In The Third Number of the third volume of his Herald of the Future Age Dr. Thomas published two definitive articles: one he titled his “Confession and Abjuration,” and the other his “Declaration.” These articles, both datelined March 3, 1847, 150 years ago, have usually been regarded as marking the true beginning of the Christadelphians.
What caused Dr. Thomas to publish these watershed articles? Did he fully realize that by so doing he was severing all ties with the Campbellites, with whom he had been associated ever since his arrival in America in 1832? Was he then aware he was founding a new denomination? Before this time, Dr Thomas regarded himself as a dissident Campbellite Afterward, he and his followers recognized the distinctive features of his message, the inevitable result being the formation of a separate denomination. Consequently, his access to Campbellite congregations was largely eliminated and Dr. Thomas was forced to spread his message more widely by preaching to other groups, including Adventists in New Jersey and Millerites in upstate New York, followed by a prolonged preaching visit to the British Isles.
As we consider these questions on the 150th anniversary of the publication of the articles, we become more than ever convinced of the correctness of Dr. Thomas’ decision to separate from all other bodies, and are strengthened in our own decision to stand firm with him for the Truth!
Events Leading up to “Confession and Abjuration”
April 1839 An Anglo-Scotch Baptist writes an article on “The Hope of the Gospel,” published by English Campbellite James Wallis in Christian Messenger.
July 1845 Dr. Thomas reads this article, and republishes it in his Herald of the Future Age.
October 1846 Dr. Thomas lectures in New York on “Things of the Kingdom.”
February 1847 Campbellite preacher J.H. Jones writes critically in Protestant Unionist about Dr. Thomas’ visit to New York.
February 1847 Dr. Thomas reads review, realizes he is preaching anew gospel, and is baptized.
February 1847 Dr. Thomas publishes long article entitled, “The Two Hopes — The Hope of the World and The Hope of Israel;” the study reveals he is still an unbaptized man, and is rebaptized.
March 1847 Dr. Thomas publishes his “Confession and Abjuration” and “Declaration.”
July 1847 Dr. Thomas publishes his “Transition from Error to Truth,” detailing events leading up to baptism.
July 1847 Dr. Thomas goes on his first “Travels in the Truth” for five weeks; visits areas of Virginia, Maryland, and New York.
The events leading up to the publication of the main “turning point” (Dr Thomas’ own phrase) in the history of our denomination were, with one exception, compressed into a very short time span The one exception is the article, published in April 1839, by a so far unknown Anglo-Scotch Baptist, in an English Campbellite periodical called The Christian Messenger This was edited by James Wallis, who later became an implacable opponent of Dr Thomas when he went to the British Isles in 1848 – but that is another story.
In July, 1847, Dr Thomas wrote an article entitled “Transition from Error to the Truth,” some of which was extracted by Robert Roberts in his Dr Thomas, his Life and Works, where you can follow the above chain of events In the article, John Thomas made this statement “Does the reader inquire by what steps we were brought to the discovery of the Truth? Listen…” The initial impetus was his reading the article entitled “The Hope of the Gospel,” which drove Dr Thomas to the realization that the gospel could not be preached without including the setting up of a future kingdom on earth It was not, however, until a few months later that he was assailed for preaching such a message in New York, by a Campbellite preacher named J H Jones, that Dr Thomas realized this knowledge was essential prior to baptism This sudden perception must have struck him like a bolt of lightning Writing an article on the subject, entitled “The Two Hopes,” convinced Dr Thomas he needed to be rebaptized, and he was in February, 1847 He then published his “Confession and Abjuration” and “Declaration,” two separate articles in the issue of the Herald of the Future Age, March, 1847 You can find the article on “The Two Hopes” republished in The Faith in the Last Days, edited by John Carter in 1949, under the title “Momentous Truths” The Christadelphian Office published this book to note the centenary of Bro Thomas’ visit to the British Isles in 1848-50, which brought the saving truth to so many there
Dr. Thomas’ baptism
The well-known account of Dr Thomas’ baptism is given in Robert Roberts’ biography Instead, I quote the words of Dr Thomas, from his Herald of the Kingdom, 1853, p 18.
We were immersed a second time by one who had been re-immersed, and who declared to us he believed the gospel of the kingdom we desired to obey. We permitted him to do nothing but pronounce the words of Christ, and, having put us under the water to raise us up again. We confessed to God before we went down into the water and with our own voice called upon His name. We accepted neither prayer nor exhortation from him; but confined strictly to the act defined. It is certain, for many reasons, he will never dispense to us in any form or shape again. He is in the hands of Him who will deal with him according to his deeds: and there we will leave him, being well assured that whatever may become of him, truth will be vindicated, and malice put to shame.
It remains mysterious who this “baptizer” was The logical choice would be Richard Malone, at whose house Dr Thomas was staying, and who was a staunch supporter at the time However, it is clear by 1853 whoever baptized Dr Thomas had deserted him, and Richard Malone’s death is recorded as a believer m 1877 I am told, via one of his descendants, that he had five daughters, four of whom married brethren.
“Confession and Abjuration”
In this article, Dr Thomas first “abjured,” or renounced, his baptism by Walter Scott in Cincinnati in 1832, saying that “Because that men are ‘saved by the Hope,’ being ignorant in toto of that Hope, he was not saved by it, and therefore, while he writes this, must be in his sins, we should abjure the whole transaction” He then went on to “Confess” nine items, all related to preaching that baptism was invalid without a knowledge of the “true Gospel” The tenth item, to cause much controversy later, said “No man can hold this dogma, (of the existence of an immortal soul) and acceptably believe the Gospel of the kingdom of God and his Christ, we abjure it as a damnable heresy”
“Declaration”
In this statement, Dr Thomas identified seven important characteristics of Bible Truth as he then saw it
- The gospel was preached first to Abraham in the promise that his seed would become a great nation
- The same gospel was preached to Abraham’s descendants in Egypt and the Wilderness
- The generation of Joshua also received the message
- The Old Testament prophets, especially Daniel, amplified and made the content of the gospel more specific
- In turn, John the Baptist, Jesus, and the Apostles preached the gospel prior to Pentecost
- After Pentecost, the disciples and Paul preached a gospel that clearly consisted only of the “things concerning the name of Jesus Christ” and the “things concerning the Kingdom of God”
- The principal promise of the gospel is the “Hope of Life” and “Incorruptibility” in the Kingdom of God
In the same article, Dr Thomas presented five signs that he saw as characteristics of a “true believer”
- Belief that Jesus of Nazareth was the anointed King of Israel and the Son of the one living God
- Belief that according to God’s predestination, Jesus was crucified for believers’ sms, was buried, and rose from the dead
- Possessing the same mental disposition and mode of thinking that Abraham evidenced when he lived in hope of fulfillment of the promise of a great seed
- Being immersed as a sign of enlightenment
- Denying the present world because of the absolute hope of life in the kingdom after the second Advent
This declaration was to some extent the culmination of almost fifteen year’s striving to discover the “Truth” His realization of the importance of the “Truth” caused Dr Thomas to become even more zealous in his endeavor to spread his message, and his lecturing, writing, and travel all increased As Dr Thomas noted, “Without speculating on the consequences, we did the latter, (opt for re-baptism) and, if all the world forsake us, be it so, our confidence is in God alone”
The “Declaration” and our beliefs today
The “Declaration” of course forms only a part (although a crucial one) of the true message we as Christadelphians would now present to the world around us, and have so presented in an essentially unchanged form for 150 years True, Dr Thomas had not then come to a full grasp of the relationship between Christ and God, nor of the true nature of God – a topic that would have to wait for its fullest expression for the publication of Phanerosis in 1869 In fact, only a few months before publishing his “Declaration,” in October of 1846, Dr Thomas had analyzed the Creed of Alexander Campbell, his most bitter opponent among the Campbellites and gave it a “hearty assent” – even though it contained the conventional Trinitarian statement on God He immediately had second thoughts, writing “If the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit be ‘one in nature,’ are we to understand that the Father and the Spirit were once ‘of the seed of David,’ and now of a spiritual nature ‘by a resurrection from the Dead?’ Is the ‘Nature’ of the ‘Holy Spirit,’ through which the Father ‘raised up Jesus from the Dead,’ the same as the nature of Jesus?”
Thus did Dr Thomas begin to question the truth of the Trinity – as he also later did the nature of the Devil and Hell, the true nature of the sacrifice of Christ, and those other elements of the truth that form part of our own “Declaration”
(It might be noted in passing that there is no easy relationship between the volume and issue number of the Herald of the Future Age and the apparent date of publication Volume I was started in March, 1844, but Volume IV was not completed until April, 1850 Meanwhile, Volume III, Number 1, was apparently published in October, 1846, Number 4, which contained the declaration, m March, 1847, and Number 12 on the eve of Dr Thomas’ departure for England m May, 1848 Thus the whole of Volume IV was published during the absence of Dr Thomas in the British Isles It has confused many [including myself] that Dr Thomas wrote in the first volume of The Herald of the Kingdom and the Age to Come that he had published “eleven or twelve volumes of periodical numbers” He actually published four volumes of the Apostolic Advocate, one of the Investigator and four of the Herald of the Future Age Perhaps the missing volumes are the newspapers he edited in St Charles, Illinois )
Consequences of the events of early 1847
It is not clear Dr Thomas realized the inevitable results of his all too public “Confession and Abjuration” – or whether it would have made any difference to him if he had I rather think it did occur to him he was breaking most of his remaining ties with the Campbellites, although I do not think, given his nature, any mature reflection would have changed his course of action.
At this time, although Alexander Campbell had disassociated himself from Dr Thomas, the independent nature of the Campbellites had allowed many to let Dr Thomas address them freely And, at the time, Dr Thomas would associate with, and break bread with, any who would hear him This was all to change rapidly As word of his actions spread, fewer and fewer Campbellite Churches would let him preach, as we can discern by reading the accounts of his travels in the summer of 1847 This essentially forced him to appeal to the remaining Millerite congregations, who were left leaderless by the “Great Disappointment” of 1844, when the return of Jesus was so confidently predicted by William Miller Even this was not very successful, so we can say that it was at least partially because of the publication of his “Confession and Abjuration” that Dr Thomas decided to accept the standing invitation of his brother in England, Henry, and visit the British Isles (You might notice I say “British Isles” and not England His foremost success was actually m Scotland, which remained the center of the beginning group of followers of Dr Thomas m the British Isles for several decades )
Few Campbellite doors open
Although it is really another episode, one detail of the trouble Dr Thomas had m finding an audience m England and Scotland must be mentioned Even before Dr Thomas reached England, James Wallis noted his imminent arrival in his publication the British Millennial Harbinger, and quoted his article m which Dr Thomas, according to Wallis, “publicly abjured all connection with the churches of the Reformation (the Campbellites) m the United States” Although this is not what Dr Thomas did, it was only by the fortuitous fact that there was a rival Campbellite publication, the Gospel Banner, that Dr Thomas was heard among the Campbellites at all Even this did not last long, since Wallis took steps to bring about the Banner’s rum And to think it was the same James Wallis who had published the article on “The Hope of Israel” which started it all?
Conclusion
Dr Thomas, by publishing his “Confession and Abjuration” and “Declaration,” and getting re-baptized, came to a watershed m the development of his view of the Truth By so doing, it also marked the true origin, if any one single event did, of the body of our beliefs It was not the end of the development of our knowledge of the Truth, initiated by Dr Thomas and fully developed and codified by Robert Roberts But it was surely the end of the beginning No longer, after March of 1847, was Dr Thomas a Campbellite, dissident or otherwise It would take him a few more years to recognize the differences of his set of beliefs and to separate himself totally from his former colleagues But from March, 1847 on there was a body of “Christadelphians,” although the adoption of that name was another 17 years in the future.
The Origin of the Organic World – Part One