CHAPTER IX
Footprints of the Baptists
Historic Evidences Showing That the Baptists Have the Succession
By J. N. Hall
1. "The rock" is not that against which the unseen is not to prevail; neither has the church ever become extinct." - M. E. Lard, Quarterly for 1866, p. 809.2. We rejoice to know that for more than 1800 years this kingdom has stood as a city on a hill with doors open to all that would enter the fold of Christ." - Isaac Errett, Searching the Scriptures, p. 95.
3. "The church was built on a rock laid in Zion; and she has stood the rough waves of eighteen centuries, and will finally triumph over the principalities and powers of the earth." - Talbot Lanning in Living Pulpit, p. 52.
4. "A community not founded at the right time, is not the kingdom of Christ. Popery was inaugurated too late by at least two centuries to be the true and genuine church. If Popery was born too late, or is too young to be the true church, what shall be said of those communities born in the last three centuries?" - Benjamin Franklin, in Living Pulpit, p. 343.
5. Alexander Campbell says: "That there
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are some worthy Baptists exactly accords with the views of some of the brethren long since expressed - that it was with the Jews, in the times of the Messiah and the apostles, so it is now with the Baptists. The nation, as such, continued to be the kingdom of God until they rejected the offered salvation; so the present kingdom of God was found among those who plead for admission into the kingdom of grace, until the present call upon them for reformation. Since the rejection of that call by them, as a people, or so far as any of them have opposed this reformation, they are not of the kingdom of God." Millenial Harbinger, pp. 57, 58.6. Mr. Burnett, editor of the Christian Messenger, Bonham, Texas, says: "Christ founded his church on a rock, and it has been there ever since. In the days of Alexander Campbell it was wearing the name "Baptist Church," with Alexander Campbell, we say the kingdom was with the Baptists before he and his co-agitators started the reformation." Quoted by Baptist Flag, February, 1883.
7. There were Baptists in all ages that never acknowledged the Mother of Harlots." - A. Campbell, in Campbell-McCalla Debate.
8. "The church at Jerusalem. was a Baptist church, and the church at Samaria was a Baptist church." - Campbell-McCalla Debate, p. 377.
9. "From the apostolic age to the present time, the sentiments of Baptists, and their practice of baptism, have had a continual chain of advocates and public monuments of their existence
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in every century can be produced." - Campbell-McCalla Debate, p. 378.10. "We can show that from the earliest times there has existed a people whom no man can number, that have earnestly and consistently contended for the faith once delivered to the saints." - Campbell-Percell Debate, p. 65.
11. We have now seen that the Baptists, who were formerly called Anabaptists, and in later times Menonites, were the original Waldenses; and who have long in the history of the church, received the honor of that origin. On this account the Baptists may be considered as the only Christian community which has stood since the days of the apostles, and as a Christian society that has preserved pure the doctrines of the gospel through all ages. The perfectly correct internal and external economy of the Baptist denomination tends to confirm the truth which is disputed by the Romish church that the reformation brought in the sixteenth century and at the same time goes to refute the erroneous notion of the Catholics, that their communion is the most ancient." - Drs. Ypeig and Dermout, Profs, of theology in the University Groningen, and ministers of the Dutch Reformed Church of Holland. Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge, p. 796.
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13. "The true origin of the sect that acquired the denomination of AnaBaptists by their administering anew the rite of baptism to those who came over to their communion, and derived that of Menonites from the famous man to whom they owe the greater part of their present felicity, is hidden in the depths of antiquity, and is, of consequence,
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extremely difficult to be ascertained." - Mosheim's Church History, p. 490.14. The institution of Anabaptists is no novelty, but for thirteen hundred years has caused great disturbance in the church, and has acquired such a strength that the attempt in this age to contend with it appeared futile for a time." Zuingle, the Swiss reformer, contemporary with Luther.
15. "If the truth of religion were to be judged of by the readiness and cheerfulness which a man of any sect shows in suffering, then opinion and persuasion of no sect can be truer and surer than that of Anabaptists (Baptists) since there has been none for these twelve hundred years past that have been more generally punished or that have more cheerfully and steadfastly undergone, and even offered themselves, to the most cruel sorts of punishment, than these people." - Cardinal Hosius, president of the Council of Trent (a Catholic).
16. "The Anabaptists are a pestilential sect, of which kind the Waldensian Brethren seem to have been. Nor is this heresy a modern thing, for it existed in the time of Austin." A. D. 354. - Rees' Reply to Wall, p. 20.
17. "The visible church consisted of the organized believers in Christ, and the followers of his life. General history reveals the constant superintending providence . . . while in secular history the spiritual forces lay largely in the background, in the life of the church they have come boldly into the clear foreground. Though often wrong, and divided in opinion, the church has
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been saved from fatal error and downfall by divine interposition." - John P. Hurst, in Short History of First Church, by the Chautauqua Committee, 1887, p. 1.18. "It may be observed in the first place, that the Mennonites (Anabaptists, as he called them) are not entirely in error when they boast of their descent from the Waldenses, Petrobrussians, and other ancient sects, who are usually considered witnesses of the truth in times of general darkness and superstition. Before the rise of Luther and Calvin, there lay concealed in almost all the countries of Europe, particularly in Bohemia, Moravia, Switzerland and Germany, many persons who adhered tenaciously to the following doctrine, which the Waldenses, Hussites, have maintained, some in a more disquised, others in a more open and public manner, viz: That the kingdom of Christ, or the visible church which he established on earth, was an assembly of true and real saints, and ought, therefore, to be inaccessible to the wicked and unrighteous, and also exempt from those institutions which human prudence suggests to oppose the progress of iniquity, or to correct and reform transgressors.
"This maxim is the true source of all the peculiarities that are to be found in the religious doctrine and discipline of the Mennonites; and it is most certain that the greatest part of these peculiarities were approved by many of those who, before the dawn of the reformation, entertained the notion already mentioned, relating to the visible church oi Christ." - Mosheim's Church History, p. 491.
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The Waldenses are shown to have an existence that dates as far back as the year 700. - Benedict, p. 53.Benedict shows that the Waldenses of the thirteenth century, pp. 68, 74, 78, 61.
In 1192 the Waldenses said that baptism does not benefit the infants. - Ermengard, as quoted by Amitage. p. 303.
In 1202, the Waldenses said that baptism avails nothing before the years of discretion are reached, and infants are not profited by it. - Alanus, in Armtage, p, 303.
In 1092, Dr. Wall says that the Baptists of Cologne came from Dauphine. - Armitage, p. 302.
In 1050 Baptists emigrated to England in large numbers, from France, Germany and Holland. - Benedict, p. 305.
In 1139 a company of Baptists came to England from Gascoyne, where William Newberry, a monkish historian says: "They were as numerous as tiie sands of the sea." - Benedict, p. 305.
In 1035, the Bogomills are claimed as Baptists, and a recent book from the press of the American Baptist Publication Society shows that they were of the pure stock of Baptists. They were abundant in Orleans in 1025, and in the Netherlands in 1035, and in Turin in 1051. They were condemned by the Catholics in Toulouse in 1119, and in Tours in 1163. They held a coucil of their own in 1167. - Armitage, p. 278.
In 1116, Henry, who was a bold Baptist, asked permission to preach in the city of Mans, and got it. His preaching was so powerful that he came near turning the whole city to him, and
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the bishop had to order him to quit the place. - Armitage, p. 289.In 1523, Reublin held a debate in Zurich on the subject of infant baptism. Reublin was a leadng Baptist. Zuingle said that nothing cost him so much sweat as his controversy with the Baptists. - Armitage, pp. 330, 334.
In 1526, Brodlie and Reublin, baptized the whole reform congregation at Hallam. - Armitage p. 348.
In 1200, a company of Baptists held a debate in Oxford, contending against the popish clergy. - Benedict, p. 279.
In 1590 Baptists had to leave the public assemblies in England, and go to the woods and in stables, barns and hay lofts to worship. - Enoch Clapham, a writer of that period. - Cramp, p. 286.
In 1684, John Emblem, from England, became pastor in Boston.
In 1711, John Burrows came from the west of England, and settled in Virginia. He spent about thirty years in the ministry.
In 1727 Richard Jones, a Baptist preacher from England, settled in Virginia. He labored in the same field that had been cultivated by Robert Nordin, who had preceded him as the pioneer Baptist of the Old Dominion.
In 1714 Robert Nordin was ordained as a Baptist minister in London, and immediately sailed for America and settled in Virginia; and on his arrival organized a church at Burley, in Isle of Wight County, which was the first Baptist
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church in Virginia. Members emigrating from this church, spread the cause of truth in North Carolina, and in a short time sixteen churches were organized. - Baptist Succession, pp. 66, 68, 69.======= [W. B. Barker, Memoirs of Elder J. N. Hall, 1907, pp. 176-183. This book was provided by Steve Lecrone, Burton, OH. Scanned and formatted by Jim Duvall.]
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