Be Careful Not to Fight with a Baptist (Part 2)

Continued from Part 1 located HERE

The English Baptists

The origin of the English Baptists is somewhat debated; however, there is enough consensus to say that the practice of believer’s baptism was picked up by English while in exile. John Smyth is often cited as the first English Baptist; however, those who were excommunicated from a Barrowist congregation in the Netherlands are likely the first.¹ After the Act of Supremacy (1534) in which Henry VIII and his successors were declared the Supreme Head of the Church, principles of reformation began to germinate leading to the Act of Uniformity (1559). This Act was thought to be a compromise between Catholic and Protestant factions however it produced two additional kinds of churchmen: Puritans and Dissenters. 

The Puritan faction used political means to “purify” the church whereas the Dissenters separated from the church and suffered. The Book of Martyrs (1563) by John Foxe taught Englishmen the importance of suffering for the truth and many did. In those early days, some Baptists did not assist their cause by immersing in frozen over rivers, permitting immodesty, and in some extreme cases, even full nudity. According to Richard Baxter, “In diverse places some baptized naked, and some did not.”² As Baptist distinctives began to be articulated decorum increased. Early confessions began to specify that immersion should be performed “with convenient garments both upon the administrator and subject, with all modestie.”³

The General Baptists

Within the Dissenting tradition a variety of baptistic expression developed. John Smyth, although not technically the first English Baptist, is credited for leading a whole congregation into believer’s baptism. Beginning in Gainsborough, England with a separatist congregation in 1606, this congregation migrated to the Netherlands after James I implemented harsh policies against Dissenters.  When this group Dissenters arrived in the Netherlands, they divided, each going a separate way. Among those who left Gainsborough for the Netherlands were the Pilgrim Church who eventually arrived in Plymouth, Massachusetts, 1620. John Smyth’s group did not join with the Barrowists who were already in Amsterdam.⁴ The followers of Henry Barrowe were called catabaptists because they only opposed infant baptism when improperly administered. They would postpone until a recognized authority was available. 

Instead of joining with the Barrowists, John Smyth and Thomas Helwys made ties with Dutch Anabaptists and learned more about the practice of baptizing adult believers.⁵ After Smyth baptized himself (se-baptism), he then baptized his believing congregation. This led to a strong disagreement between Smyth and Helwys over needful succession for the validity of the rite of baptism. Helwys returned to England. Yet, just before his return, Smyth “severely modified his own Calvinistic views and accepted a number of the Anabaptist tenets” to join with the Mennonites. He repudiated his self-baptism in the process.⁶ Back in England Helwys established a General Baptist congregation, now convinced that fleeing persecution was wrong. They settled in “Spittlefeild neare London.”⁷ Helwys’s time in the Netherlands, however, seems to have encouraged him to adopt new views on original sin and free will. ⁸ His chief disagreement with Smyth seems to have been succession; however, according to Kliever, Helwys may have picked up the conversation in the Netherlands as the Arminian conflict was in full swing.⁹ Upon his return, Arminianism at Cambridge was beginning to find a foothold. By 1624 there were at least five General Baptist church in England and by 1650 another forty-seven.¹⁰

English Particular Baptists

Other separatists in England stayed and weathered through persecution from the Church of England. Henry Jacob established a church in Southwark, London. Also returning from exile in the Netherlands, he formed a church in 1616 with two others: John Lathrop and Henry Jessey. They adopted a “semi-separatist” approach operating independently without repudiating the state church.¹¹ This feature tended to ameliorate them to the Reformed teachings of the Anglican Church. After a brief period of trouble in England, Henry Jacob migrated to Virginia in 1622 and Lathrop took over the pastorate for just over a decade. Lathrop resigned after internal strife occurred over a desire for purer church principles, and then Henry Jessey became pastor. Scholars conclude that the first Particular Baptist Church was formed out of this Southwark church as six members withdrew seeking to implement believer’s baptism with John Spilsbury in 1633.¹² The famous William Kiffin joined the Spilsbury church five years later and was rebaptized. The recovery of immersion occurred between 1640-41 among this Particular Baptist congregation as recorded in the “Kiffin Manuscript.”¹³ In the decades that followed the Particular Baptists were not tolerated as members of the Westminster Assembly (1643-48) because of their open objection to infant baptism.

Part three is continued HERE

1. Robert G. Torbet, A History of the Baptists, 3^rd Edition (Valley Forge, PA: Judson Press, 1982), 28-29. ↩︎
2. Richard Baxter, More Proofs of Infant Church-Membership, 282-83, in Henry Martyn Dexter, The True Story of John Smyth, The Se-Baptist (Boston: Lee and Shepherd, 1881), 58-59. ↩︎
3. William Kiffen, The Confession of Faith, Of those Churches which are commonly (though falsely) called Anabaptists(1644), in William Lumpkin, Baptist Confessions of Faith (Chicago: Judson Press, 1959), 167. ↩︎
4. Torbet, A History of the Baptists, 28. ↩︎
5. Kristen Thea Timmer, “John Smyth’s request for Mennonite recognition and admission: four newly translated letters, 1610-1612,” 8-19 in Baptist History and Heritage 44, No 1 (Wint 2009). ↩︎
6. Lonnie D. Kliever, “General Baptist Origins: The Question of Anabaptist Influence,” 291-321 in The Mennonite Quarterly Review 36, No. 4 (Oct 1962): 301. ↩︎
7. Champlin Burrage, The Early English Dissenters in the Light of Recent Research (Cambridge, 1912), Vol. I, 68-208. ↩︎
8. William H. Brackney, Baptist Life and Thought: 1600-1980, A Source Book (Valley Forge, PA: Judson Press, 1983), 28-29. Burrage, Early English Dissenters, 252.7. ↩︎
9. Kliever, “General Baptist Origins,” 316-17.  ↩︎
10. H. Leon McBeth, The Baptist Heritage: Four Centuries of Witness (Nashville, TN: Broadman, 1987), 39. ↩︎
11. McBeth, Baptist Heritage, 42-43. ↩︎
12. McBeth, Baptist Heritage, 44. ↩︎
13. William Kiffin, Unpublished MSS, Angus Library, Regents Park, Oxford, in Brackney, Baptist Life, 29-31.In the decades that followed the Particular Baptists were not tolerated as members of the Westminster Assembly (1643-48) because of their open objection to infant baptism. ↩︎