When General Baptists Became Particular Baptists
What happened in May 1755, significantly altered the early years of what would become southern Free Will Baptists, and nearly dealt their churches a lethal blow. Prior to the events that will be discussed below, Free Will Baptists were one of the most successful Protestant groups in the southern United States. That certainly changed in the following years.
In May of 1755, Calvinist John Gano arrived at the General Baptist church near Fishing Creek in eastern North Carolina. Gano, having been denied an interview with a group of ministers meeting there, brazenly made his way into the Fishing Creek Church, ascended into the pulpit, and promptly proclaimed (quoting Acts 19:15), “Jesus I know, and Paul I know, but who are ye?”
What Gano seems to have meant was that they, as General Baptists, were unconverted. Some of the men there that day were “afraid” and “ashamed of their shyness.” Others were “convinced of errors touching faith and conversion, and submit[ed] to Gano’s examination” of the authenticity of their faith.[1] What happened in the years following this incident was detrimental to what would become Southern Free Will Baptists.
Between 1755 and 1761, twelve North Carolina General Baptist (Arminian) churches were reorganized as Particular Baptist (Calvinist) churches with the aid of Particular Baptist ministers from the Philadelphia Baptist Association. Such a statistic might cause some to wonder how and why this swift reorganization occurred. Answering these questions is no simple task as the testimonies gathered by Morgan Edwards over a decade later stand as the earliest account of the events. However, several conclusions can be reasonably inferred from the historical data. First, the groundwork for the reorganization of these General Baptist churches was laid before 1755 when some of their own ministers embraced and began to preach Calvinist doctrine. Second, reorganization efforts were spurred on by reports of laxity among the North Carolina General Baptists regarding baptism and local church membership.
The Conversion of General Baptist Ministers
The reorganization of General Baptist churches began with General Baptist pastors. From 1751 to 1757, at least eight North Carolina General Baptist ministers embraced Calvinism.[2] Some were actively proselytized by Calvinists, while others embraced Calvinism through reading Calvinist literature such as George Whitefield’s sermons, Edward Fisher’s The Marrow of Modern Divinity (1645), and John Bunyan’s The Doctrine of the Law of Grace Unfolded (1659).[3] The significance of their embracing Calvinism lies in the instrumental role these ministers played in the reorganization of General Baptist churches. While some of them stepped down from their positions as General Baptist ministers, having forsaken their churches’ doctrines, most did not.[4] Without the prior conversion of key General Baptist ministers, the reorganization of their churches would not likely have occurred.
General Baptists had begun to flourish in North Carolina in the late 1720s under Paul Palmer’s ministry and leadership. Palmer, who was more of an evangelist than a pastor, had seen the conversion of “hundreds” in a relatively short time period.[5] Unfortunately, Palmer’s influenced significantly decreased in the 1730s due to his untimely travels to the North. A man by the name of William Sojourner relocated a portion of a General Baptist church from Isle of Wight County, Virginia to Halifax County, North Carolina. Sojourner joined forces with the General Baptist Josiah Hart, and their joint efforts resulted in the baptism and ordination of many of the ministers who eventually embraced Calvinism.
Making General Baptist Churches Particular Baptist Churches
In the span of one year, Benjamin Miller and Peter Peterson Vanhorn, ministers from the Philadelphia Baptist Association, were directly involved in reorganizing four North Carolina General Baptist churches into Particular Baptist Churches. Those churches included Fishing Creek (Dec. 6, 1755), Kehukee (Dec. 11, 1755), Bear Creek (1756), and Swift Creek (Feb. 27, 1756). This concludes Miller and Vanhorn’s direct involvement in the reorganization process. The remaining eight churches became Calvinistic due to former General Baptist ministers. In some cases, a pastor actively proselytized his own congregants with Calvinist doctrines.[6]
One of the fascinating (we might even say puzzling) facts about this account is the fact that most of these churches, after their reorganization, had significantly less members than they did before their reorganization. This has led some Free Will Baptist historians to see this momentous event as a hostile takeover, while some Calvinist historians believe that the churches must’ve been reorganized in some sort of democratic fashion that didn’t completely trample the former members under foot. The latter seems highly unlikely, but the former must take into account the fact that General Baptist pastors were complicit and even instrumental in the reorganizations in most cases.
The Catalyst for Reorganization
So what would cause these men from the Philadelphia Baptist Association to aid in reorganizing this rural band of frontier churches? The justification behind sending Miller and Vanhorn to North Carolina was a report from Gano that the people of Fishing Creek desired some assistance in reformation. Gano reported that the people of Fishing Creek had said of themselves: “That they had been a numerous society but without discipline or a proper acquaintance with Christian doctrines, and the majority destitute of real religion.”[7] It’s impossible to know exactly who said this, and it’s difficult to know precisely what it means. Writing in 1813 David Benedict referred to the North Carolina General Baptists as “the most negligent and the least spiritual community of Baptists, which has arisen on the American continent.”[8] Benedict’s indictment is based upon his claim that the North Carolina General Baptists were willing to allow anyone who professed faith in Christ to be baptized and partake of the Lord’s Supper.[9]
The attentive reader is left puzzled at this point. What other prerequisite is there for baptism than faith in Christ? Historians Burkitt and Read (no friends of General Baptists) help clarify why the General Baptists were seen as lax: “They [General Baptists] gathered churches without requiring an experience of grace previous to their baptism: But baptized all who believed in the doctrine of baptism by immersion, and requested baptism of them.”[10] If these General Baptists followed the Standard Confession (1660), which Burkitt and Read claim they did, then it seems highly suspicious that they would have simply baptized anyone who merely believed in the doctrine of baptism by immersion.[11] What seems more likely is the point made by the Free Will Baptist Rufus K. Hearn in the 1860s:
The historians, all of whom were our enemies, as I have already shown, say these early churches were very lax in discipline but have failed to show wherein the looseness consisted, only in one point: “They did not require an experience of grace from their members, when the received them into the church.”…These early churches took the Bible for their guide, they practiced its sacred teachings, and as the Apostles never required an experience, and as it was nowhere authorized in Holy Writ, they practiced what they found the gospel required, that is faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, repentance towards God, and Baptism by immersion; and baptized their members on a profession of their faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, and not by experience…They may call it lax in discipline, if they choose, we cannot, for we find no warrant in the New Testament, for an experience of grace, as they term it.[12]
What Hearn is referring to when he says “experience of grace” is the conversion narrative whereby an applicant for membership would narrate his or her conversion.[13] The applicant would narrate the process of his or her doubt, despair, conversion, comfort in Christ, and changed life. Hearn is contending that the General Baptists had always required only a genuine profession of faith as a prerequisite for baptism and membership. The heart of the matter then is not some sort of moral laxity amongst these General Baptists, but a disagreement about what is required for determining one’s conversion for the sake of baptism and membership. Following the Puritans and the swelling tide of the first Great Awakening, many Calvinists required a somewhat standardized conversion narrative for baptism. General Baptists and Free Will Baptists, following their English forefathers, only required a profession of faith and a corresponding godly life for baptism and membership.
Conclusion
The loss of twelve North Carolina General Baptist churches in the 1740s and 1750s might seem insignificant in a country now replete with churches. Such was not the case in the South in the mid-1700s. The remaining churches (around four in all) were left weak and isolated. Were it not for the diligent work of Joseph and William Parker, this might have resulted in the demise of General/Free Will Baptists in the South. By God’s grace, it did not. From this small band of surviving churches sprang many new churches that went by the name Free Will Baptist. And for those interested in the rest of the story, consider William F. Davidson’s The Free Will Baptists in History and J. Matthew Pinson’s A Free Will Baptist Handbook.
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[1] Morgan Edwards, Materials Towards a History of the Baptists in the Provinces of Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia (Morgan Edwards, 1772), 126.
[2] William F. Davidson, The Free Will Baptists in History (Nashville, TN: Randall House Publications, 2001), 68; Edwards, 128-144.
[3] Edwards, 131.
[4] This is particularly true of Charles Daniel of Lower Fishing Creek. Edwards records that Daniel stopped preaching when he began to “suspect the orthodoxy of Arminianism, and took it [preaching] not up again till he had assurance of his being in a state of grace.” Edwards, Materials , 131. From this it appears that Daniel apparently not only suspected the orthodoxy of Arminianism, but even his own conversion.
[5] Of Palmer Paschal writes, “Palmer was an evangelist rather than a pastor, but he baptized as many disciples as he made, without necessarily gathering them into churches.” George Washington Paschal, History of North Carolina Baptists (Raleigh, NC: North Carolina State Baptist Convention, 1930), 157. 10 This apparently was not uncommon in this frontier region as the Kehukee Association, as late as 1783, permitted itinerant ministers to baptize “when he travels into dark places, destitute of ministerial helps, and persons get converted.” Lemuel Burkitt and Jesse Read, A Concise History of the Kehukee Baptist Association (Halifax, NC: A. Hodge, 1803); Revised and Improved Edition by Henry L. Burkitt (Philadelphia: Lippincott, Grambo and Company, 1850), 59; William L. Saunders, ed. The Colonial Records of North Carolina (Raleigh, NC: P.M. Hale, Printer to the State, 1886), III, 48.
[6] Of John Moore, pastor of Falls of Tar River, Morgan Edwards notes, “Then [after he embraced Calvinism] he proselytized some of the church.” Edwards, 131.
[7] Wood Furman, A History of the Charleston Association of Baptist Churches in the State of South Carolina (Charleston, SC: Press of J. Hoff, 1811), 62. Gano does not report exactly who said this or how many people shared this sentiment. It seems likely that those who would have given this report would have been those members who were admitted into the reorganized church.
[8] David A. Benedict, A General History of the Baptist Denomination in America, and Other Parts of the World (Boston: Lincoln and Edmands, 1813), 2: 98.
[9] Ibid.
[10] Burkitt and Read, 28.
[11] Burkitt and Read write, We believe they were the descendents of the English General Baptists, because we find from some original papers, that their confession of Faith was subscribed by certain Elders, and Deacons, and Brethren, in behalf of themselves and others, to whom they belonged, both in London, and several counties in England, and was presented to King Charles the second. Burkitt and Read, 32.
[12] Rufus K. Hearn, “Origin of the Free Will Baptist Church of North Carolina” in General Baptist History ed. D.B. Montgomery (Evansville, IN: Courier Company, Book and Job Printers, 1882), 169-170.
[13] See D. Bruce Hindmarsh, The Evangelical Conversion Narrative: Spiritual Autobiography in Early Modern England (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 287.
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