History of the North Carolina Baptists in the Library of Judge T
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
STATE HISTORIES HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA BAPTISTS by George Washington Paschal. Volume 1 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA BAPTISTS GEORGE WASHINGTON PASCHAL VOLUME 1 1663-1805 THIS VOLUME IS DEDICATED TO JOHN THOMAS ALDERMAN IN RECOGNITION OF HIS SERVICES TO THE STATE AS EDUCATOR AND STATESMAN AND TO THE BAPTISTS OF NORTH CAROLINA AS A WRITER WHO HAS MADE MANY SCHOLARLY CONTRIBUTIONS TO THEIR HISTORY AND UNDER WHOSE PLAN AND ENCOURAGEMENT THIS WORK HAS BEEN UNDERTAKEN PREFACE In 1926 the Historical Commission of the North Carolina Baptist State Convention authorized the preparation and publication of a comprehensive history of the Baptists of North Carolina. The Commission advised that the first volume of the work should be published in 1980, the centennial anniversary of the founding of the Convention. The need of such a work based on original studies of the sources has long been felt not only by the Baptists but by other students of the history of our State. As early as 1896, that discriminating and able historical writer, Dr. Thomas M. Pittman, in a series of articles in the Biblical Recorder, outlined what he conceived should be the nature and scope of such a history. Though I did not see Dr. Pittman’s articles until I had written the greater part of my work, I was glad to see that in some important respects I had conformed, however imperfectly, to the conceptions of so able a scholar. Dr. Pittman insisted that a Baptist history should take account of both Baptist people and Baptist churches; that this history should be written only by a Baptist who could appreciate Baptist ideas and sentiments; that while it should correctly and fully set forth the religious life and work, the progress and doctrinal growth of the Baptists, it should also show to what extent Baptist principles and Baptist people helped to bring out of the discordant elements of our early population our peculiar North Carolina type of government and civilization; that this history should show how the Baptists have influenced people of other denominations in North Carolina and have been influenced by them; that in its writing account should be taken of the bearing of State history and related general history upon our denominational history; that the history of the Baptists of our State cannot be disassociated from the general history of the denomination; that this history should be based as far as possible on primary sources. With conceptions such as these I went about the preparation of the present work. In this way I was led to begin with a brief account of the Baptists in England and America before their rise in North Carolina, and to include an outline of the political and social history of our colonial period and rather extended accounts of other denominations in colonial North Carolina, especially the Quakers, Episcopalians, and Presbyterians. If in some instances I have failed to show how the conditions I describe have modified the life and development of our Baptist churches and people, I hope the intelligent reader may be able to make the proper deductions. So far as possible I have gone to original sources. Most valuable of all has been a manuscript copy of Morgan Edwards’s Materials Towards a History of North Carolina Baptists, which no historian since Benedict has used first hand. In the footnotes will be found indications of my other sources and authorities. In a dedication I have acknowledged my indebtedness to Mr. J. T. Alderman. I wish here to call attention to my debt and that of the Baptists of the State to Dr. Charles E. Maddry, Corresponding Secretary of the Baptist State Convention. It has been largely his interest and support that have made possible this publication. Dr. W. L. Poteat has given valuable assistance in reading the proof, but must not be held responsible for such errors as will be found in my pages. I have prepared this work for the most part while at the same time doing full work, both in the regular session and in the summer school, as a teacher in Wake Forest College. This will account partly for certain inequalities that may be found in it. I have tried in all instances to get the truth and tell it. At times I may seem to have been swept along by an enthusiasm which a contemplation of the deeds of our Baptist fathers always begets in me, and which I hope it will beget in those who read these pages. G. W. PASCHAL. Wake Forest, North Carolina. September 30, 1930 CONTENTS 1. FOREWORD 2. EARLY APPROXIMATION TO BAPTIST PRINCIPLES 3. THE RISE OF THE ENGLISH BAPTISTS 4. BAPTISTS IN OTHER AMERICAN COLONIES, 1689-1730 5. RELIGIOUS AND SOCIAL CHARACTER OF THE NORTH CAROLINA COLONISTS 6. THE QUAKERS IN NORTH CAROLINA, 1672-1729 7. THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND IN NORTH CAROLINA, 1701-1729 8. THE GENERAL BAPTISTS OF NORTH CAROLINA 9. TRANSFORMATION TO PARTICULAR BAPTISTS 10. MORGAN EDWARDS’S NOTEBOOK ON NORTH CAROLINA BAPTISTS 11. THE SEPARATE BAPTISTS 12. THE SPREAD OF THE SEPARATE BAPTISTS IN NORTH CAROLINA 13. THE SEPARATES IN EASTERN NORTH CAROLINA 14. THE STRUGGLE FOR RELIGIOUS SUPREMACY 15. THE REGULATORS 16. THE EXODUS OF THE BAPTISTS 17. THE SANDY CREEK ASSOCIATION, 1758-1790 18. THE KEHUKEE ASSOCIATION 19. THE BAPTISTS IN THE REVOLUTION 20. THE KEHUKEE ASSOCIATION, 1777 — 1805 1 — FOREWORD I am undertaking to write the history of the Baptists of North Carolina from the first permanent settlement by the English to the present day. I shall tell of the various steps by which from obscure and small beginnings the Baptists had gained a position of influence and power even before the close of colonial days and are now become the most numerous denomination of Christians in the State. As a necessary introduction I shall trace the life of the colonists from the time the charter for the province of Carolina was granted to the Lords Proprietors in the year 1663, although the historical date of the establishment of the first Baptist church in the colony was 1727. I shall tell whence the early settlers came and why they came, of their industrial, economic, social and political, as well as of their religious concerns, since I recognize that nothing that affects the life of men is foreign to the history of their religion. Especially was this true in a province like North Carolina where there was such close connection between matters of religion and civil liberty. I shall trace in outline the work of the Society of Friends, or Quakers, who until the year 1701 were the only organized religious group in the colony, and the labors of the missionaries of the London Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, who, in 1701, with the encouragement of a Vestry Act by the provincial assembly, began their ministrations and continued them intermittently until the colonies declared their independence in 1776. The records of these denominations throw much light upon the religious condition of the colony and help us to an understanding of much that would otherwise be obscure in our Baptist history. Believing that there were many of the Baptist persuasion among even the first settlers I shall give the reasons for that belief. I think I shall be able to give a satisfactory explanation of why the organization of a regular Baptist church was postponed until 1727. I shall recount the few but not uncertain notices we find of Baptists in the Province before that year and the circumstances that led to the establishment of the first churches of which we have historic accounts. I shall tell of the character of these Baptists and of the remarkable proselyting zeal that soon made them the most numerous body of Christians in eastern North Carolina; and of the speedy transformation of their churches to those of the Particular Baptist type. Likewise I shall tell of the rise of the Separate Baptists at Sandy Creek and of their rapid spread east, west, north and south, and even into Virginia, South Carolina and Georgia. Nor shall I fail to give proper consideration to other independent Baptist beginnings in North Carolina, such as that of the colony of humble fishermen from Cape May which settled at Lockwood’s Folly in Brunswick County, the church in Bladen County, and the early church in the Jersey settlement on the Yadkin. I shall also tell of the means by which the various groups of Baptists of different and discordant origins, the General Baptists, Particular Baptists and Separatists became united in one harmonious body. And while considering the wonderful rapidity with which the Baptists spread in all sections of the Province I will undertake to tell how and to what extent their, progress was limited by the lack of sufficient numbers of educated preachers, when they were evangelizing the people of all racial groups which had settled in our borders, — the English scattered all through the Province but most numerous in the east; the Scotch-Irish in the central portion and on the western frontier; the Irish in Duplin and Sampson; and the Highland Scotch in the “Sandhill” section. It will be of no small satisfaction to those who love the Baptist cause to learn of how in spite of the handicap of an uneducated ministry our Baptist forefathers brought the gospel to so many who were in religious destitution, and by their preaching instructed them in the cardinal Christian virtues of honesty, sobriety, charity, kindness, and love, and aspiration for the freedom of the sons of God in matters both religious and political.