Last month, we made available a couple Baptist history books in the Jimmie Beller Memorial eLibrary (to read our explanation of why we did it, read here).  We received some encouraging comments from posting those books, and so we are going to give you another one, which we truly think you will find worthwhile.

If you’re wondering what all this has to do with the title of today’s post, keep reading.

Today’s free book is called “A History of the Baptists in the Southern States.”  It was written by Benjamin Franklin (B.F.) Riley, a noted Baptist professor, back in 1898, and was published by the American Baptist Publication Society.  In other words, this is a purely Baptist book, not one written by someone with an agenda against them.

It is important that we note that, because some of the things he writes about are things which most modern-day Baptists don’t know–and many would probably staunchly deny.  For example, there is an entire chapter on how slavery, and the south’s defense of it, was the reason why the Southern Baptist Convention was created.  There is another entire chapter on the Baptist Church and the Negro, in which it is stated that if not for slavery, black people would be barbarians.  Add to that a section dealing with Alexander Campbell, and an explanation of several of the different Baptist branches (Freewill, Primitive, Two-seed-in-the-spirit Predestinarians, Seventh-Day Baptists, and more), and you have a book that is well worth reading.

As always, we have taken this book and completely reformatted it, adding footnotes where necessary, and given it a thorough proofreading.

This book is FREE in the Jimmie Beller Memorial eLibrary, or you can purchase a copy of this new edition in print from Amazon here.

To read it online, or to download for later reading, simply click the link below.

History of the Baptists in the Southern States (eBook)

-Bradley S. Cobb