Keeping the Sabbath remains a biblical and invigorating practice in Christian spirituality. The example and blessing of this practice is here illustrated through the life of the long eighteenth century American Baptist, Jeremiah Chaplin.
Introduction
How does a person keep the Sabbath? When Andrew Fuller (1754–1815) described keeping Sabbath as a moral duty, he was distinguishing Sabbath rest as a holy practice to be kept beyond the ceremonial and civil laws of Israel.[1] Sabbath, the Lord’s Day, is a perpetual law established in the creation account, prior to but advanced through Moses, fulfilled for our Christian practice at the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ.[2] Sabbath, Fuller presses, is “in all ages binding.”[3] In the Covenant of Grace we presently experience the fulfilled work of redemption, and the foretaste of true Sabbath rest.[4] Sabbath is a moral duty for our own benefit; that we be refreshed in the mind and not merely from the yoke of work. Our present joy is to observe this refreshment through American Baptist pastor Jeremiah Chaplin, applying his example as encouragement to our own spiritual practice.
The purpose of this article is not to argue for the Lord’s Day on the first day of the week, or to distinguish the Sabbath apart from the ceremonial and civil laws of Israel (though both concepts are here presupposed). We understand Scripture speaks of the Sabbath with blessings attached for our delight in devoting ourselves completely to the Lord (Isaiah 58:13–14).[5] This rest invigorates those called of God even to this day (Hebrews 4:8–10).[6] If we are to rightly interpret Scriptures like these through the lens of our Reformed confessions, then what does keeping the Sabbath look like for Christians today? We begin to answer this question with a biographical sketch of Jeremiah Chaplin, our example, then see his teaching on Sabbath, and finally measure his witness for our application today.
A Sketch of Jeremiah Chaplin
Contemporary of Andrew Fuller, Jeremiah Chaplin (1776–1841), often misremembered by the works of his son of the same name,[7] served as one of the founders and the first president of Colby College.[8] As James Manning (1738–1791) worked tirelessly to establish Brown University, so Chaplin, a Brown graduate, worked tirelessly to become Manning’s counterpart in Maine.[9] Chaplin observed Baptist men in the northeast sought to be educated and plant churches, but few, let alone Baptist, seminaries were accessible in this region.[10] As a Baptist of the long eighteenth century, Chaplin saw the world as a mission field where the harvest was plentiful and the workers few.[11] Though he began ministry as pastor in Danvers, Massachusetts, he was there noted for his theological acumen and instruction to young men; it was not long before he was convicted to move his family up the Kennebec River to Waterville at the request of a newly born educational society in Maine. This would become Colby College, Chaplin serving presidency from 1817–1833, from where he would resign, pastoring six more years, then retiring to New York where the Lord called him to eternal Sabbath.
A History of Chaplin’s Sabbath-Keeping
Earl Smith’s regarding Chaplin as “every inch a reflective Puritan,” is an apt analysis.[12] Chaplin was a descendent of six generations of men who bore that name, feared God, and resided in the community established in 1639 by Puritan minister Ezekiel Rodgers (1590–1660), son of famed nonconformist Richard Rogers (1550–1618).[13] Following the Pilgrim’s example, Rogers found religious liberty in America. He perceived the danger coming to his church when he was discharged from his position in Rowley of Yorkshire after a faithful seventeen years;[14] this due to his refusal to read a treatise (The Book of Sports, 1633) by King Charles I.[15] King Charles’ Book of Sports was a reissue of James I of England’s declaration of 1618. It contained games, dances and other types of recreations permitted for the Sabbath day. The treatise, while seeming to give liberty to the citizens under the state church, was an attack against the Puritans who reverenced the Sabbath. His Sabbatarian church fled from Rowley aboard the ship, John of London. Twenty families boarded and maintained Rogers nonconforming church, including Hugh Chaplin[16] of Bradford (b. 1572) and his wife Elizabeth.[17] Rogers planted the First Congregational Church of Rowley, and that Sabbath the Chaplins were worshipping alongside him.[18]
Generations later, Asaph Chaplin still carried this Puritan enthusiasm for reform by, radically for the time, turning from his congregationalist stock. While visiting the First Baptist Church of Haverhill, Massachusetts around 1785, Asa was baptized under the preaching of Hezekiah Smith. Asa’s eleven-year-old son, Jeremiah, was baptized the following year. The remaining Chaplins continued membership at Second Parish Congregational Church on Elm Street, while father and son rode their horses to Danvers First Baptist Church.[19] So here, unblemished even six generations later, Jeremiah Chaplin began educational ministry with an expectation of keeping the Lord’s Day holy, and doing so as a reformed Baptist. He was truly, every inch a Puritan.
But what of Earl Smith’s descriptor: a “reflective Puritan?” Jeremiah Chaplin was reflective by nature; what was primary in his heart was clearly reflected in the way he lived. Inevitably, his Sabbath keeping showed up in other areas of his life. The Sabbath is purposed for the man[20] of God to consider the things of God; to feed on the Word of God, ruminate on the applications of God’s Word, therein finding intimate rest––that alone which comforts from the cares of the world. Sabbath was so important to him that he voluntarily served for ten years as the unpaid preacher of Sunday services at Waterville College.[21] Chaplin commissioned the construction of the school’s chapel building, and its pulpit, during the first years of his tenure (personally clearing the grounds alongside his seminary students). Not only did he encourage the implementation of the school’s articles of faith, but he disciplined students in their Sabbath keeping.[22] Judging by his resignation from Waterville College, Chaplin was unaware of how much his students and fellow scholars reflected on him. Robert Pattison, his eulogizer and twice college president, relates that there “are not few” persons “who will long revere” his memory, talents and great worth.[23] As foolishness to the Greeks, Chaplin sought to exemplify piety through keeping the Sabbath among his students, cultivating an atmosphere of pious reflection and meditation. His piety is what crowned him in the glory of God, even at the expense of the veneration of men.[24]
Over the course of a semester, a group of students were reprimanded by Chaplin for a lack of decorum as well as inconsistent reverence for the Lord’s Day.[25] The catalyst for Chaplin’s resignation occurred on the night of July 4, 1833 when a group of students birthed a union around anti-slavery. This on its own was warranted, even praiseworthy; however, the event became disorderly through the evening. Chaplin desired to keep the institution disciplined and mannerly, especially as a commissioning agency for missionaries and pastors. These students, upon receiving disciplinary action, put together a subversive petition calling Chaplin to respond or resign, Chaplin requested inquiry from the board, but also resigned––noting his son’s resignation as a professor and several others who disagreed with the petition. Though he founded and built the school, Chaplin was humble to the point of relinquishing the presidency that he might honor God in private, peaceably. (Note that the president installed to Waterville following Chaplin’s resignation, is none other than Rufus Babcock, the Baptist minister who edited an American edition of J.W. Morris’s memoir of Andrew Fuller.)[26]
Through his presidency, Chaplin gained a son-in-law in Thomas J. Conant, watched his children educated and commissioned into ministry and scholarship, tutored and hired several prominent scholars, and ordained Baptist missionaries. Having put his best years into the school, Chaplin went back to the pastorate where he enjoyed the Sabbath honored––even addressing the issue head-on in his state convention.
Chaplin’s Instruction for Sabbath Rest
But what was it that Chaplin taught concerning the Sabbath? The resource for Chaplin’s thoughts on the Lord’s Day are best articulated in his short treatise entitled Religious Declension. This title is given as if gleaning from Fuller’s beautiful treatise presented to the Northamptonshire Baptist Association in 1785, Causes of Declension in Religion, and Means of Revival.[27] Chaplin’s text manifested from a similar presentation given to Connecticut Baptist Convention’s annual meeting of 1836, he was serving his last pastorate at Willington Baptist Church. Though there is little of Chaplin’s writing published, his thoughts are as deep as they are concise.
The Problem with Sunday: A Spirit of Obligation
Pastor Chaplin provides a root problem concerning the keeping of Sabbath. This problem is the same discerned by Andrew Fuller, Christians do not understand the heart of obligation. “Having met and kept the ordinances, they seem to have done with religion for that day, and feel at liberty to follow any amusement or worldly occupation during the remainder of it.”[28] How many of us today see this misunderstanding displayed in our Sunday culture? This is a problem from two angles, either Sunday is marked as a day to observe particular works for participation points or a day to embrace spiritual laziness. Chaplin calls Christians to kill this spirit of obligation and be revived by a spirit of reverence.
Sabbath is not mere attendance but attending to repentance; it is explicitly for our sanctification. Sunday is already set apart, but are we? “Some Christians, with good intentions no doubt, though certainly without any sufficient warrant from the word of God, have in some respects imitated the strictness of the Jewish observance.”[29] Many Christians hear the sermon, attend the class, and the expectation ends with having participated in an event. Chaplin here remarks that this is empty praxis. If we can kindle a fire or any other earthly practices,[30] then we ought to be even more mindful of spiritual practices. We ought to immerse ourselves in the purpose, the heart of the obligation. Yes, there is a moral duty, but it is for transformation and our finding true satisfaction in the God who thunders from the mountain of Zion. The Sabbath is not a rule to be kept blindly, but a positive law; a virtue that comes with human flourishing. Fuller so hyperbolically addresses this faux-religious diligence, “How often shall I attend at the house of God–once or twice on the Lord’s Day?”[31] The spirit of obligation quite clearly misses the spirit of reverential rest, thereby rending the practice from its true blessings.
Another problem of obligation is for those whose ears perk at “rest” and resolve to be sluggards. These find rest as an excuse to make the day about personal relaxation and so forfeit any spiritual renovation. Chaplin explains,
[A]t the present time the danger, and the only danger, appears to lie on the other side. The day, unquestionably, should be considered as preeminently holy, and the whole of it, except what is devoted to works of necessity. Mercy should be employed in those religious exercises, which are adapted to promote the salvation of the soul and the glory of God.[32]
Fuller, likewise addresses such “sordid characters,” noting the comparably binding language used for the Lord’s Supper and the moral command to keep the Sabbath holy to God: “by parity of reasoning it follows from the first day of the week being the Lord’s Day, that to do our own work, find our own pleasure, or speak our own words on that day is to make it void.”[33] Obligation too often blinds the heart to the beauty of purpose. Rest is not an excuse for laxity in spiritual matters; by nature rest must take place upon something, not in the rule alone, but for a unique purpose. There are many who even neglect the preached word, under the pretense that the man who dispenses it is not an interesting preacher; they equate rest with amusement, so they skip church altogether.[34] Sabbath is not a day to turn off the mind, but rather a day bent in connecting the heart and mind to the glory of God. In Scripture’s case, rest takes place upon the Lord (Psalm 37), for the supernatural purpose of intimacy.
The Problem of Sunday: No Meditation on the Word
Sabbath rest cannot take place apart from the word of the Lord. Chaplin laments that for many, the gospel comes:
[R]ather as the word of man than as the word of God. Hence, though it may please them, it is of no real benefit. They go to the sanctuary of God as people go to the theater to be amused; and no wonder that amusement is all they obtain. … An abundance of the bread of life is set before them. They look upon it, admire it, and praise it and there the matter ends. They do not feed upon it; therefore, they pine and languish in the midst of plenty.[35]
Here is the overwhelming concern for the church, that it might function to please people rather than convict people; a concern not only to provide a meal worthy of a day’s worth of rumination, but that the body of Christ would practice the means for digesting such a meal. Chaplin understood that a misunderstanding of obligation necessarily deprives the church of the purpose of Sunday.
Chaplin grieved that in so many congregations the bread of life is presented to them, but they are tickled by the words without truly feeding on them, thus they are “weak, dwarfish, and sickly,” leaving room that they should examine their own salvation.[36] This is proof of a lack of work in personal spiritual growth, proving once again a misunderstanding of obligation. Truly teaching what Sabbath rest looks like is essential for personal growth in the church today. How did Jeremiah Chaplin apply this rest for his congregation and students?
Chaplin’s Personal Application
While the written thoughts are often the most clarifying, we understand that these ideals are useless abandoned to paper. For us, we relish the example served and observed in Chaplin’s family and pastorate. He answered the abovementioned problems, not simply with words, but with a life lived in application. While the circumstances of Chaplin’s resignation provide a sullied glimpse into the president of Waterville College, there remains sufficient light concerning the true Christian leader behind that scene. Chaplin eagerly anticipated each Sabbath morning; a day singly devoted to God’s presence in the Christian’s life. He sought to lead others to relish in this joyful rest. What did his rest look like?
Resting with Others
A picture of sabbath-keeping we receive from the journal of Chaplin’s wife, Marcia O’Brien, is fascinating. While on the sloop, Hero, journeying up to Waterville for Jeremiah to take residence as president, Mrs. Chaplin wrote of their family worship each morning and evening, but also of honoring the Sabbath in the midst of their voyage on the Kennebec River. Sunday afternoon, Jeremiah had the boat dock on the shore so they might hear from Psalm 107, both Chaplin and a Mr. Dilloway preached from these verses with an extended time of prayer. Mrs. Chaplin relays, “Our congregation was small. It only consisted of Mr. Chaplin, myself and children and those who accompanied the mate of the vessel but we trust there were enough to claim the gracious presence of our Blessed Saviour.”[37] They continued traveling Monday morning for Waterville.
This story paints a background to Chaplin’s assertion, the family altar ought not be deserted, especially on Sunday.[38] Chaplin was not a man of theoretical ideals, but fervent discipline that brought a spiritually invigorating intimacy to his family life and with those whom they came into contact, i.e. the Hero’s mate and crew. Chaplin reverenced the Sabbath, but he did not do so without his family and those nearest him. He charged others to know the spiritual rest and reverence of the Lord’s Day. Sabbath was for him a time to grow in greater intimacy with the Lord and with his fellow brothers and sisters. We see this personal application likewise in the way he instructed his students.
Biblical Meditation
Chaplin was known as reflective, but the depths of this self-examination served in leading others to seek what was so ponder-worthy. Chaplin’s greatest passion was biblical spirituality; he immersed himself in the disciplines, but also attracted others to such particular blessing. Danvers resident, Annie Winslow notes the memory, “Chaplin would walk with students out-of-doors while talking and meditating on spiritual matters. Their favorite path became known as Meditation Lane.”[39] Here we see a man, not given to anger, cold or stuffy, but gently, lovingly shepherding those around him to take advantage of personal piety. Sabbath, nor any other spiritual discipline, is for the sake of obligation, but for soul satisfaction, dependence, and spiritual maturity. Chaplin rejoices that the Lord’s Day “is designed and preeminently adapted to promote the best interests of the human race. … [W]hen properly observed, it contribute[s] to the preservation and increase in the minds of men of that sense of religion on which their happiness, both here and hereafter, so much depends.”[40] He truly believed and experienced this satisfaction, would our church members say the same of us?
As we know, the most nourishing diet is not one based on chewing, but on digesting. So it is with the diet of Scripture. Meditation is a work of rest in the mind, even practiced through the works of necessity on Sunday afternoon, like mowing the grass or folding laundry. Chaplin was memorialized for the depth of his meditations and his habitual prayer life. Pattison reminisces, Chaplin’s sermon delivery might be considered boring or academic, but this was never the case. While he did not drive for decision at his conclusions, he always drove at the conscience, preaching for the hearer to meditate and examine himself. His “devout affections” were evident, and his discourse “consisted in a masterly description of Christian experience.”[41] Chaplin called for diligence in meditation, to know the riches of Christ firsthand, not merely for the benefits of salvation, but for the savoring of the glory of God.
The Lord’s Abiding Presence
Sabbath brings us to realize we are not in charge of our time. The Lord created a specific day to honor and be sanctified to him. His presence abides with his people, and each Sabbath is to be a day honoring him by relishing in his favor, his Spirit with us. Chaplin poignantly preaches that keeping the Sabbath is our means to rescue the inheritance of Christ, the “moral and spiritual culture…of Eden.”[42] Our lives are spent saturated in a culture not like home. But each Sabbath day is a reminder our home is with the Lord. Joel Beeke and Chaplin align here: “Sabbath days are to be the great days for the manifestation and enjoyment of the grace of God…to reveal and proclaim the grace of God to sinners.”[43] Beeke continues, “to omit or neglect the sanctification of the Christian Sabbath is to disobey God, break faith with the Lord Jesus, and rob ourselves of great blessing.” Sabbath reorients us fifty-two times a year to the truth that we are filled with the Holy Spirit who enriches us by His presence, and there is something particular on the Sabbath in the way this presence calls us to rest––to experience the culture of Eden.
Chaplin and the 21st Century Church
Chaplin’s story is one of our own. As confessional Christians living in North America, we have the luxury and means for honoring the Sabbath in at least equal measure as the Chaplins, yet we manage to put off the fourth command with as much unconscious vigor as Peter on Maundy Thursday. But Chaplin preaches,
Oh, how solemn and delightful would be our worshipping assemblies if the whole Sabbath were devoted to God! How great the influence [it would] exert on the general state of religion in the church and in the world! How evident it must be to every reflecting mind that our present mode of spending a portion of that holy day tends directly to chill the ardor of piety and to destroy the spirit and power of godliness among us![44]
The key to Sabbath keeping is not obligatory works or the empty practice of rest, sitting on our couches all day, scrolling social media and posting Christian memes. The fallen world’s culture has infiltrated the true culture of the church. Sincere devotion in practicing this fourth commandment is the relishing and satisfaction found in observing and meditating on what is preached and sung unto the Lord each Sabbath day. This specific day promises a specific delight, yet is too often passed over with fallible refreshment. We see a joyful disposition in Chaplin as he leads his family in orienting themselves to the cross for a particular day. They are refreshed and prove themselves more than adequately satisfied to all those around them. Andrew Fuller was “so fully convinced…of the invariable obligation of keeping a day to the Lord” that he kept track of his morning meditations at least until he took the Lord’s Supper for fear of ruining the purpose the day.[45] Chaplin shared the same mind as he shared the same bread. How are our church members keeping Sabbath, and how are we teaching of its joyful rest by our example?
Conclusion
Andrew Fuller and Jeremiah Chaplin’s prerogative was not merely to persuade the church to think on spiritual matters one day a week, but that the Lord’s Day would nourish and sustain the Christian life for the subsequent six days. God has commanded a day unto himself for our spiritual flourishing. A day wherein we learn of his words, meditate upon his words, and have his gracious Spirit rest our minds. Fuller shares: “In all the seasons of revival and reformation, the Scriptures have been the grand means of their being brought about,” and this through prayer and meditation.[46] Were we to invest ourselves, our families, our churches in keeping the Sabbath, in teaching what it truly means to keep the Lord’s Day holy we would surely see the blessed promises fulfilled. We miss the point of Isaiah 58:13 when we see only the negative chastisement without the undergirded positive blessing. To think, the Lord gave us a whole day to be refreshed and reinvigorated by His word, His presence, and His holiness! Be sanctified this Lord’s Day; experience, even now, the foretaste of eternal Sabbath rest––the spiritual culture of Eden.
About the Author
Christopher Ellis Osterbrock (DEdMin. in Biblical Spirituality, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary; PhD Student in Historical Theology, Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary) is senior pastor of First Baptist Church of Wellsboro, PA. He is author of What is Saving Faith? (March, 2022), as well as editor of several reprints.
[1] The explicit commands to follow the Sabbath are housed in the Moral Law: See Exodus 20:8–11; Deuteronomy 5:12–15. For a clarification on the three-fold division of the Law see Samuel E. Waldron, A Modern Exposition of the 1689 Baptist Confession of Faith, 5th ed. (Wyoming, Mich.: Evangelical Press, 2016), 281-82.
[2] Richard C. Barcellos, Getting the Garden Right: Adam’s Work and God’s Rest in Light of Christ (Cape Coral, Fla.: Founders, 2017), 167, 199.
[3] Andrew Fuller, “The Christian Sabbath,” in The Works of Andrew Fuller, ed. Andrew Gunton Fuller (1841; repr., Carlisle, Pa: Banner of Truth, 2007), 1002. See also LBCF 22:7, likely Fuller’s foundation here.
[4] Fuller, “Expository Discourses on the Book of Genesis,” in Works, 350.
[5] “If you turn back your foot from the Sabbath, and call the Sabbath a delight and the holy day of the Lord honorable; if you honor it, not going your own ways, or seeking your own pleasure, or talking idly; then you shall take delight in the Lord….”
[6] “For if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken of another day later on. So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God, for whoever has entered God’s rest has also rested from his works as God did from his.”
[7]While Jeremiah Chaplin (Sr) has unpublished collections of letters and notes, he has five publications of his own: The Greatness of Redemption: a Sermon, the Substance of which was Delivered before the Baptist Missionary Society in Massachusetts, at Their Annual Meeting Held in Boston, May 25, 1808 (1808); A Sermon Delivered September 8, 1819, at the Ordination of the Rev. Stephen Chapin: to the Pastoral Care of the Baptist Church and Society in North Yarmouth (1819); A Sermon Preached at North Yarmouth February 16, 1825, at the Ordination of the Rev. George D. Boardman, as a Missionary to the Heathen (1825); “Introductory Essay,” in Eustace Carey’s Memoir of William Carey, D.D.: Late Missionary to Bengal; Professor of Oriental Languages in the College of Port William, Calcutta (1837); Causes of Religious Declension: Particularly Those which have Occasioned the Present Low State of Religion among Different Denominations of Christians (1837).
Chaplin’s son, Jeremiah Chaplin (Jr) wrote at least the following works under the shared name, sometimes including that of his wife (Mrs. “J.D. Chaplin,” an author in her own right, with extensive historical fiction). Note all the publications years follow the death of Chaplin, Sr.: The Riches of Bunyan: Selected from His Works, for the American Tract Society (1850); The Evening of Life, or, Light and Comfort Amid the Shadow of Declining Years (1859); The Memorial Hour; or, The Lord’s Supper, in its Relation to Doctrine and Life (1864); The Life of Charles Sumner (1865); The Hand of Jesus (1868); The Life of Henry Dunster, First President of Harvard College (1872); The Life of Duncan Dunbar, the Record of an Earnest Ministry: a Sketch of the Life of the Late Pastor of the McDougal St. Baptist Church, New York (1874); The Life of Benjamin Franklin (1876); Life of Galen (1876); Chips from the White House, or, Selections from the Speeches, Conversations, Diaries, Letters, and Other Writings, of All the Presidents of the United States (1881); Words of Our Hero, Ulysses S. Grant (1886).
[8] Previous names include ‘The Maine Literary and Theological Institution’ and ‘Waterville College’. This article will refer to the college as Waterville, the name under which Chaplin served.
[9] James Manning and Brown University’s charter kept a “law which required every student, as a moral duty, to attend public worship on the first day of the week.” However, the “spirit” of the law allowed for those outside Baptist faith to worship on the seventh day of the week. See Reuben Aldridge Guild, Life, Times, and Correspondence of James Manning, and the Early History of Brown University (Boston: Gould and Lincoln, 1864), 60.
[10] Earl H. Smith, Mayflower Hill: A History of Colby College (Lebanon, N.H.: University Press of New England, 2006), 7.
[11] Jeremiah Chaplin, “Introductory Essay,” in Eustace Carey’s Memoir of William Carey, D.D.: Late Missionary to Bengal; Professor of Oriental Languages in the College of Port William, Calcutta (Hartford, Conn.: Canfield and Robins, 1837). See page 18, “The best interests of mankind…an object of far greater importance than any of those temporal concerns which engross the time and attention of the busy multitude. To evangelize the world––to rescue millions and hundreds of millions of our species from the darkness, degradation, and miseries of heathenism, and bless them with the glorious privileges and prospects of the sons of God––was truly a noble design.”
[12] Smith, Mayflower Hill, 7.
[13] Ezekiel Rogers is also known for his desire for spiritual formation within the family, also known as family worship. See his published treatise, The Chief Grounds of the Christian Religion: Set down by Way of Catechising, Gathered Long Since for the Use of an Honourable Family (London: 1642).
[14] James Bradford, “Address, Delivered September 5, 1839, at the Celebration of the Second Centennial Anniversary of Its Settlement,” in The History of Rowley; Anciently Including Bradford, Boxford, and Georgetown, from the Year 1639 to the Present Time, ed. Thomas Gage (Boston: Ferdinand Andrews, 1840), 10.
[15] King Charles’ Book of Sports was a reissue of James I of England’s declaration from 1618. It contained permitted games, dances and other types of recreations for the Sabbath day. The treatise, while seeming to give liberty to the citizens under the church, was actually an attack against the Puritans who sought to reverence the Sabbath.
[16] Thomas Gage, The History of Rowley; Anciently Including Bradford, Boxford, and Georgetown, from the Year 1639 to the Present Time (Boston: Ferdinand Andrews, 1840), 124. See also 212 for further Chaplin descendants of Hugh and Elizabeth.
[17] See the ship manifest, John of London, Hull, England to Salem, MA, Summer of 1638. Not only did the John of London carry the Chaplins, but it also carried the first printing press to British North America, and later to Harvard. See Corydon Ireland, “Harvard’s First Impressions,” in Harvard Gazette, March 8, 2012.
[18] Mittie Myers Chaplin, Elder Asa Chaplin, Revolutionary Soldier 1739/40–1807: His Ancestral Background in America and His Descendants (Miami, Fla.: Miami Post, 1956), 3–11.
[19] Chaplin, Elder Asa Chaplin, 46-48. Jeremiah Chaplin’s baptism is recorded as happening under a Rev. Ewing in a newly built Baptist church of Georgetown, 1786. This information comes from Jeremiah’s daughter and son-in-law, Thomas J. and Hannah O’Brien Chaplin Conant.
[20] Mark 2:27, “The Sabbath was made for man.”
[21] Edwin Carey Whittemore, The Centennial History of Waterville, Kennebec County, Maine; Including the Oration, the Historical Address, and the Poem Presented at the Celebration of the Centennial Anniversary of the Incorporation of the Town, June 23, 1902 (Waterville, Maine: Executive Committee of the Centennial Celebration, 1902), 61.
[22] Smith, Mayflower Hill, 8.
[23] Robert Everett Pattison, Eulogy on Rev. Jeremiah Chaplin, D. D., First President of Waterville College, ME. Delivered in the Baptist Meeting House, Waterville, on the Evening Preceding Commencement, August 8, 1843 (Boston: William D. Ticknor & Co., 1843), 5.
[24] Note this is what he revered and modeled from the missionary work of William Carey, “If Carey had not been a pious man, he might, indeed, and probably would, have raised himself to a distinguished place among his countrymen. … [W]ithout piety, nay, without deep and ardent piety, he never would have formed the noble design of devoting his life, and sacrificing all his temporal prospects to the salvation of the heathen.” See Chaplin, “Introductory Essay,” 20.
[25] Edwin Carey Whittemore, Colby College 1820–1925: An Account of Its Beginnings, Progress and Service (Waterville, Maine: The Trustees of Colby College, 1927), 49-53.
[26] J. W. Morris, Memoirs of the Life and Writings of the Rev. Andrew Fuller: Late Pastor of the Baptist Church at Kettering, and First Secretary to the Baptist Missionary Society, ed. Rufus Babcock (Boston: Lincoln & Edmands, 1830). Babcock included a short preface to this edition.
[27] Michael A.G. Haykin, The Armies of the Lamb: The Spirituality of Andrew Fuller (Dundas, Ontario: Joshua Press, 2001), 47.
[28] Andrew Fuller, Strictures on Sandemanianism: In Twelve Letters to a Friend (New York: Richard Scott, 1812), 165. See ‘Letter IX: On Certain New Testament Practices’.
[29] Chaplin, Religious Declension, 55-56.
[30] Chaplin, Religious Declension, 55. Chaplin’s wording is quite, and unsurprisingly, similar to John Gill’s remark: “Not as a Jewish Sabbath; with such strictness and severity as not to kindle a fire, dress any manner of food, and travel no further than what is called a Sabbath-day’s journey; though perhaps these were not enjoined with the strictness some have imagined.” See John Gill, A Body of Practical Divinity (1839; repr., Paris, Ark.: The Baptist Standard Bearer, 1984), 972.
[31] Haykin, The Armies of the Lamb, 100.
[32] Chaplin, Religious Declension, 56.
[33] Fuller, Strictures on Sandemanianism, 166.
[34] Chaplin, Religious Declension, 17.
[35] Jeremiah Chaplin, Causes of Religious Declension; Particularly Those which have Occasioned the Present Low State of Religion among Different Denominations of Christians (Hartford, Conn.: Canfield and Robins, 1837), 53.
[36] Chaplin, Religious Declension, 18.
[37] Marcia O’Brien Chaplin, “Journal of Marcia O’Brien Chaplin,” in Elder Asa Chaplin, Revolutionary Soldier 1739/40–1807: His Ancestral Background in America and His Descendants, ed. Mittie Myers Chaplin (Miami, Fla.: Miami Post, 1956), 228-29.
[38] Chaplin, Religious Declension, 37.
[39] Annie M. Winslow, “Rev. Jeremiah Chaplin, D.D.,” in The Historical Collections: Danvers Historical Society, vol. 13, ed. Harriet Silvester Tapley (Salem, Mass.: Newcomb & Gauss, 1925), 54.
[40] Chaplin continues, “The pious farmer can be following his plough, repairing his fences, sowing his seed, or gathering in the fruits of harvest and at the same time be meditating on divine subjects. …What a poor preparation must this be for the services of the afternoon! After conversing an hour or two, perhaps in a very lively manner, on the affairs of the world, are our minds suitably prepared for hearing the glorious gospel or for uniting in the songs and supplications of Zion?”
[41] Pattison, Eulogy, 24.
[42] Jeremiah Chaplin, A Sermon Preached at North Yarmouth; February 16, 1825, at the Ordination of the Rev. George D. Boardman, as a Missionary to the Heathen (Waterville, Maine: WM. Hastings, 1825), 28. Boardman (1801–1831) died while serving as missionary to Burma. His widow, Sarah Hall would marry Adoniram Judson.
[43] Joel R. Beeke, Puritan Reformed Spirituality: A Practical Theological Study from Our Reformed and Puritan Heritage (Webster, N.Y.: Evangelical Press, 2006), 117-18.
[44] Chaplin, Religious Declension, 59.
[45] Fuller, “The Christian Sabbath,” 1003.
[46] Fuller, “On Spiritual Declension and the Means of Revival,” 904.
This blog post is authored by a student of Covenant Baptist Theological Seminary.
