THE FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH IN MASSACHUSETTS.

By Thomas W. Bicknell, LL.D.

The act of banishment which severed Roger Williams from the Massachusetts Colony, in 1635, was the means of advancing, rather than hindering, the spread of the so-called heresies which he so bravely advocated. As the persecutions which drove the disciples of Christ from Jerusalem were the means of extending the cause of Christianity, so the principles of toleration and of soul-liberty were strengthened by opposition, in the mind of this apostle of freedom of conscience in the New World. His Welsh birth and Puritan education made him a bold and earnest advocate of whatever truth his conscience approved, and he went everywhere "preaching the word" of individual freedom. The sentence of exile could not silence his tongue, nor destroy his influence. "The divers new and dangerous opinions" which he had "broached and divulged," though hostile to the notions of the clergy and the authorities of Massachusetts Bay, were at the same time quite acceptable to a few brave souls, who, like himself, dared the censures, and even the persecutions, of their brethren, for the sake of liberty of conscience.

The dwellers in old Rehoboth were the nearest white neighbors of Roger Williams and his band at Providence. The Reverend Samuel Newman was the pastor of the church in this ancient town, having removed with the first settlers from Weymouth in 1643. Learned, godly, and hospitable, as he was, he had not reached the "height of that great argument" concerning human freedom; and while he cherished kindly feelings toward the dwellers at Providence, he evidently feared the introduction of their sentiments among his people. The jealous care of Newman to preserve what he conscientiously regarded as the purity of religious faith and polity was not a sufficient barrier against the teachings of the founder of Rhode Island.

Although the settlers of Plymouth Colony cherished more liberal sentiments than their neighbors of the Bay Colony, and sanctioned the expulsion of Mr. Williams from Seekonk only for the purpose of preserving peace with those whom Blackstone called "the Lord Bretheren," yet they guarded the prerogatives of the ruling church order as worthy not only of the respect, but also the support, of all. Rehoboth was the most liberal, as well as the most loyal, of the children of Plymouth; but the free opinions which the planters brought from Weymouth, where an attempt had already been made to establish a Baptist church, enabled them to sympathize strongly with their neighbors across the Seekonk River. "At this time," says Baylies, "so much indifference as to the support of the clergy was manifested in Plymouth Colony, as to excite the alarm of the other confederated colonies. The complaint of Massachusetts against Plymouth on this subject was laid before the Commissioners, and drew from them a severe reprehension. Rehoboth had been afflicted with a severe schism, and by its proximity to Providence and its plantations, where there was a universal toleration, the practice of free inquiry was encouraged, and principle, fancy, whim, and conscience, all conspired to lessen the veneration for ecclesiastical authority." As the "serious schism" referred to above led to the foundation of the first Baptist church within the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, on New Meadow Neck in Old Swanzey, it is worthy of record here. The leader in this church revolt was Obadiah Holmes, a native of Preston, in Lancashire, England. He was connected with the church in Salem from 1639 till 1646, when he was excommunicated, and removing with his family to Rehoboth, he joined Mr. Newman's church. The doctrines and the discipline of this church proved too severe for Mr. Holmes, and he, with eight others, withdrew in 1649, and established a new church by themselves.

Mr. Newman's irascible temper was kindled into a persecuting zeal against the offending brethren, and, after excommunicating them, he aroused the civil authorities against them. So successful was he that four petitions were presented to the Plymouth Court; one from Rehoboth, signed by thirty-five persons; one from Taunton; one from all the clergymen in the colony but two, and one from the government of Massachusetts. How will the authorities at Plymouth treat this first division in the ruling church of the colony? Will they punish by severe fines, by imprisonment, by scourgings, or by banishment? By neither, for a milder spirit of toleration prevailed, and the separatists were simply directed to "refrain from practices disagreeable to their brethren, and to appear before the Court."

In 1651, some time after his trial at Plymouth, Mr. Holmes was arrested, with Mr. Clarke, of Newport, and Mr. Crandall, for preaching and worshiping God with some of their brethren at Lynn. They were condemned by the Court at Boston to suffer fines or whippings. Holmes refused to pay the fine, and would not allow his friends to pay it for him, saying that "to pay it would be acknowledging himself to have done wrong, whereas his conscience testified that he had done right." He was accordingly punished with thirty lashes from a three-corded whip, with such severity, says Governor Jenks, "that in many days, if not some weeks, he could take no rest but as he lay upon his knees and elbows, not being able to suffer any part of his body to touch the bed whereon he lay." Soon after this, Holmes and his followers moved to Newport, and on the death of the Reverend Mr. Clarke, in 1652, he succeeded him as pastor of the First Baptist Church in that time. Mr. Holmes died at Newport in 1682, aged seventy-six years.

The persecution offered to the Rehoboth Baptists scattered their church, but did not destroy their principles. Facing the obloquy attached to their cause, and braving the trials imposed by the civil and ecclesiastical powers, they must wait patiently God's time of deliverance. That their lives were free from guile, none claim. That their cause was righteous, none will deny; and while the elements of a Baptist church were thus gathering strength on this side of the Atlantic, a leader was prepared for them, by God's providence, on the other. In the same year that Obadiah Holmes and his band established their church in Massachusetts, in opposition to the Puritan order, Charles I, the great English traitor, expiated his "high crimes and misdemeanors" on the scaffold, at the hands of a Puritan Parliament. Then followed the period of the Commonwealth under Cromwell, and then the Restoration, when "there arose up a new king over Egypt, who knew not Joseph." The Act of Uniformity, passed in 1662, under the sanction of Charles II, though a fatal blow at the purity and piety of the English Church, was a royal blessing to the cause of religion in America. Two thousand bravely conscientious men, who feared God more than the decrees of Pope, King, or Parliament, were driven from their livings and from the kingdom. What was England's great loss was America's great gain, for a grand tidal wave of emigration swept westward across the Atlantic to our shores. Godly men and women, clergy and laity, made up this exiled band, too true and earnest to yield a base compliance to the edict of conformity. For thirteen years here the Dissenters from Mr. Newman's church waited for a spiritual guide, but not in vain.

How our Baptist brethren here conducted themselves during these years, and the difficulties they may have occasioned or encountered, we know but little. Plymouth, liberal already, has grown more lenient towards church offenders in matters of conscience. Mr. John Brown, a citizen of Rehoboth, and one of the magistrates, has presented before the Court his scruples at the expediency of coercing the people to support the ministry, and has offered to pay from his own property the taxes of all those of his townsmen who may refuse their support of the ministry. This was in 1665. Massachusetts Bay has tried to correct the errors of her sister colony on the subject of toleration, and has in turn been rebuked by her example.

JOHN MYLES.

Leaving the membership awhile, let us cross the sea to Wales to find their future pastor and teacher—John Myles.

Wales had been the asylum for the persecuted and oppressed for many centuries. There freedom of religious thought was tolerated, and from thence sprung three men of unusual vigor and power: Roger Williams, Oliver Cromwell, and John Myles. About the year 1645, the Baptists in that country who had previously been scattered and connected with other churches, began to unite in the formation of separate churches, under their own pastors. Prominent among these was the Reverend Mr. Myles, who preached in various places with great success, until the year 1649, when we find him pastor of a church which he organized in Swansea, in South Wales. It is a singular coincidence that Mr. Myles's pastorate at Swansea, and the separation of the members from the Rehoboth church, a part of whom aided in establishing the church in Swanzey, Massachusetts, occurred in the same year.

During the Protectorate of Cromwell, all Dissenters enjoyed the largest liberty of conscience, and, as a result, the church at Swansea grew from forty-eight to three hundred souls. Around this centre of influence sprang up several branch churches, and pastors were raised up to care for them. Mr. Myles soon became the leader of his denomination in Wales, and in 1651 he was sent as the representative of all the Baptist churches in Wales to the Baptist ministers' meeting, at Glazier's Hall, London, with a letter, giving an account of the peace, union, and increase of the work. As a preacher and worker he had no equal in that country, and his zeal enabled him to establish many new churches in his native land. The act of the English Saint Bartholomew's Day, in 1662, deprived Mr. Myles of the support which the government under Cromwell had granted him, and he, with many others, chose the freedom of exile to the tyranny of an unprincipled monarch. It would be interesting for us to give an account of his leave-taking of his church at Swansea, and of his associates in Christian labor, and to trace out his passage to Massachusetts, and to relate the circumstances which led him to search out and to find the little band of Baptists at Rehoboth. Surely some law of spiritual gravitation or affinity, under the good hand of God, thus raised up and brought this under-shepherd to the flock thus scattered in the wilderness. Nicholas Tanner, Obadiah Brown, John Thomas, and others, accompanied Mr. Myles in his exile from Swansea, Wales. The first that is known of them in America was the formation of a Baptist church at the house of John Butterworth in Rehoboth, whose residence is said to have been near the Cove in the western part of the present town of East Providence. Mr. Myles and his followers had probably learned at Boston, or at Plymouth, of the treatment offered to Holmes and his party, ten years before, and his sympathies led him to seek out and unite the elements which persecution had scattered. Seven members made up this infant church, namely: John Myles, pastor, James Brown, Nicholas Tanner, Joseph Carpenter, John Butterworth, Eldad Kingsley, and Benjamin Alby. The principles to which their assent was given were the same as those held by the Welsh Baptists, as expounded by Mr. Myles. The original record-book of the church contains a list of the members of Mr. Myles's church in Swansea, from 1640 till 1660, with letters, decrees, ordinances, etc., of the several churches of the denomination in England and Wales. This book, now in the possession of the First Baptist Church in Swanzey, Massachusetts, is probably a copy of the original Welsh records, made by or for Mr. Myles's church in Massachusetts, the sentiments of which controlled their actions here.

Of the seven constituent members, only one was a member of Myles's church in Wales—Nicholas Tanner. James Brown was a son of John Brown, both of whom held high offices in the Plymouth colony. Mr. Newman and his church were again aroused at the revival of this dangerous sect, and they again united with the other orthodox churches of the colony in soliciting the Court to interpose its influence against them, and the members of this little church were each fined five pounds, for setting up a public meeting without the knowledge and approbation of the Court, to the disturbance of the peace of the place,—ordered to desist from their meeting for the space of a month, and advised to remove their meeting to some other place where they might not prejudice any other church. The worthy magistrates of Plymouth have not told us how these few Baptist brethren "disturbed the peace" of quiet old Rehoboth. Good old Rehoboth, that roomy place, was not big enough to contain this church of seven members, and we have to-day to thank the spirit of Newman and the order of Plymouth Court for the handful of seed-corn, which they cast upon the waters, which here took root and has brought forth the fruits of a sixty-fold growth.

From a careful reading of the first covenant of the church, we judge that it was a breach of ecclesiastical, rather than of civil, law, and that the fines and banishment from the limits of Rehoboth were imposed as a preventive against any further inroads upon the membership of Mr. Newman's church. In obedience to the orders of the Court, the members of Mr. Myles's church looked about for a more convenient dwelling-place, and found it as near to the limits of the old town and their original homes as the law would allow. Within the bounds of Old Swanzey, Massachusetts, in the northern part of the present town of Barrington, Rhode Island, they selected a site for a church edifice. The spot now pointed out as the location of this building for public worship is near the main road from Warren by Munro's Tavern to Providence, on the east side of a by-way leading from said road to the residence of Joseph G. West, Esq. A plain and simple structure, it was undoubtedly fitted up quickly by their own labor, to meet the exigency of the times. Here they planted their first spiritual home, and enjoyed a peace which pastor and people had long sought for.

The original covenant is a remarkable paper, toned with deep piety and a broad and comprehensive spirit of Christian fellowship.

HOLY COVENANT.

SWANSEY IN NEW ENGLAND.—A true coppy of the Holy Covenant the first founders of Swansey Entred into at the first beginning and all the members thereof for Divers years.

Whereas we Poor Creatures are through the exceeding Riches of Gods Infinite Grace Mercyfully snatched out of the Kingdom of darkness and by his Infinite Power translated into the Kingdom of his dear Son, there to be partakers with all Saints of all those Priviledges which Christ by the Shedding of his Pretious Blood hath purchased for us, and that we do find our Souls in Some good Measure wrought on by Divine Grace to desire to be Conformable to Christ in all things, being also constrained by the matchless love and wonderfull Distinguishing Mercies that we Abundantly Injoy from his most free grace to Serve him according to our utmost capacitys, and that we also know that it is our most bounden Duty to Walk in Visible Communion with Christ and Each other according to the Prescript Rule of his most holy word, and also that it is our undoubted Right through Christ to Injoy all the Priviledges of Gods House which our souls have for a long time panted after. And finding no other way at Present by the all-working Providence of our only wise God and gracious Father to us opened for the Injoyment of the same. We do therefore after often and Solemn Seeking to the Lord for Help and direction in the fear of his holy Name, and with hands lifted up to him the most High God, Humbly and freely offer up ourselves this day a Living Sacrifice unto him who is our God in Covenant through Christ our Lord and only Savior to walk together according to his revealed word in the Visible Gospel Relation both to Christ our only head, and to each other as fellow-members and Brethren and of the Same Household faith. And we do Humbly praye that that through his Strength we will henceforth Endeavor to Perform all our Respective Duties towards God and each other and to practice all the ordinances of Christ according to what is or shall be revealed to us in our Respective Places to exercise Practice and Submit to the Government of Christ in this his Church! viz. furthur Protesting against all Rending or Dividing Principles or Practices from any of the People of God as being most abominable and loathsome to our souls and utterly inconsistent with that Christian Charity which declare men to be Christ's Disciples. Indeed further declaring in that as Union in Christ is the sole ground of our Communion, each with other, So we are ready to accept of, Receive too and hold Communion with all such as by a judgment of Charity we conceive to be fellow-members with us in our head Christ Jesus tho Differing from us in Such Controversial Points as are not absolutely and essencially necessary to salvation. We also hope that though of ourselves we are altogether unworthy and unfit thus to offer up ourselves to God or to do him a—or to expect any favor with, or mercy from Him. He will graciously accept of this our free will offering in and through the merit and mediation of our Dear Redeemer. And that he will imploy and emprove us in his service to his Praise, to whom be all Glory, Honor, now and forever, Amen.

The names of the persons that first joyned themselves in the Covanant aforesaid as a Church of Christ,

John Myles, Elder, James Brown, Nicholas Tanner, Joseph Carpenter, John Butterworth, Eldad Kingsley, Benjamin Alby.

The catholic spirit of Mr. Myles soon drew to the new settlement on New Meadow Neck many families who held to Baptist opinions, as well as some of other church relations friendly to their interests. The opposition which their principles had awakened, had brought the little company into public notice, and their character had won for them the respect and confidence of their neighbors.

The Rehoboth church had come to regard Mr. Myles and his followers with more kindly feelings, and, in 1666, after the death of the Reverend Mr. Newman, it was voted by the town that Mr. Myles be invited to "preach, namely: once in a fortnight on the week day, and once on the Sabbath day." And in August of the same year the town voted "that Mr. Myles shall still continue to lecture on the week day, and further on the Sabbath, if he be thereunto legally called."

This interchange of pulpit relations indicates a cordial sentiment between the two parishes, which is in striking contrast to the hostility manifested to the new church but three years before, when they were warned out of the town, and suggests the probable fact that animosities had been conquered by good will, and that sober judgment had taken the place of passionate bigotry.