What do you do with their PRIMARY SOURCE materials that prove your authors are wrong? They are in the Bodleian Library for any objective person to read! Do you think Christian controlled the Bodleian Library????? Do you think McBeth denial invalidates primary sources he refuses to acknowlege??? Do you think only Christian has presented this undeniable primary source evidence that the 1641 theory is wrong?????
I have personally verified those quotations by personally looking at the microfilm copies in the Bodleian Library and so you are accusing me of lying, fabricating primary source materials????? What is your evidence? Historians like McBeth who IGNORE or are IGNORANT of those PRIMARY source materials?
Dr. T.T. Eaton knew William H. Whitsitt personally and also knew John T. Christian and read both of their works and he had this to say about Whitsitt's theory:
We have, then, briefly, the following conditions:
1st. It is admitted that there were Anabaptists in England before 1641, who were very strict in their belief and interpretation of the Bible, and were ready to die for their faith. But it is denied that any of them ever saw their duty in the Bible in regard to baptism till 1641, and then they all saw it at once and began to practice it.
2nd. It is admitted that these Anabaptists were constantly reminded of immersion by the rubric of the state church and by the writings of the commentators and scholars of the period. Yet it is denied that any of them took the hint till 1641, and then they all took it and adopted immersion.
3d. There is no account of any Anabaptist church's [sic] having practiced sprinkling and changing to immersion, and the absence of any such account cannot be explained on the "1641 theory."
4th. The only direct evidence offered in favor of the "1641 theory" is the statement of an anonymous document, the oldest extant copy of which is less than 40 years old, which is not, confirmed by any writer of the period, and which has been proved to be full of gross mistakes -- names wrong, dates wrong, titles wrong and facts wrong.
5th. The other evidence offered is circumstantial, and is, moreover, not to the point. The other testimonies cited to prove the "1641 theory" say nothing about 1641, but speak of these Anabaptists as "new and upstart," &c., which we would naturally expect when we remember that in 1641 the abolition of the persecuting courts left them free to publicly preach and practice their beliefs as they could not do before.
6th. We have actual documentary and monumental evidence of the practice of believers' immersion in England before 1641.
7th. It is claimed that "distinguished historians" have adopted the "1641 theory." Four names have been mentioned, but qualifications should be used in citing these names. On the other hand, it were [was] easy to cite scores of names of eminent historians who reject the "1641 theory." Not a single man in England has adopted it, so far as known, and many of them have distinctly rejected it. Surely historians in England can be supposed to know the facts of the history of England better than those in other lands. And, moreover, equally distinguished historians, and more of them, too, in this country distinctly reject the theory.
