Jim Hamilton reviews A Piety above the Common Standard: Jesse Mercer and Evangelistic Calvinism by Anthony L. Chute. This book sounds like an outstanding volume on baptist church history. Dr. Chute is on the faculty of California Baptist University (which yours truly will be joining on August 1, 2007).
From the publisher:
Jesse Mercer (1769–1841) was a Baptist pastor, editor, and denominational statesman who figured prominently in the debates over Calvinism among Southern clergymen. Most studies of Calvinism in America have focused on Jonathan Edwards, the New Divinity Movement, and the Princeton theologians. Calvinism, however, played a key role in shaping the religious mind of the South, particularly among Baptists who debated the relationship between divine sovereignty and human responsibility as it related to missions, education, and social reform. These debates led to the formation of two Baptist groups, Primitive and Missionary, the latter of which ultimately became Southern Baptists.