01.1.21. Chapter 17 Continued

The word "new," however, in the mouth of writers of the period was a relative term and meant from one to sixteen hundred years. In the main they meant to deny the affirmation of the Baptists that immersion was "the good old way" and had the mark of "antiquity upon it" (Watts, A Scribe, Pharisee and Hypocrite, iv. London, 1657). Samuel Richardson is a good witness. He answered Daniel Featley, in the year 1645, who had affirmed that the Baptists were new. Richardson says: The Papists pretend antiquity, and brag of their universality against the truth. We know error is ancient; and spreading: but truth was before error, and baptizing by dipping was before baptizing by sprinkling; he may name to us as many as he pleaseth, but he must tell us where it is written in the Scripture, as we may read it, before we shall believe them (Richardson, Some Brief Considerations, 14).

William Allen, another Baptist, writing in 1655, says to call it "new baptism," as the enemies call it, is to "miscall it, being indeed the old way of baptizing" (William Allen, An Answer to J.G., his XL Queries, 72).

Thomas Collier, a famous Baptist, A. D., 1651, affirms that dipping was the old practice. He says:

Sir, you are maliciously mistaken, and the ignorance is in yourself in calling them Anabaptists, for the practicing baptism, according to the Scripture, that grieve you it seems; but you have learnt a new way, both for matter and manner, babies instead of believers; for manner, sprinkling at the holy font, instead of baptizing in a river: you are loth to go in with your long gowns, you have found a better way than ever was prescribed or practiced; who now sir are the ignoramuses (Collier, Pulpit Guard Routed, 89).

Hanserd Knollys, in answer to John Saltmarsh, a Quaker, who affirmed that immersion was new (Saltmarsh, The Smoke in the Temple, 16. London, 1646), declares that immersion is not new. He says:

Paul’s doctrine was called new, although he preached Jesus and the resurrection Acts 17:19. Also when our Saviour preached with authority, and confirmed his doctrine with miracles, they questioned among themselves saying, What new thing is this? What new doctrine is this? (Knollys, The Shining of a Flaming Fire in Zion, or a Clear Answer to 13 exceptions, against the ground of the New Baptism; so-called in Mr. Saltmarsh’. Book, 1. London, 1646).

John Tombes answered the charge of Mr. Marshall, that he was "itching after new opinions." Of this, Mr. Tombes says: As for Master Marshall’s reasons. they are not convincing to me, nor is the holding of rebaptization such a new opinion as he would make it (Tombes, An Apology or Plea for the two Treatises, 58. London, 1646). The announcement from a Baptist that immersion was the good old way, and as ancient as the times of the Apostles, brought a violent outbreak from Jeffrey Watts. He says:

Only, I wonder at the iron brow, and brazen face of novel impudence, and new light, that whereas it is every seventh day at least, in its chimney house conventicles, prating against the old, laudable, and ancient practices of this our, and other Reformed Churches, it dares to pretend to antiquity (so contradicting itself) and glory of it in this point of their immerging and dipping, (calling it the old way), who scorn it, and scoff at the same, and all old light, in their other tenets and opinions (Watts, A Scribe, Pharisee and Hypocrite, v) The Baptists claimed to have "the good old way" when they practiced immersion; Watts calls it "a new way" since he affirmed that immersion was not taught in the New Testament. He mentioned two things the Baptists did which he pronounced new. The first was that in 1642 or 1648, they immersed nude women in the rivers. "I hope," said he, "you see, that your dipping of women in their clothes, is a new business in the church" (Ibid., 19). He takes up much time in elucidating the old slander. The second thing he affirms about dipping is that it is not found in the Scriptures. He said that it had been of long continuance in England and gives many examples, and then he affirms that it is new among Baptists, since they had practiced it only since 1524. He says: And thus (as I said) in your purest and perfected Western churches, for these five or sir hundred years last past (I think, I am rather within, than without my compass) there have been none dipped or immerged, no not in the old, once good way of the former times, publicly, authoritatively nay scarce presumptuously; until those Africans (I will not say monsters) new men; for (Africa semper aliquid aportat nove) who were your progenitors and predecessors, the first dippers and immergers in the West (the very place where they are you arose), is another argument to prove their and your business of dipping, a novelty, a new thing, as coming from Africa originally. I say until those Africans new men, those Egyptian frogs, that love to be paddling and dipping in rivers and ponds, began to spread themselves and slip up and down to bring forth rivers and ponds (as the rivers and ponds brought forth them) or rather to bring their perverts to ponds and rivers to be baptized. The which bold and presumptuous attempt, against the constant and uniform custom of the Western Church, began in the year 1524, and so is not above an hundred and two and thirty years since, which is time enough, and little enough to make it novelty in comparison of antiquity (Watts, A scribe, 63).

According to Watt, the Baptists of England had been in the practice of immersion one hundred and thirty-two years. John Goodwin took precisely the same view. He called the immersions of the Baptists new. He said it had only been in existence among Baptists since the time of Nicholas Storch. His words are: That that was a case of necessity, wherein Nicholas Storch (with his three comrades) in Germany about the year 1521, or whoever he was that first, himself being in his own judgment and conscience unbaptized, presumed to baptize others after that exotique mode in this nation (Goodwin, Water Dipping no Firm Footing for Church Communion, 40. London, l653). The Particular Baptists, in 1643, prepared a Confession of Faith, which was published the following year. The XL Article of the Confession of Faith of those churches which "are commonly (though falsely) called Anabaptists" is as follows: That the way and manner of dispensing this ordinance Is dipping or plunging the body under water; it being a sign, must answer the thing signified, which is, that interest the Saints have in the death, burial and resurrection of Christ: and that as certainly as the body is buried under water, and rises again, so certainly shall the bodies of the saints be risen by the power of Christ in the day of the resurrection, to reigne with Christ.

There is a note appended, as follows: The word baptizo signifies to dip or plunge yet so as convenient garments be both upon the administrator and subject, with all modesty

Perhaps in a Confession of Faith, it would be impossible to state the practice of the Baptists more plainly. It has been asserted that this Confession of 1643, was the declaration of their change of doctrine on the subject; and that this Confession of Faith was the first Baptist document which affirmed immersion. As a matter of fact, according to all psychological principles and all history, this Particular Baptist Confession, of 1643, was simply the expression of the doctrines this body of Baptists had held all of the time.

If one will read the Confession he will find that not only did the Baptists not change their doctrines, but they further declared that they had long groaned under persecution; and that only from the meeting of the Long Parliament, in 1640, had they had any redress. All of this and more is stated in Article L, which is as follows; And if God should provide such a mercy for us, as to incline the magistrates hearts so far as to tender our consciences, as that we might be protected by them from wrong injury, oppression and molestation, which long we have formerly groaned under by the tyranny and oppression of the Prelatical Hierarchy, which God through his mercy hath made this present King and Parliament wonderfully honorable, as an instrument in his hand, to threw down and we thereby have had more breathing time, we shall, we hope. look at it as a mercy beyond our expectation and conceive ourselves further engaged for ever to bless God for it.

They looked into the future as they had a retrospect of the past. The persecutions of the past, they say in Article LI, inspired them with the courage for the future. They expressed themselves as willing to give up all and that they did not count their lives dear that they might finish their course with joy. They had endured persecution in the past, they were willing to suffer affliction in the future. The God of our fathers had been true to us in the past he will not forsake us now. This is a heroic statement.

It is impossible to conceive that men of a mould like this would change their minds on a fundamental doctrine over night. Professor J. B. Thomas, late Professor of Church History, in Newton Theological Institution, concisely states the argument, when he says:

Let it be noted that the first edition of "the Confession of the Seven Churches" was issued in 1643, affirming immersion to be the only true baptism. Now Baillie, a jealous and sagacious contemporary witness, affirms that this Confession expressed the already matured faith of forty-six churches "as I take it, in and about London." Featley an important figure in this discussion, reckoned them, as I remember, at fifty-.two, and Neal distinctly affirms that there were at the date, "54 congregations of English Baptists in England who confined Baptism to dipping," their illiterate preachers going about the country, and "making proselytes of all who would submit to their immersion." We are required then to believe, either that one congregation of "immersers" organized in 1641, there had grown this great company in two years, or that in the same time fifty or more existing Baptist congregations had simultaneously repudiated a custom to which they were traditionally attached and which was in universal use, in behalf of another custom which nobody among them had ever practiced or even heard of: they without any newly assigned or intelligent motive, suddenly ceased wholly to do what they had always and uniformly been accustomed to, and began exclusively to do what they had never done at all. So toppling a hypothesis surely needs massive support.

I am not persuaded that this support has been furnished. I recognize no important evidence that was not apparently accessible to Crosby in his day, and see no satisfactory reason for abandoning his opinion that immersion in England long preceded the date named by Neal, and now (that is in 1643) reaffirmed (Western Recorder, December 17, 1896). The Confession of Faith was equally clear on the proper administrator of baptism. The view of Spilsbury prevailed. He held that if baptism was lost, any disciple could begin it again, and quoted John the Baptist in proof of his position. They declared it was not necessary to send anywhere for an administrator. Article XLI is as follows: The person designed by Christ to dispense baptism, the Scriptures hold forth to be a disciple, or a person extraordinarily sent, the commission enjoining the administration, being given to them who were considered disciples, being men able to preach the Gospel. The Baptists of 1643 did not have an "agent extraordinarily sent" to Holland to obtain baptism. They believed in and practiced no such thing. The Confession of Faith was made by the representatives of seven churches and was signed by the following persons:

William Kiffin, Thomas Patience, John Spilsbury, George Tipping, Samuel Richardson, Thomas Skippard, Thomas Munday, Thomas Gunn, John Mabhatt, John Webb, Thomas Kilcop, Paul Hobson, Thomas Goare, Joseph Phelpes and Edward Heath. The Confession of Faith was clear and orthodox enough to allay suspicion, and ought to have saved the Baptists from further annoyance and persecution, The impartial Masson says of it: In spite of much persecution continued even after the Long Parliament met, the Baptists of these congregations propagated their opinions with such zeal that by 1644 the sect had obtained considerably larger dimensions. In that year they counted seven leading congregations in London, and forty seven in the rest of England, besides which they had many adherents in the army. Although all sorts of impieties were attributed to them on hearsay, they differed in reality from the Independents mainly on the subject of baptism. They objected to the baptism of infants, and they thought immersion or dipping under water the proper mode of baptism; except in these points and what they might involve they were substantially at one with the Congregationalists. This they made clear by the publication, in 1644, of a Confession of their Faith in 52 Articles, a document which, by its orthodoxy in all essential matters shamed the more candid of their opponents (Masson, The Life of John Milton, II. 585). Their adversaries took no such view of the Confession of Faith. They could not be satisfied or induced to give the Baptists credit for common honesty. It was greeted by an outburst of passion from the Pedobaptist world.

Dr. Featley, who wrote with no small prejudice, says:

If we give credit to this Confession, and the preface thereof, those who among us are branded with that title, are neither heretics nor schismatics, but tender hearted Christians, upon whom, through false suggestions, the hand of authority fell heavily whilst the hierarchy stood; for they neither teach free will, nor falling from grace, with the Arminians; nor deny original sin, with the Pelagians, nor disclaim magistracy, with the Jesuites; nor maintain plurality of wives, with the Polygamists: nor community of goods, with the Apostles; nor going naked, with the Adamites; much less ever the mortality of the soul, with Epicures and Psychopannychists (Featley, Dippers Dipt, 177).

Nevertheless, the Confession of Faith exerted a powerful and favorable influence for the Baptists. It was orthodox, evangelical and free from objectionable errors. "The Baptists never did anything that more effectually cleared them from the charge of being dangerous heretics, than did this" (Crosby, I., 170).