Excerpt

From the Preface

Discontent with the centuries long control by the Roman, then Anglican, churches sparked the Separatist movement in Britain thereby creating the climate for Baptist Beginnings. So it was there my wife and I went to visit sites and study the history of early Baptists. In the American colonies Separatists evolved as Congregational, Baptist, Presbyterian, and Methodist churches, so we also visited sites associated with early Baptists in America.

Profiles in Faith - Discovering Baptist Beginnings is about Baptist saints and their sites, their roots and their people. The Prologue highlights the history of the creative Celtic period that very much laid the foundation for the Separatist movement. The Profiles focus on a few of the personalities who led a revival of the faith and planted new congregations. The Epilogue concludes with some reflections on the continuing revival these persons started.

The faith of such famous personalities as John Bunyan, Roger Williams and Charles Spurgeon is profiled along with those who are less known such as Andrew Fuller, John Myles and John Clarke. The issues with which they wrestled, such as passing on their faith to those who had no faith in Jesus and gaining and maintaining religious liberty, are issues that still confront us today. The tensions between conformists and nonconformists are still with us. People desire religious liberty, yet others seek to limit that liberty. People desire separation of church and state and yet others seek to use civil government to promote faith issues. It is my hope that this book will help keep alive our collective memory as Baptists.

Each chapter closes with reflections that may be used for a meditative moment. A discussion guide is found in the appendix. All photos included are mine.


From the Introduction

SOAKING UP IMPRESSIONS

David McCullough, a 1993 Pulitzer Prize winner for his biography of Harry S. Truman, recently wrote a biography of John Adams. In order to understand Adams, McCullough spent hours in the Adams home in Quincy, Massachusetts, soaking up impressions. He also visited the places Adams lived in Europe, immersing himself in Adamss favorite authors, handling Adamss actual letters and diaries as much as he could, and dining in Colonial Williamsburg just as Jefferson and Adams might have done. It may seem peripheral and amateurish, McCullough say, but I gotta go smell the place and see how the light comes into a room. . . . Its what I have to do to get myself into their lives and their time.4

I saw the places where these early Baptists lived, worshiped where they worshiped, and read from books they wrote. Profiles in Faith - Discovering Baptist Beginnings, is the result. I invite you to join me on this pilgrimage as together we discover Baptist beginnings in Britain and America.

From Chapter Three


THOMAS HELWYS (c.1570 - c.1615)

Thomas Helwys, a lawyer by profession, was born of a prominent family of gentleman farmers in the Trent River Valley of Nottinghamshire, Britain. He studied law at prestigious Grays Inn, the British legal society, and earned a comfortable living as a lawyer from 1592-1606. Joan Ashmore married Helwys in 1595. Parliament passed an act with severe penalties that was to affect them both. Everyone had to conform to rules of the Church of England and worship only in its churches.

Around 1605 Helwys became a disciple in the Nonconformist (those who would not conform) congregation gathered at Gainsborough by John Smyth. The Helwys home at Broxtowe Hall soon became a haven for other Nonconformists. Within a year or two Helwys fled to Amsterdam to avoid persecution. There he helped plant a church with Smyth.

Helwys became the financial angel for the struggling congregation, assisting several others in fleeing persecution. In retaliation King James authorized the arrest of Helwys wife, Joan, seized Broxtowe Hall along with all their other assets, and imprisoned Joan in 1608 in York Castle. By 1609 the attempt to renew the church through the study of Gods word led the congregation to affirm that baptism should be for believers only upon confession of faith in Jesus. They also came to believe that Jesus died for us all, not just the elect, so that everyone should be extended an invitation to follow Jesus.

While in Amsterdam, Helwys and his supporters drew up a Declaration of Faith of the English People Remaining at Amsterdam in Holland (1611) in which they emphasized that God wishes us all to be saved. They believed that the church of Christ is a company of faithful people . . . separated from the world by the Word and Spirit of God . . . being bound unto the Lord and unto one another by baptism . . . upon their own confession of the faith.2 They stressed that although in Christ there is one Church, it consists of individual congregations, each of which, guided by the Bible, is immediately responsible to Christ alone. It was one of the earliest requests in England for total religious liberty available to everyone.

Travel Notes - Bodleian Library, Oxford


In a dark corner nook under the light of a desk lamp we held and examined the first editions of some of Thomas Helwyss books marveling at their condition. They are the size of a modern paperback with calfskin covers. The print had bled through many pages of the paper. We read the personal note signed by Thomas Helwys on the flyleaf inside the edition that he sent to King James. The books and the movement Thomas Helwys started, survived. This was the source of Baptist beginnings.