Dec 26, 2018
by Janet Thorngate
Part 1
Fifth in a series of spinoff articles from recent research on the Newport, Rhode Island, Seventh Day Baptists1
Their 1671 covenant pointed up the communal nature of a search for guiding principles: “seeking God’s face among ourselves for the Lord to direct us in a right way for us and our children.” It also acknowledged the dynamic nature of the search: “according to what the Lord had discovered to us or should discover to be His mind for us.” In other words, they expected God would continue to reveal new truth to them. By 1708, the purpose statement at the front of their second record book read: “Let us hear the conclusion of the matter: fear God and keep His commandments for this is the whole duty of man; if ye love me, saith Christ, keep my commandments.”
The staunch adherence to moral principles of the original seven—“according to what the Lord had discovered to us…to be obedient unto”—were clearly based on the Bible and particularly the Ten Commandments. Newport Sabbatarians quickly adopted the motto of those in England: “keeping the commandments of God and the testimonies of Jesus.”
The moral, as opposed to theological, nature of the covenant was clear: “We entered into covenant with ye Lord and with one another and gave up ourselves to God and one to another to walk together in all God’s Holy Commandments and Holy Ordinances.” It was all about relationships. There was a “sense upon our hearts of great need to be watchful over one another. Did promise so to do…” The purpose of the church discipline this promise led to was “edifying and building up one another in our most holy faith.” The results were to be spiritual and visible: “for God’s glory and our souls’ good and others’ example.”
All discipline cases brought before the congregation as they were “watchful over one another” had to do with observable behavior, relationships within the church or with others. The vast majority of cases had to do with “profaning the Lord’s Sabbath,” usually laboring on the Sabbath or, as in one case, “buying wood on
the Sabbath and neglecting to acknowledge your evil.” The second most common offense was “absenting oneself from assembling with the congregation.” Some offenses had to do with “differences between” one member and another, almost always resolved amicably.
Some included a general pattern of behavior: You have “forsaken the Sabbath and are become vain in your words and actions altogether unbecoming a person that makes a profession of the name of Christ.” Most were very specific in naming the “evil,” including “excessive drunkenness” and the few charges of “the horrid sin of adultery.” Admonition and rejection letters always included “laying before your consideration several scriptures” by which the brother or sister might be “convicted of their evil” and thus led to repentance and hoped-for restoration.
The congregation attended to each other’s temporal as well as spiritual needs, setting regular times to take collections “for the poor of this church.” At one time they sent a delegation to check on the family of Jeremiah Crandall. Messengers returned to report that he was much in debt and not in a way to clothe his family nor pay his debts: “without selling his land.” A collection was taken with amounts from each contributor entered in the records.
Rhode Island Sabbatarians were active in the civic affairs of town and colony throughout the colonial period. Most church leaders from the first pastor, William Hiscox, to the Revolutionary War pastor, William Bliss, held public office and served on boards such as those of the Redwood Library and Rhode Island College. Lay people filled many of the same or comparable roles as judges, soldiers, and governors of Rhode Island (two, one of them also a member of the Continental Congress). At least four of the African American members were active in the Free African Union Society, two as long-term officers and one as teacher in the first African school. According to one count, “Fifty different Seventh Day Baptists served in the Colonial Assembly of Rhode Island prior to 1776, serving a total of one hundred ninety-one years.”
Church records reveal little of the civic activity noted above. Always conscious of the Rhode Island legacy of religious freedom and the separation of church and state, Rhode Island Sabbatarians championed those principles on behalf of Connecticut Seventh Day Baptist and Rogerene brethren from New London in the 1670s to Bristol in the 1780s. In both cases the main issue was the religious tax levied to support the standing order church. As Henry Clarke observed, Seventh Day Baptists were “good citizens, by habits of industry, and bearing their part in public burdens of the States, supporting laws (unless human laws interfered with God’s divine laws).”
Part 2, continued next month…
1 Sources for this article including the covenant and full church records may be found in Baptists
in Early North America: Newport, Rhode Island, Seventh Day Baptists by Janet Thorngate (Macon,
GA: Mercer University Press, 2017), particularly “Legacy of the Newport SDB Church,” p. cvii-cxvi. The book may be ordered for $60 from the Seventh Day Baptist Center (PO Box 1678, Janesville, WI 53547) or from Mercer University Press (www.mupress.org or 501 Mercer Univ. Dr., Macon, 31207).
Covenant of the Newport Seventh Day Baptist Church
After serious consideration and seeking Gods face among ourselves for the Lord to direct us in a right way for us and our children so as might be for Gods glory and our souls good and others example, we entered into Covenant with ye Lord and with one another and gave up ourselves to God and one to another to walk together in all Gods Holy Commandments and Holy Ordinances according to what the Lord had discovered to us or should discover to be his mind for us to be obedient unto; with sense upon our hearts of great need to be watchful over one another. Did promise so to do, and in edifying and building up one another in our most holy faith
William Hiscox Tacy Hubbard
Samuel Hubbard Rachel Langworthy
Steven Mumford [Ann]Mumford
Roger Baster
7th Day of Decemr 1671