GRACE BAPTIST CHURCH
THE
ORIGIN OF THE BAPTISTS
By
S. H. Ford
CHAPTER
XIV
Century Two
Tertullianists
Tertullianus
was born in Carthage, in the latter part of the second century. His
writings and his memory were fresh; and the churches which believed
and practiced as he did were numerous at the time of the rise of
Novatian and Novatus. They were scattered throughout Asia, Africa,
and Europe.
Of the learning, the ability, and the piety of
Tertullian, even the old Catholic historians speak in the highest
praise. his letters to the Emperor of Rome, and his defenses of
Christianity, are monuments of his learning and genius.
Like
the Novatians and Donatists, Tertullian beheld the innovations and
corruptions which were fast changing the spiritual character of the
churches into semi-Jewish organizations. He pleaded and protested
against the growing tendency, and, at length, with a minority,
withdrew from the Church at Carthage. This minority church continued
there, as similar churches did in other places, till the rise of
Novatus, and, finally, of the Donatists. They were frequently called
Tertullianists, but more generally Montanists.
To learn their
principles we must go to the writings of this extraordinary man.
Neander says:
"In the last years of the second century
Tertullian appears as a zealous opponent of infant baptism, a proof
that the practice had not as yet come to be regarded as an apostolic
institution, for, otherwise, he would hardly have ventured to express
himself so strongly against it. We perceive, from his arguments
against infant baptism, that he introduces Matt..xix: 14. Tertullian
advises that, in consideration of the great importance of the
transaction, and of the preparation necessary to be made for it by
the recipients, baptism should rather be delayed than prematurely
applied. 'Let them come,' says Tertullian, 'while they are growing
up; let them come while they are learning, while they are being
taught that to which they are coming; let them become Christians
while they are susceptible.' " (Neander, vol. i, p. 312).
The
great Neander, commenting on these words, remarks:
"Tertullian
evidently means that children should be led to Christ by instructing
them in Christianity, but that they should not receive baptism until,
after being sufficiently instructed, they are led by personal
conviction, and by their own free choice, to seek for it with
sincerity of heart." (Ut supra).
With such principles,
where would Tertullian be classed now? As the corruptions which were
steadily undermining the standing of the churches increased,
Tertullian denied to them the claim of being true Christian Churches.
He plead for an equality among presbyters or elders against the
growing arrogance of the metropolitan pastors. He plead for the
purity of the church, and the rejection of all unregenerate persons.
He joined the now numerous sect of the Montanists, and finally
proclaimed with them that the one immersion "can relate only to
us who know and call on the true God and Christ. The heretics have
not this God and Christ. These words, therefore, can not be applied
to them, and as they do not rightly administer the ordinance, their
baptism is the same as none."
Such were the principles of
the Tertullianists in the second century. Were they not
Baptists?
Tertullian is called a Montanist. Now these
Montanists were principally found in Phrygia. Of these people we give
the bitter statements of an enemy who lent all his talent and power
to corrupt and carnalize Christianity. Eusebius says:
"There
is a certain village in Mysia, (a region of Phrygia,) called Ardaban,
where first of all one Mantanus, a late convert in the time of
Gratus, proconsul of Asia, inflated with an immoderate desire of
chieftainship, primacy, and being deranged and bereft of his wits,
became furious, and published strange doctrines, and contrary to the
customs of ancient tradition. There were few of the Phrygians
seduced, notwithstanding that bold and blind spirit instructed them
to revile every church under heaven. The faithful in Asia
excommunicated, rejected, and banished this heretical opinion out of
their churches." (Eusebius, 1. s., chap. xiv).
The first
thing that strikes the reader of this paragraph is that the churches,
even in the times of Eusebius, were separate and independent, that
they all immersed is unquestioned. The introduction of Jewish and
Pagan ceremonies, at the time of the rise of Montanus, is recorded by
every historian; and Neander, with almost every other reliable
antiquarian, acknowledges that a half century after this period,
"infant baptism was not introduced as an apostolic practice."
The conclusion which forces itself on the impartial mind is, that all
the churches, at the time to which Eusebius referred in the foregoing
extract, were nominally made up of baptized believers, which we now
call Baptist Churches. But they were gradually losing their spiritual
elements and gospel principles, and departing from the faith once
delivered to the saints. The abuse afterward heaped on Montanus and
Tertullian by this court bishop Eusebius, who was affected with
Arianism, reveals the spirit which actuated the Judaizing party.
Neander says:
"Montanus belonged to the class of men in
whom the first glow of conversion begat and unconquerable opposition
to the world. We should remember that he lived in a country where the
expectation that the church should finally enjoy on the theater of
its sufferings, the earth itself, previous to the end of all things,
a millennium of victorious dominion." (Neander, vol. i, p.
518).
That there may have been some extravagances in regard to
spiritual operations and influences, maintained by the
Tertullianists, is altogether possible. That Montanus and his
associates have been shamefully misrepresented is certain.
"While
it was the custom to derive the power conceded to the bishops from
the power to bind and loose, conferred on PETER, the Montanist
Tertullian, on the other hand, maintained that these words referred
only to Peter personally, and to those who, like Peter, were filled
with the Holy Ghost indirectly. Montanism set up a church of the
Spirit, consisting of the spiritual homines,(spiritual men,) in
opposition to the prevailing outward view of that
institution."
Tertullian says:
" 'The church,
in the proper and pre-eminent sense, is the Holy Spirit in which the
three are one, and next the whole community of those who are agreed
in this faith.' The Catholic point of view expresses itself in this,
viz.: that the idea of the church is put first, and by this very
position of it is made outward. Next the agency of the Holy Spirit
first, and considers the church as that which is only derived."
(Neander, vol. i, p. 518).
There was the ground on which took
place the first grand separation from a carnalized community. As the
fading light left the once irradiated churches wrapped in the
twilight, which soon afterward settled into deep night, the
Montanists parted from them, and proclaimed the true gospel
principles, conversion, faith, spirituality first, baptism and
church- membership NEXT. The dissenting minorities were excluded and
traduced. But, unflinching and uncompromising, they would not
acknowledge those societies to be churches, and therefore reimmersed
all who came from them.
These men were Baptists, if immersing
none but professedly converted men, and organizing independent
churches on the principles of the gospel, constitute men Baptists. We
found them in Phrygia and Armenia, in Italy and Africa, increasing
steadily till crushed out by imperial cruelty. We traced their
footsteps among the Pyrenees and Alps, where they lay concealed, and
suddenly started into life at the Reformation of Luther.
Thus
through the darkness have we tracked them up to the dissent of the
Montanists in Asia, in the year 190, which was within a century of
the apostles. Here, in the rural districts of Asia, which had
witnessed the toil and sufferings of the apostles, and where their
teachings were remembered by the living, who had actually listened to
their preaching, and where their writings were recorded as the
inspired voice of Go, here we find Baptists protesting against the
very first departures from the simplicity and spirituality of
apostolic churches. HERE WE FIND WHERE THE BAPTISTS CAME FROM.