Baptist beginnings

Part 1: Establishing Baptists roots in England and America

Most scholars have concluded that Baptists emerged from the English separatist movement sometime in the late 16^th century or early 17^th century.  While there are those who hold to a more elaborate “successionist” theory that states that churches holding onto Baptist beliefs have existed since the time of Christ, this is not generally accepted.

In 1607 a group of English Separatists led by John Smyth, Thomas Helwys and William Bradford emigrated to Holland to escape persecution during the reign of James I. The section of the group led by Smyth and Helwys came into contact with Mennonites living in Amsterdam and adopted believer’s baptism as a result of this contact by 1609.

In 1611 Helwys returned to England and establisheed the first Baptist church in England at Spitalfields in London.  Meanwhile, those following Smyth become Mennonites, and the group following Bradford departed for Virginia in 1620 (becoming the Pilgrims).

This group became known as “General” Baptists in that that they believed that salvation was “generally” open for all, as opposed to the more Calvinistic separatist groups.

In 1616, Henry Jacob, John Lathrop and Henry Jessey founded the JLJ church in the Southwark area of London.  This became the first “Particular” (Calvanistic) Baptist church in England.

By 1640-1660 both General and Particular Baptist groups had adopted baptism by total immersion as the appropriate New Testament mode of baptism.

Particular Baptists tended to grow faster than General Baptists in England.  By the time of the English Revolution and the Protectorate (1653) many different Baptist churches had been founded. By this time we find in the writings of Praise-God Barebone (an early Baptist historian, preacher and leader) that Baptist churches were adopting confessions of faith and forming associations together for mutual benefit. 

Praise-God Barebone (1598-1679)

We also see that Baptists as leaders in the separatist movement promoted the notion of religious toleration (including Barebone, who was a member of parliament during the Rump Parliament). This leadership led to the Toleration act of 1689 after the Glorious revolution of 1688 allowing worship of dissenting churches provided that they register their meetinghouses.

Roger Williams (1603-1683)

Williams was a Separatist (Puritan) minister who emigrated to New England in 1631. He became dissatisfied with the lack of “separateness” with the church in Boston and thus accepted a call to the church in Salem, Mass.  However, he soon again came into conflict with the authorities in the colony, resulting in his being brought to trial in 1635. The issues at hand were that Williams taught:

“First, That we have not our Land by Patent from the King but that the Natives are the true owners of it and that we ought to repent of such a receiving it by Patent.

Secondly, that it is not lawful to call a wicked person to Sweare, to Pray, as being actions of God’s worship.

Thirdly, That it is not lawful to hear any of the Ministers of the parish assemblies in England.

Fourthly, That the civil magistrates power extends only to the bodies and goods and outward state of man.”

As you can see, he was already leaning toward expressions of both religious liberty (fourth point) and was deriving conclusions from a belief in a regenerate church membership (second and third point). 

As a result of the persecution, he escaped to the wilds around Providence and drew up a compact for the governance of the “Providence Plantations”.  It was founded on the conception of religious liberty. Later this became the nucleus of the colony of Rhode Island, which established religious liberty in hits colonial charter in 1663.

In 1639, Williams co-founded one of the earliest Baptist churches in America in Providence.  Less than a year later, he split with this church, which continued in the Baptist tradition.

John Clarke (1609-1676) had a similar career to that of Williams – leaving England to follow his separatist notions, and then being persecuted by the Massachusetts authorities.  He established the second Baptist church in America in Newport in 1644. The establishment of a church in Boston in 1665, and many others, followed this.

Baptists were not immune to religious persecution, though during this period, for instance, no sooner had the congregation in Boston built a new meetinghouse in 1679 than the colonial authorities locked them out of it.

Baptist churches also spread beyond New England to the middle and southern colonies as well.  Notable among them is a congregation founded by William Scriven founded in Kittery Maine in 1682, which entirely relocated to Charleston, SC in 1696 and thus became the first Baptist church in the south.

Baptist churches grew, but slowly in all the colonies until the time of the great awakening (1730’s – 1740’s). While not primarily responsible for the Great Awakening, they were one of the greatest beneficiaries of it, as many people, including entire congregations of “new light” Congregationalists, became Baptists as a result. While Baptists started as one of the smallest protestant denominations in the US at the beginning of the 18^th century, by the end they were numerically the largest denomination.

Isaac Backus (1724-1806)

Isaac Backus was born in 1724 near Norwich, CT to parents who were members of the Congregational church. He experienced an emotional conversion during the Great Awakening at the age of 17 and, together with his mother, became a Baptist around 1751.    He became a well known preacher and author, writing two treatises on the subject of religious liberty and the earliest history of Baptists in America.

Facing persecution for his beliefs, he chaired the “Baptist Grievance Committee”, which kept records of Baptist persecution and sought redress from the Colonial authorities, and when that was unsuccessful, directly from the King. During the time of the American Revolution he campaigned against the establishment of an official state religion in the new Massachusetts constitution.    He led a delegation to the Continental Congress to promote religious liberty, and argued the case for it before a subcommittee of the Congress.

John Leland (1754-1841)

Much as Backus was the primary Baptist voice for religious liberty in New England, John Leland was its representative in the Southern colonies and states. While persecution in New England against Baptists was primarily economic (fines and being forced to pay a tax for the salaries of Congregationalist ministers), in the South, especially Virginia where the Anglican Church was the established church, it was more active.

Baptist ministers such as Samuel Harris and James Ireland were imprisoned, fined, and beaten for preaching Baptist doctrines contrary to the established Anglican church.  Likewise, parents were fined for not baptizing infants.  In Virginia, the Anglicans worked against the 1688 Act of Toleration by allowing only one dissenting congregation per county, which was usually allocated to the Presbyterians, and refusing to allow Baptists to register a congregation

Leland both preached and wrote extensively, with his major work being “The right of Conscience Inalienable”, written in 1791.  (Subtitled “and therefore Religious Opinions not cognizable by Law: Or, The high-flying Churchman, stript of his legal Robe, appears a Yahoo”)  He led Virginia Baptists in writing petitions for religious liberty to the Virginia assembly and led the fight (supported in this by James Madison) against the Virginia General Assessment bill, which would have levied a tax against all Virginians for the support of protestant ministers with proceeds being divided proportionally by denomination.  

The reaction to this bill led to Jefferson’s bill for Establishing Religious Freedom in Virginia.  Leland worked together with James Madison to guarantee that religious liberty be enshrined in the U.S. Constitution, negotiating to gain Baptist support for ratification of the constitution in exchange for the passage of the first amendment to the constitution, guaranteeing religious liberty.

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