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 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 .. REVIEV/ .. 
 
 DR. JESSE B. THOMAS 
 
 ON THE 
 
 WHITSITT QUESTION. 
 
 (SUPPLEMENT TO A REVIEW OF THE QUESTION.) 
 
 . . .BY. 
 
 REV. GEORGE A. LOFTON, D.D., 
 
 Antkor of Bible Thoughts and Themes, Character Sketches, Harp of 
 Life, A Review of the Question, Etc. 
 
 "He who seeks the truth should be of no country." — Voltaire. 
 "There are few persons to whom truth is not a sort of insult." — Segur. 
 "Truth, like roses, often blossoms upon a thorny stem."— //a/i«. 
 "Truth, like the sun, submits to be obscured, but only for a time." — Bovee, 
 
 NASHVILLE, TENN.: 
 
 UNIVERSITY PRESS CO. 
 
 1897.
 
 copyright by 
 
 Geokge Augustus Lofton, D.D. 
 
 1897.
 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTERS. PAGB 
 
 I. Neal's Statement 7 
 
 II. Crosby's Account 15 
 
 III. William Kipfin 22 
 
 IV. The Kiffin Manuscript 31 
 
 V. The Kiffin Manuscript — Continued ... 42 
 
 VI. Sum of the Crosby Argument . 50 
 
 VII. The Simultaneous Change 58 
 
 o 
 
 Z 
 
 VIII. The Monuments 65 
 
 d IX. Controversial Writings 73 
 
 o X. The Burden of Proof 82 
 
 o 
 m 
 
 ^ XI. Evans, Muller, de Hoop Scheffer . . 90 
 
 < XII. Dutch Antipedobaptism 98 
 
 XIII. Revolution and Evolution lu7 
 
 QC 
 
 •< 
 QC 
 OQ 
 
 CVJ 
 
 447931
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 The articles of Dr. Jesse B. Thomas on "The Whitsitt 
 Question" first appeared in the columns of the Western 
 Recorder, and afterwards in pamphlet form, under the 
 challenge that they were unanswerable and that nobody 
 would likely undertake a reply to them. The humble 
 author of this work applied to the Western Recorder for 
 the privilege of reviewing Dr. Thomas, but the application 
 was declined for reasons not necessary to mention. He 
 also applied to other Baptist papers which for other reasons 
 likewise refused. His only recourse for a hearing before 
 the world is the present publication; and he leaves the 
 success or failure of his effort to the verdict of his unbiased 
 readers. 
 
 Another reason for the publication of this work is to 
 meet more fully the criticism, in the Western Recorder, of 
 Dr. Thomas, that the author has '■'■ misread'''' Crosby in the 
 production of his recent book entitled, "A Review of the 
 Question;" and the object of the present work is to sup- 
 plement that. The author assumes the proposition, and 
 stakes his reputation upon its demonstration, that Crosby^s 
 account of the restoration of immersion in England, {164.1) 
 clearly defines it as a general Baptist movenietit based upon 
 the fact that imtnersion, as believers'' baptism, had been '■HosV 
 by '■'■disuse,'''' and that there was no other period in the history 
 of English Baptists, than 1640-41, ivhen this restoration could 
 have taken place. Dr. Thomas calls the movement an in- 
 significant affair confined to a Pedobaptist Church; and if 
 his position is not overthrown in the present work, then 
 the author is ready to abide the verdict of failure, or else 
 make his proposition good. With perfect confidence, he 
 stands ready to meet the issue and abide the result until 
 Crosby and other Baptist authorities are proven unreliable 
 on this point. 
 
 The author begs a candid reading of the following pages. 
 But few know anything of the subject at all; fewer still
 
 Preface. 5 
 
 have read both sides of the controversy; and no man can 
 form any just judg-ment of the question at issue without 
 impartial investig^ation. It will not do to take anything 
 for g-ranted, on either side of a question, which is a matter 
 of leg'itimate controversy; and no man can know the truth 
 with a partisan spirit which desires to know only one side 
 of a question even when investig-ated. Such a spirit, in 
 the search-light of the Nineteenth Century, is unworthy the 
 claim of intellig^ence and manhood; and the mercenary or 
 demag-ogical spirit which allies itself to either side of a 
 contention like this in order to secure profit or position, is 
 simply diabolical. There was a time when ecclesiastical 
 anathema and magisterial edict could throttle investigation 
 and terrify conscience; but we have reached an age of 
 learning and liberty, in which Truth courts investigation, 
 and in which old errors are dragged up by their hoary locks 
 from the deep of past traditions and superstitions, and 
 subjected to the scalpel of historic and scientific methods 
 of inquiry. The spirit of intolerance and bigotry is not 
 dead; but their sword is in the scabbard and their torch is 
 extinguished so far as the horrors of physical inquisition 
 are concerned. Baptists, of all other people, ought to 
 thank God; and of all other people, they should not be in- 
 tolerant of any truth nor of the investigation of any error 
 found in their own position. Let us be true to history as 
 to the Bible; and then let us remember that we are not in- 
 fallible, and that we have not a monopoly of the true, the 
 beautiful and the good. 
 
 The author of this humble production is not wedded to 
 his view of the question at issue. All his biases and predi- 
 lections have been trained about the "succession" ideal; 
 and only in the light of later investigation have his con- 
 victions changed. He follows his conscientious conclusions 
 under the guidance of God's Spirit and the truth of history 
 as he sees it; and he feels certain that time will vindicate 
 Dr. Whitsitt's thesis and those who agree with him in 
 this dark hour of obloquy and opposition. Dr. Whitsitt 
 has done a great service to the truth of Baj^ist history and 
 to the true Baptist position, which can only be injured by
 
 6 Preface. 
 
 traditional fictions; and it has been the pleasure of the 
 author to contribute his humble part in defense of Dr. 
 Whitsitt's theory already established, independent of the 
 Crosby or other arg-uments here broug-ht forward. 
 
 The author has no fear of injury to Baptist position at 
 the hands of Pedobaptists, or others, who seek to pervert 
 Dr. Whitsitt's thesis as an anti-immersion argument. Dr. 
 Whitsitt is thoroughly sound upon every article of Baptist 
 faith and practice; and all he means by the '■'■ introduction'" 
 of immersion (1641) in England, by the Baptists, is the 
 ^^resioration''^ of the ordinance, as Crosby states it, after 
 its "disuse" for a period among the Anabaptists both on 
 the Continent and in England. For this fact he has un- 
 questioned authority; and while Baptists may regret that 
 there was ever a gap in the practice of their heroic an- 
 cestors, they are to be congratulated that when the con- 
 ditions changed they promptly returned to their "ancient 
 practice of immersion," as Crosby, their first historian, 
 declares. The Anabaptists always thoroughly understood 
 with Rothmann, Menno, Busher, Blunt, and all the rest' 
 that immersion only was Scriptural baptism — just as the 
 Catholics and Reformers of the time held — but they fell 
 with the rest under the sprinkling spell of the Sixteenth 
 Century. However, when liberty came with light, they 
 finally returned to their "ancient practice," while the 
 Catholic and Protestant world have lost it forever. 
 
 G. A. L. 
 
 Nashvii./ e, July 28, 1897.
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Neal's Statement. 
 
 WITHOUT stopping- now to consider the grounds 
 of presumptive evidence upon which Dr. 
 Thomas argues the probability of immersion in 
 Eng-land and Holland before 1641, in the first arti- 
 cle of his "Review of Dr. Whitsitt's Question," 1 pro- 
 ceed to notice in that first article (pp. 4, 5^ his use 
 of the statement made by Neal in his "History of the 
 Puritans," (4 Vols., 1732 38) to the effect that Jes- 
 sey laid the "foundation" of the "first Baptist con- 
 greg^ation," in 1641, which he had met with in 
 Eng-land, "thus anticipating Dr. Whitsitt in his 
 theory by 150 years." I g"rant the value of long- 
 continued tradition, the concurrent voice of histori- 
 ans and of individual utterances upon any given 
 subject in history; but, in this age of freedom and 
 research in which investigation is no longer tram- 
 melled by mag-isterial nor ecclesiastical authority, 
 the scientific method of dealing- with facts has dis- 
 pelled the illusions of a multitude of traditions and 
 long--believed utterances along all the lines of so- 
 called history. I g-rant the strength of all the prior 
 presumptions raised by Dr. Thomas against what 
 he calls Dr. Whitsitt's "wide and drastic negative;" 
 but the only way out of the difficulties suggested is 
 to g-et at the facts in the case, the best we can, and 
 let the presumptions take care of themselves, if they 
 are to the contrary. There is scarcely a probable 
 fact in history that may not be obscured by plausi- 
 ble traditions and utterances which raise presump- 
 tions to the contrary. 
 
 Although Crosby, in his "History of the Baptists," 
 (4 Vols., 1738-40) mildlv characterizes Neal's state- 
 '(7)
 
 8 Review of Dr. J. B. Thomas on the Whitsitt Question. 
 
 ment as a ^^siran^e representation^'''' (Vol. III., p.41) 
 a statement which he did not seem to '''■understand''' 
 yet, seven years before, he had furnished Neal the 
 very data upon which he made his statement. Re- 
 ferring- to "a manuscript of Mr. William Kiffin'' 
 (Vol. I., p. 148) which he says he "lent Mr. Neal," 
 Crosby claims that, according- to that document, 
 there were three other Baptist churches formed, 
 respectively, in 1633, 1638, 1639, ''before that of Mr. 
 Jesseys.'''' These churches, according- to Crosby, 
 (Vol. I., p. 147) were composed of "Baptists who had 
 hitherto been intermixed among- other Protestant 
 Dissenters, without distinction . . who now be- 
 gan to separate themselves and form distinct socie- 
 ties of those of their own persuasion." The "first" 
 of these, he says, seceded in 1633, from the Jacob 
 Lathrop (Congregational) church under Spilsbury; 
 the second from the same church, in 1638, which 
 also joined Spilsbury; the third was formed 1639, at 
 Crutched Friars under Green, Hobson and Spencer. 
 (Vol. I., p. 147-149; Vol. III., pp. 41, 42.)* 
 
 With this data before Neal, Crosby seems not to 
 "understand" his "strang-e representation" that 
 "Mr. Jessey laid the foii7idation of the first Baptist 
 cong-reg-ation that he (Neal) had met with in Eng-- 
 land." The truth must be that Crosby, in his ap- 
 parent puzzle at Neal's statement has only the org-an- 
 ij;ation, but not the baptism of these two churcht s 
 in his mind; for without reference to the mode of 
 baptism, Crosby reg-ards these churches as "Bap- 
 tist" before the restoration of the "ancient practice 
 of immersion" by the "Baptists of Eng-land," as re- 
 corded by him (Vol. I., p. 96-107) at the time of 
 
 ♦Evidently there is some mistake abou' the secession of 1638, being- a 
 church, since it joined Mr. Spilsbury, who at this time, was pastor of the 
 church which secedtd in 1633. Sam Eaton, who went ^ut with the seces- 
 sion of 1633, is mentloneG with others in the Jessey Records as having' 
 been baptized by Spilsbury (Gould, "Open Communion," p. csxii ). 
 This fact identifies the secession of 1638 with that of 1633. So it would 
 appear that there were only two churches before that of Mr. Jessey 's, 
 prior to 1641, namely, the 1633 and 1639 organizatious.
 
 NeaVs Statement. 9 
 
 Blunt's deputation to Holland, 1640. The '-Bap- 
 tists" who formed these two churches, 1633-38, and 
 
 1639, came out individually from among- the Pedo- 
 baptist churches with which, according- to Crosbj, 
 they were "intermixed;" and although "most, or all 
 of them," when they seceded from their Cong-reg-a- 
 tional brethren, "received a new baptism" — that is, 
 believers' as distinguished from infant baptism — yet, 
 according- to Crosby, it is clear that not until after 
 1638-9 did they receive immersion as "restored" by 
 the "Baptists of England" in 1641. Crosby calls 
 them "Baptists" while "intermixed" with the 
 "sprinkling" Pedobaptists; and it is more than 
 probable that their mode of baptism, at the time of 
 their separation, was that of their Pedobaptist 
 brethren with whom they had been "intermixed," 
 and from whom they separated, simply and solely 
 on account of their conviction "///«/ baptism was not 
 to be administered to infa)its, but to such only as pro- 
 fessed faith in Christ.''' (Crosby, Vol. I., p. 148.) 
 
 Now it is also clear that Neal was looking- at the 
 facts in the case from another standpoint. He was 
 viewing- a Baptist church as an immersed body. 
 The "manuscript of William Kiffin," which Crosby 
 had furnished him, also put 1<)41 as the date of re- 
 storing- immersion as believers' baptism, through 
 Richard Blunt, to the secession which took place in 
 
 1640, from the Jessey and the Spilsbury churches; 
 for Blunt was a member of the Spilsbury church, 
 and out of the two churches, evidently another 
 church was formed, the '"foioidalion'" of which Neal 
 ascribes to Jessey. He saw in the Kiflin Manuscript 
 and other testimony, in 1()40-41, a new church 
 founded upon tne assumption that baptism "ought 
 to be by dipping" — '■'none having then so practiced 
 in Kng-land to professed believers.'" He knew from 
 these manuscripts that Blunt, Lucar and others of 
 the "forenamed," who united with some of Jessey's 
 people in the movement, belonged to the Spilsbury
 
 10 Review of Dr. J. B. Tho/nas on the Whitsitt Question. 
 
 church, and that therefore, Spilsbury's church 
 could not have been an immersion body. Why? 
 Because the "forenamed," as well as those of Jes- 
 sey's people, would have known the fact; and with- 
 out such knowledg^e, the main paragraph of the Kif- 
 fin Manuscript — "none having- then so practiced in 
 Engfland, etc." — would not have been inserted. So 
 of the other church of 1639 — and so if the Helwisse 
 church or churches in and about London — if they 
 had been practicing- immersion, such men as Blunt, 
 Lucar, Blacklock, Jessey, Kiffin and the like, would 
 have known something- of the fact, and would not 
 have acted upon the presumption that there were 
 '■'none'"' in Eng-land who then practiced believers' 
 immersion without g-ood reason for the utterance. 
 With all these facts and inferences before him, it 
 was perfectly natural for Neal to conclude that here 
 was the first Baptist, or immersion, church that he 
 had met with in Eng-lish history. 
 
 Neal evidently g-ot his information from the man- 
 uscript of William Kiffin, which Crosby had "lent 
 him" — that is, from the second, or 1640-1641 part of 
 that manuscript, only the substance of which Crosby 
 uses (Vol. I., p. 101) in his detail of the restoration 
 of immersion by the Baptists of Eng-land throug-h 
 Blunt, 1641. Gould ("Open Communion, etc.," p. 
 cxxiii) gives this same second part of the Kiffin 
 Manuscript in the exact words of the orig-inal doc- 
 ument, including- the dates, 1640-1641, and the main 
 parag-raph, "None having- then so practiced in Eng-- 
 land to professed believers," together wiih all the 
 details of the Blunt movement quoted by Crosby in 
 his substantial use of this same original document; 
 and whether this original 1640-1641 part is the 
 manuscript of William Kiffin, or the records of Jes- 
 sey or other person, copied by Kiffin, Crosby sub- 
 stantially quotes it from Kiffin, with perfect confi- 
 dence, just as he did the 1633-1638 part of it. The 
 document as a whole and in both its parts was re-
 
 Near 8 ^Statement. 11 
 
 covered in its orig-inal form and sent to Dr. Whlt- 
 sitt by Georg-e Gould, of London, and with much 
 plausibility. Dr. Whitsitt classifies it as the "Jessey 
 Records" with which the Kiffin Manuscript, as sub- 
 stantially used by Crosby, corresponds in both parts. 
 
 The first, or 1633-1638 part quoted by Crosby 
 (Vol. I., pp. 147-149) as "an account collected from 
 a manuscript of William Kiffin" is, at least, a sub- 
 stantial version of the Jessey Records. In the mar- 
 gin of pag-e 149, Crosb}' uses the words, ^'•Reco7-ds of 
 that church"'' as authority upon which the Kiffin 
 Manuscript, which he was quoting-, was evidently 
 based. What "records' are these to which he refers 
 in the margin? No doubt the Jessey Records, which 
 detail the same "account" which he is here collect- 
 ing from "the manuscript of William Kiffin," and 
 from which Kiffin drew his information; and if the 
 first part of the Kiffin Manuscript was a version of 
 the Jessey Records, it is probable the second part 
 was, also.* 
 
 While, however, Crosby seems to quote verbatim 
 the 1633 1638 part of the Kiffin Manuscript (Vol. I., 
 p. 177-149), he seems only to quote substantially 
 from the Kiffin Manuscript the 1640 1641 part (Vol. 
 I., p. 101 ), omitting only the 1641 date of the orig- 
 inal document, and paraphrasing the main para- 
 graph, in dealing with the Blunt movement for the 
 restoration of immersion in England in 1()41; but 
 while he omitted only the 1641 date and paraphrased 
 the main paragraph of the document, he evidently 
 placed the orig-inal Kiffin Manuscript as a whole be- 
 ore Neal for reference, dates, and all. What could 
 Xeal do, therefore, but conclude as he did that the 
 
 *Dr. Thomas speaks of Crosby's having- the records of SpiUburv's 
 church (it>33-3«l and the recordsof Hubbard's church (lfiil-l(.41 ). Kvi- 
 dentl y the records of the l(.33-3.s church, as indicated al>ove were the Jes- 
 sey Records upon which the Kifiiti Manuscript was founded: but the 
 Hubbard church was a I'edohaiitist and not a I{aj)list church, according- 
 to Crosl>v ( Vol. 1., i)p. Ui2-1()5) and cuts no fif^'ure in this discussion. The 
 only records which Crosbv had of any Baptist church before 1041, were 
 those of Jessey or the Kiflin Manuscrlot.
 
 12 Review oj Dr. J, B. Thomas on the Whitsiit Question. 
 
 Jessey Church, or that part of it which joined with 
 the "forenamed" from the Spilsbury Church, laid 
 the " foundation " of the first Baptist Church, as an 
 immersed body, which he had met with in English 
 Baptist history? 
 
 I am perfectly satisfied that Crosby knew of the 
 date, 1641, of the Kiffin Manuscript, or of the Jessey 
 or other records of which the Kiffin Manuscript is a 
 version. Why he omitted this date in his substan- 
 tial version of Kiffin's Manuscript, after quoting- the 
 1640 date, he does not say. It is equally puzzling 
 to know why he paraphrased the main paragraph, 
 which says, "none having then so practiced (im- 
 mersion) in England to professed believers," so as 
 to read: "Yet they had not, as they knew of, re- 
 vived the ancient custom of immersion." The 
 Bampfield Document (Review of the Question, p. 
 232), referring to the same period in which the Bap- 
 tists adopted several " methods" for the restoration 
 of immersion in England, declares, like the Kiffin 
 Manuscript, that in England the practice of immer- 
 sion " had been so long disused that there were 7ione 
 who had been so baptized to be found." Whatever 
 Crosby's motive, however, for his omission of +be 
 date, 1641, or for his paraphrase of the main para- 
 graph, he uses the second as he does the first part 
 of the Kiffin Manuscript as his authority for the 
 historical events recorded. As he gives no reason 
 for his omission of the 1641 date in the second part 
 of the manuscript, nor for his paraphrase — and yet 
 uses the document in recording the facts which do 
 not contradict this date, nor vitiate the main para- 
 graph — we may conclude that his omission and para- 
 phrase either have no meaning or are not based 
 upon valid grounds. By using the date 1640 (Vol. 
 III., p. 41) Crosby -vdrtually admits the date 1641, 
 the events of which, according to the manuscript he 
 quotes, follow in the order he gives in full. 
 
 It will be noticed that Crosby does not "repudiate "
 
 NeaVs Statement. 13 
 
 Neal's statement, as Dr. Thomas says, but only 
 mildly characterizes it as a " strang-e representa- 
 tion" which he could not "understand" — looking, 
 no doubt, to the formation rather than the baptism 
 which characterized the existence of the three 
 churches which he claimed as "Baptist" before 
 1641. Again, even if the above probability may not 
 be possible, we know not how far Neal's statement 
 may have actuated Crosby's conservatism in his 
 omission of the date, 1641, and in his paraphrase of 
 the main paragraph of the Kiffin Manuscript. He 
 was greatly offended with Neal's meager and preju- 
 diced account of the Baptists of England ; and there 
 was a strong temptation here, without the desire of 
 denying this date, or of changing the sense of the 
 main paragraph, to paralyze by omission or varia- 
 tion the positive statement of Neal, which, in Cros- 
 by's view, was erroneous so far as the organization 
 and existence of what he considered BaptistChurches 
 in England was concerned before the 3-ear 1641. 
 
 But whatever the purpose of Crosby in his omis- 
 sion of the 1641 date, or in his paraphrase of the 
 main paragraph of the Kiffin document, it is certain 
 that he had the date and the paragraph before him 
 in the original form of the manuscript ; and in the 
 light of other documents and facts he has recorded 
 the history connected with this date and with this 
 main paragraph which confirm the Kiffin Manu- 
 script as a whole and in both its parts in its original 
 form. He shows that, at a given time, after \hM). 
 immersion was restored through Blunt and others 
 by the " ENGLISH BAPTISTS," according; to this 
 Kiffin Manuscript and other historic testimony; 
 and there is absolutely no period, except 1640-'41, 
 at which the event as described could have occurred 
 in England, as we shall see hereafter. He gives the 
 date, 1640 (Vol. HI., p. 41), according to the Kiffin 
 Manuscript, in which the agitation originated in 
 the Jessey Church and divided it; and then (Vol. I.,
 
 14 Review of Dr. J. B. Thomas on the Whitsitt Question. 
 
 pp. 101, 102), he details the event which followed 
 the 1640 agitation in the restoration of immersion 
 in 1641, through Blunt, which he declares was one 
 of the methods adopted by the " Bullish Baptists," 
 without distinction, in order to revive the "ancient 
 practice" which "had for some time been disused" 
 — all according- to this same Kiffin Manuscript, con- 
 firmed bj Hutchinson's account.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Crosby's Account. 
 
 DR. THOMAS (p. 21) affirms that "Crosby, with 
 the Kiffin Manuscript before him, saw no in- 
 consistency in maintaining- at the same time that 
 Spilsbury's Church had practiced immersion since 
 its formation in 1633." He assumes also that Cros- 
 by's reference to Smyth and Helwisse as " restorers 
 of immersion " implies the existence of immersion in 
 England at an earlier day; and he bases Crosby's 
 authority for the implication upon the validity of 
 "oral tradition" within the limit of one hundred 
 years — the time elapsing- between the events nar- 
 rated and the writing- of Crosby's history. 
 
 I reply that Crosby, to the contrary, affirms that, 
 prior to the Blunt movement (1640-41) which he 
 records from the Kiffin Manuscript, immersion in 
 England ''^had for some time been disused'' (Vol. 
 I., p. 97); and that the Kiffin Manuscript with 
 which Crosby, Hutchinson and the Bampfield 
 Document agree, utterly precludes the probability 
 that Spilsbury's Church practiced immersion before 
 1640-41. Such men as Blunt, Lucar, Blacklock, 
 Kiffin, Jessey and the like would have known the 
 fact if Spilsbury's Church had so practiced. Blunt 
 and Lucar, at least, were, or had been members of 
 Spilsbury's Church or the secession of 1633, and 
 would themselves have been already immersed if 
 that body had been an immersion church. In either 
 case the statements of the Kiffin Manuscript would 
 never have been made that Blunt and those with 
 him became " convinced " that baptism "ought to 
 be by dipping" and administered onlv to believers, 
 
 (15)
 
 16 Review of Dr. J. B. Thomas on the Whitaitt Question. 
 
 and that ^^ none had then so practiced to professed 
 believers in England. " 
 
 Agrain, Crosby (Vol. I., p. 99, 100) positively re- 
 pudiates the baptism of Smyth which was, of course, 
 the baptism of Helwisse, whom Crosby says (Vol. 
 I., p. 269) Smyth baptized; and he affirms that the 
 "Eng-lish Baptists" did not "approve of" nor "re- 
 ceive their baptism from Smyth." Crosby reg-arded 
 Smjth and Helwisse as "restorers of immersion" 
 in Holland; and in the absence of Smyth's writings 
 he doubted that Smyth baptized himself, as was 
 charged upon him by Ainsworth, Johnson, Clifton, 
 and others in his own lifetime. Hence, Crosby fol- 
 lowed only one- half of the "oral tradition" in the 
 case, holding, contrary to the facts of later history, 
 to the probability that Smyth was baptized by im- 
 mersion; but he gives to the "English Baptists" 
 the benefit of the doubt as to his self-baptism, as 
 charged — the other half of the " oral tradition " — 
 and he emphasizes the fact that his baptism, what- 
 ever the mode, never succeeded to them. (Vol. I., 
 p. 100). This excludes the succession of Smyth's 
 baptism to the English Baptists through Helwisse 
 and the Helwisse Church whom Smyth baptized; 
 but, as we shall see further on, the b2tter reason 
 will appear in the fact that Smyth's self-baptism was 
 affusion, and not immersion, and that there were no 
 "immersing churches" at this early date in Eng- 
 land. The plain historical fact recorded by Crosby 
 is that the "English Baptists," as he designates 
 them, restored immersion at a later date by '"'■tzvo 
 other methods y 
 
 Crosby says (Vol. I., p. 100): "The two other 
 methods that I mentioned were indeed both taken 
 by the Baptists at their revival of immersion in Eng- 
 land^ as I find it acknowledged and justified in their 
 writings." 
 
 The first of these two methods was that of send- 
 ing Blunt to Holland for immersion by a regular
 
 Crosby's Account. 17 
 
 administrator, as shown by Hutchinson and Kifi&n, 
 and which occurred 1640-41, and as recorded by 
 Crosby with the latter date only omitted. (Vol. I., 
 pp. 100, 102.) The last of these two methods, fol- 
 lowing- the first, Crosby proceeds to show (Vol. I., 
 pp. 103-107), was that of Spilsbury, Tombes, Lau- 
 rence and others who held that an unbaptized ad- 
 ministrator could restore baptism when lost; and he 
 says: "The greatest number of the English Bap- 
 tists, and the more judicious, looked upon all this 
 as needless trouble (sending- to Holland for immer- 
 sion) and what proceeded from the old Popish doc- 
 trine (of succession). They [1] ajjirmcd, therefore, 
 (the greatest number and the more judicious Bap- 
 tists) and [2] practiced accordi)igly, that after a 
 general corruption of baptism, an unbaptized per- 
 son might warrantable' baptize, and so begin a 
 reformation." \i this method had been the practice 
 of the Baptists of England at an "earlier date," 
 Crosby would have here referred it to an earlier date 
 and changed the order of its mention ; and he and the 
 writers whom he quotes against the Blunt method as 
 "needless trouble" and after the doctrine of Popish 
 " succession," would have quoted the fact as past 
 authority for present practice. 
 
 The Bampfield Document (No. 18 of the Collec- 
 tion of 1712) which was doubtless in the hands of 
 Crosby and which was written after 1681, details 
 very clearly the Spilsbury- method of restoring im- 
 mersion when it was lost in England; and while it 
 does not mention the Blunt method, it shows that 
 Smyth was not a restorer of immersion in England, 
 and that his se-baptism method, though attempted at 
 the time of the restoration, was repudiated and went 
 to nothing. The only question of importance right 
 here i^ to determine as to the possible date when the 
 Spilsbury method of restoring immersion by an "un- 
 baptized administrator" began. According to Kiflin 
 and Neal, the Blunt method, which the great body 
 2
 
 18 Review of Dr. J. B. Thomas on the Whitsitt Question. 
 
 of Etig"lish Baptists also repudiated, was adopted in 
 1641, and hence Neal's sug-g-estion that the Church 
 adopting- this method was the first immersion con- 
 gregation found in Knglish Baptist history. Crosby, 
 chronolog-ically, in the order of his narrative, puts 
 the adoption of the Blunt method first and the Spils- 
 bury method second; and after showing" that the 
 g"reatest number and the more judicious of the En- 
 g-lish Baptists repudiated the Blunt method he shows 
 that they ^'■affirmed and practiced accordingly that 
 after -a^ general corniptiu)i. of baptism, an unoaptized 
 person mig-ht warrantably baptize, and so begin a 
 7'eforniation.''^ Before this, Crosby says that the 
 " two methods," with reference to the same period 
 of time, "were indeed both taken by the Baptists 
 at their revival of immersion in Eng-land," and while 
 the Blunt method has the precedence in the order of 
 time, the Spilsbury method must have followed 
 at about the same time, 1640-41. Any other con- 
 clusion would do violence to the connected and con- 
 sistent order of Crosby's narrative. 
 
 That both the Helwisse and Spilsbury Baptists of 
 Eng-land practiced affusion before Blunt restored im- 
 mersion (1640-41) is also clearly probable according 
 to Dr. Evans in his History of the Early Eng-lish 
 Baptists. (Vols, I., II., 1864.) Besides showing-, 
 according to Dr. Muller, of Amsterdam, that Smyth 
 and his followers were by their own confession 
 ^'self-baptized"* (Vol. I., p. 209), he shows also, ac- 
 cording to the same authority, that the Smyth 
 schism from the Helwisse body was received by the 
 Mennonite Waterlanders who were Armiaians and 
 affusionists and who, after examining "their doc- 
 trine of salvation and the g7-ound and form of their 
 baptism," said: "No difference was found between 
 them and us." (Ibid p. 208.) The conclusion is 
 that Smyth, Helwisse and company were all affu- 
 sionists and not immersionists. Dr. Muller himself 
 says (Evans I., p. 223) that those of the Smyth fac-
 
 Crosby^s Account. 19 
 
 tion who had not yet been baptized, as it appeared to 
 him, were admitted to the Waterlanders by sprink- 
 ling- and not immersion. "But," sa3's he, "they 
 (the Waterlanders) cared only for the ver}- naiure 
 of baptism, and were therefore willing- to admit even 
 those who were baptized by a mode differing- from 
 theirs, just as we are wanted to do now-a-days." 
 Dr. Thomas (VIL, p. 54) seems to think here that 
 Muller implies that among- the Netherlanders im- 
 mersion, though not ordinarily practiced, was not 
 wholly rejected, and would not have been regarded 
 as a material difference in "form and foundation" 
 with sprinkling; but even if this were true, which 
 is not probable, it is evident here that Muller has no 
 reference to the mode of Smyth's baptism which 
 was found, upon examination, to be the same in 
 ^'■form and foundation " with the affusion of the Wa- 
 terlanders. He was evidently self- baptized and that 
 by affusion. 
 
 Again, Dr. Evans (Vol. 11. , pp. 52, 53) admits the 
 conclusion, "more than warranted." that there was 
 nothing ' i the controversial writings of Smyth 
 and Helwisse to warrant the supposition that they 
 regarded immersion as the proper and only mode of 
 baptism; and he (Evans) maintains the probability 
 that up to the time of Blunt's deputation to Holland 
 in order to secure immersion, both the General and 
 Particular Baptists of England retained the custom 
 of their Dutch brethren in the practice of affusion. 
 Evans points out in proof of the fact, the case of the 
 "Old Men, or Aspcrsi,'"' and the " New Men, or Im- 
 mersi^'''' at Chelmsford, 1646. Even at that period 
 he says (Vol. H., p. 79): "Most will see that 
 the practice of the Mennonite brethren (affusion) 
 was common in this country (England). These 
 'New Men' (or Imnicrsi) soon cast them (the ' Old 
 Men,' or Aspcrsi) in the shade, and their practice 
 became obsolete. Immersion, as the mode of bap- 
 tism, became the rule with both sections of the Bap- 
 tist community. Indeed from this time (1646), be-
 
 20 Review of Dr. J. B. Thomas on the Whitaitt Question. 
 
 yond the fact already g-iven (at Chelmsford), we 
 know not of a solitary exception." 
 
 Thus Crosby's Account of the restoration of im- 
 mersion by the Baptists of England by the "two 
 methods" described — which evidently took place, 
 1640-41, according- to the Kiffin Manuscript and af- 
 firmed by Neal — is here confirmed by Evans, who is 
 a conservative, careful, accurate and unpartizan 
 Baptist historian and who wrote in 1864. 
 
 In his review of my book in the Wes/ern Recorder^ 
 Dr. Thomas cites Crosby (Vol. I., p. 99) to show a 
 "reformation of baptism," in which Helwisse and 
 Morton joined with Smyth, whom Crosby refers to 
 as "restorers of immersion" in that "latter age," 
 from all of which he (Dr. Thomas) infers an "im- 
 mersing- church in England," as we have already 
 seen, at an "earlier date" than the KifQn Manu- 
 script ascribes. This "reformation of baptism," 
 whatever its mode or manner of introduction, took 
 place in Holland, and long before Helwisse and 
 Morton with their church came back to England in 
 1611; and this "reformation," as we have further 
 seen, does not imply an "immersing church in 
 England " at an early date, unless it can be proved 
 that Smyth's baptism was immersion, which is 
 wholly improbable and which, if it was, Crosby re- 
 pudiates as never having succeeded to the " English 
 Baptists," confirmed by the Bampfield Document. 
 
 Smyth and Helwisse, in originating their "re- 
 formation of baptism" in Holland simply broke 
 with "infant baptism," and set up the Scriptural 
 practice of "believers' baptism;" and although the 
 Dutch Anabaptists practiced the same by affusion, 
 yet Smyth originated believers' baptism by self- 
 affusion, " supposing there was no true administra- 
 tor to be found." His opponents — such men as 
 Ainsworth, Johnson, Robinson, Clifton, Jessop and 
 others — charged him, in his own lifetime, with his 
 self-baptism, which he never denied, but rather de- 
 fended; but it was in later times that the tradition
 
 Crosby^s Arcoiint. 21 
 
 of his immersion orig-inated. Even Dr. Wall calls 
 him the 'beginner of baptism by dipping-," and he 
 says of him again: " Being- more desperately wicked 
 than others, he baptized himself and then baptized 
 others, and from this man, the English Baptists 
 have successively received their new administration 
 of baptism." (Plain Discovery, p. 44.) Dr. Wall 
 also follows another false tradition, that Spilsbury 
 went to Holland to be baptized of Smyth, when 
 Smjth had long been dead before Spilsbury's church 
 ■came into existence; and it was from such "oral 
 traditions" that the Pedobaptists charged upon the 
 Baptists of England that their succession in baptism 
 was derived from ' ' Smyth and his disciples.'" Crosby 
 says (Vol. I., p. 95) that the Pedobaptists made 
 "great improvement" of this supposed fact, and 
 tried from hence to " render all the baptizings among 
 the English Baptists to be invalid, supposing- ih^xxi 
 to be his successors, and that he was the first ad- 
 ministrator of it among them." 
 
 Whatever Crosby's opinion as to the mode of 
 Smyth's baptism, or as to its self-origination, he 
 proceeds in the following pages to repudiate the 
 " oral tradition" of Wall and others that this bap- 
 tism succeeded to the English Baptists. Turning 
 to the period when Blunt introduced immersion in 
 England by succession, and to the method by which 
 the Anti-successionists followed in the same move- 
 ment, he says, after touching upon the Pedobaptist 
 argument "against the reviving of the practice of 
 immersion" which had for some time been dis- 
 used:" "I do not find any Englishman among the 
 first restorers of immersion in this latter age ac- 
 cused of baptizing himself, but only the said John 
 Smyth, and there is ground to (question the truth of 
 that also. . . . But enough of this. If he were 
 guilty of what they charge him with, 'tis no blem- 
 ish on English Baptists, who neither approved of 
 any such method, nor did they receive their baptism 
 from him." (Vol. I., pp. 97 lOO, )
 
 CHAPTKR III. 
 
 William Kiffin. 
 
 ON page 22 (Art. II.) Dr. Thomas asserts that 
 William Kiffin left Spilsburj's Church, ac- 
 cording" to I vimey, "near 1640," because of the oc- 
 cupancy of his (Spilsbury's) pulpit by an unim- 
 mersed minister; and that this was the "occasion" 
 of the foundation of the Devonshire Square Baptist 
 Church in London, " near 1640" by William Kiffin. 
 "How could he," asks Dr. Thomas, "about 1640 
 have led a secession because of so exalted a concep- 
 tion of the necessity of immersion, and at a later 
 date have declared that, in 1641, immersion was un- 
 known in England? " As we shall presently see, no 
 such question, according to the history of that pe- 
 riod, was ever sprung before 1640-'41, if ever, among 
 the Baptists of England. This was one of the mis- 
 takes for which Ivimey is famous in the history of 
 that time, and in which he here misplaces the date 
 of a fact stated by Crosby which occurred after 
 1644-45, and not before or "near 1640." In his crit- 
 icism of my book, "A Review of the Question," in 
 the ]]^esle?'n Recorder^ Dr. Thomas claimed that I 
 erred in parenthetically classing Kiffin as of Blunt's 
 "persuasion" (in Crosby's Account) before any 
 mention of Blunt had been made; and because, while 
 Blunt was a successionist, Kiffin belonged to the 
 flock of Spilsbury, who repudiated succession — add- 
 ing also that Kiffin joined Spilsbury's congregation 
 in 1638, and that it is "no answer to say that Cros- 
 by is mistaken in placing Kiffin's secession with 
 
 Spilsbury." 
 
 According to Kiffin's own statement (Ivimey 11. , 
 p. 297; Orme's Lite of Kiffin, p. 14), he claims that 
 
 (22)
 
 Williavi Kiffin. 2S 
 
 in 1638, when 23 3-ear3 of ag-c, he joined an Inde- 
 pendent Church, not Spilsbury's, as the sequel 
 shows. Orme {tb/d. p. 115, Note XXL), says of 
 Mr. Jessey: "lie was pastor of the Independent 
 Church of which Kiftin was a member, and changed 
 his sentiments some time after KifHn left it." iu 
 1643 {/did. p. 22), after a return from Holland, 
 Kiflin quiL business, for the time, anl devoted him- 
 self to the "study of God's word," being- "greatly 
 pressed," he says, " by the people with whom 1 was 
 a Dicmher {not pastor) to continue with them" — 
 evidently meaning- the Jessey people with whom he 
 was associated. With Hansered Knollys, 1()43, he 
 seems still to have been a member of the Jessey 
 Church when the question arose about the baptism 
 of Knollys' child (Gould, Open Communion, p. cxxix) 
 in the "Conference" in which Kiffin was "one of 
 those who were concerned," and the " issue whereof 
 was the conviction of sixteen members against Pedo- 
 baptism " and their withdrawal from the Jessey 
 Church. Kiffin, according to (iould (p. cxxx), was 
 probably among- the number who withdrew; and, if 
 so, he was still "counted as one" of the Church in 
 1644, since none of the sixteen were excluded down 
 to May of that year. Crosby (Vol. III., p. 4), al- 
 ludes to this same "Conference" of 1643, and men- 
 tions the fact that Kiffin was "one of those con- 
 cerned" in it; and he immediately adds that Kiffin 
 "joined himself to the church of Mr. John Spils- 
 bury; but a difference arising about permitting per- 
 sons to preach amongst them that had not been bap- 
 tized by immersion, they parted b\ consent, yet kept 
 good correspondence." Some time, then, in 1643, 
 Kiffin withdrew from Jessey, and afterwards j(^incd 
 Spilsbury; and after that he withdrew from Spils- 
 bury for the reason expressed l)y Crosb)^ above — 
 if, indeed, such an event ever happened. 
 
 Both Crosby and Ivimcy err, however, in placing 
 Kiffin with Spilsbury in 1638; and Ivimey makes an-
 
 24 Review of Dr. J. II. TJiomds on the Whitsiit Question. 
 
 other mistake (Vol. II., p. 297) in assig-ning- 1638 as 
 the date of Kiffin's secession from Jessey and union 
 with Spilsbury. Worse still, he errs, by his own 
 confession, when he says that "soon after 1G40, as 
 it is supposed.,"' the Devonshire Square Church was 
 founded, and Kiflin became pastor. According- to 
 Gould (Open Communion, p. cxxxi) Ivimey, (Life 
 of Kiffin, p. 17), corrects his mistake, latterly, 
 wherein he says: "About the year 1653, he (Kif&n) 
 left Mr. Spilsbury, and became the pastor of the 
 Baptist church which for many years met in Fisher's 
 Folly, now Devonshire Square." "This," says 
 Gould, " is the latest form in which Mr. Ivimey has 
 stated his conclusion as to the date of the formation 
 of this church. In 1814, when he published Vol. 
 II. of his History of the Eng-lish Baptists, he ' sup- 
 fosed'' that it was founded soon after 1640 (p. 297). 
 Of course his supposition was incorrect, as Kifl&n 
 was not a Baptist at that date.'' 
 
 Dr. Thomas claims that Kifiin was pastor of the 
 Devonshire Square Church in 1644, when the seven 
 churches of London issued the Confession of that 
 date; but his man, Ivimey (Vol. II., p. 296), has Mr. 
 Keach, and not Kijfin, pastor of that church at that 
 time! Alas! for Ivimey! 
 
 Gould, however (Open Communion, p. cxxxii), 
 holds that even Ivimey's later \i&w (Life of Kiffin, 
 p, 17), is probibly wrong-, and that Kifl&n moved to 
 Devonshire Square with his cong-regation after 1653. 
 He infers the fact from the "return made to Arch- 
 bishop Sheldon by the Bishop of Lonaon. in 1669, 
 of the Conventicles in the Diocese of London,'' in 
 which is found no mention or Fisher's Folly or 
 Devonshire Square; and the only entry in the " re- 
 turn " in relation to Kiffin is that he was "preacher " 
 or " teacher" in " Finsbury Court, over against the 
 artillery g-round in Morefield " — or Bunhill Field. 
 If, according- to Ivime}^ Kiffin was not pastor of 
 Devonshire Square Church in 1644 (nor founded it
 
 William Kiffin. 25 
 
 in 1640), he may still be mistaken as to 1653. From 
 certain data, Gould thinks that Kiffin, after leaving- 
 Jessey, 1643, and after a short connection with Spils- 
 bury, united with Patient in another organization 
 which was one of the "seven" churches which is- 
 sued the " Confession " of 1644, at the top of the list 
 of the signers of which are found the names of Kif- 
 fin and Patient; and that, many years afterward, 
 Kiffin removed with his church to Devonshire 
 Square. He speaks of the history of the church as 
 traditional, and says that the " orig-inal records" 
 of the church "are lost" (p. cxxxi); and if we are 
 to judge from the conflicting- accounts of Ivimey, its 
 early history must be a matter of tradition. 
 
 At all events, the probability is that Kiffin never 
 became a Baptist until 1641. Gould logically draws 
 this conclusion, (Close Communion, pp. cxxvii., 
 cxxviii., cxxix.), from Kiffin's "Sober Discourse of 
 Rig-ht to Church Communion," . . . London, 1681, 
 in which he says: "I used all endeavors . . . that 
 "I mig-ht be directed in a rig-ht way to worship; and 
 "after some time concluded that the safest way was 
 "to follow the footsteps of the flock, namely, that 
 "order laid down by Christ and his apostles, and 
 "practiced by the primitive Christians in their times, 
 "which I found to be that, after conversion, they 
 "were baptized, and added to the church, and con- 
 "tinued in the Apostles' doctrine, fellowship, break- 
 "ing- of bread and prayer, according- to which I 
 "thought myself conformable, and have continued 
 "in the profession of the same for these forty years.'''' 
 "Forty years," subtracted from 1681, the year in 
 which he wrote his "Sober Discourse," leaves 1641, 
 the year in which Kiffin became a Baptist. Accord- 
 ing- to Crosby (Vol. I., p. 310), this was the year 
 (1641) in which "a much greater number" than 
 before withdrew from Mr. Jessey's church of which 
 Kiffin was then a member, and were l)apti/Cod, ac- 
 cording- to the Kiffin Manuscript, by Blunt and Black-
 
 26 Review of Dr. J. B. Thomas on the Whitsiit Question. 
 
 lock; and although Kiffin's name does not appear 
 among- the fifty-three baptized in January ot that 
 year, he may have been baptized among- the number 
 immersed in the latter part of this year, or after- 
 wards. At all events, in 1642, we find him in a 
 dispute with Dr. Featley, as a full-fledged Baptist 
 — probably still remaining with Jessey 'till 1643. 
 
 The history of Kiffin, then, so far as it can be 
 gleaned in its connection with the Blunt movement, 
 accords with the facts of his own manuscript, with 
 the exception that he did not unite with Spilsbury 
 in 1638. The Jessey Records, of which the Kifl6.n 
 Manuscript is evidently a version, gives the names 
 of Thomas Wilson and others who are represented 
 in the Kiffin Manuscript, as being dismissed with 
 William Kiffin; but the name of Kiffin is properly 
 left out of the Jessey Records of 1638; and this ac- 
 cords with the facts of history, namely, that in 1638, 
 according to Kiffin's own statement (Ivimey, Vol. 
 II., p. 297; Orme, p. 115), he joined an Independent 
 church, which proves to be Jessey's instead of Spils- 
 bury's. How the mistake occurs in the Kiffin Man- 
 uscript we do not know; but the Jessey Records on 
 this point correct the mistake and conform to the 
 facts of Kiflfin's history in connection with the Blunt 
 movement. The truth is that, as Crosby says, 
 Kiffin, " who lived in those times," was " a leader 
 among those of that persuasion" — that is, of the 
 Blunt "persuasion;" and may have been baptized 
 by Blunt or Blacklock, upon his conversion to Bap- 
 tist principles in the latter part of 1641. He was, 
 in other words, a successionist; and in course of 
 time he became a regular " Landmark Baptist'' of 
 the modern type — not only a close communionist, 
 but opposed to pulpit affiliation with Pedobaptists 
 — that is, according to Crosby, (Vol. III., p. 4), 
 which seems to be traditional. 
 
 To be sure, as Dr. Thomas says, Spilsbury was 
 an anti-successionist, and so perhaps of most of his
 
 William Kiffin. 27 
 
 church; but it is clear that Blunt, Lucar and others 
 of the "forenamed" of that church were succts- 
 sionists and joined with the greater secession from 
 Jessey's church in the restoration of immersion in 
 1640 41, through a legitimate administrator secured 
 by Blunt from Holland. Spilsbury, while not bap- 
 tized himself, in 1638, baptized Sam Eaton and oth- 
 ers upon his anti-succession theory, that "baptizcd- 
 ness is not essential to the administrator;" but ac- 
 cording to Spilsbur}', himself, there were some who 
 "scrupled the correctness" of his conduct. This 
 was before 1640-1641, when Spilsbury's baptism was 
 only believers' affusion; but it is evident that the 
 dissatisfaction of some as to his right of adminis- 
 tration was at the bottom of the restoration move- 
 ment in 1640, which secured immersion through a 
 successionist administrator in 1641. It is likely 
 that such men of his flock as Blunt, Lucar and oth- 
 ers, were the objectors who soon after, are found in 
 conference and prayer with some of Jessey's church 
 over the matter of baptism, "that it ought to be by 
 dipping," and how to "enjoy it," through a proper 
 administrator, according- to the Jessey Records or 
 the Kifiin Manuscript. I also infer this dissatisfac- 
 tion and agitation as g-rowing- out of the Spilsbury 
 theory and practice and leading- up to the succes- 
 sion movement, from Hutchinson's "Treati^^e Con- 
 cerning- the Covenant and Baptism," in which he 
 says: "The great objection was the want of an ad- 
 ministrator, which, as I have heard, was removed 
 by sending- certain messengers to Holland, whence 
 they were supplied;" and Crosby appeals for con- 
 firmation of Hutchinson's declaration to the Kiffin 
 Manuscript, which more fully details the matter. 
 (Vol. I., p. 100-102). The movement of l()4ti-41, 
 evidently orisfinatcd in Spilsbury's church by those 
 "persons" who first "scrupled the correctness" of 
 Spilsbury's theory and practice of baptism by an 
 unbaptized administrator; and in the discussion of
 
 28 Review of Dr. J. B. Thomas on the Whitsitt Question. 
 
 the proper administrator, the proper mode of bap- 
 tism by immersion became the leading- feature of 
 the movement. 
 
 It is also true, as Dr. Thomas sug-g-ests, that Mr. 
 Jessey, who joined in the movement of 164U-1641, 
 upon his conviction with Blunt and the rest, that 
 "baptism oug-ht to be by dipping-," was a Pedobap- 
 tist and was not immersed until 1645; but this does 
 not preclude the fact that he took part in the agita- 
 tion and movement which restored immersion in 
 1641; and what is claimed of him by Neal as having- 
 laid the '■'■foundation'''' of the first Baptist cong-rega- 
 tion which he had met with in Eng-land, may only 
 apply to the secession from his church which joined 
 with Blunt, Lucar and the rest of the "forenamed" 
 from the Spilsbury church, which constituted this 
 first immersion or Baptist Church in England. No 
 doubt the larger number who united in the move- 
 ment were from the Jessey church; and this larger 
 secession from Jessey could be properly called the 
 "foundation" of the first immersion church — and so 
 ascribed to Jessey by preeminence ou account of 
 his prominence as a leader with Blunt in the origi- 
 nal ag-itation which led to the movement in 1641. 
 Why Jessey did not end up with the movement in 
 1641, is singular; but it must be remembered that, 
 thoug-h he finally became a Baptist in practice, 
 1645, he was always on the fence of the mixed- 
 church order of Baptists, and he may be said to be 
 the father of the open communion idea in the Bap- 
 tist denomination. While he was convinced with 
 Blunt and the rest that immersion was the proper 
 mode of baptism, his convictions were not of that 
 uncompromising- character which led Blunt, Lucar, 
 Blacklock, Kiffin and others immediately, upon the 
 adoption of Baptist principles to enter upon Baptist 
 practice; and while Jessey seems to have g-otten the 
 credit of laying the "foundation" of the first im- 
 mersion Baptist Church in Eng-land, it was Blunt
 
 William Kiffin. 29 
 
 who deserves the honor, and of whose church, in 
 1646, Edwards in his Gang-raena, speaks as "one of 
 the fin t and prime churches of the Anabaptists in 
 these later limes." 
 
 Another sing-ular fact is that Kiffin seems to have 
 remained with Jessey until 1643-4, when he with- 
 drew from his church on account of the controversy 
 about infant baptism by which, finally, "Jessey and 
 the g-reater part of his church were proselyted to 
 the opinion and practice of the Anti-pedobaptists" 
 (Crosby, Vol. III., p. 4; Gould, "Open Communion," 
 p. cxxx). It was not until his separation from 
 Spilsbury, whenever that was, that we discover 
 Kiffin's stricter orthodoxy as a close communionist 
 and anti-affiliationist. Even then he did not l^reak 
 with Spilsbury and his church in fellowship; and 
 perhaps this state of liberality and leniency ex- 
 plains why Kiffin, before he g-rew into stricter views, 
 remained with Jessey down to 1643. Jessey was 
 not only a Pedobaptist, thoug^h an immersionist 
 from 1641-2 to 1644-5, but as a professed Baptist from 
 1645 onward, he retained, all his life, persons 
 sprinkled in infancy in his church membership. 
 
 Nevertheless, at this period, we find considerable 
 correspondence among- the Baptist churches of Eng- 
 land, which shows that they did not break with the 
 Jessey church. In fact, it seems that from 1641 to 
 1645, thoug-h Jessey had not abandoned infant bap- 
 tism, nor been immersed himself, he and his church 
 were reg-arded as Baptists — apparentl}- in transition. 
 Even after 1645 when Jessey had followed the con- 
 victions of 1641, his practice as a Baptist did not 
 differ far from his practice as a Pedobaptist between 
 those dates. Crosby seems to regard Jesscy's church 
 as Baptist from 1641 onward, when (Vol. III., p. 42) 
 in reply to Neal he says: "Thus it appears, there 
 were three Baptist Churches in England which Mr. 
 Neal met with before /hai of Mr. Jesscy's."' But for 
 the several secessions from Jessey's church from
 
 30 Review of Dr. J. B. Thomas on the Whilsitt (Question. 
 
 1641 to 1643, it might be inferred that the Blunt 
 movement remained with Jessey, as Kiffin did, to 
 1643; but with the "forenamed" from Spilsbury's 
 church, it would seem that the secessions from Jes- 
 sey formed the Blunt church, of which Edwards, in 
 Gang-raena speaks in 1646. There i&, however, 
 some obscurity on this point.
 
 CPIAPTER IV. 
 
 The Kiffin Manuscript. 
 
 BEFORE entering- upon the discussion of this 
 subject, and for the benefit of the reader, I 
 will here give the several documents used in this 
 discussion, as found in the collection of 17lu-ll and 
 sent to Dr. Whitsitt by Geo. Gould as transcribed 
 as follows: 
 
 THE JESSEY CHURCH RECORDS. 
 
 There having" been much discussing-, these denying- 
 Truth of ye Parish Churches, & ye Church become now 
 so larg^e yt it mig^ht be prejudicial, these following- desired 
 dismission that the3' might become an p]ntire Church .i 
 further ye Communion of those Churches in Order among-st 
 themselves, wch at last was granted to them .S: performed 
 Sept. 12, 1633, viz: Henry Parker & Wife Widd Fearne. . . . 
 Hatmaker Marke Luker, Mr. Wilson Mary Wilson Thos. 
 Allen Jo: Milburn. To these joyned Rich. Blunt, Thos. 
 Hubert, Rich: Tredwcll & his wife Kath: John Trimber, 
 William Jenning-s & Sam Eaton, Mary Greenway, Mr 
 Eaton with some others receiving a further baptism. 
 
 Others joyned to them. 
 
 1638. These also being of the same judgement with Sam 
 Eaton and desiring^ to depart and not be censured, our in- 
 terest in them was remitted with Prayer made in their be- 
 halfe June 8th 1638. They having first forsaken I's ».'v: 
 joyned with Mr. Spilsburv, viz Mr Peter Ferrer Hen Pen 
 Tho: Wilson Wm Batty Mrs Allen (died 1639) Mrs Nor- 
 wood. 
 
 ORIGINAL KIFFIN MANUSCRIPT. 
 
 1633. Sundry of ye Church whereof Mr Jacob and Mr 
 John Eathrop had been pastors, being dissatisfyed with ye 
 Churches owning- of English Parishes, to the true Churches 
 desired dismission I'v joyned tog-ether among tlicmselves, as 
 Mr Henry Parker, Mr. Tlui Sliojiard. Mr. S;nii Katon, Marke 
 Luker, c^ others, with whom joyned Mr. Wm Kiffin. 
 
 (31)'
 
 32 Review of Dr. J. B. Thomas on the Whitsitt Question. 
 
 1638. Mr Thomas Wilson, Mr. Pen, & H. Pen, & 3 more 
 being' convinced that Baptism was not for infants, but pro- 
 fessed Believers joyned with Mr Jo Spilsbury, ye Churches 
 favor being' desired therein. 
 
 1640. 3d Mo : The Church became two by mutual consent 
 just half being- with Mr. P. Barebone, & ye other half e with 
 Mr H Jessey. Mr Richard Blunt with him being convinced 
 of Baptism yt also ought to be by dipping- in ye Body into 
 ye Water, resembling- Burial & rising- again. 2 Col. 2. 12. 
 Rom. 6. 4 had sober conference about in ye Church, & then 
 with some of the forenamed who also ware so convinced. 
 And after Prayer & Conference about their so enjoying- it, 
 none having then so practiced in England to professed believ- 
 ers & hearing that some in ye Netherlands had so practiced 
 they ag-reed and sent over Mr. Rich. Blunt (who understood 
 Dutch) with letters of Commendation, and who was kindly 
 accepted there, «& returned with letters from them Jo: Batte 
 a Teacher there and from that^Church to such as sent him. 
 
 1641. They proceed therein, viz Those Persons that ware 
 persuaded that Baptism should be by dipping- ye Body had 
 mett in two Companies, and did intend to meet after this, 
 all these agreed to proceed alike togeather And then Mani- 
 festing (not by any formal Words a Covenant) which word 
 was scrupled by some of them, but by mutual desires and 
 agreement each testified : 
 
 Those two Companyes did set apart one to Baptize the 
 rest; &. so it was solemnly performed \>j them. 
 
 Mr Blunt baptized Mr Blacklock yt was a Teacher 
 amongst them »& Mr Blunt being baptized, he & Mr Black- 
 lock Baptized ye rest of their friends that ware so minded, 
 & many being added to them they increased much. 
 
 "The names of all 11 Mo. Janu: begin etc." A list of 
 forty-one names, to which twelve were added January 9, 
 making fifty-three in all as follows: «S:c. 
 
 "1639. Mr Green wth Captn Spencer had begun a Con- 
 gregation in Crutched Frj'ars, to whom Paul Hobson joyned 
 who was now with many of that Church one of ye seven." 
 
 I omit here the 1644 part of this Manuscript which 
 mentions the union of the seven churches which is- 
 sued the Confession of Faith in that year, as not 
 bearing- upon the subject at issue. 
 
 SUBSTANCE OF THE KIFFIN MANUSCRIPT AS 
 USED BY CROSBY. 
 
 There was a congregation of Protestant Dissenters of the 
 independent Persuasion in London, gathered in the year
 
 The Kiffin Manuscript. 33 
 
 1616, whereof Mr. Henry Jacob wa» the first pastor; and 
 after him succeeded Mr. John Lathrop, who was their min- 
 ister at this time. In this society several persons finding- 
 that the congreg-ations kept not their first principles of sep- 
 aration, and being also convinced that baptism was not to 
 be administered to infants, but such only as professed faith 
 in Christ, desired that they might be dismissed from that 
 communion, and allowed to form a distinct congregation in 
 such order as was most agreeable to their own sentiments. 
 The church considering that they were now grown very 
 numerous, and so more than could in these times of perse- 
 cution conveniently meet together, and believing also that 
 those persons acted from a principle of conscience, and not 
 obstinacy, agreed to allow them the liberty they desired, 
 and that they should be constituted a distinct church; which 
 was performed the 12th of September 1633. And as they 
 believed that baptism was not rightly administered to in- 
 fants, so the)' looked upon the baptism they had received in 
 that age as invalid: whereupon most or all of them received 
 a new baptism. Their minister was Mr. John Spilsbury. 
 What number they were is uncertain, because of the men- 
 tioning of the names of about twenty men and women it is 
 added, with divers others. 
 
 In the year 1638 Mr. William Kiffin, Mr. Thomas Wilson, 
 and others being of the same judgment, were upon their 
 request, dismissed to the said Mr. Spilsbury's congrega- 
 tion. 
 
 In the year 1639 another congregation of Baptists was 
 formed, whose place of meeting was in Crutched-Fryars; 
 the chief promoters of which were Mr. Green, Mr. Paul 
 Hobson and Captain Spencer. (Crosby, Vol. I., pp. 148-49.) 
 For in the year 1640 this church became two by consent; 
 just half, says the Manuscript, being with Mr. P. Barebone, 
 and the other half with Mr. Henry Jessey. (Crosbv, Vol. 
 III., p. 41.) 
 
 Several sober and pious persons belonging to the congre- 
 gations of the dissenters about London were convinced that 
 believers were the only proper subjects of baptism and that 
 it ought to be administered by immersion or dipping the 
 whole body into the water, in resemblance of a burial and 
 resurrection, according to Colos. ii. 12 and Rom. vi. 4. 
 That they often met together to pray and confer about this 
 matter and to consult what methods they should take to en- 
 joy this ordinance in its primitive purity; that they could 
 not be satisfied about any administrator in England, to be- 
 gin this practice; because tho' some in this nation rejected 
 the baptistn of infants, yet t/iey had not as they knew of re- 
 vived the ancient custotn of immersion: But, hearing thai 
 some in the Netherlands practiced it, they agreed to send 
 3
 
 34 Review of Dr. J. B. Thomas on Uie Whitailt Question. 
 
 over one Mr. Richard Blunt, who understood the Dutch lan- 
 guag-e; That he went accordingly, carrying letters of recom- 
 mendation with him, and was kindly received both by the 
 church there and Mr. John Batten, their teacher. 
 
 That, upon his return, he baptized Mr. Samuel Blacklock, 
 a minister, and these two baptized the rest of their com- 
 pany [whose names are in the Manuscript to the number of 
 fifty-three]. (Crosby, Vol. I., pp. 101-2.) 
 
 Dr. Thomas, in his interpretation of the Kifi&n 
 Manuscript, does not speak dog^matically. He does 
 not pronounce the document a "forg-ery" or a 
 " fraud." After subjecting- the document, as a law- 
 yer, to all the severest tests of evidential validity, 
 according to the strictest demands of " authenticity, 
 pertinence, clearness, and authoritativeness," appli- 
 cable to a g-enuine or official record in court, he claims 
 only a "modified conception of the sig-nificance of 
 the parag-raph in question," around which hangs 
 the controversy. He makes no "pretense to infal- 
 libility, and admits that his conception may be vul- 
 nerable." While he thinks that Dr. Whitsitt is 
 '■''certainly not right " in his construction of the doc- 
 ument in general, and of the main paragraph in par- 
 ticular, he says of his own interpretation that it is 
 ^hwt certainly right.'''' He concludes (Art. III. , p. 27): 
 "Perhaps no safe solution has been reached by any- 
 body, or is possible. In that case the testimony re- 
 mains ambiguous and its force is neutralized." The 
 criticism of Dr. Thomas, on this point, is the most 
 scholarly and generous, from an adverse standpoint, 
 which has characterized this contention; and he 
 well says, to the shame of many others : ' 'It would be 
 indecorous, not to say silly, to affect to treat as insig- 
 nificant the formidable array of testimony which 
 has convinced so discriminating a judge as Dr. 
 Whitsitt, to say nothing of the later concurrence of 
 careful and competent investigators, such as Profes- 
 sors Neuman and Vedder." Only a scholar and 
 a gentleman can thus judge. 
 
 While in the main I agree with Dr. Thomas as
 
 The Kiffin Manuscript. 35 
 
 reg-ards the rig-id principles upon which he subjects 
 the Kiffin Manuscript to the tests of documentary 
 evidence, essential to the absolute authenticity of 
 official records, yet if his tests were severely applied 
 to all our historical testimony, much of our history 
 — especially Baptist history — would be wanting-. I 
 do not agree with him, however, that the Kiffin 
 Manuscript is devoid of official test. He allows the 
 validity of even '■'' oral tradition'^'' (pp. 21, 22), within 
 the hundred years limit allowed by historical critics, 
 with reg-ard to Crosby's opinion that Smyth and 
 Helwisse were "restorers of immersion;" and yet 
 he would deny the same validity to the Kiffin Manu- 
 script, which is a written document, and which has 
 a far better foundation in fact than that " oral tra- 
 dition of Smyth's immersion, which, in the lig-ht of 
 later historical evidence, has proven to be affusion. 
 The tradition at the time Crosby wrote was so un- 
 satisfactory, in the absence of Smyth's writing-s, 
 that he (Crosby) repudiated Smyth's baptism and 
 emphasized the fact that it was never received by 
 the Eng-lish Baptists; but he uses the Kiffin Manu- 
 script, with perfect reliance upon it as a g-enuine 
 document, both as to its 1633-1638 dates and as to 
 the facts which belong- to the 1640-1641 dates. 
 Much of his history of the Baptists of Eng-land is 
 referred to this document as authoritative; and if 
 Crosby's opinion is to be taken as a test of the com- 
 parative g-enuineness of the "oral tradition" of 
 Smyth's immersion and the Kiffin Manuscript, then 
 Dr. Thomas' criticism against the latter falls to the 
 ground. He can take Crosby's use of "oral tradi- 
 tion " in the one case in which the tradition is prac- 
 tically repudiated, but he cannot take Crosby's use 
 of the Kiffin document upon which he (Crosby) 
 placed full reliance! 
 
 Dr. Thomas says that the Kiffin manuscript ma v be 
 reg-arded as a "private paper" without the guarant}' 
 of a "place of deposit;" but at the time of Crosby
 
 36 Review of Dr. J. B. Thomas on the Whitsitt Question. 
 
 it must have had a place of deposit as it now has, 
 and must have been reg-arded by him not simply as 
 a private paper, but as a document suf&cientjy au- 
 thenticated to be used as history, and so of those 
 v^rho followed him in the chronicles of the Eng-lish 
 Baptists.* As to the facts which belong- to the 
 1640-1641 dates found in the Kifl&n manuscript, 
 Crosby confirms his use of the document as authori- 
 tative by the parallel use of Hutchinson on the 
 same subject as contemporary support; and Dr. 
 Whitsitt's critics, so far as I have seen, do not con- 
 trovert Crosby's use of Kiffin's manuscript as to the 
 1633-1638 dates, which when taken tog-ether with 
 the 1640-1641 dates, confirm the authority of the 
 document as a whole. Dr. Thomas says that the 
 KijB&n manuscript "describes only past but not con- 
 temporaneous events," which robs it of one of the 
 elements of authenticity; but this is as true of the 
 1633-1638 part as of the 1640-1641 part of the docu- 
 ment; and if it should be invalidated by the rule of 
 Dr. Thomas, we should not only be robbed of the 
 Jessey-Blunt movement of 1640-1641, but of the 
 Spilsbury movement 1633-1638, which none of 
 the critics dispute. Crosby certainly ignored Dr. 
 Thomas' ruling- and endorsed the document in both 
 its parts, confirming- the second part by the con- 
 temporary authority of Hutchinson; and he found 
 the document as a whole in the collection of 1712, 
 which gave it at least a quasi "place of deposit.'* 
 More than this, Kifi&n must have been contemporary 
 with the collector, Mr. Stinton, some time in life. 
 The Kifiin manuscript is g-ood probable evidence; 
 and if Dr. Thomas' rule was applied to all our 
 
 *The Kiffin manuscript evidently belonged to the collection called: 
 "A Repository of Divers Historical Matters relating to the English Anti- 
 Pedobaptists. Collected from Original Papers or Faithful Extracts. 
 Anno 1712." The collector of the greater part of the materials from 
 which Crosby wrote his history was Mr. Benjamin Stinton (Crosby, 
 Vol. I, page i, Preface) ; and it is probable that he received the Jessey 
 Records from Mr. Adams when he began to make his collection in 1710-11. 
 Stinton who intended to write the first Baptist history, was evidently 
 the collector of the entire "Repositorj-" mentioned above.
 
 The Kiffin Manuscript. 37 
 
 documentary evidence, from this standpoint, it 
 would destroy most of the probable testimony by 
 which much of our received historical data is au- 
 thoritatively established. 
 
 Again, Dr. Thomas says that the "vital sentence" 
 in the Kiffin manuscript "records no corporate fact" 
 legitimate to official notice — that it expresses only 
 a sweeping opiu/o/i, reducing itself thereby from an 
 official to a personal and seemingly irrelevant utter- 
 ance." He refers to the sentence: "None having 
 then so practiced in England to professed believers" 
 — a declaration based upon the conviction of Blunt 
 and others that "baptism ought to be by dipping," 
 without the ability of "enjoying it," except by 
 sending to Holland for it, because there was no 
 such practice to professed believers in England. 
 This sentence does record a "corporate fact legiti- 
 mate to official notice," not an irrelevant personal 
 opinion; and this corporate fact expresses the reason 
 why another fact depended upon a possible con- 
 dition by a logical and relevant connection of the 
 vital sentence with what precedes and follows it. 
 If the vital sentence is a sweeping personal opinion, 
 a seemingly irrelevant utterance — then the whole 
 document falls under the same criticism; for that 
 sentence is inseparably imbedded in the document, 
 showing the rea?on why those concerned could not 
 enjoy baptism by dipping in England, and how, in 
 order to enjoy it, they would have to send to Hol- 
 land for the ordinance. 
 
 Crosby's paraphrase of the vital sentence which 
 he makes to read thus: "They had not as t]ic\ kticzv 
 of revived the ancient practice of immersion," 
 may have suggested to Dr. Thomas, this con- 
 struction of the vital sentence; but for whatever 
 purpose Crosby saw fit to paraphrase that utterance 
 of the Kiffin manuscript, he positively asserts that, 
 prior to the Blunt movement, immersion "had for 
 some time been disused" in England, {\o\ I., p. '>7). 
 
 4471331
 
 38 Review of Dr. J. B. TJiomns on the Whitsitt Question. 
 
 He makes this fact the basis of the movement of 
 the 'Baptists" for the restoration of immersion in 
 Kng-land; he repudiates, whatever he may have be- 
 lieved upon "oral tradition," the baptism of Smyth 
 as never having- succeeded to the Eng-lish Bap- 
 tists; and he neither by "tradition," nor "church 
 records," an3'where says thatSpilsbury's church im- 
 mersed from 1633 onward. In his very paraphrase 
 of the main paragraph of the Kiffin manuscript he 
 concedes the fact that the Anti-Pedobaptists of 
 England, so far as known, did not practice im- 
 mersion. He makes Kiffin say: ^'' Because^ tho' some 
 in this nation rejected the baptism of infants, yet they 
 {Blunt and his party) had not as they knew of, re- 
 vived the ancient custom of immersion.'''' Blunt, 
 Kiflfin, Blacklock, Lucar, knew, at least, the Bap- 
 tists who "rejected infant baptism" in and about 
 London; and hence, according to Crosby's version 
 of Kiffin, they did not practice immersion, though 
 they rejected infant baptism. In fact, from the 
 Kiffin manuscript and other documents Crosby drew 
 his own conclusion that "for some time immersion 
 had been disused" in England ; and his paraphrase of 
 the main paragraph of the Kiffin manuscript does 
 not alter its meaning which is expressed in the 
 words: ^''None having then so practiced in England 
 to professed believers.'''' 
 
 Hence Crosby's paraphrase of the vital sentence 
 in Kiffin's manuscript means nothing in the light of 
 his own recorded facts in the case; and hence 
 Kiffin's manuscript which Crosby adopts without 
 variation in any other regard must be true in regard 
 to the vital sentence, and so of the date 1641, which 
 is implied in the 1640 date which Crosby uses. 
 Crosby did not, as Dr. Thomas does, treat this 
 document as a "flying leaf," and nobody else has 
 ever so treated it until the present controversy. 
 The collection of records and manuscripts, 1712, 
 whether or not in the nature of "private memo-
 
 The Kiffi.li Manuscript. 39 
 
 randa," — with "unknown dates" and by "unknown 
 hands," in some instances — must have been suffi- 
 ciently authenticated by evidence, internal or ex- 
 ternal, to have been used by so cautious a historian 
 as Crosby, and the only way to destroy the validity 
 of such documents, at this time, is to contradict 
 them by facts which were not in Crosby's possession. 
 Such eminent authority as Dr. Newman says of 
 these papers: "These documents are all thoroughly 
 consistent with each other and with what is other- 
 wise known of the history of the times in g-eneral, 
 and of the Congregational and Baptist histor}' in par- 
 ticular. We can conceive of no motive for the 
 forgery of such documents, and those ascribed to 
 Jessey and that not ascribed were old papers in 1710. 
 I think it would be difficult to find much historical 
 material on which we could rely more implicitly." 
 He says that while the Kiffin manuscript, and the 
 Jessey records "differ in some details, they agree in 
 substance and thoroughly confirm each other." 
 Hence, the positive proof by which Dr. Thomas 
 claims to ' 'dismiss the Jessey Records from the case," 
 and the slighting comment of Dr. Dexter with ref- 
 erence to the Kiffin manuscript, are at least offset 
 by the confident vindication of these documents 
 from the charge of invalidity, or inconsistency, by 
 Dr. Newman, an unpartizan and thoroughly com- 
 petent investigator. 
 
 The claim of Dr. Thomas that the Kiffin manu- 
 script by reason of "equivocal language," has con- 
 fused and misled intelligent investigators before, 
 applies with equal force to hundreds of authen- 
 ticated documents in history; and Neal and Ivimey 
 differ from Crosby and v.'ith each other upon docu- 
 mentary evidence considered reliable. Dr. Whitsitt, 
 it is claimed, charges the document with bluodering; 
 but this charge applies only to minor particulars 
 which areunsustained by the Jessey Kecordsand the 
 history of the times. Neither the main paragraph
 
 40 Review of Dr. J, B. Thomas on ihe Whitsitt Question. 
 
 of the document, nor the document as a whole, is 
 aifected by these minor defects, which are not per- 
 tinent to the matters at issue. Besides, if every his- 
 torical document should be thus judg-ed on account 
 of minor blunders not involving the main subject- 
 matter, there would be but little historical evidence 
 of any value. Dr. Thomas does not claim, how- 
 ever, that this objection wholly destroys the Kiffin 
 manuscript, even though it be without Kif(in"s sig^- 
 nature and from no place of deposit; but he claims 
 that it is a "flying- leaf," seriously impaired in its 
 value as evidence. In the light of supplementary 
 history — especially that of Hutchinson and of the 
 Bampfield Document — we see that Dr. Thomas is 
 wrong" in this assumption also. His charge that 
 the fifty-three persons reported by Crosby as at- 
 tached to the Kif&n manuscript, "are not affixed to 
 it as attesting it," but is only an "embodied list," 
 may be technically true; but that list, in Crosby's 
 mind, stood, with other data before him, in the 
 nature of a historic attestation, and it adds im- 
 measurably to the authenticity of the manuscript 
 from an incidental standpoint. 
 
 The argument (ab ignorantia) employed by Dr. 
 Thomas does not touch the Kif&n Manuscript. If 
 the main paragraph, by the statement '^none"' had 
 '''' then'''' so "practiced (immersion) to professed be- 
 lievers in England," is the expression of a negative 
 opinion — fairly paraphrased by the words of Crosby 
 that none had been so baptized, "as they kue-jj of " 
 — the document still stands unassailable until it is 
 proved that that paragraph, as a negative opinion, 
 is false. I deny, however, that it is a negative 
 opinion, or the negative expression of "impersonal 
 ignorance," as sought to be shown by Crosby's sup- 
 posed paraphrase; and I maintain that the para- 
 graph belongs to Kiffin, the author of the Manu- 
 script, as expressive of a fact maintained by Blunt 
 and others, and as declared by Crosby and the
 
 The Kiffin. Manuscript. 41 
 
 Bampfield Document — namely, that up to that time 
 in Eng-land, immersion had for '''' so7}ie twie^'" or 
 " /(9WO"," been ^'- disused;'''' had suffered a "general 
 corruption," if not a "universal corruption," as 
 Tombes, quoted by Crosby, clearly intimates. The 
 negative form in which the main paragraph is put 
 implies a positive affirmation of the fact that im- 
 mersion as believers' baptism was lost in England, 
 confirmed by Crosby himself and by other writers 
 whom he quotes. 
 
 The circumstantial argument of Dr. Thomas, with 
 reference to "lack of publicity," by which, accord- 
 ing to Dr. Featley, the Anabaptists of Southwark 
 and other places may have immersed unknown to 
 the Jessey Church people before 1641, cannot apply, 
 for the reason shown heretofore, that such men as 
 Blunt, Lucar and others who had^ or still belonged 
 to the Southwark Church must have known that 
 that church, at least, did not immerse; and as intel- 
 ligent and well-informed men, they must have 
 known that the other Anabaptists in and about 
 London did not immerse. Otherwise they would 
 not have acted upon the affirmation of the fact set 
 forth in the main paragraph of the Kiffin Manu- 
 script.
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 The Kiffin Manuscript (Continued). 
 
 DR. THOMAS (p. 19), after having- reviewed the 
 main paragraph of the Kif&n Manuscript, ac- 
 cording- to Dr. Whitsitt's construction of it, proceeds 
 to sug-g-est other reasons for hesitating- to accept 
 such construction in the lig-ht of extraneous circum- 
 stances — such as omissions, ambiguities, and incon- 
 sistencies, which, if they do not weaken our faith in 
 the writer, "forbid their arbitrary and forced con- 
 struction in the interest of a theory." 
 
 1. He assumes, with Neal, that the partition of 
 the Jacob Church between Barebone and Jessey did 
 not g-row out of a controversy over baptism, but 
 from the dang-er of discovery by the authorities. 
 There was little dang-er in 1640-41 of such interfer- 
 ence. This was true in part, as expressed of the 
 division which took place in 1633, v^rhich, perhaps, 
 Neal confounds, in this respect, with the division 
 of 1640; but the evidence drawn from the Kif&n 
 Manuscript, confirmed by Hutchinson and Crosby, if 
 not the Bampfield Document, is clear that the divi- 
 sion occurred upon the controversy which grew out 
 of the baptismal question. 
 
 2. Dr. Thomas assumes that the expression '■'"with 
 him " in the manuscript is ambiguous, and applies 
 as much to Barebone as to Jessey; but Kiffin men- 
 tions Jessey after Barebone, and Blunt's ag-reeing 
 "with him" in such order as that, grammatically 
 and naturally, we may infer that the phrase "with 
 him" refers to Jessey, and not Barebone. More 
 properly speaking, perhaps, '"'' zvith him'''' is a tech- 
 nical phrase, and means "of his church" — that is, 
 "Mr. Richard Blunt and others with him (Jessey) 
 
 (42)
 
 The Kiffin Manuscript. — Continued. 43 
 
 (of Mr. Jessey's Church) being convinced of bap- 
 tism, etc." 
 
 3. Dr. Thomas claims that Richard Blunt's seces- 
 sion from the Jessey Church, 1633, according to the 
 Jessey Records, and his connection with it. 1640, 
 according- to the Kiffin Manuscript, puts the two 
 documents in conflict, which requires explanation or 
 the discrediting of one of them, that is, if we sup- 
 pose the two paragraphs to be part of the same doc- 
 ument. This is not necessarily a discrepancy, since 
 Blunt could have returned to the Jessey Church after 
 his secession from it, 1633; or else, like Mark Lucar, 
 who seceded with him, 1633, and was still with the 
 secession, or with Spilsbury, as others of the "fore- 
 named" in the movement with Blunt, so he (Blunt) 
 may have still been with Spilsbury, and yet have 
 joined in the conference with Jessey, which is most 
 likely. 
 
 4. Dr. Thomas claims that the " pivotal sentence" 
 is affected with a "verbal ambiguity" upon the 
 ground that the word " then " points to a " specific 
 date," but is beclouded in its application to that 
 date by the use of the " past participle " (having), 
 so that you cannot tell whether it means "at that 
 time "or " up to that time." The word "so," he 
 says, is also entangled by the curious qualification 
 "to professed believers;" and he asks: "What is 
 the force of this unique limitation?" It is clear 
 that the manuscript naturally means by the phrase, 
 "none having ///r;/ so practiced in England," "up 
 to that time," and by consequence, "at that time," 
 as Crosby, Bampfield, and others show by the long 
 ''''disuse'''' of immersion in England; and the limita- 
 tion to " professed believers" is not expressed by 
 " so " which refers to the mode of baptism, " then " 
 and " up to that time" in "disuse," but by the fart 
 that immersion had not "then," or "up to that 
 time," been '"'practiced''^ in England to " believers," 
 or "professed believers," since its "disuse."
 
 44 Review of Dr. J. B. Thomas on the Whitsilt Question. 
 
 5. Dr. Thomas assumes that the 1640 paragraph 
 of the Jessey Records, as Dr. Whitsitt classifies the 
 document, transferred to its place in the Kiffin 
 Manuscript by its side, would give the expression, 
 '''' forename d^ different antecedents from those as- 
 signed by Dr. Whitsitt, who holds that " some of 
 the forenamed " mentioned in the Jessey Records, 
 refers to members in Spilsbury's Church. If Dr. 
 Thomas had not left off the qualifying term "scw^," 
 he would have seen that the application might be 
 the same in both documents — excepting the name of 
 William Kif&n, copied by mistake in the 1638 seces- 
 sion from the Jacob Church to Spilsbury's, and also 
 by mistake in the restored document which puts 
 Kif&n with the secession of 1633. The KiflSn Manu- 
 script, as substantially used by Crosby, shows that 
 " several sober and pious persons belonging to the 
 congregations of the dissenters about London were 
 convinced that believers were the only proper sub- 
 jects of baptism, and that it ought to be administered 
 by i^mnersion ; " and this declaration is not incon- 
 sistent with the parallel utterance of the original 
 document, which implies that the " forenamed" of 
 Spilsbury's, or the 1633, church were convinced with 
 those of Jessey's church that baptism "ought to be 
 by dipping." The "sober and pious persons," ac- 
 cording to the later manuscript, who joined in the 
 movement were from more than one church, as seen 
 by the plural use of "congregations;" and unless 
 the " forenamed " in the original document refer to 
 Barebone's division of the Jacob church, which is 
 impossible, the expression must refer to " some " of 
 those named beforehand in the 1633-'38 church, 
 which is probable, and which is consistent with the 
 natural and inseparable connection of the 1633-1638 
 with the 1640-1641 parts of the original document 
 as a whole. There is certainly no evidence here 
 that the writer of this document was either careless 
 or unskilled in the construction of his sentences, or
 
 The Kiffin Manuscript. — Continued. 46 
 
 so imperfectly informed as to forbid, in the lig-ht of 
 the later version of the orig-inal, the hang-ing- of Dr. 
 Whitsitt's issue "on the turning- of his phrases." 
 
 Finally, Dr. Thomas proceeds further to destroy, 
 if possible, confidence in Dr. Whitsitt's interpreta- 
 tion of the main paragraph of the Kiffin Manuscript 
 under several leading- heads, some of which I have 
 already considered under the captions of "Crosby's 
 Account" and "William Kiffin," and which I here 
 pass over. On pag-e 23, Dr. Thomas assumes that 
 the prime question of the Kiffin Manuscript was a 
 lawful administrator. I g-rant that the agitation of 
 1640 beg-an back of that date upon the question of 
 an "administrator;" but in the ag-itation the mode 
 of baptism became the prime question and the ad- 
 ministrator a subordinate question, until the mode 
 was settled according- to the convictions of Blunt 
 and those with him in the conferences which led to 
 the conclusion that baptism " oug-ht to be by dip- 
 ping-" and practiced to " believers only." This is 
 a fact, according- to both the orig^inal and the later 
 documents. " The g-reat objection," as Hutchinson 
 says, "was the want of an administrator," which 
 [when the mode and subjects of baptism were set- 
 tled] "was removed by sending certain messengers 
 to Holland, whence they were supplied" — simply 
 because of the disuse of immersion in Eng-land. The 
 usual assumption that the Helwisse and Spilsbury 
 churches were immersing-, at the time — and that 
 those of the Blunt movement did not regard their 
 administration of baptism as legitimate, and for 
 that reason did not apply to them for the rite — is 
 wholly disproven by the facts revealed in the his- 
 tory of the Eng-lish Baptists by Hutchinson, Crosby, 
 Bampfield, and other writers of the time. More- 
 over, this assumption is in contlict with the posi- 
 tion of Dr. Thomas himself, by which he tries to 
 show that Blunt and those concerned in tlic move- 
 ment of 1640, while they might have had the nega-
 
 46 Review of Dr. J. B, Tliomas on the Whitsitt Question. 
 
 tive opinion, in their ig^norance, that there were 
 "none" who were then practicing- immersion in 
 England, they might have been mistaken! The 
 "perplexing sentence" of the Kiffin Manuscript is 
 not, therefore, "wholly irrelevant," if not explained 
 by the motive in sending to Holland for an admin- 
 istrator as the chief point of the document. All the 
 facts g-o to show that the mode and subjects of bap- 
 tism became the prime question, and that "legiti- 
 macy," though first sprung in 1638, became subordi- 
 nate in 1640 -'41, when immersion was discovered as 
 lost and restored as scriptural. Possibly there were 
 some who had been immersed in infancy, or who so 
 practiced to infants; but, according to the Kifl&n 
 Manuscript, there were "wo«^" who so practiced 
 in England to "professed believers." This fact 
 coupled with the desire for legitimacy, was the 
 motive for sending- Blunt to Holland for immersion. 
 The "professed believers" argument of Dr. 
 Thomas (p. 24) is wholly imaginary and out of the 
 question. There is nothing in the original manu- 
 script which leads us to distinguish between "be- 
 lievers" and "professed believers" to whom im- 
 mersion should be administered; and the later docu- 
 ment settles the question against Dr. Thomas. It 
 shows that the "sober and pious persons belonging 
 to the congregations of the dissenters about London " 
 who engaged in the movement for the restoration of 
 immersion in England, were simply "convinced that 
 believers were the only proper subjects of baptism 
 and that it ought to be administered by immersion." 
 The two documents, therefore, agree that " pro- 
 fessed believers " and "believers," respectively men- 
 tioned, are the same persons entitled to baptism 
 which "ought to be by dipping-" — "ought to be 
 administered by immersion;" and the object of the 
 conferences, in both accounts, was about "their 
 enjoying it " — "what methods they should take to 
 enjoy the ordinance in its primitive purity." It was
 
 The Kiffin Manuscriid. — Continued. 47 
 
 not a Pedobaptist movement confined to a Pedo 
 baptist church in which "The old sore question of 
 Anabaptism" was the issue. It was an Anabaptist 
 movement ag^ainst infant baptism and in favor of 
 restoring- immersion as believers' baptism which 
 was lost; and it involved no distinction of "be- 
 lievers" from " professed believers," by which Dr. 
 Thomas, after trying- to discredit the pertinency of 
 the main paragraph of the Kiflfin Manuscript as any 
 sort of valid testimony, g-ives it a specific Pedo- 
 baptist application! The issue upon which that 
 movement was based was simply this and nothing- 
 more: Baptism "ought to be by dipping" and ad- 
 ministered to believers only; as such the Scriptural 
 mode and practice in England have been lost; and 
 in order to restore the same it must be sent for to 
 Holland. 
 
 In the sixth and last objection, Dr. Thomas (p. 26) 
 claims that "This record instead of assuming to 
 give an account of the origin of the immersing 
 Baptist churches from the Jessey Church, in 1641, 
 seems rather to imply a contrary conception." Now 
 if anything seems clear from these records, it is 
 that the "two companies," under the leadership of 
 Blunt and Blacklock, which "met" together in 
 order to receive immersion, and which "did intend 
 to meet after this," (not by formal Covenant at 
 which some scrupled, but by mutual agreement), 
 constituted a church to which " many were added" 
 and which "increased much." This was the intro- 
 duction of the succession movement and " method " 
 by which the " English Baptists," as Crosby aflirms, 
 restored immersion; and the Kiffin Manuscript and 
 Neal agree that this movement and method ended 
 with 1641. The "foundation" of the movement was 
 laid in the Jessey Church since Jessey agreed with 
 Blunt and other Baptists in conviction and joined 
 with them in Conference, which led to the result — and 
 since the largrest secession which constituted this
 
 48 Review of Dr. J. B. Thomas on the Whitsiti Question. 
 
 first immersion cong-reg-ation in Eng-land withdrew 
 from the Jessey Church, especially, according- to 
 Crosby, in 1641. Hence, according to Dr. Whitsitt 
 the records assume correctly to give an account of 
 the origin of immersing Baptist churches from the 
 Jessey Church in 1641. 
 
 It does not help Dr. Thomas whether Spilsbury 
 was ever connected with the Jessey church or not; 
 nor that the "Churches in Order," with which the 
 secedersof 1633 desired affiliation, did not originate 
 from it. Grant for the sake of argument that Spils- 
 bury's church and the "Churches in Order" already 
 existed in 1633, and that they were Anti-Pedobaptist 
 churches, there is no evidence that they were im- 
 mersionists. As I have already shown, in the light 
 of the Blunt movement, they could not have been 
 immersionists without Blunt and his party knowing 
 it; and the suggestion of Dr. Thomas "that the 
 Spilsbury church, at least, was immersion ist by the 
 fact that it was after conference with some of them 
 (probably) that Blunt and his comrades insisted on 
 immersion," is wholly untenable from the fact that 
 Blunt was already an Anti-Pedobaptist of the seces- 
 sion of 1633, and was probably a member of Spils- 
 bury's church, or of the secession of 1633. He was 
 among- the number "receiving a further" or a "new 
 baptism" in 1633, which Dr. Thomas would claim, 
 no doubt, as immersion; and if this were true, then 
 Blunt would not have been found in the movement 
 of 1640, with the new conviction that baptism 
 "ought to be by dipping," that as such it was lost 
 in England, and accepting- the deputation to Hol- 
 land for its restoration. 
 
 Dr. Thomas thus concludes: "We are brought 
 back by reasonable inference from the lang-uage of 
 the document to precise accord with the positive ac- 
 count of the matter g-iven by Crosby, affirming the 
 long prior use of immersion." This shady docu- 
 ment — this equivocal, ambiguous, inconsistent "fly-
 
 The Kiffin Manuscript. — Continued. 49 
 
 ing" leaf" — is in "precise accord" with Crosby's af- 
 firmation of the "long-prior use of immersion" in 
 Eng-land! I ag-ree with Dr. Thomas with this dif- 
 ference only, that Crosby positively affirms (Vol. I., 
 p. 97) that immersion in England, prior to the 
 Blunt movement, '''■had fo?' some time been disused;'''' 
 and I challenge Dr. Thomas for the proof to the 
 contrary. Crosby is exactly to the reverse of Dr. 
 Thomas; but Crosby and the Kiffin Manuscript, as 
 Dr. Thomas says, are in "precise accord" with each 
 other — but not as to the long prior use, but disuse, 
 of baptism in England. The main paragraph of the 
 Kiffin Manuscript, as confirmed by Crosby, abso- 
 lutely forbids the existence of immersion as be- 
 lievers' baptism in England "/br some time"'' prior 
 to 1640-41. 
 
 There is no use tinkering with the Kiffin Docu- 
 ment. The only way to escape its force is to prove 
 it a forgery. This a scholar and a church historian 
 like Dr. Thomas would not attempt to do. In the 
 light of Hutchinson, Crosby, Evans, Gould and other 
 English writers, fraud can never be charged to this 
 and similar documents; and Dr. Thomas, with the 
 acumen of the lawyer, has picked for flaws without 
 success. In fact, while Dr. Thomas blows "cold," 
 he blows "hot," finally, on the document, and tries 
 to turn it into a fine piece of testimony in favor of 
 his own theory.
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 Sum of the: Crosby Argument. 
 
 TN FURTHER reply to Dr. Thomas against the 
 1 assumption that the Kif&n Manuscript leads by 
 "reasonable inference" to "'precise accord" with 
 the positive statement of Crosby afl&rming- the long-- 
 prior use of immersion in England, I offer the fol- 
 lowing arguments which I regard as unanswerable: 
 
 1. According to Crosby (Vol. 1., p. 96), there 
 was, at a given time, an agitation among some of 
 the " English Protestants," whom in the margin 
 of page 97, he calls " English Baptists," on the sub- 
 ject of '■'' reviving the ancient practice of irnniersion^'''' 
 and this statement is based upon the Hutchinson 
 account and the Kiffi.n Manuscript, which relate 
 that some of the pious dissenters of the congrega- 
 tions about London [Blunt and those with him] 
 concluded that ''believers were the only proper sub- 
 jects of baptism," and that baptism "ought to be 
 by dipping," "administered by immersion." (I., 
 pp. 100-102.) 
 
 2. Up to this time, according to Crosby, " immer- 
 sion" in England ''had for some time been disused'''' 
 (I., p. 97); and this statement is in "precise ac- 
 cord" also with the Kiffin Manuscript, which says: 
 "None having then so practiced in England to pro- 
 fessed believers." This statement is also confirmed 
 by the Bampfield Document, which says of the prac- 
 tice of immersion in England, at this time, that it 
 "had so long been disused that there were none who 
 had been so baptized to be found." (Review of the 
 Question, p. 232. ) Even in the Church of England, 
 according to Crosby (II.; p. xlvi.. Preface), the 
 practice of immersion, though defended by some, 
 
 (50)
 
 Sum of the Crosby Argument. 51 
 
 practically ended with the close of the 16th cen- 
 tury, or with the introduction of the reig-n of James 
 I- Already, in 1570, the Catechism of Noel, of sole 
 authority in the Church of England at that time, 
 prescribed sprinkling- as indifferent with immersion 
 for baptism. (Latin Collection by A. Howell, p. 
 207. Parker Publication Society.) As far back as 
 1528 Tyndale complained of the people on account 
 of their preference for immersion over sprinkling- as 
 the mode of infant baptism. In 1645 the Wjestminis- 
 ter Assembly rejected immersion, even as an alter- 
 nate form with sprinkling-, which g-oes to show that 
 the Presbyterians had long-ago abandoned dipping-, 
 and they now hold that immersion is not the mode 
 of baptism at all. The Puritans had universally 
 adopted sprinkling-. At the time of this Blunt 
 movement, immersion, as believers' baptism, in the 
 language of Barber, was "lost," *' raced out;" and 
 Crosby is in exact agreement with Kiffin, Bampfield, 
 Barber and others of the period when he says that, 
 at the time of the movement of the "English Bap- 
 tists "for the "revival of immersion," it ^'' had for 
 some time been disused.'''' 
 
 3. The agitation for the revival of immersion in 
 England began by the "Baptists," and was opposed 
 by the Pedobaptists, in view of its restoration. 
 Crosby says: "When some of the English Protes- 
 tants (Baptists) WERE FOR reviving the antient 
 practice of immersion, they had several difficulties 
 thrown in their way about a proper administrator." 
 The expression, "WERE FOR," shows the prece- 
 dence of the agitation before the fact of restoration 
 by the "English Baptists;" and this is proof posi- 
 tive that it was a Baptist and not a Pedobaptist 
 movement, and opposed by Pedobaptists to begin 
 with. The controversy, sprung before the restora- 
 tion, continued many years after the fact; but it be- 
 gan by the l*edobaptists upon the attempt to restore 
 immersion by the "Baptists." (I., pp. '>6, '>7.)
 
 62 Revieio of Dr. J. B. Thomas on the Whitsitt Question. 
 
 4. The nature of this controversy demonstrates 
 that it was a Baptist movement to beg-in with, and 
 that as such, the " English Baptists," according- to 
 Crosby, were both "perplexed" and "divided" as 
 to "how to act in the matter (of restoration), so as 
 not to be guilty of any disorder or self-contradic- 
 tion." (,!., p. 97.) If it had been a Pedobaptist 
 movement the question of "disorder or self-contra- 
 diction" would never have occurred to the movers. 
 Neither would any but Baptists have been "per- 
 plexed" and "divided" over the "difficulties" thrown 
 in their way by Pedobaptists. 
 
 (a) According to Crosb}-, the Pedobaptist argu- 
 ment at the beginning of the English Reformation 
 was substantially this, that the Anabaptists, who 
 at that time adopted believers' baptism and broke 
 with infant baptism, began their baptism anew 
 without a proper administrator, since all the world 
 at that time was in the church through infant bap- 
 tism, and that the Anabaptist position, if true, 
 would unchurch all who were baptized in infancy — 
 so Bishop Burnet. 
 
 (d) The Pedobaptist argument in 1640 was that 
 those who would restore immersion, which had 
 been lost, likewise had no proper administrator " /c 
 begin that method of baptizino; " and that the Bap- 
 tist position, which held that immersion was the 
 "essential form of baptism," if true, would imply 
 that there were "none truly baptized" — that is, 
 would unbaptize everybody else. (I., pp. 96, 97.) 
 
 Not only does this Pedobaptist argument at the 
 time prove that the restoration movement was dis- 
 tinctively Baptist, but that there were none im- 
 mersed at the period of restoration, not even the 
 Baptists themselves. 
 
 5. The several methods by which the "English 
 Baptists," as Crosby calls them, proposed to restore 
 immersion, and by which to avoid inconsistency, de- 
 monstrate that, when the movement began to be agi-
 
 Sum of the Crosby Argument. 53 
 
 tated; immersion as believers' baptism did not exist 
 in Eng-land, and that it was distinctively a Baptist 
 movement. There were three different "methods" 
 proposed for the solution of the difl&cuhy which the 
 Pedobaptists threw in their way. (I., p. 97.) 
 
 (a) Some were for beginning- with a self-baptized 
 administrator, after the manner of John Smyth; but 
 Crosby shows that that method was repudiated, and 
 that Smyth's self-baptism, though it were immer- 
 sion, never succeeded to the English Baptists. The 
 Bampfield Document shows that this method was 
 also attempted at the restoration of baptism in Eng- 
 land, but that it went to nought. 
 
 (d) Others were for sending to the "Foreign 
 Protestants" (Dutch Baptists) and obtaining it 
 thus by succession from them. 
 
 (c) The great body of Baptists held that baptism 
 could be lawfully restored by an unbaptized admin- 
 istrator when lost or generally corrupted. 
 
 Crosby then proceeds to show (I., p. 100) that 
 these two last methods were "adopted" and "prac- 
 ticed accordingly." He says: "The two other 
 methods that I mentioned were indeed both taken 
 by \h.Q Baplisis at their revival of immersion in Eng- 
 land., as I find it acknowledged and justified in their 
 writings." How? 
 
 ( 1. ) According to the Hutchinson Account and the 
 Kifi&n Manuscript, both of which Crosby quotes to 
 prove the fact that Richard Blunt was sent to Hol- 
 land, where he obtained immersion from the Col- 
 legiants, those "foreign Protestants," who, as 
 Crosby says, '''■had used immersion for some time'" — 
 that is, since 1619, in Holland where immersion had 
 lip to that time, according to Crosby's intimation 
 here, been also lost. 
 
 (2.) "But," says Crosby, " the greatest number of 
 the English Baptists, and the more judicious, looked 
 upon all this as needless trouble and what proceeded 
 from the old Popish doctrine of right to administer
 
 54 Review of Dr. J. B. Thomas on the Whitsitt Question. 
 
 sacraments by an uninterrupted succession — that is, 
 sending- to Holland for baptism, etc. They offinned., 
 therefore (the greatest number and the more judi- 
 cious of the English Baptists), 2in& practiced accord- 
 ingly that after a g-eneral corruption of baptism, an 
 unbaptized person mig-ht warrantably baptize, and 
 so begin a reformation." This theory of beg-inning" 
 by an unbaptized administrator was maintained by 
 Spilsbury, Tombes and Laurence; and Crosby con- 
 cludes by saying-: "By the excellent reasonings of 
 these and other learned men, -we see their (the Bap- 
 tists) bcirinning wz.^ ^qW defended upon the same 
 principles on which all other Protestants founded 
 their reformation." (Vol. I., pp. 103-107.) 
 
 6. Crosby is clear that these " two methods " were 
 '* both taken by the Baptists " at a g-iven time with- 
 out reference to dates in this connection. When 
 was it? "/!/ their revival of immersion in England. " 
 How was it? By a simultaneous movement, by two 
 difiEerent methods, on the part of the "English Bap- 
 tists" as a body; and thoug-h one method logically 
 appears to precede the other in the order of time, 
 yet the g-eneral movement is comprehended in the 
 same period of time and belonged to both bodies of 
 the Eng-lish Baptists as disting-uished by succes- 
 sionists and anti-successionists. The anti-succes- 
 sion method evidently followed the succession 
 method immediately upon the adoption of the lat- 
 ter; or, as Dr. Newman sugg-ests, the anti-succes- 
 sion method may have been adopted in 1640, and 
 before Blunt returned from Holland, upon the agi- 
 tation of the subject by the successionists, which 
 would better explain the early utterances of Spils- 
 bury and Barber in 1641-42. This discovery, how- 
 ever, is not made by Neal, who drew his inference 
 from the Kiffin and other Manuscripts, that the 
 Jessey-Blunt movement had the precedence. 
 
 7. The Crosby Account assumes that the Baptists 
 of Eng-land, as such, had a " beg-inning- " of their
 
 Sum of the Croaby Argument. 55 
 
 own, both organic and baptismal, the organic pre- 
 ceeding- the baptismal; and he reg^ards them as 
 other Eng-lish Protestants, establishing- their re- 
 formation upon similar principles. He fixes their 
 baptismal beg-inning- at the time of " their rczv^Y// 
 of immersion in Kngland;" and, whatever the date, 
 this '•'■ bcghining-''^ or "reformation," similar to that 
 of other Protestants in principle and fact, arg-ues 
 that immersion was lost in Eng-land, and that its 
 restoration was a combined movement of the Bap- 
 tists already org-anizcd into churches. 
 
 8. The point at issue is this; What was the date 
 of this baptismal ^^beginnhig?''' I unhesitating-ly 
 afi&rm that it must have taken place, 1640-41, ac- 
 cording to the Kiffin Manuscript, confirmed bj 
 Neal. The movement as described and detailed by 
 Crosby cannot be divided without violence to the 
 order and connection of his account, nor can it be 
 applied to any other period in Baptist history. It 
 neither fits in whole, nor in part, 1611, 1633, nor 
 1638. The question of immersion as believers' bap- 
 tism and a proper administrator thereof was never 
 sprung in England among the Baptists before nor 
 after 1640-41; and the controversy which raged be- 
 tween Baptists and Pedobaptists on this subject can 
 only be traced from 1640-41 and onward. Besides 
 this, Crosby, in his use of the Kiffin Manuscript, 
 gives the date 1640 (Vol. III., p. 141) as the year of 
 the agitation on the subject in question in the Jes- 
 sey Church; and he records the event of 1641 which 
 followed it in the Kiffin Manuscript, in which he 
 shows the restoration of immersion by the liaptists 
 of England, originating in the Blunt movement. 
 This unqualifiedly settles the date of the movement, 
 even according to Crosby. 
 
 9. The assumption that this 1640-41 movement 
 was merely a succession issue sprung by a handfull 
 of secessionists from a Pedobaptist Church, while 
 the Helwisse and Spilsbury Churches were alriMclv
 
 56 Revieiv of Dr. J. B. Thomas on the Whitsitt Qoestion. 
 
 in the practice of immersion, is wholly at variance 
 with Crosby's account and with Hutchinson, Kifi&n, 
 Bampfield, Jessey and other documents, to say 
 nothing- of Spilsbury, Tombes, Lawrence, Barber 
 and other Baptist writers of the period. Crosby posi- 
 tively makes it a movement of the " Eng-lish Bap- 
 tists," without distinction and as a body at a g-iven 
 time; and all the powers of sophistry and casuistry 
 combined can never draw any other conclusion from 
 this section of Crosby's history of the Baptists of 
 England. 
 
 The movement was started, I grant, by secessions 
 from the congregations of Protestant dissenters in 
 and about London by "sober and pious persons," 
 like Blunt and those with him in the agitation; but 
 Crosby says that they were "Baptists" — Baptists, 
 evidently from some of the Baptist Churches, and 
 followed by many from Pedobaptist Churches, who 
 began this movement; and when the movement had 
 begun, the whole English Baptist fraternity joined 
 in it, and restored immersion along different lines 
 of thought and method. Even if the movement 
 had been started by Pedobaptists seceding from 
 Pedobaptist Churches, it is clear that Crosby makes 
 it a Baptist movement in which all the Baptists of 
 England joined. 
 
 Finally, it may be conceded that there were some 
 few Anabaptist conventicles, hid here and there, as 
 Hillcliffe, Eyethorne and Bocking-Baintree, which 
 succeeded from earlier dates than belong to English 
 Baptist history. Crosby, though doubted by some, 
 says that individually the Anabaptists were " inter- 
 mixed" with the Puritans up to 1633, when they be- 
 g-an to separate and organize churches of their own. 
 Grant all this, and yet there is no evidence of im- 
 mersion among those Anabaptists, whether mixed 
 with the Puritans, or hid here and there in conven- 
 ticles, until 1641; and even if there had been, their 
 immersion would cut no figure in the restoration
 
 Sum of the Crosby Argument. 57 
 
 movement of 1641, in which the Baptist body, as 
 such, acted. All that could be said of such conven- 
 ticles, if thej ever existed, is that after 1641 they 
 fell into line with, and were absorbed by, the Baptist 
 body and movement to which, before 1641, the}- 
 were then wholly unknown in history, and wholly 
 unknown now as to their first existence, except upon 
 "tradition," which no reliable historian has ever 
 reg-arded as valid history in the case. 
 
 This is the Crosby argument in the case ag-ainst 
 Dr. Thomas; and I think I have shown conclusively 
 that the Kif&n Manuscript, by "reasonable infer- 
 ence," is in "precise accord" with Crosby's state- 
 ment — not of the long- prior 7isc of immersion in 
 Eng-land — but of the long- prior disuse of immersion 
 in Eng-land, and of its restoration by the Baptists 
 in 1640-41. To be sure, Crosby does not mention 
 the 1641 date; but his account, in the very nature of 
 the facts detailed and described — in the very order 
 and connection of those facts — accords with the 
 Kifl&n Document, which orig-inally fixed this date, 
 which is confirmed by Neal, and which essentially 
 follows 1640, a date used by Crosby himself.
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 The Simultaneous Change. 
 
 DR. THOMAS makes the point, (pp. 6, 7) of prior 
 presumption ag-ainst Dr. Whitsitt's theory that 
 about 1641, some fifty Baptist congregations simul- 
 taneously chang-ed from aspersion to immersion; 
 repudiating- "a custom to which they were tradi- 
 tionally attached, which was in universal use, in 
 behalf of another custom which nobody among* 
 them had ever practiced or heard of;" and that 
 too "without any newly assigned or intellig-ible 
 motive, etc." 
 
 Dr. Thomas presents this objection with p-reater 
 emphasis and in strong-er light than the subject 
 demands, but it deserves respectful consideration. 
 There is some difficulty in the way of answering- it 
 for the lack of voluminous testimony contempo- 
 raneous with Crosby's account of the change, which 
 definitely describes the process of such a revolution; 
 but there is sufficient evidence to show that the 
 chang-e did take place, and how it took place accord- 
 ing- to the "methods" adopted for the restoration of 
 immersion by the Baptists of Eog-land. It is per- 
 fectly easy to see how the Blunt movement occurred 
 in the establishment of the first immersion con- 
 g-reg-ation upon the principle of baptismal succession 
 derived from Holland. Dr. Thomas does not deny 
 this change, althoug-h he ascribes it to a Pedo- 
 baptist congregation. Crosby, however, says that 
 the other method by anti-succession was adopted by 
 the "g-reatest number of the Eng^lish Baptists, and 
 the more judicious" who "affirmed and praticed 
 accordingly, that after a g-eneral corruption of bap- 
 tism, an unbaptized person mig-ht warrantably bap- 
 
 (58)
 
 The Simultaneous Change. 59 
 
 tize and so begin a reformation;" and he says that 
 these Baptists of England established their ''' bcgin- 
 t}ig'^ upon the ''same principles upon which other 
 protestants built their reformation.' According to 
 the logical connection and order of Crosby's narra- 
 tive of this revolution in Baptist history, this 
 "reformation" among the great body of Baptists, 
 began either upon, or immediately after, the move- 
 ment of Blunt to restore immersion in 1640-41. 
 
 So much for the fact that the simultaneous change 
 did occur about 1641. The Bampfield Document is 
 also an account of the methods taken by the Bap- 
 tists { of England) to obtain a proper administration 
 of baptism by immersion, "when that practice had 
 been so long disused that there was no one who had 
 been so baptized to be found;" and this document 
 goes into details of the manner in which especially 
 the Spilsbury method was adopted, with a vindi- 
 cation of the same by Henry Laurence, whom 
 Crosby quotes in precisely the same connection in 
 his accDunt of the adoption of this method by the 
 "greatest number and the more judicious of the 
 Baptists " at "their revival of immersion in Eng- 
 land." Bampfield, who became a Baptist in Lon- 
 don about 1676, and who sought from "printed 
 records "and " credible witnesses " to find the "first 
 administrator" of immersion, in the "Historical 
 Declaration of His Life," (pp. 15, 16, 17) mentions 
 five different forms of administration by which the 
 anti-succession method was put in operation; and 
 however variant or irregular its piocess of adoption 
 and extension, at the time Bampfield wrote, after 
 1676, the Spilsbury-Laurence method had become 
 general among the Baptists in and about London. 
 
 It must be remembered that in 1()41 the Baptists 
 with their supposed fifty churches were, after all, 
 but a handfuU of people, mostly located in and 
 about London. It would not have taken long to 
 effect the change from aspersion to immersion,
 
 60 Review cf Dr. J. Ji. Thonuis on the Whitailt (>uei<tion. 
 
 especiaLy at this revolutionary period of new ideas 
 and g-reater liberty, when once the conviction seized 
 the g-eneral body of brethren that baptism " ought 
 to be by dipping-," and that the ordinance had been 
 "lost;" and yet while the change seems to have 
 been immediate and simultaneous with many, it did 
 not so follow with all. Dr. Kvans (Vol. II., pp. 52, 
 S3) points to the fact that even in 1646, at Chelms- 
 ford, there existed the "Old Men, or AspersV and 
 the "New Men, or Immersi^'''' indicating that, 
 among the Anabaptists or Baptists, " both methods 
 (of baptism) were practiced;" and he says again 
 (Vol. II., p. 79): "Most will now see that the 
 practice of the Mennonite brethren (affusion) was 
 common in this country (England). These New 
 Men {Iimnersi) soon cast them (the Old Men, or 
 Aspersi) into the shade, and their practice speedily 
 became obsolete. Immersion as the mode of bap- 
 tism, became the rule of both sections of the Baptist 
 community. Indeed, from this time (1646) beyond 
 the facts already given (at Chelmsford) we know 
 not a solitary exception." It took about five vears 
 from 1641 to 1646 to fully effect the change among 
 the Anabaptists, or Baptists; and from the litera- 
 ture of the period, we infer considerable excitement 
 and controversy which indicate the variant and 
 irregular process, in the intervening time, which 
 characterized this revolution in Baptist history. 
 
 Up to the year 1640-41 there is not the slightest 
 hint of immersion among tne English Baptists. 
 They distinctly separated from their Puritan breth- 
 ren, apparently in good fellowship, upon the ground 
 of disbelief in infant baptism and of belief in 
 believer's baptism. They received "another" or a 
 "new" baptism; but it is not until " they were for" 
 revivino- "the ancient practice of immersion" that 
 the controversy began with the Pedobaptists of 
 England, in which we discover from 1640-41 onward 
 that a change took place in the practice of the Bap-
 
 The Simultaneous Change. 61 
 
 tists, or that there was any distioction among- them 
 as to ^'■Aspersi ' and ^'■Immcrsi.''' Before this date we 
 have the historical data of Anabaptist or Baptist 
 organizations, of their opposition to infant baptism 
 and of their "further" or "new" baptism, about 
 which there seemed to be little or no concern among- 
 their Puritan brethren, at least; but it was not 
 until 1640-41 that public and violent attention is 
 directed to their practice of immersion which was 
 called "new" not in the sense of a "further" 
 baptism after the mode of their I'edobaptist an- 
 cestors, but in the sense of an innovation upon that 
 mode. 
 
 In fact, the first attention ever called to baptism 
 as having- any "novel mode of administration" to 
 be met with in the history of the times, was in 
 1641 when "a g-reat multitude of people were seen 
 going towards the river in Hackney Marsh (near 
 London) and were followed to the waterside, where 
 they were SiW daptized a ora in, (rebaptized) themselves 
 doing- it 07ie to another'' — in perfect accord with 
 Bampfield's account of the several variant and 
 irregular methods by which the Spilsbury theory 
 went into practice at the restoration of immersion 
 by the Baptists of England. It is not certain that 
 this was altogether a Baptist transaction, but it is 
 characteristic of the change inaugurated in 1641. 
 and of the unsettled and irregular process by which 
 the movement of rebaptism by immersion began at 
 that time. 
 
 Besides this, there is some other evidence of 
 the crude, if not improper, wa^'s which character- 
 ized the introduction of this new movement in ICng- 
 land, which go to show its novelty for some time 
 after 1641. The baptism of both men and women 
 naked by some, and by all sorts of administrators, 
 though denied by a few leading Baptists of the 
 times, was charged by Baxter, Watts, Edwards, 
 Houghton, Goodwin, Featley, Hagg-ar, Hall, Bake-
 
 62 Revieiv of Dr. J. B. Thomas on the Whitsitt Question. 
 
 well, Richardson and others; and whether true or 
 false, it is clear that the period to which we refer 
 the chang-e of baptism from sprinkling- to immer- 
 sion, was marked by many g-ross irreg-ularities and 
 novelties. Some Anabaptist sermons, catechisms 
 and other utterances are quoted in favor of "naked" 
 baptism at the time; and it is probable that the ap- 
 pended note of the Baptist Confession of 1644 which 
 accompanies the article on baptism, and which re- 
 quires "convenient g-arments" for "both the admin- 
 istrator and subject, with all modesty" was sug-- 
 gested by this abuse of the ordinance, in its variant 
 and irreg-ular administration by irresponsible per- 
 sons, characteristic of its introduction at that period. 
 Ag-ain it is also clear from the controversial liter- 
 ature of the time that this chang-e took place 1640-41 
 and onward, and was a novelty in the estimation of 
 the Pedobaptists — not denied by the Baptists them- 
 selves, but so admitted by them. In the earlier 
 part of 1642, Barebone, in a published work on "In- 
 fant Baptism," speaks of "the way of new baptiz- 
 ing-, /ate/y begun to be practiced" by the Baptists — 
 ''''vciy lately,'''' he says ag-ain, "according- to their 
 new discovery" — and as making- an "absolute nulli- 
 ty" of all other baptism, in precise accord with 
 Crosby's statement of the Pedobaptist controversy 
 when the Baptists '"xvere for reviving- the ancient 
 practice of immersion." Barebone charg-es the 
 Baptists as having- been baptized a ''Hhird iime,'^ and 
 as having made "a nullity of i'h&ix p?-esent baptism," 
 (1) in having- formerly rejected their infant baptism 
 in favor of believers' baptism; (2) in now rejecting- 
 aspersion as the "further baptism" received at the 
 time of becoming- Anti-Pedobaptists; (3) in having- 
 revived immersion as the Scriptural and only mode 
 of baptism. In the same year, 1642, several treatises 
 were written by Kilcop, Barber, A.R. and R.B., in 
 reply to Barebone; but there is not only no denial of 
 Barebone's charg-es, but a defense of the charges
 
 The Shnultaneous Change. 63 
 
 preferred. Barber claimed that he had been raised 
 up to divulg-e the g-lorious principle of the "True 
 Baptism," and he distinctly avers that the ordinance 
 had been "lost," "destroyed and raced out, both for 
 forw and matlc)\'" and that true "believers, having- 
 Christ, the Word and the Spirit," had the rig-ht to 
 "raise" up ag-ain baptism, which had been "raced 
 out." In his reply to R.B., 1643, Barebone fixes 
 ''Hu'o or th'ce years'^ 2l^ the period of "descent," or 
 "some such short time," of the "total dippers in the 
 king-dom" — which easily points back to 1641 as the 
 then well known date of reviving- immersion in 
 Eng-land by the Baptists. Watts, in 1^56-7, g-ives 
 the origin of dipping- in England as ''about ij. or 
 14. yearc agoe^''' which would also fit the year 1640- 
 41, as the date of the baptismal revival, or its tran- 
 sition state immediately following-. Of course exact 
 dates were not preserved by these writers. 
 
 The many desig-nations of the Baptists' reforma- 
 tion of baptism as a "«ozr//y" by the Pedo-baptists 
 from 1642 to 1670 and onward go to demonstrate by 
 their uniformity and persistence that a baptismal 
 change took place among- the Baptists in 1641 and 
 onward. Dr. Featley, in 1644, calls it a '''new 
 leaven;'''' Cooke, 1644, speaks of the Baptists as ""nezv 
 dippers;'" the author of the Loyall Convert, 1()44, 
 styles it, "7y/<7 Nezv Distemper;''' Knutton, 1644, 
 calls it ''new and upstart ;'' Pag-itt, 1645, speaks of 
 it as a '"'nezu crotchet;''' Saltmarsh, 1645, Eachard, 
 1645, Stevens, 1650, Goodwin, 1653, call the Ana- 
 baptist baptizing- a ^'new baptism;'' Baillie, 1646, 
 calls it a "new invention;" Watts, 1657, declares 
 that it was a ''new business and a very novelty;"' 
 Baxter, 1669, calls "it anew sort of baptism ;'' and so 
 others spoke of it at the time as a "yesterday's con- 
 ceit;" a "a sparkle of nezv light ;" "taken up o)ily the 
 other year;" and while the Baptists, such men as 
 Blunt, Kilcop, A.R., R.B., Knollys, King-, Barber, 
 Collins and others, admitted that it was "//r::" in
 
 64 Review of Dr. J. B. Thomas on the Whitsitt Question. 
 
 Eng-land, they invariably defended its restoration 
 upon the ground that the ordinance had been "cor- 
 rupted," "buried," "raced out," and "lost" in the 
 "apostacy." The testimony of some of these writers 
 is either denied, or given another application, but 
 in the light of Crosby's account and the Bampfield 
 Document, these expressions are in precise accord 
 with the facts of 1640-41, which record the restora- 
 tion of the "ancient practice of immersion" upon 
 the ground that it "had for some time been dis- 
 used," and "so long disused" that, in England, 
 there "was no one to be found who had so been bap- 
 tised." Moreover, the language of this controversy 
 from 1641 to 1670 and still onward is in precise ac- 
 cord with the grounds upon which Crosby declares 
 that that controversy began when the Baptists ' 'were 
 for" reviving immersion. 
 
 In conclusion, I agree with Dr. Thomas that "so 
 toppling a hypothesis," as the sudden and simulta- 
 neous change of the Baptists in 1641, "needs mas- 
 sive support;" and I claim that under the circum- 
 stances of the times in which the change took place, 
 the evidence of the fact is amply sufficient, as fur- 
 nished by Dr. Whitsitt, and further by my reference 
 to Crosby and the Bampfield Document. Though 
 the Baptists were then an insignificant people and 
 thoroughly despised, their movement called public 
 attention and opposition to such a degree that there 
 is no mistaking the fact of their baptismal revolu- 
 tion in the literature of the period; and with their 
 suddenly changed and enthusiastic convictions, the 
 transition and transformation are easily accounted 
 for. The marvel now is that, with all the lights 
 before us, such a man as Dr. Thomas should enter 
 so strenuously upon the effort to explain away, or 
 give different application to the facts and utter- 
 ances which so plainly point to this Baptist transi- 
 tion which clearly took place in 1640-41, and which 
 cannot be predicated of any other period of Baptist 
 History in England.
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 The Monuments. 
 
 rHAT the " momentous change among- Baptists" 
 occurred in 1641 admits of no reasonable doubt 
 in the light of the literature and the facts of that 
 period recorded by Crosby, Bampfield and the con- 
 troversial writers of the time. Dr. Whitsitt, in his 
 defense of this position, erected seven monuments 
 in commemoration of the fact drawn from the his- 
 tory of the time; and Dr. Thomas in a whole chap- 
 ter (pp. 30-38) undertakes to pull down these mon- 
 uments by various hypothetical arguments which 
 seem on their face valid, but which, after careful 
 examination, appear to leave the monuments which 
 Dr. Whitsitt erected still standing. 
 
 1. Dr. Whitsitt assumes that the XLth Article of 
 theBaptist Confession ( 1644) prescribing immersion, 
 with directions about clothing — for the first time 
 imbedded in an English declaration of faith— indi- 
 cates that not only was the rite new, but that the 
 manner of administering it was yet unsettled. The 
 argument of Dr. Thomas that the Baptists hitherto 
 had "scrupled" the use of "formal words," and 
 "were slow to promulgate set creeds," does not 
 hold, since they had already set up creeds in 
 England, though without the immersion article; 
 and he neutralizes his argument that the fear of 
 persecution explains the absence this article in 
 any past declaration by his assumption that "up to 
 the Westminister Assembly, all religious bodies in 
 England had recoernized and even insisted upon im- 
 mersion as normal baptism." Why, then, should 
 the English Baptists have been afraid to put an im- 
 mersion article in their former creeds? The part 
 » (65)
 
 66 Review of Dr. J. B. Thorrids on the Whitsitt Question. 
 
 which the Westminister Confession, or the abolition 
 of the Hig-h Commission Court, played in actuating- 
 the Baptists to make their Confession in 1644, es- 
 pecially as regards their immersion article, appears 
 to the contrarv in the reasons they assign fcr their 
 manifesto; and whatever the individual utterances 
 of isolated Baptists hitherto in England or else- 
 where, that immersion alone is baptism, it is a sig- 
 nificant fact that such an article never appeared in 
 an English Baptist Confession before 1644, explica- 
 ble only upon the previous history that immersion, 
 as believers' baptism in England, had been re- 
 stored in 1641. 
 
 2. The repudiation of the name "Anabaptist" and 
 the adoption of the name "Baptist" in 1644 is 
 claimed by Dr. Whitsitt as a monumental implica- 
 tion that immersion had been recently adopted in 
 the place of aspersion by the Baptists of England. 
 Dr. Thomas argues that the title "Baptist" had 
 before that been applied to the Anabaptists of 
 Switzerland (1532, 1560), and that the Mennonites 
 had been substantially so designated. Granted; 
 but this does not alter the significance of the fact 
 that the Anabaptists of England never assumed the 
 designation until 1644, thirty-three years after their 
 origin in England as organized churches. It was 
 not until their restoration of immersion in England 
 that they began to be called "baptized people,"' 
 "baptized churches" — that is. Baptists and Baptist 
 Churches — and no incident in their history at the 
 time is more significant of the fact that they had 
 changed from aspersion to immersion in the year 
 1641. 
 
 3. The next monument of Dr. Whitsitt, in evi- 
 dence of the recent restoration of immersion (1641) 
 is the baptismal controversy which succeeded the 
 event. Dr. Thomas claims that "it was the at- 
 tempted exclusion of immersion by the Westminis- 
 ter Assembly, and not the attempt of the Baptists to
 
 The Monuments. 67 
 
 introduce it, that g-ave rise to the discussion;" but 
 the controversy beg"an in 1642, two years before the 
 Westminister Assembly excluded immersion; an A 
 even before that, when the Baptists of England 
 '*zfcrc /br reviving- the ancient practice," the con- 
 troversy beg-an by the Pedobaptists upon the g-round 
 that immersion, held as "the essential form of bap- 
 tism," would render other forms of baptism a " nul- 
 lity," and imply that none others were "truly bap- 
 tized." Dr. Thomas says again that it was not im- 
 mersion, but "rebaptism," which provoked the 
 controversy; but the Anabaptists had always re- 
 baptized, and although rebaptism was in contro- 
 versy at the time, as ever before, yet the g^reat 
 offense now was immersion, which nullified asper- 
 sion and unbaptized those not immersed, as is 
 shown by the whole contention from ir)40-4l to 
 1644 and onward. The assumption of Dr. Thomas 
 that "immersion was then questioned by nobody" 
 is contradicted right at the start by Crosby's state- 
 ment (Vol. I., p. 97) of the Pedobaptist g-round of 
 opposition to "immersion," held as "the essential 
 form of that ordinance" by the Baptists and by the 
 controversy between Barebone, Barber, Kilcop, and 
 all the others cited by Dr. Wliitsitt, who joined in 
 the controversy. Nothing is clearer than that the 
 controversy about Baptist baptism, as a "w^rzf" 
 thing- from 1640-41 to 1656 and onward, is a monu- 
 ment to the fact of the restoration of immersion at 
 that time as believers' baptism. 
 
 4. The existence of the "Old Men, or Aspersi','" 
 and the "New Men, or Iinnicrsi,"' after 1<)41 and 
 down to 1646 in Eng-land, and the fact of no such 
 distinction before 1641 is regarded by Dr. Whitsitt 
 as another monument to the fact that immersion 
 was restored by the "English Baptists" in 1<>41. 
 Dr. Thomas admits the force of Dr. Whitsitt's con- 
 clusion that the churches thus divided, or distin- 
 g-uished, by aspersionists and immersionisls were
 
 68 Review of Dr. J. B. Thomas on the Whitsltt Question. 
 
 Baptist Churches; but he thinks it " historicallY 
 probable " that this distinction obtained in Pedo- 
 baptist instead of Baptist Churches, in a transition 
 state, of which, according- to certain authorities 
 cited, it was difficult because of inter-mixture to 
 know whether they were Baptists or Pedobaptists. 
 He seems to think that such a state is discoverable 
 in the Jacob Church before 1641, when "some from, 
 time to time were convinced solely as to immersion, 
 some as to the necessity of faith before baptism, 
 while some went on to insist on immersion, even to 
 those who had already been received as church 
 members;" but this last assumption is like the Doc- 
 tor's theory of the "professed believers" found in 
 the Kif&n Manuscript, without any historical au- 
 thority whatever. As to his assumption at the 
 time of Pedobaptist Churches in a mixed state, com- 
 posed of the As-persi and the Iimnersi, he is also mis- 
 taken, since the Chelmsford Record applies the dis- 
 tinction solely to Anabaptists, and not to Pedobap- 
 tists. Dr. Evans, as already cited (Vol. 11. , p. 79), 
 explicitly refers the distinction to the Anabaptists, 
 or Baptists, some of whom still followed the Men- 
 nonite form of baptism which was aspersion; and 
 he goes on to show that among" the Baptists after 
 1646, the "New Men, or /wwzers/," soon cast "the 
 Old Men, or Aspersi,^^ into the shade, and their prac- 
 tice became obsolete." He then adds: "Immer- 
 sion, as the mode of baptism, became the rule with 
 both sections of the Baptist community." 
 
 5. The break in the relationship between the 
 Mennonite brethren and the followers of Helwisse 
 and Morton, after 1641, is regarded as another mon- 
 ument by Dr. V/hitsitt indicating the change from 
 Mennonite aspersion to Baptist immersion. Hence- 
 forward the Mennoniles being* recognized as unbap- 
 tized, they would be indisposed to "continue the 
 friendship and fellowship that had formerly pre- 
 vailed." Scheffer is authority for positive evidence
 
 The Monuments. 69 
 
 of the fact; but Dr. Thomas argues the improbability 
 of alienation on such a ground from the open com- 
 munion character of the Jessey type of English 
 Baptists, and from the fact that the Mennonites re- 
 ceived into their membership the Smyth schism, 
 the baptized portion of which he conceives to have 
 been immersed according to his inference from the 
 language of Dr. MuUer. Dr. Thomas also implies 
 that the real antagonism arose from differences re- 
 garding foot-washing, civic oaths, war, and he 
 might have added the deity of Christ; but upon 
 these questions, according to Drs. Muller and 
 Evans, we trace the most fraternal correspondence 
 between the Mennonite and the English brethren 
 up to 1631; and, whatever their differences of 
 opinion with regard to some questions, there was 
 no tendency to alienation between them on these 
 accounts. Again, the Helwisse Churches up to 
 1641 were not of the Jessey type of English Bap- 
 tists, mixed in membership, and holding to open 
 communion with the unimmersed; for there were no 
 such churches until after 1641, at which date im- 
 mersion was introduced. Up to 1641, according to 
 Drs. Evans and Muller (Hist. Early Baptists, Vol. 
 II., pp. 52, 53, 79), Mennonite affusion evidently 
 prevailed with "both sections of the Baptist com- 
 munity," and only entirely disappeared after 1646; 
 and no break is distinguishable between the Men- 
 nonite and Helwisse Churches until 1641. Dr. 
 Thomas' inference from Dr. Muller that, though 
 some of the Smyth faction were sprinkled when re- 
 ceived by the Waterlandors, those who were already 
 baptized had been immersed, is completely over- 
 thrown by the testimony of the Waterlanders them- 
 selves, who were Arminians and affusionists, and 
 who, when they questioned the English "about 
 their doctrine of salvation an<1 the ground and 
 form (mode) of their baptism," said: " No dilTerencc 
 was found between them and us." (Evans, Vol. I., 
 p. 208.)
 
 70 Review of Dr. J . D. Thomas on the Whitsitt Question. 
 
 6. The wild and sensele:ss panic which sprung- up 
 after 1641 about the health of the people endangered 
 by immersion, is Dr. Whitsitt's sixth monument to 
 the fact that the introduction of immersion in Eng- 
 land was of recent date. It had never occurred be- 
 fore, and it would be impossible now. Dr. Thomas 
 alludes to the fact as an illustration of the "occa- 
 sional silliness of great men;" but his implied ar- 
 gument that the furor about health originated in 
 the view of some that the "advocates of immer- 
 sion " covertly aimed to ' ' discourage infant baptism, 
 since immersion would be in the case of infants es- 
 pecially deadly," certainly does not accord with the 
 general history of the case. I agree that the agi- 
 tation was truly an illustration of the "occasional 
 silliness of great men," and of their blindness and 
 prejudice; but this characterization of the subject 
 and the implied argument cited do not, in any way, 
 answer the position of Dr. Whitsitt that this agita- 
 tion on the subject of health never occurred before 
 nor since in the history of English Baptists; and 
 that it pointed to the historic fact of the recent in- 
 troduction of immersion (1641) in England. If the 
 Baptists practiced immersion before 1641 in Eng- 
 land, why did not the "health" question originate 
 before 1641? 
 
 7. The last monument of Dr. Whitsitt to the re- 
 cent introduction of immersion in England (1641) 
 is found in the wDrd " ?'/iant/ze,''' just then come into 
 use in England, and intended to philologically 
 "antithesize immerse" by way of classical distinc- 
 tion. A. R. used it in his " Treatise of the Vanity 
 of Childish Baptism," London, 1642, p. 11, in its 
 Greek form; and Christopher Blackwood (1644) an- 
 glicised it, and called it a "pretty new slumped 
 word" that "should signif}' something in English." 
 Dr. Thomas, however, says that '•''rhantize is not 
 broad enough to antithesize immerse,''^ and that the 
 introduction of the word pointed to a conflict be-
 
 The Monuments. 71 
 
 tween the Pedobaptists, some of whom had yielded 
 to pouring-, but "resented the further chang^c to 
 sprinkling- then just being- introduced"' — that is, in 
 1645, According- to Dr. Wall. "The new word," 
 says Dr. Thomas, "was not derived to decide the 
 departure from immersion to pouring [that is, 
 among- Pedobaptists, I suppose he means], but from 
 pouring- to sprinkling." The fatal defect in the ar- 
 gument of Dr. Thomas is that the word " rhantize^'' 
 was introduced in 1642, 1644, by the Baptists in or- 
 der to disting^uish more perfectly, and as never be- 
 fore, immersion from asparsion; and whether "broad 
 enoug-h to antithesize immerse'''' or not, the advo- 
 cates of immersion so used it, first of all, after 1641, 
 the date of introducing- immersion into Eng-land as 
 believers' baptism. The assumption of Dr. Thomas 
 that '•'■rhantize^'' was introduced intoEng-lish litera- 
 ture, about the year 1645, in order to "describe the 
 departure from pouring- to sprinkling-' is an un- 
 supported inference from the history of the contro- 
 versy at the time. 
 
 He concludes his review of Dr. Whitsitt's " Mon- 
 uments" by saying-: "None of the circumstances 
 emphasized, on careful examination, seem irreconcil- 
 aoie w'th, while some strong-ly corroDorate, the com- 
 monly-received opinion that true Baptist Churches 
 long- preceded the date fixed by the new theory." I 
 leave it to the reader to judge of tne truth of this 
 proposition in the light of "careful examination" 
 which I have turned upon Dr. Thomas' cricicism of 
 Dr. Whitsitt's Monuments. I afi&rm that he ha.5 not 
 pulled down a single one of them; and if there is a 
 single circumstance emphasized by Dr. Whitsitt as 
 a monument to the fact that immersion was intro- 
 duced ixi England in 1641, which could be reconciled 
 with, or made to corroborate, the commonly- received 
 opinion that true Baptist Churches, however they 
 might have organically preceded the date of 1641, 
 immersed before that date, Dr. Thomas has nowhere
 
 72 Review of Dr. J. B. Thomas on the Whitsitt Question. 
 
 shown the fact. Until further light, aud better ar- 
 g-ument to the contrary, Dr. Whitsitt's Monuments 
 will stand unshaken as probable evidence that about 
 1641 immersion, as believers' baptism, was intro- 
 duced by the Baptists of England. 
 
 These monuments thoroughly establish Crosby's 
 account of the "DISUSE" and "RESTORATION" 
 of the "ancient practice of immersion" by the ^''Eng- 
 lish Baptists'^ as he denominates them, and as he 
 details the agitation which originated in 1640 and 
 culminated in 1641. His authority for the facts in 
 the case are Hutchinson, KifQ.n, Spilsbury, Tombes, 
 Laurence and others. Bampfield follows with a 
 similar detail of facts regarding the restoration of 
 baptism by the Baptists of England; and these 
 monuments erected by Dr. Whitsitt precisely accord 
 with Crosby and Bampfield and the other writers 
 cited by both.
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 CONTROVERSIAI, WRITINGS. 
 
 DR. THOMAS (p.p. 39-58) discusses the subject 
 of "Controversial Writings" including- a chap- 
 ter on Featley and another on Evans and de Hoop 
 Scheffer. Since I have already touched along this 
 line, I shall try to condense what I have to say fur- 
 ther in a single chapter. 
 
 The controversy under consideration is that which 
 originated about the administrator and the mode of 
 baptism by immersion as restored at the time of 
 Blunt, according to Crosby, Hutchinson, the Kiffin 
 Manuscript or the Jessey Records and the Bampfield 
 Document — the date being 1640-41. Crosby intro- 
 duces the subject of this controversy in order to re- 
 fute the charge of Dr. Wall and other Pedobaptists 
 that Smyth's self-baptism succeeded to the English 
 Baptists, (Vol. I., p. 95, 96), and he takes up eleven 
 pages (96-107) to show, according to the Hutchin- 
 son Account and the Kiffin Manuscript — also, by the 
 writings of Spilsbury, Tombes, Laurence and oth- 
 ers — that, after the some time disuse of immersion 
 in England, it was restored by the "English Bap- 
 tists," and that ''they did not receive their baptism 
 from Smyth." Crosby shows (96,97) that this con- 
 troversy began by the Pedobaptists with the "Eng- 
 lish Baptists" upon the agitation of the subject be- 
 fore they ("the Baptists") restored immersion 
 (1641), and then he shows the continuance of this 
 controversy by the writings of Spilsbury, Tombes, 
 Laurence, Barber and others, from 1641 onward, in 
 defense of the Baptist "beginning" nnd right to re- 
 store immersion when "disused," generally or uni- 
 versally corrupted, or "lost;" and the Bampfield 
 
 (73)
 
 74 Review of Dr. J. B. Thomas oyi the WhHsitt Que.-^tion. 
 
 Document comes along in precise accord with the 
 Crosby account, especially as to the restoration of 
 immersion according- to the Spilsbury method. 
 
 Right along with the year 1641-42, we discover 
 Barebone, Barber, Kilcop, A.R., R.B., Featley and 
 Kiffin, plunged into this controversy; and from 
 1643-44 onward, Featley, Cooke, Mabbitt, Pagitt, 
 Saltmarsh, Knollys, Eachard, Baillie, King, Ste- 
 phens, Goodwin, Parnell, Watts, Baxter, Collins,and 
 others, both Baptists and Pedobaptists, are wrest- 
 ling over the novelty of Baptist immersion ; and the 
 whole conflict with its varied statement and phrase- 
 ology, point directly to Crosby's account of the sub- 
 ject in controversy which began with the Blunt 
 movement, 1640-41. The only way to turn the 
 present controversy against Dr. Whitsitt is to show 
 that Crosby and Hutchinson are wrong — that the 
 Kif&n Manuscript or the Jessey Records and the 
 Bampfield Document are forgeries — that there was 
 no such man as Blunt — or that the controversy of 
 the time either belongs to another date, or has a 
 totally different application to facts. 
 
 But Dr. Thomas takes no such position. He 
 deals cautiously in hypothetical inferences based 
 upon probabilities which only tend to neutralize the 
 evidence in Dr. Whitsitt's favor; or else he deals in 
 dubious explanations which tend to set up a counter 
 theory of his own. Crosby's whole account and the 
 controversy which pertains to the facts detailed, 
 refer, according to Dr. Thomas, to an insignificant 
 movement of Pedobaptists confined to a Pedobap- 
 tist church, which was independent of the fact that 
 the Baptists were practicing immersion all the while; 
 and the controversial phraseology of the time which, 
 for more than thirty years, characterized Baptist 
 immersion as a "novelty" and a "fresh conce^'t," 
 must be viewed in the light, not of sober testimony 
 from the witness stand, but as the "flaming rhetoric" 
 of the "advocate" before the bar. Men like Bare-
 
 Controversial Writings. 75 
 
 bone, Featley, Baxter, Barber, Kilcop, King- and 
 others, spoke "elliptically," or "without careful 
 qualification of every statement" in the "flaming- 
 rhetoric" of controversy ; but whether they did or did 
 not, Dr. Thomas invariably finds an explanation of 
 what they say contrary to Dr. Whitsitt's thesis! So 
 he disposes of Barber, King-, the Broadmead Records, 
 the sweeping- and unmistakeable characterizations 
 of P. B. and even the plain declaration of Crosby 
 that the "Eng-lish Baptists," at a given time, "re- 
 stored the ancient practice of immersion" in Eng-- 
 land. Let us see. 
 
 1. I shall commence with Crosby, where Dr. 
 Thomas leaves off. He says that "Crosby [with 
 Ivimey who follows Crosby] who unequivocally in- 
 sists on a long--prior practice of immersion among- 
 Baptists, speaks without scruple of the 'restoration 
 of the ancient practice of immersion' at a later date.''' 
 The ^'' later date'' of which Dr. Thomas speaks, was 
 at the time of the Blunt movement, 1641 ; and Cros- 
 by positively asserts in "precise accord" with the 
 Xiffin Manuscript and the Bampfield Document, 
 that up to that time,immersion in Eng-land "had for 
 some time been disused." Moreover, Crosby asserts 
 that this restoration was by the "Eng-lish Baptists;" 
 and it was not an effort simply to restore immersion 
 as the "exclusive form of baptism" but as the "r/w- 
 cicnt practice"" which had so long- been lost that there 
 was no one to be found who had so been baptized 
 according- to Kiflfin, Bampfield and Crosby himself. 
 That Crosby "unequivocally insists on a lontr.prior 
 practice of immersion among- the Baptists of Eng-- 
 iand" before the ''later date'" mentioned by Dr. 
 Thomas — and which was 1641 — would be to make 
 Crosbv flatly contradict himself; and I hereby deny 
 the affirmation of D.'. Thomas, and call him to the 
 proof, that Crosby or Ivimey (however unreliable 
 the latter with reference to the period in question) 
 anywhere "insists" upon any such practice amon^ 
 the Baotistsof Enarland before 1641.
 
 76 Review of Dr. J. B. Thomas on the Whitsitt Question 
 
 2. Dr. Thomas says that the "sweeping- charac- 
 terizations of dipping- by Pedobaptist polemic 
 writers as a 'new baptism,' a 'new discover},' a 
 'fresh conceit' — must be qualified by the context or 
 attendant circumstances, or limited in scope by the 
 constituency addressed, in order to relieve them of 
 ignorance, inconsistency or mendacity." For in- 
 stance the phrase "new baptism" as in Eaton's case 
 only meant "further baptism." Of course we kiicw 
 in this instance, that the phrase "new baptism 
 did not mean a "novelty," and only implied a chang.^ 
 from infant baptism to believers' baptism; but Dr. 
 Thomas knows well that every Pedobaptist polemic 
 writer in the controversy of 1541 and onward 
 meant by the "new baptism" of the Baptists a ^^nov- 
 ^//)'." He knows, also, that however Barebone's 
 constituency might have viewed immersion as a 
 "novelty," Barebone was not remonstrating- with 
 Pedobaptists, but with Baptists, upon the ground 
 that they had been baptized the "third time" and 
 that their third baptism, which was immersion, was 
 a "new discovery," not more than "two or three 
 years" old at the farthest. 
 
 3. To get back a little. Dr. Thomas seeks to show 
 by the expressions of Barber, Dan'l King, and the 
 Broadmead Records cited by Dr. Whitsitt, that they 
 imply the prior and continued existence of immer- 
 sion up to 1641. 
 
 (1). He assumes that Barber's 'language con- 
 trasting the 'dipping of Jesus Christ,' practiced by 
 the 'Anabaptists,' with the 'dipping of infants,' 
 taken with the statement of persistency in the truth 
 during preceding reigns by some, plainly implies 
 that dipping had never been abandoned." I deny 
 that Barber's statement of "persistency in the 
 truth" has any reference to the practice of immer- 
 sion by the Baptists during the "reigns" mentioned; 
 and I affirm, on the contrary, that Barber's claim 
 ■fhat he had been raised up in the midst of even
 
 Controversial Writings. 77 
 
 ministerial ig-norance on the subject to "divulg-e 
 the g-lorious truth" of "true baptism, or dipping-, 
 coupled with his reply to Barebone in which h*. 
 grants that dipping- had been "destroyed and racea 
 out, both for matter and form," and that, though a 
 regular administration of the ordinance was lost, 3-et 
 that "true believers having Christ, the Word and 
 Spirit," have the right to raise ag-ain the raced out 
 ordinance, proves that dipping had been abandoned 
 in Barber's view — in precise accord with Crosby. 
 
 (2.) King's assertion that "the ordinance of 
 Christ, which they have been deprived of by the 
 violence and tyranny of the Man of Sin," according 
 to Dr. Thomas, points only to the practical impos 
 sibility of the public administration of immersion 
 which "had been legally and, so far as official vigil* 
 ance could effect, actually raced out and destroyed, 
 but not necessarily ignored and repudiated." " To 
 represent a man," says he, "as 'deprived by vio- 
 lence' of a rite that he had no disposition to prac- 
 tice, or of which he had never heard, wouia be 
 manifestly absurd." It is not necessary to the ar- 
 gument that either ignorance or indisposition be 
 charged to the Baptists in the disuse of immersion 
 in England; but from whatever cause immersion 
 fell into disuse — whether by Popish violence, or by 
 custom, or both — the historical fact remains that 
 it was "disused," "destroyed," "raced out," and 
 " restored " by the "English Baptists;" and King 
 only falls, by different phraseology, into line with 
 Crosby, Kiffin, Hutchinson, Barber, Bamplield and 
 the rest who prove that there had been no continu- 
 ance of immersion among the Anabaptists of Eng- 
 land up to lh41. It is nowhere said that these Ana- 
 baptists "repudiated" or "ignored, "or "never heard 
 of" immersion. Whatever their practice otherwise, 
 or their reasons for the same, their literature recog- 
 nizes immersion as the Scriptural mode of baptism, 
 only "corrupted." "disused," "lost," "raced out -"and
 
 /8 Review of Dr. ./. D. Thomas on the Whitsitl Question. 
 
 when the conditions became favorable they "re- 
 stored," "revived," "raised ag^ain" the "ancient 
 practice." Dr. Thomas is rig-ht as to the "practi- 
 cal impossibility of the ptid/ic administration of im- 
 mersion and its leg-al and actual destruction, so far 
 as official vig-ilance could effect; " but King-, with- 
 out qualification, employs the word '"'deprived'"'' as 
 expressive of the disuse of immersion in Kngland, 
 which had followed the violence and tyranny of the 
 Man of Sin, who had universally corrupted the or- 
 dinance. King- is in exact line with Spilsbury, 
 Tombes, Laurence, Barber, Collins and others with 
 regard to immersion as believers' baptism, "which 
 was lost in the apostacy " of Romish tyranny and 
 corruption, and the right to "revive " or "restore" 
 it without succession. 
 
 (3.) Dr. Thomas also claims that the "citation'' 
 from the Broadmead Records (p. 19) implied the 
 continuance of immersion, not only among the Ana- 
 baptists of Germany for a hundred years prior to 
 the event cited, but also among the English Bap- 
 tists, who are now said to have derived their bap- 
 tism from them and who, like them, had clung to 
 believers' baptism and had resisted the intrusion of 
 the Romish inventions (including infant baptism), 
 by which, according to these Records, "for a long 
 time" the t7'uth of believers' baptism" had been 
 "buried." The occasion of this event was in 1641 
 at Westerleigh, near Bristol, whither John Canne 
 went to preach, followed by a company of Pedobap- 
 tists in a transition state, and who on account of 
 the prejudice of " a very godly great woman," was 
 prohibited from preaching in the church in the after- 
 noon because he was an "Anabaptist" preacher — a 
 "baptized man; " and so far as history shows, there 
 was not another Anabaptist in Westerleigh or Bris- 
 tol, where there was no Baptist Church at the time, 
 nor afterwards before 1653, when the Broadmead 
 Church became Baptist, and when the Pithay
 
 Controversial Writings. 79 
 
 Church is discovered as the probable result of 
 Canne's work in 1641. The identitication of Canne 
 ■with the " disreputable Anabaptists of Germany" 
 a hundred years before was the cause of the 
 prejudice of the " g-reat woman;" and while Canne 
 had probably become a Baptist at Southwark in Jan- 
 aary, 1641, and really held to immersion as believ- 
 ers' baptism, there is no evidence, therefore, that 
 the German Anabaptists, or the intervening- En- 
 g"lish Anabaptists up to 1641, were " baptized men " 
 or immersionists, althoug^h they held to the '' /ru/Zi 
 of believers' baptism," as the Broadmead Records 
 affirm. Even though they practiced affusion up to 
 1641, they held to the '"''iruthoi believers' baptism," 
 and otherwise maintained Baptist principles, and 
 were essentially Baptists; but there is nothing in 
 the citation from the Broadmead Records which 
 "contradicts Dr. Whitsitt's root proposition, that 
 the [so called] continental ancestors of the English 
 Baptists [which is not here implied] had abandoned 
 immersion." 
 
 Finally, under this head, Dr Thomas (pp. 45, 46) 
 devotes a paragraph to Featley, claimed as a wit- 
 ness against Dr Whitsitt. Whatever Featley's 
 position against Anabaptist immersion as exclu- 
 sive of other forms of baptism, this was not the solf 
 ground of his opposition to their '■'nozv practice;'' 
 for if they had always been practicing immersion, 
 it was as exclusive of other forms of baptism before 
 1641-44 as "«(?z:/." On the contrary. Dr. Featley 
 clearly pronounces Anabaptist immersion as the 
 *■ ''11 ezu leaven'''' which "wholly sowsed " the XLth 
 Ariicle of the Baptist Confession (1644), and if the 
 Baptists had been continuously practicing immer- 
 sion up to that date, he would not have styled it a 
 vicious novelty. As Dr. Newman (Review of the 
 Question, p. 183) says: "What Featley says about 
 their practice of immersion refers definitely to the 
 present, (1644) — that is, when they "flocked in
 
 80 Review of Dr. J. B. Thomas on the Whitsitt Question. 
 
 great multitudes to their Jordans, etc." — not to 
 twenty years before when, according- to Dr. Feat- 
 Icy, they were like the " Solifusra," showing- only 
 his "shining- head" and "speckled skin" and 
 "thrusting- out his sting-" near his house in South- 
 "wark. Now, however, in 1644, "since the waters 
 were troubled," they were throwing- the nation into 
 confusion by their '''■ 7iozv practice'''' of rebaptizing- 
 hundreds of men and women, and by their weekly 
 conventicles, discussions and the like. Dr. Feat- 
 ley's great complaint is, that the spiritual sword 
 was locked up, and the temporal sword so otherwise 
 employed that these Anabaptists could not be re- 
 strained; and it is clear that, if twenty years before 
 these Anabaptists had been flocking- in g-reat multi- 
 tudes to the rivers, openly and boldly practicing- 
 their "new leaven" as they '"'"noTV practiced," he 
 would have known and seen to it that both the 
 "temporal" and "spiritual sword," then unlocked 
 and well employed in persecution, had been applied 
 to the suppression of such practice which now in- 
 furiated him. 
 
 Yes, we should have heard from Dr. Featley 
 further back in history, not in a discussion with 
 immersing- Baptists, but in civic and ecclesiastical 
 proceedings which would have chopped off the 
 "shining- head" of the Anabaptist "Solifug-a" 
 that then only thrust out the sprinkling- "sting- " of 
 believers' baptism, which was offensive enoug-h to 
 Dr. Featley, even under that form of administration 
 and in a state of deeper seclusion. The first case 
 of commitment to jail for the practice of believers' 
 immersion in Eng-land was after 1641, in 1644, in the 
 county of Suffolk, when Laurence Clarkson was im- 
 prisoned for that offense. (Crosby, Vol. I., p. xv., 
 Preface; Ivimey, Vol. II., p. 561.) If, after_1641, 
 such proceeding-s were had ag-ainst the practice of 
 believers' immersion, we may be sure that before 
 that date the "spiritual" and" temporal sword"
 
 Controversial Writings. 8i 
 
 would have been enforced with bloody severity, if 
 there had been any such practice. There were no 
 such practice and no such proceedings in England 
 before 1641; and here is another monument to Dr. 
 Whitsitt's thesis. 
 
 The Featly argument of Dr. Thomas overthrows 
 his argument ad ignorantia. If the South wark 
 Baptists were practicing immersion before 1041, and 
 Featley knew it, then Blunt, Lucar, Blacklock, 
 Kiflin, Jessey, and such like knew it. But these 
 men knew to the contrary, or else the main para- 
 graph of the Kifi&n manuscript had not been inserted ; 
 nor would Crosby and Bampfield have declared the 
 disuse of immersion in England prior to 1640-41; 
 nor would the great and prolonged controversy 
 about the novelty of Baptist immersion have fol- 
 lowed 1640-41. Therefore, Featley knew nothing 
 of Baptist immersion before 1641; and his language 
 on the subject applies to 1644. 
 6
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 The Burden of Proof. 
 
 BEFORE reaching- this head, I wish to notice some 
 things said by Dr. Thomas, which lead up to the 
 subject under consideration. On page 46, he charges 
 Dr. Whitsitt with confounding "things that differ" 
 in his citation and interpretation of some passages 
 from the literature of the time. He alludes to the 
 case of the "two sorts of Anabaptists" — the Old 
 Men or Aspersi, and the New Men or Immersi — in 
 Chelmsford, which Dr. Whitsitt cites as a monu- 
 ment to the fact that immersion had been intro- 
 duced in 1641, before which time the distinction of 
 Aspersi and Immersi had never been known among 
 Anabaptists. Dr. Thomas assumes that the dis- 
 tinction is referred, not to a church, but to the 
 "people" of a "town" in which the "third part 
 refuse to communicate in the church liturgy, etc. ;"' 
 and the Doctor thinks that, of the two sorts of 
 Anabaptists distinguished as Aspersi and Immersi, 
 the Aspersi sort consisted of individuals emerging 
 from Pedobaptist churches towards Baptist position, 
 first rejecting infant baptism and then sprinkling, 
 and were at either stage of progress called Ana- 
 baptists. The record implies no such intimation; 
 and I think Dr. Evans (Vol. I. p. 52) is right when 
 he refers the Chelmsford distinction to Baptist 
 communities which still held, at least in part, 
 to the affusion of the Mennonite brethren; and who 
 says again, (Ibid, p. 79), that after 1646, "these 
 New Men (or Immersi^ soon cast them (the Old 
 Men, or Aspersi) into the shade, and their practice 
 became obsolete" — adding that "immersion, as the 
 
 (82)
 
 The Burden of Proof. 83 
 
 mode of baptism, became the rule with both 
 sections of the Baptist community." 
 
 Dr. Thomas says that "The question in hand is 
 not whether all Anabaptists had been always alike, 
 nor whether all persons, churches, or communities, 
 reckoned as Anti-pedobaptistimmersionists,in whole 
 or in part, after 1641, had always been such, but 
 whether there were any individuals or churches 
 that had practiced the immersion of believers in 
 England before that time." He protests against 
 "appealing to the history of Pedobaptist com- 
 munities or churches in transition, as if these were 
 typical, and indeed the only. Baptist churches." 
 He admits that many of the mixed, and some of the 
 distinct, churches of to-day did spring out of Inde- 
 pendent bodies; but, says he, "It is by no means 
 clear that all did so." In reply to all of which let 
 me say: 
 
 1. All Anti-Pedobaptists were not always alike in 
 doctrine, polity, or baptism; but in England they 
 were never differentiated by the distinctions of 
 Aspersi and Imi)iersi until after 1641. 
 
 2. All persons, churches, or communities, reck- 
 oned as Anti-Pedobaptist immersionists, in whole or 
 in part, after 1641, had not always been such; for 
 some of them in whole or in part, came directly 
 from the Pedobaptists after 1641. 
 
 3. So far as the records show, immersion "had for 
 some time been disused" in England before 1()41; 
 for up to that time "none had so practiced in Eng- 
 land to professed believers." 
 
 4. Neither before nor after 1641, so far as I know, 
 has any one considered Pedobaptist communities or 
 churches "/w Irajisiiion' as typical or real Baptist 
 churches, unless Crosby and other English his- 
 torians so regarded the Jessey church. 
 
 5. Not only "many of the mixed and some of the 
 distinct Baptist churches of to-day," in lOngland, 
 sprang from Independent bodies, since 1<)41; but,
 
 84 Review of Dr. J. B. Thomas on the Whitsitt Question. 
 
 before 1641, the orig-inal churches upon which were 
 founded the General and Particular Baptist denomi- 
 nations in Eng-land, sprang- from Independent bodies, 
 according- to their history. 
 
 I grant with Dr. Thomas that Independency in 
 England owes its origin to Anabaptist ideas and 
 polity; that the two bodies were clearly affiliated at 
 first; that, after the Dutch Anabaptists left Eng- 
 land, there were possibly many Anabaptists indi- 
 vidually "intermixed," as Crosby says, with the 
 Congreg-ationalists, who beg-an to separate, 1633 and 
 onward, and form churches of their own persuasion; 
 but there is nothing in history to show among- them 
 "composite churches," as such, in Eng-land, until 
 after 1641. Whether there were any such churches 
 or not, or whether all were such or not, before 1641, 
 there is no evidence of the existence of immersion 
 among them; and it is more than probable, if we 
 had no direct testimony on the subject, that the 
 Anabaptists "intermixed" with the Independents, 
 before 1641, were like their Congregational brethren 
 in the mode of baptism, which was unquestionably 
 aspersion. The earliest intimation of a composite 
 church I know of was that of Llanvaches in Wales, 
 whither Mr. Jessey was sent, it is said, in 1639, to 
 assist Mr. Wroth. Afterwards it was called, "A 
 church of Independents and Baptists mixed, yet 
 united in communion; they had two ministers, co- 
 pastors — Mr. Wroth, an Independent, and Mr. Wil- 
 liam Thomas, a Baptist" (Broadmead Records, p. 
 7 ) ; but bv the use of the word ' 'Baptists" it is evident 
 that the existence of the mixed church, as such, 
 must have dated its beginning after 1641. 
 
 Dr. Thomas admits the "lack" of documentar-v" 
 evidence of historic continuity of Anti-Pedobaptist 
 immersion among the early Lollards, the later 
 Dutch, and the still later Eng-lish Baptists;" and he 
 might have admitted what is true, that there is no 
 documentary evidence of immersion among- them at
 
 The Burden of Proof. 85 
 
 all, to say nothing- of "'continuity^'''' until the Eng- 
 lish Baptists beg^an to immerse in 1641. It is true 
 that Anabaptism was a '"''rcligio illicita^ in Eng-land, 
 hiding in "forests/' "g-ardeas" and "cellars," until 
 1641; but if the Anabaptists had practiced im- 
 mersion, the "paucity of recorded testimony,'' would 
 have been as full of this fact as of other recorded 
 practices and doctrines by which they are clearly 
 and voluminously distinguished. Especially is this 
 true, if, as Dr. Thomas says, "Up to the "Westmin- 
 ister Assembly all religious bodies in England 
 recog-nized and even insisted upon immersion as 
 normal baptism." The practice of immersion by 
 the English Anabaptists, if such were the case, up 
 to 1641, would have at least no more endangered 
 them than other peculiarities well known. Such, 
 however, was not true of believers' immersion; and 
 if they had practiced it before 1641, as they did 
 afterwards, we should have heard of it in tones of 
 thunder and in flashes of lightning. It is not the 
 history given by their enemies that robs the Ana- 
 baptists of immersion before 1641 in England: it is 
 Baptist history which records the fact that such a 
 practice did not exist among them — that immersion 
 "had for some time been disused" before 1641 — that 
 ^^nonc had then so practiced in England to professed 
 believers" — that the practice had been "so long 
 disused" that "there was no one to be found who 
 had so been baptized." 
 
 Dr. Thomas says: "The emphasis laid upon the 
 fact that nobody has anywhere brought forward one 
 instance of clearly demonstrated immersion among 
 early Baptists, and the intimation that the holders 
 of the new theory give themselves no concern until 
 this is done, indicates a curious misapprehension as 
 to the burden of proof. . . . To make good his 
 charge, as formulated at the beginning. Dr. Whitsitt 
 is bound to show, either by afi&rmative demonstration 
 of the exclusive practice of sprinkling, or pouring,
 
 86 Review of Dr. J. B. Thomas on the Whitsltt Question. 
 
 or otherwise, that, up to the date mentioned, im- 
 mersion had never been practiced among" the Bap- 
 tists of Eng-land. Individual instances of sprink- 
 ling- among" Continental Anabaptists have been ad- 
 duced, but I do not recall any such in England. 
 The holders of the current opinion may, therefore, 
 well retort that, until one instance of early sprink- 
 ling among" Baptists is clearly demonstrated, to say 
 nothing- of meeting the larger theorem, they certain- 
 ly 'need give themselves no concern.' " Dr. Thomas 
 then cites the instance given in Edward's "Gan- 
 gra^na" that "on the 12th of Nov. last, (1640), there 
 met a matter of 80 Anabaptists (many of them be- 
 longing- to the church of one Barber) in a great 
 house in Bishopg-ate Street, and had a love feast, 
 when five new members lately dipt were present, 
 &c." 
 
 Dr. Thomas does not press this instance of im- 
 mersion (1640) because it is ''fragmentary;" but, be- 
 fore discussing the "burden of proof," let us grant 
 that the incident is true. November 12, 1640, is 
 but a little less than two months from January 9, 
 1641, when Blunt introduced immersion from Hol- 
 land, according to the original Kiffin Manuscript, 
 or the Jessey Records; and Dr. Newman has well 
 suggested that the Anti-successionists may have 
 begun to immerse, according to their theory and 
 method, upon the ag"itation for the restoration of 
 immersion by Blunt and others. May 3rd, mo., 1640. 
 Practically the Gangraena incident, even if true as 
 to date or fact, does not affect Dr. Whitsitt's thesis. * 
 
 *It was Jan. (nth mo.) 1640, (O. S.), 1641, (N. S.),when Blunt and 
 Blacklock baptized the seceding- members of Jessey"s and Spilsbury's 
 congreg-ations; and, iu the light of the Kiffln Manuscript and the Crosby 
 Account, it is probable that Nov, 12, 1040, (O. S.). was Nov. 12, 1641, 
 (N. S ), when the "five new members'' were "lately dipt." Whether or 
 not this be true, it is probable, according- to Dr. Newman, that the Blunt 
 agitation. May, 1640, had led the Anti-successionists to the introduction 
 of immersion before Blunt returned from the Netherlands, according- 
 to the theory and method of Spilsbury and others who repudiated the 
 succession scheme — the Blunt tlieory and method having historic pre» 
 cedence on account of priority of movement and ag-itation.
 
 The Burden of Proof. 87 
 
 But now as to the "burden of proof." I reply 
 that Dr. Whitsitt, if from no other standpoint, has 
 made out his case upon the g-round of circumstantial 
 evidence; and conviction upon that groud may be as 
 strong- and legitimate as by direct testimon3---if, 
 which is not true, such had been wanting in the case. 
 Nobody has proven by documentary evidence the 
 existence of a single case of immersion among the 
 Baptists of England before 1640-41, the period 
 claimed by Dr. Whitsitt, even upon probability; but 
 it IS also claimed that he has not proved a single 
 case of sprinkling, or pouring, among them before 
 that time. Evans holds to the probability upon 
 documentary evidence, that the English Anabap- 
 tists practiced aspersion before that period — and 
 Dr. Armitage holds likewise with some of thcra. 
 Besides this, the Kiffin Manuscript makes the nega- 
 tive declaration that "none," up to that time, had 
 "practiced" immersion in England to "professed 
 believers;" and while this is a negative declaration, 
 it implies the positive affirmation that immersion, 
 in England, had, up to 1641, been abandoned, or 
 disused among the Baptists as "believers" baptism. 
 In confirmation of this fact, and in the use of the 
 Kiffin Manuscript and other documents, Crosby pos- 
 itively affirms that, up to the Blunt Movement, im- 
 mersion in England "had for some time been dis- 
 used." He quotes writers who speak of its "gener- 
 al," or "universal corruption," and he goes on to 
 show that it was restored by the "English Bap- 
 tists," according to Kiffin and other writers. Bamp- 
 field, evidently referring to the same event, posi- 
 tively confirms the fact that immersion in ICngland 
 had been "so long disused" that there were none to 
 be found who had been "so baptized." The great 
 controversy which followed its introduction, after 
 1641, goes to show that it was a "novelty" among 
 the Baptists — charged by Pedobaptists and ad- 
 mitted and defended by Baptists whom Crosb}' shows
 
 88 Review of Dr. J. B. Thomas on the ]Vhitsiit Question. 
 
 had a baptismal "reformation" and "beginning" at 
 this time. 
 
 If this is not about as clear a case as could be 
 made out, both from circumstantial and positive 
 evidence, then I do not know what a clear case is 
 upon what seems to me more than probable testi- 
 mony. How, then, does the case stand when 
 summed up? 
 
 1. Negatively it is shown that immersion, as be- 
 lievers' baptism, was not practiced by the Baptists 
 of England before 1641; and positively that as 
 such it had become "disused," "corrupted," "de- 
 stroyed," "raced out" before that time. 
 
 2. But the Baptists were baptizing before that 
 period, since we know that some had received a 
 "further" or a "new baptism" on leaving the Jacob 
 Church, and that Spilsbury "baptized Sam Eaton 
 and others." 
 
 3. Therefore, if immersion as believers' baptism 
 was "disused" before 1641, the Baptists who bap- 
 tized, nevertheless, must have practiced aspersion or 
 affusion for baptism, as Dr. Evans clearly shows to 
 be probable. 
 
 But it is claimed, after all, that this was but an 
 opinion, ab ignorantia, and that this universal 
 declaration is not susceptible of proof, since there 
 might have been some churches or individuals un- 
 known in England who were practicing believers 
 immersion before 1641. That may be possible, but 
 the declaration is sufficient for all historical pur- 
 poses from what was generally known of the facts 
 in the case, and so far as they related to the Baptist 
 Churches then recognized, and from whom Baptist 
 history, as such, is made up. If there were any ex- 
 ceptions to the "general" or "universal corruption" 
 of immersion as believers' baptism in England, they 
 were unknown to history at the time; and if those 
 exceptions have not been discovered since, the his- 
 tory, as such, stands good. Even if you could prove
 
 The Burden of Proof. 89 
 
 the exception to the g-eneral fact declared, it would 
 in no way affect the history of the case, as it applies 
 to the General and Particular Baptists of Eng-land. 
 Their fifty churches at 1641 come under this g-eneral 
 declaration; and they were constituently called the 
 ♦'Baptists of England," the "English Baptists" who, 
 Crosby says, restored immersion, as believers' bap- 
 tism in England at the time of Blunt, which was 
 1640-41 . If there were any other churches then prac- 
 ticing immersion in England, there is no evidence 
 of the fact; and what is claimed for a few of such, 
 upon tradition, certainly did not then appear, and 
 cut no figure in the restoration movement. If such 
 are now numbered with the English Baptist body, 
 they were absorbed in it after 1641, and they con- 
 stitute no basis upon which to found baptismal or 
 church succession which Crosby shows the great 
 Baptist body repudiated at their revival of immersion 
 in England. Such a claim at that time, as to bap- 
 tism, was only made by the smaller movement of 
 Blunt and those with him; and they received it from 
 a foreign country in 1641, because it could not be 
 found in England, according to Kiffin, Hutchinson. 
 Bampfield, Crosby and others. Historically speak- 
 ing. Dr. Whitsitt's thesis is clearly established both 
 upon negative and positive testimony — consistent 
 all the way through.
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 Evans, Muller, de Hoop Scheffer. 
 
 DR. THOMAS (pp. 51-58) seeks to break the 
 force of Evans, Muller and de Hoop Scheffer, 
 as authority in favor of Dr. Whitsitt's thesis, that 
 the Dutch Anabaptists were not immersionists, and 
 that Smyth, Helwisse and Company wereaffusionists 
 after the manner of the Mennonite brethren. What- 
 ever the view of Evans that some of the Dutch 
 Baptists practiced immersion, at the time in ques- 
 tion, he ag-rees with Muller that the Smyth faction 
 which had been "self- baptized" joined the Nether- 
 land Waterlanders who were Arminians in the 
 doctrine of salvation and aff usionists in the practice 
 of baptism, no difference having been found between 
 them in theolog^y, church g-overnment, nor in the 
 design and mode of baptism. Those who had not 
 already been baptized were received by "sprinkling-;" 
 and the log-ical inference is that those of the 
 faction already baptized had been sprinkled. ' 'Birds 
 of a feather flock tog-ether." If Smyth and his 
 party had been immersionists they would not have 
 soug-ht membership in a sprinkling church — espe- 
 cially if, as Dr. Thomas assumes, they were sur- 
 rounded by Dutch Baptists who exclusively im- 
 mersed, and to whom they could have more con- 
 sistently applied for membership. No immersion 
 Baptist church, or faction of the same, ever yet 
 joined a church of sprinklers under the confession, 
 or otherwise, that there was no difference between 
 them and the sprinklers in doctrine nor practice. 
 Baptists of 1641 went from aspersion to immersion; 
 but there never was a Baptist body, seeking as 
 
 (90)
 
 Evans, Muller, de Hoop Scheffer. 91 
 
 Smyth was for "succession," that went backwards 
 from immersion to sprinkling- to find it. 
 
 Dr. Thomas does not deny that the Mennonite 
 Waterlanders sprinkled, nor that the unbaptized 
 portion of Smyth's party were sprinkled. In fact, 
 Dr. Muller says: "This mode of baptism was from 
 the days of Menno the only usual mode amongst us. 
 The Waterlanders nor any of the various parties 
 of the Netherland Doopsgczinden (Baptists; prac- 
 ticed at any time immersion." Nevertheless, Dr. 
 Thomas seems to think that Dr. Muller qualifies 
 himself in the added sentence which says: "But 
 they (the Waterlanders) cared only for the very 
 nature of the baptism, (as founded on full ages) and 
 were therefore willing- to admit those who were 
 baptized by a mode differing from t/icirs, just as we 
 are wonted to do nowadays." He seems to think 
 that this sentence might imply that Smyth and his 
 followers who had alread)' been baptized and so re- 
 ceived were immersed; that immersion would have 
 been regarded by the Waterlanders as not of any 
 material difference in "form and foundation" with 
 sprinkling; that the "usual" practice of the Men- 
 nonites had been sprinkling, but immersion, though 
 not ordinarily practiced, was not wholly rejected; 
 and that the observations of Dr. Muller were here 
 limited simply to the Doopsgezinden who com- 
 prised only a single section of the Netherland 
 Anabaptists. To all of which I reply: 
 
 1. It is impossible for Dr. Muller to mean that 
 Smith or his followers already baptized and so 
 received by the Waterlanders, had been immersed, 
 since "no difference," in the one thing nor the other, 
 was found between them in the '''foiDidation and 
 form'' (design and mode) of baptism, to begin with. 
 They were alike in theory that baptism belonged to 
 believers only — the "very nature" or design of the 
 ordinance; but while this theory might have been 
 equally applicable to sprinkling and immersion in
 
 92 Review of Dr. J. B. Thomas on the Whitsitt Question. 
 
 the conception of the Waterlanders, Dr. Muller 
 does not imply for this reason that though the form 
 was immaterial there was no difference in form; nor 
 that there was any difference in the form of baptism 
 between them and Smyth's party already baptized. 
 Besides this, Evans (vol. II., p. 52) says that Dr. 
 Muller ^'' fully agrees''' with Ash ton, the editor of 
 Robinson's Works, (vol. III., p. 461) who says: 
 "Immersion baptism does not appear to have been 
 practiced or pleaded for by either Smyth or Helwisse, 
 the alleged founder of the General Baptist denomi- 
 nation in Kng-land. Nothing" appears in these con- 
 troversial writings to warrant the supposition that 
 they regarded immersion as the proper and only 
 mode of administering the ordinance. Incidental 
 allusions there are, in their own works and in the 
 replies of Robinson, that the baptism performed on 
 himself, must have been rather by effusion or 
 pouring." 
 
 2. While the Waterlanders evidently regarded no 
 ^''material difference" between sprinkling and im- 
 mersion as to the '•''very nature'''' of baptism, it is 
 clear that they did recognize a formal difference 
 which, if it had existed between them and Smyth's 
 party, they would have expressed it. 
 
 3. The mode of baptism, according to Dr. Muller, 
 among the Mennonites, was then as noxv the "usual" 
 mode; but, says he: "The Waterlanders, (to whom 
 the Smyth party joined) nor any other of the various 
 parties of the Netherland Doopsgezinden practiced 
 at any time baptism by immersion;" and whatever 
 the implication by the word "usual" that there 
 might have been some exception to the rule of 
 sprinkling among the Dutch Baptists in general, 
 then as now, it is explicitly affirmed that the Water- 
 landers and all the parties of the Netherland 
 Doopsgezinden^ from the days of Menno, always 
 without exception, sprinkled. 
 
 4. Hence, it is not clear that Dr. Muller confines
 
 Evans, Muller, de Hoop Scheffer. 93 
 
 his observations simply to the Waterlanders since he 
 uses this lang-uag-e: "This mode of baptizing- was, 
 from the days of Meimo, the only usna/ mode among-st 
 t/ictn, and still is amongst ?^5;" and then, without 
 the qualification of "usual,''^ he shows that the 
 Netherland Doopsgczmden sprinkled altog^ether. 
 He seems to refer to the mode of baptism among- 
 the Mennonites in g-eneral and among- the Water- 
 landers in particular; or else there is no significance 
 implied in the use of the qualifying- term ''usual.''' 
 
 What then is the sig-nificance of the added sen- 
 tence: "But they cared only for the very nature of 
 baptism, and were therefore willing- to admit those 
 who were baptized by a mode differing from theirs, 
 just as we are wonted to do now-a-days?" In the 
 intervening- sentence he shows that no exception 
 was made in sprinkling- the English, and that, if 
 there had been, it is "more than probable that the 
 memorial would have made mention of the altera- 
 tion," and it is evident that Dr. Muller was seeking- 
 to emphasize the fact to Dr. Evans that sprinkling- 
 and not immersion was the mode not only by which 
 the unbaptized portion of Smyth's party was received 
 by the Waterlanders, but that this was the mode of 
 those already baptized — their being- found "no dif- 
 ference' between them as to design or mode. The 
 added sentence seems to be appended only to ex- 
 plain, nevertheless, that the Waterlanders then, as 
 the Mennonites now, were not illiberal or narrow in 
 the matter; that they reg-arded only "the very na- 
 ture''"' of baptism as the essence of the ordinance; and 
 that, other things being- equal, the English would 
 have been received, though "baptized by a mode 
 differing- from theirs," if it had not been true that 
 there was already "no difference" between them 
 in the "foundation and form," the design and mode 
 of baptism when received. Otherwise Dr. Muller 
 would contradict himself; and otherwise it would be 
 impossible for him to '•'fully agree"'' with the editor
 
 94 Review of Dr. J. B Thomas on the Whitsilt Question. 
 
 of Robinson's Works that Smyth and Helwisse appear 
 neither to have pleaded for, nor practiced immersion, 
 and that Smyth was self-baptized by affusion and 
 not immersion. 
 
 Dr. Thomas concludes that there is nothing- here 
 in conflict with the affirmation of Evans "that there 
 were a portion of the Dutch Baptists (at the time in 
 question) who uniformly administered baptism by 
 immersion." In the same note he might have 
 quoted the editor of Robinson's Works (vol. I, p. 203) 
 who asserts that Smyth and his party were "sur- 
 rounded by Dutch Baptists who uniformly adminis- 
 tered baptism by immersion;" but on this point both 
 Kvans and Ashtcn are evidently in conflict with 
 Muller and de Hoop Scheffer who have made a study 
 of the subject from the archives of the Mennonites 
 themselves. From the same page onward, howev- 
 er, Evans proceeds to lay before us the facts and 
 arguments at leng-th by which he at last concludes 
 (vol. II, p. 52) that the probabilities are g-reatly in 
 favor of the "opinion expressed" by the editor of 
 Robinson's Works, with whom, he says, "Dr. Mul- 
 ler ftilly agrees.'''' If anything- is clear, it is that 
 both Evans and Muller are of the "opinion," the 
 "conclusion more than warranted," that Smyth, 
 Helwisse and their followers were self-baptized by 
 affusion, and that the Dutch Anabaptists with 
 whom the Smyth party joined and with whom the 
 Helwisse Churches continued to affiliate up to 1641 
 in Eng-land, practiced sprinkling- for baptism, as al- 
 ready shown heretofore. 
 
 The opinion of Price that Smyth was convinced 
 that immersion was the scriptural mode of baptism, 
 and so broke with the Brownists — the opinion of 
 Masson that the "Helwisse folk differed from the 
 Independents on the subject of dipping" have no 
 foundation except in the "oral tradition" which Dr. 
 Thomas says Crosby followed on the subject. That 
 "oral tradition" has been swept away by the histor-
 
 Evans, Muller, de Hoop Scheffer. 95 
 
 ical research of Evans, Muller, Ashton, de Hoop 
 Scheffer, Dexter, Whitsitt, Newman, Vedder, Burr- 
 ag-e and others, and by the very writings and con- 
 fession of Smyth himself. Smyth and his followers 
 join in the confession of self- baptism in Holland; 
 and when charged with self-baptism Smyth ar- 
 gued against his opponents without denying the 
 charge, that '"''for haptizina; a dudi's self there is as 
 good warrant as for a man cJuirchimj; himself^* 
 
 In none of the writings and confessions of Smyth 
 and Helwisse, however they repudiate infant 
 baptism and defend believers' baptism, do they 
 anywhere prescribe immersion as did the Po- 
 land Anabaptists 1574, the Collegiants, 1620, 
 and the English Baptists, 1644, by specific articles 
 of faith. It is simply incredible that Smyth should 
 break with the Brownists — that Helwisse should 
 antagonize the Independents — in favor of immersion 
 as opposed to sprinkling, in favor of believers' 
 baptism as opposed to infant baptism, and yet de- 
 fine themselves distinctly as to the subjects of bap- 
 tism without reference to the mode, when the mode 
 was just as much a matter of difference between 
 them as the subjects. It will not do to argue, even 
 if it were true, that in Holland Smyth was sur- 
 rounded by immersing Anabaptists — that immer- 
 sion prevailed in the English Church — and that, 
 therefore, Smyth and Helwisse took immersion for 
 granted. If they were in conflict with sprinkling 
 among the Brownists and Independents they could 
 not, as to them, take immersion for granted; and 
 even if they had, we should discover somewhere 
 that they opposed sprinkling just as well as infant 
 baptism which would have implied that they were 
 
 ♦The fact that the English Baptists seek to find their oriR-i" i" the 
 Epworth and Crowle fraud by such writers as John Clifford and others 
 of the present day (The Eiitrlish JSaptisls. etc., p. 16), shows the ulter 
 unri'liabilily of liaptisi liistory at llic liaiuls of ])arlizaii authority. John 
 Smyth was certainly a Pedoliaptist in UKHi accordinir to hisown writinifs, 
 and he certainly never was immersed in the river l)nn hy John Morton.
 
 96 Review of Dr. J. B. Thomas on the Whitsitt Question. 
 
 immersionists, which is not the case. Think of 
 Smyth, an immersionist, after a conflict with the 
 Brownisis upon the subject of sprinkling-, at last 
 seeking- membership in a sprinkling Mennonite 
 Church; and that, too, when surrounded by immers- 
 ing Anabaptist Churches! The whole thing is ab- 
 surd. 
 
 Dr. Thomas very sarcastically disposes of de 
 Hoop Scheffer. He is characterized as a "writer un- 
 duly athletic in fancy" and ''paralytic in vision of 
 historical fact" — a "notable savant" badly affected 
 with "intellectual strabismus" — illustrated by his 
 general survey of baptismal history and specifically- 
 cognizant in his affirmations with reference to Uoli- 
 mann and the Polish Anabaptists. Except in this 
 form Dr. Thomas does not attempt, under this head, 
 to meet the affirmations of Scheffer with reference 
 to a "questioned date in English history, "nor with 
 reference to the "final solution of problems of conti- 
 nental breadth" concerning the baptismal question. 
 So far as I can see, neither here nor elsewhere does 
 Dr. Thomas assail the positions of Scheffer or any- 
 other author quoted by Dr. Whitsitt except by hy- 
 pothetical inferences which aim to neutralize rather 
 than directly disprove a thesis, the probabilities of 
 which, at least, have the show of g-reat credibility. 
 He neither proves that the example of Uolimann's 
 immersion in the Rhine tvas followed by any other 
 person, nor that the adoption of immersion by the 
 Polish Anabaptists was not due to local influences or 
 to the neighborhood of the Greek Church. Scheffer 
 certainly has, by means of the Dutch Archives, 
 thrown great lig-ht upon the subject of early Dutch 
 and English Baptist baptism — proving that it was 
 affusion; and, in g-eneral, he seems confirmed by the 
 late work of Dr. Newman on the History of Anti- 
 pedobaptism, in the fact that affusion and not im- 
 mersion was the usual practice of the Anabaptists 
 on the Continent early in the Sixteenth century. As
 
 Evans, Muller, de Hoop Scheffer. 97 
 
 to the two dates which he fixed for the restoration of 
 immersion in Eng-land, like any scholar, he was 
 liable to mistake in his original investigation, but 
 like the true scholar, he changed his view upon a 
 second and more patient investigation under the 
 suggestions of Dr. Whitsitt. 
 
 It is a great mistake for Baptists to wholly reject 
 the historical testimony of those we are disposed to 
 regard as our enemies who sometimes tell the truth. 
 It is equally as great a mistake to wholly adopt ev- 
 ery thing our own partizan historians naturally say 
 of us. The truth generally lies between the ex- 
 tremes of partizan statement on both sides of dis- 
 puted questions in Baptist history. I delight in 
 finding Baptists and Baptist history in every Chris- 
 tian age and country; but through the mists of ob- 
 scure periods and conflicting testimony, it behooves 
 us to weigh carefully and judge impartially, as well 
 what our enemies say as what we ourselves want to 
 believe. Our enemies do not always lie — and we do 
 not always tell the truth.
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 Dutch Anti-Pedobaptism. 
 
 DR. THOMAS (pp. 59 74) deals more directly 
 with Continental and Dutch Antipedobaptism. 
 He does not stop to discuss Lollardism or the Eng-- 
 lish Anabaptists during the early reig-n of Henry 
 Vni who, he rightly says, could not have been 
 Mennonites; for, as Dr. Newman says, the early 
 Anabaptists of England were 'of the Hoffmanite 
 type" and the later were "of the Mennonite type" — 
 both affusionists. 
 
 1. Dr. Thomas assumes that "it is yet too early 
 to attempt a positive account of their doings and 
 wholly impossible to verify sweeping negations 
 against them." He may be partly correct as to this 
 proposition; and I see no reason to differ with him 
 in what he quotes from Cornelius, Keller and Griflis. 
 I believe with them that the evangelical life which 
 projected the Reformation was Anabaptist; and I 
 am proud to accept the fact that the Constitution of 
 the United States is "an Anabaptist Docurrient." 
 I grant also that the word "dip" is only the Dutch 
 "fl?<9C^(;w," the German ^Haufen'^'' and that whether 
 "everybody dipped" or not when these words were 
 first introduced in Bible translation, it was under- 
 stood that they meant "dip." The Catholics, the 
 Reformers themselves, Luther, Zuingle, Melanc- 
 thon, Casaubon, Grotius, Jurieu, all admitted that 
 baptism in the Scriptures meant to "dip," though 
 they practiced to the contrary. The Roman Catho- 
 lics so teach to- day, as then. No doubt the early 
 Anabaptists, if not the later, so understood the 
 meaning of the word, as their literature usually 
 shows; but the facts of history demonstrate that 
 
 (98)
 
 Dutch Aiiti-Pedobaptism. 99 
 
 the Anabaptists g-enerally, like the Catholics and 
 Reformers of the Sixteenth Century, did not regard 
 immersion as the sole and only mode of baptism, so 
 far as their practice was concerned. 
 
 2. I see no reason to disag-ree with Dr. Thomas 
 in the probability that the Holland Anabaptists and 
 those of South Germany may have had a derivative 
 connection with the Swiss Anabaptists. Grant also 
 that Grebel and Manz visited Munster in 1523; that 
 Hoffman and Rink spent half a year at Zurich; 
 that they had been the disciples of Grebel and 
 Manz; that Hoffman and Rink were the fathers of 
 the Holland Anabaptism; and yet there is no 
 evidence that they ever introduced immersion in 
 Holland as the result of their Swiss discipleship un- 
 derGrebeland Manz at Zurich. After the council at 
 Zurich, about December 1624, the Anabaptist leaders 
 proceeded to "introduce believer's baptism," led by 
 Grebel, who first baptized Blaurock, who in turn 
 baptized larg-e numbers, all by pouring-. At the 
 same time Manz baptized Bruggbach and others by 
 pouring from a dipper of water. In April, 1525, 
 Uolimann, not content with being poured upon 
 from a dish, insisted upon being immersed in a 
 river by Grebel, who seems afterward to have fol- 
 lowed the practice at St. Gall, (History Antipedo- 
 baptism by Newman, pp. 107, 108, 114, 115). That 
 Manz ever immersed is not susceptible of historic 
 proof; and hence at the time of Hoffman's and Rink's 
 visit to Zurich and of their pupilage under Grebel 
 and Manz, which must have occurred in 1523 or 
 1524, if at all, they couJd not have become im- 
 mersionists for their great tutors were affusionists 
 up to the lime they left Zurich at the close of 1524. 
 This is also evident in the history of Hoffman him- 
 self, who was not an immersionist but an affusionist 
 in practice.* 
 
 *There is no reliable authority for ininiersiou at Zurich as Dr. 
 Thomas holds; and none such to show that Manz was drowned on
 
 100 Review of Dr. J. B. Thomas on the WhltHdt Question. 
 
 3. Dr. Thomas asserts that the "early history of 
 the Anabaptists of Holland, as well as elsewhere, 
 distinctly and strong-ly insists upon immersion." 
 Here, after touching- the obscurity of Anabaptist 
 history and its perversion by bitter partizans, he 
 comes to the history of the Mcnnonites, the main 
 question at issue. The quotations from Hunzig^er 
 (1830) and from Spanheim (1757) prove nothing- in 
 the light of specific facts to the contrary, drawn 
 from original sources by expert historians, who now 
 declare that the Mennonites never did immerse and 
 who, while they still exist, do not now immerse. 
 Is it not an incredible thing- that this body of 
 Christians should have once been immersion Bap- 
 tists and have afterwards turned to sprinkling? 
 Dr. MuUer, a Mennonite scholar, affirms that neither 
 the "Waterlanders, nor any other of the various 
 parties of the Netherland Doo^sgezinden practiced 
 at any time baptism by immersion. " Prof. Scheff er, 
 another Dutch antiquary and scholar, declares that 
 the Mennonites never practiced immersion. Drs. 
 Evans, Newman, Vedder, Burrage, Whitsitt, expert 
 Baptist historians affirm, in the light of the best 
 modern research, the same proposition. 
 
 But let us come to Menno himself, to whom Dr. 
 Thomas invites attention (p. 64). He quotes the 
 oft repeated passage from Menno's works, as follows: 
 "Beloved reader, take heed to the word of the Law, 
 for this also Paul teaches, etc.: even as Christ died 
 and was buried, so also ought we to die unto our 
 sins, and be buried with Christ in baptism, etc., 
 (citing Romans vi:5-7). . . . Again, Paul calls 
 baptism the washing of reg-eneration ! O Lord! 
 
 account of being an immersionist. He sprinkled according- to his own 
 teaching and practice; and the custom of drowning among the Germans 
 and Swiss had no reference to immersion in Manz's case, but to the 
 practice of believer's baptism as opposed to infant baptism. Drowning- 
 was the penaltv for several offenses against the State, such as robbery, 
 adultery and the like, and was long in vogue before the Reformation. 
 It was especially employed against women, as being the easiest mode of 
 execution by death.
 
 Dutch Anti-Pedobnplism. 101 
 
 how lamentably thy word is abused! Is it not 
 greatly to be lamented that men are attempting-, 
 notwithstanding- these plain passag-es, to maintain 
 their idolatrous invention of infant baptism, and 
 set forth that infants are reg-enerated thereb}-, as if 
 regeneration was simply a plunging- in water?" 
 Along- with this passage we take another from 
 Menno's "Foundation Book," (p. 22) in which he 
 refers to baptism as receiving- a "handful of water," 
 which Dr. Thomas concedes as "equivocal," at 
 least; but the Doctor then g-oes on to assume, how- 
 ever, that Menno's citation of Romans vi:5-7, is 
 determinative of the form of baptism and is char- 
 acteristic of Anabaptist literature in all its early 
 stages. He finds it in the Protocol of Emden, 1578; 
 in the Protocol of Frankenthal, 1571, in which 
 baptism is explained as the "symbol of death and 
 new life;" in the Confession of Jacques d'Auchy 
 Leeuwarden, 1559; in the Munster "Restitution," 
 1634, in which baptism is described as the "burial 
 of the sinful flesh;" and in the Berne "Dis- 
 putation," 1532, in which the "Touffer" says: "Bap- 
 tism is always a symbol of a renewed man en- 
 tombed into the death of Jesus Christ." 
 
 Before considering these authorities from the 
 earlier literature of the Anabaptists, I wish to add 
 another quoted and translated in full along the same 
 line by Dr. Thomas. I allude to the Confession of 
 the "Two Sacraments" issued by Rothmann and his 
 colleag-ues at Munster, 1533. I need not give the 
 whole translation secured by Dr. Thomas, but I g-ive 
 enoug-h of it to show its characterization of the 
 entire literature of the Anabaptists. It reads as fol- 
 lows: " ]\7/a/ the zi'ord chop means. Ever}' Dutsche 
 knows, of course, the meaning- of doepen (to dip) 
 and consequently also of doop and doopscl (dipping). 
 Doopen is as much as to say to dip or immerse in, 
 or hespn'fikliu^- zvith water. Now this word doop, 
 by reason of its natural signification, may be used
 
 102 Rrview of Dr. ,/. 7>. Thomas on the Whilsitt Question. 
 
 of all and every kind of dipping-. But in the 
 Christian sense there is not more than one sort of 
 dipping- in water, that can be called doop, which is 
 when a person is dipped according- to the command 
 of Christ; otherwise, if it be done in a manner, or 
 with intent differing- from what Christ and his 
 apostles practiced, it may literally or naturally 
 be called a doop, but it can never be reg-arded as 
 doop in the Christian sense, etc." Baptism is de- 
 fined as an immersion in water, received as a token 
 of death to sin, buried with Christ, and a resurrec- 
 tion to new life, just as Baptists reg-ard it; and but 
 for the sprirkling- clause given in the first part of 
 the definition, side by side with immersion, this 
 confession would be perfect. Let us, however, view 
 the subject, as set forth in all these details of 
 Anabaptist literature, in the lig-ht of their practice 
 and this will relieve the difficulty which shrouds 
 the history in question in so much obscurity to the 
 minds of those who have not properly studied the 
 subject. 
 
 1. Let us beg-in with the Rothmann Confession 
 and go back to Menno. In the first place this con- 
 fession, so far as baptism is concerned, is vitiated 
 by '''' sprinkling"' which, notwithstanding- the other- 
 wise perfect definition as immersion, is made to oc- 
 cupy an alternative form of baptism; but what is 
 more remarkable, the Confession never went into 
 effect at Munster. The authors of the Confession 
 were never themselves immersed, nor practiced im- 
 mersion; and according- to the evidence of eye wit- 
 nesses the mode of baptism which prevailed at Mun- 
 ster at the time was by "pouring- three hand fulls of 
 water on the kneeling- candidates." (Hist. Anti- 
 pedobaptism, p.p. 282, 286); (Quest, in Bap. Hist., 
 p.p. 42-44); (Cornelius, Berichte, etc., p. 20). 
 
 2. Leading- Anabaptists of the period in question 
 are known to have practiced affusion. At Wald- 
 shut (1525) Hubmair, the g-reatest leader of the
 
 Dutch Anti-I'edobdptism. 103 
 
 Anabaptist movement of the sixteenth century, 
 "publicly baptized out of a milk pail over 300 be- 
 lievers." (Hist. Antipedobaptism, p. 126). Plub- 
 mair describes the act of baptism, thus: "To bap- 
 tize t'n icatcr is to pour oiitzuai'd zcater over the con- 
 fessor of his sins, in accordance with the divine 
 command, etc. So has John baptized." {.\. Quest. 
 in History, p. 36 — quoted from Von dem Christen- 
 lichen, etc., p. 5.) Hoffman, the father of the 
 Dutch Anabaptists, 1530, in the sacristy of the 
 Church at Kmden openly administered baptism by 
 pouring and, according- to Hast, upon the authority 
 of Ubbo Phillips, it is asserted that Hoffman bap- 
 tized 300 persons out of a large bucket on this occa- 
 sion. (Geschichte, etc., p. 255). See also Hist. Anti- 
 pedobaptism, p. 266, as to Hoffman's use of a room 
 in a church where he publicl}^ baptized. From the 
 writings of Hubmair and Hoffman, we are led to 
 infer their conception of baptism as immersion or 
 "in water," and yet with the prevailing custom of 
 the time and indifference as to mode, they practiced 
 affusion, just as Rothmann and other leaders did at 
 Munstcr, and just as Grebel, Manz, Blaurock and 
 others did in Switzerland. Dr. Whitsitt (Quest. 
 Bap. Hist., p.p. 44,45), cites a number of instances, 
 1534-35, at Maastricht, Holland, where the Anabap- 
 tists practiced affusion; and so in Wessel, Holland, 
 during the period in question, according to the au- 
 thority of Joseph Habets and Bouterwek. In the 
 Canton of Berne, in Moravia, in Austria, Bavaria, 
 Swabia, Franconia and other countries on the Con- 
 tinent the early Anabaptists of the Sixteenth Cen- 
 tury practiced affusion according to Dr. Newman in 
 hie review of the "Whitsitt Controversy" and in his 
 "History of Antipedobaptism," which is an ex- 
 haustive and accurate research along the line in 
 question. 
 
 3. This brings us to Menno at a later date when 
 he united the broken fragments of the Anabaptists
 
 104 Review of Dr., J. B. Tkovias on. ike Whitsilt Question. 
 
 under the name of Mennonites in Holland, 1534-35. 
 Like the rest he defines baptism in scriptural terms 
 and yet represents it as receiving- "a handful of 
 water," which according- to Scheffcr meant simply 
 the pouring of water which was the custom of the 
 Anabaptists during the first half of the sixteenth 
 century, both in Switzerland and upper Germany, 
 as a rule, and which seems to have been almost, if 
 not, universal in Holland. Dr. Newman (Hist. An- 
 tipedobaptism, p. 302) says: '"It seems almost cer- 
 tain that Menno did not require or practice immer- 
 sion. In his "Foundation Book, (p. 22, folio Dutch 
 edition of his works) he refers to the act of baptism 
 as receiving 'a handful of water.' The passag-e in 
 his treatise on Christian Baptism (p. 400), some- 
 times supposed to assert the exclusive validity of 
 immersion cannot possibly be so interpreted. The 
 author is simply insisting upon believers' baptism 
 as 'the only baptism in water that is well pleasing- 
 to God,' to the exclusion of infant baptism. Yet in 
 this same treatise he speaks repeatedly of 'baptizing- 
 in water,' and of baptism as a 'water bath,' and he 
 does not hesitate to employ the symbolism of burial 
 and resurrection in connection with the ordinance. 
 On page 419, he repudiates the idea of the miserable 
 world (referring to his Pedobaptist opponents, 
 Catholic and Protestant), that 'a plunging (duyken) 
 in water,' is equivalent to the new birth. While 
 perfectly familiar with immersion as the primitive 
 form of baptism, he was probably content with af- 
 fusion, the practice of the later Mennonites as well." 
 Thus it is discovered that while the early Ana- 
 baptists "distinctively and strongly" seemed to "in- 
 sist" upon imm.ersion in their literature, their prac- 
 tice was generally to the contrary. "To be baptized 
 in -water.'''' with Hubmair, was simply "to pour out- 
 'wa7-d zvater over the confessor of his sins" — the word 
 iieberoicsien. to ''''pour over.,'''' being used. With 
 Rothmgnu and his Colleagues, in the "Confession of
 
 Dutch Anti- Pedobaptism. 105 
 
 tlie Two Sacraments," ^^inuncrsion'"' and ^'■be sprink 
 lino zviih ■zvatcr"' were alike synonymous with bap- 
 tism; and so Menno could define baptism scriptur- 
 ally as a symbolic burial and resurrection, and yet 
 represent baptism as the receiving- of a ''handful of 
 water.'' So no doubt of the other similar specimens 
 of Anabaptist literature quoted by Dr. Thomas from 
 the sixteenth century. The truth is that earl}- Ana- 
 baptist literature pays but little attention to the 
 subject of immersion which, in view of the preva- 
 lence of sprinkling- on the continent, would be re- 
 markable indeed if the Anabaptists were immersion- 
 ists; but the mystery is explained by the fact that, 
 while they recognized immersion as the scriptural 
 form of baptism and so wrote, they, like other 
 Christians, practiced sprinkling or pouring them- 
 selves.* 
 
 In their zeal for "believers' baptism" as opposed 
 to "infant baptism" they lost sight of the mode; 
 and Hoffman went so far as to issue a proclamation 
 suspending baptism for two years altogether^ in order 
 to popularize the principles of Antipedobaptism. 
 It seems that the entire Christian world, in the Six- 
 teenth Century, fell under the sprinkling spell, and it 
 was only the Baptists who in 1641 finally recovered 
 from the practice in England, while the Protestants, 
 like the Catholics, permanently lost immersion. 
 
 There is no evidence of any discussion among the 
 Anabaptists on the subject of immersion, and only 
 occasional allusions to it, up to 1574, when the Po- 
 land brethren adopted an immersion creed; and it is 
 evident, up to that time, that they had no vigorous 
 convictions as to the baptismal mode. They did 
 
 *Thev evidently took the yiew that while immersion was the mode, 
 it was not of the subxlnyicc of baptism which, to them, meant the appli- 
 cation of water as tli(» symbolic cleansiufr of sin — and lliercfore death to 
 sin and ncwnessof life' illustrated by immersion. They were Ilaptists. 
 however, in person and princii>Ie, although they did not always wear the 
 Baptist uniform as thev ou(fht to have done. A man may be e»svnlially 
 a Raptist iu principle though uot technically a Baptist in form and vice 
 
 versa
 
 106 Review of Dr. J. B. Thomas on the Whitsitt Question. 
 
 sporadically, here and there, practice immersion as 
 at St. Gall, in the river Sitter, at Strasburg- and 
 Augsburg-, and perhaps other places; but the evi- 
 dence is to the contrary of any ordinary or g-eneral 
 practice of immersion anywhere among- them. Their 
 g-reat leaders V7ere affusionists with little if any ex- 
 ception, even to Menno himself; and it was not until 
 1574 in Poland, 1620 in Holland, and 1641 in Eng-- 
 land that the Anabaptists distinctively changed to 
 immersion by a restoration of the ordinance as hav- 
 ing- been "lost," "corrupted," "disused" — not as 
 something new, but "ancient." 
 
 Upon the -whole, and in conclusion, I plant myself 
 upon Crosby's position, that, prior to 1640-41, im- 
 mersion as believers' baptism, "had for some time 
 been disused" in England; and that the "antient 
 practice" -was "restored," at that period, by what 
 he designates the "English Baptists" as a body and 
 without distinction, except as to Successionists and 
 Anti-successionists. I also adopt his clear intima- 
 tion that the ordinance had also been lost in Hol- 
 land, where, he s^.ys, the Foreign Protestants ^^/lad 
 used immei'sion for some time''' only, when Blunt -was 
 sent for it to the Collegiants, who had lately re- 
 stored it in 1620. (Vol. I., pp. 97, 102. ) Crosby is 
 right as to the disuse and restoration of immersion 
 both in England and on the Continent among the 
 Anti-pedobaptists.
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 Revolution and Evolution. 
 
 REVOLUTIONS are the safety valves of society. 
 Sometimes they are gradual and peaceful — 
 ag-ain sudden and explosive. They are the result 
 of retarded or suppressed truth, and of long- domi- 
 nating errors; and sometimes like the cyclone and 
 the blizzard, they come to relieve stagnation and 
 restore the equilibrium, the purity and the truth- 
 developing elements latent in the moral and spirit- 
 ual atmosphere. They are necessary to a world 
 engulfed in evil; essential to the perpetual develop- 
 ment of truth and righteousness, however potent in 
 themselves, or harnessed and operated of God. As 
 in the natural so in the supernatural economies. 
 The history of this world is a checkered series of 
 triumphant consummations and engulfing cata- 
 clysms, from the Garden of Eden to the Millennium; 
 and the only solution of the social, political and 
 religious problems, in the singular revolutions of 
 time, is the Cross of Cavalry. Jesus Christ is the 
 secret of history and the explanation of all its rev- 
 olutionary mysteries and results. 
 
 The Baptist Denomination is the creature of rev- 
 olution and evolution; and it has ever and will ever 
 continue to be the mighty factor in the great reli- 
 gious revolutions of the ages, in the machinery of 
 whose moral and spiritual movements it is the bal- 
 ance wheel within the wheel of Providence. We 
 are not a reformation, but an evolution from the 
 apostles till now; and yet within ourselves we have 
 been the subject of many revolutions and reforma- 
 tions through our long and checkered course of de- 
 velopment. From the Second to the Twelfth Cea- 
 
 (107)
 
 108 Review (if Dr. J. B. Thomas on the Whitsitt Question. 
 
 tury we were the anti-Catholic sects in conflict with 
 baptismal reg-eneration, infant bapiism, hierarchy, 
 impure churchism, unevang-elical life — developing 
 throug"h crude forms and elemental variations from 
 which we can distinguish Baptist traces, and which 
 planted the seeds of truth for a higher and better 
 evolution. The Anabaptists of the Twelfth and 
 succeeding centuries were still nearer Baptist — pro- 
 jecting a more evangelical doctrine and life into the 
 deadly darkness of the Mediaeval Ages — opening 
 up a broader and clearer way to the great Antipedo- 
 baptist movement and Reformation of the Sixteenth 
 Century; and while their development was irregular 
 in outward form and method — often widely apart or 
 broken up — yet through all their checkered way 
 and fiery ordeal we discover our people, more or 
 less distinct, still persistent in Baptist principle 
 and purpose towards the ultimate end and outcome 
 of a still higher and better evolution. From the 
 Sixteenth to the middle of the Seventeenth Century, 
 the star of Antipedobaptism rose and relumed with 
 a brighter, steadier ray, though oft obscured by 
 error within or persecution without, until it fixed its 
 more evangelical orbit in the name, the principles 
 and the practices of the Baptist Denomination of 
 England; and then it almost ceased ere long to 
 shine over the Continental provinces where, through 
 so many ages, it waxed and waned until it was well 
 nigh extinguished in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth 
 centuries. 
 
 Even in England since the Seventeenth Century 
 the course of Baptist development has been revolu- 
 tionary and irregular; and up to the present time 
 there is but a small section of the denomination 
 which has so far separated from the main body as 
 to be called strictly Baptistic according to gospel 
 principle and practice. Nevertheless great strides 
 have been made in learning, liberty, Sunday school, 
 missionary, benevolent and other forms of evangel-
 
 Revolution and Evolution. 109 
 
 ical life and activity since the middle of the Sev- 
 enteenth Centurj^; and it is to the g"lory especially 
 of the Calvinistic Baptists of England that they 
 were foremost in every strug-gle for freedom, and 
 that, in 1793, they projected the first g-reat foreig-n 
 missionary movement in modern times. A larg-e 
 body of the Eng-lish Baptists, however, are on the 
 "down grade," and without a revolution and a ref- 
 ormation, the time is not far distant when the 
 "Baptist Union" will dissolve in doctrinal chaos — 
 another evidence that Baptists cannot exist apart 
 from doctrinal truth as well as evang-elical life. 
 
 America became the cong-enial soil for the im- 
 plantation of Baptist principles, about the same 
 time that Antipedobaptism became triumphant 
 under the name of the Baptist denomination of 
 Eng-land. Here we beg-an a career oi purer scrip- 
 tural orthodoxy and life; and yet our evolution to- 
 wards a hig-her perfection in education and activity 
 has been characterized by man}^ chang^es and refor- 
 mations within ourselves. We inherited the spirit 
 of freedom from our English brethren in the great 
 contest for political and relig^ious liberty in Amer- 
 ica, in which, as a denomination, we were foremost 
 and almost alone; and in which, according- to Dr. 
 Grif&s, the proud compliment was won that the 
 constitution of the United States is "an Anabaptist 
 document." We also followed our Eng-lish brethren 
 in the exercise of an enlarg-ed missionary spirit and 
 in the adoption of org-anized methods for the exten- 
 sion of the gospel to all the world; and in the exer- 
 cise of our theory and plan of missionary operations 
 we have underg-one a revolutionary or reformatory 
 chang-e in separating- from the anti-missionary 
 elements which hampered the g-rcat work. In 1S45, 
 Northern and Southern Baptists revolutionized 
 ag-ain and separated upon the slavery question; and 
 the question thus ag-itated between tlic two sections 
 was only settled by the bloody arbitrament of the
 
 110 Review of Dr. J. B. Thomas on the Whildtt Question. 
 
 sword in which Baptists and all other Christians 
 eng-ag-ed on both sides of the conflict. 
 
 Since 1845 in the South the great "Landmark" 
 question originated among- Baptists and we have 
 been sharply divided, though not separated, upon 
 the "succession" theory upon which the Landmark 
 idea is now essentially based. In the North, and 
 larg-ely in the South, however, there has remained 
 a strong- conservative element of Baptists who op- 
 pose the "high church" idea and occupy the position 
 of the denomination up to 1845; and it is to this 
 conservative element we must look for the continued 
 normal development of our people towards evang-el- 
 ical spirit and principle which have always charac- 
 terized true Baptist history — avoiding- the extreme 
 of literalism on the one hand and liberalism on the 
 other. 
 
 More recently the Landmark or Succession move- 
 ment has assumed a more pronounced attitude in 
 view of the Whitsitt Question. Many anti-succes- 
 sionists or anti-landmarkers disagree with Dr. 
 Whitsitt; but the Successionists or Landmarkers 
 universally oppose Dr. Whitsitt on the theory that 
 both scripture and history demand "the orderly and 
 uabroken succession of Baptist churches from the 
 Apostles till now " Dr. Whitsitt and those who 
 ag-ree with him, therefore, are pronounced, "here- 
 tics," "traitors," "Judases" and the like; and of late 
 the battle cry has been raised: ''''The soul of J. R. 
 Graves goes marching on.'''' With the sounding- of 
 this mighty slog-an we are warned that the Land- 
 mark line of battle is specifically drawn upon the 
 "Whitsitt Question; ' and others are appealing- to 
 the shades of Broadtis., Boyce, Fuller, Jeter., Bur7'ozvs, 
 and others on the other side of the line. 
 
 In conformity with the battle cry of the Succes- 
 sionists, the Kentucky Baptist General Association, 
 followed in Spirit by the Mississippi and Louisiana 
 Baptist Conventions, passed resolutions requesting
 
 Revolution and Evolution. Ill 
 
 Dr. Whitsitt's resignation chiefly upon the ground 
 of his historical theory; and all this, too, in the face 
 of a peaceful adjustment of the matter at the South- 
 ern Baptist Convention, in the Board of the Semi- 
 nary Trustees, the only body having- jurisdiction of 
 the matter, and in which the opposition concerned 
 clearly acquiesced. Hence, we are in the vortex of 
 another revolution unless the difficulty can be other- 
 wise peacefully adjusted; for some are privately 
 and publicly demanding that the Seminary shall wort' 
 be placed under Landmark control — not simply that 
 Dr. Whitsitt shall be removed. The Landmark 
 question still lives; and it is t/ic question, above all 
 others, which now confronts the "Whitsitt Ques- 
 tion." The rallying cry in the name of the great 
 J. R, Graves, followed by the speedy action of the 
 Kentucky and other general bodies, based chiefly 
 upon Dr. Whitsitt's "theory," are in evidence of the 
 fact; and I could cite, if necessary, many public and 
 private utterances in proof of my assumption. 
 
 I am reminded of Galileo before the Inquisition 
 of Rome. "The Scriptures teach," said Rome, 
 "that the earth does not move;" and in vain did 
 Galileo argue that the Scriptures only speak phe- 
 nomenally on scientific lines. But Galileo must re- 
 cant, upon his knees, the Copernican "heresy." 
 Rising up, he exclaimed in undertone: E pur si 
 muove — "It does move for all thati" Alas! that thii 
 hoary sage, this high priest of the stars, should 
 have lost a martyr's crown! The Kentucky and 
 the Mississippi and other Conventions, according to 
 the Landmark dogma, virtually say to Dr. Whit- 
 sitt: "Recant your heresy against Scripture and 
 history which demand that the English Anabap- 
 tists must have immersed before 1641, or else step 
 down and out." In vain would Dr. Whitsitt show 
 that there is neither Scripture nor history for such 
 a dogma; and if he were to kneel and recant, he 
 would have to rise with an undertone exclamation:
 
 112 Review of Dr. J. B. Thomas on the Whitsitt Question. 
 
 "There was no such practice, for all that!" He will 
 accept the martyr's crown the rather — and so of 
 those who agree with him. 
 
 How different the tone of Christian scholarship! 
 Dr. J. B. Thomas who seeks to overthrow Dr. Whit- 
 sitt's theory, says: "The historic question opened 
 by Dr. Whitsitt seems to me perfectly legitimate 
 and fairly entitled to candid investigation. I do 
 not sympathize with, nor do I easily understand, 
 the expression of resentment because of the frank 
 expression of opinion upon a matter of remote fact 
 having, in the opinion of most Baptists, no serious 
 present significance." Again he says: "It would 
 be indecorous, not to say silly, to affect to treat as 
 insignificant the formidable array of testimony 
 which has convinced so discriminating a judge as 
 Dr. Whitsitt, to say nothing of the later concurrence 
 of careful and competent investigators, such as pro- 
 fessors Newman and Vedder." Dr. Newman who 
 agrees with Dr. Whitsitt in theory, and yet who 
 urged his apology for the manner in which he in- 
 troduced his thesis, says: "Dr. Whitsitt's services to 
 the denomination have been too long continued, and 
 too distinguished, and his loyalty to the principles 
 and practices of the denomination too thoroughly 
 tested, to admit of his being deposed and dishonor- 
 ed for heresy and disloyalty. The conclusions that 
 he has reached are, in the main, such as have long 
 been accepted by the great majority of those who 
 have made a specialty of Baptist history." 
 
 The Kentucky resolutions, in the face of the Wil- 
 mington adjustment, strike a deadly blow and in- 
 flict a wound which will not soon, if ever, be healed. 
 Whether they shall divide the denomination or not, 
 they demand a humiliation of Dr. Whitsitt, which, 
 in the light of Baptist history, would bring perma- 
 nent disgrace upon us in the eyes of the scholarly 
 and the Christian world. I would appeal to our 
 brethren of every shade of difference to forbear this
 
 Revolution and Evolution. 113 
 
 unholy and unhappy movement to degrade the Pres- 
 ident of our Seminary upon a question of history in 
 which he is evidently rig-ht. I appeal ag^ain to those 
 who stand upon higher Baptist giound to stand fast 
 against the dogma of traditional succession in the 
 future, as we have against hard-shellism in the past; 
 and let us plant ourselves more firmly upon the 
 Word of God as our sole rule of faith and practice. 
 Whatever the glorious history of Baptists as a peo- 
 ple from the apostles till now, let us not base it 
 upon tradition as of inquisitorial authority and a 
 test of orthodoxy equal with the Bible. Even 
 "Baptist usage," like Baptist history, is sometimes 
 a variable and questionable rule of authority; and 
 the only infallible standard of doctrine and disci- 
 pline among Baptists is the Gospel. For his early 
 mistakes Dr. Whitsitt has amply explained and 
 apologized; and his historical theory involves only 
 a matter of opinion and not an article of Baptist 
 faith or practice. 
 
 Finally, my mind has not changed with regard to 
 the spirit of this controversy. With some, its tone 
 is Romish in its intolerance and severity. However 
 honest the convictions of traditionalism, it inspires 
 an unspiritual and inquisitorial pride. It crucified 
 Christ, made all the martyrs and throttled conscience 
 in all the ages. Some have privately suggested 
 that Dr. Whitsitt "ought to be burnt in effigy;" and 
 but for our creed of liberty and want of power, a few 
 of us might rekindle again the fires of Smithfield. 
 The spirit is here. Some of our journalism, to say 
 nothing of oral utterances and private correspon- 
 dence, is full of hate, venom, crimination, ridicule, 
 and harsh epithet — the echoes of ignorance, super- 
 stition and bigotry. Some have adopted the Rom- 
 ish motto that "the end justifies the means" in do- 
 ing evil that good may come! Demagogy and syco- 
 phantcy, too, are here and there prominent in the 
 wake of popular proscription and persecuting power; 
 8
 
 114 Review of Dr. J. B. Thomas on the Whitsitt Question. 
 
 and, as usual, they are sometimes expert in the use 
 of this unhappy occasion to promote discord, seek 
 profit or preferment, or take reveng-e. I mention 
 the thing's I see and hear and read with sadness and 
 sorrow — not to wound the heart of any, but to cor- 
 rect these evils; and I wish to aver that, in my soul, 
 I have no ill-will even to those who have soug-ht my 
 hurt in this contention. I congratulate those, on 
 both sides, who have maintained an honorable and 
 brotherly attitude towards each other; and, for my- 
 self, I can say God bless all my brethren howsoever 
 much they may differ from me in opinion.
 
 A REVIEW OF THE QUESTION. 
 
 By GEO. A. LOFTON, D.D. 
 
 UNIVERSITY I'RKSS CO., XASHVILLK, TKNN. 
 1*P. 234 ; CLOTH. 50 CENTS. 
 
 TESTIMONIALS. 
 
 From Dr. Henry C. Vedder, Professor of Church His- 
 torj', Crozer Theological Seminary: 
 
 "A week ag-o precisely I mailed to the Christian Index 
 some comments on the Bampfield Document, in which I 
 took exactly the yround of your main contention, namely: 
 That Crosby and Evans distinctly favor the opinion that 
 immersion was introduced in 1641, and that Dr. Whitsitt 
 has rediscovered what was once the general opinion among 
 informed Baptists. The tradition that English Baptists 
 always immersed is really of late origin, and apparently 
 of Atnerican origin, since no reputable English writer can 
 be quoted in its favor before the beginning of the present 
 controversy. Your book foreshadows the triumphant vindi- 
 cation that is sure to come to Dr. Whitsitt in time." 
 
 From Dr. A. H. Newman. D.D., LL.D., Professor of 
 Church History, McMaster University, Toronto, Canada: 
 
 "I have looked over with much interest your "Review of 
 the Question." Your part of the work is highly creditable. 
 Professor Vedder has reviewed the situation briefly but 
 effectively. The book should have a large circulation 
 among such Baptists as are interested in the question and 
 are only desirous of getting at the facts." 
 
 Dr. Wm. H. Whitsitt, Professor of Church History, South- 
 ern Baptist Theological Seminary, says: 
 
 "The work of Dr. Lofton occupies a niche of its own. 
 It has of late been triumphantly demonstrated from original 
 sources that immersion was first introduced among the 
 English Anabaptists about the year 1641. Dr. Lofton has 
 now shown that this conclusion was accepted by Thomas 
 Crosby, the earliest English historian. * * * i)r. Evans 
 who wrote in the early sixties of our century, was able 
 
 (115)
 
 116 Testimonials. 
 
 once more to g"ain access to orig^inal documents, and he 
 returns to the position occupied by Crosby. Dr. Lofton 
 makes it clear that this action by Evans is nothing- but a 
 return to the ancient landmarks of our Baptist history. 
 * * * This is an excellent service by Dr. Lofton and 
 deserves recognition." 
 
 Dr. W. Pope Yeaman, who wrote the introduction to Dr. 
 Lofton's book, says: 
 
 "It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that the pre- 
 ponderance of probability is on the side of the VVhitsitt 
 contention. The testimony introduced by some of Dr. 
 Whitsitt's reviewers, but omitted by him, evidently cor- 
 roborates the testimony which he has introduced and 
 greatly strengthens his cause. * * * Drs. Lofton, New- 
 man and Vedder, have in their respective treatments of 
 the subject of this volume, evinced an unpartizan, un- 
 prejudiced and Christian spirit of inquirj', research and 
 argument. The reader who cares more for the truth than 
 for partizan triumph will read the following pages with 
 pleasure and profit." 
 
 Dr. J. 3. Hawthorne says in the Baptist and Reflector: 
 "Dr. Lofton's book, "A Review of the Question," is a 
 valuable contribution to Baptist literature. In it he not 
 only exhibits a vast deal of historical information, but he 
 demonstrates his capacity for historical criticism. It is 
 apparent that he writes in no partizan spirit. He sets 
 before us historical facts, and in the light of them leads us 
 to conclusions that are perfectly natural and logical." 
 
 Prof. A. T. Robertson, of the Southern Baptist Theo- 
 logical Seminary, says: 
 
 "I was already convinced of the correctness of Dr. Whit- 
 sitt's position about the English Baptists before reading 
 your book. You have fortified that conviction and have 
 put the matter so that the non-historian can see it clearly. 
 Your use of Crosby is happy and just unanswerable." 
 
 The Journal and Messenger ol Cincinnati says: 
 "Both the review of Dr. Lofton and also that of Prof. 
 Newman are worthy of careful consideration, and bear 
 very heavily against Dr. Whitsitt's critics and in favor of 
 his book. * * * We should be glad if all who have read 
 any of the antagonistic volumes could read this. We 
 believe that it would help to ground them in the truth."
 
 Testimonials. 117 
 
 The Christian Index, of Atlanta, Ga ,.says: 
 "Dr. Lofton has prepared a volume of much interest and 
 no little value. It is a restatement of the arguments for the 
 theory of the introduction of immersion in Eng-land in 
 1641. It also g-ives in full the papers of Dr. Newman as 
 orig'inally published in the Index, and a paper by Dr. 
 Vedder from the Examiner. * * * The book is a very 
 strong- presentation and the spirit is good. We do not 
 believe a fairer discussion can be found. Dr. Lofton makes 
 out a strong- case." 
 
 The Baptist Outlook, of Indianapolis, Ind., says: 
 "Dr. George A. Lofton has just published a volume 
 under the appropriate title, "A Review of the Question," 
 including Messrs Newman's and Vedder's contributions, 
 in which he espouses Dr. Whitsitt's side of the controversy 
 with much ability; and it seems to us that those who have 
 joined in the somewhat prejudiced attack on Dr. Whitsitt 
 ought in honor to read Dr. I^ofton's Review. The simple 
 question is: 'What are the facts?' " 
 
 Dr. B. H. Carroll in an article in the Texas Baptist 
 Standard on the Whitsitt Question, while disagreeing with 
 Dr. Lofton, says: 
 
 'The ablest work written on the Whitsitt side of the con- 
 troversy, is that of Dr. Lofton.*' 
 
 The Evangel, of Baltimore, Md., says: 
 
 "Dr. Lofton's book sustains Dr. Whitsitt's position that 
 the English Anabaptists restored immersion as believer's 
 baptism in the j'car 1641. It is a dignified production 
 written in a Christian spirit. 
 
 The Alabama Baptist says: 
 
 "Dr. Lofton's book sustains Dr. Whitsitt in his position 
 that the English Anabaptists restored immersion as be- 
 liever's baptism in the j'ear 1641. This is a scholarly, 
 dignified production, and is worth reading. ' 
 
 Dr. C. S. Gardner in the Baptist Courier, Greeneville, 
 S. C: 
 
 "I can commend Dr. Lofton's book, "A Review of the 
 Question,'' to the readers ot the Courier. Dr. Lofton has 
 long been a student of Baptist history, and what he says 
 is worth reading. In this book he has performed a real
 
 118 Testimonials. 
 
 and valuable service, and will help his readers to get a 
 clear and intelligent view of the historical question around 
 which controversy has been raging for several months. 
 * * * j)j-. Lofton is known to be thoroughly sound and 
 conservative in his theological views and in his earnest 
 devotion to Baptist principles; and I take pleasure in 
 recommending his really valuable contribution to the 
 literature of this subject, including Dr. Newman's articles 
 published in the Christian Index, and an article by Dr. 
 Vedder in the Examiner.''^ 
 
 The Central Baptist: 
 
 "Dr. Lofton's book is a valuable contribution to a dis- 
 cussion which has created a great deal of interest." 
 
 The American Baptist Flag, while disagreeing with the 
 author says: 
 
 "Dr. Lofton has written the ablest book on the Whitsitt 
 side of the controversy."
 
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