Finally, in 1785, the Seventh Day Particular Baptist Church
secured its own minister. Robert Burnside, who had been preaching in the afternoons,
was called to the full pastoral office on January 7, 1785. The church voted its
"most grateful thanks" to "the Rev. Dr. Stennett" for his many
years of "labor of love" among them. In reply, he assured the church
"of his affectionate wishes" and added that he prayed "for their
prosperity" and was ready "to counsel and adjure them on any ...
occasion." On May 25 that year, Stennett, a Rev. Mr. Thompson and Rev. Abraham
Booth ordained Burnside. 176
In 1753, which was ten years before Stennett became the main
supply preacher for the Seventh Day Church, the church had about twenty members.
The church had held its own, but had not grown, for in 1785, when
his supply work was no longer needed, the church had twenty-one members. After this
the church did not prosper, dropping to fourteen members in 1796. In 1814, there
were only five members. Burnside died in 1826 and was succeeded by John B. Shenstone
who kept up the meetings; he died in 1844. Mrs. Shenstone, the last member of the
church, died in 1863. The Mill Yard Seventh Day General Baptist Church had been
weakening also, but the decline of Calvinism and the popularity of the Arminian
Wesleyan movement likely hastened the decline of the Seventh Day Particular Baptist
Church. 177
I know very little about Robert Burnside except for a letter he
wrote in 1821 to Rev. Eli S. Bailey, the corresponding secretary of the Seventh Day
Baptist General Conference in the United States. In the Letter he displays a great
concern about theological systems:
... I certainly agree with you, that we are not required to
believe the manner in which the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, are each
truly, and properly God, consistently with their being one God; yet I always judge
it necessary to declare against Sabellianism, as well as against Tritheism; and to
say, that Trinity is not nominal, or titular, like that which consists merely in
three distinctions, given to the same person.
. . . When you mentioned the sentiments of the Presbyterians, I
should have felt happy had you stated your own concerning Election, Predestination
and the final Perseverance of the saints. You observe that there are differences
among the Calvinists, as well as among the Calvinists, as well as among the
Armenians. I own it, as likewise the impossibility of two societies, or even two
individuals, and much more of many Churches, though under one denomination, agreeing
in every minute particular. But there are differences which the parties consider
compatible with Church communion, and differences which one of the parties, at
least, considers as utterly incompatible with it . . . 178
On one page, Burnside shows more concern for theoretical
theology than Samuel Stennett does in two thousand pages! If scholastical theology
was so important to Burnside, it is no wonder the church faltered during his
pastorate. Samuel Stennett preached for the expression of Christianity in life and
he disapproved of any Christianity which made theology its primary concern. Under
Stennett, the church held its own, but under Burnside it virtually
collapsed.
Times were not so hard for the Little Wild Street Baptist Church, for during the
ministry of Samuel Stennett, it became "the principal Baptist church in the
metropolis." 179 We remember that in
1753, the church had sixty members while two Baptist churches in London had one
hundred fifty members each. 180 The
church must have greatly enlarged in membership, for in 1788 it rebuilt its
"chapel" so that it would seat about five hundred people. 181
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176 Pinners' Hall Record Book . pp. 129f.
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177 Ibid. , pp. 130., 133; SDBs in EA , I, 41
f., 54; Walker, op. cit. , p. 519; IvImey, op. cit. , Ill, 278.
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178 Seventh-Day Baptist Missionary Magazine , I
(1829), 61.
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179 Herbert S. Skeets and Charles S. Miall, History of the
Free Churches of England 1788-1891 (London: Alexander and Shepard, ca. 1891), p.
209.
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180 lvimey, op. cit. , III, 278.
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181 Whitley, The Baptists of London , P. 126; Ivimey,
op. cit. , 363; The Protestant Dissenter's Magazine , I (March,
1794), 316.
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182 SDBs in EA is in error when it calls them
Discourses on the Parable of the Saviour (II, 1 356)
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183 Samuel Stennett, Works , II, 33. For this work, I
am using the pagination in his Works .
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184 Ibid. , II, 335f.
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185 Ibid. , II, 336f.
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186 Ibid. , II, 338.
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187 Ibid. , II, 339.
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188 Ibid. , II, 340f.; cf. p. 344f.
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189 Ibid. , II, 345.
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