BAPTIST. A name for various groups of Christians who profess that the Bible is the only standard of faith and practice, who hold to Baptist distinctives, and who trace their heritage, not to the Protestant Reformation, but to Jesus Christ and the apostolic churches. A Baptist Church has been defined as follows: A Baptist Church is an organization composed of baptized believers. That organization is complete in itself. It recognizes Christ as its head. `He is the head of the body, the church. He only has legislative authority over it. The laws of Christ, as recorded in the New Testament and administered by a majority of its members, constitute the only ecclesiastic authority known to the church. In the administration of those, the weakest, poorest member has a right to be heard, and the richest member has no right to ask for more. Hence the church in its relation to Christ is a perfect monarchy. His will is law. In the relation of the members to each other, it is a perfect democracy--`One is your master, even Christ, and all ye are brethren. It is, then, an organization, and separate, distinct from all others. Its right to be in the world and prosecute its mission is original and divine. It asks no aid of the civil arm or purse. All it asks of the State and all other organizations, as such, is to be let alone, and let it live, if it can, and die if it must. BUT ITS MISSION. This, in common with all other evangelical Christians, is to evangelize the world. [See Missions.] We also believe the Baptist church has a special mission, which is to preserve the purity of the church, which task involves: A REGENERATE MEMBERSHIP. Would our limits permit, it might be interesting to take a voyage up the stream of ecclesiastical history, to its source, and see of what the primitive church was composed, and examine the simplicity of its organization, and then trace the gradual departure from that simplicity, to mark the process which brought unregenerate members into the church, and then trace the consequences. But we hardly have time to say that as it has been in the past, so it must be in the future, part of the mission of the Baptist Church is to keep her doors closed against all such as do not give evidence of piety. ... while we are to receive those of weakest faith, if it be genuine, yet we are to stand by the old doctrines, that no hereditary religion, no amount of wealth, no social position, no standard of morality can form a passport into the Baptist church without evidence that the applicant knows something practically of what repentance towards God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ means. But we think it is a part of our mission to preserve A PURE MINISTRY, as well. In a Baptist church the pastor holds the highest office in the church. And he must be called of God. But when unregenerate men had found their way into the church they sought to enter the ministry as men enter other professions, supposing that they could learn to preach as men learn to practice law or medicine. And when in the ministry, they began to claim for themselves authority. The best positions were sought, and a minister was to have authority according to the size and wealth of the church he served, and thus gradually there grew up grades in the ministry; then the pastor became the priest, and a hierarchy was fostered. Then legislative authority was claimed. Christ was legislated out and the civil power in; the Church and State were joined in unholy wedlock; and we have all the corruptions of the middle ages. While sanctified intellect and learning are commodities of which we shall never have too much, still we think it is a part of our mission to teach that the Baptist Church has no use for men for her ministry, however massive their brain, however sparkling their genius, however profound their learning, however burning their eloquence, whose wills have not bowed to the will of Christ, whose spiritual gravitation is not towards His cross; who have not felt in their heart of hearts, `Woe is me if I preach not the gospel; and who, rather than be denied the privilege, would be willing to fare as their Master did when on earth. Another part of the mission of the Baptist church is to preserve the ORDINANCES IN THEIR ORIGINAL PURITY. Not that we have confidence in water or bread or wine, whether much or little, only as they are divinely chosen and God-appointed symbols for the proclamation of gospel truth. But believing that they are thus appointed and are a part of Gods plan for perpetuating and proclaiming the essential facts of the gospel, to withhold them would be to give up one of Gods methods of preaching the gospel. To change them would be so far to preach another gospel. To do either would be false to our mission. [See Baptism, Lords Supper.] We have only time to speak of one point more: LIBERTY OF CONSCIENCE IN MATTERS OF RELIGION. Baptists have always been champions of religious liberty. No page of their history has been stained by the blood of an opponent. With them, Church and State are forever divorced. The Bible is to be put into the hands of every individual, and he is responsible to God only, how he interprets it. And no man or body of men has a right to interfere by any coercive measure. It is the privilege of every man to come to Christ for himself, without priest or candles, and be Gods free man. And although the Baptist church never came out of the Roman Catholic church because she was never in it, yet she is to be catholic in spirit and treatment towards all where mere matters of opinion are involved; but Protestant, forever Protestant, in religion to all invasions upon the New Testament as the only standard of faith and practice (Pastor Isaac Butterfield, The Baptist Church and Its Mission, preached in the late 1860s, Fountain Street Baptist Church, Grand Rapids, Michigan). Baptist distinctives include the following: (1) believers baptism (that baptism is for believers only by immersion only); (2) salvation by grace alone through faith alone; (3) the eternal security of the believer; (4) the autonomy of the local church (Baptists reject all hierarchical structures of church polity); (5) the priesthood of the believer (Baptists reject any separate priesthood in the church); (6) a regenerate church membership (only those who profess Christ and give evidence of salvation can join the church); (7) the Bible is the sole authority for the church; (8) separation of church and state (the churches should not be united with or supported by the secular government). While there are a great many different groups of Baptists with widely differing doctrines and practices, most hold to these distinctives. The history of the Baptists is given in the following survey by Curtis Whaley: Though many Baptist groups sprang up during the Protestant Reformation, according to Colliers Encyclopedia, the Baptists have `descended from some of the evangelical `sects of the preceding age during which the Roman and Orthodox Churches dominated all of Europe and suppressed all dissent. A Catholic, Cardinal Hosius, President of the Council of Trent (1545-1563), wrote during the early years of the Reformation period, `Were it not that the Baptists have been grievously tormented and cut off with the knife during the past twelve hundred years, they would swarm in greater numbers than all the reformers. This should convince anyone that the Baptists are not a by-product of the Reformation, and are not even Protestants in the popular sense of the term. If the Baptists did not begin with the Reformation, when did they begin? We will let a great American and world historian answer. John Clark Ridpath (1840-1900), a Methodist by denominational conviction, wrote, `I should not readily admit that there was a Baptist church as far back as 100 A.D., although without doubt there were Baptist churches then, as all Christians were then Baptists. Yes, all Christians were then Baptists, because the doctrines that Baptists believe and teach today are the same as those taught by the Lord Jesus Himself, by Peter, John, Paul, and all the Apostles. We have not always been called `Baptists. The name is not a self-chosen one. Following what we believe to be apostolic precept and example, the Baptists rejected infant baptism, insisted on a `regenerate membership, and baptism sought intelligently by the candidate as a condition for church membership. For these reasons they were stigmatized as `Anabaptists, `Cata-baptists, and sometimes as simply `Baptists. This was to say they were [called by their enemies] `rebaptizers, perverts of baptism, or, as unduly emphasizing baptism and making it a reason for schism, simply `baptizers. We are proud of the name, because it distinguishes our doctrinal position which is set forth in the N.T. and identifies us with a host of saints who have believed the same precious truths and were identified with the same denominator. The premise that first century Christians were Baptists runs counter to the Roman Catholic claim that the first church was Roman Catholic. To this we need only point out that the first church was organized by Christ and His Apostles, and those Apostles became the nucleus of the church at Jerusalem, not Rome, and James was its leader, not Peter. We also contend that the bishop of Rome did not win primacy over other bishops until the fourth century, and that it wasnt until Gregory ascended the episcopal throne in 590 A.D. that the Roman bishop began to claim his supremacy over other bishops. Thus we see that Roman Catholicism dates back to the fourth century at the earliest. [See Church, Roman Catholic Church.] While we do not contend that only Baptists are going to Heaven, we do contend that the first church was organized according to principles historically maintained by Baptists, and that Baptists have existed since that day. First called Christians, then by other names down through the centuries until they received the name that has distinguished them from Protestant and Catholic groups alike
Posted on: Sun, 27 Jul 2014 17:07:05 +0000
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