PREFACE.

great number of Baptist churches, the result must necessarily have been meager and unsatisfactory.

The author has done his work in all candor, with a sincere regard to the purpose of history and the maintenance of truth. He sends it forth with the prayer that it may fulfil its mission and afford profit to all who peruse its pages. Despite the utmost care to avoid mistakes, it is very likely that some have crept into the text, but on discovery they will be promptly corrected hereafter.

It was desirable to seek the aid of several young scholars, specialists in their departments, who have rendered valuable service by the examination of scarce books and documents, and submitted their own suggestions for consideration. Of these it is specially pleasant to mention :

Rev. W. W. Everts, Jr., of Philadelphia, who has devoted a large portion of his life to the study of ecclesiastical history, and has had rare opportunities, as a student in Germany, to make himself acquainted with the records of the Continental Baptists. He has made his investigations with great care and enthusiasm:

Henry C. Vedder, Esq., a junior editor of the Examiner,' and an editor of the Baptist Quarterly.' He is especially at home in all that relates to the Baptists in the time of the English Commonwealth, and has shown superior ability in examining that period:

Rev. George E. Horr, Jr., of Charlestown, Mass., who is thoroughly acquainted with the American period of our history, and in his researches has made free use of the libraries at Cambridge and Boston, turning them to most profitable account.

The first two of these gentlemen have also read the proofs of the respective departments to which they have thus contributed.

Rev. J. Spinther James, of Wales, was recommended by Rev. Hugh Jones, late president of the Llangollen College, as quite competent to make investigations in the history of the Welsh Baptists. These he has made and submitted, having had special facilities for information in the library of that institution.

Hon. Horatio Gates Jones, of Philadelphia, consented to prepare a full Baptist bibliography, but a press of legal business has prevented the accomplishment of his work, after devoting much time to the subject.

The portraits of these gentlemen are grouped, and preface the American department. It is but honorable to add, that none of these scholars are to be held responsible for any statement of fact or for any sentiment found in the book; that is entirely assumed by the author.

Hearty and sincere thanks are hereby rendered to Frederick Saunders, Esq., librarian of the Astor Library, for many attentions, especially for the use of Garruci, in photographing ten of the illustrations found in the chapter on Baptismal Pictures; to Dr. George H. Moore, of the Lenox Library, for the use of the great Bunyan collection there; and to Henry E. Lincoln, Esq., librarian of the Baptist Historical Society's Library, Philadelphia.

The author owes a debt of gratitude also to T. J. Conant, D.D., LL.D., for his kindness in reading the proof-sheets of the chapters on the Baptism of Jesus and the Apostolic Churches as Models; to Heman Lincoln, D.D., Professor of Ecclesiastical History at the Newton Theological Seminary, who examined the proofs on the Second and Third Centuries; to Albert H. Newman, D.D., LL.D., Professor of Church History in the Toronto Theological Seminary, who read all the chapters on the Continental Baptists from that on the Waldensians to that on the Netherlands; to Rev. D. McLane Reeves, D.D., of Johnstown, N. Y., who read the chapter on the Waldensians; to Rev. Owen Griffith, editor of the 'Y Wawr,' Utica, N. Y., who read the proof of the chapter on the Welsh Baptists; to Henry S. Burrage, D.D., editor of Zion's Advocate,' who examined the two chapters on the Swiss Baptists; to S. F. Smith, D.D., of Mass., who has aided largely in the chapter on Missions; to Reuben A. Guild, LL.D., Librarian of Brown University, who read most of the proofs of the chapters on the American Baptists; to J. E. Wells, M.A., of Toronto, who furnished much material for the chapter on the Baptists in British America; and to Rev. J. Wolfenden, of Chicago, Ill., for many facts concerning the Australian Baptists. Each of these scholars made invaluable suggestions, laying both the author and the reader under great obligations.

Acknowledgments of debt are also made to Rev. William Norton, A.M., of Chulmleigh, England, and to Rev. Joseph Angus, D.D., LL.D., Principal of Regents' Park College, London, for the examination of works not easily found in this country. Also to William Cathcart, D.D., of Philadelphia; Henry G. Weston, D.D., of Crozer Theological Seminary; to Howard Osgood, D.D., of the Rochester Theological Seminary; to Ebenezer Dodge, D.D., LL.D., president of Madison University; to Rev. Frederic Denison, of Providence, R. I.; to Hon. William H. Potter, to Hon. L. M. Lawson, Roger H. Lyon, Esq., and Dr. S. Ayers, of New York; and to D. Henry Miller, D.D., of Connecticut. The General Index has been prepared by Mr. Henry F. Reddall, of New York. Many other friends have kindly assisted the author in various ways in the preparation of the work, who will please accept his devout thanks; and last, but not least, those members of the press who have voluntarily spoken so kindly of the work on the inspection of portions of the manuscript personally or by their correspondents.

PARSONAGE, NO. 2 WEST 46TH ST., NEW YORK,

THOMAS ARMITAGE.

January 1, 1887.

INTRODUCTION.

A

HISTORY of the Baptists should be understood in its objects and aims;

and cleared, in the beginning, of misapprehension and perversion. It is not the history of a nationality, a race, an organization, but of a people, 'traced by their vital principles and gospel practices.' The unity to be exhibited and demonstrated was not brought about by force, by coercion of pains and penalties, by repressive and punitive Acts of Conformity; but by the recognition and adoption of a common authoritative and completed divine standard.

The error of many previous attempts has consisted in the assumption that a Church and Christianity were identical. We have had numerous and voluminous histories of Churches and creeds; and untold abuses have resulted from confounding them with Christ's people, with New Testament doctrines and practices. This petitio principii has been the source of much evil. Its hurtful influence has been seen and felt in the arrogant pretensions of these 'Churches,' their alliance with and use of civil authority, the abuses which have come from unrestrained and irresponsible power; and in the revulsion and extreme rebound of persons and communities, when reason and conscience and science and patriotism have exposed the deceptiveness of claims, and the hungering soul has had no satisfying response to its clamors for the bread of life. Many infidels have taken refuge in deism, atheism, agnosticism, because they in their ignorance supposed the 'Church,' as they saw it, to be the embodiment of Christianity, the authorized exponent of Jesus Christ. Much of the ridicule of priestcraft and denial of the inspiration of the Scriptures is directly traceable to the corruption of the clergy, to autos-da-fe to the churchly opposition to science and support of political tyranny and kingly wrongs. The genesis of the painful skepticism, so abundant in France, Spain and Italy, one need not search far to find. Le Clericalisme, voila l'ennemi' is the belief of many.

Bossuet advised Catholics, in their controversies with Protestants, to begin with the Church. A Church, in its idea, attributes, organization, membership, officers, ordinances, has been the battle-ground of ecclesiastical and religious dispute; and literature, thought, public opinion, government, manners, worship, have been so much affected and controlled by these disputes, that it is not easy now to bring back a discussion, or confine it, to the real, primal, essential question.

The idea of a New Testament Church is more subjective than objective. A Church is not an a priori organization, as innate ideas are a priori.

It is not an antecedent agency or instrumentality for the conversion of men. Men are not members by natural birth, by inheritance, by legislative act, by priestly rite. Believers are not made such by the opus operatum of Church ordinances. They dwell in Christ and Christ dwells in them by the consciousness of grace imparted. They came together into the primitive Churches by an elective affinity, an inwrought spiritual aptitude and capacity; and constituted a brotherhood of the baptized, a holy fellowship of the redeemed, a community of regenerated men and women, united to one another by the same animating spirit. A New Testament Church, the apostolic model, was a result, a product, an evolution from antecedent facts and principles. The Christ did not constitute a Church in advance of preaching and salvation and baptism, and endow it with powers and functions to execute the great commission. As the apostles and disciples preached, men and women heard, believed, and were baptized. The believers, coming together in local assemblies, were empowered to perform certain acts for edification and usefulness. These simple organizations were in the early days of Christianity the divinely approved Churches. A Church is no more a pre-ordained agency, an exterior antecedent instrumentality for saving men and women than the fruit is a pre-existing agency for propagating its kind. Both are evolutions and necessities in the wisdom and providence of God. From certain elemental principles-the logical and spiritual consequences of regen- · eration, faith, love and obedience-Churches, with their membership, organizations, officers and ordinances, are evolved.

The evolution is none the less such because scriptural precepts can be produced; for in the sense in which the word is used, these commands are evolutions of the wisdom and grace of God. It is readily seen how too much importance can be attached to forms and organizations and officers. Christ taught truth, promulgated ideas, sowed seed. Character, life, organism, union, followed. Philosophy, politics, science, religion, are valuable not as the outcome of a pre-ordained scheme, but as the product and growth of correlated thought, ideas actualized, principles, abstractions, put into concrete, vitalized forms. Moral and spiritual should precede and dominate the physical as ideas precede form and organism. Whatever is durable, immortal; whatever conduces to man's well-being, to the development of humanity which had its genesis in divine thought, must in its ultimate analysis be traceable to fundamental principles, to eternal verities. Civilization, government, religion, must be imperfect, ephemeral, and fail of their noblest end if not based on an intelligent and cordial adoption of the right, the true, the imperishable. Just in so far as mere expediency controls there will be superficiality, imperfectness, failure. A Christian Church must come from the divine thought and seek the divine end. A Church in the true New Testament idea, so originated and wrought out, presents a perfect ideal, ever stimulating, beckoning onward and upward, never perfectly attained. It exalts God's word, magnifies Christ's work, relies on the Spirit's presence and power, individualizes and honors man, teaches his personal responsi

bility and privileges, and necessitates his completest moral and mental development. Individualism runs through New Testament Christianity. Right of private judgment in religious matters, the requirement of personal faith and obedience, leads inevitably to civil freedom. Individuality in relation to God and Christ and salva-. tion, the Scriptures and judgment and eternity, conducts by an irresistible sequence to freedom of thought and speech and press to popular government, to unfettered scientific investigation, to universal education. Soul liberty cannot be dissevered from civil freedom. All modern reforms in government, broadening from the few to the many, can be traced to the recognition more or less complete of man's personal relations to God, and to the rejection of sponsors, priests and mediators, in faith and obedience and study. Intense religious activity quickens enterprise in all proper directions. Free thought on grand religious problems awakens thought on other topics. Communion with the King of kings, free and constant and invited access to him, makes one feel that the artificial distinctions of earth are transitory, and that a joint heir with the Christ is superior in freedom and nobleness and possibilities to any sovereign on the throne of the Cæsars.

New Testament Churches in their idea and ends have been perverted. From various causes they have degenerated into human organizations, and have been so assimilated to States and Nations as to be scarcely distinguishable from the kingdoms of this world. The tests or marks of a State would not be inapplicable to "The Church as it has acted, or claimed to act. It has been bound into a body politic, has exercised through the medium of a common government independent sovereignty and control over all persons and things within its boundaries, has entered into international relations with other political communities, has represented itself by embassadors and legates, has partitioned continents and oceans, has interfered in successions, has acquired territory, has been known by all the indicia of temporal authority. Becoming a secular power, it has claimed equal authority over many distinct kingdoms, exacted from their citizens an allegiance upon oath above that which the municipal law of their own country could impose, claimed Empires as fiefs, exacted oaths of vassalage and collected feudal revenues, absolved sovereigns and subjects from their oaths; claimed for the persons and the property of the officers it employed and the law by which they were to be governed a status wholly distinct from that of the subjects of the country where such officers were; stirred up crusades against refractory kings and republics, against schismatical princes, against pagans, against heretics; through the Inquisition 'secured to the ecclesiastical authority the arm of the secular power without any right of inquiry or intervention as a condition of its nse,' and put infidelity to the Church on the same footing as rebellion against the throne. All along through twelve centuries Churches have claimed the right to enter into alliances with civil governments, to direct executive, legislative and judicial action, and to use the power of the State for the execution of their decrees.