Re-discovering Zenas, little-known but faithful
Recently, I was asked to write an introduction for a book by a little-known Baptist minister named Zenas Trivett (1753–1831). Entitled Plain Christian Duties Recommended, it is an address that Trivett gave at the establishment of a new Baptist congregation in 1791 – we are not told where, though it was probably in Essex, where Trivett’s pastorate was located at Langham.
This small pamphlet lays out the various responsibilities of a faithful member of a local church. Not surprisingly, Trivett emphasised that congregational polity was ‘the alone [i.e. only] plan of the New Testament’, though he urged his hearers never to dream that ‘all true religion [is] confined to your own denomination’. He particularly urged the congregation to often ‘meet together … for prayer and conversation’. For often believers who had come together ‘destitute of the spirit of devotion’, Trivett noted, have ‘had their cold affections warmed’.
But who was Zenas Trivett? In an anonymous obituary that was written after his death, the author of the obituary indicated his desire for any of his readers who could write ‘a more prolonged memoir’ than he had done, to do so. Sadly, none was forthcoming. The materials we have then for even a small biographical sketch like this are spare at best.
Being Zenas Trivett
Trivett grew up in the robust Baptist work in Worstead, Norfolk, where his father Edward Trivett was the pastor of the church for many years. Converted in 1775 and baptised in May of that year, Zenas began to preach the following year. One of his many converts whose name we know was a woman named Esther Rogers, who was saved in 1776 through a sermon that he preached on Revelation 6:17 (‘The great day of his wrath is come’ [KJV]) at Eythorne, Kent.
Two years later, in 1778, he assumed the pastorate of the Baptist church in Langham, Essex, which he pastored for 40 years till his retirement in 1819. Ten years after Trivett retired from Langham, the congregation numbered around 450, the bulk of whom had been added during Trivett’s ministry.
Trivett was involved in the formation of the Essex Baptist Association in 1796, which provided a vehicle for church planting and revitalisation in the county. He was also a strong supporter of the Bristol Baptist Academy and the Baptist Missionary Society, and was a signatory at the meeting that set up the first Baptist Union in 1812.
A good day
Very few details of his ministry have come down to us, although we do know that in November 1802 Trivett played a large public role in the opening of a Baptist church building in Thorpe-le-Soken that still stands, and in the ordination of this church’s first pastor, a Mr W. Bolton. The church was formally opened for worship on 10 November, and on the Lord’s Day, 14 November, Trivett preached what was described as ‘an impressive discourse’ from Philippians 1:27. Bolton was ordained the following Wednesday, 17 November, and Trivett again gave an address. In the record of the ordination service that we have, it was said to have been ‘a good day’.
Michael Haykin is Professor of Church History and Biblical Spirituality at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Louisville, Kentucky.
