Thomas Helwys: A Short and Plaine Proof
John Donne famously wrote, “No man is an island, entire of itself.” Likewise, no theology is formed within a vacuum, but rather emerges from within the context of human history. This is the same history in which God speaks, works, and incarnates Himself. We are called to remember the works of God (cf. Deut. 6:12; 1 Cor. 11:24; Rev. 2:5). For that reason, there is great value in studying history to try and understand how God has worked among His people.
The Helwys Society Forum frequently engages in this type of exercise by considering how different figures sought to understand God and the Christian faith. Like other believers across time, we aim to stand on the shoulders of people who came before them in order to understand orthodoxy’s enduring value. Specifically, as Reformed Arminians, we look to our forbearers such as Thomas Helwys in order to understand the theology that we hold today. In particular, this essay will consider his important work, A Short and Plaine Proof.
Thomas Helwys
Enter Thomas Helwys (pronounced Hell-wiss), the namesake for this site. While Helwys’s biography has been addressed elsewhere, it is important for us to have a brief understanding of the man who wrote this important document.
The beginning of Helwys’s life is largely unknown, including his birthdate [1]. Helwys was educated at Gray’s Inn in London to study law [2]. After two years of study, he married Joan Ashmore and took up residence in Broxtowe Hall. While he was almost certainly raised in the Church of England, Helwys allowed Puritans to meet at Broxtowe Hall. After meeting John Smyth, a Puritan-Separatist preacher, Helwys began attending Smyth’s congregation in Gainesborough [3].
Due to persecution under King James I, Smyth and Helwys’s congregation sought solace in Amsterdam. During this time, Smyth articulated an understanding of believer’s baptism—contrary to the paedobaptism of Anglicanism. He most likely learned this from the Waterlander Mennonites, with whom he shared a soteriology [4]. Smyth then joined with the Mennonites. Though Helwys had moved confessionally from the Church of England, to Puritanism, to Separatism, he refused to follow Smyth in his final ecclesiological shift. After writing an Admonition to the Waterlanders in 1611, Helwys then turned his focus to the high Calvinists.
A Short and Plaine Proof
It is within Helwys’s brief work, A Short and Plaine Proof, that we see some of his soteriology (views of salvation) clearly articulated. He dedicates this work to Isabel Bowes who had allowed theological discussions in her home. Within this concise text, Helwys illustrates the weakness in the Calvinistic understanding of predestination, unconditional election, and the subsequent damnation of infants [5].
After the dedication, Helwys explains that his motivation for writing is to “set down our faith of election and reprobation concerning salvation and condemnation” [6]. Furthermore, and in line with reformational commitments, he desires to build his argument upon the authority of Scripture. Instead of leaning on reason, or even the ecclesiastical authority for their theological method, Helwys pleads with his readers to search the Scriptures to formulate their theology.
Helwys declares that his aim is to “take the most plain, easy, and short way that by direction of his spirit our hearts can devise, which is a way most fitting our own capacities, and (we hope) will be most profitable for the upright-hearted reader” [7]. Free Will Baptists readers will recognize that F. Leroy Forlines’s own theology fits into this methodology—seeking to make the study of God as understandable as possible.
Helwys then focuses on the problem of sin. He posits that the Calvinists “will and do conclude most blasphemously that God had foredecreed that sin should come to pass” [8]. Helwys argues that “they directly make God the author of sin” by adhering to supralapsarianism [9]. Because tranditional Calvinists believe that God decreed predestination of the elect and the reprobate before He decreed creation, Helwys believed this was the only logical conclusion.
He begins his argument against this perspective by looking to Genesis 1:26-27: “You will eat freely of every tree in the garden” [10]. Helwys states, “Thus God gave him [Adam] free power over his own will and body to eat or not to eat. Yet the Lord restrained him of the forbidden fruit by his commandment and threatening judgment, but not by his omnipotent power” [11]. Simply put, God did not decree that Adam would sin, but rather decreed the judgment of what would happen if he did. Helwys is simply arguing this: if God has decreed who would be elected and who wouldn’t before He has decreed the fall, then God’s command in the Garden was against His own eternal will. He argues this (1) makes God’s decree the cause of sin, (2) restrains God’s love to the world, and (3) makes “Christ a particular, private redeemer for some private men” [12].
It is within this framework that Helwys addresses the concern of infant’s souls. If all of humanity is predetermined in their eternal state, “under this condemnation are brought so many thousands of millions of poor infants that die ‘before they have done good or evil’” [13]. Rather than reacting, and swinging to a semi-Pelagian perspective, Helwys articulates a thoroughly biblical theology.
Helwys states his belief in original sin and its effect on humanity. In this same thread, he persuasively asks how sin could apply to all men in the first Adam, yet atonement be insufficient for all men in the second Adam. He further argues that free will often follows the argument of general atonement. He writes, “If their meaning is free will in Christ and that we have free power and ability through Christ to work out our salvation and that through Christ we are made able to do every good work, such a free will we hold” [14]. Plainly, Helwys’s soteriology is robustly Christocentric.
Contemporary Significance
You may ask, what is the contemporary significance for me, in the 21st century? Interestingly enough, a lot!
Whether we hold to the views Helwys articulated will affect the way in which we live the Christian life and minister. First, consider this admonition from Helwys to fellow ministers,
For what faith can a man have to preach the gospel to such when (by this opinion) he has more cause to suspect that God has otherwise decreed them to condemnation? What faith can there be to preach the gospel when we do not know whether Christ belongs to them or not? . . . For how can a man of faith pray for any man when he cannot know whether God has decreed him to condemnation? He may be praying against God’s decree [15].
That is to say, as ministers of God’s Word, we can preach and pray with the assurance that we are not working against God’s eternal decrees.
Second, the doctrine of general atonement can bring solace to a believer. Helwys writes, “What a comfortable doctrine is this to all when every poor soul may know that there is a grace and salvation for him in Christ. That Christ has shed his blood for him, that by believing him him he may be saved” [16]. When we embrace this teaching, we can sufficiently believe that Christ died for all. Thus, as a minister, a missionary, a doctor, or a mechanic, when sharing the Gospel I can speak authoritatively to the unredeemed everywhere and say, “Christ died for you!”
Third, the doctrine of general atonement shows God to be glorious and just. This doctrine magnifies and “sets forth the mercy of God to all mankind in giving a Savior to all who believe in him” [17]. This not only magnifies God, but also shows His holy justice. In this framework, God only condemns unbelievers “seeing he has left them without excuse in that he has given them a Savior, in whom because they do not believe, they are justly condemned” [18].
Theology is not removed from life, and neither is history, but it is immensely personal. Helwys’ 400-year old account speaks directly to contemporary faith and practice. As Helwys did, we have the ability to herald the glorious truth of Christ’s atonement, and what this reveals about His character. For this very reason, the Helwys Society Forum finds Thomas Helwys a worthy namesake that deserves to be advanced to the next generation.
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[1] Joe Early Jr., The Life and Writings of Thomas Helwys (Macon: Mercer University Press, 2009), 15.
[2] Gray’s Inn was a prestigious institution to learn at, and had notable alumni, including Francis Bacon and Thomas Cromwell.
[3] Early, 18.
[4] Ibid., 24.
[5] Ibid., 29.
[6] Ibid., 75.
[7] Ibid., 78.
[8] Ibid., 77.
[9] Ibid. It should be noted that most contemporary Calvinists, especially in Southern Baptist circles, tend to be infralapsarian as opposed to supralapsarian.
[10] Ibid. emphasis added, 79.
[11] Ibid. emphasis added.
[12] Ibid., 86.
[13] Ibid., 83.
[14] Ibid., 91-92.
[15] Ibid., 87.
[16] Ibid., 90
[17] Ibid.
[18] Ibid.
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