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Home , Baptists, Benjamin Keach, General Baptists, Isaac Backus, Thomas Helwys

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Baptists, the and Corporate – Doug Weaver, Baylor

There are numerous ways to approach the topic of the Holy Spirit and Corporate

Worship. Someone could construct a of worship based on the recent voluminous literature on the by contemporary theologians. Someone could zero in on one aspect of worship such as music and put it in pneumatological perspective. Theologians, I expect, are best tasked with those approaches. What I hope to do, as a historian of Baptist life, is to look at how

Baptists have talked about the Holy Spirit, especially with reference to worship or worship practices. I am not attempting to provide a comprehensive overview of Baptists and the Holy

Spirit, which of course would be a book length treatment at minimum, but I do want to look at various topics, especially those that attracted the attention of Baptists in the seventeenth century, their first century of life.

I have found the material of early English Baptists, both the and

Particular Baptists, intriguing regarding their willingness to speak frequently about the Spirit. I assume that there is no need to travel the well-worn ground of describing the differences of

General Baptists and Particular Baptists on issues of election, predestination and the like.

Textbooks do that well and for this project, that discussion is not indispensable. I’ll also draw comparisons with Baptists from colonial America, usually from the seventeenth century as well, though I’ll slip in a few references to American Baptists of later centuries if they help elucidate the ideas of their American predecessors. And finally, because my life as a historian was first devoted to the study of , and in recent days has incorporated that interest again, I will take a leap, if not smoothly, at least understandably, from a focus on Baptists primarily in their first century to what the interplay of Baptists and the Pentecostal tradition has looked like in the last century. 2

As you take this journey with me, you will recognize early on that I find the best way to describe much of Baptist history as a Biblicist literal search to recover the , elusive as that may be.1 The earliest Baptists were sensitive to the importance of the

Holy Spirit in their attempt to embody the apostolic church. This focus on community, however, also highlighted individual . In other words, I’ll rehearse with you a diverse story or stories, a paradox, a creative interplay: and that is that Baptists, as they spoke of the Holy Spirit or worship, or both, spoke of both the communal and the personal.

First, I’ll let early Baptists define the church. Baptist co-founder said

“that the church off is a company off faithful people seperated from the world by the word

& Spirit off being knit unto the Lord & one unto another, by Baptisme. Upon their owne confession of the faith and sinnes.”2 In similar fashion, John Clarke, who has been called the founder of American Baptists, said that the church was the “household of faith… a company of faithfull ones, that are bought with the price of his blood, knit together in one by his Spirit…”3

The 1644 Confession of the Particular Baptists defined the church as Helwys had: members gave a visible profession of faith, then were baptized and joined to the Lord and to each other by mutual agreement.4 Of course the existence of a covenant among members did not alone demonstrate God’s presence. As Particular Baptist Christopher Blackwood cautioned, a covenant between people did not mean it was a true church. While the church has a covenant,

“this covenant between persons does not give being to the church, for a company of Arians,

Socinian, Papists etc. may have a visible sanctitie or enter thus into covenant.”5 Clearly, the

Spirit and the Word were necessary for an authentic church to exist. Still, focus on the communal nature of faith is easily apparent in early Baptist life. As Helwys indicated, “the Sunday assembly is an external sign of the communal spirit of Christ and of reciprocal faith and 3 charity.”6 The biblical declaration, “where two or three are gathered together” Christ is there, was a Baptist refrain about church to state established opponents who questioned their existence.

The Spirit within each individual drew him/her to join together with others.

The earliest Baptists desired spiritual worship. Baptist co-founder, John Smyth, and the subsequent Helwys congregation, argued that spiritual worship did not include reading from books, so no use of translations in worship or even reading of scripture without comment were permitted. This reaction was, of course, a strong disdain for what was considered to be the

Spirit-less liturgical practices outlined in the Anglican Book of Common . Smyth also affirmed the possibility of regenerate professing believers receiving direct revelations from God.

Spiritual worship could mean many things for the Baptists of the seventeenth century and the result was a series of “worship wars.” Some practiced footwashing in literal obedience to

John 13; others did not. Some argued against singing in church because they believed the

Bible’s injunction in I Corinthians against women to keep silent precluded singing as well as speaking. These critics didn’t believe that the Spirit inspired “un-tune-able” voices. On the other hand, Baptists eventually adopted congregational singing, following Benjamin Keath’s practice of singing the Spirit-inspired words of the Scripture. Gradually, Baptists believed other words could be sung as well. In describing early Baptists, it is common to refer to them as ‘five principle” or “six principle” Baptists, referencing the principles listing in Hebrews chapter six.

Interestingly, early Baptists had a “worship war” over how to understand the reception of the

Holy Spirit in light of this chapter of the . Did a believer receive the Holy Spirit during a after ? Those who said yes were “six principle” Baptists, clearly indicating that Spirit-led worship was for them a of New Testament practices. Of course the “five principle” Baptists would have said the same thing.7 4

Early Baptist worship was both communal and individual. Both were indispensable; both were intertwined. Said another way, while early Baptists embarked on the primitivist search for the true New Testament church and being “knit one unto another” in voluntary covenant, it was a community of faith that insisted upon and gave focus to the individual’s direct personal experience of God’s grace. This personal dimension reflected and developed amid a significant element in the larger Puritan culture that gave heightened emphasis to the conversion experience as a sign of the visible and highlighted the primacy of conscience in an era of dissent and revolution.

For Baptists, the dual focus on both the individual and the communal could be seen in believer’s baptism. Believer’s baptism was a radical act of individual conscience and faith.8 It embodied individual conversion; it was a voluntary, personal, profession of faith. Believer’s baptism was also the visible entrance to the congregation of faith and was thus a rite of and a communal act of incorporation into the visible , the local congregation of regenerate believers. The practice of denied the necessity of personal , Baptists believed, and it adversely affected the purity of the body of believers.

The basis for believer’s baptism was a personal, heart-felt experience of God. Readers of early Baptist pamphlets were thus exhorted to have an inner heart experience and enter into a

“personal covenant with God.” As Particular Baptist Thomas Collier said, the law of the New

Testament must be written in the heart.9 In opposition to Massachusetts , Boston

Baptists Thomas Goold and William Turner affirmed that “Christ dwelled in no temple but the heart of the believer.”10 This heart experience must, of course, be born from freedom rather than coercion or from so-called proxy faith. Particular Baptist Samuel Richardson noted, “Because it 5 is way, to have free, and only to flow from an inward principle of faith and love; neither would God be worshipped of unwilling worshippers.”11

At times this personal experience was described as the in direct communion with

God. General Baptist George Hammon wrote that “that the soul of man should be free and acknowledge no master but Christ.”12 With mystical flair, Thomas Collier proclaimed that,

“the Lord Jesus with the free consent of the gracious soul, sets up his Kingdome in the heart so that when Christ sayth, My son, give me thy heart: Lord take my heart, sayth the soule, dwell there, rule there, set up thy Kingdom there: so that you see Christ doth not rule as tyrant in the soules of his people, but with the free and full consent of the mind of the person in whom he reigns.”13

This direct relationship with God was possible because of God’s grace; and direct because God alone was “Lord and lawgiver to the soul.” Only Christ, not any state or religious hierarchy, reigned in and over the of the believing . When Baptists, even Baptist women like Ann Trapnel, on occasion declared to have Spirit-led visions from God, these intimate experiences derived from, and were accepted by others because of, their in a personal direct relationship with God.

The focus on individual faith was also cast in the language of the Holy Spirit. Early

Baptists believed they were a Spirit-led people, and it was the Spirit which justified and emphasized the role of individuals and the communal nature of the Church. Thomas Helwys contended that the Spirit was the church’s authentic episcopacy. According to his colleague,

General Baptist John Murton, Christ was the church’s monarch, and the Holy Spirit was God’s deputy.14 As one scholar has said about Baptists and some other sectarians of the seventeenth century, spiritual authority came via personal experience.15 Through the affirmation of the 6 priesthood of all believers, the Spirit made every person equal before God; there was no hierarchy of importance. The Holy Spirit worked through the believer, enlightened the conscience and worked through the Scriptures.

From this Spirit-led basis, Baptists allowed for individual and communal expression of reading the Scripture. Baptist catechisms exhorted all Baptist believers to read the Scriptures. In a refrain also seen in the better known writings of American , Samuel Richardson retorted to opponents, ‘why let us have if we cannot read them ourselves?’16 The

Scriptures, General Baptist Henry Denne contended, were not granted authority because the

Church had bestowed them authority but they were accepted experientially through the “inward of the Spirit.”17 Baptist dissenters imprisoned for their faith certainly were there because of their right to private judgment when it came to spiritual matters. Seventh Day Baptist

Francis Bampfield spoke of “Spirit-illuminations” and said he answered only to King Jesus, “the lawgiver to our souls” and the “only Lord to our conscience”—both common Baptist refrains.18

The preaching of the Word of God clearly had a personal focus for the earliest Baptists; but it had no less a communal focus. That was their expectation for restoring an authentic New

Testament church. In good Protestant fashion, an affirmation of and the preached

Word were central to worship. The spiritual egalitarianism seen in believer’s baptism and in reading the Scripture was also evident in preaching. Baptists certainly did not ignore church order and , especially as they grew, but preaching embodied individual and communal expressions of faith. Thomas Helwys said that every man could preach, not just the hierarchical . Christopher Blackwood exhorted those who preached to “preach out of your own experience.”19 Both John Murton and American Obadiah Holmes also tied preaching to personal experience. They said that God had made the Scriptures “plain” and thus anyone who “fear(ed) 7 and obey(ed)” God could read and understand them under the guidance of the Holy Spirit.

Murton and Holmes further revealed their spiritual egalitarianism by highlighting how the poor and despised were often those who understood the Scriptures. Educated hierarchical clergy should not automatically be followed in matters of faith because they could err like all men.20 In sum, these early Baptists emphasized a Baptist tendency to emphasize the interrelatedness of

Word, Spirit, and experience.

In addition to Baptists clearly following the Protestant affirmation of the reading of

Scripture individually, they also knew that Scriptures were the source of worship for the Church and were to be expounded in a communal context. In the earliest years, at least, Baptists followed Puritan predecessors and allowed the practice of prophesying. In some Puritan contexts, prophesying meant that several young ministers would preach in one setting and dialogue would ensue about the meaning of the biblical text. In some Baptist settings, prophesying meant that any Spirit-led individual was allowed to speak after the . The practice of prophesying evidently existed in Smyth’s and Helwys’ congregations. In the 1640s, General Baptist Edward

Barber spoke extensively about allowing individual believers gifted with to speak and exhort about the Scriptures at the church assembly. He cited the classic Spirit-egalitarian passage, Acts 2, to declare that all could speak as led by the Holy Spirit regardless of their socio- economic or educational background. To buttress his argument, in good anti-hierarchical fashion,

Barber noted that human learning was not necessary to have the Holy Spirit. In fact, when a did not let him speak in church, Barber lamented that “this tying of the Spirit of God only in the mouths of the Black coats, (was) one of the greatest innovations that was ever invented.”21 Barber noted that King David was a shepherd; Peter, James, and John were fishermen; Paul a tentmaker; and Jesus a carpenter. The Spirit thus gifted all types of persons to 8 preach. Liberty for individuals to prophesy, as General Baptist Thomas Grantham noted, was a sign of the primitive New Testament church.22 On the American side, again, John Clarke and

Obadiah Holmes testified that the state supported church in Massachusetts denied prophecy and thus attempted to coerce faith from dissenters.23 While a few early Baptists claimed Spirit-led visions and claimed the priority of Quaker-like spiritual enthusiasm over Scripture, most did not.

Rather, the Spirit-led individual expressions of faith often provided a shared communal source of unity and fellowship to a Baptist congregation. As one scholar noted, “Their respect for the liberty of conscience fostered tolerance for diversity of opinion, and their democratic polity encouraged greater participation of the memberships in the governance of congregations.”24

Baptists have historically been Word/Spirit based and not a Eucharistic-based worship community. They have been Word/Spirit based. For example, the 1644 London Confession mentioned preaching in six articles but failed to directly mention the Lord’s Supper even once.25

That is not to say that the Lord’s Supper has not been integral to worship or a time to experience of the Spirit. From the outset, Baptists were Protestants who practiced two ordinances or . How often it was practiced in worship varied. Much early concern, even into the twentieth century, was over the question of open or . Both had their adherents though the majority of Baptists, up until the ecumenical openness of the twentieth century, insisted upon closed communion. These Baptist feared that was a

Trojan horse, that is, if those without believer’s baptism participated, they undercut the purity of authentic worship. Many Baptists also argued that giving any sacramental or grace-giving value to the Lord’s Supper was inevitably connected to sacerdotalism, which they considered to be the exaltation of the clergy as the necessary mediators or dispensers of grace. For example, Obadiah

Holmes said he practiced the Lord’s Supper because Christ commanded it, but in an apparent jab 9 at the state supported clerical hierarchy in Massachusetts, said that his “rest is not in them,” that is, not in the authority of a church or its ministerial elite, or its ordinances, but in Christ.26 For non-sacramentalists, the meaning of the Supper was often in terms of symbol; it was a memorial, done in remembrance of Christ’s death on the cross.

At the same time, recent scholarship has noted that some early English Baptists like

General Baptist Thomas Grantham never abandoned a sacramental meaning for baptism or communion. Thus, these scholars have said that the Lord’s Supper was not a memorial that ultimately reduced the to a human act of memory but was in fact a vibrant divine- human encounter and avenue for the presence of the Spirit in worship.27

What is revealing to this study, regardless of the diverse views surrounding the Lord’s

Supper, was that it was both personal and communal in Baptist worship. The Lord’s Supper could be a time for each believer to commune personally with Christ, but in observing it as a congregation, as twentieth century theologian from the American South E. Y. Mullins noted, they participated together in a shared, dramatic memorial of Christ’s death. The Lord’s Supper was a communal act of worship and fellowship guided by the Spirit, as all worship was.28

Whatever their views of sacramentalism, Baptists have generally not allowed individual, isolated times for the sacred nor was its practice allowed outside the congregation. In other words, the Lord’s Supper was a church /sacrament. Interestingly, those who insisted on closed communion gave as one of their reasons for their exclusivism that the local congregation, not the isolated person, decided who took communion with them; it was observed only in the context of local church discipline in which a person’s profession of faith could be ascertained.29

As many of the references used to this point have indicated, early Baptist identity, personal and communal, was intertwined with persecution and dissent from state-supported 10 religion. Consequently, Baptist life and worship was inextricably tied to matters of conscience.

Baptists believed that authentic Spirit-led worship was free, voluntary and un-coerced; individual and communal conscience must both be unfettered before God.30

What was the conscience? General Baptist Leonard Busher said the conscience was “the spiritual seat and temple of God”; John Clarke said it was “a sparkling beam from the Father of lights” and in striking language, “the voice of each man’s conscience being to him the voice of

God.” Both men said that religious persecution that attempted to coerce worship against the conscience was a “tyranny of the soul.” Christopher Blackwood also affirmed conscience to be

“a work of the Spirit.”31 Reverence for the God-given conscience, practically speaking, meant that unity did not mean a forced uniformity; exhortation in worship should focus on persuasion.

The conscience was not an unbounded entity in worship, however. It was answerable to the “word of truth,” declared John Murton and John Clarke.32 Even John Leland, the radical eighteenth century American religious liberty gadfly often criticized today for being captive to an Enlightenment driven individual autonomy like that found in American president, Thomas

Jefferson, concurred. Leland was a Jeffersonian but also a Baptist Biblicist who affirmed that conscience was sacred because it was a “court of judicature, erected by God in every human breast.’ Faith was thus personal. At the same time, Leland said the conscience was not perfect because it was defiled by sin; thus, a person’s inner spiritual court could be mistaken. To operate faithfully and justly, conscience had to be subordinate to the “word of God” and the authority of

Christ. In other words, faith, to be genuine, had to have a conscience that was free to follow the

Spirit-inspired Scriptures and actually did so.33

Consequently, conscience usually meant that Baptists were tolerant of worship diversity to the degree they deemed the Scriptures allowed it or because they recognized humans were not 11 infallible interpreters of it. For example, Edward Barber, one of the first to advocate for still said, “on dipping, let every wise man judge.” Christopher Blackwood said that in his church if a member “with good conscience” thought he could still listen to the preaching of Anglican parish ministers, then the congregation would “leave these persons to themselves, without any threats of censure, not making our consciences…the rules of the men’s practices.” Allowing individual conscience did not mean that all views were considered valid, of course. Blackwood, for example, concluded that those who still desired to hear Anglican preaching in the 1640s were most likely acting out of “compliance to temporal ends.”34

Conscience was clearly personal; but it was also communal. Baptists were individualistic in their dissent on occasion as they opted to obey God rather than man as they understood their situations; but these individual believers were also part of the egalitarian priesthood of believers in covenant together under the Lordship of Christ. And this meant, for them, commitment to congregational polity and discipline as fundamental parts of being a worshipping New Testament community.

Church discipline, for example, was to keep the body of Christ pure and on occasion, wayward individuals needed to be disciplined. Baptists did this differently than others, they insisted, by not resorting to the carnal weapons of clerical or state coercion. Moreover, they were not to be bound by external authorities like kings or civil magistrates who were incompetent to judge spiritual matters. Doctrinal beliefs, or judgments about the biblical nature of worship practices, were determined by communal, congregational decision. The process was democratic—each believer, or in their day, perhaps each male believer, was to have a voice—but the decision was not simply by majoritarian rule. Rather, the communal voice of the majority 12 was seen as a direct response to nonviolent spiritual methods: the leading of the Holy Spirit and the Lordship of Christ as found in the divinely inspired Scriptures.35

The American Baptist religious liberty advocate of the latter eighteenth century, Isaac

Backus, is revealing here. Backus, like most Baptists in America, affirmed that the church was a voluntary society of converted individuals in covenant together. There were to be no “pressed soldiers” in the church. To ensure this regenerate nature of the church, verbal confession of experiential faith was required, not written confessions that were sometimes altered by ministers of the Massachusetts state church. Backus affirmed the communal nature of polity. He said that the state supported clergy had modeled themselves after the state; meaning, they had developed a hierarchical leadership and let one leader speak for the whole. In contrast, Backus said, in Baptist life each believer in the local church had the Spirit-led ability to judge. Baptists worked for a consensus of Spirit-led believers.36

E Y Mullins, Southern Baptist leader of the early twentieth century, echoed Backus.

Known for his focus on —the God given ability of each person to have direct relationship with God—Mullins also championed the church as a voluntary spiritual community of faith. He asserted that the church was a spiritual community grounded in a common personal experience of grace, a common loyalty to the Lordship of Christ and a common commitment to the authority of Scripture. Mullins concluded that “individual believers were inevitably drawn together by spiritual affinity in fellowship; their renewed spiritual natures then impelled them to associate themselves together as a church.”37 If believers were led by the Spirit, there would be a consensus of the competent.

Did it always work this way? Of course not. Individuals, or a group within a 13 congregation, might, because of conscience, stand over against the majority or over against the church. B. H. Carroll, another twentieth century American Baptist, said at times believers would have to speak a word over against the corporate word of the Church. His example reflected his commitments: he said that if a church was opposed to evangelistic mission work, then the individual believer must follow conscience and obey the Scriptures, not the mistaken congregation.38 At the same time, dissent, even if a person’s contention was that he was being true to the Spirit and Scripture, was usually allowed but might be rejected and the so-called

Spirit-led believer could be dis-membered. For Baptists, freedom often meant diversity in the practice of their beliefs and their worship.

The sacredness of a free conscience, then, was part of the primitivist restoration of the

New Testament church. Significantly, it often revolved around issues of judgment, particularly the Last Judgment of Christ at the end of time, which many Baptists thought was imminent in the seventeenth century. Judgment had a communal aspect—it was for everyone—and genuine

Christians expected to be rewarded with the blessings of heaven. But it was also personal and reflected the spiritual egalitarianism of Baptist life: each person would be judged according to his or her deeds. No one would be exempted; those with earthly titles or some socio-economic status had no advantage. Each person stood level before Christ at judgment (though Baptists were confident God was on the side of the poor and those who suffered). For example, Particular

Baptist Hercules Collins warned anyone with a troubled conscience that death and judgment were in pursuit. At the Last Judgment, the conscience and the Spirit would bear witness against them. And colonial American John Clarke added that , because they were to practice the golden rule and will answer to Christ at the Last Judgment, should never violate another person’s conscience.39 14

Discussions of the judgment and conscience were usually in the context of the compulsory worship enforced by the King and his “anti-Christ” state-supported religious hierarchy. While there were exceptions, as mentioned earlier Baptists preached that the King had no role in worship or other matters of faith. In words preceding E Y Mullins’ use of the phrase soul competency, Samuel Richardson said that the King was not competent to judge matters of faith. That was the royal prerogative of King Jesus at the Last Judgment. When the state coerced worship, it raped the conscience, said Edward Barber. God “competently gifted” believers,

Joseph Hooke said, but not to be judge over one another. Jesus Christ was Lord of the conscience and only Lawgiver to the soul. Conscience, then, must be free for believers to worship God from the inner depths of the soul.40

A free conscience was integral to authentic worship and tied to each believer’s relationship to God. Believer’s baptism was an act of conscience. Believers were also in communal relationships—they were to be in covenant with each other. But ultimately or eschatologically, each person answered to God. John Murton’s views on the subject actually represent a strikingly extensive, robust roll call of Baptist leaders from both and in

America—name after name that I could mention especially in the seventeenth century but even beyond into the twentieth—when he said that each person must “give account of himself to God” since each person is responsible for his spiritual life. In sum, freedom of worship according to conscience was imperative in preparation of meeting King Jesus face to face at the Last

Judgment.41

It should be apparent by now that I consider the seventeenth century and even the eighteenth century to be intriguing, fruitful and beneficial for study of the role of the Spirit in

Baptist life and worship. However, I need to give some attention to the events from the last 100 15 plus years because of their influence and because they fascinate almost all observers: that is, the explosion of interest in the explicit longing for the presence of the Holy Spirit in the experience of worship. I am, of course, talking about the rise of the Pentecostal tradition. While this story has a completely different historical context, Baptists in each period believed in “Spirit-led” worship and again, both individual and communal dimensions were involved.

Observers know that the Pentecostal tradition had strong roots in the of the nineteenth century. The movement is correctly associated with , but other denominations were affected, even Baptists. As one holiness Baptist said of his critics, “The

Devil said Methodism, the Lord said truth.”42 It is difficult to determine the numerical strength of the Holiness Movement among Baptists in America; still, the movement attracted some influential and evangelists, especially among Northern Baptists, who spoke strongly for the need of a return to Acts 2 in Baptist worship. They believed that Pentecostal piety was the key to restoring the New Testament church. In 1857, Henry Fish of New Jersey asked, “Why may Christians not be filled with the Holy Ghost” as they were in primitive times?

This was possible, Fish preached, because the Holy Spirit was the “grand animating agency in the Christian Church” who would sanctify the soul, eradicate sin and create inner purity. Fish told that pulpit power came from the Spirit and nowhere else. In good experiential

Baptist fashion, he called for a renewed focus on the Holy Spirit because “it requires much less vigilance to maintain a sound than a sound heart.”43

The Holiness movement’s focus on a Holy Spirit baptism was not equated with —that connection did not come until the onset of Pentecostalism at the beginning of the twentieth century. Holiness advocates contended that conversion was a believer’s first grace- filled religious experience but that a second blessing was available and needed for “full 16 salvation.” This second deeper experience was referred to with multiple designations like entire sanctification, holiness, a baptism of the Holy Spirit, entire consecration, the higher Christian life, or to use the Wesleyan phrase, perfect love. Baptist holiness advocates generally used all of these terms to speak of the possibility of “full salvation” or the fullness of the Spirit.

This explicit focus on the Holy Spirit surely highlighted personal holiness for individual believers. The role of the church and its worship was to nurture this biblical call to personal holiness, according to Richard Fuller of Baltimore.44 There could be “tarrying” services, special altar calls for holiness in the same way that there were altar calls for conversion. In worship, holiness should be preached so that each believer could receive the sweet “rest of faith” and the

“abiding peace of Christ” that only the fullness of the Spirit would bring.45 Worship also was to inculcate holiness so that believers would resist participation in the sins of the world. Christ gave the gift of the Spirit; believers only had to believe by faith in order to receive.

Holiness Baptists like Fish, John Q. Adams46 and Absalom Earle47, called one of the most popular evangelists in mid-nineteenth century America, however, emphasized a communal aspect of holiness as well. Because of the priesthood of all believers, the baptism of the Holy

Spirit was for all believers, rich or poor, clergy and . Just as conversion provided a common experience that formed the basis for believer’s baptism and , the second blessing of the baptism of the Holy Spirit would unify believers of diverse perspectives, these

Baptists asserted. Unity had not come through or the diverse understandings of ordinances or sacraments, they contended. But genuine spiritual unity was available in the common dependence upon and the common experience of the Spirit.

Holiness advocates argued that the reception of the Holy Spirit had one primary biblical purpose, and it was most compatible with Baptist DNA. Based on Acts 2, this baptism of 17 holiness was given by the Spirit for an “enduement of power,” meaning, a power to be witnesses, a power for mission. Baptists evangelists like Absalom Earle and Emerson Andrews said that revival worship that nurtured holiness teachings must also be characterized by an intensity for the of sinners.48 Only Christians baptized in the Holy Spirit were really effective in preaching or evangelism, they thought. A. J. Gordon, perhaps the most famous Baptist advocate of holiness, said that the enduement of power equipped worshippers for consecrated service and missions in fulfillment of Act 1:8 in order to take to the ends of the earth. Gordon argued for a different kind of holiness, however. He said that sanctification was a process not completed until heaven; it was not an instantaneous experience in or outside a worship service.49

Of course, the focus on Holy Spirit baptism in worship didn’t always unify believers just as other or practices have not as well in Baptist or Christian history. While it was possible for a Baptist to yearn for the baptism of the Holy Spirit during the Holiness movement and remain a Baptist, it was rare to be both Pentecostal and Baptist, though the creation of the

Pentecostal Baptist denomination in stood as an exception.

Pentecostalism began in 1901 but the movement took off with the ministry of African-

American, William Seymour, and the Azusa Street revival of 1906. Pentecostalism was characterized by faith healing, a belief in the imminent end of time, an affirmation that speaking in tongues was the sign of being baptized in the Holy Spirit and exuberant worship hoping for direct experiences of the Spirit through revelations and . Baptist denominations usually strongly resisted Pentecostalism but perhaps we should not be surprised that numerous

Baptists were drawn to the explicit emphasis on the Holy Spirit and spiritual gifts in Pentecostal worship. Worship was experiential; obviously compatible with most Baptist DNA. 18

Pentecostalism’s message that the Holy Spirit baptism was an enduement of power for missions to preach the gospel at the end of time—buttressed by the assertion that the gift of tongues was a miracle to speak in other languages to prospective converts in other nations—was surely attractive to some mission sensitive Baptists. Whatever the case, some of the earliest leaders of the new Anglo denomination, the , were former Baptists. And many early pioneers in African-American groups, for example, Charles Mason of the Church of

God in Christ, were former Baptists. Baptists today have little idea how many Baptists were part of the early Pentecostal story.

When the Pentecostal focus on the Holy Spirit moved out of Pentecostal denominations in the 1960s into older mainline groups, both Protestant and , what has been called the was born. Since that time, Baptists have found themselves on both sides, pro and con, of what can be called the pentecostalization of religious worship. Some Baptist fully adopted Pentecostal theology and became what are called “full gospel” fellowships. And while I’ve focused on Baptists in America in this description, British Baptists have experienced this, and the April issue of the BWA’s Baptist World magazine noted that Nigerian Baptists have as well.50

What I find significant is that even among those Baptist communities that are against

Pentecostal , Pentecostal practices have influenced worship. What am I describing? It varies; of course, there might be an emphasis on faith healing, or miracles, or prophecies, or the use of multiple prayer languages at the same time in worship, or the lifting hands in prayer or during songs. What is the most common is the adoption of contemporary praise worship.

Christian rock and roll music, or praise choruses, have their roots in Pentecostal-charismatic circles. I remember when I was a teenager at the end of the 1960s, our church sang the 19 contemporary youth musical Good News. It was the first time our church used drums or guitars in worship. Our youth choir also sang the music of the band called Second Chapter of Acts and the songs of the father of Jesus rock, Larry Norman, especially his end-time best seller, I Wish

We’d All Been Ready. Why, we even sang regular rock and roll songs that we thought had

Christian themes like Lean on Me and He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother, songs at the top of the

American music charts. We had to quit singing former Beatles George Harrison’s My Sweet

Lord when we were told that the background singers were chanting the Hindu phrase, Hare

Krishna, Hare Krishna. Today, many churches worship to the tunes of Maranatha or Vineyard or other Christian musical publishers. Religious music, including hymns, have dipped into secular sources long before this—that is not really the point—the key factor here is the popularity of the generic evangelical pentecostalization of worship in Baptist and other churches. Consequently, music, and lots of it, characterizes Baptist worship more than ever before. In sum, this strong yearning and search for the Holy Spirit might not or most often doesn’t include speaking in tongues, but the focus on the explicit presence and power of the Holy Spirit is unabated.

Concluding Thoughts

There was a time when Baptists were described as having a shy member of the Trinity.

We placed so much focus on Jesus Christ that we rarely talked about the Holy Spirit. And while

I believe it is true that Baptists have been Christocentric and still are in much of their language and practices, I think it is obvious from this journey back through some of Baptist history that

Baptists have really never been shy about the Holy Spirit.

What I have presented today has not been systematic about the Spirit. Baptist DNA is rooted in freedom and diversity, given its individual and congregational base. As an aside, I am not sure that systematic and the Spirit go together anyway! And historical vignettes and attitudes 20 must always take into account historical context. Still, the material seems to push us toward the concept that Baptists, the Holy Spirit, and corporate worship, is an interplay or paradox of individual and communal belief and practice.

Baptist worship is clearly congregational, emphasizing the priesthood of all believers.

Baptists have normally opposed hierarchical or top-down leadership or worship because it implied that one person could speak for the whole, or it implied that the Holy Spirit was for a ministerial elite with special grace. Baptist worship has been Word and Spirit based. A dependence upon Spirit-led preaching and testimony or exposition from the laity has been present. Baptists have also had the communal aspects of ordinances or sacraments – shared memorials or shared grace filled events for all who participate.

At the same time, communal emphases have never blotted out the individual DNA of the

Baptist experience. Believer’s baptism, the incorporation of the believer into the body of Christ, was profoundly a personal act of free un-coerced faith. In the Lord’s Supper, the Holy Spirit has brought believers face to face with Christ and his redeeming cross, yet has always been taken together as a group rehearsal, a dramatic sharing of the memory of Christ’s last days or a dramatic sacramental participation in a grace filling moment enabled by the Spirit.

I have spent a good bit of time reflecting on the connection of Spirit, worship, and the conscience, not simply because it is fascinating in the Baptist heritage, but because conscience is at the root of Baptist DNA. While hammered out in days of religious persecution, the Baptist insistence on personal and communal conscience revealed the indispensable interplay between worship here and now with the future. In other words, worship was according to conscience because it was ultimately eschatological. We must be free now to worship according to the 21 conscience’s leading by the Spirit-inspired Word because one day we each will face Christ, the only Lord of the conscience, the only Lawgiver of the soul, at the Last Judgment.

Whatever we want to say about the Holy Spirit, participants in the Holiness and

Pentecostal movements have not been shy about their longing for an explicit and intense experience of the Spirit—they have begged, tarried and prayed for a fuller experience of God’s presence and an enduement of power for service. What is intriguing for this study is how the

Pentecostal experience was to further the church’s mission of evangelism. Baptists, as others, have surely been influenced by this desire, individually and communally, for a deeper explicit experience of the Spirit’s presence.

What is the future of Baptists, the Holy Spirit and worship? Historians probably shouldn’t be prognosticators, especially when subsequent research pushes us to nuance our assessments pretty soon after we’ve made them. My guess is that the desire for explicit or tangible experiences of God’s grace, presence and power, will find the continued influence of the

Pentecostal tradition upon some expressions of Baptist worship. This will mean more emphasis on exuberant worship, songs to sustain personal faith and engender communal praise and intense prayer. This doesn’t mean that hordes of Baptists will become Pentecostal; but it probably means that the pentecostalization of worship is not something in our rear view mirror.

Another guess is that continued ecumenical dialogue and contemporary attention on the

Trinity will bring additional focus on the sacramental presence of the Spirit in some Baptist worship. Some Baptist theologians are already recommending that we recognize the “real presence” of Christ in the and participate and receive His grace through the power of the Holy Spirit.51 We participate in communal acts of belonging in worship as participants in

God’s story. I expect most Baptists to remain, as has been their heritage, a Word-based worship, 22 rather than calling themselves a Eucharistic fellowship. And while some Baptists will not travel down the sacramental road in worship, in this age of focus on community, I expect that most

Baptists will benefit from keener understandings that believers are part of a historically rooted body of Christ, and as one scholar has put it, we don’t simply join the body, we discover our relation or attachment to it. We are in community with God and each other by God’s Spirit.52

At the same time, the individualistic, experiential Baptist DNA prevalent throughout

Baptist history has never defined or practiced worship without reserving a prominent role for personal, direct heart experience of God. Believers who yearn for God’s presence in worship must be free to follow conscience for God alone is Lord. It is a 400 year old story; my guess is that I don’t think it is going away or that Baptists will think the Spirit wants it to vanish.

None of these educated guesses, of course, are mutually exclusive!

Unfortunately a look at these Baptist vignettes did not highlight the role of women in the

Baptist heritage. Curtis Freeman’s book on seventeenth century Baptist prophetesses—I only mentioned Ann Trapnel in passing—is a needed corrective.53 These prophetesses clearly claimed reliance on the Spirit to speak as she-preachers when the male establishment rarely thought it appropriate. There are also numerous stories in our own personal experience in recent decades about Baptists finally applying the priesthood of all believers to persons of both genders. Plenty of women have heard God’s call in Baptist worship and responded. I don’t think it really is a guess, then, to say that Baptists will continue to hear the Spirit’s call to be more gender, racial and ethnic inclusive in worship in the future. I believe theologian Molly Marshall would allow us to use the title of her work on the Holy Spirit here: it is time to join the dance.54

Let me close by saying that Baptist worship has always sought to be the New Testament church—even though our scholarship tells us that there really was no one New Testament church 23 or worship practice or style. Theologian Stephen Holmes has rightly said that Baptists have expected the Holy Spirit to be present in worship.55 Baptists of old were not afraid to affirm that there was more light and truth to bring forth from Scripture. Perhaps this is one reason why Joel

Sierra, in the Baptist World magazine, recently reminded readers that God is not a spectator of worship. Or as Sierra colorfully put it, “God is not behaving in worship, sitting quietly like the family “grandma” having a delightful visit… Instead, God is working actively during worship.

God is moving from one place to another, poking someone’s ribs, pulling someone’s sleeves…

Mission starts in worship as we let God “misbehave” and not remain in silent observation.”56

To say that in the language of this address, Baptist worship has been un-coerced, conscience driven and free to respond to God. Baptists have sought to follow the Spirit-inspired

Word under the Lordship of Christ. And thus in that vein, I’ll close with the following:

--Personal: Jesus says there is joy in heaven when one sinner repents (Luke 15:7)

--Communal: Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. (Matt. 6:12)

--Personal: Paul says, I have been crucified in Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but it is

Christ who lives in me.” (Gal. 2:20)

--Communal: Work out your (the plural you) own salvation with fear and trembling (Phil. 2:12)

--And finally: Paul says, “I can do all things through him who strengthens me (Phil. 4:13) and

“For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one Body…. Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it (I Cor. 12: 13, 27).

1 For a discussion of the Baptist story as an attempt to restore the New Testament church, see C. Douglas Weaver, In Search of the New Testament Church: The Baptist Story (Macon: Press, 2008). 2 (Thomas Helwys), “A Declaration of Faith of English People,” in William Lumpkin, ed., Baptist Confessions of Faith (rev. ed.; Valley Forge: Judson Press, 1969), 119. 3 John Clarke, Ille News from New-England (London, 1652) in Edwin Gaustad, ed., Colonial Baptists: Massachusetts and Rhode Island (: Arno Press, 1980), 80, 85. The rest of the quotation: “there is none that hath so much right unto his household of Faith by way of ordering it, or yet freedom in it by way of commanding, as hath Christ Jesus the Lord.” 4“The London Confession, 1644,” in William Lumpkin, Baptist Confessions, 165. 24

5 Christopher Blackwood, The Storming of , In his two last and strongest Garrisons; Of Compulsion of Conscience, and Infants Baptism (London: 1644), 8. 6 Thomas Helwys, “Confession of Faith of the True English Church, 1610,” in Joe Early, ed., The Life and Writings of Thomas Helwys (Macon: Mercer University Press, 2009), 62. 7 For a narrative of these issues, see Weaver, In Search of the New Testament Church: The Baptist Story. 8 Stephen Holmes also talks about this individualistic strain in Baptist theology. See Stephen Holmes, Baptist Theology (London: T & T Clark, 2012), 95. 9 Thomas Collier, A GENERAL EPISTLE TO The Universall Church of the First Born: Whose Names are written in Heaven (London, 1648), 52. 10 William G. McLoughlin and Martha Whiting Davidson, eds., The Baptist Debate of April 14-15, 1668, in Colonial Baptists: Massachusetts and Rhode Island (New York: Arno Press, 1980), 112. 11 Samuel Richardson, The Necessity of in Matters of RELIGION, or, Certain QUESTIONS propounded to the , tending to prove that Corporall punishments ought not to be inflicted upon such as hold Errors in Religion, and that in matters of Religion, men ought not to be compelled, but have liberty and freedom (London: 1647) in Edward Bean Underhill, Tracts on Liberty of Conscience and Persecution, 1614-1661 (London: The Hanserd Knollys Society, 1846; repr., New York: Burt Franklin, 1966), 253. 12 George Hammon et al., SION’S GROANS for the DISTRESSED or SOBER ENDEAVOURS TO PREVENT INNOCENT BLOOD (1661), in Edward Bean Underhill, Tracts on Liberty of Conscience, 379. 13 Thomas Collier, THE EXALTATION OF CHRIST in the dayes of the Gospel: As the alone High-Priest, Prophet, and King, of Saints (London: 1647), 206. 14 Thomas Helwys, “Confession of Faith of the True English Church, 1610,” 62. John Murton, A MOST HUMBLE SUPPLICATION OF MANY OF THE KING’S MAJESTY’S LOYAL SUBJECTS, READY TO TESTIFY ALL CIVIL OBEDIENCE, BY THE OATH OF ALLEGIANCE, OR OTHERWISE, AND THAT OF CONSCIENCE; WHO ARE PERSECTURED (ONLY FOR DIFFERING IN RELIGION), CONTRARY TO DIVINE AND HUMAN TESTIMONIES (1620), in Edward Bean Underhill, Tracts on Liberty of Conscience, 227. 15 Geoffrey F. Nuttall, The Holy Spirit in Puritan Faith and Experience (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1947), 35. 16 Samuel Richardson, The Necessity of TOLERATION, 260. 17 Henry Denne, THE QUAKER NO PAPIST, in Answer to The Quaker Disarm’d, OR A brief Reply and Censure of Mr. Thomas Smith’s frivolous Relation of a Dispute held betwixt himself and certain at Cambridge (London: 1659), 22. 18 Francis Bampfield, The Lord’s Free Prisoner (London: Printed for W. T., 1683). Online: http://www.seventh-day- baptist.org.au/library/books /prisoner.htm. 19 Thomas Helwys, A Short Declaration of the Mystery of Iniquity, in Early, ed., The Life and Writings of Thomas Helwys, 203. Blackwood, The Storming of ANTICHRIST, 11. 20 John Murton, A MOST HUMBLE SUPPLICATION, 198. Edwin Gaustad, ed. Baptist Piety, The Last Will and Testimony of Obadiah Holmes (Tuscaloosa, AL: University of Press, 2005), 110-111. 21 Edward Barber, A Declaration and Vindication of the Carriage of Edward Barber (London: 1648), 1-2, 7. 22 Thomas Grantham, CHRISTIANISMUS PRIMITIVUS: OR, THE Ancient Christian Religion, IN ITS Nature, Certainty, Excellency, and Beauty, (Internal and External) particularly Considered, Asserted, and Vindicated, FROM The many Abuses which have Invaded That Sacred Profession, By Humane Innovation, or pretended Revelation (London: 1678), 9. 23 John Clarke, Ille News, 37. Obadiah Holmes in Edwin Gaustad, Baptist Piety, 85. 24 Curtis Freeman, “Visionary Women among Early Baptists,” Baptist Quarterly 43 (2010): 261. 25 Noted by Stephen Holmes, Baptist Theology, 108. 26 Obadiah Holmes, in Edwin Gaustad, Baptist Piety, 81. 27 Philip Thompson, “A New Question in Baptist History: Seeking a Catholic Spirit Among Early Baptists,” Pro Ecclesia 8, 1 (Winter 1999): 62-64. Anthony Cross also cited . See Anthony Cross, “Dispelling the Myth of English Baptist Baptismal Sacramentalism,” Baptist Quarterly, 38, 8 (October 2000): 367-391. 28 E. Y. Mullins, “The Baptist Position as to Restricted Communion,” in J. M. Frost, ed., Christian Union Relative to Baptist Churches (Nashville: SSB of the SBC, 1915), 92-97. See also C. Douglas Weaver, “The Baptist of E. Y. Mullins: Individualism and the New Testament Church,” Baptist History and Heritage 43, 1 (Winter 2008): 18-34. 29 B. H. Carroll, Ecclesia: The Church, Bible Class Lecture, February (Louisville, KY: 1903; repr., Paris, ARK: The Baptist Standard Bearer, Inc., 2006), 107-108, 119-120, 136. 25

30 Several sections of this presentation draw upon earlier research that dealt with the role of conscience, ecclesiology and . In one essay, I focused on seventeenth century Baptists in England. In the other essay, I traced these themes among Baptists in America from the seventeenth to the early twentieth centuries. The focus of these essays was not worship or the Holy Spirit, though some of the material lends itself to an explicit analysis of themes related to Baptist worship and the Holy Spirit. See C. Douglas Weaver, “Early English Baptists: Individual Conscience and Eschatological Ecclesiology,” Perspectives in , 38, 4 (Summer 2011): 141-158. C. Douglas Weaver, “Baptist Ecclesiology from John Clarke to E. Y. Mullins: The Personal, The Communal, and the Eschatological,” Perspectives in Religious Studies (forthcoming Fall 2013). 31 Leonard Busher, PEACE, or A Plea for Liberty of Conscience, 1614 (London: Printed for John Sweeting, 1646) in Edward Bean Underhill, Tracts on Liberty of Conscience, 35. John Clarke, Ille News, 6. Christopher Blackwood, The Storming of ANTICHRIST, 20. 32 John Murton, Persecution for Religion, Judg’d and Condemn’d: In a Discourse, between an Antichristian and a Christian (1615), in Edward Bean Underhill, Tracts on Liberty of Conscience, 103. John Clarke, Ille News, 6. 33 John Leland, “ Chronicle,” in L. F. Greene, ed., The Writings of John Leland (New York; 1845; repr., New York: Arno Press, 1969), 123. 34 Edward Barber, A Small Treatise of Baptism or Dipping. Wherein Is Clearly showed that the Lord Christ Ordained Dipping for those only that profess Repentance and FAITH (1641), 30. Christopher Blackwood, The Storming of ANTICHRIST, 72-73. 35 Samuel Richardson, The Necessity of TOLERATION, 271. 36 , “A Fish Caught in His Own Net (1768),” in William G. McLoughlin, ed., Isaac Backus on Church, State, and (Cambridge: Belknap Press, 1968), 190, 198, 207, 211, 238, 248. 37 E. Y. Mullins, The Axioms of Religion (1908), C. Douglas Weaver, ed. (Macon: Mercer University Press, 2010), 13-14. 38 B. H. Carroll, Ecclesia, 62. 39 Hercules Collins, A Voice from the Prison or on Revelations 3:11 Tending to the Establishment of God’s Little Flock, in An Hour of Temptation (London: George Larkin, 1684), 24-28. John Clarke, Ille News, 100. 40 Richardson, The Necessity of TOLERATION, 254, 256. Edward Barber, To the Kings Most Excellent Majesty, and the Honorable Court of Parliament (1641), 3. Joseph Hooke, A Necessary Apology for the Baptized Believer; Wherein They are Vindicated from the Unjust and Pernicious Accusations of Mr. William Errat, the Parish Minister of Hatfield near Doncaster in Yorkshire, in his Epistle to John Woodward (London: R. Tookey, 1701), 55. 41 Baptists cited Romans 14:2 on this issue. John Murton, A MOST HUMBLE SUPPLICATION, 214. See my research cited in footnote 30. Other English Baptists of the seventeenth century that could be cited include: Thomas Helwys, Henry Danvers, George Hammon, Thomas Grantham, and Christopher Blackwood. Others on the American side include John Clarke, Obadiah Holmes and some Boston Baptists involved in the Debate of 1668. In subsequent centuries, just a few names: Isaac Backus, John Leland, William Fristoe, , John Q. Adams, Henry Fish, Alvah Hovey, B. H. Carroll and E. Y. Mullins. 42 “Experience of W. E. Noyes, A in Maine,” in John Adams, ed., Experiences of the Higher Christian Life in the Baptist Denomination (New York: Sheldon and Company, 1870), 227. 43 Henry C. Fish, Primitive Piety Revived or The Aggressive Power of the Christian Church (1855) (Harrisonburg, VA: Gano Books, 1987), 59. 44 Richard Fuller, “Personal Religion, Its Aids and Hinderances,” in Philip Schaff and S. Prime, eds., History, Essays, Orations, and other Documents of the Sixth General Conference of the , Held in New York, October 2-12, 1873 (Harper and Brothers, 1874), 333-337. 45 This is the language of John Q. Adams and Absalom Earle. See bibliographic information below in footnotes 46 and 47. 46 John Q. Adams, Sanctification: a sermon, preached in the North Baptist Church, New York, June 12, 1859. John Q. Adams, “Experience of John Q. Adams,” in John Adams, ed., Experiences of the Higher Christian Life in the Baptist Denomination (New York: Sheldon and Company, 1870), 130. 47 Absalom B. Earle, The Rest of Faith (Boston: James H. Earle, 1873), 62-74. 48 Emerson Andrews, Living Life; Or, Autobiography of Rev. Emerson Andrews (Boston: James H. Earle, 1872), 313-316. Emerson Andrews, Revival , Preached in Protracted Meetings (Boston: James H. Earle, 1882), 29-34 and 84-89. Absalom Backus Earle, Abiding Peace (Boston: James H. Earle, Publisher, 1881), 20. 49 A. J. Gordon, The Ministry of the Spirit (Philadelphia: American Baptist Publication Society, 1894). 50Baptist World 60, 2 (April/June 2013). Numerous accounts of Pentecostalism exist. Two that mention Baptist (though with no “Baptist chapter”) are: Robert Mapes Anderson, Vision of the Disinherited: The Making of 26

American Pentecostalism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979). Estrelda Alexander, Black Fire: One Hundred Years of African American Pentecostalism (Downers Grove, IL: Intervarsity Press, 2011). 51 See for example, Anthony Cross and Philip Thompson, eds., Baptist Sacramentalism (Waynesboro, GA: Paternoster, 2003) and Baptist Sacramentalism 2 (Colorado Springs: Paternoster, 2008). 52 Stanley Grenz, “Baptism and the Lord’s Supper as Community Acts: Toward a Sacramental Understanding of the Ordinances,” Anthony Cross and Philip Thompson, eds., Baptist Sacramentalism, 90, 94. 53 Curtis Freeman, A Company of Women Preachers: Baptist Prophetesses in Seventeenth-Century England: A Reader (Waco: Press, 2011). 54 Molly T. Marshall, Joining the Dance: A Theology of the Holy Spirit (Valley Forge: Judson Press, 2003). 55 Stephen Holmes, Baptist Theology, 110. 56 Joel Sierra, “God is Not Behaving,” Baptist World 60, 2 (April/June 2013): 11.