THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
organization of a General Baptist church, and m 1736 members residing in the Ashley river community withdrew to form a church of their own. This greatly weakened the Charleston church and by the close of the present period it had become almost extinct. In 1737 a company of Welsh Baptists from Welsh Tract, Pa. (now Delaware), settled on the Peedee river, S. C, and formed the Welsh Neck church.
In 1714, in response to an appeal from some
Baptists in Isle of Wight County, Va., Robert
Nordin was sent out by the General
6. In Vir- Baptists of London. He succeeded
ginia, m organizing a church at Burleigh
North Caro- and another in Surrey county. In
Connect!- 1727 a BaPtist church was formed
0I1^xt. " in northern North Carolina under the leadership of Paul Palmer, who had been a member of the Welsh Tract church and who was presumably Calvinistic. In Connecticut, through the labors of Valentine Wightman, Stephen Gorton, and others, General (Six Principles) Baptist churches were constituted at Groton (1705), New London (1726), Wallingford (1735), and Farmington (now Southington) a little later. These were closely associated with the General Baptist churches of Providence, Newport, South Kingston, and Dartmouth, R. I.
In 1643 Lady Moody, who had become a zealous antipedobaptist, left Massachusetts and settled at Gravesend, N. Y. On her way she spent some time in New Haven, where she won to her views the wife of Theophilus Eaton, first governor of the colony and daughter of an English bishop . For many years religious services were held by Lady Moody without regular church organization. Francis Doughty, driven from Massachusetts on account of antipedobaptist views, labored for a while at Flushing and left for Virginia in 1656 without effecting a church organization. In 1656 William Wickenden, of Providence, preached, baptized, and celebrated the Lord's Supper at 7. In New Flushing, but was driven away after
York. imprisonment and an attempt to collect from him a heavy fine. From 1711 onward Valentine Wightman, of Connecticut (General Baptist), frequently visited New York on the invitation of Nicholas Eyres, a prosperous brewer, who with others was baptized by Wightman in 1714. Eyres became pastor of the congregation. He was ordained and the church recognized by brethren from Rhode Island and Connecticut in 1724. This church became involved in debt and controversy (Arminianism vs. Calvinism) and was extinct before the close of this period. At Oyster Bay, L. I., there were Baptists from 1700 onward. A Baptist church (probably General) was constituted a little later.
The Quaker colonies furnished an attractive field for Baptist effort. The first Baptist church founded in this section was that at Cold Spring (16S4) through the labors of Thomas Dungan, an Irish minister who had been a member of the First Church, Newport. This church became extinct by 1702. The Lower Dublin, or Pennepek, church followed in 1688. Several families of Welsh Bap-
tists, with one Irish and one English Baptist, had settled in the neighborhood two years earlier. Elias Keach, the prodigal son of the famous Benjamin Keach, of London, was converted while practising imposture upon the brethren and became a preacher of power. Under his leadership the Pennepek church was organized in 1688, and in a few years through his evangelistic efforts baptized believers were to be found at the Falls, Cold Spring,
Burlington, Cohansey, Salem, Penn's
8. In the Neck, Chester, Philadelphia, and other
Quaker places, who continued to be members
Colonies. 0f the Pennepek church enjoying
occasional preaching services and gathering quarterly at different places for evangelistic services and communion. Keach returned to England in 1692. Here also controversy arose respecting the laying-on of hands and occasioned Keach's withdrawal in 1689 from the pastorate of the church. The laying-on of hands became the common practise of the churches of the Philadelphia Association, but was never a term of communion. Churches were formed in the following places: Piscataqua, N.J. (1689), Middletown, N. J. (1688), Cohansey, N.J. (1691), Philadelphia (1698), Welsh Tract, Del. (1703), Great Valley, Pa. (1711). The Welsh element prevailed, but many of the members of the churches were English and not a few had had New England experience. Many Mennonites settled in this region and reenforced the antipedobaptist life; so also the Dunkers. Baptists in Philadelphia were considerably strengthened (1692-1700) by the conversion to their views of a number of Keithian Quakers. Some of these were constituent members of the church and in 1707 the Keithians invited the Baptists to share the use of their meeting-house. Seventh-Day Baptists early appeared in this region and churches were organized by them at Piscataqua (1705), Newtown (1700), and Shiloh (1737). In 1707 churches which from the beginning had held general meetings together joined in organizing the Philadelphia Association, than which no agency has been so potent in the unification and extension of the denominational life. The adoption, with modifications, by the Association of the English Particular Baptist Confession of Faith of 1689 tended to fix the doctrinal type of what was long the most aggressive aggregation of Baptists in America. Before the Great Awakening the Baptists of the Philadelphia Association were carrying on successful missionary work.
2. From 1740 to 1821 : A Socinianized Arminianism long before the beginning of this period had wrecked a number of the older Calvinistic Baptist churches. As in England, so in America, evangelical religion was at a low ebb during the first third of the eighteenth century. The Great Awakening (see Revivals op Religion) found the Baptists wholly unprepared to cooperate. The Arminian Baptists were repelled by the Calvinistic teachings of the great evangelists, while Baptists of all parties had suffered so much at the hands of pedobaptists that they would have been disinclined to join heartily in any general Christian movement. Yet no denomination profited more largely by