In the study of the church both Baptist and Protestant historians used the name Baptist rather freely. So freely in fact, that it is difficult to determine how precise they are in their detailed accounts. A number of notable men have applied the name to groups of churches existing in Europe two centuries before Luther. While we Baptists may relish in these accounts, we are not provided with the reason why they are known as Baptists. Were they indeed called Baptist in their day or did the historians simply assign the name because they resembled the Baptists of the 1600's? We are not disputing their usage of Baptist, but desire supporting evidence. Some have applied the name to those who were certainly not Baptistic. Research leaves us with uncertainty as to when the name began. However, we know this, it is very old, and it cannot be claimed that any man or group of men founded the Baptist Church.

      As a footnote to the above we notice a trend of writers who identify ancient churches as being Baptists because they were of "Like Faith and Order" of Baptists today. For this they have been accused of arrogance and brash presumptuousness. While we would not use words so brutal it is indeed not a prudent practice. This type of approach sets the model of the church to be that of current Baptists and attempts to make the ancient churches conform to this model. The question is not how well they conform to Baptists of today, but rather how well do the Baptists conform to them, and in this they measure well.

      The Antiquity of The Baptists

      Robinson commented that succession with the apostolic churches was the holy grail of the Reformation churches. Having a physical lineage from the first century is only one part of succession. Succession must also include doctrine, practices, policies, and morality. As observers of history we can see the church entering into the Dark Ages and then emerging one hundred years before the Reformation. In the centuries between the church lay hidden, but evidence of it is seen in the blood of martyrs, in the testimonies of its enemies, and in the names and titles given to it. When the church emerged it was just as glorious as at the beginning. Protestants insist that the greatest corruption of the church was in this age. In doing so they are fraudulently identifying the church with the Roman Catholic Church. But as for the true church of Jesus Christ, it never shined so bright, sublime and beautiful than in this age. Surviving nakedness, murder, brutality, bruised and bloodied it was an appaling sight but to the spirit it was breathtaking.

      Two prominent names of the Dark Age dissenters were the Albigenses and the Waldenses. Their records are stellar. Can any single lineage of a church be established? No, the records were methodically destroyed by the Roman Catholic Church. Samuel Morland in his The Churches of the Valley of Piedmont wrote that by the time he entered the valleys the Inquisitors had destroyed nearly every document they uncovered of the Waldenses. Few records survived. This was a policy long established and faithfully practiced by the Catholics.

      The Albigenses and Waldenses were alike in all the essentials of Faith and Order. They had many contacts together through the centuries. Because of destroyed records it is impossible with what is left to us to give a church by church (a chain link) lineage. However, if we think of the Albigensian and Waldensian churches as a species of Churches and Christians we don't need to see the microcosm of the individuals but the movement and life of the whole. These churches are historically identified with the apostolic churches; the Waldenses and the Bogomils made this claim of themselves, and others concur. And always the name Anabaptist was associated with them.

      The essentials of Faith and Order of the Lord's churches were those which they confessed from the Holy Scriptures. They rejected all human advancements of theology and the adoption of paganism, superstition, and philosophy. Their form of church government and clergy followed exactly the pattern set in the New Testament. They had unity without uniformity. We may view with disappointment that they put forth no opinion on issues about which we feel so warmly. This should serve to instruct us that perhaps we have over-burdened our Confessions of Faith with non-essentials. But in our defense the churches today face many more complicated theological aberrations than they. It would be rare to find an exact counterpart among them with our creeds, but in essence we Baptists are of the same fabric of beliefs. This is the heritage which has come to us. We are apostolic.

      Ypeig and Dermount in their History of the Netherlands's Reformed Church said:*

"We have now seen that the Baptists who in former times were called Anabaptists, and at a later time period Mennonites, were originally Waldenses, who, in the history of the Church, even from the most ancient times, have received such a well-deserved homage. On this account the Baptist may be considered, as of old, the only religious community which has continued from the times of the Apostles; as a Christian Society which has kept pure through all ages the evangelical doctrines of religion. The uncorrupted inward and outward condition of the Baptist community affords proof of the truth contested by the Romanish Church, of the great necessity of a reformation of religion such as that which took place in the sixteenth century, and also a refutation of the erroneous notion of the Roman Catholics that their denomination is the most ancient."

*Armitage, chapter XI, The Baptist Copy of the Apostolic Churches.

      The distinguishing principles of the first churches and the Baptist may be stated thus:

I. That the inspired Scriptures contain the full and supreme authority of Christ in all that relates to Christian faith and practice, whether in doctrine, ordinance, the ordering of a holy life, or in the administering of church government.

II. That a Christian church must be made up only of persons who are morally regenerated; and that it is not a simple voluntary association, but a body of men called out of the world about them, by Christ's special authority, to be a people peculiar to Himself.

III. That they maintain Baptism and the Lord's Supper after the Apostolic appointment both as regarding in their relations among themselves as ordinances, and to other great Gospel teachings.

IV. That they earnestly oppose all connection of the Church with the State, and all distinctions made by the State among its citizens, on the ground of religion. By this opposition they insisted on total religious freedom and liberty of conscinousness in the matter of choice of worship. They never asked for tolerance but freedom. Never once did they ever persecute others.

      "It is enough to show that what Christ's churches were in the days of the Apostles, that the Baptist churches of to-day find themselves. The truths held by them have never died since Christ gave them, and in the exact proportion that any people have maintained these truths they have been true Baptists of the world. A Baptist church is a congregation, and not a denomination of congregations, and find it in what nook we may, if it can trace its doctrines to the Apostles it is an Apostolic Church." (Armitage)

      Those who have never been willing to understand the Baptists or their values argue for a reformation origin. Of all the historians specifically devoted to the in-depth research of the Baptists none have been able to documented their precise origin. If a date was possible it most assuredly would have been assigned. The name is elusive as it is traced back in time, blending itself with those of the Anabaptist, Waldenses and Albigenses. It is ancient with no definitive origin of its own, but emerging from earlier ancient churches.

      From what has been said of the Baptists no other denomination in the world possesses their credentials.

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