History Of The Baptists
The history of Baptists is given in the following survey by Curtis Whaley:
Baptists do not trace their heritage to the Protestant Reformation, but back to Jesus Christ and the apostolic churches, as we see in the following overview by Curtis Whaley:
Though many Baptist groups sprang up during the Protestant Reformation, according to Collier’s Encyclopedia, the Baptists have ‘descended from some of the evangelical “sects” of the preceding age during which the Roman and Orthodox Churches dominated all of Europe and suppressed all dissent.’ A Catholic, Cardinal Hosius, president of the Council of Trent(1545-1563), wrote during the early years of the Reformation period, ‘Were it not that the Baptists have been grievously tormented and cut off with the knife during the past twelve hundred years, they would swarm in greater numbers than all the reformers.’ This should convince anyone that the Baptists are not a by-product of the Reformation, and are not even Protestants in the popular sense of the term.
If the Baptists did not begin with the Reformation, when did they begin? We will let a great American and world historian answer. John Clark Ridpath (1840-1900), a Methodist by denominational conviction, wrote, ‘I should not readily admit that there was a Baptist church as far back as 100 A.D., although without doubt there were Baptist churches then, as all Christians were then Baptists.’ Yes, all Christians were then Baptists, because the doctrines that Baptists believe and teach today are the same as those taught by the Lord Jesus Himself, by Peter, John, Paul, and all the Apostles.
We have not always been called ‘Baptists.’ The name is not a self-chosen one. Following what we believe to be apostolic precept and example, the Baptists rejected infant baptism, insisted on a ‘regenerate membership,’ and baptism sought intelligently by the candidate as a condition for church membership. For these reasons they were stigmatized as ‘Anabaptists,’ ‘Cata-baptist,’ and sometimes as simply ‘Baptists.’ This was to say they were [called by their enemies] ‘rebaptizers, perverts of baptism,’ or as unduly emphasizing baptism and making it a reason for schism, simply ‘baptizers.’ We are proud of the name, because it distinguishes our doctrinal position which is set forth in the New Testament and identifies us with a host of saints who have believed the same precious truths and were identified with the same denominator.
The premise that first century Christians were Baptists runs counter to the Roman Catholic claim that the first church was Roman Catholic. To this we need only point out that the first church was organized by Christ and His Apostles, and those Apostles became the nucleus of the church at Jerusalem, not Rome, and James was its leader, not Peter. We also contend that the bishop of Rome did not win primacy over other bishops until the fourth century, and that it wasn’t until Gregory ascended the Episcopal throne in 590 A.D. that the Roman bishop began to claim his supremacy over other bishops. Thus we see that Roman Catholicism dates back to the fourth century at the earliest.
While we do not contend that only Baptist are going to Heaven, we do contend that the first church was organized according to principles historically maintained by Baptists, and that Baptists have existed since that day. First called Christians, then by other names down through the centuries until they received the name that has distinguished them from Protestant and Catholic groups alike (Way of Life Encyclopedia of the Bible & Christianity. 2nd Edition. Edited by David W. Cloud. Pub. October 1997. Curtis Whaley, Who are the Baptists?)
