There is no question in regard to Graves' influence over hundreds of thousands of men and women of intelligence -- an influence which still remains, at least to a great extent. That there was a power in the man, -- a power that rallied around him such men as Pendleton and Crawford, and Dayton -- men of master minds and general scholarship, is admitted by those who feared him while living and misrepresented him when dead. Whence that power? How is that wide-spread influence to be accounted for?
To answer this we must revert to his natural abilities, his keen insight, his oratorical gift, his force of character; but above all, and concentrating all, it was his earnest sincerity, his intense faith. He believed. To him there was nothing in theories. He wanted facts, not painted mists and carefully woven cobwebs. All is real, present, visible. The atoning work of Christ, the center of all faith, of all doctrines, of all ordinances, of all service. He looked on church hierarchies, on an universal church, and the sprinkling of a few drops of water on an unconscious infant's face as baptism, as counterfeits, shams, unfounded falsehoods, and he attacked them with a soul aflame, with zeal which admitted no compromise and knew no pause. As was said of Chalmers "it was morally impossible for him to have been a skeptic; he would have forced his way to conscientious and hearty action or sunk into madness and the grave." Doubt was to him agony. He felt it to be the negation of all work and he struggled towards truth as a giant might struggle through flames to his dearest treasure.
This intensity led to extremes both in conception and language, causing, we may say, an overflow which sometimes was not for good. This has been the force, and perhaps the fault of all great warriors, thinkers and leaders -- defined "a force of madness in the hand of reason" -- a soul wrapped, filled, inspired, with the consciousness of a mission and a message. A flaming wheel on a burning axle.
To measure such a heroic soul with the soft-stepping delineator of "hidden virtues" and "human progress" and general indifference to the truths of the gospel; to weight such a man's words in the scales of a nicely balanced logic, and draw inferences contrary to all he believed and taught, is like measuring the winds with a yard stick, or charging some star with the sorrows of one's destiny, or blaming the light of the moon for the failing of a potato crop.
GRAVES AS A REVIVALIST
Carlyle has said with his own powerful emphasis that the faculties which make a man a great poet would fit him for any other work -- philosopher, actor, or statesman -- were those facilities so directed . The intensity of Graves' mind, and his ability to concentrate all his powers on a subject that interested him, would have made him a success in any field of labor. That the ardent, fearless controversialist who could give blows and take them with titanic power and endurance should be a winner of souls gently leading to the cross of Christ seemed improbable. But in the very midst of his fierce conflict with McFerrin and the Methodists of Nashville where he was writing those letters to Bishop Soule, which were afterwards published under the title of "The Great Iron Wheel," he conducted evangelic meetings with blessed results. Rev. Joseph Borum wrote for Cathcart's Encyclopedia: "The writer was with him on one occasion in Brownsville, Tennessee, in 1849, where more than seventy persons, including the first men and women in the town, found the Savior. His arguments, illustrations, and appeals were the most powerful he (Borum) ever heard. Before he was thirty years, over 1,300 persons had professed religion in special meetings which he held."
Up to this time Graves and Pendleton were but little acquainted. Though the latter lived at Bowling Green, Kentucky, not very far from Nashville. He had never sought Graves' acquaintance. The church at Bowling Green was small; the house was unsightly and incommodious, and the great theologian and deeply pious man lamented the meager fruits of his ministry. But he was sowing the seed -- drilling it in the very hearts of the community.
This calm, logical, slow moving man, influenced by his deacons, invited the fiery controversialist to assist him in a protracted meeting. Graves came. The church was awakened. The whole community was aroused. New born souls lifted up their voices in joyous gratitude. Nearly one hundred were added to the church and about as many to the other denominations in the town. Graves followed this up by visits to other places in that part of Kentucky -- sometimes preaching on the distinctive doctrines held by the Baptists then to the sleeping church members, and appealing to sinners -- and in every case with success. The fact is as, stated to us recently by the venerable Dr. B. T. Blewett, "It was like a cyclone. His influence among the churches swept all before it."
This was the beginning of the friendship between Graves and Pendleton -- which, notwithstanding some differences, lasted through their lives. During that wonderful meeting at Bowling Green the conservative Pendleton was led by the arguments and (to some extent, at least) personal influence of Graves to adopt the latter's view of nonintercourse with pedobaptist preachers. The tract, "The Old Land-Mark Reset," was planned, and soon afterward published -- of which more hereafter.
The wide-spread influence of Graves at this time, his power as a leader and preacher may be seen, partially, at least by this reminiscence.
In 1854 the Bethel Association met at Russellville, Ky. The writer, then editor of the Western Recorder, was present. It was in those days the largest and the wealthiest association in that great Baptist State. The gathering was grand. It was known that J. R. Graves was to be there. When the association met and his absence was known, a general inquiry passed from messenger to messenger as to the cause. The second day he made his appearance. He was received with a hearty welcome, and smiles lit up all faces. He was the guest of George W. Norton, whose name is identified with Baptist history.
Dr. B. T. Blewett was president of Bethel College, and the messengers were invited to be present at its opening morning services. The large hall was crowded and Graves, by special invitation addressed the students. He had a blackboard placed near him. He asked with searching emphasis. "What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul." He drew an equation on the blackboard in algebraic form; explained it; worked it out, we might say. Then in fervent words urged upon the young to seek the salvation of their soul. "Their impression," said Dr. Blewett recently, "of that address is fresh to me and abiding after forty-six years."
He preached on Sunday morning to an immense audience. His text was, "Lifting up their eyes they saw no man save Jesus only." It was a grand exhibition of Christ as the only refuge of the sinner. The writer preached to the same great audience at night on "Repent and be converted that your sins may be blotted out," the main point being to show that remission and salvation preceded all outward act or ordinance. The sermons harmonized -- both showing that salvation was not based on church or baptism. Such accusation at that time no man of self-respect would have intimated. It would have been an audacious falsehood. It is so still.
On through his arduous and ever busy life, he continued to hold such meetings, and his last years, of which we shall speak farther on, were devoted mainly to the same work. The tree may change in height and measure, its leaves may fall and be renewed, changes may pass over it, giving it new aspects, but it is the same tree. Its roots, its sap, its character, its fruitage remain the same. And Graves in his paralyzed condition of almost infantile helplessness was the same man that waken up Nashville and indeed the whole South fifty years go.
We now turn to some things that need explanation, and we are glad that explanation can be given in his own words.
HIS VIEWS OF THE KINGDOM
It was this realism which led him to adopt peculiar views of the Kingdom of Christ.
It is said he was the first to teach that the kingdom was the aggregate of churches, or in other words, that the churches composed "the organic Kingdom" -- to use the ridiculous phrase of some extreme writers.
Dr. J. L. Reynolds, in a most excellent treatise on church polity published in 1846, entitled it, "THE KINGDOM OF CHRIST," and even Hiscox in his Baptist Directory says, "a church constitutes a kind of spiritual kingdom in this world but not of the world, whose king is Christ, whose law is His word; whose institutions are His ordinances, whose duty is his service, whose reward is his blessing." Here it will be seen, the church or churches and the Kingdom are identified. But more fully.
Dr. A. P. Williams wrote -- "It is by faith and baptism that we enter His Kingdom. The eunuch from the moment of his baptism belonged to the Kingdom of Christ."
"Any one belonging to the Kingdom of Christ is eligible to membership in any of His churches. But in order to become a member, the consent both of himself and of the other church is necessary." -- (The Lord's Supper, p. 92.)
These were the words of one of the clearest thinkers amongst the Baptists of his day -- the author of CAMBPELLISM EXAMINED, -- pronounced by Dr. Jeter{:} "The end of controversy on that subject."
He believed and taught that a church is an integral portion of the Kingdom; and then that by baptism we enter the Kingdom -- giving the eunuch as an example. So that an unbaptized person is not in the Kingdom. But now if being in the Kingdom is essential to salvation, then baptism is essential to salvation, and if a church is an integral portion of the Kingdom, then membership in a gospel church is essential to salvation, such are the unfair inferences which might be drawn from this writer's words -- conclusions or dogmas which be condemned and opposed with all the force of his great mind, as few men did.
His views of the kingdom were incorrect (to our mind) but such inferences as we have named, drawn from them and attributed to him as his belief, would be so evidently unfair, that they seem stamped with willful falsification and deserve condemnation.
GRAVES' DENUNCIATION OF BAPTISMAL OR CHURCH SALVATION
(A MANUSCRIPT LETTER.)
A proclaimer of the Current Reformation in attempting to prove that baptism is a spiritual birth, had quoted J. R. Graves, as teaching that born of water meant baptism, and that according to this view, as there was no salvation outside the kingdom there could be no salvation without baptism and church membership.
G. W. Hatcher, now pastor of the Baptist church in Columbia, Mo., wrote at once to Graves giving the words of the disciple preacher. Here is Graves' reply: "It was never before published, and is set up from his manuscript." "DEAR BROTHER.
My position touching Jno. 3:5 briefly is this: Nicodemus, a natural man, is desirous to know the qualifications requisite for citizenship in Messiah's kingdom -- which at that time consisted of his one visible church. The Savior gave him the information sought, viz.: He must be qualified to see, -- i.e., idealize. Comprehend His Kingdom first -- and this done by spiritual discernment only -- for all that appertained to His kingdom was spiritual, viz., its doctrine, its membership -- its mission. He must be a spiritual man to understand spirit things, and this is gained only by a spiritual birth. It was necessary further to be born of the Spirit -- i.e., undergo that moral change wrought by the spirit which is expressed by the figurative expression "born from above" -- of the Spirit. He must be a new creature in Christ Jesus before he can comprehend the nature of the kingdom as the duties or responsibilities he takes upon himself in becoming a citizen of it. He must be a saved man before he is qualified for the rite that places him within the Kingdom -- a member of the Spiritual family of Abraham.
To enter the Kingdom he must enter some local church -- since the Kingdom is composed of all the existing local churches, as the United States is of all the 38 States. The church is, and can be, entered only by baptism -- 1 Cor. 12 -- added to Christ's statement here his position (the Campbellite preacher's) is an unfounded assumption. -- No salvation out of the Kingdom. Salvation is the precedent qualification for the Kingdom. All who enter must be saved outside. Only the saved were added to the church. Acts 2d, last clause, NONE BUT THE SAVED CAN BE SCRIPTUALLY ADDED. We are, must be, dead -- dead to sin before we are buried with Christ by baptism -- Rom. 6.
The sophism of Ritualists touching Gal. 3:5, is their claim that the Kingdom of heaven is ultimate glory. It is not, but a visible organization on this earth -- see V. 6. Christ had not alluded to anything in heaven as yet but something on the earth -- his church organization which is here considered as His kingdom. Since having but one church, they were one, and the same spiritual regeneration, precedes any overt act of the creature -- and this to enable him to see -- i.e., comprehend, understand the nature and duties of it, but added to his -- and that is the force of "and" -- baptism is necessary to enable one to enter his Kingdom. Translate thus -- except one be born of water in addition to being born of the Spirit he cannot become a member of My church, or a citizen of My kingdom. I want no stronger text to overthrow Campbellism. I write currente calomo, being in great haste preparing to depart West.
Yours truly,
J. R. Graves"
We differ with him on his definition of the kingdom, the kingdom of heaven, of Christ, of God, is his king -- dominion -- his reign. We never think or speak of Christ's dying for the kingdom, of saving the kingdom.
The kingdom is his dealing with man and man's relation to him. This is not the place to enter upon a discussion of this question. It is sufficient to say that Jesus spoke to Nicodemus of the reign of Christ, the reign of grace, which, unless any one is born of the Spirit, he cannot see or enter, and that neither baptism nor church was meant -- neither of which was supposed to be known to Nicodemus.
But to draw the inference from this mistaken view of the kingdom that none outside a Baptist church could be saved is as illogical as untrue. It is just what Dr. McFerrin did in his attacks on Howell and Graves in regard to infant damnation.
His logic was: Infants are born in original sin. Baptism removes this sin. Baptists do not baptize them. Therefore Baptists assign them to perdition.
But Baptists deny that baptism removes original sin or has anything to do with infant salvation. McFerrin thrust in his view of baptism and from this view his conclusion was drawn.
The equally false charge that "Dr. Graves maintained that none can be saved except members of a Baptist church," is deserving of the severest censure.
The general (and, we think, the Scriptural) view of the Kingdom is that it is eternal life -- a spiritual relation to Christ, the soul's security and salvation. Now, assuming that Graves held this view of the Kingdom -- assuming it, and, indeed, asserting it, notwithstanding Graves' well-known different conception of its nature, he has been charged with a heresy abhorrent to his very soul, and antagonistic to his life-long teachings.
"Dr. Graves asserts," says a well-known Baptist historian, "that only a Baptist church can be an integral of the Kingdom." "Therefore none but a member of a Baptist church can be saved." Here this historian gives his own and the general view of the Kingdom (eternal life) as Graves' view of it, which is false. He then draws from this rejected, this false statement, the conclusion that Graves held and taught that there was no salvation outside of a Baptist church.
Graves constantly, and in the very language of his, quoted by this historian, denied that the Kingdom meant that; denied with all the force that was in him, that entering into the Kingdom was life, or that being in it was essential to salvation. He affirmed in the very words quoted to prove that he held there was no salvation outside a Baptist church, that church and Kingdom were external and organic, and that justification by faith, spiritual life, was an essential pre-requisite to entrance into church or Kingdom, and without this spiritual life and salvation the person received into a Baptist church, or into the Kingdom, was either a deceiver or deceived.
The fact that this was Graves' conviction or theory and his teaching, is stamped upon all he ever wrote. It is patent. It could not have been ignorance or misconception which led to the glaring misrepresentation. What was it?
Graves' theory was that the Kingdom was composed of churches (he had no use for the term local, as there could be no other church) and that a credible profession of faith, pardon, salvation must precede entrance into a church and hence must precede entrance into the Kingdom, and consequently that being in the church or kingdom or not being in it, had nothing in itself to do with the soul's salvation.
Here him in regard to baptism as a seal -- as something that imparted or assured pardon and salvation.
"But baptism is not God's seal to the new covenant -- not a seal at all. He never thus intrusted {sic} the souls of his creatures to the hands of men however pious -- for the most pious are fallible. The great God trusts His souls to no finite man or angel. The logical consequences of the above teaching [baptism essential to salvation] is that no unbaptized person is regenerated or saved."
"I have no language in which to express my utter abhorrence to, and repudiation of these popish doctrines of sacramental efficacy and ritual regeneration and salvation." -- Iron Wheel, p. 415.
Commenting on the word of Jesus -- he that believeth hath eternal life -- he says: -- "This means [that] the moment one truly believes on Christ he passes from a state of death unto life that is everlasting life -- from a state of condemnation to a state of justification -- such an one must be a saved man the moment he believes." "Saved for ever and ever" (Ibid. 516). And yet, in the face of those emphatic, unmistakable and wide-spread affirmations, salvation by grace, through faith only, these forceful denunciations of baptismal or church salvation in anyway or measure, in the face of all this, it has been written, by a leader, teacher and Baptist historian, that,
"According to Dr. Graves, it matters little if Christ has cleansed a man from sin and bestowed upon him pardoning grace, for he cannot enter the Kingdom of God, where alone salvation is found, except by entering a visible local church" (Baptist Argus, July 13, 1899).
That is{:} Graves held and taught that "The kingdom of God is WHERE ALONE SALVATION IS FOUND, and that this salvation cannot be found EXCEPT BY ENTERING A VISIBLE CHURCH.
We apply no approbrious epithets to these willful and seemingly malicious misrepresentations; but we know from the personal intimacy of years, we know, as all who have read them must know from his voluminous writings, and thousands who have heard him lecture and preach, know that his long and laborious public life was spent in combatting {sic} that very thing -- sacramental salvation -- and in proclaiming justification once and forever by grace through faith, with no intervening or impeding ordinance, church, or ought else under the heavens.
Nor indeed, have we, in our large acquaintance with Baptists after fifty years of public labor among them, ever known one of them to hold the Romish error attributed to Graves --- except the historian above quoted, who has avowed that he held that "damnable heresy" when he was ordained.
No! Baptists have through all the ages of their stormy history lifted up their voices above the wild winds of priestly errors in solemn, fearless, unmistakable protest, against this sacradotalism, and denounced it as opposed to the gospel, as insulting to God, and a death-trap to souls, and piercing, continuous, and trumpet-toned as any of that celestial chivalry, was the voice of J. R. Graves and its echoes still linger in the valley, while he, whose harp has here been broken, sings beyond the hills. [From Ford's Christian Repository and Home Circle, December, 1899, pages 741-749. -- Jim Duvall]
Chapter 4
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