USA > New Jersey > A history of Baptists in New Jersey > Part 27
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The first parsonage was completed in the first year of the settle- ment of Mr. Jones and a new church edifice was built in the second year of his coming and was paid for.
On October 1st, 1856, Rev. C. J. Page settled as pastor and con- tinued for ยท eleven years. His ministry was a continuous blessing. One hundred were baptized as the fruit of one revival. The patriotism of his people was shown in 1862, when the church voted to allow him to serve as chaplain in the Civil War for nine months and continued his salary while chaplain. Returning home, refreshings were enjoyed to the end of his charge in March 1867.
In March 1868, Rev. J. F. Brown entered the pastoral office. Physical prostration and not an appearance of recovery induced his resignation in September, 1878. Each year of his pastorate bore fruit of his labors, excepting the last, when he was so enfeebled as to be almost entirely laid aside by prostration. Mr. Brown was living in
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retirement in 1900 at Mullica Hill, honored and valued, for both his work and for his personal worth.
From 1879 to 1895, Rev. J. W. Sarles held the pastoral office, sixteen years. The activities of the church were maintained; the Sunday schools were increased; the benevolence of the church was enlarged and with rare exceptions, converts were annually added to the church.
This second Baptist church that survives its planting, south of Rhode Island, has existed two hundred and fourteen years and has had twelve pastors. Four of them had been members of the church, converted, baptized, licensed and three were licensed and ordained for the pastoral office at their home. Four were pastors respectively, fifty, and twenty, and twenty-nine and twenty-eight years. The intervals of pastorates rarely exceeded a year and often only months; so that the church has had almost continuous pastoral oversight, a fact peculiar to itself and to Cohansie. When it is considered that in this period was included the settlement of the country; Indian troubles; the American Revolution; the flood of French infidelity; the War of 1812 and the Civil War, the appreciation by these people of the Gospel and of their Baptist faith, the wonderment is beyond expression. The like is equally true of Middletown and of Cohansie and it is not a surprise that such disciples should have endured persecutions, emigrant life, more than once, involving the loss of home and country for the truth of God and their faith; "not counting their lives dear unto them."
Including the pastors, whom they licensed and ordained to serve themselves, sixteen members have been licensed to preach, one of whom, Henry Smalley, was pastor at Cohansie forty-nine years and thus had the second longest Baptist pastoral oversight in New Jersey, which like to that of John Drake at Piscataway, for fifty years terminated only at his death.
The first House in which the Church worshipped, was built by the early settlers of the township. This appears from an item in the town records, taken from the official record at Trenton, Liber, 4, which we copy verbatim; "January 18, 1685-6. Att the Towne Meetinge then agreed yt there should be a meetinge-house built forthwith, the di- mensions as followeth: Twenty foot wide, thirty foot Longe and Ten foot between joynts." This house stood in a small village now called Piscatawaytown, about one mile south-east of the present house of worship, and near the Raritan river. The village was for a long period of colonial times the seat of justice for a large extent of territory, ex- tending over Middlesex and considerable portions of the counties now known as Union and Somerset. It was, doubtless, in this humble
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building that the Church worshipped from its organization in 1686 till 1748. In the latter year, a house, 40 by 36, was built on a lot of four and six-tenths acres, bought of Alexander McDowell in April, 1731. Morgan Edwards speaks of this house as "a well-finished house, but wanting the necessary convenience of a stove." The records of the church do not state when this "convenience" was introduced. The house stood till 1825, the first year of Mr. Dodge's ministry, when it was taken down, and a new and more spacious one erected on the same site at a cost of $3, 000. Its size was 52 by 42. This house, as already stated, was entirely consumed on the first day of January, 1851, and on the same spot was erected the present house. Its size is 68 by 52, having a gallery on three sides, three aisles, and a recess pulpit, with an addition for social meetings and the home Sunday school. These four sanctuaries, each larger and better, indicate the growth of the church.
Many efficient churches have gone from Piscataway and they have multiplied by scores. Houses of worship were built at Scotch Plains and at Samptown before churches were organized at these places. Piscataway has been a fruitful vine. Far back in the eighteenth century, members migrated into South Jersey, taking their Baptist ideas with them and there to they have had fruitage. Essex, Union, Morris, Middlesex and New York City may congratulate themselves on their Baptist relationship to this venerable body.
Even the far south shared in its benefactions, through Benjamin Miller and Isaac Stelle, who sowed Baptist seed in its wide fields, where in the Eatons and Hart of Hopewell, shared. New Hampshire Baptists lived anew at Piscataway; Piscataway renewed herself on the sea shore in South Jersey, as did Middletown at Cohansie and at Hopewell and in North Jersey, in the south and in New England. These Baptists of old times valued their convictions of truth and were vigorous in their dissemination, as the best and the only truth of the Christ and which the world must know to "inherit eternal life."
Scotch Plains was the first-born of Piscataway church, organized in 1747. Local mission work had developed Baptist strength in the neighborhood. Its name was given to the locality in 1685. A few Scotch families had moved there in 1684-5 and stayed a short time and the name has clung to it since. But few names characteristic of Piscataway are among the constituents of Scotch Plains.
At the organization of 1st Cape May church in 1712, an innovation is the names of women as constituents of the church. This was the first mention of women as constituents. Since then, there has been no exception of the names of wives and daughters as constituents. At
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Scotch Plains, there were seven women and eight men and of them were the uncle and aunt of Rev. James Manning, the first President and founder of Brown University. Later, he was a member of the church, also, the immediate relatives of the five Suttons, brothers, all licentiates of Scotch Plains and students for the ministry as was Manning. John Sutton, one of the brothers, was an associate with Mr. Manning founding Brown University and a foremost man of his day. In 1847, Rev. Mr. Locke, pastor preached a historical sermon in which he names only thirteen of the fifteen dismissed from Piscataway to form Scotch Plains church.
In 1742, Baptists agitated the question of putting up a house of worship at the Plains, though the movement was local, it had the co- operation of the mother church. The plan was carried out in 1743. Tradition reports that "Scotch Plains lent a hand" to put up the build- ing and that it was enlarged in 1758. Were young churches "set up in house keeping," the enthusiasm of their first love would be economized for growth and the wretched dwarfage, so often realized in the bitter struggle of sacrifice to live would be avoided. The Scotch Plains Baptist church accepted a fundamental Baptist doctrine of individual liberty to interpret the Scripture. Accordingly, at the first church meeting they chose deacons and"Ruling Elders."
Many Baptist churches in earlier days, held that "Ruling Elders" was a legitimate Scriptural office for churches. Since then, views have changed and churches manage their own affairs. "Ruling Elders" and the pastor was an executive committee, a kind of session, or con- sistory, doing business for the church. The notion was a graft from Presbyterian or Dutch Reformed churches. The church adopted two rules: I. That the office should be perpetual. II. Its duties were stated to be: To agree with the pastor about his annual salary; on his removal or death to call another on trial; to approve a gifted brother who may be a candidate for the ministry; to settle any differences among the brethren; to have the oversight of the meeting house and parsonage lot; to reserve, sue for, or recover any gift made at any time for the use of the church. Later the duties were increased for a time, to receive or dismiss members. Good people, these were and they must have had great confidence in their vestry and enjoyed some of the most vexatious business done for them and the church, must have been thankful that they had so many good men to trust these things to.
This plan continued for many years. for the conduct of the financial affairs. is akin to the "Ruling Eldership."
Then, trustees were chosen The "permanent council" This "order" reached to
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and was in Pastor Millers day. His many and long absences from home on misson tours may have induced him to assent to this arrange- ment for the relief of his anxieties when away.
The house built in 1743, was in use for fifteen years. It was too small for the congregation and was enlarged in 1758 and destroyed by fire in the winter of 1816-17. Soon after it was replaced by a larger and better sanctuary, wihch again was too small and in 1871, a beauti- ful building including all modern appliances for aggressive work and adapted in architectural furnishings and musical appointments, needed by refined taste and culture. Four houses of worship have been in use since 1743. A parsonage property was bought in 1775. The dwelling house on it was burned in 1786. Another, built of stone, a great improvement in all respects was built immediately. Through an increase of population and improvement in lines of travel to centers of trade the parsonage property became valuable. The sale of part of it made possible the large cost of the new church edifice built in 1871, judged necessary if the church would hold its place and command the influence essential to its best welfare.
The church has shared largely with other Baptist churches in the labors of eminent pastors, both as respects their culture, intelligence and spirituality. Rev. Mr. Miller, the first pastor, when a young man was said to be "wild and forward," which means that he was a forceful man and had in him the making of a man and all of his later life proved him to be a man among men. His career, young and old, shows that he had a "mind of his own." While yet "wild and forward," he heard a sermon by Rev. G. Tennent, stopped; turned about and was made a new creature. Morgan Edwards says: "Mr. Tennent christened him, encouraged him to study for the ministry." "But a sermon at the christening of a child set him to thinking and to Bible searching for authority for Infant baptism. He searched in vain. As do all. He became a Baptist, offering himself to Piscataway church in 1740; was buried with Christ in baptism." When twenty-five years old, the Scotch Plains church called him to be pastor and he was or- dained in February 1748.
Mr. Miller was originally from East Hampton, where his family settled. After the English conquest, it declared for no taxationwithout representation. The first of the Millers in East Jersey was in 1700, coming from east end of Long Island in 1686. Under Whitfield, he was converted in the first Presbyterian church, New Brunswick.
This interim when baptized, in 1740, and his call to be pastor in 1748, was probably spent in preparatory studies, which he had begun before joining Piscataway church. He may have preached for Rev.
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Benjamin Stelle at his out stations. His early associations with Isaac Stelle, son of Benjamin Stelle, of Piscataway began in this interval. It was a devotion so mutual, and real as bound the two men for life and death. If one left his home the other accompanied him. Living for and unto each other, and when death came to one, the other quickly followed. Scotch Plains was Mr. Miller's only pastorate, as was Pis- cataway Mr. Stelle's only charge. Mr. Miller was pastor thirty-four years. Mr. Stelle was pastor twenty-nine years. Mr. Miller was sixty-five years old when he died. Mr. Stelle was sixty-three years old at his death. A stone tablet covers Mr. Miller's grave. His people loved him and had this inscription graven on the stone:
If grace and worth and usefulness
Could mortals screen from Death's arrest
Miller had never lain in dust Though characters inferior must
The minutes of the Philadelphia Association attest his earnest, missionary labors going far, and for months from home on tours assigned to him. Isaac Stelle of Piscataway usually accompanied him on these trips. The love of these men, begun in early days was wonderful. Said Morgan Edwards of them: "Lovely and pleasant were they in their lives and in their death, they were not much divided, the one having survived the other but thirty-five days. Mr. Miller's character is hard to be delineated for want of originality (in Mr. Edwards): all that hath been said of a good, laborious, and successful minister will apply to him." Appointed with Mr. Van Horn of Penepack, Pa., by the Philadelphia Association, to visit the Armenian Baptist churches of N. C., to have them come into our fellowship. Their visit was a success.
John Gano and Mr. Miller were dear friends. Mr. Gano was a chaplain in the army and after the surrender of Cornwallis, at York- town, Va., he heard of the death of Pastor Miller and said: "Never did I esteem a ministering brother so much as I did Mr. Miller, nor feel so sensibly a like bereavement." His labors at Scotch Plains were very successful. Forty were baptized the first year of its organ- ization, sixty-eight in the next year.
Inasmuch as Mr. Miller had an intimate relation to the beginning of the first Baptist church of New York City, it is fitting to quote from a historical sermon preached on January 1st, 1813, by its pastor, Rev. William Parkinson. Mr. Parkinson says: "Jeremiah Dodge, (originally of Fishkill Baptist church, later of New Brunswick, N. J.) settled in this city and opened a prayer-meeting in his own house. In 1745, (Error in date. Church of S. P., not organized nor Mr. M. ordained.
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Mr. Carman possibly. was first in N. Y., after 1745). Rev. Mr. Miller of Scotch Plains, N. J., visited the city (possibly on the invitation of Mr. Dodge, who had heard of him in his residence at New Brunswick, N. J.), and baptized Joseph Meeks. The prayer meeting was thereafter held alternately at the house of Mr. Weeks and of Mr. Dodge.
After 1750, Rev. J. Carman of Cranbury (Hightstown) visited them and baptized till their number was thirteen, when they were ad- vised (by Mr. Carman?) to unite themselves to the church at Scotch Plains, so as to be considered a "branch" of that church and to have Mr. Miller preach and administer the Lord's supper once a quarter; that was in 1753."
Under Mr. Miller's labors, congregations grew, and they rented a "rigging loft on Cart and Horse streets (now William street) which they fitted up for worship and used for three or four years. The place was sold and as many as could be accomodated worshipped in Mr. J. Meek's dwelling for a year. Buying a lot, where the house stood in 1813, (Mr. Ayer's house in which Mr. Whitman, the Armenian Baptist minister preached) they built a small house of worship and opened it for worship March, 14th, 1760 and increased to twenty-seven members. Letters of dismission were asked for from Scotch Plains in June 12th, 1762 and they were, constituted a Baptist church on June 19th, following Rev. Mr. Miller of Scotch Plains and Rev. John Gano of Morristown being present."
Virtually, Mr. Miller had been pastor in New York City for ten years and the place of worship was the second in which they had worshipped and if the house built by the Armenian Baptists is included, it was the third Baptist place of worship in New York City. For four years, after the death of Pastor Miller, "supplies" served Scotch Plains church.
W. Van Horn began as pastor in December, 1785. He was a man of recognized legal position and of social influence. He was a member of the convention to form the first constitution of Pennsylvania and had been a chaplain in the army of the American Revolution and thus, a suitable pastor to follow Mr. Miller. His pastorate of twenty-one years was happy and useful. Not alone in accessions of baptized converts, but in the re-organization of the internal affairs of the church. The "Ruling Elders" and the "vestry" were supplanted by "trustees." The parsonage was rebuilt and better adapted to the pastor's use. Once each month for fifteen years, Mr. Van Horn took long and lonely rides on bridle paths and preached at Morristown, maintaining the life of the church there, so that the Morristown people said of him: "that he was the father of the church." At last, broken in health, the pastor
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yielded to necessity and resigned. Having bought a homestead in Ohio, he began the exacting, weary journey to it. But he did not reach it. He died in Pittsburg in October 1807, and had an abiding homestead in the Heavens.
After another widowhood of a year, the church welcomed Rev. Thomas Brown to be pastor. His relation to the church was a con- tinuous blessing. His pastoral care was twenty years and his going away was a sorrowful parting. Only that he had committed himself, it is said that he would have reconsidered his resignation. Mr. Brown had been a member of the first Presbyterian church of Newark, his native place. As is so universal, the comparison of his Presbyterian views with the New Testament, left no alternative but to be a Baptist and united with the first Baptist church of Newark.
Nearly a year went by ere the church found in Rev. John Rogers, one, in whom they centered their convictions of his inestimable worth. A characteristic of the early churches was their wisdom in the choice of pastors. Mr. Rogers was a native of North Ireland altogether Presbyterianized from Scotland. Mr. Rogers was pastor of a Presby- terian church, succeeding his father in its charge. The New Testament, however, had "Baptist chapters." (See Pemberton history for an account of the coming of Mr. Rogers to the light. Page -). In the twelve years of his charge at Scotch Plains, the church shared largely in revival power. The pastor was in heartfelt sympathy with every good thing. Home and Foreign Missions were his delight and he was one of the constituents of the New Jersey Baptist State Convention. New Jersey and New York were united in the New York Association and Pastor Rogers was appointed to preach the first missionary sermon before the Association. His influence and ministry always developed Christian activity. The mantle of his benevolence and active piety has fallen upon his son, A. W. Rogers, M. D., of Paterson, N. J., than whom few excel in wise plans both for home and abroad.
When Pastor Rogers resigned, Scotch Plains had a new experience The Divine Teacher himself had warned us against deceivers. A man who had been Methodist, Presbyterian, and now Baptist, won the office of pastor. Tried, exposed, and excluded, he ended a ministerial career of a "wolf in sheep's clothing." The independency of Baptist churches hastens the exposure of bad men. There is neither bishop, conference, or Presbytery to appeal to and delay judgement. Such are judged by "laymen," who are neither a class or an order, having dignities to maintain. Christians want to believe the best of the bad and are easily imposed on, and this explains why they often are.
Rev. W. E. Locke was pastor 1844-49. Affairs in the church were
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disarranged by the disappointments and discipline of his predecessor. He was helped by his self confidence. His estimate of W. E. Locke and of his scholarship was sufficiently high. An illustration of his Rhetoric occurred in a sermon the writer heard before an association. Referring to the office of the Holy Spirit, he exclaimed with enthusiasm "and the still small voice of the Holy Spirit will come to him with the roar of a lion." A historical discourse at the centennial of the church was a creditable history of the one hundred years it memorialized. Prior to his resignation, he preached on baptism and disposed of the errors of our Pedo Baptist brethren effectively and settled all questions of mode and subjects of baptism. Later he resigned and united with the Presbyterian Church. His sommersault following his assertion of conscientious conviction, had the effect at Scotch Plains, of regret that he had not first united with another denomination and then preached on baptism.
Rev. J. E. Rue, who followed Mr. Locke, settled in 1850. In the midst of a gracious revival, Mr. Rue was smitten with illness and only enough recovered to follow his companion to her burial. Both sickness and death, after four years of active and to the church, profitable service compelled him to resign and to seek a home in a mild climate, and some years later, when visiting near Hightstown, he was called higher.
Pastor J. F. Brown became pastor in April 1854. He had been born in Scotch Plains in the pastorate of his father. This was the second time he had followed his father. The ensuing six years were gladdened with many returns of his efficient labor.
On the eve of the Civil War, in December 1860, Rev. William Luke entered on charge of the church. All social and religious interests were affected injuriously by the excitements of the day. In the six years of his pastoral care, Mr. Luke was true to the calls of humanity and of country. Alienation due to the political conviction of the people pervaded every interest and it was most trying to endure and be faithful. On January 1st, 1867, Mr. Luke resigned and two years after entered on his reward on high.
Mr. J. C. Buchanan had graduated from college in 1866 and on July 1st, 1867, accepted the charge of the church in Scotch Plains and was ordained the next October. His father had been for many years an honored deacon of the Cherryville church. The new pastor was greeted with tokens of revival blessings. Since the end of the Civil War, time had soothed the animosities gendered by it; the way was opening for the activities of piety and the drouth induced by the strifes of former years was yielding to the hallowed influence of peace. In 1870, a large and beautiful house of worship was built. It was ded-
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icated in 1872 and included modern appliances. Mr. Buchanan accept- ed a call to another church and resigned in 1878.
The succession of pastors to 1900 is: U. B. Guiscard, 1879-83; J. H. Parks, 1883-93; J. S. Breaker, 1894-98; G. M. Shott, 1899-1904.
Many members have been licensed to preach, mostly in the first seventy-seven years of the life of the church. Of these were five broth- ers, Suttons, descendants of a constitutent of the church. Two of them, David and John, were licensed in 1758 and they were ordained at the same time in 1761. John was a foremost man and was appointed with James Manning, also of Scotch Plains, by a committee of the Philadelphia Association to go to Rhode Island to arrange for the founding of Brown University. James Manning, first President of Brown University was a son of a constituent of the church. Jacob F. Randolph was a deacon of the church and licensed in 1791. He was pastor at Mt. Bethel, then at Samptown, led out a colony that became first Plainfield and was its pastor till he died. O. B. Brown, another licentiate, was pastor of the first Baptist church, Washington, D. C. In fact there ought to be no distinction by the mention of these names. All of them were most worthy men, who "hazarded their lives for Christ," and who counted not the cost of sacrifice and service for Christ.
This isolated country church has a large place in the educational records of our denomination in America. Two of her sons have had committed to them, the question of time, of place, of what and of how, the foundations of the educational interests of coming millions should be laid. In this particular, the Hopewell church only can be named in the same category. That church, having had first committed to her the same charge, which was so wretchedly wrecked for Baptist educational interests wrested by a foreign body, from the only colony that showed her concern for education, both by her institution of schools and by her legacies in and for their support and developement.
JAMES MANNING, 1738-1791.
By O. B. Leonard.
James Manning comes first into public notice during 1756, as a pupil at Hopewell. It will be remembered that this pioneer Seminary of learning, founded that year by Rev. Isaac Eaton, under the direction of the Philadelphia Association, was the first Baptist school in America for training young men in denominational lines for the ministry. Man-
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