Why I Am A Baptist

Why I Am A Baptist

Why I Am A Baptist

By Rev. A.E. Prince
Pastor of First Baptist Church
Charleston, Illinois

(Article found in the Charleston Courier newspaper in Charleston, Illinois in July of 1896)

Does it make any difference which church I join? The superficial professor says it does not and he unites with a church for the social benefit of his family, because his parents belonged, in order to keep his family together in one church, for business prestige, to please his friends, because it is popular, or for some other inconsiderable reason. The devout believer seeks to know the will of his Lord and governs his church affiliation by the dictates of his conscience. Such a person unites with a church because he believes it is the gospel church, and he will be a valuable addition to that church.
That the church was established during the personal ministry of Christ is too well attested to need proof in this article. This is, I believe generally conceded by the religious world. After the ascension of our Lord there were local congregations in various places but these were of one faith It was never claimed until modern times that these were churches of various faiths. In fact, there was but one faith of Christians until the great division of the third century. That division marked the dividing line between the true faith and the faiths of that time and later days. At the time of that division the true believers who were opposed to the pagan practices and unwarranted principles which the spirit of the Anti-Christ had produced in the church, withdrew into the Piedmont valley, and from that time to the present age have suffered persecution for their faith and practices. Christ promised to perpetuate the church he founded the church he founded and if his promise is true, which all will surely believe, that church is still in existence. If that church is still in existence it is the duty of all who call him Lord to seek fellowship in that body.
After a careful and prayerful investigation of the New Testament scriptures I am lead to make three demands of the church I join. If it did not meet these scriptural requirements I could not hold membership in that body. I do not mean to infer that the church must strive to meet the demands of the individual. Instead, I believe that the church should be a gospel church and that the individual should belong to it because it corresponds with his views of scriptural doctrine and practice. The faith and practice of the church which was founded by our Lord, were given by him and they must not be changed by man, by any council of men, nor suit the taste of any individual.
1. Origin and Perpetuity
The church with which I am connected must be scriptural in origin and must have survived
the storms of the centuries of the Christian era. If historians can locate its origin this side of the personal ministry of our Lord it cannot be the church of Christ. To have the candid consideration of men it must have had advocates of its principles in all ages since the days of the apostles. In terms of modern thought, the apostolic church was one religious denomination having local congregations at various places for the convenience of its members in various localities. Baptists dislike the name “denomination” but it must be used o meet the demands of modern thought and by the term “Baptist churches” in this article I mean the local congregations of the denomination I represent. These united make one denomination or one church. I do not refer to the various denominations of Baptists for some of them are as much unlike us as many of the religious sects of this age. No one denies that the apostolic church was scriptural in origin. I believe the local congregations of the denomination I represent are as much like the local congregations of the apostolic church as they were like each other. A gospel church is a body of baptized believers, associated together by covenant in the faith and fellowship of the gospel; observing the ordinances of Christ as they were delivered; governed by His laws; and exercising the gifts, rights, and privileges invested in them by His word. If such a church can be found today it ought to be given careful consideration.
Such a church can be found but their claim of perpetuity is denied on the ground of church succession. No one denies the succession of the human family from Adam, although no man can trace his ancestry back through the ages to Adam. We find men on the earth who resemble the progenitors of our race and we believe in the succession of the family. The question of legitimacy might be sprung, but if God in the beginning promised to perpetuate the race by lawful marriages, we would have to content ourselves, without sufficient documentary evidence, with the belief that it has been done. Perhaps no one believes he can prove church succession in the congregational sense, and the effort to establish it by historical proof alone should never be made. Phophetic (probably means prophetic) proof is sufficient for the believer, but historic proof would not convince the unbeliever. I do not demand apostolic succession because it is not implied in the New Testament nor needed since Christianity is established. But I do demand that the church I join shall furnish proof of its perpetuity. I believe it does and offer two reasons for my opinion.
1. The first is prophetic proof. I have already said that Baptist churches are like apostolic churches. Granting this to be true, and I have never known it to be successfully refuted, the Baptist church would meet the definition of a gospel church and hence would be the gospel church. But some ask if the connection between the apostolic church and the Baptist church can be established. I predicate Baptist perpetuity on the promise of Christ. In Matt. 16:18 he said, “The gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” He spoke of His church. This was a prophecy as well as a promise. If the church has perished, if there ever was a time when it ceased to have a visible organization for even a moment, then, there was a time when the gates of hell prevailed and the promise was not kept. The promises of God have never failed. Dr. D.B. Ray says, “If all hostory (history) was a blank, if from the time the canon of revelation closed until now was one vast chasm of darkness, and not one line to light up the dreary pages of the past, with the prophetic word in one hand, I would span the chasm and say, THE GATES OF HELL HAVE NOT PREVIALED AGAINST THE CHURCH. IT HAS WEATHERED THE STORMS OF EIGHTEEN CENTURIES AND WILL STAND AT LAST, WHEN JESUS COMES.
The church is the bride of Christ. She came into existence in the beginning of his personal ministry. That she is to be here when he comes is plainly indicated in his teachings. If the church ceased to exist for a moment the bride of Christ was dead. If she had to be revived by human agency after the dark ages then God was forced to call upon human hands to establish that which He did not have the power to perpetuate. If she perished in the dark ages then God’s plan failed, for provision was made for her (the church) to be fed in the wilderness. See Rev. 12:6.
The final appeal to adjust all differences is to be made to the church. “Tell it unto the church” – Matt. 18:17. If there was a time when the church had perished from the earth for even one moment, then, there was a time when this plain commandment could not be obeyed.
2. The second is historical proof. History supplements prophetic proof. All scholars concede that there have been religious communities in all ages who have kept the doctrines of the gospel. The history of the true believers have been written principally by their enemies. Their own records have been destroyed by their persecutors. It is conservatively estimated that not less than fifteen millions of persons preaching, teaching, and practicing what Baptists do, have been martyred since the apostolic age. These persecuted people have been known by various names, in divers places. They were contentious about the name that designated them. They were first called Christians at Antioch. This was not a denominational name but aname applied in derision. Such names as Montanists, Novations, Donatists, Paulicians, Albigenses, Mennonites, Waldenses Anabaptists, Baptists, and other names have been applied to them. The name “Baptists” has not been chosen by the Baptist denomination but was applied to them by their enemies because they immersed. The name “Missionary” was prefixed to it after the Anti-mission Baptists broke away from them in the early part of the nineteenth century, and was applied to designate them from the latter.

It is a significant fact that these names were applied for a purpose. John Wesley says in his Revision and Noted, seventh edition, on Rev. 13:7 “And it was given Him to make war with the saints”. “With the Waldenses and Albigenses. It is a vulgar mistake that the Waldenses were so called form Peter Waldo of Lyons. They were much more ancient than he; and their true name was Vallenses, or Vaudois ***. This name Vallenses, after Waldo appeared, about 1160, was changed by the Papists into Waldenses, on purpose to represent them as a modern origin.” It is also significant that the Baptists of this age are descendants of the original Waldenses. In 1819 the King of Holland appointed Dr. Ypeig professor of theology in the University of Groningen, and Rev. I.J. Dermont, chaplain to the king, both learned men and members of the Dutch Reformed Church, to prepare a history of their church. In the authentic volume which they published at Breda 1823, they devote one chapter to the Baptists, in which they make the following statement: “We have seen that the Baptists, who were formerly called Anabaptists, and in later times Mennonites, were the original Waldenses, and who long in the history of the church have received the honor of that origin. On this account the Baptists may be considered as the only Christian community which has stood since the apostles, and as a Christian society has preserved pure the doctrines of the gospel church through the ages.” Concerning this plain statement , Dr.Wheaton Smith says, “Let it be remembered that these learned men were not Baptists, that they proclaimed the result of their research in the ear of a king who listened unwillingly to their conclusions. Let it be remembered that, as a result of their investigations, the government of Holland offered to the Baptist churches in the kingdom the support of the state, and, true to their principles they declined it.” Mr. Alexander Campbell, in his debate with McCalla, page 378, says “From the apostolic age to the present time the sentiments of Baptists have had an unbroken chain of advocates, and public monuments to their existence in every century can be found.” I am satisfied that history proves the identity of the true church; and that Christ has perpetuated His church, I have never doubted.
3. Doctrines.
The church of my choice must be scriptural in doctrine. I believe that the New
Testament teaches that Christ founded the gospel church during his personal ministry. To it were committed the ordinances of the gospel. Matt. 28_19-20 and Lu. 22:28-30 were spoken to His church. This church is “the pillar and ground of the truth” (1 Tim. 3:15). It has “one faith, one Lord, and one baptism,” (Eph. 4:5). It keeps the ordinances as delivered (I Cor. 11:2). It follows the apostolic order, viz. ; 1. Repentance and faith which includes regeneration. 2. Baptism. 3. Church fellowship. 4. The Lord’s Supper. See Acts 2:41-42. It baptizes only by immersion, (Rom. 6:4), and baptizes only regenerated people, (Acts 10:44-48). Its members have become such by their own voluntary act (Acts 9:26). It teaches the utter depravity of man. (Eph. 2:1-3) and hols that salvation is “by grace through faith”, (Eph. 2:8), for all who repent and believe the gospel. It is a local congregation, independent of all others and has Christ for its head (Eph. 5:23) and recognizes no other law above His. It teaches the security of the believer and belives that such as belive in Christ shall never perish (John 10:27-30 and John 6:40). In short, it believes and teaches the New Testament and does not teach nor practice a single thing which is not fully warranted by the Scriptures.
3. Practices.
The church with which I hold membership must be consistent in practice. It must not hold one principle and practice another. It must discipline its members according to the scriptures and no one unworthy of fellowship shall, for any reason, be retained. It must have a democratic form of government as was exhibited in the business session of the church before Pentecost. See Acts 1:15-26. Since Christ ordained those he sent forth by the organization of the church (Lu. 6:12), those sent forth by the church must be ordained. Its deacons in must be ordained as was done in the apostolic church (Acts 6:6). In short, it must exactly coincide with the practices of the New Testament church.
Believing as I do that the Baptist church is the gospel church, and that its doctrines and practices are scriptural, I cannot be anything but a Baptist. If millions have died for no crime, but for advocating these principles, it should be a pleasure for one who believes them to live for them. From a time that dates back of the rise of any other religious sect, these principles have had their exponents beyond the seas. In the colonial days of our country, persons holding these principles came here for freedom in religious matters. The First Baptist church in America was founded by Dr. John Clarke at Newport, R.I., in 1638, and is still in existence. Many other Baptist ministers came over from Europe and some of these brought their whole congregations with them. These churches were the “mother churches’ in the New World. Thus was the faith brought to the American continent. Today the Baptist denomination is one of the largest in our country.
Firm in my conviction of the right as God gives me to see the right, I submit my reasons to the candid consideration of the reader.