Baptist Piety: The Last Will and Testimony of Obadiah Holmes

By Edwin S. Gaustad

Book Overview

In Baptist Piety, Edwin S. Gaustad has combined a carefully researched and long overdue three-chapter biography of the New England Baptist, Obadiah Holmes (1607?-1682), with an equally carefully edited modern rendition of Holmes's hitherto unpublished Testimony (1675) and Last Will (1681).

Gaustad Deftly traces Holmes's life from Reddish, near Manchester, in old England to Salem in Massachusetts Bay Colony, to Rehoboth (Seekonk) in Plymouth Colony, and finally to the vicinity of Newport, Rhode Island. With understanding he narrates the struggles of the Baptist church in Newport served by this farmer-weaver-pastor in the face of three schisms: Six-Principle (Arminian), Sabbatarian, and Quaker.

Readers will be fascinated by Gaustad's account of Holmes's being fined, imprisoned, and whipped "thirty times across . . . the bare back" for his activities as a Baptist visiting in Boston in 1651.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0817352694
• ISBN13: 9780817352691
• Release Date: July 2005
• Publisher: University Alabama Press
• Length: 184 Pages
• Weight: 0.60 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 5.6" x 8.5"