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Ebenezer Chandler was Bunyan’s first successor, and Samuel Sanderson his second, who, personally, were Pedobaptists. It is of the first of these that Jukes says, it appears that the principle of this Church was ‘defined by Gifford. its practice as conformed to that principle was determined by Chandler. . . . All Bunyan’s teaching had, no doubt, served to increase the attachment between his brethren to Gifford’s principle, and to prepare them for Chandler’s practice.’ And what was Chandler’s practice but the introduction of infant baptism into the body. Jukes gives us this letter from Chandler, written Feb. 23d, 1691, to those members who lived at Gamlingay and formed a branch Church there:

‘With respect to infant baptism, I have my liberty to baptize infants without making it my business to promote it among others, and every member is to have his liberty in regard to believer’s baptism; only to forbear discourse and debate on it, that may have a tendency to break the peace of the Church. When thought expedient the Church doth design to choose an administrator of believer’s baptism. We do not mean to make baptism, whether of believers or infants, a bar to communion. Only the Church bath promised that none shall hereafter, to my grief, or trouble, or dissatisfaction, be admitted.’

This letter tells its own story, namely: that heretofore the Church had not christened infants, but now Chandler had got from the Church ‘liberty’ to do so; and that he had been troubled and grieved to administer ‘believer’s baptism,’ but now another administrator was to be chosen to that end. In reply, the Gamlingay brethren answered:

‘We only desire to have liberty to speak or preach believer’s baptism, if the Lord shall set it upon our hearts. Yet, with that tenderness as being far from any such designs as do tend in the least to the breaking the peace of the Church, and do heartily grant our Brother Chandler the came liberty to speak or preach infant baptism, provided with equal tenderness.’

Down to that time, Gifford, Burton, Banyan and Chandler had administered ‘believer’s baptism.’ It had grieved, troubled and dissatisfied Chandler to do such a thing, but now he was bent on lugging in infant baptism, to the exclusion of believer’s baptism so far as he was concerned, for he would baptize no more believers. He says, however, that the Church would choose an administrator to do that, etc. Thomas Cooper, ‘a private member of the Church,’ says Mr. Brown was chosen for this work. This evinces their firm determination not to be brow-beaten out of the practice. In an appendix to a Funeral Sermon for Rev. Joshua Symonds, another pastor of the Church, John Ryland, Jr. says: ‘One, Mr. Cooper, baptized the adults in Mr. Chandler’s time.’ Wilson says, that under Sanderson’s ministry.

‘Peace and harmony were preserved in the society notwithstanding some diversity of sentiment, particularly about baptism, a subject which he never brought forward for discussion, nor did he ever baptize any children in public; through fear of moving that controversy. He always dreaded a division, and studied the things that made for peace. By his prudence and good temper he preserved the congregation from those animosities which took place after his death.’

Sanderson understood the metal of the Church too well to force the high-handed measures of Chandler. We have already noticed what those ‘animosities’ were. Joshua Symonds became their pastor in 1765, he also being a Pedobaptist at the time. But the old Baptist leaven, which had been in the Church from its foundation, kept fermenting, and in February, 1772, he asked the Church to relieve him from the necessity of baptizing infants or sprinkling adults, avowed himself a Baptist, and immersed his wife in the river Ouse. The Church agreed to consider his wishes for a. year, but in less time a minority of the congregation left and formed a distinctly Pedobaptist congregation, which chose Thomas Smith as its pastor. John Howard, the philanthropist, who at that time was living near Bedford, went with the new body. The Baptist majority remained with Symonds, the Church numbering 127 members, a baptistery was built in the chapel, and for some years infant baptism was again banished from the congregation. The Church also sent out several pastors to other Churches amongst the Baptists, two being Mr. Read, of Chichester, and John Nichols, of Kimbolton. Jukes says that after the death of Symonds, who served the Church for many years, it was supplied by two Baptists and one Pedobaptist, but it could unite on neither of them for pastor, and when it gave up both of them, it settled Mr. Hillyard, after a year’s trial. The old contest on baptism still waged, however, and in process of time a second division took place, and a new Baptist Church went out, formed upon the strict communion principle, which it maintained for many years. It is now known as the Mill Street Church, and numbers 154 members. Its present practice is after the open communion order, but receiving only immersed believers into Church fellowship. The Bunyan Meeting, which owes its primitive vigor to him and bears his name, has always had very strong feeling on the subject of baptism and is not entirely free from it today, as is evinced by the fact, that it still retains its old baptistery, which is occasionally used for the immersion of believers still, although it now ranks as a Congregational Church, but is returned in the Baptist Handbook for 1886 as in membership with the Baptist Union of Great Britain and Ireland, and is marked under the ‘Union Churches,’ a term that denotes ‘a Church in which Baptists and Pedobaptists are united.’

Baptisteries were not common in English dissenting chapels in the seventeenth century, especially if a running stream was near, as at Bedford; even in London they were not known until late in the eighteenth century. The baptisms that took place all through the early history of this Church, from Grifford down, were celebrated in the river Ouse, where Bunyan himself was dipped. In a letter dated May 21, 1886, Mr. Brown has kindly furnished the following facts:

‘The Baptistery in the old chapel, pulled down in 1849, was fixed there about 1796, as may be inferred from a letter from Thomas Kilpin to Dr. Rippon, dated Jan. 29th, 1796: "My father, after many years’ deliberation, has at length made up his mind on the Ordinance of Baptism, and was a few months since, with my sister (about eighteen years) and Mr. Alien, baptized in our new Baptistery" (Dr. Rippon’s Correspondence Additional MSS. British Museum, No. 25,387, fol. 376). I have seen it mentioned elsewhere that John Kilpin, the person here referred to, was the first baptized in this baptistery. In Mr. Symond’s time, as he mentions in a MS. Diary, the baptisms took place in the river. He says that his wife was the first person baptized thus after his change of view (421), and that as the river was new to him for this purpose, she was carried away and nearly drowned. This would be about twenty years earlier than 1796.’

The Rev. John Jukes tells us that he wrote his history of the Church in 1849, to aid in procuring money for the erection of the new chapel; when this second baptistery, prepared by the old Bunyan congregation, was put into the new building, for as late as that time this Church would not dispense with a baptistery. In a letter from Rev. Thomas Watts, present pastor of the Mill Street Church, dated Bedford, May 31st, 1886, he says: ‘There is a baptistery in the Bunyan Meeting-house. I baptized two persons in it three years ago.’ It seems, then, that the Bedford Baptists go to get the good old-fashioned immersion from the Bunyan center yet. It is, however, of the old baptistery that Robert Philip spake thus in 1839: ‘I have been unable to identify the spot in the lilied Ouse, where Bunyan was baptized. It may have been the well-known spot where his successors administered baptism, until a baptistery was introduced into the chapel. The old table over that baptistery is an extraordinary piece of furniture, which for size and strength might have been the banquet-table of a baronial hall.’

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A HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS

By Thomas Armitage

1890

[Note from the publisher. This valuable out-of-print book was scanned from an original printing and carefully formatted for electronic publication by Way of Life Literature. We extend a special thanks to our friend Brian Snider for his labor of love in diligently scanning the material so that it might be available to God's people in these days. For a catalog of other books, both current and old, in print and electronic format, contact us at P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061-0368, [e-mail] (e-mail), http://wayoflife.org/~dcloud (web site).]

[Table of Contents for "A History of the Baptists" by Thomas Armitage]

BAPTISTS OF GREAT BRITAIN

BUNYAN’S PRINCIPLES

Aside from all expression of Bunyan’s principles on his own part, it is readily seen why the universal decision of history accounts him a Baptist. But aside from this, there is a certain philosophy about the genius of Bunyan which allies his life so closely and openly with Baptist principles, that it has not escaped the eye of even casual observers. With all Philip’s unfriendliness to Baptists, he discovers this at a glance, becomes enamored of Bunyan as a Baptist, and says:

‘No one surely can regret that he was baptized by immersion. That was just the mode calculated to impress him--practiced as it usually then was in rivers. He felt the sublimity of the whole scene at the Ouse, as well as its solemnity. Gifford’s eye may have realized nothing on the occasion but the meaning of the ordinance, but Bunyan saw Jordan in the lilied Ouse, and John the Baptist in the holy minister, and almost the Dove in the passing birds; while the sun-struck waters flushed around and over him, as if the Shekinah had descended upon them. For let it not be thought that he was indifferent about his baptism because he was indignant against Strict Baptists, and laid more stress upon the doctrine it taught than upon its symbolic significancy. He loved immersion, although he hated the close communion of the Baptist Churches. . . . Bunyan could not look back upon his baptism in infancy (if he was baptized then) with either our emotions or convictions. We think, therefore, that he did wisely in being re-baptized. I think he did right in preferring immersion to sprinkling, not, however, that I believe immersion to be right, or sprinkling wrong, according to any scriptural rule, for there is none, but because the former suited his temperament best, inasmuch as it gave him most to do, and thus most to think of and feel. For that is the best mode of baptism to any man which most absorbs his own mind with its meaning and design.’

With an eye quite as clear and sharp, this writer discovers an intimate connection between his immersion and the after thoughts and actions of his life, which he expresses thus: ‘Had he not been a Baptist, he would have written little more than his ‘Pilgrim’s Progress’ and ‘Holy War;’ because he knew that profounder theologians than he ever pretended to be, were publishing quite enough, both doctrinal and practical, for every nation to read; but he knew also that the Baptists, as a body, would take a lesson from him more readily, than from an Episcopalian, a Presbyterian, or an Independent; or at least that he would be read by many who would not read Owen or Baxter. In like manner, had he not been more than a Baptist, he would have written less than he did.’ ‘Bunyan’s adherence,’ he continues, ‘and attachments to the Baptists, notwithstanding the attacks made upon him, did him great credit. He was also a loser by identifying himself with their name and cause at the Restoration. But he never flinched nor repented. And in this he truly did them justice. Their cause was good and their name bad only by misrepresentation.’

Southey seems to sympathize with this view, in the words: ‘Both the world and the Church are indebted to the Baptists for the ministry of Banyan. But for them he might have lived and died a tinker.’ And Dean Stanley unites with them both, when he says: ‘Neither amongst the dead nor the living who have adorned the Baptist name, is there any before whom other Churches bow their heads so reverently as he who in this place derived his chief spiritual inspiration from them.’ But Cheever, who has not been equaled as an interpreter of Bunyan, unless by Offer, goes further than this. He sees a direct act of divine Providence in Bunyan’s association with the Baptists and writes:

‘To make the highest jewel of the day as a Christian, a minister and a writer, Divine Providence selected a member of the then obscure, persecuted and despised sect of the Baptists. He took John Bunyan: but he did not remove him from the Baptist Church of Christ into what men said was the only true Church; he kept him shining in that Baptist candlestick all his life-time. . . . All gorgeous and prelatical establishments God passed by, and selected the greatest marvel of grace and genius in all the modern age from the Baptist Church in Bedford.’

More than one passage in Bunyan’s writings confirm the view of Philip concerning the deep influence of immersion upon his mind, but one will suffice, in which, far beyond the common conception, he puts forth the opinion, that the Lord’s Supper as well as baptism symbolizes Christ’s overwhelming agony. This he finds implied in his own words: ‘Ye shall indeed endure the baptism [immersion in suffering] which I endure.’ Hence, Bunyan exclaims: ‘That Scripture, "Do this in remembrance of me," was made a very precious word unto me, when I thought of that blessed ordinance, the Lord’s Supper, for by it the Lord did come down upon my conscience with the discovery of his death for my sins; and as I then felt, plunged me in the virtue of the same.’ Philip says: ‘There seems to me in this passage an intended use of terms which should express the views of both classes in his Church on the mode of baptism;’ and this may be implied in his words. But Bunyan found his full type of baptism in the Deluge. He says: ‘The Flood was a type of three things. First, of the enemies of the Church. Second, a type of the water-baptism under the New Testament. Third, of the last overthrow of the world.’ Again, in his ‘Exposition of the First Ten Chapters of Genesis,’ he remarks: ‘That was the time then that God had appointed to try his servant Noah by the waters of the flood: in which time he was so effectually crucified to the things of this world, that he was as if he was never more to enjoy the same. Wherefore Peter maketh mention of this estate of his; he tells us, it was even like unto our baptism; wherein we profess ourselves dead to the world, and alive to God by Jesus Christ. 1 Peter 3:21.’

As Mr. Brown simply gives voice to a vague and loose notion which is afloat concerning Bunyan’s fixed views of baptism when he says that ‘he had no very strong feeling any way’ on that subject, it is but just to allow him to say for himself what he did believe, and then all can judge whether or not he treated that subject as a matter of indifference. In a ‘Reason for My Practice’ Bunyan writes of ordinances: ‘I believe that Christ hath ordained but two in his Church, namely, water baptism and the Supper of the Lord; both which are of excellent use to the Church in this world, they being to us representations of the death and resurrection of Christ, and are, as God shall make them, helps to our faith therein. But I count them not the fundamentals of Christianity nor grounds or rule to communion with saints.’ Great injustice is done to him in the heedlessness which applies these words only to baptism and not to the Supper. What he says here of one ordinance he says of the other; namely, that they stand on a ground of equal excellency, and that he did not count either of them a fundamental of Christianity. He neither idolized the Supper nor treated baptism with indifference, that is the work of his interpreters; but he says that Jesus ordained the two equally; and to say that he had strong feeling about one of Christ’s ordinances and no strong feeling about the other, is to put words into his mouth which he never uttered. In his ‘Divine Emblems’ he says, that he put the two ordinances of the Gospel upon a parity as to authority, and reverenced them equally. Two sacraments I do believe there be, Baptism and the Supper of the Lord. Both mysteries divine, which do to me, by God’s appointment, benefit afford.’

He never held the popularly current Quaker view, ascribed to him, that immersion is unimportant and so showed that baptism sat loosely upon him; that is simply what those who misrepresent him hold themselves and wish to find in his writings. But it is not there. He held that immersion on a man’s personal faith in Christ is the duty of every man who believes in Christ; that when men receive ‘water-baptism’ they should be immersed, because there is no other water-baptism but immersion; but he also held that ‘water-baptism is not a precedent to the Lord’s Supper.’ He says as plainly as his use of terse English could, that neither baptism nor the Supper form a ‘rule to communion with saints,’ and this proposition cannot be taken by halves, without the grossest injustice to him. As it regards baptism and the Supper, there was not the least shade of difference between him and the strict communion Baptists, excepting, that he did not hold baptism to be an act precedent to the breaking of bread at the Lord’s table, while they did. He constantly uses the phrases ‘water baptism’ and ‘those of the baptized way,’ and the construction is forced upon his words that this form of expression puts a slight upon the immersion of believers. But the strictest of strict Baptists of his day, Kiffin amongst them, used the same phraseology as freely as he did. What other could any of them use? The Quakers all over England, and especially about Bedford, where they abounded, compelled the Baptists to use these forms of utterance in order to make themselves understood. The Friends were constantly using the terms ‘spirit-baptism,’ and ‘baptism of the Spirit,’ and the Baptists had no choice left but to use these chosen phrases. Bunyan said to the Quakers most significantly: ‘The Kanters are neither for the ordinance of baptism with water, nor breaking of bread, and are not you the same?’ In regard to what constituted ‘water-baptism,’ he had no difficulty, for he held that it was dipping and only dipping, and so, only those who had been immersed he called ‘of the baptized way.’ He says of the Baptists and not of the Pedobaptists, that he would ‘persuade my brethren of the baptised way not to hold too much thereupon,’ and again: ‘I put a difference between my brethren of the baptized way. I know some are more moderate than some;’ that is, he drew a line between the strict and open communionists. But there is not a passage in the sixty books which he wrote, in which he says that the Pedobaptists are of the ‘baptized way,’ and protests: ‘I would not teach men to break the least of the commandments of God.’ So far from laxity, this is his pungent teaching on this point:

‘God never ordained significative ordinances, such as baptism and the Lord’s Supper or the like, for the sake of water or of bread and wine; nor yet because he takes any delight that we are dipped in water or eat that bread; but they are ordained to minister to us by the aptness of the elements through our sincere partaking of them, further knowledge of the death, burial and resurrection of Christ, and of our death and resurrection by him to newness of life. Wherefore, he that eateth and believeth not, and he that is baptized and is not dead to sin and walketh not in newness of life, neither keepeth these ordinances nor pleaseth God.’

Again, no Baptist ever insisted more earnestly than Bunyan, that faith and regeneration must precede baptism. In his ‘Reason for My Practice,’ he says that a visible saint ‘Is not made so by baptism; for be must be a visible saint before, else he ought not to be baptized. Acts 8:37; 9:17; 16:33.’ Then he gives this answer to the question. Why the New Testament saints were baptized? ‘That their faith by that figure might be strengthened in the death and resurrection of Christ, and that themselves might see that they have professed themselves dead, and buried, and risen with him to newness of life. . . . He should know by that circumstance that he hath received forgiveness of sin, if his faith be as true as his being baptized is felt by him.’ Yet again he says, that he who has not the doctrine of baptism ‘ought to have it before he be convicted it is his duty to be baptized, or else he playeth the hypocrite. There is, therefore, no difference between that believer that is and he that is not yet baptized with water, but only his going down into the water, there to perform an outward ceremony the substance of which he hath already.’ Still further he writes: ‘That our denomination of believers, and of our receiving the doctrine of the Lord Jesus, is not to be reckoned from our baptism is evident, because according to our notion of it, they only that have before received the doctrine of the Gospel, and so show it us by their profession of faith, they only ought to be baptized.’ And finally on this point he writes: ‘The Scriptures have declared that this faith gives the professors of it a right to baptism, as in the case of the eunuch (Acts 8) when he demanded why he might not be baptized? Philip answereth if he believed with all his heart he might; the eunuch thereupon professing Christ was baptized.’ Then he sums up all in these words: ‘It is one thing for him that administereth to baptize in the name of Jesus, another thing for him that is the subject by that to be baptized into Jesus. Baptizing into Christ is rather the act of the faith of him that is baptized, than his going into water and coming out again.’

This is the way in which disinterested and broad-minded interpreters understand Bunyan’s Baptist principles. The learned Dr. Stebbing, unwilling either to conceal, to add to, or to accept Bunyan’s positions, says in the round frankness of a man who has no ends to serve but those of the truth:

‘Bunyan belonged to a sect peculiarly strict on the subject of communion. He honestly kept him faithful to its principles; his charity made him inconsistent with its severity. Baptism was regarded by his associates as furnishing a bond of union indispensable to Christian brotherhood, and unattainable by other means. . . . It was the baptism of adults, capable of repentance and faith, and actually repenting and believing, which alone could fulfill these conditions. . . . He had, therefore, first to defend himself against the charge of unfaithfulness to his party, and then to state the principles, which he thought might form a safer and broader groundwork of Christian communion. In the former part of his task he had only to prove that neither his practice nor his profession had altered from the time of his conversion; that he had ever spoken with all plainness and sincerity on the topics in dispute, and had shown himself as little willing to indulge error among his brethren, as to let truth suffer from his own fear of an enemy. No one could gainsay the defense of his integrity.’

Dr. Stebbing had no sympathy with Bunyan in rejecting baptism as a necessary precedent to the reception of the Supper, because in this he thought his teaching contrary to the New Testament. He holds him at fault for speaking in his writings ‘with unhappy violence,’ but says that ‘he shared largely in the prejudices of the party to which he belonged,’ and excuses him therefore on the ground that ‘the whole of England was convulsed with a controversy on baptism.’

That history has accorded to Bunyan his proper ecclesiastical place in numbering him with the Baptists is clear, from the place which he assigns to himself in their ranks, and from the place which his most intimate friends as well as his sturdiest opponents amongst the Baptists assigned him. The ‘Britannica’ says that he had a dispute with some of the chiefs in the sect to which he belonged, and that ‘they loudly pronounced him a false brother.’ A great controversy on communion was rife amongst the Baptists, about the time that Bunyan took the pastoral charge of the Bedford Church, the leaders being Henry Jessey and Bunyan on one side, and William Kiffin, Henry Denne, Thomas Paul and Henry D’Anvers on the other side; this whole dispute, from one end to the other, was a family quarrel amongst the English Baptists, and none but Baptists took part therein. As nearly as can be ascertained, Bunyan published his ‘Confession of Faith’ in 1672, in which he first fully printed his views on open communion. In 1673 D’Anvers, in his work on baptism, adds a postscript answering this Confession, and refers to Thomas Paul’s ‘Serious Reflections’ thereon, also published in 1673, and written jointly by Paul and Kiffin. These Reflections apparently indulged in serious personalities upon Bunyan as one of themselves, whose novel doctrines threatened to destroy Baptist Churches, and threw blame on Bunyan as a Baptist; to which he takes serious exception in his reply, known as ‘Difference of Judgment,’ 1673. This was followed by Kiffin’s ‘Sober Discourse of Right to Church Communion,’ proving that no un-baptized person may be regularly admitted to the Lord’s Supper.’ The earliest edition of the Reflections and the Serious Discourse now known to exist, bear date 1681, both of them bearing some marks of being second editions, and the only copy of Paul and Kiffin’s joint work, known to exist, is in the Bodleian Library at Oxford. In the ‘Preface to the Reflections, signed by W. K.,’ who uses these words:

‘I suppose the Author of the Confession, . . . who himself is against the baptizing of children and for the baptizing of believers upon their profession of faith in Christ, makes it none of the least of his arguments, why he is against children’s baptism, than this--namely, that there being no president [precedent] or example in the Scriptures for children’s baptism, therefore children ought not to be baptized.’

The writer then proceeds to argue from the admitted facts of Bunyan’s principles and practices, that he should apply the same tests to the communion of non-baptized persons, namely, there being no Scripture "president" [precedent] or example of such custom. Could the writers of this book have said this, if he had gone to St. Cuthbert’s one year before, to have his child christened? Rather they had branded him as an apostate, instead of claiming him as one of their own denomination but in error. In the body of the book there is the amplest evidence that Bunyan is treated by them as a Baptist. Part of the grief which they express is, that a Baptist should reason as he had done, after his long standing in the Baptist ministry. In his reply, ‘Difference of Judgment about Water Baptism no Bar to Communion,’ he accepts their alleged facts with their reasonings and makes the following defense of his new position as a Baptist:

‘That I deny the ordinance of baptism, or that I have placed one piece of an argument against it (though they feign it), is quite without color of truth. All I say is, that the Church of Christ hath not warrant to keep out of the communion the Christian that is discovered to be a visible saint of the word, the Christian that walketh according to his light with God. . . . I own water baptism to be God’s ordinance, but I make no idol of it.’

The London brethren charged Bunyan with stirring up strife in their Churches there on the communion question, to which he replies: ‘Next, you tell us of your "goodly harmony in London;" or of the amicable Christian correspondency betwixt those of divers persuasions there, until my turbulent and mutineering spirit got up.’ Then he charges, that they had no ‘Church communion’ with their brethren, but only such as they ‘were commanded to have with every brother that walketh disorderly. . . . Touching Mr. Jessey’s judgment in the case in hand, you know it condemneth your practice. . . . For your insinuating my abusive and unworthy behavior as the cause of the brethren’s attempting to break our Christian communion, it is not only false but ridiculous; false, for they have attempted to make me also one of their disciples, and sent to me and for me for that purpose. (This attempt began above sixteen years ago.) Besides, it is ridiculous. Surely their pretended order, and as they call it, our disorder was the cause; or they must render themselves very malicious, to seek the overthrow of a whole congregation, for, if it had been so, the unworthy behavior of one.’ Again and again he alleges, that his strict brethren had tried to divide his Church and to separate him from it, and so to seek ‘the overthrow of a whole congregation.’ Whether this charge were correct or not, it would have been simply ridiculous for Kiffin and Paul to have made the attempt or to have thought of it, in the case of a man who was not esteemed by them as a Baptist. On this subject he says, that ‘it is one of the things which the Lord hateth, to sow discord among brethren. Yet many years’ experience we have had of these mischievous attempts, as also have others in other places, as may be in stanced, if occasion require it, and that especially by those of the rigid way of our brethren, the Baptists, so called. . . . Therefore, when I could no longer forbear, I thought good to present to public view the warrantableness of our holy communion, and the unreasonableness of their seeking to break us to pieces.’ In another place he says: ‘Mine own self they have endeavored to persuade to forsake the Church; some they have sent quite off from us, others they have attempted and attempted to divide and break off from us, but by the mercy of God, have been hitherto prevented.’ Admitting this full charge, is it reasonable to suppose that they tried to get a Pedobaptist minister to leave a Pedobaptist congregation and to unite with them, on the ground that they were strict communionists, and that some open communion Pedobaptists did leave and go to the strict Baptists on that issue?

Kiffin and others put several inconvenient questions to Bunyan which it would have been impertinent in the highest degree to have put to him had they not understood that they were reasoning with one of their own sect. As for example: ‘I ask your heart whether popularity and applause of variety of professors be not in the bottom of what you have said; that hath been your snare to pervert the right ways of the Lord, and to lead others into a path wherein we can find none of the footsteps of the flock of the first ages?’ Bunyan replies: ‘I have been tempted to do what I have done by a provocation of sixteen long years.’ 2d Quest. ‘Have you dealt brotherly, or like a Christian, to throw so much dirt upon your brethren, in print, in the face of the world, when you had opportunity to converse with them of reputation amongst us before printing, being allowed the liberty by them at the same time for you to speak among them?’ He answers that he had ‘thrown no dirt,’ and ‘as to book, it was printed before I spake with any of you, or knew whether I might be accepted of you. As to them of reputation among you, I know others not one whit inferior to them, and have my liberty to consult with whom I like best.’ In 1674 the Bedford Church-record shows, that his Church consulted with Jessey’s old Church on the communion question, ‘that we may the better know what to do as to our Sister Martha Cumberland.’ 3d Quest. ‘Doth your carriage answer the law of love or civility, when the brethren used means to send for you for a conference, and their letter was received by you, that you should go out again from the city (London), after knowledge of their desires, and not vouchsafe a meeting with them, when the glory of God and the vindication of so many Churches is concerned? ‘Bunyan’s answer: ‘The reason why I came not amongst you was partly because I consulted mine own weakness, and counted not myself, being a dull-headed man, able to engage so many of the chief of you, as I was then informed, intended to meet me. I also feared, in personal disputes, heats and bitter contentions might arise, a thing my spirit hath not pleasure in. I feared also that both myself and words might be misrepresented.’ 4th Quest. ‘Is it not the spirit of Diotrephes of old in you, who loved to have the pre-eminence, that you are so bold to keep out all the brethren that are not of your mind in this matter, from having any entertainment in the churches or meetings to which you belong, though you yourself have not been denied the like liberty among them that are contrary-minded to you. Is this the way of your retaliation? Or are you afraid lest the truth should invade your quarters?’ Bunyan answered by asking where Diotrephes was, ‘in those days that our brethren of the baptized way would not recognize those who were as good as themselves;’ as to allowing the strict brethren ‘to preach in our assemblies, the reason is, because we cannot yet prevail with them to repent of their Church rending principles.’

The entire ground and spirit of these questions and answers show that the combatants were of one sect, and so understood themselves to be, and this fact is confirmed when Kiffin suggests that Bunyan’s principles and practices were against ‘Episcopalians, Presbyterians, and Independents,’ as well as Baptists, and asks: ‘Do you delight to have your hand against every man?’

In a word, his Baptist brethren treated him throughout the whole dispute on the communion question as a Baptist who was inconsistent in his positions, and who was playing into the hands of the Pedobaptists, whether he designed this or not. They charged him with using the very arguments of the Pedobaptists. But if he was a Pedobaptist already, what pertinency was there in such a reflection? In his ‘Difference of Judgment’ he complains that Kiffin reflects upon him seriously for his freedom to communicate with those ‘who differ from me about water-baptism.’ He complains that these Baptist brethren had tried to win him and his Church to their views, saying: ‘Yea, myself they have sent for and endeavored to persuade me to break communion with my brethren. . . . Some they did rend and dismember from us. . . . To settle the brethren of our community, and to prevent such disorders among others, was the cause of my publishing my papers.’ Then, in his ‘Reasons for my Practice,’ he writes: ‘I can communicate with those visible saints that differ about water-baptism.’ But that went without saying, if he were not a Baptist. And finally, as to the allegation that he used the arguments of the Pedo-baptists, he resents the charge with warmth thus: ‘I ingenuously tell you, I know not what Paedo means, and how then should I know his arguments?’ Which answer is of a piece with the retort to Kiffin, ‘You seek thus to scandalize me,’ because he demanded concerning Bunyan, ‘Wherein lies the force of this man’s argument against baptism, as to its place, worth, and continuance?’

That Bunyan and Kiffin stood shoulder to shoulder as Baptists on every point, excepting communion, is as clear as it can be from their own statements. Under the head of ‘The Question Stated,’ Kiffin says in his ‘Sober Discourse:’ ‘It may be necessary to examine how far we disagree and whether we disagree with our dissenting brethren, because that would prevent much useless discourse, and lead us to debate the matter in dispute only. ...’ ‘The professors of the Christian religion are distinguished,’ says he, ‘by certain terms, invented by their opposites to know them by, as Prelatical, Presbyterians, Independents, Anabaptists, etc. And it were well if such names were laid aside and the title of Christian brother resumed, because they agree in fundamentals. Now of all these our controversy in the case in hand is only with some of the last who are (though not rightly) called Anabaptists. As for others, their avowed principle is to admit none to Church-fellowship or communion that are unbaptized. . . . The Church of England receives no member into communion without baptism, neither do Presbyterians, Independents, nor, indeed, any sort of Christians that own ordinances, admit any as a Church-member without baptism. We shall, therefore, direct this discourse to our dissenting brethren of the baptized way only.’ He adds, ‘Under the term (unbaptized) we comprehend all persons that either were never baptized at all, or such as have been (as they call it) christened or baptized (more properly sprinkled) in their infancy. .Now our dissenting brethren, with whom we have to do, look upon this way to be absolutely invalid and so no baptism (else they would not be baptized themselves), and consequently esteem all such as unbaptized; so that we need not prove what is granted.’ (Kiffin’s ‘Sober Discourse,’ pp. 2, 9.)

On pages 13,14, he defines what he means by those of ‘the baptized way,’ calls them ‘Baptists,’ and says that they are ‘reproached’ and ‘derided’ ‘for being dipt.’ It had been impossible for Kiffin to have addressed Bunyan in such terms had they not recognized each other as Baptists. And Bunyan in his reply not only admits that he and Kiffin saw these things alike, but felt hurt that Kiffin should even venture to hint that he was defective in the views of baptism held by Baptists. He says: ‘That the brethren which refuse to be baptized as you and I would have them, refuse it for want of pretended light, becomes you not to imagine. . . . Their conscience may be better than either yours or mine; yet God, for purposes best known to himself, may forbear to give them conviction of their duty in this particular. . . . I advise you again to consider that a man may find baptism to be commanded, may be informed who ought to administer it, may also know the proper subject, and that the manner of baptizing is dipping, and may desire to practice it because it is commanded, and yet know nothing of what water-baptism preacheth, or of the mystery baptism showeth to faith.’ He then complains bitterly that Kiffin does not treat persons who were not baptized as it ‘is commanded’ by the ‘manner of dipping’ as they should be treated, for he avows that ‘they cannot without light be driven into water-baptism, I mean after our notion of it. . . . Far better than ourselves, that have not, according to our notion, been baptized with water.’ In the same paper he speaks of the godly of the land ‘who are not of our persuasion,’ and insists that he does not plead ‘for a despising of baptism, but a bearing with our brother who cannot do it for want of light.’ If he were not a Baptist and supposed himself enlightened in their views, it were absurd for him to be perpetually complaining to Baptists that those who were not dipped after his notion and theirs, failed of this duty for want of light. In his ‘Practice and Differences of Judgment’ he repeats this from a dozen to twenty times, and then, with an air of injured feeling on their behalf, demands: ‘Must all the children of God, that are not baptized for want of light, be still stigmatized for want of serious inquiry after God’s mind in it?’

Much needless speculation has been had on Bunyan’s status as a Baptist, simply because, in his ‘Heavenly Footman,’ he says: ‘Do not have too much company with some Anabaptists, though I go under that name myself;’ and, in his ‘Peaceable Principles,’ adds: ‘As for those factious titles of Anabaptists, Independents, Presbyterians, or the like, I conclude that they came neither from Jerusalem nor Antioch, but rather from hell and Babylon, for they naturally tend to divisions.’ With good reason Mr. Brown says of Bunyan’s affiliation with the Baptists, ‘This is plain enough,’ when Bunyan calls himself an ‘Anabaptist.’ Like many other Baptists he did not like to be called by that hateful name, ‘Anabaptist,’ nor did he like denominational names at all; he preferred to be called a ‘Christian,’ an honorable feeling that is shared by many in all Christian sects, and yet they fail to suggest better names than those they answer to. Dr. Southey, with his usual clearness of perception, says of Bunyan: ‘Though circumstances had made him a sectarian, he liked not to be called by the denomination of his sect;’ yes, and especially when it was perverted to Anabaptist. It is said that even Dr. Samuel Johnson hated this word so mortally, that he refused to put it into the first edition of his Dictionary in 1755. If it was not a simple omission, he must have left it out on other grounds than that of Bunyan’s; but, at any rate, it occurs for the first time in Johnson’s Lexicon in Todd’s edition of 1827. Neither did it seem to distress Bunyan to be called simply a Baptist. When Kiffin asked him, ‘Why do you indulge the Baptists in many acts of disobedience?’ he showed no resentment. D’Anvers demanded of him, because he thought that his published views of communion impeached the thoroughness of his Baptist position, how long it was since he ceased to be a Baptist? This home-thrust touched Bunyan in a tender spot, for it seemed to reflect upon him for the rejection of his old Baptist principles, and he resented it with his usually high spirit: ‘You ask me next how long it is since I was a Baptist?’ and then adds, "It is an ill bird that bewrays his own nest." I must tell you, avoiding your slovingly language, I know none to whom this title is so proper as to the disciples of John.’ That he was not an Independent is very clear, for D’Anvers tells him that some of the ‘sober Independents’ had showed dislike to his written notions that baptism did not precede communion. ‘What then?’ Bunyan replies. ‘If I should also say, as I can without lying, that several of the Baptists had wished yours burnt before it had come to light, is your book ever the worse for that?’ No Independent could have conducted this controversy on this line of things; and no passage in all his writings bears with more direct force upon this subject than this taken from his ‘Differences in Judgment,’ published in the very year that the St. Cuthbert’s Register says of some John Bunyan that his baby was christened. In that very year he wrote to his Baptist opponent: ‘What if I should also send you to answer those expositors that expound certain Scriptures for infant baptism, and that by them brand us for Pedobaptists, must this drive you from your belief of the truth?’

It has been any thing but a pleasant task to attempt the rescue of this honored historical name from such a brand of inconsistency as the wrong use of the St. Cuthbert’s Register must fix upon it, by applying to him an act which it was morally impossible for him to perpetrate without infamy to all the other acts of his religious life and being. A dozen such records, so perverted in their application, can never gainsay the universal voice of history as to the man’s principles and character. And outside of these nothing is more notorious than that all his chief friendships were sought by himself amongst Baptists, as in the case of Jessey, who was more the father of open communion views in England than was Bunyan. Nothing seemed more to delight that sturdy Baptist ‘friend and acquaintance’ of his, Charles Doc, than to speak of him as ‘Our Bunyan,’ which he does until the repetition wearies. Francis Smith, who published the most, if not all the works which Bunyan wrote while he was in prison, was one of the most thorough Baptists. He was a brave and true character, who set the censor of the press at defiance and was imprisoned again and again as a ‘fanatic’ because he would, publish ‘dangerous books.’ He was called ‘Elephant Smith,’ because he did business at the Elephant and Castle, near Temple Bar, but he was better known as ‘Anabaptist Smith;’ and would have published Bunyan’s ‘Grace Abounding,’ but he happened to be in prison when it was issued. Many of Bunyan’s books were seized at his place in 1666, because he published them without a license; and the Baptist press has been loaded with his writings ever since. And, last of all, says Philip: ‘He was interred at first in the back part of that ground (Bunhill Fields) now known as Baptist Corner.’

While these considerations serve as slight collateral evidences of his denominational connections, the great proof is found in his own words and works, both of which follow him. Although his own Church has forsaken the faith and practice which he taught, there are still many Churches left which received his impress, and have retained it through two hundred years. His labors outside of Bedford, in that and other counties, were abundant: and a number of Baptist Churches therein, which still exist, were then gathered as the result. Philip says: ‘Not a few of the Baptist Churches in the county (Bedford) trace their origin to Bishop Bunyan’s itineracies, as do some also in the adjoining counties of Cambridge, Hertford, Huntingdon, Buckingham and Northampton.’ Alluding to these labors, the ‘Britannica’ states that ‘he had so great an authority among the Baptists that he was popularly called Bishop Bunyan.’ This article, written by Macaulay, adds: ‘Great as was the authority of Bunyan with the Baptists, that of William Kiffin was still greater.’ The present status of these Churches show the model on which he formed them, as an open communion Baptist. Mr. Brown’s Church at Northampton, the Union Chapel at Luton, and some others, can elect either a Baptist or a Pedobaptist minister for pastor, though their ministers are now and have been generally Baptists. The Park Street Church at Luton claims Bunyan as its founder, also that at Hitchin and Hurst-Hempstead. Rev. Mr. Watts, the present pastor of Mill Street Baptist Church, Bedford, says: ‘Stagsden, Goldington, Elstow and Kempston are all branches of Banyan’s Meeting. Josiah Couder says in "Life and Writings of Bunyan:" ‘Reading, in Berkshire, was another place which he frequently visited, and a tradition has been preserved by the Baptist congregation there that he sometimes went through that town dressed like a carter, with a long whip in his hand, to avoid detection. The house in which the Baptists met for worship stood in a lane, and from the back door they had a bridge over a branch of the river Kennett, whereby, in case of alarm, they might escape. In a visit to that place, prompted by his characteristic kindness of heart, he contracted the disease which brought him to his grave.’

Rev. Thomas Watts adds:

‘There are very few Congregational Churches in Bedfordshire, and these are mostly of modern formation. It seems certain that John Bunyan was remarkably useful throughout the county, and that his converts either became members of Baptist or Union Churches. We have several Union Churches, but, with the exception of Bunyan Meeting, the minister in every case is a Baptist. The trust-deed at Cotton-End requires the Church to choose a Baptist for their pastor.’

Clearly Bunyan was an open communion Baptist, but as to christening his child in the parish church in 1672; we may well use the Scripture exclamation: ‘Go to!’

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