59 – February – 28 – THIS DAY IN BAPTIST HISTORY PAST

 

 

An aged man stands true

1644 – On this day William Witter of Lynn, Massachusetts was arraigned before the Salem Court for “entertaining that the baptism of infants was sinful.”  Later, on Dec. 18, 1645, he was charged with saying that, “they who stayed whiles a child is baptized do worship the devil.”  On June 24, 1651, he was accused of “absenting himself from the public ordinances nine months or more and for being re-baptized.”  In time he united with the Baptist church in Newport, R.I. where Dr. John Clarke was pastor.  However, because of his age and the fact that he was blind, it was impossible to travel that far for services, so on June 19, 1651 Pastor Clarke, Obadiah Holmes, and John Crandall, as representatives of the Baptist church in Newport, upon the request of Bro. Witter, arrived at his home after walking the eighty miles in two days.  Spies informed the authorities of the Mass. Bay Colony that services were conducted on Sunday morning at the Witter home without the authority of the Congregational Church, which caused the three men to be arrested and hauled away to a tavern.  Then to cleanse their souls they were taken to an afternoon worship service at an established church service, and then they were imprisoned, and a great miscarriage of justice followed which ended in the brutal beating of Holmes.  Witter was not arrested, no doubt because of his advanced age.
Dr. Greg J. Dixon, from: This Day in Baptist History Vol. I: Cummins Thompson /, pp. 82.

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53 – February-22 – THIS DAY IN BAPTIST HISTORY PAST

 

 

 

Lady Moody

 

Memorial – Brooklyn

 

A Noble lady persecuted

 

1644  – LADY MOODY FLEES RELIGIOUS PERSECUTION IN ENGLAND TO BE PERSECUTED BY PURITANS IN AMERICA – 1644.  On February 22, 1644 John Endicott wrote a letter to John Winthrop, Governor of Plymouth Colony from Salem, Mass. that Lady Deborah Moody had been “excommunicated” from the Congregational Church at Salem and that a Mr. Norrice had informed him that she intended to return to Plymouth which he advises against, “unless shee will acknowledge her ewill (evil) in opposing the Churches & leave her opinions behinde her, for she is a dangerous woeman.  My brother Ludlow writt to mee that, by means of a book she sent to Mrs. Eaton, shee questions her owne baptisme, it is verie doubtefull whether shee will be reclaimed, shee is so far ingaged.”  Gov. Winthrop stated that she left “against the advice of all her friends.  Many others affected with Anabaptism removed thither also. On her way from Mass. Lady Moody stopped for a time in New Haven and made converts to believer’s baptism and encountered once again religious opposition.  Mrs. Eaton, wife of the first Governor of New Haven Colony, was one of the converts, and she too suffered persecution from the Congregational Church at New Haven.  She firmly denied that baptism was to be administered to infants.  Lady Moody was the widow of Sir Henry of Garsden in Wiltshire, England and came to America because of religious persecution and then received persecution from the hand of the Puritans, who themselves had fled persecution, after she got here.  She settled in Lynn, Mass., where she purchased the estate of Mr. Humphrey, one of the magistrates.  She had intended on being a permanent resident, but soon became a Baptist.  In Dec. 1642 Lady Moody, Mrs. King of Swampscott, and the wife of John Tillton were all tried at the Quarterly Court “for houldinge that the baptizing of infants is noe ordinance of God.”  Perhaps because of her position in society she was not banished from Mass.  However she determined to seek shelter among strangers and in 1643 moved to New Amsterdam (New York), a settlement that was formed on Long Island, and she took a patent, which, among other things guaranteed, ‘the free liberte of conscience according to the costume of Holland, without molestation or disturbance from any madgistrate or madgistrates,

or any other ecclesiastical minister that may pretend jurisdiction over them.”  It is believed that Lady Moody died on Long Island about 1659.
Dr. Greg J. Dixon, from: This Day in Baptist History Vol. I: Cummins Thompson /, pp. 73.

 

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17 – January 17 – THIS DAY IN BAPTIST HISTORY PAST

 

The mode of baptism did count

1525 – Conrad Grebel and his family felt the sting of the edict passed by the city council of Zurich ordering all parents to bring all unbaptized infants to present them for baptism within eight days or face expulsion from the city. Early in 1525 a child had been born to the Grebel’s. Conrad did not baptize his baby because he had become convinced that christening finds no support in the New Testament. Conrad Grebel was from a wealthy and prominent Swiss family, whose father served as a magistrate in Gruningen, just east of Zurich. Conrad also enjoyed many educational advantages. He was saved, and by 1522 was publicly defending the gospel and expressed a desire to become a minister. Falling in with the teachings of Ulrich Zwingli, Grebel also gave himself to the scriptures. Grebel and other young Anabaptists owed much to Zwingli, but they owed more to the Bible. These two loyalties soon came to a head, and it was Grebel who initiated believers baptism on that historic night in January 1525. As such, young Grebel became a champion of the Anabaptist movement. Grebel had only one year and eight months to proclaim the gospel, but in spite of numerous imprisonments and poor health his accomplishments were phenomenal. He preached, visited from door- to-door, baptized those who were saved, and was again arrested and imprisoned in Grunigen Castle. Being brought to trial, Grebel, Blaurock, and Manz were sentenced to an indefinite term of internment in Nov. 1525. They were given a diet of bread and water. Again Grebel was able to escape, but his freedom was short-lived, for he died in the summer of 1526, probably a victim of the plague, but a hero of the faith that lives on even today!
Dr. Greg J. Dixon; adapted from: This Day in Baptist History Vol. I: Cummins Thompson /, pp. 22-23

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J.R. GRAVES LIFE, TIMES AND TEACHINGS 13

 

CONFLICT WITH METHODISM AND

 

CAMPBELLISM GROWING

 

 

Dr. Graves is not to be charged with bringing on the conflict with Methodism. It cannot be said that he sought to shun it, but he could not have avoided it if he had so desired. There was the choice, either to accept the challenge or quit the field. Dr. Graves would have left the plumed knight of Methodism to go his own way when the Baptists were left with the same freedom, but when the proud champion “shook his javelin in challenge to personal combat,” this ruddy youth who had come to make his home in the West “laid his lance in rest and accepted the challenge.”

 

 

However, much their successors may deplore this combat, some things would inevitably happen. Here is how it came on. Dr. McFerrin, in The Christian Advocate, said that “Baptists believed that infants were lost because not baptized by them.” Dr. Howell, in The Baptist, indignantly denied this, averring that baptism had nothing to do with the salvation of anyone and that, in the case of adults, the saved were fit subjects for baptism. This has ever been the position of the Baptists. Dr. McFerrin said, in reply, that the Disciples taught baptismal regeneration and showed his proof by saying: “Are these men, when a Baptist urges upon believers the duty of baptism as the approved form by which the unholy assumes religion and as an expression of love and obedience to Christ, to exclaim, ‘Cambellism, Campbellism?’”

 

 

Dr. Howell responded that no Baptist believes that baptism is a saving ordinance or that the unbaptized are necessarily unsaved.

 

 

Things were in this shape when Dr. Graves, on becoming editor of The Baptist, took up this charge as well as the McFerrin denial that the Methodist taught Baptismal Salvation. Here are Dr. Graves’ ringing words: “Mr. Wesley says, ‘by water as a means – the water of baptism – we are regenerated and born again,’ that this teaching utterly denies that faith is the only condition or medium of justification is self-evident. It needs no argument. If baptism is ever in any case an instrument of justification, it is always so, for there is but one medium. If it is always by faith it is never by baptism – and if by baptism then it is always by baptism and never by faith.

 

 

“According to the above teaching (in the Methodist Advocate), no adult ordinarily can escape original sin or attain to justification or regeneration except in or by the water of baptism as a means. Is not this the old Roman dogma to all intents and purposes? Is it not a rejection of the vital doctrine, by all its far-reaching and powerful machinery, by its itinerary, its mammoth book concern and its capital, to subvert the gospel of Christ, to abolish from the land the great and only soul-saving doctrine of justification by faith?”

 

 

It was thus that Dr. Howell practically turned over the challenge of the Methodist to his young associate, who was, at the same time, really his pupil. Dr. Graves took up this defiant call. He wrote, lectured, preached to thousands all over Tennessee, Mississippi, Louisiana, portions of Georgia and Kentucky in attack and defense before thronging multitudes. He, like a knight clad in full armor and grasping his glittering sword, stood in the arena ready to do battle with any who denied the truth. He debated over the whole territory with the champions of Methodism and turned the tide, we may say, in a way to an extent that no one in those states had previously done. And Methodism still remembers that Dr. Graves lived.