THE BAPTIST HISTORY COLLECTION STATE HISTORIES SOUTH CAROLINA BAPTISTS 1670-1805 by Leah Townsend, Ph.D.. Thou hast given a standard to them that fear thee; that it may be displayed because of the truth — Psalm 60:4 The Baptist Standard Bearer, Inc. Version 1.0 © 2005 SOUTH CAROLINA BAPTISTS 1670-1805 BY LEAH TOWNSEND, PH.D. TO THE BAPTIST MINISTERS AND CHURCH CLERKS OF SOUTH CAROLINA whose cooperation has made this publication possible. Originally Published Florence, South Carolina 1935 CONTENTS FOREWORD 1. BAPTIST CHURCHES OF THE LOW-COUNTRY 2. BAPTIST CHURCHES OF THE PEEDEE SECTION 3. CHARLESTON ASSOCIATION OF BAPTIST CHURCHES 4. EARLY BAPTIST CHURCHES OF THE BACK COUNTRY 5. POST-REVOLUTIONARY REVIVAL 6. BACK COUNTRY ASSOCIATIONS 7. SIGNIFICANCE OF SOUTH CAROLINA BAPTISTS BIBLIOGRAPHY INDEX MAP Baptist Churches in South Carolina prior to 1805, with location and date of construction. Compiled by Leah Townsend, drawn by E. Lamar Holman. ABBREVIATIONS CB — Church Book CC — Clerk of Court JC — Journal of the Council JCHA — Journal of the Commons House of Assembly JHR — Journal of the House of Representatives JS — Journal of the Senate PC — Probate Court RMC — Register of Mesne Conveyance SCHGM — South Carolina Historical and Genealogical Magazine YBC — Year Book of the City of Charleston FOREWORD The manuscript of South Carolina Baptists 1670-1805 was submitted in 1926 to the Department of History of the University of South Carolina and accepted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of doctor of philosophy in American history. The undertaking grew out of the writer’s intense interest in religious history and the absence of any general account of the Baptists of this State; the effort throughout has been to treat Baptist history alone, and to give only enough political and religious background to present a clear view of the Baptists themselves. The summaries and deductions are the personal opinions of a layman; the material, largely from church books and minutes of associations, includes a mass of biographical data employing the spelling of names used in the church books without attempt to suggest modern equivalents. Professor R. L. Meriwether, head of the Department of History of the University of South Carolina, supervised the work from its inception and supplied the inspiration of wide knowledge and insight into social problems and of a peculiar power to stimulate historical thought. The charming personality and eager helpfulness of the late Dr. Yates Snowden, in opening up his library of rare Caroliniana and in bringing such unusual offerings as the clipping describing the Henry Holcombe pamphlet, often relieved the drudgery inevitable to the undertaking. The manuscript has had the benefit of historical inspection by Dr. Anne King Gregorie, Mount Pleasant, S.C., and by Mr. A. S. Salley, Secretary of the Historical Commission of South Carolina, whose accurate knowledge of local history and biographical material was of extraordinary value. Thanks are due the late Dr. W. J. McGlothlin, President, and Miss Eva Wrigley, Librarian, Furman University, for their generously permitting the use of the Baptist Historical Collection; to Miss Ellen M. Fitzsimons, of the Charleston Library Society; to Rev. Frank G. Lewis, Librarian, Crozer Theological Seminary, Chester, Pa.; to Mr. Alester G. Furman, Sr., Greenville, S.C.; and many others, including Mrs. Margaret Babcock Meriwether, of Columbia, S.C., for her criticisms of style and arrangement, and Miss Flora B. Surles, of Mount Pleasant, S.C., for her painstaking preparation of the manuscript for the printer. LEAH TOWNSEND Florence, South Carolina February 14, 1935 SOUTH CAROLINA BAPTISTS 1670-1805 CHAPTER 1 — BAPTIST CHURCHES OF THE LOW- COUNTRY INTRODUCTION As a distinct denomination, the Baptists first appeared during the religious revolt of the sixteenth century. However, according to their own historians, Baptist principles were the essence of the primitive church; continuing, obscured, through the darkest days of church corruption, they again became pronounced in the twelfth century, and were large part of the Protestant Revolt under Zwingli, Calvin, and Luther in his earlier days. Persons professing these peculiar beliefs, not separated from other groups before the second quarter of the sixteenth century, only gradually came to be called by some variation of the term Baptist, as Anabaptists, Catabaptists, Antipedobaptists, and finally simply Baptists, though they at first strenuously objected to all of these names, wishing to be known as Brethren or Christians. f1 The explanation of these designations lies in the interpretation which other sects put upon the action of the Baptists with regard to baptism. The Baptists claim that baptism, as authorized by the Scriptures, must be by immersion only, and if carried out according to Scriptural prescription, the sacrament must be administered to regenerate persons only, that is, to those who have experienced the consciousness of personal salvation through Christ. Since practically all western Europeans had been, at the time of the Protestant Revolt, baptized by sprinkling in infancy, and thus had not been through this regenerating experience before baptism, which, as an added fault, had been incorrectly administered, it naturally followed that they must be rebaptized before they could be members of the true church; hence the names Anabaptists, Catabaptists, or rebaptizers. The Baptists themselves have always objected to having it said that they rebaptized persons who had been sprinkled as infants. Infant baptism they regard not only as having no Scriptural warrant, but as being directly opposed to the commands of the Scriptures. Therefore, in baptizing persons after regeneration who had been sprinkled as infants, their ministers were not rebaptizing these early converts, but administering the ordinance correctly for the first time. From this hostility to infant baptism came the name Antipedobaptists. The Peasants’ Revolt in Germany brought much reproach upon some of the new sects which were too literal in their interpretation of the Scriptures. A group called Anabaptists collecting in Munster in Westphalia about 1525 under the fanatical Jan Matthys, who preached the millenium, fell into such disorder and licentiousness as to bring destruction upon those in the city and universal horror of their name. As the Roman Catholic Church righted itself in some sections of Europe, and one or another of the new sects became the establishment in others, persecution fell upon the Anabaptists in all quarters. Like those of similar beliefs leaving England during the Separatist movement, many of them found refuge in America. Even before the beginning of migration to America, the Baptists were dividing upon questions of doctrine. In England, from which most of the seventeenth- century Baptists of America came, they were early described as in two divisions, General and Particular Baptists. f2 The Particular Baptists, in addition to their stand on baptism, were in the main Calvinistic, holding to election and close communion of the elect only and using the congregational type of church organization. The General Baptists, though resembling the Particular Baptists in many respects, were more lax in the matters of baptism and communion, rejected personal and unconditional election and reprobation, and were Arminian in their beliefs; that is, they admitted the possibility of universal redemption by repentance and baptism in Christ and of relapsing from grace, doctrines like those of the Methodists. f3 Both groups sent immigrants to America where they retained their differences. Roger Williams is claimed to have been the first Baptist in America. f4 Not as a Baptist, however, but as a person dangerous to the Puritan theocracy due to his attacks on the charter and his insistence on freedom of conscience and complete separation of church and state, incidentally two cardinal Baptist principles, he was the first of many driven from Massachusetts Bay to found or to strengthen tolerant colonies. Others were later exiled as Baptists, for the odium resulting from the Munster debacle attached to all of the sect even after their migration to the new world. Regarding them as dangerous to government and religion, Massachusetts Bay in 1644 and Virginia in 1659 and 1662 passed laws against persons refusing to have infants baptized. f5 After 1670 such persons could find peace in Carolina, where, in matters of religion, toleration was the attitude of the provincial government toward all sects (except the Roman Catholic) dissenting from the Anglican Church. Toleration was made possible by the second charter of the Lords Proprietors of Carolina, and was continued under the Fundamental Constitutions though they assumed the establishment of Anglicanism. This situation was a great encouragement to settlement by groups of dissenters of practically every sort. It would appear to have been the part of wisdom to continue this condition undisturbed, but in 1704 a serious effort was made to break down toleration by the passage by the General Assembly of South Carolina, of two acts, one requiring certain oaths and administration of the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper according to the rites of the Church of England before admission of any member of the Commons House of Assembly, the other establishing the Church of England in the province with provision for a lay commission to decide ecclesiastical matters. Because of this clause, which ignored the authority of the