizes the fact that circumcision required only carnal descent from Abraham, but that baptism demanded faith in Christ as its indispensable prerequisite; and that baptism differed from circumcision in the nature of the blessings it conveyed, which were spiritual and not temporal: “Baptism is connected with the promise of the remission of sins and the gift of the Holy Spirit.” This utterance is his first public recognition of the importance of baptism. While he then distinctly perceived and asserted a scriptural connection between baptism and remission of sins, he seems at this time to have viewed it only in the light of an argument and to have but a faint conception of its great practical importance in the economy of grace.
As the discussion proceeded, all recognized that he was an invincible defender of what he believed the Scriptures taught. His whole training had fitted him for such an arena. His liberal education, his extensive reading, his wonderful memory, his faultless diction, his remarkable self-control, sustained as they were by deep earnestness of purpose, gave him at once a vantage ground which he never relinquished. But such was the originality of his method in handling the truth and his freedom from the accepted terms of the theological schools that even the victory, which was universally admitted to be with him, was not accepted by many of the Baptists as an unmixed blessing. The opportunities and issues of the debate were such as to convince Mr. Campbell of its practical utility in disseminating the truth and he gave the following challenge in his concluding speech.
I this day publish to all present that I feel disposed to meet any pedobaptist minister of any denomination, of good standing in his party, and I engage to prove in a debate with him, either orally or with the pen, that infant sprinkling is a human tradition and injurious to the well-being of society, religious and political.
Such a challenge was well calculated to make a deep impression on all who heard it, and this was what he designed it to do. In the frankness of his independent spirit he, from that time forward, held himself in readiness to meet in public discussion any worthy champion who might rise in opposition to the truths he taught, or in defense of popular religious error.
The effect of this discussion, however, was to aid Mr. Campbell’s growing reputation. His fame was widely extended by the publication of the debate, which was read by thousands, and began soon to produce results far beyond his fondest hopes. The printed debate circulated very widely among the Baptists, who felt that they had the best of the argument. While some Baptists “remained extremely dubious in regard to the orthodoxy of their champion,” others took grateful pride in him, and felt, as one Baptist declared, that “he had done more for the Baptists in the West than any other man.”
The printing and circulation of the debate opened the eyes of Mr. Campbell to the power and usefulness of the press. From that time forward he cherished the hope that he might do something upon a more extended scale to rouse the people from their spiritual lethargy. Step by step he had been brought to an eminence from which he could survey the wide field in which he was destined to labor, and he now nerved himself for the undertaking. After maturing his plans, he conferred with his father and others concerning the advisability of issuing a monthly publication in the interest of religious truth. They heartily approved his plan, and he issued in the spring of 1823 a prospectus for the work which he proposed to call “The Christian Baptist.” In this prospectus the nature and objects of the publication were candidly and clearly stated, as follows:
The “Christian Baptist” shall espouse the cause of no religious sect, excepting that ancient sect “called Christians first at Antioch.” Its sole object shall be the eviction of the truth and the exposing of error in doctrine and practice. The editor, acknowledging no standard of religious faith or works other than the Old and New Testament, and the latter as the only standard of the religion of Jesus Christ, will, intentionally at least, oppose nothing which it contains, and recommend nothing which it does not enjoin. Having no worldly interest at stake from the adoption or reprobation of any articles of faith or religious practice, having no gift nor religious emolument to blind his eyes or to pervert his judgment, he hopes to manifest that he is an impartial advocate of truth.
He dedicated the work “to all those, without distinction, who acknowledge the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to be a true revelation from God, and the New Testament as containing the religion of Jesus Christ; who, willing to have all religious tenets and practices tried by the divine Word, and who, feeling themselves in duty bound to search the Scripture for themselves in all matters of religion, are disposed to reject all doctrine and commandments of men, and to obey the truth, holding fast the faith once delivered to the saints.”