Persecution of the Anabaptists
- Thread starter Mountain Presbyterian
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You quoted Baillie. He reflects the same ideas. As do all the members of Assembly who addressed the Anabaptists. So whatever prejudice was in Featley, it is not material on this point.
darrellmaurina
Puritan Board Junior
As much as I don't like to admit it, @Phil D. is correct regarding the English Particular Baptist movement coming primarily out of Congregationalism. These are our red-headed stepchildren, so to speak.
What complicates this is that there were ties between the Mennonites and some of the people who left the English Synod in the Netherlands (a classis of English-speaking churches in the Netherlands that was de facto a Congregational association though operating in connection with what became the Hervormde Kerk). The English Synod was a petri dish in which all sorts of nonconformist ideas by Englishmen could be tested out in the relative safety of the Netherlands while being under the broad umbrella of what eventually became the Dutch state church. (Yes, I know the "state church" term isn't fully accurate in the 1500s or even 1600s, but I'm using it to make clear these were not sectaries but were operating as part of the "official" church.) Things got to the point that the English Synod was given a directive not to ordain anyone since there was a concern -- likely correct -- that they would become a source of nonconformist ministers trained in the Netherlands who would then go back to England. But "nonconformism" was increasingly becoming broader than what the term meant in England as people became more radicalized in the Netherlands, to the point that one prominent English-speaking church, which still exists, refused to join the English Synod and remained a member of its Dutch-speaking classis.
I think the Mennonites may have had more influence than the Particular Baptists want to admit, but less influence than their anti-Baptist enemies claimed.
Bottom line: modern conservative Congregationalism for decades now, with roots dating back close to a century if not longer, has allowed both positions on infant baptism. I'm fine with that under Congregational polity so long as local churches can set stricter standards for membership and office. My own personal view is that I care far more whether parents are raising their children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord than about when the water gets applied to the child, and I consider the amount of water to be utterly irrelevant. If someone wants to fully immerse babies -- and I've seen it happen -- I don't object.
What I will not do is accept rebaptism on any grounds other than the baptism not being Trinitarian, for which we have a Scriptural example with the rebaptism of the followers of John the Baptist who did not know about the Holy Spirit. Rebaptism is Anabaptist by definition and has no biblical grounds.
What complicates this is that there were ties between the Mennonites and some of the people who left the English Synod in the Netherlands (a classis of English-speaking churches in the Netherlands that was de facto a Congregational association though operating in connection with what became the Hervormde Kerk). The English Synod was a petri dish in which all sorts of nonconformist ideas by Englishmen could be tested out in the relative safety of the Netherlands while being under the broad umbrella of what eventually became the Dutch state church. (Yes, I know the "state church" term isn't fully accurate in the 1500s or even 1600s, but I'm using it to make clear these were not sectaries but were operating as part of the "official" church.) Things got to the point that the English Synod was given a directive not to ordain anyone since there was a concern -- likely correct -- that they would become a source of nonconformist ministers trained in the Netherlands who would then go back to England. But "nonconformism" was increasingly becoming broader than what the term meant in England as people became more radicalized in the Netherlands, to the point that one prominent English-speaking church, which still exists, refused to join the English Synod and remained a member of its Dutch-speaking classis.
I think the Mennonites may have had more influence than the Particular Baptists want to admit, but less influence than their anti-Baptist enemies claimed.
Bottom line: modern conservative Congregationalism for decades now, with roots dating back close to a century if not longer, has allowed both positions on infant baptism. I'm fine with that under Congregational polity so long as local churches can set stricter standards for membership and office. My own personal view is that I care far more whether parents are raising their children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord than about when the water gets applied to the child, and I consider the amount of water to be utterly irrelevant. If someone wants to fully immerse babies -- and I've seen it happen -- I don't object.
What I will not do is accept rebaptism on any grounds other than the baptism not being Trinitarian, for which we have a Scriptural example with the rebaptism of the followers of John the Baptist who did not know about the Holy Spirit. Rebaptism is Anabaptist by definition and has no biblical grounds.
Not the point. It is the differentiation of them from Anabaptists that is the point. Anyone who reads the literature of the period will recognise this. Claiming someone is prejudiced because he lumps them in together, or that he has a polemical point to prove, ignores the historical context and the deep concern felt over the rise of sectarianism.
darrellmaurina
Puritan Board Junior
Not necessarily disagreeing.
The experience of the English Synod in the Netherlands shows that even the Particular Baptists who come out of Congregationalism may not have been completely free of Mennonite influence.
What I think we can say is that it was the desire of the Particular Baptists to emphasize their similarities to the Reformed, and it was the desire of their opponents to claim they were Anabaptists.
By the time of 1689 I think we can say the Particular Baptists had succeeded in making their case that they should be treated as something different from Anabaptism. That wasn't at all yet clear in 1644, which is, of course, part of why the First London Baptist Confession was written.
As far as I'm concerned, Reformed Baptists are my brothers in sovereign grace. I'll stand with John Owen on that in his support for getting John Bunyan out of prison and getting Pilgrim's Progress published. But of course, I'm speaking as a Congregationalist and I understand that those committed to a different view of church government will have far greater problems with how Particular Baptists run their churches than I do.
Yes. This was not confined to one person and his prejudice.
I think the confessional purification of "particular baptists" entitles them to a degree of acceptance they did not have before. Even then, there are issues with excommunicating the saints when they go down the path of some of the old particular baptists. The debate on open communion was still open back then, as Bunyan's history testifies. And even now I still come across antipaedobaptist brethren who require re-baptism in order to communion. In doing so they put themselves on the outer.
This still seems to be the case to some extent. Given the nature of so many of the exchanges and attitudes on the PB, I sometimes wonder if everyone would be better off if the PB were to be made solely the haunt and echo-chamber for the vast majority of paedobaptists here. It does get tiring sometimes being talked about and treated like a reluctantly put-up-with red-headed country-cousin stepchild - despite a shared belief in the doctrines of grace. But then again, that isn't really necessary, as folks are free to stop participating at any time...
darrellmaurina
Puritan Board Junior
Over on another thread, @davejonescue has reminded us non-Baptists that the total number of evangelical Baptists in America vastly exceeds all liberal, moderate, and conservative Presbyterian and Reformed paedobaptists, even if we include the PC(USA)'s inflated numbers of non-attending supposed "members" in churches that aren't anywhere close to being Reformed or even teach basic biblical doctrine.
I've been listening for years to Dr. R. Scott Clark over on the Heidelblog arguing that "Reformed Baptist" is a contradiction in terms, and long before Dr. Clark was teaching at Westminster, I was listening to Dutch Reformed people arguing that anyone who doesn't practice infant baptism has fundamentally departed from covenant theology and is no longer entitled to be called "Reformed." (To be fair to him, Dr. Clark is being faithful to his own theological tradition, originally that of the German Reformed and now of a significant part of the Dutch Reformed tradition, and I don't blame him for that. I disagree, and he knows that.) Many other people could be cited, including a Calvin Seminary professor who seriously argues that the Five Points are not enough and we need to elevate both infant baptism and presbyterian church government (but apparently not male gender for presbyters) to mandatory requirements to be called "Reformed."
I've been disagreeing on that all way back to the 1980s. I believe Reformed Baptists are our brothers in sovereign grace. In return, I've not only been called "reductionist" in my view of what it means to be Reformed, I've been told that I'm a "pietist" who places personal conversion above the covenant.
To that second accusation, I plead guilty. That's what it means to be Puritan. People who emphasize the covenant instead of conversion are the people who opposed the Puritans four centuries ago, and I'll make my stand on the absolute necessity of personal conversion.
There are reasons why John Owen worked hard, at considerable personal risk, to get John Bunyan out of prison and to get Pilgrim's Progress published. A shared commitment to Puritan theology of personal conversion was high on the list of those reasons.
The road that some of the extreme anti-Baptists want to take ends badly in narrowness and bitterness between people who should be brothers, and allowing our enemies to take a divide-and-conquer approach to attack us all.
Since I mentioned Dr. Clark by name, I need to make clear that I don't include him in that "extreme anti-Baptist" category. He has a different set of confessions from the WCF in which the Belgic Confession takes a far harder line than the WCF, and even before he joined the URC, he came from a different theological tradition, the German Reformed, that was not only firmly opposed to "revivalism" and the Second Great Awakening, but also deeply suspicious of the Puritan project and the First Great Awakening under Jonathan Edwards, et al. Dr. Clark's views are within the mainstream of the historic Dutch Reformed position, and he's said repeatedly that Reformed Baptists should call themselves "Particular Baptists," not "Reformed," and would respect them if they maintained their own Particular Baptist tradition without calling it "Reformed." I disagree with him, but that's kind of like telling a member of a Reformed Episcopal church that he shouldn't have bishops or telling a Covenanter that predominant psalmody is good but churches don't need to practice exclusive psalmody. His views are part-and-parcel of his theological tradition and I don't object to people following their own confessions and their theological tradition's historic interpretation of their confessions.
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No Other Name
Puritan Board Senior
jwright82
Puritan Board Professor
For the record, us "redheaded step children" don't claim Ronald McDonald as one of our own.
and of course:
No Other Name
Puritan Board Senior
jwright82
Puritan Board Professor
Wendy's one of our founding members though.And I would never presume to debate you on it.
Mountain Presbyterian
Puritan Board Freshman
I was under the impression that the English Baptists of the 17th century fairly closely resembled the Mennonites on the continent of Europe. From what I have gathered about Mennonite theology from interactions with them, I think that the conservative Baptists are still very similar to the Mennonites other than the pacifism part of their theology. I grew up IFB and have had family members that are Freewill Baptist ministers, so I'm much more familiar with General Baptist history than Particular Baptist history. Were the majority of 17th century English Baptists Calvinistic or Arminian?
For what it's worth, I have been (and still am) asked if I am Mennonite or Amish. That at the very least speaks to the cultural similarity of the Baptists and the Mennonites even today for me to somewhat regularly be asked that question. I think at the very least you have to admit that the Baptists are 1st cousins with the Anabaptists.
I know this is a little bit off topic from what my initial question was, but it's interesting anyways.
Is this for rhetorical effect? It is clearly not accurate. The Puritans emphasised the necessity of personal conversion but they did so within a covenantal framework. For them, covenant and conversion were not opposites. The covenant creates the context in which conversion is demanded and nurtured.
The tendency towards sentimentalism in light of later developments is understandable, but let's not distort the history. The Reformed called the "Baptists" Anabaptists. This shows the state of affairs at that time.
Mountain Presbyterian
Puritan Board Freshman
There comes a point where it is stretched beyond meaning. The original name was in fact rejected by the mass of the Puritans because it referred to Catharists and Separatists who were seen as heretics from a churchly perspective. But it was mostly applied to those seeking reform from within the church. Then it came to be extended to Independents and Separatists again. Later historiography has tended to widen it to certain "characteristics" which make it virtually unintelligible. Finally it gets extended well beyond the 17th century to all kinds of people bearing certain marks that are supposed to be "Puritan." At which point it becomes meaningless as a historical identifier.
darrellmaurina
Puritan Board Junior
That's a fair question to me.
I'm contrasting a Puritan emphasis on personal conversion with people who teach baptismal regeneration, presumptive regeneration, or just generally de-emphasize human sin and the need for repentance (what might be called a "broad church" or "latitudinarian" approach). I don't know your ecclesiastical context so perhaps these are not issues in your world. They definitely are -- particularly presumptive regeneration -- for certain parts of the Dutch Reformed world. While less of a problem where I live, in heavily Lutheran areas or Roman Catholic areas, anyone who affirms infant baptism gets lumped in with those who teach baptismal regeneration and that forces us to explain that the reasons why we teach infant baptism are not the same reasons why some others do so.
I certainly didn't mean to say I thought the Puritans didn't work in a covenantal framework. To the contrary -- those raised in the covenant who reject it come under severe covenant curses.
Does that clarify what I meant, and maybe didn't say very well?
Yes; thankyou for that. Our world tends to be mostly baptistic, Arminian, pentecostal conversionistic error. A Puritan revival of true covenantal conversion would be wonderful to behold.
darrellmaurina
Puritan Board Junior
I am pretty sure I know the answer on this, but the answer needs to come from Reformed Baptists who will have immediate access to facts and to sources for those facts.
Can @davejonescue, @No Other Name , @Phil D. , @philomath or one of the other Reformed Baptists who have not yet posted on this thread comment regarding the rough percentage of Particular Baptists vs. General Baptists in the Puritan era in England and in early America?
The stats I've seen quoted by the Founders Conference people are that the vast majority of Baptists used to be Reformed with a small number of Arminians -- pretty much the opposite of today.
According to histories I've read, General Baptists were obviously most numerous at first, because they came first chronologically (1612). Their overall numbers stayed relatively low, however, with probably fewer than 5000 by 1640 (when properly distinguishing them from Anabaptists in England). Particular Baptists emerged in the late 1630s, and then rapidly became the predominant group. The considerable number of Baptists that served under Cromwell in the Parliamentary army during the English civil wars (starting in 1642) were almost exclusively of the Calvinist strain, reflective of their agreement with so-called just war theory. General Baptists were more likely to be pacifist, due to the influence of Mennonite thinking at their origin. In early America Particular Baptists were also predominate, as Founders is so fond of pointing out.
philomath
Puritan Board Freshman
It's been a while since I've read up on the topic, but I remember this being what I came away with as well. I think a lot of the influx of Arminianism in America came with the "Second Great Awakening" and revivalistic theology. You can throw into the mix the spread of Finney's outright Pelagianism to make matters even worse.
Since I haven't read on the topic in a while, I'll let others share quotes and statistics. Some people with relevant info on the topic are Wyatt Graham (TGC Canada, The Davenant Institute), Dr. Michael Haykin (SBTS), and Tom Hicks (Founders).
JP Wallace
Puritan Board Sophomore
Speaking an an ex-Reformed Baptist - the 17th century English Baptists were overwhelmingly Calvinistic with every few exceptions.
darrellmaurina
Puritan Board Junior
Thank you for reminding us of the role of Particular Baptists in Oliver Cromwell's army.
There might be reasons dating back to the 1600s on why Congregationalists have been less opposed to Baptists who affirm sovereign grace than a lot of other Reformed people. When a disfavored group was willing to fight and die for Cromwell, it stands to reason that Cromwell decided the disfavor might be unjustified. (And yes, I'm well aware that Cromwell also tolerated people who we wouldn't want to tolerate, ecclesiastically speaking -- he was actually far more tolerant than history has given him credit for being, apart from "prelacy and popery," to use language of the day that I would not use.)
It's a simple fact of history that the Particular Baptist movement came primarily out of Congregationalism and not out of the older Anabaptist movement, though there were also some connections between the early Congregationalists who fled to exile in the Netherlands and the Mennonites they found there.
I don't like that because I've spent decades being told that denying Presbyterian polity will inevitably lead Congregationalists to become Baptists. I don't agree, though my life would be a lot easier if I could find biblical grounds for rebaptism of people baptized as infants.
Still, it can't be denied that the accusation of a Congregational-to-Baptist pipeline has some historical support.
My response would be that a Congregationalist need only change his views on the proper subjects for baptism, not his views on church polity, to become a Baptist. A Presbyterian must change many more things to become a Baptist, even a Reformed Baptist, and a Presbyterian pastor or a Presbyterian church faces even greater hurdles than a Presbyterian layman. By contrast, a Congregational pastor or church faces few structural obstacles to becoming Baptist. His Congregational association will probably give him an amicable transfer of credentials, his church will be able to switch affiliations based only on whatever local rules exist in the local constitution, and in some cases, including the Conservative Congregational Christian Conference, there may not even be a need to change denominations since both views on baptism are allowed. Therefore, the alleged "Congregational to Baptist" pipeline is less a matter of Congregationalism being inherently baptistic, but rather that Presbyterians make it a lot more difficult to leave and impose more consequences on those who depart, based on different views of church government, not of baptism.
Of course, as you may already know, some 17th century Presbyterians deemed Congregationalists (and other separatists and independents - aka "sectaries") to be but more freckle-faced stepchildren of Anabaptism (although stronger language than that was sometimes employed...). For example, see Baillie's Anabaptism, the true fountaine of Independency.
[edit] Then again, some Anglicans in turn blamed Puritanism and the subsequent rise of Presbyterianism for facilitating the concurrent spread of Anabaptism in England. See: Robert Sanderson, Fourteen Sermons heretofore preached..., (London: 1657). Featley also alludes to this in his Dippers Dipt, which was first published shortly after he was booted from the Westminster Assembly.
And we all know what the Roman Catholics think about the Anglicans and their historical origins.
As they say, history, including church history, is messy, and typically viewed through the lens of one's personal biases...
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I have come across several references from the 17th and 18th centuries where churchmen of various stripes expressed this perception as well - albeit one would also have to attach the proper mode of baptism as a co-issue.
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darrellmaurina
Puritan Board Junior
We're on the same page, @Phil D. I could also cite books claiming that the "Brownists" are "full Donatists." ("Brownists" were an early category of Congregationalists whose weak views on elder authority were later rejected by most Congregationalists, who became known as "Barrowists" and affirmed elder rule, but the Brownists set a bad precedent for rule by the congregational meeting).
What I'm trying to communicate is that whether I like it or not, the Reformed Baptist movement has considerably more in common with Puritan Congregationalism than it does with the Anabaptist movement. I may not like it, but you came out of us, not the Anabaptists.
Forty years ago, that was a major problem and I had to spend a lot of time defending the legitimacy of Congregational church polity as a Reformed option. I think today, it's more of an advantage for Reformed Congregationalists because we can point out, correctly so, that the 1648 Cambridge Platform pretty closely describes the way Reformed Baptist churches function with rule by local elders in local churches, voluntarily associated with each other. While some Reformed people want to say the Reformed Baptists are not Reformed, most don't say that, and if you are accepted as legitimately Reformed despite your views on baptism, there is no ground for saying Congregationalists aren't Reformed since the historic Reformed Congregational "church order" essentially is the same as what most Reformed Baptists teach and practice.
Most Reformed people today either 1) accept that Reformed Baptists are Reformed or 2) have given up trying to argue the point and have accepted that the word "Reformed" has come to mean, in common usage, someone who holds to the Five Points and one of several different confessional traditions, and "Calvinist" means someone who holds to the Five Points but is looser or non-confessional.
I recognize it may not seem absurd at Calvin Seminary to have an internationally known Reformed scholar on the faculty who says we need more than five points, says Presbyterian church government needs to be one of those points, but doesn't think the presbyters need to be male. Pretty much everyone else in the conservative Reformed world, even people who are willing to tolerate women in office, think it's silly to insist on adding presbyterian polity to the definition of being "Reformed" while at the same time opening the doors for a lot of the stuff happening in the CRC.
Words change in their meaning over time, and I don't have a problem with saying Reformed Baptists are legitimately Reformed and came out of Congregationalism, not Anabaptism.
Being narrower than John Owen and other actual Puritans of the actual Puritan era is not helpful.
These kinds of statements leave me with the impression that you don't really like having to make such an admission - why not? Or am I misreading you..?
The title of the 1st London Confession (1644) was, "The Confession of faith of those churches which are commonly (though falsly) called Anabaptists . . ."
If those who hold to Second London (which is the theology of First London) are allowed on here, it would seem appropriate that we drop the accusation of Anabaptist. Otherwise, there's not much reason to be here.
If those who hold to Second London (which is the theology of First London) are allowed on here, it would seem appropriate that we drop the accusation of Anabaptist. Otherwise, there's not much reason to be here.
Theoretical
Puritan Board Professor
He's basically saying it's historically frustrating to him that he can't fully dismiss the argument made by anti-congregationalists that his polity views inherently lead to credobaptism since the Reformed Baptist origins are much more Congregationalist than Anabaptist. I think it's not really a comment about the view of baptism so much as it is a polity issue.
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