ZION'S ADVOCATE 

February 1895

In accordance with repeated and earnest solicitations from brethren, and with impression, I believe, from the God of Israel, I left home Oct. 25th, 1894, and visited and tried to preach in Montgomery and Carroll counties, Md., Fairfax, Fauquier, Rappahannock, Page and Warren counties, Va., Fulton county, Pa., and Morgan county, W. Va., in the bounds of the Ketocton, Ebenezer, Juniata and Patterson's Creek Old School Baptist Associations; and I returned home Dec. 7th. I was everywhere most cordially received, and most kindly treated; and I had abundant evidence to feel that the Lord had sent me on my journey, to labor with some success, to teach, establish, and comfort His people, and thus afforded me fresh and clear proof at the time, that I was indeed His servant, and that those whom I addressed were His children.

On pages 912, 925, and 926 of the Church History, my father records the names of all these Associations in the tables of Primitive Baptist Associations; and on pages 916 to 920 I have given an extended account of the Ketocton Association, which is, after the Kehukee, the next oldest Primitive Baptist Association in the world. Few pages in the Church History are more interesting and satisfactory than these four pages. More sound and orderly Primitive Baptists I have never found than I did on this trip. Without fear or favor of man, they are contending earnestly for the faith once for all delivered unto the saints; and, like nine tenths of all the Primitive Baptists in the United States, they, with equal faithfulness, oppose the perversions of Jewish (Arminian) and Heathen (Speculative) Philosophy, by which Satan beguiles and corrupts the minds of even some of the people of God from the simplicity of the gospel of Christ (Jude 3; Acts xi. 1; Gal. iii. v.; Acts xx. 30; 2 Cor. xi. 3, 4; Colos. ii. 8; 2 Tim. ii. 17-26; 1 John iv. 1-3).

During my tour, I met and was very much pleased with Elders C. H. Waters (Gaithersburg, Md.), E. E. Oliver (Kenmore, Va.), J. K. Booton (Luray, Va.), J. A. Norton (Sperryville, Va.), T. S. Dalton (Stanleyton, Va.), W. T. Eaton (Elkton, Va.), T. N. Alderton (Great Cacapon, W. Va.), C. L. Funk (Needmore, Pa.), A. Mellott (Needmore, Pa.), and B. W. Powers (Slanesville, W. Va.); but I had the pleasure of hearing only Elders Waters and Dalton preach. The two latter are Moderators of the Ketocton and Ebenezer Associations, and are Editors of "Zion's Advocate," an excellent monthly periodical published at Stanleyton, Va. Eld. Waters has a fine female boarding school, is a skillful Physician, a noble and lovely man, and gifted and fearless defender of the doctrine of salvation by sovereign grace alone, showing no mercy to the errors of conditionalism. Eld. Dalton, a native of Tennessee, is one of the ablest Primitive Baptist debaters, and a strong and comforting preacher and writer, and as uncompromisingly opposed to conditionalism as is Eld. Waters. Eld. Booton has a valuable religious library, and a musical voice with which he leads his congregations in singing; though in his 72nd year, and lame from his youth, he still crosses the Blue Ridge Mountains four times a month in his buggy, attending his churches, riding east from 30 to 40 miles and back each trip, over a rough and lonely road, sometimes meeting snow-drifts twenty feet high; and he has suffered great persecution for his steafast adherence to the cause of eternal truth. I saw him baptize brother Abner Paine and his wife in the fellowship of Battle Run church. Eld. Norton moved from Texas to Virginia three years ago to serve destitute churches, and his labors are very acceptable. Eld. Eaton was brought out by the power of God from the errors of Lutheranism, and is highly esteemed. Eld. Alderton lives in the Great Cacapon Valley, in riding up which 13 miles, between the mountains of West Virginia, to the meeting-house of Enon church, I saw wild and romantic scenery, the rushing river, giant hills, and dark forests, and wheat farming on land sloping at an angle of about 70 degrees; and in this Old Baptist Valley, where no other denomination has a house of worship, the poor, simple and devout people of God love to gather in their rude meeting house, and to engage, like the Primitive saints, in the humble, heart felt service of God whom they love. The most delightful congregational singing that I heard on my trip was in this favored valley, where the voices were as sweet and clear as the pure air and water of their mountain homes, and the hymns which they were fondest of singing were those that tell of Jesus and Heaven. Eld. Alderton serves, with ability and faithfulness, churches hundreds of miles apart, and dearly loves to find and feed and gather into the fold, the scattered sheep of Christ.

I saw, on my tour, for the first time, the very sound and meritorious Ebenezer Selection of Hymns (sold by Mrs. J. G. Wiltshire, Front Royal, Va., and sent by mail for 80 cents, $1.25, and $1.90, according to binding). The collection occupies 668 pages, and contains some admirable hymns that I had never seen, of four of which I will give the first stanza:-

"Sweet the moments, rich the blessing,

Which before the cross I spend;

Life and health and peace possessing

From the sinner's dying Friend." -page 222.

"Beneath the sacred throne of God

I saw a river rise;

The streams were peace and pardoning blood

Descending from the skies." -page 394.

"Love was the great self-moving cause

From whence salvation came;

Free grace, the channel where it flows,

Eternally the same." -page 396.

"Now, in a song of grateful praise,

To my dear Lord my voice I'll raise,

With all His saints I'll join to tell,

Jesus hath done all things well." -page 522.

I was especially pleased with the Index of Scriptures (from Gen. to Rev.) unfolded in each hymn, and proving the truth of the sentiments of the hymns. I was glad to notice that the churches which I visited, not only had no new doctrines among them, but also used the same old tunes that we use and think unequalled in North Carolina.

On Nov. 20th I explored the Cave of Luray, near Luray, Page Co., Va., in company with a pleasant and competent guide, Mr. Smith, and Eld. J. K. Booton, Bro. John Grove, and Miss Burner from Ill. The Cave was discovered in 1878, and is one of the Natural Wonders of the world, not so immense as the Mammoth Cave of Kentucky, but containing more beautiful and varied limestone drip formations, in many shapes, sizes, and colors- marvellous works of the unseen Creative Hand. It is lighted by electricity, and is half a mile long, and in some places 300 feet wide, and 70 feet, 100 feet under ground. Some of the most striking formations are, the Flower Garden, Natural Bridge, Fish Market, Crystal Spring, Pluto's Chasm, Spectre, Saracen's Tent, Fallen Column, Cathedral, Organ (from which the sweetest music is elicited by the guide,) Tower of Babel, Cemetery, Giant's Hall, Madona and Child, Angel's Wing, Christ Blessing the Children, Empress Column, Castles on the Rhine, Lake Lethe, Wet Blanket, and Leaning Tower. Each male visitor has a tin candle-stand with three candles burning at once, and the guide has also magnesium wire which he burns at times to make a very brilliant light. The temperature is uniform and comfortable in both Winter and Summer. In very rainy seasons, explorers have to use a small boat to go about in the Cave. A house is built over the entrance, and steps and walls and balusters are arranged for the convenience of visitors.

In the libraries of Elders Booton and Dalton, I saw, for the first time, the first two full volumes of the Signs of the Times. In Vol. 1 No. 5, pages 70-72, Eld. Gilbert Beebe writes his first editorial on "The Absolute Predestination of All things." In this article he seems to make predestination but little if anything more than fore-knowledge, and he uses the sound scriptural word "suffered" in reference to the providence of God--which word, as I have repeatedly shown, occurs fourteen times in the original Scripture, sometimes in connection with the providence, and sometimes in connection with the predestination of God. In Vol. 2, No. 3 pages 33-35, Elder Samuel Trott (the most scholarly and able of all the early contributors to the Signs) says what I have often stated, with both my tongue and pen, that the literal meaning of the Greek word, pro-orizo, which is translated predestinate in the King James version, is to fore-bound, fore-limit; and, in accordance with this true meaning of the word, he gives the most able, correct, and unobjectionable statement of the doctrine of the "Absolute Predestination of All Things" that I have ever seen. He says:--"God exercises universal dominion over His creatures, --exercises control over wicked actions and thoughts to limit their extent, to over-rule their results in accordance with His purposes. The predestination of God determines the results, fixes the limits, and so controls the actions and devices of wicked men and devils as to cause them to terminate in the furtherence of His own glorious purposes." Thus, according to the plainest teachings of the Scriptures and of the Holy Spirit in our hearts, the origin of and instigation to sin are not at all to be ascribed to a Most Holy God, (which would be the most horrible blasphemy,) but to his rebellious creatures; while the limitation and over-ruling of sin for the furtherance of his glorious purposes are truthfully to be ascribed to God. This great and momentous truth, every Primitive Baptist and every Christian joyfully believes. If those who maintain the doctrine of the "Absolute Predestination of All Things" had always confined themselves to these original scriptural statements of the original advocates of that doctrine, there never would have been the confusion and division that have arisen among Primitive Baptists on this subject. Only by a return to the original scriptural ground can there be a return to gospel fellowship and union.

While on my tour, I spoke ten times in Maryland, thirty-five times in Northern Virginia, three times in Pennsylvania, and six times in West Virginia. Thus the most of my labors were in Northern Virginia, which was the leading battle ground of the Federal and Confederate Armies in the late Civil War, and which has been for 44 years, the battle ground of the so-called Beebeite and Clarkite Old School Baptists, whose strifes have, for 7 years, been complicated by the extreme development, bitter contention and ultimate separation of the so-called Smootites (Eternal vital Unionists) from the Beebeites, and of the so-called Burnamites (Means-ites) from the Clarkites. The two little opposite extremes (the first comprising two churches and fragments of one or two others, and the last comprising fragments of eight churches) having been thus sloughed off, there remains no sufficient reason why the great body of Primitive Baptists in Northern Virginia should continue at variance. As the two White Water Associations in Indiana, after a similar unhappy division of about fifty years, when they had been providentially ridden of the same bitter unscriptural extremes, returned to harmonious gospel fellowship in August 1893, so should the so-called Beebe and Clark Primitive Baptists, whom the Lord has now brought nearer together than they have been before in forty years, be similarly re-united. I am glad to know that the Old School Baptist church in Baltimore has always received the Clark brethren; and the Baltimore and the other Northeastern Old School Baptist Associations have nevertheless fellowshipped the Baltimore church. To promote the re-union of the Beebe and Clark Baptists on a scriptural basis was one of my chief objects in undertaking my recent tour, and in writing and publishing the present account of that tour. I unexpectedly found myself, on my trip called by a new name - a Beebeite; and wonder was expressed at my travelling and preaching among the Clarkites. I told my congregations that I was neither a Beebeite nor a Clarkite, a Smootite not a Burnamite; that we knew no such unscriptural, carnal divisions and names in North Carolina, where all Primitive Baptists are a unit in doctrine; that I came among them to preach the pure, simple, old fashioned gospel of Christ, without any human additions or subtractions, unadulterated by a spurious gospel of philosophy or a spurious gospel of legality (I Cor. 1: 23,24; II Cor. 11: 2-4; Colos. 2: 8; Gal. 1: 6-9) -the gospel as taught by prophets and apostles and Christ himself (so plain that a wayfaring man, though a fool, need not err therein. Isa. 35: 8; Luke 18: 17), and as received by all our Baptist fathers and by nine tenths of the Primitive Baptists of today -the gospel of the free, full, holy, almighty and everlasting salvation, in soul and body, of all the people of God, by the electing, redeeming and renewing love of the Father, Son and Spirit- the gospel that esteems every statement of the Scriptures as literally, spiritually and eternally true, and affords the strongest consolation to all the children of God, and ascribes to God alone all the glory of the salvation of his people. And I found that such preaching was just what the dear children of God delighted to hear- simple Bible truth, comforting the people of God and glorifying him alone.

Elder Gilbert Beebe of New York was born in 1800, and died in 1881; Elder John Clark of Virginia, was born in 1800 and died in 1882. Entering and leaving the world at almost the same time, and evincing by their long and devoted lives that they were objects of Divine love, it would seem highly unreasonable to doubt that in the heavenly world of perfect light and peace and love, their glorified spirits have now for many years been hymning in purest unison the praises of God and of the Lamb. Eld. Beebe started the Signs of the Times in 1832; and Eld. Clark, Zion's Advocate in 1854. Until 1850 Eld. Clark was a frequent and friendly correspondent of the Signs; and neither he nor Eld. Beebe ever departed from the principles of the Old School Baptist Address of the Black Rock Convention of 1832. But Eld. Clark noticed that there were published, in the Signs from 1849 to 1853, articles in which the writers, misled by certain misunderstood and misinterpreted passages of Scripture, and rationalizing or philosophizing upon the unfathomable mysteries of the Divine Nature, and incarnation, and election, and regeneration, said that Christ, as the Head and Life of his church, and as Mediator between God and man, was a creature of God; and that the spirit of life by which we are regenerated, is a creature (these expressions savoring strongly of Arianism); and that the church was eternally created in Christ, and is therefore as eternal as he; and that there is no change in the soul of man in regeneration (these expressions savoring strongly of Parkerite Two-Seedism) These gross heresies being carried by a few later speakers and writers into a denial of the immateriality and endless duration of the soul, the second bodily appearance of Christ on earth, the resurrection of the dead, the general judgement, and the everlasting punishment of the wicked. For the erroneous doctrines of the creatureship of the Son and the Spirit of God, and that there is no change in the soul in regeneration, the Ketocton Association in 1852, and the Ebenezer Association in 1853, very properly declared non-fellowship; and to combat such ruinous errors, Eld. Clark began, in 1854, the publication of Zion's Advocate. On pages 636 and 637 of the Church History, I have said:- "In regard to the charge of Arianism made against the first edition and some of the old correspondents of the 'Signs of the Times,' my father, who was personally acquainted with the parties, was fully satisfied that the charge arose from a misconstruction of the real views of the writers; while, at the same time, it must be admitted that some of the expressions of some of the writers were unguarded, ill advised, and unscriptural." From a careful examination of the Signs of the Times since its first publication to the present time, and a personal acquaintance with many of its leading contributors, I am perfectly assured that, while some of them 45 years ago very incorrectly understood and interpreted such Scriptures as I Cor. 15: 45; Eph. 2: 10; 4: 30; Colos. 1: 15, and Rev. 4: 14, no one of them ever meant to deny the eternal uncreated Divinity of the Son and the Spirit of God; and I do not suppose that anyone now in fellowship with the North-Eastern Old School Baptist Associations, believes that the Church is as uncreated and eternal as Christ, (only as he is her life), or maintains that there is no change in the soul in regeneration; and the most of the later unscriptural theories mentioned above are held, I am sure, as I have said many times, by only a few unsettled brethren, whom I rejoice to see the God of Israel is gradually but surely bringing back to the landmarks of eternal truth. The heresies, therefore, for which the Ketocton and Ebenezer Associations in 1852 and 1853 declared non-fellowship, do not now, if they ever did exist, in the North-Eastern Old School Baptist Associations; and the extreme and bitter expressions used by some in the Ketocton and Ebenezer ranks are now universally condemned by the members of those Associations; so that I can see no adequate reason for any further separation between the Ketocton and Ebenezer (and Patterson's Creek and Juniata) Associations on the one side and our North-Eastern Associations on the other. "What God hath joined together, let not man put asunder." - Math. 14: 6. "There should be no schism in the body" of Christ. -I Cor. 12: 25. "Now I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you; but that ye be perfectly joined together in the same mind, and in the same judgement." -I Cor. 1: 10. "A new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another." -John 13: 34-35. "Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word, that they all may be one, as Thou, Father, art in me, and I in Thee, that they also may be one in us, that the world may believe that Thou hast sent me." -John 17: 20-22. "We know that we have passed from death unto life because we love the brethren. He that loveth not his brother abideth in death. Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer; and ye know that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in him." "Brethren, let us love one another, for love is of God, and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God, for God is love." "If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar; for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen? And this commandment have we from him, that he who loveth God love his brother also." -I John 3: 14-15; 4: 7-8, 20-21. "And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity." - I Cor. 13:13.

Elder Wm. M. Smoot, of Occoquan, Va., used to make a yearly visit to my own church and other churches in the Kehukee Association, and we esteemed him dearly and highly as a minister of the gospel of Christ; and we mourn over what seems to us his carnal preference of consistency with former human philosophical error to consistency with Divine eternal scriptural truth, and the increasing bitterness (which demonstrates the erroneousness of the position) of the little faction that he has helped to lead away from the fellowship of ninety-nine one-hundredths of his brethren; and we would implore the God of Israel to give to him and those with him more of his enlightening, humbling and loving Spirit.

Eld. E. H. Burnam, a native of Kentucky, and a resident of Missouri, Mexico, Virginia and now of New Mexico and his very few followers should know that Primitive or Old School or Regular Baptists are no longer entitled to that name when they abandon the fundamental principle of John the first Baptist (the almighty spiritual power of God alone, Luke 1:15, 80; Matt. 3: 9, 11), and the distinctive principles of our fathers who in 1827 and afterwards declared non-fellowship for modern religious institutions, unknown in the Scriptures and for 1500 years after the birth of Christ, and invented in the 16th century by Papal Rome, and that it is the height of unwisdom for Old School Baptists to be taking up, at this late day, with these idols which the most intelligent Arminian advocates now pronounce "unmitigated evils;" and they should understand that no genuine Primitive Baptist is opposed to the proper study and teaching and dissemination of the Scriptures; and that God alone can give spriitual or eternal life to those dead in sin, and that only after such life has been given, can the written or preached word be of any spiritual benefit to the reader or hearer, and that such benefit to the reader or hearer, is a temporal one (John 1:12-13; 5: 25; 6: 63; 8: 47; 10: 27-30; 17: 2-3; I John 4:6; 5:1; I Cor. 13: 9-10); that the substitution of a few minutes a week religious instruction of children by an unrelated and incompetent Sunday School teacher for the daily and hourly training of children at home by their parents both by precept and example, especially when the Sunday School is made, as it is by many, a substitute also for the Holy Ghost, is thoroughly unscriptural, and has been and can be only pernicious; that the failure of so-called "Regular Baptist," Modern Missions, Sunday Schools and Periodicals, proves that they were not of God (Acts 5: 38-39; Neh. 4: 15; Job 5: 12; Psalm 33: 10-11; Isa. 7: 7; 8: 9-19; Matt. 15: 13); and finally that confusion, division, hatred and bitterness, brought in, by these unscriptural, idolatrous inventions and innovations, between the members of families, neighborhoods and churches, are the work, not of God, but of Satan. (Matt. 22: 37-40; Gal. 5: 19-26; I Cor. 14: 33; Eph. 4: 1-6, 15, 16, 30-32; I Pet. 2: 1-5; I John 4: 1, 7, 8, 20, 21; John 13: 34, 35; 17: 20, 21). May the Lord deliver all his people from the subtle and ruinous devices of the Devil, re-unite them all in love, and preserve them blameless unto his heavenly kingdom. (Gen. 3; II Cor. 2: 11; 11: 3, 4, 13-15; II Tim. 3: 6-9; Eph. 4: 15, 16; Rev. 21: 2; II Tim. 4:18; Jude 24: 25.)

Williamston, N. C.

Sylvester Hassell.

Dec. 18, 1894.