Jarrel - Baptist Church Perpetuity - Landmark Baptist

CHAPTER 23. — BAPTIST CHURCHES IN ENGLAND
LONG BEFORE, UP TO AND AT THE TIME
OF JOHN SMYTH.
Rev, Francis Thackeray, A.M., formerly of Benbrooke College, Cambridge,
from his Researches Into the Ecclesiastical and the Political State of Great
Britain, is quoted:
“We have reason to believe that Christianity was preached in both countries,
Gaul and Britain, before the close of the first century. The result of my
investigations on my own mind has been the conviction that about 60, A.D.,
in the time of St. Paul, a church existed in Britain.”
There are authorities of great weight who maintain that the gospel was
introduced at an earlier period than the one mentioned by Mr. Thackeray. As
Christianity was certainly introduced very early into Britain, so far as the
perpetuity question is concerned, the exact date is immaterial. Inasmuch as
Baptists understand that the first churches were Baptist churches, to stop to
prove to them that the first churches in Britain were Baptist churches, is
unnecessary. Immersion continued in England, as Dr. Wall informs us, until.
the Reformation period, except in sickness, and this at a late day exception.
Of A.D. 627, Bede says, describing baptism: “He washed them with the water
of absolution in the river Glen.” f732
“He baptized in the river Swale, which runs by the village cataract; for as yet
oratories or fonts could not be made in the early infancy of the church in these
parts.” f733
“A man of singular veracity informed him that he himself had been baptized
at noon day … in the presence of King Edwin, with a great number of people,
in the river Trent.” f734
Bede says:
“The Britains preserved the faith which they had received uncorrupted and
entire in peace and tranquility until the time of the Emperor Diocletian.”
Diocletian died A.D. 313. f735
Of this persecution Bede says:
“When the storm of persecution ceased the faithful Christians, who, during
the time of danger, had hidden themselves in woods and deserts and secret
caves, appearing in public, rebuilt the churches which had been leveled to the
ground, etc.” f736