Christ the End of the Law for Righteousness!

This Day in Baptist History Past



April 06, 1769 – Thomas Ansley was born to Mrs. Ozias Ansley, wife of a British officer in NY, and they had him sprinkled and reared in the Anglican Church. Following the Revolutionary War, the family moved to New Brunswick, Canada. On Feb. 13, 1792, Thomas married Miss Mary Scott, and that union was blessed with eight children of which Thomas supported his family as a respected farmer. At this point he became concerned over his eternal welfare and even became concerned that he had partaken of communion unworthily and had increased the wrath of God upon his soul. This drove him to the scriptures until he found Christ as the “end of the law for righteousness and trusted him as “the Way, the Truth, and the Life.” He began a desire to warn sinners of this truth and also became concerned over the issue of the mode of baptism and sought out Rev. T.S. Harding in New Brunswick and requested believer’s immersion. He was then ordained as a Baptist evangelist while in America, and pastored a Baptist church in Bridgetown, Nova Scotia, but traveled extensively in the field of evangelism in Canada and the US. He met a young Scot Presbyterian who was afraid to read the Bible lest he become a Baptist. Ansley was quite bold as he said, “Does it say, John the Catholic? - Episcopalian? - Presbyterian? – Methodist? – Quaker? – John the Baptist – Yes, that’s it!” Ansley reached another Presbyterian lay preacher in March of 1829 and led him to accept believer’s immersion and baptized him before a large crowd. Within three weeks, 29 had followed him in baptism, and a church was formed. Ansley died on Dec. 7, 1831. Condensed by Greg J. Dixon from: This Day in Baptist History II: Cummins and Thompson, BJU Press: pp. 188-90. [C.F: I.E. Bill, Fifty Years with the Baptist Ministers and Churches (Saint John, New Brunswick: Barnes and Company, 1880). P. 169.]