Review of J. M. Cramp's Baptist History
The Sword and Trowel, 1868
By C. H. Spurgeon [p. 1]
All who know much of the Baptist denomination must have regretted that so few are acquainted with its early history. We are not surprised that those who do not admit the scripturalness of our principles should be thus ignorant; nor can we be surprlsed that those who have superciliously looked upon our comparative feebleness should have put us down as of latter-day growth; but it remaius a matter of great surprise that our own congregations should be, for the most part, uninstructed in the past doings of our body. We certainly can boast of godly defenders of the faith, of noble men persecuted and contemned, who have sacrificed position, wealth, and life, for the truth; we can tell of able preachers and learned divines, and we can rejoice in the spirit of enterprise and heroism which has existed among Baptists of all ages. Why therefore should there be so much ignorance abroad as to the ecclesiastical history of the denomination? Why should so few know anything, and so many care nothing for the early Baptists, when their history is beyond measure instructive and interesting? We think there are several reasons to be found for this apathy to our own history. We are not sure, in the first place, that Baptists have ever been passionate lovers of ecclesiastical history. Indeed, we have a notion � how far it is true we leave our readers to judge � that religious communities which indulge too much in these investigations, are apt to trust to the past, which in view of present necessities is about the worst thing a religious body could do. Baptists, too, in past days, being peculiarly obnoxious to all state-churchmen, have had enough to do to fight for very existence, and have been too much intent upon taking their part in the controversies of the times, and, upon seeking present edification, to spend much thought upon presenting in the foreground the past history of their body. Then, too, that history has been, for the most part, obscure and scanty, and even now, as Dr. Angus confesses, the history of baptism in the early church and in the middle ages is still to be written. The few books that have been compiled have been too expensive for ordinary readers, and a condensed and graphic abstract of Baptist records has been much wanted. We are glad therefore to find that Dr. Cramp, the able president of a Baptist College in Nova Scotia, has endeavoured to meet this want. Dr. Cramp has long been a laborious, painstaking student of ecclesiastical history, and his works have been distinguished by some of the higher qualities of an historian. His book on Baptist history is not intended for students; at least, it is thrown into a popular mould, and will be more acceptable to general readers, to whom we most heartily recommend it. All Baptists should possess a copy, and even those of our readers who do not sympathise with our view of the ordinance of baptism, will probably be glad to know what the Immersionists have to say about themselves. The time is past, we hope, when religious rancour forbids one body of believers to take an interest in another. The work is so pleasantly written, and [p. 2]
so tastefully produced, that it would form an acceptable gift to our young men and maidens. It traces the history of Baptists from the foundation of the Christian church, when he whose right it was to give the mandate commanded his disciples to baptise in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, to the close of the last century; adding a chapter � which to our minds is the least satisfactory part of the work � on the extension of the denomination and the peculiarities of the present period.
