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