Thomas Helwys: Father of Religious Freedom

Posted By Phillip Morgan on Dec 15, 2014 | 7 comments

The American Church increasingly faces serious challenges concerning religious freedom. Many already see trouble on the horizon concerning homosexuality. Likely this issue will be only one of many to assault the church’s freedom to practice her beliefs unhindered by the state. Therefore, we must begin to redevelop a strong theological defense of religious freedom that will guide us in these days.

Free Will Baptists have a unique heritage of well-reasoned arguments on this subject. Our forefather, Thomas Helwys, holds the distinction of being the first person to write a defense of universal religious freedom in the English language. In this article we will explore the culture of persecution that Helwys experienced at the turn of the 1600s and consider how he came to form his argument universal religious freedom.

Why Persecute Anyone?

Though many reformers were fighting for their own religious freedoms, few had any concern for the freedoms of those with whom they disagreed. Reformers such as Martin Luther (1483-1546), Ulrich Zwingli (1484-1531), and John Calvin (1509-1564) followed medieval Church practices of persecuting heresy.[1] They believed that the king’s duty was to punish heresy, not to mention idolatry and wickedness.[2] They believed that the king’s power extends beyond the physical and reaches into the spiritual realm. Thus many had no theological qualms about religious liberty.[3]

The Reformers’ primary contention with religious freedom concerned politics and economics. They believed that they would facilitate political and economic stability by uniting doctrinal stances.[4] Thus most Englishmen saw the antagonistic divisions between Catholics, Anglicans, and Puritans as a precursor of further division if conformity were abandoned.

English religious toleration proposals were originally limited in scope. Many believed that certain doctrinal disagreements within Christianity might be tolerated for a short while or, as John Cotton put it, “until after admonition once or twice.”[5] However, after some period of patience, Cotton and others believed that punishment would be required. Even such lauded tolerationists as John Locke (1632-1704) and Charles Wolseley (1630-1714) rejected toleration for Catholics.[6]

For their part, Catholics had even greater difficulties conceiving a world free from persecution, since their tradition had condoned it for nearly 1,000 years. Thus the bulk of English tolerationist discussions in the 1600s centered on whether certain doctrinal disagreements within Christianity ought to be tolerated. Other religions were wholly disregarded.

Though European Jews, Muslims, and other non-Christians experienced sporadic periods of freedom prior to the 1600s, these instances were few and far between.[7] More often they were tolerated for a short period and then forced to move, convert, or die. Few lived in England during the Reformation, but those who did were left to live as second-class citizens on the periphery of society.[8] Before the mid-1600s, the only group working for religious freedom for all people in England was the English General Baptists.

The Genesis of a Change

The English General Baptists were formed by Thomas Helwys and John Smyth during the first decade of the 1600s. However, Helwys broke fellowship with Smyth around 1610 because Smyth desired to join the fellowship of Waterlander Mennonites.

Though Helwys retained his independence from the Mennonites, he nonetheless moved from a Calvinist Radical Puritan confession to an adjusted, Anabaptist, Arminian one. He then uniquely blended his Arminian theology with an ecclesial model similar to the continental Anabaptists. This blending had important ramifications on his understanding of the relationship between religion and civil government. Thus, as he journeyed back to London in 1612 with his new denomination known as General Baptists, he took a radical new concept of the church/state relationship with him.[9]

The First Defense: A Short Declaration of the Mystery of Iniquity

Helwys wrote A Short Declaration of the Mystery of Iniquity (1612) while still in Amsterdam. It is the largest of his works and holds the privilege of being the first English apology for universal religious liberty. Helwys offered two main premises: (1) the king rules only over an earthly kingdom; and (2) none should be punished by the king for their religious beliefs.

Helwys believed that the Bible teaches that reality consists of two spheres: the physical and spiritual. Though these two spheres “are not antagonistic” toward one another, they are “definitely distinct.”[10] According to McBeth, “[e]ach has proper officers and responsibilities, but neither is to exercise authority over the other.”[11] To illustrate, Helwys wrote that no king or queen has “power over [their] subjects’ consciences.”[12] Rather, he stated, “an earthly sword is ordained of God only for an earthly power and a spiritual sword for a spiritual power.”[13] Therefore, Helwys places the spiritual kingdom firmly in God’s hands and avoids theocratic government by leaving the physical kingdom to the king.

However, Helwys’ distinction between the king’s physical government over the temporal kingdom and Christ’s spiritual government over the church is distinct from a “two-kingdoms” theory, whether it be a Lutheran or an Anabaptist version. Rather than hermetically sealed spheres incapable of interaction, Helwys contends for an independent, temporal sphere influenced by Christian principles. However, he steadfastly maintains that the king’s sphere shouldn’t penetrate the spiritual realm.

Rejecting the Reformation culture of persecution was no small feat, but Helwys believed that this was the most biblical and logical path. Rather than engendering religious conformity through fines, imprisonment, and capital punishment, Helwys argued that Christians should use discussion and reason to convince non-conformists: “[T]he sword of the spirit [the Bible] which sword only is to be used to compel men’s consciences to submit to the truth.”[14]

However, the use of the term compel can be misleading about his actual intentions. Helwys did not desire to force anyone into religious agreement. Rather, “information and instruction herein” should be administered with “love and meekness.”[15] Helwys didn’t limit his desire for religious freedom to only Christians and Christian heretics.

Unlike all other English tolerationists at the turn of the 1600s, Helwys didn’t simply defend his own group. He called for the freedoms of all people to practice their religious beliefs unimpeded by the government, whether Christian or not. Though Helwys affirmed that the king has a God-given “worldly power, which extends to all the goods and bodies of his servants,”[16] he didn’t believe that this power extended to matters of religion.[17] Instead, “men’s religion to God, is between God and themselves; the King shall not answer for it.”[18]

Helwys doesn’t let his argument lapse here, but carries it to its final conclusion: “Neither may the King be judged between God and man. Let them be heretics, Turks [Muslims], Jews, or whatsoever it appertains not to the earthly power to punish them in the least measure.”[19] This kind of broad religious freedom began a seismic shift in the religious freedom discussion going on in England in the 1600s.

Conclusion

Thomas Helwys’ revolutionary approach to church/state relations and religious freedom wasn’t well received by James I or his contemporaries. However, God used Helwys to influence his fellow General Baptist John Murton (1585-1626) and through him Roger Williams (1603-1683). Thirty years after Helwys’ death in Newgate prison, Williams used much of Murton’s An Humble Supplication to the King’s Majesty (1620) to develop his own defense of religious freedom, The Bloody Tenant of Persecution (1644).

Because the 1640s were much more receptive times for these ideas, Williams is often credited with developing the seminal defense of universal religious freedom. However, the true origin of universal religious freedom theory in England is actually the Free Will Baptist forefather Thomas Helwys. As we face increasing challenges, let’s take pride in this heritage and hold fast to his example as we face uncertain days.

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[1] They drew their ideas concerning persecution, as the medieval church had, from the examples of Constantine and Augustine. Constantine saw it as his duty to quell theological disagreements within the church during his reign. Near the end of the fourth century, Augustine fatefully broke with tradition and advocated mild persecution due to its perceived effectiveness.

[2] John Coffey, Persecution and Toleration in Protestant England, 1558-1689 (Harlow, England: Pearson Education Limited, 2000), 31.

[3] Ibid., 38.

[4] John Coffey, “Puritanism and Liberty Revisited: The Case for Toleration in the English Revolution,” The Historical Journal 41, no. 4 (December, 1998): 972, accessed February 22, 2014, http://www.jstor.org.ezproxy.lib.apsu.edu/stable/10.2307/3020858.

[5] John Cotton, The Controversie Concerning Liberty of Conscience in Matters of Religion (London, 1646), 7.

[6] Coffey, Persecution and Toleration, 55.

[7] David Sorkin, “Beyond the east-west divide: rethinking the narrative of the Jews’ political status in Europe, 1600-1750,” Jewish History 24, no. ¾ Special issue on Tradition and Transformation in Eighteenth-Century Europe: Jewish Integration in Comparative Perspective (2010): p 249-250, accessed May 3, 2014, http://www.jstor.org.ezproxy.lib.apsu.edu/stable/40864852.

[8] Coffey, Persecution and Toleration, 53.

[9] Jeremy Dupertuis Bangs, “Dutch Contributions to Religious Toleration,” Church History 79, no. 3 (September 2010): p. 596, accessed February 8, 2014, http://www.jstor.org.ezproxy.lib.apsu.edu/stable/40962797.

[10] H. Leon McBeth, English Baptist Literature on Religious Liberty to 1689 (New York: Arno, 1980), 33.

[11] Ibid.

[12] Thomas Helwys, A short declaration of the mistery of iniquity (London, 1612), 43.

[13] Ibid.

[14] Helwys, mistery of iniquity, 13.

[15] Ibid.

[16] Ibid., 40.

[17] Ibid., 37.

[18] Ibid., 69.

[19] Ibid.

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