{"id":2159,"date":"2013-11-15T19:36:47","date_gmt":"2013-11-16T03:36:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/oxgoad.ca\/?p=2159"},"modified":"2013-11-15T19:36:47","modified_gmt":"2013-11-16T03:36:47","slug":"landmarkism-in-embryo-form","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/oxgoad.ca\/2013\/11\/15\/landmarkism-in-embryo-form\/","title":{"rendered":"Landmarkism in embryo form?"},"content":{"rendered":"
I think we can safely say that one of the marks of Landmarkism is the \u201clocal-only\u201d view of the church. When we say that we are NOT saying that everyone who holds this view is a Landmarker, but those who hold to Landmark views would hold to a local-only view.<\/p>\n
Would that be stating things correctly? Duncan\u2019s article<\/a> and Dr. Moritz\u2019 article<\/a> seem to bear this out.<\/p>\n I\u2019d like to think about the historical record a bit more in this post.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n One of my correspondents in the earlier post made this comment on Kent\u2019s blog<\/a> (hopefully that link is correct, I\u2019m a little unclear on how to link to comments on a Google blog):<\/p>\n New England Separate Baptists had the same beliefs of a local only church designation in the Scriptures. They were most likely where Graves learned of this doctrine, but men like Isaac Backus and John Leland were well before the time of Graves.<\/p>\n Backus wrote this in 1773. "Christ has instituted none but particular churches." A Discourse, Concerning the Materials, the Manner of Building and Power of Organizing of the Church of Christ (Boston: John Boyles, 1773)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n This prompted a question by me and some research into Backus on Google books. My question was, does Backus mean by particular<\/em> churches<\/em> the idea of local only or the idea of Calvinist? The word particular<\/em> has a \u2018particular\u2019 meaning in the history of Baptists clearly connected with five point Calvinism, so I wonder at its use. I\u2019d like to see this quote in its context, but the book cited is unavailable to me and, alas, not published on Google books, though it is clearly way out of print. (I realize there may be limited interest in this title, but Google and the internet have taught us that if I want it now, they will make it so.) Backus himself appears to be a thorough five point Calvinist.<\/p>\n Well, looking into Backus turned up some other items of interest in Google books, notably a book called James Robinson Graves: Staking the Boundaries of Baptist Identity<\/em>, by James A. Patterson. This is a more modern book and might be an interesting biography by itself. Some pages of this are available for previewing in Google books. I snagged two screen shots. Here is the first from p. 18 of the book:<\/p>\n\n