THE REASONS ALEXANDER CARSON GAVE

FOR LEAVING THE SYNOD OF ULSTER

On June 25, 1805, the Synod of Ulster met and declared, "Mr. (Alexander) Carson being cited by the moderator to attend the meeting of Presbytery in May, wrote an official letter saying he decided all connection with and subjection to the Synod of Ulster, assigning some of his reasons."

1.) "Many of them indeed have raised very high hedges around the Lord’s Table," he declared, "enjoined very rigid forms of communion, but in none of them, I believe, is creditable evidence of the new birth a test of membership. The gate is indeed shut against the openly profane, but the decent worldling may pass by. At the same time, the child of God is excluded if he cannot digest all the peculiarities of the sect, and load his soul with a mass of human obligations. I believe that debarring or fencing the tables and giving of tokens like all other human expedients in religion have been of most serious injury. It is a bungling expedient to supply the want of Scriptural discipline on an apostolicly constituted church. If none but those creditably Christian were admitted to the church membership, what need would there be for tokens of admission or debarring? They will take their seats around Christ’s Table as naturally as children will naturally seat themselves unasked around the table of their earthly father.

Who dare debar such? And who dare invite any other? When I see a human invention employed to prop an ordinance of Christ, I judge it has no good foundation."

"Christ’s laws are not at all calculated to govern the Devil’s subjects! If there are unregenerated members admitted and retained, they will throw everything into confusion."

2.) "I cannot be a member of the General Synod without renouncing my Christian liberty; and subjecting my conscience to be ruled and lorded over by man. I am not allowed to be ruled by my own conscience in the service of the Lord. I might get drunk frequently, associate with the most profligate, spend Sabbath afternoon in gay parties, follow the world the week with my whole heart, preach the peculiar doctrines of Revelation, deny the very Lord and Saviour of men, and still my brethren would extend their charity to me; but if I were to preach the Gospel out of my own bounds, or admit an evangelical minister of another denomination to occupy my pulpit, dreadful would be the thunder that would be hurled against me. I cannot submit to this tyranny without calling men my master contrary to the express commands of Jesus."

3.) "I do not find myself justified in recognizing ministers whom I consider as destitute of the qualifications deemed essential by an apostle."

4.) "A Calvinist, and a Socinian, and an Arian cannot with propriety worship together. They do not address the same being, though they use the same name. How can we cooperate seeing our principles are so entirely opposite? If each of us be conscientious, we must be at constant war."

5.) "By remaining in the Synod, I contribute to deceive the public as to the radical differences between my principles and by those of many in the Synod. My example by continuing in that connection might be the means of keeping some of the people of Christ under the ministry of these who corrupt the Gospel. The generality of private Christians in the Synod have no conception that we differ so materially. If I think any ministers of that body are wolves in sheep’s clothing, not feeding but devouring the flock, I am a partaker of their soul murder if I fail to give the alarm and warn the sheep to fly."

6.) "My connection to the Synod is contrary to the law of love and to...the members of it as men. If I believe that ‘except a man be born again he cannot see the Kingdom of God,’ and if I believe that few of them evidence such a change, nay, that many of them deny and ridicule this truth as enthusiasm, I would not be their friend if I led them to believe their condition is any less dangerous than I know it in reality to be."

7.) "I cannot conscientiously join in licensing and ordaining those whom I know do not possess the prerequisite qualifications pointed out in the Word of God. If it be improper to appoint newly-converted men to the charge of a flock, how dreadful must be the sin of appointing the blind to lead the blind, and unregenerate men to feed the flock of Christ. Those that give their sanction to unworthy men to preach the Gospel are partakers of their sins, I Timothy 5:22, and I Timothy 3:10. As a member of the General Synod, I may be forced in licensing men whose characters and doctrines I condemn. If I believe the doctrines I preach, I must be convinced I am sending out a murderer and not a physician."

8.) "I have a positive and express command to separate from a corrupt church. Though classical presbytery were of God’s appointing, yet if there be but one disorderly person as a member it would be my duty to withdraw, otherwise, I am a partaker of his sins."

by Robert McCurry

There was nothing particularly unusual about the Sunday morning worship at the Bethel Baptist Church in Lucedale, Mississippi on March 16^th until Pastor Hermon Fountain stepped outside to see why the Sheriff and several officers, and a female agent from the state Health, Education and Welfare Department were on the premises.

They were there, the pastor learned, to arrest him and his associate, Mike Cook, who directs the church children’s home, for spanking a fifteen-year-old boy. An assault and battery warrant had been sworn out by the chief of police.

Pastor Fountain was not permitted to return to the worship service. He was arrested immediately and taken to jail.

The sheriff and his deputies then reportedly entered the church and arrested Mike Cook in the pulpit. Another minister went to the pulpit to assume leadership of the service and was arrested for disorderly conduct when he declined to obey the sheriff’s order to bring the service to a close. The sheriff then ordered the worship service to end. After everyone had vacated the building, a visiting missionary was arrested for disorderly conduct when he attempted to re-enter the church to get his bible.

Pastor Fountain and Mike Cook were released some thirty hours later on $1,000 bond each. The other two brethren were released on $500 bond each. Their trials are scheduled in April.

The church office was searched and church records, including the checkbook, were confiscated without a search warrant.

The 38 children from the Children’s Home, ranging from six to fifteen years of age, were immediately placed on a bus by the authorities and carried to the basement of the courthouse in Lucedale where they were kept for some thirty hours without proper sanitary facilities. Reliable sources reported that the boys and girls were required by the authorities to disrobe to determine if they had any bruise marks. The children were denied the comfort of the Christian workers of the home, or any Christian people who came to help.

Thus a Sunday that began in worship for the Pastor and congregation of the Bethel Baptist Church ended in what must surely be recorded as one of the most bizarre and incredible incidents in the annals of religious freedom in America.

Pastor Fountain and his wife, who have four children of their own, went to Lucedale two years ago to begin a Gospel ministry that was soon to include the Bethel Children’s Home. Some children are placed in the home by their parents, others are orphans, and some have been placed there by the courts.

The Fountains evidently love the children the Lord entrusts to their care and are dedicated to ministering to their spiritual and material needs. Their family lives in the same facilities with the children and they all eat together.

The doors of the Bethel Children’s Home are open to any child who needs help. That’s why the fifteen-year-old boy, whom Pastor Fountain describes as being six feet tall and weighing almost two hundred pounds, was accepted when he was referred to the home by another pastor. The parents needed help with their son. The Children’s Home opened its arms of compassion to receive him.

When a spanking was administered by Brother Cook in obedience to the Scriptures, the boy left the home and went to the police station and reported the incident. Although reliable sources report that there was no evidence of physical injury or abuse to the boy, an assault and battery warrant was issued, reportedly by the Chief of Police, for Pastor Fountain and Brother Cook.