This statement jumped off the page at me and made me want to praise the Lord. I have had people say about me that I am controlling. I see it as having a  desire for the Word of God to direct me. I want the Bible to control me. I fall down and get back up, but I go back wanting Him to control me. His way is perfect. I want that for my marriage and my children. I want Him to control them. What is the opposite of control? Rebellion. I don’t want to see anyone rebelling against God. So I’m guilty.

The Bible says that the righteous man “wisely considereth.” Strong’s concordance  defines it as “to be circumspect and hence, intelligent.” To study to make a wise and intelligent decision. To be honest right here, I have to say that to study anything, I have to have something to compare it to. I do; it’s the Holy Bible, King James Authorized Version. So when God tells me to judge the wicked man’s house, the way his kids act, what they are obsessed with, his ruin and sorrow, I’m not really the one who is judging him, I’m only measuring him by the divine ruler and my Father is teaching me what not to do and what to protect my family from. So, praise the Lord!

As I grew into my teenage years, I was led astray by friends and acquaintances to the wilder side of life. I strayed for many years from walking with my Lord, years I can never get back. I did things that I am ashamed of, but I am thankful that on February 2nd, 1996, the Lord got through to me and I found forgiveness and restoration for my life in the service of the Lord. I had not lost my Salvation. I had lost my way. Thank God, He never lost track of me. I surrendered to the ministry and within six months was preaching in a Southern Baptist church. From the beginning I felt that things weren’t right, but I couldn’t put my finger on it, then things became clearer. Where was the King James Bible that I had heard preached from all my life? What was all the emphasis on making Jesus the Lord of your life instead of calling on Him to be your Saviour? I began to read and do research into the Southern Baptists and the more I saw the more I knew I was in the wrong group. I knew I was a Baptist, but what kind? I saw Southern Baptists with an earthly headquarters in Nashville, TN. I looked back upon the Missionary Baptists of my youth and saw their loyalty to associations. Both were filled with boards and committees that were unscriptural. Then God led me to the Independent Baptists.

My next-door neighbor had a tape album from a publisher called the Sword of the Lord by a preacher named Curtis Hutson. His message, titled “Christ and His Co-workers” set my soul aflame to witness about the saving Blood of Jesus to a lost and dying world. I began to be interested in the messages from these Independent Baptist preachers. They addressed sin in their sermons, that is, they called it by name. They didn’t tickle my ears. They stepped on my toes. I loved it, and I wanted more. I became convicted about the New King James bible that I had been influenced to buy and got an old King James. I began witnessing to lost people and began seeing Christ saving souls. To make a long story short, I have been an Independent Fundamental Baptist preacher for over 14 years. To say that I am offended by the 20/20 piece is an understatement. So please, let me define what an Independent Fundamental Baptist is.

First of all we are INDEPENDENT. Just as there are no two snowflakes alike, there are no two preachers alike nor are there two churches alike. We don’t all talk the same, preach the same, dress the same or have the same music. We reserve the right to be different when it comes to non-essentials. We don’t all have the same heroes. I have learned over the years if you want to fellowship with another brother, keep the men you admire to yourself. There are men within our ranks whom I greatly admire and then there are those who’s church door I would never darken. I have known some of the most humble, faithful, sincere, loyal, hardworking, dedicated men who were Independent Baptist preachers and I have known some of the most arrogant, stubborn, megalomaniac, controlling jerks as well. I suspect you can take a sampling of any group in Christendom and find the same results. Truth is, we are all men, we’re sinners saved by Grace and we have different personalities.

Second of all, we are FUNDAMENTAL. Many Baptists are frightened of that word. I for one embrace it. But why are they afraid? Is it because the national media began talking about fundamentalist Muslim radicals? It is because of the fundamentalist Mormons who dominated the news a couple years back? I tell you, I think some Baptists are scared of their own shadow. Baptists have let the Pentecostals scare them out of their shout and their use of the term “Holy Ghost.” They have forgotten where they came from and don’t know where they are going. We were all Fundamentalists until the 1950′s or so. But now for a definition. A fundamental is an integral part of something. For example, an engine is a fundamental of an automobile, a radio is not. Wheels are a fundamental, an air conditioner is not. Baseball has fundamentals, so does basketball. If you remove batting from baseball, you don’t have it anymore. It has become something else. There are things which make up Christianity. Without them it is gone. They are as follows:                                                            1. The Deity of the Lord Jesus Christ. (Jesus is the Only Begotten Son of God)   2. The Blood Atonement (His Blood paid the price for our sins)                            3. The Virgin Birth (Christ was born of a virgin as prophesied in the Old Testament)                                                                                                                                       4. The Bodily Resurrection (He arose bodily from the grave)                                    5. The Inerrancy of the Scriptures (The Bible is perfect and without error and is preserved for the English speaking world in the King James Bible)                   That is what I believe. I would die for those things. Without them you don’t have Christianity. To believe them makes you a fundamentalist. Maybe you were and didn’t know it. If so, don’t be afraid to embrace the title.

Lastly, I’m a BAPTIST. It doesn’t mean that is my denomination. It means that I believe the Bible to be true and that I use it for faith and practice. I have a rich history of fathers in faith who have bled and died for the things that I hold dear. For more info on this point, see my Blog titled, “I’m a Big B Baptist.” So there you have it. I’ve told you a lot and yet I haven’t even scratched the surface. If I can sum it up in a sentence, we are believers who hold to the Bible and seek to lead the lost to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ while standing against worldliness, corruption and humanism. God bless.

Matthew 23:24

I usually don’t lift a verse out of the narrative and build a blog around it, but today this one seemed to fit my frustration. I find myself venting often on this blog, and I don’t mean to come across as arrogant or a know it all. I just become pained when I hear people who claim to be trusting Christ nitpicking over things that have no bearing on whether or not a person goes to Heaven or Hell. Being a pastor, I have run into many “experts” over the years who claim to have found something that no one else has and they want to push their pet convictions on me. I have heard those who are into the Hebrew numbering system and claim to be able to predict the Antichrist or the date of the Rapture, or then there are those who claim that all our methods are corrupted by the Catholic church. I freely admit that many today embrace traditions they don’t understand and should do some research and ask some questions. If you are a Baptist, I would suggest you study Baptist history instead of taking it for granted. Some today are turning back to Judaism with all its holy days and dietary laws in an attempt to be more “pure” while accepting much of the world that the Bible is specifically against. Then there are those who can’t discern literal from parable when reading the Bible. It all gives me a headache. What’s worse, it takes away from the main thing, soul-winning. Why can’t Christians see the simplicity of the Bible’s message. It is not a Rubik’s cube that is hard to solve, it is bread for the Believer. If Satan can get Christians to chase their tails over side issues, they will ignore the task at hand, which is reaching the lost with the Gospel. Brothers and Sisters, if you knew you only had a week until Christ came for you, wouldn’t you be about His business instead of trying to persuade the world about your pet doctrine? It seems sometimes that everybody is an expert, but no one is doing anything. Oh! I’m sure the Lord is grieved.

John 15:18-19                                                                                      18 If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you.                                                                                                                                                   19 If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you.

Plain and simple. If you are not of the world, the world will hate you. You will not find friendship with the world. You will not find popularity with the world. If you are going to be popular with Christ, you will be hated by the world. If you are going to be friends with Christ, you will be the enemy of this world. It’s not that we want to be hated or try to be hated, it’s because of the hatred for Christ, and our love for Him that we are hated. Let’s face it, the person that is not born-again does not want to be under the rule of God. It is a bitter rebellion. I think this all goes without saying to the average Christian, but what I am focusing on today is why some who claim to be Christians (I am not the judge of whether they are or aren’t), turn and lash out and try to defame those who want to live their lives according to the Word of God. Listen carefully to the Scripture.

II Timothy 3:12-13                                                                                                                     12 Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution.                                                                                                                                   13 But evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving, and being deceived.

If you make up your mind to live according to the Word of God, by God’s grace and with God’s help, if you have firm convictions and will not budge, you will be an outcast and a weirdo. You should expect to be ridiculed and called a cultist. We are living in dark days and perilous times. Christians are being seduced by the world away from Bible principles and are accepting evil practices as normal. The Bible is very clear as to how our stance should be in the midst of accusations, no matter where or who they come from.

Titus 2:11-15
11 For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men,
12 Teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world;
13 Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ;
14 Who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works.
15 These things speak, and exhort, and rebuke with all authority. Let no man despise thee.

Notice that the Scripture tells us to live for God in this present world. Nowhere in the Word of God are we instructed to mingle with the wicked and godless. We are to be a peculiar people. That means to those who do not want to live for God we will appear to be strange, weird, or odd because we are His possession. Don’t let your pride keep you from being what God would have you to be. Don’t let fear of persecution cause you to cow down when worldly Christians mock you for your stand. We are told by the Bible to speak, exhort and rebuke with all authority. It says that we shouldn’t let them despise us. We have God to stand with us. If we are standing with God then we have nothing to hang our heads about. Realize that it is not really you that they are against, it is the God you serve and His authority.

So as to why we may be attacked by other Christians; it is a simple matter that has a simple explanation. If they are truly Born-again there was a time when they had a heart that wanted to please the Lord. A new Believer wants to do just that. There is a realization that the Christ Who saved their soul would never put them in bondage, but wants them close to His side and protected by the fence of His Word from the wolves of this world that seek to destroy them. There is a reason Christ refers to us a sheep. We are prone to wander. The problem begins when a Christian begins to backslide out of the will of God. Suddenly, there is the feeling of separation from Christ and the guilt that goes with it. They have wandered like the prodigal son and now look back to the Father’s house and assume that they will have to be a slave rather than a son. Let’s not forget that Satan relishes to have a Christian in this position. He often uses a backslidden Christian to attack those who are not. They look back at those who are close to the Lord and see that closeness as bondage. They begin to see them as crazy to live godly and see their convictions as “cultish”. The reason is that they have adopted the mindset of the world around them. Dear reader, if you are close to the Lord today, you know that there is freedom and liberty in that closeness. You do not see it as shackles and bondage. If you are in the other crowd, and have been attacking people for wanting to hold to the Word of God, ask the Lord honestly to show you what is the truth. Is it shackles or freedom? He waits for your prayer.

Matthew 24:4-8
4 And Jesus answered and said unto them, Take heed that no man deceive you.
5 For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many.
6 And ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars: see that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet.
7 For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places.
8 All these are the beginning of sorrows.

Where are we on God’s timetable? We are living in the last moments before the Tribulation period. The world is being prepared for a major collapse and crisis of the most incredible proportions. Dear reader, if you are trusting in the shed Blood of Jesus Christ the Saviour to pay the debt for your sins then you have nothing to fear. If, however, you are trusting in religion, science, or in your own morality, you are in horrific danger.

God’s Word has made it plain that His church will be out of here before the Antichrist begins to reign. A study of II Thessalonians chapter 2 tells us that the son of perdition, who is the Antichrist, will not be revealed until He that letteth be taken out of the way. That Person is the Holy Ghost of God Who indwells every true Believer. When the Believers are caught up in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, then the Antichrist will come onto the scene to corral the chaos and will appear to be a saviour. Also, in Revelation 4:1 John the Apostle states, “After this I looked, and, behold, a door was opened in heaven: and the first voice which I heard was as it were of a trumpet talking with me; which said, Come up hither, and I will shew thee things which must be hereafter.” This verse is immediately after the last mention of the church on earth in the book of Revelation. It gives us the voice, the trumpet and the catching up. Compare this with another passage on the rapture of the Lord’s church.                                                          I Thessalonians 4:16-17
16 For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first:
17 Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.

Another thing to consider is Revelation 5:9, “And they sung a new song, saying, Thou art worthy to take the book, and to open the seals thereof: for thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation;” This can only be the Lord’s church in Heaven. This comes before the Tribulation is under way.

But as for these perilous times….

II Timothy 3:1-5
1 This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come.
2 For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy,
3 Without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good,
4 Traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God;
5 Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away.

To bring this down on a personal level, last Sunday night after church we were eating in a local restaurant and behind us was a table where there were five or six couples, mostly in their thirties. On the wall was a plasma screen television that was turned to one of the cable news channels and they were broadcasting breaking news of the tsunami aftermath. The first thing I noticed about this group was their constant use of foul language. They looked nice enough, in fact, most people would have called them good ol’ boys and their wives, but they couldn’t seem to make a sentence without peppering it with curse words. I have to admit, I get angry when people use that kind of language within earshot of my children and it was taking everything I had in me not to turn around and give them a piece of my mind, and maybe a sermon as well. What struck me the worst wasn’t their disregard for the young children seated at the next table, it was their reaction to the footage of people being killed by the tsunami in Japan. They were laughing and making jokes about the Japanese being so stupid as to not get away from the destruction in time. They also remarked that a tsunami should hit other parts of the world and get rid of other people. Without natural affection, proud, heady, highminded, fierce and the list keeps going. Perilous times have come. Lost souls are perishing all around us. The end is truly near. Are you prepared to meet God?





He described his early experiences as being filled with “frolicking and foolish wickedness, but in 1772, when he was eighteen years old, he had a deep spiritual experience. He said of it, “When I was returning from my frolicks or evening diversions, the following words would sound from the skies, ‘you are not about the work which you have got to do.’” Soon after this, he said, “the charms of those youthful diversions, which had been sweeter to me than the honeycomb, lost all their sweetness.”

He went on to describe a severe struggle within himself. As he put it, “At times, I would feel as if my whole soul was absorbed in the fountain of love, and devout prayer was the breath of my heart; at other times, I would feel such amazing languor and want of will, that if I might have had all the glories of heaven for the asking, I would not have sincerely done it”. This, he said, “gave me a very poor opinion of myself.” “Indeed, from than time till this,” he wrote in his autobiography, “I have had a constant falling out with myself.” Sometime after this, in June of 1774, he was baptized by Elder Noah Alden, of Bellingham, Massachusetts.

Almost from the time of the experience related above, he began to speak in the churches he attended near his home. However, Leland did not actually join any church until early in 1775, when he joined the Bellingham Church. About six months later this church gave him a license, as he put it, “to do that which I had been doing for a year before.” In October of 1775 he went on an extended preaching tour to Virginia, returning home after eight months. Soon after this trip, in September of 1776, he tells us, “I was married to Sally Divine, of Hopkinton; and immediately started with her to Virginia.”

At the time when Leland arrived in Virginia the Baptists of that state were in the midst of their struggle against the Established Church. They were also fast becoming a force which would have to be reckoned with in the affairs of the state. But it had not always been so, and they were only now emerging from a rather infamous reputation.

As soon as they began to grow in numbers, this naturally brought attention to them from the authorities, which in turn led to persecution. Men in power sought diligently to find ways and means to put down these “disturbers of the peace.” Semple says that it was not certain that any law in force in Virginia authorized the imprisonment of men for preaching. They were, therefore, dealt with for disturbing the peace.

The first instance of actual imprisonment in Virginia took place in Fredericksburg in 1768. John Waller, Lewis Craig, James Childs, James Reed, and William Marsh were haled before the magistrate and arraigned as disturbers of the peace. At their trial one lawyer accused them thus: “May it please your worships, these men are great disturbers of the peace, they cannot meet a man upon the road, but they must ram a text of Scripture down his throat.” They were offered their freedom if they would promise to preach no more in the county for a year and a day. This they refused to do, and they were carried to the jail, singing a hymn as they went. While they were in jail, they continued to preach through the grates. Leland says there were about thirty of these people imprisoned during this period.

A fact that added to the ridicule heaped upon these early Baptists was that they were, for the most part, poor and unlearned. They were everywhere thought of as “a pack of ignorant enthusiasts.” The ministers of the Baptists came from among the common people. They believed in a divine call to the ministry, and that it came to men in all walks of life. Therefore it was possible for a man who could hardly write his name to believe himself called of God.13 “The Baptist preachers,” says David Benedict, “were, in almost every respect, the reverse of the established clergy; without learning, without patronage, generally very poor, plain in their dress, unrefined in their manners, awkward in their address; all of which by their enterprising zeal and unwearied perseverance, they either turned to advantage, or prevented their ill effects.”

On May 6, 1776, a convention met in Williamsburg, which H. J. Eckenrode calls “probably the most noteworthy assembly ever held in Virginia.” It was this convention that passed resolutions instructing the Virginia delegates in the Continental Congress to propose a declaration of independence. They also made preparations for a bill of rights and a constitution for Virginia. It is the Virginia Declaration of Rights, drafted by George Mason, that contains the momentous declaration of religious rights. Instead of Mason’s wording, “[T]hat all men should enjoy the fullest toleration in the exercise of religion,” young James Madison succeeded in securing its amendment to read, “All men are equally entitled to the free exercise of religion.” This was a very important distinction for the Baptists, one to which they had long held. They believed that toleration implied a favor granted, but equality recognized an inalienable right. When the legislature met the next fall, it was deluged with petitions from various dissenting groups. Among them was a memorial from the Hanover Presbytery (Presbyterian) and one from an association of Baptist ministers and delegates who met at Dover in Goochland on December 25, 1776. These petitions brought on what Thomas Jefferson called “the severest contests in which I have ever been engaged.” Though the acts passed at this time exempted dissenters from religious taxes, it left other major issues unresolved and the debate went on for nine more years.

Madison led the fight in the Virginia legislature against these encroachments upon religious rights until they were finally defeated in 1786. When the legislature met in 1785 it was deluged with petitions from various dissenting groups. Madison then pressed his advantage and introduced Jefferson’s Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom. It was enacted on January 16, 1786. Of this bill Eckenrode says, “The ‘act for establishing religious freedom’ added no new principle. In combining complete liberty of opinion with forbidding taxation for church support, the act merely expressed the results of the revolution, but it served its purpose as a landmark and an obstacle to any reversion to the past.” Jefferson considered this Bill one of the three greatest accomplishments of his life, along with the Declaration of Independence and the creation of the University of Virginia.

It is difficult to say what part John Leland played in this campaign. Very soon after the passage of this bill, he appears as a legislative agent, along with Reuben Ford, in an effort to obtain repeal of an act incorporating the Episcopal Church. Of his sentiments, however, there can be no doubt, and since immediately after this he was appointed to a position of leadership, he was surely active in this work. In the Virginia Chronicle he said, “A general assessment, (forcing all to pay some preacher,) amounts to an establishment; if government says I must pay somebody, it must next describe that somebody, his doctrine and place of abode.”

While all of this was going, the Baptists were experiencing a tremendous revival. It began in about 1785 and continued until 1791. Thousands upon thousands were converted, and when it was over the Baptist were more numerous than any other sect in Virginia. Leland reached the peak of his evangelistic activity in 1788. In the period from October of 1787 to March of 1789, Leland says that he baptized four hundred people, three hundred of which were baptized in 1788.

This revival was also attended by the presence of physical and emotional demonstrations. Leland says that it was nothing unusual for a great part of the congregation to fall prostrate on the floor. Many people would entirely lose the use of their limbs. At associations it was not uncommon for several preachers to exercise their gifts at the same time in different parts of the congregation. Some preachers greatly encouraged this sort of thing, and Semple admits that in some congregations much confusion and disorder resulted. “Many ministers who had labored earnestly to get Christians into their churches,” he declared, “were afterwards much perplexed to get hypocrites out.”

When Madison did return to Virginia, a letter was waiting for him when he arrived at Federicksburg suggesting that he stop by on his way home to visit “an influential Baptist leader,” as Irving Brant put it. That leader was John Leland. The letter, dated February 28, 1788, was from Captain Joseph Spencer. He warned Madison that the Constitution had enemies in Orange County, the Baptists being among them. He pointed out John Leland as being one of their leading men and sent Madison a copy of a list of objections Leland had to the Constitution. Spencer went on to suggest that Madison stop by and visit Leland on his way home since it was right on his way.

The objections referred to in the letter were prepared by Leland at the request of Thomas Barbour, an opposition candidate in the Orange County election. Most of the objections reflected Leland’s fear of some aspects of the government being to far removed from the popular will. He specifically objected to it, because there was only a Bill of Rights in it and that there was no specific guarantee of Religious Liberty in it.

Meanwhile a meeting of the General Committee of Baptists was held at Willaim’s Meeting House on March 11, 1788. This group took up the question; “Whether the new Federal Constitution which had now lately made its appearance in public, made sufficient provision for the secure enjoyment of religious liberty.” It was unanimously agreed that it did not.

Then followed the famed meeting between James Madison and John Leland, which is a celebrated event in local history, though neither of these men left any direct testimony about such a meeting. However, everything that is known certainly suggests that it did take place, and that it did indeed influence the outcome in Orange County, Virginia of the election to the Virginia ratifying convention.

One source of evidence purports to come directly from Leland himself. In a letter dated April 15, 1857 Governor G. N. Briggs of Massachusetts related the details of a visit he paid to Leland’s home, apparently not many years before Leland’s death. In the course of their conversation Briggs quotes Leland as saying that Madison came to see him “to talk with me about the Constitution.”

Briggs went on to say that they met again very soon before the electors on the stump. He used quotation marks in his letter, apparently indicating that he was quoting Leland directly.

Mr. Madison first took the stump, which was a hogshead of tobacco, standing on one end. For two hours, he addressed his fellow-citizens in a calm, candid and statesman-like manner, arguing his side of the case, and fairly meeting and replying to the arguments, which had been put forth by his opponents, in the general canvass of the state. Though Mr. Madison was not particularly a pleasing or eloquent speaker, the people listened with respectful attention. He left the hogshead, and my friends called for me. I took it–and went in for Mr. Madison; and he was elected without difficulty.

Later in life Leland himself made two statements in his writings which seem to corroborate the authenticity of this event. Writing in 1834, he spoke of having talked with Madison in 1788, saying, “Mr. Madison said to me in 1788, ‘the states have surrendered to the general government a certain quantity of their rights; but it is most likely, if ever the general government is dissolved, it will proceed from the jealousy of state authority.” At the same time he spoke of his reservations about the Constitution; “When the Constitution first made its appearance in the autumn of 1787, I read it with close attention, and finally gave my vote for its adoption; and after the amendments tool place, I esteemed it as good a skeleton as could well be formed.” These statements certainly comport with the details of the meeting. It is quite clear that the Baptists were convinced by Madison, and they did support him in this election.The fact remains, however, that the Baptists, and John Leland in particular, had wanted a written guarantee of religious liberty in the Constitution. It does not appear that there were hard feelings toward Madison on the part of the Baptists. On the contrary, they were warm friends. However, Patrick Henry now tried to keep Madison out of the first Congress by spreading rumors that he not only opposed any amendments whatever, but that he had also ceased to have strong feelings about the rights of conscience.

From the vantage point of two hundred years of history, it would be difficult to exaggerate the significance of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights in securing these inherent rights. John Leland certainly played a very important part in this struggle. One authority on church-state issues names him along with George Mason, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and Samuel Davies as the five most important men in this struggle. The Baptist historian of Virginia, Robert Semple, also placed him very high on the list of influential Baptists, saying, “Mr. Leland, as a preacher, was probably the most popular of any who ever resided in this State.”

In the Spring of 1791 Leland and his family took leave of Virginia to return to his native Massachusetts. That trip was made by way of the sea, and Leland tells of a great storm they encountered. At the height of the storm the ship’s captain came to Leland’s cabin and said, “We shall not weather it many minutes. Leland says of it, “This he said, (as I judged,) not to terrify the sailors, but for my sake. The sense of it, to me, was this: ‘Leland, if you have got a God, now call upon him.’ But there was no need of this admonition, for I had begun the work before; and can now say, that that night is the only one of my life that I spent wholly in prayer. That I prayed in faith, is more than I can say; but that I prayed in distress, is certain.”

Arriving in Connecticut, he tarried there for several months to do some preaching and to become involved in the struggle for religious liberty there. In New England the Congregationalist was the established church, and concessions to dissenters were even more grudging than those of the Anglicans in Virginia. Leland wrote several tracts soon after returning to New England demanding not toleration, but full equality for all religious groups. Among them was a tract entitled, Rights of Conscience Inalienable, and Therefore, Religious Opinions Not Cognizable By The Law, in which he asserted that the consciences of men cannot be surrendered to the state. He wrote, “Every man must give account of himself to God, and therefore every man ought to be at liberty to serve God in a way that he can best reconcile to his conscience. If government can answer for individuals at the day of judgment, let men be controlled by it in religious matters; otherwise, let men be free.” He was to continue his efforts to achieve such freedom in his native Massachusetts. This was to be a long struggle, because Massachusetts was the last state to enact complete religious freedom, finally, in 1833.

Leland and his family settled in the village of Cheshire, Massachusetts in February of 1792, and lived there, except for a few years, for the rest of his life. He became pastor of a church known then as the Second Baptist Church, although Leland was never entirely comfortable as a settled pastor. Though he maintained his connection with this church for most of his life, it is clear that he was not its pastor for most of that time. As Butterfield put it, “He was always willing to preach, pray, and baptize, but he was happier as in independent evangelist, free to go where the spirit directed, than as a settled pastor, however devoted his flock might be to him.”

It may be safely concluded that the epitaph that Leland desired to be on his tomb, and indeed it was on it, was an appropriate one. It read, “here lies the body of John Leland, who labored 67 years to promote piety and vindicate the civil and religious rights of all men.”

Mr. Holmes soon after removed to Newport. In 1652 he was ordained to preach the gospel, and took Dr. Clarke’s place as pastor of the Baptist church in Newport. He died in 1682. He left eight children, one of whom, Obadiah, was a judge in New Jersey.

Mr. Stearns received an impression, as he thought from God, that there was a great work for him to do outside of New England, and he obeyed what was undoubtedly a divine call, and started in 1754 for his expected field of labor. He had no definite section to which he directed his steps, but expecting divine guidance, he was constantly looking out for providential openings. He stopped for a time at Opeckon Creek, Va., where there was a church under the pastoral care of Rev. S. Heton. Mr. Stearns rested for a short time at Cacapon, near Winchester, but anticipating greater success in his ministry than he enjoyed in that place, he removed, with his relatives, to Sandy Creek, N. C. There, as soon as he arrived, he constituted a Baptist church of sixteen persons, “Shubal Stearns and wife, Peter Stearns and wife, Ebenezer Stearns and wife, Shubal Stearns, Jr., and wife, Daniel Marshall and wife, Joseph Breed and wife, Enos Stimpson and wife, and Jonathan Polk and wife” being its constituent members. Shubal Stearns was elected pastor of the infant church. These devoted servants of God immediately built a meeting-house for public worship. Daniel Marshall and Joseph Breed were appointed to assist the pastor in his ministerial duties.

In the region around Sandy Creek the people knew nothing of the Christian religion except what they had learned from Episcopal clergymen, who in that section, at that time, were unconverted men, and their irreligious darkness was dense. The new heart to them was an unknown mystery, and paltry and commonly unpractised duties, instead of the Saviour’s sufferings, were the only known means of salvation. The instructions of Mr. Stearns and the godly lives of the church members were an astonishing revelation to their neighbors. Soon some of them were called by the Spirit into the liberty of the gospel, and their experience filled their acquaintances with even greater wonder. A mighty outpouring of the Holy Spirit fell upon the truth proclaimed by the pastor and the licensed preachers of Sandy Creek church, and as a result throngs of converts surrounded the gospel banner, and mission communities were organized far and near. The parent body in a few years had 606 members, and in seventeen years from its origin it had branches southward as far as Georgia, east ward to the sea and the Chesapeake Bay, and northward to the waters of the Potomac. It had become the mother, grandmother, and great-grand mother of forty-two churches, from which 125 ministers were sent out as licentiates or ordained clergymen. And in after-years the power that God gave Shubal Stearns and his Sandy Creek church in its early years swept over Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, and South Carolina with resistless force, and brought immense throngs to Christ, and established multitudes of Baptist churches. There are to-day probably thousands of churches that arose from the efforts of Shubal Stearns and the church of Sandy Creek.

Mr. Stearns traveled extensively in his own region, preaching Jesus, organizing churches, and giving counsel to the new communities which were formed. And his labors in every department of his work were remarkably blessed. Through him, in 1758, three years after the Sandy Creek church was formed, the Sandy Creek Association was organized. For twelve years all the Separate Baptist churches in Virginia and the Carolinas were members of this body. All who were able traveled from its remote extremities to attend its annual meetings, which were conducted with great harmony, and afforded such edification as induced them to undertake with cheerfulness long and laborious journeys. By means of these meetings the gospel was carried into many new places where the fame of the Baptists had previously spread. As great multitudes attended from distant places, chiefly through curiosity, many of them were charmed with the piety and zeal of this extraordinary people, and petitioned the Association to send preachers into their neighborhoods. In these Associational meetings Shubal Stearns exerted an immense influence. Other men among the Separate Baptists were conspicuous for their ability and usefulness, but in the entire body in the several States Mr. Stearns wielded a founders authority. Elder James Head, in speaking of the first meeting, says, “The great power of God was among us, the preaching every day seemed to be attended with God’s blessing. We carried on our Association with sweet decorum and fellowship to the end. Then we took leave of one another with many solemn charges from our reverend old father, Shubal Stearns, to stand fast until the end.” This Association conducted its annual meetings without a moderator for several years after it was formed, which shows the extraordinary modesty of Mr. Stearns; its harmony, when we remember that its members and ministers were nearly all new converts without experience, proclaims the great power possessed by Mr. Stearns in its deliberations.

The founder of Sandy Creek church was of small stature, had a very expressive and penetrating-eye, and a voice singularly harmonious; his enemies, it is said, were sometimes captivated by his musical voice. Many things are related of the enchanting sound of his voice, and the glance of his eyes, which had a meaning in every movement. “He managed his voice in such a way as to make soft impressions upon the heart and bring tears from the eyes, and anon to shake the very nerves and throw the physical system into tumults and perturbations. All the Separate Baptists copied after him in tones of voice and actions of body” “When the fame of the preaching of Mr. Stearns reached the Yadkin, where I lived,” says Mr. Tidance Lane, “I had a curiosity to go and hear him. Upon my arrival I saw a venerable old man sitting under a peach-tree with a book in his hand and the people gathering about him. He fixed his eyes upon me immediately, which made me feel in such a manner as I never had felt before. I turned to quit the place, but could not proceed far; I walked about, sometimes catching his eyes as I walked. My uneasiness increased and became intolerable.
I went up to him thinking that a salutation and baking hands would relieve me, but it happened otherwise. I began to think that he had an evil eye, and ought to be shunned, but shunning him I could no more effect than a bird can shun the rattlesnake when it fixes its eyes upon it. When he began to preach my perturbations increased, so that nature could no longer support them, and I sank to the ground.” Mr. Lane afterwards became a very useful Baptist minister.

It is related on the best authority that “Elnathan Davis had heard that one John Steward was to be baptized by Mr. Stearns on a particular day, and, as Steward was a large man and Stearns of small stature, he concluded that there would be some diversion, if not drowning. Therefore he gathered about eight or ten of his companions in wickedness and went to the spot. When Mr. Stearns began to preach Elnathan drew near to hear him, while his companions kept at a distance. He was no sooner among the crowd than he perceived that some of the people began to tremble as if in a fit of the ague. He felt and examined, to see if it was not a pretense. Meanwhile one man leaned on his shoulder, weeping bitterly. Elnathan, perceiving that he had wet his new white coat, pushed him off, and ran to his companions, who were sitting on a log away from the congregation, to one of whom, in answer to his inquiry, he said, There is a trembling and crying spirit among them, but whether it be the Spirit of God or the devil, I do not know. If it be the devil, the devil go with them, for I will never more venture myself among them! He stood awhile in that resolution, but the enchantment of Mr. Stearns’s voice drew him to the crowd once more. He had not been long there before the trembling seized him also. He attempted to withdraw, but his strength failing, and his understanding being confounded, he, with many others, sank to the ground. When he came to himself he found nothing in him but dread and anxiety, bordering on horror. He continued in this situation some days, and then found relief by faith in Christ.” Mr. Davis afterwards became a successful minister of Jesus. We mention these two well-known cases as illustrations of the extraordinary power attending the preaching of Shubal Stearns.

That he had a remarkable voice and eye is unquestionable; but he was eloquent, wise, humble, pathetic, full of faith, and wholly consecrated to God, and few men ever enjoyed more of the Spirit’s presence in the closet and in preaching the gospel. He was undoubtedly one of the greatest ministers that ever presented Jesus to perishing multitudes, and one of the most successful soul-winners that ever unfurled the banner of Calvary. Had he been a Romish priest, with as flattering a record of service to the church of the popes, long since he would have been canonized, and declared the “patron saint of North Carolina, and fervent supplications would have ascended to the most blessed of American intercessors from devout Catholics, and stately churches would have been dedicated to the holy and blessed St. Shubal Stearns, the apostle of North Carolina and the adjacent States.

Mr. Stearns died Nov. 20, 1771, and his remains were interred near the Sandy Creek church.

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