In this posting I want to cite from "The Roots of Appalachian Christianity: The Life and Legacy of Elder Shubal Stearns" by John Sparks (here) and make some comments upon what he says.
Wrote Sparks (emphasis mine):
"Ultimately the largest and most successful of the three early Baptist sects was the group known in the British Isles as the Particulars, and in the colonies as the Regulars. Originally these were essentially Puritan Independents, complete with five-point Calvinist theology, who had repudiated their belief in infant baptism in favor of believers' immersion and the traditional concept of church and state for religious liberty. In light of the modern, right-wing, "old-timey" conservative connotation of the title of "Regular Baptist," however, the group was progressive, refined, and innovative and is in fact the ancestor of most modern American Baptist groups that bear the name including, to a certain extent, the Southern Baptist Convention. Ironically, this is the group that the Old Landmarkers most often try to link all the way back to Jerusalem."
Many of the forefathers of the "Primitive" or "Old School" Baptists were Regular Baptists. Some also came from the Separate Baptists. Some also came from the United Baptists (such as Grigg Thompson), from the groups that came from the union of Regulars and Separates. Notice what Sparks says about the Regulars and compare it with those sentiments of Regular Baptists who became Hardshell (such as Lemuel Potter). The old Regulars were not "anti" as regards missions, religious education (both for youth, i.e. Sunday Schools and catechisms and for those having a calling to preach). They were progressive and innovative. But, if this is so, then how can the Hardshells claim otherwise about their ancestors?
Sparks continued:
"Landmarkers most often try to link all the way back to Jerusalem by an apostolic succession as well, usually by contending that a group of ancient Old Landmark or sometimes Primitive Baptists stayed hidden in a remote corner of Wales for twelve to fifteen hundred years and then associating all anti-Papist activity they can find by Lollards, Waldensian immigrants from France, and even the bizarre Cathar cult of Provence and Languedoc with these same so-called ancient Baptists." (Pg. 8-9)
Exactly! The links in the chain of succession for the PBs have been put together by men who know little of the sects that make up those links! But, the average cult member just accepts that succession chain without questioning it.
Sparks said:
"So much for the Old Landmarkers for now, though unfortunately the author must allude to them again from time to time simply to display how they have corrupted historical tradition. The author hopes that he can give an accurate enough account of religious events in America during Shubal Stearns's life to expose the follies of Old Landmark contentions for the same time period, many of which have kept the study of Appalachian mountain religion in such confusion."
Landmarkers can be very cunning in the way they present their "chains" of succession. But, it is an example of corrupting history. What is said about the "Old Landmarkers" by Sparks is true of those who call themselves "Primitive Baptists" (with some exceptions).
Sparks wrote:
"Unlike the General Baptists, both the Particulars in Britain and the Regulars in America were staunch believers in a formally trained ministry and the use of prepared pulpit discourses. The English Particulars founded a Baptist college at Bristol at a surprisingly early date in their history as an organized denomination; some well-to-do colonial Regular congregations imported graduates of this institution to fill their own pulpits much as the New England Puritans depended on Harvard and Yale at the same time. In years to come the American Regulars would found their own schools at Hopewell, New Jersey, and at Providence, Rhode Island. Likewise the Regulars believed in a paid ministry as opposed to the General Baptist preachers' custom of earning their living at secular employment. And along with the great majority of Protestant denominations both in the Old Country and the colonies, the Regulars made a strong stance on the religious education of children. Although Sunday schools in the modern sense did not yet exist, most faiths employed catechisms for their members' young to memorize, and evidence exists that the American Regulars endorsed such a document for the benefit of their own churches at an early date—quite possibly the very same catechism, Milk for Babes by the famous John Cotton, used by the mainline Puritans themselves."
The Regulars were historically from the beginning "staunch believers in a formally trained ministry"? I thought Hardshells taught that such was a "new thing" and "innovation" in the early nineteenth century?
Have we not shown how corrupted are "Primitive Baptist" "histories"? How they are as Dr. R.E. Pound said, "wish history"? Have not we repeatedly said that they have a "revisionist history" of themselves? Is this not also a common practice of cults? Do they not all run from their history and try to distort and revise it?
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