02.03. Continuity

CONTINUITY The Bible demands a continuity or perpetuation of the church established by Jesus Christ. The master said: "Upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it" (Matthew 16:18). Then when he gave the commission he closed with these words: "And lo I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world" (Matthew 28:20). Again he said; "This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; then shall the end come" (Matthew 24:14). Paul says: "Unto him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. Amen" (Ephesians 3:21). I could produce much more along this line, but those who will not believe the Bible, Christ, and Paul. "would not believe, though one rose from the dead."

If anything is plain in the Book, these scriptures make it plain that the church established by Jesus Christ on the mountain in Galilee, has existed in every age through the centuries to the present. To do this, all the essentials must have remained in perfect order.

Perhaps many of our own people do not realize the wisdom of our form of government. The government of Baptists is the only form that renders church continuity possible. Continued perfection in human institutions is an impossibility. No hierarchy of any degree can perpetuate itself without change or flaw. With them a change or defect at one point effects the whole. But this is not so with the Baptists. The Bible knows nothing, and Baptists know nothing of a church bigger than a local congregation, and a church is a pure democracy: and amenable to no other institution in this wide world―convention, association, or council. As long as there is one church be it ever so small, that is adhering to the old paths, and loyal to Jesus Christ, the great head of the church, the church that Christ founded is being perpetuated. To illustrate: If every Baptist Church in Wilson County should go to the bad except Shop Springs, and she should remain true, the action of these others would in no way affect the Church standing of Shop Springs. The Baptists would be in perfect order, just as the misconduct of an individual Baptist, does not vitiate the Christian standing of another individual Baptist; neither does the condition of one church affect the standing of another church. The statement of these scriptures quoted above, is equivalent to saying that there never will be a time that there will not be a church tried and true some where giving God the glory. It is true just as Paul says: they "had trial of cruel mockings and scourgings, yea moreover of bonds and imprisonments: they were stoned, they were sawn asunder, were tempted, were slain with the sword: they wandered about in sheep-skins and goat-skins; being destitute, afflicted, tormented: of whom the world was not worthy; they wandered in deserts, and in mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth" (Hebrews 11:36-38).

While this is a history of the Old Testament saints, it is as true as a prophesy of our forefathers. If you would go to the valleys of Piedmont, and the Alpine Caverns of Switzerland you could see the blood-stained trail of our forefathers as they worshiped in caves, hidden away from Catholic dragonades, just as wild animals seek to evade the huntsman’s pursuit. From the first rupture in the church, 250 A. D., that finally resulted in Catholicism, to the Reformation 1520, A. D., the true churches of Jesus Christ were known as Ana-Baptists and such other local names as their enemies gave them. They were not permitted to keep records or write their own history. But their enemies have said enough for us to gather a fairly good history.

Augustus Neander, a man of great learning, a German Lutheran, of Jewish descent, in Vol. 1. page 318 says: "Towards the close of the year 253, he (Stephanus the Roman bishop) issued a sentence of excommunication against the bishops (pastors) of Asia Minor, Cappadocia, Galatia, and Celica, stigmatizing them as Ana-Baptists (Greek "Anabaptistai").

These churches of "Asia Minor, Cappadocia, Galatia, and Celica," were no doubt the ones established by Paul and his associates. In order to settle the question of the identity of the names, Baptist and Ana-Baptist, I quote from those not Baptist. Alexander Campbell in 1832 long after he had separated from the Baptists said: "Often were the Baptists called Ana-Baptists by their jealous rivals. But they successfully rebutted the calumny by showing that they never rebaptized any person whom they considered as having been once baptized." Millenial Harbinger, Vol. 2, page 593. When our brethren sought an asylum from persecution in the American wilds, to their surprise they were persecuted equally as bitterly by the Church of England as Anabaptists, and the court records are under that same head. The first Baptist Church planted on Georgia soil (Kiokee) was chartered as an Anabaptist Church. This church still stands and is a member of the old Georgia Association. The two noted Baptist Confessions of Faith of 1644 and 1660 "are headed as the churches which are commonly (though falsely) called Ana-Baptist." As soon as our brethren got from under the persecutors lash they dropped the prefix "ana," and have since been known as Baptists.

Cardinal Hosius, Catholic member of the Council of Trent, 1560 A. D., said: "If the truth of religion were to be judged by the readiness and boldness of which a man of any sect shows in suffering, then the opinion and persuasion of no sect can be truer and surer than that of the Anabaptists, since there have been none for these twelve hundred years past that have been more generally punished, or that have more cheerfully and steadfastly undergone, and even offered themselves to the most cruel sorts of punishment than these people," (Hosius Letters 112. 113) This carries our history back to 360 A.D. In 1819 the king of the Netherlands appointed Dr. Ypeig, Professor of Theology in Grouigan University, and J. J. Dermont, his chaplain, to write the history of the Dutch Reformed Church. The Baptists figured in the matter until they made a statement concerning them closing in these words: "We have now seen that the Baptists, who were formerly called ‘Anabaptists’, and in later time ‘Mennonites’ were the original Waldenses, and who have long in the history of the church received the honor of that origin. On this account the Baptists may be considered as the only Christian community which has stood since the days of the apostles, and as a Christian society which has preserved pure the doctrines of the gospel through all ages." These men were not Baptists. Did they tell the truth?

Alexander Campbell, in 1851, when he had been an ordained minister for forty years, and 15 years before his death said: "There is nothing more congenial to civil liberty than to enjoy an unrestrained, unembargoed liberty of exercising the conscience freely upon all subjects respecting religion. Hence it is that the Baptist denomination, in all ages and in all countries, has been, as a body, the constant asserters of the rights of man and liberty of conscience,"―Christian Baptism, page 409. This brings me to say that Baptists have never persecuted any one for their religious views, but have been the defenders of religious liberty for all alike.

Baptists have not only furnished their martyrs by the hundreds but by the thousands. It would beggar language to tell what they have suffered for their principles, and yet they have never retaliated. No one can put his finger on the Baptist that ever persecuted any one for their religious convictions. But on the other hand they were the precursors of religious liberty. They have crimsoned the soil of every land with their blood at both the hands of Catholics and protestants, while they plead for religious liberty. As late as 1652 when Roger Williams published his reply to John Cotton’s "Blondy Tenent" in London the Baptists stood alone on this question. Even Quakers wanted it modified. That you may see how protestants felt toward the Baptists I quote, Martin Luther said: "I am pleased that you intend to publish a book against the Anabaptists as soon as possible. Since they are not only blasphemous, but also seditious men, let the sword exercise its rights over them."

Melancthon in 1537 "advised death by the sword to all who professed Anabaptist views."

Zwingli, Heinrich Bullinger, persecuted the Baptists.

Baptists are not Protestants and never were in the sense that they came out of Rome. They are Protestants only in the sense that they have opposed Rome through the centuries since Rome came on the stage.

Protestantism has persecuted Baptists as bitterly as the Catholics, and more so here in America until the law staid their hand.

Bishop Holland N. McTyeire, a Southern Methodist, in his History of Methodism, in speaking of Baptist persecution in Virginia says: "The Baptists bore the brunt of persecution. They were beaten and imprisoned, and cruelty taxed its ingenuity to devise new methods of punishment and annoyance. But they stood it nobly." Hist. Methodism, page 250.

These same Virginia Baptists succeeded in engineering through Congress the first amendment to the Constitution of the United States that guarantees to all religious liberty today, of which we are all proud.