Michael Harrison
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![[Bible]](graemlins/bible.gif) I found this document at the below website. It both speaks of a women evangelist in an age predating ours, and it speaks to something else. The paragraph below alludes to what I was saying about ‘symbolism’, and its being a show ‘for the world’. I thought it rather interesting in that regard.
http://www.hampton.lib.nh.us/hampton/biog/nancytowle/nancytowle_2.htm
![[Wink]](wink.gif) I just pulled out some paragraphs that had mentions I found interesting, as follows:
In supporting Belknap, the Towles seemed to back the more orthodox candidate. Though Jeremy Belknap’s theology shifted toward the Arminianism of liberal theologians later in life, when he preached for the Hampton Church in 1766 Belknap embraced the traditional Calvinist view on original sin and predestination. Furthermore, he rejected the custom of the Half-Way Covenant. According to the half-way covenant persons even though uncertain of their conversion, were allowed to declare their faith in God and their support for the church’s covenant. By “owning the covenant” these persons became half-way members. They were allowed the important privilege of baptism for their children but were barred from Holy Communion. Belknap felt that this custom turned people away from the most important ordinance and the whole question of salvation. He thought the visible church should include only those who gave “credible evidence of faith and repentance.”6
6 [George B. Kirsch, Jeremy Belknap (New York: Arno Press, 1982), 26-28.]
Limiting baptism to those whose parents were full communicants would reinforce the distinction between the pure and visible church and the world.
![[Cross]](graemlins/cross.gif) This article also includes much discussion with regard to Calvinism, as follows:
Philip Towle began attending the meetings of the Freewill Baptists during the War of 1812, when he commanded the local militia in preparation for an anticipated British attack on Portsmouth. For a person who had grown up during the Revolution, in a town whose culture was dominated by the Congregationalists, the Freewill Baptists provided a personal challenge to Calvinism. The “freewill” message championed the ability of each individual, by the power of the Holy Spirit, to have an undeniable, immediate experience with God.20
20[Stephen A. Marini, Radical Sects of Revolutionary New England (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1962), 142.]
Salvation was attainable by everyone who would respond. With the Freewill Baptists Towle could express his spiritual autonomy as he fought for political and economic independence. In contrast, though there was diversity among Congregational ministers and congregations, in Calvinism the experience of conversion was removed from individual agency. Even though the unregenerate would participate in the usual means of grace, such as prayer, self-examination, attending public worship and participating in revivals, they would ultimately discover that after all their efforts they were utterly helpless before God. The wide distance between humans and God was spanned only by the grace of God, and conversion experiences had to be evaluated in light of doctrinal qualifications by the church community. Calvinist theology posed an untenable dilemma: each person was born a sinner, depraved by human nature, yet the atonement of Jesus Christ was limited to the those predestined by a sovereign God who ordained everything that happened.21
The Freewill Baptists, Universalists and Shakers were the first to challenge Calvinist orthodoxy directly.22
Posts: 3273 | From: Charlotte N.C. | Registered: Sep 2007
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