In thus emphasizing the divergences of the early and medieval sects from the teaching of the Bible, as Baptists have always understood that teaching, no denial is implied of the excellent Christian character manifested by the adherents of these erroneous views. In many instances the purest life of an age is to be found, not in the bosom of the Catholic Church, but among these despised and persecuted sectaries. Not one of them failed to hold and emphasize some vital truth that was either rejected or practically passed by in the church that called itself orthodox. God did not leave his truth without witnesses at any time. Now a sect, now an individual believer, like Arnold of Brescia or Savonarola, boldly proclaimed some precious teaching, perhaps along with what we must regard as pernicious error. But it is impossible to show that any one person, or any one sect, for a period of more than a thousand years, consistently and continuously held the entire body of truth that Baptists believe the Scriptures to teach, or even all its vital parts. It is possible that with further research such proof may be brought to light: one cannot affirm that there was not a continuity in the outward and visible life of the churches founded by the apostles down to the time of the Reformation. To affirm such a negative would be foolish, and such an affirmation, from the nature of the case, could not be proved. What one may say, with some confidence, is that in the present state of knowledge no such continuity can be shown by evidence that will bear the usual historic tests. Indeed, the more carefully one examines such literature of the early and medieval church as relates to the various heretical sects, the stronger becomes his conviction that it is a hopeless task to trace the history of the apostolic churches by means of an unbroken outward succession. A succession of the true faith may indeed be traced, in faint lines at times, but never entirely disappearing; but a succession of churches, substantially like those of our own faith and order in doctrine and polity-that is a will-o'-the-wisp, likely to lead the student into a morass of errors, a quagmire of unscholarly perversions of fact. The special feature of this history is that it attempts frankly to recognize facts, instead of trying to maintain a thesis or minister to denominational vanity. Beginning with a survey of the history and constitution of the New Testament churches, in which all Baptists profess to recognize the norm of doctrine and polity, the process by which these churches were perverted into the Holy Catholic Church of the succeeding centuries is quite fully traced. The story of the gradual suppression of evangelical Christianity having thus been told, the next step is to show the reverse process-the gradual renascence of evangelical Christianity. This is the sum of Part I., the history of Baptist principles. The second Part is devoted to the history of actual visible Baptist churches, and every statement of fact made is carefully based on documentary sources. For the important question is, not how much may be guessed or surmised or hoped about our history as Baptists, but how much may be known. CHAPTER I THE NEW TESTAMENT CHURCHES-HISTORY "GO ye therefore, and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost; teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I commanded you; and lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world." In this parting injunction of the risen Lord to his disciples, which the Duke of Wellington aptly called the marching orders of the ministry, we have the office of the Christian Church for the first time defined. In obedience to this command the early Christians preached the gospel, founded churches, and taught obedience to Christ as the fundamental principle of the Christian life. And though many of them could say with Paul that they spent their days "in labor and travail, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness," they found it a faithful saying that their Lord was with them alway. In so far as the church in all ages has been obedient to Christ's command it has experienced the truth of this promise. It is significant that in his teaching Jesus mentioned the church but twice, and then only toward the close of his ministry. The distinctive feature of his teaching is the setting up among men of the kingdom of God-a kingdom not of this world, but spiritual, into which he only can enter who has been born from above, who is meek, childlike, spiritually minded. Being spiritual, this kingdom is invisible, but it has an outward, bodily manifestation, an institutional as well as an incorporeal |