The Quiet Period, Chapter II

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Progress of the Denomination in North America-Sufferings in New England-Mrs. Elizabeth Backus-Mrs. Kimball-Virginia-Whitfield's Preaching-The "New Lights"-Philadelphia Association-Other Associations-Correspondence with London Ministers-Great Revivals-Brown University-Nova Scotia-New Brunswick-Canada.

At the commencement of this period there were but thirteen Baptist churches in North America. In the year 1740, the number of churches was thirty-seven, with less than 3,000 members. But in 1790, there were 872 churches, containing 64,975 members. Twenty-five new churches were formed in the first half of the period; in the second half no fewer than 835 churches. This is surely a wonderful increase.

It will be interesting to note the dates of the establishment of the first churches in the several States:-

Our Baptist forefathers had a hard struggle in the New England States. The Congregationalists were the "Standing Order," and the support of their ministers was provided for by law, in the shape of a tax, levied on all the inhabitants. They had fled from one establishment, and had set up another! A backward movement had taken place, in the introduction of the "half-way covenant," which filled the churches with men who were strangers to godliness.¹ The assessment for ministers' salaries was rigorously enforced. It was in vain that the Baptists pleaded their conscientious dissent from the "Standing Order," and the obligation under which they lay to support their own ministers. Their oppressors would not listen, nor abate one jot of their demands. The scourge was in their hands, and they applied it without mercy.

"From the year 1692 to the year 1728, the Baptists were everywhere, except in Boston and some few other towns, taxed for the support of Congregational ministers. The fact of their maintaining worship by themselves was not allowed to be a sufficient reason for exempting them from rates to sustain a ministry which in point of conscience they could not hear. For their refusal to pay such rates, we are told that they 'oftentimes had their bodies seized upon, and thrown into the common jail, as malefactors, and their cattle, swine, horses, household furniture, and implements of husbandry, forcibly distrained from them, and shamefully sold, many times at not one-quarter part of the first value.' And it is added 'that the heavy pressures and afflictions occasioned by these distraints, imprisonments, and the losses consequent thereupon, made many of the Baptists bend, almost ruined some of our people, and disheartened others to such a degree, that they removed, with the remaining effects they had left, out of the Province.'"²

In the year 1728, an Act was passed by the General Court of Massachusetts, exempting Baptists from the tax; but as it relieved the persons only, but left the property still liable, it was of little service. Other Acts were afterwards passed, to be in force for short periods, professedly to give relief; but they were clogged with so many difficulties and obnoxious conditions, that the Baptists continued to suffer, in many places, and for many years. The following letters from Christian women furnish painful illustrations of these statements.

"MY DEAR SON,-I have heard something of the trials amongst you of late, and I was grieved, till I had strength to give up the case to God, and leave my burden there. And now I would tell you something of our trials. Your brother Samuel lay in prison twenty days. October 15th, the collectors came to our house, and took me away to prison, about nine o'clock, in a dark, rainy night. Brothers Hill and Sabins were brought there the next night. We lay in prison thirteen days, and were then set at liberty, by what means I know not. Whilst I was there, a great many people came to see me, and some said one thing and some said another. Oh, the innumerable snares and temptations that beset me! more than I ever thought of before. But oh, the condescension of Heaven! though I was bound when I was cast into this furnace, yet I was loosed and found Jesus in the midst of a furnace with me. Oh, then I could give up my name, estate, family, life and breath, freely to God. Now the prison looked like a palace to me. I could bless God for all the laughs and scoffs made at me. Oh, the love that flowed out to all mankind! then I could forgive as I would desire to be forgiven, and love my neighbour as myself. Deacon Griswold was put in prison the 8th of October; and yesterday old brother Grover; and they are in pursuit of others, all which calls for humiliation. The Church has appointed the 13th of November to be spent in prayer and fasting on that account. I do remember my love to you and your wife, and the dear children of God with you, begging your prayers for us in such a day of trial. We are all in tolerable health, expecting to see you. These from your loving mother,"

"ELIZABETH BACKUS."
"MR. BACKUS,-I understand that you are collecting materials for a Baptist History, in which you propose to let the public know how the Baptists have been oppressed in Massachusetts Bay. This is to let you know that in the year 1768, in a very cold night in winter, about nine or ten o'clock in the evening, I was taken prisoner, and carried by the collector in the town where I live, from my family, consisting of three small children, in order to be put into jail. It being a severe cold night, I concluded, by advice, while I was detained at a tavern in the way to jail some hours, to pay the sum of 4-8 L. M. [i.e. Legal Money], for which I was made a prisoner, it being for the ministerial rate. The reason why I refused paying it before, was because I was a Baptist, and belonged to the Baptist Society, in Haverhill, and had carried in a certificate to the assessors, as I suppose, according to law. Thus they dealt with a poor widow woman in Bradford, the relict of Solomon Kimball, late of the said town;-at whose house the Rev. Hezekiah Smith was shamefully treated by many of the people in Bradford, who came headed by the sheriff, Amos Mulliken, at a time when Mr. Smith was to preach a sermon in our house, at the request of my husband, and warmly contended with him, and threatened him if he did preach. Mr. Smith went to begin service by singing, notwithstanding the noise, clamor, and threats of the people. But one of their number snatched the chair, behind which Mr. Smith stood, from before him. Upon which my husband desired Mr. Smith to tarry a little, till he quelled the tumult; but all his endeavors to silence them were in vain. Upon which my husband desired Mr. Smith to begin public service; which accordingly he did, and went through then without further molestation.

"MARTHA KIMBALL."
"Bradford, Sept. 2nd, 1774."
"N.B. The above I can attest to. It may be observed, that the tavern whither they took me is about two miles from my house. After I had paid what they demanded, then I had to return to my poor fatherless children, through the snow on foot, in the dead of the night, exposed to the severity of the cold."³

In the other New England States, Rhode Island excepted, the Baptists met with similar treatment. The Rev. Mr. Marshall, for instance, who laboured in Connecticut, was put in the stocks for preaching in another minister's parish, and afterwards sent to jail, for "preaching the Gospel contrary to law." The tongue of slander was busy against them, and they were "everywhere spoken against." Unrighteously taxed, unlawfully imprisoned, the butts of all men's ridicule, they quailed not, nor did they slacken in zeal or effort; and God wonderfully blessed them.

Their success was great also in Virginia. After the revival under Whitfield and his associates, many Baptist ministers itinerated in that State, and so preached that multitudes believed and were converted. Persecution soon broke out. Several of the ministers were arrested. "May it please your worship," said the lawyer, " these men are great disturbers of the peace; they cannot meet a man on the road, but they ram a text of Scripture down his throat." As they would not promise to desist from preaching, they were committed to prison, to which they went cheerfully, singing as they walked through the street, Dr. Watts's hymn, "Broad is the road that leads to death." This was in the county of Spottsylvania, in the year 1768. The same course was pursued by the magistrates in other parts of the State. About thirty ministers, besides many exhorters and others who manifested Christian earnestness for the salvation of souls, were imprisoned, some of them repeatedly.⁴

"The magistrates, in all parts of the Commonwealth, impelled and directed by the State clergy and their more zealous friends, commenced a relentless annoyance of the people, and a heartless persecution of the ministers of our churches. Attempts were made to set aside the Toleration Act, and old and obsolete laws were hunted up, and essays were made to enforce their provisions. Assessments were prosecuted with new vigilance; fines were imposed and collected; meetings were disturbed and violently dispersed; and pastors, and other ministers, were arrested, dragged before the courts, browbeaten, and ignominiously punished. All this, and more, is acknowledged by the ministers and historians of the 'State Church' themselves. Dr. Hawks, for example, says:-'No dissenters in Virginia experienced, for a time, harsher treatment than did the Baptists. They were beaten and imprisoned, and cruelty taxed its ingenuity to devise new modes of punishment and annoyance. The usual consequences followed. Persecution made friends for its victims; and the men who were not permitted to speak in private, found willing auditors in the sympathizing crowd, who gathered round the prisons, to hear them preach from the grated windows. It is not improbable that this very opposition imparted strength in another mode, inasmuch as it at least furnished the Baptists with a common ground on which to make resistance.'"⁵

"In all the prisons where our brethren were incarcerated, they preached daily from the windows to the crowds who there assembled to hear them."⁶

Irritated beyond measure at this boldness, their enemies resorted to various expedients to check it. "In some cases," says Benedict, "drums were beaten in the time of service; high enclosures were erected before the prison windows; matches, and other suffocating materials, were burnt outside the prison doors." But all was in vain. The servants of God would preach, and the people were equally determined to hear. Converts were multiplied; new churches sprang up all over the State: "so mightily grew the Word of God, and prevailed."

The great increase of our denomination took place after the year 1740. In the fall of that year Whitfield landed at Newport, Rhode Island, and commenced that course of Evangelical labour in the United States which was productive, under the Divine blessing, of such remarkable results. The revival at Northampton, Massachusetts, in 1734, had already prepared the minds of the people, in some measure, for a general outpouring of the Spirit. It was graciously vouchsafed, and so glorious was the manifestation, that "in the term of two or three years thirty or forty thousand souls were born into the family of heaven in New England."⁷ Some of the converts joined the existing churches, but a large number formed separate churches, requiring satisfactory evidence that the candidates for communion were the subjects of regeneration. This New Testament rule had been departed from by the "Standing Order;" and the New Lights, as they were called, determined to reinstate primitive principles in their proper place. The natural effect was that many of them became Baptists.

The new converts were "fervent in spirit." They thirsted for the salvation of souls. Unexampled efforts were immediately employed for the spread of the Gospel. Some went from house to house in their respective neighborhoods, "warning every man and teaching every man," and exhorting all to turn to the Lord. Pious ministers were stirred up to unusual exertion, and old Christians renewed their youth. "The Lord gave the word; great was the company of them that published it." They were not all suitably qualified for the work, as we should now judge; mistakes were committed, and measures of doubtful propriety adopted, in some places; but such things might be expected in times of great spiritual excitement. It cannot be denied that the laborers were generally men of God, "full of the Holy Ghost and of faith." They had deep convictions of the evil of sin, and of the peril of a rebellious state. The love of God in Christ overpowered their souls. Their views of the solemn realities of another world were vivid and heart-affecting. They "set the Lord always before" them, and walked as in the sight of the judgment-seat. Their earnest appeals made the stouthearted tremble, awed many a reprobate into silence, and wrung tears from daring and hardened offenders. Tens of thousands bowed before the majesty of truth.

Some of the most powerful preachers emigrated to other States; and wherever they went, the floods of blessing poured over the land. Virginia was remarkably indebted to their labours. In 1768 there were but ten Baptist churches in that State; in 1790 there were two hundred and ten. The Carolinas and other States in the South were also visited by the New Lights, and marvellous effects followed.

As soon as the Baptist churches became sufficiently numerous, they proceeded to combine in Associations, which arrangement has proved eminently conducive to the prosperity of the body. Carefully guarding against the assumption of ecclesiastical power, and avoiding all interference with the affairs of individual churches, the ministers and delegates who assembled from time to time exercised a brotherly supervision over the Baptist cause, and often "devised liberal things" on its behalf. Personal edification was promoted by the religious services; Christian friendship was renewed and extended; important questions of doctrine and practice were discussed, and advice given in difficult cases; weak and destitute churches were assisted; and plans for the wider diffusion of Gospel truth were originated. Almost all our denominational enterprises may be referred to the influence of these Associational gatherings.

The Philadelphia Association was the first of the kind. It was formed in the year 1707. "This Association," says Dr. Samuel Jones, in his Century Sermon, "originated in what they call General and sometimes Yearly meetings. These meetings were instituted as early as 1688, and met alternately in May and September, at Lower Dublin, Philadelphia, Salem, Cohansey, Chester, and Burlington, at which places there were members, though no church or churches were constituted, except Lower Dublin and Cohansey. At these meetings their labours were chiefly confined to the ministry of the Word and the administration of Gospel ordinances. But in the year 1707, they seem to have taken more properly the form of an Association; for then they had delegates from several churches, and attended to their general concerns. We, therefore, date our beginning as an Association from that time, though we might, with but little impropriety, extend it back some years. They were at this time but a feeble band, though a band of faithful brothers, consisting of but five churches, viz. those of Lower Dublin, Piscataway, Middletown, Cohansey, and Welsh Tract. There were at that time but these five in North America, except Massachusetts and Rhode Island."⁸

This Association is still a large and flourishing body, notwithstanding the numerous offshoots which it has given out. There are seventeen other Associations in the State.

A few years after the establishment of the Philadelphia Association, a correspondence was opened with the Baptist ministers of London. In a letter dated August 12th, 1714, Abel Morgan says:-"We are now nine churches . . . In these churches there are about five hundred members, but who are greatly scattered on this main land. Our ministers are necessitated to labour with their hands. We hope, if it please God to supply us with more help, we shall be more churches in a little time. Most churches administer the sacrament once a month. These ministers are all sound in the faith, and we practice most things like the British churches." Another letter, written the following year, contained a request for assistance, in books, &c., "for the preservation and further promoting of the truth in those parts." Two gentlemen responded to the request. "Mr. Thomas Hollis and Mr. John Taylor gave a supply of books; Mr. Hollis sent twelve copies of Mr. Burkitt's Annotations on the New Testament, directing that each minister in those parts might have a copy; and Mr. John Taylor gave twenty pounds' worth of old books, and several copies of the Baptist Catechism." Acknowledging the gift, the church at Philadelphia wrote as follows:-"Your letter was read in our meetings in town and country. We concluded that the books might be disposed of as intended: the family-books for the benefit of well-disposed folks; the Annotations to be for particular qualified persons. The other books for the public use, for our leading brethren to resort to, are lodged here in the city, to be lent and returned again; whereby the rising generation may have the benefit of them as well as the present. The contents of the letters and a catalogue of the books are recorded in our church-books, to prevent all mistakes." An acknowledgment was also forwarded by the Association, at its annual meeting, held September, 1717. An extract from their letter will show the nature of the struggle which the Baptists in Pennsylvania had at that time to maintain:-"We think that the very minds of the people in common here are tainted with Arminianism, Socinianism, and what not. The common notion of religion among them is like a leprous house: it is not to be mended by patching, but must be pulled down, and re-built upon the right foundation-the covenant of grace. This we labour to do, and, therefore, go against the current of the times, that others who succeed us may see no cause to lament our having gone before them; and this we still do, God permitting."⁹ They did it, and that right well. None of their successors have lamented "their having gone before them."

We have adverted to the remarkable increase of our denomination in the latter half of the period now under notice. It was the fruit of a series of revivals. The ministers of those times were not satisfied with discharging the duties of their pastorates. They undertook long journeys, preaching as they went, often with no preconceived or definite plan, but traveling and laborings as they believed themselves to be directed from above. Mighty effects followed, "the Lord working with them, and confirming the Word," not indeed by "signs following," such as Apostolic churches saw, but by still greater displays of power and mercy-by the conversion of souls. These manifestations were not confined to any particular part of the country; they were everywhere enjoyed. Rhode Island experienced a rich blessing in 1774. The churches in the northern parts of New England were more than doubled in number in the ten years preceding 1792. Many thousands were added in Virginia and other Southern States. In 1791 there was an extensive revival in Massachusetts, which reached far into the State of New York. Two hundred and ninety-three members were added to the churches of Saratoga and Stillwater in that year.¹⁰

We need not be surprised at some oddities. All society was in a ferment; strange things bubbled up to the surface, now and then, and were gazed upon, or smiled at, or it may be wept over, till they sank into oblivion. If the churches composing the Sandy Creek Association in North Carolina were tenacious of the kiss of charity, the laying on of hands upon members, the appointment of elderesses, and such things; if a large Baptist body in Virginia were so mistaken as to choose, in the year 1774, three of their number, and designate them "apostles," investing them with a power of general superintendence; and if, in some respects, the fervency of New Light feelings got the better of discretion and decorum, we must bear in mind the peculiarities of the times. After a long season of cold and drought, the Lord "poured water upon him that was thirsty, and floods upon the dry ground;" the spiritual vegetation sprang up thick and strong, requiring skilful cultivators; and some detriment was experienced for want of care in pruning and training. In the course of a few years these wants were supplied, and suitable arrangements constituted. Surely we ought to prefer a revival of religion, though dashed with some irregularities, to the death-like coldness of mere orthodoxy and form.

The year 1764 was memorable for the founding of Rhode Island College, now called "Brown University." This Institution originated with the Philadelphia Association. The desirableness of the measure had been long felt. The Rev. Morgan Edwards was the principal mover in the undertaking, and his views were zealously forwarded by the Pennsylvania Baptists. They chose Rhode Island as the seat of the proposed College, because it was supposed that the preponderance of the Baptists in that State would secure the bestowment of a suitable charter of incorporation. The Rev. James Manning, then of Philadelphia, being at Newport, Rhode Island, in 1763, on his way to Halifax Nova Scotia, called a meeting of the chief Baptists, and laid the subject before them. The result was that a plan was formed, preliminary measures were taken, and application was immediately made to the legislature for a charter. Some difficulties arose, from the dishonest dealing of a Presbyterian minister whose assistance had been asked in the preparation of the charter, and who actually drew it up in such a manner that the Presbyterians would have had the control. The design was defeated, and the original promoters of the object obtained their wishes. The College was founded on the following plan:-

"That into this liberal and catholic institution shall never be admitted any religious tests; but, on the contrary, all the members thereof shall for ever enjoy full, free, absolute, uninterrupted liberty of conscience; and that the places of professors, tutors, and all other officers, the president alone excepted, shall be free and open for all denominations of Protestants; and that youth of all religious denominations shall and may be freely admitted to the equal advantages, emoluments and honours of the college or university, and shall receive a like fair, generous, and equal treatment during their residence therein, they conducting themselves peaceably, and conforming to the laws and statutes thereof; and that the public teaching shall in general respect the sciences; and that the sectarian differences of opinions shall not make any part of the public and classical instruction."

"The government of the college is vested in a Board of Fellows, consisting of twelve members, of whom eight, including the president, must be Baptists; and a Board of Trustees, consisting of thirty-six members, of whom twenty-two must be Baptists, five Friends or Quakers, four Congregationalists, and five Episcopalians. These represent the different denominations existing in the State when the charter was obtained. The instruction and immediate government of the college rests in the president and Board of Fellows."¹¹

Mr. Manning, afterwards Dr. Manning, was chosen president. He commenced his labours at Warren, in 1766, and was soon encouraged by the resort of students to him for instruction. The erection of a college building became necessary, and Providence was chosen as the site, that city having offered the largest contribution towards the object. The work was accomplished in 1770. On the breaking out of the American war, the Institution was suspended for six years, and the building was used for barrack and hospital purposes by the army. Dr. Manning died in 1791, and was succeeded by Dr. Maxcy, who resigned his office in 1802, when Dr. Messer became president. He was followed by Dr. Wayland, who resigned, "full of honours," in 1856. The University was next under the presidency of Dr. Barnas Sears, who resigned in 1867, in order to superintend educational arrangements in the South, founded by the munificent liberality of George Peabody, Esq., and is succeeded by Dr. Alexis Caswell.

This venerable institution is now a hundred years old. About two thousand students have graduated there, upwards of five hundred of whom have become ministers of the Gospel.¹²

Rhode Island College was named "Brown University," in 1804, in honour of Nicholas Brown, Esq., to whose liberality it has been largely indebted. In the year abovementioned he founded a Professorship in Rhetoric and Belles Letters. He afterwards erected "Hope Hall," a spacious structure, designed to afford the increased accommodation required for the students, which cost 30,000 dollars. "Manning Hall," more recently built by the same generous benefactor, has the library on the ground floor, and the upper part is used for a chapel. The library contains between thirty and forty thousand volumes.

The importance of providing means of instruction for those who intended to enter the ministry was early felt by our brethren on the American Continent. A considerable sum was raised for the assistance of such persons by the Philadelphia Association. Private seminaries of education were established in different parts of the country, which were attended by many who afterwards became ministers of the Gospel. The first academy of the kind was opened by Mr. Eaton, at Hopewell, New Jersey, in 1756. Dr. Samuel Jones established another, at Lower Dublin, Pennsylvania, in 1766; and a third was founded at Wrentham, Massachusetts, in 1776, by Mr. W. Williams, one of the first graduates of Rhode Island College. These were useful efforts. They were the germs of the noble undertakings which have characterized the present age.

The introduction of Baptist principles and practices into that part of the American Continent which is now called "British North America" remains to be recorded.

In 1760, Shubael Dimock and family, with other persons, emigrated from Connecticut and settled in Newport, Nova Scotia. The vexations they had endured in their own country in being taxed for the support of the ministers of the "Standing Order" (Congregational) led to their removal. The Rev. John Sutton, a Baptist minister, accompanied them. He remained about a year in the province, baptized Mr. Dimock's son Daniel, and many more, and then returned. The Dimocks, father and son, preached the Gospel in the district where they had settled, and many were converted and baptized, but no church was formed.

The Rev. Ebenezer Moulton, of Massachusetts, visited the same province in 1761, and preached chiefly at Yarmouth. The same results followed as at Newport. He also returned.

In 1763, the Rev. Nathan Mason removed from Swansea, Massachusetts, to Sackville, which was then in Nova Scotia, but is now in New Brunswick (the separation into two provinces having taken place in 1784). A church had been formed, of which Mr. Mason was chosen pastor before he left. The whole church emigrated. They remained at Sackville about eight years, during which time they had increased to sixty members. The original emigrants then returned, and the church died out. Another church was formed in the same place in 1799.

The first Baptist church formed in the province was at Horton. Ten persons were constituted a church, October 19th, 1778, and the Rev. Nicholas Pearson, who had been preaching there some time, was chosen their pastor. His labours were so successful that fifty-two persons were added to the church in 1779 and 1780. In the latter year the church adopted open communion, by admitting Congregationalists to their fellowship. The other churches which were established during the century adopted the same policy.

The ministers to whose labours the denomination was chiefly indebted for its maintenance and extension in Nova Scotia were Thomas Handly Chipman, Joseph Dimock, John Burton, James Manning, Theodore Seth Harding, Harris Harding, Edward Manning, Enoch Towner, and Joseph Crandal. All these were eminent men in their time. Uneducated, in the common meaning of the word, they were well versed in Bible theology, and they were powerful preachers. They did not confine themselves to the neighborhoods in which they lived, but itinerated through the province, proclaiming the glad tidings wherever they could gain access to the people, and turning many "from the power of Satan unto God." Their names are held in high honour in Nova Scotia.

Mixed fellowship prevailed in all the churches, that at Halifax excepted, which was the only Baptist church (properly so called) in Nova Scotia, at the close of the eighteenth century. But all the pastors were Baptists, and the converts were invariably baptized. Strict communion became the practice of the churches in 1809.

The first Association in British North America was formed in Lower Granville, Nova Scotia, June 23, 1800. It consisted of nine churches, viz.: Annapolis and Upper Granville, Digby, Lower Granville, Horton, Newport, Cornwallis, Chester, Yarmouth, and Sackville, N.B.

A Baptist church was formed in the Township of Hallowell, Prince Edward County, Canada West, about the year 1795. The Rev. Joseph Winn was pastor, and probably exercised a general oversight over other Baptist communities, which were subsequently founded in that part of Canada. The Rev. Reuben Crandell was also an active and successful minister in the same province.

There were many excellent ministers whose names and lives deserve to be recorded here, but space forbids.

1 The " halfway covenant" is thus explained by Dr. Lyman Beecher:-"According to the provisions of this anomaly in religion, persons of a regular deportment, though destitute of piety, might be considered as Church members, and offer their children in baptism, without coming to the Sacramental Supper, for which piety was still deemed indispensable. The effect was, that owning the covenant, as it was called, became a common, thoughtless ceremony, and baptism was extended to all who had sufficient regard to fashion, or to self-righteous doings, to ask it for themselves or their children. As to the promise of educating their children in the fear of the Lord, and submitting to the discipline of the Church, on the one hand, or of watchful care on the other, they were alike disregarded, both by those who exacted and by those who made them."-Autobiography, i. p. 270.
2 Dr. Hovey's Life and Times of Isaac Backus, p. 167.
3 Hovey, pp. 28, 184.
4 Benedict's History of the Baptists, p. 654.
5 History of the Protestant Episcopal Church in Virginia, p. 121.
6 Howell's Early Baptists of Virginia, p. 39.
7 Trumbull's History of Connecticut, quoted by Dr. Hovey, p. 35.
8 Benedict's History, p. 605.
9 Ivimey, iii. pp. 127,131, 133.
10 Hovey, p. 258.
11 Hovey, p. 151.
12 See Guild's History of Brown University.

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