Primitive: Not derived from or reducible to something else: original, primary.
(Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary)
Name
The Primitive Baptists have not always been called by this name. The people we claim as our ancestors have been called by many names through the years. We have been known as Primitive Baptists only since the mid 1830’s.
Two men, a Mr. Judson and a Mr. Rice, members of a denomination that practiced infant baptism and believed that the gospel was instrumental in the eternal salvation of souls, were being sent to India as missionaries. This was in the days of sailing ships, so the trip took a long time. To pass the time, these men would pick a biblical subject and debate it. When they debated the subject of baptism, they convinced themselves that infant baptism was not scriptural and therefore their own baptisms were not valid.
When they arrived in India they got one of the people there to baptize them by immersion. They thought that this made them Baptists now, separated from their former denomination, and from financial support. Mr. Judson remained in India as the very first Baptist Foreign Missionary while Mr. Rice returned to the U.S. to drum up support.
As Mr. Rice went about the country visiting Baptist Associations, he was well received as a “convert’. The only thing he had converted from though was infant baptism, all his other beliefs were non-Baptist.
There were apparently many among the Baptists who were not satisfied with the old doctrine and were eager for a more liberal approach to theology. The new (to the Baptists) ideas gained support rapidly. This situation brought about many bitter debates and much name calling (hence the term “hardshell”) and eventually a split in the Baptist ranks. The “New Light” Baptists chose to keep the Baptist name, so to differentiate the “Old School” Baptists from the “New Light” Baptists our ministers of the time started calling themselves Primitive Baptists.
The “New Light” Baptists dropped the doctrine of limited atonement and adopted the doctrine of a general atonement and for a time were called “General Baptists”. The emotions of the Civil War caused a division in their ranks, and in the North they became the American Baptists and in the South the Southern Baptists.
Beliefs and Origin
The oldest Christian document since the scriptures is a sort of primer for beginning Christians called “The Didache”, a Greek word meaning “The Teaching”. It contained some basic statements about what “Us Christians” believed. The date of this writing is uncertain, sometime in the early 2nd century.
I have heard some of our brethren object to the use of history to determine what the original beliefs of the church were. In view of the fact that we claim to be the original church, and hang a sign in front of all our church buildings that publicly declare us to be the original, primary Baptists, I fail to understand this objection. I hope, with these writings from men who lived in those early days, to show what is really Primitive.
From “The Didache”
You must hate all hypocrisy and everything which fails to please the Lord.
You must not forsake “the Lord’s commandments”, but “observe” the ones you have been given, “neither adding nor subtracting anything”. At the church meeting you must confess your sins, and not approach prayer with a bad conscience. That is the way of life.
But the way of death is this: First of all it is wicked and thoroughly blasphemous: murders, adulteries, lusts, fornications, thefts, idolatries, magic arts, sorceries, robberies, false witness, hypocrisies, duplicity, deceit, arrogance, malice, stubbornness, greediness, filthy talk, jealousy, audacity, haughtiness, boastfulness.
(A Source Book for Ancient History)
J.C. Ayer, Jr.
As you can see, in this primer one of the things the teachers wanted to teach the new converts was a strict moral code. To be a Christian required purity of life, to live like the citizens of the world meant “death” in some sense.
Some of the people I have talked to do not understand jurisdiction, and it is very important to understand this principle. Our former Pastor, J.C. Collins, told me that if a person had ever committed fornication, even as a youth, they had “sold their birthright” and had no right in the church. I told him that I had been up close when he and other ministers had received candidates for baptism and had never heard this question asked of anyone, how then would you know? He looked at the floor for a minute then said, “We have to trust God to protect us.”
The answer, I think, is in jurisdiction. Jurisdiction means: the legal power to interpret and administer the law in the premises. Houston has a city ordinance that when your dog is out it must be on a leash. If it is not on a leash a city policeman can ticket you. If you step across the city limit line into the county, the city laws do not apply there, and the city policeman has no authority there. City laws have jurisdiction only in the city, county laws have jurisdiction only in the county, state laws have jurisdiction only in the state, and The Kingdom of God’s laws have jurisdiction only in the Kingdom of God. What people do as citizens of the world does not violate the laws of the Kingdom, they are outside of our jurisdiction. If they will quit those things that church laws are opposed to before they join the church they are as eligible to join as anyone. As the Apostle Paul writes in 1 Cor. 6:11, after a long list of sins that are intolerable in the church, he says “and such were some of you”. Along the same line, in Ephesians 2:2-3,
Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience.
Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others.
In the early days of Christianity, the main problem the church faced was Apostasy, or denial of the faith. This could occur because of pressure from friends or family, or most often, because of persecution. There is a letter from the Roman Governor Pliny to the Emperor Trajan, written early in the 2nd century, in which he explains how he has been treating this new sect and asking the Emperor for direction.
From the letter from Pliny to Trajan
Meanwhile I have taken this course with those who were accused before me as Christians: I have asked them whether they were Christians. Those who confessed I asked a second and a third time, threatening punishment. Those who persisted I ordered led away to execution. For I did not doubt that, whatever it was they admitted, obstinacy and unbending perversity certainly deserve to be punished.
–An unsigned paper was presented containing the names of many. But these denied that they were or had been Christians, and I thought it right to let them go, since at my dictation they prayed to the gods and made supplication with incense and wine to your statue, which I had ordered to be brought in to the court for the purpose, together with the images of the gods, and in addition to this they cursed Christ, none of which things, it is said, those who are really Christians can be made to do.
Why, do you suppose, those people were willing to suffer torture and death rather than “cross their fingers” and do as requested to save their lives? Because they knew that Jesus said:
Whosoever therefore shall confess me before men, him will I confess also before my Father which is in heaven.
But whosoever will deny me before men, him will I also deny before my Father which is in heaven.
(Matt. 10:32-33)
Do you think Jesus really meant that, or was he just kiddin’?
In baptism the convert received remission of all former sins, and what was equivalent, admission to the Church. If he sinned gravely after baptism, could he again obtain remission? In the first age of the Church the practice as to this question inclined towards rigorism, and the man who sinned after baptism was in many places permanently excluded from the Church.
(A Source Book for Ancient Church History)
J.C. Ayer Jr.
We are still early in the 2nd century when a man named Hermas tried to change some of the practices of the church. He knew that his own objections would carry little weight so he claimed to have had a “divine revelation”, after all, who can disagree with God? Notice, if you will, what Hermas had been taught and what he was trying to change.
From “The Shepherd of Hermas”
“I have heard sir, from some teachers that there is no other repentance than that when we descend into the water and receive remission of our former sins.” He said to me “Thou hast well heard, for so it is.
—Since, however, you inquire diligently into all things—
“And therefore I say unto you, that if after that great and holy calling any one is tempted by the devil and sins, he has one repentance. But if thereupon he should sin and then repent, to such a man his repentance is of no benefit; for with difficulty he will live.”
(A Source Book for Ancient Church History)
J.C. Ayer Jr.
Towards the end of the 2nd century and into the 3rd, a man named Tertullian became prominent in the Church, in fact he is called one of the Church “Fathers” because of the high regard for his writings. The following is a portion of one of his letters in which he explains to the recipient the difference between sins. This is still when there was only one denomination, about 50 years before the split.
We ourselves do not forget the distinction between sins, which was the starting point of our discussion. And this, too, for John has sanctioned it [cf. 1 John 5:16], because there are some sins of daily commital to which we are all liable; for who is free of being angry unjustly and after sunset; or even of using bodily violence; or easily speaking evil; or rashly swearing; or forfeiting his plighted word; or lying from bashfulness or necessity? In business, in official duties, in trade, in food, in sight, in hearing, by how great temptations we are assailed! So that if there were no pardon for such simple sins as these, salvation would be unattainable by any. Of these then, there will be pardon through the successful Intercessor with the Father, Christ. But there are other sins wholly different from these, graver and more destructive, such as are incapable of pardon—murder, idolatry, fraud, apostasy, blasphemy, and, of course, adultery and fornication and whatever other violation of the temple of God there may be. For these Christ will no more be the successful Intercessor; these will not at all be committed by any one who has been born of God, for he will cease to be the son of God if he commit them.
(A Source Book for Ancient Church History)
J.C. Ayer Jr.
It seems that being a son, or child, of God in a public or visible way is conditional on our part. See Matt. 5:43-45 and John 1:11-13
You will no doubt see that there are seven sins that Tertullian lists as unforgivable. Allowing for differences in translation, it seems to be the same list as n Matt. 15:18-20, plus Idolatry. Idolatry is condemned in the Old Testament as a sin unto death, and in the New Testament in the strongest possible language. See 1Cor. 10:19-21
I think that I need to make a brief explanation here about the Seven Deadly Sins. Some friends accused me of teaching Catholic doctrine when I tried to show them what the early Church believed.
The Catholic Seven Deadly Sins
Pride, Covetousness, Lust, Anger, Gluttony, Envy, Sloth
Tertullian’s Seven Deadly Sins
Murder, Idolatry, Fraud, Apostasy, Blasphemy, Adultery, Fornication
As you can see, there is no comparison.
During the first two centuries of Christianity there were persecutions from time to time, but they were localized in some province or other and usually did not involve many people. A practice began to develop whereby a martyr was thought to have the power to forgive sins, and restore a sinner to church membership.
These restorations, which were particularly of the licentious, were deemed exceptional, however common; and it came as a shock, at least to a rigid Montanist ascetic like Tertullian, when the aggressive Roman bishop Kallistos, who had himself been a confessor, issued a declaration in his own name, which is a landmark in the development of papal authority, that he would absolve sins of the flesh on a proper repentance. This was an official breach in the popular list of “sins unto death” whatever actual breach earlier practice may have made.
(A History of the Christian Church)
Williston Walker
Part of Tertullian’s letter to Kallistos
But you go so far as to lavish this power upon martyrs indeed; so that no sooner has any one, acting on a preconceived arrangement, put on soft bonds in the nominal custody now in vogue, than adulterers beset him, fornicators gain access to him; instantly prayers resound about him; nor are there any who are more diligent in purchasing entrance to the prison than they who have lost the fellowship of the Church.
…Whatever authority, whatever reason, restores ecclesiastical peace to the adulterer and the fornicator, the same will be bound to come to the aid of the murderer and the idolator in their repentance.
(A Source Book for Ancient Church History)
J.C. Ayer Jr.
A few years later, in 250 A.D., a new man came into the Emperorship of Rome, a man named Decian, religious and patriotic in the old Roman fashion. He could see that Rome was less than it had been, and he blamed this condition on the fact that the old Roman gods were being abandoned. He blamed that condition on this new sect of Christians who taught that the Roman gods were not gods at all. Decian issued an Empire-wide edict that all Christians who would not renounce their beliefs and worship the Roman gods should be put to death. This is the first general persecution and many people went to their deaths because of it, many others cursed Christ and worshiped the idols as proscribed by the Emperor’s edict. In so doing they lost the fellowship of the Church.
Decian lost his life in a battle the following year (251) and the persecution played out. There now thousands of people who had apostatized and been excluded from their churches and they began to clamor to get back in. The numbers involved caused the newly elected Bishop of Rome, Cornelius, and the Bishop of Carthage, Cyprian, to decide to change the Church’s doctrine on this practice.
The imperial policy of encouraging apostasy created such chaos in the life of the Church that the Decian persecution came within a narrow margin of destroying the Christian organization. Only the wise decision of bishops like Cyprian of Carthage and Cornelius of Rome averted a catastrophe. They made a daring modification in the strict penitential discipline of the Church, receiving back with forgiveness those whose weakness had led them into apostasy.
(Chapters in Church History)
Powel Mills Dawley
This change in Church doctrine caused one of the ministers in the Church at Rome, a man named Novation, to withdraw fellowship from the others who wanted change. A good many agreed with Novation, and churches split all over the Empire. At this point in time, this was the only doctrinal disagreement between the two parties.
There was no difference in point of doctrine between the Novationists and other Christians. Novation had seen evils result from admitting apostates, he consequently refused communion to all those who had fallen after baptism. The terms of admission in those churches were, “If you wish to join any of our churches, you may be admitted among us by baptism; but observe, that if you fall away into idolatry or vice, we shall separate you from our communion, and on no account can you be readmitted among us. We shall never attempt to injure you, in your person, property, or character; we do not presume to judge the sincerity of your repentance, or your future state; but you can never be readmitted to the fellowship of our churches, without our giving up the securest guard for the purity of our communion.”
(Orchard’s History of Baptists)
Orchard
There are now two separate denominations, the Novationists and the other party who began calling themselves Catholic. All the Baptist histories that I have seen say that we are descended from the Novationists.
The Catholics got pretty perturbed when Novation and others withdrew from them. This is a letter written by the Catholics to inform outlying churches.
Novatus [Novatianus], a presbyter at Rome, being lifted up with arrogance against these persons, as if there was no longer for them a hope of salvation, not even if they should do all things pertaining to a pure and genuine conversion, became the leader of the heresy of those who in the pride of their imagination style themselves Cathari (the pure ones). Thereupon a very large synod assembled at Rome, of bishops in number sixty, and a great many more presbyters and deacons; and likewise the pastors of the remaining provinces deliberated in their places by themselves concerning what ought to be done.
A decree, accordingly, was confirmed by all that Novatus and those who joined with him, and those who adopted his brother-hating and inhuman opinion, should be considered by the church as strangers; but that they should heal such of the brethren as had fallen into misfortune, and should minister to the with the medicines of repentance.
(A Source Book for Ancient Church History)
J.C. Ayer Jr.
From the Council of Nicea
Canon 8
Concerning those who call themselves Cathari, who come over to the Catholic and Apostolic Church, the great and holy synod decries that they who are ordained shall continue as they are among the clergy. But before all things it is necessary that they should profess in writing that they will observe and follow the teachings of the Catholic and Apostolic Church; that is, that they will communicate with those who have been twice married and with those who have lapsed during the persecution, and upon whom a period of penance has been laid and a time for restoration fixed; so that in all things they will follow the teachings of the Catholic Church.
(A Source Book for Ancient Church History)
J.C. Ayer, Jr.
Dear reader, I hope you find this at least interesting, and possibly even helpful.
Elder Louis Holder
Nov. 2004