In Williams’ book, “Christenings make not Christians,” we have the most radical Baptist teaching in regard to the errors of infant sprinkling. He attacked the very foundation of the pedobaptists. He insisted that only the regeneration of the heart, through the ministry of the Holy Spirit, could make any person a Christian.
He believed that believers’ immersion is the New Testament baptism. In a letter to Governor Winthrop, dated December 10, 1649, he writes:
Mr. John Clarke hath been here lately and hath dipped them. I believe their practice comes nearer the practice of our great Founder, Jesus Christ, than any other practices of religion do.
In his debate with Fox, he writes thus, eleven years prior to his death:
That gallant and heavenly and fundamental principle of the true matter of a Christian congregation, flock or society, namely, actual believers, true disciples and converts, such as can give an account of how the grace of God hath appeared unto them.
We should think of Roger Williams as a man chosen of God to be champion of a great distinctive Baptist doctrine held by the Baptists centuries prior to his day and taught by the Baptists after his time until it was made an essential part of our national Constitution. Released from pastoral duties, Roger Williams gave himself completely to the task of establishing and guarding the sacred fires of soul-liberty which he had kindled in Rhode Island. For this sacred cause he sacrificed his comfortable home at Salem and devoted the earnings of a lifetime in trips to England to secure parliamentary protection for the colony when envious neighbors on all sides were coveting his purchased possessions. He sacrificed his opportunity to become wealthy and died a poor man. All honor to John Clarke, physician and pastor at Newport, for the splendid cooperation which he gave to Williams. They were comrades, not rivals for fame in those days. They were happy in life and should not be made enemies in death. Their names should be linked together as the pioneers and perfecters of soul-liberty in Rhode Island.
Christenings
make not
CHRISTIANS,
OR
A Briefe Discourse concerning that
name Heathen, commonly given to
the Indians.
As also concerning that great point of their
CONVERSION.
Published according to Order.
London, Printed by Iane Coe, for I. H. 1645.
The History of the First Baptist Church
The early Providence Baptists met at first in a grove under the trees. In inclement weather they would meet in private homes. They adopted no articles of faith, and to this day the First Church of Providence has been without a formal creed or covenant. For sixty years the church founded by Roger Williams had no house of worship. Pardon Tillinghast, its sixth pastor, built them a house of worship in 1700 and deeded it to the Society in 1711. It stood on the corner of North Main and Smith Streets. A larger church, forty feet square, built in 1726, succeeded this first edifice. The present edifice was built in 1775, and was dedicated “for the worship of Almighty God and to hold commencements in.” It cost $35,000, a part of which was raised by a lottery, authorized by the State. The building was designed by Joseph Brown and James Sumner, who used as a model Gibb’s church in London, St. Martin-in-the-Fields. It is recognized as one of the finest examples of colonial architecture in America.