Background
Morgan Edwards was born of Welsh stock in Trevethin Parish, Monmouthshire, England.
Church historian Baptist clergyman
Morgan Edwards was born of Welsh stock in Trevethin Parish, Monmouthshire, England.
After attending a village school near his home, he entered the Baptist college at Bristol.
His first religious training came from the Anglican church, for which he ever retained high respect, but in 1738 he passed over to Baptist views.
At sixteen he had begun to preach and for seven years, while continuing his theological studies, he supplied a small church at Boston, Lincolnshire.
Acquiring a smattering of Hebrew and becoming somewhat proficient in New Testament Greek, he later ranked among Baptist ministers in America as a classical scholar.
After preaching for a year at Rye, Sussex, he was proposed by Dr. John Gill to the Baptist church in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, which had written to London for aid in securing a pastor.
Arriving in America in May 1761, he began on July 1 his pastorate of ten years.
Within this relatively short period falls what may most distinctively be considered his public career.
Although tradition ranks Edwards among the greater ministers of this noted Philadelphia church, there is little specific record of his contribution to the development of the local field.
That there was some growth of the church is evidenced by the number of baptisms, by the erection, after about a year, of a larger edifice, and by the appointment of an assistant.
His relations with the church were marked by frankness on his part and by liberality on the part of both.
For fifteen years Edwards had an obsession that he would die in 1770, and on Jan. 1 of that year he preached a sermon setting forth this idea, using as text, “This year thou shalt die. ”
This event had been erroneously represented as the preaching- of his own funeral sermon.
It doubtless impaired his reputation and the next year he retired from the pastorate.
A recurring habit of intoxication leading much later to his exclusion for several years from membership in the church, was a more important cause of the severance of the pastoral tic.
In the broader relations of the denomination, Edwards, from his arrival, occupied an eminent place and became a constructive force.
At the close of his services with the Philadelphia church, he removed to Newark, Delaware.
He never again entered the pastorate, but traveled widely and gave addresses on religious subjects.
On his many journeys he was assiduous in gathering information on Baptist history and developments, preserving it usually in manuscripts arranged according to the states to which the data belonged.
Morgan Edwards is frequently referred to as the only Baptist minister in America who supported the British cause in the Revolution.
This is an exaggeration, although he is correctly placed among the Loyalists.
He was among those Baptists, including James Manning and Isaac Backus, who were at the conference at Carpenter’s Hall, when in 1774 the attempt was made to win over the Massachusetts delegates to the Continental Congress to the principle of separation of church and state.
The next year, before the Committee of Safety, he made a recantation of some indiscreet utterances.
Morgan Edwards is frequently referred to as the only Baptist minister in America who supported the British cause in the Revolution.
Quotations: For fifteen years Edwards had an obsession that he would die in 1770, and on Jan. 1 of that year he preached a sermon setting forth this idea, using as text, “This year thou shalt die. ”
He married his first wife, Mary, daughter of Joshua Nun of Cork, by whom he had eight children. A second wife of his later years, a Mrs. Singleton of Delaware, had predeceased him.