Where the Scriptures speak, we speak; where they are silent, we are silent.
Thomas Campbell's rule of 1809 was meant to end division by removing everything not in the text — creeds, titles, denominational names. It produced instead the movement's permanent argument, because two people can read the same silence in opposite ways.
Thomas Campbell wrote the Declaration and Address in 1809 after being censured by his Seceder Presbyterian synod for admitting Presbyterians of the wrong faction to communion. Its thirteen propositions are among the most quoted texts in American religion: the church of Christ on earth is essentially, intentionally and constitutionally one; nothing may be required as a term of communion except what is expressly taught in the New Testament; and human opinions are not to be made tests of fellowship. The intended result was the end of denominations. The actual result was a new one, and then several, because the rule requires a judgement about what counts as silence and the movement has never agreed on it. Alexander Campbell later remarked that the plea for unity had produced more division than most creeds — the movement quotes this against itself.
That although inferences and deductions from Scripture premises, when fairly inferred, may be truly called the doctrine of God's holy word, yet are they not formally binding upon the consciences of Christians further than they perceive the connection.
Thomas Campbell, Declaration and Address of the Christian Association of Washington, Washington, Pennsylvania, 7 September 1809, Proposition 6
The same ground, other faiths
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