THE ORIGIN OF THE BAPTISTS
INTRODUCTION
The following will prove a very acceptable historical contribution to the masses of the people. It will be to history a sort of elementary work, yet replete with historic facts, and the biographies of the leading witnesses of Jesus in the darkest ages of the world.
In this little work, the general reader will find, traced by a graphic pen, the bold outline of the history of the people now called Baptists. Like an experienced woodsman, the author has blazed the rough and bloody track of our people back into the wilderness, even into the "remotest depth of antiquity," but in these dark depths he loses not, like Mosheim, their "trail," but pursues it until it leads out into the unclouded light of the first century, where he finds the footsteps of the apostles and the Son of God himself, mingling with those of the first Christians, leading still back toward the banks of the Jordan, upon which the colors of the new kingdom were first unfurled, and a people to receive the coming Son were first prepared by his herald, John.
Some may object to the mode selected by the author in pursuing his inquiry, and, because it is novel, regard it as unnatural and unphilosophical.
Such an objection is not well founded. The author designed this for the outline of an original investigation of his subject, and he has therefore selected the more real and genuine method of procedure.
Says Rawlinson: "In every historical inquiry it is possible to pursue our researches in two ways; we may either trace the stream of time upward and pursue history to its earliest source, or we may reverse the process, and, beginning at the fountain-head, follow down the course of events in chronological order to our own day. The former is the more philosophical, because the more real and genuine method of procedure; it is the course which, in the original investigation of the subject, must, in point of fact, have been pursued; the present is our standing point, and we necessarily view the past from it, and only know so much of the past as we connect more or less distinctly with it." (Bampton Course, 1859, Lecture ii, p. 49.)
This work is timely, and we think will be gladly received by the masses, since it furnishes them, in a condensed form, with authentic historical facts, with which to meet the questions and charges every day cast into their faces by the descendants of those who murdered our ancestors: "Where did the Baptists come from?" "Baptists originated with Roger Williams, and their baptisms with his informal baptism." "Baptists at best are but the descendants of the fanatical Anabaptists of Munster, and have no history before their day," and other like charges. Multitudes of our people have never been furnished with the facts of history
with which to disprove these charges. They have ever opened at the third of Matthew, and triumphantly pointed to a body of Baptists in Judea, gathered by "John the Baptist," and to the Church on the Mount of Olives, to which Christ gave the commission to the Church at Jerusalem, and to all the Churches planted by the apostles, all manifestly Baptist Churches; but the thick darkness of eighteen centuries, to the multitude, rolls between the apostolic period and the present. It should be a matter of devout thanksgiving to Almighty God, and be hailed as the harbinger star of near millennial day, that every year is pouring increasing light into that darkness, discovering to the inquiring gaze of the world who have been the true followers of Christ, and who "the witnesses of Jesus," contending earnestly for and maintaining with martyr courage the faith once delivered to the saints, and the ordinances as they were at first committed to the Church. The light that is pouring upon the obscurity that has so long rested upon the wanderings of the Bride of Christ, in the wilderness into which she has been driven by her bloody persecutors, may be the earnest of the fulfillment of the prophet's vision when he saw a woman, the symbol of the Church, coming up out of the wilderness, leaning upon the arm of her Beloved, fair as the moon, clear as the sun, and terrible, to her enemies, as an army with banners.
O, that the Lord would fulfill that vision in our day! We wait, we long for it as one who watcheth for the morning. Then shall be sung, in full vision, the song an oppressed and suffering Church has long sung in faith only:
Triumphant Zion,
lift thy head
From dust and darkness and the dead!
Though jumbled long, awake at length,
And gird thee with thy Savior's strength.
Put all thy
beauteous garments on,
And let thy excellence be known:
Deck'd in the robes of righteousness,
The world thy glories shall confess.
No more shall
daring foes invade,
And fill thy hallow'd walls with dread;
No more shall hell's insulting host
Their victory and thy sorrow boast.
God from on high
has heard thy prayer,
His hand thy ruin shall repair,
Nor will thy watchful Savior cease
To guard thee in eternal peace.
Southern Psalmist.
Nashville 1860
J.R.G.
WHERE DID THE BAPTISTS COME FROM?
Milestones by the Track of Time
This is an age of inquiry and tireless research. To the questionings of an imperative curiosity the very rocks have rendered an account of themselves, and the leaves that fell before the flood, have been made to tell their story. Not a time-worn mark, or hieroglyphic, but has been cleared from the dust of centuries and deciphered. Not a crumbling monument, or a buried city, or perished people of the dead, past, but has been reproduced on the canvas of living history. Naught escapes the sleepless eye, the persevering industry of modern research.
Now, there is a class of people in our midst, numbered by hundreds of thousands - found, indeed, wherever soul-freedom is, and the gospel is, a people marked and peculiar, whose principles and influences have told, and must still tell on the character and destiny of society. This people are called BAPTISTS.
Their distinguishing peculiarities are, an uncompromising avowal and advocacy of soul-liberty, enlightened, and guided, and governed only by the Eternal King. That earthly priests, and kings, and governments, ranged hierarchies and mitered fathers, are but as those "that peep and that mutter." "To the law and to the testimony," is their watchword; "if any man speak not according to these things, it is because there is no light in him," that no mortal has the right to decide the church relations of any human being. In a word, that Christianity demands voluntary obedience; and to forestall, control, or fetter this, is antichristian. This is the prominent peculiarity of the people of whom we speak. And the profession of this voluntary surrender to the Lord of life is avowed by a burial by baptism into his sacred name.
Now, this people, so well known and so rapidly increasing among us, as a distinct class, originated somewhere. Some spot witnessed their beginning; some period in the march of time noted the birthday of these Baptists. Can the place of their nativity be found? Can the record of their origin be traced? Is the energy of human research, with all its triumphs, to pause breathless here, and acknowledge itself baffled and defeated? NO, no! The question can and must be answered, or history is a dead, a dumb thing. Let its voice but be heard as it tones distinctly through the mists of ages, and it will be forever decided - WHERE DID THE BAPTISTS COME FROM?
But in vain shall we seek among the authoritative records of the past, for one kind word concerning them. Crushed beneath a powerful and persecuting hierarchy; few, feeble, and what the world calls unlearned, yet lifting up their voice in defiant tones above the storms of execration and violence; protesting, in the name of truth and freedom, against the universal domination of the State Church, and a proud, tyrannical clergy; sounding out through the grates of filthy prisons the joyous notes of redeeming mercy, and melting the hearts of those that mockery attracted to the spot; scattered defenceless, without State patronage, or the prestige of noble names, or great leaders; with no earthly head, or strong central government to give direction to their aims; with the Word of God their only guide; yet rising in the strength of God above the crested waves, battling with the storm, steadily, steadfastly, onward, upward, until now, in the words of the eloquent Chalmer:
"Let it never be forgotten of the Baptists, that they form the denomination of Fuller, and Cary, and Ryland, and Hall, and Foster; that they originated one of all missionary enterprises; that they have enriched the Christian literature of our country with an authorship of the most exalted piety, as well as of the first talent, and the first eloquence; that they have waged a noble war with the hydra of Antinomianism; that, perhaps, there is not a more intellectual community of ministers, or who have to their number put forth a greater amount of mental power and mental activity in the defense and illustration of our common faith; and what is still better than all the triumphs of genius and understanding, who by their zeal and fidelity, and pastoral labour among the congregations which they have reared, have done more to swell the lists of genuine discipleship in all the walks of private society, and thus both to uphold and extend the living Christianity of our nation." (Dr. Chalmers's Lectures on Romans.)
Such are the people whose origin we would trace, and whose origin surely can be found.
CHAPTER 1
Century
Eighteen
Baptists in Virginia
In 1775, the Baptists first appeared in this mighty West. It was at a period the most momentous in the world's history. The storms of Revolution were sweeping over the colonies, spreading calamity and gloom. Nowhere did the contest rage more fearfully than in Virginia, and nowhere did the opposing parties put forth mightier efforts. It was the battle of truth, of principle, of national life, fought not for America alone, but for the world. The dark hour was succeeded by the sunrise of freedom.
In the midst of this conflict, and ere the storm had subsided, the West rose into being, like the fabled spirit of beauty, from the waves of the agitated sea. The principles which triumphed in the revolution were the elements of her existence, and the men who had suffered most from oppression, and had lifted up their voices for freedom from the jails of Virginia, were the first settlers in the valley of the Mississippi.
Lewis Craig had been followed by his sympathizing church to the gates of Fredericksburg jail. He was followed by that same church through the Cumberland gap, to plant that gospel barrier amid the tangled wilderness of the "dark and woody ground." The principles which actuated him and them, and which have ever characterized the Baptists, had been working silently, but effectually, for a century previous in Virginia.
Of the names of those prosecuted for those principles little need be said. Let one scene suffice. It was the trial of Lewis and Joseph Craig and Aaron Bledsoe. They had been indicted for preaching the gospel of the Son of God in the colony of Virginia. The clerk was reading the indictment in a slow and formal manner; when he pronounced the crime with emphasis - "For preaching the Gospel of the Son of God in the colony of Virginia," a plainly-dressed man who had just rode up to the court-house entered, and took his seat within the bar. He was known to the court and lawyers, but a stranger to the mass of spectators, who had gathered on the occasion. This was PATRICK HENRY, who, on hearing of this prosecution, had rode some fifty or sixty miles from his residence in Hanover county, to volunteer his services in their defense. He listened to the further reading of the indictment with marked attention, the first sentence of which that had caught his ear was, "For preaching the Gospel of the Son of God." When it was finished, and the prosecuting attorney had submitted a few remarks, Henry arose, reached out his had and received the paper, and addressed the Court:
"May it please your worships: I think I heard read by the prosecutor as I entered this house the paper I now hold in my hand. If I have rightly understood, the king's attorney of this colony has framed an indictment for the purpose of arraigning, and punishing by imprisonment, three inoffensive persons before the bar of this Court, for a crime of great magnitude-as disturbers of the peace. May it please the Court, what did I hear read? Did I hear it distinctly, or was it a mistake of my own? Did I hear an expression as if a crime, that these men, whom your worships are about to try for a misdemeanor, are charged with-what?"-and continuing in a low, solemn, heavy tone, "For preaching the Gospel of the Son of God!"
Pausing, amid the most profound silence and breathless astonishment, he slowly waved the paper three times around his head, when, lifting his hands and eyes to heaven, with peculiar and impressive energy he exclaimed, "GREAT GOD!" The exclamation, the action, the burst of feeling from the audience, were all overpowering. Mr. Henry resumed:
"May it please your worships: There are periods in the history of man, when corruption and depravity have so long debased the human character, that man sinks under the weight of the oppressor's hand, and becomes his servile, his abject slave; he licks the hand that smites him; he bows in passive obedience to the mandates of the despot, and in this state of servility he receives his fetters of perpetual bondage. But, may it please your worships, such a day has passed away! From that period, when our fathers left the land of their nativity for settlement in these American wilds, for LIBERTY, for civil and religious liberty, for liberty of conscience, to worship their Creator according to their conceptions of Heaven's revealed will; from the moment they placed foot on the American continent, and in the deeply imbedded forests sought an asylum from persecution and tyranny, from that moment despotism was crushed; her fetters of darkness were broken, and Heaven decreed that man should be free-free to worship God according to the Bible. Were it not for this, in vain have been the efforts and sacrifices of the colonists; in vain were all their sufferings and bloodshed to subjugate this new world, if we, their offspring, must still be oppressed and persecuted. But, may it please your worships, permit me to inquire once more, for what are these men about to tried? This paper says, 'For preaching the Gospel of the Son of God.' Great God! For preaching the Gospel of the Savior to Adam's fallen race." And in tones of thunder, he exclaimed: "WHAT LAW HAVE THEY VIOLATED?" while the third time, in a slow, dignified manner, he lifted his eyes to heaven, and waved the indictment around his head.
The Court and audience were now wrought up to the most intense pitch of excitement. The face of the prosecuting attorney was pallid and ghastly, and he appeared unconscious that his whole frame was agitated with alarm; while the judge, in a tremulous voice, put an end to the scene, now becoming excessively painful, by the authoritative declaration, "Sheriff, discharge those men."
They battled on for truth and soul freedom; and their fortitude, their courage, and final triumph have been recorded by their foes. They were republicans from principle. Says the Episcopalian, Hawkes: (Hawkes's Protestant Episcopal Church in Virginia, p.121.)
"No dissenters in Virginia
experienced, for a time, harsher treatment than did the Baptists. They were
beaten and imprisoned, and cruelty taxed its ingenuity to devise new modes of
punishment and annoyance; but the men, who were not permitted to speak in
public, found willing auditors in the sympathizing crowds who gathered around
the prisons to hear them preach from the grated windows.
"Persecution had taught the Baptists not to love the establishment, and they now
saw before them a reasonable prospect of overturning it altogether. In their
Association, they had calmly discussed the matter and resolved on their course;
in this course they were constant to the end; and the war they waged against the
church was a war of extermination. They seem to have known no relentings, and
their hostility never ceased for seven-and twenty years. They revenged
themselves for their sufferings by the almost total ruin of the church; and now
commenced the assault, for, inspired by the ardor of patriotism, which accorded
with their interests, they addressed the Convention, and informed that body that
their religious tenets presented no obstacle to their taking up arms and
fighting for the country; and they tendered the services of their pastors in
promoting the enlistment of the youth of their persuasion. A complimentary
answer was returned, and the ministers of all denominations, in accordance with
the address, placed on equal footing. This, it is believed, was the first step
toward religious liberty in Virginia."
A century anterior to this, a statute was enacted in the colonial Legislature of Virginia, which runs thus:
"Whereas, Sundry and divers persons, out of adverseness to the establishment orthodox religion, or out of new-fangled conceits of their own heretical inventions, refuse to have their children baptized. Be i enacted, that whosoever shall thus refuse when he might carry his child to a lawful minister within the country, shall be fined two hundred pounds of tobacco, half to the informer, and half to the parish." (Herring's Statutes).
The persons against whom the legislative thunder was hurled in the name of God and King Charles II., were Baptists. Here, then, in the interior of Virginia, at the time when Rhode Island was organizing, and with no intercourse with that distant little colony, we find Christian immersionists, Baptists. Where did they come from?
One year previous, in the colony of Massachusetts, a "poor man by the name of Painter," as we are informed by Mr. Hubbard, "was suddenly turned Anabaptist; and, having a child born, would not suffer his wife to carry it to be baptized." He was complained of for this to the Court, and enjoined by them to suffer his child to be baptized. But poor Painter had the misfortune to dissent, both from the church and the court. He told them that infant baptism was an antichristian ordinance, for which "he was tied up and whipped."
Gov. Winthrop tells us that Painter was whipped "for reproaching the Lord's ordinance."(Backus, vol. i, p. 147).
The persecutions at this time were so numerous in this pious Pedobaptist colony, that a letter was addressed to the "Governor, Assistants, and People of Massachusetts, exhorting them to lenient measures toward the Dissenting brethren." About this time, we are told by Gov. Winthrop, that "the Anabaptists increased and spread in Massachusetts; and this fearful increase which could not be checked by argument or insult, led to the following act for their suppression:"
"Forasmuch as experience hath plentifully and often proved that the Anabaptists have been the infectors of persons in the main matters of religion, and the troublers of churches in all places where they have been; and that they who have held the baptizing of infants unlawful, have usually held other errors therewith; and whereas, divers of this kind have, since our coming into New England, appeared among ourselves, and if they should be connived at by us are likely to be increased among us, it is ordered and agreed, that if any person or persons, within this jurisdiction, shall either openly condemn or oppose the baptizing of infants, or go about secretly to seduce others from the approbation or use thereof, or purposely depart from the congregation at the ministration of the ordinance - every such person of persons shall be subject to banishment." (Winthrop, p. 211).
Of the malice of these "tender mercies" of Pedobaptist orthodox churches, a passing glance is sufficient. The connection of infant baptism and oppression is so intimate, that in no spot on earth has the former prevailed that the latter has not followed. But pursuing our inquiry; the statute shows one fact: that from the first settlement, (or, as the act reads,) "since our coming into New England have appeared among ourselves divers Anabaptists." Five years anterior to the enactment of the above law, in 1638, Hanserd Knollys, a name enshrined in the temple of soul-liberty, gathered together a Baptist church; and John Smith, John Spur and four others, were arrested in 1639 for attempting to organize a church at Weymouth, fourteen miles south of Boston. Before Roger Williams was baptized, or his Church organized, there were Baptist Churches and Baptist ministers throughout New England. The principles of this down-trodden people Roger Williams adopted, and in advocating them, defending them, and suffering for them, he has stamped immortal honour on his name. The glory of that name we would not, even could we, tarnish. Not a green leaf would we pluck from the imperishable laurels that wreathe his brow. Every lover of freedom, every one imbued with the spirit of Jesus Christ, as he follows the turbid stream of history and searches for that vital principle which first enlarged the soul of humanity on this continent, will have his footsteps arrested, and will pause with delight as he watches the developments of principle on the colony of Massachusetts.
In February, 1631, an humble pilgrim, noble in his appearance, yet retiring in his manners, a little more than thirty years of age, a fugitive from English persecution, Roger Williams, like a "light on eternity's ocean," rose amid the darkness of spiritual depotism, then brooding over Europe and the world. "It became his glory," says Bancroft, "to found a State on the principle of full liberty of conscience, and to stamp himself upon its rising institutions in characters so deep that the impress has remained to the present day, and can never be erased." There he stood, like freedom itself, towering above the storms of persecution and suffering, triumphant, sublime.
But historic facts prove beyond doubt that Roger Williams was not the founder of the Providence Church, and further, that the church he established, and which crumbled to pieces four months after it was gathered, was not the first church in America. It is recorded in the minutes of the Philadelphia Association, when the first Church in Newport was one hundred years old in 1738, Mr. John Callender, their minister, delivered and published a sermon on the occasion.
Williams, indeed, touched the Baptist standard, but ere he raised it, his hand trembled, and it fell. It was seized by a steadier hand; at Newport it was raised, and far and near they came to it; it was carried into the heart of Massachusetts, and a work was commenced which till the last setting of the sun, shall never cease; and this, before we have any evidence that a church in Providence had begun to be.
Among the evils that have resulted from the wrong date of the Providence Church, has been the prominence given to Roger Williams. It is greatly to be regretted, that it ever entered into the mind of any one to make him, in America, the founder of our denomination. In no sense was he so. Well would it be for Baptists, and for Williams himself, could his short and fitful attempt to become a Baptist be obliterated from the minds of men. A man only four months a Baptist, and then renouncing his baptism forever, to be lauded and magnified as the founder of the Baptist denomination in the New World! As a leader in civil and religious liberty, I do him homage; as a Baptist, I owe him nothing.
There is another name, long, too long concealed, by Williams being placed before him, who will in after times be regarded with unmingled affection and respect, as the true founder of the Baptist cause in this country. That orb of purest luster will yet shine forth, and Baptists, whether they regarded his spotless character, his talents, his learning, the services he rendered, the urbanity and the modesty that distinguished him, will mention John Clarke as the real founder of our denomination in America. And when Baptist history is better understood than it is at present, every one, pointing to that venerable church which, on one of earth's loveliest spots he established, will say, "This is the mother of us all!"
But in Virginia were Baptists ere Rhode Island had its charter. In Massachusetts were Baptist congregations before Williams was baptized. In the language of the legislative act already cited, "since our coming to New England," before Roger Williams saw it, "divers of this kind", Baptists, pleading for soul-liberty and Christian immersion, trod these shores of the New World, stained or hallowed by their blood. "SOME OF THE FIRST PLANTERS IN NEW ENGLAND WERE BAPTISTS." This is the language of Dr. Mather, their bitter foe, who lived in that persecuting age; and his language, corroborated as it is by colonial laws and documents still extant, is conclusive.
Here, then, closes our first milestone up the blood-stained path which Baptists have been forced to travel. Here we look on the bleak, wild forests of New England and Virginia, as this mighty nation was lifting its mountain summits into the morning mists of historic light. And here, before Williams lived, or Clarke or Holmes suffered and bled, we have found these Baptists.
We subjoin the epitaph of this noble man of God, whose memory should be held in vivid and grateful recollection by every lover of truth and freedom.
To the Memory of
DOCTOR JOHN CLARKE,
One of the original purchasers and proprietors of this island, and one of the founders of the First Baptist Church in Newport, its first pastor and munificent benefactor: He was a native of Bedfordshire, England, and a practitioner of physic in London. He, with his associates, came to this island from Mass., in March, 1638, O.S., and on the 24th of the same month obtained a deed thereof from the Indians. He shortly after gathered the Church aforesaid, and became its pastor. In 1651, he, with Roger Williams, was sent to England, by the people of Rhode Island Colony, to negotiate the business of the Colony with the British ministry: Mr. Clarke was instrumental in obtaining the Charter of 1663 from Charles II., which secured to the people of the State free and full enjoyment of judgment and conscience in matters of religion. He remained in England to watch over the interests of the Colony until 1664, and then returned to Newport and resumed the pastoral care of his Church. Mr. Clarke and Mr. Williams, two fathers of the Colony, strenuously and fearlessly maintained that none but Jesus Christ had authority over the affairs of conscience. He died April 20, 1676, in the 66th year of his age, and is here interred.
To our inquiry - Where did they come from?
CHAPTER II
Century Seventeen
Baptists in England
Cromwell and the Stuarts
"We are cheered by the rays from former generations, and live in the sunny reflection of all their light."
Monuments rise all along the stream of time, whose summits, like the fabled statue, kindled beneath the light, give out cheering music, and over the deep sorrows of humanity throw a halo of hope and joy. We can thus look up the dark current in its ever onward, desolating sweep, bearing on its flood the wreck of nations and systems; can behold the rocky towers where our fathers have stood, and the deep indented footprints crimsoned with their blood; and can hear above the deep silence the sublime echo of their voices. We are their children. They link us to the past. Their histories, like the tombstones of our parents, speak lovingly to us from their graves.
Such a monument, a link in our common brotherhood, was Hanserd Knollys, a Baptist preacher, who was imprisoned in New England by virtue of a warrant from the Court of Commission, a Protestant inquisition, which followed him with its persecutions till the day of his death. Around him were numerous Baptists. Such men as Clarke and Holmes battled and suffered by his side. They had fled in search of freedom to this New World, but their tracks were followed, and their first church-meeting, near boston, broken up, and they were hauled to prison by the agents of the law. Eighteen years after the landing of the Mayflower, when every man in the colony was English born, and before Roger Williams was baptized, a Church of Baptists was formed in America. Where did they come from?
Let us trace the connecting link across the Atlantic, from New England to Old England.
Hanserd Knollys was born in Lincoln, England, 1598. He graduated with honour at Cambridge University. Having joined the Baptists, he became the object of Episcopal hate. He passed over to New England, where persecutions still followed him. When the news reached him of the revolution which brought Charles I. to the block, in 1648, he returned to England. Says Crosby:
"A few years after his return from America, we find Mr. Knollys discharging his public ministry to a congregation of his own gathering, in Great St. Helen's, London, where the people flocked in crowds to hear him, and he had generally a thousand auditors. This roused the jealousy of the Presbyterians, and the landlord was prevailed on to refuse them the use of the place any longer.
"The life of this good man was one continued scene of vexation and trouble. Soon after the Restoration, in 1660, Mr. Knollys, with many other innocent persons, was dragged from his own dwelling-house, and committed to Newgate, where he was kept in close custody for eighteen weeks, until delivered by an Act of grace upon the king's coronation. At that time, four hundred persons were confined in the same prison for refusing to take the oaths of allegiance and supremacy. A royal proclamation, occasioned by the rebellion of a person of the name of Venner, was issued at this time, prohibiting Anabaptists and other sectaries from worshipping God in public, except at their parish church. This cruel edict was the signal for persecution, and the forerunner of those sanguinary laws which disgraced the reigns of the Stuarts; and to these things we must attribute the frequent removals of Mr. Knollys, mentioned in a former part of this memoir. During his absence in Holland and Germany, his property was confiscated to the Crown; and, when the law did not favour the monarch's pretensions, a party of soldiers were dispatched to take forcible possession of Mr. Knollys's premises, which had cost him upward of £700."
The old man died in poverty at the age of ninety-three after spending at different times nine years of imprisonment, besides fines and banishments. In a brief review of his life, as immortality was about to break in upon him, he wrote:
"I confess that many of the Lord's ministers have excelled me, with whom he has not taken so much pains as he hath with me. I am an unprofitable servant; but, 'by the grace of God, I am what I am.'"
The brief visit of Hanserd Knollys to America, and his return to England, together with sacrifices and suffering - amid which he stood like a tower, unawed and unbowed beneath the thunder-storm, give to his character peculiar interest. But, beyond this, the age in which he lived will ever be memorable to Baptists. It was the age of Tombs, of Collier, of Kiffin, and of Bunyan, a day of trial and triumph. Let us listen to the historian, Macaulay, speaking of these men:
"Bunyan had been bred a tinker,
and had served as a private soldier in the parliamentary army. Early in his life
he had been fearfully tortured by remorse for his youthful sins, the worst of
which seem, however, to have been such as the world thinks venial. from the
depths of despair, the penitent passed to a state of serene felicity. An
irresistible impulse now urged him to impart to others the blessings of which he
was himself possessed. He joined the Baptists, and became a preacher and writer.
His education had been that of mechanic. He knew no language but the English, as
it was spoken by the common people. Yet his rude oratory roused and melted
hearers, who listened without interest to the laboured discourses of great
logicians and Hebraists. His works were widely circulated among the humbler
classes. One of them, the Pilgrim's Progress, in his own lifetime, was
translated into several languages.
"It may be doubted whether any English Dissenter had suffered more severely
under the penal laws than John Bunyan. Of the twenty-seven years which had
elapsed since the Restoration, he had passed twelve in confinement. He still
persisted in preaching; but, that he might preach, he was under the necessity of
disguising himself like a carter. He was often introduced into meetings through
back doors, with a smock frock on his back, and a whip in his hand. If he had
thought only of his own ease and safety, he would have hailed the indulgence
with delight. He was now, at length, free to pray and exhort in open day. His
congregation rapidly increased; thousands hung upon his words; and at Bedford,
where he ordinarily resided, money was plentifully contributed to build a
meeting-house for him. His influence among the common people was such that the
government would willingly have bestowed on him some municipal office; but his
vigorous understanding and his stout English heart were proof against all
delusion and all temptation. He felt assured that the proffered toleration was
merely a bait intended to lure the Puritan party to destruction; nor would he,
by accepting a place for which he was not legally qualified, recognize the
validity of the dispensing power. One of the last acts of his virtuous life was
to decline an interview to which he was invited by an agent of the government."
(The Continuation of Bunyan's Life, appended to his "Grace Abounding.")
"Great as was the authority of Bunyan with the Baptists, that of William Kiffin
was still greater. Kiffin was the first man among them in wealth and station. He
was in the habit of exercising his spiritual gifts at their meetings; but he did
not live by preaching. He traded largely; his credit on the Exchange of London
stood high; and he had accumulated an ample fortune. Perhaps no man could, at
that juncture, have rendered more valuable services to the court. But between
him and the court was interposed the remembrance of one terrible event. He was
the grandfather of the two Hewlings, those gallant youths who, of all the
victims of the bloody Assizes, had been the most generally lamented. For the sad
fate of one of them, James was in a peculiar manner responsible. Jeffreys had
respited the younger brother. The poor lad's sister had been ushered by
Churchill into the royal presence, and had begged for mercy; but the king's
heart had been obdurate. The misery of the whole family had been great; but
Kiffin was most to be pitied. He was seventy years old when he was left
desolate, the survivor of those who should have survived him. The heartless and
venal sycophants of Whitehall, judging by themselves, thought that the old man
would be easily propitiated by an alderman's gown, an by some compensation in
money for the property which his grandson had forfeited." (Macaulay's History,
vol. 2 p. 175).
Of Thomas Collier, a passing word is all that can be given. He preached at Guernsey, where he had many converts; but his cruel persecutors would not allow him to enjoy peace. They banished him and many of his followers from the place, and cast him into prison at Portsmouth; but how long he remained in confinement we are not informed. On account of his incessant labours and extensive usefulness, he is represented by his adversaries as having done much hurt in Lymington, Hampton, Waltham, and all along the west country. "This Collier," ways Edwards, one of his Pedobaptist contemporaries, "is a great sectary in the west of England, a mechanical fellow, and a great emissary, and a dipper, who goes about Surrey, Hampshire, and those countries, preaching and dipping." (Sketches of Early Baptists).
But time would fail to speak of Bamfield, of Denne, and of Tombs, the antagonist of Baxter, of Jessey, also, and of Goswold, whose congregation in London, even at that day, was three thousand, and whose pulpit powers no man in England surpassed.
This was in 1660. There were then, even in the midst of all this persecution, two hundred and seventeen (217) Baptist churches in England; and a fearless avowal of their convictions, long afterward known as the Philadelphia Confession of Faith, was published and circulated, among whose signers were Kiffin, and Tombs, and Knollys.
It was a dark, and yet a glorious day, for the Baptist denomination; for the blackest clouds send forth the brightest lightnings. Charles I. was dethroned in 1648, and royalty, nobility, episcopacy, and the whole tribe of dead formalities were swept like rotting leaves from the realm. But the Stuarts had returned, and with sin a treason in their train, marched with garments rolled in blood and crime over the rights of a prostrate people. Episcopacy, ever the deadly foe of Christianity and soul-freedom, was again enthroned and clad in scarlet. It plied at once its engines of oppression and cruelty. But there were those whom the power of the Bishops could neither bend nor crush. Above their thunder rose, with fearless front, the forms of Bunyan, of Kiffin, of thousands more, whose names are found only in heaven's martyr-roll; Baptists, whose fidelity to their principles was, like those principles themselves - DEATHLESS.
From 1649 to 1659 was a kind of twilight hour of hope; and most valiantly did the Baptists press upon the attention of the world their principles of soul-freedom. These principles, previously sheltered in obscurity, became the property of the people. The parliamentary army, whose splendid victories won freedom for England, and struck terror to the tyrants of Europe, was composed, to a great extent, of Baptists. An army, not of hireling fighters, but of true men, battling for freedom. Says Carlyle:
"In dark, inextricable difficulties, Cromwell's officers used to assemble and pray alternatively for hours, for days, till some definite resolution arose among them. Consider that - in tears, in fervent prayers, and cries to the great God to have pity on them, to make His light shine before them. A little band of Christian brothers, who had drawn the sword against a black, devouring world, they cried to God in their straits, in their extreme need, not to forsake the cause that was His. The light that now rose upon them, how could a human soul by any means get better light? To them it was as the shining of heaven's own splendour into the vast howling darkness."
Never before had the world seen such an army, whose "officers preached," and whose privates were constantly "busy in searching the Scriptures."
Major General Harrison, one of the most distinguished leaders, was a Baptist. To the cause of freedom his life had been given; and his death on the scaffold, on the return of Charles II., was that of a pious Christian hero. Ludlow, Tilburn, and Overton, the friend of Milton, and Col. Mason, the governor of the Isle of Jersey, were Baptists. And such was their increase and influence, that Baxter, the Presbyterian, complained that many of the soldiers became Baptists as a means of promotion. He laments, that "those who at first were but a few in the city and army, had, within three years, grown into a multitude." To them he traces the invasion of Scotland, the downfall of monarchy, and the establishment of a Republic. (Baxter's Works, xx. p. 255). In Cromwell's own family their influence was felt; and the genius of Milton shunned not to avow these sentiments. No wonder that Bunyan, who once served in the army against the king; not wonder that Baptists, generally, were the victims of hate and cruelty, from kings, bishops, and presbyters. They were, as their antagonist, Hawks, has said, "Republicans from principle." In the destruction of the throne of Charles, they were the principal actors. During that brief hour of freedom, they multiplied by thousands. But we must pass a little farther up the stream. To our inquiry - Where did the Baptist come from?
The confession or declaration of principles, to which reference has been made, was published during the reign of Charles I., in 1643. Thirty-two years previous, when the burning rage of Episcopal persecution was at its height, a similar avowal of their faith, a bold confession of their immortal principles, was published to the world. (Rippon's Register, No. 8). A reference to these Confessions of Faith often curls the lip of ignorance into a heartless sneer. But let the eye glance a moment on the situation of those who signed a sent forth these confessions; let their sorrows, their foes, the dangers menacing them, be seen, - and the man who does not honour the real heroism displayed in the fearless, outspoken avowal of their principles, is one destitute of the noble instincts of humanity.
A sublime scene was that, when, in the old hall in Philadelphia, with the roar of the British lion in their ears, feeble, and unorganized, and an ignominious death the certain consequence of defeat, man after man moved calmly forward and placed his name to that immortal document, the Declaration of Independence. Is there any comparison? Let us see.
THE BAPTISTS OF ENGLAND WERE POOR. Into their situation we can have an insight by an extract from a tract, put forth by one of them in 1613. A tract which, if we will reflect a moment, we will acknowledge to be a deep tone of sorrow, wrung from crushed, yet trusting, fearless hearts. The extract is from a little work published by Leonard Busher, citizen of London, entitled "A Plea for Liberty of Conscience, presented to King James." Busher, toward the close of his treatise, says:
"Another reason why so many good people are now deceived, is, because w that have most truth are persecuted, and therefore most poor; whereby we are unable to write and print, as we would, against the adversaries of truth. It is hard to get our daily bread with our weak bodies and feeble hands. How, then, should we have means to defray other charges, and to write and print? I have, through the help of God, out of his Word, made a scourage of small cords, whereby antichrist and his ministers might be driven out of the temple of God. Also a declaration of certain false translations in the New Testament. But I want wherewith to print and publish them. Therefore must they rest till the Lord seeth good to supply it."
Ah, poor Busher! And yet dare he and the Baptist of his day, three years after King James' version was sent forth, attempt to show up the false translations of our present version. Then, alas, they were too poor to print the corrections which truth required. But they did not and do not despair.
When Busher thus lifted his voice, the ashes of Edward Wightman were still being borne about by the winds; for, he was burned at the stake at Litchfield for being Baptist just three years before. He was charged with affirming "that the baptizing of infants is an abominable custom; that the Lord's Supper and baptism are not to be celebrated as they now are in the Church of England; and that Christianity is not wholly professed and preached in the Church of England, but only in part." For these, Episcopacy doomed him to death. It was the year 1612, April 11, that Wightman was sent to the stake; one year after James' version was given to the world. And that almost canonized head of the Episcopal church thus, in the name of Christ, authorized poor Wightman's death.
"Whereas, the reverend father in Christ, Richard by Divine providence, of Coventry and Litchfield, bishop, hath signified unto us, that he, judicially proceeding, according to the exigence of the ecclesiastical canons, and of the laws and customs of this our kingdom of England, against one Edward Wightman, of the parish of Burton-upon-Trent, in the diocese of Coventry and Litchfield, and upon the wicked heresies of Ebion, Cerinthus, Valentinian, Arius, Macedonius, Simon Magus, Manus, Manichees, Photinus, and of the ANABAPTISTS.
"We command thee, that thou cause the said Edward Wightman, being in thy custody, to be committed to the fire in some public and open place, below the city aforesaid, for the cause aforesaid, before the people; and the same Edward Wightman, in the same fire, cause really to be burned, in the detestation of the said crime; and for manifest example of other Christians, that they may not fall into the same crime. And this no ways omit, under the peril that shall follow thereon. ("Witnesses, etc., James, Rex.")
And the Episcopal historian, Dr. Fuller, a contemporary with these events, says: "God may seem well pleased with these seasonable severities."
It was in the midst of such circumstances as these: poor, calumniated, fined, banished, burned at the stake, that Baptists had the courage to make public confession of the truths they held, and for which they were ready to die. Fearlessly, without equivocation or compromise in the face of danger and death, they penned, they signed, they published, and circulated what they professed and confessed. Let heartless, faithless scoffers scoff at it and such as them. Their privilege to scoff was won by the blood of these men.
But we must take a few more hurried steps along the upward pathway. "In 1589, Dr. Some, an Episcopal writer of that day, "there were several Anabaptist conventicles in London and other places." This was in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, as the fires of Smithfield, which lit up the bloody reign of her sister Mary were dying out; and yet their slumbering flames were fed with the bodies of inoffensive Baptists, whose dooms were sealed by "the most Protestant virgin Queen."
A congregation of Baptists was discovered on Easter day without Aldergate, London, in 1570, seven and twenty of whom were taken and imprisoned, where they wasted and died in filthy dungeons. And during the same year John Wielmaker and Henry Torwoort were burned at Smithfield. (Hume, Crosby, Cobbett).
Passing by the years of Mary's reign, which were marked by the indiscriminate murders of Protestants, we may pause over the illustrious years of the young and pious Edward VI., in which the foundation of Episcopacy was laid; when kingcraft and priestcraft united to force upon Protestants a creed and a ritual still venerated and followed in America by the offshoots of that Antichristian hierarchy, Protestant Episcopacy and Methodist Episcopacy.
Cranmer, the father of English Episcopacy, ruled young Edward and England. "There were, at this time," says Fox, in his
Book of Martyrs, "numerous Anabaptists in England, who, with other errors, objected to infant baptism and to the manner of it, by sprinkling, instead of dipping. Among them was one George Van Parre. He had led a very exemplary life, and suffered with great composure of mind." He was burned to death. A Protestant inquisition was established in 1549, with Cranmer at its head, and hundreds of Baptists were the victims of its cruelty. Among these, an illustrious and heroic example will ever awaken the sympathies of mankind.
Joan Boucher, of Kent, was a female of illustrious character and family distinction. Her education was far beyond that of the most eminent of her country-women of her age. The commission was granted to the bishops to search out and apprehend the heretical Baptists. Joan was selected as an illustrious victim. She was tried before these Protestant bishops and condemned. The venerable archbishop who framed many of the prayers still read in the Episcopal and Methodist Churches brought the warrant to the youthful Edward to sign. He doubted, even declined. The bishop plied him with arguments and arts. The king still thought it was an instance of the same spirit of cruelty for which the Reformers condemned the Papists. But Papist and Protestant Episcopacies, through their ramifications, are one in origin, form, and tyranny. Edward was silenced, not convinced. With tears in his eyes, he signed the death warrant.
A year, within three days, transpired between her condemnation and death. Every effort was made to pervert her from the truth. At length, on the 2nd of May, 1550, she was bound to a stake in Smithfield, and died in fearless triumph. Her persecutors tried to sully her memory by attributing opinions to her which she never held. She was a Baptist; a member of the Baptist Church then existing at Canterbury, and which exists to this hour. Her memory is deathless, and the crime of her murder stains with blackness, and stamps FALSEHOOD on the front of Episcopacy.
We here approach those stirring times when society burst forth into new life; when the magic charm which wrapped Europe in the sleep of ages was broken, and the light of truth dawned like a new morning of creation on the world. Amid the struggle and the conflict of heart and mind, of truth with fiction, of the oppressed with tyrants, Baptists were everywhere mingling in the battle, foremost, fearless, numerous, in England, Spain, Germany, France, lifting up their voices, yielding up their lives; pleading for soul-freedom, and embalming it with their blood. The Reformation, a memorable milestone in the path of time, records ten thousand Baptist martyrdoms.
Did they originate in the great Protestant Reformation?
CHAPTER III
Century Sixteen
The Reformation
A pure Christianity is the glorious embodiment of soul freedom.
Adapted to the spiritual wants and immoral aspirations of the individual man; meeting him in his darkness with the clearness of its discoveries; meeting him in weakness with its transforming power; meeting him in wretchedness with consolation and refuge; coming in direct contact with the heart, and flashing in upon it a full sense of its sinfulness and responsibility, and breathing into the deep recesses of his being the breath of life and hope, it raises him to communion with the Eternal, as responsible and as free to worship God, so far as human agencies or interferences are concerned, as though no other being but himself dwelt upon the earth. Christianity, uncorrupted, presses upon man his personal, his individual relations to eternity, telling him to "work out his own salvation," and thus makes it a matter entirely between himself and his God.
Hence its announcement was not to kings or magistrates; to a convocation of rules or a hierarchy of priests. It chose no organized power as its oracle. It sanctioned no assumptions of human authority in spiritual concerns. Replete with blessings boundless and eternal, with all that could elevate and adorn a fallen humanity; shedding the light of truth on man’s ruin and redemption; unfolding the future and perfection of his being, and flinging an everbrightening radiance over the grandeur of his destiny, Christianity was and is her own revealer; her own oracle; attending herself the heaven-lit fires that burn upon her altar.
Passing by, without a word or a look of recognition, the exalted ranks of principalities and powers, thrones and dominions, she unvailed her beauty and whispered her message of mercy to the obscure, the despised, the pious poor. She visited the haunts of the people, and not the conclaves of priests or the palaces of kings. From the hill-tops, by the shepherds, her songs were first heard. Amid poverty in the manger she took up her abode. She uttered her voice in the streets, and in the fields, in the fisherman’s hut on the sea-shore, and in the chief places of concourse in the city. Leveling or ignoring all artificial distinctions, Christianity places each man on an equal platform before his Maker, equally dependent, equally responsible, and therefore equally free. This is the great conservative principle of human society, the freedom of the soul, a principle whose elements Christianity concentrates and proclaims.
Where, then, shall we expect to behold Christianity, robed in her pure forms, lifting her laureled brow and gathering up her trophies?
"Go walk where she hath been, and
see
The shining footprints of her deity,
And feel those godlike breathing in the air
Which mutely tell HER SPIRIT hath been there."
Truth flourishes where freedom is. On a fair field, single-handed against the serried hosts of error, her victory is sure.
Well, where did the truth flourish most? Let a foe to Baptists answer:
"In the times of general liberty this opinion (of Baptists) grew mightily." (Wall, ii, p. 317.)
Yes, in the times of general liberty it grew mightily; and even beneath the withering blast and fiery thunderbolts of despotism, though often riven, it could never be uprooted.
Such a time of general liberty was that glorious epoch known as the Protestant Reformation. Night had long wrapped in darkness and tyranny a sleeping world. Suddenly, as at the trump of God, men everywhere awoke and struggled to roll off the weight that was crushing them. Simultaneously in Germany, France, Switzerland, England, Spain, throughout Europe, mighty men rose up pleading for truth and freedom. But the history of the Reformation is known. Its results are all around us. Protestant Episcopacy, and that branch of it called Methodism, Presbyterianism through all its subdivisions, and Lutheranism, all Reformed or Protestant Churches, are the results of that mighty awakening and revolution. The Church of Rome they reformed. In it these Reformers were baptized, and its materials were used in the new formation.
And truly great men were these Reformers, these founders of the present Protestant Churches. From the monk of Wittemberg, from the valleys of the Alps, from the plains of France, the notes of soul-freedom rung forth. These notes were heard amid the mountain glens, in the forest depths, by thousands sheltered in remote obscurity, who came forth at the cheering call and owned themselves - BAPTISTS. Is this so? Let their opponents decide. Mosheim says this:
"The true origin of that sect which acquired the denomination of Anabaptists, by their administering anew the rite of baptism to those who came over to their communion, and derived that of Mennonites, from that famous man to whom they owe much of their present felicity, is hidden in the depths of antiquity, and is of consequence difficult to be ascertained. This uncertainty will not appear surprising when it is considered that this sect started up suddenly in several countries at the same point of time, under leaders of different talents and different intentions, and at the very period when the first contests of the Reformers with the Roman pontiffs drew the attention of the world, and employed all the pens of the learned in such a manner as to render all other objects and incidents almost matters of indifference."
(The Anabaptists) "not only considered themselves descendants of the Waldenses, who were so grievously oppressed and persecuted by the despotic heads of the Romish Church, but pretend, moreover, to be the purest offspring of the respectable sufferers, being equally opposed to all principles of rebellion on the one hand, and all suggestions of fanaticism on the other."
"It may be observed," continues Mosheim, "that they are not entirely in an error when they boast of their descent from the Waldenses, Petrobrussians, and other ancient sects, who are usually considered as witnesses of the truth in times of general darkness and superstition. Before the rise of Luther and Calvin, there lay concealed in almost all the countries of Europe, particularly in Bohemia, Monrovia, Switzerland, and Germany, many persons who adhered tenaciously to the doctrine, etc., which is the true source of all the peculiarities that are to be found in the religious doctrine and discipline of the Anabaptists." (Mosheim’s History of the Anabaptists, p. 490-1).
These words of the learned Pedobaptist historian we have given in full, for all ought to know them.
The Baptists "started up suddenly in several countries at the same point of time, at the very period the Reformers drew attention of the world." They came not from these Reformers, for they started up at the same point of time, and according to Mosheim, "they were not satisfied with the reformation proposed by Luther. They looked upon it as much beneath the sublimity of their views, and, consequently, undertook a more perfect reformation; or, to express more properly their visionary enterprise, they proposed to found a true church, entirely spiritual, and truly divine." (Mosheim’s History of the Anabaptists, p. 492).
They did not commence with Menno Simon, for when first he attended the Anabaptist assemblies, says Mosheim, he was a Popish priest; "and not till 1536 did he throw off the mask and publicly embrace their communion." They came not from Rome. They had not received baptism from her priests, and attempted no reformation of her dead, corrupting form.
Where did these Baptists come from? The unchallenged words of Mosheim, already quoted, answer the question, "concealed in almost all the countries of Europe before the rise of Luther and Calvin." Let us illustrate his statement by a rapid glance at the places of their concealment.
England
In the year 1539, the thirteenth of the reign of Henry VIII, the following enactment was promulgated:
"That those who are in any error, as Sacramentarians, Anabaptists, or any others that sell books having such opinions in them, once known, both the books and such persons shall be detected and disclosed immediately to the king’s majesty, or one of his privy council, to the intent to have it punished without favor, even with the extremity of the law." (Fox’s Martyrs, vol., ii, p. 440).
This was soon after the bands which attached Henry to Rome were severed. It was the first dawn of the Protestant Reformation in England. Henry had divorced Catharine, and married Anne Boleyn. The effects of his quarrel with Rome emboldened the Baptists to leave their hiding-places, "and," says, Fox, speaking of the influence of Anne Boleyn over Henry, "we read of no persecution nor any abjuration to have been in the Church of England, save only that the Registers of London make mention of certain Anabaptists, of whom ten were put to death in sundry places of the realm, A.D. 1535; other ten repented and were saved." (Martyrology, p. 956, Ed. 2).
Here, then, were Baptists coming out from their concealment at the very first dim dawn of the Reformation, when Henry first broke with the Pope, because he would not grant him a divorce from Queen Catharine. The following year a convocation sat, and, after some matters relating to the king’s divorce had been debated, the lower house presented to the upper house a list of religious heresies which prevailed in the realm, specifying those of the Anabaptists. Among its items are:
"1. Infants must needs be christened, because they are born in original sin, which sin must needs be remitted, and which only can be done in the sacrament of baptism.
"2. That children or men once baptized, can or ought never to be baptized again.
"3. That they ought to repute and take all the Anabaptists, and every man’s opinion agreeing with said Anabaptists, for detestable heresies and utterly to be condemned." (Dr. Wall, vol. ii, p. 309).
The truth, like an over-burning altar fire, thus lived unquenchable in concealment, "or," as says the persecuting Dr. Featly, who wrote against the Anabaptists in 1645, "if it broke out at any time, by the care of the ecclesiastical and civil magistrates, it was soon put out. But of late this sect has rebaptized hundreds of men and women together, in the twilight, in rivulets and some arms of the river Thames." (Ibid, Infant Bap., vol. ii, p. 316).
"They were found," says Bishop Burnett, "in almost every town and village in England." "They were emboldened," says Durham, as quoted by Dr. Wall, "and their great increase is accounted for by the partial toleration in religion."
The fact stated by Mosheim is thus verified: Baptists lay concealed in almost all the countries of Europe before the rise of Luther and Calvin. They lay concealed in thousands in England, and came forth at the first note of partial freedom.
Where, then, did the Baptists come from?
CHAPTER IV
Century Fifteen
Wales
The vale of Carleon is situated between England and the mountainous parts of Wales, just at the foot of the mountains. It was for centuries the Piedmont of the Welsh. The Welsh Alps, Mount Merthyn and Tydfyl, the recesses and caverns, were the hiding-places of Christ’s lambs. In this vale, as in other portions of Wales, the ordinances of Christ had been administered since the time of the Apostles. So soon as the Reformation occurred in England, and spread into Wales, communication was at once opened between the obscure followers of Christ in the mountain fortresses, and the awakened clergy of the establishment. Of the latter, three distinguished men adopted the sentiments held by those Welsh heretics, who claimed descent from the Apostles. Their names were Perry, Wroth and Ebury. These henceforth were called the Baptist Reformers, because they were of the Reformation, and had joined with the Baptists. We will now let the History of the Welsh Baptists present the facts in the case:
"It is no wonder that Perry, Wroth, and Ebury, commonly called the first Baptist Reformers in Wales, should have so many followers at once, when we consider that the field of their labors was the vale of Carleon and its vicinity. As they were learned men belonging to that religion established by law, and particularly as they left that establishment and joined the poor Baptists, their names are handed down to posterity, not only by their friends, but also by their foes, because more notice was taken of them than of those scattered Baptists on the mountains of the principality (Wales). If this denomination had existed in the country since the year 63, and so severely persecuted, it must be, by this time, an old thing. But the men who left the Popish establishment were the chief objects of their rage, particularly as they headed the sect everywhere spoken against, and recognized Baptist Churches. The vale Olchon, also, is situated between mountains almost inaccessible. How many hundred years it had been inhabited by Baptists before William Ebury, it is impossible to tell. It is a fact that can not be controverted, that there were Baptists here at the commencement of the Reformation; and no man upon earth can tell when the church was formed, and who began to baptize in this little Piedmont. Whence came these Baptists? It is universally thought to be the oldest church, but how old none can tell. We know that, at the separation, they had a minister named HOWELL VAUGHAN, quite a different sort of Baptist from Ebury, Wroth, Vavasor, Powell, and others, who had come out from the Established Church. And this is not to be wondered at; for they had dissented from the Church of England, and had, probably, brought some of her corruptions with them. But the mountain Baptists were not (Protestants or) dissenters from the establishment. We know the Reformers were for mixed communion, but the Olcan received no such practice." (Thomas’s History Welsh Baptists. Also Hist. W. B., by J. Dais, p. 17).
These are most conclusive evidences that William Tyndale, who translated the Bible into the English language, and the four books of Moses into the Welsh language, in 1536, was a Welsh Baptist of that plain, strict, apostolic order. He lived most of his time in Gloucester, England; but Llewellyn Tyndale and Hezekiah Tyndale were members of the Baptist Church in Abergavenny, South Wales. (Dais’s History Welsh Baptists, p.21). The text of Mosheim is thus fully illustrated by facts. Baptists lay concealed in almost all the countries of Europe before the rise of Calvin and Luther.
Bohemia
A deep forest, extending three hundred miles in length, and two hundred in breadth, was, in the days of Roman triumph, settled by a tribe of Celts called Boii, who fled to its shelter to avoid the Roman yoke. Hence the word "Bohemia," under which are now included the countries of Silesia and Moravia. A short time before the birth of Christ, Caesar described this Hercynian Forest thus:
"It is nine day’s journey over. It begins on the confines of the Helvetii, Nemetes, and Rauraci, (that is, Switzerland, Basil, and Spires,) and extends along the Danube to the borders of the Daci and Anartes, (that is, Transylvania,) there turning from the river to the left, it runs through an infinite number of countries.No one could ever yet come to the end of it or know its utmost extent, though some have gone sixty days’ journey into it."
This was the Hercynian Forest, of which the Black Forest was then a part. Amid its depths, Paul tells us he preached the gospel of Christ, and it tribes were visited by Titus. (Rom. XV:19, 28; 2 Tim. iv:16). In this wilderness, before the rise of Luther, Mosheim tells us, were Baptists. Thousands of them claim to have been sheltered there in the wilderness from the wrath of the dragon. Is it true? In 1519, six years before Luther appeared before the Diet of Worms, a letter was addressed to Erasmus from Bohemia, thus describing this people:
"These men have no other opinion of the Pope, cardinals, bishops, and other clergy than of manifest Antichrists. They call the Pope sometimes the beast, and sometimes the whore, mentioned in the Revelation. Their own bishops and priests, they themselves do choose for themselves, ignorant and unlearned laymen, that have wife and children. They mutually salute one another by the name of brother and sister. They own no other authority than the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament. They slight all the doctors, both ancient and modern, and give no regard to their doctrine. Their priests, when they celebrate the offices of mass, (or communion,) do it without any priestly garments; nor do they use any prayer, or collects on this occasion, but only the Lord’s Prayer, by which they consecrate bread that has been leavened. They believe, or own little or nothing of the sacraments of the church. Such as come over to their sect, must every one be baptized anew in mere water. They make no blessing of salt, nor of water; nor make any use of consecrated oil. They believe nothing of divinity in the sacrament of the eucharist; only that the consecrated bread and wine do, by some occult signs, represent the death of Christ; and, accordingly, that all that do knee down to it, or worship, are guilty of idolatry; that that sacrament was instituted by Christ to no other purpose but to renew the memory of his passion, and not to be carried about or held up by the priests to be gazed on. For Christ himself, who is to be adored and worshipped with the honor of Latreia, sits at the right of God, as the Christian Church confesses in the Creed. Prayers to saints, and for the dead, they count a vain and ridiculous thing; as likewise auricular confession and penance enjoined by the priest for sins. Eves and fast-days are, they say, a mockery and disguise of hypocrites."
Every word in this description points out Baptists. Two of these brethren waited on Erasmus at Antwerp, to congratulate him on his bold statements of truth. He declined their congratulations, and reproached them as Anabaptists. (Adversarii nobis hunc titulum-ie., Anabaptistarum, Apud Lydium. Robinson’s Researches, p. 506). Luther and the German Reformers, whom they joyfully welcomed into the light, turned from them with antipathy and cheerlessly they returned to their concealment in the depths of their native forests to tell their brethren "They are adverse to us because of our name - i.e. Anabaptists." (Erasmus’s Answer is in Camerarus de Eccl. Fratrum, p. 125). They acknowledged the charge; they owned themselves Baptists. But their concealment, their principles, and their numbers were known. Entreaty, sophistry, and threats were used in vain to influence, pervert, or intimidate them. They appealed to God’s word, and were unwavering.
Their destruction was planned and brutally executed. An edict for their banishment was obtained from the Emperor, and Protestants and Catholics rejoiced in its enforcement. About forty thousand Baptists were proscribed. His majesty, in the edict, expresses his astonishment at the number of Anabaptists, and his horror at their principal error, which was, that they would submit to no human authority on matters of religion. The edict was published just three weeks before the harvest and vintage came on, that these poor people might not be able to carry away the produce of their toil. Their lands were to be forfeited to the emperor, and they banished to beggary. And three weeks after the proclamation of the edict, death would be inflicted on any of them found in the borders of the country. (Carafa, p. 133, quoted by Robinson in Researches).
And thus is the scene described:
"It was autumn, the prospect and the pride of husbandmen. Heaven had smiled on their honest labors. Their fields stood thick with corn; and the sun and the dew were improving every moment to give them their last polish. The yellow ears waved an homage to their owners; and the wind, whistling through the stems and the russet herbage, softly said, Put in the sickle, the harvest is come. Their luxuriant vine leaves, too, hung aloft by the tendrils, mantling over the clustering grapes, like watchful parents over their tender offspring; but all were fenced by an imperial edict, and it was instant death to approach. Without leaving one murmur upon record, in solemn, silent submission to the power that governs the universe and causes all things to work together for good to his creatures, they packed up and departed. In several hundred carriages they conveyed their sick, the innocent infants sucking at the breasts of their mothers who had newly lain-in, and their decrepit parents, whose work was done, and who silvery locks told every beholder that they wanted only the favor of a grave. At the borders they filed off, some to Hungary, others to Transylvania, some to Wallachia, others to Poland and Sach-hel-greater, far greater for their virtue, than Ferdinand for all his titles and for all his glory."
Ah, me! what a sad pilgrimage was that! Sad! No; it was sublime. And when the triumphal march of bannered legions, flushed with victory and crowned with glory, shall have been forgotten, the memory of these men, their pilgrimage, their tears, their sublime, trusting silence will be held in everlasting remembrance. Bohemian Baptists, forty thousand of them, who sent messengers to cheer the German Reformers at the first dawn of the Reformation; who lay concealed in the dark forests of Dalmatia, "before the rise of Calvin and Luther." Where did they come from?
Germany
Luther, in his strugglings into light, had boldly written at the commencement of his career as a Reformer, these words:
"The term ‘baptism’ is Greek, and may be rendered ‘dipping,’ as when we dip anything all over, so that it is covered all over; and although the custom is now abolished among many, (for they do not dip children, but only pour on a little water,) yet they ought to be wholly immersed, and immediately taken out; the etymology of the word seems to require this. The Germans call baptism tauff from tieff, depth, signifying that to baptize is to plunge into the depth. And, indeed, if we consider the design of baptism, we shall see that this is requisite." (Luther, De Pedobaptism, p. 71).
He had also said:
"If you receive the sacraments without faith, you bring yourselves into great difficulty, for we oppose against your practice the saying of Christ, ‘He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved.’" (Luther’s Works, tome vii).
What wonder that from their concealment came forth the banished, enfeebled, downtrodden Baptists, to hail him as a brother. And so they did. "The drooping spirits of these people," says Mosheim, "who had been dispersed through many countries, and persecuted everywhere, were revived when they were informed of Luther’s course. Then they spoke with openness and freedom." But some years afterward he became their foe, and notwithstanding what he had said about dipping, persecuted them as redippers or Anabaptists. Among these German Baptists was one MUNZER, on whose noble efforts to break the fetters of political slavery so much insult and falsehood have been heaped. But Munzer was a Popish priest. He followed Luther in his reforming projects. "Thomas Munzer," says D’Aubigné, "was not without talent. Certain mystical writings, which he had read in his youth, had given a false direction to his thoughts. He made his first appearance at Zwickau; quitted Wittemberg on Luther’s return thither; and, not willing to hold a secondary place in general esteem, became pastor of the small town of Alstadt." (D’Aubigné, vol. iii p. 148). He was then a reforming parish priest, and not till years after was he known or named as an Anabaptist. So that before Munzer left Rome and joined the political party engaged in the Munster Rebellion, Luther and Erasmus, as well as the Pope, had denounced and persecuted the thousands of Baptists scattered through Europe.
But of Poland we might speak; of Switzerland also, and the persecution there, of almost every country in Europe.
Is the statement of the Pedobaptist historian sustained? Let it be repeated: "Before the rise of Luther and Calvin there lay concealed in almost all the countries of Europe many persons who adhered tenaciously to the doctrines of the Anabaptists." Thousands upon thousands in the mountain fastnesses, amid the sheltered valleys of the Alps, in the deep forests of Illyricum, and the obscure glens of England, were Baptists. The torch of truth, which lit their places of concealment, revealing the blackness of the deep rayless night which surrounded them, flashed unnoticed into the cell of the hermit and the monk, and, under God’s guiding eye, directed priests and scholars to his holy word. That torch, which these Baptists had borne steadily aloft and handed down along their blood-tracked path, at length lit up the world in the blaze of splendor which burst forth at the Reformation! that became an epoch, a milestone, in the march of Christ’s witnesses. Beyond it, before it, we have found these witnesses, these Baptists. The inquiry again recurs, WHERE DO THESE BAPTISTS COME FROM?
Ahead to Chapter Five
Back to Chapter Three
To Topical Index of Baptist Doctrine
CHAPTER V
Century Fourteen
Wickliffe and the Lollards
A bright star rose on the darkness of the fourteenth century, and threw its light over Britain and the continent of Europe.
It was the darkest hour of that long night of Papal oppression. Over that darkness and dead silence, from the Avon to the Tiber, a sound went fort from Lutterworth; a light from the center of Britain. A memorable spot is that little village Richard III buckled on his armor for the battle of Bosworth field. Near it Wolsey fell, and with him the power of Popery in England. There, too, stands the memorable little ground of Naseby, where Cromwell and liberty triumphed over the defeated despot Charles.
Lutterworth! Associations cluster round it more potent in their influence than the clash of armies or the fall of kings. The lone voice that went forth from it. the light that gleamed from it in the fourteenth century are heard and felt still, must echo and beam through all time, and all eternity. It was the voice and light of truth, truth which once generated is immortal. Chains can not bind it; time can not weaken it. Eternal is its nature; eternity is its guardian. (Bancroft) John De Wickliffe, rector of Lutterworth, was the chosen instrument to announce that truth, and bear aloft that flame-torch through the world’s valley of the shadow of death.
On the banks of the Tee, in Yorkshire, John Wickliffe was born, in 1324. With Bradwordine, and Occam, and Dunn, and Scotus, the luminaries of the age, He passed his early manhood in Oxford University. He entered the clerical order, and beheld before him the highest honors in the "Church." But, like Luther God’s Word had found entrance into his soul, and. in obedience to its teaching he tore away from his heart the webs and wrappages of error which incased and deadened it. On, step by step, he struggled into light, until on the Bible and the Bible alone, he took his lime and defiant position. Among the principles he advocated were, that the church consisted only of believers, the saved; that baptism was a "sign of grace received before," and consequently should be administered to those only who professed to have received "grace."
"It was in 1371." says Walsingham, "that Dunn and Wickliffe read the accursed opinions of the Berengerians, one of which undoubtedly was the denial of infant baptism." (Neal’s History of the Puritans). Thomas Walden, who was familiar with his writings, called him "one of the seven heads that rose out of the pit, for he denied the baptism of infants, that Heresie of the Lollards of which he was so great a leader." And further, Wickliffe, in the eleventh chapter of his Trialogues, as quoted by Danvers, states that "believers are the only subjects of baptisms."
In his adherence to the Bible as is only rule of faith and practice; in his denial of grace or pardon communicated in baptism; in his rejection of infant and avowal of Christian baptism; and in his clear definition of a church as an assembly of baptized believers, WICKLIFFE WAS A BAPTIST. Among Baptist heroes and martyrs must his name be enrolled. As one of them was reviled while living, and, forty years after his peaceful death, his ashes were violated by the foes of truth.
But Wickliffe did not stand alone. Thousands were around him, and followed him. Branded, burned, and driven from the haunts of men, these Wickliffites, these Baptists, were found scattered throughout England. "They were as numerous," says Sir William Newbury, in his History of England, "as the sands of the sea."
Here, then, we have found these people in the midst of the fourteenth century. Where did these Baptists come from? Did they originate with Wickliffe? Did the "morning star" of the Reformation usher in the advent of the Baptists, Whose existence previously was not? Let us see. Milner, in his History of Christianity, says:
"The term ‘Lollard’ was affixed to those who professed a greater degree of attention to acts of piety and devotion than the rest of mankind. Of these, Walter Reynard, a Dutchman, was apprehended and burned at Cologne. This is he whom I have already called Reynard Lollard, in the account of the waldenses, and from whom the Wickliffites are supposed to have acquired the name of Lollards."
That these Lollards were Baptists is evident. The denial of infant baptism we have already seen was the "great heresie of the Lollards." In the Dutch Martyrology is an account of one L. Clifford, who was arraigned as a Lollard, and confessed and recanted, acknowledging that they renounced infant baptism. And Fox, in his Martyrology, has extracted from the register of the Bishop of Hereford, on of the charges of which the Lollards were found guilty, "that faith ought to precede baptism."
Of these Lollard Baptists was William Sawtre, the first name in that illustrious roll of martyrs who died for soul-freedom in Britain; and soon after, at the hour of midnight, one hundred of those down-trodden Christians assembled to worship god among the bushes of St. Giles, near London, hoping , at that hour and unfrequented place, to be free from detection and molestation, were tracked and murdered by the king and a troop of his courtiers.
Among the Lollards was one illustrious man of title, wealth, and courage. It was Sir John Oldcastle, Earl of Cobham. He was apprehended and brought to trial before the Bishops. He met them and their charge with fearless intrepidity. Nobly he avowed and advocated the doctrines which have distinguished Baptists in every age. Honor and preferment were before him if he would but recant; disgrace, ignominy, and death the reward of his steadfastness. He chose to be numbered with the scorned, down-trodden, vulgar Baptist; And confront shame and suffering, rather than abandon or betray the immortal principles that inspired them.
Faith, inwrought, heartfelt faith, shining, without a shadow into the depths of a man’s being, revealing the eternal verity of the thing believed, faith resting on a rock which the rush of a wrecked universe can not move, this is the soul of true heroism. There never was a hero without it. Dragged, amid insults, to Tyburn to be hung up by the waist and burned to death, his possessions confiscated, his family impoverished, his name cast out as evil, Sir John Oldcastle never wavered. this was the victory whereby he overcame the world, even his faith. In death he warned the people to follow nothing but the scriptures; prayed for his enemies, and exclaimed, "I die in triumph!"
And so he received the crown which celestial conquerors wear. Pity or regret found no place in the hearts of his sanctimonious murderers. "He was an Anabaptist." said Parsons the English Churchman, "and deserved to die as a traitor." (Dr. Thomas Fuller, Church History, vol. ii, p. 448).
"Not satisfied with his death," [ says Fox,] "the clergy induced the Parliament to make fresh statutes against the Lollards. It was enacted, among other things, that whosoever read the Scriptures in English, should forfeit lands, chattels, goods, and life, and be condemned as heretics, should be hanged for treason against the king, and then burned for heresy against god." (Fox, Acts and Monuments).
"No sooner was this act passed than a violent persecution was raise against the Lollards." (Ib., Book of Martyrs, p. 224).
In an old history of the Welsh Baptists are recorded the labors and sufferings of an intelligent, active Baptist layman, who, from Wales, passed into England in company with a preacher. His name was Walter Brute.
"While the Lord was employing the immortal Wickliffe to prepare his way in England, he remembered Wales in his tender mercy, and visited her with the dayspring on high. The pioneer in the cause of the Reformation in Wales was Walter Brute, who was a native of the principality, and who had been at Oxford, where he became acquainted with Wickliffe, with whom he formed an intimacy, and fully entered into his views respecting the reformation of the church. It is an old adage, that like begets like, which was verified in the case Brute. Having reflected on the pitiable condition of his countrymen, who were bewildered in the haze of ignorance, his heart was moved with compassion. He left the university, endowed with the principles, fortified with the intrepidity, and fired with the zeal of his colleague; and fully determined to resist the delusions and abominations of the secular church, even unto blood, he entered his native land, where he soon distinguished himself." Fox says, that Walter Brute was "eminent in learning, gifts, knowledge, zeal, and grace."
"He fearlessly sounded the trump of God throughout the land, until, in a few years, the huge temple of Antichrist began to crumble, and its gilded worshipers to tremble for their safety, As his weapons were those of truth and righteousness, and his cause the cause of God, his victory was certain, and he soon became instrumental in rescuing the prey from the mighty, and in delivering many lawful captives. His disinterestedness becoming generally known, and his labors of love appreciated, he found a number of steady friends among high and low. It may be supposed, that in traversing the country to preach the truth, and to seek the lost sheep of the house of Adam, that the established churches were closed against him; for we learn that he was preaching from house to house, and in the chief places of concourse and elsewhere, and conducting the worship of God with the greatest simplicity. He maintained that baptism was not necessary to salvation; and that it was to be administered to adults subsequently to conversion. And he frequently took occasion to protest against the doctrines and discipline of the Established Church. His zeal for the truth and his exposures of the Papacy, soon elicited the hostility of the clergy, and fixed upon him all the envy of the sons of the Church, in the prosecution of the heresiarch, Walter Brute, whose words the land was not able to bear. The insolence, oppression, and exsquires of the clergy had become quite intolerable to the lords and squires, whose hereditary high-mindedness would not suffer the sons of Levi to surpass them in authority or splendor. Many of the great congratulated Brute in putting a check to the clergy from no other principles than those of personal interest and envy; and gladly availed themselves of the opportunity to chastise their powerful rivals. Besides, the Reformation had so extensively prevailed among all ranks, that some of the great and nobles were pious reformers, and others were impelled to yield to the force of public opinion,
Arrested and brought before the Bishop of Herefordshire, he confounded his adversaries by his fearlessness and acquaintance with the Scriptures. In the account of his trial, recorded by fox, is his written answer to the Bishop:
"In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, I, Walter Brute, sinner, Layman, husbandman, and Christian, having my offspring of Britons, have been accused to the Bishhop of Herefordshire that I did err in matters of Christian faith, by whom I am required that I should give a written answer.
"If any man of any state or sect whatever, will show me that I err in my writings or sayings, by the authority of the sacred Scriptures, or a probable reason grounded thereon, I will gladly receive his information. But as for the bare words of any teacher, (Christ only excepted,) I will not simply believe, unless he shall be able to establish them by the truth of experience, and the example of God’s Word."
Such was the fearless denial of Episcopal and church teachings which Baptists dared to utter centuries before Luther was born, and which is their leading characteristic still. Walter Brute was condemned as an Anabaptist.
But from the ten thousand sufferers of the poor Lollards we must pass. there still stands at this hour the gloomy monument of their miseries on the banks of the Thames, the Lollards Tower at Lambert Palace, London. Fitted up as the palace of their torture by the Bishop of Canterbury, in 1414, it stands there a witness to the triumph of truth. It speaks with an awful, yet prophetic eloquence, of the future of the Baptists.
But still the question occurs, these Baptists, Lollards, Wickliffites, Whence came they? Was Wickliffe, then, their father and founder?
It must be remembered that Wickliffe was denominated by his persecutors, "The leader of the Lollards." It is evident that thousands of these Lollards hailed him as a great light, whom God had raised up and sent forth amid the darkness. that he adopted their principles, and became one of them, there is little doubt. but why were they called Lollards? Now Mosheim, with whom there is a general agreement among historians, states tat "Walter, a Dutchman of remarkable eloquence, and famous for his writings, who came from Mentz to Cologne, was burned there in 1322." (History, p. 356) Fuller and Perrin state that he came to England in the reign of Edward III. "from the Waldenses, among whom he was a great barb or pastor." That this man’s name was Walter Reynard is most evident, and, "Lollard," a term of reproach, was given to him and his brethren because they were accustomed to sing psalms and hymns. Abelly says the word is derived from loben, "to praise," and herr, "Lord." But, however this may be, the fact is unchallenged, that Walter the Lollard, a shining light in the midnight of Papal darkness, after passing from country to country, lifting his eloquent voice and scattering over the wintery seed-fields the germs of truth, passed trough England to build up the scattered flock of Christ there, and then breathed out his great soul amid the fires of martyrdom, before John wickliffe was born.
That this Walter Lollard was a Baptist in unquestionable. He came from the Waldensian Baptists to England, and found Baptists there, who were welcomed this eloquent teacher among them, may be traced to a still higher date. At the time when the Norman nobles of William the Conqueror were crushing out the spirit, the language, and nationality of Englishmen; when a foreign priesthood and a foreign tongue were forced by cruel edicts upon the prostrate Saxons, there were those who still dared to avow their deathless attachment to the simple truths and ordinances of primitive Christianity. During the reigns of William and his son Rufus, they were subjected to insults and persecutions, and were denounced by the imported Popish Bishop, Lanfrank, of Canterbury. (Fuller, Ecclesiastical History, vol. I). Gascony and Guienne, the domains of the Dude of Normandy, were, at the conquest, attached to England. The intercourse between the latter and the Pyrenean mountains, became general and intimate. "In Gascony the heretics, says the old monkish historian, Sir William Newbury, "were as numerous as the sands of the sea." A company of these Baptists were found in England in the tenth century, and is thus described by Henry in his history of Great Britain, which in substance, corresponds with Napier, Collier, and Lyttleton:
A company of about thirty men and women attracted the attention of the government by the singularity of their religious practices and opinions. They were apprehended and brought before the Council of the Clergy at Oxford. Being interrogated about their religion, their teacher, named Gerard, a man of learning, announced in their name, that they were Christians, and believed the doctrines of the apostles. Upon a more particular inquiry, it was found that they denied several of the received doctrines of the church, and, refusing to abandon their damnable heresies. they were condemned as incorrigible heretics, and delivered to the secular arm to be punished. The king, ( Henry II,) at the instigation of the clergy, commanded them to be branded with red-hot iron on their foreheads, whipped through the streets of Oxford, and having their clothes cut short at their girdles, to be turned into the open fields, all persons being forbidden to afford them shelter or relief under the severest penalties. This cruel sentence was executed with the utmost rigor, and it being the depth of winter, all these unhappy persons wee pressed with cold and hunger."
A further account of these people and their treacherous treatment, is found in the Dutch Martyrology, or " Martyr’s Mirror," (This rare book is in the Jesuit’s College of St. Louis) which places the date in 1161, and gives abundant evidence that they were Baptists. Their leader was branded on the forehead and chin, and, as they were driven, bleeding and naked, out into the wintery fields to die, he raided his voice in triumph, singing,
"Blessed are ye when ye are hated,
Beaten, despised." etc.
But they did not all perish. There were among the crushed Saxons a hatred to their foreign oppressors, dings, and priests, and a common sympathy for those who suffered from Norman cruelty. The seed was scattered, and a half century afterward, Walter Lollard preached among these same Baptist, Waldenses of England.
The Lollards, The Wickliffites, the suffering, struggling pioneers of the Reformation, we have found them away up amid the darkness of the middle ages, found them weak, yet fearless; few, yet mighty; poor, yet powerful, sublime in their sufferings, and triumphant in their prostration. Baptists they were, whether represented by Wickliffe. or Lollard, or Gerard. Neither the power of man, nor the gates of hell could prevail against them.
But from the Lollards, and from England with it blessed and elevated by the truths they cherished, let us pass still upward, marking this or them as a milestone in the path of time.
‘In the year 1391, the king, wishing to show favor to the Church, issued a letter to the nobility of the Principality, in which he imperiously enjoined them to assist Dr. John Trevnant, Bishop of Hereford, in apprehending and punishing Walter Brute and his adherents."Evans Martyn’s Letter.
Ahead to Chapter Six
Back to Chapter Four
To Topical Index of Baptist Doctrine
CHAPTER VI
Century Thirteen
Pete de Brue
"History is composed of innumerable biographies." At least it should be. We love to tread the path beaten out by human footsteps, and lit up by imperishable deeds. Men and their acts are the waymarks which make the road familiar; the travelers and their footprints give all its interest to the moss-grown pathway.
From the Baptists of England, who were scourged and driven forth into the wintery fields to die, we ascend a step higher. Let us travel back the path they came. We shall let Dr. Wall, in his very opposition to Baptists, tell:
"William of Newburg, who lived then in England, describes some of these men by the name of Publicani, and by their being Gascoigners; and says, about thirty of them came out of Germany into England, under Henry II, about 1170, and being examined of their faith, they denied and detested holy baptism, the eucharist, and marriage. Foxe, out of Historia Gisburnensis, mentions the same men; and that the chief of them were Gerhardus and Dulcinus Navarensis. He gives no account of any opinion they had against baptism. But Holinshead says, they derogated from the sacraments such grace as the church, by her authority, had then ascribed to them." (Wall, his Infant Baptism, vol.ii, p. 264. As quotations from a multitude of authors confuse, I shall confine myself principally to Wall, Oxford edition, 1835, or new American edition,1860.)
Gascony was in the south of France, not far from the Pyrenees, those mountain walls which divide France from Spain. Here the same historian, Newburg, says: "These heretics were as numerous as the sands of the sea." They were called sometimes Albigenses, and sometimes Waldenses; this later word meaning simply, dwellers in valleys. Of these French Baptists, who passed from Gascony to England, Wall says:
"But the more exact accounts, and particularly Mr. Limborch’s history of the inquisition, do distinguish the Waldenses from the Albigenses, both as to their tenets and their places of abode. And it is, I thin, only among the latter that any Antipedobaptists were found. As FRANCE WAS THE FIRST COUNTRY in Christendom were dipping of children was left off, so there FIRST ANTIPEDOBAPTISM BEGAN." (Wall, his Infant Baptism, vol. ii, p. 239).
Or more truly, according to this admission of a champion of infant baptism in France, whose emperor gave power to the beast, the superstition of infant sprinkling was first introduced, and "dipping left off." and, consequently, there the followers of Christ first displayed their uncompromising opposition to the corrupting rites. Yes, where sprinkling was first introduced, Antipedobaptists are first found. When was that? Not in apostolic days. Wall admits it was in beautiful, degraded France. When was it? Date it when you may, and then, and there, you must date the determined opposition to it in the land that gave it birth. These Albigeses, then so numerous in Gascony, were Baptists. But Wall shall speak again:
" First, one Evervinus, of the diocese of Cologne, a little before the year 1140, writes to St. Bernard a letter, (which is lately brought to light by F. Mabillon, Analect, tom.iii,) giving him an account of two sorts of heretics lately discovered in that country. One sort were, by his description, perfect Manichees. Of the other sort he says:
" ‘they condemn the sacraments, except baptism only; and this only in those who are come to age, who, they say, are baptized by Christ himself, whoever be the minister of the sacraments. They don believe infant baptism. alleging that place of the Gospel: He that believeth and is baptized, etc. All marriage they call fornication, except that which is between two virgins,’ etc.
"Then at the year 1146, Peter, abbot of Clugny, writing against one Peter Bruis, and one Henry, his disciple, and their associates. charges them with six errors, the first of which was their denial of infant baptism. The other five were:
" ‘2. That churches ought not be built; and if built, ought to be pulled down.’
"If we were to credit all the reports that come now from France, the Cevennois would seem to of this opinion, by their destroying so many churches; but I hope that those reports are not true.: (These are Wall’s own words).
"He also says, that they were reported to renounce all the Old Testament, and all the New, except the four Gospels.’ but this he was not sure of; and would not impute it to them, for fear he might slander them. So it appears that he did not certainly know what they held. Yet, to make his proofs unquestionable, he first proved the truth of the Acts of the Apostles and the Epistles, by their agreement with the Gospels; and then the Old Testament by the New. And then out of the whole proceeds to refute their tenets, bestowing a chapter on each. the first of them was, as I said against infant baptism, and is thus expressed:
"The first proposition of the new heretics. They say:
" ‘Christ sending his disciples to preach, says in the Gospel: Go ye out into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature. He that believeth and is baptized, shall be saved; but e that believeth not shall be damned From these words of our Savior, it is plain that none can be saved unless he believe and be baptized; that is, have both Christian faith and baptism.
""’It is therefore and idle and vain thing for you to wash persons with water, at such a time when you may indeed cleanse their kin from dirt in a human manner, but not purge their souls from sins. But we do stay till the proper time of faith; and when a person is capable to know his God, and believe in Him; then we do (not as your charge us, rebaptize him, but) baptize him.’
"This is, as to the practice, perfectly agreeable with the modern Antipedobaptists; but, as Cassander observes, it is upon quite contrary grounds. For the Antipedobaptists now do generally hold, that all that die infants, baptized or not, of Christian or of heathen parents, are saved; and so it is needless to baptize them; whereas, these held that, baptized or not, they could not be saved; and so it was to no purpose to baptize them. And this writer does accordingly spend most of the chapter, which is in answer to this tenet of theirs, proving that infants, as well as grown men, are capable of the kingdom.
" ‘ Abate,’ says he, ‘of that overmuch severity which you have taken upon you, and do not exclude infants from the kingdom of heaven, of whom Christ says, Of such is the kingdom of heaven.’
"It is to be noted," continues Wall, "that this author speaks of this opinion as then lately set on foot; and says, it might have seemed to need or deserve confutation, ‘ were it not that it had now continued twenty years. that the first seeds of it wee sown by Peter de Bruis,’ (who was living when the book was written, but put to death before it was published, of which mention is mad in the preface). It was first vented in the mountainous country of Dauphine, and had there some followers; from whence, being in good measure expelled, it had got footing in Gascony, and the parts about Toulouse, being propagated by Henry, who was a Disciple and successor of the said Peter.
"This writer aggravates this charge of novelty by urging that if baptism, given in infancy, be null and void, as they pretend,
" ‘Then all the world has been blind hitherto, and by baptizing infants for above a thousand years, has given but a mock baptism, and made but fantastical Christians, etc. and, whereas, all France, Spain, Germany, Italy, and all Europe, has had never a person now for tree hundred or almost five hundred years baptized otherwise than in infancy, it has ad never a Christian in it.’"
It must be remembered that the foregoing citations were mad by Wall writing against the Baptists, and are quoted from Papist persecutors, who wrote for the purpose of arousing the vengeance of the church against these water heretics. No wonder that the rejection of infant baptism was slanderously construed into a denial of infant salvation, when the Papist joined the two together as inseparable. but that these heretics believed in a converted church membership, in believers’ baptism only, and in local church independency, is most evident from the character of the reproaches and calumnies of their foes, which is and must be recognized by all who regard his word. It has been the question of the ages; it is pre-eminently the question of this age.
If any proof were needed, it is abundant. These men were Baptists. The Jesuit Gretzer after describing this ancient sect, says: "This is a picture of the heretics of our own day, especially the Anabaptist." "to say honestly what I think," writes the celebrated Limborch, of all the modern sects, the Dutch Baptists most resembles the Albigenses and Waldenses." "The Baptists are not entirely in error." says Mosheim, "when they boast their descent from the Waldenses, petrobrussians , and other Ancient sects, who are usually considered witnesses for truth in the time of general darkness and superstition."
No, we are not entirely in error, even according to our ancient and present foes. "Witnesses for the truth in the times of general darkness," our elder brethren have ever been. Noble brotherhood! Poor, simple down-trodden were ye; but boldly, amid gloom and blood, ye stood forth, witnesses for the truth. Baptists they have an ancestry around whom associations cluster, eclipsing the triumphs of all earth’s chivalry. Baptists, O! that the earnest, death-defying devotion of their forefathers still were theirs.
The Baptists who came from the regions of the Pyrenees to England, were called Wickliffites and Lollards. We have traced them to Gascony, where they were called by the names already given from Wall, Henricians, Petrobrussians, and Arnoldists. Of these men we shall now speak.
WHAT IS BAPTISM? Has this word no meaning to it? Why, then, is not that meaning discovered and its requirement followed? What a blessing to the world were this question settled, and put forever at rest.
Ahead to Chapter Seven
Back to Chapter Five
To Topical Index of Baptist Doctrine
CHAPTER VII
Century Twelve
Henry of Lausanne
In the beautiful city of Lausanne, surrounded by the towering Alps, the sheltering homes of God’s hidden ones, an Italian hermit learned the simple truths of the gospel. The idleness of the hermit was at once exchanged for the armor and the toil of an embassador of Christ. To the dwellers in those valleys he broke the bread of life; and over those mountain peaks he passed, bringing glad tidings to beautiful, yet darkened France. From Mans, from Poictiers, from Bordeaux, he was successively banished, after what victories or defeats we know not. Of martial valor, of deeds of chivalry performed on those same spots, we have many a glowing record. What would we not give to know the words and acts of this simple gospel preacher, as he passed through those proud old cities, with their grim castles and splendid cathedrals, and glorious recollections of heraldry and conquest looming up in the Gothic twilight of that age. But like the apostolic record, which notes the entrance of Paul into Philippi, where the beauties of Grecian art, column, and statue, and temple, robed in the autumnal charms of a vicious loveliness, surrounded him on every side, one fact only has importance sufficient for enduring record: "There they preached the Gospel." So of Henry. More than this we know not.
"He passed through these cities, exercising his ministerial function with the utmost applause of the people, and disclaiming with vehemence and fervor against the superstitions they had introduced into the Christian Church." (Mosheim, p. 289).
"We have no satisfactory account," adds Mosheim, "of the doctrines of this man; we merely know that he censured the baptism of infants, and the corrupt manners of the clergy."
But we have a satisfactory account of his doctrines, given even by Mosheim himself, and more especially by Wall. Henry was a Baptist, believing in the spirituality of Christ’s kingdom, the supreme authority of Christ as king, and the immersion of true believers.
In the old and melancholy city of Toulouse, where four thousand heretics were burned during a century, the hero hermit, Henry, lifted his voice, "cried aloud, and spared not." Toulouse, from whose cathedral summits are seen the mingling streams of the Çervennes and the Tarn, sweeping on through the beautiful vale of the Garonne; and in the obscure distance of the Pyrenees, rearing their silvered heads to heaven, as though inviting to their mountain fastnesses the shorn lambs of Christ’s fold; Toulouse, in the darkness and stillness of its death-sleep, was suddenly convulsed by the embodied power and wisdom of God, the gospel.
The clergy woke to the danger of their craft. His opposition to their human dogmas, their splendid buildings, their vestments, instrumental music, the whole train of priestly wrappages, brought down their vengeance on the daring innovator. The great Saint Bernard, we have seen, thundered out his maledictions, and poor Henry, driven from Toulouse, fled to the mountains, was pursued, and brought before a council at Rheins. This was in 1158.... He held that the church was a spiritual body composed of regenerated persons. He also held that no person should be baptized until he knew he was saved. He rejected infant baptism. He denied that children, before they reach the years of understanding, can be saved by receiving baptism. So great was this man’s influence that whole congregations left the Romish churches and joined with him.
Because of his plain and powerful preaching he was compelled to flee for his life, but was finally arrested and committed to prison at Rheins where he finished his life.
Peter de Bruis (Bruys)
"Peter de Bruis made the most laudable attempts to reform the abuses and to remove the superstitions that disfigured the beautiful simplicity of the gospel; but, after having engaged in his cause a great number of followers, during a laborious ministry of twenty years, he was burned at St. Giles’s, in the year 1130, by an enraged populace, instigated by the clergy, whose traffic was in danger from the enterprising spirit of this reformer. The whole system of doctrine, which this unhappy martyr, whose zeal was not without a considerable mixture of fanaticism, taught to the Petrobrussians (a name by which his followers were called) is not known." ... He held to the same principles as Baptists of today. He rejected infant baptism, and baptismal regeneration. He condemned the doctrines of the popes, that the real body and blood of Christ were exhibited in the Eucharist, but taught that they were merely represented or symbolized by the embles used. He taught that the oblations, prayers, and good works of the living, could be in no respect advantageous to the dead. After a laborious ministry of twenty years, he was burned in 1130, by an enraged populace set on by the clergy, whose traffic was in danger from the enterprising spirit of this great and powerful preacher.
Arnold of Brescia
Arnold, early in life, traveled from his native Italy into France, (Chapter v, p. 289) and became a pupil of the celebrated Abelard. In France he imbibed the spirit of soul-freedom, and received into his heart the light of the gospel. He returned to his native city in the habit of a monk; and began to preach that gospel in the streets of Brescia. The people were melted and roused beneath his fiery appeals. The clergy were alarmed, and in the Council of Lateran condemned him to perpetual silence. This was in 1139. Arnold fled to the wilderness, and in the valley of the Alps found shelter among kindred spirits. He was soon found proclaiming the truth in the Canton of Zurich, where Zwingle afterward appeared. Conspiracies were formed against him. The whole power of Rome was directed to his overthrow and ruin.
We can not contemplate the lion courage of Luther at Worms without emotions of enthusiastic admiration. The admiration is just. And yet the intrepidity of Arnold, fully equal to it, if not superior, is seldom mentioned. A lone man, in a still darker age, unsupported by the presence and sympathy of princes, as Luther was, he breasted and