Jarrel - Baptist Church Perpetuity - Landmark Baptist

Christian era. … He had little ecclesiastical prominence. He was pastor of the
newly formed church in Providence only a few months. And there were other
Baptists scattered among the various colonies, who had no historical
connection with him. Indeed, it is affirmed with confidence that no Baptist
church in our country traces its descent from Roger Williams. Thus, for
example, the Baptist church at Swansea, in Massachusetts, came from
Swansea in Wales, and brought their records with them across the Atlantic.
f942 In Great Britain we have had churches from the immemorial antiquity.”
The Journal and Messenger, Cincinnati, says:
“He ought to know that no one professes or believes, except it be some one
ignorant of all the important facts, that Roger Williams was the founder of the
Baptist church. The most that has ever been claimed for Roger Williams is
that he founded a Baptist church, but it cannot be proven that the church he
founded was at all what a Baptist church is to-day, or that the church that he
founded continued to exist more than four months to a year, without an
essential change of character, or that from it ever sprang any other church,
which has, in turn, propagated its kind, or that Roger Williams ever baptized
any one, who in turn became a baptizer, unless we except Ezekiel Holliman,
whose only subject was Williams himself, so that nothing can be more absurd
than that Roger Williams founded the Baptist church.”
In another issue the same paper says:
“The position of American Baptists is not effected by the answer to the
question as to Roger Williams. The more intelligent Baptists of this country
do not look upon Williams as the founder of their denomination. … It is quite
certain that Williams never was a Baptist in the present acceptation of the
term. Moreover it is quite as certain that he never baptised any one who
transmitted his baptism. His baptism, whatever it was, began and ended with
himself and his few companions. … Very few Baptists in this country trace
their ecclesiastical organization to Rhode Island and none to Roger Williams.”
Another editorial in the same paper, of May 2, 1877, says:
“In our judgment the facts are these: Roger Williams was the founder of a
church resembling in some respects, a Baptist church. … But in four months
he became dissatisfied with his own baptism, and renounced it as invalid,
because it was not administered by one who had been baptized himself. For a
time, consequently, there does not appear to have been any organized church
in Providence, and inasmuch as no records were kept by that which is now the
first Baptist church in Providence, for more than one hundred years it is quite
difficult to fix upon the time of its organization. … It is quite certain that the
Baptists of this country did not originate with Roger Williams; for many of
them were Baptists when they came from England. … And these formed
churches, a second in Newport, in 1656; in Swansea, Mass., in 1653; in
Boston, in 1665; in Middleton, N.J., in 1686; in Lower Dublin, Pa., in 1689;