Baptistic Puritanism

The Puritan Roots of the American Baptist Movement

This is the second part of a new article in the Journal of Biblical and Theological Studies (10.1, April 9, 2025). For the whole article, see: “The Puritan Roots of the American Baptist Movement”.

The Puritan Roots of the American Baptist Movement (part 2)

The history of Baptist origins often commences with John Smyth (1554-1612) baptizing himself and others, including Thomas Helwys (c. 1575-c. 1616) and John Murton (1585 – c. 1626). Having fled to Holland (c. 1608) to escape persecution, they embraced believer’s baptism either as a result of independent Bible study or with the persuasion of Mennonites.[1] They also embraced Arminianism at the time of that controversy in Holland, and so began, after returning to England, a General Baptist church in London (1611/12). Thus, some Baptists claim, begins the chain of events leading to the Baptist movement, including its flourishing in America.

There are several problems with the Anabaptist origins theory. First, in order to demonstrate a prior practitioner of believer’s baptism is legitimately in the Baptist ancestry, one must show a causal connection to the later Baptist movement. That is difficult to demonstrate with Smyth, who did not successfully gather an Anabaptist church in England that persisted, nor can he be conclusively shown to have led others to do so. Helwys and Murton, who did gather a church, remained unconvinced of other essential features of Anabaptism, like foreswearing oaths, war, and political vocations.[2] Helwys, in particular, separated from Smyth on four points, two of which are typical of the Reformed rejection of Anabaptism: the Christian Sabbath and the appropriateness of Christians to serve the government.[3] Helwys confession of 1611 specifically stated “magistracy is a Holy ordinance of God,” that magistrates “may be members of the church of Christ,” and that they “bear the sword of God,” thus implying endorsing capital punishment, contrary to most Anabaptists.[4] Helwys and his followers were so opposed to Anabaptism, when Smyth converted to it in Holland, Helwys declared that Smyth had “denied the Lord’s truth and is fallen from grace.”

Further, there are the unsubtle statements on the covers of prominent Baptist confessions denying any connection to Anabaptism. The First London Baptist Confession (1644) declared that the confessing church, we now call “Baptists,” were “commonly, but unjustly, called Anabaptists.”[5] In 1660, the General Baptists likewise complained about being “falsely” called Anabaptists.[6] One of the earliest Baptist historians, Thomas Crosby (c. 1685-1752), “tried to firmly dissociate the English Baptists from the continental Anabaptists.”[7] Hence, Winthrop Hudson concludes, “If the early Baptists were clear on any one point, they were clear on their insistence that they were not to be confused with the Anabaptists.”[8]

2

“No direct linkage between the General Baptists of the 1640s back to Smyth and Helwys has been documented.” — Douglas Weaver

Second, it is unclear whether the Helwys church really began the chain-of-events that touched off the Baptist movement. B. R. White and Mark Bell question whether the Smyth-Helwys church persisted through the 1630s.[9] That is, we lack conclusive evidence that Helwys’ church survived very long, much less was the first in a series of Baptist churches. Douglas Weaver notes that “revisionist” Baptist historians have concluded “no direct linkage between the General Baptists of the 1640s back to Smyth and Helwys has been documented.”[10] Thus, there is no conclusive evidence that the Helwys church began the chain of events leading to Baptist churches today, especially in America. Rather, even the General Baptists in England “clearly emerged from the womb of Puritanism and the Separatist movement.”[11] As we will see, the General Baptist movement in England was not successful in creating a large following in America, except for the small Free Will Baptist movement, starting with Paul Palmer in North Carolina beginning in 1727 and Benjamin Randall starting in New Hampshire in 1780, both groups together accounted for probably less than ten percent of Baptists in America by the end of the 18^th century.[12]

3

“The single most confusing element in the attempt to understand the Baptist heritage . . . has been the identification of the Baptists with the Continental Anabaptists.” — Winthrop S. Hudson

Third, even those most ardent in their support of the Anabaptist origins theory admit, at least implicitly, that they lack evidence. Frank H. Littell (1917-2009), who vigorously championed the cause of the Anabaptists as the source of the “free church” ideal “like a latter-day circuit rider,” admitted frankly that direct evidence of a relationship between “continental Anabaptism and radical sectaries of the English commonwealth” “broke down.”[13] Baptists hold to the “free church” ideal and are among “the radical sectaries of the English commonwealth.” Thus, Littell confesses to a lack of evidence for Anabaptism’s influence on Baptists. Likewise, William Estep (1920-2000), perhaps the chief purveyor of the Anabaptist origins theory among Southern Baptists, claims that the rise of the Particular Baptists reflects the impact of Puritanism “under Anabaptist influence.” He claims “this influence may have been mediated more by books and tracts than by personal contact.”[14] His “may have” reveals he does not have concrete evidence of this. His testimony to the absence of evidence for the claim he is advocating is, itself, weighty evidence against it. Winthrop S. Hudson (1911-2001) notes, “The single most confusing element in the attempt to understand the Baptist heritage . . . has been the identification of the Baptists with the Continental Anabaptists.”[15] B. R. White concludes that “careful” historians “seeking to estimate the influence of Anabaptism upon both General and Calvinistic Baptist origins found that no significant influence could be decisively proved.”[16]

4

Believers’ baptism was a logical conclusion drawn from the Reformation belief in salvation through faith alone

Fourth, as Hudson argues, there is not a need to credit Anabaptists as the source of believer’s baptism among Puritans.

The insistence upon believers’ baptism was a logical corollary drawn from the Reformation emphasis upon the necessity for an explicit faith and from the Congregational concept of a gathered church, as well as from the common storehouse of Biblical precept and example, rather than being the result of any supposed Anabaptist influence.[17]

That is, the narrative of Baptist origins is confused because it seeks unique men or a movement outside the larger Reformed movement to ascribe its genesis. This is unnecessary because Reformed theology and Congregational polity, when combined in seventeenth-century England equal Puritanism, sufficiently account for Baptist origins.[18]

The traditional story of Baptist origins often implies that the Helwys church begins a self-conscious Baptist movement that then bifurcated into “General” (i.e. Arminian) and “Particular” (i.e. Calvinist) camps. However, this narrative has been challenged. First, Murray Tolmie concluded that General Baptists held “general redemption” as “their fundamental tenet, and as a result General Baptists had no sense of common purpose with the Particular Baptists.”[19] Likewise, Matthew Bingham, examining the Particular Baptist, reported that they felt that “paedobaptism could be tolerated but the ‘Arminian poison’ could not.” Thus, there was “no shared religious identity” between the two kinds of Baptists. The traditional narrative has been obfuscating the fact that the Particular Baptists, who would dominate early American Baptists, share far more affinities with “the wider puritan culture” than with General Baptists. Bingham claims that even the term “Baptist” obscures the connection of the “Particular Baptists” with the Puritans by creating the impression of an overarching Baptist communion detached from Puritan congregationalism. So, he prefers to call them “baptistic congregationalists.”^[20]

These “baptistic congregationalists,” thus Puritans, also began in London. There Henry Jacob (1563–1624) sought immediate reform of the church but did not condemn the established church as illegitimate, thus “semi-separatist.”^[21] Although Jacob left the Church of England he still believed the non-separating Puritans in the established church were brothers and sisters in Christ. He founded the church – usually called the Jacob church – which arguably grew to become the mother church for Particular Baptists, although it began as a paedobaptist congregational church. He cultivated an irenic spirit toward Puritans remaining within the Church of England. By 1635 the church called Henry Jessey, a typical Puritan, as their pastor. Believer’s baptism eventually “engulfed the Jacob circle of churches.”^[22] The mother church would eventually spawn five Baptist churches from 1638 to 1644. Finally, by 1644, Pastor Jessey himself, after “diligent and impartial examination of scripture and antiquity” including consulting some of the leading Puritans, like Thomas Goodwin (1600-1680) and Jeremiah Burroughs (1599 – 1646), became Baptist.^[23] Believer’s baptism, notes Bingham, “was understood as a natural and unavoidable consequence of the congregational principles.”[24] He and his followers continued to cultivate a “strong sense of shared religious identity among ‘godly’ Calvinist puritans” whom they considered “fellow Puritans.”^[25]

In the meantime, the first Particular Baptist church in England had been founded in 1638 by John Spilsbury (1593 – 1668). In 1644, the “baptistic congregationalists,” led by Spilsbury and William Kiffin, among others, drafted the first London Baptist Confession, itself an adaptation of the 1596 Separatist Confession. These early Particular Baptists preserved the congregational polity of that “True Confession.”[26] Meanwhile, Jessey “maintained the same Christian love and charity to all saints as before” his conversion to being Baptist and traveled around England visiting the churches “to excite them to love and union among themselves,” “seeking to maintain peace and unity among those Christians that differed not fundamentally.”^[27] This “irenic soil,” nurtured cordial relationships with other Puritans, was the ground in which about 250 to 300 Particular Baptist churches would grow in Britain by 1688.^[28]

John B. Carpenter (Ph.D, ThM, MDiv) is pastor of Covenant Reformed Baptist Church and author of Seven Pillars of a Biblical Church.

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[1] For example, Carol Crawford Holcomb, in “Doing Church Baptist Style: Congregationalism” (Baptist History and Heritage, 2001), tells the story of Baptist origins and polity without any reference to Congregationalism (the movement). http://www.centerforbaptiststudies.org/pamphlets/style/congregationalism.htm, accessed July 18, 2023.

[2] The Schleitheim confession (1527) stated “Christ . . . prohibits all swearing, whether true or false. . . “. (Donald F. Durnbaugh, The Believers’ Church: The History and Character of Radical Protestantism [New York: The MacMillan Company, 1968], 74.)

[3] Willaim Estep, “A Believing People: Historical Background,” The Concept of the Believers’ Church: Addresses from the 196 Louisville Conference, Edited by James Leo Garrett, Jr (Scottsdale, PN: Herald Press, 1969), 49.

[4] Thomas Helwys, “Helwys’ Declaration of Faith–The First Baptist Confession,” Society of Evangelical Arminians, paragraph 24; http://evangelicalarminians.org/helwys-declaration-of-faith-the-first-baptist-confession/, accessed September 15, 2023.

[5] London Baptist Confession of 1644, https://www.reformedreader.org/ccc/h.htm, accessed August 11, 2023.

[6] “A Brief Confession or Declaration of Faith,” (London, 1660); https://www.reformedreader.org/ccc/tsc.htm.

[7] B. R. White, The English Baptists of the 17^th Century (London: The Baptists Historical Society, 1983), 13.

[8] Hudson, “Baptists Were Not Anabaptists,” 171.

[9] Mark R. Bell, Apocalypse How? Baptist Movements During the English Revolution (Macon, Georgia: Mercer University Press, 2000), 42. White, The English Baptists of the 17^th Century, 29.

[10] Douglas Weaver, In Search of the New Testament Church, 20.

[11] Michael A. G. Haykin, Kiffin, Knollys, and Keach: Rediscovering Our English Baptist Heritage (Peterborough, Canada: H&E Publishing, 2019), 17.

[12] “About Free Will Baptists,” Free Will Baptist History, https://fwbhistory.com/?page_id=42, accessed December 12, 2023.

[13] On Littell’s promoting the importance of Anabaptism for the “free church” movement, Donald F. Durnbaugh, The Believers’ Church: The History and Character of Radical Protestantism (New York: The MacMillan Company, 1968), x, 18. Franklin H. Littell, “The Concept of the Believer’s Church,” The Concept of the Believers’ Church, 21.

[14] Estep, “A Believing People: Historical Background,” The Concept of the Believers’ Church, 53.

[15] Winthrop S. Hudson, “Baptists Were Not Anabaptists,” The Chronicle, XVI (October, 1953), 171.

[16] White, The English Baptists of the 17^th Century, 23.

[17] Hudson, “Baptists Were Not Anabaptists,” 176.

[18] For more on the traditional Baptist “narrative,” see John B. Carpenter, “Why Baptists Don’t Know They Are Puritans,” Founders’ Journal (Spring 2025.)

[19] Tolmie, The Triumph of the Saints, 72.

^[20] Matthew C. Bingham, Orthodox Radicals: Baptist Identity in the English Revolution (New York: Oxford University Press, 2019), 4, 18, 23.

^[21] A Confession and Protestation of the Faith of Certain Christians in England (Middelburg, 1616) article 4, 8. Murray Tolmie, The Triumph of the Saints: The Separate Churches of London 1616-1649 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977), 11.

^[22] Tolmie, The Triumph of the Saints, 24.

^[23] Thomas Crosby, The History of the English Baptists, Vol. 1 (London: The Editor, 1738), 310-311. See Tolmie, The Triumph of the Saints, “The Jacob Church,” chapter 1, 7-28.

[24] Bingham, Orthodox Radicals, 37.

^[25] Bingham, Orthodox Radicals, 22. Haykin, Kiffin, Knollys, and Keach, 33.

[26] White, The English Baptists of the 17^th Century, 61.

^[27] Crosby, The History of the English Baptists, 312.

^[28] James M. Renihan, Edification and Beauty: The Practical Ecclesiology of the English Particular Baptists 1675-1705 (Eugene, Oregon: Wipf & Stock, 2008) 13. John Sweat, “The Rise, Decline, and Renewal of the English Particular Baptists,” G3 Ministries, March 3, 2022, https://g3min.org/the-rise-decline-and-renewal-of-the-english-particular-baptists/