December 13, 2022 Show with Dan Nelson on “Early Baptists: A Comprehensive Study of the Anabaptist & English Baptist Movements”

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This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Tuesday on this 13th day of December 2022.

I'm thrilled to have as a first -time guest today a brother who has written about a subject that absolutely fascinates me, especially since I happen to be a

Baptist, a Reformed Baptist specifically, and I love history, and in particular

Baptist history. Today we have on the program Dan Nelson, who is an author, teacher, dramatist, a

Baptist historian, and we are going to be addressing early Baptists, a comprehensive study of the

Anabaptist and English Baptist movements. And it's my honor and privilege to welcome you for the very first time ever to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Dan Nelson.

Thank you, Chris. Good to be with you today. Well, tell us something about one of the words

I used to describe you from your bio, dramatist. That's the one that may pop out as something out of the ordinary, although I have interviewed at least one dramatist on this program who conducts a one -man play using the words and writings of John Wesley, and he does a tremendous job on that.

But tell us how you are a dramatist and what you do with that skill. Well, I think the best way you can describe history sometimes is to demonstrate it.

One of my history teachers in college, he dressed up like Washington and Wesley and others and came in, and that was very expressive.

I had written a book on George Whitefield. It's a biography related to him, and I think it's a very historical biography, very chronological, and yet I wanted a way to express that to my congregation and other people.

So I had already done Peter and John for Easter, and I memorized the script and basically

Whitefield came to life again. So that's the way I got in as a dramatist.

I did that at Southwestern Seminary, but basically it was for that specific character, and so I guess that's how you'd call me a dramatist that way.

Do you still do that? Can people invite you? I just did it about three or four months ago at a church here. I'm in the

Portland, Oregon area. Did that. They had a reading club, and they wanted me to come and tell about my book.

I said, well, I can also demonstrate who Whitefield was by the drama. So I did that, and I think they got more out of that than they did my telling about my book.

Well, I'm looking forward to, God willing, seeing you perform as George Whitefield at some point in the future.

But before we get into the heart of our subject today, early Baptists, a comprehensive study of the

Anabaptist and English Baptist movements, we have a tradition here where whenever we have a first -time guest, that guest gives a summary of their salvation testimony, which would include any kind of religious atmosphere they may have been raised in and what kind of providential circumstances our sovereign

Lord used to draw them to himself and save them. So I want to hear your story.

Well, I grew up in South Mississippi, close to the Gulf Coast down there.

The church was the center of the community, Agricola Baptist. My parents became Christians as adults.

They came from a background, one, that my dad said baptism saved you, and the other was a hyper -paganistic old primitive

Baptist background that my mother didn't really have an assurance of salvation. So they came to Christ in this church, and I sort of grew up in it and came to Christ during an evangelistic meeting, a series of prayer meetings.

Before that, I knew that I didn't have any assurance I'd go to heaven if I died, and I was convicted of my sin and I knew that I needed

Christ. And at eight, I talked with a missionary speaker who was there, and that night trusted

Christ as Lord and Savior. And since that time, he's been in my life. And at 11 years of age,

I was very influenced by our church and by a particular pastor who went out visiting, sharing

Christ with folks. And my dad was my Sunday school teacher, and I just felt very strongly that God wanted me to be an evangelist.

That was the first thing that came to mind. That's been sort of evidence in my—as a pastor, you can be an evangelistic pastor, because I've been an ordained pastor for 50 years.

And so that put me on the road to preparing to pastor, and I pastored three churches, one in South Mississippi there and the other two in California, because I spent six years at First Baptist Church Burney and then 35 years at First Baptist Church of Camarillo.

But it all began when I trusted Christ as Savior as a child. And I just have to say that being in a

Bible -believing, gospel -honoring, Christ -honoring church really helped me to get on the right road, the right path to doing what

God wanted me to do in my life. Well, praise God. Now, how did you begin to fall in love with history, and in particular

Baptist history? I think that it is a sad commentary, and I think it's an accurate commentary, on evangelicals and even

Baptists that history does not fascinate many.

It fascinates me. It always has fascinated me, even before I was a Christian. But history does not seem to be a big subject with many evangelicals and Baptists.

Roman Catholics, on the other hand, tend to major on history, but they get it wrong.

They hear a false version of history from their apologists who skew everything to reflect what

Roman Catholics believe and teach today, or at least since the

Council of Trent. But many of them are in for a shock when they actually hear the accurate accounts of history and that their beliefs are actually very novel when it comes to what the disciples in early church believed and taught.

But how did you fall in love with history and begin to research it? My dad was a football coach and a history teacher.

I just grew up reading all about the Civil War during the centennial time, and I liked that.

When I was in the fifth grade, my dad had me come into his 11th grade class. You couldn't do this today, a little small country school, and share with the class all that I knew about the

Civil War. So I grew up knowing that, but also I had a tremendous desire to study church history.

I went to William Carey College, William Carey University now in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, and did a lot of church history courses there, and then went on to seminary.

I've been to four seminaries, and my doctoral dissertation was on the Great Awakening movement. I hope your tribe can be multiplied because it is a sad day that people do not know.

We don't want to know where we've come from and where we're going. It's like saying we don't know anything about our past, and we're nothing to do with the future.

So I think the best way we can do this is right on the subject, and the Lord's sort of light on my heart is

I've always used history as illustrations and stuff. But in my pastoral ministry, but in sort of retirement from full -time pastoral ministry, writing about history,

I have a quest right now to write chronologically about Baptist history.

It started with what Baptists believe in my book, Baptist Revival, and then I've started going backwards.

I did American history first, Baptist biographies in American history, and started with Roger Williams and went to the present day, those short biographies, and then did the book on Whitefield, which is sort of an outgrowth of my dissertation.

So I'm going backward now to what most Baptists today would think Baptists sort of begin as at least an organized movement, and that is the

Anabaptist and English Baptist movements. I believe very strongly that people need to know more about these, and so I put them more in a biological or biographical form and the doctrinal beliefs and all that other stuff.

So my next quest, I guess, will be to look at groups that were sort of like Baptists from the time of Christ up until the

Reformation, you know, different views about that, where Baptists really started. But I think with the

Anabaptist and English Baptist movements, you have sort of the beginnings of the movements. And of course, some people that believe in the

English Baptist, more reformed folks, do not really believe the Anabaptists were that strongly

Baptist today. And then others like Dr.

Paige Patterson and Southwestern Baptist Seminary, with the brother that wrote the book on the

Anabaptist story, William Eastell, believes the Anabaptists have some, I guess, similarities to Baptists today.

So that's how it came to pass. I just love history. I like everything about history. I study as much as I can reading about history.

And so my books are more of a research -oriented thing where I give you a lot of information.

They're the entire opposite of fiction. It's a lot of work.

But anyway, I want to leave with the next generation something to do with where we came from and where we're going.

That helps me. Perhaps it would be wise to start with the

Anabaptists who predate the Baptists, at least in the minds of many historians.

Of course, we have landmark Baptists who believe that the specific

Baptist movement can be traced back to Christ. I don't know how much of that viewpoint you agree or disagree with.

I think it's very difficult to say that. I think at the best, there are groups that are sort of like Baptists.

For instance, Dr. Criswell at First Baptist Dallas believed his namesake was

Christwell, and his descendants came from Ireland. And he had done some research, preached a sermon on St.

Patrick and how that he led people to Christ and baptized them by immersion. The very word

Christwell was his name. And he took the T out, Criswell.

But yeah, so you have all this. I don't think we have a lot of information, which is what I'm searching for if I'm going to do this other book.

But we do have a lot of information on the Anabaptists and the English Baptists. The uniqueness of my book is that I read books on the

Anabaptists and English Baptists. Tom Nettles' three volume work starts with the English Baptists as well as David Beale's work.

But then you have books like Estep, who did a very good work on the

Anabaptists. And you usually have one group or the other. But I put two groups both in one book and tried to make it as extensive as I could, while at the same time, interesting people, especially in the biographies.

We have 10 biographies on the Anabaptists and 10 on the English Baptists. And there's some others like Spurgeon and Carey and Fuller and how the early

English Baptist movement influenced the latter English Baptist movement. As a matter of fact,

Spurgeon provided copies of the London Baptist Confession, the second one in 1689, to all of his new converts because he wanted to ground them in the scripture.

So that tells you something about the strength of history. Spurgeon really believed in that.

And really, you know, his number one, there's sort of a connection here in the reform movement.

His said number one human influence for his ministry was George Whitfield. And so I think it's very important for us to not only give homage to the history, but study it and see how these things work.

When I write on doctrine or preach on doctrine, I always refer back to historical features, historical characters, movements, whatever, to let people see this is not something that we just cooked up like the cults in the 19th century, but it's been something that has been with us and we need to study and understand.

So that's why I wrote the book. And as far as the Anabaptists, from what

I understand, the term began as a pejorative.

It wasn't something that those... It was a rejection of the infant baptism of the day.

Infant baptism meant a lot more even back then than it does now. It was the only way to get citizenship in a certain place in Zurich, under Zwingling, the city council decided that those that were not baptized as babies were not a part of the citizenry.

They weren't citizens. And so when Conrad Grebel and some of the other

Anabaptists said, nope, I'm not going to baptize my child. That was not something that was preference.

That was something that literally later after the third council there carried with it the death sentence.

And the first, unfortunately, the first martyr to the

Anabaptist movement there in Switzerland was Felix Manz, and it was carried out by Protestants, by Zwingling consenting to that, the city council doing it.

So, yeah, it's very important to look at these things. And I think the

Anabaptists do have a role to play. The pejorative term basically is a wide term, and they were looked upon as enemies of the state because there were some aberrations of the

Anabaptists, the Peasants' Movement, the Peasants' Revolt, and also the

Kingdom of the Munster, where you have a bunch of way out guys that are doing bad things.

And you could just throw it out and say, well, they're Anabaptists. And they really tried to stir up the princes and the rulers of the day, saying if you don't kill them now or hunt them down or imprison them, they'll kill you.

So just look at the Peasants' Revolt or just look at the Kingdom of Munster. But those were aberrations.

Most of the Anabaptists, especially the Orthodox ones in Switzerland and Germany, basically believed much of what

Baptists believe today in the sense that we believe in a local church. We believe in individual conversion.

You cannot decide for someone else like Catholicism basically does within the baptism. We believe in believers' baptism.

You have to be a believer to be baptized, and of course, in our tradition, by immersion. And so these are basically we personally believe in the authority of scriptures, what we believe today, and that the church is a local assembly of believers joined together for the faith of the gospel.

We are joined together with all believers in the kingdom of God. But the

Anabaptists rejected the state church because they did not believe that the state and religion should be coerced.

You cannot coerce someone. I was just reading from my book about John Merton, who was a descendant or descendant or was the pastor after Thomas Helwes.

He mentioned in his work that he says Merton declared that if the state did try to enforce religious conformity upon its people, it would be nothing but compel men to be hypocrites.

In other words, we'll just check the boxes that I am a member of the

Church of England because the Church of England's religion is Anglicanism or whatever.

And we see that today in a lot of places. If you go to England, the churches are empty, basically, a lot of them, basically because of state religion and not individually coming to Christ and meaning something.

So there was a worldwide rejection, worldwide and nationwide rejection of state religion by the

Anabaptists. So some of those things we still believe in as Baptists and are codified in our confessions of faith, the

London Confession and also the New Hampshire Baptist Confession and the Baptist faith and message that we affirm in our denomination.

And going back to the origins of the Anabaptists, I was surprised that you said that the first Anabaptist martyr was executed by a

Protestant because I had been told that there were Anabaptist movements that even predate

Roman Catholicism, let alone the Reformation. So where do you trace the origins of Anabaptists?

It is a big, wide term. If you read Martyr's Mirror, which is, I've been trying to read this, it's 1 ,100 pages.

It's written by a Dutchman who traced back much of the, before the

Reformation, people that stood against the state church, stood against infant Baptism, and basically the biggest thing they rejected was transubstantiation.

They did not believe, they believed that was just paganism to say that the body and blood of Jesus actually became that in the elements.

But many of them died for their faith, and many of them were called Anabaptists. Yeah, they were called that, generally because, again, it goes back to that one point.

They rejected the ideal that infant Baptism was valid and legitimate and scriptural.

So, yeah, you're right about that. I think there was more of a use of it during the

Reformation time with the Anabaptist movement, being in different areas, and you have the

Hutterites, who are Anabaptists, that kept going eastward to erase from persecution, but you have others, the

Mennonites under Simon's going to Holland. So it became more widespread,

I guess you could say, during the Reformation time. Yes, and the Mennonites are among the few groups that actually use the term

Anabaptist to identify themselves. They still do. Yes. So what did they have in common?

Because as we have been repeating, or you have been repeating, this is an umbrella term for anyone who insisted upon a credible profession of faith to be baptized.

And if I'm not mistaken, the early Anabaptists were almost exclusively doing this by effusion rather than immersion.

Yes, they began with effusion. I mentioned that in the book. Basically, the students of Zwingling started the

Anabaptist movement there in Zurich. They said, Zwingling was a halfway man.

In other words, he was going to allow the city council to decide whether to retain infant baptism or not.

And so he said, we just can't be a part of that. It puts infant baptism as a mandatory requirement for being a citizen of that country.

And the little babies don't understand. So when they rebelled,

I guess you could say, in 1525, they baptized one another, but it was by effusion.

But we see in two months, Conrad Grebel baptizing a former monk,

Ulaman was his name, and he baptized him in the Cedar River. It's hard for me to believe that you would baptize someone, you're going to sprinkle them and get them into water and sprinkle them.

William Barclay's material was used as a movie in 1979, and I guess he wanted to please everybody, so he had

Jesus go out to his neck, and then John the Baptist poured water over him. Well, the

Baptist in me says, if you're going to go down to your neck, you ought to go all the way under, man. Yes, I never understood those movies that depict that.

As Vance Hammer used to say, I'd rather see a gangster lecture on honesty than to believe everything

Hollywood does in the movies about Jesus and the Bible. So as far as we know that the commonality was a rejection of infant baptism and an insistence upon credo baptism, that a person must be of an age where their profession of repentance and faith could be deemed as credible.

It's individual, it's personal. Right. And so how broad were the differences?

I understand that there was a wide spectrum of belief amongst the

Anabaptists, which is why we have to be hesitant to claim them all as our legitimate fathers in the faith, and we have to be very careful about rejecting all of them as well.

Yeah, I think that's perfectly correct. There are some things that modern -day

Baptists believe in that the Anabaptists believe in. There are other things that are sort of just way out there. And I just try to highlight those things that we have in common with the

Anabaptist movement, and basically it is on the local congregation.

And I think individual conversion is so important because I've talked with many

Catholics, and I'll try to ask people for them to tell me a salvation experience they have, and sadly many of them will say, well,

I'm Catholic, I'm Christian. And what they mean by that, of course, they were sprinkled as a baby or baptized as a baby, and they used that as sort of a false security of salvation.

Somebody else made the decision for them, and Baptists have always believed in individual personal conversion.

John MacArthur says it's turnstile salvation. It's not just God doesn't save people by the group.

You know, Jonathan Edwards, his great preaching, especially at Centers in the Hands of an

Angry God, was to church people that were not converted who had signed the halfway covenant.

Their parents had signed it for them at age 12. And so he comes over there and tells them, hey, you better get right with God because you're going to spend eternity in hell if you don't.

And it convicted them because they'd been signed up, so to speak, to be saved by their parents.

And I really believe that's one thing that we can highlight with all born -again

Christians and tell them, you know, you've got to personally come to Christ, and it's not something that your parents decide for you or anyone else decides for you.

Well, going back to the stark differences that Anabaptists had with one another, like, for instance, you had the

Zwickau prophets. I understand that some of the Anabaptists believed in executing disobedient children.

Some of them believed in plural marriages like the Mormons used to. That was in the kingdom of Munster, yes.

That happened about 1535. And most of the

Orthodox Anabaptists denounced that. For instance, Thomas Munster, one of his adherents that he almost brought into his fold was

Hans Hutt. And Munster was in communication with the

Zurich brethren when they were separating from Zwingli.

And as soon as Comrade Grebel, who was sort of the leader of the Zurich brethren there, when he found out he was organizing a riot against the rulers of the time, and it was going to be violent, he cut off all communication with him and said,

I renounce that. So, yeah, there were those. My book deals more with the

Orthodox because the other guys, you know, I don't want to give them all that attention. I've mentioned them as sort of a backdrop to why, for instance, the

Mennonites are very peace -loving and very pacifistic. And that was a reaction to those things.

They were trying to get it right in a sense. They were pacifists. Well, you brought up a good point about Mennonites who still claim the term

Anabaptist for themselves, even though it began as a pejorative. And so did

Calvinist and many other terms that those who identify with certain theological positions now proudly wear as a label.

But how much difference was there on things like anthropology and soteriology?

Like, for instance, the Mennonites are Arminian, and perhaps even some would call them extreme

Arminian. And amongst the Amish, you would have even Pelagianism.

And, of course, you have Baptists today. And I'm using the phrase

Baptist this time, not Anabaptist. Baptists who disagree on these issues. And you have

Baptists such as myself who are Reformed, believe in the doctrines of sovereign grace and nicknamed

Calvinism. It seemed that there were a lot more centuries ago

Calvinist Baptists than there are today. But as far as the Anabaptists are concerned, were there differences on these issues?

There were differences. I think the basic issue we could say here is that they were on the run, the

Anabaptist war. They were persecuted. It was a violent time. The Diet of Speer, where the

Holy Roman Catholic, Holy Roman Empire was a city, they declared a bounty on Anabaptists that anyone could kill someone who was an

Anabaptist. And also anybody quartering or hiding any Anabaptist could be imprisoned.

And so it was a very violent time. But the biggest number one thing was the

Anabaptists really did not have a confession of faith, much like the English Baptists did with the first London Baptist confession and the second

London Baptist confession. The only thing we can come close to is this lifetime confession sort of authored by Michael Sattler, who later was burned at the stake almost six months after he published that.

But that was more of defining what an Anabaptist church was.

For instance, it talked about the local church not being part of the state church, talked about how to do church discipline.

But it did not go into Orthodox Christian faith as we have today. The London Baptist confessions did that.

They were very strong in that. And, you know, it was the particular Baptist movement or what you would say, reformed or Calvinistic Baptist movement that basically saved

Baptists in England. And it was that first London Baptist convention that caused them to sort of come out of the woodwork and declare this is who we are.

And I'm very strong on confessions of faith because they're historic, for one thing. But also it gives us a benchmark in who we are and what we do as churches today.

Amen. I think that's the big difference. That and the violence that was exerted toward the

Anabaptists as the English Baptists were persecuted. Make no mistake about it.

Most of their leaders, Knowles and Keech and Kiffin, even

Kiffin, who was very close to the king. They spent time in prison. And it's very interesting.

If you study Benjamin Keech, for instance, he wrote a book on the child instructor in which he denied infant baptism for that book.

He was tried. And his all copies of the book were confiscated and burned, and he was put in the stocks.

This was in 16, I think, 1670, something, 76.

And it's interesting. The people that saw him being put in the stocks and being burned to death, they came to his support.

And afterwards, he was released, and he wrote the book again by memory of the child instructor.

And so the fact that the English Baptists had to, this is what we believe the whole of it.

Plus that the persecution was not as strong as it was against the Anabaptists. No English Baptists that I know lost their lives.

Now, Thomas Helwes, he died in prison because he dared to write to the king in his book,

Mystery of Iniquity, and tell him that he shouldn't be the head of the Church of England, which is right. That's the way the

Church of England was started, by a guy that killed all his wives. He was the head of the Church of England.

So I think the English Baptists came along and went farther than where the

Orthodox Anabaptists went to, which is why I believe so many do say, hey, if we're going to be certain about it, let's start with the

English Baptists. I know Nils does that, and a good friend of mine, Michael Haken at Southern, he does that too.

He wrote a little book on Knowles and Keech and Helwes.

Not Helwes, the three, Knowles, Keech, and Kiffin. I refer to that much in my book, because he did a good job of that.

He made it very understandable. Amen. He's a great friend. He endorsed my

Whitefield book too. We had a conference in 2014 celebrating the 300th anniversary of Whitefield, and Dr.

Haken got speakers from all in, Thomas Kidd from Baylor, who was Reformed also.

We had guys from England over, and it was just a tremendous time. I really like Dr.

Haken. I think he was going to do a review on this book. He hasn't done it yet. He's been on a sabbatical for a year, for one thing.

We have to go to our first station break. By the way, folks, after this program is over, if you want to look up some interviews that I've conducted with Dr.

Michael Haken and also another name that my guest mentioned, Tom Nettles, you could type those names into our search engine and you will find a list, a fairly long list of interviews by both or with both of these men.

But we have to go to our break. If you have a question for Dan Nelson, and we would prefer the question be on Anabaptists or Baptists, the email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com,

C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -S -E -N at gmail .com. As always, give us your first name at least, your city and state, and your country of residence.

If you live outside the USA, only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter.

Don't go away. We're going to be right back with Dan Nelson and early Baptists, a comprehensive study of the

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We are now back with our guest, Dan Nelson, and we are discussing early

Baptists. And we do have a couple of questions already that have come in. One of them is from a pastor who occasionally blesses us with a question, and they're always good.

He's a man that almost became my pastor, and I think that he is probably sighing with relief that that didn't occur.

But his name is Josh Fryman, and Josh Fryman is the pastor of Harvest Baptist Church in Larimore, North Dakota.

And just to give him a plug, the website is larimorehbc .org,

L -A -R -I -M -O -R -E -H -B -C .org. And he is one of the most gifted preachers

I've ever heard, and I'm not exaggerating or flattering Pastor Josh. So I strongly urge anybody visiting or living near Larimore, North Dakota, to pay that church a visit.

But the question that Pastor Josh has, Mr. Nelson, is there any validity to the claim that a

Baptist congregation's record was discovered in whales, and in their records were names of people found in the

New Testament, specifically some of Caesar's household? Thank you. Ever hear that story?

I haven't heard that specific story. I do know that the vein of Baptist group -like doctrines do go through whales.

For instance, in my book on Baptist Biographies and Happenings in American History, which is a good book if you really want to know a continuous strain of Baptist from Roger Williams to the present day, we talk about John Miles, who came from whales.

Now, he was Reformed, and he was basically part of the English Reformation. But there were

Baptists already in existence, I think, in whales when the English Baptist movement started.

And he started another congregation in Swansea, Massachusetts, just a little bit after Roger Williams and John Clark did that in Providence.

So I haven't heard about the names in the New Testament. But I do say that there are groups that we could say, if you looked at what they believe, and it's sort of hard because they didn't have any statement of faith as much.

We're just looking at their practice, basically, that they were Baptists before that time, or Baptist -like groups.

We could say Baptistic -like groups. And definitely whales does go back a long time in that respect.

It seems like whales have sort of been ahead sometimes of England at times. Whitefield preached in the open air, but he was not the 1st one to do that.

Howell Harris was, and he was a welshman. Whitefield just had more people hearing.

But street preaching started in whales there during the 18th century.

And, of course, he befriended Whitefield. So I would say there's some validity to that. I'd like to see it in my conversation with people.

People say that most of the history of Baptists that we have in the English Baptist movement, the

Anabaptists, is not all of the history. And there's history still out there. People have said you ought to go to the

Bolton Library, and I think it's in Cambridge. They have a lot of stuff there. So I don't know.

I don't think we can be authoritative as to these groups. But also we don't have to be authoritative to say

Baptists just begin with the Anabaptist movement. Some of the Waldseemans were very close to Baptists, and that was before the

Baptists. Okay. All right. Well, thank you, Pastor Josh. And make sure you get me your full mailing address there in Larimore, North Dakota, because you have actually won a free copy of the book that we are addressing, written by our guest today,

Early Baptists, a Comprehensive Study of the Anabaptist and English Baptist Movements. And thank you so much for blessing us with your question.

We also have a question from Andrew in Dalton, Georgia. Hello, brothers

Chris and Dan. A fascinating topic of discussion today. My question is, did the outcome of the

Anabaptist Munster Rebellion in 1535 and the subsequent torturous executions of the two

Bernards and Jan of Leiden in 1536 negatively affect the 17th century

English milieu towards or the way in which the early Baptists were viewed in their day and place, at least at the beginning of the

English Baptist movement before doctrinal clarifications were made? And let me know if you need me to repeat any of that.

All right. That's the understatement of the year to say that the rebellion there at Munster didn't affect people.

That was used as a crutch to just hit people over the head with it.

Look, these are really all the Anabaptists were. You know, a similar day when you see some Christian, Pope Christian mess up morally and you say that's where all

Christians are. That's sort of the way we have that. And then, yes, it did go into the

English Baptist because they were called Anabaptist also because, first of all, they rejected the baptism of infants by the state religion.

And then also, yeah, people have long memories, don't they? There was a connection there. Even John Smythe, the first, quote,

English Baptist that sort of started a movement tried to go to the

Mennonites there in Holland and unite with them for understanding that he felt they were continuous

Baptists, the English Baptist, and they could be a part of. But, yes, they used it very strongly, and they used it, you know, a lot can really go really a long ways.

And that's what's happening, of course, with salvation. Many people have opinions about how to become a

Christian, but only the Bible says we've got to be born again and have God regenerate us by what

Christ has done for us on the cross. So, yeah, I just say it's still that way, too, you know.

Anabaptists do not have a strong following among people who don't want to accept what they aspire to.

Well, I want to thank you, Andrew, from Dalton, Georgia. Send us your full mailing address because you've also won a free copy of this book,

Early Baptists, by our guest. And that will be shipped to you compliments of Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, CVBBS .com,

who ship out all the winners in our audience, the three books and Bibles and other things that they win by submitting questions.

And if you are a first -time questioner, I can't remember if you've ever submitted a question, Andrew, but if you are, you also receive a

New American Standard Bible. So make sure we have your full mailing address. We have to go to our midway break right now, folks.

Please be patient. The break is longer than the other breaks because Grace Life Radio, 90 .1

FM in Lake City, Florida, requires of us a longer break in the middle of the show because the FCC requires of them to localize this program geographically to Lake City, Florida, with their own public service announcements and other local things.

While they do that, we air our globally heard commercials. So please respond to as many of our advertisers as you can and send in your question to Dan Nelson about Baptists to chrisarnson at gmail .com.

chrisarnson at gmail .com. Give us your first name at least, city and state and country of residence. And I have to remind my guest,

Dan, I wasn't exaggerating before. You have to remain completely still and silent during the breaks because it sounded like somebody had broken into your home and was physically attacking you during the last station break.

You were making a lot of noise. Even if it didn't sound that way on your end, it did in the ears of everybody listening.

So please try to be as still as possible. I think I was opening a book. Okay. Well, everything is exaggerated and amplified.

All right. Well, we'll be right back after these messages. So please do not go away.

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That's ptlbiblerebinding .com. As host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, I frequently get requests from listeners for church recommendations.

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Before I return to our guest Dan Nelson and our conversation on the early Baptists we just have a couple of very important announcements to make.

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chrisarnson at gmail .com and put I need a church in the subject line that's also the email address where you can send in a question to Dan Nelson on early baptists chrisarnson at gmail .com

give us your first name at least city and state and country of residence we have Grady one of the most faithful and loyal and generous ironsharpensiron radio listeners that we have had for many years dating back to 2005

Grady in Ashboro, North Carolina he says, greetings brothers brother

Dan, like you, I too love history and I believe it's very important that we know church history what book or books would you recommend for our youth about baptists to get them started learning about our faith thanks for any recommendations you can give

Dan well the old book was some of the books that I've used in my bibliography

Veterans Church History it's pretty old, 1906

David Beale has come out with a book maybe the last decade he was a teacher,

I think, at Bob Jones and it was starting with the English Baptists he does not cover the Anabaptists but gives a very good in -depth understanding of Baptist groups from that point on I used

John Christian's History of the Baptists which is sort of an older version also is he talking about Baptist history or church history at large well he may be interested in information about both but his actual question was specifically about Baptist history yeah, of course

Tom Nettles books are good too he's got a three volume series on the

Baptists and he the first the first book is on English Baptists and their biographies

I'm just giving you stuff his books are primarily for adults although it depends on what child you're giving it to yeah oh boy that's an area we need work in, that's for sure my publisher has some books on Baptism and the

Lord's Supper that published my book on George Whitefield Lifesong Ministries in Solomus, California close to where my church was there, and that was sort of understanding what

New Testament Baptism was for children and I would strongly advise that book and what happens when we take the

Lord's Supper, what that means those are very good instructive books Lifesong publishers and of course

I don't think we should underestimate the intelligence of children because I mean if you're talking about a teenager or something

Dan's book would be completely fine and when they have questions they can ask you and when you don't know the answers to those questions you can contact

Dan on the internet or some other historian or maybe your own pastor but I would say this about my books

I started out with the biographies in both groups because I felt that would be of general interest to everyone even children learning about those that have suffered for our faith and their history and everything else

I think you can modify that if you're going to share that with children and adults you'll learn how to do it but adults need to read it first Okay We have

RJ in White Plains, New York who wants to know is it true that Urich Zwingli Martin Luther and John Calvin were all almost convinced of the

Credo Baptist position by Anabaptists but out of likely fear of what kind of anarchy that they envisioned that would create they stopped pursuing the issue

Well with Zwingli we know that him and his students they were studying the scripture out of the Greek New Testament and when they came to baptism he sort of balked at that he had originally said yeah you need to be baptized by a merchant or be baptized as a believer and he really was

I think afraid of what the city council would do they still wanted to retain some vestiges of Catholicism since it was a newly promised

Protestant town under Luther and Calvin I don't know

I don't think the biggest thing about both of those individuals although they're huge with the

Reformation they had no theology of the church Dr. Abram Friesen spoke at one of the first conferences for the history of the

Anabaptists really ever at Southwestern Seminary in 2012 he gave an address at the chapel and he said have you ever heard of Luther's ecclesiology and there's a silence because Luther said nothing about ecclesiology he basically talked about justification by faith biblical authority but not what the church is and sort of retained the state church.

I would say then in answer to that question as far as Calvin Calvin doesn't address the nature of the church as much as others and I would say

Zwingli was the one that almost he tried to substitute circumcision for infant baptism saying that was the

Old Testament model but there's nothing for that in the scripture and the way it was used it wasn't right so I would sort of disagree with at least

Calvin and Luther in that they were close to becoming Cretobaptist. I just don't see that and even

Zwingli the older he lived and the more the Reformation got he turned against the Anabaptists he called the

Anabaptists catabaptists and said they were drowners they drowned people in water which also which also sort of lets us see that it was an the mode was an evolving thing from pouring effusion to immersion so by the time we get to the particular

Baptist they're ducking everybody anyway I have to study that one

I've never really run across a lot of information that would say they were close to that I think they went down other avenues that's what we would say especially

Calvin he just wanted people to know what the Bible said and that's why he revised his institutes about 25 times he just wanted to get it right he never came to Revelation either and since George Whitefield is a hero of yours

I have heard that Whitefield who was a Pato Baptist an Anglican that he lamented that his chicks were becoming ducks meaning that his converts that his converts who were baptized as infants by sprinkling who he referred to as chicks were converting to Baptists meaning ducks who were used to being in a lot more water than chicks are did he actually say that yes he said that first time

I ever heard that mentioned Dr. Patterson who was a friend of a very astute student of Whitefield said yeah that's what

Whitefield said and yeah he didn't really espouse anything about immersion he wanted people to know about the new birth and to be saved although I think there's maybe a little bit of a reformed influence in the

Carolinas especially in South Carolina for Spanish Charleston and others because of maybe

Whitefield's emphasis on reform theology but he wasn't out to make

Baptists or be against Baptists he wanted people to be saved Alright R .J. give us your full milling address because you've also won the book

Early Baptists by our guest today and that will be shipped out to you by Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service CBBBS .com

no charge to you or to us and before I take any more listener questions I want you to give us a summary of all the essential elements that would be required for somebody in your opinion to rightly and historically be identified as a

Baptist because obviously it's more than just a belief in credo or believer only baptism.

Yes well I'm working on another book and it's called Baptist Faith and Practice Analyzed and Explained Scripturally and Historically and I go through what as a

Baptist there and I see there's really it's sort of like a sandwich the top layer is the

Lordship of Christ, he's the head of us, all that the Bible teaches about him is virgin birth you know his sinless life, his atoning sacrifice his bodily resurrection his visible coming again and then all that he is and who he is is

God in the flesh and then the bottom, the foundation is the word of God and between that we have these four things that sort of stick out with Baptists one is believer's baptism, a person must be a believer to be baptized, they cannot be baptized as a baby because they don't understand that and they cannot be baptized to be saved because the

Bible doesn't say that you're saved by baptism you're saved by faith and trust in Christ and what he did for us on the cross the second thing is individual conversion, we don't believe in coercion or sponsorship salvation as I call it that someone can be sponsored to be saved, that you can be somebody else's faith can be yours, it has to be personal

I think the third thing would be the local church that we believe the church is an assembly of baptized believers, we don't believe in the state church as such and that is important and the other thing is freedom from the state religion the state regulating religion and mandating a certain religion is the state religion of that place, and so with that Baptists are very much attuned to many groups, but I would say individual conversion, religious liberty, believer's baptism and the local church are four things that I think the

Baptists really do, we're pretty strong on membership because this comes back from the Anabaptists with this lifetime confession, they believe in an accountable church membership that was following Christ, and they would discipline people,

Mennonites do that too if they were out of touch with God morally they gave them a chance to repent they used 1

Corinthians as part of that and they said that can only be done in a local church setting, it cannot be done in a state church setting

Christians are held accountable in that way so those four things are in between the other basically

I think what make people Baptists, and of course we've defined that in New Hampshire Baptist Confession and the

Baptist Faith and Message and other articles and stuff, anyway, maybe that helps And there are some

Baptists who I think wrongly add to the list you gave to as requirements for people to believe to be rightly considered

Baptists, there are people who add eschatological views, dispensationalist views and even something that I agree with that a true regenerate person cannot lose his or her salvation, but there are free will

Baptists who believe you can the denomination free will Baptist that is we have let's see here

I was just looking at a very good question oh yes, it's an anonymous question the anonymous listener says

I'm remaining anonymous due to disputes I am having with Presbyterian friends of mine sometimes unfortunately they get a bit heated but I have learned something that my

Presbyterian friends seek to refute that the Didache, which is the oldest non -canonical document in the

Christian faith that we have in existence clearly taught immersion and that the first time infant baptism is ever mentioned in recorded church history is when

Tertullian was rejecting it can you affirm both of these historic facts well it's hard to document history the first three centuries,

I like to believe that infant baptism basically gained its popularity with Constantine where he mandated that Christianity was the state religion of Rome now and by coercion the pagan priest

Christian preached and the pagan temples, Christian churches and all this stuff, some of the stuff

Constantine did was good 325 we have the Council of Nicaea I don't have much of a problem with that we get the

Apostles Creed stuff like that, but other stuff he was really mixed up on he didn't get baptized until his deathbed we believe that was by sprinkling and he was confused and I think this is what happens when you let a governmental leader try to regulate religion and everything what was the other part of that oh, immersion the

Didache yeah, the infant baptism came from I've not heard that about Tertullian the problem we have with the first three centuries of Christianity is again like the

Anabaptists they were on the run and they didn't have really a chance to articulate a confession of faith but we do have the writings of the early church fathers who give us some of that I just don't think infant baptism really got its feet so to speak until Constantine there may have been instances of it in those first three centuries, but not as much as when

Constantine came and basically distorted the scripture about it yeah, the reference to Tertullian, which

I've heard is that he was refuting it so obviously it may have here and there existed, but I have also heard that that was the first time in recorded history that the subject even comes up I read a paper on Tertullian in a seminary and I did not read anything related to that but it was not an exhaustive paper and I did also hear about the

Didache not mentioning infant baptism and teaching Credo baptism and it was interesting that the

Didache and it's not canonical, it's not inspired by God but it actually teaches triple immersion how much of that is a part of Baptist history, the triune immersion?

Yeah, if you try to make a Baptist out of everybody, you come up with stuff like that, we do see some of it,

I've not seen a lot of it, basically the critics of Baptists have said it's all over the place, but I don't see it as much you know, basically when you're going through, like in Martyr's Mirror you would just see them talking about baptism is only for believers and they don't really define the actual mode they don't really define if they did it three times or whatever, so I'm not in a position to say this group did this or that, because there's a wide discrepancy from the time of the

Donatists in 400 A .D. to the Waldensians in 1400 and so you have all of these groups that they don't have the organizational movement the way the

Anabaptists and the English Baptists did, and so again, they don't have their confession of faith, so you're still on your own which is a good thing with the individual groups, because we don't want people mandating this is how you have to believe it ought to come from Christians gathered together, but it's good and that's what our

Baptist faith message does when churches of like faith and order can basically say this is what we believe about that, but I've not seen

Triune Baptism in my ministry and I've been in ministry for 50 years nor have

I read a lot about it, so that maybe doesn't exist. Oh yeah, definitely, I'm from Pennsylvania now

I'm originally from New York. You're where more history is though. And there's definitely Dunkards. Yeah.

Not in great numbers. The Knights did a little bit of that too didn't they? Yes. There are Triune Immersionists here in Pennsylvania and probably other places.

That really gets you wet. And I'm not saying that they are large in number, but they do exist.

One of my deacons used to say that he'd heard a pastor say is that we know that the

Ethiopian unit was immersed and that it was the prescribed method of baptizing because it pictures the gospel, but if he would have been sprinkled all he had to do was take some canteens of water in the middle of the desert and throw it over his head but they went down into the water and they kept asking.

Yeah, of course there's a reference in the New Testament about there being much water there.

Much water, yeah. But thanks for the question

Anonymous and if you give us your full mailing address and your full name obviously and this of course would be by email off the air.

We won't divulge your identity. You will receive a free copy of the book

Early Baptists that we have been blessed to give away to a limited number of our listeners with questions and you'll also, if you are a first time questioner, and I don't know if you are or not, you will receive a new

American Standard Bible as well, compliments of the publishers and compliments of Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service cvbbs .com

We have Susan Margaret in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania who asks how would you categorize

John Bunyan, the author of Pilgrim Progress? I have heard him called a

Baptist, I have heard him called a Fusionist, and I have heard him called non -committed on either believer only or infant baptism.

Okay, well there was a big debate between William Kiffin and Bunyan over the ordinances baptism and the

Lord's Supper. First of all, let me say that Bunyan was baptized in a Baptist church close to where he grew up there.

By immersion. By immersion. And so he was baptized by immersion. However, he did not feel that it was that important as maybe the other

English Baptist leaders at the time did. A great work on this is from Southern Seminary, Nathan Fins an article, you can find it on the internet, was

John Bunyan a Baptist? A test case in the historical method.

And he says yes and no. Yes because of his stand for religious liberty he went to jail for 15 years and wrote

Pilgrim's Progress. No, in the sense that his congregation after he died did not remain

Baptist and Kiffin had said this is what's going to happen. If you don't start saying that membership is important, he didn't believe much that in membership.

And that baptism ought to be a requirement to be a part of that fellowship. Not to be saved, but to be in fellowship with the fellowship.

You're going to lose your identity as Baptist and that's exactly what happened with Bunyan. We can admire him for his stand for religious liberty, but he did not believe, he believed ordinances were a personal privilege.

And it's hard for me to say they're personal privilege when Jesus gave them as a command of what to do for the disciples when they found people that accepted him, baptized them he said, and teach them all the things that humanity.

So yeah, that's a mixed bag Bunyan. I would say in a technical sense,

Bunyan was a Baptist, but I would say in a functional historic sense, he did not really behave that way.

And you know, of course, his classic work, Pilgrim's Progress, is more on just the journey of salvation and the believer being brought by the

Lord through all kinds of trials and tribulations as he was going through. We have a

Christian in western Suffolk County, Long Island, New York. A Christian asks, how much do you know about the great

Baptist from history, John Gano, who was the first pastor of First Baptist Church of Manhattan, New York.

Yes. And his question is, I have heard Calvinist particular

Baptists claim him as their own, and I have actually, believe it or not, heard

Campbellites in the Church of Christ claim him. Who is correct on this, if either?

Okay, I would emphatically deny the last part, that Gano was not a Church of Christ. It's impossible to do that, because the

Church of Christ only began with Alexander Campbell in the 19th century. How could Gano be a Church of Christ if the group had not been formed yet?

As far as him being a Calvinist, I think Baptists have two streams. They have the Reformed stream, which is very strong and very predominant, and was very predominant in New England at that time.

I think Gano could have been a Reformed leader. We know him as a

Revolutionary leader. We have this picture of him baptizing George Washington.

I wrote about it in my book on Baptism. He's one of the 44 biographies I have, and I've got the picture of it.

Some people deny that, and some people accept it. Stanley Glemmon, who is the historian of First Baptist Providence, denies it.

He says, that's just been a fanfare. But some of his family members accepted it, and it is a painting at William Jewell University in Hannibal, Missouri.

They've got that painting there. We don't know. Is there any reference in Gano's own writings that he baptized

Washington? Not that I have come across.

It doesn't say that he was. That's definitely a good point, because anybody who baptizes the

Father of our country, I think that would be something that I would want to talk about. Unless Washington didn't want to make a big spectacle out of it.

It could have been that he didn't want to make a big do about it, because Washington was Anglican all his life.

Yes, the story that I heard, and this may be why some dismiss the authenticity of the story, is that although Washington remained

Anglican until the day he died, he was convinced on that one issue of credo baptism, believer only baptism, by immersion.

It depends on who you talk to. Gano went on with Daniel Boone's group to Kentucky.

There's a lot. I've talked with the pastor of First Baptist Church of Lexington, Kentucky, and he gave me all kinds of information.

I'm a history collector, too. Of Washington being, he said many Baptist pastors of that time believed

Gano baptized Washington. That wasn't the question, I guess. Yes, I would say

Gano had some reformed influence in him, but he was much like Schuble, Stearns, and Daniel Marshall, who started about 60 churches in 10 years in the

North Carolina area. They had a strong, like, for instance,

Stearns was saved under George Whitefield's preaching. Strong biblical basis in the reformed movement, but they offered the gospel to everyone.

It's much like Whitefield said, I don't know who the elect are, I just offer the gospel to everyone. Yeah, that's what all historic

Calvinists do. There are hyper -Calvinists who have broken from the historic manner.

By the way, folks, I have a gorgeous, you can look it up on the internet if you want to purchase one for yourself,

I have a gorgeous print of John Gano leading both colonist soldiers,

American soldiers, and British soldiers in prayer after the Revolutionary War ended. And George Washington is also seen in the crowd in this print.

I am a huge fan of John Gano myself. Yeah, he was pastor of the church in New York, I believe, and he left that church to become a chaplain, and was gone for 10 years, then came back and became the pastor again.

How many pastors would do that? Most of them would be glad to get rid of you. Well, we have to go to our final break.

It's going to be a lot more brief than the other breaks. And once again, I have to remind my guests to please remain silent and not make noise, and I want you to send in your questions if you have any listeners.

ChrisArnzen at gmail .com, ChrisArnzen at gmail .com, give us your first name at least, city and state, and country of residence.

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Thanks for helping to keep Ion Sharpen's Ion Radio on the air. Welcome back.

We have been, we have returned to our interview with Dan Nelson on Early Baptist, the

Comprehensive Study of the Anabaptist and English Baptist Movements and I would like you, before we run out of time,

Dan, to summarize some of the primary things in your book that you believe our audience should be aware of that we have not even addressed at this point.

Okay, well the book is sort of half and half, Anabaptist and English Baptist. As far as catching people's attention to the movements itself,

I've included ten biographies of the leaders in the Anabaptist and English Baptist movements.

In the English Baptist movement, we divide between General Baptist and Particular Baptist give more emphasis to Particular Baptist because of their confession statements and everything else.

Also, I have a section on doctrinal beliefs of the

Anabaptist and English Baptist. Those quotes are basically on the beliefs that the

Baptists were, they weren't unique, but were noted for and you get a good wide spectrum.

Another thing, a lot of people are confused about the dates and the time and each section has a timeline that gives you when the

Anabaptist movement started in Zurich, for instance, when the Brethren met, when the Deed of Spear was, and all these kinds of things.

So you have a pretty good understanding, if you refer back to that timeline, when these things took place.

And also the book is fully referenced. I have about over a thousand references from 126 sources.

Believe me, I didn't do it overnight. It was a pretty long process of about a year and a half, and it gives you what others have said, and sort of backs up, reinforces some of the things that we've talked about today.

So that's basically what the book's about. I think it's inspirational, too, to anybody who wants to be challenged to stand up for their faith and be courageous in that, particularly if you look at modern -day

Christianity and some of the things that pass for what a committed Christian is.

We have Arnie in Perry County, Pennsylvania, who has a question. He said, I remember hearing long ago on the

Iron Sharpens Iron radio program a debate between a Seventh -day Baptist and a

Sunday observing Baptist. How much of your book, if at all, involves the

Seventh -day Baptist? Because from what I understand, some of their churches are the oldest still -existing churches in the

United States. Yeah, I don't have anything on that. I don't think it was a unique belief, because most

Baptists worship on the first day of the week, just like the Reformers did. And so I didn't feel like it was something worth going into.

Now, I'm on MeWe Network. I have a group there. It's called Nelson's Nuggets of Historical and Scriptural Truth, and it's amazing.

There's a lot of people out there, Seventh -day Adventists, Seventh -day Baptists, Messianic Jews. They want to argue about the day of worship, and I don't try to get the

Bible very clear that on the first day of the week, all the Pentecost happened, Christ appeared to John, and we could go on and on.

I don't think that's a big movement within Baptists. I really don't. It isn't today. It's not today.

So I didn't give it a lot of information. These are about these two specific groups, and that's not one of the things that came out of these two groups.

Okay. I have mentioned on this program before, it might be of interest to our listener who asked about this, that John Gill, the 18th century theological giant of Baptist history, had a very close friendship with Samuel Stennett, who is known as a hymn writer to many people who are probably not even aware that Stennett was a

Seventh -day Baptist, and they actually conducted pulpit exchange,

John Gill and Samuel Stennett, because of the fact that they worshipped on different days, and it was easy for them to do that.

John Gill is also in my book. I have a minor it's not really a minor, but a smaller biography on Gill.

I want to mention that. Good. And Samuel Stennett actually preached at John Gill's funeral.

So just to throw that in there, even though John Gill was very strict about many of his beliefs and unwavering in them, he still had enough of an accommodating spirit, an ironic spirit, where he had this friendship with Stennett and allowed him to fill the pulpit because they were both theologically reformed, or at that time they would have been known as particular

Baptists. Yes. Well, I want you now to just summarize the things that you most want etched in the hearts and minds of our listeners.

I want you to have about three minutes of uninterrupted time before we conclude the program. Well, one other thing

I did mention was that we have in the book influencers, people who have been influenced by these two movements, and especially the

English Baptists, we have Spurgeon, we have Carey, the modern mission movement, Fuller, and these people.

But yeah, I just think that we are doing ourselves no favor when we do not want to examine where we have come from in the past.

Particularly the examples in history where people have laid down their lives for the cause of Christ, or suffered immensely.

And then we have things today happening still that pertain to history. We have the government wanting to shut down churches because of COVID and the pandemic.

And we say, well, we have religious liberty, but we must always guard that. And we can see in history that it hasn't always been that way.

So, I'm excited by the biographies, the people that have stood against the tide, so to speak.

Someone said, oh, dead fish can float down the water, but it takes somebody of courage to swim against the stream.

And that's what a lot of these Baptists have done. But hey, we're here today, especially in America, as the second largest group, notwithstanding the

Catholics, religious group in America, and it's been worthwhile, all the suffering and everything else.

And if you don't want to read about it or know about it, then you're shutting yourself away from many things that could shape your life and give you courage and maybe answer some of the dilemmas that you have in life as they did it when they stood up for the truth.

And this is why I've written the book, just to give you insight and information. And I just think if you read it, you will find that and be blessed by it.

Okay? Well, how do our listeners get a hold of your book? Well, they can do it through me. I'm on Facebook and on MeWe.

I have a Facebook page, a like page, and my profile. I purchase extra books.

The book was basically self -published, so there's a cost involved, and that's one of the reasons.

It is on Amazon, although I like to try to go around Amazon because they charge me for my author page and also for the distribution they have outside the

U .S. It's hard to mail it outside the U .S. without it costing the price of the book. So basically, the primary way is through me.

You can look up my Facebook there, or you can contact me at my email at gospel4u, that's g -o -s -p -e -l, the number 4 while u at 1, gospel4u1 at gmail .com.

And the 4 and the 1 are numbers, not words. Yeah. Gospel4u1 at gmail .com.

And I'm assuming that that is also how our listeners can contact you if they want you to speak at a conference, if they want you to perform in one of your one -man plays on Whitfield or any other character from history.

You can see that on YouTube also, if you want to look at that on YouTube, just look Dan Nelson, George Whitfield, you'll get it.

Great. Well, it has been a fascinating interview. I really thoroughly enjoyed it, brother.

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