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Chapter One
New Classification Needed
Within seventeenth-century English religious history there
are a number of curious ecclesiastical denominators. Among the
diverse groups represented, are a collection of
Antipaedobaptists--Christian ministers who argued against the accepted practice of baptising
infants. The more common name used for any dissenter from the
orthodox position on that point of doctrine in that era was
simply, "Anabaptist". The latter title, however, needs to be clarified and
the understanding enlarged for the modern reader. The
generalisations used by historians and theologians have continued to lump all
types of Antipaedobaptists together as Anabaptists. Upon close
examination these antipaedobaptist curiosities fall into four main categories.
This chapter will examine these categories to facilitate an
understanding of the dynamics of the time and to argue for a new classification.
The categories are: (1) Anabaptists; (2) Baptists; (3) Abaptists;
and (4) Anglican Antipaedobaptists.
Anabaptist
"Anabaptist" was the universal uncomplimentary
adjective for dissenting theologies in the middle of the seventeenth century.
This implication of the term is evidenced in the complete title
of Robert Baillie's work written to expose all who held to these
and other "questionable" views. It was entitled,
Anabaptism, the True Fountain of Independency, Antinomy, Brownisme, and
Familisme, and most of the other Errours, which for the time doe trouble
the Church of England, Unsealed.1 Included were a formidable
collection of heterodox opinions that would ruin any theologian's
or minister's reputation with those of the paedobaptist
ecclesiastical establishment. This establishment was committed to the practice
of infant baptism as part of the institution, or essence of the Church.
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Richard Baxter also engaged in this sort of name-calling.
In 1650 he published the first edition of his Saints Everlasting Rest.
In the fifth epistle dedicatory, he declared:
Anabaptists play the Divels part in accusing their own children, and
disputing them out of the Church and Covenant of Christ; and affirming them to be
no Disciples, no servants of God, nor holy, as separated to him; when God
saith the contrary, Levit. 25.41, 42. Deut. 29.10, 11, 12, etc. Acts 15.10. 1
Cor. 7.14. I cannot digress to fortifie you against these sects: You have seen
God speak against them by Judgments from Heaven. What were the two
Monsters in New England but miracles? Christ hath told you, By their fruits ye
shall know them. We mis-interpret, when we say, they by fruit, their false
doctrine; that were but idem peridem. Heretiks may seem holy for a little while, but
at last all false doctrines likely end in wiked lives. Where hath there been
a society of Anabaptists, since the world first knew them, that proved not wicked?
How many of these, or Antinomists, etc. have you known, who have not
proved palpably gultie of lying, perfidiousness, covetousness, malice, contempt
of their godly brethren, licentiousness, or seared consciences? They have
confident expressions to shake poor ignorant souls, whom God will have
discovered in the day of trial: But when they meet with any that can search out
their fallacies, how little have they to say?2
Baillie and Baxter are a representative sampling of those
who cast invective towards the general group called "Anabaptists".
However, a large number of the seventeenth-century
English Antipaedobaptists sought to distance themselves from
Continental Anabaptism of a century earlier. The framers of the document
known to the twentieth century as The First London Baptist
Confession3 published this document to demonstrate that their theological
reflection was one of unanimity with the emerging Puritan Calvinistic
theology of the day, except on the twin points of ecclesiology and
baptism. These "baptised churches" eschewed the connotations
placed upon them by association with Continental
Anabaptism.4
Continental Anabaptists were different in ecclesiastical
form and theological content from the Baptists in England who were
born of Puritan parentage in the milieu of the vagaries of seventeenth
century England.5 "Anabaptist", as a title, was designed to destroy
the reputation of the accused. As a descriptive modifier, it remains too
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broad and imprecise for an entire movement manifesting
theological diversity and differing practical concerns. There were more
than one kind of "Anabaptist": a point not often admitted in the record
of the seventeenth century. To his credit, however, the Puritan
John Geree, distinguishes three ranks of Anabaptists in his first
response to the Exercitation of John Tombes:
First, Some in faction that imbrace it, because it is new, and
different from the Received Doctrine, and they affect singularity to be counted
some body; such these have been of all Sects in all ages, and those are
nought, though the opinion be good.
Secondly, Some are Anabaptists with faction, that so soon as they
imbrace that opinion, wholly fall off from the Ministry and all acts of spiritual
communion withall, though never so godly, if not of their opinion: Those for this
uncharitable humour, you censure as sharply as we, Page 31. of your answer.
Thirdly, Some reject Infant Baptism out of a simple perswasion that it
is a corruption without sound ground in Scripture, so they dare not subject to
it for fear of polluting their consciences with will-worship: yet if another be
of another judgement, they neither break off from them in regard of
Christian affection, nor communion; and so are Anabaptists neither in faction or
with faction, but onely (as we take it) in simple misapprehension, and such an
one I conceive you to be.6
Geree's distinctions are helpful. There are some who
embrace the new ideas simply because they are novel, there are others
who hold them to be distinctive or non-conformist, and still others
grasp them out of conscience-a desire to not leaven what was believed
to be God's worship with anything external to scriptural declarations.
Anabaptists should be remembered as a sixteenth-century
phenomena primarily. They were manifest mainly on the European
continent. Their traditions continued into the successive centuries
but exerted very little influence over the formation or recovery of
an antipaedobaptistic theology in England.
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Baptist
There are two distinct types of Baptists that surfaced in
England during the seventeenth century, General (Arminian)
Baptists and Particular (Calvinistic)
Baptists.7 Barry White contrasts these groups in this manner:
Both groups shared a very similar position on many aspects of the doctrine
of the church. For example, they both believed that the visible church of
Christ was composed of gathered congregations of believing men and women
and they both believed in and practised (at least from 1642) believer's baptism
by immersion. Nevertheless, they consistently organised separately, differed
in their views of inter-congregational relationships and the ministry and, on
the whole flourished in different parts of the
country.8
Therefore, a basic definition of Baptist is one who (1)
believed in baptism for believers alone by immersion, and who
(2) organised themselves into particular societies as churches of
believing and baptised9 men and women. There were two basic
kinds, General or Arminian, and Particular or Calvinistic. The
differences were drawn along theological lines. There is, however, a subset
of Particular Baptists worth noting the Seventh-Day Baptists.
These Churches met for ordered worship and instruction on Saturday,
the seventh day of creation, believing that that day was still God's
appointed one for worship.10 Most movements of this era are
monolithic only in the generalisations of historians. The actual state
of religion was quite diverse.11
Antipaedobaptists of the General and Particular Baptist
sort are correctly labelled as Non-Conformists falling under the first
two of Geree's Anabaptist categories. There were Baptists "in
faction" and "with faction". A contemporary of these Baptists, however,
while holding to their basic baptismal theology, writes disapprovingly
of their tendency to separation from the National Church:
I confesse I have met with writings which put Baptism into the
definition of the Church, as necessary to the being of a visible Church, and the words
in the Confession of Faith of the 7 Churches of
Anabaptists12 about London [being baptized into that faith] Artic. 33. are somewhat doubtfull, though they
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seem rather to import that Baptisme is necessary to the right order of a
Christian Church, then to the being of a Church; and I confesse that they hold
that members are added to the Church by Baptisme and not otherwise, and hold
a nullity of Paedo baptisme, must needs say the Churches that have no
other then Infant-Baptisme, are no true churches; nor their members
Church-members, as Master Marshall sayes pag. 84. of his
Defence; and so voluntary separation necessary. But these points of the necessity of right Baptisme,
not onely to the right order, but also to the being of a visible Church and
Church- member, and so voluntary separation barely for the dissent of it, I have
ever disclaimed....13
The writer who disapproved of separation was John Tombes.
Therefore, it is historically and theologically inaccurate
to associate Baptists in seventeenth-century England as a whole
with Continental Anabaptists merely over the issue of separation from
the National Churches and the apparently similar practice of
baptising converts. If this one point of separation is added to the
common practice of believer baptism, admittedly there are some
similarities between the two parties. However, it is fallacious to impose all
the other extremes from the earlier group onto the latter. Because
something is similar in some respects it does not follow that they are
alike in more or in all respects. General and Particular Baptists stand
on their own with common concerns and practices that mark them
off from the National Church in England and distinguish them from
the Continental Anabaptists. Because Baptists of both sorts held to
and rigorously practised the baptism of believers only (credobaptism)
as essential to the proper ordering and constituting of particular
churches, they should be understood as Baptists specifically under the
general heading of Antipaedobaptists. The point being that the
connotations of "Baptist" are wider than baptismal practice alone. It assumes
a certain ecclesiological outlook as well.
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Abaptist
Much has been written as regards George Foxe and the
Quakers. They are the archetypal "Abaptist" sect. By "Abaptist"
this writer means those who did not practice water baptism at all.
The Quakers also presented no positive baptismal
theology.14 Abaptists have a negative or defensive view of the sacraments (or
ordinances) in general since they argue against the practise of baptism rather
than for a particular belief or practise.
Quakerism started in the north of England. It sought to
link together diverse groups of
separatists15 (Antipaedobaptists in
three of the four categories herein discussed are accurately described
as separatists or non-conformists). B. Reay describes the Quakers'
early successes:
Indeed the Quakers' success was impressive. Within a decade there were
certainly from 35,000 to 40,000 Quakers (men, women, and children),
perhaps as many as 60,000. They were as numerous as Catholics, more
numerous than Fifth Monarchists and Baptists.16
Not only were they the archetypal Abaptists, they
were disestablishmentarians. "Their offence lay in their
thorough-going nonconformity", as one of their own journalists has
written.17 This nonconformity manifested itself in the following way, "They
had, and continue to have, no liturgy, sacraments, or
priesthood."18
Therefore, the third class of
seventeenth-century Antipaedobaptists should be identified by their distinctive
non-practice of baptism, thus the descriptive denominator, Abaptist.
Anglican Antipaedobaptist
This last category seems at first to be a contradiction in
terms-Anglican Antipaedobaptist. Interestingly enough it is two
Baptist historians who have documented this phenomenon for the
twentieth century reader. Both discuss this anomaly in the context of
John Tombes, one of the seventeenth century Anglican Antipaedobaptists:
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The "Tombs" mentioned by Mrs.
Hutchinson19 was an interesting person
whose remarkable career illustrates the vagaries of ecclesiastical life in this period.
A Worcestershire man and graduate of Magdalen Hall, Oxford, John
Tombes, B.D. (1603-1676) became, in 1630, Vicar of Leominster where he turned
the table north and south, instead of altar-wise, and began to disuse the
surplice and the sign of the cross in baptism. In 1642, the Royalists drove him out
of his living and, in the same year, he adopted definitely antipaedobaptist
views as a result of a public disputation at Bristol. Thereafter he held a variety
of non-parochial appointments in which he could avoid baptizing
infants.20
Underwood continued in another place by recording the
words of Tombes's Anglican Vicar after his death:
When I attended him in his last sickness, he desired me to testify that
though he was so unhappy as to differ from the Church of England on the point
of Infant Baptism, yet durst he not separate from her communion on that
account any farther than by going out of the church whilst that office was
performing and returning in again when it was
ended.21
Therefore, at the end of Tombes's life, he was still in
outward conformity with the Church of England demonstrated by his
continued attendance at the Eucharist as a lay communicant. John
Tombes was a lifelong Anglican differing to the last on the point of
baptism.22
And again, Underwood defined those like Tombes,
within the National Church, by two of the distinguishing categories
previously used in this writing. He wrote, "Like Milton, and
the Hutchinsons, he was an antipaedobaptist but not a Baptist in the
true sense of that term".23 Underwood's comments give precedent for
the use of antipaedobaptist as an ecclesiastical denominator,
however, this term needs a descriptive modifier for greater
specificity.
An earlier Baptist Historian gives a more general
perception of Tombes and his theological kin:
About a score of episcopal clergy in England were like Denne, becoming
Baptists24 and ardent propagandists. The most singular is John Tombes,
whose career exemplifies the strength and weakness of this little band; but totell it
at length would mislead as to the importance of the clerical converts. It
must suffice to say that he was a skilled debater, and that whenever anyone
opposed him, whether in speech or in print, there a Baptist church sprang up at once.
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He saw the need of an educated ministry and trained three men who did
good service. As he could not earn his living by manual work, he, therefore,
showed some skill in finding positions where he could serve a Chapelry or a
hospital or an inn of court, without being called upon to baptize infants, and yet
could earn public maintenance. He linked together six or seven churches, due to
his own efforts in the shires of Monmouth, Hereford, and Gloucester, and
taught them how to co-operate. But he had a decided caste-feeling, never
co-operated with other Baptists and was content, once he had secured his
financial position by marriage to describe himself as a
Presbyterian;25 while the church at Salisbury, where he ended his days, has no tradition that he ever
worshipped with them.26
It is clear from these sources that there were
some Antipaedobaptists, perhaps as many as
twenty,27 who remained within the established Church in England before, during and after the
tumultuous Parliamentarian Revolution. At the restoration of the
monarchy, their numbers were far
less.28 This small, though not insignificant, group deserves their own descriptive label, even if it
appears contradictory or obscurantist at first glance. That
denominator is "Anglican Antipaedobaptist". They are Anglican by the
majority of theological unanimity of their views with the established
Church, as they sought reform within the National body. Yet they are
rightly titled Antipaedobaptist as a demonstration of theological
discontinuity on the singularly important point of baptism. They have
been neglected systematically by the chroniclers of the era because
they have defied proper classification. The Paedobaptist historians
and theologians do not want to claim men like Tombes even though
there is overwhelming theological agreement on most other issues.
The Baptistic writers do not know what to do with the continued
conformity of men like Tombes to the National Church. They dismiss
the Antipaedobaptists with their own use of pejorative titles. Each
group claims him when it serves their purpose and repudiates him when
it does not. Tombes as the archetypical Anglican
Antipaedobaptist proves them worthy of their own unique category and the scrutiny
of modern historians and theologians.29
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Notes for Chapter One:
1. Baillie, Robert,
Anabaptism, title page.
2. Baxter, Richard, The Saints Everlasting
Rest, London, 1650, Unnumbered p. 6f. In an interesting display of humility, Richard
Baxter repents of having used this name for Baptists in Matthew
Sylvester, Life of Reverend Mr. Richard Baxter, Reliquae Baxterianae,
London, 1696, p. 181.
3. A Confession of Faith of Seven Baptized Churches in
London, London, 1646. On the title page they state that they have been
"unjustly called Anabaptists". See also,
The Confession of faith of those churches which are commonly, though falsly, called anabaptists
presented to the view of all that feare God to examine the touchstone
of the Word of Truth, as likewise for the taking off those
aspersions which are frequently both in pulpit and in print, although
unjustly cast upon them, London, 1662, Title page. See also:
A Declaration Of several of the People called Anabaptists, In and about the City
of London, London, 1659, p. 1.
4. There are of course some overlaps in baptismal reflection
between the Continental Anabaptists of the sixteenth-century and the
English Baptists of the seventeenth-century. For a complimentary essay
that draws on both heritages to present a Credobaptist theology, see
William R. Estep, The Anabaptist Story, Eerdmans Publishing Co.,
Grand Rapids, originally published, 1963, Revised edition, 1975, and
Timothy George, "The Reformed Doctrine of Believers Baptism", in
Interpretation, vol. XLVII, No. 3, July 1993. p. 242-254.
5. For a lucid presentation of the Anabaptist form and content,
see George Williams, The Radical
Reformation, Westminster Press, Philadelphia, 1964. For a work demonstrating the discontinuities
between English Baptists and Anabaptists, see James McGoldrick,
Baptist Successionism, Scarecrow Press, Metuchen, NJ., 1994. And
James M. Renihan, "An Examination of the Possible Influence of
Menno Simons' Foundation Book upon the Particular Baptist Confession
of 1644", American Baptist Quarterly, vol. 15, no. 3 (Sept. 1996)
pp. 190-207.
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6. Geree, John, Vindiciae Paedo-baptismi: or, A vindication of
infant baptism, London, 1646, pp. 70f.
7. White, The English
Baptists, pp. 7ff.
8. White, The English
Baptists, p. 7.
9.Although, this also must be qualified. Among the Particular
Baptists there was a dispute between advocates of open
communion (church membership) and closed communion. Open communion
men like John Bunyan and Henry Jessey did not believe baptism was
essential to church membership. They believed it essential to the
good order of a Church. Others like William Kiffen and Hanserd
Knollys argued that right baptism is essential to church membership.
Closed communion became the majority practise by the end of the
seventeenth century. Therefore, even the Particular Baptists of the
era should be distinguished into these two camps. The London
Baptist Confession of 1677/aka 1689 does not address this phenomena
because mutual fellowship was extended beyond the boundaries of
this particular debate.
10. White, The English
Baptists, p. 8.
11. See C. E. Whiting, "Minor Sects" in
Studies in English Puritanism: 1660-1688, Frank Cass and Company, London, New
impression, 1968, pp. 233-322. Although the period in view is after
the restoration, the work gives a succinct overview of the
fragmentation of religious life in England flowing out of the tumultuous time of
the Parliamentarian Revolution. Many of the sectarian groups
presented find their roots in earlier times. They are effects of antecedent causes.
12. Tombes, an Antipaedobaptist, wrongly calls his
contemporaries "Anabaptists". To Tombes, Separatists and Non-conformists
were Anabaptists (anabaptistical) because they did not conform to a
National Church. One noted defender of paedobaptism took this
criticism of Tombes to heart and published, in a much neglected
work that helps to define the term Puritan within an academic debate
that has raged for decades, Geree, John, The Character of an olde
English Puritane, or Non-Conformist, London, 1646. Note the
final paragraph on p. 6. Geree explains the raison d'être of his
tract, "Reader, Seeing a passage in Mr. Tombes his Book against
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paedobaptisme; wherein he compares the Non-conformists in
England, to the Anabaptists in Germany, in regard of their
miscarriages and ill success in their endevours, till of late years; I was moved
for the vindication of those Faithful and Reverend Witnesses of
Christ, to publish this Character...." Throughout the century, there was
a common theological and ecclesiastical vocabulary that was
packed with diverse meaning.
13. John Tombes, An Apology for the two
Treatises, London, 1646, pp. 65f. Italics and brackets in original.
14. George Keith, The arguments of the Quakers, more
particularly, of George Whitehead, William Penn, Robert Barclay, John
Gratton, George Foxe, Humphrey Norton, and my own arguments
against Baptism and the Supper, examined and refuted also, some clear
proofs from Scripture, shewing that they are institutions of Christ under
the Gospel: with an appendix containing some observations upon
some passages in a book of W. Penn called A caveat against Popery,
and on some passages of a book of John Pennington, called the fig
leaf covering discovered, London, 1698, pp. 3-89.
15. B. Reay, "Quakerism and Society", in
Radical Religion in the English Revolution, ed. J.F. McGregor and B. Reay, Oxford
University Press, Oxford, 1984, reprinted 1986, p. 141.
16. B. Reay, "Quakerism and Society", p. 141.
17. Gerald Priestland, "Friends, Religious Society of", in
A New Dictionary of Christian Theology, eds. Alan Richardson and
John Bowden, SCM Press, London, 1983, p. 222.
18. Priestland, Gerald, "Friends", p. 222. For a survey of
Quaker theology from the seventeenth-century, see Robert Barclay,
Apology for the True Christian Religion, n.p., 1678, for a contemporary
survey, see Christian Faith and Practice in the Experience of the
Friends, Society of Friends, London, 1972. Italics mine.
19. The wife of a Colonel who converted to antipaedobaptistic
beliefs after reading Tombes's antipaedobaptist writings. The letter
is printed in Transactions of the Baptist Historical
Society, Vol. I, pp. 65-68.
20. A. C. Underwood, A History of the English
Baptists, Kingsgate
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Press (The Baptist Union Publication Dept.), London, 1947, p. 69.
21. Underwood, History, p. 70. The Vicar was Daniel Whidby.
22. Tombes's biographers and encyclopedists report him to be
buried in the churchyard of St. Edmunds in Salisbury demonstrating
his continued lay-conformity after 1660. See T.L. Underwood,
"Tombes, John (1603-1676)", in Richard Greaves, and Robert Zaller, eds.
Biographical Dictionary of British Radicals, Vol. III, pp. 245f. See
also, British Biographical Archives, London, K C Saur, microfilm
frames 413-436. The gravestone is no longer there. The weathered
and worn gravestones have been used as paving stones for a
walkway around the front of the building. The Church was deconsecrated
in 1973. As of 1997 it is the Salisbury Arts Centre.
23. Underwood, History, p. 70.
24. By "Baptists" in this use and "Baptist" in the next, Whitley
means baptistic-Baptist-like. He uses the terms in an adjectival sense
different from the category herein defined and argued for as a
clarification of the broader terms used. This use by Whitley further
demonstrates the need for clarification among historians of these often
confused seventeenth-century categories.
25. Under the 1672 Conventicles Act Tombes licensed his home
in Salisbury, Wiltshire, as a place for religious meetings. Those
meeting places were designated by the general term Presbyterian as
a synonym for non-conformity. The use of this term does not denote
a theological acceptance of the system of Church government
known by the same term nor an implicit repudiation of Credobaptism.
26. Whitley, W. T., A History of British
Baptists, Charles Griffin and Co., London, 1923, p. 70.
27. Henry Jessey, John Tombes, Paul Frewin, John Skinner,
William Kaye, Richard Adams, Thomas Ewins, John Abbott, John
Eccles, Francis Bampfield and ten or twelve men from Wales fit into
this rough category. See Michael Watts, The Dissenters: From the
Reformation to the French Revolution, Clarendon Press, Oxford,
1978, pp. 160f.
28. In a personal conversation with Dr Geoffrey Nuttall on May
20, 1995, he informed me of his belief that only about six "Baptists"
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were ejected from pulpits or laid down their clerical positions
during the "great ejection". Many former Anglican
Antipaedobaptists threw their lot in with the General and Particular Baptists.
These included at least one of John Tombes's disciples, Richard Adams,
a signatory of the Second London Baptist
Confession. Adams served a General Baptist Church up to the Particular Baptist General
Assembly of 1689. When the church he pastored did not join the new
association, Adams moved to another that did.
29. In a private conversation with Dr Geoffrey Nuttall on May
20, 1995 Tombes was likened to a rogue elephant that defies
classification within a specific species. Nuttall explained how a rogue
elephant looks like an elephant generally, yet refuses to act like
one particularly. Tombes, though an Anglican denominationally,
does not conform to all that that tradition represents. As a "Baptist",
he conforms to even less.
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