Discovering Baptist Beginnings in Britain

What people are saying about Discovering Baptist Beginnings

Discovering Baptist Beginnings combines history, travel, and photography to offer a guide on exploring the formation of Baptist beliefs. Dr. Pullen recommends places to visit, and examines the contributions of related historical figures such as Roger Williams, Charles Spurgeon, Thomas Helwys, etc. to the emergence of the free church tradition. The Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty

This book combines the early Baptist movement with a modern pilgrimage. Readers will trace the gradual development of the freer Baptist forms of Christianity through the lives of early Baptists and they will deepen their faith through their own spiritual journey. Learn more about how people such as Thomas Helwys, John Bunyan, Roger Williams, John Clarke, John Myles, Andrew Fuller, and Charles Haddon Spurgeon impacted the Free Church tradition.

Perfect for those who love to travel or wish they could. This book brings to life the early Baptists and illustrates the places where Baptists blossomed through exciting narrative and vivid photography.

I found this is an excellent book to use with new members either as a gift or in membership classes. The Rev. Johnny Wilson, Jr., Olney Street Baptist Church, Providence, Rhode Island.

We are grateful for your contributions to our Baptist historical resources, especially those related to John Clarke, the founder of the first Baptist church in Newport, Rhode Island. The Redwood Library and Athenaeum, Newport, Rhode Island.

Discovering

Baptist Beginnings

In Britain

Bruce Reed Pullen

Originally published as

Profiles in Faith - Discovering Baptist Beginnings

By Infinity Publishing.Com

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West Conshohocken, PA 19428-2713

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Discovering Baptist Beginnings in Britain (Revised 2018)

Bruce Reed Pullen

ISBN #9781301401383

Discover other titles by Dr. Bruce Reed Pullen

Discovering Celtic Christianity, first published by Twenty-third Publications

Guides for Bible Study Groups – Smashwords Publications

Paul’s Letter to the Philippian Christians

Paul’s Letters to the Thessalonian Christians

Discovering the Prophets - in the Old Testament

Discovering Justice - in the Old Testament

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Sections of this document may be quoted in a review. When you do so, the author would appreciate hearing from you (brpabc@aol.com).

Cover picture: Charles Haddon Spurgeon, the Prince of Preachers

Contents

Preface

Introduction

Baptist Roots

1. Celtic Roots - Christianity Comes to Britain (Luke 10:1-8)

2. The Cross and the Crown - Religious Liberty (Leviticus 25:10)

Ten Baptists You Should Know

3. Thomas Helwys (1570-1615) - An Inviting People (Acts 8:26-31, 34-40)

4. Hanserd Knollys (1598-1691) - Tolerance on Trial. Toleration (Acts 26:12-16)

5. Roger Williams (1608-1683) - Peace and Justice (Amos 5: 18-24)

6. John Clarke (1609-1696) - A Living Experiment (Mark 1:5-11)

7. Henry Dunster (1609-1658) - The Love of Learning (Psalm 1)

8. John Myles (1621-1683) - Church Planter (Hebrews 10: 16-25)

9. John Bunyan (1628-88) - Pilgrim=s Progress (Luke 1:1-4)

10. Benjamin Keach (1640-1704) - The Joy of Music (Psalm 98 and Matthew 26)

11. Andrew Fuller (1754-1815) - A Passion for Mission (Isaiah 2:3 and Isaiah 54:2)

12. Charles Haddon Spurgeon (1834-1892) - The Prince of Preachers (Acts 16)

13. Conclusion: May the Dream Never Die

14. Dedication

15. Time Line

16. Tales We Tell Along the Way: For Small Groups

17. Guidebooks for the Journey: A Selected Bibliography

18. The Author – Bruce Reed Pullen

Preface

Within one hundred years after Jesus began his ministry the Christian faith had reached Britain. With the invasion of the Roman army, wives and traders, educators and evangelists, brought this new belief to Britain. When the army began leaving three hundred years later to defend Rome, the native Celts nurtured the faith in a form influenced by their culture and formed a way of witnessing to their faith which has been called Celtic Christianity.

In Discovering Celtic Christianity, I wrote about the Celtic saints and their sites, their roots, relationships, and relevance. The book, now available only in eBook form, discusses pilgrimage and then combines stories of the saints and of my visits to their sites such as Iona, Lindisfarne, and Glendalough. Returning to Britain four years later, my wife and I visited sites associated with the start of the Separatist movement. Churches were turning from the long control of the conformist churches, both Roman and Anglican, to a variety of expressions of the faith. In the colonies the Free Church movement evolved as Congregational, Baptist, Presbyterian, and Methodist churches. We visited the places both in the states and in Britain from which the branch of the Christian faith to which we belong, Baptists, originated. The foundation of the Free Church was first laid during the creative Celtic period.

Discovering Baptist Beginnings is about Baptist saints and their sites, their roots and their people. A few of the personalities who led a revival of the faith and planted new congregations are traced. The book ends with some reflections on the continuing revival these early Baptists started. Meditative moments for your personal reflection conclude each chapter. A guide for discussions is found in the appendix.

The book profiles ten famous personalities including Roger Williams and Charles Haddon Spurgeon along with John Myles and John Clarke. The issues with which they wrestled, such as passing on the faith in a pagan world and gaining and maintaining religious liberty, are issues that still confront us today as are the tensions between conformist and nonconformists. People continue to desire religious liberty just as others seek to limit that liberty. People desire separation of church and state and yet others seek to use civil government to promote faith issues. It is my hope this book contributes to keeping alive our collective memory as Baptists.

Bruce Reed Pullen, February 2018

Introduction

A young man emerges from a car and enters the front door of a house. As he touches the light switch, the lights flicker on. A little girl upstairs, hearing the car door close, races down the steps into his arms. She says, I know a way to wake them up,@ he replies. Entering the kitchen, he opens a can of coffee. By the time he has brewed a pot and is sipping from his cup, his parents upstairs have smelled it and are beginning to come down. His mother sees him and hugs him, exclaiming, Peter. You're home!" Home is a special place in our mind and heart, a particular place furnished in a specific way and inhabited by specific people. It is a place where we belong. Where do you belong? What are your roots? Who are the people you admire? How have they influenced your life? If you are a Christian, you are part of God's family and your spiritual roots may be traced back through your church to the first disciples. You may have considered visiting the places where Jesus walked with them. Often we find these places are where the wall between us and God is thinner and the visit becomes life transforming.

Pilgrimage, travel that transforms our lives, occurs when, as we explore our spiritual roots, we link saints and their sites. This book profiles some of the pioneers of the Baptist faith, disciples who were destined to make a difference. Interspersed in the profiles are excerpts from my travels to some of the sites that influenced their lives.

The Bible comes alive for us when we put ourselves into its stories. We are there with Mary and Joseph in a home in Bethlehem as they created a place in the manger for their baby, Jesus, because the house where they were staying was so crowded. They had returned home to Bethlehem, to the place where David was born, because Joseph belonged to the family of David.

Jesus came to invite us to be part of an extended family, the family of God. You have a place in the family of God, a place where you belong. When our spiritual family gathers, when we worship God together, when we share the bread and the cup and sing the hymns, we reaffirm our roots, the legacy left by the pioneers of our particular branch of God's family tree.

On a warm August day in 1971 the Stout family gathered for a reunion in the village of Hopewell, New Jersey. The family traces its roots back to Jonathan Stout and his family who moved to Hopewell in 1706 and further back to Richard and Penelope (Vanprincis) Stout. Around 1620 eighteen-year-old Penelope Vanprincis and her husband sailed from Holland for New Amsterdam (New York). When their ship foundered on Sandy Hook, the passengers and crew started walking to their destination. Her husband, hurt in the wreck, was unable to keep up with the others. Resting in the woods, they were attacked by natives who killed her husband and left her to die. Penelope awoke with a fractured skull, a left shoulder hacked so that she never regained full use, and a cut across her abdomen exposing her bowels to the extent she had to hold them in with her hand. After seven days of living off the land, she was discovered by two natives. The older one carried her to his home where he treated her wounds. After she recovered, he took her to New Amsterdam. There Penelope met and married Richard Stout, an Englishman. They had seven sons and three daughters. Penelope lived to be 110.

The Lenni-Lenape tribe invited Jonathan, her third son, in 1686 to visit them in the area that is now called Hopewell, New Jersey.