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The Associations very early encroached on the rights of the Churches. Adam Taylor describes their business thus: 1. The reformation of inconsistent and immoral conduct, in ministers and private Christians; 2. The suppression of heresy; 3. Reconciling of differences between members and Churches; 4. Giving advice in difficult cases to individuals and Churches; 5. Proposing plans of usefulness; 6. Recommending cases requiring pecuniary support; 7. Devising means to spread the Gospel in the world at large, but especially in their own Churches. The first four of these would not be tolerated amongst us, and the desire for a stronger bond than that of mutual love soon brought them into serious trouble. The General Baptists experienced this, first, by establishing a ‘General Assembly,’ it is not certain at what precise date, but before 1671. It met only on ‘emergent occasions,’ on an average, once in two years. Article XXXIX of the ‘Orthodox Creed’ claims that it had ‘divine authority, and is the best means under heaven to preserve unity, to prevent heresy, and superintendence among, or in any congregation whatsoever, within its limits of jurisdiction.’ Appeals were made to this assembly ‘in case any injustice be done, or heresy and schism is countenanced in any particular congregation of Christ, . . . and such General Assemblies have lawful powers to hear and determine, and also to excommunicate.’ Here, the independent polity of Baptist Churches was merged into a form of presbytery, and its disastrous effects soon became apparent.

The first ‘General Assembly’ of the Particular Baptists was held in 1689, on a call from the London Churches, singed by Kiffin, Knollys and Keach, with three others. The request was for ‘a general meeting here in London of two principal brethren, of every Church of the same faith . . . in every county respectively.’ This body is merely what is now known as an ‘Association,’ and it ‘disclaimed all manner of superiority or superintendency over the Churches,’ on the ground, that it had ‘no authority or power to prescribe or impose any thing upon the faith and practice of any of the Churches of Christ, their whole intendment being to be helpers together of one another, by way of counsel and advice.’ At its fourth meeting in May, 1692, there were one hundred and seven associated Churches, and the Assembly voted: ‘That no Churches make appeals to them to determine matters of faith or fact; but propose, or query for advice.’ At this time, the General Baptists had fallen into great trouble by making their Assembly a court of appeals, and the Particular Baptists resolved to take warning and escape that fate. For some cause, which does not appear, the London Churches dropped out of the Assembly after 1694, but the country Churches continued to meet, down to 1730, and the records of their meetings are still preserved.

Another body, called indifferently the ‘London Association’ and ‘Assembly.’ was organized in 1704, by delegates from thirteen Churches. At its first meeting it gave a most decided condemnation to Antinomianism. The doctrine of Tobias Crisp disturbed the Baptists at that time, as well as the Presbyterians and Independents; which doctrine was in substance, that God could lay nothing to the charge of an elect person, on the ground of Christ’s righteousness imputed to him; hence, he lived in complete sanctification, although he committed much sin. On this subject the Assembly said: ‘That the doctrine of sanctification by the imputation of the holiness of Christ’s nature, does, in its consequences, render inherent holiness by the Holy Spirit unnecessary, and tends to overthrow natural as well as revealed religion.’ This was in no sense, however, a judicial decision to be followed by discipline, in case it were rejected, but as ‘the opinion of the Assembly.’ The supposed strong government of the General Baptist Assembly brought them into conflict with an eminent Sussex pastor, of learning and piety, concerning his views of the nature of Christ; one Matthew Caffyn. Mr. Wright charged him with defective views touching our Lord’s divinity, and he satisfied the Assembly that he was sound on that subject, and also on the doctrine of the Trinity. But Wright saw an implied rebuke in the Assembly’s exoneration of Caffyn, and withdrawing from the Assembly, he began to agitate the matter amongst the Churches. Caffyn was led into public controversy, and after a while, ran into teachings substantially Arian. Thus two parties sprang up, and four times the Assembly was disturbed with contention until, in 1698, Caffyn’s doctrines were declared heretical, in consequence of which some Churches seceded and formed another General Association. This breach was never healed. Thus, the Presbyterian powers assumed by the Assembly failed to prevent either heresy or schism; as might have been expected, and by 1750 a majority of the General Baptists became Anti-Trinitarians. The Assembly continues to this day, meets every Whitsuntide, the shadow of its former self, and is still Anti-Trinitarian.

But, decline amongst the Particular Baptists was very marked also. Antinomianism and hyper-Calvinism struck the Churches with a blight that was fatal not only to their growth, but often to their existence. Calvinism had taken a most repulsive form, which presented God in a severe and magisterial light only, and which led men to look upon him with distrust, as oppressive and unjust. True, all England was in a state of religious stagnation. Worldliness characterized the Church and infidelity was rampant; the Stuart period was bearing its natural fruit, and the Baptists went down in the scale with the rest. Under persecution they multiplied on every side, and for a time toleration almost killed them. Yet, even then there were found amongst them men of consecration, learning and zeal.

Dr. JOHN GALE was one of these, whose name has come down to us with great honor. Though an Englishman by birth, he was educated at Leyden, possibly because Dissenters could not then take degrees at the English Universities. At the age of nineteen he became a Doctor in Philosophy, and after studying at Amsterdam, under Limborch, in 1705 he became assistant pastor of the Church in Paul’s Alley, Barbican. With his accomplishments in Latin, Greek, Hebrew, history and divinity, he was a powerful preacher, who possessed great refinement of religious feeling. Wilson says: ‘His voice was clear and melodious; his style perspicuous, easy and strong; his method exact; his reasoning clear and convincing; and his deportment in the pulpit easy, yet accompanied with a seriousness and solemnity becoming the work in which he was engaged. He had an almost irresistible power over the passions, which he ever used agreeably to reason, and directed to the profit and advantage of his hearers.’ But he died in his forty-first year. He is best known to us by his ‘Reply to Dr. Wall’s History of Infant Baptism.’ This reply is a specimen of candid scholarship seldom met with in the annals of religious controversy.

But the man who made the deepest mark upon the Baptists of his time was JOHN GILL, a native of Kettering, Northamptonshire, born in 1697. Very early in life he gave evidence of exceptional gifts, and his friends tried in vain to secure his admission to one of the Universities; but under private teachers he became a superior scholar in Latin, Greek and logic. He was baptized when nineteen and entered the ministry at twenty-three. After the death of Benjamin Stinton, successor to Keach, in Horsleydown, John Gill was proposed as Stinton’s successor, but on putting the question to vote a majority rejected him, when his friends withdrew and formed the Church afterward located in Carter Lane, Tooley Street, March 22, 1719, and on the same day he became its pastor. Gill’s party worshiped for some years in the school-room of Thomas Crosby, the historian, until Reach’s Church, which they had left, built a new chapel in Unicorn Yard, when they went to the old chapel in Goat Street, which Keach’s people had ceased to use. Here the doctor preached until 1757, when they built for him a new meeting-house in Carter Lane, where he continued until his death in 1771. After many years of study he became a profound scholar in the Rabbinical Hebrew and a master of the Targum, Talmuds, the Rabboth and the book Zohar, with their ancient commentaries. He largely assisted Dr. Kennicottm his collation, and published a dissertation concerning the antiquity of the Hebrew language, etc. He was a prolific author, producing amongst many other weighty works, his ‘Cause of God and Truth;’ his ‘Body of Divinity;’ and his learned ‘Commentary on the Bible.’ Toplady, his intimate friend, says of him, that

‘If any man can be supposed to have trod the whole circle of human learning, it was Dr. Gill. . . . It would, perhaps, try the constitutions of half the literati in England, only to read with care and attention the whole of what he said. As deeply as human sagacity enlightened by grace could penetrate, he went to the bottom of every thing he engaged in. . . . Perhaps no man, since the days of St. Austin, has written so largely in defense of the system of grace, and, certainly, no man has treated that momentous subject, in all its brandies, more closely, judiciously and successfully.’

He was also a great controversalist as well as a scholar. On this subject Toplady adds: ‘What was said of Edward the Black Prince, that he never fought a battle that he did not win; what has been remarked of the great Duke of Marlborough, that he never undertook a siege which he did not carry, may be justly accommodated to our great philosopher and divine.’ And yet, with all his ability, he was so high a supralapsarian, that it is hard to distinguish him from an Antinomian. For example, he could not invite sinners to the Saviour, while he declared their guilt and condemnation, their need of the new birth; and held that God would convert such as he had elected to be saved, and so man must not interfere with his purposes by inviting men to Christ. under this preaching his Church steadily declined, and after half a century’s work he left but a mere handful. He did not mean to teach Antinomianism, and yet, in 1755, he republished Dr. Crisp’s works, which had given rise to so much contention, with explanatory notes, defending Crisp from the charge of Antinomianism, although his doctrines had fallen like a mildew upon the Churches of the land, and none now pretend that Crisp was a safe teacher.

JOHN RIPPON succeeded Dr. Gill as pastor at Carter Lane. He was born in Tiverton, Devonshire, April, 1751, and at sixteen became a servant of Christ. At seventeen he entered Bristol Academy, and at twenty-one became pastor in London, filling the same pastorate sixty-three years, or till 1836. Not so learned or profound as Gill, his preaching was fuller of life and affection, so that for years his Church was the largest of the Baptist faith in the metropolis, numbering four hundred members. He was extremely judicious and popular. He prepared a selection of one thousand one hundred and seventy-four hymns, which were used in his congregation to the day of Mr. Spurgeon, his successor, who revised and uses it still. Rippon also established and conducted the ‘Baptist Register,’ a monthly, from 1790 to 1802. He founded almshouses in Carter Lane, but when London Bridge was erected in 1832, they were removed to make way for its approaches. He died in 1836, aged eighty-five, and sleeps in Bunhill Fields.

This period is noteworthy for the STENNETT FAMILY. Dr. Edward was a physician, born A.D. 1663. In the reign of Charles II he dwelt in the castle at Wallingford, Berkshire. Regardless of danger he preached regularly, and his great ability as a physician led the gentlemen of the neighborhood to shield him from calamity. His son; JOSEPH STENNETT, became a Christian early in life under the instructions of his parents. They gave him a good education in philosophy, the liberal sciences and languages, as French, Italian, the Hebrew and other tongues. In 1690 he became pastor of the Seventh-Day Baptist Church, meeting in Pinner’s Hall, London, and labored there until his death, 1713. He ranked as a leader in the ministry for piety, eloquence and authorship. When William III escaped assassination, Mr. Stennett drew up an able address of congratulation for the Baptists, and presented it to the king; and Queen Anne sent him a present in acknowledgment of his thanksgiving sermon for the victory of Hochstedt. He published three octavo volumes of sermons, a version of Solomon’s Song, a translation from the French of the ‘Discoveries by the Spaniards in America,’ with many hymns on the ordinances and other subjects. Tate, the poet laureate, commended his poetry; and Sharp, Archbishop of York, desired him to revise the English version of the Psalms. Promotion was tendered him in the English Church, which he declined, for he was a sincere Baptist and remained amongst his own people. In 1702 David Russen wrote a little book against the Baptists, which attack Mr. Stennett answered, with uncommon dignity and learning. He took the measure of his foe from the start, and something of his style may be seen in the opening paragraph of his preface. ‘If the author of the book to which this is an answer (who always affects to be thought very learned and sometimes abundantly witty) had only looked down upon the Anabaptists with that contempt with which they are used to be treated, and had barely diverted himself with the ignorance and folly he pretends to find among them, I should scarcely have given him or myself the trouble of an answer; for this treatment would have rendered them not so much the object of hatred as of compassion. But when his divertisement is cruel, and while he throws firebrands, arrows and death, he seems to be mightily satisfied with the sport. I hope none can justly blame me for endeavoring to turn aside the edge of his reproaches by a modest defense. For as little sense as the "Anabaptists" have, they can feel when their reputation is wounded; and as ignorant as they are, they have learned of the wisest of men to value a good name more than precious ointment, especially when they believe that to be the truth which is struck at through their sides under the character of a fundamental error.’

This frank courtesy and urbanity never forsook him in the discussion, while he vindicated the truth with a giant’s hand. So sweet was his spirit and so dignified his manner, that when his grandson proceeded to a similar work, many years afterward, he begged that his grandfather’s mantle might fall upon him, saying: ‘The example of a much honored ancestor, who has not only done singular justice to the argument itself, but, in the management of it, has shown a noble superiority to the rudest and most indecent invectives, that were, perhaps, ever thrown out against any set of men professing Christianity.’ Joseph Stennett’s work on Baptism had great influence in its day. It was of him that Dan ton wrote the doggerel: ‘Stennett the patron and the rule of wit, The pulpit’s honor and the saint’s delight.’

The second JOSEPH STENNTETT, and the third preacher in the family, was the son of the above-named, and was also a Seventh-Day Baptist. He was born in London in 1692, and died in 1758. He was thoroughly educated, united with the Church at sixteen, and became pastor of the Church at Exeter at the age of twenty-two. When he was forty-five he succeeded his father as pastor of the Church in Little Wild Street, London, a Church which attained great note in the denomination. He was highly honored in the metropolis as a man of large attainments and many graces of character. The Duke of Cumberland submitted his name to the University of Edinburgh, in 1754, for the degree of Doctor of Divinity, which honor was granted. Onslow, the Speaker of Parliament, Gibson, the Bishop of London, and several of the ministry of George II, numbered him amongst their personal friends; and he enjoyed the full confidence of the Baptist, Presbyterian and Independent pastors of London, in whose behalf he submitted an address to the king. He had two sons, members of his Church, and in turn both of them became his assistants in the pastorate. The eldest, the third Joseph Stennett, and the fourth preacher in the line, became his father’s assistant April 2, 1740, and served in that capacity for two years and a half, when he settled as pastor of the Baptist Church of Coate, Oxfordshire. Little is known of him beyond this.

SAMUEL STENNETT, his brother, was the fifth and most famous in this preaching family. He was born in Exeter in 1727, was educated under all the advantages of the day and became eminent for his knowledge of the Greek, Latin and Oriental languages, and of sacred literature in general. This ability, with great consecration to God, suavity of manner, cheerfulness of spirit and purity of heart, secured for him the universal love of his brethren. The degree of Doctor of Divinity was conferred upon him by the University of Aberdeen, in 1763. He had been immersed by his father at Exeter before he came to London, and became a member of the Church in Little Wild Street. In order to avoid perplexity, it may be desirable to give a brief sketch of this Church. It was one of a community of branches forming but one Church and meeting in various places. Prior to 1691 they were all Arminian, but in that year this branch declared itself independent and Calvinistic, and bought the chapel in Little Wild Street. This building had a curious history. The Portuguese had first occupied it for Roman Catholic worship, and the Spanish ambassador for the same purpose, after which it fell into the hands of the Baptists; but it was rebuilt in 1788. The Baptist Church worshiping here was never a Seventh-Day body, although it was served so long by the Stennetts, who were Sabbatarians in their personal faith. Sometimes a Sabbatarian Church used an ordinary Baptist chapel on Saturday, and oftener a non-Sabbatarian minister took the morning or afternoon service at a Sabbatarian place, and also at an ordinary Baptist church on Sunday. On this plan Samuel Stennett, who was invited to become pastor of the Seventh-Day Church which his father and grandfather had served, but who did not accept the office, yet preached and administered the ordinances to that Church for many years.

The minutes of this Church say, that at a meeting held July 30, 1747, ‘having had several trials of the gifts of Brother Samuel Stennett, and having heard him preach this evening, it is agreed that he be called out into the public service of the ministry.’ A year later he was chosen assistant pastor, and ten years after this, being then thirty-one years of age, he was ordained to succeed his father as pastor. On entering the pastorate he said to his Church, ‘I tremble at the thought.’ Dr. Gill and Mr. Walling preached at his ordination, June 1, 1758, and he remained as pastor for forty-seven years, during which he was eminent for zeal, discretion, and learning. He also stood foremost amongst the champions of religions liberty. On this subject William Jones, the historian, says: ‘He wisely concluded that whilst oppressive statutes were suffered to remain as part of the law of the land, there could be no security against their proving at some future time a handle for persecution. The doctor’s judicious publications upon these subjects cannot fail to keep alive a grateful recollection of his talents, and to endear his name to posterity.’ Allusion is here made to his two works, appealing to Parliament for the repeal of all persecuting laws. Dr. Winter said of him: ‘To be able in the line of his ancestry to trace some, who, for the cause of liberty and religion, had quitted their native country, and their temporal possessions at the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, he accounted a far higher honor than to be the offspring of nobles or of monarchs.’

We have his non-controversial works in three octavo volumes, together with a large number of his well-known hymns; such as, ‘What wisdom, majesty and grace,’ ‘To Christ, the Lord, let every tongue’ (altered in modern versions so as to begin with the third verse, ‘Majestic sweetness,’ etc.), and ‘On Jordan’s stormy banks I stand.’ This last hymn appeared to have been written in 1787, the year in which Rippon commenced his ‘Selections.’ Rippon was personally acquainted with Stennett, for they were Baptist pastors together in London from 1773 to 1795, and in the fourth edition of his ‘Selections,’ published about the last-named year, this hymn is found in its original form, ‘On Jordan’s stormy banks,’ as it is found in all the English editions down to our day. The first variation therefrom, so far as the writer is aware, is found in an American edition of the ‘Christian Psalmist,’ New York, 1850. Forgetting that Stennett alluded to the Jordan at Jericho, described in Josh. 3, its compilers mistook him as describing its literal banks, instead of using a bold metonymy, which speaks of the banks for what they contain; namely, waters in vehement commotion; and so they tamed him down to their own conceptions, and to ‘rugged banks.’ About half a dozen American compilers have retained this namby-pamby innovation, for which they might as well have used stony banks or muddy banks; for the inner and outer banks of the Jordan at that spot are both. But Spurgeon, Rippon’s successor, in re-editing the old hymn book (under the name of ‘Our Own Hymn-Book’) which has been used in Rippon’s congregation from his day, says (1866): ‘The hymns have been drawn from the original works of their authors, and are given, as far as practicable, just as they were written;’ and so he retains Stennett’s original form, ‘stormy banks,’ and with it his inspiring figure. Will the reader pardon this digression, for Baptists should be the last to slaughter their own hymnists in their singing. The ministry of Samuel Stennett in Little Wild Street was peculiarly fascinating to large minds. There he immersed the renowned Dr. Joseph Jenkins, Caleb Evans, afterward President of Bristol College, and Rev. Joseph Hughes, the founder of the British and Foreign Bible Society. Halloway, the noted engraver, sat under his ministry also; and John Howard, the immortal philanthropist, was a member of his congregation for many of the last years of his life. When Howard was young he met with an Independent congregation at Stoke Newington. But in 1756 or 1757 he took up his residence at Cardington, about three miles southeast of Bedford, and the same distance from Elstow, Bunyan’s birthplace. For a considerable time he worshiped in the congregation where Gifford and Bunyan had been pastors, then under the pastoral charge of Joshua Symonds, with whom he became intimate. At that time this Church had a rupture, in which the Pedo-baptist portion of the congregation withdrew and formed a new one, Howard going with them, and contributing liberally to the erection of a new meeting-house. In 1777 Howard’s sister died and bequeathed to him a house in London, and from that time he spent much of his life in that city, and attached himself to Dr. Stennett’s congregation, aiding largely in rebuilding the chapel.

In Stennett’s funeral sermon for the great philanthropist, he quotes from a letter which Howard had written to him in Smyrna, in which he says: ‘The principal reason of my writing is most sincerely to thank you for the many pleasant hours I have had in reviewing the notes I have taken of the sermons I have had the happiness to hear under your ministry. These, sir, with many of your petitions in prayer, have been and are my songs in the house of my pilgrimage. With unabated pleasure I have attended your ministry; no man ever entered more into my religious sentiments, or more happily expressed them. It was some little disappointment when any one else entered the pulpit. How many Sabbaths have I ardently longed to spend in Wild Street; on these days I generally rest, or, if at sea, keep retired in my little cabin. It is you that preach, and, I bless God, I attend with renewed pleasure.’

In the funeral sermon preached for him by Stennett, he avows that Howard ‘was not ashamed of those truths he heard stated, explained and enforced in this place; he had made up his mind, as he said, upon his religious sentiments, and was not to be moved from his steadfastness by novel opinions obtruded on the world. . . . You know, my friends, with what seriousness and devotion he attended, for a long course of years, on the worship of God among us.’ Howard alludes to the character of the truths enforced by Stennett, saying: ‘No man ever entered more into my religious sentiments, or more happily expressed them.’ In addition to the foundation principles of the Gospel held by Howard, Stennett preached the distinctive principles of the Baptists, in their roundest form, and to these Howard listened ‘for a long course of years,’ truths very distasteful to others. Dr. Winter says, that Stennett had none of that ‘cool indifference to religious principles, which under the specious names of candor and liberality has too much prevailed amongst many modern Christians.’ Stennett also speaks of Howard’s great ‘candor,’ and of his ‘having met with difficulties in his inquiries after truth.’ Concerning the subjects of this struggle in Howard’s mind, neither of them informs us, but as Howard had always been an orthodox Dissenter on principle, and that Stennett ‘happily expressed’ his own religious sentiments, the fair inference is, that he had adopted Stennett’s Baptist views.

Many of the ablest Independent pastors preached the common doctrines held by Stennett, and notably amongst them Dr. Addington, of Miles Lane. He forced Stennett into a controversy with him on Baptism, by violently attacking his principles. The latter’s masterly reply filled two volumes, and if Howard did not sympathize in these sentiments, it is hard to understand the bearing of his own words, or why he listened to Stennett ‘for a long course of years.’ When Howard lived at Stoke Newington, his only son was christened as a babe, and at Bedford he left Symond’s congregation because he would not baptize babes, giving £400 toward building a new meeting-house there, where infant baptism should be practiced, all of which shows that he had a stout conscience on the subject at that time. But when he removed to London, he not only contributed liberally to build a Baptist chapel for a man who all his life repudiated infant baptism, with all his heart, as a radical element of popery, but ‘for a long course of years’ he statedly turned his back on places of worship where it was practiced, helping to build up those of the contrary order. On this subject Stennett says: ‘With what cheerfulness he assisted in the building of this house (Little Wild Street) you need not be told. He accounted it an honor, he said, to join his name with yours.’ All this indicates a serious change in Howard’s mind on the subject in question, and possibly, the shameful wickedness of his only son had shaken his confidence in infant baptism as a divine institution. Without some such change, Stennett would scarcely have used this strong language: ‘He was not ashamed of those truths he heard stated, explained and enforced in this place.’ We have already seen that the Baptists of this period had much in common with the Society of Friends of our own times, while they had many quaint customs peculiar to themselves. In public worship the men and women sat on opposite sides of the house, the exhorting and ‘prophesying’ being prompted as the ‘Spirit moved.’ The Baptists, however, held to an ordained ministry and the need of the ordinances. Ordination was made a serious matter, and was accompanied with the laying on of hands, fasting and prayer, and the power to confer it was lodged in the individual Church. They knew nothing of our modern Councils for Ordination, but commonly, as a mere matter of courtesy, invited neighboring pastors, not as representatives of other Churches, but on their personal kindness, to take part in the public recognition services. This is still the English practice, the American Council representing other Churches being unknown there.

The marriage service amongst them was similar to that of the ‘Friends’ of today. They rejected the rites of the Prayer-Book and the Established clergy refused to marry them. They devised a public service of their own, therefore, in which the parties took each other by mutual consent, without the aid of a minister. After due notice the couple stood up before the congregation, holding each other’s hand, and publicly took each other for husband and wife. They then drew up a contract, or certificate of marriage, and signed it, and the persons present attested it as witnesses. An exhortation was given, a prayer was offered, and the solemnity was ended. Such marriages were legal until the Marriage Act of 1753, which exempted them only in the case of Quakers and Jews, while Baptists were compelled to seek legal marriage in the Episcopal Church.