Featured The Early Particular Baptists were Protestant

I don't believe that I charged you with "quoting" from Paedobaptists but with using arguments that have their ULTIMATE source with paedobaptists.

You reject the personal testimony of Knolly. You reject as primary evidence that providing church records prior to 1640 would be suicide. You then use law records as evidence to demand there should be other records when in fact those very law records demonstrate why there wouldn't be any other law records. You reject Spilsbury's testimony about the significance of baptism as an absolute essential for the constitution of a true church of Christ and then throw out the canard or red herring that you don't believe baptism should be essential for the "Christian faith" which neither Spilsbury, the associational records or I ever asserted should be as we are talking about the constitution of a true church not true christian faith. Where is your "proper historical research"???? I don't find any. The so-called "scientific method" for historical research can never find the evidence simply because its premise is flawed from the very start - it demands what the circumcstances SHOULD NOT allow because the laws would naturally prevent that kind of evidence and then rejects the only possible evidences that SHOULD BE accepted in light of the laws in force. Finally, it accepts Paedobaptist testimonies, perversions until clear evidence by Baptists vindicate their claims. What I find is a theological bias that is trying to support the title of the OP.

I don't believe that I charged you with "quoting" from Paedobaptists but with using arguments that have their ULTIMATE source with paedobaptists.

 

I would be glad to send you a free copy if you pay the shipping expenses. I will give you my mailing address privately.

 

The mode of baptism practiced by the Anabaptists has caused a fiery debate. Protestant historians claim that there was no prescribed mode, that the Anabaptists insisted only upon the candidate, not upon a certain mode, therefore they might have regarded it – immersion, pouring or sprinkling – as a matter of indifference, just as the Reformers.

The Mennonites today practice pouring, and the Mennonite historians are inclined to regard immersion as being an exception from the general custom. The Baptists practice immersion exclusively, and their historians try to prove the fact that this was the only way the Anabaptists practiced baptism. What can we learn from history?

After Grebel’s party separated from Zwingli on January 17th, 1525, they met at Zollikon, a village near Zurich where they performed the rite of believer’s baptism, most probably on January 21st, at night. An anonymous Chronicle, which began to be written in 1560s, called The Large Chronicle of the Hutterian Brethren, also known as The Moravian Chronicle, records that Blaurock was baptized by Grebel by pouring, and in turn, he baptized the same way all those present. The accuracy of the report has been debated for a long time. The record came most probably from oral tradition and was about 40 years removed from the actual event. It also should be noted that the account is not given by the mainstream Evangelical Anabaptists, but by their Hutterian offshoot, which were in several points in direct conflict with the former. There is no direct testimony of any of the persons present at that event to confirm the testimony of the Chronicle. However, there is positive proof as to the later practice of several of the persons involved in the event.

A month after Grebel reportedly was baptized by pouring, he was found in the canton of St. Gall, preaching and teaching adult immersion on profession of faith as the only valid baptism. Kessler, the reformed preacher from St. Gall, bears witness to this, telling about: “Wolfgang Ulimann, how he being taught earlier by Laurence Hochrutiner against infant baptism, pressed forward on a journey to Schaffhausen to Conrad Grebel, and coming through him to such a high knowledge of Anabaptism, would not be merely watered with a dish with water, but, fully unclothed and naked, he was drawn under and covered over out in the Rhine by Grebel” (Sabbata, vol. 1, p. 266 – translated from German). [It should be noted that being naked was not part of the rite, but they practiced it sometimes, in isolated cases, when they baptized at rivers, when the candidates did not have another change of clothes]. Immersion is here called “a high knowledge of Anabaptism.” In this knowledge they rejected sprinkling or pouring. It should be noted that it was not Ulimann’s previous knowledge that made him unwilling to be baptized by pouring, but the knowledge he received from Grebel. It would be strange, to say the least, for Grebel to strongly reject in February what he practiced in January. Moreover, the season of Ulimann’s baptism was winter. Considering the medieval man’s fear of cold water, if they thought the mode was not important, they would have used anything but immersion in the freezing cold waters of the Rhine. So we are inclined to doubt the report that Grebel baptized by pouring.

Furthermore, Arx, the Swiss historian, writes about the practice of Grebel in St. Gall: “They [Grebel and Hochrutiner] sought to persuade everybody to allow themselves to be baptized once more and preached in St. Gallen under the linden trees of Multerthore, in fields and forests. They were so successful that the people of the St. Gall territory, from Appenzell and from Toggenburg swarmed to the city of St. Gall asking about the baptistery and allowing themselves to be baptized there. The number of converts became so great that the baptistery could not contain the multitude of the candidates for baptism and they had to use the streams and the Sitter river; to which on Sundays those who desired baptism walked in similar numbers, their march in procession making them to be immediately noticed” (Geschichten des Kantons St. Gallen, vol. 2, p. 501 – translated from German).

These events took place in March. The baptistery was a great wooden cask. “Augustus Naef, Secretary to the Council of St. Gall, in a work published in 1850, records the success of the Baptist movement. He says: ‘They baptized those who believed with them in rivers and lakes, and in a great wooden cask in Butcher's Square before a great crowd’” (Christian, Ibid., p. 119). The only reason they needed a cask and not a dish was because they practiced immersion.

Zwingli also bears witness to the practice of baptism among the Anabaptists when he sarcastically answers them: “Good news! Let’s all go for a plunge in the Limmat!” (Verduin, Ibid., p. 217). Quoting Manz, who spoke of baptism as “going under,” Zwingli said: “Let him who talks about ‘going under’ go under [the water]” (Ibid.). His words inspired the law issued by the Council who stated: “Qui mersus fuerit mergatur,” “Him who dipps shall be dipped.” Under this law Manz perished having been sentenced to drowning in the waters of the river Limmat (Christian, Ibid., p. 122).

In the southern German territories, the Anabaptists practiced immersion. “The Anabaptist leaders, Hubmaier, Denck, Hetzer, Hut, likewise appeared in Augsburg, and gathered a congregation of eleven hundred members. They held a general synod in 1527. They baptized by immersion. Rhegius stirred up the magistrate against them: the leaders were imprisoned, and some executed”(Schaff, Ibid., vol. VII, p. 377).

Jarrel quotes the definition Hubmaier gives to baptism in Christian Baptism of Belivers: “To baptize in water is to cover the confessor of his sins in external water, according to the divine command, and to inscribe him in the number of the separate upon his own confession and desire” (Ibid., p. 200).

A few years later, Menno says: “…after we have searched ever so diligently, we shall find no other baptism besides dipping in water [doopsel inden water] which is acceptable to God, and maintained in his word”(Robinson, Ibid., p. 499).

The Protestants generally looked with indifference upon the mode, but they nevertheless preffered immersion. Luther recommended it. When defining the word baptism,Zwingli wrote: “First it is used for the immersion in water whereby we are pledged individually to the Christian life”(G.W. Bromiley, Ibid., p. 132). The Schleitheim confession does not mention the mode, but this because the Anabaptists were not condemned on account of practicing immersion, not because they regarded the mode as indifferent.

Baptism was important to the Anabaptists because of its meaning. “The baptism of a believer is a symbol of the sinking in the death of Christ and of being raised again (“new birth”) in His resurrection. No one can come into the Kingdom unless he be born again (John 3:3), and this was the spiritual event symbolized by water baptism into the community” (Littell, Ibid., p. 84). Immersion was the only mode of baptism that could properly symbolize “the sinking in the death of Christ” and the raising in His resurrection. Neither pouring nor sprinkling of water symbolizes properly the spiritual event portrayed in baptism.

The proofs in favor of immersion are overwhelming. If there were indeed exceptions from immersion in Anabaptist practice, these were scarce and were due to the transition period of the persons involved from Catholicism or Protestantism to Anabaptism.

The Anabaptists considered adults only as proper candidates for baptism, as a certain understanding of the responsibilities of a Christian was required; they thought the water to be a mere symbol of inward washing and cleansing; they thought immersion to be the proper picture of the inward work of the Spirit of Christ in regeneration; and they considered that only churches like theirs were baptizing and doing Christ’s work aright. - By Raul Enyedi

http://www.abaptistvoice.com/English/Books/WhyBaptistsAreNotProtestants.html

 

Martin, my problem is that I allow the New Testament to dictate what are essentials to be a true New Testament congregation of Christ but you allow tradition to dictate what you regard as a true church of Christ. Can you find any congregation in the New Testament containing pedobaptists? No, but do you accept such a church as New Testament? Yes! Can you find any congregation in the New Testament that is not composed of immersed believers? No, but you do accept churches composed of sprinkled and poured infants. Indeed, all (vast majority) members in pedobaptist congregations began their membership as infants.

Martin, your "problem" gives far more credibility to Knolly's testimony. Your quotes prove he did know the early Baptists intimately even though he may not have been one of them. Hence, what better testimony for their origin can you possibly ask for??? I fail to see the problem! You think Knolly is lying???

 

Martin, I am referring to the original sources not the editors using those sources. I know plenty of "Baptists" writers that use paedobaptist source materials. I don't see it as a "cheap and easy-to-make debating point" IF Baptists (you, or Baptists you read) regard the testimony of the enemies of Baptists more credible than the very Baptists they are researching. I know from reading many modern "Baptist" followers of William Whitsitt that is precisely what they do.

The overall research of Dr. Christian on Baptist origins in England still stands solid.

 

The real issue is whether substantive Christianity as characterized in the book of Acts ceased to exist after the first century. At very minimum those practicing the essentials of Matthew 28:19-20 Christ promises to be with "all the days" until end of the age. Gospel salvation (Mk. 16:15) and baptism are explicitly identified as part of that promise.

This is not merely a promise that salvation or real Christians would continue but the ordinance of baptism as "commanded" by Christ would continue "all the days of the age."

There is no possible way that paedobaptist institutions can be recognized as New Testament congregations IF the New Testament defines the essentials of a New Testament congregation. Now again lets throw out the canard, the red herring that I am denying the salvation status of paedobaptists (although I am denying every single solitary infant at the point of baptism into their institution).

Unless you believe church membership is equivalent to salvation lets drop the absurd idea that denying New Testament church status to paedobaptist institutions is denying their Christian profession.

The Masonic lodge requires a profession of faith in "a" god. In America those assemblies are made up primarily of professing Christians who regularly and habitually assemble together, but are we going to grant New Testament congregation status to Masonic assemblies??????? I tell you that you MUST admit them as New Testament congregations if you admit paedbaptist as such and if you deny one you must deny the other as both receive membership upon religious profession. Both are assemblies of professed Christians in America. Both conduct religous services as Masons perform funeral services including prayer.

 

Martin, my quote from Knolly is dated 1645. So what is the problem? You have him baptizing Jessey in 1645 and signing the 1646 declaration. So, I don't see what the problem is?

 

Here is where apostasy among English Baptists began. 1 Corinthians 5 makes it very clear that the Lord's Supper is a congregational rather than a Christian ordinance and the participants are regulated by church discipline.

Paul is using the preparation of the Jewish house for observing the passover. The head of the house would lead the members of the household in a candlelight search throughout the house to remove all food leaven and then the preparation of the dough would be without leaven. Paul is instructing the church at Corinth to do housecleaning before they could rightly observe the Lord's Supper as a congregation. First, they must remove the leaven from their congregational membership so that the "WHOLE lump" becomes a "NEW lump":

6 Your glorying is not good. Know ye not that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump?
7 ¶ Purge out therefore the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened.


He is referring to what is required to participate in the Lord's Supper as "Christ OUR PASSOVER is sacrifced FOR US.....Let us keep the feast....with unleavened bread..."

The only observance by Christians of "Christ" as "our passover" and the only "feast" we observe with "unleavened bread" is the Lord' Supper. However, the application is to the congregational body of Christ at Corinth "as YE are unleavened"

The only "WHOLE LUMP" that wherein such leaven can be purged out so that the "whole lump" becomes a "new lump" is the local church body. Try obeying this command for your universal invisible church body! Try purging out a "brother" (v. 11) from your "WHOLE lump" so that your "WHOLE lump" becomes a "NEW lump"!!! This is utterly impossible for your universal invisible church body filled with unbaptized Christians. No New Testament congregation can scripturally observe "open" communion as it violates the very symbol of "unleavened bread" that demands even that a "brother" who is unfit to observe the Supper is to be removed by church discipline so that the "WHOLE lump" can become a "new lump." The unleavened bread represents the spiritual condition of the local congregational body observing it. The Lord's Supper is an institutional ordinance that has its only concrete proper observation with the concrete congregational body that can exercise discipline over the partakers. Those who oppose this restriction do so only on the basis of silence and inferences rather than on clear explicit precepts and/or illustrations as given in 1 Cor. 5.

Removal of this leaven from the "whole lump" is spelled out in verses 4-5, 12-13

So no, our church would nether allow a pedobaptist to preach in our pulpit much less observe the Lord's Supper with us as that pollutes the symbolism of "unleavened" bread as leaven is a symbol of FALSE DOCTRINE as much as false practices.

Please do not misrepresent my position here. The person the congregational body of Christ at Corinth is to remove before they can scripturally observe the Lord's Supper is a "BROTHER" (v. 11). This passage is about scriptural preparation to observe the Lord's Supper by a New Testament congregation. This is about OPENLY KNOWN sin whereas chapter 11 deals with UNKNOWN sin in their midst. A Paedobaptist is living in OPENLY KNOWN sin as every Baptist knows that such a person is not fit to be a member of New Testament congregations much less partake of symbolism that demands spiritual and doctrinal unity of the "WHOLE" body observing it.

Martin, I know you will not like my exposition of 1 Corinthians 5 but I challenge anyone on this forum to demonstrate that my exposition of this passage is incorrect. I just gave a very simple exposition but I am prepared to give a much more detailed exegetical based if called for.

 

The term "Anabaptist" takes in a great deal of diverse groups within the Reformation period. I believe that all of our early Baptist Historians, and the work of Dr. Christian which identifies early Particular English Baptists with evangelical Anabaptists in the late 16th century still stands solid. I don't think you can classify all Anabaptists by some Continental Anabaptists doctrine of the Atonement. There were other Evangelical Anabaptists that were close to the Reformers.

 

I think you need to be preparing for class correct? There should be some doctrinal stance on some Landmark web site that explains it....kindly just give some direction to it .....I will read up on it.

 

Perhaps you've heard of Mark Dever? He served under Roy Clements at Eden Baptist in the UK in the early 1990s:

Mark Dever - What I Can and Cannot Live With as a Pastor

 

Have you looked at the early confession of faith of the Waldenses in Samuel Morelands account? There is a pre-reformation dated confession that pretty well spells out Reformed theology before the Reformation.

 

Jon, I think today we tend to define Anabaptism in ways that may not fit historically, probably because of who the majority thinks "continue to be" Anabaptists. Narrowly, Anabaptists are "rebaptizers" and broadly, Anabaptists were almost anyone established churches could get away with calling that and labeling them as heretics.

One good example of what I mean is the Anabaptist kingdom of Munster. They were radicals run amuck, but Anabaptists nonetheless (e.g. a disciple of Jan Matthias, the instigator of Munster, baptized Obbe Philips, who ordained and probably baptized Menno Simons.). The generally-thought-of non-resistance pacifist label certainly wouldn't fit the Munster Anabaptists.