There are so many people, and some Baptists, have the impression that Roger Williams was the founder of the first Baptist Church in America. At this time there is being built a house of worship in Washington, D. C., as a memorial to Roger Williams. It is being built by Baptists (?) North and South. The impression is made upon the world, that it is to honor him as the founder of the First Baptist Church in America.
All intelligent, well informed Baptists know that honor does not belong to him. For those who do not have access to facts concerning the First Baptist Church in America, I am putting out a cheap tract, quoting largely from J.R. Graves D.D. on this subject. We give you first what is inscribed on Doctor John Clarke's Tombstone as Dr. Graves read it in 1834.
Under the guidance of Brother Adlam, I sought the neglected grave of Dr. John Clarke, and digging away a mold, which had accumulated at the foot of his tombstone, I read as follows: To the Memory of Doctor John Clarke
One of the original purchasers and proprietors of this island and one of the founders of the First Baptist Church of Newport, its first pastor and munificent benefactor; He was a native of Redfordshire, England, and a practitioner of physic in London. He, with his associates, came to this island from Mass., in March, 1638, O. S., and on the 24th of the same month obtained a deed thereof from the Indians. He shortly after gathered the church aforesaid and became its pastor. In 1651, he, with Roger Williams, was sent to England, by the people of Rhode Island colony, to negotiate the business of the colony with the British ministry. Mr. Clarke was instrumental in obtaining the Charter of 1663 from Charles II, which secured to the people of the State free and full enjoyment of judgment and conscience in matters of religion. He remained in England to watch over the interests of the Colony until 1664, and then returned to Newport and resumed the pastoral care of his church. Mr. Clarke and Mr. Williams, two fathers of the Colony, strenuously and fearlessly maintained that none but Jesus Christ had authority over the affairs of conscience. He died April 20, 1676, in the 66th year of his age, and is here interred.
I sat for hours before this silent witness, sending busy recollections ~ of recorded events ~ back over the fancied scenes and transactions of the two centuries past, when these sturdy witnesses of Christ, fleeing from the persecutions of the Old World, found, in their wanderings, this haven, and cleared away the dense wilderness, and let in, for the first time, God's glorious sunlight upon this beautiful island, by the "loud resounding sea," and thanked their God for it, as their peaceful home that seemed to them but a recovered part of Paradise itself.
It occurred to me that the testimony of monuments erected at, or very near, the time of the events commemorated, and by those personally conversant or best conversant with them, are the most reliable witnesses of the events recorded.
Written records ~ histories ~ are seldom made until years, and often many years after the events recorded, and are largely dependent upon reports and the treacherous memories of interested parties.
Mural witnesses never forgot. Written records are often lost, and mistakes, especially of dates, are very liable to occur in the most painstaking attempts to reproduce them.
A mural record is never lost so long as the enduring marble remains.
This monument was doubtless erected by the very hands that laid the loved and honored dead to rest in this lovely spot.
Dr. Clarke left no child or relative to contribute this costly mark of affection. The worn appearance of the stone testifies to its extreme age, and the language and style of the epitaph witness that it has come down to us from "former generations" ~ the centuries past.
I unhesitatingly accepted this mural witness as unimpeachable, and studied it, examining it, and cross examining it for the utmost syllable of its testimony. From it I learned;
First ~ That John Clarke was one of the first founders of the First Baptist Church, of Newport, R. I.
Second ~ That the First Baptist Church of Newport, R. I., was unquestionably founded in ~ 1638.
Third ~ That Dr. John Clarke was undoubtedly its first pastor, and continued to be so until the day of his death.
Fourth ~ That this church has had a continued existence from "1638" until the present.
Fifth ~ That this date (corresponding as it did with the testimony of Governor Winthrop and that given by Crosby, the eminent English historian, and both confirmed by the footnote on the 453rd page of "The History of the Philadelphia Association," published by the American Baptist Publication Society, and Backus' "History of New England Baptists," which were familiar to me), I was here compelled to decide correct, unless it could be unquestionably proved that the 1638 upon this monument is fictitious, and by fourteen years too early, or that the First Church in Providence, R. I., was constituted prior to 1638, and had had a continued existence from that time until the present.
Sixth ~ That the First Church at Newport, and not the First Church at Providence, is the First Baptist Church in America, and that Dr. John Clarke, and not Roger Williams, was the founder and pastor of the First Baptist Church in Rhode Island and America.
This was the very question I had come to Rhode Island to solve.
But I read on, surprised at the confirmation of another honor claimed for Dr. Clarke by his friends, but attributed to Roger Williams by historians, through the influence of his relatives and the Baptists of Providence, viz.:
Seventh ~ "That Mr. Clarke was instrumental in obtaining the Charter of 1663 from Charles II, which secured to the people of the State free and full enjoyment of conscience and judgment in matters of religion, etc."
I particularly noticed the language ~ it was John Clarke alone, and not John Clarke and or in connection with Roger Williams, who procured from Charles II the Charter of 1663.
With these "facts and figures" in hand I hurried on to Providence to obtain the ipissima verba of its claims, as ascribed upon the Tablet placed upon the walls of its audience room, which I found as follows:
At the first reading, only one statement fixed my vision, as though it were the only statement on the Tablet, and filled me with unmeasured astonishment! It was the third line, "the first asserter of liberty of conscience." It is an unqualified assertion, limiting it to no age or nation! This is attributing to one man, in the seventeenth century, the glory and honor belonging to Christ alone, and for reassertion and vindication of which the apostles and more than ten millions of His witnesses laid down their lives.
With these facts well known to Southern Baptists, the leaders of the Southern Baptist Convention are raising money to erect a monument to the memory of Roger Williams in the Capital of the United States, that will stand there, built with Baptist money, and engraven on it, more than likely; "To the memory of Roger Williams, the First Asserter of Liberty of Conscience." The enemies of Baptists will point to it and say: "There is a monument to your founder." What can true Baptists say? There is only one thing we can say and tell the truth. "It was built by the traitors of Baptist truth and history."
Our Lord, who was the founder of the first Baptist church on earth, was the first asserter of Liberty of Conscience. He declared, "If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed." His true disciples from that day to this have asserted liberty of conscience. On by way of Paul, John, Polycarp, and Celesta, and to John Clarke, the founder of the first Baptist church in America, Baptists have suffered and died for liberty of conscience.
We fail to be true to Christ to ascribe to man honors that belong to Him. We fail to be true to history, and the principle of truth and righteousness, to ascribe to Roger Williams honors that belong to Dr. John Clarke. All honor to Roger Williams due him. But it is unAmerican, unBaptistic, and unChristlike to build a monument that misrepresents the truth. Every true Baptist will look at it with shamed face. Every true Baptist that helps build it will meet it at the bar of God. Let us, as true Baptists, meet it as men; there is nothing gained by apologies. Let us tell the truth in love, and God will honor it.
What became of the Roger Williams Church? Dr. Adlam says "It died unpitied and unwept." He says of Roger Williams, (on page 148) "After being a Baptist four months, Williams denied that there was any true ministry or any true church."
In this small work we are not able to give you much of the evidence showing that John Clarke was the founder of the first Baptist church in America. If you can get hold of the book by Dr. Graves and Adlam you will find it fully discussed by them.
Why the Boards of Northern and Southern Baptists want to heap upon the world a false impression about the founder of the First Baptist Church in America, I cannot tell. The devil, the father of lies, must be at the bottom of it. For it discredits Baptists, it discredits the Church of Christ, and the Christ who founded His Church, and says, "The gates of hell shall not prevail against it." It impresses the world that Roger Williams was a leading Baptist, when in fact he never was a true Baptist, did nothing for the Baptists in the way of church building, but made a great blunder, upon which many false Baptists build. Let us pray to be delivered from such, and that God will enable us to be true and faithful to Christ and His Bride, the true Churches, until He comes, and may He come soon. ~ AMEN