A PRIMER ON BAPTIST HISTORY AND IDENTITY

 A PRIMER ON BAPTIST HISTORY AND IDENTITY

Part of my Christian identity involves me being an independent Baptist. An independent Baptist (sometimes being referred to as “Independent Fundamental Baptist”) Church is a self-governing, Bible centered, soul-winning Church that is baptistic in its doctrine and practice. In other words, such a local Church is fully autonomous, has no external hierarchy, and is responsible and accountable only to God, while holding fast the Baptist distinctives. Though I am first and foremost a Christian, I am a Baptist in faith and practice. I am a Baptist for a few reasons, one being that I believe Baptist doctrine lines up perfectly with the teachings of Paul and the New Testament. The second reason being what Baptists stand for. Historically, Baptists have taken a firm and uncompromising stand for the truths of the word of God (many times resulting in their persecution, imprisonment, and martyrdom). The third reason is because of the rich heritage and history of the Baptist faith. I firmly believe that I can prove both biblically and historically that the Baptists predate the protestant reformation and can trace their roots back to the first century. Let me be clear, I am not saying that an independent Baptist Church is the “one true Church,” and that salvation can only be found in such a Church (like what Roman Catholics and the Church of Christ would say about themselves), that would be nonsense. If a man believes the gospel of the grace of God in his heart, then he is saved no matter what local Church or denomination he might be a part of (Acts 20:24; 1 Corinthians 15:1-4; Romans 10:9-10). It is clear that a man can be saved regardless of or despite what his Church teaches. Neither do I hold to the faulty and heretical position that the Baptist Church is the bride of Christ and all other Christians outside the Baptist Church are not the bride but only the body of Christ (the people who hold to this position are called “Baptist briders”). What I am saying is I believe that independent Baptists are the most in-line with the doctrine of Paul and the New Testament. 

With that being said, whole books like The Trail of Blood by J.M. Carroll and Ray’s Baptist Succession have been devoted to the subject of documenting the history of the Baptists and tracing their lineage from the first century through the present. Therefore, there is no doubt that my Baptist beliefs and principles came not from the reformation (like some ignorantly claim) but from the Bible and those of my Baptist forefathers in the faith that went before me. I believe it will suffice if I provide historical quotations from both the enemies (who have no agenda to make the Baptists look good) and friends of the Baptist faith. There is no better quote to start off with other than one from a Roman Catholic Cardinal (an arch enemy of the Baptists). Cardinal Hosius, the president of the Council of Trent (which pronounced “anathemas” on non-Catholics like the Baptists) said, “Were it not that the baptists have been grievously tormented and cut off with a knife during the past 1200 years, they would swarm in greater number than all the reformers” (Carroll 9). So, there is proof that the Baptists at least go as far back as the fourth century (and were being killed by Rome since then). The Swiss Reformer Ulrich Zwingli (who imprisoned and drowned Anabaptists) said, “The institution of Anabaptism is no novelty, but for thirteen hundred years has caused great disturbance in the church, and has acquired such a strength that the attempt in this age to contend with it appears futile for a time” (Christian 75). This time tracking the Baptists at least as far back as the third century. Heinrich Bullinger, the successor of Zwingli (who held the same anti-Baptist sentiments as his predecessor) once again testifies to and acknowledges the fact that the Baptists go back to the first few centuries saying, "Now, I think it not labour lost to speak somewhat of anabaptism. In the time that Decius (who lived from about A.D. 201-251) and Gallus Caesar were Emperors, there arose a question in the parts of Africa of rebaptising heretics; and St. Cyprian, and the rest of the Bishops, being assembled together in the council of Carthage, liked well of anabaptism... Against the Donatists St. Augustine, with other learned men, disputed (Bullinger 186, parenthesis mine).” What Bullinger is saying is that as early as the third century A.D. the apostate church opposed the anabaptists. John Clark Ridpath the American educator and historian (and a Methodist might I add) wrote, "I should not readily admit that there was a Baptist Church as far back as A.D. 100, although without doubt there were Baptists then, as all Christians were then Baptists" (Jarrel 59). Furthermore, none other than Sir Isaac Newton is quoted as saying, “The modern Baptists formerly called Anabaptists are the only people that never symbolized with the Papacy" (Jarrel 313). Newton is asserting that the Baptists are unique and that never in their history were they connected with the Roman Catholic Church. I, as well as many other Baptists, maintain that we existed prior to when the Catholic apostasy took place, existed contemporaneously with Catholicism after her formation, but always existed apart from Catholicism up to today. This is why it has been rightly stated that, chiefly, the term “Baptist” means Anti-Catholic. Mosheim, the Lutheran historian and Pedobaptist (or as I would say, “baby sprinkler’), says, “The true origin of that sect which acquired the name, ‘Anabaptists’ is hid in the remote depths of antiquity, and consequently difficult to be ascertained” (Goodrich 266). Once again, verifying the truth that Baptist are not protestants and that our origin is ancient. Dr. Dermont (the chaplain to the King of Holland) wrote, 

“We have now seen that the Baptists, who were formerly called Anabaptists, and in later times Mennonites, were the original Waldenses, and have long in the history of the church received the honor of that origin. On this account, the Baptists may be considered the only Christian community which has stood since the apostles and as a Christian society which has preserved pure the doctrines of the Gospel through all the ages” (Jones 42-43). 

Lastly, I will end with a quote from one of the most famous Baptist preachers who ever lived. Charles Spurgeon¹ said, 

“We believe that the Baptists are the original Christians. We did not commence our existence at the reformation, we were reformers before Luther or Calvin were born; we never came from the Church of Rome, for we were never in it, but we have an unbroken line up to the apostles themselves. We have always existed from the very days of Christ, and our principles, sometimes veiled and forgotten, like a river which may travel underground for a little season, have always had honest and holy adherents. Persecuted alike by Romanists and Protestants (which is thoroughly documented in David Cloud’s work, Protestant Persecution of Baptists) of almost every sect, yet there has never existed a Government holding Baptist principles which persecuted others; nor I believe any body of Baptists ever held it to be right to put the consciences of others under the control of man” (Spurgeon VII: 225,parenthesis mine). 

Twenty years later, that same Baptist preacher said the following:

“History has hitherto been written by our enemies, who never would have kept a single fact about us upon the record if they could have helped it, and yet it leaks out every now and then that certain poor people called Anabaptists were brought up for condemnation... Long before your Protestants were known of, these horrible Anabaptists, as they were unjustly called, were protesting for the ‘one Lord, one faith, and one baptism’” (Spurgeon XXVII: 249).

After twenty years of further study and ministry, the “prince of preachers” was still convinced of the Baptist perpetuity.

                                                                                                                                                                  

Works Cited

Bullinger, Henry. Sermons on the Sacraments. Cambridge University Press, 1840.

Carroll, James Milton. The Trail of Blood. The Bible Nation Society, 1931.

Christian, John Tyler. A History of the Baptists. Vol. 1, Bogard Press, 1922.

Goodrich, Charles Agustus. A History of the Church from the Birth of Christ to the Present 

Time. G. H. Salisbury, 1845.

Jarrel, W A. Baptist Church Perpetuity. Self-Published, 1894.

Jones, William. The History of the Christian Church. Vol. 1, Hartland Publications, 1997.

Spurgeon, Charles H. Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit. VII, Pilgrim Publications, 1861.

Spurgeon, Charles H. Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit. XXVII, Pilgrim Publications, 1861.

                                                                                                                                                                

¹Just because I have quoted Spurgeon here does not by any means indicate that I endorse him. Quite the contrary, while Spurgeon said some good things, as well as many questionable things, he was what many esteem as a "confused baptist." I believe that is an accurate description of what he was. While he knew that baptists predate the reformation he still fell for the heretical reformation doctrines of John Calvin, even to the extent of publishing a book in defense of the doctrines of calvinism.