AN OUTLINE OF BAPTIST PERPETUITY:

Part 2: the 1800s.

Adapted from an outline made by Ron E. Pound

Edited in July 2008 by M. Maynard

 

The unified Baptist stand on succession or perpetuity was strong and solid until the mid 1870-1880s. The denials began with the views of Andrew Fuller gaining control of the Baptist theology. The New School theology, that found its way in colleges, universities and other parachurch institutions, began to produce ministers who questioned the entire structure of the Baptist experience.

Some Baptist historians stated that they were not trying to prove any sort of succession, and then went on to trace a succession and perpetuity in their writings. Later different theories of succession and perpetuity would emerge and cover many different writings. The underlying controlling principles through all these Baptist changes were Fullerism and New Schoolism.

1. David Benedict (1779-1874) is the author of several historical works, A General History of the Baptist Denomination in America , 1813, enlarged in 1848. He also wrote History of the Donatists, Fifty Years among the Baptists, 1860, and many other works. Dr. Benedict stated:

The more I study the subject, the stronger are my convictions, that if all the facts of the case could be disclosed, a very good succession could be made out.

A General History of the Baptist Denomination; 1848; p. 51.

2. Jonathan Davis, A History of the Welsh Baptists; 1835; reprinted in 1982.

3. John L. Waller, The Western Baptist Review; 1848: p. 166. He was editor of the Kentucky Baptist Convention state paper. J. M. Pendleton wrote Three Reasons Why I am a Baptist, the final one being Baptist Perpetuity.

4. Dr. William Carry Crane, then Pastor of the First Baptist in Columbus, Mississippi, stated while preaching before the Columbus Association of Mississippi in 1845:

It is not pretended that always there have been a people called Baptists.  The name is nothing; we only maintain that always there have been people who have cherished and practiced Baptist principles.  The Welsh churches claim an unbroken continuity since the days of the Apostles.

The Baptist Preacher, 1846; p. 144-149.

5. Dr. J. Newton Brown, framer of the New Hampshire Baptist Confession of Faith, and Author of A History of the Religious Denominations and many other works, stated in The Baptist Memorial of 1846:

Briefly, we mean that Christ has had for eighteen hundred years past a visible church on earth, made up of the entire body of particular churches formed under the general constitution of the New Testament, of faithful men acknowledging Him alone as their head and preserving the doctrine worship and discipline which He has commanded. . . That this church has had all this time a succession of vicissitudes and characters so peculiar as to furnish materials for the most valuable record-- and that the complete and authentic collection of these facts-- in all their real connections and relations from age to age--so as to present a true picture of the visible body of Christ, in distinction from all other bodies of men, of whatever name, is necessary to a faithful history of the Church of Christ.

Again he stated:

As will be evident from the above expositions of their principles, the Baptists claim their origin from the Ministry of Christ and His apostles, they further claim, that all the Christian Churches of the first two centuries after Christ were founded and built up upon these principles.

Dr. J. Newton Brown, A History of Religious Denominations in the World; 1873: p. 40.

6. Dr. Jesse Mercer, the leading early Baptist of Georgia and spiritual founder of Mercer University in Georgia, stated as to why the Baptists of his days did not receive dipping from others who were not Baptists:

The Apostolic Church, continued through all ages to the end of the world, is the only true gospel church. . . . Our reasons therefore for rejecting baptism by immersion, when administered by Pedobaptist ministers. . . .that they are connected with churches clearly out of the Apostolic succession, and therefore clearly out of the Apostolic commission.

Jesse Mercer,The History of the Georgia Association, 1838; Circular Letter for 1811, p. 196-201

7.  Dr. R. B. C. Howell, the godfather of the Southern Baptist Convention, edited ‘The Baptist’ before Dr. J. R. Graves, and stated:

1846 years since Jesus Christ came on earth to set up a kingdom, which is to endure to the end of time. . . . What is called ecclesiastical history is the narrative of almost everything but the History of the Churches of Jesus Christ. . . . We have evidence before us, full and conclusive, that the great body of the ancient Waldenses would now pass for sound, consistent Baptists. From them originated the Lollards and Wycliffites in England and Several of the Old English Baptist Churches. 

The Baptist, Vol. 3; 1846.

It is unnecessary to state again the doctrines we shall support.  This we did at the beginning of the last volume.  Our principles are those which have characterized the legitimate church of Christ in all ages and countries.

The Baptist, Vol. 2; 1845.

The churches themselves, indeed which are known by the name of Baptist, were organized, perhaps the oldest of them in Europe, since the Reformation, although the Welsh Churches claim an unbroken continuity from the days of the Apostles.

Ibid.

8. Dr. Thomas Armitage wrote in 1890:

The best service that can be rendered to the Baptists is, to trace the noiseless energy and native immortality of the doctrines which they hold, after all their conflicts, to the glory of Christ, for it is exactly here that we see their excellency as a people.  If it can be shown that their churches are the most like the Apostles that now exist, and that the elements which make them so have passed successfully through the long struggle, SUCCESSION from the time of the their blessed Lord gives them the noblest history that any people can crave.

                                                      A History of the Baptists: Traced by their Vital Principles and Practices p. 11.

9. Dr. Joseph Belcher, Baptist author, stated:

It will be seen that the Baptists claim the high antiquity of the commencement of the Christian church.  They can trace a succession of those who have believed the same doctrine and administered the same ordinances directly up to the Apostolic age.

Religious Denominations in Europe and America, p. 53.

 

10. Dr. William Cathcart, editor of The Baptist Encyclopedia, stated:

The Baptist denomination was founded by Jesus during his earthly ministry.

The Baptist Encyclopedia, p. 74; 1881.

11. Charles. H. Spurgeon said:

We believe that the Baptists are the original Christians.  We did not commence our existence at the Reformation, we were reformers before Luther or Calvin were born; we never came from the Church of Rome, for we were never in it, but we have an unbroken line up to the Apostles themselves.

Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, 1861, p. 225.

 

12. B. W. Carr, on behalf of the deacons at the laying of the foundation stone for the Metropolitan Tabernacle, stated:

By immersion the converts to Jesus in Apostolic times made their public profession.  In Godly and Pious communities of the one church of Christ, the Primitive ordinance of discipleship has been practiced through an UNBROKEN SUCCESSION.

The New Park Street Pulpit, 1859; p. 347.

13. Benjamin Evans stated:

A succession of able and intrepid men taught the same great principles, in opposition to a corrupt and affluent state church, which distinguishes modern English Nonconformists; many of them taught those peculiar views of Christian ordinances which are special to us as Baptists.

The Early English Baptists, Vol. 1, p. 2; (1862)

Joseph Ivimey wrote a four volume set on History of the English Baptists. He devoted 572 pages to tracing the Baptists in the Dark Ages from Christ to the 1600s. He published his first volume in 1811.

14. G. H. Orchard wrote several large volumes tracing the succession of the Baptists from Christ's time to the present. He published his works in the early 1830-50s.

15. James Hurford Wood, a General Baptist, wrote his A Condensed History of the General Baptists of the New Connexion in 1847. He devoted nearly 100 pages showing Baptist Church succession. Then he gave a chart showing Baptist Church succession. He stated:

Who can then doubt the existence of a succession of churches perpetuating the most important principles of the Primitive Societies?  We will present a table of succession in which they are unequivocally identified as Baptists, we adduce one more authority on the continued denominational existence and witnessing of the Baptists through successive generations. . .

(Wood then cited Cardinal Hosius who placed the Baptists back to 370 A. D.  Hosius stated such in 1570.)

16. The Northern Association of Baptist Churches in the North of England, at their annual session of June 1, 1841, requested that "a summary account of our rise, progress, and present state, as a denomination in the North of England be submitted to the Association next year."

The executive committee of the association requested D. Douglas to prepare the history. This was completed and published as a History of the Baptist Churches in the North of England from 1648-1845 and printed in London in 1846. The author devoted 26 pages to Baptist history from Christ to 1648 and summed it up by making the following observations:

Thus have we taken a hasty survey of the exhibition of Baptist principles, under a variety of names, from the Apostolic era to the present time, and have, we trust, shown successfully, that there have been those in all ages who have signed for purity of communion, and have made baptism the line of demarcation between the church and the world.  We conclude that the Baptists are a very ancient party, desirous ever to maintain purity of Christian character, and of Apostolic institutions.

17. During 1809 the English Particular Baptists, who followed the New School concepts of A. Fuller and W. Carey, established ‘The Baptist Magazine’. They stated in 1809:

The Baptists have no origin short of the Apostles. They arose in the days of John the Baptist and increased largely in the days of the Apostles, and have existed, under the severest oppressions, with intervals of prosperity, ever since.

18. James Culross, ex-President of Bristol Baptist College, stated in 1885 about the Baptists of 1645:

Had Baptists thought anything depended on it, they might have traced their pedigree back to New Testament times and claimed apostolic succession.  The channel of succession was certainly purer, if humbler, than through the Apostate church of Rome.  But they were content to rest on Scripture alone, and, as they found only believer's baptism there, they adhered to that. . .

The Life of Hansard Knollys, London; 1885: p. 38.

19. Willis A. Jarrell (1849-1927).

In 1894 Jarrel wrote Baptist Church Pertetuity, or, The Continuous Existence of Baptist Churches