Early English Baptists and Religious Liberty
by lan Randall
ON 14 JULY 1993 THE RUSSIAN CONGRESS of People’s Deputies voted for a law to restrict mission in Russia carried out by foreign nationals. It is pmbable that this move was, at least in part, a response to pressure from the Russian Orthodox Church. Many Russians have been using their new religious freedom to start attending evangelical churches.
This has provoked the Russian Orthodox Church, which is keen tore-establish its traditional dominance in Russia, into seeking to limit western help to the evangelicals 1 .
I was in Moscow with a team from Spurgeon’s College in London when this legislation was being debated. Russian pastors to whom I spoke believed the leadership of the Orthodox Church was utilising its new influence with the government in order to curtail the activities of “free church” groups. Most “believers’ churches” in Russia and other eastern European countries had little freedom during decades of Communist rule. There are strong indications that new state-church regimes, whether Orthodox or Catholic, could continue or even exacerbate that situation.
Baptist contribution to idea of freedom
Belief in freedom of religion is central to the Anabaptist tradition. This conviction was first enunciated in England by the earliest English Baptist leaders, John Smyth and Thomas Helwys, both of whom spent time in Holland and were in contact with Dutch anabaptism. This article focuses on the contribution to the cause of freedom of belief made by Smyth, Helwys and those who followed them. Early Baptists in England also laid the foundations for new thinking about baptism, the nature of the church, and mission.
John Smyth (c. 1570-1612) had a varied career as an Anglican minister, a Puritan preacher, a Separatist pastor, a Baptist pioneer, and finally a Mennonite fellow-traveller. Several distinctive phases are evident in Smyth’s thinking, and one issue about which Smyth changed his approach was religious toleration. In 1605 he preached that “when there is toleration of many religions the kingdom of God is shouldered out of doors by the devil’s kingdom”. In 1607, as a Separatist from the Church of
England who was about to escape to Holland, he held that the magistrdte should “abolish idolatry and all false ways” 2 .
Before his death in 1612,however, Smyth set out a Confession of Faith and wrote a short work entitled The Last Book of John Smyth Called the Retractions of His Errors and the Confirmation of the Truth. In Article 84 of his Confession Smyth wrote that “the magistrate is not by virtue of his office to meddle with
religion, or matters of conscience, to force or compel men to this or that fonn of religion, or doctrine” 3 .
This expressed Smyth’s mature understanding of the nature of religious liberty.
In defence of religious toleration
From the time he joined Smyth’s Separatist “Church of Gainsborough”,which drew its support from the lower Trent V alley, Thomas Helwys (1550no-c.1616) was probably Smyth’s closest colleague. Helwys, who had been educated at Gray’s Inn and whose family was based at Broxtowe Hall, Nottingham, seems
to have provided the funds for Smyth’s group to find refuge in Holland at the time of the persecution of Separatists under J ames I. It was in Amsterdam that Smyth baptised himself (becom ing known as a self-Baptist or se-Baptist) and then baptised Helwys and other members of the congregation. In 1609 they fonned themselves into the first English Baptist church. Smyth, however, soon came to believe that his independent action had been wrong and that his congregation should join the local Mennonites. Helwys
disagreed and the group divided, with the followers of Helwys returning to London and establishing a Baptist church in Spitalfilelds, outside the city of London, in 1612.
In thesame year as he established the Spitalfields church, Helwys published his A Short Declaration of the Mystery of Iniquity. According to W. K. Jordan, Helwys “gave to religious toleration the tinest and fullest defence which it had ever received in England” 4
The book refers to Roman Catholicism as the “mystery of iniquity” (2 Thess. 2:7) and goes on to ask whether Anglicanism, as a persecuting force, is very different from Rome. J ames I was, of course, committed to the Anglican establishment, as reflected in his famous saying, “no bishop, no king”. But Helwys argued that while God had given the king “all worldly power” there was a heavenly kingdom which belonged to God and “with this kingdom our lord the kinghath nothing to do (by his kingly power) but is a subject himself: and that Christ is king alone …” 5
Had J ames, therefore, the divine right to enforce Anglicanism? If so, then Queen Mary, the persecutor of Protestants, had the same divine right to enforce Catholicism. But the core of Helwys’ case was that offences against the earthly and spiritual powers could, and must, be distinguished from each other. The “earthly sword” existed to exact justice, but had no authority in the realm of conscience. In specifically spiritual affairs the only authority was church discipline, which Helwys called the “spiritual sword”.
Kings have no authority in spiritual realm
The view put forward by Helwys, that no one should be torced to profess a religion against his conscience, is one which sUbsequently gained wide acceptance. It was not popular at the time, however. Nor did Helwys gain friends by his method of presentation. In his dedication to the king he asserted that if a king could wield power in the spiritual realm then he was “an immortal God and not a mortal man”.
From bluntness Helwys moved to vitriol. Puritanism, though “much applauded”, was denounced by Helwys as being a false profession of religion “as we know not the like upon the earth”. Helwys believed the Puritans knew the way of truth but did not follow it because of their submission to the decrees of the
state. He roundly dismissed them as “false prophets”. 6 Even the Separatist leaders, with whom Helwys still seems to have identified himself, received little praise. Ministers within Separatism had been elected by congregations which had “not put on Christ by baptism” and might even be composed of “infidels” 7
A paradox of toleration
How could Helwys plead for tolerance from the state while being so intolerant of other Christians? There are several reasons tor this paradox:
- Helwys placed great stress on church order. Thus anyone who did not follow “the exact rule of the law of Christ Jesus distinctly and most perfectly set down in the New Testament” concerning
ecclesiastical procedure, was likely to be the object of Helwys’ denunciation. He labelled John Robinson, pastor of the church which nurtured the Pilgrim Fathers, “a malicious adversary of God’s truth”. Helwys seemed at times to deal most harshly with those whose beliefs on New Testament church order were only
slightly divergent from his own, while appearing to be more tolerant of those with whom he had deeper differences. - His intolerant tendency on doctrine was circumscribed by an overarching commitment to freedom of conscience. He pronounced doom on a range of delusions (as he saw them), but
nevertheless believed that adherents of these errors should be left free even if this meant they decided on a course which could lead to their destruction. - Helwys believed only true seekers after truth could understand scripture and that it was, as a consequence, impossible for the state to involve itself in discriminating between true and false religion. 8 In famous words from the Short Declaration, Helwys announced that “men’s religion to God is betwixt God and themselves; the king shall not answer for it, neither may the king be judge between God and man. Let them be heretics, Turks, Jews or whatsoever, it appertains not to the earthly power to punish them in the least measure” 9
A doctrinal emphasis on free will
Some historians have thou ht that the doctrinal formulation known as Arminianism was important In the shaping of a philosophy which respected individual conscience. Jakob Arminius, who died in 1609, was a Dutch theologian who came to reject the idea of “unconditional election” to salvation. Arminius held that
the human will had to cooperate with God’s grace in order tor salvation to be effective. Helwys and others who accepted this view came to be known as “General Baptists” because they believed Christ died for all rather than just the elect (i.e., “general” rather than “particular” redemption). Some historians argue that this emphasis on the will contributed to a respect for human choice, and strengthened the notion that there
must be no state coercion or even interference in the area of religious choice) 10
By contrast, Calvinists sometimes appeared to rely heavily on the power of the state to promote what they saw as true religion. The Westminster Confession of 1647, which encapsulated the faith of
Presbyterianism, speaks about the duty of the magistrate to “take order, that unity and peace be preserved in the church” and “that all blasphemies and heresies be suppressed”. The Savoy Declaration of 1658, though much more cautious on this point, shows that Independents (Congregationalists) believed that the
magistrate was “bound to encourage, promote, and protect the professors and the profession of the gospel”. On the other hand, Baptist confessions of the period limit the role of the magistrate to
“encouragement” for those who do “good” and “the punishment of evil doers” 11
“Particular Baptists” were those who rejected Arminian ideas of human choice in the process of salvation. They sought to identify with wider Calvinistic thinking and used the wording of the Westminster and Sayoy documents as far as possible in their own Confession of 1677 (republished 1689). Yet it is clear that
they made a conscious decision not to follow the Presbyterians and Independents on the role of the magistrate. It is also significant that the General Baptist Orthodox Creed of 1679 used almost exactly the same wording about the civil power as the Particular Baptists did in 1677. There was a concern to show
that in the matter of religious liberty English Baptists were united. 12 It seems it was baptistic rather than Arminian principles which exercised a decisive influence in favour of commitment to freedom of conscience. This is not altogether surprising, since to break with infant baptism was actually to repudiate any religious profession which did not spring from free response to the gospel.
Smyth and Helwys were the first English leaders to articulate and practise the baptism of believers only. They arrived at a belief that no one, infant or adult, should have a religious ceremony imposed upon them. Both the General Baptists (who succeeded Smyth and Helwys) and the larger body of English Particular
Baptists followed the commitment to freedom of religion from State pressure set out in Smyth’s Confession and Helwys’ Short Declaration.
A legacy for our time
Smyth came to regret his previous outbursts against other Christian bodies, and concluded in his Confession that “all penitent and faithful Christians are brethren… and we salute them with a holy kiss” 13 .
Smyth’s final understanding of the church differed from the more narrow perspective of Helwys. There was divergence, too, in their views of the magistracy and taking oaths in court. Under influence of the Mennonites, Smyth subscribed to the prohibition on Christians being “princes, potentates or magistrates” and on the “swearing of oaths”. Helwys, on the other hand, contended that church members could quite legitimately be magistrdtes “for no holy ordinance of God debars any from being a member of Christ’s Church” and that it was lawful “to take an oath by the name of the 1…000”. 14 It was this more positive view of Christian involvement in the affairs of state which both the General and the Particular streams of English Baptists were to adopt.
Despite his occasional expressions of fulsome praise for the king’s wisdom and his respect for the magistracy, Helwys was not destined to see the fruit of his call for religious liberty. Because of family connections he no doubt had acce..c;s to the court 15 , and he may have been able to present in person his appeal to James I. It is safe to surmise that he did so in the full knowledge of the possible consequences. He wrote that he and his group had returned from Amsterdam “to lay down their lives in their own country for Christ and his truth” 16 . Helwys was imprisoned inNewgate prison and some time in 1615 or 1616 he died 17 . Smyth had died of tuberculosis at Amsterdam in 1612, and most of his followers joined the Mennonites.
In divergent ways, Smyth and Helwys helped begin a process that raddically undermined the role of the state in religious affairs. As W. K. Jordan puts it in his survey of religious toleration, the “fearless logic” of Helwys “swept away the theoretical justifications which for so many centuries had supported the
persecution of heresy” 18 . Part of our task today is to maintain fieedom for religious dissent. Whether in eastern Europe, in Islamic countries or in supposedly pennissive western society, our world shows signs of increasing intolerance toward those who deviate from the prevailing orthodoxy.
Notes
- See report in Baptist Times, 22 July 1993, p. 4.
- Quoted by M. D. Jordan, “John Smyth and Thomas Helwys”, Baptist Quanerly 12 (1946-48: 187-95), 187-88. Here and throughout the present article, titles and quotations generally have been modernised.
- W. T. Whitley, ed., The Works of John Smyth, vol. 2 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1915), 748.
- W. K. Jordan, The Development of Religious Toleration ill England (London: AlIen and Unwin, 1936), 274.
- T. HeIwys, A Short Declaration of the Mistery of Iniquity, (London: The Kingsgate Press, 1935), 41
- Ibid, 87.
- C. Burrage, The Early English Dissenters, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1912), 254-55.
- See M. D. Jordan, “John Smyth and Thomas Helwys” 193-94
- Helwys, Short Declaration, 69.
- Jordan, Religious Toleration, 280; A. C. Underwood, A History of the English Baptists (London: The Carey Kingsgate Press, 1947), 49.
- E. B. Underhill, Confessions of Faith and other Public Documents Illustrative of the History of the Baptist Churches of England in the 17th Century (London: Haddon Bros. & Co., 1854), 164, 218.
- For the Orthodox Creed, see W. T. Whitley, ed., Minutes of the General Assembly of the General Baptist Churches in England, vol. 1 (London: The Kingsgate Press, 1908), xviii-xix; and Underwood, English Bapti:;.ts, 106-7.
- Smyth, Works, 745.
- W. J. McGlothlin, ed., Baptist Confessions of Faith, (London, The Kingsgate Press, 1910),64, 92.
- W. T. Whitley, “Thomas Helwys of Gray’s Inn and of Broxtowe Hall, Nottingham”, Baptist Quanerly 12 (1934- 35: 241-55).
- B. R. White, The English Baptists of the Seventeenth Century (London: The Baptist Historical Society, 1983), 27.
- W. H. Burgess, “The Helwys Family”, Transactions of the Baptist Historical Society 3 (1912-13: 18-30), 28-29.
- Jordan, Religious Toleration, 274
