GRACE BAPTIST CHURCH
THE ORIGIN OF
THE BAPTISTS
By
S. H. Ford
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?