FOURTH LECTURE–17th, 18th, 19th Centuries

1. This lecture begins with the beginning of the Seventeenth Century (A.D. 1601). We have passed very hurriedly over much important Christian history, but necessity his compelled this.
   
2. This three-century period begins with the rise of an entirely new denomination. It is right to state that some historians give the date of the beginning of the Congregational Church (at first called “Independents”) as 1602. However, Schaff-Herzogg, in their Encyclopedia, place its beginning far back in the sixteenth century, making it coeval with the Lutheran and Presbyterian. In the great reformation wave many who went out of the Catholic Church were not satisfied with the extent of the reformation led by Luther and Calvin. They decided to repudiate also the preacher rule and government idea of the churches and return to the New Testament democratic idea as had been held through the fifteen preceding centuries by those who had refused to enter Constantine’s hierarchy.
   
3. The determined contention of this new organization for this particular reform brought down upon its head bitter persecution from Catholic, Lutheran, Presbyterian and Church of England adherents–all the established churches. However, it retained many other of the Catholic made errors, such for instance as infant baptism, pouring or sprinkling for baptism, and later adopted and practiced to an extreme degree the church and state idea. And, after refugeeing to America, themselves, became very bitter persecutors.
   
4. The name “Independents” or as now called “Congregationalists,” is derived from their mode of church government. Some of the distinguishing principles of the English Congregationalists as given in Schaff-Herzogg Encyclopedia are as follows:
   
   (1) That Jesus Christ is the only head of the church and that the Word of God is its only statue book.
   
   (2) That visible churches are distinct assemblies of Godly men gathered out of the world for purely religious purposes, and not to be confounded with the world.
   
   (3) That these separate churches have full power to choose their own officers and to maintain discipline.
   
   (4) That in respect to their internal management they are each independent of all other churches and equally independent of state control.
   
5. How markedly different these principles are from Catholicism, or even Lutheranism, or Presbyterianism or the Episcopacy of the Church of England. How markedly similar to the Baptists of today, and of all past ages, and to the original teachings of Christ and His apostles.
   
6. In 1611, the King James English Version of the Bible appeared. Never was the Bible extensively given to the people before. From the beginning of the general dissemination of the Word of God began the rapid decline of the Papal power, and the first beginnings for at least many centuries, of the idea of “religious liberty.”
   
7. In 1648 came the “Peace of Westphalia.” Among other things which resulted from that peace pact was the triple agreement between the great denominations–Catholic, Lutheran and Presbyterian, no longer to persecute one another. Persecutions among these denominations meant war with governments backing them. However, all other Christians, especially the Ana-Baptists, were to continue to receive from them the same former harsh treatment, persistent persecution.
   
8. During all the seventeenth century, persecutions for Waldenses, Ana-Baptists, and Baptists (in some places the “Ana” was now being left off) continued to be desperately severe; in England by the Church of England, as John Bunyan and many others could testify; in Germany by the Lutherans; in Scotland by the Church of Scotland (Presbyterian); in Italy, in France, and in every other place where the papacy was in power, by the Catholics. There is now no peace anywhere for those who are not in agreement with the state churches, or some one of them.
   
9. It is a significant fact well established in credible history that even as far back as the fourth century those refusing to go into the Hierarchy, and refusing to accept the baptism or those baptized in infancy, and refusing to accept the doctrine of “Baptismal Regeneration” and demanding rebaptism for all those who came to them from the Hierarchy, were called “Ana-Baptists.” No matter what other names they then bore, they were always referred to as “Ana-Baptists.” Near the beginning of the sixteenth century, the “Ana” was dropped, and the name shortened to simply “Baptist,” and gradually all other names were dropped. Evidently, if Bunyan had lived in an earlier period his followers would have been called “Bunyanites” or “Ana-Baptists.” Probably they would have been called by both names as were others preceding him.
   
10. The name “Baptist” is a “nickname,” and was given to them by their enemies (unless the name can be rightfully attributed to them as having been given to them by the Savior Himself, when He referred to John as “The Baptist”). To this day, the name has never been officially adopted by any group of Baptists. The name, however, has become fixed and is willingly accepted and proudly borne. It snugly fits. It was the distinguishing name of the forerunner of Christ, the first to teach the doctrine to which the Baptists now hold.
    
11. I quote a very significant statement from the Schaff- Herzogg Encyclopedia, under “History of Baptists in Europe,” Vol. 1, page 210, “The Baptists appeared first in Switzerland about 1523, where they were persecuted by Zwingle and the Romanists. They are found in the following years, 1525-1530, with large churches fully organized, in Southern Germany, Tyrol and in middle Germany. In all these places persecutions made their lives bitter.”
    
    (Note–that all this is prior to the founding of the Protestant churches–Lutheran, Episcopal, or Presbyterian.)
    
    (To be continued)