In the early days of the Restoration Movement, many people were leaving various denominations in order to try to serve God according to His word without the addition of man-made creeds. One of these individuals was William Kinkade (1783-1832). He was raised as a Presbyterian, but later forsook that sect and others in order to simply follow the word of God alone.
“I then refused to call myself by any name but that of Christian, bore a public testimony against all party names, and declared that I would take no other book for my standard but the Bible. I did not then know that any other person would unite with me to have no name but Christian and take no standard but the Bible, but I thought it was right, and therefore determined to pursue it, let the consequence be what it might. I could have been a Baptist, a Methodist, or a Presbyterian preacher. The two latter sects both strongly solicited me to be a preacher among them, but I utterly refused, because I thought it would be better for me to go alone on the word of God, than to put myself under obligation to believe and preach any system framed by fallible men.” (The Biography of Elder David Purviance, p. 217-218).
