Carson, Alexander

CARSON, ALEXANDER: Irish Baptist; b. at Annahone, near Stewartstown (30 m. w. of Belfast), County Tyrone, Ireland, 1776; d. at Belfast Aug. 24, 1844. He studied at Glasgow and was ordained a Presbyterian minister at Tobermore, near Coleraine, County Londonderry, 1798. After a few years he left the Presbyterians and published as justification of his action Reasons for Separating from the General Synod of Ulster (Edinburgh, 1804); a portion of his congregation followed him, and for ten years he preached in barns or the open air. A stone church was built for him in 1814. In the early part of his independent career, while studying the New Testament in order to confute the Baptists, he became a Baptist himself, and thenceforth advocated their views with the exception of close communion. His Baptism in Its Mode and Subjects Considered (Edinburgh, 1831; enlarged ed., 1844) is a Baptist classic. His other writings were numerous and treat topics of Bible interpretation, philosophy, doctrinal and practical theology, and the like. He was a bitter controversialist. His collected works were published in six volumes at Dublin, 1847–64.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: G. C. Moore, Life of Alexander Carson, New York, 1851; John Douglas, A Biographical Sketch of . . . A. Carson, London, 1884; DNB, ix. 186.