Jarrel - Baptist Church Perpetuity - Landmark Baptist

least a hundred years prior to the time mentioned by Fuller”— at least to
1438.: “In the year 1539 … we find certain legal documents promulgated, one
of which was” against the: “Anabaptists.” … “From this it appears that the
Baptists not only existed in England, but that they were in the habit of
availing themselves of the art of printing … in the defense of their peculiar
and discriminating tenets. … Bishop Burnet informs us that at this time,”
1547, “there were many Baptists in several parts of England.” f776
“It happened on Easter, the third of April, A.D. 1557, that thirty Anabaptists
of both sexes had assembled together in a house near Alligator … for the
purpose of mutual exhortation and prayer; but being detected by the
neighbors, they were nearly all taken to prison.” f777
Quoting an enemy of the Baptists: “For the Dutch Anabaptists held private
conventicles in London and perverted a great many.” f778 Their churches were
called “conventicles.”
“In 1589 the same fact is admitted by Dr. Some in his reply to Barrow, etc.
‘He affirms that there were several Anabaptist conventicles in London and
other places.’ They were not Dutchmen, certainly not exclusively so, for he
says: ‘Some persons of these sentiments have been bred at our universities.’”
f779
“A Romish writer charges Elizabeth, in an infamous work, published in 1538,
with making the country a place of refuge for … Anabaptists.” f780
Commenting on Dr. Some’s words, quoted above, Ivimey says:
“It seems then that the Baptists had, at this early period, formed distinct
churches of persons of their own sentiments, both in London and in different
parts of the country.” f781
A large ecclesiastical convocation, in 1536, condemns the “Anabaptists.” f782
Fuller says of 1538-39:
“These Anabaptists, for the main, are but ‘Donatists new dipped,’ and this
year their name first appears in the English chronicles, for I read that four
Anabaptists, three men and one woman, all Dutch, bore fagots at Paul’s
Cross, Nov. 24th, and three days after, a man and a woman of their sect was
burned at Smithfield.” f783
Of 1575, Fuller says:
“Now began the Anabaptists wonder-fully to increase in the land. … For on
Easterday, April 3rd, was disclosed a congregation of Dutch Ana-baptists
without Aldgate in London.” f784
Says Ivimey: