At this distance in time it is not easy to see how the author and signers of the _Declaration and Address_ could suppose that they would be able to "reduce to practice that whole form of doctrine, worship, discipline, and government, expressly revealed" without employing any opinions of their own in interpreting the revelation, when they clearly saw that those who had attempted this before them had produced discordant and divisive systems. They were sounding their prophetic and unifying note when they declared, in the same document, that the basis of fellowship is not agreement on any complete system of doctrine and church practice, but is the simple and saving essentials of the gospel upon which Christians generally are already agreed.
Alexander Campbell, newly arrived on the scene of this nascent reformation, immediately settled down to a strenuous course of private study--Bible, Greek, Hebrew, Latin, and church history. He preached his first sermon on July 15, 1810, in a private house. He had no license to preach and he was a member of no church, for he had left his Presbyterianism in Scotland, and the Christian Association of Washington was not yet a church. He preached a hundred times during the next twelve months.
After Thomas Campbell had applied for admission to the regular (not Seceder) Presbyterian Synod of Pittsburgh, and had been rejected, the Christian Association of Washington constituted itself a church, on May 4, 1811. This became the first church among Disciples of Christ in the Campbell strain of their lineage. The new church chose Thomas Campbell as elder, elected four deacons, and licensed Alexander Campbell to preach. It observed the Lord's Supper the next day, and thereafter every Lord's day. A simple building was erected--the Brush Run Church--and the first service was held in it on June 16, 1811. Alexander Campbell was ordained on the first day of the next January.
The subject of baptism had not yet been seriously considered. Some members of the group, and some of its critics, doubted whether the principles of the _Declaration and Address_ were consistent with infant baptism and sprinkling. Thomas Campbell was not disturbed about it. Stating his views to the Synod of Pittsburgh, he had said that infant baptism is not a command of Christ, hence not a condition of membership in the church, but that it is a matter of forbearance. Three members of the Brush Run Church, soon after its organization, refused to commune because they had not been baptized. These had not even been sprinkled, yet they had been admitted to membership. "Forbearance" had extended so far. At their urgent request, Thomas Campbell immersed them--somewhat reluctantly, it may be surmised, for he did it without going into the water himself. At that time Alexander Campbell said: "As I am sure it is unscriptural to make this matter [baptism] a term of communion, I let it slip. I wish to think and let think on these matters."