1

$4 Extent of the Regular Baptist Connexion.

those of the more experienced, became zealous labourers in the vineyard of the Lord.

Before the year 1770, the Regular Baptists were spread over the whole country, in the Northern Neck above Fredericksburg. Between 1770 and 1780, their cords still continued to be lengthened. Mr. Lunsford, a young but extraordinary preacher, carried the tidings of peace downwards, and planted the Redeemer's standard in those counties of the Northern Neck which are below Fredericksburg. Messrs. Corbley, Sutton, and Barnet, had moved over the Alleghany, and had raised up several churches in the northwest counties, as early as 1775. Mr. John Alderson had gone, in 1777, to Greenbrier, and in a few years raised up a people for God in that region. Besides these, there were some others, who moved more southward, and raised up a few churches.

During the time of the great declension of religion among the Virginia Baptists, which prevailed soon after the close of the war, the Regulars were under the cloud as well as their brethren the Separates; and they also participated in the great revival in 1785, and some years following.

An account of the present state of religion amongst the churches and people who were formerly called Regular Baptists, will be given in the general observations with which we shall conclude the history of this State. But before we close this chapter, it is proper to give a brief history of the Ketockton Association, together with those Associations which have originated from it.

The Ketockton Association was formed in 1766, and was the fifth Association of Calvinistick Baptists in America. The Philadelphia, the Charleston, Sandy-creek, and Kehukee Associations were formed before it; and besides these was the Rhode-Island Yearly Meeting of Arminian Baptists. This Association contained but four churches at the time of its organization, viz. the Mill-creek, the Smith's-creek, the Ketockton, and Broadrun; the three first of which were dismissed from the Philadelphia Association, with which body they united soon after they were constituted. These churches held Yearly Meetings

Ketockton, Redstone, and Greenbrier Associations. 35

for a number of years before they were organized into an Association.*

Very few things appear to have transpired in the progress of this body, worthy of being detailed. It adopted the Philadelphia confession of faith at its commencement, and progressed with order, regularity, and propriety. It also experienced an annual increase of churches and members, during what may be termed the rise of the Baptists, in the region in which it was situated, although it did not increase so rapidly as many new Associations have done,

In 1789 a temporary division of this body was made, and a new Association, called Cappawamsick, was taken from it; but for some cause, which is not related, both bodies re-united in 1792. The union with the Separate Baptists, which the Regulars long sought and desired, and which was happily effected in 1787, by delegates from this Association, will be mentioned in the history of that community.

It is said by Rev. William Fristoe, the historian of this Association, that about 40 churches have joined it from first to last, and that at one time the churches were scattered over an extent of country, about 300 miles in length, and 100 in breadth. But as a number of churches have been dismissed to unite with other Associations, its bounds are now much contracted.

In 1775, four churches were dismissed from this Association, for the purpose of forming the Redstone Association, in the back parts of Pennsylvania, whose history has already been given; and in 1793, a number of churches more were dismissed to unite with some others, who originated from the Separates, in forming an Association, which was called Greenbrier, which lies in the back and mountainous parts of Virginia.

Mr. John Alderson, whose father removed from NewJersey, and became the first pastor of the Smith's-creek church, began, in 1775, to visit the region in which the Greenbrier Association is now situated, when the country was in a wilderness condition, both in a natural and spiritual

Asplund and Edwards date the beginning of this Association in 1765; but by Semple's account, the churches were in this year dismissed from the Philadelphia, and organized the year after.

† Fristoe's Hist. of the Ketockton Assoc. p. 13.

sense. Having met with some success and encouragement, he, in 1777, removed his family into those parts, and in a few years had the happiness of being instrumental in planting a number of churches. What appears to be the most remarkable event in his history in this region is, that although he travelled much throughout an extensive circle, yet for seven years after his settlement here, he never saw nor heard any Baptist preacher but himself. The inhabitants of this uncultivated wilderness were interrupted by the ravages of the Indians, soon after Mr. Alderson settled among them, and were obliged to keep shut up in forts, for the space of four years. During which time, this laborious minister, generally attended by a small guard, travelled through the dangerous wilds from one fort to another, continually exposed to the lurking savages, to preach the gospel to the self-confined prisoners.

Mr. Josiah Osbourne is one of the ministers of this Association, who is remarkable for having published a piece in defence of the peculiar sentiments of the Baptists, in the colloquial strain, under the title of David and Goliath. This piece, written by an obscure and almost altogether illiterate man, is considered by many, as one of the best treatises on baptism that has ever been published, and for perspicuity and force of argument, certainly excels many of the elaborate productions of learned divines.

The Union Association lies wholly in Virginia, and in the northwest part of the State, and is in what were formerly the bounds of the Ketockton Association; but all the churches which formed it were dismissed from the Redstone Association. The names and numbers of these churches, their number of members, their pastors, and the counties in which they are situated, will be giv en in the table of Associations.

CHAP. V.

General History of all the Separate Baptists in Virginia, North-Carolina, South-Carolina, and Georgia, from the Time of their Settlement at Sandy-Creek, North-Carolina, 1755, to the Division of their extensive Connexion, in 1770.

THE appellation of Separates first began to be given to a set of Pedobaptist reformers, whose evangelical zeal was produced by the instrumentality of the famous George Whitefield, and other eminent itinerant preachers of that day, and who began their extraordinary career about the year 1740. Soon after these reformers, who were at first called New-Lights, and afterwards Separates, were organized into distinct Societies, they were joined by Shubael Stearns, a native of Boston, (Mass.) who, becoming a preacher, laboured among them until 1751, when he embraced the sentiments of the Baptists, as many others of the Pedobaptist Separates did about this time, and soon after was baptized by Rev. Wait Palmer. Mr. Stearns was ordained the same year in Tolland, (Conn.) the town in which he was baptized, by the said Wait Palmer and Joshua Morse, the former being pastor of the church in Stonington, and the latter of New-London, in Connec

ticut.

Mr. Stearns and most of the Separates had strong faith in the immediate teachings of the Spirit. They believed, that to those who sought him earnestly, God often gave evident tokens of his will. That such indications. of the divine pleasure, partaking of the nature of inspiration, were above, though not contrary to reason, and that following these, still leaning in every step upon the same wisdom and power by which they were first actuated, they would inevitably be led to the accomplishment of the two great objects of a Christian's life, the glory of God and the salvation of men. Mr. Stearns, listening to some of these instructions of Heaven, as he esteemed them, conceived himself called upon by the Almighty, to move far to the westward, to execute a great and extensive work. Incited by his impressions, in the year 1754, he and a few of his members, took their leave of New

38

Shubaei Stearns and others form a Church.

England. He halted first at Opeckon, in Berkley county, Virginia, where he found a Baptist church under the care of the Rev. John Garrard, who received him kindly. Here also he met his brother-in-law, the Rev. Daniel Marshall, who was also a Separate, and of whom much will be said in the history of the southern Baptists, just returned from his mission among the Indians, and who, after his arrival at this place, had become a Baptist. They joined companies, and settled for a while on Cacapou, in Hampshire county, about 30 miles from Winchester. Here, Stearns not meeting with his expected success, felt restless. Some of his friends had moved to North-Carolina; he received letters from these, informing him, that preaching was greatly desired by the people of that country; that in some instances they had rode 40 miles to hear one sermon. He and his party once more got under way, and, travelling about 200 miles, came to Sandy-creek, in Guilford county, North-Carolina. Here he took up his permanent residence. The number of families in Stearns's company were 8, and the number of communicants 16, viz. Shubael Stearns and wife, Peter Stearns and wife, Ebenezer Stearns and wife, Shubael Stearns, jun. and wife, Daniel Marshall and wife, Joseph Breed and wife, Enos Stimson and wife, Jonathan Polk and wife.

As soon as they arrived, they built them a little meetinghouse, and these 16 persons formed themselves into a church, and chose Shubael Stearns for their pastor, who had, for his assistants at that time, Daniel Marshall and Joseph Breed, neither of whom were ordained.

The inhabitants about this little colony of Baptists, although brought up in the Christian religion, were grossly ignorant of its essential principles. Having the form of godliness, they knew nothing of its power. Stearns and his party, of course, brought strange things to their ears. To be born again, appeared to them as absurd as it did to the Jewish doctor, when he asked, if he must enter the second time into his mother's womb and be born. Having always supposed that religion consisted in nothing more than the practice of its outward duties, they could not comprehend how it should be necessary to feel conviction and conversion; and to be able to ascertain the time and place of one's conversion, was, in their estimation, won,