LECTURE IV. THE BAPTISTS. A.D. 1633. Leading Idea :-'Purity' of the Church,-in its internal relations. 'Si fallaciter conversis in baptismo suo peccata donantur, sine causâ ad veram conversionem posteà perducuntur ! . . Debent autem timere Christi judicium; et veraci corde aliquandò converti. Quod cùm fecerint, non eos utique necesse est iterùm baptizari.' (S. Augustine, De Baptismo, vii. 3.) P A.D. CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 200. Tertullian (Montanist) first objects to children's baptism. 360. Gregory Nazianzen advises 'three years old.' 1150. Waldenses, &c., refuse Infant baptism. 1522. Stork and Munzer, in Saxony, rebaptize. 1535. John of Leyden and the Anabaptists. Menno reforms the Baptists. 1575. Foxe writes 'No Baptists yet in England.' 1608. Amsterdam, first English Baptists. 1612. This Baptist flock returns to England. Edward Wightman (Anabaptist) burnt at Lichfield. 1615. First Baptist tract; against persecution. 1633. First Baptist congregation in England. 1645. Parliamentary orders against preachers. 1646. First Baptist Confession of Faith.' 1647. Colonel Hutchinson converted. 1649. Great increase: thirty Baptists in Church livings. 1653. Bunyan converted. 1660. Restoration of the National Church. 1661. Mobs attack Baptists. 1662. Baptists and others, refusing to conform, are ejected. 1674. Fierce controversy with the Quakers. 1677. Second 'Confession of Faith.' 1686. Savage persecution by James II. 1687. James the Second's 'Declaration of Indulgence' repudiated. 1689. Toleration Act passed. LECTURE IV. THE BAPTISTS. 'The Kingdom of Heaven is like unto a net, that was cast into the sea, and gathered of every kind.'-Matt. xiii. 47. WE E now pass from the sixteenth to the seventeenth century. And leaving the first pair of secessions, which went off from the Church of England, on opposite sides, on the question of 'Church Polity,'we reach a second pair of secessions, which again departed in opposite directions,—but this time, on questions mainly connected with the Sacraments and with the Church's external 'means of grace.' The third sect, accordingly, which broke away from the National Church and went into (let us hope) a temporary separation, was one which bears this new feature in its very name. It is the denomination of the 'Baptists.' Their first formation as a separate community in England took place in 1633; when, under the influence of foreign ideas-derived from that teeming hotbed of confusion, the newly-enfranchised States of Holland, the former head-quarters of the Anabaptists 1 The States of Holland proclaimed their independence in 1572. And though they established Calvinism as the National religion, they in the previous century-certain very strict and pious members of the Independent body in London determined to secede, and to form a fresh communion of their own 2. In point of Church Polity, they still remained Independents. But there were three grand principles, for the sake of which they held themselves justified in making a secession: (1) for the maintenance of a more strictly Calvinistic doctrine: (2) for the exercise of a more rigorous and exclusive discipline: (3) for the practice of a more literally Scriptural ritual,—especially in the matter of Baptism. Now all these three principles are closely connected together; and indeed they are all, fundamentally, one. And that one fundamental principle is - Puritanism. Yes; the Baptists are essentially and κar' ¿§oxǹv 'Puritans;' and I think it must be honestly confessed— they, and they only, are really consistent and logically unassailable Puritans. If Puritanism is true, the Baptist system is right. If Puritanism is a grand mistake, and the most singularly unchristian of all the (so to say) 'orthodox' misapprehensions of the Gospel of Jesus allowed perfect freedom of conscience to Anabaptists, Lutherans, and all other_communions, including even the Romanists; though none but Calvinists were admitted to offices of State. (Mosheim, p. 600: ed. Reid.) From this time, their influence on England was very great. The Eastern Counties and London, especially, were teeming with Dutch Anabaptists. (Lingard, vi. 169.) 2 Although there were, at an earlier period, many persons holding Baptist opinions scattered among the Independent congregations, all the best authorities are agreed that it was not till September 12, 1633, that the Baptist denomination formally separated themselves. The pastor of the first Baptist flock, numbering about twenty men and women, with divers others,' was a Mr. Spilsbury, — of whom nothing is known. (Cramp, History of the Baptists, p. 345.) A second body seceded, five years later, from the same Independent meeting in Blackfriars. A third secession followed in 1639, and established themselves in Crutched Friars. (Crosby, English Baptists, iii. 41.) And after 1649, their numbers rapidly increased,—especially in Cromwell's army. (Neal, iii. 380; ed. Toulmin.) IV.] A BAPTIST PLACE OF WORSHIP. 213 Christ, then the Baptist system falls to the ground of itself. Of this, however, there will be more to say farther on. But now it is, surely, very remarkable that even Puritanism-when placed in a state of separation, left to itself, and free to follow its own logical self-developments-should at once display the old well-known divergence, (which is due, no doubt, to some twofold. constitution of human nature); and should evolve,precisely as the Church has done,-a Ritual and a Spiritual party. For such are the Baptists, on the one hand; and the Quakers, on the other. If you go into a Baptist place of worship, prepared to understand what you see, you are immediately confronted with an unusual and absolutely unexampled arrangement of the Ritual machinery. In almost all other Dissenting chapels the Pulpit is everything; and you feel at once that the place you have entered is virtually a preaching-house, a hall for the delivery of lectures on religion,—not unaccompanied (however) with prayers and other subordinate observances. You see at a glance that the simple oblong building, without either aisles or chancel, is an admirable piece of common-sense, in its perfect adaptation for preaching purposes,-unwittingly copied from the similar constructions of the Preaching Friars in the middle ages. But when you enter a Baptist chapel, -disguised as the change may be,-all this has undergone a transformation. The construction is no longer adapted for preaching exclusively. Ritual has once more made its appearance. The return of the Christian Sacraments to their due place of honour has begun. And the post of dignity, at (what we should call) the east end of the building, has been reserved for-not indeed the Altar, but-the Font. |