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| Pastor Mathias | | Ms. Brunell - Executive Director | | Mr. Gaffney - Managing Director | | Ms. Helmers - Managing Director | | | |
| Mr. Flynn - Senior Director | | Mr. Bolton - Director | | Ms. Irwin - Director | | Mr. James - Director | | Mr. Levine - Director | | Ms. Radewicz - Director | | Mr. Rodgers - Director | | Mr. Shea - Director | | Mr. Widmyer - Director | | | |
| Ms. Avery | | Ms. Baird | | Ms. Baker | | Ms. Bray | | Ms. Burns | | Ms. Coffey | | Ms. Crane | | Mr. David | | Ms. Drew | | | |
| Mr. Dunlap | | Mr. Ewing | | Mr. Farley | | Ms. Finley | | Mr. Friedman | | Ms. Gay | | Ms. Hahn | | Ms. Hobbs | | Ms. Holder | | | |
| Mr. Horton | | Ms. Lee | | Mr. Maddox | | Ms. Perez | | Ms. Rollins | | Ms. Smith | | Ms. Smith | | Ms. Weslin | | Mr. Wilkerson | | | | | | M.R. Mathias - Ambassador |
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| |  | | | Treasured Inheritance Ministry - YouTube | | Treasured Inheritance Ministry was birthed out of a hunger for righteousness and truth. We aim to teach truth to all nations race and colour. Treasured Inher... | |  |
| |  | | | What Ancient Seal Reveals About Jerusalem's History | CBN.com | JERUSALEM, Israel ? This week, the Hebrew University announced one of the most significant archaeological finds in years. It affirms the biblical record and the life of one of ancient Israel's most famous kings.
It's small, only 1 centimeter wide, but already made a big impact. It's called a bulla, an ancient seal. What makes this so significant is the name on the bulla: King Hezekiah. | | |
| |  | | | France: The Merovingian Long-Haired Kings | Historical Happenings & Oddities | Tuned in: Game of Thrones (Soundtrack), The Kingsroad
One of my favorite settings for a historical novel is France. I’ve traveled its countryside and cities and marveled at its beauty, traditions, food and language. Its history is filled with incredible stories of passion, heroism, destruction and human triumphs. French monarchies and the dynasties that enveloped them are a testament to eras that flourished and failed. The Frank Merovingians and their Long-Haired Kings built a dynasty that brought a spirit of unity, esteem for the honor of women, organization, and the assimilation to Christianity that helped solidify this new tribe of pagan rulers in France (ancient Gaul).
The Franks, a pagan Germanic tribe that eventually evolved into the French, came into contact with the Gallo-Roman provinces of Gaul in the first century BCE and became the ‘most powerful of the Germanic tribes.’ At the close of the 5th century, the Salian Franks had migrated to the province of Belgica Secunda, which is now part of the Netherlands, Belgium and Northern France. In the days after the Western Roman Empire collapsed, they created the most stable barbarian kingdom under the rule of Clovis who became a Catholic and ordered his people to do the same.
What makes the Frank Merovingian story so interesting is the birth of their dynasty. The 7th century history, Liber Historiae Francorum, combined fact and epic to ‘uplift’ the past of the Franks believed lost in oral myth, but whose present-day accomplishments earned them a place in history. So it is recorded that the origins of the Franks reach back to Troy.
The two Trojan princes, Priam and Antenor sailed on ships with the remaining Trojan army and settled in Pannonia (modern day Austria, Hungary, Croatia and Serbia). Although this story houses a mythic quality, it is within the historical framework of the Franks who did settle in Pannonia and who the Romans employed to drive away the tribe of Alans. The Franks’ Trojan origin connected them to the Romans who claimed ancestry to Aeneas, a Trojan hero who fled and settled in Italy. The Emperor Valentinian refers to them as the Trojan Franks ‘because of the hardness and daring of their hearts.’ The name ‘Frank’ means ‘fierce or free’ in the Frankish language and is linguistically related to the Dutch and Flemish speakers of Belgium.
The Franks traveled northwest ‘to the farthest reaches of the Rhine River’ after a dispute with the emperor. Here they created a stronghold and chose a “long-haired’ king, alleged to be Faramund elected in AD 418. In 428, his son Clodion continued the line.
The significance of the long hair was a ritually connected tradition. All the Patriarchal families of the Franks wore their hair long because it was the style of pre-Roman Germans. When these tribes came into contact with the Romans who clipped their hair short, the ‘style fell out of use.’ However, some leaders preferred the hairstyle of their ancestors and kept the long hair with modified braids on the sides of their face. The historian, Gregory of Tours, noted in his writing that this style was exclusive to the Merovingians. It was forbidden for anyone to have this long hair unless a Merovingian.
Long hair became identified with this ruling family; consequently, the Merovingians have come down in history as the “Long-haired Kings.”
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Merovech
In addition, Gregory was the first to refer to the Merovingian dynasty as if it had started as a sole ruling group when it had originally been part of many families of rank from which ‘war leaders’ and ‘kunings’ were selected. The name Merovingian derives from Merovech the next recorded king after Clodion and presumed to be his son. In a 7th century account, Merovech is honored with a legendary birth where Clodion’s wife while bathing in the sea is attacked by a monster-like centaur. She becomes pregnant and later gives birth to Merovech.
Despite the tale, Merovech did live and after his father died, he went to Rome to gain support for succession against his brother who solicited help from Attila the Hun for the same purpose. Gregory wrote that he had seen Merovech and that ‘He was still very young and we all remarked the fair hair that fell upon his shoulders.’ Merovech built a friendship with the Roman Master of the Soldiers, Aetius, and became Rome’s ally in the battle of the Catalaunian Plains where Rome and her allies fought Attila the Hun. Merovech lives through his name in which historians gave to his descendants—the Merovingians.
I find French Merovingian history to be one of the most colorful and tumultuous periods in history, and ripe for story telling. Do you have a favorite historical time period(s)? Tell me.
Buon Compleanno Ryan!
Birth of France: Warriors, Bishops and Long-Haired Kings (Scherman); A History of Pagan Europe (Jones & Pennick); The History of the Franks (Gregory of Tours) [More] | | |
| |  | | | Waldensians - Wikipedia | Waldensians (also known variously as Waldenses (/w??l'd?nsi?z, w?l-/), Vallenses, Valdesi or Vaudois) are a Christian movement founded by Peter Waldo circa 1173.
Waldensians merged into the larger Protestant movement with the outbreak of the Reformation, and became a part of the wider Reformed tradition, having influenced early Swiss reformers such as Heinrich Bullinger in Zurich and after the thought of John Calvin and his theological successors in Geneva proved very similar to their own theological ideas. The Waldensian movement first appeared in Lyon in the late 1170s and quickly spread to the Cottian Alps. Today, the Waldensian movement is centered on Piedmont in northern Italy, while small communities are also found in southern Italy, Argentina, Germany, the United States, and Uruguay.
The movement originated in the late twelfth century as the Poor Men of Lyons, a band organized by Peter Waldo, a wealthy merchant who gave away his property around 1173, preaching apostolic poverty as the way to perfection. Waldensian teachings quickly came into conflict with the Catholic Church. By 1215, the Waldensians were declared heretical and subject to intense persecution; the group was nearly annihilated in the seventeenth century and were confronted with organized and generalized discrimination in the centuries that followed.
In the sixteenth century, Waldensian leaders embraced the Protestant Reformation and joined various local Protestant regional entities. As early as 1631, Protestant scholars—and Waldensian theologians themselves—began to regard the Waldensians as early forerunners of the Reformation who had maintained the apostolic faith in the face of Catholic oppression. Modern Waldensians share core tenets with Calvinists, including the priesthood of all believers, congregational polity, and a "low" view of certain sacraments such as Communion and Baptism. They are members of the Community of Protestant Churches in Europe and its affiliates worldwide.
The main denomination within the movement was the Waldensian Evangelical Church, the original church in Italy. In 1975, it merged with the Methodist Evangelical Church to form the Union of Methodist and Waldensian Churches—a majority Waldensian church, with a minority of Methodists.[1][2][3]
Congregations continue to be active in Europe, South America, and North America. Organizations such as the American Waldensian Society maintain the history of this movement and declare they take as their mission "proclaiming the Christian Gospel, serving the marginalized, promoting social justice, fostering inter-religious work, and advocating respect for religious diversity and freedom of conscience. [More] | | |
| |  | | | Cornelius the Centurion - Wikipedia | Cornelius was the first Gentile converted to Christianity.[8] Florentine Bechtel summarizes the importance of Cornelius' baptism:
The baptism of Cornelius is an important event in the history of the Early Church. The gates of the Church, within which thus far only those who were circumcised and observed the Law of Moses had been admitted, were now thrown open to the uncircumcised Gentiles without the obligation of submitting to the Jewish ceremonial laws.[4]
Certain traditions hold Cornelius as becoming either the first bishop of Caesarea or the bishop of Scepsis in Mysia [More] | | |
| |  | | | Albigensian Crusade | Walenses | Catharism | The Albigensian Crusade or Cathar Crusade (1209–1229) was a 20-year military campaign initiated by Pope Innocent III to eliminate Catharism in Languedoc, in the south of France. The Crusade was prosecuted primarily by the French crown and promptly took on a political flavour, resulting in not only a significant reduction in the number of practising Cathars, but also a realignment of the County of Toulouse, bringing it into the sphere of the French crown and diminishing the distinct regional culture and high level of influence of the Counts of Barcelona.
The medieval Christian radical sect of the Cathars, against whom the crusade was directed, originated from an anti-materialist reform movement within the Bogomil churches of Dalmatia and Bulgaria calling for a return to the Christian message of perfection, poverty and preaching, combined with a rejection of the physical to the point of starvation. The reforms were a reaction against the often scandalous and dissolute lifestyles of the Catholic clergy in southern France. Their theology was basically dualist.[8] Several of their practices, especially their belief in the inherent evil of the physical world, which conflicted with the doctrines of the Incarnation of Christ and transubstantiation, brought them the ire of the Catholic establishment. They became known as the Albigensians, because there were many adherents in the city of Albi and the surrounding area in the 12th and 13th centuries.[9]
Between 1022 and 1163, they were condemned by eight local church councils, the last of which, held at Tours, declared that all Albigenses "should be imprisoned and their property confiscated," and by the Third Lateran Council of 1179.[10] Innocent III's diplomatic attempts to roll back Catharism[11] met with little success. After the murder of his legate, Pierre de Castelnau, in 1208, Innocent III declared a crusade against the Cathars. He offered the lands of the Cathar heretics to any French nobleman willing to take up arms. After initial successes, the French barons faced a general uprising in Languedoc which led to the intervention of the French royal army.
The Albigensian Crusade also had a role in the creation and institutionalization of both the Dominican Order and the medieval inquisition. [More] | | |
| | | | | ANF08. The Twelve Patriarchs, Excerpts and Epistles, The Clementia, Apocrypha, Decretals, Memoirs of Edessa and Syriac Documents | Chapter LXX.—Miracles.
With such sayings, he went up on a height, and ordered all the multitude of sick people to be ranged before him, and addressed them all in these words: “As you see me to be a man like to yourselves, do not suppose that you can recover your health from me, but through Him who, coming down from heaven, has shown to those who believe in Him a perfect medicine for body and soul. Hence let all this people be witnesses to your declaration, that with your whole heart you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, that they may know that themselves also may be saved by Him.” And when all the multitude of the sick with one voice cried out that He is the true God whom Peter preaches, suddenly an overpowering light of the grace of God appeared in the midst of the people; and the paralytics being cured, began to run to Peter’s feet, the blind to shout on the recovery of their sight, the lame to give thanks on regaining the power of walking, the sick to rejoice in restored health; some even who were barely alive, being already without consciousness or the power of speech, were raised up; and all the lunatics, and those possessed of demons, were set free. [More] | | |
| |  | | | Philip Schaff - Christian Classics Ethereal Library - Christian Classics Ethereal Library | Schaff was born in Chur, Switzerland and was educated at the gymnasium of Stuttgartt, and at the universities of Tubingen, Halle and Berlin, where he was successively influenced by Baur and Schmid, by Tholiuck and Julius Muller and, above all, Neander. In 1842 he was Privatdozent in the University of Berlin, and in 1843 he was called to become professor of church history and Biblical literature in the German Reformed Theological Seminary of Mercersburg, Pennsylvania, then the only seminary of that church in America.
On his journey he stayed in England and met Edward Pusey and other Tractarians. His inaugural address on The Principle of Protestantism, delivered in German at Reading Pennsylvania, in 1844, and published in German with an English version was a pioneer work in English in the field of symbolics (that is, the authoritative ecclesiastical formulations of religious doctrines in creeds or confessions). This address and the "Mercersburg Theology" which he taught seemed too pro-Catholic to some, and he was charged with heresy. But, at the synod at York, in 1845, he was unanimously acquitted.
In consequence of the ravages of the American Civil War the theological seminary at Mercersburg was closed for a while and so in 1863 Dr. Schaff became secretary of the Sabbath Committee in New York City, and held the position till 1870. He became a professor at Union Theological Seminary, New York City in 1870 holding first the chair of theological encyclopedia and Christian symbolism till 1873, of Hebrew and the cognate languages till 1874, of sacred literature till 1887, and finally of church history, till his death.
His History of the Christian Church resembled Neander's work, though less biographical, and was pictorial rather than philosophical. He also wrote biographies, catechisms and hymnals for children, manuals of religious verse, lectures and essays on Dante, etc. [More] | | |
| |  | | | Affirmations, Beliefs, and Concerns — Hebraic Christian Global Community | Hebraic Christian Global Community is convinced that God is presently restoring the Hebraic foundations of Christian faith to believers and faith communities internationally. We desire the HHCC to be a resource for nurturing the work that the Holy Spirit is facilitating by bringing to this emerging renewal community the scholarship of a wide range of counselors who offer historically accurate, biblically sound positions. We offer for your consideration the following affirmations, beliefs, and concerns.
Please note, these Affirmations, Beliefs, and Concerns represent an ongoing effort on the part of an international team of Christian scholars and spiritual leaders to provide theologically sound and historically accurate understanding for the emerging international, transdenominational community that is restoring the Hebraic foundations of faith on which Jesus and the apostles established the church. This document has been adopted by Hebraic Christian Global Community as a solid foundation for ongoing research and development and should not, therefore, be viewed as a creedal statement. [More] | | |
| | | | | HebraicCenter.org - Vision | Learning has always been sacred to the Hebrew peoples. The progression from knowledge to understanding to wisdom has been the quest of prophets and sages, of apostles and teachers, of men and women of God from time immemorial. The passion to know with a view toward doing is central to Jewish individual and corporate identity. Literacy and education have long been the hallmarks of God's chosen people and have contributed to their success.
An unquenchable love for truth is essential to the success of Christian education. Until now, however, the historical and theological truth that earliest Christianity was inherently Jewish, both in concept and in practice, has been largely neglected in Christian education.
The vision for Hebraic Heritage Christian Center (HHCC) is to meet the growing international demand for a high-quality Christian education that provides students with an in-depth understanding of Christianity's Hebrew foundations.
We believe that the most important aspect of the Hebraic roots restoration is its effort to help believers become more like Jesus Christ by imparting to them a clearer understanding of their Hebrew Lord. It is our desire to have a positive impact on our churches and world by equipping our students with the knowledge and skills needed to disciple others, helping them regain the richness and depth of their Hebraic and apostolic heritage.
The passion to renew Christianity's biblical roots is fundamental to the vision of Hebraic Heritage Christian Center. The curriculum and methodology that have emerged from this vision are designed to renew the understanding and lifestyle of Christianity's earliest Jewish leaders, the doctrines and practices of the early church.
We have created Hebraic Heritage Christian Center to enrich and reestablish biblical foundations of Christian thought, while affirming and building upon the biblical and theological scholarship of the apostles, the Church Fathers, the Reformers, and denominational leaders of today. [More] | | |
| |  | | | Jewish Messiah: Christianity's Foundation - Sid Roth - It's SupernaturalSid Roth – It's Supernatural | The following article is from Restore! Magazine Volume 6 Issue 3. When Jesus, the itinerant rabbi from Nazareth, asked his disciples who they understood him to be, Peter’s effusive answer encapsulated the most pro-found truth in all of Holy Scripture: “You are he, the Messiah, Son of the living God.” Realizing that the ultimate truth about his very nature had been revealed by the heavenly Father, Jesus replied, ” . . .upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it” (Matthew 16:16-18).
The reformed congregation that Jesus proposed to build would be established on the rock-solid foundation of a simple confession. While the congregation of Israel had rested for centuries on the Torah revealed at Sinai, this reformed congregation within Israel would stand on a faith declaration attesting to the very nature of its Founder himself. A congregation built on this revelatory rock, Jesus observed, could not be destroyed even in the face of the very jaws of death itself.
It is a simple truth: Christianity, which evolved from the branch of Second Temple Judaism known as “The Way,” has but one foundation, the Lord Jesus Christ. Both Jesus himself and the band of Jewish Bible believers who surrounded and succeeded him understood that the prophetic promises of the Hebrew scriptures were fully realized in his messiahship and in his unique relationship with the God of those scriptures as his only-begotten Son.
For twenty centuries sects that have succeeded this simple band of Jewish believers have sought to define the church and the Christian faith. A wide range of viewpoints has been advanced, creating a maze of confusion both about the church and about the nature of Jesus himself; however, the fact remains: “. . . other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus the Messiah” (1 Corinthians 3:11).
At its inception, the Christian church was a reformed movement within Judaism headed by a Jewish reformer who was recognized by his followers as the long-awaited Messiah. Both Jesus and his Jewish disciples interpreted the Tanakh (Hebrew Scriptures)the Torah, the Prophets, and the Writingsas being prophetic of his person and work as the promised Messiah. This was not unusual in Second Temple Judaism, for in this age of rabid messianism, scores of messianic pretenders advanced their claims to the divine office. What was unusual was the fact that these early leaders of the church were able to marshal solid, incontrovertible evidence that Jesus was indeed Lord and Messiah.
At this time, there was no monolithic Judaism, ensuring adherence to a party line. Multiple Judaisms vied for the attention of the masses, hoping to make their views normative for all their Jewish brethren. Who was to say, then, whose interpretation was right? Not even the Pharisees ( Perushim ) were dominant in this time; therefore, it could be argued that their descendants, rabbinic Judaism, have no more exclusive right to interpret their Hebrew scriptures than the other sects of first century Judaism.
Sure, there is the problem that though a virtual unending number of messianic prophecies, allegories, metaphors, and principles could be applied to Jesus from the Hebrew Bible, still there are numerous other messianic prophecies which he did not fulfill. If one’s dominant paradigm regarding the Messiah were that he would bring universal peace and restore the kingdom to Israel, it is more than probable that a recounting of the life of Jesus would find him a failed messiah at best and a false messiah at worst. This is what rabbinic Judaism has maintained for nearly two millennia.
Here, however, is the supreme irony, perhaps even poetic justice: On the one hand, triumphal, supersessionist Christianity, which for centuries has despised and disparaged the Jews, would have no reason to exist without a Jew as its foundation; on the other hand, all those who affirmed the messiahship and divinity of Jesus, including himself, during the first decade of the church were Jews.
Jewish leaders of subsequent centuries have sought to debunk claims of messiahship and divinity for Jesus, joining with those later church leaders who sought to Hellenize and Latinize the church by asserting that these concepts were the product of the mystery religions of the Gentiles. Many have joined with critics of the apostolic writings to avow that what we read are at best redactions from things taught by early Christian leaders or at worst fabrications created by Gentile thinkers that in no way reflected the ideas of Jesus or the apostles.
The problem with this line of reasoning is that it was Jews, not Gentiles, who formulated the argumentsand did so from their Hebraic traditionthat Jesus was Lord and Messiah. It was Jews who, like their rabbinic counterparts, had enormous powers of memory so that they could transmit oral tradition from one generation to another with verbatim q [More] | | |
| | | | | John B. Matthias | John B. Matthias (January 1, 1767 – May 27, 1848) is known as the writer of the words and music for the gospel song, “Palms of Victory” (also known as “Deliverance Will Come” or “I Saw a Way-worn Traveler”), for which he is generally given credit. He was typical of Methodist Episcopal circuit riders in early 19th Century United States.
There are two major primary sources for information about his life. First, the minutes of the New York Annual Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church from 1811 through 1848, especially his official obituary written by his son, the Rev. John J. Matthias [1] Much of the obituary is available on-line in Sacred Memories, or Annals of deceased preachers, etc.[2] The second primary source is John B. Matthias’ personal journal, housed in the United Methodist Archives, Madison, NJ.[3]
John B. Matthias was born January 1, 1767, in Germantown, PA., a post of the British troops, and a field of one of the battles of the revolution. His father was a German emigrant, a firm adherent to the cause of the American Revolution, and a member of the Reformed Dutch Church. John B. was educated in the German language and grew up to be a strong American patriot who spoke frequently about the political privileges enjoyed by U.S. citizens. He learned the trade of a ship-joiner, in Philadelphia, and on the expiration of his apprenticeship he went to New-York.
In New York he began attending John Street Methodist Episcopal Church, where the Rev. John Dickens was pastor. During the 19th century it was common for the bishop to move Methodist ministers every year or two, and Mathias was apparently upset when Dickens was moved, but he warmed to the ministry of Dickens’ successors and became a regular attender. One of these successors, the Rev. Thomas Morrell, was reassigned to the Bowery where he started a congregation known as the Forsyth Street Church. Matthias followed him to that church, where he was converted. A year after his conversion, he married Sarah Jarvis, a member of the John Street Church.
He subsequently felt that God was calling him to preach, and the New York Annual Conference[4] granted him a license to preach in 1793. In 1796 he moved to Tarrytown, New York, where he followed the ship-joiner trade for twelve years while preaching on Sundays (often three times on a Sunday). His son, John J. Matthias, was born at Tarrytown.
The beginning of his ordained ministry is unclear. His obituary indicated that he was ordained as a Deacon in 1797, but the Minutes indicate that he was not admitted “on trial” until 1811, and apparently ordained Deacon in 1812. In any case, he clearly was active in ministry, whether lay or ordained, from 1793 onward. (The Minutes kept no record of lay ministers or their appointments, even though they were a significant part of the development of the early Methodist Episcopal Church. Dixon noted that in 1848, almost half of the clergy in the New York Conference were lay ministers: 254 ministers and 220 local preachers.)[5]
The obituary indicates that he had hoped to be appointed as a full-time minister in 1810, but he was married with a family, and the church officials preferred young single men for the arduous work of circuit riding. Since there were enough such single ministers in the New York Conference, Matthias was passed over, much to his disappointment. Then, in the fall of 1810, he was asked to take responsibility for a circuit where the appointed minister had become ill. A layman from Rhinebeck, NY, gave him a horse, and he began his full-time ministry. For the next 30 years he served as minister on circuits up and down the Hudson River valley from just north of New York City to Schenectady.
We don’t have good records of the boundaries of the circuits, but their size is suggested by one bit of data: In 1814–1815, Matthias served two years on the Albany circuit (apparently not including the main congregation in Albany, but possibly including another, smaller congregation in the city), and one of the congregations on this circuit was Windham, more than 20 miles (32 km) south.[6]
In 1840 Matthias had such a serious problem with cataracts that he could not see well enough to guide his horse, so for his last year of active ministry, his wife had to accompany him on the circuit. At the 1841 meeting of the New York Annual Conference he received a superannuated relation (i.e., retired), and resided at his son’s home on Hempstead, L. I. until his death on May 27, 1848. At his death, his son, John J. Matthias, was attending the infamous Methodist Episcopal General Conference of 1848, at which the decision was made to split the denomination over the issue of slavery,[7] and was called home from Pittsburgh via the telegraph.
John B. Matthias also had a grandson who was a Methodist minister, Rev. Benjamin M. Adams, and it is possible that some traditions about the elder Matthias were never documented, but wer [More] | | |
| |  | | | First Baptist Church in America | Providence, RI | 1636 | Roger Williams had been holding religious services in his home for nearly a year before he converted his congregation into a Baptist church in 1638. This followed his founding of Providence in 1636. For the next sixty years, the congregation met outside in nice weather or in congregants' homes. Baptists in Rhode Island through most of the 17th century declined to erect meetinghouses because they felt that buildings reflected vanity. Eventually, however, they came to see the utility of some gathering place, and they erected severely plain-style meetinghouses like the Quakers.
Roger Williams was a Calvinist, but within a few years of its founding, the congregation became more Arminian, and was clearly a General Six-Principle Baptist church by 1652. It remained a General Baptist church until it switched back to a Calvinist variety under the leadership of James Manning in the 1770s. Following Williams as pastor of the church was Rev. Chad Brown, founder of the famous Brown family of Rhode Island. A number of the streets in Providence bear the names of pastors of First Baptist Church, including Williams, Brown, Gregory Dexter, Thomas Olney, William Wickenden, Manning, and Stephen Gano. In 1700 Reverend Pardon Tillinghast built the first church building, a 400-square-foot (37 m2) structure, near the corner of Smith and North Main Streets. In 1711 he donated the building and land to the church in a deed describing the church as General Six-Principle Baptist in theology. In 1736 the congregation built its second meetinghouse on an adjoining lot at the corner of Smith and North Main Streets. This building was about 40 × 40 feet square.
When it was built in 1774–75, the current Meeting House represented a dramatic departure from the traditional Baptist meetinghouse style. It was the first Baptist meetinghouse to have a steeple and bell, making it more like Anglican and Congregational church buildings. The builders were part of a movement among Baptists in the urban centers of Boston, Newport, New York, and Philadelphia to bring respectability and recognition to Baptists. [More] | | |
| |  | | | Samuel Cooper | Brattle Street Church | 1743 | | Samuel Cooper (March 28, 1725 – December 29, 1783) was a Congregational minister in Boston, Massachusetts, affiliated with the Brattle Street Church. He was born in Boston to William Cooper and Judith Sewall, attended the Boston Latin School, and was graduated from Harvard College in 1743. He was ordained as a minister on May 21, 1746, and served as pastor of the Brattle Street Church, 1747-1783. Members of his parish at the Brattle St. Church included some of the most influential people of the American Revolution: John Hancock, Samuel Adams, Joseph Warren, John Adams, and others. He corresponded with Benjamin Franklin, Charles Hector d'Estaing, Gideon Hawley, Charles Gravier de Vergennes;[1] and was associated with Phillis Wheatley. In 1780, he co-founded the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He served as "chaplain to the General Court" 1758-1770 and 1777-1783. Around 1783 Harvard College offered Cooper the position of college president, but Cooper declined.[2] In September 1746 he married Judith Bulfinch; they had two daughters.[3] A portrait of Cooper by John Singleton Copley now resides in the collection of the Massachusetts Historical Society. [More] | | |
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M.R. Mathias 
