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