THE

MILLENNIAL HARBINGER,

NEW SERIES.

VOLUME III. -NUMBER VIII.

BETHANY, VA. AUGUST, 1839.

OUR NAME.

DISCIPLES-CHRISTIANS-REFORMERS-CAMPBELLITES.

WHAT shall we be called? is one question; and What shall men call us? is another. We are responsible for the first-our neighbors for the second. There is virtue, or there is vice-moral good, or moral evil on both sides. If we miscall ourselves, the sin is ours-it is theirs, if they do it.

We all agree that there is potency in a name. by names, both in a good and in a bad sense.

The world is ruled

If this be true, we

exert an influence, good or evil, by the name we wear, as we do by the character we form. It is of importance, then, that we be called what we are, as that we be what we are called.

That men should be called by their father's name is now a very common custom. It was not so from the beginning! It was not Mr. Adam and Mrs. Eve Adam. It was not Master Cain Adam, nor Abel Adam. Nor two thousand years after was it Mr. Abraham and Mrs. Abraham, nor Master Isaac Abraham. Nor a thousand years after was it Mr. David and Mrs. David, and Mr. Absalom David. Not even in the Christian era was it Mr. Zecharias and Mrs. Elizabeth Zecharias, nor Master John Zecharias. The custom is rather modern, and only prevails where polygamy and concubinage have been proscribed.

But that men should be called by their leaders-nations, by their founders and people, by their country, is almost as old as the Flood. Canaanites, Hebrews, Israelites, Egyptians, Arabians, Pythagoreans Platonists, Epicureans, Sadducees, &c. are monuments of this fac.But when fathers, and leaders, and founders became numerous, and names derived from them also multiplied and increased, men began to be called after some remarkable incident or tenet in their history. Thus came the Pharisees, the Stoics, the Academicians, &c. &c.

The Gentiles are fond of leaders; and, being proud of them, were called by them. The passion soon got into the church. Hence, as early as the first Gentile churches, there were some proud of Paul; others, of Apollos; and some, of Cephas. It was in vain that Paul protested against this schismatic spirit. The Corinthians, the Nicolaitans, Arians, Pelagians, Lutherans, Calvinists, Arminians, &c. &c. are proofs that the authority of the great Apostle has hitherto been inadequate to restrain the passion for popes and parties.

Call no man on earth Father, or Leader, or Master, is a positive precept. Under that flag we put to sea when we set sail from the moorings of sectarianism for the haven of ancient and primitive Christianity. When we drew up our Prospectus for our first publication, we headed it "The Christian;" and had it not been that we found ourselves anticipated we should have adhered to the title. I hesitated between the title “Baptist Christian” and “Christian Baptist,” and on suggesting my embarrassment to a friend, who has since given himself due credit for the hint, as an original idea; he thought the latter was a better passport into favor than either of the others. We never fully approved, but from expediency adopted it. Finding that our brethren were being called "Christian Baptists," we changed the title of our work when we enlarged it, designing it only to be the harbinger of better times, and not the insignia nor armorial of a new party.

The Lutherans, Calvinists, Arminians, judging us according to their standard, and weighing us in their balances, have nicknamed us "Campbellites." They wish us to take no precedence of them. They are proud of the livery they wear, and would have us to be like themselves the followers of a fallible earthly leader. But our Master forbids us to assume any such designation, as derogatory to him, to ourselves, and tending to schism.

Some would have us call ourselves Reformers, as if this word was specific of any thing. Like the word Protestant, it means nothing positive or definite, either in principle or in practice. There have been protestants and reformers, political, economical, ecclesiastic, and sacerdotal, times and ways without number. We are not reformed Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians, or any such things. Why, then, misrepresent ourselves? We may be reformed Baptists or reformed sinners, and yet a great way off Christians.

Some like the name "Bible Christians," as if there were Christians without the Bible; or Bible, and not Bible Christians. There are no Koran Christians. Hence Bible before Christian is like human before mun, or female before woman. A human man, a female woman, and a Bible Christian are ereatures of the same parentage.

I am a Baptist, a Presbyterian, an Episcopalian, a Congregationalist, a Methodist, a Catholic, in the proper unappropriated sense of these words. But not one of them, nor all of them, express my views, my profession, or my practice as a disciple of Christ. In other words, I am an immerser; I believe in a presbytery or eldership in every congregation, and in overseers of the flock. I regard every community as independent of every other in what concerns its own internal acts and regulations-I am methodical in my arrangements and proceedingsand Catholic in all my charities, as I am in the doctrine, morality, and piety of the gospel. But all of these terms do not fully nor perfectly represent my religious profession; therefore I would falsify if I chose any one of them, or all of them, as representative of my profession as a religious man.

We have, then, only to choose between two scriptural titles"Disciples" and "Christians." Of their respective claims upon our attention, next month.

A. C.

MORALITY OF CHRISTIANS-No. XVI.

SOME men would be the janitors of Pandemonium for a living. They would invent machines for cursing, perjury, and blasphemy, if they could find a ready market for them; and would flatter themselves that neither the inventor, nor the manufacturer, nor the vender, but the operator who uses them, is culpable. The exhalations of iniquity that rise from such hearts so becloud the understanding of men, that their own corrupt and corrupting interests are truth, and reason, and good sense; and the contrary of these are the only falsehoods they can appreciate. Oh! what pitchy darkness has sin thrown over the intellects of men! Many who once could have reasoned like angels, now reason as the demons of perdition. God has given over multitudes to a reprobate or undiscerning mind. The conscience, the understanding, the feelings, the affections of men, all-all are depraved by sinning. The understanding is blinded, the conscience is seared, the feelings are blunted, the affections are alienated from all beauty and loveliness by the same process of tampering with temptation, of habitually pressing upon the restraints of conscience and of moral feeling.

The man that reasons well on morality, not on one topic, but on all its branches, must himself be moral. He must be disinterested in all the dictates of reason, in all the verdicts of conscience; or, in other words, he must never think of excuses for himself: if he do, he is that

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instant bribed, and his reasonings are-one-sided, partial, and unjust.If a Judge should be free from bribes, that he may dispense evenhanded justice to those who stand before him, behooves it not that he that pronounces a just sentence upon his own actions, or forms a correct judgment of himself, be free from all moral obliquities, partialities, or leanings? Hence it is often necessary that we pursue the course of Nathan with King David, and bring the transgressor to pronounce sentence against himself in the person of another.

For such reasons as these we never expect to convince men of the falsehood of their reasonings in vindication of their illegal actions.There are too many eloquent attorneys in their hearts for one who stands without. Moreover, the whole court and jnry are on the side of the accused.

The other day, says Wm. Honestus, I met with two speculators, an old one and a young one. They were whip and spur traversing the country, purchasing from the farmers an important necessary of life. They were in possession of intelligence of an unexpected rise in the article. Two or three days only, and their information would be public property. Their three days of grace were the three days of ignorance of the community from which they were pocketing forty per cent. in every transaction. They knew that fortune now depended upon despatch, and they were so well acquainted with the community as to know who would stand to a bargain, or who would not, (of which latter class unfortunately for the speculators there was a majority.) They there fore had to post the more rapidly to catch the honorable men. They suceeded to a very considerable extent. Having heard the affair, I asked the gentlemen who were professors of Christ's religion, how this tallied with the golden precepts of the Messiah. The elder gentleman replied it was all fair play; it was the regular custom of the mercantile world—the law of trade. "Knowledge," said he, "is property, as well as power." "I paid for my foreknowledge, and this is the use I make of it. If I did not expect to turn it to good account, I should not have paid for it." "Very good," said the Moralist; "you purchase the means of taking advantages of your neighbors. You imply that you have it reduced to a system; and you act as from fixed principles, and justify yourself because you have paid for your know ledge. It has cost you something; and you must make it pay costs, and a little more, I presume."

So reasoned John Nimbletoe during the time of the continental money. Having heard one day that it was about being depreciated fifty per cent., and having a few thousand dollars on hand, he bought the swiftest horse he could find in the city and county of Philadelphia, and

over mountain and valley galloped to what was in those days called "the back woods." He was a whole week in advance of the news, and laid out all his money in lands at the selling price in sound currency.He paid the cash, had the lands legally transferred, and all things secured according to law, before any of the ensnared heard of the blow up. He paid for his knowledge; and besides he paid an extra sum for a fleet horse, and was at considerable expense of limb, muscle, and purse in the transaction. Did this justify his conduct? The young speoulator winced a little; and after a while muttered, "The cases are not just parallel;" while the old jockey said "it was all right; the money must decline in some one's hands, and he was a fool that would let it die in his, if he could shuffle it round and divide the loss. I would, however," continued he, “in such a case have given a generous price!" "The cases are not parallel, I repeat," said the younger of the two. "We paid good money for all our purchases." "Grant it," said Honestes; "but you did not pay enough of it; you knew that in a few days those honorable men would have asked, and they would have received forty per cent. more. Now where is the difference in effect? In the one case the farmers lost in the price of their land, fifty per cent: in the other, they lost in the produce forty per cent. The buyer in the former case made fifty-in the latter, forty per cent.

The difference is ten per cent. in the fact; but the principle in morality is the same. Now that a Christian who believes that his Master's rule is, 'Whatever you would that men should do to you, do you even so to them,' would seek to justify himself in such transactions, we regard as a strong proof how much reason, understanding, and conscience may be perverted and corrupted by dishonorable tamperings with temptation, or by yielding to the mandates of avarice, cupidity, or any other unhallowed passion. Furthermore, amongst those callings and professions which are either directly or indirectly contrary to the morality of Christianity, we feel strongly inclined to place that of the speculators, not in theology nor science, but in trade, commerce, and mercantile operations. Still, of speculators there are different classes, and much difference in the same class. Therefore, that this subject may be fully discussed, we shall in our next define A SPECULATOR, and show that there are merchants who are not speculators, and speculators that are not merchants.

A. C.

ENEMIES OF RELIGION.

RELIGION has no mortal enemy, save immorality and corruption. A man mast be degraded to the last degree before he can be completely divorced from it.Degcrando.