Memoir of Rev. Joseph Badger: Fourth EditionHolland, E. G. (Elihu Goodwin)
History
Memoir of Rev. Joseph Badger: Fourth Edition
Holland, E. G. (Elihu Goodwin)
Badger, Joseph, 1792-1852
Rev. N. Wilson, of Barnstead, after making strict inquiry and
satisfactory examination, in answer to the requests from the people,
wrote to brethren in the ministry all about, to attend on the occasion
at his residence, Jan. 19. The call was obeyed by the presence of seven
ministers and a multitude of people. Rev. Wm. Blaisdel delivered the
discourse, from 2d Tim. 4: 2, who, with W. Young, J. Boody, J. Shepherd,
N. Wilson, J. Knowles, N. Piper, were the persons by whom the different
parts of the services were performed. It will be understood by the
reader that this ordination demanded no sectarian acknowledgments; that
it left the tree unbent. "I was considered by them," says Mr. B., "as
free indeed. No discipline was urged upon me but the Scriptures, and no
master or leader but Christ. This, to me, was a solemn day, and long to
be remembered." He was now relieved of many embarrassments under which
he had formerly labored in not being able to administer the ordinances.
He still persevered in his labors through towns adjacent to Gilmanton,
and "many of the youth," he tells us, "fled to the Shiloh for salvation
and rest." On Jan. 29, he delivered a sermon on Baptism, in the Free
Meeting-house, Gilmanton, and in the extreme cold, "under the keen eye
of the north-west, which surveyed them critically," he baptized two
persons, Mr. F. Cogswell and Miss Lydia Levy. Satan, he thinks, began
about this time to exhibit himself as a persecutor, having an interest
now, as of old, in the assemblies of the saints. Feb. 4th, he baptized
two others in Alton, three others on the 10th at Gilmanton, and large
congregations waited upon his ministry. By the regular clergy and their
united influence, his movements were often opposed. Among the reports
that clerical policy caused to arise, he records the following chapter:
"Badger is going about making and baptizing converts, and
leaves them on the common. He has no discipline nor
articles of faith. He throws away the holy Sabbath,
alleging that it is done away in Christ. He says that he
is not called to preach law, but gospel; therefore he casts
the law of God away. He says there is no divine authority
for infant sprinkling; that if we take it from
circumcision, it can have, like its prototype, but a
partial application to human beings. He also teaches that
it is right for sinners to pray; and has said that the
clergy are the greatest evil that ever happened to New
England, because they keep the people in gross ignorance,
because they do not admit to their pulpits many Gospel
ministers, and because they are always the first to cry out
against Reformation.
"'And when a soul engaged,
Exhorts the young or aged,
The clergy cry, enraged,
They'll pull our churches down.'"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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