Visible
Saints and Notorious Sinners:
Presbyterian Sacramental Doctrine and Practice and the Vicissitudes of
the Baptist Movement in New England and the Middle Colonies
Peter
J. Wallace
On November 4, 1764, Jacob Green preached a sermon to his
Presbyterian congregation at Hanover, New Jersey, declaring that he would no
longer baptize the children of any except communicant members. Explaining his new position that only those
with an outward appearance and credible evidence of grace would be admitted to
the Table, Green explicitly sided with the late Jonathan Edwards in utterly
rejecting the idea of a halfway covenant in which almost anyone could be
admitted to baptism. Richard Webster
states that Green had at first followed Jonathan Dickinson and Aaron Burr in
"admitting to the sacraments all who seemed desirous of leading a godly
life: the reading of Watts and Edwards
on the Terms of Communion changed his views, and he, first of all our
ministers, took his stand that only those who were hopefully pious should be
received into church-membership." A
Harvard graduate of 1744, Green was originally from Massachusetts, and had been
ordained by the New Side Presbytery of New York--a body with strong New England
connections. In 1780 he led four
churches into the independent Morris Presbytery in order to practice his
Edwardsean beliefs.[1]
Seven years after Green's sermon, in 1771, his fellow
Presbyterian, John Blair, published his own recantation. Blair had formerly believed that while
virtually anyone could bring their children for baptism, only the converted
should come to the Table. Now he changed
his mind. All but those who had been
disciplined by the church should come to the Table. He had become convinced that all who had been
baptized into the covenant should be "reputed the professors of it untill
they disavow it."[2] He claimed that requiring a public profession
by those baptized in infancy denied their membership given them in
baptism: "Are not the Signs which
our Lord Jesus Christ has appointed and the Manner of Covenanting which he has
prescribed sufficient, without the Addition of our own Inventions to supply the
Defect?"[3] Blair had been trained at the Log College,
and developed into one of the leading Edwardseans in the middle colonies, but
hailed originally from Northern Ireland.
Both of these men insisted that the terms of admission to
one sacrament should be the same as the other.
The difference is that whereas Green sought to tighten requirements, so
that only communicants could have their children baptized, Blair sought to
loosen them, so that all who were baptized could partake of the Lord's
Supper. At first glance, this appears to
echo the New England debates between the followers of Solomon Stoddard and
Jonathan Edwards. After all, Green
appeals to Edwards and Blair calls the sacraments, "converting
ordinances." Yet this paper claims
that while both Green and Blair were steeped in the New England controversies
and trained in the New Divinity, they were involved in an argument
substantially different from Stoddard and Edwards--a difference rooted in their
Middle Colonies Presbyterian environment.
This paper will explore how New England sacramental
disputes affected the sacramental doctrine and practice of colonial
Presbyterians. After examining the
impact of the debates over infant baptism in New England and the Middle
Colonies, we will turn to the conflict over the terms of admission to communion
between the Edwardseans and the Stoddardeans.
Many historians have ignored the crucial differences between New England
Congregationalism and Middle Colonies Presbyterianism. This paper will attempt to demonstrate 1)
that divergences in sacramental doctrine and practice reflect some of the most
basic distinctives between these two bodies; 2) that within colonial
Presbyterianism, the influence of New England debates was reshaped by the local
traditions within Scottish and Scotch-Irish Presbyterianism; and 3) that these
differences begin to explain why Baptists were successful in New England and
not in the Middle Colonies.
I. Demographics:
The Rise of the Baptists in New England and the Rise of the
Presbyterians in the Middle Colonies
Whereas the growth of
English Baptists occurred largely from 1640-1660 (becoming a fairly stable
dissenting body by 1700),[4]
there was no corresponding explosion in the colonies. The emergence of the Baptists as a
substantial movement in the new world occurred a century later. And while they often relied on English
Baptists such as John Gill for their polemics against "infant
sprinkling," the American Baptist movement maintained its own
distinctives.[5]
At first the English Baptists occupied the fringes of
Puritan culture, but gradually fought to position themselves within the realm
of "tolerable" dissent.
Underwood's study of Baptist-Quaker polemics during the seventeenth
century reveals a clear movement among Baptists toward respectable
nonconformity by 1689. Those few Baptists
who emigrated to the new world after the Glorious Revolution generally brought
with them that more or less settled dissent--not at all in the character of the
later Separate Baptists from New England.[6]
So while some historians have assumed that the Baptists
would naturally gravitate toward the revivals of the Great Awakening, most
recent studies of the Middle Colonies have noted that they remained aloof from
what they considered a paedobaptist affair.[7] In New England, especially after 1749, the
Separate Baptists were zealous revivalists; but most of their Regular Baptist
brethren in the Middle Colonies tended to shy away from what they considered
extreme measures.[8]
The following chart
reflects the growth of Baptist and Presbyterian churches in the eighteenth
century:
...........................................................................................................................................................
Bapts MA CT RI NE NY NJ PA MC VA South Total
1660 0 0 4 4 0 4
1700 2 0 7 12/9 0 4 3 1 1 33
1735 7 1 12 23/20
1740 5 96
1750 16 12 30 58 4 14 29 53 3 21 132
1770 27 12 30 75 19 7
1774 54
1780 45 22 31 /114 457
1795 136 60 40 /325 84 23/30 31 170 227 476 1,152
Pbns MA CT RI NE NY NJ PA MC VA South Pbn Cong
1660 5 5 75
1700 9 28 146
1740 160 423
1750 8 1 19 35 51 56 187 17 27 233 465
1776 140 50+
1780 495 749[9]
...........................................................................................................................................................
Baptists and Presbyterians
maintained a similar number of congregations through 1700. But while Presbyterian immigration from
Scotland and Ireland quickly boosted their numbers, fewer Baptists immigrated
to the new world, causing their numbers to languish throughout the first half
of the eighteenth century. By 1750,
Presbyterian congregations outnumbered Baptists nearly two to one.
Rather than depend on immigration, Baptist growth took
place through the conversion of paedobaptists (usually English
Congregationalists or Episcopalians).
Baptists more than doubled in New England between 1735 and 1750, doubled
again by 1780, and then nearly tripled by 1795.
In the South, growth was slow until 1770, but over the next quarter
century they doubled (on average) every three years. In New York the Baptists grew, especially
among emigrants from New England, but in the rest of the middle colonies,
growth was painfully slow. Pennsylvania
only netted two additional congregations between 1750 and 1795, while New
Jersey netted either 9 or 16, depending on which numbers are accurate.
Meanwhile, Scottish and Scotch-Irish immigration to New
Jersey and Pennsylvania resulted in the dramatic growth of Presbyterianism in
the middle colonies. Guy Klett claims
that over 150,000 Scotch-Irish immigrated to colonies in 1770s before the war;
more than 30,000 settled in Pennsylvania, with the result that Benjamin
Franklin estimated in 1774 that one-third of Pennsylvania's approximately
350,000 inhabitants were Scotch-Irish.
Fifteen years before, William Smith had broken down Pennsylvania's
inhabitants as follows:
1759--250,000 inhabitants:
95,000 Germans (1/3 each Anabaptist, Lutheran
and Reformed)
55,000 Presbyterians
25,000 Anglicans
50,000 Quakers
5,000 English Baptists[10]
****REVISE THIS
With Baptist converts
normally coming from English stock, the middle colonies did not offer a
promising field for Baptist growth. As
Baptist historian A. H. Newman once said, "ground once preoccupied by
Presbyterians is relatively irresponsive to Baptist effort."[11]
In addition to denominational affiliation, another way to
trace the rise of the Baptists is through the polemical literature of the
period. An admittedly incomplete survey
of American publications on infant baptism reveals the following chronology of
the debate:
1639-1699--3
1700-1739--10
1740-1759--10
1760-1779--46
1780-1799--54[12]
After the initial growth
of the Baptists after the Great Awakening, a pamphlet war began which resulted
favorably for the Baptists--coinciding with their period of greatest
growth. Yet another pamphlet war may
have proved at least as significant in the success of the Baptists: the Edwardsean challenge to the Halfway
Covenant and Stoddardeanism. Isaac
Backus and other Baptists certainly believed that the efforts of Jonathan
Edwards and his followers to restore the purity of the visible church aided
their efforts to capture converts for their cause.[13]
II. New England
Debates: Sacramental Controversies in
Puritan Culture
While the early
Puritans, such as William Perkins, still insisted on baptizing all children
within the parish, the increasing emphasis on inward subjectivity and the
"disciplined and communal character of the Christian life" in English
Puritanism led to a growing emphasis on baptizing only the children of visible
saints.[14] The original New England Puritans attempted
to combine the ideal of the pure church with the holy commonwealth, holding
purity and inclusiveness in tension.[15] Michael Ryan McCoy argues that the "New
England divines sought to limit the sacraments to those who clearly
demonstrated evidence that they had received grace, but they feared to allow
their society to become 'unchurched' by tolerating those without grace or
barring from the churches persons who had a right to membership."[16] The doctrine of the covenant was utilized to
bring these two things together. McCoy
points out that for the New Englanders, the sacraments "did not create
church membership any more than they created covenant standing. They were seals of the covenant, not the
cause of it....Church membership existed before baptism and was therefore
independent of it."[17] The difference between infant membership and
adult membership was simply that the benefits for infants in the covenant were
all external.
1) The Halfway Covenant and Solomon Stoddard. But as an alarming number of baptized people
grew up without ever giving evidence of conversion, the ministers of New
England feared that their holy commonwealth was crumbling. The halfway covenant offered the simplest
solution: allow anyone who was willing
to own the covenant (i.e., declare their approval of the terms of the
covenant), to bring their children to baptism.
The Halfway Covenant of 1662 may have continued to hold in tension the
pure church and the holy commonwealth, but only at a price.[18] Hereafter the sacraments took on new
functions in New England culture:
baptism was the symbol of inclusion in the holy commonwealth, while the
Lord's Supper became the test of purity within the commonwealth.[19]
The Halfway Covenant fitfully acknowledged the importance
of baptism even as it attempted to retain the visible saints criterion for full
membership. John Davenport and other
opponents claimed that infant baptism was administered on the basis of a
parental covenant--not the covenant of grace, per se--hence the sacrament did
not seal immediate church membership at all.[20] This ultimately led them to divide baptism
from the covenant of grace, insisting that the covenant of grace technically
belonged only to the elect, whom the church could never actually identify. The supporters of the Halfway Covenant
thought that they espied baptistic tendencies in such remarks, since it left
baptized children outside the covenant of grace altogether.[21]
The first Baptists in New England had divided over the
purity of the church--just as Separatists and Baptists had withdrawn in England
during the English Revolution. But by
1650, the New England Puritans had established their experiment with fair
success, and Baptist growth was negligible.[22] But in the immediate aftermath of the Halfway
Covenant and the failure of the Holy Commonwealth--signaled in the revocation
of the charter--the twin goals of purity and inclusiveness both found
themselves challenged. Yet while a few
pamphlets sailed back and forth over the baptismal waters during the 1680s and
'90s, the actual number of Baptist churches rose slowly.[23]
But in the meantime, the inclusive policies of the
Halfway Covenant received an extra push from the presbyterianizing Solomon
Stoddard. Stoddard, besides his
well-known description of the Supper as a converting ordinance, also declared
that baptism was a converting ordinance, "through which God gave saving
grace to some children 'in their infancy.'"[24] As Holifield points out, both Stoddard and
his opponents were preoccupied with sacramental and pastoral nurture largely
because their churches were full of Halfway Covenant members--many of whom were
still "unconverted." With the
demise of the New England Way, both theologically and politically, many began
moving toward a Presbyterian understanding of the church.[25] Few noticed that seeds were being sown which
would be reaped in a harvest of Baptist conversions in later generations.
Stoddard himself wished to preserve the New England
tension between visible saints and the holy commonwealth. Far from denying the criterion of
"visible saints," Stoddard insisted that New Englanders had actually
wound up excluding visible saints from the Table by adding extra terms of
communion. Stoddard argued that the
church should indeed consist of visible saints, and that those who did not
exhibit such signs should be excluded altogether and banished from the church. But those who qualified for baptism also
thereby qualified for the Lord's Supper.
The Halfway Covenant erred in retaining too strict a definition of
visible saints: "There is not the
least foundation in Scripture, for two sort of adult members, one that might,
an other that might not come to the Lords Supper; unless they were under
offense, or wanted sufficient knowledge for that Ordinance."[26] Instead, he declared that the Table was for
all who made a "solemn Profession of Faith, & Repentance, & are of
Godly Conversation, having Knowledge to Examine themselves, & discern the
Lords Body." This profession was
not "an Affirmation that they have Saving Faith and Repentance" but
only "an Assent unto, & Acknowledgement of the Doctrine of Faith &
Repentance (as the onely Doctrine according to which they hope for Salvation)
together with a Promise of Obedience to all the Commandments of God."[27]
Edward Taylor, Stoddard's chief opponent in the
Connecticut Valley, replied that Stoddard's definition of profession lacked any
inward appropriation of the outward assent to doctrine. Insisting upon some evidence of sanctifying
grace in the heart, Taylor claims that while the grounds for admission to
baptism includes only "Federall Holiness," whereas "Sanctifying
Grace, or a Saving Implantation into Christ is the proper ground of the Lords
Supper. None without Life can receive
Food."[28] Further, Taylor disclaimed knowledge of any
churches who scrutinized "the method of Gods Working upon the Soule in the
Work of Conversion" as a requirement for coming to the Table. "All that is Expected by the Churches is
onely some such Evidence of their Faith & Repentance as may be an hopefull
ground for the Charity of Gods people to stand upon."[29]
When Stoddard replied in 1690 that the Lord's Supper was
a converting ordinance, he did so on the grounds that the means of grace were
intended for all those in the visible church, not only for those who were
regenerate, but for all members of the covenant--thereby including only those
unregenerate who were already within the covenant.[30]
Increase Mather, one of the leading Boston ministers,
rejected this whole approach, declaring:
"A man may be qualified for church-membership, and yett not to be
admitted unto the Lords Supper, without that examination wee plead for. Yea, hee may be qualified for full communion,
and yett not to be admitted unto full communion untill such time as his
qualifications have passed under the churches examination."[31] But Stoddard pointed out that the standards
for admission in the New Testament did not include entering church covenants or
taking doctrinal exams. Hence, whereas
in 1640 there was some danger of facing hordes of unbaptized children, by 1720,
anyone who wanted to be baptized could find a minister ready and willing to do
so.[32]
2) Edwardseans and the Baptists. The two eighteenth-century results of New
England's sacramental conflicts were the Edwardsean and the Baptist movements
within New England Congregationalism.
Just as the English Baptists were the extremists of seventeenth-century
Puritanism, so also the Separate Baptists were the extremists of
eighteenth-century New Lights. But in
the same ways that Edwards differs from his Puritan forebears, so also the
Separate Baptists differ from their English Baptist cousins.
Jonathan Edwards signaled a new emphasis on purity when
he rejected his grandfather's scheme and instituted a requirement for making a
more specific profession of faith in order to come to the Lord's Table.[33] McCoy suggests that there were three basic
reasons why ministers started questioning Stoddard after the Great Awakening: 1) the revival raised tensions about
sacramental practices, particularly with respect to worthiness to partake of
the Lord's Supper; 2) the increasing criticism from Baptists and Separates that
they had fallen from the Fathers led ministers and interested lay persons to
reopen the question of visible sainthood; and 3) the traditional fears of
declension that revived as ministers began to think that open sacramental
policies had not provided the results that they had hoped. Edwards, as one of the first to question
Stoddard, did not advocate returning to the earlier practice of the conversion
narrative; but rather attempted to discern those who had received a divine and
supernatural light, which Edwards claimed would be revealed in a declaration of
the will consisting of an inclination toward God and willingness to enter the
covenant.[34] Edwards did not seek to scrutinize some
internal evidence of grace, but simply requested a declaration of the will that
the candidate for the table had their affections set on their desire to know
God.[35] Once again, the doctrine of "visible
saints" was redefined.
But Edwards followers sounded an even more strident call
for purity. As Joseph Bellamy declared,
"Your baptism gives you not the least right to any one of the peculiar
blessings of the covenant of grace...but you are now, this moment, in fact, as
liable to be struck dead and sent to hell by the divine justice, as any
unbaptised sinner in the land."[36] Insisting that only those who were admitted
to the Lord's Supper could have their children baptized (and requiring
transfers from "impure" churches to make a full profession of faith),
the New Divinity pastors were often indistinguishable from the Separatists, and
frequently cooperated willingly with Isaac Backus and the growing Baptist
movement.[37]
Moses Mather and the Old Calvinist establishment
responded with alarm. If gracious
affections are "the Band of Union to the visible Church; it will follow,
that no Person in an unrenewed State can be a Member of it."[38] In Mather's mind, it was only a small step
from such a position to denying infant baptism.
Clearly seeing that the differences between the Old Calvinists and the
New Divinity were rooted in their different conceptions of primitive and fallen
human nature and their divergent understandings of the different dispensations
of God to man in these two states, Mather attempted to unfold the implications
of these differences. Claiming that
Bellamy divorced the external administration of the covenant from grace
altogether, Mather concluded that the New Divinity was well on its way to
dividing election from the covenant.[39] In its stead, Mather offered a distinction
between the covenant of grace and the external administration of the
covenant: "the intention of the
covenant of grace is to make over to the believer, a sure title to eternal
life: but the evident design of the
covenant with Abraham was to set up a visible church."[40] Claiming that Bellamy belonged logically to
the Anabaptists, Mather concluded:
"But if we must not unite with the visible church, till we have
faith; it is an undeniable consequence, that we may not unite with it, till we
know we have Faith:....And by this means a very great part even of true
believers must be cut off from the privileges of church-communion, which God
hath appointed for the saving benefit of his people."[41] Nonetheless, Mather finally gave in to the
pressure of the New Divinity and the Baptists, granting that the covenant of
grace contains no visible church. The
visible church, he argued, was grounded on the Abrahamic covenant--not the
covenant of grace itself.[42]
The Baptists saw their opportunity. Isaac Backus now claimed that not only was
the Old Testament invalid for determining who should be admitted to the Lord's
Table (as Mather and Taylor had claimed), but it was also invalid for
determining who should be admitted to baptism!
Further, he claimed that New England had fallen from its purity, and was
now permitting the unregenerate to come freely to the Lord's Supper. Pushing the visible saints criterion to the
next step, Backus argued that only the Baptists could faithfully continue the
New England tradition, since even Edwards and the New Lights compromised their
principles by allowing non-professing infants into church membership. Claiming that only the New Testament was a
sufficient guide to understand who the church should admit to the sacraments,
the Baptists relied heavily on the argumentation of the New Lights to show that
the only way to guarantee a church full of visible saints was to stop baptizing
babies.[43]
The Great Awakening alone (to say nothing of later
developments) produced almost 100 separatist churches--many of which became
Baptist. C. C. Goen's survey of these
churches suggests that "the logic of the pure church ideal" drove New
Englanders to affirm believers' baptism as the only way to guarantee a pure
church.[44] Denying entirely that the
"ordinances" of baptism and the Lord's Supper were converting
ordinances, Backus claimed that in them the "work of sanctification in
believers is carried on," but no salvific power. Hence he denied access to all but visible
saints.[45] He rejected infant baptism for several
reasons: 1) it falsely supposed that
there is no distinction between the old covenant, which was based on the family
and the nation, and the new covenant, which was made purely with elect
individuals; 2) it permitted the baptism of those who were neither regenerate
nor even disciples, since they had not been taught; 3) historically, it was an
innovation from the second or third century without warrant in the New
Testament; 4) it violated the heart of the Puritan doctrine of visible saints,
creating a territorial church that gets mingled with the world; 5) it is
harmful to children by making them think that they are inside the covenant of
grace, when actually even paedobaptists only believe that they are inside the
external covenant; 6) if its advocates were truly consistent, they would give the
Lord's Supper to infants as well.[46] His arguments resonated with his
audience. Within a span of only fifty
years, nearly 300 Baptist churches were founded in New England.
III. Middle Colonies Presbyterians and New
England's Sacramental Conflicts
James Burton McSwain argues that seventeenth-century
English paedobaptists--whether conforming or dissenting--held firmly to the
union of church and state. His analysis
of Robert Baillie suggests that Scottish Presbyterians held a similar
view. McSwain argues that paedobaptists
argued from a position of cultural dominance, rehearsing their arguments that
Baptists were dangerous to society because they tossed infants out of the
visible church, thereby removing them from the moral oversight of the clergy.
McSwain's arguments make sense in New England. The New England Puritans continued the model
of the established church--only now the established church was congregational
and more fully reformed. Their
insistence on infant baptism continued the English emphasis on the unity of
church and state--with one major alteration.
In New England, only the children of communicant members--visible
saints--could be baptized. As the years
passed it became clear that a large number of people were now falling outside
the pale of the visible church. When
children failed to make their profession of faith, their children could not be
brought for baptism, undermining the religious bonds that held New England
society together. The logic of the
Puritan desire for a communion of visible saints ran counter to their
insistence on an ecclesiastical establishment.
The resulting Halfway Covenant provided a temporary stop-gap, but could
not forever stem the tide.
Presbyterians in the middle colonies, however, had no
such aspirations to the union of church and state. Like their Ulster Presbyterian forebears,
they attempted to create a self-sustaining dissenting Presbyterian culture
which proved remarkably impervious to Baptist incursions during the seventeenth
century. The tendency for predominantly
Scotch-Irish presbyteries to render judgment in divorce cases suggests that
they viewed themselves as competent to determine matters normally reserved for
the civil magistrate.[47]
McCoy blithely assumes that Middle Colonies Presbyterians
faced the same situation as New England Congregationalists, frequently quoting
from New Side Presbyterian sources to substantiate his claims about New Light
beliefs and practices.[48] But New Side Presbyterianism itself consisted
of two distinct elements: the New
York/West Jersey ex-Congregationalists who had migrated from New England; and
the East Jersey Log College revivalists who were mostly from Northern
Ireland. Yet even the New Englanders had
generally joined the Scots precisely because they found in Presbyterianism a
congenial solution to the Halfway Covenant.
And while many of the Scotch-Irish contingent gravitated toward Edwardsean
doctrines, it never resulted in a wholesale embrace of the New Divinity, but
remained couched within traditional Presbyterian sacramentology.
Presbyterian sacramental doctrine and practice was rooted
in its Scottish and Scotch-Irish background.
Puritan sacramental practices had developed through their attempt to
purify the Church of England, resulting in an emphasis on the gathered
congregation of visible saints, called out of the world. Presbyterian sacramental practices had
developed through the resistance of local communities against external pressure
from England (not to mention a century of struggle with Scottish episcopacy),
resulting in a strong emphasis on the sacraments as bonds which held together
the whole community. While Presbyterian
doctrine emphasized faithful partaking just as strongly as the Puritans, the
Scots and Scots-Irish had an even more vibrantly communal spirituality of the
sacraments. The rise of the Scottish
communion season, with its multi-parish congregation is but one example of such
a communal mentality.
Ned Landsman offers another explanation for Presbyterian
communal attitudes. Pointing out that
Scottish Lowlanders were perpetually migrating (though generally within a
single county--and often within a single parish), he claims that this
peripatetic lifestyle did not fracture community, but actually built it--though
on a larger scale than the English village.[49] The Lowlanders did not just wander anywhere,
they usually followed friends and relatives to another "toun" (clusters
of 2-12 huts) after the lease expired from their previous residence. These Scottish communities were constantly on
the move, but remained connected especially through the church.[50] After the Reformation all of the Catholic
festivals which had structured time and place for the community were banned by
the reformers. Yet within a generation
or two the "holy fairs" of the Scottish communion seasons had begun
to function in many of the same ways.[51]
Peter Brooke tells a similar story of Ulster
Presbyterianism. During the seventeenth
century, Presbyterians stood for "the ideal of the church as a kingdom or
polity separate from the state, with authority in matters of faith and
morals. In the eighteenth century it
functioned as the organising centre of a distinct, quasi-national
society."[52] For Ulster Presbyterians, their church courts
were the political as well as religious center from the seventeenth to
mid-nineteenth century. Since
Presbyterians emphasized the church "as the means of organising and
disciplining the whole society" they only required "external
profession and decent conduct" for church membership.[53]
Whereas English and Scottish Presbyterians often
conformed after the Restoration in 1661, only five out of the seventy Irish
Presbyterian clergy did so, reflecting the relative political independence of
the Ulster Presbyterian community. Once
the army left Ulster, they returned to their pulpits and even before the
Glorious Revolution of 1688 they had established the first dissenting synod in
the British Isles. While maintaining
cordial relations with their brethren in Scotland, the Ulster Presbyterians had
a unique situation: 1) they did not need
the permission or representative of the king for their Synod to meet; 2) they
could establish their own criterion for ordaining ministers (Scottish GA was
forced to accept many conforming ministers after 1690); 3) they had no patrons.[54] Hence, Ulster Presbyterians developed an
independent subculture which thrived for nearly two centuries.
Yet while the difference between Ulster and Scotland may
appear significant in some respects, the practical differences between Ulster
Presbyterians and their neighbors in southwestern Scotland are negligible. For instance, Landsman points out that
southwestern Scots rarely had to quarrel with patrons, since the lairds were
often such fierce Presbyterians themselves that they would never dream of
exercising their rights.[55]
This Scottish and Ulster Presbyterian community was
transplanted to the new world, where it developed in slightly different
directions from the parent communities, but still within a similar
trajectory. While Scottish and Ulster
immigrants flourished throughout the middle colonies, central Jersey was
actually a Scottish colony from the 1680s to 1702, and remained predominantly
Scottish throughout the eighteenth century.
Indeed, New Jersey was the center of Presbyterian revivals, Scottish
commerce (along the Philadelphia/New York corridor), and with the founding of
the College of New Jersey in 1746, Presbyterian education as well.
Landsman traces the development of the Jersey colony, and
notes that the Scottish propensity for mobility within the framework of a
larger community remained prominent in the shaping of early Scottish-American
culture. But the first Scottish
immigrants to New Jersey were largely Quaker and Episcopalians from the
northeast, near Aberdeen. Only gradually
did the southwestern Scots--and later the Scots-Irish--become dominant. Yet by the 1730s and 1740s the Presbyterians
had united virtually all the Scots in one church. Landsman comments that the children of
Scottish Quakers and Episcopalians generally preferred to join with their
Scottish friends and neighbors in the Presbyterian church, rather than
fellowship with English co-religionists.
Indeed, Landsman claims that the early revivals of the 1730s in New
Jersey were largely aimed at uniting the Scots into one Presbyterian church.[56]
But, as should be expected among Scottish Presbyterians,
these revivals were focused around the traditional communion seasons. The evangelical preaching that accompanied
such sacramental seasons accomplished the work for which it was intended, and
the majority of the Scottish community united with the Presbyterian
church. Landsman may be correct about
central Jersey when he suggests that as the Scottish contingent grew, the
English portion of Presbyterian congregations dwindled; but certainly that is
not the case for West Jersey and New York, where the heirs of New England
continued to mingle with the Scots in joint congregations. Admittedly, there could be tensions between
the two ethnic groups over which version of the Psalms to sing, or whether to
have a Scottish or a New England pastor; but it appears that Presbyterian
doctrine, government, and sacramental practice continued to gain in popularity
with those who migrated to those areas.
By 1750, there were 51 Presbyterian churches in New Jersey, and only two
Congregationalist churches.[57]
In the same year there were 14 Baptist churches in New
Jersey, and 29 in Pennsylvania. Whereas
in New England, Baptist churches tended to reflect the doctrine, worship, and
polity of the Congregationalists, Norman Maring claims that New Jersey Baptists
were very similar to the Presbyterians in doctrine, worship, and even
government.[58] Francis Sacks' study of the government of the
Philadelphia Baptist Association shows that the PBA functioned like a
presbytery--exercising almost as much authority over its constituent churches
as the Synod of Philadelphia.[59] While some of this may be due to the
connectional tendencies of the Welsh Baptists who were prominent in the
founding of the PBA in 1707,[60]
the daily contact between Middle Colonies Baptists and their more numerous
Presbyterians neighbors appears as a likely influence as well.
Certainly when the PBA encouraged New England's Separate
Baptists to form associations and get involved in the founding of a college for
ministerial training, the Separates initially reacted with suspicion and
wariness. Following their Presbyterian
neighbors, Philadelphia Baptists accepted authority of a council; but New
England Baptists, true to their Congregational roots, insisted that it was only
advisory. Finally in 1766, Rhode Island
College opened for ministerial training, largely funded at first by the PBA.[61]
But while such similarities existed between Middle
Colonies Baptists and Presbyterians, the subject of infant baptism could still
produce fiery debates. Such a debate
erupted in 1743 between Samuel Finley and Abel Morgan while the pair were in
Cape May, New Jersey. Morgan was one of
the few Baptists who gravitated toward Whitefield and the Great Awakening,
while Finley was one of the leading New Side Presbyterians. Between 1746 and 1750 each side produced two
volumes, and then stopped.[62] Bryan Le Beau suggests that the Presbyterians
did not perceive the Baptists as a significant threat in the Middle Colonies,
but offers as his only explanation that the Anglicans were a more powerful
opponent.[63]
Digging down into the roots of Presbyterian sacramental
thought and practice provides a more satisfying answer. The Presbyterian practice was that virtually
everyone should be baptized (even those who were born of scandalous parents
could be sponsored by godly folk, who would thereby promise to give them a
Christian education). But some
profession was required for admission to the Lord's Table. Not indeed the Puritan requirement of a
conversion narrative, nor an Edwardsean profession of the will; they simply
required that each communicant have an adequate knowledge of Christian doctrine
and an outwardly godly life. Only the
scandalous and profane were to be excluded from the Table. The practice of giving out communion tokens
guaranteed that only those approved by the session would come to the Table, but
it appears that the elders generally gave tokens to the vast majority of those
who desired them.[64] Marilyn Westerkamp reports that in one
congregation,
"these
persons were then summoned before the elders and told to appear before the
congregation that very afternoon and acknowledge their sins. All who did so were publicly absolved; all
who 'would not come before us or, coming, could not be induced to acknowledge
their fault before the congregation, upon the Saturday preceding the communion,
their names, scandals, and impenitency, were read out before the congregation
and they debarred from communion; which proved such a terror that we found few
of that sort.'"[65]
Others might not
practice such a public version of discipline, but the common usage of communion
tokens debarred the profane and scandalous from coming to the Table. As Westerkamp points out, even "those
who were given tokens were reminded through preparatory sermons that while they
appeared worthy, in fact they probably were not."[66] The Scottish emphasis on conversion--but
rejection of the visible saints criterion--resulted in a distinctly communal
approach to conversion. Since the community
itself was impure, the whole community needed to be transformed. Therefore, "in the case of the English,
these experiences were intensely personal, while in the case of the
Scots-Irish, they were vibrantly communal."[67]
These emphases continued in the American context as
well. The practice of American
Presbyterians in determining the subjects of baptism prior to the Great
Awakening was set forth in the Minutes of Synod in 1735:
"And
[we] do also exhort all the ministers within our bounds, to take due care in
the examination of all candidates for baptism, or that offer their children to
God in that sacred ordinance, that they are persons of a regular life, and have
suitable acquaintance with the principles of the Christian religion; that that
seal be not set to a blank, and that such be not admitted to visible church
relation that are manifestly unfit for it." [68]
Here there is neither a
requirement for an account of a conversion experience, nor is there any mention
of a "profession of faith," per se.
Insisting that ministers could not judge the heart, they did not require
positive proof of godliness, merely an understanding of the gospel and a life
that was consistent with such an understanding.
In the same way, in 1734, when Gilbert Tennent attempted
to require an examination "into the evidence of the grace of God" in
candidates for the Lord's Supper, the Synod merely exhorted "all the
ministers within our bounds to use due care in examining those they admit to
the Lord's Supper,"[69]
declining to add such a requirement to the church's admission policy. In effect, Tennent was attempting to
implement a "Halfway Covenant" in colonial Presbyterianism--but with
this difference: rather than loosening
requirements as had happened in New England in 1662, this proposal would have
tightened requirements.
In 1749, after the Old Side/New Side split, the Old Side
leader John Thomson authored an exposition of the Westminster Shorter
Catechism, explicitly designed to aid in the catechizing of his far-flung
congregations in Virginia and the Carolinas.
In his introduction, he laments "how many visible Professors there
are in this Part of the World, who have been baptized in the Name of the Holy
Trinity, and so received as Members of the Visible Church, who are absolute
Strangers, both to the Doctrines of Christianity, and Practice of serious
Piety."[70] His treatment of the questions on the
sacraments reveals his traditional Presbyterian approach to the question of
admission to the sacraments.
First, he insists that baptism is not to be administered
to any outside the visible church until "they profess their Faith in
Christ, and Obedience to him." The
children of those baptized persons "who are orderly, and not under
Censure" should also be baptized.[71] For the children whose parents are profane
and scandalous, however (or for the children of non-professing slaves),
"it's the common Way in the Church, when the children of scandalous
Persons are admitted to Baptism, some of their Friends, who are orderly, and
willing to engage for their Education are taken for Sponsors."[72]
Second, Thomson declares that all Christians who can
examine themselves are commanded to come to the Lord's Table. "The grossly ignorant and the scandalous
or prophane" must be excluded, but no others.[73] One who has been baptized and has not been
excluded by the minister, should examine himself and come. Lest some scrupulous person fears that his
examination has been incomplete, Thomson asserts: "Let him but truly and sincerely comply
with the Gospel Proposals, and immediately he is prepared in the Main, and may
safely come and seal that Covenant which he hath consented unto."[74]
But Thomson was a leader of the Old Side. How did the New Side view admission to the
sacraments? Numerous scholars have
claimed that the New Side was strongly influenced by New England--did such an
influence reach so far as sacramental practice?
In 1745 the New Side Synod of New York declared that it held to the
Westminster Confession, Catechisms, and Directory just as firmly as they had
under the united Synod. By itself this
does not prove much. But in 1755 the New
Side Synod of New York made its first direct statement on admission to the
sacraments. In dealing with an ongoing
debate over baptismal practices in the Presbyterian Church of New York City,
the Synod declared:
"That
previously to the administration of baptism, the minister shall inquire into
the parents' knowledge of the great and fundamental doctrines of the gospel,
and the regularity of their life; and being satisfied so as to admit them,
shall in public point out the special duties of the parents, and particularly,
that they shall teach their children the doctrines and precepts of
Christianity, contained in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, and
comprised in the WCF and Catechisms:
which therefore he shall recommend to them."[75]
The complaints in New
York had been directed against the Scotch-Irish minister who was accused of
being too lax in his baptismal practices.
While there may have been some New Englanders in the congregation who
found the Synod's answer too weak, there is no evidence that any minister in
the New Side Synod of New York required a New England-style profession of faith
prior to baptizing a person's children until 1764.
But is this also true respect to admission to the Lord's
Supper? Did Gilbert Tennent succeed in
requiring New Side communicants to testify to a work of grace in their
hearts? Perhaps certain ministers did
so, but there is no clear evidence that the Synod required such a step. It appears from the objections of John Blair
and Jacob Green that New Side Presbyterians held that there was one requirement
for bringing your children for baptism, and another for coming to the Lord's
Supper.[76] But while the tendency may have been to fence
the Table more strictly, Richard Webster tells the following story of John
Wright, a New Side graduate of Nassau Hall (the College of New Jersey) from one
communion season in 1757:
One
B. W. had been three years under temptation.
"Such
miserables as I," said he, on Friday, "have no place at the Lord's
table."
"Are
you then willing to give up all your part and portion in Christ?"
"No;
not for a thousand worlds."
On
Sabbath, Wright took him aside, and gave him a token, which he accepted with
great reluctance. In fencing the first
table, he saw this poor object, and, going to him with the bread, he said,
"I
cannot take; I feel no faith."
"But
don't you want Christ?"
"Yes;
but I am not worthy of him."
"Are
you not ready?"
"I
am lost without him."
"Are
you not labouring and heavy laden?"
"I
am crushed under the load of sin."
"Then
Christ calls you by name to come to him"
He
took the bread, and stood up. Being a
tall man, he was seen by all, as, stretching out his hands, with the most
affecting countenance, he said, "Lord Jesus, I am lost without thee. I come trembling. I would fain be a partaker of thy broken
body; for I am undone without thee. Lord
Jesus, have mercy on me!"[77]
So while some New Side
Presbyterians were drawn towards a practice that echoed certain features of the
halfway covenant, others appear to have retained the traditional Presbyterian
understanding that Christ called all who were "labouring and heavy laden"
to the Table. The key difference from
the Congregational practice is that Presbyterianism had no strong tradition of
the "visible saints" doctrine.
Rather, colonial Presbyterians had inherited from Ulster and
southwestern Scotland a tendency to develop regional communities organized
around their presbyteries. Hence they
faced neither the "visible saints" insistence on purity, nor the
"holy commonwealth" notion of inclusiveness. The tradition of Scottish covenanting
permitted the Scots and Scotch-Irish to establish regional communities which
proved capable of adapting to change without substantially disrupting the
community. Hence while the tension
between purity and inclusiveness drove wedges all through Congregationalism, it
only created a temporary rift in Presbyterianism.
This also helps to explain why Baptists never took root
among the Scots and Scotch-Irish.
Baptists affirmed an extreme version of the Puritan visible saints
criterion, insisting that the church should be composed only of the hopefully
converted. Presbyterians had little
interest in starting with visible saints; they gathered all but the
profane and scandalous into the church and through preaching, catechizing, and
communing, sought to transform the community into visible saints. Hence even when New Side Presbyterians
augmented Scottish revival practices with the revival doctrines and techniques
of Whitefield and Edwards, they did not offer any significant challenges to
sacramental admission policy until the 1760s
So it was only in 1764 that Jacob Green finally issued a
challenge to the traditional Presbyterian policy of admitting virtually all
children to baptism. In 1766 he
published this challenge in a sermon on Christian Baptism.[78] At first he had followed his mentors,
Jonathan Dickinson and Aaron Burr in "admitting to the sacraments all who
seemed desirous of leading a godly life,"[79]
but now after reading Watts and Edwards he had decided that only those who
could manifest a "relish for religion" would be permitted to have
their children baptized (9). Liberally
quoting from Edwards, Green identified covenant renewal with a profession of
faith which would include renouncing "the flesh, the world and the
devil" (7) and professing "that in which true religion
consists"--namely a testimony of a heartfelt desire to be God's people
(17). Green now declared that the
unregenerate have no right to the covenant seals, and while he admitted that he
could not know the heart, he insisted that he would require at least the
"outward appearance and credible evidence" of grace before he would
baptize their children or admit them to the Table (15-17). He concluded his sermon with some admonitions
to the congregation urging the greater attention to discipline, calling on
those who were baptized to seek God's blessing by owning the covenant,
relishing religion, and coming to the Table (27-36).
Green went on to develop his views in his 1768 treatise An
Inquiry into the Constitution and Discipline of the Jewish Church.[80] He prefaced his remarks by juxtaposing two
camps: 1) "those that admit only
gracious persons" to the sacraments (identified with Edwards); and 2)
"those that admit graceless persons" (identified with Stoddard). This latter group would grant the sacraments
to "men of knowledge, Orthodoxy, Civility, and Thoughtfulness about
Religion, yet having Evidence and fully believing themselves to be
unregenerate" (ii).
Green insisted that to be "properly in the Covenant
of Grace is the same as to be a State of Grace, or truly gracious"
(1). The unregenerate may not partake of
the Covenant of Grace at all, but only partake of the external administration
of the Covenant of Grace. He attempts to
prove this from the Old Testament, by arguing that God did not focus on the
heart as much in previous administrations of the Covenant of Grace as he does
now (7). Appealing to the examples in
the Old Testament where God refused to accept the sacrifices of the people due
to their sin, Green claimed that there is Old Testament support for his
contention that only gracious persons should be permitted to receive the
sacraments. After all, he said, pointing
to the Book of Joshua, the Israelites had neither circumcision nor the Passover
while they wandered in the wilderness (37-43).
Since only the regenerate can truly be in the covenant, Green urged
Presbyterians to require at least a "Taste or Relish for Divine
Things" in those who would be admitted to the sacraments (58). Green concluded by asserting that membership
in the visible church consisted of three things for an adult: profession, life and baptism; but four for an
infant: being a child of believing
parents, baptism, and then profession and life when he reached years of understanding. Here he clearly followed the trend in New
England to dissociate church membership from baptism. Insisting that the church should discipline
her youth, he argued that if by age eighteen or so they neither love Christ nor
walk in his ways, churches should "drop them out of their number"
(71).
Faced with resolute opposition from even the New
England-born ministers in the New York Presbytery, Green finally led a four
minister secession in 1780, founding the independent Morris Presbytery on
Edwardsean principles.[81] Webster reports that Green wished to reduce
the requirements for ministerial training, and notes his objections to Scottish
Presbyterianism. The dissenting
ministers did not wish to return to Congregationalism, however, as they put it
in their letter to the New York Presbytery, "we consider ourselves, in a
Scriptural sense, Presbyterians."[82]
Three years after Green's Christian Baptism, in
1771, John Blair responded with his Essays on I. The Nature, Uses, and
Subjects of the Sacraments of the New Testament.[83] While not referring to Green's treatise or
sermon, he step by step dismantled Green's arguments, claiming that since there
is no promise of salvation outside the church, all those who want to be saved
should be included (12). Blair had
previously established himself as one of the leading Edwardseans in the
Presbyterian church, but had spent the previous two years as the professor of
theology at the College of New Jersey under the new presidency of John
Witherspoon. While Allen Guelzo sees him
as a slightly more traditional version of Samuel Hopkins,[84]
his reconsideration of the relationship between the sacraments, the covenant,
and the church, demonstrates that something more was at work.
After briefly showing the connections between the
biblical sacraments, from the Tree of Life in the Garden of Eden, through
circumcision and Passover, to baptism and the Lord's Supper, Blair bluntly
asserts that baptism alone makes one a church member: "Membership in the Church of Christ
admits not of Degrees" (9). There
are no grounds, he claimed, for distinguishing between the church and the
congregation--as though one were gathered out of the other. Rather, all who are baptized are commanded by
Christ to come to the Table as soon as they have sufficient knowledge to
examine themselves and discern the Lord's body (11).
Rejecting Green's insistence on trying to discern a work
of grace, Blair argued that the "visible church consists of all those, who
by an external Profession of the Doctrines of the Gospel, and subjection to the
Laws and Ordinances of Christ, appear as a Society separate from the World, and
dedicated to God and his Service" (13-14).
Agreeing that there is only one covenant of grace, and that the
unregenerate only partake of the external privileges thereof, Blair nonetheless
declined to seek to ascertain who had received such a work of grace.
Instead, Blair trumped Green's claim to be more zealous
for discipline. Blair argued that if we
view baptism as the seal of the covenant which truly makes us members of the
visible church, then we should treat all baptized children as fully obligated
to the covenant. Those who do not live
according to Christ should be cut off (20-21).
Yet the very means by which Christ has chosen to build faith within his
people is through the sacraments. Baptism and the Supper "exhibit Jesus
Christ and him crucified" and by the Holy Spirit "quicken and raise
the Affections, and enliven every grace" (21). But if we truly believe that baptism brings
our infants into the covenant, then we should believe that infants are
"reputed the Professors of it untill they disavow it" (24).
But Blair went a step further and challenged the very
notion of a profession of faith arguing that requiring a public profession of
baptized infants denies their membership:
"Are not the signs which our Lord Jesus Christ has appointed and
the Manner of Covenanting which he has prescribed sufficient, without the
Addition of our own Inventions to supply the Defect?" (26). Those who have been baptized should be
welcomed to the Table as soon as they have sufficient knowledge to examine
themselves. No public profession is
necessary.
In response to Green's objection that unregenerate people
should not come, Blair granted that if a man knows for certain that he is
unregenerate, then he would indeed perjure himself by coming to the Table; but
Blair claimed that very few people truly know themselves to be
unregenerate. Instead he proposed the
case of one who is hopeful of the grace of God:
when he comes to the Table, then he simply obeys Christ (36). Granting that all ordinances are converting
ordinances--though only for those who are within the covenant--Blair appealed
to the continuity of the covenant administrations of Old and New Testament in
such matters (37, 49-51).
In conclusion, Blair attached a short treatise on the
nature of regeneration. Reflecting his
Edwardsean connections he defined regeneration as "the Communication of a
Principle of Spiritual Life to the Soul of a Sinner, naturally dead in
Trespasses and Sins, by the Agency of the Holy Spirit" (56) Refusing to get caught up in the debate over
whether it was a moral or natural principle, Blair insisted that it is a
Spiritual principle, because granted by the Holy Spirit. Certainly there is a moral effect--because it
affects both the understanding and the will, but regeneration itself is a
"subjective Light created in the Soul"--an "immediate intuitive
sense or knowledge of the Moral Perfections and Character of God" (60-63). Yet, returning to his main theme, this regeneration
is not accomplished apart from the means of grace; hence we ought to welcome
all who desire salvation into the church (74).
In this argument Blair returns to the Scottish and
Scots-Irish practice of viewing the sacraments as the bonds which hold the
community together. But the influence of
New England is evident in two ways: 1)
his definition of regeneration, which follows Edwards closely; 2) his
description of the sacraments as converting ordinances, which echoes the
Stoddardean approach. As odd as it may
sound, Blair utilized an Edwardsean understanding of regeneration to undergird
his Stoddardean (or more precisely, Presbyterian) view of the sacraments. When combined with his Ulster Presbyterian
upbringing, it resulted in the reintegration of the visible church as truly a
part of the covenant of grace (something the New Englanders had nearly
abandoned), reinforcing the value of traditional Scottish sacramental
practices. And in response, the
injection of an Edwardsean understanding of the necessity of informing the mind
rather than appealing directly to the will only bolstered the traditional
Presbyterian emphasis on catechizing and disciplining their youth within the
bounds of the church.[85] The flexibility of colonial Presbyterianism
consisted precisely in their ability to redirect the impulses first of the
Awakening, and then of the New Divinity, harnessing them to a more communal
form of doctrine and polity than existed in New England.[86]
IV. Conclusion:
Why the Baptists Never Rose
Why did Baptists fare so
well among the English, but not among the Scots or Scotch-Irish? Le Beau follows Maring and Gaustad in
suggesting that the reason why the Baptists saw little fruit from the Great
Awakening in the Middle Colonies was due to 1) the "formation of the more
flexible and liberal New York Synod...[which] made possible an expression of
New Side sympathies and interests within Presbyterianism"; 2) the lack of
"civil pressure on potential schismatics to join another denomination, as
was the case in New England"; and 3) the closed communion practices of the
Baptists, "something the more tolerant New Side Presbyterians
resented."[87] These suggestions, while perhaps pointing in
the right direction, betray a complete lack of awareness of the divergent
cultural contexts in which the Great Awakening occurred.
This paper proposes an alternative answer based on three
interwoven themes: 1) the Scots and
Scotch-Irish had a deeply ingrained pattern of communal identity which could
withstand all sorts of external and internal pressures. This communal identity had its sacramental
foundation in the doctrine of infant baptism.
2) Presbyterian polity, which was intimately connected to Scottish
communal values, provided a stronger authority and more stable basis for the
community. Presbyterian polity required
the whole community to change and adapt together. When the revivalists tried to push too hard,
a temporary split resulted--but centrifugal forces pulled the community back
together. 3) Finally, Scots and
Scotch-Irish Presbyterians had never developed the "visible saints"
criterion that had arisen among the English Puritans, but had welcomed all who
desired salvation into the church. While
both camps may have sounded similar when insisting upon faithful participation
in the Lord's Supper, the actual practice of communion differed drastically,
due to the fundamentally different conceptions of the nature of the visible
church. Hence, when New England
sacramental debates arrived in the Middle Colonies, they were significantly
reshaped by their encounter with Presbyterian community, doctrine, and
practice. The ultimate losers in the
colonial era were the Baptists.
[1]Richard
Webster, A History of the Presbyterian Church in America
(Philadelphia: Joseph Wilson, 1857) 528.
[2]John
Blair, Essays on I. The Nature, uses, and subjects of the Sacraments of the
New Testament (New York: Printed by
John Holt, 1771) 24.
[4]James
Burton McSwain, "The Controversy over Infant Baptism in England,
1640-1700" (Ph.D. dissertation, Memphis State University, 1986); T. L.
Underwood, Primitivism, Radicalism, and the Lamb's War: The Baptist-Quaker Conflict in
Seventeenth-Century England (New York:
Oxford University Press, 1997) .
[5]Gill
responded twice to Peter Clark with A Reply to Mr. Clark's Defence of the
Divine Right of Infant Baptism (Boston:
Printed by Fowle, 1754), and then after Clark's Defence was
reprinted in London, A Reply to A Defence of the Divine Right of Infant Baptism
(New York: W. Weyman, 1766). Clark had written, The Scripture Grounds
of the Baptism of Christian Infants and the Mode of Administration by Affusion
or Sprinkling Briefly Asserted and Defended in a Letter (Boston: Kneeland and Green, 1735), and had responded
to a local minister with A Defence of the Divine Right of Infant-baptism (Boston, 1752), in which he defended Jonathan
Dickinson's treatise, A Brief Illustration and Confirmation of the Divine
Right of Infant Baptism; In a Plain and Familiar Dialogue between a Minister
and One of His Parishoners.
(Boston: S. Kneeland and T.
Green, 1746).
[7]Hywel
M. Davies, Transatlantic Brethren:
Rev. Samuel Jones (1735-1814) and His Friends: Baptists in Wales, Pennsylvania, and Beyond
(Bethlehem: Lehigh University Press,
1995) 41, 70, 101. Norman H. Maring, Baptists
in New Jersey: A Study in Transition
(Valley Forge: Judson Press, 1964) 48.
[9]I have
followed Gaustad for 1750 rather than Backus even though Gaustad counts nearly
twice as many Baptist churches in New England in 1750 than Backus (numbers
after the slash are Backus; before the slash are McCoy and Gaustad). Edwin Gaustad, Historical Atlas of
Religion in America (New York:
Harpers & Row, 1962) 10-16, 19-21, 167; Rhys Isaac, The
Transformation of Virginia, 1740-1790 (Chapel Hill: UNC Press, 1982) 173; Michael Ryan McCoy,
"In Defense of the Covenant: The
Sacramental Debates of Eighteenth-Century New England" (Ph.D.
dissertation, Emory University, 1986) 92, 227; Guy Soulliard Klett, Presbyterians
in Colonial Pennsylvania
(Philadelphia: University of
Pennsylvania Press, 1937) 19.
[12]This
list is not intended to be exhaustive, but merely illustrative of the
proliferation of books for and against infant baptism after the Great
Awakening. It is based simply on an
Evans search of all books with subject heading "infant baptism."
[13]Backus,
History II. 93, claims that Edwards principles "naturally leads to
the exclusion of infant sprinkling."
[14]E.
Brooks Holifield, The Covenant Sealed:
The Development of Puritan Sacramental Theology in Old and New England,
1570-1720 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1974) 38.
[18]ibid.,
40. Cf. Robert G. Pope, The Half-Way Covenant: Church Membership in Puritan New England
(Princeton: Princeton University Press,
1969).
[22]The
1654 departure of Henry Dunster from the presidency of Harvard as a Baptist
caused no small embarrassment, but created no major ripples. McCoy, 121.
[23]Two of
the earliest defenses of infant baptism were John Eliot, A Brief Answer to a
Small Book Written by John Norcot against Infant Baptism (Boston: Printed by John Foster, 1679), and Increase
Mather, The Divine Right of Infant Baptisme Asserted and Proved from
Scripture and Antiquity (Boston:
Printed by John Foster, 1680).
The effective censorship of the Boston press ensured that few Baptist
pamphlets would be published in New England in the seventeenth century; but
imported books from England still made their way throughout the colonies. Two popular ones included Benjamin Keach, The
Rector Rectified and Corrected, or, Infant-baptism Unlawful (London: John Harris, 1692), and William Russel,
editor, A True Narrative of the Portsmouth Disputation, between some
Ministers of the Presbyterian, and others of the Baptist Persuasion, concerning
the Subjects and Manner of Baptism (London:
J. Sprint, 1699). Another
prominent Baptist tract, John Gale's Reflections on Wall's History of Infant
Baptism (London, 1707), was often cited in the colonies as well: William Wall and John Gale, The History of
Infant Baptism, Together with Mr. Gale's Reflections and Dr. Wall's Defense. 2 vols.
Edited by Henry Cotton.
(Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1862). At least two Presbyterians who
had been born and educated in New England joined in the debates: Joseph Morgan, The Portsmouth Disputation
Examined, Being a brief Answer to the Paedobaptists in Dr Russels Narrative of
the Disputation held at Portsmouth between some Baptists and Presbyterian
Ministers (New York: William Bradford,
1713), and Jonathan Dickinson, Remarks upon Mr. Gale's Reflections on Dr.
Wall's History of Infant Baptism: In a
Letter to a Friend. New York: Thomas Wood, 1721.
[27]Stoddard,
"Arguments for the Proposition" in Edward Taylor vs. Solomon
Stoddard: The Nature of the Lord's
Supper, edited by Thomas M. & Virginia L. Davis (Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1981) 67.
[31]ibid.,
68, quoting Mather, "Confutation of the Rev. Mr. Stoddard's Observations
respecting the Lords Supper: 1680"
ed. by Everett Emerson and Mason I Lowance.
American Antiquarian Society Proceedings. 83 (1973):
49-50.
[32]Another
significant milestone was 1697 when Brattle Street Church (with presbyterian
ordinand Benjamin Colman) challenged the regnant New England tradition and
allowed all but the notoriously profane and scandalous to membership. While the Mathers roared and whined, by 1702
the war was over. Brattle had won. McCoy, 78.
[33]Though
Stephen Foster notes that the attempt to make the church and its ordinances
central to the lives of the laity in the late seventeenth and eighteenth
century was not a restoration of earlier practice (church membership had
never meant was it was supposed to mean), but an attempt to finally accomplish
what the theory had intended from the start.
It was not a matter of lay resistance to clerical establishment, but a
case of clerical success in establishing a certain measure of control over the
wandering laity. (As evidence he notes
the infrequency of transfers in the seventeenth century, despite the frequency
of absentee members). See Stephen
Foster, The Long Argument: English
Puritanism and the Shaping of New England Culture, 1570-1700 (Chapel
Hill: UNC Press, 1991) 177ff.
[36]Bellamy,
"The Half-Way Covenant" in Works, 3.443, quoted by Allen C.
Guelzo, Edwards on the Will: A
Century of American Theological Debate (Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan University Press, 1989) 125.
[39]Mather,
The Visible Church, in Covenant with God; Further Illustrated (New
Haven: Printed by Thomas and Samuel
Green, 1770) 31-32.
[43]Backus,
A Short Description of the difference between the Bond-Woman and the Free,
as they are the Two Covenants, 2d edition (Boston: Edes and Gill, 1770 [1756]) 37, 59-62.
[44]C. C.
Goen, Revivalism and Separatism in New England, 1740-1800: Strict Congregationalists and Separate
Baptists in the Great Awakening (New Haven:
Yale University Press, 1962) 208.
[46]Isaac
Backus, A Short Description 21-64; History, 303-304; cf. Grenz,
145-150; Goen, 223; McCoy, 206-222.
[47]Records
of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, 1706-1788 (New
York: Arno Press, 1969) 398 (Donegal
Presbytery, a bastion of Old Side sentiment, continued this practice into the
1770s).
[49]It is
tempting to suggest that the relatively stable English villagers tended toward
Congregationalism due to the self-sufficient character of their economic
life. In Scotland, where one regularly
moved throughout several adjacent parishes during the course of one's life, the
connections between churches naturally led to a more Presbyterian polity. No doubt this should not be pressed too far.
[50]Ned C.
Landsman, Scotland and Its First American Colony, 1683-1765
(Princeton: Princeton University Press,
1985) 17-47.
[52]Peter
Brooke, Ulster Presbyterianism: The
Historical Perspective: 1610-1970 (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1987) viii.
[57]Bryan
F. Le Beau, Jonathan Dickinson and the Formative Years of American
Presbyterianism (Lexington:
University Press of Kentucky, 1997) 195, n33.
[59]Francis
W. Sacks, The Philadelphia Baptist Tradition of Church and Church Authority,
1707-1814: An Ecumenical Analysis and
Theological Interpretation (Lewiston:
The Edwin Mellen Press, 1989).
[60]Davies,
41, notes, "The Baptist denomination in the Delaware Valley was the most
"Welsh" of all the denominations and Welsh ministers, deacons, and
laity exerted a decisive influence."
While his arguments are fairly persuasive in showing that many of the
leading Philadelphia Baptist ministers were from Wales, unfortunately he
provides no comparative charts or tables, and very few statistics.
[62]Samuel
Finley, A Charitable Plea for the Speechless; or, The Right of Believers'
Infants to Baptism Vindicated: And the
Mode of It by Pouring or Sprinkling Justified (Philadelphia: William Bradford, 1746); A Vindication of
the Charitable Plea for the Speechless:
In Answer to Mr. Abel Morgan's Anti-Paedo Rantism
(Philadelphia: William Bradford, 1748);
Abel Morgan, Anti-Paedo Rantism; or, Mr. Samuel Finley's Charitable Plea for
the Speechless Examined and Refuted: The
Baptism of Believers Maintained; and the Mode of it by Immersion Vindicated
(Philadelphia: Benjamin Franklin, 1747);
Anti-Paedo Rantism Defended (Philadelphia: Benjamin Franklin, 1750).
[63]Bryan
F. Le Beau, "The Acrimonious, Controversial Spirit among Baptists and
Presbyterians in the Middle Colonies during the Great Awakening," American
Baptist Quarterly 9 (Summer 1990): 167-183.
[64]John
Thomson, An Explication of the Shorter Catechism, composed by the Assembly
of Divines commonly called the Westminster Assembly (Williamsburg: Printed by William Parks, 1749), 167; cf.
Leigh Eric Schmidt, Holy Fairs:
Scottish Communions and American Revivals in the Early Modern Period
(Princeton, 1989), 85, 86.
[65]Marilyn
J. Westerkamp, Triumph of the Laity:
Scots-Irish Piety and the Great Awakening, 1625-1760. (New York:
Oxford, 1988) 33, quoting from John Livingstone, Brief Historical
Relation of the Life of Mr. John Livingstone...written by himself, ed.
Thomas Houston (Edinburgh: John
Johnstone, 1848) 77.
[78]Jacob
Green, Christian Baptism: a Sermon
delivered at Hanover, in New-Jersey; November 4, 1764 (Woodbridge, in New
Jersey: Printed by Samuel F. Parker,
1766).
[80]Green,
An Inquiry into the Constitution and Discipline of the Jewish Church in
order to cast some Light on the Controversy concering Qualifications for the
Sacraments of the New Testament (New York:
Printed by Hugh Gaine, 1768).
[83]John
Blair, Essays on I. The Nature, uses, and subjects of the Sacraments of the
New Testament (New York: Printed by
John Holt, 1771).
[85]While
this runs contrary to Guelzo's argument that New Divinity Presbyterianism was
hostile to Scots-Irish Presbyterianism, I am nonetheless indebted to his
argument in chapter 6 of Edwards on the Will. Guelzo cannot understand (195) why the
Scots-Irish put up with the New Divinity men within their midst; but if my
argument is correct, then the New Divinity itself was transformed through its
contact with Scots-Irish Presbyterianism, as revealed in the fact that only a
few New Divinity ministers actually attempted to alter their sacramental
practices.
[86]The
same sort of thing happened to the New School Presbyterians, as their initial
heterodoxies were disciplined by the communally-based Scots-Irish polity and
doctrine, which gradually brought them back into general conformity to
traditional Presbyterian orthodoxy. Cf.
George Marsden, The Evangelical Mind and the New School Presbyterian
Experience: A Case Study of Thought and
Theology in Nineteenth-Century America (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1970). As that communal base faded into a
generically American culture, however, the staying power of Presbyterian
orthodoxy faded as well.