The following story tells of the battle of a man for his conscience and the belief that infants should not be baptized!
Gould, Thomas, was famous in the annals of the early Baptists in Eastern Massachusetts for the persecutions he endured on account of his sentiments. He, like thousands in our own day not connected with Baptist churches, questioned the divine authority of infant baptism.
Cotton Mather speaks of a “multitude of holy, watchful, faithful, and heavenly people among the first settlers of New England, who had scruples as to infant baptism.” Mr. Gould was a man of very modest pretensions, a private member of a small country church, who declined to present his newborn child at the baptismal font, for which a crusade was opened against him by the whole Pedobaptist community, which in the end enlisted all the logic, the stratagems, and bigotry of the entire body, of the clergy, and brought a long train of legal enactments from the secular powers.
Mr. Gould was a member of the Congregational church in Charlestown under the pastoral care of Rev. Mr. Sims, and this is his story: “On a first day, in the afternoon, one told me I must stop, for the church would speak with me. They called me out, and Master Sims told the church that this brother did withhold his child from baptism, and that they had sent to him to come down on such a day to speak with them, and if he could not come on that day to set a day when he would be at home; but he, refusing to come, would appoint no time; when we writ to him to take his own time and send us word.”
I replied that “there was no such word in the letter, for me to appoint the day; but what time of that day I should come.” “Master” Sims told him he lied, but on reading the letter sent to him, it was found, somewhat to the confusion of “Master” Sims, that he was right.
“They called me forth to know why I would not bring my child to baptism?
My answer was, I did not see any rule of Christ for it, for that ordinance belongs to such as can make profession of their faith, as the Scripture doth plainly hold forth.” No better answer could be given by the most learned divine.
A meeting was appointed to be held the next week at “Mr. Russell’s” to take further action on the matter. There seems to have been a four or five hours’ hot discussion, when, as Mr. Gould tells us, “one of the company stood up and said, ‘I will give you one plain place of Scripture where children were baptized.’ I told him that would put an end to the controversy. ‘That place is in the 2d of Acts, 39th and 40th verses.’
After he had read the Scripture, Mr. Sims told me that promise belonged to infants, for the Scripture saith, ‘The promise is to you, and your children, and to all that are afar off,’ and he said no more;
to it I replied, ‘Even as many as the Lord our God shall call.’ Mr. Sims replied that I spoke blasphemously in adding to the Scriptures. I said, ‘Pray do not condemn me, for if I am deceived my eyes deceive me.’
He replied again I added to the Scripture, which was blasphemy. I looked into my Bible, read the words again, and said it was so.
He replied the same words the third time before the church.
Mr. Russell stood up and told him it was so as I had read it.
‘Ay, it may be so in your Bible,’ saith Mr. Sims. Mr. Russell answered, ‘Yea, in yours, too, if you will look into it.’
Then he said he was mistaken, for he thought on another place; so after many words we broke up for that time.”
For seven years this sort of controversy was kept up. All the powers of church and state seem to have been thrown into commotion because the child of a modest yet conscientious member of the church was not brought to the baptismal font. The very existence of the churches of the “standing order,” it was believed, was imperiled by such wanton neglect.
Well did Mr. Gould write, “If eight or nine poor Anabaptists, as they call them, should be the destruction of their churches, their foundation must be sandy indeed.”
Out of this persecution sprang the First Baptist church in Boston. Its members for years endured obloquy and shame. They were fined, and some of them sentenced to be banished, and because they would not go into exile they were imprisoned more than a year. It was in vain that some of the first men of the colony, like Gov. Leverett, Lieut.-Gov. Willoughby, and others opposed these persecuting measures.
The English Dissenters at home protested against this harsh dealing as opposed to the very fundamental principles of religious toleration. But their protests availed nothing with the Boston Puritans.
The sufferings of the martyrs of religious liberty continued for many years. Mr. Gould died in October, 1675. He had not lived and suffered in vain. The principles which he held, and for holding which he endured so much, are everywhere accepted, and the revolution which he started has secured wonderful victories for the cause of religious freedom not only in the old Bay State, but over the whole country.
Roger William Heritage Archives Editors. (2003; 2003). Baptist Biographies. Roger Williams Heritage Archives.
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