92 – April – 02 – THIS DAY IN BAPTIST HISTORY PAST

Metropolitan Tabernacle

C. H. Spurgeon’s Convictions of Baptist Beginnings
On April 2nd 1861 a public meeting was held for the Baptist brethren of London at the famed “Metropolitan Tabernacle,” known to many as “Spurgeon’s Tabernacle,” where dedicatory services were extended as church members and London residents united in praising God for His blessings!
Consider the words of greeting from Spurgeon, as he welcomed the area Baptist brethren to the new building.
“We believe that the Baptists are the original Christians. We did not commence our existence at the reformation, we were reformers before Luther and 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. We have always existed from the very days of Christ, and our principles, sometimes veiled and forgotten, like a river which may travel underground for a little season, have always had honest and holy adherents. Persecuted alike by Romanists and Protestants of almost every sect, yet there has never existed a Government holding Baptist principles which persecuted others; nor, I believe, any body of Baptists ever held it to be right to put the consciences of others under the control of man. We have ever been ready to suffer, as our  martyrologies will prove, but we are not ready to accept any help from the State, to prostitute the purity of the Bride of Christ to any alliance with Government, and we will never make the church, although the Queen, the despot over the consciences of men.”
Dr. Dale R. Hart adapted from: This Day in Baptist History Vol. I: Cummins Thompson /, pp. 134-135.
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69 – March – 10 – THIS DAY IN BAPTIST HISTORY PAST

Balthazar Hubmaer
Baptists are not Protestants
1528 – May this ever mark the day, that it is settled in blood, that Baptists are not Protestants.  Balthazar Hubmaer was burned at the stake with his wife urging him to remain strong.  Sulfur and gunpowder was rubbed into his long beard.  All the time he was exhorting others, praying for forgiveness, exhorting others, and commending his spirit unto God.  Three days later his dear wife joined him as they drowned her in the Danube River.   Once again we see the State Church staining its garments with the blood of the saints.  Hubmaer was born in Bavaria in 1480 and studied Theology under Dr. Eck, Luther’s antagonist, but had embraced Luther’s views by 1522.  He became allied with Zwingli and assisted him in his debates with the Catholics in 1523 and became a close friend.  Being a Biblical scholar, he soon discovered that the Reformation in Zurich had not gone back to the apostolic model, he deliberately embraced Anabaptist principles, which caused a severe rupture in his relationship with Zwingli.  He formed an Anabaptist church and baptized more than three hundred of is former hearers.  He would preach in the open air, and soon the population became largely Baptist.  His popularity soon attracted the attention of the Protestants and Catholics alike and he was soon arrested and taken to the dungeon.  There he appealed to his old friend Zwingli, the emperor, and to the Confederation and Council, to no avail.  His health broke, his wife was in jail and his only hope was recantation on infant baptism.  Finally they broke him, but at the church when he was to read his confession, God gave him strength, and he rose up and shouted, “Infant baptism is not of God, and men must be baptized by faith in Christ.”   The authorities rushed him and dragged him back to the dungeon and death.
Dr. Greg J. Dixon, from: This Day in Baptist History Vol. I: Cummins/Thompson /, pp. 98.
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337 – Dec. 03 – This Day in Baptist History Past

 

Baptists preceded the Reformation

 

1847 – Thomas Rees Davies, the Welsh Baptist pastor, known as “Old Black Cap”, because he wore a velvet cap in the pulpit, provided a great verbal description of himself in a letter he wrote to a deacon in London, who was to meet him at the train. He wrote, “At Euston Station…about nine in the evening, expect the arrival of a gray-haired old man; very tall, like the ancient Britons, and without an outward blemish, but a Jewish high-priest. Like Elijah, he will wear a mantle, not shaggy, but superfine, and like Jacob, he will have a staff in his hand, but will not be lame, it is hoped. But most especially, he will have a white string in his hat, fastened to his coat button. There will be many there with black strings, but his will be white. Let the friend ask, ‘Are you Davies?’ and his answer will be, ‘Yes.’” Baptists in Wales preceded the Reformation. The Venerable Bede (673-735) wrote, in his work, that Welshmen followed the Bible only and opposed the superstitions of Rome. It is clear that there were those who held Baptist convictions in Wales at the beginning of the seventeenth century. The first Baptist church in Wales after the Reformation was formed at Ilston, near Swansea, in Glamorganshire, in 1649. Wales has also had a great influence in America by sending entire congregations to our shores. Christmas Evans was one of the greatest of their preachers, so named, because he was born on Christmas day. When Davies started his last preaching tour and sensed that his days were few he said that he wanted to be buried in the same grave with Evans. He preached on July 22, 1859, died on Sunday the 24th, and was buried in Evans tomb.
[This Day in Baptist History II: Cummins and Thompson, BJU Press: Greenville, S.C. 2000 A.D. pp. 661-62. Thomas Armitage, A History of the Baptists (New York: Bryan, Taylor, and Co., 1887), pp. 599-600.]
Prepared by Dr. Greg J. Dixon

 

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113 – April 23 – This Day in Baptist History Past

 

Did the Baptists Begin in 1641?

 

The premise of the authors of this devotional, historical volumes has been that history vindicates the succession of Baptist principles from the days of the New Testament.  In other words, Baptists did not spring from the Reformation.  They preceded it, and the New Testament principles that we call distinctive have long endured.  “In the report of the Council of the Archbishop of Cologne about the ‘Anabaptist movement, ‘ to the Emperor Charles V,  it is said that the Anabaptists call themselves ‘true Christians,‘  that they desire community of goods, ‘which has been the way of Anabaptists for more than a thousand years, as the old histories and imperial laws testify.‘  At the dissolution of the Parliament at Speyer it was stated [of] the ‘new sect of the Anabaptists‘ . . . ‘It is a fact that for more than twelve centuries baptism in the way taught and described in the New Testament had been made an offense against the law, punishable by death.’”   The full report of the Council was presented to Emperor Charles V, and on April 23, 1529, the Decree of the Emperor against the Anabaptists was issued.  In the decree one reads language such as the following: “.  .  . yet do we find daily that, contrary to the promulgated common law and also to our mandate issued, such ancient sect of the Anabaptists condemned and forbidden many hundred of years ago more and more advances and spreads.”  The decree called for the following penalty:  “ .  .  .that all and every Anabaptist and re-baptized man or woman of intelligent age shall be sentenced and executed by fire, sword, of the like .  .  .”  When reading this decree, it is apparent that the so-called “anabaptists” did not spring from the Reformation.  They long preceded it.

 

 

 

Dr. Dale R. Hart, adapted from:  This Day in Baptist History  III (David L. Cummins) p.p.  235   –   236

 

 

92 – April 02 – THIS DAY IN BAPTIST HISTORY PAST

C. H. Spurgeon’s Convictions of Baptist Beginnings

On April 2^nd 1861 a public meeting was held for the Baptist brethren of London at the famed “Metropolitan Tabernacle,” known to many as “Spurgeon’s Tabernacle,” where dedicatory services were extended as church members and London residents united in praising God for His blessings!

Consider the words of greeting from Spurgeon, as he welcomed the area Baptist brethren to the new building.

“We believe that the Baptists are the original Christians. We did not commence our existence at the reformation, we were reformers before Luther and 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. We have always existed from the very days of Christ, and our principles, sometimes veiled and forgotten, like a river which may travel underground for a little season, have always had honest and holy adherents. Persecuted alike by Romanists and Protestants of almost every sect, yet there has never existed a Government holding Baptist principles which persecuted others; nor, I believe, any body of Baptists ever held it to be right to put the consciences of others under the control of man. We have ever been ready to suffer, as our  martyrologies will prove, but we are not ready to accept any help from the State, to prostitute the purity of the Bride of Christ to any alliance with Government, and we will never make the church, although the Queen, the despot over the consciences of men.

Dr. Dale R. Hart: Adapted from: This Day in Baptist History Vol. I: Cummins Thompson /, pp. 134-135.

 

17 – Jan. 17 – THIS DAY IN BAPTIST HISTORY PAST

He had forsaken the priesthood
 Jan. 17, 1525, was the first time that George Blaurock is heard of, and that is in connection with a discussion of the Anabaptists concerning infant baptism.  The very basis of soul liberty is at the very heart of this issue.  This was clearly seen by the Anabaptists before and after the Reformation.  Pilgram Marpeck said, “By infant baptism men coerce people to enter the Kingdom of God; and yet there should be no coercion there…”  The repudiation of infant baptism in Jan. 1525, led to the banishment of Ludwig Hetzer, William Reublin, and others, and to the imprisonment of Conrad Grebel, Blaurock and Felix Manz.  Blaurock had been a monk, but had renounced the religion of ritual for one of reality.  Following the deaths of Grebel and Manz he had become a leader among the Swiss Anabaptists, until he was burned at the stake.  He was martyred because “…he had forsaken the priesthood, he disregarded infant baptism, he rejected the mass; he rejected the confession of the priests, and the mother of Christ is not to be invoked or worshipped.”  At the place of execution he earnestly spoke to the people, and pointed them to the scriptures.  In his death he exemplified one of the hymns he had written:  “Blessed are those in all tribulation who cling to Christ to the end.”  He was known as the second Paul and the “Hercules of the Anabaptists.”  Another Blaurock hymn: “As he himself our suffering bore; When hanging on the accursed tree; So there is suffering still in store; O pious heart, for you and me.”
Dr. Greg J. Dixon from: This Day in Baptist History Vol. IIII: Cummins, pp. 35-36.