WERE THE SEPARATE BAPTISTS CALVINISTS?

 Every "historian" I have read or heard that is living today, makes a big fuss that not only were Regular Baptists  all staunch Calvinists, but the majority of the Separate Baptists were as well. What do their OWN Calvinist historians and sources say of the Separates?

  In Robert Boyle C. Howell’s 1857 history of early Baptists in Virginia" he records that as early as 1769 the "Ketocton, a Regular, or Calvinistic Association in Northern Virginia, addressed the Sandy Creek, a Separate, or Arminian Association" in Southern Virginia and North Carolina about a possible union. (Robert Boyle C. Howell, The Early Baptists of Virginia (Philadelphia: The Bible and Publication Society, 1857), 45-46. HUH?  Howell was the second president of the SBC, certainly claimed by Calvinists as one of their own.

 G.W. Paschal, a Calvinist Baptist historian says. "The three churches that came to the French Broad from the Holston Association and their ministers had a Separate Baptist heritage, and like Shubal Stearns thought the New Testament a sufficient confession of faith, and like him, REFUSED to accept Higher Calvinism and the Doctrine of Election, and were classed as Arminians and Free Willers.(George Washington Paschal, History of North Carolina Baptists (Raleigh: The General Board North Carolina Baptist State Convention, 1955), 2:426–27 emphasis mine

 Another clue that the Separate Baptists were mostly Non Calvinist, is this query from the Tugaloo Association, which was definitely Calvinist, as article 3 of the Articles of Faith state "We believe in the doctrine of eternal particular election". The 1824 query states "What is to be done with a preacher who declares himself to be  Separate Baptist, and has no fellowship with those who hold the doctrine of election?" Answer "A minister making a public declaration of such principles should be dealt with according to the gospel, and should he not give satisfaction, excluded." Here we can see that they equated "Separate Baptist" with Non Calvinist doctrines. 

Jesse Mercer, a Calvinist, said this of Daniel Marshall's sons. Daniel Marshall was Shubal Stearns associate in the Separate Baptist movement. Mercer said   "Abraham Marshall [Son of Daniel] was never considered a predestinarian preacher. To use his own figure; he used to say, 'he was short legged  and could not wade in such deep water.'  He, with several others, was considered sound in the faith, though low Calvinists. Peter Smith and some others were thought rather Arminian; some quite so. But no division was thought of till Jeremiah Walker adopted and preached openly the doctrine of final apostasy.  Then a division ensued; but soon after the death of Mr. W., the breach was healed.  And here it may not be amiss to add, that the Baptists in the upper parts of South Carolina, in those days, comprehended mostly, it is believed, in the Bethel Association, were general provisionists.  I think most of their ministers preached what is now called General Atonement." Mercer is saying that the Marshall's were not "predestinarian" and some of their associates were "rather Arminian", and the Bethel Association was "general provisionist". (Memoirs of Elder Jesse Mercer, C.D. Mallary, 1832, pp.201-2, quoted in A History of the Kiokee Baptist Church in Georgia, James Donovan Mosteller, MA., B.D., Th.D., First Printing, 1952, p.37, emphasis mine).

So here we have FOUR Calvinist sources, all of which say the Separate Baptists were not "predestinarian", and were "general provisionists", "Arminian", and denied the "doctrine of election". It is very clear that the vast majority of Separate Baptists were not Calvinists, even according to Calvinist historians and sources. Considering that about 85% of modern day Baptist associations within the SBC has roots in the Separate Baptist movement, this is quite telling.