We believe that the Baptists are the original Christians. We did not commence our existence at the reformation, we were reformers before Luther and Calvin were born; we never came from the Church of Rome, for we were never in it, but we have an unbroken line up to the apostles themselves.

We have always existed from the days of Christ, and our principles, sometimes veiled and forgotten, like a river which may travel under ground for a little season, have always had honest and holy adherents. Persecuted alike by Romanists and Protestants of almost every sect, yet there has never existed a Government holding Baptist principles which persecuted others; nor, I believe, any body of Baptists ever held it to be right to put the consciences of others under the control of man.

We have ever been ready to suffer, as our martyrologies will prove, but we are not ready to accept any help from the State, to prostitute the purity of the Bride of Christ to any alliance with Government, and we will never make the Church, although the Queen, the despot over the consciences of men.

Charles Haddon Spurgeon (1834-1892) – English Particular Baptist preacher, known as the ‘Prince of Preachers’.

left: Charles Haddon Spurgeon ‘(a Rome-antic Sketch’) 1872, unknown artist.
centre: Catch ‘Em Alive O (Charles Haddon Spurgeon) c1855, unknown artist.
right: The Sword and the Trowel ed. Charles Haddon Spurgeon – original cover, c1866.

* * *

Click on the LINKS to find out more…..

BAPTIST BELIEFS & PRACTICES

GENERAL & PARTICULAR BAPTISTS

Arminian, Reformed and Calvinist theology – General Atonement and Particular Redemption – the beliefs of Wainsgate’s ministers.

ISMS & SCHISMS

Hyper-Calvinism – Westboro Baptist Church – other Baptist sub-groups – John Johnson & the ‘Johnsonian Baptists’.

IMMERSION BAPTISM

BAPTIST HYMNS

CONNECTIONS

Religious figures who influenced the church and ministers at Wainsgate, or were influenced by them:

William GRIMSHAW

‘A few such as him would make a nation tremble…… he carries fire wherever he goes.’

Anglican curate at Haworth, evangelical preacher who influenced Richard Smith, John Fawcett and John Parker.

George WHITEFIELD

‘The first internationally famous itinerant preacher and the first modern transatlantic celebrity of any kind’.

Anglican cleric, prolific evangelical preacher, plantation owner and slaveholder, he was a major influence on John Fawcett.

Dan TAYLOR

Coal miner who founded the New Connexion of General Baptists. Friend of John Fawcett and founder of Birchcliffe Chapel.

John SUTCLIFF of Olney

‘Few men took a deeper interest… in the general state of the church and the propagation of the Gospel abroad.’

One of the most important Calvinistic Baptists of the late eighteenth century: born near Todmorden, worshipped at Wainsgate, baptised and mentored by John Fawcett.

AT THE BURIAL OF THE DEAD

The Order for the Burial of the Dead.

THE SOLEMN COVENANT OF CHURCH COMMUNION

‘We, a small handfull of the unworthy Dust of Zion, usually assembling for the Worship of God at Wainsgate……‘

CHARTISM & RELIGION

The working class movement for political reform was opposed by the established church and by many non-conformist clerics, although many Chartists were also Christians – The National Chartist Hymn Book.

BAPTISTS & SLAVERY

* * *

BAPTIST BELIEFS & PRACTICES

GENERAL & PARTICULAR BAPTISTS

Historically there have been two basic strands of Baptist belief – General (or Arminian) Baptists and Particular (also known as Reformed or Calvinist) Baptists.

Both strands of the Baptist church share many beliefs: separation of church and state, church autonomy, the supreme authority of the Bible in matters of faith and practice, regenerate membership (membership of the church restricted to those who have been baptised), priesthood of all believers (everyone has access to God through Christ, without needing a priestly mediator), religious liberty for all, and most importantly believer’s baptism by immersion. Baptists generally recognise the Eucharist (Holy Communion or Lord’s Supper) as an ordinance rather than a sacrament.

General Baptists (sometimes called Arminian Baptists) believe in the doctrine of general atonement (also called unlimited or universal atonement), which holds that Jesus died for everyone, not just the elect, and salvation is available for all who believe in him. It is not the same as the doctrine of universal salvation (or Christian universalism), which holds that all souls will ultimately be reconciled to God, irrespective of faith.

Most General Baptists subscribe to the Orthodox Creed (or Orthodox Confession of Faith) of 1679 – ‘An Essay to Unite, and Confirm all true Protestants in the Fundamental Articles of the Christian Religion, against the Errors and Heresies of the Church of Rome’.

One of the most important figures in the history of the General Baptists is the minister and theologian Dan Taylor, founder of the New Connexion of General Baptists, founder member of Birchcliffe Chapel in Hebden Bridge, and, despite their differences of opinion on theological matters, a good friend of John Fawcett.

Particular Baptists (or Reformed or Calvinist Baptists) believe in the doctrine of particular redemption (also called limited or definite atonement), which teaches that Christ redeems ‘only those who were chosen from eternity to salvation’ (Canons of Dort, II.8): in other words there is predestination of the elect (those who will go to heaven) and non-elect (those who will go to hell).

The creed followed by most Particular Baptists is the 1689 Baptist Confession of Faith (also known as the Second London Confession of Faith) – ‘Put forth by the Elders and Brethren of many Congregations of Christians (baptized upon profession of their faith) in London and the Country’.

Possibly the most influential and well known Particular Baptist is the preacher, minister and author Charles Haddon Spurgeon (1834-1892).

Etching by Frans Hogenberg (1562) showing the Second Coming, with angels gathering the elect for salvation.

Wainsgate was historically a Particular Baptist Church: Richard Smith, the first minister at Wainsgate was a Particular Baptist, as was John Fawcett.

Fawcett’s theology has been described (by Michael A.G. Haykin in Remembering John Fawcett) as ‘a robust evangelical Calvinism’ – later called ‘Fullerism’ after the Particular Baptist minister and theologian Andrew Fuller (1754-1815). Fawcett disliked controversy, but was clear about where he stood theologically. He had seen how Hyper-Calvinism could foster ‘morbid introspection, interminable grieving and excessive argumentation’, and he believed in preaching the gospel to everyone and in the responsibility of sinners to repent and believe.

John Parker, minister from 1790 to 1792 was described by Fawcett as taking a position of ‘moderate Calvinism’. In the 1851 census of places of public religious worship (the only one of its kind in this country), the minister, Thomas Vasey, recorded the religious denomination of Wainsgate as ‘Particular Baptist’.

ISMS & SCHISMS

There were (and still are) many sub-groups within the two main branches of Baptist theology:

Hyper-Calvinism (also known as False Calvinism and High Calvinism) is a contoversial form of Calvinist belief that places a strong emphasis on God’s sovereignty at the expense of human responsibility. The Methodist theologian John Wesley, no great fan of Calvinism of any sort, rather cynically summed up Hyper-Calvinist theology:

‘The elect shall be saved do what they will, the reprobate shall be damned do what they can’.

Arguably one of the most prominent Hyper-Calvinist theologians was the Particular Baptist John Gill (1697-1771) of Carter Lane Baptist Church in Southwark. When Gill was near the end of his life and no longer able to preach, John Fawcett was invited to stand in for him, and spent several weeks in London, preaching fifty-eight times to Gill’s congregations. On Gill’s death, Fawcett was invited to replace him permanently at Carter Lane, accepted the offer and famously changed his mind at the last minute, deciding to stay at Wainsgate.

The most infamous Baptist minister with Hyper-Calvinist views was undoubtably the late and little lamented Fred Phelps, pastor of the odious Westboro Baptist Church, an unaffiliated Primitive Baptist church in Topeka, Kansas. Mainly known for their obsessive and virulent homophobia, Phelps and his followers also directed their hatred towards atheists, Jews, Muslims, other Christian denominations, transgender people, victims of school shootings, and American soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan (and many other groups and individuals) They also believe that Barack Obama is (literally) the Antichrist described in the Book of Revelation.

The Westboro Baptist Church’s theology and practices are widely condemned by other Christian churches, including the Baptist World Alliance and the Southern Baptist Convention.

Fred Phelps (right) and one of his supporters outside the United Nations HQ, New York, 2008.

Other Baptist sub-groups within the Particular Baptist tradition include Strict (also known as Strict and Particular) Baptists, Grace Baptists, Primitive Baptists, Regular Baptists, Old Regular Baptists, United Baptists, Independent (also known as Independent Fundamental) Baptists, Old School Baptists, Foot Washing Baptists and Sovereign Grace Baptists.

Within the General Baptist tradition the main sub-groups are New Connexion General Baptists, Free Will Baptists and General Six-Principle Baptists.

* * *

John Johnson (1706-1791) was born at Lostock, near Bolton, and became a preacher at the age of twenty. In 1741 he became pastor at Byrom Street Baptist Chapel in Liverpool, but left a few years later after alienating many in the congregation with his contoversial doctrinal views. His supporters built a new chapel at Stanley Street in Liverpool, where he preached until his death at the age of eighty-five.

Johnson was a Hyper-Calvinist with strong supralapsarian views, and was also an extremely pugnacious character, unafraid of controversy and always up for a theological scrap with anyone who held differing views. He attacked Arminians, Anglicans, Methodists, and other Baptists in print, including an attack on the doctrine preached by Wainsgate’s first minister, Richard Smith. James Hartley, Baptist minister at Haworth, was so upset by Johnson’s attack on his friend that he published a pamphlet vindicating Smith’s character and conduct.

Johnson’s influence on the congregation at Wainsgate was short lived but disruptive. When Richard Smith, at the end of his life, was too ill to preach, John Johnson came to preach at Wainsgate on several occasions, and it seems that he managed to divide the small congregation with his controversial views. When the young John Fawcett became pastor in 1764 after Smith’s death, he was faced with a small (Wainsgate only had about thirty members at the time) but unhappy congregation, but managed to unite the warring factions, due in a large part to his ‘conciliatory disposition’.

At the time of Johnson’s death in 1791 there were only six or seven ‘Johnsonian’ congregations in the country. There was a group near Halifax based at Butts Green, Warley, and it is also thought that there was another group in Todmorden.

IMMERSION BAPTISM

Baptism is a Christian rite of initiation, practised by most denominations (but not by Quakers or The Salvation Army) and almost always using water and the Trinitarian invocation, ‘I baptize you: In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit’. It can take the form of sprinkling (aspersion), pouring (affusion) or immersion, which is the practice followed by Baptists.

Baptists also believe in believers’ baptism (credobaptism) rather than the infant baptism (also known as christening or paedobaptism). They believe that a person should be able to make a conscious profession of faith before being admitted into the church.

This picture appeared in a children’s book in 1896, and shows the full immersion baptism of an adult believer. The outdoor baptismal pool is probably similar to the ‘baptismal cistern’ shown on an old map of Wainsgate before the chapel was rebuilt (with an indoor baptismal pool) in 1860.

The caption to the picture read:

‘This rather strange scene represents a ceremony of the Baptist body, according to whose special tenets the rite of baptism can only be administered to persons who are “converted” and are believers in the doctrines of the Christian faith, and not to infants. In this instance the minister, with the person to be baptised, steps down into a little open-air baptistry, and each candidate in succession is fully immersed. The most inclement season of the year is no obstacle to the performance of this religious duty; and on a very recent occasion it is recorded that five young men and one young woman were immersed in an out-door baptitry in Yorkshire in the month of February, when much snow had to be cleared away in order to approach the water.’

(from Valley of a Hundred Chapels by Amy Binns)

More coming soon…..

BAPTIST HYMNS

A hymn book entitled The New Selection of Hymns for the use of Baptist Congregations: Enlarged by the addition of such of Dr Watts’s Psalms and Hymns as are most highly esteemed and most generally used in Public Worship was published by Pewtress Brothers in London in 1862.

The preface to the book tells us that it was produced to avoid the inconvenience of using two hymn books in Baptist worship: the book’s predecessor was A Selection of Hymns for the use of Baptist Congregations: intended as a Supplement to Dr Watts’s Psalms and Hymns – the hymns of Isaac Watts (composer of around 800 hymns, and known as the ‘Godfather of English Hymnody’) were published in separate hymn books.

The enlarged New Selection contained 963 hymns, psalms and doxologies, including ‘two hundred and sixty-three of Dr. Watts’s choicest Psalms and Hymns’, as well as hymns by such notable writers (not all of them Baptists) as Joseph Stennett, his grandson Samuel Stennett, Anne Steele (one of only two women included, the other being Joan Conder, wife of the hymn writer Josiah Conder), Benjamin Beddome, Philip Doddridge, and Wainsgate’s very own John Fawcett, who has sixteen of his hymns included, including Bless’d be the Tie that Binds.

The hymns are arranged in categories (The Creator, The Unconverted, Death, Heavenly Happiness etc.), and the book contains a Table of the First Lines, Index of Subjects (from Aaron’s breast-plate to Zion – the heavenly), a Scriptural Index (where passages from the Bible can be linked to the relevant hymns) and even an Index of Peculiar Metres.

The hymn book has been digitised by Google Books, and can be downloaded here.

‘And truly, the HYMN-BOOK of a Denomination is an instrument of no mean power; not, indeed, as an advocate of its peculiar tenets in theology, but as a promoter of its piety. From its incessant use in public and in private, there streams forth an influence, silent, yet sure and strong, giving tone to Christian life, giving form to Christian character’.

From the Preface to The New Selection of Hymns for the use of Baptist Congregations (1862)

CONNECTIONS

George WHITEFIELD (1714-1770)

‘As long as life remains, I shall remember both the text and the sermon……..It pleased God graciously, and more particularly than ever before, to work upon my mind and give me a deeper sense of my lost condition by nature’.

George Whitefield was born in Gloucester, where his parents kept the Bell Inn. He studied at Oxford University, which he entered as a servitor (an undergraduate student who received free accommodation and was exempted from paying fees for lectures in exchange for acting as a servant to fellows and other students). He met John and Charles Wesley at Oxford, and after graduating became an itinerant preacher and evangelist. In 1738 he traveled to America where he preached a series of revivals that became part of the ‘Great Awakening’. His methods were controversial, and he became involved in numerous and disputes with other clergymen.

Whitefield received widespread recognition during his ministry – he preached at least 18,000 times to perhaps 10 million listeners in Great Britain and the American colonies. He could enthrall large audiences through a potent combination of drama, religious rhetoric, and patriotism.

George Whitefield was a plantation owner and slaveholder and viewed the work of slaves as essential for funding of the Bethesda Orphanage, which he founded in Georgia in 1740. Defence of slavery was common among 18th-century Protestants, especially missionaries who used the institution to emphasize God’s providence, although John Wesley denounced slavery as ‘the sum of all villainies’. By 1776, only one denomination in America—the Quakers—had declared slaveholding a sin.

Whitefield redeemed himself to some extent by campaigning against the cruel treatment of slaves, but “stopped short of rendering a moral judgment on slavery itself as an institution”. He played an important role in the reintroduction of slavery to Georgia in 1751 – between 1735 and 1751 Georgia was the only British American colony to ban Black slavery. Whitefield saw the return of slavery to Georgia as part personal victory and part divine will, and argued a scriptural justification for Black residency as slaves. On his death, Whitefield left everything in the orphanage to Selina Hastings, Countess of Huntingdon. This included 4,000 acres of land and 49 Black slaves.

*  *  *

The highly influential English Particular Baptist Preacher Charles Haddon Spurgeon (1834-1892) was vehemently opposed to slavery: he lost support from the Southern Baptists, sales of his sermons dropped, and he received scores of threatening and insulting letters as a consequence. In a letter to the Christian Watchman and Reflector in Boston, he declared:

I do from my inmost soul detest slavery… and although I commune at the Lord’s table with men of all creeds, yet with a slave-holder I have no fellowship of any sort or kind. Whenever [a slave-holder] has called upon me, I have considered it my duty to express my detestation of his wickedness, and I would as soon think of receiving a murderer into my church… as a man stealer.

And a classic Spurgeon sermon, The Best War Cry, delivered at the Metropolitan Tabernacle in London in 1883, included these words:

A healthy Church kills error, and tears evil in pieces! Not so very long ago our nation tolerated slavery in our colonies. Philanthropists endeavored to destroy slavery, but when was it utterly abolished? It was when Wilberforce roused the Church of God, and when the Church of God addressed herself to the conflict—then she tore the evil thing to pieces!

*  *  *

Dan TAYLOR (1738-1816)

John SUTCLIFF of Olney (1752-1814)

In the winter of 1772, John Sutcliff set off from Wainsgate to Bristol on foot. He walked the entire 200 miles, principally to save money for the purchase of books. Throughout his life he accumulated a considerable library, mostly theological works. Andrew Fuller once described it as ‘one of the best libraries in this part of the country’ and described Sutcliff as having ‘a great thirst for reading’.

Sutcliff was tutored at Bristol by Hugh Evans and his son Caleb, evangelical Calvinists who were admirers of the American preacher, philosopher and theologian (and slave owner) Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758). John Fawcett also encouraged Sutcliff to read Edwards’ writings, and Edwards became a major influence on John Sutcliff’s views and beliefs.

After leaving Bristol in 1774, John Sutcliff ministered at Baptist churches in Shrewsbury and Birmingham before settling in the small Buckinghamshire town of Olney, where he was the Baptist minister for 39 years until his death in 1814. He was ordained in 1776, and his confession of faith was received by his old mentor John Fawcett. Olney was also home to the hymn writer and poet William Cowper (1731-1800) and John Newton (1725-1907), curate at the parish church of St Peter and St Paul. Newton, a slave ship master who later became a committed abolitionist, and is probably best known as the author of the hymn Amazing Grace, had a close relationship with Sutcliff, and was noted for his friendships with Dissenters and evangelical clergy. Sutcliff was also close friends with the influential Baptist ministers Andrew Fuller (1754-1815) and John Ryland (1753-1825).

L to R: John Newton, Andrew Fuller, John Ryland, William Carey.

John Sutcliff was also a good friend and mentor of the Baptist minister and missionary William Carey (1761-1834), and was instrumental (with Carey, Fuller, Ryland and others) in founding in 1792 what was then known as the Particular Baptist Society for the Propagation of the Gospel Amongst the Heathen, subsequently the Baptist Missionary Society and since 2000 BMS World Mission.

(With thanks to Michael A. G. Haykin, scholar of 18th-century British evangelicalism and English Particular Baptist history and spirituality, from whose works much of this information is sourced).

AT THE BURIAL OF THE DEAD…..

The Order for The Burial of the Dead

The Priest and Clerks meeting the corpse at the entrance of the Church-yard, and going before it, either into the Church, or towards the grave, shall say, or sing:

I am the resurrection and the life, saith the Lord: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die.  (John 11: 25, 26)

I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth. And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God: whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another.  (Job 19: 25 – 27)

We brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out. The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord. (1 Timothy 6:7; Job 1:21)

.  .  .

When they come to the grave, while the corpse is made ready to be laid into the earth, the Priest shall say, or the Priest and Clerks shall sing:

Man that is born of a woman hath but a short time to live, and is full of misery. He cometh up, and is cut down, like a flower; he fleeth as it were a shadow, and never continueth in one stay.
In the midst of life we are in death: of whom may we seek for succour, but of thee, O Lord, who for our sins art justly displeased?
Yet, O Lord God most holy, O Lord most mighty, O holy and most merciful Saviour, deliver us not into the bitter pains of eternal death.
Thou knowest, Lord, the secrets of our hearts; shut not thy merciful ears to our prayer; but spare us, Lord most holy, O God most mighty, O holy and merciful Saviour, thou most worthy Judge eternal, suffer us not, at our last hour, for any pains of death, to fall from thee.

Then, while the earth shall be cast upon the body by some standing by, the Priest shall say,

Forasmuch as it hath pleased Almighty God of his great mercy to take unto himself the soul of our dear brother here departed: we therefore commit his body to the ground; earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust; in sure and certain hope of the Resurrection to eternal life, through our Lord Jesus Christ; who shall change our vile body, that it may be like unto his glorious body, according to the mighty working, whereby he is able to subdue all things to himself.

.  .  .

Extracts from The Order for The Burial of the Dead from the Book of Common Prayer. Although this is the official prayer book of the Anglican Church, it may possibly have been used by Baptist ministers at Wainsgate, or have been used as a basis for their own liturgy.

The original Order for the Burial of the Dead published in 1662 was preceded by the following note:

Here is to be noted, That the Office ensuing is not to be used for any that die unbaptized, or excommunicate, or have laid violent hands upon themselves.

This statement is not included in the current Church of England publication, although it was only in 2017 that canon law was formally amended to allow the full Anglican burial service to be used for the unbaptized, the excommunicated and those that had taken their own lives.

* * *

THE SOLEMN COVENANT OF CHURCH COMMUNION

A church covenant is a declaration, which some churches draw up and call their members to sign, in which their duties as church members towards God and their fellow believers are outlined. The idea of a church covenant is an expression of the ‘free-church ecclesiology’ in which the church is mainly a free and voluntary local association of committed Christians, democratically self-managed, distinct and independent from the State. A church covenant or ‘Solemn Covenant of Church Communion’ has become one of the characteristic traits of the Baptist churches.

The Solemn Covenant of Church Communion, signed by Richard Smith, William Crabtree and James Hartley, 7th June 1750.

The transcription below keeps the spelling, punctuation and capitalisation of the original, but the text has been broken up into paragraphs: this echoes the layout of other virtually identical Covenants (Barnoldswick, Westgate Bradford and Cullingworth) and also makes the document more readable.

The Solemn Covenant of Church Communion:

We, a small handfull of the unworthy Dust of Zion, usually assembling for the Worship of God at Wainsgate; and in Obedience to the Command of God; and Conformity to the Example of Jesus Christ and his faithfull Followers, recorded in the new Testament Baptized with Water, in the Name of the Father and of the Son & of the Holy Ghost; having first given our own selves to the Lord, are now met together with one Accord, to give up our selves one to another, by mutual Consent & solemn Covenant, according to ye Will of God: with deep Humiliation for our past sins; and earnest Prayer to God for pardoning Mercy and assisting, preserving & persevering Grace; we say with one Hearts, We are the Lords; and subscribe unto him with our Hands, in manner following namely,

We this day Avouch the Ever-blessed Jehovah, Father, Son & Holy Spirit the One only True & Living God for our New Covenant God, and All-sufficient Portion, and give up our Selves to Him alone, for his peculiar People, in a perpetual Covenant, never to be forgotten:

We Receive & Submit to the Lord Jesus Christ, as our alone Saviour, Prophet, Priest & King; in whom alone we trust for Wisdom & Righteousness, Sanctification & Redemption.

We devote and Consecrate our Selves as living Temples to the Holy Ghost, our Sanctifer, Guide and Comforter, whose gracious Operations, & heavenly Conduct, we desire daily more & more to Enjoy, Experience and Follow.

We take the Holy Scriptures of the Old & New Testaments as the only Ground and Rule of our Faith & Practice desiring thro’ the help of his Grace therein promised, to be in all things Conformable to the holy Will of God therein revealed.

According to the Tennor of which divine Oracles; and depending for performance, only on the divine Help and assistance therein promised; as deeply sensible that we are not sufficient of our selves, but that all our sufficiency both to Will and to do that which is good, is of God; Whose Grace alone is sufficient to enable us to do all the following things, thro’ Christ strengthening us; in a single dependance on whom, and as in duty bound, we now Covenant with God, each for our Selves, and jointly together,

To Worship God in Spirit and in Truth: To observe his Commandments, and keep his Ordinances as he hath delivered them to us:

To be subject to that divine Order & Discipline, which Jesus Christ, our only King & Lawgiver hath appointed in his Church; and not to Forsake the Assembling of our selves together, for the publick worship of God, in its appointed Seasons; but to Continue stedfastly in our Relation one to another; and fill up our places duly in the house of God; and cheerfully maintain his worship therein, to the best of our capacity; untill Death; or, evident Calls of Devine Providence, shall separate us one from another:

to Love one another with pure hearts fervently; and Endevour to keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace; for the honour of our God and our mutuall Good unto Edification.

We will also make it our care, thro the aforesaid help, to walk before the Lord in our own houses with upright hearts; and to keep up the Worship of God therin, by daily Prayer & Praise to God, and diligent Reading the Holy Scriptures, that so the word of God may dwell richly in us.

And as we have given our Children to the Lord by a Solemn Dedication; so we will Endevour, thro Devine help, to teach them the Way of the Lord and command them to keep it; setting before them an Holy Example, worthy of their Immitation; and continuing in Prayer to God, for their Conversion & Salvation.

We will also endevour by the Grace of God to keep our selves pure from the sins and vices of the times & Places wherein we live: and so to be Holy in All manner of Conversation, that none may have Occasion, given, by our unholy lives to speak evil of Gods holy ways.

And all this, under an abiding sence, that we must shortly give up our Account to him, that is ready to judge the quick and the dead; unto which solemn Covenant, we set our hands, in the presence of the allseeing, Heart-searching God, this seventh day of June, in the Year of our Lord, one thousand seven hundred and fifty.

The signatories to the Covenant are listed as:
1. Richard Smith
2. Abraham Ashworth (crossed out and marked X).
William Crabtree
James Hartley
3. Richard Iveson (crossed out).
4. The fourth name is unclear (possibly John Burrens?) and has been crossed out.

The witnesses to the signing are listed as:
John Sedgfield
Alverey Jackson
Henry Clayton
Richard Thomas
John Tommas

The Solemn Covenant of Church Communion, signed by John Cousin and Ellen Cousin, 30th October 1828.

CHARTISM & RELIGION

‘They preached Christ and a crust, passive obedience and non-resistance. Let the people keep from those churches and chapels (‘We will!’)
Let them go to those men who preached Christ and a full belly, Christ and a well-clothed back, Christ and a good house to live in – Christ and Universal Suffrage’

These are the words of Abram Hanson, a shoemaker, Mehodist lay preacher and Chartist activist, addressing the crowd at the Whit Monday Chartist rally at Peep Green (close to the site of Hartshead Moor service station on the M62) in 1839. Other speakers included Todmorden industrialist John Fielden and prominent Chartists Feargus O’Connor, William Thornton and Ben Rushton, both Methodist preachers.

The meeting was attended by around 250,000 people – thought to be the largest political gathering ever held in this country – incuding contingents from Heptonstall, Hebden Bridge, Mytholmroyd, Luddenden, Todmorden and other Calder valley settlements who marched to the rally behind brass bands. Some estimates put the number of people from the upper Calder valley attending the rally at 20,000.

We don’t know whether the Baptist ministers and preachers at Wainsgate preached ‘Christ and a crust’ or ‘Christ and a full belly’ (sadly it seems that non-conformist ministers were often just as hostile to Chartism as the established church clergy) but it is safe to assume that the Wainsgate congregation included supporters of Chartism, and some of them will no doubt have attended the Peep Green rally and other Chartist gatherings.

A Chartist Meeting at Basin Stones, Todmorden, 1842 by Alfred Walter Bayes

A man from Stockton by the name of Laing, better known as ‘Radical Jack’, was jailed in 1839 for his Chartist activities. The prisoners were assembled in the prison chapel for morning prayers and were being lectured by the officiating clergyman on the ‘virtues and excellence of Jesus Christ‘ when Jack stood up and loudly exclaimed:

‘Sir, Jesus Christ was the first Chartist. He was the best man that ever came into the world. He taught the doctrines of humility and equality, and even instructed men to sell their garments and buy a sword’.

The instruction to ‘sell your cloak and buy a sword’ is from Luke 22:36. Predictably, Jack received three days solitary confinement for his troubles (as reported in the The Northern Liberator, 7th September 1839).

With the harsh economic conditions in the country, there was constant debate over the degree of militancy to be employed in pursuit of the Chartist aims. Supporters of ‘physical force‘ Chartism were numerous in the Halifax area and upper Calder valley. Hebden Bridge Radical Association declared its belief in ‘the justice and right of the people to possess arms in their own defence’.

In 1840 well-known local Chartists John Jowett and Thomas Spencer were arrested for stealing lead from the roof of St Mary’s Church, Luddenden, allegedly to make bullets.

Chartists’ Riots by Alfred Pearse (1855-1933), from True Stories of the Reign of Queen Victoria, 1866 by Cornelius Brown.

THE NATIONAL CHARTIST HYMN BOOK

In 2010, Dr Michael Sanders from the University of Manchester found a small battered pamphlet in a box of unsorted documents in Todmorden library. It was a copy (possibly the only surviving copy) of The National Chartist Hymn Book, a collection of sixteen hymns published in 1845. It was printed in Rochdale for the National Chartist Association, and followed two earlier attempts to produce a hymnal for the Chartist movement – Cooper’s ‘Shakespearean Chartist Hymn Book’ and Hobson’s ‘Hymns for Worship’. The booklet has been digitised by Calderdale Libraries, and can be downloaded here.

These random excerpts give an indication of the tone of the hymns, a powerful blend of religious and political convictions:

Thy bounty smiles on every side,
And no good thing hast Thou denied;
But men of wealth and men of power
Like locusts, – all Thy gifts devour!

Tyrants hear, and tremble too;
Men who feast, but nothing do;
Useless gilded things, who say
You are but of common clay.

All me are equal in His sight,
The bond, the free, the black, the white!
He made them all, – them freedom gave,
He made the man, – Man made the slave!

Our RIGHT, Great God, our RIGHT!
We ask this and no more!
O look down from Thy heavenly height
And help Thy dying poor!

‘Chartism was driven by hunger but ……….. that hunger was for liberty and social justice, as well as for daily bread’.

(Dr Michael Sanders, University of Manchester).

BAPTISTS & SLAVERY

Coming soon…..