The people called Baptists have often identified their churches as "New Testament churches" and have frequently insisted that they are not a creedal people. Consequently one may be prone to assume that they owe nothing to the creeds, the church councils, or the theologians of the sixteen centuries prior to the advent of the Baptist movement. But that assumption needs to be challenged and tested.

The Councils, the Creeds, and the Fathers

   The four earliest ecumenical councils constituted efforts to resolve theological controversies after the subsidence of the major persecutions and the advent of favorable treatment of Christians in the Roman Empire. The Council of Nicaea (325) rejected the teachings of Arius (c.250-c.336), notably that God is an unoriginate and non-communicable monad and that Jesus was a creature having a beginning and being subject to change and sin, "less than God and more than man." [1] Nicaea responded by affirming that Jesus as "the Son of God" was "of the substance of the Father," "begotten, not made," and "of one substance with the Father." [2] Baptists have repeatedly affirmed the deity and eternality of Jesus as God's Son and his incarnation, thus manifesting onlyon rare occasions any tendency to resurrect Arianism. [3]

   Apollinarius of Laodicea (c.310-c.390) refused to allow for a human mind in Jesus by holding that the Godhead and Jesus' body were fused into a single reality. [4] The Pneumatomachians, or Macedonians, opposed the full deity of the Holy Spirit, asserting rather that the Spirit was a creature or a being between God and creatures. [5] The Council of Constantinople I (381), building on the objections by Gregory of Nyssa and Gregory of Nazianzus, [6] rejected Apollinarianism and likewise, together with other heresies, condemned theteaching of the Pneumatomachians. [7] Baptists have affirmed the full or complete humanity of Jesus [8] and the deity of the Holy Spirit. [9]

   Nestorius (c. 381-c.451) was credited with advancing the view – whether he actually did continues to be debated by today's scholars – that the two natures of Jesus Christ, the divine and human, were veritably two persons and that these two persons, being unaltered, were only "conjoined" or loosely connected. Nestorius rejected the prevailing use of the term theotokos (God-bearing) for Mary the virgin, arguing that "God cannot have a mother" and "Mary bore a man, the vehicle of divinity but not God." [10] The Council of Ephesus (431) after no little intrigue rejected Nestorianism and its followers and deposed and excommunicated Nestorius. [11] Although modern Baptist confessions of faith have tended not to address this issue specifically, [12] there is no evidence of any Baptist effort to disavow the union of the two natures in the one person of Jesus Christ.

   Eutyches (c.378-454), taking the word "nature" to signify "a concrete existence" and denying that Christ's manhood was of the same substance as our manhood, taught the confusion of his natures so as to imply one nature. Under interrogation, Eutyches acknowledged that Christ was "of two natures" but insisted that this was before the union of the natures and that after the union there was only one nature. [13] After being vindicated at the so-called "Robber Synod" of 448, he was deposed and exiled by the Council of Chalcedon (451). The confessional statement adopted by Chalcedon not only rejected Eutychianism but also Arianism, Apollinarianism, and Nestorianism and explicated the doctrine of two natures in the one person. [14] It would prove in later centuries to be common ground for Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, and Protestants. [15] As was noted in respect to Apollinarianism, Baptists have consistently affirmed the genuine and complete humanity of Jesus and have in reality concurred in Chalcedon’s definition even when not explicitly stating such.

   Hence for Baptists the affirmations of the deity of Christ, the complete humanity of Christ, the one person of Christ, and the two natures of Christ imply some indebtedness to these early councils, whether or not that indebtedness is formally acknowledged. Moreover, concurrent with these councils -Nicaea I through Chalcedon -was the framing of certain widely used Christian creeds.

   That which we call the Apostles' Creed, sometimes called "R" for Old Roman Symbol, developed during the second and third centuries, being expressed in various similar but not identical texts until finally there came to be a single common text. Framed in order to give instruction at baptism or to refute heresies or possibly for both reasons, R had a Trinitarian structure and an extended section on the Son of God. [16] The Nicene Creed (N), the product of the council in 325, was specifically anti-Arian. [17] That which is called the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed (C) has a more extended section on the Holy Spirit. It has traditionally been taken to be the product of the Council of Constantinople I, but it did not appear in official conciliar records until the Council of Chalcedon. [18] The "Athanasian" Creed, actually a formulation based on the Trinitarian theology of Augustine of Hippo, probably originated in southern Gaul in the fifth or sixth century. [19]

   Baptists in their congregational worship have not normally included the recitation of any creedal or confessional statement. It is, however, worthy of note that the Orthodox Creed of General Baptists (1678) included the texts of the Apostles' Creed, the Nicene Creed, and the Athanasian Creed and declared that these "ought throughly [sic] to be received, and believed," may be proved from the Scriptures, ought to be understood by all Christians, and should be taught by ministers and "in all christian [sic] families.” [20] Also at the first world congress of the Baptist World Alliance in 1905, its president, Alexander Maclaren, in the midst of his presidential address asked all those assembled to rise and to repeat the Apostles' Creed. [21]

   Baptists have consistently affirmed that the canonical Scriptures are always superior to and more authoritative than any or all postbiblical tradition. Such a fact does not prevent or preclude evidence that certain of the church fathers, especially the Latin fathers, seem to have influenced positively the beliefs of the later Baptists. Two examples may be noted. Tertullian, who was the first Latin Christian writer to use the term trinitas, pioneered in the use of what became technical terms for the Trinity (one in substance and three persons ) [22] and for the person of Christ (two natures, which he preferred to speak of as "two substances," [23] in one person). [24] Augustine of Hippo, especially in his controversial writings against the Pelagians, set forth the doctrines of the universality of sin and the necessity of divine grace as pardon and power that would so greatly influence all Western Christians that espousal of strictly Pelagian views would be far less likely, [25] and this was true of most Baptists.

Pre-Reformation Sectarian and Reforming Movements

   The modern advocates of Baptist church succession, [26] notably the Landmark Baptists, have posited and sought to identify a chain of pre-Reformation reforming and sectarian movements. Often the claims of identity between such groups and Baptists of the last four centuries have not matched the historical evidence. But the lack of total identity does not preclude a kinship in respect to particular teachings or a common rejection of teachings and practices prevailing in the dominant ecclesiastical system. Albert Henry Newman, a Baptist historian writing more than a century ago, could find no common ground between modern Baptists and such early movements as Montanism, Novatianism, and Donatism or such later movements as the Paulicians and the Cathari. But Newman saw in early reformers such as Aerius, Jovinian, and Vigilantius and in the ancient British church a nascent anti-ascetic evangelicalism which did not challenge infant baptism, and he found in the followers of Peter de Bruys and Henry of Lausanne, the Waldenses, the Taborites, Peter Chelcicky and the Bohemian Brethren, and the Lollards advocates of anti-sacramentalism, biblical authority, and primitivism, who stopped short of the full recovery of believer's baptism. [27] Baptists have had no interest in kinship with the mystical heresy of the Free Spirit, [28] with later mystics such as John Tauler, Henry Suso, and John Ruysbroeck, [29] or with late quasi-Evangelicals such as John of Wesel, Wessel Gansfort, and Cornelius Hoen. [30]

The Magisterial Protestant Reformation

   Despite modern denials by certain Baptists that Baptists are Protestants, [31] the matrix of the Baptist movement had been powerfully shaped by the Protestant Reformation, and some have even claimed that the Baptists are the truly thoroughgoing Reformers. [32]

   Martin Luther's doctrines of the supremacy of the Scriptures over all, especially late, church tradition and of Christ as the center of the Scriptures, of declarative justification by God's grace through faith alone, and of the priesthood of all believers [33] were all affirmed by Baptists, even when no specific acknowledgment was made to Luther. Likewise, Ulrich Zwingli' s doctrine of the Lord's Supper as a memorial or symbolic observance [34] proved to be the dominant, though not the sole, theme in the Baptist teaching about the Supper. Moreover, John Calvin's doctrine of predestination, [35] whatever its debt to Augustine of Hippo, Thomas Bradwardine, John Wycliffe, and John Huss, had an impact on the theology of many Anglo-American Baptists. Martin Bucer's teaching that discipline is a mark of the true church, [36] though perhaps routed through Calvin or through the Anabaptists, found acceptance among early Baptists. Among the confessions of faith produced by the magisterial wing of the Reformation the mid-seventeenth century Westminster Confession of Faith (1647) [37] was by far the most influential on early Baptist confessions of faith. [38]

Continental Anabaptism

   The sixteenth-century Anabaptists on the continent of Europe have played a singular role in the interpretation of Baptist origins. Those advocating different views of origins [39] have treated the Anabaptists differently. Those who have sought to trace Baptists in succession to John the Baptist and the Jerusalem church have regarded the Anabaptists as an essential link in the chain of succession but have usually done little research or exhibited no scholarly acumen in dealing with the Anabaptists. Those who have adhered to the "Anabaptist spiritual kinship" theory have posited on the basis of careful studies not only of sixteenth-century Anabaptists but also various pre-Reformation rebaptizing sects as kinspeople to the later Baptists. Those who hold on the basis of research that Baptists derived from English Separatist Puritanism usually have viewed Anabaptists as outside the story of Baptist origins and as not contributing significantly to Baptist theology. [40]

   The classification of various types of sixteenth-century Anabaptists has been attempted by modern church historians who have specialized in this field. Their work is important in determining whether and which Anabaptists may have influenced Baptists. A. H. Newman posited a fivefold classification of Anabaptists: "the chiliastic" or millennial, "the soundly biblical," “the mystical," "the pantheistic," and "the anti-trinitarian." [41] George Huntston Williams within the larger framework of a threefold classification of "the Radical Reformation" (Anabaptists, Spiritualists, and Evangelical Rationalists) identified three types of Anabaptists: "revolutionary," "contemplative," " and "evangelical." [42] Newman's "chiliastic" Anabaptists and Williams's "revolutionary" Anabaptists, which included Melchior Hofmann, and the Munster kingdom, were virtually identical but did not seemingly shape in a positive way the later Baptists, except at the point of Hofmann's Christology. [43] Williams's "contemplative" Anabaptists included Hans Denck and Ludwig Hetzer, as did Newman's "mystical" Anabaptists, but Williams did not include Newman's "pantheistic" Anabaptists such as David Ions, and Williams considered Caspar Schwenkfeld to have been an "evangelical Spiritualist." None of these can be seen as having significant influence upon the later Baptists. The same may be said of Newman's "anti-trinitarian Anabaptists," who may be equated with Williams's "Evangelical Rationalists," whose only traceable influence may have been that of Socinianism on the Mennonite-oriented Rhynsburger community, [44] from which Particular Baptists seemingly derived the practice of baptism by immersion. Hence the focus must clearly rest upon those whom Newman denominated "soundly biblical" Anabaptists, namely, the Swiss Brethren, the Hutterites, and the Mennonites

   Who, then, were the theological writers among evangelical Anabaptists who may possibly have influenced even indirectly the Baptists? An excellent foretaste of Anabaptist teachings may be seen in George Blaurock's account of his meeting with two Swiss, Conrad Grebel and Felix Mantz:

Moreover, when Grebel and his associates wrote to Thomas Muntzer, a revolutionary Spiritualist and anti-pedobaptist, they urged him: "Go forward with the Word and establish a Christian church with the help of Christ and his rule, as we find it instituted in Matt. 18:15-18 and applied in the Epistles." [46] Reflective of the ecclesiological concerns of the early Swiss Anabaptists were the Schleitheim Articles (1527), probably the work of Michael Sattler, with their sevenfold emphasis: believer's baptism, excommunication, the Lord's Supper, separation from the world, the office of pastor, non-use of the sword, and non-taking of oaths. [47]

   Balthasar Hubmaier wrote his 36-article "On Heretics and Those Who Burn Them," "the first text of the Reformation directed specifically to the topic of the liberty of dissent," [48] four major treatises on baptism, [49] a treatise on excommunication, [50] and "On the Sword," [51] which was directed against his more pacifist fellow Anabaptists. It is not a question as to whether early English Baptists read the German-language writings by Hubmaier; rather it is whether his concepts of religious freedom, baptism, church discipline, and the rightful use of the sword [52] may have so crossed the English Channel as to make their advocacy by English Baptists something less than an innovation.

   Pilgram Malpeck's two major writings contain a recurrent emphasis on the differences between the Old Testament and the New Testament and a rather complete treatment of baptism as "witness" (Zeugnis) rather than as "symbol" (Zeichen). [53]

   Among the numerous writings by Menno Simons were his Foundation of Christian Doctrine, [54] with its threefold "call to discipleship," refutation of Roman Catholicism, " and "appeals for toleration, his Christian Baptism, [55] three treatises on church discipline, [56] and three writings expressive of his peculiar view of the incarnation. [57] The argument has been made that the First London Confession of Particular Baptists (1644) was indebted to Menno's Foundation of Christian Doctrine. [58] Whatever influence his writings on church discipline may have had on early English Baptists such as John Smyth, any such influence stopped short of Baptist acceptance of "shunning," or the social ostracism of those excommunicated, including that of husband and wife. [59] Furthermore, Menno's views of the incarnation, namely, that, since women supposedly produce no seed, the Word became a human being in Mary, but not of or from Mary, [60] being akin to the teaching of Melchior Hofmann [61] as to the celestial flesh of Jesus, posed a problem for the early English General Baptists but did not gain acceptance by them. [62] Dietrich (or Dirk) Philips in his Enchiridion identified seven "ordinances" of the true church [63] and its twelve "notes," [64] the latter drawn from the New Testament Apocalypse. The early English Baptists would also identify and characterize the church as distinct from the eschatological kingdom of God. Baptists have not accepted the teaching about the community of goods set forth by the Hutterite theologian, Peter Rideman, [65] but some of his ecclesiological images [66] were employed by later Baptists.

   What specific Anabaptist teachings, therefore, can be identified as possibly influencing, even indirectly, the English Baptists? In answering this question, we will utilize two Mennonite confessions of faith, the Waterland Confession (1580) and the Dordrecht Confession {1632). [67] First, there is believer's baptism as constitutive of a gathered or truly ordered church. The Schleitheim Articles [68] and the Waterland Confession [69] specified believer's baptism, and the Dordrecht Confession [70] related it to incorporation into the church. An early Helwys confession [71] was explicit both about believer's baptism and the constituting of churches, whereas other General and Particular Baptist confessions [72] only affirmed believer's baptism. A possible negation of such Mennonite influence comes from Irwin B. Horst's argument that so-called Anabaptists in pre-Elizabethan England did not practice believer's baptism. [73] But the Separatists retained pedobaptism, and John Smyth's congregation was in Amsterdam. For William R. Estep, Jr., there was "little doubt that Mennonite influence played a role in Smyth's rethinking of the biblical teachings on baptism and the church." [74]

   Second, there is church discipline as necessary to the life of the true church, especial1y on the basis of Matt. 18:15-17. Anabaptist confessions [75] clearly specified admonition and excommunication, or the ban, and the same was true of early English General and Particular Baptist confessions. [76]

   Third, there is the elevation of the New Testament in authority over the Old Testament, especially in matters of ecclesiology. Marpeck had elevated the New Testament while retaining the canonicity and inspiration of the Old Testament. [77] Although this elevation of the New Testament is not specifically stated in the earliest Baptist confessions of faith, John Smyth's Principles and Inferences concerning the Visible Church (1607) [78] exhibits the much greater reliance on the New Testament. [79]

   Fourth, there is the advocacy of religious freedom for all human beings and the absence of persecution. Although the claim that Hubmaier advocated such freedom has been challenged, [80] the advocacy by Menno Simons [81] is rather clear. Likewise, Smyth, [82] Helwys, [83] Mark Leonard Busher, [84] and John Murton [85] were advocates.

   Finally, the fact needs to be noted that certain Mennonite teachings and practices, identifiably four, were specifically rejected by the early English Baptists. First, Baptists [86] rejected the Anabaptist teaching [87] that Christians ought not to serve as civil magistrates for they must use the sword, although John Smyth was an exception. [88] Second, Baptists [89] rejected the Anabaptist teaching [90] that Christians ought not to be soldiers but rather be nonresistant. Third, Baptists, [91] with the exception of John Smyth, [92] rejected the Anabaptist teaching [93] that Christians ought not to take civil oaths. Fourth, Baptists rejected, as noted previously, [94] the Mennonite practice [95] of shunning those who have been excommunicated.

English Separatist Puritans

   Separatists we understand to have been those English Puritans who, not being willing to continue to await thoroughgoing reforms in the Church of England, separated therefrom by constituting congregations or conventicles on the basis of a church covenant and congregationa1 polity. B. R. White has insisted that their goal was not so much reformation of the existing church as restitution of New Testament Christianity. [96]

   Certain precursors to the Separatists have been identified, although the extent to which the Separatists acknowledged them as their forerunners is disputed. Sectarian "Freewillers" [97] in Kent and Essex during the reign of Edward VI (1547-1553) were cited by Champlin Burrage, [98] but White [99] discounted them as forerunners. The Strangers' Church, composed of foreigners, established by John a Lasco, expelled under Mary, and reconstituted under Elizabeth I, according to Timothy George, "with their own liturgy and discipline, was itself a source of envy on the part of some who found the pace of reformation in the established Church intolerably slow." [100] Secret conventicles, especially one in the London area, during Mary's reign (1553-1558), which seem to have been distinct from the earlier Freewillers, [101] "were sustained by the ministry of itinerant preachers" and practiced excommunication. [102] During the early Elizabethan era there were congregations that were distinct from the Church of England as to worship and met in private homes, but they left no evidence of any teaching or practice of a covenanted or gathered church. [103] From one of these, the Plumbers' Hall Church in London, Puritan rather than Separatist, [104] which claimed a biblical warrant for church reform and practiced church discipline, [105] some members departed and united with the Privy Church. [106] The latter, led by Richard Fitz, was clearly Separatist vis-à-vis the Church of England, [107] indeed “the first-known congregation in England which had a covenant." "To obey this covenant each member separately pledged himself and then took communion as a ratification of his consent.” [108]

   Major writings by Separatist authors gave expression to Separatist principles. [109] Robert Harrison (?-1585?) in A Treatise of the Church and the Kingdome of Christ (c.1580) equated the church and the kingdom, enjoined the observance of Matt. 18:15-17, and defended a separated and gathered church. [110] Robert Browne's (1550?-1633) A Treatise of Reformation without Tarying for Anie (1582) endorsed the civil duties of the magistrates but denied them the power to reform the church, conceived of the risen Christ as ruling covenanted congregations, and called on Puritans not to "tarry" for magisterial reform. [111] Henry Barrow (1550?-1593) in Four Causes of Separation (1587) identified the false manner of worshiping the true God, the ungodly members retained in churches, the anti-Christian ministry imposed on the churches, and the anti-Christian polity of churches. [112] Barrow and John Greenwood (?-1593) in The True Church and the False Church (1588) extended the list of marks of the false church to eleven, [113] and Barrow in A True Description out of the Worde of God, of the Visible Church (1589) prescribed a fivefold ministry (pastor, doctor, elders, deacons, widows). [114] Barrow's anti-Anglican polemic reached its full expression in A Brief Discoverie of the False Church (1590). [115] Henry Ainsworth (1571-1622?) answered the Oxford doctors in An Apologie or Defence of Such True Christians as One Commonly (but Unjustly) Called Brownists (1604), [116] whereas Francis Johnson (1562-1618) in Certayne Reasons and Arguments Proving That It Is Not Lawfull to Heare or Have Any Spiritual Communion with the Present Ministerie of the Church of England ( 1608) [117] set forth seven reasons.

   The Separatist congregation in London of which Francis Johnson was pastor, but which was exiled in Amsterdam without Johnson and which then chose Henry Ainsworth as pastor, framed in 1596 a confession of faith entitled A True Confession. It expressed Calvinistic doctrine and congregational polity and would be used ''as a model" by Particular Baptist churches in London when they framed their 1644 Confession. [118] Among its major doctrines were divine foreordination to salvation and to condemnation, the fall of Adam and its consequences, Christ's offices as mediator, prophet, priest, and king, the royal priesthood of the people of God, the identification of the church with Christ's spiritual kingdom, the fivefold ministry, congregational polity, and the duty of civil magistrates to suppress false religions and established the true religion. [119]

   What specific Separatist doctrines may have positively influenced the early English Baptists? First, there is humanity's Adamic disability. The First London Confession of Particular Baptists [120] employed language almost identical to that of A True Confession, [121] and the Second London Confession, [122] being a revision of the Westminster Confession of Faith, was even more specific as to humanity's being "in" Adam and Eve when they fell. Second, we take note of the Bible as the rule of faith and practice. A True Confession described the Bible as "the rule of this knowledge, faith and obedience," [123] and the Second London Confession, modifying the Westminster' s language, declared "The Holy Scripture is the only sufficient, certain, and infallible rule of all saving Knowledge, Faith, and Obedience." [124] Third, the royal priesthood of all Christians seems to have come to the Baptists from Separatism. Whereas both Anabaptist [125] and Separatist [126] documents referred to the offices of Christ as prophet, priest, and king, only A True Confession [127] specifically and in detail taught the universal Christian priesthood. Fourth, there is congregational polity, about which the Separatists were very explicit. A True Confession [128] explains the congregation's duties respecting its ministers, excommunication and its careful use, and mutual counsel and help among congregations. A Helwys confession taught that no congregation should assert any "prerogative" over another, [129] the First London Confession spelled out the authority of each congregation to choose its officers, [130] and the Second London Confession taught that congregations have authority over their worship and discipline and for choosing and ordaining both bishops or elders and deacons. [131]

   But there were some Separatist teachings which were rejected or at least not accepted by early English Baptists. First, there is double predestination, which was clearly taught in A True Confession, [132] whereas the First London Confession [133] referred only to election to salvation and vengeance toward, not foreordination of, the non-elect. According to the Second London Confession [134] the non-elect are "left to act in their sin to their just condemnation" in what some call the doctrine of preterition (passing over). Moreover, the Westminster Confession's references to foreordination "to everlasting death" and ordination to wrath were deleted. [135] The Orthodox Creed of General Baptists, building upon the Westminster, relocated and rewrote the doctrine of divine decrees so as to treat them as conditional. [136] Second, the doctrine of double reconciliation was not retained. According to A True Confession, [137] not only are elect human being reconciled to God through the death of Jesus Christ but also God is reconciled to elect humans through the cross. But the First London Confession [138] referred only to Christ's reconciliation of the elect, and the Second London [139] likewise affirmed single reconciliation. Third,  some functions of civil magistrates taught by Separatists were rejected by Baptists. As previously noted, according to A True Confession [140] magistrates have the power and function of suppressing false religions and establishing the true religion. On the other hand, the First London Confession [141] acknowledged subjection to king and parliament as to civil laws but declared that conscientious objection to some ecclesiastical laws may be necessary. The framers of the Second London Confession [142] deleted the Westminster doctrine of the suppression of false religions and emphasized generally obedience to and prayer for magistrates. Fourth, whereas A True Confession [143] never questioned or deviated from pedobaptism, the earliest Baptist confessions of faith [144] clearly taught believer's baptism.

   In summary, Baptists have adhered to the Trinitarian and Christological doctrines formulated by the first four ecumenical councils and expressed in the earliest Christian creeds. They have shared with medieval sectarian and reforming groups anti-ascetical, anti-sacramental, and primitivist intentions. They seem to have been indebted to various magisterial Reformers: Luther for the supremacy of the Scriptures over tradition, for justification by grace through faith, and the priesthood of all Christians; Zwingli for a memorialist understanding of the Lord's Supper; Bucer for church discipline as essential to the true church, and Calvin for predestination as a major doctrine. Continental Anabaptist influence can most clearly be seen in believer's baptism as constitutive of a truly ordered church, church discipline as necessary, the New Testament as superior to the Old Testament, and religious freedom for all humans. English Separatist influence can be most accurately identified in terms of humanity's Adamic disability, the Bible as the rule of faith and practice, the priesthood of all Christians, and congregational polity .