43 – February 12 – THIS DAY IN BAPTIST HISTORY PAST

 

Protestants are not Baptists

 

1885 – A CATHOLIC BECOMES A PROTESTANT AND THEN A BAPTIST BY CONVICTION AND IS CALLED THE “BOHEMIAN JUDSON” –
Henry Novotny was immersed on February 12, 1885 in Lodz, Russian-Poland having been influenced by August Meereis, a Baptist from Bavaria when the two became friends while in Prague, afterwards they exchanged literature, convincing Henry of believers baptism. Henry was born in Resetov, Czechoslovakia on July 12, 1846 and his mother died when he was 7 which left him in the care of his father along with the rest of the family. This area was an important center of the resistance movement during the middle of the 17th century when the Roman Catholic Church was in control and the Protestants were holding secret meetings. While a youth Henry visited such a meeting and asked permission to attend regularly and enjoyed reading the forbidden Bible and other literature.  In time one of the group, died and not wanting a Catholic Priest to conduct the service, the little group asked Henry.  Still a Catholic he questioned whether he should but consented. His message stirred the little flock and from that time he became the preacher of the little flock. Finally in face of persecution he publicly announced that with God’s help he would leave the R.C. Church and become a Protestant. In Nov. Henry entered a theological institute in Switzerland and then received a scholarship in Edinburgh, Scotland and became a Congregational church missionary in Prague where he met Meereis mentioned above. Shortly afterwards he was ordained into the Baptist ministry at Zyradow and spent the remainder of his life in Bohemia in Christ’s service. He trained his converts to be missionaries. The Baptists were hated and despised, persecuted and imprisoned, and could not even own property as a church. The church overcame their obstacles and expanded their work.  He had three sons and three daughters. He was called the “Bohemian Judson.”

 

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I shall add a little color here. Protestants are Protestants because they were Catholics and protested the abuses of the priests and left the Catholics and started their own organizations.

Baptists were never a part of the Catholics. They existed from the time of the apostles with the names of their congregations being – Waldenses, Cathari, Anabaptists, Arnoldists, and many others. Historically spanning the time from the apostles to this day where they wear they name baptist. At this point in time, there are a few baptists that call themselves protestants and do so out of their ignorance of the grand and glorious history that accompanies their biblical doctrine and suffering defending that doctrine.

 

328 – Nov. 24 – This Day in Baptist History Past

 

He baptized over 3,000 converts

 

1802 – D.R. Murphy was born in Jefferson County, Tennessee. His father William, had served in the Revolutionary War and was a nephew of the famous “Murphy Boys” who were Baptist ministers during the struggles of the early Virginia Baptists. D.R. was a wicked young man but had a glorious salvation experience, and was          immersed and united with the Mill Spring Baptist Church on Sept. 3, 1832. He began preaching immediately and was ordained in 1834, and then spent the next five years preaching in Tenn. He married Lucy Carter in 1822 and they had ten children, then hearing of the great spiritual needs of the west, he moved his growing family to Missouri in 1839, and began his itinerant ministry. He established a church in Enon, Missouri in April of 1840. In August in the same county he had enough converts to found the Mt. Zion Baptist Church. In July of 1841, he organized the Coon Creek Baptist Church in St. Clair County. In thirty-five years he started thirty churches. When you consider the scattered population his feats were amazing. Families lived in small log cabins with dirt floors, a side door with wooden chimneys, often ten miles apart. Amazingly he baptized over three-thousand believers. In the last seven years of his life Mrs. Murphy became very ill and after her death he remarried a widow, Mrs. L.A. Cedar who labored with him until his death on Aug. 28, 1875 at 73. Her testimony follows. “My husbands death was a most triumphant one. He suffered intensely for four months, and was patient and meek…The last song we sung was, ‘I am going home to die no more…” [R.S. Duncan, A History of the Baptists in Missouri (Saint Louis: Scammell and Company, Publishers, 1882), p. 604. This Day in Baptist History II: Cummins and Thompson, BJU Press: Greenville, S.C. 2000 A.D. pp. 643-44.]
Prepared by Dr. Greg J. Dixon

 

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245 – Sept. 02 – This Day in Baptist History Past

 

Jailed as a “Southern Man”

 

1824 – William Francis Luck, originally from Campbell County, Virginia, married Elizabeth McGann, and they later emigrated to Wilson, County, Tenn. The Separate Baptists had immersed that area with the Gospel through Rev. Tidence Lane. William was one of those who was saved at a Baptist camp meeting, and joined the Pleasant Valley Church of Separate Baptists. Soon he was called to preach, and even though restricted by educational training, the Lord blessed his ministry greatly. He was ordained in 1833 and the next 25 years saw him laboring in service as a pastor throughout the area. In 1857, he moved his family to Lincoln County, Missouri, N.W. of St. Louis and began preaching under the auspices of the Salt River Association as an evangelist and pastor. When the Civil War broke he was arrested, taken as a political prisoner, and jailed in the Gratiot Street prison in St. Louis for being a “Southern man”. However, rather than being bitter, he took the opportunity to preach the gospel during his nine months of confinement. Many of his fellow prisoners responded to the gospel message. He continued faithfully in the ministry until the Lord called him home after much physical suffering on Dec. 26, 1878. [R.S. Duncan, A History of the Baptists in Missouri (Saint Louis: Scammell and Company, Publishers, 1882), p.239. This Day in Baptist History II: Cummins and Thompson, BJU Press: Greenville, S.C. 2000 A.D. pp. 480-481.]               Prepared by Dr. Greg Dixon

 

 

 

243 – Aug. 31 – This Day in Baptist History Past

 

A Baptist by Conviction

 

1817 – Rev. Adoniram Judson, Sr. and his wife Abigail were immersed by Dr. Thomas Baldwin into the membership of the Second Baptist Church of Boston, Mass. They were the parents of Adoniram Judson, Jr. who was the renowned missionary to Burma. The elder Judson had graduated from Yale in 1776 and held strong to Puritan theology, especially repudiating Unitarianism and the Arian heresy that was rampant at that time. He became the pastor of a conservative Congregational church in Malden, Mass. During his brief ministry there, liberalism spread to the church family, and he was “dismissed” from the church. In time the Lord opened another place of service, but again he had to endure the trial of his son, and namesake, embracing agnosticism at Brown University. After Adoniram, Jr’s conversion to Christ, and later embracing Baptist convictions on his trip to the mission field, Adoniram, Sr. also came to the same conclusion concerning believer’s baptism, and rejected his pedobaptism, and resigned from the Congregational ministry. He continued to live faithfully as a Baptist until the Lord called him home in his seventy-fourth year. [Courtney Anderson, To The Golden Shore (Boxton: Little, Brown and Company, 1956), pp. 3-11. This Day in Baptist History II: Cummins and Thompson, BJU Press: Greenville, S.C. 2000 A.D. pp.476-477] Prepared by Dr. Greg Dixon

 

123 –May 03 – This Day in History Past

 

Young in the Ministry, Aged in Theology

 

Little could Rev. Cantlow realize the spiritual and historical significance of the baptismal service on May 3, 1850, when he immersed the teenager, Charles Haddon Spurgeon in Isleham, England.  The teenaged lad had walked seven miles from Anew Market to Isleham because he had become firmly convinced that believer’s immersion was an ordinance of the Lord and not a sacrament.  Desiring to serve, the young man made himself available to the Lord.  Though he had received limited formal education, within a year he was called to the pastorate of the small Baptist church in Waterbeach, England.  Quickly his fame spread to London, and on April 28, 1854, he accepted the call to pastor the New Park Street Chapel where famed Baptist predecessors had served.  Charles Spurgeon was still a teen, but soon his name would be known throughout Great Britain, and he would be addressing thousands of people every Lord’s Day. Charles Haddon Spurgeon was soon targeted for criticism by the press in London.  He was made the subject of political cartoonists, and the general Christian public examined his doctrine closely. As Spurgeon grew older, he shifted some of his emphasis in theology.  His doctrinal emphasis moved more to the fundamentals of the faith concerning the person and work of Christ, the substitutionary atonement, and similar central doctrines. This speaks highly of the man. He matured as a Christian; he matured as a theologian.
Dr. Dale R. Hart adapted from: “This Day in Baptist History III” David L. Cummins. pp. 256 – 257

 

 

86 – March 27 – THIS DAY IN BAPTIST HISTORY PAST

Twice a Baptist

 

Edward Baptist, Jr. was born in the State of Virginia on this date in 1828.  His mother’s name was Eliza and his father too was a noted Baptist preacher.  Young Edward trusted Christ at an early age and was immersed.  At about twenty-four years of age he was ordained into the gospel ministry.  He spent several years in Alabama ministering in strategic churches, where he served with distinction.  In 1856 he returned to Virginia accepting a call to a church in Spottsylvania County.  He spent the rest of his life pastoring a number of churches in the same county as a circuit-riding pastor.  By 1893 his unusual pastorate involved four churches.  Goshen, Mine Road, Mount Hermon, and Rhoadesville churches had a combined membership 473.  He would minister to each church on a Saturday and Sunday each month.  During 1893 he baptized fifty-eight converts into the fellowship of the four churches.  On Jan. 29, Pastor Baptist departed this world and entered into the presence of the Lord.  Dr. L.J. Haley wrote his obituary and said the following, “Elder Baptist was a man of stern and upright religious and moral character.  He was a true and unselfish friend, kind and gentle in his family, a friend and generous neighbor, a loyal and patriotic citizen, an able and eloquent preacher of the gospel, a faithful and loving pastor, and a man and Christian, who in all the relations and responsibilities of life earnestly and conscientiously strove to do his duty and to make himself useful and helpful to his fellow-man.  He was a man of extraordinary power and ability in the pulpit.  I can truthfully say that some of the finest specimens of pulpit oratory I ever listened to came from the lips of E.G. Baptist, Jr.”

85 – March 26 – THIS DAY IN BAPTIST HISTORY PAST

Joshua Brown Hutson was born in Pittsylvania County, Virginia to Methodist parents.  Soon after his conversion to Christ he was immersed on Feb. 3, 1858, and it was said that he was the first Baptist in the Hutson family.  He was educated in country schools, but the Civil war made College impossible.  Following the war, the Byrne Street Baptist Church in Petersburg licensed him to preach in 1869.  They ordained him on Dec. 14, 1871.  Joshua married Miss Leonora J. Baugh on March 26, 1874 and became pastor of the Belvidere Baptist Church in Richmond which later relocated and changed its name to Pine Street Baptist.  At that time the church had 162 members.  By 1890 the church had grown to 1,110, and by the time of Pastor Hutson’s retirement it had grown to 1901 members.  During his lengthy ministry he had baptized 2,799 people, an average of one per Sunday.  He had made 50,605 pastoral calls, married 1,764 couples and conducted 2,202 funerals.  He had pastored Pine Street Baptist Church for forty-five years and six months.  He was asked by a gentlemen on the street how long his sermons were, he answered that on hot Sundays they were nineteen or twenty-minutes.  Although honors and titles came to him, he always remained to his flock, ‘Brother Hutson.’  It has been well said, “A home going preacher makes church going people.”

Dr. Greg J. Dixon, adapted from: This Day in Baptist History III (David L. Cummins), pp. 176-178.

 

58 – Feb. 27 – THIS DAY IN BAPTIST HISTORY PAST

He was known as the “Patriot Pastor”

Samuel Stillman, known as the “Patriot Pastor” was born in Philadelphia on Feb, 27, 1737.  At age eleven his family moved to Charleston, S.C. where he came under the ministry of Rev. Oliver Hart.  He had been saved as a youth, but it was here that he was immersed, and felt the call to preach and entered into training under his pastor.  Soon after his ordination he took charge of a church on James’ Island.  He received an A.M. degree from both the College of Philadelphia and Harvard.  He pastored the Baptist church at Bordentown, N.J. and then became the Asst. Pastor of the 2^nd Baptist Church of Boston.  From there the First Baptist Church of Boston called him to be their pastor on Jan. 9, 1765, where he spent the remainder of his life.  Boston became the hot-bed of revolutionary activities and Pastor Stillman was right in the middle of it all.  The  historian, Dr. Magoon, called him “that distinguished patriot…the universally admired pastor of the First Baptist Church.  He was small of stature, but great of soul…In the presence of armed foes, he preached with a power that commanded respect.”  Men like John Adams, Gov. John Hancock, and Gen. Henry Knox attended his services regularly.  The British desecrated his church sanctuary when they occupied Boston and mocked him in charcoal drawings…”  His last words were, “God’s government is infinitely perfect.”  He then entered into the Lord’s presence on March 12, 1807.

Dr. Greg J. Dixon, adapted from: This Day in Baptist History III (David L. Cummins), pp. 116 – 118.

24 – Jan. 24 – THIS DAY IN BAPTIST HISTORY PAST

Rev. Larkin always exhibited a gracious spirit.
Clarence Larkin died on Jan. 24, 1924 at age 74.  He was born on Oct. 28, 1850 in Chester, PA.  He was converted to Christ at age 19 and became a member of the Episcopal church.  Knowing that his sins were forgiven, he desired immediately to preach but it was a few years before he left employment at a bank and entered college.   He had a methodical mind, and graduated as a mechanical engineer and later became a teacher of the blind.  As an engineer and a teacher of the blind, the Lord was preparing him for his life’s work of organizing the scriptures into visual charts on prophecy and doctrine that people were able to understand clearly the great truths of God’s Word.  At 32 he was immersed and united with a Baptist church.  Two years later he was ordained.  He became pastor of the Baptist church in Kennett Square, PA.  His second church was at Fox Chase, PA where he remained for twenty years.  At the time of his ordination Larkin was not a pre-millennialist, but as he studied the scriptures literally he was forced to come to that conclusion.  For years the postmillennialists had taught that the world was getting better and better, and that the church would convert the world and Christ would then return.  Rev. Larkin made huge wall charts describing his views on this subject and great numbers would come to hear him present these prophetic truths.  He reduced his teachings to Dispensational Truth (or God’s Plan in the Ages), which was his crowning work.  The Book of Daniel, The Spirit World, and The Second Coming.  Often it has been said that one can be dispensationally correct while being dispositionally mean spirited.  Those who knew him best reported that Rev. Larkin always exhibited a gracious spirit.
Dr. Greg J. Dixon from: This Day in Baptist History Vol. IIII: Cummins, pp. 49-51.

23 – Jan. 23 – THIS DAY IN BAPTIST HISTORY PAST

His last words were, “SWEET HOME,”
 Charles Dutton Mallary was born in West Paultney, Rutland County, Vermont, on Jan. 23, 1801.  He had deeply pious parents, especially his mother.   He experienced the saving grace of Christ when he was sixteen during a revival.  He was immersed into the fellowship of the Baptist church in West Paultney, Clark Kendrick pastor, in June of 1822.  He graduated from Middlebury College in August 1817 and taught school for a year.  He became burdened to preach the gospel and relocated in Charleston, S.C. where he began preaching and became licensed by the local church, and in 1824 received a call to pastor the First Baptist Church of Columbia, S.C., where he was ordained.  On July 11, 1825 he married Miss Susan Mary Evans, the maternal granddaughter of the eminent preacher, Edmund Botsford.  Susan died in 1834.  He married again in 1840 to Mrs. Mary E. Welch.  After two years he moved 20 miles southeast to pastor Beulah and Congaree Baptist Churches.  In 1830 he accepted a call to the First Baptist Church in Augusta, GA.  In 1834 he went to a church in Milledgevillle, GA, but because of poor health, only stayed for two years.  At that point he began working with Mercer University where he served as agent from 1837-1839.  With a passion to preach he accepted the position as Missionary for the Central Association.  This was the most effective time of his ministry when he preached great revivals in the central area of Georgia.  From 1840 – 1864 he lived in Twiggs and Sumter Counties and resided in Jeffersonville for many years ministering in a number of churches until 1848 when he was called to the LaGrange church, until 1852.  He moved to Albany and because of poor health was unable to pastor but preached until the end in 1864 at the age of sixty-four. His last words were,  “SWEET HOME,” (clapping his hands).
Dr. Greg J. Dixon from: This Day in Baptist History Vol. IIII: Cummins, pp. 47-48.