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The Balance between Rationalism and Spiritualism

Robert Richardson on the Holy Spirit

Steve Singleton

Synopsis: Robert Richardson (1806–1876) urged Christians to understand spirituality as the mean between emotionalism and rationalism. This forced him into a debate concerning the Holy Spirit, first with Tolbert Fanning, and then briefly with Alexander Campbell himself. Richardson’s call still resonates: devotion must go deeper than external conformity while avoiding spiritualism’s excesses.

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FOCUS ON THE HOLY SPIRIT The history of religion in America is a long tale of action and reaction. This is

certainly true with regard to the variety of understandings within the Restoration

Movement concerning the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. In the years from 1850 to

1900, the Holiness Movement was attempting to reform Methodism, camp

meetings were reaching the height of their popularity,1 and religious thinkers such

as Charles G. Finney,2 R. A. Torrey3 and others4 were laying the theological founda-

tions for the Pentecostal Movement waiting in the wings.5

The leaders of this period within the Stone-Campbell Restoration Movement

expended a tremendous amount of energy in studying, preaching, debating, and

writing about the work of the Holy Spirit in the Christian’s life. Several wrote full-

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length works on the Holy Spirit6 while others engaged in debates devoted at least

in part to the Holy Spirit.7 Articles on the Holy Spirit were frequent in the

brotherhood journals of this period.8

Robert Richardson (1806–1876) made significant contributions

to this brotherhood-wide study of the Holy Spirit, both by his own

insights and by stimulating the thinking of others who responded

to his writings. Richardson wrote five series for Millennial

Harbinger devoted primarily to the person and work of the Holy

Spirit,9 several other single articles,10 and his magnum opus on the

Spirit, a 324-page book entitled, A Scriptural View of the Office of

the Holy Spirit.11

EARLY ASSOCIATION WITH THE CAMPBELLS While still a child, Richardson formed friendships with both Thomas Campbell

and Walter Scott, the former his teacher from ages nine to eleven, the latter his

tutor from ages 13 to 17. Scott formed a strong bond with Richardson, teaching

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him Greek and Latin, encouraging him to

memorize long passages not only from classical

authors, but from the Greek New Testament as

well.12

After Richardson had established his first

medical practice, his friendship with Scott

magnified his interest in Scott’s evangelistic

work and its plea for primitive Christianity. By 1829 Richardson had repudiated his

Episcopalian heritage and rode off to seek immersion from Scott.13 His two

eloquent letters to his former rector, explaining the reasons for his decision,

Richardson permitted to be published in Millennial Harbinger under the

pseudonym “Disciplus"; they showed promise of much fruitful literary labor to

come.14

Alexander Campbell had first met Richardson briefly as his father’s pupil, but

now he became acquainted with him as a Christian brother and as Scott’s friend.

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Richardson began contributing articles to Millennial Harbinger from

its first year, 1830.

His series of eight articles on “Regeneration” employed the

physician’s insight into the parallels between the gestation process

of a physical baby and the process begun by being begotten of the

Spirit and eventually born of baptism’s waters.15

According to Richardson’s biographers, “This series of articles,

seen and read by Alexander Campbell in advance of publication, broke mental

ground for the Bethany editor” and prompted him to write his famous Extra on the

Remission of Sins, later incorporated into The Christian System.16 Even decades later

Richardson himself looked back on his “Regeneration” series as one of his most

significant contributions to the thinking of the movement.17

By 1834 Scott had prevailed upon Richardson to join him in Carthage, Ohio, and

assist with the editing of Scott’s paper, Evangelist. Though he continued to con-

tribute articles for the Harbinger, Richardson also wrote for Evangelist and aided

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Scott in correcting the proofs before final publication.

Campbell was so impressed with Richardson’s abilities

that in 1836 he invited the doctor to move to Bethany

both to teach in Bethany College and to become

Campbell’s editorial assistant.18

CONCERNS ABOUT THE HOLY SPIRIT Time and again, Richardson expressed his concern that the current reformation

avoid the extremes of both spiritualism and rationalism, or, as he preferred to de-

scribe them, “Spirit Only” and “Word Only.”19 Richardson held that the “Word

Only” extreme was every bit as unscriptural and spiritually fatal as the “Spirit Only”

extreme. In fact, he held that it was worse, for at least the “Spirit Only” position,

with its devotional emphasis, leads believers to seek fellowship with God himself,

while the cold, lifeless “Word Only” position could only estrange them from God.20

The rationalism Richardson so decried he recognized as a reaction against the

“Spirit Only” extreme,”21 based on the Calvinistic teaching that sinners are so

Bethany College (now in WV)

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utterly depraved that they are incapable of believing in the gospel without

miraculous endowment by God’s Holy Spirit. According to the Calvinistic teaching

of election, God chooses who will be the objects of his mercy (and who will remain

unchosen). The chosen receive the gift of faith which they perceive as a conversion

“experience.”22 Sinners were encouraged to wait upon the Lord, hoping for an

anointing by the Spirit.23

In Richardson’s view, such teaching prompted an expectation of miraculous

manifestations of the Spirit and the tendency to interpret the physical manifesta-

tions of an overwrought emotionalism experienced in frontier revivals as proof of

God’s regenerating powers.24 Richardson was also aware of the excess in England

encouraged by the teachings of Edward Irving. Richardson noted that though Irving

possessed “great natural gifts” and “was remarkable for piety and reverence for

the Bible,” he “was led away by the delusion that miraculous powers should be

restored to the church.”25

Richardson approved of the recent reformers’ rejection of the Calvinist theory of

regeneration as incompatible with both the universal plea of the gospel and with

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the clear statements of Scripture regarding the gospel’s power to save. In company

with the host of Stone-Campbell preachers, Richardson emphasized from Rom 10:17

that “Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God" (NKJV).26 Yet

Richardson was unwilling to concede that the gospel message27 is the only

instrumentality available to the Spirit. He further denied that such is the teaching

of Scripture.28

In particular, Richardson acknowledged natural theology as a work of the Spirit;

that developing awareness of God’s existence resulted from an observation of order

in the physical universe. This can take place independent of any gospel

proclamation, written or oral. Admittedly, it does not bring sinners to salvation, but

it does bring them closer to God. It prepares the soil for the “implanted word,

which is able to save your soul” (James 1:18, The Living Oracles). Furthermore,

Richardson pointed out that the Spirit works in the spheres of divine proclamation

and the answering of prayer.29

Richardson was convinced that the “Word Only” extreme derived from the

rationalism of John Locke, whose philosophy pervaded the teachings of Alexander

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Campbell, Gospel Advocate editor Tolbert Fanning, and many other leaders of the

movement. While Richardson praised Locke’s rejection of the

Calvinistic regeneration theory, he warned against reducing the

process of regeneration to an exercise in cold logic devoid of the

Spirit’s personal participation.

One example of the “Word Only” approach was the preacher

who reportedly handed a Bible to a newly baptized person and

said, “Sir, here is the Holy Spirit promised to you; take it and be led

by it.”30 In contrast, Richardson affirmed the personal indwelling of

the Holy Spirit:

Literally, they [i, e., passages referring to the Holy Spirit and to the “spirit

of Christ”] teach that the Holy Spirit of God is imparted to the believer,

really and truly; taking up his abode in his person, as a distinct guest, or in-

habitant, and giving as real and evident proofs of his presence, as it is possi-

ble for the spirit of the individual himself to do to evince its presence, the

one in no case justly confounded with the other.31

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FACTIOUS DEBATE WITH FANNING To Tolbert Fanning, the editor of Gospel Advocate whom

Richardson named as an illustration of the “Word Only” approach,

Richardson was tending to the opposite extreme. Denying the label

of “sensualistic dogmatic” which Richardson applied to him:32

Fanning responded by labeling Richardson a “spiritualist” because

his belief in natural theology suggested an extrabiblical source for

religious truth. Fanning associated him with J. B. Ferguson,33 whose

claims to communicate with the dead were well known.

Richardson claimed biblical support for natural theology in Romans 1:19–20.34

Fanning denied that the passage has anything to do with creation’s revealing God’s

power and attributes, claiming that the phrase, “being understood by the things

that are made,” in reality refers to things “done or shown by Christ.”35 Richardson

ridiculed such an idiosyncratic interpretation of the passage, stating: “No one who

is imbued with human philosophy can possibly receive all that is taught in the Bible,

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and must therefore pervert or explain away all those portions which conflict with

his theory.”36

Richardson also denied being a “spiritualist,” repudiating

Ferguson as unequivocally as anyone.37 On this point, even

Benjamin Franklin, at odds with Richardson to a lesser degree

than was Fanning,38 intervened in his defense,39 receiving for his

trouble Fanning’s warning to stop interfering?40

These exchanges with Fanning grew more and more sarcastic

and bitter,41 until finally Fanning drew Campbell himself into the

fracas.42

In a personal letter to P. S. Fall, Fanning’s brother-in-law, Richardson states that

he had been careful to avoid any explicit or implicit criticism of even Campbell

himself, firmly believing that what he himself was advocating was in harmony with

what Campbell had taught for more than twenty-five years.43 Nevertheless, to criti-

cize Locke’s epistemology was to cast a shadow on Campbell as well as Fanning in

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the minds of many within the brotherhood. Privately, Richardson did express his

concern that Locke had unduly influenced the Sage of Bethany. In a letter to his

friend Isaac Errett, Richardson writes:

The philosophy of Locke with which Bro. Campbell’s mind was deeply

imbued in youth has insidiously mingled itself with almost all the great

points in the reformation and has been all the while like an iceberg in the

way—chilling the heart and numbing the hands, and impeding all progress

in the right direction.44

Fifteen years before, Richardson conducted heated discussions with the Bethany

Reformer concerning the role of the Holy Spirit, especially as Campbell was pre-

paring for his celebrated debate with N. L. Rice in 1844. Richardson had no problem

with Campbell’s describing the Spirit as working through the Word in accom-

plishing regeneration but objected to limiting his work to that done “through the

Word alone.”45 Richardson probably influenced Campbell to grant that after

conversion, the Spirit does perform certain activities apart from the Word, especial-

ly involving God’s providence and his answer to prayers.46

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Campbell later describes the quest for the “golden mean” between the “Spirit

Only” and the “Word Only” extremes:

Now we cannot separate the Spirit and the word of God, and ascribe so

much power to the one and so much to the other; for so did not the apo-

stles. Whatever the word does, the Spirit does; and whatever the Spirit does

in the work of converting man, the word does. We neither believe nor teach

abstract Spirit nor abstract word—but word and Spirit, Spirit and word.47

Such a description of the relation between agent and instrument in the work of

regeneration Richardson himself could easily have written.48

Campbell’s censure of Richardson in December of 1857 is partially responsible

for Richardson’s agreeing to leave Bethany to teach at John Bowman’s new

Kentucky University.49 Campbell soon reversed himself,50 but by then it was too late.

Great damage had already been done to Richardson’s reputation, not to mention

financial loss due to his ill-advised temporary move to Harrodsburg.51

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In his book on the Spirit, in which Richardson is able to approach the subject

more exegetically and less polemically, Richardson distances himself from the “Spirit

Only” extreme clearly enough, it would seem, to satisfy even Fanning himself. He

points out that the Spirit “came not to make a distinct or independent revelation,

but to take of the things of Christ, and show these to the disciples. . . . This was to

be accomplished by words, through human speech; through intelligible oral or writ-

ten communications.”52 Richardson is pointed in this regard:

The people were addressed in words; the proper evidence was laid

before them, and it was when they “heard these things,” that they were

convinced of the Messiahship of Jesus. Faith thus “comes by hearing, and

hearing by the word of God.” In convincing men that Jesus was, indeed, the

Son of God, by laying before them indubitable evidences of the fact, the

Holy Spirit convinced them, at the same moment, of sin in having rejected

and denied him, when he appeared in the guise of the “Man of Sorrows.” It

is evident, from the narrative, that this conviction was produced by the evi-

dence placed before the mind, and not by any direct mysterious super-

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natural operation upon the heart by the Spirit, independently of the Divine

testimony.53

CONCLUSION Later scholars within the Stone-Campbell Movement have perceived the great

contribution Richardson made, at a tremendous personal cost,54 to save the move-

ment from the rationalism toward which it tended. His friend Charles Louis Loos

states:

[H]e was thoroughly evangelical in his conceptions of the Bible and of

Christian doctrines no one could be more so as his writings testify. He stood

firm as a rock against all forms of rationalistic and Unitarian tendencies.

Thank God for this! One striking quality of his character was his firmness; he

never yielded to what he regarded as wrong.55

Richardson’s book on the Holy Spirit has been praised as “a book which, in its

view of the scriptures, its generosity of spirit, and its clear perception of the basic

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theological and religious issues, was far ahead of its time, and has not been super-

seded in the treatment of the subject.”56

The balance that Richardson attempted to establish between spirituality and

rationality has helped succeeding generations avoid, on the one hand, the Pente-

costal Movement’s legalism of internal experiences,57 and on the other, sectarian-

ism’s legalism of external adherence.

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NOTES

1. Vinson Synan, The Holiness-Pentecostal Movement in the United States (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1971) 13–54.

2. Finney conducted his famous revivals throughout the State of New York, in New York City, Providence, Rhode Island, and Boston from 1824 to 1831. See Whitney R. Cross, The Burned-Over District: The Social and Intellectual History of Enthusiastic Religion in Western New York, 1800–1850 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell, 1950; reprint: New York: Harper & Row, 1965) 151–169.

3. R. A. Torrey, The Baptism with the Holy Spirit (New York: Revell, 1897).

4. E.g., A. J. Gordon, F. B. Meyer, A. B. Simpson, and Andrew Murray. See Frederick Dale Bruner, A Theology of the Holy Spirit: The Pentecostal Experience and the New Testament Witness (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1970) 44–46.

5. Many scholars regard the opening event of the modern Pentecostal Movement to be the experiences of Charles F. Parham and members of his Bible class in the days surrounding New Year’s Day, 1901. Parham claimed that one of his students, Agnes N. Ozman, received the Holy Spirit baptism with tongues on New Year’s Eve, 1900. He reported that she began speaking Chinese and could not revert to English for three days! See James R. Goff, Jr., Fields White unto Harvest: Charles F. Parham and the Missionary Origins of Pentecostalism (Fayetteville, AR: University of Arkansas, 1988) 62–86.

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6. James N. Challen, Baptism in Spirit and in Fire (Philadelphia: James Challen & Son, 1859; reprint: Joplin, MO: College, 1966); A. B. Jones, G. W. Longan, T. Munnell, J. Z. Taylor, and A. Campbell, A Symposium on the Holy Spirit (n p : John Burns, 1879; reprint, Joplin, MO: College, 1966); James W. Zachary, The Witness of the Spirit (Lexington, KY: n. p., 1893; reprint: Nashville: Gospel Advocate, 1954); J. H. Garrison, The Holy Spirit: His Personality, Mission, and Modes of Activity (St. Louis: Christian Publishing, 1905).

7. See J. M. Mathes and T. S. Brooks, Debate on Baptism and Kindred Subjects (Cincinnati: H. S. Bosworth, 1868), 172–225; John A. Brooks and J. W. Fitch, A Debate on the Beginning of Messiah’s Reign [etc.] (Cincinnati: R.W. Carroll & Co., 1870), 133.191; Clark Braden and G. W. Hughey, Debate on the Action of Baptism [etc.] (Cincinnati: Franklin & Rice, 1870), 436–512; Ben Franklin and John A. Thompson, An Oral Debate between Benj. Franklin and John A. Thompson at Reynoldsburg, Ohio (Cincinnati: Franklin & Rice, 1874), 89–170. Note also the earlier Campbell-Rice debate: A. Campbell and N. L. Rice, A Debate between Rev. A. Campbell and Rev. N. L. Rice [etc.] (Lexington, KY: A. T. Skillman & Son, 1844), 611–758.

8. Volume 3 of Lard’s Quarterly (1866), as a random sample, contains articles on the gift of the Holy Spirit, the presence of the Holy Spirit in Christians, the influence of the Holy Spirit, and a discussion of being born of water and the Spirit, for a total of 68 pages, or 15% of the entire pages for the year.

9. The series were: “Regeneration” (eight articles in 1830–1831 under the pseudonym, “Disciplus”); “Converting Influence” (eight articles in 1841–1842, written under the initials L,

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U, K, and E); “The Spirit of God” (seven articles in 1842–1843); “Christian Knockings” (five articles in 1851); and “Faith versus Philosophy” (ten articles in 1857).

10. Articles for Millennial Harbinger included: “Inspiration of the Scriptures,” 7 (1836) 345–349; “Doctrine of the Spirit,” 5th series, 1 (1858) 199–205; and “Personal Indwelling of the Spirit,” 5th series, 2 (1859) 423–428.

11. Robert Richardson, A Scriptural View of the Office of the Holy Spirit (Cincinnati: Bosworth, Chase &Hall, 1873).

12. Cloyd Goodnight and Dwight E. Stevenson, Home to Bethphage: A Biography of Robert Richardson (St. Louis: Christian Board of Publication, 1949) 25–31.

13. Ibid., 46.

14. Alexander Campbell published the letters and introduced them by stating, “I could wish them to be read by every Episcopalian in the United States.” Christian Baptist 7 (1829) 80–85, 103–106.

15. “Regeneration—No. II,” Millennial Harbinger, 1st series, 1 (1830) 206.

16. Goodnight and Stevenson, Home, 57.

17. Richardson, Office, 263.

18. Goodnight and Stevenson, Home, 63–72.

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19. Richardson, “Spirit of God—No. III,” Millennial Harbinger, 2nd series, 7 (1843) 126; Richardson, The Principles and Objects of the Religious Reformation Urged by A. Campbell and Others (Bethany, VA: A. Campbell, 1853), 82–83.

20. Richardson, “Spirit of God—No. VII,” Millennial Harbinger, 2nd series, 7 (1843) 560–561.

21. Richardson, “Spirit of God—No. III,” 125.

22. John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, 3.321, trans., John Beveridge (n. p.: Calvin Translation Society, 1845; reprint, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1962), 1:526–528.

23. Richardson, Office, 276–278.

24. Richardson, “Spirit of God—No. III,” 128.

25. Richardson, “Faith versus Philosophy—No. VII,” Millennial Harbinger, 4th series, 7 (1857) 563–564. For a detailed treatment of Edward Irving’s life and teachings, see Arnold Dallimore, The Life of Edward Irving: Fore-Runner of the Charismatic Movement (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth Trust, 1983).

26. Richardson, Office, 216, 238.

27. “Word of God” (or “word of Christ” in the earlier manuscripts of Rom 10:17), Richardson understood to refer to the oral proclamation of the gospel, not exclusively to the written word (the New Testament). In Office, 201–202, he states: “In their eagerness to sustain a theory, [pseudo-critics] often overlook the fact that the New Testament was not then written, and that there was no ‘written word’ to bear the witness they imagine. It is

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not likely that the church at Rome had a single written document of any kind on the subject of Christianity, when Paul wrote his Epistle, nor could his language be then understood as applying to any thing but that internal witness of the Spirit familiar to all.”

28. Patrick Leon Brooks, “Lockean Epistemology and the Indwelling Spirit in the Restora-tion Movement” (M.A. thesis, Abilene Christian University, 1977), 106, n. 4.

29. Richardson, “Faith versus Philosophy—No. VIII,” 560.

30. Millennial Harbinger, 4th series, 4 (1854) 512–515. The opposite “To Those Who Believed the Ancient Gospel,” in extreme tended to denigrate the value of the Bible as Walter Scott reported in Evangelist 3 (1, 1834) 17: “A person grim with predestination, and galvanized by Calvinism, told the Editor a few nights ago, that the Word of God, alone, could no more effect the conversion of a sinner than an old almanack!”

31. Richardson, “The Spirit of God—No. IV,” Millennial Harbinger, 2nd series, 7 (1843) 436. Richardson later argued (Office, 80) that ‘guest’ is perhaps inappropriate to describe the indwelling of the Spirit because it “indicates a relation merely casual and transitory.”

32. Tolbert Fanning, “Sixth Reply to Professor Robert Richardson,” Gospel Advocate 3 (1857) 341–342.

33. Tolbert Fanning, “Second Reply to Professor Richardson,” Gospel Advocate 3 (1857) 203; “Course of the Christian Age, and Elder B. Franklin,” Gospel Advocate 3 (1857) 396.

34. Robert Richardson, “Faith versus Philosophy—No. IV,” Millennial Harbinger, 4th series, 7 (1857) 268.

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35. Tolbert Fanning, “Reply to Professor Robert Richardson,” Millennial Harbinger, 4th series, 7 (1857) 441.

36. Ibid., 441–442.

37. Richardson, “Faith versus Philosophy—No. V,” Millennial Harbinger, 4th series, 7 (1857) 329; “Faith versus Philosophy—No. VIII,” Millennial Harbinger, 4th series, 7 (1857) 560, 570.

38. Richardson claimed that the “Word Only” position encouraged positing faith in the facts of the gospel rather than in the person of Jesus Christ (“Faith versus Philosophy—No. V,” 330; “Faith versus Philosophy—No. VI, Millennial Harbinger, 4th series, 7 [I857] 396–400). Franklin denied that the distinction was a significant one, “The Controversy on the Influence of the Spirit,” American Christian Review 2 (1857) 283–286; see Richardson’s reply in an ex-tended note, “Faith versus Philosophy—No. IX,” 694. Franklin approaches Fanning’s stric-tures in his pointed criticism of Richardson’s position regarding extrabiblical knowledge (“The Controversy about the Spirit,” American Christian Review 2 [1857] 342–346). See Richardson’s response in another extended note, “Faith versus Philosophy—No. XII,” Millennial Harbinger, 4th series, 7 (1857) 701.

39. Benjamin Franklin, “President Fanning’s Course,” American Christian Review 2 (1857) 340–342.

40. Fanning, “Course of the Christian Age,” 396, says “[W]e suggest that an interference at this late hour, in the controversy with Professor Richardson and ourself, is entirely out of place, unnecessary, and an intermeddling that exhibits a want of sound judgment and a dis-

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position, we fear, to do us injustice.” See also Franklin’s reply, “Elder B. Franklin’s Reply to T. Fanning,” Gospel Advocate 4 (1858) 54–55, 41. Sarcasm permeates Richardson’s “Faith versus Philosophy—No. IV,” 265–276.

42. Alexander Campbell, “Faith versus Philosophy,” Millennial Harbinger, 5th series, 1 (1858) 86; Tolbert Fanning, “Reply to President Campbell’s Notice of the Gospel Advocate and Its Senior Editor,” Gospel Advocate 4 (1858) 129–131; “Our Colleges—Bethany College,” Millennial Harbinger, 5th series, 1 (1858) 232–236; Tolbert Fanning, “Reply to President A. Campbell,” Gospel Advocate 4 (1858) 135–144; “President Campbell’s’ Notice of the Senior Editor of the Gospel Advocate, in the May No. of the Harbinger for 1858,” Gospel Advocate 4 (1858) 177–179; Alexander Campbell, “A Correction,” Millennial Harbinger, 5th series, 1 (1858) 290–291; “President Fanning,” Millennial Harbinger, 5th series, 1 (1858) 353; Tolbert Fanning, “Reply to President Campbell,” Gospel Advocate 4 (1858) 194–199.

43. Robert Richardson to P. S. Fall, July 30, 1857, as quoted in Earl West, Elder Ben Franklin: Eye of the Storm (Indianapolis: Religious Book Service, 1983), 156–157. See also Richardson, “Faith versus Philosophy—No. IX,” 694, in which he claims that his distinction between believing in the facts of the gospel versus believing in the person those facts disclose is one Campbell had stated over and over in his various writings and had clearly ex-plained in The Christian System (first published in 1836).

44. Robert Richardson to Isaac Errett, July 16, 1857, cited in Goodnight and Stevenson, Home, 123.

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45. Benjamin Lyon Smith, Alexander Campbell (St. Louis: Bethany, 1930) 327–328, a close acquaintance of both Richardson and Campbell and a student of W. K. Pendleton, Campbell’s son-in-law, describes the content of these arguments.

46. Thomas H. Olbricht, “Alexander Campbell’s View of the Holy Spirit,” Restoration Quarterly 6 (1962) 9.

47. Alexander Campbell, The Christian System, 3rd ed. (Pittsburgh: Forrester & Campbell, 1840) 1. See his similar statements in his 1844 debate with Rice, describing the “Word Only” position “the power of a cold, lifeless rationalism and formality,” Campbell-Rice Debate, 613, and even earlier in his article, “Abstract Word.” Millennial Harbinger, 1st series, 7 (1836) 232–233.

48. Compare Richardson, Religious Reformation, 82–83: “The Spirit of God is not to be separated from the word; neither is the word to be separated from the Spirit, in the great work of man’s salvation.”

49. Richardson ascribes Campbell’s seemingly irrational reaction to the mental instability of advancing age (Robert Richardson to P.S. Fall, July 30, 1857, quoted in West, Elder Ben Franklin, 157). In reality, a more important factor may have been Fanning’s pressuring of Campbell in print, by private letter, and in a personal visit Fanning made to Bethany (Goodnight and Stevenson, Home, 82–83). An additional reason for Richardson’s temporary defection to Kentucky University was the demand of Bethany College’s board that he move into Bethany proper rather than living at Bethphage, his farm two miles from the town.

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50. Millennial Harbinger, 5th series, 1 (1858) 289; “President Fanning,” 353. The latter article, Goodnight and Stevenson (Home, 193) describe as Campbell’s “sound spanking to President Fanning.” See Fanning’s “Reply to President Campbell,” 194–199.

51. Goodnight and Stevenson, Home, 185–213.

52. Richardson, Office, 231.

53. Ibid., 238.

54. At the close of his wrangle with Fanning, Richardson, “Doctrine of the Spirit,” Millennial Harbinger, 5th series, 1 (1858) 200, remarks: “The faithful discharge of what I felt to be duty, has brought upon me the most bitter and unrelenting hostility in the form of misquotation, misrepresentation, and personal and professional detraction.—But these things move me not, neither do I count my name or my life dear to me, so that I may finish my course with joy, and bear my feeble testimony to the grace of God manifested in the Gospel. Nay, I even congratulate myself that I am counted worthy to suffer such things, knowing that persecution is usually the fate of those who assail popular errors, and remem-bering that we are exhorted to rejoice when men shall say all manner of evil against us falsely for the sake of Jesus.”

55. Charles Louis Loos, “Dr. Robert Richardson” in The Reformation of the Nineteenth Century: A Series of Historical Sketches, J. H. Garrison, ed. (St. Louis: Christian Publishing, 1901) 78–79.

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56. Stephen J. England, “The Holy Spirit in the Thought and Life of Disciples of Christ,” in Reformation of Tradition, vol 1, Ronald Osburn, ed. (St. Louis: Christian Board of Publica-tion, 1962), cited in Brooks, “Lockean Epistemology,” 109, n. 15.

57. William Reid, “Justification and the Holy Spirit,” Verdict: A Journal of Theology, 2 (1979) 8–14. Reprinted from his book The Blood of Jesus (1881).

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Dive deeper at www.deeperstudy.com Whether you are new to Bible study and want to stay in “The Shallows,” or want to explore “The Depths,” DeeperStudy.com is the place to go for anyone serious about learning more of God’s inspired Word. In “The Shallows” you will find answers to questions about God, the Bible, Judaism, and Christianity, explained briefly and simply. “The Depths” is organized around the two greatest commandments, loving God with your heart (devotional), mind (apologetics), soul (theology), and strength (practical), and loving your neighbor (evangelism and missions). In addition, an excellent collection of Study Links is available for you to search out biblical backgrounds, ancient history and culture, and archaeology. The maps section includes satellite photos of biblical sites. Go to the DeeperStudy Blog, which explains difficult passages, discusses the Bible in the news, and explores principles of Bible interpretation.

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About Steve Singleton Steve Singleton has taught college-level courses in Bible, New Testament Greek, biblical archaeology, and theology for 15 years. He has a bachelor’s degree (magna cum laude) in Bible and a master’s degree in Religion. He has completed 57 hours of additional graduate studies in New Testament, Hermeneutics, Systematic Theology, Church History, Biblical Hebrew, and Theological German. He has taught workshops and seminars in 10 states of the U.S. and in the Caribbean. His blog is http://deeperstudy.blogspot.com.

About Overcoming: A Study Guide for the Book of Revelation Here is a great introduction to the Apocalypse of John, the Book of Revelation—including hermeneutics, history, archaeology, culture, understanding biblical prophecy, and more. You will also find extensive comments on virtually every verse of the text, as well as scores of illustrations, over 100 great charts, an annotated bibliography. Plus you also get these 13 bonus essays:

Predicting the coming of the Lord Can Israel inherit a special blessing apart from Christ's church? Will Christ return in stages? The ark of the covenant in the Book of Revelation "Worthy is the Lamb" – The Christology of Revelation 5 (5 pages with 42 notes) Why would God allow this to happen? The demise of Satan in the Book of Revelation Can we solve the 666 puzzle? (16 pages with 81 notes) Recapitulation in the Book of Revelation How should we view the Millennium Who are Gog and Magog? The end of the urge? Behind "Left Behind" (36 pages with 147 notes)