A History of the Baptists

John T. Christian

Vol. 2 - The Colonial Period

Chapter 11

The Baptists of Virginia.

The First Settlers of Virginia—The Episcopalians—Contrasts with New England—First Efforts of the Baptists—The Church of England Established by Law—The Virginia Charter—No Toleration Allowed—The Bloody Laws—"Neck and Heels" in Jail for not Attending Church—The First Act of Parliament—The Salary of the Clergy Paid in Tobacco—Dissenters Must Depart the Colony—Whippings and Brandings—Ordination from the Church of England Demanded—Quakers and Baptists in Virginia—Infant Baptism—Presbyterians Tolerated for a Strange Reason—Baptists Slow in Entering the State—Marvelous Growth—Dr. Hawks—Bishop Perry—The Statement of Semple—The First Baptists from England—Robert Norden—Collections of Money in England for Baptists—Church at Burley—Churches in Berkeley and Loudon Counties—The Statement of John Gano—David Thomas.

Virginia is famous for being the oldest State in the Union; in early days it contained the largest number of inhabitants, and produced many distinguished men. "The first settlers of the country were emigrants from England, of the English Church, just at a point of time, when it was flushed with complete victory over the religions of all other persuasions." Possessed as they became of the power of making, administering, and executing the laws, they showed intolerance to all other religious beliefs.

"The Episcopalians retained full possession of the country about a century. Other opinions began to creep in; and the care of the government to support their own church, having begotten an equal degree of indolence in its clergy, two-thirds of the people had become dissenters at the commencement of the Revolution. The laws indeed were still oppressive on them; but the spirit of the one party had subsided into moderation, and on the other, had arisen to a degree of determination which commanded respect" (Morse, Geography, I.).

There were strange contrasts which prevailed between the conditions in New England and Virginia; but in the fierceness of persecutions of Baptists there were no differences. Baptists here, as everywhere else, met with the keenest opposition. "The endeavor to found Baptist churches in Virginia was in its earlier stages an extraordinary and unique religious movement, unparalleled elsewhere in the history of Christianity on the American continent, and the like of which, it is not supposed, will ever occur again. The cause of this may be traced in the origin and history of the colony of Virginia, the successful undertaking of which found its most zealous and effective advocate in a prebendary of the Established Church of England, whose pen drafted the rules of government under which the first expedition sailed. Priests of the church accompanied the earliest and most important voyages, and formally signalized their landings on James river with their prayers. Among the earliest buildings reared at Jamestown was one consecrated to the services of the church. The most zealous care of the Colonial Assembly for more than a century after the settlement was to cement the union between the government and the church, and to make the claims and officers of the latter as binding as possible upon the people. Thus legalized, the church anticipated the birth of the children of the colony, and did not forsake them in their death. It offered its blessings on the natal hour in prayer ‘for all women in the perils of child birth.’ It sealed their tender infancy with its baptismal sacrament, under rubrics which provided: ‘The priest shall take the child in his hands, and naming the child, shall dip it in the water "discreetly and warily."’ It published the bands of matrimony on its church doors, and solemnized the rite with its formula. It enforced Sabbath worship in accordance with its ritual and creed, and under heavy penalties for its neglect; and the obsequies of the dead it directed after its own impressive burial service. Even its church yards were made by law cemeteries, so that the Establishment which nursed its children so closely in life, ceased not to covet them with its shadows in death" (Semple, A History of the Rise and Progress of the Baptists in Virginia).

The charter of the colony made the Church of England an established part of the law of the land. The first charter granted by James I, April 10, 1608, was for a time the organic law. That part of the charter which relates to religion is as follows:

This charter was granted upon the principle of intolerance and persecution. There was at no time any intention of recognizing human liberty. This was never a part of the creed of the Stuarts. "Toleration in the forms of religion," says Foote, "was unknown in Virginia in 1688. From the commencement of the colony, the necessity of the religious element was felt. The company knew not how to control the members composing the colony but by religion and law" (Foots, Sketches of Virginia Historical and Biographical, I. 25. New York, 1850).

The provisions of the charter were further strengthened by "The Code of Sir Thomas Dale," of 1611. This code carried the following terrible enactments relating to religion:

There is not one man nor woman in this colony, now present nor hereafter to arrive, but shall give an account of his or their faith and religion, and repair unto the minister, that by his conference with them, he may understand and gather whether they have been sufficiently instructed and catechised in the principles and grounds of religion; whose weakness and ignorance, the minister finding, and advising them in love and charity to repair often to him, to receive therein a greater measure of knowledge, if they shall refuse to repair unto him, and he, the minister, give notice thereof to the governor, or the chief officers of that town or fort, wherein he or she, the parties so offending shall remain, the governor shall cause the offender for the first time of refusal, to be whipped; for the second time, to be whipped twice, and to acknowledge his fault upon the Sabbath day in the congregation; and for the third time, to be whipped every day, until he hath made the same acknowledgment, and asked forgiveness for the same, and shall repair unto the minister to be further instructed as aforesaid; and upon the Sabbath when the minister shall catechise, and demand any question concerning his faith and knowledge, he shall not refuse to make answer, upon the same peril (Laws, &c. Strachey. London, 1612. Howison, History of Virginia, II. 148).

Captain Argall, who became governor, in 1617, decreed "that every person should go to Church, Sundays and Holidays, or lye Neck and Heels that Night, and be a Slave to the Colony the following week; for the second offence he should be a Slave for a month; and for the third, a year and a day" (Stith). "These were times when religion was to be taught with the whip," says Howison, "when the heart was to be affected with the punishment of the body, and when prayer was the only means of escaping the gibbet. This code was too cruel to be rigidly enforced, yet we have reason to believe it was not entirely a dead letter. When Argall became governor, he took special delight in reviving it, and many Colonists learned in sadness that the Church was the occasion of stripes, rather than freedom and happiness" (Howison, II.).

No wonder that Bishop Perry, of Iowa, calls this code "impolitic and inhuman," "stern and inhuman" (Perry, History of the American Episcopal Church, I). The historian Stith says of these laws: "These were very bloody and severe, and no ways agreeable to a free people and the British Constitution; neither had they any Sanction or Authority from the Council and Company of England. However, Sir Thomas Dale, being sadly troubled and pester’d with mutinous Humors of the People, caused them to be published, and put into Execution with the utmost Rigor. And altho’ the Manner was harsh and unusual to Englishmen, yet had not these military laws been so strictly executed at this time, there were little Hopes or Probability of preventing the utter subversion of the Colony" (Stith, The History of the First Discovery and Settlement of Virginia, 122, 123. Williamsbourg, 1747). Dale’s Code has been chiefly remembered because of the penalty for blasphemy, which was the thrusting of a bodkin through the blasphemer’s tongue. Sabbath observance was enforced by whipping, and speaking against the Trinity or the Christian religion by death (H. J. Eckenrode, Separation of Church and State in Virginia, 6. Richmond, 1910).

By the first Act of Parliament of 1623 it is provided that in every plantation or settlement there shall be a house or room set apart for the worship of God. But it soon appears that this worship was only to be according to the Church of England, to which a strict uniformity was enjoined. A person absenting himself from divine service on Sunday without a reasonable excuse, forfeited a pound of tobacco; and he that absented himself a month, forfeited fifty pounds. Any minister who was absent from his church above two months in a year, forfeited half his salary; and he who absented himself four months, forfeited the whole. Whoever disparaged a minister whereby the minds of his parishioners might be alienated, was compelled to pay 500 pounds of tobacco and ask the minister’s pardon publicly in the congregation. No man was permitted to dispose of any of his tobacco till the minister was satisfied under penalty of forfeiting double his part of the minister’s salary (Hening, I.).

The first allowance made to the ministers was ten pounds of tobacco and a bushel of corn for each tithable; and every laboring person, of what quality or condition, was bound to contribute. In the year 1631 the Assembly granted to ministers, besides the former allowance ten pounds of tobacco and a bushel of corn, the twelfth calf, the twentieth kid and the twentieth pig (Semple).

To preserve the purity of doctrine and unity of the church, it was enacted in 1643 that all ministers should be conformable to the orders and constitution of the Church of England, and that no other persons be permitted to preach publicly or privately. It was further provided that the governor and council should take care that all non-conformists departed the colony with all conveniency (Semple). Accordingly this came to pass: "In 1643, Sir William Berkeley, Royal Governor of Virginia," says Hassell, "strove, by whippings and brandings, to make the inhabitants of that colony conform to the Established Church, and thus drove out the Baptists and Quakers, who found a refuge in Albermarle county of North Carolina, a colony which ‘was settled,’ says Bancroft, ‘by the freest of the free—by men to whom the restraints of other colonies were too severe’" (Hassell, Church History).

After the restoration of Charles II, May, 1660, heavier burdens were laid upon Dissenters in Virginia. No minister was permitted to preach unless he had received ordination from some bishop in England; and the rites of matrimony must be celebrated by a minister of the Established Church according to the ceremony prescribed by the Book of Common Prayer.

About this time the Quakers and Baptists came into Virginia in numbers. This greatly aroused the authorities so that in 1661-2 the following act was passed:

Upon the accession of William and Mary to the throne of England, the Act of Toleration was, in 1689, passed; but in Virginia the provisions of this act were not recognized for ten years later. It was not published in that State and the terms were obscured. It was never interpreted in Virginia as giving any liberty to Dissenters. "The people are generally of the Church of England," explains Beverley, "which is the religion established by law in the country, from which there are few dissenters. Yet liberty of conscience is given to all other congregations pretending to Christianity, on condition they submit to all parish duties" (Beverley, History of the Present State of Virginia, 226. London, 1722).

There arose at this date, a strange condition of circumstances, accompanied by a stranger reason for the toleration of certain Presbyterians in Virginia. Francis Makemie made application for a license to preach, which was granted. Beverley explains this as follows:

Upon this action Foote, the Presbyterian historian, makes the following quaint remarks:

From 1732 to 1738 Presbyterian families had been moving into the Valley of Virginia. They asked for the privilege of preaching and Governor Gooch granted the request. Foote explains it in the following manner:

These were remarkable reasons for toleration. In some counties the tobacco was too poor to pay an Episcopal rector to live among the people; and in others brave men were needed to defend the borders of Virginia from the Indians. In none of these provisions was there any toleration extended toward the Baptists.

Baptists had existed in Virginia from early times, but they had left no impression on the unpropitious seventeenth century. In 1714 a colony settled in the southeast part of the State but it did not flourish (Eckenrode); and nearly thirty years afterwards another body came from Maryland, and occupied a place in one of the northern counties, then thinly inhabited. These were the Regular Baptists, and though they were not without zeal, they were speedily eclipsed by more enthusiastic brethren (Howison, II.). The first New Light Baptist church, in Virginia, was organized August, 1760; but soon the number of such churches greatly increased. It is certain from this date they greatly flourished. Fervent declamation distinguished them; the prominent motives of the gospel were presented in language made strong by earnestness; the joys of heaven and the torments of hell were opened to the eyes of the hearers, and men were urged to immediate repentance, faith and baptism. The practice of immersion forcibly addressed the senses, and gave something more substantial upon which to dwell than the simple rites of other churches. The people heard the Baptists gladly; day after day added fresh accessions, -and it was apparent that they could no longer be without weight in the counsels of the colony (Howison, II.).

Several causes account for their progress. When people are persecuted there always follows in their favor a reaction. Likewise the colonists were greatly disturbed on account of the French and Indian wars; and in religion they sought consolation. The Baptist preacher was a plain man, with a message, and he had a great appeal to these distressed people. A Mr. Wright, a Presbyterian preacher, in the frontier county of Cumberland, August 18, 1755, makes this statement:

This feeling became quite universal.

The Episcopal clergy developed a most distressing moral and religious situation. Unless fully attested one could hardly credit how low the clergy of the Established Church, at this time, had fallen. The testimony, however, comes from the most reliable sources; and so far as known has not been questioned.

This situation was of long standing. Few men of ability would leave England for the colony; those who came were usually inferior in ability and perhaps in character. "The ministers and publick dispensers of the Gospel which were sent into that Plantation, are for the most part, not only far short of those qualifications required of ministers, but men of opposite qualities and tempers, such as either by their loose lives, and un-Gospel becoming conversation, or by their known weakness and insufficiency of understanding and parts, do not only not gain or win upon those that are without, the Indian heathen, but cause more to go astray, and lose, many, very many of those that pretend to be within the English Christians . . . . The ministers of Virginia, too many of them, are very careless and negligent in dispensing God’s words and sacraments, as also indecent and slovenly in their manner of dispensing them….There are not a few of the ministers, whose wicked and prophane lives cause the worship of God, not only to be slighted, but to be little less than abhorred, when they officiate therein" (Public Good Without Private Interest (1657), 3, 14, 15).

The Bishop of London, in 1743, said to Doddridge in a letter:

Dr. Hawks remarks:

Even the General Assembly of Virginia, in the year 1776, passed the following law:

Bishop Perry sums up the situation in the following words:

However this may be explained it gave the Baptists of Virginia their opportunity. "The great success and rapid increase of the Baptists in Virginia," says Semple, "must be ascribed primarily to the power of God working with them; yet it cannot be denied but there were subordinate, and cooperating causes, one of which, and the main one, was the loose and immoral deportment of the Established clergy, by which the people were left almost destitute of even the shadow of true religion. ‘Tis true, they had some outward forms of worship, but the essential principles of Christianity were not only not understood among them, but by many never heard of. Some of the cardinal precepts of morality were disregarded, and actions plainly forbidden by the New Testament were often proclaimed by the clergy as harmless and innocent, or at worst, foibles of but little account. Having no discipline, every man followed the bent of his own inclination. It was not uncommon for the rectors of parishes to be men of the loosest morals. The Baptist preachers were, in almost every respect, the reverse of the Established clergy. The Baptist preachers were without learning, without patronage, generally very poor, very plain in their dress, unrefined in their manners, awkward in their address, all of which, by their enterprising zeal and unwearied perseverance, they either turned to advantage or prevented their ill effects. On the other hand, most of the ministers of the Establishment were men of classical and scientific education, patronized by men in power connected with great families, supported by competent salaries, and put into office by the strong arm of the civil power. Thus pampered and secure, the men of this order were rolling on the bed of luxury when the others began their extraordinary career. Their learning, riches, power, etc., seemed only to hasten their overthrow by producing an unguarded heedliness which is often the prelude to calamity and downfall" (Semple).

The Baptists of Virginia originated from three general sources. As has been indicated, the first came from England, about 1714. Some of these Baptists wrote letters to England asking for assistance. The Assembly of the General Baptists sent, in the same year, Robert Norden, of Warbleton, who was already an ordained minister, and Thomas White, who died Upon the journey. The order of the Assembly was as follows:

For a period collections were taken in Kent to sustain this enterprise. In 1724 Norden wrote to the Assembly and the next year the question was raised whether he should return to England to solicit funds. The action of the Assembly was as follows:

Norden gathered a church at a place called Burley, in the county of the Isle of Wight. He was faithful in his labors and died in the year 1725. Two years after his death Casper Mintz and Richard Jones, two ministers, came over from England, and Jones became pastor of the church. The following additional information is given by Paul Palmer in a letter to John Comer, in 1729:

This church by 1756 embraced Calvinistic sentiments. The Church at Burley wrote the Philadelphia Association the following letter:

These churches were not persecuted. Probably they were too obscure to attract much attention. It is also likely they secured a license to preach. It was not long till they ceased to exist.

The next appearance of the Baptists was in the counties of Berkeley and Loudon. Several churches were organized, of which Opeckon Creek seems to have been the most prominent. A number of the members of the General Baptist Church, at Chestnut Ridge, Maryland, in 1743, removed to Virginia. Soon after their minister followed them and he baptized several persons. He was soon excluded from the church on account of immorality. On this account the church was broken up and afterwards a Particular Baptist church was organized in its stead.

Many churches in this section of the country were loosely constituted, and serious trouble existed among them. On request the Philadelphia Association sent a committee composed of James Miller and David Thomas to settle their difficulties. This course was often pursued by that association. The committee was accompanied by John Gano, who was destined to become a most distinguished preacher.

The account of Gano is as follows:

It was not long until David Thomas became connected with this company of Baptists. He was a tower of strength. He was born August 16, 1732, at London Tract, Pennsylvania, and had his education at Hopewell, New Jersey, under the celebrated Isaac Eaton. He received his Master’s degree from Rhode Island College. He had often made missionary excursions to the State under the direction of the Philadelphia Association, He removed to this section in 1760. His experiences well illustrated the trials of the Baptist ministry of northern Virginia.

"Mr. Thomas is said to have been a minister of great distinction in the prime of his days. Besides the natural endowments of a vigorous mind, and the advantages of a classical and refined education, he had a melodious and piercing voice, a pathetic address, expressive action, and above all a heart filled with love for God and his fellow men. But for a few of his first years in Virginia, he met with much persecution. He was frequently assaulted both by individuals and mobs. Once he was pulled down while he was preaching, and dragged out of the house in a barbarous manner. At another time, a malevolent fellow attempted to shoot him, but a bystander wrenched his gun from him and thereby prevented the execution of this wicked purpose. The slanders and revilings he met with, says Mr. Edwards, were innumerable; and if we judge of a man’s prevalency against the devil by the rage of the devil’s children, Thomas prevailed like a prince. But the gospel had free course; and Broad Run Church, of which he was pastor, within six or eight years from its establishment, branched out and became the mother of five or six others.

"Elder Thomas traveled much, and the fame of his preaching drew the attention of the people throughout an extensive circle, so that in many instances they came fifty and sixty miles to hear him. It is remarkable about this time, there were multiplied instances in different parts of Virginia of persons, who had never heard anything like evangelical preaching, but who were brought, through divine grace, to see and feel their want of vital godliness. Many of these persons, when they heard Mr. Thomas and other Baptist preachers, would travel great distances to hear them, and to procure their services as ministers of the gospel. By this means the gospel was first carried into the county of Culpepper. Mr. Allen Wyley, a man of respectable standing in that county, had been thus turned to God, and not knowing of any preacher in whom he had confidence, he had sometimes gathered his neighbors, read the Scriptures, and exhorted them to repentance; but being informed of Mr. Thomas, he, with some of his friends, traveled to Farquier to hear him. As soon as he heard, he knew the joyful sound, submitted to baptism, and invited him to preach in his house. He also preached in the county of Orange, and, in company with Elder Garrard, carried the Word of life through all the upper counties of the Northern Neck.

"Elder Thomas ultimately removed to Kentucky. He lived to an advanced age, and sometime before his death was nearly blind" (Taylor, Lives of Virginia Baptist Ministers, Series One).

Books for further reference:

Robert B. Semple, A History of the Rise and Progress of the Baptists in Virginia. Richmond, 1810. A New Edition by Beale. Philadelphia, 1894.

B. F. Riley, A History of the Baptists in the Southern States East of the Mississippi. Philadelphia, 1898.

Foote, William Henry, Sketches of Virginia Historical and Biographical. Philadelphia, 1850. 2 volumes.