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BAPTIST CHURCH HISTORY in the SOUTH Preface BAPTIST CHURCH HISTORY IN THE SOUTH Preface HE GREAT AWAKENING, an unprecedented movement of religious revival, appeared early in the eighteenth century in Great Britain, in Protestant Europe and in America. In the T New World its earliest manifestations were in the Middle Colonies among Reformed and Presbyterian congregations. Soon afterward, it appeared in New England in the established Congregational churches. As the first general revival of religion in America, the Awakening profoundly affected the life of the colonies, introducing a new religious earnestness, purifying and elevating moral and ethical standards and contributing markedly to the nonconformist character of American religion and idealism. Some twenty years after the Awakening appeared in other regions of colonial America, the revival movement reached the South. It was promoted successively there by the Presbyterians, the Baptists and the Methodists. The Baptist phase of the southern Awakening was more far-reaching in its consequences than either the Presbyterian or the Methodist phases. No group heralded religious revival so enthusiastically or so extensively in the period 1755-75 and none benefited by it so generously as the Baptists. Borne upon a tide of exciting religious conquest and following a definite plan of regional expansion, they not only ministered to multitudes but also laid sure foundations for future denominational strength in the three decades after the middle of the eighteenth century. It must be noted, however, that the Baptist awakening was not in any primary sense the concern or achievement of the “regular” Baptist groups already resident in the South prior to 1755. It was, rather, the work of a handful of rugged, single-minded, enthusiastic colonists from Connecticut who, for their “irregularity,” were known as “Separate” Baptists. These settled at Sandy Creek in central North Carolina in 1755 and immediately introduced the phenomenon of revival to the southern frontier. Shubal Stearns was the guiding genius behind the Separate Baptists. Although he lacked formal preparation for the ministry and by middle age had made no outstanding record of religious leadership in his native New England, he proved himself capable of inspiring and directing a religious movement of surprising proportions in the South the last sixteen years of his life. Unfortunately, he wrote little, and almost nothing of his writing has been preserved. He was essentially a man of vision, action and administrative ability. His preaching, unexcelled in persuasive power, quickened the religious life of thousands and became the model for the preaching of a region and an era. The clouds of witnesses roused by his ministry were deliberate echoes of his living voice. Efforts have been made to assess the total effect upon the South of the Great Awakening, but no thorough study of the southern revival from the standpoint of a single denomination has been undertaken. Certainly, the most important of the three phases of the Awakening in the South deserves special study. Rarely has a denomination established itself in a region so rapidly as the Separate Baptists in the South. Without the favorable reputation claimed by the earlier Presbyterians or the efficient organization used later by the Methodists, the Separate Baptists securely planted themselves within twenty years following their arrival at Sandy Creek, North Carolina. Their story forms an important chapter in the record of American church history. The accomplishments of the Separate Baptist movement are extremely remarkable since Baptists prior to 1755 were an insignificant and generally despised sect in America. Indeed, in England, also, where Baptist churches had begun to appear as early as the beginning of the seventeenth century, they continued to occupy the status of a reluctantly-tolerated, minor dissenting sect through the eighteenth century. Neither in England nor in America did they have official support or a large popular following before 1750. Yet, they were destined in the providence of God to serve as chief instruments for planting the Christian faith along the southern frontier of early America. The Baptists today are easily the largest Christian group in the southern portion of the United 1 States. In no other region of the entire world are they so numerous and influential. Their prosperity is mainly due to environmental factors of culture and economy. Also, their priority in occupying the eighteenth-century southern frontier gave them a position of great advantage. It has long been accepted as axiomatic that those denominations which most closely followed America’s frontier expansion were destined to be America’s strongest denominations. The triumph of free-church principles in the Revolutionary era, the homogeneity of southern people, and the rise of the common man and the economically depressed in the South are among the factors which have contributed to Baptist growth in the region. However, circumstances associated with Baptist beginnings in the South have been overlooked too long as a factor contributing to this growth. Study will reveal that the life and history of the Separate Baptists have continued to leave their mark upon the subsequent story of the denomination and the nation. 2 Contents Chapter Page Number 1. Separatism in Connecticut 4 2. Called Forth and Enterin In 16 3. The Promised Land: Its Possession Begun 21 4. Brush Fires In All Directions 28 5. Are They Blood Brothers? 35 6. Persecution and Exodus 41 7. All Ablaze In Virginia 48 8. Persecution and Struggle For Freedom In Virginia 57 9. Claiming the Western Frontier 66 10. Post-Revolutionary Revival and Merger 72 11. Significance of the Movement 79 3 Chapter One Separatism in Conneticut Canaan Enfield Winstead Putnam Vernon Windsor Tolland Goshen Torrington Storrs Litchfield HARTFORD Manchester Danielson Glastonbury Bristol Wethersfield New Britain Waterbury Middletown Norwich Wallingford Durham Danbury Hamden New London New Groton Haven Clinton Old Saybrook Bridgeport Stratford Westport Norwalk Fairfield Stamford Greenwich THE ACTUAL BEGINNINGS of the Great Awakening in New England extend back to 1734 and the leadership of Jonathan Edwards at Northampton, Massachusetts. From his smalltown pastorate, Edwards launched a movement to rescue a state-church Congregationalism which was fast losing its hold upon the people. Apparently, vital religion in the region had begun to deteriorate with the second generation of colonists. This decline was largely due to the fading of the early Congregationalist ideal of the church. The vigor of early Congregationalism had been a direct result of the first-generation fathers’ conviction that “visible saints are the only true and meet matter, whereof a visible church should be gathered.” In keeping with their covenant theology, they had regularly baptized their children as infants. They had not permitted them to become full church members, however, until the children had known an experience of grace and had agreed to submit themselves to the discipline of the church. Many children attained maturity without being able to profess themselves regenerated saints, but they were accepted as church members. The right of these unconverted people to present their children for baptism became a matter of contention. After much discussion, the Massachusetts synod decided in 1662 that “their children are to be baptized.” The baptized children, however, were not given the right to vote, hold office in the church, or partake of the Lord’s Supper. They were morally acceptable but without claim to sainthood. This arrangement was called the Halfway Covenant. Since acceptance of this practice was rapid and widespread, Congregationalism claimed a large class of inferior church members by 1720, baptized into the churches without conversion. By 1720 the base of church membership was further broadened by Solomon Stoddard, of Northampton, when he advocated the admission of “Half-way” members to the communion table in the hope that their participation in the supper might be the means whereby they would experience grace. “Stoddardianism” made church membership available to all people “not of scandalous life”; moral or 4 even social acceptability became the qualifying test. The result was an almost complete disappearance of vital religion. Then the relentless preaching by Jonathan Edwards of complete surrender to the will of God introduced the novel phenomenon of revival in Massachusetts. From Northampton the revival traveled down the Connecticut Valley into Connecticut in 1735. By June, 1736, some twenty parishes had been affected.1 Interest in the movement prompted Edwards to write, “A Faithful Narrative of the Surprising Work of God in the Conversion of Many Hundred Souls...” (1736). The initial revival was of short duration, however, and did not touch the people of New England generally. Even in the Connecticut Valley many communities were not affected. Religious decline was not arrested in most areas. By 1737 the stirring had quite ceased, although numbers of pious ministers continued to pray for a quickening in their churches. Prayers for a reawakening of the revival were answered in the arrival of George Whitefield, the world-famous English evangelist, at Newport in September, 1740. A fresh surge of revival enthusiasm may have been checked for several years by their feeling that it would not come until he should visit the area, but that it must come when he should arrive.2 Whitefield’s reputation had preceded his arrival
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