The Prophetic Faith of Our Fathers, vol. 4

IV. Establishment of Seventh Day Baptist Churches in America

The history of the early Seventh Day Baptists in America forms a significant page in the long chapter of struggle for soul liberty and the rights of conscience, spanning our Colonial history. It dates back, says Platts, almost to Plymouth Rock and the Mayflower. But those who came to New England to escape Established Church intolerance began to formulate doctrines and practices as severe against those who differed from them as had been those of the mother church from which they too had fled. To escape these severities, several Baptist refugees made their way through the unconquered forests to the New Haven Colony, now Connecticut. Not finding relief there, they established themselves in Rhode Island under the leadership of Roger Williams. Here was organized the first Baptist church of the colonies, at Providence. PFF4 916.5

Then about 1664 Stephen Mumford, member of the Bell Lane Seventh Day Baptist Church of London, came to Rhode Island. Finding no church of his own faith, Mumford affiliate^ with the regular Baptists. Within a few years several families embraced his views on the seventh-day Sabbath and the perpetuity of the Ten Commandments—the Hubbards, Hiscoxei, Basters, Solomons, and Wilds. It was not their intention to sever their connection with the Baptist Church, fondly supposing that those who had suffered for Bible baptism would fellowship with those who defended the Bible Sabbath. PFF4 917.1

But that was not to be. Before long the Baptist leaders began to preach against the seventh-day Sabbath and to denounce its observers as heretics and schismatics. Some taught that the Ten Commandments were done away with. To the seventh-day adherents it was most dismaying. Indeed, the controversy became so sharp that four-Nicholas Wild and his wife and John Solomon and his wife-gave up the struggle and returned to Sundaykeeping. And then the issue of communion-between the variant groups in the church brought the case to open trial. The Sabbathkeepers, cited to appear, hoped they would have a chance to state their case. PFF4 917.2

The church, however, refused to hear their reasons, and so the “faithful five” withdrew on December 7, 1671. And on December 23 they-with, the pioneer Stephen Mumford and his wife—entered into a solemn covenant as they formed the first Seventh Day Baptist Church of the New World, at New-port. By 1705 there were three centers-Newport, Rhode Is-land; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; and Piscataway, New Jersey. And by 1802 there were about two thousand members in twenty churches, scattered from New England to Georgia. ¹⁹ PFF4 917.3