Baptist Church,
A flourishing denomination of evangelical Christians who differ from others in respect to the mode of administering the rite of baptism.
They reject sprinkling, and hold that immersion of the whole body is the only valid mode of baptism, and essential to its specific spiritual purpose; a mode, they claim, that was universally practised throughout Christendom for 1,300 years. Their Church government is democratic.
Their writers trace their origin to the third century; and they have ever been the champions of civil and religious liberty.
Until the Quakers arose, at the middle of the seventeenth century, they stood alone in the advocacy of “soul-liberty.”
There were none in
America when
Roger Williams founded
Providence.
Before he left
England he had been under the teachings of Baptists there, some of whom had been refugees from persecution in
Holland.
These had instituted baptism among themselves by authorizing certain of their members to be administrators of the rite.
Cast out from the
Congregational churches in
Massachusetts,
Williams conceived the idea of forming a Baptist Church in his new home in
Providence, after the manner of the refugees in
Holland, but in a more simple form.
In March, 1639,
Ezekiel Holliman, a layman, first baptized
Williams, and then
Williams baptized
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Holliman and “some ten more.”
These men then formed a Baptist Church there.
But
Williams did not remain a Baptist long.
He very early doubted the validity of
Holliman's baptism, and consequently of his own. He believed “a visible succession of authorized administrators of baptism” to be necessary to insure its validity, and in the course of two months he withdrew from the
Church, and never rejoined it. But the
Church and its principles remained, and the colony embodied in its first code of laws (1637) a provision for perfect toleration in matters of religion.
In 1764, when numbering only about 5,000 members in all
America, the Baptists established their first college in
Rhode Island (see
Brown University). With one exception, the Baptists are the largest denomination of evangelical Christians in the
United States.
It is said that the first article of the amendments to the national Constitution, guaranteeing religious liberty (offered in 1789), was introduced chiefly through the influence of the
Baptist denomination.
The Baptist Church in 1900 was divided into the
Regular Baptist, North; Regular
Baptist, South; and Regular
Baptist, Colored.
Besides these there were ten other Church organizations so closely allied with the Regular Baptist Church as to be officially grouped with the
Regular Church.
Reports for 1899 gave the following summaries for the thirteen
Baptist bodies: Ministers, 33,088; churches, 49,721; and members, 4.443,628.
The Northern and Southern branches of the Regular Baptist Church had 14,409 ministers, 27,893 churches, and 2,586,671 members; and the Regular Baptist Church, Colored, had 14.000 ministers, 15,000 churches, and 1,555,324 members.
The largest of the other bodies was the Primitive Baptist Church.
which reported 2,130 ministers, 3.530 churches, and 126,000 members.
The Freewill Baptist Church followed, with 1,312 ministers, 1,517 churches, and 85,242 members.
