Christian wrote of the Anabaptists: “The beginnings of the Anabaptist movement is firmly rooted in the earlier centuries. The Baptists have a spiritual posterity of many ages of liberty-loving Christians. The movement was as old as Christianity; the Reformation gave an occasion for a new and varied history.”
The statement of Mosheim, who was a learned Lutheran historian, as to the origin of the Baptists, has never been successfully attacked. He says:
The origin of the sect, who from their repetition of baptism received in other communities, are called Anabaptists, but who are also denominated Mennonites, from the celebrated man to whom they owe a large share of their present prosperity, is involved in much obscurity [or, is hid in the remote depths of antiquity, as another translator has it.] For they suddenly started up, in various countries of Europe, under the influence of leaders of dissimilar character and views; and at a time when the first contests with the Catholics so engrossed the attention of all, that they scarcely noticed any other passing occurrences. The modern Mennonites affirm, that their predecessors were the descendants of those Waldenses who were oppressed by the tyranny of the Papists; and that, they were of a most pure offspring, and most averse from any inclinations toward sedition, as well as all fanatical views.
In the first place I believe the Mennonites are not altogether in the wrong, when they boast of a descent from these Waldenses, Petrobrusians, and others, who are usually styled witnesses for the truth before Luther…
Robert Barclay, a Quaker…, wrote:
We shall afterwards show the rise of the Anabaptists took place prior to the Reformation of the Church of England, and there are also reasons for believing that on the Continent of Europe small hidden Christian societies, who have held many of the opinions of the Anabaptists, have existed from the times of the apostles. In the sense of the direct transmission of Divine Truth, and the true nature of spiritual religion, it seems probable that these churches have a linage or succession more ancient than that of the Roman Church (Barclay, The Inner Life of the Societies of the Commonwealth, 11,12, London, 1876).
These statements might be worked out in circumstantial detail. Roman Catholic historians and officials, in some instances eye-witnesses, testify that the Waldenses and other ancient communions were the same as the Anabaptists. The Augustinian, Bartholomaeus von Usingen, set forth in the year 1529, a learned polemical writing against the “Rebaptizers,” in which he says that “Anabaptists, or Catabaptists, have gone forth from Picardism” (Usingen, Contra Rebaptizantes. Cologne, 1529). The Mandate of Speier, April 1529, declares that the Anabaptists were hundreds of years old and had been often condemned (Keller, Die Waldenser, 125, Leipzig, 1886). Father Gretscher, who edited the works of Rainerio Sacchoni, after recounting the doctrines of the Waldenses, says: “This is a true picture of the heretics of our age, particularly of the Anabaptists;” Baronius, the most learned and laborious historian of the Roman Catholic Church, says: “The Waldenses were Anabaptists” (D’Anvers, Baptism, 153). Baronius has a heavy and unreadable chronicle, but valuable for reference to original documents.
Cardinal Hosius, a member of the Council of Trent, A.D. 1560, in a statement often quoted, says:
If the truth of religion were to be judged by the readiness and boldness of which a man of any sect shows in suffering, then the opinion and persuasion of no sect can be truer and surer than that of the Anabaptists since there have been none for these twelve hundred years past, that have been more generally punished or that have more cheerfully and steadfastly undergone, and even offered themselves to the most cruel sorts of punishment than these people. (Hosins, Letters, Apud Opera, 112-113, Baptist Magazine CVIII, 278, May 1826).
That Cardinal Hosius dated the history of the Baptists back twelve hundred years, i.e. 360, is manifest, for in yet another place the Cardinal says;
The Anabaptists are a pernicious sect. Of which kind the Waldenses brethren seem to have been, although some of them lately, as they testify in their apology, declare that they will no longer re-baptize, as was their former custom; nevertheless, it is certain that many of them retain their custom, and have united with the Anabaptists (Hosius, Works of the Heresaeics of our Times, Bk. I. 431. Ed. 1584).
From any standpoint that this Roman Catholic testimony is viewed it is of great importance. The Roman Catholics were in active opposition to the Baptists, through the Inquisition they had been dealing with them for some centuries; they had every avenue of information; they had spared no means to inform themselves, and, consequently, were accurately conversant with the facts. These powerful testimonies to the antiquity of the Baptists are peculiarly weighty. The Baptists were no novelty to the Roman Catholics of the Reformation period.
The testimony of Luther, Zwingli, and other Reformers, is conclusive. Luther was never partial to the Baptists. As early as 1522, he says: “The Anabaptists have been for a long time spreading in Germany” (Michelet, Life of Luther, 99). The able and eloquent Baptist, the late Dr. E.T. Winkler, commenting on this statement says: “Nay, Luther even traces the Anabaptists back to the days of John Huss, and apologetically admits that eminent Reformer was one of them.”
Zwingli, the Swiss Reformer, is more specific than Luther. From the beginning of his work he was under the necessity of dealing with the Anabaptist movement. He says:
The institution of Anabaptism is no novelty, but for three hundred years has caused great disturbance in the church, and has acquired such strength that the attempt in this age to contend with it appears futile for a time.
No definite starting place can be ascribed to the Baptists of the Reformation, for they sprang up in many countries all at once. (Christian, Vol. 1, pp.83-86)
Works Cited
Armitage, Thomas. A History of the Baptists. Watertown, Wisconsin: Baptist Heritage Press, 1988.
Christian, John. A History of the Baptists. Texarkana, Texas: Bogard Press, 1926.
Estep, William. The Anabaptist Story. Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1996.
Hershberger, Guy, ed. The Recovery of the Anabaptist Visions. Scottsdale, Pennsylvania: Herald Press, 1957.
Williams, George H. The Radical Reformation. Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1962.
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Baptists are Not Protestants Part 2 of 3
The origin of the Baptists has been a subject of intense debate. Currently, the view that prevails holds that modern Baptists grew out of sixteenth century English Separatism. Others believe the Baptists descended from the Anabaptists of the Reformation era. Still others hold the organic succession view which sees a visible or literal succession of Baptist churches from the apostolic period to the present. This succession is by a chain of ordination (Apostolic succession), proper baptism or church succession. There is no historical or, certainly, no biblical evidence for the organic succession view.
The Scriptures suggest that the New Testament church was organized, at least in embryonic form, during Christ’s earthly ministry. (Matthew 16:18, Matthew 18:17) Christ, in Matthew 16:18, promised the church’s perpetuity through all ages. Paul, in Ephesians 3:21, confirms it. On this scriptural foundation some Baptist historians such as Thomas Armitage and John T. Christian, contend for a succession of spiritual principles only. Armitage contends, “The very attempt to trace an unbroken line of persons duly baptized…or ministers ordained by lineal descent from the apostles, or of churches organized upon these principles… is…an attempt to build a bulwark of error.” He goes on to say, “Pure doctrine as it is found in the uncorrupted Word of God, is the only unbroken line of succession which can be traced in Christianity.”
Christian also rejects any form of visible church succession. With Armitage, he too believes the Baptists originated in the days of Christ and that, “The footsteps of the Baptists of the ages can more easily be traced by their blood than by baptism. It is a lineage of suffering, rather than succession of bishops; a martyrdom of principle, rather than dogmatic decrees of councils; a golden chord of love, rather than an iron chain of succession…It is, nevertheless, a right royal succession, that in every age the Baptists have been advocates of liberty for all, and have held that the gospel of the Son of God makes every man a free man in Christ Jesus. (Christian, Vol.1, pp. 21-23)
Christian further states: The author believes that in every age since Jesus and the apostles, there have been companies of believers, churches, who have substantially held to the principles of the New Testament as now proclaimed by the Baptists. No attempt is made in these pages to trace a succession of bishops, as the Roman Catholics attempt to do, back to the apostles. Such an attempt is “laboring in the fire for mere vanity,” and proceeds upon a mistaken view of the nature of the kingdom of Christ, and of the sovereignty of God, in his operations on the earth. Jesus himself, in a reply to an inquiry put to him by the Pharisees (Luke 17:20-24), compares his kingdom to the lightning, darting its rays in the most sovereign and uncontrollable manner from one extremity of the heavens to the other. And this view corresponds to God’s dealings in the spiritual realm. Wherever God has his elect, there in his own proper time, he sends the gospel to save them, and churches after his model are organized (William Jones, the History of the Christian Church, xvii. Philadelphia. 1832).
The New Testament recognizes a democratic simplicity and not a hierarchical monarchy. There is no irregularity, but a perpetual proclamation of principles. There is no intimation that there was not a continuity of churches, for doubtless there was, but our insistence is that this was not the dominant note in apostolic life. No emphasis is put on a succession of baptisms, or the historical order of churches. Some of the apostles were disciples of John the Baptist (John 1:35), but there is no record of the baptism of others, though they were baptized. Paul, the great missionary, was baptized by Ananias (Acts 9:17, 18), but it is not known who baptized Ananias. Nothing definite is known of the origin of the church at Damascus. The church at Antioch became the great foreign missionary center, but the history of its origin is not distinctly given. The church at Rome was already in existence when Paul wrote to them his letter. These silences occur all through the New Testament, but there is a constant recurrence of type, a persistence of fundamental doctrines, and a proclamation of principles. This marked the whole apostolic period, and for that matter, every period since that time.
The recurrence of type is recognized even where error was detected. The disciples desired Jesus to rebuke a man who walked not with them (Mark 9:40), but this Jesus refused to do. The church at Corinth was imperfect in practice and life. The Judaizing teachers constantly perverted the gospel; and John the Evangelist, in his last days, combated insidious error, but the great doctrines of the atoning work of Christ, conversion and repentance, the baptism of believers, the purity of the church, the freedom of the soul, and the collateral truths, were everywhere avowed. At times these principles have been combated and those who held them persecuted, often they have been obscured; sometimes they have been advocated by ignorant men, and at other times by brilliant graduates of the universities, who frequently mixed the truth with philosophical speculations; yet always, often under the most varied conditions, these principles have come to the surface.
Baptist churches have the most slender ties of organization, and a strong government is not according to their polity. They are like the river Rhone, which sometimes flows as a river broad and deep, but at other times is hidden in the sands. It, however, never loses its continuity or existence. It is simply hidden for a period. Baptist churches may disappear and reappear in the most unaccountable manner. Persecuted everywhere by sword and by fire, their principles would appear to be almost extinct, when in a most wondrous way God would raise up some man, or some company of martyrs, to proclaim the truth.
The Scriptures suggest that the New Testament church was organized, at least in embryonic form, during Christ’s earthly ministry. (Matthew 16:18, Matthew 18:17) Christ, in Matthew 16:18, promised the church’s perpetuity through all ages. Paul, in Ephesians 3:21, confirms it. On this scriptural foundation some Baptist historians such as Thomas Armitage and John T. Christian, contend for a succession of spiritual principles only. Armitage contends, “The very attempt to trace an unbroken line of persons duly baptized…or ministers ordained by lineal descent from the apostles, or of churches organized upon these principles… is…an attempt to build a bulwark of error.” He goes on to say, “Pure doctrine as it is found in the uncorrupted Word of God, is the only unbroken line of succession which can be traced in Christianity.”
Christian also rejects any form of visible church succession. With Armitage, he too believes the Baptists originated in the days of Christ and that, “The footsteps of the Baptists of the ages can more easily be traced by their blood than by baptism. It is a lineage of suffering, rather than succession of bishops; a martyrdom of principle, rather than dogmatic decrees of councils; a golden chord of love, rather than an iron chain of succession…It is, nevertheless, a right royal succession, that in every age the Baptists have been advocates of liberty for all, and have held that the gospel of the Son of God makes every man a free man in Christ Jesus. (Christian, Vol.1, pp. 21-23)
Christian further states: The author believes that in every age since Jesus and the apostles, there have been companies of believers, churches, who have substantially held to the principles of the New Testament as now proclaimed by the Baptists. No attempt is made in these pages to trace a succession of bishops, as the Roman Catholics attempt to do, back to the apostles. Such an attempt is “laboring in the fire for mere vanity,” and proceeds upon a mistaken view of the nature of the kingdom of Christ, and of the sovereignty of God, in his operations on the earth. Jesus himself, in a reply to an inquiry put to him by the Pharisees (Luke 17:20-24), compares his kingdom to the lightning, darting its rays in the most sovereign and uncontrollable manner from one extremity of the heavens to the other. And this view corresponds to God’s dealings in the spiritual realm. Wherever God has his elect, there in his own proper time, he sends the gospel to save them, and churches after his model are organized (William Jones, the History of the Christian Church, xvii. Philadelphia. 1832).
The New Testament recognizes a democratic simplicity and not a hierarchical monarchy. There is no irregularity, but a perpetual proclamation of principles. There is no intimation that there was not a continuity of churches, for doubtless there was, but our insistence is that this was not the dominant note in apostolic life. No emphasis is put on a succession of baptisms, or the historical order of churches. Some of the apostles were disciples of John the Baptist (John 1:35), but there is no record of the baptism of others, though they were baptized. Paul, the great missionary, was baptized by Ananias (Acts 9:17, 18), but it is not known who baptized Ananias. Nothing definite is known of the origin of the church at Damascus. The church at Antioch became the great foreign missionary center, but the history of its origin is not distinctly given. The church at Rome was already in existence when Paul wrote to them his letter. These silences occur all through the New Testament, but there is a constant recurrence of type, a persistence of fundamental doctrines, and a proclamation of principles. This marked the whole apostolic period, and for that matter, every period since that time.
The recurrence of type is recognized even where error was detected. The disciples desired Jesus to rebuke a man who walked not with them (Mark 9:40), but this Jesus refused to do. The church at Corinth was imperfect in practice and life. The Judaizing teachers constantly perverted the gospel; and John the Evangelist, in his last days, combated insidious error, but the great doctrines of the atoning work of Christ, conversion and repentance, the baptism of believers, the purity of the church, the freedom of the soul, and the collateral truths, were everywhere avowed. At times these principles have been combated and those who held them persecuted, often they have been obscured; sometimes they have been advocated by ignorant men, and at other times by brilliant graduates of the universities, who frequently mixed the truth with philosophical speculations; yet always, often under the most varied conditions, these principles have come to the surface.
Baptist churches have the most slender ties of organization, and a strong government is not according to their polity. They are like the river Rhone, which sometimes flows as a river broad and deep, but at other times is hidden in the sands. It, however, never loses its continuity or existence. It is simply hidden for a period. Baptist churches may disappear and reappear in the most unaccountable manner. Persecuted everywhere by sword and by fire, their principles would appear to be almost extinct, when in a most wondrous way God would raise up some man, or some company of martyrs, to proclaim the truth.
Baptists are Not Protestants Part 1 of 3
All good Baptists should, at times, protest, but Baptists are not Protestants. Baptist origins are not rooted in Protestantism. The term Protestant refers to all denominations which have separated from the Roman Catholic Church since the Reformation. It has been the historic pattern in America to divide the great majority of people into three religious groups: Protestant, Catholic, and Jew. It is assumed that since Baptists are not Catholic or Jew they are Protestant. Baptists and Protestants have separate and distinct origins.
It is proper to trace the origins of Protestantism to Roman Catholicism. The Lutherans and all infant baptizing Calvinists, such as the Congregationalists and Presbyterians, came directly out of Romanism. Martin Luther, John Calvin, Ulrich Zwingli – the three most notable Protestant reformers – had been Roman Catholics before their conversion. Other Protestants, such as Episcopalians and Methodists, also trace their origins ultimately to Rome. Methodism originated in Anglicanism.
The term Protestant, as applied to a distinct religious movement, came into existence during the Reformation in 1529 at the Diet of Speyer in Germany. (A diet is a formal assembly gathered to discuss public issues.) The term Protestant was derived from this Lutheran protest at Speyer. The Catholic emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, Charles V, permitted Lutheran political rulers to practice their religion in their territories. This concession was made at the first Diet of Speyer in 1526. The second Diet of Speyer was called by Charles in 1529 to curtail the privileges of the Lutherans and to expand Catholicism in Lutheran territory. Charles was now free of the military distractions that had forced the concessions in 1526. This attempt to once again expand Catholicism at the expense of the Lutherans brought a formal “protest” from the Lutheran princes. They accused Charles of violating the agreement arrived at in 1526.
Baptists had nothing to do with this protest. In fact, at this time, the Lutherans considered Anabaptists to be heretics and, therefore, worthy of death. The Lutherans sided with the Catholics against what they called Anabaptists or rebaptizers. The Baptists originated in that same cluster of New Testament ideas and traditions from which came the Anabaptists. Only the Swiss Anabaptists were closely associated with the Protestants in their origins. They had been associated with Zwingli. Some younger Waldensians were Calvinized in the 1550s. Church Historians, Williston Walker of Yale, William Estep and others, believed that Anabaptists had great influence in shaping English Separatism.
The 1529 Diet of Speyer pronounced the death penalty on Anabaptists or on any who would rebaptize after they had been baptized as infants. The Lutherans did not protest this death penalty, but rather affirmed it. The Diet of Speyer produced the following document. It is the single most important piece of documentary evidence that Baptists did not originate within Protestantism or Catholicism. It is reproduced from the book, The Radical Reformation by Dr. George H. Williams, a Unitarian and, perhaps, the leading Anabaptist scholar in America during his life time. He taught at Harvard. In this introduction to the document, Williams is emphatic that the Protestants and Baptists have separate and distinct origins and traditions. This document also affirms the remote antiquity of this “old sect of Anabaptism, condemned and forbidden many centuries ago….”
Dr. Williams wrote in his introduction:
To this repudiation of an earlier accord, six evangelical princes and representatives of 14 South German cities protested on 19 April 1529, thereafter to be designated the ‘Protestant’. For a moment, only Lutherans were involved, for they were willing to hold the sacramentarians in check. Both Lutheran Protestants and Catholics could agree in making even more explicit than before the death penalty for the crime and heresy of rebaptizing.
Though there had been earlier local mandates, and in 1528 an imperial mandate, against the Anabaptists, that of the “Protestant” diet of Speyer is the most important; and in the tense religio-political context of this diet, its approbation by the Lutherans makes palpably clear the great difference between the Baptist and the Protestant traditions, though today their descendants often claim a common origin. (– Radical Reformation, pp. 237-239)
Charles’s (Charles V – Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire) mandate of 23 April 1529 reads in part as follows:
Whereas it is ordered and provided in common [i.e., canon] law that no man, having once been baptized according to Christian order, shall let himself be baptized again or for the second time, nor shall he baptize any such, and especially is it forbidden in the imperial law to do such on pain of death; whereupon we therefore at the beginning of 1528….earnestly entreated you altogether and especially as Roman Emperor, supreme advocate and guardian of our holy Christian faith, by our public mandate, to exhort, to restrain, and to warn your subjects, relatives, and those who belong to you against the recently arisen, new error and sect of Anabaptism and its Christian preachers from the pulpits and otherwise, also to remind them faithfully and earnestly or the penalty of the law in such a case, and especially of the great punishment of God…and to proceed against those who are discovered in such a vice and error, and not to be tardy therein: to the end that such evil be punished and that further nonsense and any extension thereof be prevented and warded off. Notwithstanding, we find daily that despite the cited common law and also our mandate…, this old sect of Anabaptism, condemned and forbidden many centuries ago, day by day makes greater inroads and is getting the upper hand. In order to prevent such evil and what may proceed from it, as well as our above-named imperial mandate,..that…every Anabaptist and rebaptized man and woman of the age of reason shall be condemned and brought from natural life into death by fire, sword, and the like, according to the person, with out proceeding by the inquisition of the spiritual judges; and let the same pseudo-preachers, instigators, vagabonds, and tumultuous inciters of the said vice of Anabaptism, also whoever remains in it, and those who fall a second time, let them all by no means be shown mercy, but instead be dealt with on the power of this constitution and edict earnestly with punishment.
It is proper to trace the origins of Protestantism to Roman Catholicism. The Lutherans and all infant baptizing Calvinists, such as the Congregationalists and Presbyterians, came directly out of Romanism. Martin Luther, John Calvin, Ulrich Zwingli – the three most notable Protestant reformers – had been Roman Catholics before their conversion. Other Protestants, such as Episcopalians and Methodists, also trace their origins ultimately to Rome. Methodism originated in Anglicanism.
The term Protestant, as applied to a distinct religious movement, came into existence during the Reformation in 1529 at the Diet of Speyer in Germany. (A diet is a formal assembly gathered to discuss public issues.) The term Protestant was derived from this Lutheran protest at Speyer. The Catholic emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, Charles V, permitted Lutheran political rulers to practice their religion in their territories. This concession was made at the first Diet of Speyer in 1526. The second Diet of Speyer was called by Charles in 1529 to curtail the privileges of the Lutherans and to expand Catholicism in Lutheran territory. Charles was now free of the military distractions that had forced the concessions in 1526. This attempt to once again expand Catholicism at the expense of the Lutherans brought a formal “protest” from the Lutheran princes. They accused Charles of violating the agreement arrived at in 1526.
Baptists had nothing to do with this protest. In fact, at this time, the Lutherans considered Anabaptists to be heretics and, therefore, worthy of death. The Lutherans sided with the Catholics against what they called Anabaptists or rebaptizers. The Baptists originated in that same cluster of New Testament ideas and traditions from which came the Anabaptists. Only the Swiss Anabaptists were closely associated with the Protestants in their origins. They had been associated with Zwingli. Some younger Waldensians were Calvinized in the 1550s. Church Historians, Williston Walker of Yale, William Estep and others, believed that Anabaptists had great influence in shaping English Separatism.
The 1529 Diet of Speyer pronounced the death penalty on Anabaptists or on any who would rebaptize after they had been baptized as infants. The Lutherans did not protest this death penalty, but rather affirmed it. The Diet of Speyer produced the following document. It is the single most important piece of documentary evidence that Baptists did not originate within Protestantism or Catholicism. It is reproduced from the book, The Radical Reformation by Dr. George H. Williams, a Unitarian and, perhaps, the leading Anabaptist scholar in America during his life time. He taught at Harvard. In this introduction to the document, Williams is emphatic that the Protestants and Baptists have separate and distinct origins and traditions. This document also affirms the remote antiquity of this “old sect of Anabaptism, condemned and forbidden many centuries ago….”
Dr. Williams wrote in his introduction:
To this repudiation of an earlier accord, six evangelical princes and representatives of 14 South German cities protested on 19 April 1529, thereafter to be designated the ‘Protestant’. For a moment, only Lutherans were involved, for they were willing to hold the sacramentarians in check. Both Lutheran Protestants and Catholics could agree in making even more explicit than before the death penalty for the crime and heresy of rebaptizing.
Though there had been earlier local mandates, and in 1528 an imperial mandate, against the Anabaptists, that of the “Protestant” diet of Speyer is the most important; and in the tense religio-political context of this diet, its approbation by the Lutherans makes palpably clear the great difference between the Baptist and the Protestant traditions, though today their descendants often claim a common origin. (– Radical Reformation, pp. 237-239)
Charles’s (Charles V – Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire) mandate of 23 April 1529 reads in part as follows:
Whereas it is ordered and provided in common [i.e., canon] law that no man, having once been baptized according to Christian order, shall let himself be baptized again or for the second time, nor shall he baptize any such, and especially is it forbidden in the imperial law to do such on pain of death; whereupon we therefore at the beginning of 1528….earnestly entreated you altogether and especially as Roman Emperor, supreme advocate and guardian of our holy Christian faith, by our public mandate, to exhort, to restrain, and to warn your subjects, relatives, and those who belong to you against the recently arisen, new error and sect of Anabaptism and its Christian preachers from the pulpits and otherwise, also to remind them faithfully and earnestly or the penalty of the law in such a case, and especially of the great punishment of God…and to proceed against those who are discovered in such a vice and error, and not to be tardy therein: to the end that such evil be punished and that further nonsense and any extension thereof be prevented and warded off. Notwithstanding, we find daily that despite the cited common law and also our mandate…, this old sect of Anabaptism, condemned and forbidden many centuries ago, day by day makes greater inroads and is getting the upper hand. In order to prevent such evil and what may proceed from it, as well as our above-named imperial mandate,..that…every Anabaptist and rebaptized man and woman of the age of reason shall be condemned and brought from natural life into death by fire, sword, and the like, according to the person, with out proceeding by the inquisition of the spiritual judges; and let the same pseudo-preachers, instigators, vagabonds, and tumultuous inciters of the said vice of Anabaptism, also whoever remains in it, and those who fall a second time, let them all by no means be shown mercy, but instead be dealt with on the power of this constitution and edict earnestly with punishment.
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