John Smyth pastored a congregation of the Church of England. The
church soon realized his manner of teaching and his doctrine did not suit
them. He was deposed from his pulpit. Having reached the conclusion that
the Church needed to be purified, he joined a small group called the
Gainsborough Congregationalists. This was a Puritan congregation which
had broken away from another congregation led by a man named John
Robinson. At that point the parting of the two groups was friendly, mostly a
matter of convenience since the Puritans had to meet in homes. Soon after
joining, John Smyth became the minister of that group.
The Puritans believed they had recovered the true Christian faith. They
refused to fellowship with others whom they felt were not truly Christian.
Their strict views laid them open to criticism and to persecution. In 1607 the
two congregations decided to move to Holland to avoid that persecution.
Sadly, their strictness also led to a judgmental attitude. The Puritans would
spend much of their energy excommunicating one another.
The group led by John Robinson would later return to England. They
gained their place in history when, in 1620, they boarded the Mayflower and
sailed to America, founding a colony in what is now Massachusetts.
By the time of the move to Holland, John Smyth had come to the
conclusion that infants ought not to be baptized. He reasoned, "(1) There is
neither precept nor example in the New Testament of any infants that were
baptized by John or by Christ's disciples, and (2) Christ had commanded to
make disciples and then to baptize them."
Smyth was not ready to join the Anabaptist Mennonites, so he baptized
himself, then another leader, Thomas Helwys. After that the rest of his
congregation who so desired we baptized, about 40 out of the 80 members.
These 40 joined with him in forming a Baptist congregation. Within a year,
Smyth decided he had been in error baptizing himself so in February of
1610 the majority of his congregation joined with him in requesting
membership in the Mennonite church and being rebaptized.
This left about ten members who drew up a confession of faith and
remained a Baptist congregation. In 1611, this group, led by Thomas
Helwys, returned to England and founded the first Baptist Church in
England, in London.
these early Baptist held to two important principles. First they proclaimed
believer's baptism. Smyth described baptism as "the external sign of the
remission of sins, of dying and being made alive, to be administered only
upon penitent and faithful persons." Strangely, he did not see the value of
immersion as the most appropriate symbol of dying and being made alive.
Neither he, nor Helwys, mentions immersion in any of their confessions.
The mode of baptism they used was pouring (affusion) which was the
custom of nearly all Mennonites.
The second key principle of the first Baptist was religious liberty. It was
the Baptist emphasis of religious liberty which ultimately led to its being
included in our U.S. constitution. In the confession of faith of the English
Baptists, dated 1712, we can read, "the magistrate is not by virtue of his
office to meddle with religion or matters of conscience, to force or compel
men to this or that form of religion or doctrine: but to leave the Christian
religion free to every man's conscience... for Christ only is the lawgiver of
the church and conscience." The early baptists knew that while coercion can
bring about outward conformity, true conversion must come from Christ's
work on the individual heart. They realized that the place for religious
training is in the home and the church. In their view the state has no right
to determine the beliefs of its citizens.
Baptists have often stood alone in their opposition to state religion. Their
friends, the pilgrims, established a state church almost as soon as they
established their colony in America. Baptists has long stood for each
person's right to make his or her own decision of how, or even whether, to
worship.
That First Baptist Church in London began a group which would be
called General Baptists. They believed in a "general atonement," that is, that
the death of Jesus Christ on the cross was and act of divine grace for the
sake of all the people in the world. They took seriously the "whosoever" of
John 3:16.
In 1638 another Baptist church was formed in London. Even though the
General Baptists had been working and growing for 26 years, this church
had no connection with them. It sprang up out of what was called an
"independent" congregation. This group had begun when the members
decided that baptism  in the Church of England was invalid, not because it
was infant baptism but because it was in the Church of England. As they
studied the subject, they added one more principle to the Baptist witness,
namely the belief that immersion was the only acceptable form of baptism.
In 1644, seven Baptist churches adopted the London Confession of Faith. In
it they declared "the way and manner of the dispensing of this ordinance is
dipping or plunging the body under water; it being a sign, must answer the
thing signified, which is, that interest the saints have in the death, burial,
and resurrection of Christ; and that as certainly as the body is buried under
water and risen again, so certainly shall the bodies of the saints be raised by
the power of Christ in the day of the resurrection, to reign with Christ."
We have several arguments for the practice of immersion. 
     1. It seems certain that John the Baptist used that mode when he
     baptized Jesus, so we follow his example.
     2. Immersion does provide a true symbol of the burial of the former
     self when one commits his life to Christ.
     3. It symbolizes death and resurrection as described by Paul in
     Romans 6:1-11.
This second group of Baptists came to be called Particular Baptists. the
Particular Baptists held to a Calvinist Theology. They believed that Christ
died for particular people, whom God had chosen before the foundation of
the world. As one later author put it, "one must not tell any unsaved person
that Christ died for him, for they cannot say that. No one knows, except
Christ himself, who are his elect for whom he died." With this group the
teaching of predestination entered the Baptist mainstream.
These two groups, the General Baptists and the Particular Baptists form
the beginnings of our Baptist heritage. They agreed on the principles of
believer's baptism and religious liberty even though they were divided in
theology. The Particular Baptists cooperated with groups such as the
Presbyterians and the Congregationalists. The General Baptists didn't co-
operate with anyone, not even the Particular Baptists. Strangely, the
Particular Baptists showed the greatest growth.
We who calls ourselves American Baptists come from both groups. In
1911 the Northern Baptist Convention, a group with Particular Baptist roots,
merged with the Free Will Baptists. This merged group later took the name
American Baptist Churches in the U.S.A.
Two English Baptists need special mention as we look at our heritage.
John Bunyan is best known to us as the author of Pilgrim's Progress. this
book has been translated into more languages than any other book except
the Bible. Bunyan was born in 1628. At age 28 he was Baptized. He became
the pastor of the Baptist Church in Bedford. His church was a Particular
Baptist Church. In his tract, Difference in Judgment About Water Baptism
No Bar to Communion, he defends the position that mature Christians from
other communions should not be required to be rebaptized in order to join
his congregation. He was, therefore, one of the first proponents of an open
membership policy in Baptist churches. He wrote, "Christ, not baptism is the
way to the sheepfold."
In 1660 John Bunyan was scheduled to preach at what was, by necessity a
secret meeting. When he arrived he was told a warrant was out for his
arrest. Rather than flee he began the meeting. Soon he was arrested and
spent the next 12 years in prison. It was while he was serving this sentence
for preaching the Gospel that he wrote Pilgrim's Progress. Bunyan could
have been freed if he renounced his Baptist faith but he remained true to
what he understood God required of him.
William Carey has the distinction of being the first Baptist foreign
missionary. Later we will meet American Baptist missionaries. In 1892, this
thirty-one year old former cobbler preached a message which inspired the
first foreign mission society of modern times. (in any denomination.)
Thirteen people met to form the society and pledged about $37 to support
the work.
They then decided to send William Carey to India to bring the Gospel
message to the natives of that great colony of England. Carey preached,
"Expect great things from God. Attempt great things for God." What he
attempted brought in the era of modern missions. For the next 200 years
and more his work and vision would effect the church. It took seven years in
India before Carey saw his first convert. Three days before Christmas in
1800, a Hindu named Krisna Pal accepted Christ as Lord and Savior.