Posted on 04/27/2009 10:06:50 AM PDT by Titus Quinctius Cincinnatus
In attempting to write a history of the Baptists no one is more aware of the embarrassments surrounding the subject than the author. These embarrassments arise from many sources. We are far removed from many of the circumstances under survey; the representations of the Baptists were often made by enemies who did not scruple, when such a course suited their purpose, to blacken character; and hence the testimony from such sources must be received with discrimination and much allowance made for many statements; in some instances vigilant and sustained attempts were made to destroy every document relating to these people; the material that remains is scattered through many libraries and archives, in many lands and not always readily accessible; often, on account of persecutions, the Baptists were far more interested in hiding than they were in giving an account of themselves or their whereabouts; they were scattered through many countries, in city and cave, as they could find a place of concealment; and frequently they were called by different names by their enemies, which is confusing. Yet it is a right royal history they have. It is well worth the telling and the preserving.
It must be borne in mind that there are many sources of Church History. Broadly speaking we have Eastern and Western; and a want of discrimination in these sources, and frequently an effort to treat Eastern and Western churches as identical, has caused much confusion. A right understanding of these sources will clear up many dark corners. For example it is undoubtedly true that the Waldenses originated in the West and the Paulicans in the East, and that they had a different history. In later centuries they came in contact one with the other, but in origin they were diverse. Any effort to treat them as one and the same people is misleading. In my judgment both parties were Baptists. The above distinction will account for many minor differences, and even today these sources will be found coloring Baptist history.
It may be thought by some that on account of its length the chapter on “The Episode of John Smyth” is out of proportion with the rest of the hook. It must be remembered, however, that any information in regard to the complicated history of the Nonconformists of that period is welcome. As a matter of fact, several subjects are here grouped; and as all of them require notice it is believed that unity of thought, as well as length of discussion, is preserved by the method here adopted. Many questions were then raised for the first time among English Baptists which find expression today among all schools of Baptists.
The question has often been asked: “Were all of the ancient parties mentioned in these pages in absolute or substantial accord with all of the doctrines and customs of modern Baptists?” The question can be answered with unerring accuracy: certainly not. Nor is there anything strange in the reply. It is well known that Baptists, Mennonites, and Quakers in their history have much in common, but while they agree in many particulars there are essential differences. There are marked differences among modern Baptists. Even a superficial examination of the views and customs of Russian, English and American Baptists would reveal to an observer this fact. We need not go beyond the history of American Baptists for a convincing example. At first, Arminian doctrines largely prevailed in this country; at a later date, Calvinistic principles prevailed. Oftentimes the same persons have changed their opinion. Many of the Baptists in Virginia were Arminians, but after passing over to Kentucky some of them became rigid Calvinists. Inside the Baptist denomination today there are persons, and doubtless churches, who are Arminian, and there are other persons and churches who are Calvinists. There are also Unitarians and Higher Critics, as well as Evangelicals among Baptists. One who has a mind for such things could magnify these differences to an indefinite extent.
Adequate reasons might be assigned for all of this. Baptists have never had a common creed, and it is equally true that they have never recognized any authoritative creed. They desire no such standard. Their attitude toward free speech and liberty of conscience has permitted and encouraged the largest latitude in opinions. Yet none of us would care to increase these differences or make more acute the variations.
One who stops here would have only a superficial understanding of the history and polity of Baptists. Their ties of organization are so slender, their government so democratic in nature, and their hardy independence so universal, that it has been a wonder to some historians and a mystery inexplicable to those who have not understood their genius, how they have retained their homogeneity and solidarity. But holding as they have ever done the absolute and unconditional authority of the New Testament as the sole rule of faith and practice in religious matters, they have had with them from the beginning a powerful preventive to error, and a specific corrective when there has been an aberration from the truth.
All of these things, and more, must be taken into account when we come to consider the various parties and persons discussed in the pages of this history. These parties were persecuted, scattered and often segregated. They lived in different lands and frequently had no opportunity to compare notes. There were great controversies, and frequently new roads were to be blazed out, intricate doctrinal problems to be solved, and complicated questions to be adjusted. In the insistence upon some great doctrine, it may have happened that some other doctrine of equal or relative importance did not sustain its proper position for a time. Wrong views were sometimes maintained, false doctrines introduced and defended. Much allowance must always be made, especially in considering the doctrinal views of Baptists, for the fact we are frequently indebted to a zealous and prejudiced enemy for much of our information. It is not safe without support to trust such testimony.
Many examples might be introduced to show that some of these parties might not be recognized by some Baptists now-a-days. The Montanists, the Novatians, and the Donatists held diverse opinions, not only from each other, but from the teachings of the New Testament; but they stressed tremendously the purity of the church. It is possible that the Paulicians were Adoptionists. There have always been different views in regard to the birth of Jesus. Some of the Anabaptists held that Jesus was a man, and that he did not derive his manhood from Mary, but passed through her as a channel. The Adoptionists held that Jesus was endowed with divinity at his baptism. Most modern Baptists hold that Jesus became incarnate at his birth. There were some Baptists who held the vagaries of Hofmann and other Baptists who followed the more sane and rational course of Hubmaier. No effort is here attempted to minimize, or to dismiss as trivial, these variations. Perhaps absolute and unconditional uniformity is unattainable. Such uniformity was never, perhaps, more vigorously pressed than it was by Archbishop Laud, with a dismal failure and the tragic death to the prelate as the result.
The wonder, however, is not that there were variations in these diverse conditions, but that there could be any homogeneity or unity. Through all of the variations, however, there has been an insistence upon some great fundamental truths. There has ever appeared the vital necessity of a regenerated life; a church pure and separate from the ungodly; believers’ baptism; a simple form of church government; the right of free speech and soul liberty; and the permanent and paramount authority of the New Testament. Whatever may have been the variations in any or all of these parties, on the above or kindred subjects, the voice of the Baptists has rung out clear and distinct.
The testimony here recorded has been taken from many sources. I doubt not that diligent search would reveal further facts of the highest value. As a matter of fact I have a great accumulation of material which would extend into several volumes. In my judgment a Commission should he appointed with ample means to make a thorough search in the Archives of Europe.
I am well aware of the imperfections of this book, but it presents much data never before found in a Baptist history. I have throughout pursued the scientific method of investigation, and I have let the facts speak for themselves. I have no question in my own mind that there has been a historical succession of Baptists from the days of Christ to the present time It must be remembered that the Baptists were found in almost every corner of Europe. When I found a connection between one body and another that fact is stated, but when no relationship was apparent I have not tried to manufacture one. Straight-forward honesty is the only course to pursue. Fortunately, however, every additional fact discovered only goes to make such connections probable in all instances.
I have an expectant attitude toward the future. I heartily welcome every investigation, for truth has nothing to fear from the light.
THE AUTHOR
Ping!
Baptist history, starting way back in the first century. Next post will see the Christian churches before they were infected by the Augustinian and Calvinist heresies.
Thank you for the ping.
I will follow this.
Thanks, Titus!
Adequate reasons might be assigned for all of this. Baptists have never had a common creed, and it is equally true that they have never recognized any authoritative creed. They desire no such standard. Their attitude toward free speech and liberty of conscience has permitted and encouraged the largest latitude in opinions.isn't exactly true outside of Fudamental Baptists in America post 1750ish. I submit, for discussion:
Every Christian church should know what it believes, and publicly avow what it maintains. It is our duty to make a clear and distinct declaration of our principles, that our members may know to what intent they have come together, and that the world also may know what we mean. Far be it from us to join with the Broad Church cry, and furl the banners upon which our distinctive colors are displaced. We hear on all sides great outcries against creeds. Are these clamours justifiable? It seems to me that when properly analysed most of the protests are not against creeds, but against truth, for every man who believes anything must have a creed, whether he write it down and print it or no; or if there be a man who believes nothing, or anything, or everything by turns, he is not a fit man to be set up as a model. Attacks are often made against creeds because they are a short, handy form by which the Christian mind gives expression to its belief, and those who hate creeds do so because they find them to be weapons as inconvenient, as bayonets in the hands of British soldiers have been to our enemies. They are weapons so destructive to theology that it protests against them. For this reason let us be slow to part with them. Let us take hold of God’s truth with iron grip, and never let it go.For future reference, doesn't "Next post will see the Christian churches before they were infected by the Augustinian and Calvinist heresies." automatically make this thread not ecumenical? I mean, it's your post and your reply. Calling Augustinian and Calvinist teachings heresy is necessarily speaking against them, provoking antagonism, and thus defeating the rules of the Ecumenic thread.
- From, The Church As She Should Be by Charles Spurgeon
No. 984 delivered at the Metropolitan Tabenacle, Newington
The logic of this author is that the Paulicians lost, therefore the history we have of them is presumably tainted by their opponents, therefore we can ignore the history altogether, and substitute our own fantastical imagination for history. So when challenged how could it be that the Baptist version of Christianity had never existed before the 16th century, you can make up your own history!
The Paulicians reject the Old Testament and the Book of Revelations. Like the Gnostics, they held that the creator of this world was evil. They specifically rejected Baptisms altogether. Unlike most claims to pre-reformation Protestants, however, they at least have a few doctrinal issues in which they agree with Baptists: they were anti-hierarchical, they denigrated veneration of the Blessed Virgin Mary, were iconoclastic, and did not regard the Lord’s Supper to consist of the divine presence. Their disavowal of the Blessed Virgin Mary is for a different reason than Baptists: they did not believe that Jesus was born of a woman, rather that he was an angel, and his mother was the Heavenly Jerusalem. (I would not leap to suppose they didn’t believe Jesus was God; I’ll admit one must be reluctant to draw inferences, given such wording may be chosen by their conquerors.)
They certainly did not have the early Baptists’ notion of separation of church and state; unlike the Waldensians, the Paulicians were brutal warriors, slaughtering each other over comparably minor disputes. Also unlike Baptists, they believed it was moral to echo the doctrines of and join in worship with Catholics / Orthodox, if doing so concealed them from prosecution from Catholics / Orthodox* (*This was in the East, before the Great Schism.)
OK, I gotta see this: What about Irenaeus or Justin Martyr is Baptist?
Sorry, but pretty much everything you posted is ahistorical nonsense.
... and yet I notice a complete lack of rebuttal. Hmm...
To go with the complete lack of actual evidence provided by yourself. Assertions don't need rebuttals.
Hehehe. By “Baptists,” I presumed you meant those who believe in the doctrines espoused by the denomination known as “Baptists,” not merely, “believing in baptism.”
The passages you cite from Justin Martyr only speak to the necessity of baptism for the remission of what would later be known as original sin. Certainly you can’t think that is a doctrine which separates Baptists from Catholics, could you?
It’s gonna be fun when you actually read Irenaeus. When he speaks of baptism, he mentions in the same breath both that baptism is required for the regeneration of souls, that even children require baptism for regeneration, and that children’s souls are indeed regenerated. By implication, therefore, Irenaeus demands the baptism of children. Oops! There goes that one issue he has in common with Baptists!
Incidentally, Irenaeus’ primary work is “Against the Gnostics.” It’s quite interesting because although because he derives his doctrines from the bible directly, his conclusion is that one must adhere to the teaching of the bishops if one is to know which doctrines are true. See, the Gnostics had their own scriptures, and neither collection of scriptures was singularly anthologized, yet. So Irenaeus distinguishes between Christianity and heresy not based on the scriptures, but based on an appeal to the authority of the bishops, from whom he then receives his scriptures. To top it all off, he notes that the Supreme authority comes form Rome, where Peter and Paul established the one, true Church with dominion over all the bishops.
Here’s what Philip Schaff, a sectarian Protestant, writes of them, in “History of the Christian Church.” (His words are echoed from Wikipedia to the Catholic Encyclopedia.)
The doctrines and practices of the Paulicians are known to us only from the reports of the orthodox opponents and a few fragments of the epistles of Sergius. They were a strange mixture of dualism, demiurgism, docetism, mysticism and pseudo-Paulinism, and resemble in many respects the Gnostic system of Marcion.
(1) Dualism was their fundamental principle.758 The good God created the spiritual world; the bad God or demiurge created the sensual world. The former is worshipped by the Paulicians, i.e. the true Christians, the latter by the “Romans” or Catholics.
(2) Contempt of matter. The body is the seat of evil desire, and is itself impure. It holds the divine soul as in a prison.
(3) Docetism. Christ descended from heaven in an ethereal body, passed through the womb of Mary as through a channel, suffered in appearance, but not in reality, and began the process of redemption of the spirit from the chains of matter.
(4) The Virgin Mary was not “the mother of God,” and has a purely external connection with Jesus. Peter the Sicilian says, that they did not even allow her a place among the good and virtuous women. The true theotokos is the heavenly Jerusalem, from which Christ came out and to which he returned.
(5) They rejected the Old Testament as the work of the Demiurge, and the Epistles of Peter. They regarded Peter as a false apostle, because he denied his master, preached Judaism rather than Christianity, was the enemy of Paul (Gal. 2:11) and the pillar of the Catholic hierarchy. They accepted the four Gospels, the Acts, fourteen Epistles of Paul, and the Epistles of James, John and Jude. At a later period, however, they seem to have confined themselves, like Marcion, to the writings of Paul and Luke, adding to them probably the Gospel of John. They claimed also to possess an Epistle to the Laodiceans; but this was probably identical with the Epistle to the Ephesians. Their method of exposition was allegorical.
(6) They rejected the priesthood, the sacraments, the worship of saints and relics, the sign of the cross (except in cases of serious illness), and all externals in religion. Baptism means only the baptism of the Spirit; the communion with the body and blood of Christ is only a communion with his word and doctrine.
In the place of priests (iJerei’” and presbuvteroi) the Paulicians had teachers and pastors (didavskaloi and poimevne”), companions or itinerant missionaries (sunevkdhmoi), and scribes (nwtavrioi). In the place of churches they had meeting-houses called “oratories” (proseucaiv); but the founders and leaders were esteemed as “apostles” and “prophets.” There is no trace of the Manichaean distinction between two classes of the electi and credentes.
(7) Their morals were ascetic. They aimed to emancipate the spirit from the power of the material body, without, however, condemning marriage and the eating of flesh; but the Baanites ran into the opposite extreme of an antinomian abuse of the flesh, and reveled in licentiousness, even incest. In both extremes they resembled the Gnostic sects. According to Photius, the Paulicians were also utterly deficient in veracity, and denied their faith without scruple on the principle that falsehood is justifiable for a good end.
http://www.ccel.org/s/schaff/history/4_ch12.htm#_edn1
Incidentally, I read through some of my resources, and I'll concede this much: Irenaeus espoused paedobaptism. My mistake. An unintentional error I was enroute to correct. My memory served me poorly.
Reformed? Oh I thought I was fighting Baptists ;^) Naw, I’m not fighting. I just about ruined my monitor, though, when I read of Irenaeus being called a Baptist.
>> Now, if that isn’t credobaptism then I don’t know what is. <<
Awww, come on. You gonna tell me you expected Catholics would oppose the notion that converts are those who choose choose to be born again and repented of their sins? You might wanna brush up though on how the early church handled pennance. The penitents had to wear sack cloths and mark their heads with ashes, waiting until the big Easter (or was it Pentecost?) ceremony to be readmitted to the church by the priest.
Oh, yeah... and I won’t pick on your translation of Justin Martyr as preaching the baptised were “born again,” since it’s consistent with the notion of regeneration, but don’t think it’s some Church Father’s confirmation of the Born Again movement. When ever there’s ambiguity in the gospels, like “born from above” vs. “born again,” I go for both meanings. I especially love the part where Luke notes that he grew up in Nazareth by saying it fulfills the prophecy, “He shall be called a Nazarene.” The prophecy was that he shall be called a Nazorene; Jesus didn’t shave or cut his heair and he fasted (although he also drank and feasted), so Luke teases puns Nazarean with Nazorene.
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