Credobaptism and religious policy. Separation of church and state, freedom of religion, and religious tolerance in the writings of the early Baptists

The aim of the article is to reconstruct the relationships between the Baptist understanding of baptism (credobaptism; believer’s baptism) and church and the religious policy promoted by the early Baptists. The following texts are explored: A Short Declaration of the Mystery of Iniquity (1612) by Thomas Helwys; Persecution for Religion Judged and Condemned (1615) by John Murton; and Religious Peace: Or, a Plea for Liberty of Conscience (1614) by Leonard Busher. Helwys and Murton were leaders of the congregation of Spitalfields, the first Baptist community in the Kingdom of England. Busher, lesser known, probably belonged to the congregation, and his said work is the first treaty to defend freedom of religion by a Baptist.

βαπτίζω “Signifies to Dip or to Wash, but Never to Sprinkle”

The article argues that Baptists, General and Particular, linked the practice of immersion or dipping with a lay and anti-clerical conception of Christian ministry. Moreover, it claims that Baptist leaders who were involved in the introduction of dipping saw the practice as a sign of lay supremacy. The argument traces the Baptist laical and anti-clerical conception of Christian ministry by examining relevant texts by Baptists leaders such as Thomas Helwys (1556–1616), John Murton (1585–c. 1626), and Edmund Chillenden (fl. 1631–1678). Drawing on Rosemary O’Day’s “professionalization thesis,” the contention is made that Particular Baptists moved away from the strong anti-clericalism of the movement in the direction of the adoption of professional standards of ministry. Moreover, the article examines the strong correlation between the themes of laical authority and dipping in tracts that were published between 1641 and 1645 by Edward Barber (d. 1663), A.R. (fl. 1642), Benjamin Cox (1595–1663?), Hanserd Knollys (1598–1691), and William Kiffin (1616–1701).

The Ecclesiological Contributions of Thomas Helwys’s Reformation in a Baptist Context

The English Separatist movement provided the background for which John Smyth and Thomas Helwys emerged to reconstitute a biblical ecclesiology. Through the study of the New Testament, they came to the position that infant baptism and covenantal theology could not be the foundation for the New Testament church. Both men embraced believer’s baptism as the basic foundation in which a recovered church should be built. Unfortunately, Smyth defected to the Mennonites, leaving Thomas Helwys to continue the fledging work known as Baptists. This article will examine the life of Thomas Helwys and his contribution to Baptist ecclesiology; it will also review selected literary works that contributed to the recovery of a New Testament church and the founding of Baptist ecclesiology.