We live in a time when history is being more and more rejected and despised, neglected, sadly, even inside the church. Even inside the church. Think about Baptists. How many people claim to be Baptists, but they have no clue where the Baptists come from. History is His story. And therefore, we who are in Christ, we who belong to God, history is ours. Of all people, Christians should be the most diligent ones in studying history. It's around 1630s. These early Baptists did not know any Christians in their area of practice adapted by immersion. And today you can go to villages in Africa, in Asia, and people are baptizing by immersion. The gospel is not just about your personal salvation. The gospel is about God saving His people, creating His people, His church. And in the gospel, there is a promise that these people, this church, will conquer. Please open your Bibles to Matthew 16. Let's read verses 13 through 20. Now, when Jesus came to the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, They said some say John the Baptist, others Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets. He said to them, but who do you say that I am? Simon Peter replied, you are the Christ, the Son of the living God. And Jesus answered him, Blessed are you, Simon Barjona, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Then strictly charge the disciples to tell no one that he was the Christ. You may be seated. May the words of my mouth and the meditation of all our hearts be pleasing to the Lord, As we continue our series on what it means to be a Reformed Baptist Church, today we're gonna be looking at the roots of the Baptists. And it's fascinating, I was thinking about how little we know about important things. We know so much about unimportant things. So especially social media, we know about all, all about other people's lives, people who we could care less, So, so much information being spread. And we know, we know a lot about actors, those who like movies, actresses, sports, those who are sports fan. I know a lot about soccer, especially in Brazil. So, and we are able to get this vast knowledge of things that are not important. And then suddenly, names like Henry Jacob, William Kiffin, Hercules Collins, Benjamin Cox, Nehemiah Cox, Benjamin Keech. Suddenly, these names that should be important for us mean absolutely nothing. We have no clue who these guys are. We live in a time when history is being more and more rejected and despised. neglected, sadly, even inside the church, even inside the church. Look at Christians, how little they know about church history, and that's our history. So, the question is, where do we come from? Does it matter? Can we learn from the past? Should we study history? Should we study church history? I want to invite you to open your Bibles to Psalm 77. Psalm 77. And here's just one of those texts in the Bible that not only encourages, but commands us to study history. So verse 11 and 12, we read, The psalmist is in distress when he says, Psalm 77, verses 11 and 12, I will remember the deeds of the Lord. Yes, I will remember your wonders of old. I will ponder all your work, and look at that, and meditate on your mighty deeds. One scholar says the reflection of God's acts in the past is comforting to those who need Him in the present. And our Lord is the Lord of history. History belongs to the Lord, amen? History does not belong to luck or bad luck. History is His story, and therefore, we who are in Christ, we who belong to God, history is ours. Of all people, Christians should be the most diligent ones in studying history. especially church history, when we start targeting the work of the Lord in his church throughout all history. As we saw in Psalm 77, we are commanded to remember the deeds of the Lord, to ponder, to reflect, consider all his works on behalf of his people. Church history is an implication and application of the Gospel of Jesus. What? Church history is part of the Gospel? Yes, remember that the Gospel is the glorious news of the victorious love of God for His people. that the gospel is not just about your personal salvation. The gospel is about God saving his people, creating his people, his church. And in the gospel, there is a promise that this people, this church will conquer. In 2 Timothy 1, the apostle Paul says, For I know whom I have believed, and I'm convinced, look at that, I'm convinced that He is able to guard until that day what has been entrusted to me. Church history is God's story of His faithfulness in guarding what He has entrusted to us, and that is the gospel of Jesus Christ. We saw and read about Matthew 16. Here it is. Jesus tells Peter, I tell you, you are Peter. And on this rock, the foundation, do you remember what Paul says? The cornerstone is Jesus, and the foundation is the teaching of the apostles and the prophets. It's the declaration of who Christ is. And upon this rock, what will Jesus do? I will build my church, and this building is a process. He is building his church. So throughout all the centuries, Jesus has been building his church. I like what Greg Allison says. He writes, he says, throughout its nearly 2,000-year pilgrimage, The Church has advanced through times of great faithfulness, times of obedience, dedication, missional endeavors, and it has also persevered through other times of carnality, political posturing, disengagement, and heresy. He's talking about historical theology, but we could talk about history of the church or church history. Historical theology or church history provides hope by reminding Christians that God, for Christ's sake, has always been faithful to His promise to build His church. And you think about, we saw in Matthew 16, then you go to the end of Matthew, then you have Jesus' promise. When he commands the church to go to all the nations proclaiming the gospel, he says, and I will be with you to the end of the age. And he's implying that this building project of the church will last from the moment that he ascends and sends the Holy Spirit until his return to earth. He's building his church. As we think about Jesus building His church through all history, we see the faithfulness of Christ to His promise that He will build His church. And as we think about Jesus building His church, part of building His church is giving. Think about that. Part of building His church is giving to the church maturation, maturity in some very special doctrines in the life of the church. Think about that the Church has been, for all these centuries, maturing in understanding doctrines. So part of Jesus building this Church, He gives teachers to the Church to help the Church grow in maturity, and part of this process is giving clarity in understanding the doctrines of the Bible. Think about how long it took for the Church to come up with a clear statement of the deity of Christ. or the Trinity. It took years and years for the church to grasp and wrestle and come up, okay, here's what the Bible is teaching about that. Justification by faith. When is the time when we have a clear understanding and statement of what it means to be justified by faith? During the Reformation. We see that Christ is working through his church, building his church, and this process implies also maturing his church. So there is much benefit for us to study church history. And the negligence of studying church history makes us ignorant. There is much harm in ignoring church history. And especially as we are talking about our reform and Baptist, Brutes. Think about Baptists. How many people claim to be Baptists, but they have no clue where the Baptists come from? Isn't that true? The famous pastor, R.G. Lee, in the 20th century, he said, I'm a Baptist born and Baptist bread, and when I die, I will be a Baptist dad. And that's how so many Baptists see themselves. They are Baptists before they're Christians, and yet they have no clue what it truly means for the original Baptists to be Baptists. A large number of churches bear the name Baptist, and they have nothing to do with the historical Baptists. This morning, what I want to do is first embark on this journey on church history to see where the Baptists come from. By looking to the past, I pray that it will help us to navigate in the present. What the Lord was doing there with those people empowers and helps us. in our present time. So here's the outline. You're going to be looking at the roots of Baptists, and then you're going to look at the Reformation and the Anabaptists, and then the English Reformation and the Baptists. So may the Lord help us. And just so you know, much of this is going to be Church history. We're going to be navigating through Church history. So may the Lord help us. Here is the question. Where do Baptists come from? Where do Baptists come from? And there are basically three answers that throughout history people came up with. Three basic answers for where we can trace the Baptist movement. The first one is landmarkism. landmarkism or successionism. And the landmark is because these people, they went to Proverbs 22, 28. Proverbs 22, 28 says, remove not the ancient landmark, using the King James, which thy fathers have set. So what they do is this group of people, they said that they were able to trace the history of the Baptists to the time of John the Baptist. So they say, oh, there has always been a Baptist church from the time of John, and there will be until Jesus returns. That's what they say. They're also known as the Trail of Blood, because they believe that they can trace this trail of martyrs for the Baptist faith from the present to John the Baptist. We certainly believe that much of our theology and doctrine comes from the New Testament, especially the doctrine of baptism and immersion. But again, that's a whole other game to say that there has always been a Baptist church from the time of John the Baptist to the present. We should not go there. That's not biblical, it's not right, it's not historically correct. So that's the first one, and you just eliminate, I think it was in the 19th century here in America when they came up with this idea, and we still have this type of Baptists. They think that only their churches are true churches. They are the only true churches that exist. The second one, the second view is that the Baptists, they come from the Anabaptists. I'm going to talk more about the Anabaptists, but the Anabaptists was a movement out of the Reformation that called Christians to be baptized again. They did not believe in the baptism of fire of either the state church or the Roman Catholic Church. And of course, there are similarities between Anabaptists and Baptists. For example, they believe the believers must be baptized, or the separation of church and state. But there are massive differences between Baptists and Anabaptists. So for example, the Anabaptists, they have a tendency to be pacifists and separate completely from society. For example, the Amish community. There are many. unorthodox teachings among the Anabaptists, a lot of denial of this trinity. There's a tendency towards communism, justification by works, losing salvation. So that's much of the theology that develops with the Anabaptists. So yes, there are some similarities, and of course there are similarities because we're looking at the same Bible. But there is a vast difference between Anabaptists and Baptists. So you'd say, no, Baptists don't come from Anabaptists. And the third option, it is the one most church historians agree, the one I believe, and I'm going to try to show here, is that the Baptists, they come from the Puritan movement in England during the 16th and 17th centuries. I'm going to talk more about that, so before we move to the Baptist aspect, I would like to talk a little bit about the Anabaptists, because it's often said that, oh, you guys come from the Anabaptists. That was the main criticism when the first Baptists were coming to the scene in England. They were being accused of being Anabaptists, so who were the Anabaptists? Think about the Reformation. All the denominations basically start with the Reformation because that's the time when people can have their Bibles in their hands to study and see what the Bible says about church, about church government. So that's why we are going back to the time of the Reformation. You know, I thought the Baptists would go back to the Bible. Of course you go back to the Bible. We remember that the Reformation was a return to the Bible. The Anabaptists is a movement that's coming out of the Reformation. They were called the Radical Reformers. The Radical Reformation was different from the Magisterial Reformation, where you had Reformers who were related to the magistrate, the states. And the Anabaptists, they received this name, it was not like they named themselves, oh, we are the Anabaptists. No, they named them Anabaptists, and it was not a nice thing. An Anabaptist means to be re-baptized, to baptize again. And there are still, and today people, they call themselves Anabaptists, and today we have three major streams of the Anabaptists, and that is the Mennonites, the Amish, and the Pre-Lutheran brethren. We still can find, especially the Prelude, Lutheran Brethren, it's few, but you still have, I think, some in Canada, some here in the U.S., and they're coming from the Anabaptist movement. So, as we are thinking about this group, where are they coming from? You have some very important reformers. You have Martin Luther. You have John Calvin. And what is the third one, very well known? Zwingli. He's very well known. So you have these three guys. And of course, you have others important reformers. But you have Luther, you have Calvin, and you have Zwingli. And where was Zwingli? In Switzerland. He's the Swiss reformer. Zwingli was even more radical than Martin Luther, and that's why the two could not get together, and they died, basically, in separation from one another. Zwingli, at first, he wanted to keep reforming the church. He thought that Luther did not reform enough, so especially in Switzerland, he wanted to keep reforming the church. Zwingli was actually the first man in these reformers to question infant baptism. Zwingli had a group of men surrounding him, very well-educated men, his disciples, who would study the scriptures together to help him reform the Swiss Church. Some of these names are very important, so you have Conrad Grebel, George Blorock and Felix Mons. And they're all scholars, well-educated men. There's another name that's very important for this Anabaptist, it's Balthazar Hubmeier. So you have Mons, Gravel, Blorock, and there was Zwingli, and Zwingli is talking about, well, why are we baptizing infants? Look at the Bible. Believers should be baptized. And they're like, yes, it's true. But then suddenly Zwingli goes back and says, no, no, we should not go there. We don't know. We don't know if it was his own conviction or fear or something. But Zwingli went back to his view that infants should be baptized. But these guys had already embraced the theology, biblically speaking, that no, only believers must be baptized. And suddenly they start arguing with Zwingli. And what happens is that Zwingli doesn't like that. Zwingli, who had the support of the magistrate, the estate, started to persecute these guys. What is interesting is that as they start baptizing one another, not baptizing by immersion, The first ones to get re-baptized were Grabo and Blaurock, and Grabo baptized Blaurock by pouring water over his head, so it's a fusion. Their primary issue is not the mode of baptism, but the nature of baptism, that believers should be baptized, infants who do not have faith. So these first leaders, Sadly, Grabo, Mons, Blorock, they were removed out of the stage of history very early on. For example, Grabo died of plague in prison. Mons was executed by the city council of Zurich under Zwingli, and he was drowned in the Lema River in Zurich, known as his third baptism. Why third baptism? Because he was baptized once as an infant, then he was re-baptized, and now they say, now you're going to receive the third baptism by being drowned. And Bulorok was forced to flee Zurich, and he went to Austria, where he was captured and murdered by the Roman Catholic Church. And here's what he said about these leaders of the Anabaptists, because they were very intelligent, solid men, but they did not have time to develop their teachings. Different from Luther, Calvin, Zwingli, Buse, they had the protection of the state and they could keep studying. These guys had no protection. They were eliminated very early on. Michael Hagen, he writes, By and large, this first Anabaptist shared a conviction with Martin Luther and the French reformer, John Calvin, that faith alone make us righteous before God. And because they were killed early, and those were the best and the brightest of this group, they were never able to reach a maturation and a settlement of doctrines, just like the Lutherans or the Presbyterians. They were not able to establish boundaries to say, here's what we believe. They died too early. And once these leaders died of the Anabaptist movement, that movement lost direction. Because what happens was the peasants took over, all men who had no theological background. And suddenly, you have this Anabaptist movement just becoming a mass. So you have a few here who truly hold to the to the foundation of these first guides, but then you have a large group who does not hold to the Scriptures as the primary source of revelation, so they believe that the Holy Spirit's giving them new revelation. And it's this group that makes the Anabaptists very poorly well-known among all the Reformers. So, There is Munster in Germany. Munster in north Germany, the city, became very famous because between 1531 to 1535, remember the Reformation with Martin Luther starting 1517? Now we are talking about 1531 to 1535. In the city of Munster, we have this group of Anabaptists who believe that the Holy Spirit is giving them new revelation, and they invade the city, they take over, and they're believing that Jesus is going to come right there to establish His Millennial Kingdom, starting in Munster. And they had two important leaders, these Anabaptists in Munster, Ian van Luyden and Ian Matthys. Ian Matthys declared himself to be Enoch as a new prophet. And Yerlan Lydon claimed to be King David. So we have Enoch and David now. How many wives did David have? Glenn Sunshine, he writes, they set up a new government with new rituals, established a draconian law, you could be executed for swearing, they enforced rebaptism, and following the example of the biblical patriarchs, they made polygamy mandatory. So they take over this place, it's a mess, polygamy, and the situation is so bad, They have Roman Catholics and Lutherans in Germany joining together to fight against them. That's how bad it is. The city was besieged. Nearly everyone starved into submission. A bloody sack followed, the leaders were captured, tortured to death, and their bodies were put in a cage and hung from the steeple of the church where those cages remained until the 20th century. They were there, there are still pictures of these cages where they were placed to show the people. Monster rapidly became a byword among the mainstream churches used to tar anyone whose ideas were more radical than one's own. So the term Anabaptist becomes so ugly that the Roman Catholics, they say, you see, if you follow Luther's teaching, you're going to end up like these guys, Luther's disciples. No, no, no, that's not our fault, that's Zwingli. If you follow Zwingli's teaching, you're going to become like that. And Zwingli and his disciples said, no, no, no, we expelled him out of here. It's actually the Swiss brethren. If you follow the Swiss brethren, then you're going to become like that. And that's how bad the title Anabaptist became. It was so bad that one of the leaders of another group of Anabaptists called the Mennonites, he goes to the extreme of completely separating himself from all sorts of activity in society. Thus, the scandalous horror of Munster made the name Anabaptist a byword for fanatics. violent anarchy well into the 17th century. Why are we talking about that? Because as soon as the first Baptists start coming to the scene in England, guess what? They're being accused of being Anabaptists. So by 1642, right after we have the first In particular, Baptist churches in London, in 1642, there were pamphlets being distributed to people, 10 to 15 pages, telling the story of monsters and spreading to people. Why? They want people to hate the Baptists. And the pamphlets end with the following statement, let King Charles take heed. Why? If King Charles doesn't do anything about this new Anabaptist, we are going to become just like monster. So that's why when you read, for example, the first confession of faith of the Baptists, 1644, that's the first reformed confession of faith of the Baptists, they opened that confession by saying, we are not Anabaptists, by detaching themselves from this group. But we ought to recognize that the first Anabaptists, those first guys who died under Zwingli, They had the right seal, they had the right doctrine about baptism, the nature of the church. Unfortunately, under God's providence, those first leaders were never able to further develop their movement and establish solid grounds. Though some people say that the Baptists come from the Anabaptists, that's not true. We had some things that were similar because we are reading the same Bible. But it's not attached at all. So where did the Baptists come from? Now let's move to leave Germany. Let's get out of Germany and go to England. Think about the English Reformation. The Reformation taking place starting 1517 with Martin Luther. And now we're going to travel to England. King Henry, that's an important name to think about what's taking place here, King Henry VIII. He was married to Catherine of Aragon. And some of you remember this story that King Henry, he's married to Catherine of Aragon, and what happens? He cannot give him the son, so he wants to divorce her. So he talks to the Pope, Pope, I need your blessing to divorce my wife. The Pope says, no way, you're not getting a divorce. So what he does is he knows that the people in England are not happy with the Roman Catholic Church, taxes, so much going on. So what he does is he writes the Act of Supremacy in 1534. What is the Act of Supremacy? That's the inauguration of the Church of England. where no longer the pope is the head of the church in England, but the king. The king is in charge of the church. I like what Earl Carnes says, he writes, when Henry finally died, the English church was a national church with the ruler as its head, but it was Roman Catholic doctrine. And here's the wonderful thing. The Bible, remember, Tindale, Coverdale, their translation of the English Bible was, however, available to the people in their own tongue, in English. And that's a beautiful thing because now people have Bibles in their hands, and they can read and see and look. That doesn't match. While you're looking at the church in England, it doesn't match these scriptures. So that's a very important step as the Church of England now takes place, separating itself from the Roman Catholic, but still very Roman Catholic in doctrine. And what we have is succession of kings after Henry. We have his son, Edward VI, and he allows more Protestant ideas to come to England. Then you have the short time with Jane Grey, and then comes a terrible person, Mary Tudor, or Bloody Mary. Do you remember what she does? She really doesn't like the Protestants. Her mom was the one related to the divorce. What she does is she brings the Roman Catholic teachings, and systematically, she wants to get rid of all the Protestants in England. A lot of Christians die in England during those times. That's why she's called the Bloody Mary. She leaves the scene, and her sister, Elizabeth, takes over. Elizabeth here is important, because you're going to see, especially with the Puritans. Elizabeth, she creates the middle way. or the Elizabethan settlements, trying to create peace between the Roman Catholics and the Protestants in England. Then you have James following that, that's where we have the King James Version, Charles I, and then you have Oliver Cromwell, and that's a good time, kind of peace, more religious liberty in England. Charles II, James II, William III, and it is in this soil, this English soil, that the Puritans come. Think about history, the Lord is working all these things throughout history, raising kings, putting kings down, queens, just to bring these people to the surface. The Puritans are rising during this time here. It's during the time of Queen Elizabeth. Many changes she brought, many good changes, especially after her sister, Bloody Mary. And Elizabeth tries to combine Roman Catholic with Protestant elements, maintaining the separation from Rome. So she achieves the Middle Way. But guess what? If you have your Bibles, if you love the Lord, if you love the Church, are you going to be content with the Middle Way? No. Hickens, he writes, the Elizabethan Church of England faced an important question. To what extent would the scripture be its guide in theology, worship, and church governments? Elizabeth seemed content with a church that was Protestant in theology, but largely medieval in its pattern of worship and liturgy, in which the monarch held the reins of power. He says, The Puritans arose in response to this situation, seeking to pattern the Elizabethan Church after the model of the Reformed churches on the European continent, which included in their worship only forms and practices they believed the Bible explicitly commanded. So a movement starts to be created in England, a movement that they're not satisfied, and they want to do war with the church. What are their names? Puritans, what do they want to do? Purify the church. They want a pure church. Remember that they were not naming themselves Puritans. That was, look at this guy, he's trying to purify as if the church is not pure. So as you think about the Puritans coming, it is really hard to Simplify the Puritans? It's impossible. It's such a mixed group of people. Even this graphic that I have, some people say, no, that doesn't make sense. I'm just trying to summarize what other scholars have presented. But if you think about the Puritans as this heading, Under the Puritans, you have the conformist Puritans. Those are the Puritans that are conformists, because they don't want to leave the Church. They think that they can restore the Church from inside. They know that the Church needs to be purified, but they don't want any separation, any movement. They just want to purify the Church from inside. But then you have the separatists, and that's where we're gonna come from, the Baptists. And that's the belief that there must be, because biblically, there is a separation of the church and the state. The church should never be under the state. And you have also the independents. They want a new structure. The independents don't need to be, I think, Jo-Owen. You don't need to be Baptists. You don't need to reform the Baptism. You just need a new structure of church. Karnes writes, the Puritans complained that too many rags of potpourri were stealing the Anglican Church, and they wanted to purify the Anglican Church in accordance with the Bible, which they accepted as the infallible rule of faith and life. This desire led to their being nicknamed Puritans after 1560. So it's in the soil, we think about the soil of longing for the purification of the church, a return to the scriptures, they have the Bible now in their hands, that the first Baptists start to emerge. Some of these men who are trying to purify the church, separatists, they actually need to leave England because of persecution. How dare you to teach people that the church must be separate from the state, the kings, the head of the church. So they start being persecuted, and a lot of the separatists end up in Holland, the Netherlands, because there was a lot of religious freedom in Holland, so they go there. That's important, because it's here where we're going to have the first Baptists coming out from, and that is the General Baptists. Why are they called General Baptists? because he believed that Jesus either died for a peculiar group of people, or he died generally for everybody. So they were not Reformed Calvinists. They believed, they were Armenian, they believed that Jesus died a general death for every single person. So they're called General Baptists. And there are two names that are very important, Thomas Helles and Joni Smith. They had to leave England in 1607 and go to Holland. Johnny Smith, one of these leaders in the church that they moved to Holland, he gets entangled with the Anabaptists in Holland. He starts liking more and more their ideas, and he actually wants to become a Mennonite. He applies for a membership in a Mennonite church in Holland. Thomas Howe is the other one. He says, no way, man, I'm not joining them. And he actually returns to England between 1611 and 1612, and he founded the first Baptist church in London. The first Baptist church is founded by this man who holds to Armenian theology. I like what Higgins says, he says, the Hellas congregation, now based in Spitalfield, North London, retained the views that had adopted under Smith's leadership, and thus became known as a general Baptist, so-called because they believed that Christ died to save all people, a general atonement. Very important things here, he says, Hellas deserves to be remembered alongside Smith as Baptist pioneer. His treatise, A Short Declaration of the Mystery of Iniquity, contains a vigorous plea for religious liberty, and that's what Baptists are famous for, religious liberty for all men and women. He wrote, But it's sad, they didn't have some theology, the general Baptists. So the General Baptists, who were the first Baptist group to emerge in around 1610, mostly wandered off into the wasteland of Unitarianism. What is Unitarianism? Denying the doctrine of the Trinity. So they started denying the Trinity. And once you start messing up with the doctrine of God, it's just downhill. So the future of the Baptist cause lays with the particular Baptists. These general Baptists lacked a strong theology of God and salvation, and they vanished pretty quickly. So what we have, as we're thinking about what's taking place, you have the Reformation, you have the Puritans in England, and you have the separatists under the Puritans. Under the separatists, you have three groups. You have the general Baptists, that's the first one, and then you have the particular Baptists, and those are the ones who... Baptist churches today are Completely, completely derived from these guys, because they are the main churches as Baptists during those days. And then you have the Seventh-day Baptists, and they were Calvinistic, they were Reform, but they believed that they need to worship when? Saturday. And they disappeared quickly, they had not very strong influence. So as we move to the Particular Baptists, and that's our history, the Particular Baptists. It's here where we see the roots of the Baptists. And it's important to keep in mind that there was never a split. There was never a split between general and particular Baptists. Usually when you think about it, it's like, oh, so there was a division. No, they never walked together, completely separate groups. They were just reading the Bible. They had nothing to do theologically. For example, the general Baptists, they had an Armenian theology of salvation, universal atonement. They were very opposed to government. And they have even a weird view of baptism, the general Baptist. The particular Baptist didn't actually saw what we believe about salvation, church. There's one man that's important to keep in mind, his name, Henry Jacob. You see, all these names that we never heard before, and they're so important in our history. Henry Jacob, he was a clergyman of the Church of England. But as he's studying his Bible and looking at the church, he sees that there's something they're not matching. He had to leave England. Guess where he went to? Where did people go after leaving England? Where was religious freedom to think and study? That came later. He went to Holland to study. He has a lot of the Baptists that came to America later, but first he went to Holland, then he comes back to London, and that's when he starts a church. This church is called the Jacob Lathrop Jesse Church. also known as the JLJ Church. Remember, there was no Baptist church, and there were not even Baptists at first. They just want to reform the church. They want to separate the church from the Anglican Church. They want to do things biblically. And it's interesting that they received the name after the three first pastors. You have Henry Jacob, John Lathrop, and Henry Jesse. And it's this church, the JLJ Church, that all the particular Baptists come from. It's an amazing thing to see God's sovereignty. In the beginning, it's a small church, and it starts growing. The Lord starts bringing more people. The first pastor, Henry Jacob, he was hounded out of England. He died in Virginia. And then after him comes John Lathrop, and the church grows. But the problem is that the church is growing, and it cannot be known. Others are going to be persecuted. And the church is growing, and then you have more people coming. Because at first, it's not like they're a bunch of radicals. They're trying to understand more the Bible. But with more people coming, you have more people who are more radical than them. They say, no, we need to separate. And there are amicable splits in this church. a number of splits in the church in the 1630s, in this main church. He said there were five groups that left the JLJ church between 1638 and 1644. And it's a beautiful thing that they leave the church, amicable, in peace, because they understand, okay, we're still with you in this doctrine. And they leave, and one of these guys who leave the JLJ church, is a man called John Spilbury. And he's the first one to plant a Calvinistic Baptist church. That is 1638. Look at that, 1638. The first particular, what you can call reformed Baptist church coming out of the JLJ church. That's 1638. 1644, we have the First Confession of the Baptists. That's the First Confession written in 1644. So, as you're thinking, their main thing, first of all, was not baptism by immersion, but understanding that baptism is for believers, the Church is composed of believers. That's their main argument. But as they're studying the scriptures, as they're studying baptism, who should receive baptism, now they can see that baptism also has a way of being accomplished. And that's not by pouring water, but it's by immersion. So these first Baptists, they were not immersion people, but just by pouring water. But their major saying was, there must be a separation of the church and state, and the church is composed of believers. And just the believers can be baptized. And it's sad to think about Baptists that are well-known for keeping the minutes of their meetings. And it's sad that a man named Richard Blunt, he was a former member of the JLJ Church. He comes back to the church. They had this amicable spirit, so he comes back to the church. And Richard Blunt, he's the one who has been studying and questioning the mode of baptism. Why are we baptizing by pouring water over the head. When baptized, the word literally means to immerse. And we know by the New Testament that there must be water, a lot of water for people to be baptized. So Hagen says, Blunt and those who were like-minded, they knew of no congregation in England that baptized believers by immersion. Look at that, brothers and sisters. 1640s. Not a single church that baptized Christians by immersion in England. Okay, we see that we need to baptize by immersion, but how do you do that? It's not like you can go back to another pastor and say, hey, how do you do that baptism thing? Can I see you performing a baptism by immersion so I can know? There's nobody. So what he does is he goes to Holland, because he heard that there were Christians there being baptized by immersion. And then he comes back, And they started baptizing by immersion in England. That's amazing. I was just thinking, it's around 1630s. These early Baptists did not know any Christians in their area who practiced baptism by immersion. And today you can go to villages in Africa, in Asia, and people are baptizing by immersion. Of course, the English people did not like it, because there was a big change with this Anglican minister, Daniel Fidley. He started accusing the Baptists of immodesty, that they should stay far away from them, because it would be just like another Anabaptist group. It's fascinating that he reads the confession, Daniel Finley, he reads the confession of the Baptist, and he's like, huh, that looks really orthodox, very good. Too bad that they don't believe that. It's like poison covered in sugar. They're just pretending to believe these things because the statement, the 1644, the 1689, it's orthodox. We're just changing basically in ecclesiology. So, by the time that the first London Confession, 1644, representing the views of a particular Baptist church was issued, there were seven church gatherings that practiced believers' baptism by immersion. And it is in this Confession laid out for the first time, for the first time since the New Testament, by any Baptist, that immersion was an essential element of proper baptism. Only 1640, we see this particular Baptist that the practice of baptism by immersion returned to the church. People could read their New Testament and could say, okay, here it is, we need to do that. And remember the name Baptists, it's not like they gathered, I like what Timothy George writes. He says, it's not like they met at a coffee house in London in 1640 and said, brothers, let's start a new denomination, call ourselves Baptists. Now, that was a name given to them in not a nice manner. You don't wanna go against the baptism that they have been practicing for hundreds of years. So between 1644 and 1689, 1644 we have the first Calvinistic Baptist Confession, 1689 we have the second one. The first one, the 1644, they are clearly expressing, they opened a statement by saying, we are not Anabaptists, we actually hold the same foundational doctrines as the reformers. But between 1644 and 1689, we have what is called the Claridan Code, and that's when the supremacy of the Anglican Church is re-established and then no toleration for anybody else. So then you start having the persecution of Christians here. The second London Confession of Faith, we call the 1689. We read frequently at our church. But did you know that it was not written in 1689? It was written in 1677. But why is it called 1689? Why did it not publish in 1677? Because of the persecution, they could not assemble together. It's only 1689 when you have, with William III, the authorization, the act of toleration, that now we have these Baptists coming back to England, and they're able now to, okay, here's what we believe. And it's a beautiful statement of faith. It's just showing how there is unity among Presbyterians, among the Independents, the Congregationalists. So that's a fascinating story. There's so much we could talk about. Time is flying here. So many dates, so many names. William Kiffin, rightly regarded as one of the founding fathers of the particular Baptists. You have John Bunyan, Hercules Collins, Benjamin Cox. He's the signer of the First London Baptist Confession. He's the father of Nehemiah Cox. who signed the 1689 Baptist Confession. You have Benjamin Keech. That's a very important name for the Baptists, Benjamin Keech. He's the one who brings the singing of hymns to the church back again. We have Roger Williams, the American minister and founder of Rhode Island. We have William Carey, Andrew Fuller, John Gale, Adonario Judson, Charles Spurgeon, and so many other names who have been foundational to this Baptist movement. So, Hagen-Weiss, the first particular Baptist, or the first particular Baptist congregation was established in 1638. By 1644, there were seven such congregations, all of them located in the metropolis of London. And after 15 years of aggressive evangelism on the basis of the First London Confession of Faith, a robust statement of confessional Calvinism, there were roughly 130 particular Baptist churches throughout the British Isles. As the general Baptist Vanish, the particular Baptists start growing and expanding. And he says, from such beginnings and over the next 200 years, Calvinistic Baptists, Reformed Baptist churches were planted in other Anglophone cultures around the world, becoming particularly strong in England, Wales, North Ireland, the United States, and Atlantic Canada. especially the pilgrims coming. That's a God of small beginnings. Imagine that. One small church in London. One guy, nobody knew, Henry Jacob. He returns to England after fleeing persecution. He starts a church, and this church grows, and people leave this church thinking about, okay, how are we supposed to do church according to the scriptures? And you see this massive transformation all over the world. It's amazing. Those early Puritans, Puritan Baptists, had to go through many, many trials, persecution. You read about the minutes, there they are meeting outside with snow all over the place, cold, and they praise the Lord for a little bit of sunshine that they can get warm. They were used by the Lord Jesus in an unimaginable, inconceivable, and incredible way in building His church. How glorious is the providence of God. So as we think about their distinctives, here we would say that this first Baptist, here's what they were fighting for, regenerated church membership, believers Baptist by immersion. Congregational polity, local church autonomy, and religious freedom. Those are the main things that these guys could see that were flowing from the gospel into the life of the church, and that was necessary for them to, if needed, to suffer persecution, to have these things in the church. There are many lessons we could learn from these early particular Baptists. I love their ironic and peaceful spirit, spirit of unity, Even among those who were leading the church, blessing them, the willingness to suffer for convictions about the nature of the church. Sadly, so many people take the church so lightly. These men were willing to die for the church. And I think the beauty of the believer's baptism by immersion, that's just glorious. Every time you watch a baptism by immersion, it's so glorious, that change of allegiance. Once a slave to sin, now a slave to the Lord Jesus Christ. So, let's finish here. Very important for us to study church history. History in general, especially church history, as we see the Lord working through his church, fulfilling his promise, I will build my church. In Ephesians 4, Jesus tells us that he gives pastors to his church to mature the church, to help the church grow in conviction. And that's what we see throughout the centuries. So I personally believe at this point in Church history, what we have been presenting here as a reformer, a particular Baptist, is the purest expression of the evangelical Christianity. As we look at how the Lord is maturing His Church, I believe the reformed Baptist, as we are looking at, is the most faithful expression of the Christian doctrines. We certainly can and must grow. We have never reached perfection. But I think that for now, that is the most faithful expression of what it means to be a New Testament church. And all of this shows that the Lord Jesus is building his church. He is building his church. Christ has given us this gigantic warriors who came before us, Henry Jacob, John Spilsbury, William Kiffin, Hercules Collins, Benjamin Cox, Nehemiah Cox, Benjamin Keech, so many others. And we, like dwarves, midgets, we stand on their shoulders. We're on their shoulders. And the improvement of church, what we are able to do is only because we can see better because we are on their shoulders. The Lord has brought these giants, and we stand on their shoulders, and we give all the glory to Christ. So the psalmist says, Psalm 111, verse two, great are the works of the Lord. Great are the works of the Lord. He studied by all who delight in him. What a glorious thing to study the works of the Lord, especially in his church. Especially we as Baptists look back and see this glorious, magnificent work of Christ to build his church. Amen. Father, we truly stand in awe of you. It's impossible to grasp your infinite wisdom, your power, Your sovereignty. A God of small beginnings with gigantic purposes, beautiful things are accomplished. Lord, help us to treasure your history. Help us to look back and learn. Help us to be faithful to your word. Thank you for these gigantic heroes of the faith that we have. They can climb on their shoulders, look back and see all that you have done, and yet move forward in faith knowing that you continue building our church, Lord. So please deliver us, deliver us from false teachings, heresy. Satan's schemes protect your church