THE BAPTISTS

AND

THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION

BY

WILLIAM CATHCART, D.D.,

P R E F A C E.

BAPTISTS have ever been the ardent friends of civil and religious liberty. Their history in the New World overflows with testimonies of this character.

They have never regarded the military profession with much favor, and, as a rule, have only resorted to arms in great emergencies when the worst evils threatened an entire people.  So that we must not look for them among the principal commanders of the Revolution.

The leading men of Massachusetts and Virginia, the two great arms of the Revolution, were hostile to the Baptists, and had lent their aid to laws which grievously persecuted them right down to the commencement of the great struggle, and it is not to be expected that they would place members of the ?Sect every-where spoken against? in prominent military positions.

These oppressive laws kept numbers from uniting with our people, who held their principles; and compelled many British Baptists to stay in the mother country who would other-wise have found a home in America.

Notwithstanding these considerations our brethren acted a glorious part in the conflict, which secured our liberties, and which set the world an example which so many nations have already followed.

This little work is not a history of all the efforts of our Baptist fathers to make the American Revolution triumphant, but a sketch of persons and events precious to our great denomination and dear to patriots of every creed and clime.

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