by Jesse Owens and Jake Stone
One of the hallmarks of early English Baptists is their defense of religious toleration. I (Jesse) have argued in previous essays (here and here) that early Baptist arguments for religious toleration were neither dependent on Enlightenment ideals nor were they accidental to Baptist theology. These two points are closely related. First, early Baptist arguments for religious toleration were not dependent upon Enlightenment ideals, in part, because they preceded Enlightenment arguments for religious toleration by many decades. The primary arguments for religious toleration among early Baptists were drawn from the Bible, which will be evident in the texts suggested below. Second, religious toleration is not accidental to early Baptist theology because their understanding of religious toleration grew out of their understanding of the distinction between Old and New Covenants as well their New Testament conception of the nature of the church. They employed what Timothy George has called an “asymmetrical hermeneutic” that placed greater emphasis on the New Testament in their conception of the church as a covenanted body of baptized believers. It was out of this conception of the church that their understanding of religious toleration sprang forth.
In this post, we want to provide a list of nine early Baptist texts that you should read. Our aim is to give you some sense of early Baptist arguments for religious toleration or religious liberty (the terms are used interchangeably throughout). All but one text (Backus) was published in the seventeenth century. The annotations will give you some sense of the work, but we have hyperlinked to online versions of the text where possible.
1. Thomas Helwys, A Short Declaration of the Mystery of Iniquity (1612)
Marvin Jones has rightly argued that Helwys’s A Short Declaration of the Mystery of Iniquity is first and foremost an ecclesiological text. Religious toleration is not his primary point; even so, he defends universal, religious toleration. His position flows from his understanding of the nature of the church, which is comprised of baptized believers who voluntarily covenant together. The Church of England baptized infants, who were incapable of faith, and forced non-believers to participate in worship and the sacraments. Helwys believed this practice to be a blatant rejection of the New Testament church. However, the doctrine of infant baptism maintained this conception of the church with its mixed multitude of believers and unbelievers (though all baptized as infants) that perpetuated established religion and religious persecution. Consequently, Helwys argued against not only Roman Catholics and the Church of England but even the Puritans and Separatists who retained the practice of infant baptism. Helwys believed that a New Testament understanding of the nature of the church, particularly believer’s baptism and regenerate church membership, undermined a national church and religious persecution, which could never beget saving faith.
2. John Murton, Objections: Answered by Way of Dialogue (1615)
John Murton was Helwys’s successor at the Baptist church in Spitalfields after Helwys’s death in prison. One of Murton’s primary objections to religious persecution is that it conflates the kingdoms of this world and the Kingdom of Christ by identifying earthly kings and kingdoms with Israelite kings. Earthly kings and kingdoms defend religious persecution on a false analogy between Israel and modern nations, which is founded on a misunderstanding of the relationship between the Old and New Covenants. If England is like any ancient nation or kingdom, Murton argued, it is the persecuting Roman Empire, not ancient Israel. Murton also maintains, like Helwys, that faith cannot be coerced by the sword or threats of imprisonment. Nor can magistrates compel men to worship since true worship requires faith, and worship without faith is hypocrisy. Murton insightfully points out that the New Testament pattern does not compel men to worship by force. Rather, the pattern is that an Christians would go from city to city and house to house and take the gospel to men. In sum, established religion and religious persecution require misguided appeals to Old Testament Israel.
3. John Murton, A Most Humble Supplication (1621)
Murton’s Most Humble Supplication took less of an ecclesiological approach than Helwys’s Mystery of Iniquity. Murton argued for the inspiration and authority of Scripture in matters of faith and practice. He maintained that popes, princes, kings, and even councils could err, and that many had erred. Nevertheless, they persecuted those who differed with them with corporal punishment. Murton suggests that Protestant persecutors are worse even than Roman Catholic persecutors: the latter had kept the Bible from the people whereas the former had encouraged people to read the Bible and persecuted them when they disagreed on biblical doctrine. Murton also marshals passages from Hilary of Potiers, Jerome, Tertullian, John of Damascus, Martin Luther, and others against religious persecution. Murton defended “freedom of religion” on the basis that faith could not be coerced by the threat of corporal punishment. He appealed to Jesus’ own claim to His disciples that His kingdom was not of this world to argue against religious persecution, which stands in stark contrast to Jesus’ words.
4. Roger Williams, The Bloudy Tenent of Persecution (1644)
Bloudy Tenent is one of the best-known Baptist works defending religious toleration. Williams helped found the first Baptist church in America in Providence, Rhode Island, in 1638. He was also instrumental in the Rhode Island charter, which defended religious liberty. As many have noted, Williams did not remain a Baptist, but his defense of religious toleration was written while he was a Baptist and fits squarely within Baptist defenses of religious toleration. Also, Williams’s work draws directly on John Murton and hence indirectly on Helwys. Bloudy Tenent is a further development and expansion of Helwys and Murton’s work. For Williams, the origins of a state-sponsored church were not present in the New Testament but in the age of Constantine: “Christianity fell asleep in the bosom of Constantine.” Williams argued that state-sponsored persecution is founded on a false analogy between Israel and modern nations. Like Murton, he pointed out the hypocrisy of encouraging people to read the Bible for themselves only then to persecute them when they came to different conclusions than the Church of England in matters of faith and practice. Like Murton, Williams argued that religious persecution could make only hypocrites and never Christians. Readers will recognize Murton in Williams’s work.
5. John Clarke, Ill Newes from New England (1652)
Along with John Crandall and Obadiah Holmes, John Clarke knew firsthand the persecution and oppression that Baptists felt in New England from religious establishment. After traveling from New England to England in 1652, Clarke penned this work to make his English Baptist brethren aware of the persecution being inflicted upon Baptists in Massachusetts. Clarke provides a narrative recounting the injustices that the Baptists were facing in seeking to obey Christ and His government. Clarke sets forth several biblical reasons for liberty of conscience, centered upon Christ being the Lord of the conscience and commanding genuine worship renewed by the Holy Spirit. Clarke writes, “It is not the will of the Lord that any one should have dominion over another man’s conscience.” Clarke’s powerful defense of this Baptist distinctive became part of the royal charter granted to the Rhode Island Colony in 1662.
6. The Humble Apology of Some Commonly Called Anabaptists (1660)
The Humble Apology is a joint letter from a wide variety of Baptists arguing that they should not be identified with those who identified as “Anabaptists” and had incited violence against the crown in London. They also wanted to separate themselves from the infamous Anabaptist rebellion at Münster (1534–35). These Baptists argued that there is no necessary correlation between Baptist beliefs and insurrection or disobedience to civil matters. They even cite from their confessions of faith their willingness to obey the civil magistrate as a divinely ordained institution. But they also make it clear that they hope to continue to enjoy religious freedom and that they intend to render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s and unto God what is God’s. The first half of the work concludes with the names of signatories such as: William Kiffen, Henry Den, Thomas Lamb, Francis Smith, Christopher Blackwood, John Spilsbery, Edward Harrison, and John Gosnold. In some ways, this document is a reminder of the ways in which English Baptists, even in the seventeenth century, occasionally joined together for important causes.
7. Sions Groans for Her Distressed (1661)
This work was apparently composed by seven General Baptists: Thomas Monck, Joseph Wright, William Jeffrey, George Hamon, Francis Stanley, William Reynolds, and Francis Smith. It was published the year after the restoration of the English monarchy, and many dissenters feared they would be persecuted for their faith. The work contains all the standard Baptist defenses of religious toleration. Persecutors conflate Israel and modern kingdoms, wrongly try to compel men’s consciences in matters of faith with corporal threats, contradict the teachings and practice of Jesus and the apostles, fail to realize that councils and synods can err, and fail to realize they are no different than the Roman Catholics in this matter. What these men argue for is the freedom to worship in accordance with the dictates of conscience as they read and interpret the Bible.
8. The Lyn Persecution: Being the Case of Our Brother the Baptist Minister There James Marham (1693)
The Lyn Persecution contains an account of the General Baptist pastor James Marham’s persecution in Lyn, Norfolk. The work is a compilation of writings recounting Marham’s character and persecution. Marham had apparently moved to Lyn and was good friends with Thomas Grantham who encouraged him to raise up a church since the town had no existing Baptist church. On the basis of some technicality, Marham was accused of not obtaining the correct license for the meetinghouse and was imprisoned. In addition to defending Marham, this work also calls for all Baptists, including Particular Baptists, to aid Marham politically and financially. They note that the pressing issue is not the doctrine of general atonement but that of baptism. Also, the work interestingly references Benjamin Keach, a General Baptist turned Particular Baptist, who ultimately wrote a letter to Richard Kent in Marham’s defense (along with Richard Adams).
9. Isaac Backus, An Appeal to the Public for Religious Liberty (1773)
During the period leading up to, during, and after the American War for Independence, Isaac Backus was the preeminent spokesman for religious liberty among American Baptists. A Baptist pastor in Massachusetts, Backus saw the effects of an established church. Backus’s work is divided into three sections: the distinct differences between the civil and ecclesiastical government, the corruption resulting when the two are blended, and the ways in which Baptists suffered under religious establishment. The failure of keeping the two governments distinct contributed to the spiritual decay in the land. Backus writes, “And where these two kinds of government, and the weapons which belong to them, are well distinguished, and improved according to the true nature and end of their institution, the effects are happy, and they do not at all interfere with each other: but where they have been confounded together, no tongue nor pen can fully describe the mischiefs that have ensued; of which the Holy Ghost gave early and plain warnings.” Though he would not live to see it, Backus’s fight for religious disestablishment in Massachusetts would come to fruition in 1833.
About the author: Jake Stone is originally from Gulfport, Mississippi. He is an M.Div. student at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and a 2018 graduate from William Carey University in 2018 (B.S., pastoral ministry). He served in pastoral ministry in Mississippi for twelve years and helped organize the Carey-Fuller Conference which focused on the local church and Baptist history. He resides in Louisville, Kentucky, and is a member at the Reformed Baptist Church of Louisville.
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