History of Philadelphia, 1609-1884, Part 105

Author: Scharf, J. Thomas (John Thomas), 1843-1898. cn; Westcott, Thompson, 1820-1888, joint author
Publication date: 1884
Publisher: Philadelphia, Pa. : L. H. Everts & Co.
Number of Pages: 992

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Southwestern, northeast corner Twentieth and Fitzwater Streeta. 1853. Spring Garden, Eleventh Street, below Green. Rev. M. M. Manga- sarıan. 1846.

Susquehanna Avenue, Snsquelianna Avenue and Marshall Street. Rev. R. T. Jones.

Tabernacle, Broad Street, above Chestout. Rev. Henry C. McCook. Afternoon services at chapel of University of Pennsylvania. 1814. Tabor, Eighteenth and Christian Streets. Rev. Willia B. Skillman. Rev. Robert Adair, pastor emeritus. 1863.

Temple, northeast corner Franklin and Thompson Streets, Rey. Wil- liam D. Roberts.

Tenth, corner Twelfth and Walnut Streets. Rev. William Brenton Greene, Jr. 1829.

Third (Old Pine Street), corner Fourth and Pine Streets. Rev. Hughes 0. Gibbons. 1768.

Trinity, Frankford road and Cambria Street. Rev. James D. Shanks. Union, Thirteenth Street, below Spruce. Rev. John B. McCorkell. 1840. Wakefield, Germantown Avenue and Negley'a Hill. Rev. N. S. McFet- ridge, D.D.

Walnut Street, Walnut Street, west of Thirty-ninth. Rev. Stephen W. Dana, D.D. 1840.

West Arch Street, corner Arch and Eighteenth Streets. Rev. John Hemphill, D.D. 1828.

Westminster, Broad and Fitzwater Streets. Rev. William N. Richie. 1853.

West Park, Lancaster Avenue, below Fifty-second Street. Rev. J. Henry Sharpe.

West Spruce Street, corner Seventeenth eud Spruce Streets. Rev. W. P. Breed, D.D. 1856.

Wharton Street, corner Ninth and Wharton Streets. Rev. A. W. Wil- liams. 1863.

Woodland, southeast corner Forty-second and Pine Streets. Vacant. 1866.

York Street, York Street, west of Coral. Rev. A. G. McAuley, D.D.

Zien (German), Twenty-eighth Street and Girard Avenue. Rev. J. W. Loclı.

Independent Presbyterian .- Northwestern, corner Nineteenth and Master Streets. Rev. Waldo Messaros.

Reformed Presbyterian (Original Covenanters) .- Friendship Hall, corner Twelfth and Filbert Streets. Rev. David Steele, Sr.

Reformed Presbyterian (General Synod) .- First, Broad Street, belew Spruce. Rev. T. W. J. Wylie, D. D.

First, Nineteenth Street, above Federal. Rev. J. C. Chapman.

Second, Twenty-second Street, above Vine. Rev. William Sterrett, D.D. Second, corner Twentieth and Vine Streeta. Rev. James Y. Boice. Third, Oxford and Hancock Streets. Rev. Matthew Gailey.

Fourth, Eighteenth and Filbert Streets. Rev. David Steele, D.D. Fifth, Front Street, above York. Rev. W. H. Gailey.

Reformed Presbyterian (Synod) .- First, Seventeenth and Baiubridge Streete. Rev. T. P. Stevenson.

Second, Seventeenth Street, below Race.

Third, Deal Street, east of Frankford Avenue. Rev. R. C. Montgomery. United Presbyterian .- First, southwest corner Bread and Lombard Streets. Rev. Francis Church.

Second, Race Street, below Sixteenth. Rev. J. B. Dales, D.D.

Third, Front Street, above Jefferson. Rev. S. G. Fitzgerald.

Fourth, northeast corner Nineteenth and Fitzwater Streeta.

Fifth, Twentieth and Buttonwood Streeta. Rev. Isaac T. Wright.

Seventh, corner Orthodox and Leiper Streeta. Rev. D. W. Lusk.

Eighth, northeast curner Fifteenth end Christian Streets. Rev. W. W. Barr, D.D.

Tenth, Thirty-eighth and Hamilton Streets. Rev. John Teas. Twelfth Mission, Somerset and Garnet Streets. Rev. James Price.

Rev.

Kensington Avenue Mission, Hart Lane and Kensington Avenue James Price.

Ninth, Susquehanna Avenue and Hancock Street. Rev. James Crowe, D.D.

North, Master Street, above Fifteenth. Rev. J. Q. A. McDowell.

1300

HISTORY OF PHILADELPHIA.

THI BAPTISTS.

The Baptist denomination forms one of the most numerous and prosperous bodies of believers in the United States. The persecutions that they often suffered in colonial times knit them closely together, and doubly intensified their zeal. The rapidity of their growth during the past fifty years has been the surprise of all unprejudiced observers. Dr. Cathcart, in his " Baptist Encyclopaedia" ( Philadelphia, 1883), states that there were then 24,794 churches, 15,401 ministers, 2,200,000 members, and probably 5.000,000 adherents of the Baptist denomination in the United States. "This," Dr. Catheart proceeds, " does not include denominations that hold believers' immersion, but are not regular Baptists, such as Old School Baptists, Winebren- narians, or Church of God, Seventh-Day Bap- tists, Six-Principle Baptists, Tunkers, Disci- ples, Adventists, and Free-Will Baptists. These communities have 6951 churches and 615,541 members." They have organized, on the most extensive seale, various Bible, missionary, and publication societies, and have been among the foremost to occupy the frontiers. Dr. Baird, in his scholarly and impartial work on "Religions in America," concludes his chapter on the Bap- tists by describing their ministry as comprehend- ing a body of men who, in point of talent, learn; ing, and eloquence, as well as devoted piety, have no superiors in the country." This was written in 1844, and since then the educational facilities offered to Baptists have been very greatly improved.

Baptism by immersion, the distinctive rite of the Baptist Churches, has had its believers in every age of the Christian world. The Pauli- The SIXTH EDITION. cians of Armenia, whose missionaries wandered from house to house, over Southeastern and To which are added, Two Articles viz. Of Impofition of Hands, and Singing of Pfals in Publick Worfhip. ALSO A Short Treatife of Church Difcipline. Central Europe, and from whose teachings the Albigenses sprung, were Baptists, as also were the no less heroie Henricians and Petrobusians. The Anabaptists of the sixteenth century brought disrepute on the cause by their excesses; but With the Heart Mau believeth unto Righteousness, and with the Meuth Confefien is made unto Salvation, Rom. 10. 20. Search the Scriptures, John 5. 39. Anabaptists were not always such desperate fa- naties as Münzer, Storck, and Melchior Hoffman. PHILADELPHIA : Printed by B. FRANKLIN. M, DCC, XLIII. Zwingli and the leaders of the Swiss Baptists showed in their "Confession" of 1527 the wisest and most statesmanlike views. Besides these there were mystical and speculative Anabaptists, such Faith" upon that of the London Association of 1689, and both agree, in the main, with the Westminster on doctrinal points, representing one of the strietest forms of Calvinism, approaching the views of Dr. Gill, and now maintained by the primitive Old- School or striet Baptists. The Philadelphia Confes- sion of Faith, which was adopted by the Baptist Association of this city on September 25, 1742, was printed by Benjamin Franklin in 1743. A fac-simile of the title-page appears above. About forty-five as Schwenkfeldt, Sebastian, Denk, Haetzer, men of widely-differing views, from the extreme mysticism of the last named to the materialism and rationalism of Soeinus and Michael Servetus, the martyr to ultra- Calvinism. Baptists of every shade and degree of or- thodoxy have contributed a glorious list to the mar- tyrology of the church militant since the days when armies were sent against the Thracian and Bosnian t'hristians, and other armies hunted defenseless Albi- genses through Swiss defiles and valleys of France. years ago the New Hampshire Baptist Convention

The denomination numbers many adherents in Europe in modern times. In England, founded in the days of Luther's Reformation, and growing in spite of perse- cution, it now has two great divisions,-the " general" and the " particular," -- the latter being most numer- ous. They have 2620 churches, and a membership of 269,836.

Orthodox Baptists are Calvinistic in theology. The Philadelphia Association, the oldest in America, or- ganized in 1707, based its famous "Confession of

A CONFESSION OF FAITH,

Put forth by the Elders and Brethren Of many CONGREGATIONS OF

CHRISTIANS (Baptized upon Profeffion of their Faith) In London and the Country.

Adopted by the Baptift ASSOCIATION met at Philadelphia, Sept.25. 1742.

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adopted a " Declaration" that since has been generally approved of by the churches, being a more moderate form of Calvinism, much like the doctrine preached by Dr. Andrew Fuller. Baptists usually hold to the doctrine of close communion as regards the sacra- mental feast. They do not believe in the baptism of infants, but lay stress upon the importance of be- lievers' baptism. They believe that the command to baptize is a command to immerse, and nothing less. In their church government they are independents, each separate church having the right to elect and license ministers, and to choose elders. They have district and general Associations and State Conven- tions, but these ecclesiastical assemblies never inter- fere with the affairs of individual churches.

Pennsylvania occupies so important a place in the Baptist record that it might well be called the key- stone State of their polity. Here the Baptists throve unmolested, and amply did they repay the debt when the dark days of the Revolution came, by the un- flinching support they gave to the patriot cause. Roger Williams' church, at Providence, organized in 1639, was the first Baptist Church in America. Massachusetts had one in 1663, New York one about 1669, Maine one in 1682, and South Carolina one in 1683, but the first one that Pennsylvania possessed was organized about 1684, by Rev. Thomas Dungan, of Rhode Island, at Cold Spring, near Bristol, in Bucks County. This church did not prove perma- nent; but about three years later the second and per- manent church was established at Pennepek, or Lower Dublin, in Philadelphia County. Rev. Mr. Henson, in his historical sermon to the Philadelphia Association of 1876, says that in 1682 there was in all Pennsylvania only one Baptist, and that one was " a little girl just come from Wales, and her name was Mary Davies." She was " the standard-bearer of the host," for now there are twenty-three Associations, five hundred and sixty-eight churches, and sixty-four thousand five hundred and two members within the State.

After his death, and perhaps for a short time before, William Kinnersley, father of the noted Rev. Ebene- zer Kinnersley, acted as pastor. In 1725, Rev. Jen- kin Jones became minister, and so continued for twenty-one years.1 The church-building at Penne- pek, erected in 1707, on an acre lot, gift of Rev. Samuel Jones, was twenty-five feet square. Some years later three acres more were added to the tract. In 1746, Mr. Jones was called to the Philadelphia

charge, and Rev. Peter Peterson Van Horn, born in Bucks County, and bred a Lutheran, became the Pen- nepek pastor, remaining fifteen years there. Part of the time George Eaton, an exhorter, was assistant.

In April, 1824, the representatives of the Baptist denomination met in the Sansom Street Church, and organized a Foreign Mission Society. The Associa- tion had sent money to Burmah and India many years before, and had sent evangelists toward the South and West. In 1827 the Baptist Missionary Association of Pennsylvania was organized, and its annual income is now over fifteen thousand dollars. In 1826 the Bap- tist Tract Society of Washington was moved to Phila- delphia, and in 1845 became the American Baptist Pub- lication Society. The work of this society has grown to be something enormous. Their total number of publications in 1881 was 1326. The printed material issued between 1824 and 1881, is 5,311,320,610, 18mo size. The total receipts were $373.80 in 1824, but in 1880 were $349,564.46. In 1876 the society occupied its marble building at 1420 Chestnut Street, erected at a cost of $258,000. The missionary work and col- portage agencies have grown wonderfully. Since 1840 nearly fifteen hundred such laborers have been used, and they are now to be found in all the States and Territories. The Sunday-school work began in 1867, and twenty-one such missionaries were in the field in 1881. They have already organized over four thousand Sabbath-schools, and distributed a vast quantity of Bibles, tracts, books, and periodicals.

" The Baptist Year Book" for 1883 gives to this denomination in this country 26,931 churches, 17,090 ministers, and 2,394,7-12 members. This membership indicates a Baptist population, old and young, of probably eight millions. The Regular Baptists of the United States had in 1883 forty-one colleges and theological seminaries, and over a hundred first-class academies. They had also seventy-five religious peri- odicals, whose influence is immense.

The Rev. Joseph Hughes, a Baptist, was instru- mental in founding the first Bible Society that ever existed,-the British and Foreign ; through the Rev. Dr. William Carey, a Baptist, the first great Pro- testant society for missions among the heathen was established, and he became its pioneer. Baptists have been among the foremost to occupy the ex- tended frontiers of our own country.

In common with the Greek Church in Russia, Greece, and elsewhere, at the present time, and all the churches of the East, and in common with all the churches of the West, for centuries after they were instituted, Baptists practice immersion. They retain this form solely because it was required and observed, as they believe, by Christ and his Apostles. They deny that salvation reaches the soul by any ceremony however sacred.

They hold that faith alone saves men, and that all candidates for baptism should be truc believers, and not unconscious babes or unconverted adults. After

1 Samuel Jones was born July 9, 1657, in Radnor County, Wales, and came to America in 1686. Rev. Abel Morgan was born in 1637, at Allt- goch, County Cardigan, Wales, and began preaching at the age of nine- teen. He compiled a folio concordance in Welsh, and translated the "Century Confession" into that language. He took a prominent part in the meetings of the Philadelphia Association, and waa one of the ear- liest advocates for more thorough ministerial education. He was buried in Philadelphia. Rev. Jenkin Jones was born in 1686, in Llandydoch, Wales, reached America in 1710, and preached at the Welah Tract, Del., in 1724.

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HISTORY OF PHILADELPHIA.

the ages of comparative purity in the Christian churches had passed away, communities sprang up in various quarters which held the leading doctrines, doubtless with some errors, of the Baptists. Many , mation and baptism prerequisites to the Lord's table. noble men during the progress of the Reformation adopted the sentiments of Baptists, about faith as a | prerequisite to baptism and church membership, the exclusion of nnworthy members from the church, and the sinfulness of supporting ministers of any denomination by publie taxation. The fanaties of Münster, with no more relationship to the true Bap- tists of that day than the Mormons sustain to Amer- ican Baptists, inflicted infamy upon hosts of men all over Europe, who held, with some defects, the great doctrines of the Baptist Churches of this land.

Baptists have contributed a glorious host of mar- tyrs to the church militant from the death of Ste- phen, the first martyr. In the times of the "ten great persecutions," in succeeding centuries, partially stained with saintly blood, in the days when hordes equipped for slaughter hunted the Thracian and Bos- nian Christians, and other armies pursued defense- less Albigenses, until the flames or the sword gave them a heavenly throne, men holding our chief doc- trines were terrible sufferers.

The English Baptists are divided into two bodies, known as General and Particular Baptists. The names were originally intended to describe the views of the atonement held by these communities. The Particular Baptists are much more numerous than the General. In 1881 the English Baptists had two thousand six hundred and twenty churches, with a membership of two hundred and sixty-nine thousand eight hundred and thirty-six.

Regular Baptists are Calvinists. The Philadelphia Baptist Association, organized in 1707, the oldest in America, adopted as its "Confession of Faith," in 1742, the London Confession of 1689, with two addi- tional articles. This ereed agrees in all purely doc- trinal articles with the Westminster Confession of Faith, the venerable confession of all British Presby- terians and of all American Presbyterians of British origin. The Philadelphia Confession was commonly adopted by the early Baptist Churches in America, and it is still recognized by many of their snecessors. As printed in full the Philadelphia Confession occu- pies eleven pages, and the New Hampshire Confes- sion one page and a quarter. The latter creed was adopted about forty-five years since by the New Hampshire Baptist Convention, and because of its brevity and its accessibility, it is now commonly ac- cepted by churches just formed. In it, Dr. J. Newton Brown, its author, gives up no doctrine in the older confession, but he presents Calvinism in mild terms. In doctrines Baptists stand upon the platform of the Apostle Paul with their Presbyterian brethren, a platform upon which the XVII. Article of the Thirty- nine Articles places the Church of England.

All denominations observing the holy communion,

except a small body of English Baptists, require bap- tism before participation in the sacred Supper. The Episcopalians and older communities make confir-

Baptists hold the common doctrine of Christendom about baptism preceding the Eucharist, and as they believe that immersion alone is Scripture baptism, they only invite immersed believers to the precious emblems of the Saviour's body and blood. They love their own unbaptized converts teuderly, because they regard them as already saved by faith, but they never bring them to the communion. They love all the children of God from Fénelon, the Catholic, to Penn, the Quaker ; but while cultivating a glowing charity for believers of all names, they cherish a con- science void of offense before God by holding tena- ciously the teachings of his blessed Book.

In their church government they are Congregation- alists. Each church is independent of every other. It receives and excludes members. It grants a license to preach to one of them, and when his ordination is mutually desired, it calls a council composed of the pastor and one or two laymen from each of several neighboring churches, who unite with a committee representing the church, and ordain, if they are satis- fied, the candidate for the ministry called to the sacred office by the church.

They have District and General Associatious and State Conventions, but these assemblies can only recommend measures to the churches. They can exercise neither the functions of a court nor of a legislature.

Baptists have ever gloried in proclaiming absolute religious liberty. They have always held that no man should be persecuted, even in the mildest form, for his religious opinions, and that his property should never be taken by due process of law for the support of any State church; that no civil disability should punish any citizen for the unhappy defectiveness or the un- wise expansiveness of his creed, even for his absolute disbelief of everything sacred. With them Jehovah alone is the Lord of conscience. Leonard Busbee, of London, preceded and followed by many kindred spirits, published a tract in 1614 on liberty of con- science, in which he says, " And the king and Par- liament may please to permit [liberty to] all sorts of Christians ; yea to Jews, Turks, and Pagans, so long as they are peaceable and no malefactors." Rhode Island government was the first on earth, under the promptings of its Baptist founders, to establish ab- solute liberty of conscience. This doctrine has marked the Baptists throughout their entire history.

Pennsylvania furnished a peaceful home for Bap- tists from its first settlement as a Quaker colouy. In it they flourished largely, considering the Presby- terian, Lutheran, and Quaker principles of nine- tenths of all its European settlers. The First Church of Providence, founded in 1639, is commonly sup- posed to have been the first Baptist Church in this

1303

RELIGIOUS DENOMINATIONS.

country. Massachusetts had one in 1663, Maine one in 1682, and South Carolina one in 1683.

The Pennepek (or Lower Dublin) Baptist Church is the sacred spot from which an influence radiated, and pioneer ministers went forth throughout New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Its present edifice, the third built upon the same piece of ground, stands in the Twenty- third Ward of Philadelphia, near the softly-flowing and tree-bordered Pennepek [or Pennypack ] Creek. The story of its organization is a remarkable one. Elias Keach, son of the celebrated Benjamin Keach, of London, a Baptist minister and author, arrived in Philadelphia in 1686. He was "a very wild young spark," plucky, talented, audacious, and well posted on Biblical quotations and theological phrases. For the purpose of obtaining amusement he dressed in black, wore a band, and pretended to be a minister. As clergymen of all denominations were scarce, he soon had an invitation to preach "in the house of a Baptist at Lower Dublin." A large congregation assembled, and he began to preach, and, says Rev. Morgan Edwards, "he performed well enough until he had advanced pretty far into the sermon ; then, stopping short, he looked like a man astonished. The audience concluded that he had been seized with a sudden disorder, but, on asking what the matter was, received from him a confession of the imposture, with tears in his eyes and much trembling. Great was his distress, though it ended happily, for from this time he dated his conversion. He heard there was a Baptist minister at Cold Spring, in Bucks County, between Bristol and Trenton. To him did he repair to seek counsel and comfort, and by him was he baptized." In January, 1688, he formed a church of twelve per- sons at Pennepek, and became their minister. These twelve were Elias Keach, John Eaton, George Eaton and his wife, Jane, Sarah Eaton, Samuel Jones, John Baker, Samuel Vaus, Joseph Ashton and Jane, his wife, William Fisher, and John Watts. The last four were baptized in the Pennepek. Samuel Vaus was chosen deacon, and Mr. Keach began to establish " missions," or preaching stations.

He preached and baptized at the Falls (Trenton), Cold Spring, Cohansey, near Bridgeton, N. J., Salem, Penn's Neck, Middleton, Burlington, and Philadel- phia. "They were all one church, and Pennepek the point of union," says Morgan Edwards, and he ex- plains that as many of the communicants as possible met there, but for the sake of distant members there were quarterly administrations of the Lord's Supper at Burlington, Cohansey, Chester, and Philadelphia. Cohansey, Middletown, and Piscataway, N. J., be- came separate churches within three years. Baptist emigrants from abroad and from other colonies in- creased the strength of these and other churches. In 1692, Rev. Elias Keach1 returned to London, and

there organized a church, baptizing one hundred and thirty persons in nine months. Rev. John Watts, who became his successor at Pennepek, had been baptized there by Elias Keach, Nov. 21, 1687, and called to the ministry the following year. Hc con- tinued in the Pennepek pastorate until his death (from smallpox), Aug. 27, 1702. His wife was Sarah Eaton, also one of the original twelve members, and they had six children.

Religious controversies began in 1697 at the Pen- nepek Church. When William Davis, who had left the Friends at the same time with the noted George Keith, joined the Baptist communion, and soon com- menced to air his own doctrinal views, finally pub- lishing, in 1700, a book entitled "Jesus, the Crucified Man, the Eternal Son of God," the blending of the divine and the human natures, the God-Man, in short, without being properly God or man was the theme. Davis was expelled for heresy in 1698, and joined the Seventh-Day Baptists. Rev. John Watts wrote a reply to his book, "Davis Disabled," and it was, in 1705, ordered printed, though for some reason this was never done. This controversy may have helped to decide Rev. Elias Keach's departure.

The congregation in the city of Philadelphia was small at first, and so arranged harmoniously with the few Presbyterians, about April, 1695, to use the same building together. Rev. John Watts agreed to preach every other Sabbath, and Presbyterian ministers could usually be procured for the alter- nate Sabbaths, and so, for three years, the two con- gregations managed, doubtless often hearing each other's sermons. John Holme, author of " A True Relation of the Flourishing State of Pennsylvania," was the first Baptist in Philadelphia of whom we have record, having arrived in 1686. He became a judge of the Provincial Court in 1691, and a few years later removed to Salem, N. J. In 1696, John Farmer and wife arrived from London, and the next year Joseph Todd and Rebecca Woosencroft, of Lim- mington, Hampshire, William Elton and wife, Mary Shepherd, and William Silverstone, making, with those before named, nine church-members, completed the little group who met on the second Sunday in December, 1698, in the store-house on the lot of the Barbadoes Company, northwest corner of Chestnut and Second Streets, to organize a Baptist Church. They were few and weak, and for forty-eight years the feeble church was supplied by Rev. Elias Keach, Rev. John Watts, Rev. Thomas Killingworth, then at Cohansey, and others, there being no settled pastor. But when they first organized, in 1698, trouble arose with the Presbyterians, who had just secured Rev. Jedediah Andrews as pastor, and showed some desire to occupy the store-house entirely by themselves. The following letter was then sent :

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History of Philadelphia, 1609-1884, Part 105

Author: Scharf, J. Thomas (John Thomas), 1843-1898. cn; Westcott, Thompson, 1820-1888, joint author Publication date: 1884 Publisher: Philadelphia, Pa. : L. H. Everts & Co. Number of Pages: 992

Author: Scharf, J. Thomas (John Thomas), 1843-1898. cn; Westcott, Thompson, 1820-1888, joint author
Publication date: 1884
Publisher: Philadelphia, Pa. : L. H. Everts & Co.
Number of Pages: 992