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Welcome to theSeeking ChristBaptist History Quotes Page Are you in the line of Christ? |
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Quotes Confirming the Apostolic Origin of the Baptist Movement "We believe that
the Baptists are the original Christians." Charles Spurgeon |
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"I have no question in my own mind that there has been a historical succession of Baptists from the days of Christ to the present." John T. Christian, college professor, historian, author |
"Were it not that the Baptists have been grievously tormented and cut off with the knife during the past 1200 years they would swarm in greater numbers than all the reformers." Hosius, Roman Catholic Cardinal |
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"... as early as the 3rd century AD the apostate Church opposed the anabaptists." Henry Bullinger (1504- 1575), Protestant Swiss reformer |
"The institution of Anabaptism is no novelty, but for 1300 years has caused great disturbance in the church..." Ulrich Zwingli, Swiss Reformer (1484-1531) |
"Of the Baptists it may be said that they are not reformers. These people, comprising bodies of Christian believers known under various names in different countries, are entirely distinct and independent of the Roman and Greek churches, have had an unbroken continuity of existence from Apostolic days down through the centuries." King, Crossing the Centuries, 1912 |
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"The true origin of that sect which acquired the denomination of the Anabaptists...is hid in the remote depths of antiquity..." John von Mosheim, Lutheran historian |
"Clouds of witnesses attest the fact that before the...papery, and from the Apostolic age to the present time, the sentiments of Baptists, and the practice of baptism has had a continued chain of advocates, and public monuments of their existence in every century can be produced." Alexander Campbell, Church of Christ |
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"I should not readily admit that there was a Baptist Church as far back as AD 100, although without doubt there were Baptists then, as all Christians were then Baptists." John Ridpath, (1840-1900) Methodist historian |
"We have now seen that the Baptists, who were formerly called Anabaptists, and in later times, Mennonites, were the original Waldenses... On this account, the Baptists may be considered as the only religious 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." Ypeij and Dermout, (1819) royal historians to the king of Holland |
"Baptists maintain that they existed before the Catholic apostasy took place; that they existed alongside Catholicism after her formation; and that they existed apart from Catholicism." Sir Isaac Newton, English scientist, historian |
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"It will be seen that the Baptists claim the high antiquity of
the commencement of the Christian church. They can trace a
succession of those who have believed the same doctrine, and
administered the same ordinances, directly up to the apostolic
age." Joseph Belcher
(1794-? ) |
"Is anabaptism a novelty? Did it spring up in a day? Their institution of anabaptism is no novelty, but for 1300 yers has caused great disturbance in the [Catholic] church." Orchard, History of the Baptists |
| "John Calvin claimed church succession came through the Baptists. Bishop Bossuct in a letter to Calvin | "Baptists can be traced to 618 A.D. and it is presumed that they originate from the original source of the churches." Rev. E. W. Gotch, Ency. Brit. |
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"...I should think the valleys of Piedmont, which lie between France and Italy, are intended, where God has preserved, and continued a set of witnesses to the truth, in a succession, from the beginning of the apostasy to the present time..." John Gill, English Baptist theologian |
"...for a beginning it had, and it concerns us to inquire for the fountain head of this sect... That religion that is not as old as Christ and His Apostles, is too new for me. ...this sect is the very same sort of people that were first called Christians in Antioch...and sometimes anciently they were called Anabaptists, as they have been of late times...and so they came by the name, which is very ancient..." Joseph Hooke, (1701) Baptist preacher |
| "...the Baptists...were the original...and who have long, in the history of the church, received the honor of that origin, on this account the Baptists may be considered the only Christian community which has stood since the Apostles." Dr. Jpeij, 1819 | "How exactly like the primitive churches." Dr. Gesenius, German Hebraist and Biblical Critic |
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"Christian history, in the first century, was strictly and properly Baptist history." "Every age brought to view champions for the true and right: and we Baptists are the Novatians, the Donatists, the Paulicians, the Petrobrussians of the nineteenth century." John Cramp, (Canada, 1844), Baptist college president and historian |
When the aged saint of God was asked what she would be if she were not a Baptist, she replied, "I would be ashamed!" |
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"We believe that the Baptists are the original Christians. We did not commence our existence at the Reformation, we were reformers before Luther or Calvin were born; we never came from the Church of Rome, for we were never in it, but we have an unbroken line up to the apostles themselves. We have always existed from the very days of Christ, and our principles, sometimes veiled and forgotten, like a river which may travel underground for a little season, have always had honest and holy adherents. Persecuted alike by Romanists and Protestants of almost every sect, yet there has never existed a government holding Baptist principles which persecuted others; nor; I believe, any body of Baptists ever held it to be right to put the consciences of others under the control of man. We have ever been ready to suffer; as our martyrologies will prove, but we are not ready to accept any help from the State, to prostitute the purity of the Bride of Christ to any alliance with Government, and we will never make the Church, the despot over the consciences of men." Charles Spurgeon (From The New Park Street Pulpit, Vol. VII, page 225)
"History has hitherto been
written by our enemies, who never would have kept a single fact
about us upon the record if they could have helped it, and yet
it leaks out every now and then that certain poor people called
Anabaptist were brought up for condemnation. From the days
of Henry II to those of Elizabeth we hear of certain unhappy
heretics who were hated of all men for the truth's sake which
was in them. We read of poor men and women, with their
garments cut short, turned out into the fields to perish in the
cold, and anon of others who were burnt at Newington for the
crime of Anabaptism. Long before your Protestants were
known of, these horrible Anabaptists, as they were unjustly
called, were protesting for the 'one Lord, no faith, and one
baptism.' No sooner did the visible church begin to depart
from the gospel than these men arose to keep fast by the good
old way. The priests and monks wished for peace and
slumber, but there was always a Baptist or a Lollard tickling
men's ears with holy Scriptures, and calling their attention to
the errors of the times. They were a poor persecuted
tribe. The halter was thought to be too good for them.
At times ill-written history would have us think that they died
out, so well had the wolf done his work on the sheep. Yet
here we are, blessed and multiplied: ..." Charles
Spurgeon (From The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, 1881 Vol. 27,
page 249.) |
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"There has been considerable controversy over the origin of Baptists. Church historians of the nineteenth century and some thinkers of the twentieth century have held the theory that the Baptist' origin evolved from the remotest ages of antiquity. So viewed, church history would tend to suggest that, in every age since Christian origins, there have existed communities of Christians among whom were held most, and by some all, of the peculiar doctrines of the Baptists of today." Leroy Fitts, Author of A History of Black Baptists |
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The Evolution of the Identifying Names of God’s New Testament Covenant People
1.
Disciples (Matt. 5:1 to Acts
21:16)
2.
The Way (Acts 9:2)
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