GRACE BAPTIST CHURCH
THE ORIGIN OF
THE BAPTISTS
By
S. H. Ford
CHAPTER
VII
Century Twelve
Henry of Lausanne
Peter de Bruis
(Bruys)
Arnold of Brescia
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 ?ervennes 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
defied the whole thunderstorm of Rome. Driven from his shelter, he
passed the Alps, and planted himself in the midst of his foes,
entered Rome itself, and with the sublime example of his master
before him, as
"A gate of steel Fronting the sun receives
and renders back His figure and his heat"
He flashed the
light of truth in burning eloquence over the seven hills. (Gibbon,
vol. iii, p. 366) Freedom triumphed for the hour. Rome woke from the
slumber and slavery of ages. "But the fervor of the people is
less permanent than the resentment of the priest." The powers of
the clergy were again concentrated and directed against the preacher.
The heresy of Arnold was considered two-fold. "He dared,"
says Gibbon, "to quote the language of Christ, 'My kingdom is
not of this world', that the church was a distinct and spiritual
assembly of baptized believers; and, as a consequence, the heinous
crime was laid to his charge of rejecting infant baptism."
(Pr?ter h?c de sacramento ulterus et Baptismo parvulorum). He was a
Baptist. For holding just what Baptists now hold, and for no other
charge, "he was arrested, condemned, crucified, and then burned,
and his ashes thrown into the Tiber."
Well has Dr.
Brewster said, It is impossible not to admire the genius and
persevering intrepidity of Arnold. To distinguish truth from error in
an age of darkness, and to detect the causes of spiritual corruption
in the thickest atmosphere of ignorance and superstition, evinced a
mind of more than ordinary strength. To struggle against superstition
intrenched in power, to plant the standard of revolution on the very
heart of her empire, and keep possession of her capital a number of
years, could scarcely be expected from an individual who had no power
but that of his eloquence, and no assistance but that which he
derived from the justice of his cause. Yet such were the individual
exertions of Arnold, which posterity will appreciate as one of the
noblest legacies which former ages have bequeathed. Religious
freedom: it was not announced first by Roger William, nor Milton, nor
the Baptist in Germany. "The trumpet of liberty," says
Gibbon, "was first sounded by Arnold of Brescia." That
trumpet has been sounded by every true Baptist in every age. In its
defense have they ever suffered; yet in its defense they have ever
rallied. In its defense, the bleeding body of Arnold was immolated on
a burning pile.
But his memory lives, and even in Rome will
his name yet become a watchword of victory. The time will yet be,
when over the spot where the flame consumed him, will some monument
record his greatness and his virtue, when the power which has
trampled on human rights, and has rioted in human blood, with all its
corrupting inventions, shall have sunk, like the apocalyptic
millstone, in the deep, and no traces remain of the ruin it has
wrought.
We pass from these heroes of "the faith once
delivered to the saints." The Arnoldists, the Henricians, and
Petrobrussians we have found, and, by their enemies, showed them to
be Baptists. Did the Baptists originate with these men whose names
were transfixed to them? We shall pause in our journey, for we have
found they were Baptists; and their presence marks another milestone
in the path of time.