This reformation in the rapidity of its growth is without parallel in the history of Protestant parties.

Those acquainted with its history need not be told that a large number of its members were at first drawn from the Baptists.

It is indeed a matter of wonder that a Presbyterian minister, but a short time identified with the Baptists, should exert such an influence over them as to induce a great multitude _of_ churches and church members to resolve that when he was driven out of the Baptist Church they also would share his fortune, and accept loss of reputation and exclusion from their former brotherhood for the sake of the principles they had learned from him.
Now, when we reflect that this embraced not only young men, but old men--men already arrived at that period of life at which it is most difficult to change our habits of thinking and acting, it becomes a question of profoundest interest; were these men able to make a change so radical as to plant themselves completely on reformation principles, and to abandon everything in their old Baptist order incompatible therewith?
When we remember that this movement embraced gray-haired Baptist ministers, who all their lifetime had been accustomed to lead and not to follow, we curiously inquire, Did they do this, or did they locate themselves on a sort of half-way ground which was a compromise between reformation principles and old Baptistism?
Let us briefly notice wherein they changed, and wherein they did not change.
1.

They laid aside the name Baptist and took the name Christian.
2.

They built upon the Bible alone, instead of the Philadelphia Confession of faith.
3.