DEAR BRETHREN: Having been selected by you to write the circular letter for this year, I thought perhaps a synopsis of the HISTORY OF THE CHURCH OF THE LIVING GOD, as it is termed by the Apostle writing to Timothy (1st Tim. 3:15) from the days of its establishment to the present, could not fail to be of much interest to all. We understand, by the reading of Math. 20:11, 16, that upon the rock of the knowledge of His divine Sonship, He was going to build His church, and the gates of hell should not prevail against it; and by reading Math. 28:15 to 17, we will find the church at this time was established. The church here spoken of and afterward referred to, was a new institution and not a continuation of any thing previously existed, that its rules, regulations and practices were all new and peculiar to its self. It is the called out, the body of which is the head, Col. 1:18. The house of Christ, Heb. 3:6. Now every house is builded by some one and He that buildeth all things is God, Heb. 3:1. He (Christ) is the apostle and high priest of our profession. Now Webster says an apostle is one sent forth or deputed to execute some important business. That for which Jesus came was to establish His church or which is synonymous to set up his visible kingdom, as was predicted by Daniel 2:44. That kingdom which the God of heaven was to set up which should never end nor be destroyed. "And the angel said unto Mary, thou shalt call his name Jesus and he shall reign, and of his kingdom there shall be no end," Luke 1:30 to 33.
"The Law and the Prophets were until John; since that time the kingdom of heaven is preached" - Luke 16:16. This John did - Math. 3:2 - and Jesus also - Math. 4:17 - this he did because the old government was faulty - Heb. 8:7 - and he was mediator of a better covenant, on better promises - v. 6 - a new one - v. 7 - the old decayed and was ready to vanish away when the new come in - v. 13. John did not establish the church or set up the kingdom, but he CAME INTO WATER BAPTIZING to make the coming of Jesus manifest to Israel - John 1:31 - and to make ready a people for the Lord when he did come - Luke 1:17, and all that believed and repented were baptized - Acts 19:4 - but those that did not believe and repent he refused to baptize although they demanded it - Math. 3:7 and 8.- and by their non compliance with the conditions upon which the baptism of water was administered they excluded themselves from the privileges of the gospel kingdom - Luke 7:30. John having prepared a people for the Lord, the reign of the dispensation of the law and the prophets being terminated a new dispensation of grace was begun - Mark 1:1 to 5. John was cast into prison and Jesus began His ministry and preached faith and repentance in Mark 1:14 and 15; those that became His disciples forsook all and followed Him, and rendered themselves in perfect obedience to all His demands - Math. 11:37. And thus His kingdom was set up, and on His departure He commissioned His chosen to preach the gospel of His kingdom and command them to baptize all that would become followers of Him as they had - Math. 28:17 and work 16:16-And we find His disciples followed His directions - Acts 2:41. The law was to go forth out of Zion and preach the word of the Lord from Jerusalem - Micah 4:2. Thus this church became the mother church, and the arbitrator in spiritual affairs and by it the churches were established and through the wisdom of its inspired teachers they were given certain decrees for to keep - Acts 16:4, 5. Those decrees constituted their rule of action, their faith and practice - 1st Thes. 2:14. And as the apostles went preaching the kingdom of the Redeemer they declared all the counsel of God and fed the church over which the Holy Ghost had made them overseers - Acts 20:27, 28. And they were all made to drink of one spirit and by that one spirit were all baptized in to one body -1st Cor. 13:13. And God set apart some in the church for special work - 1st Apostles 2d Prophets 2dly teachers, etc., - 1st Cor. 12:28; thus the church was built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets Jesus Christ himself being the cornerstone in whom all the building fitly framed together groweth into a holy temple in the Lord in whom ye are also builded together for an habitation of God through the spirit - Eph. 2:20 to 22. But as was predicted, false teachers came, and brought in many false doctrines and heresies and many have followed their pernicious ways by the reason of which the way of truth was and is evil spoken of - 2d Peter 2:1, 2. In that the ordinances as delivered unto us and kept by us are by them derided and said to be indecent. These false teachers perverted the Gospel of Christ - Gal. 1:7, and changed the truth of God into a lie - Rom. 1:25, and changed the laws as was foreshown by Daniel 2:25. Not only thus transgressed the laws of the kingdom of the redeemer, but changed the ordinances, and thereby broke the everlasting covenant - Isa. 29:5. But notwithstanding this there was a remnant according to the election of grace who did not bow their knee to Baal - Rom. 11:4, 5. This remnant constitutes THE CHURCH, which He had saved and washed in His own blood - Rev. 1:5. This church was His wife - Rev. 19:7, 8. This is the woman that is clothed with the sun and the moon under her feet and that hath upon her head a crown of twelve stars - Rev. 12:1. She has been pursued by the great red dragon - Rev. 12:4; but she fled into the wilderness where she had a place prepared of God, ibid. 6 v. this refuge they found in early times among the mountains and valleys of the Alps - Gibbons Hist. Vol. 1, p. 317. They found homes (though they dwelt in dens and caves of the earth) in Asia, Africa, and Europe, especially in France, Italy, Germany and Spain, and in Wales from the year A.D. 63 to the present time. She has ever stood on sea of glass (word of God) and by that word they have ever been kept and through their testimonies and the blood of the lamb they have overcome and gained the victory over the beast (the devil) and over his image (the church of Rome) and over his mark (that church's ordinances) and over the number of his name - Rev. 13:18, and they have the harps of God. And they sing the songs of Moses and the Lamb - Rev. 15:2, 3. Their faith and practice has ever been the same, receiving into their fellowship only such as have faith in the Lord Jesus Christ as the savior of all them that trust in Him, and turn away from a worldly curse and to God with unfeigned love and contrition, and are dipped in water in the name of the Trinity, associated together they make independent bodies. They had no presbyters or episcopacies, had no officers but deacons and pastors, or bishops. Rejected infant baptism and the observance of holy days, and because of these things as was revealed to John in Rev. 13:15, 16 and 17, they have been persecuted and put to death by the millions; they have been stigmatized and have been called by all kinds of names, such as Mountaineers, Noveations, Donatianists, Numedians, Dissenters, Publicans and Ana-Baptists, or Re-Baptizers, from which they have taken their present names the Baptists. They are they that are born again by the word of God that liveth and abideth for ever. They have kept that word; have been slain for that word, and for the testimony which they held, and these souls were under the alter of God - Rev. 6:9. But because they would not worship the beast or his image, neither would receive his mark, they shall live and reign with Jesus a thousand years - Rev. 20:4. This is the first resurrection, on such the second death shall have no power.
Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection. ================== [Eastern Baptist Association of California and Oregon, 1885. Document was re-typed by Robert Cullifer, Folsom, CA and used with permission. Scanned and formatted by Jim Duvall.]
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