A BAPTIST -

A FUNDAMENTAL BAPTIST!

By ROLLAND C. STARR, Pastor

CORNERSTONE BAPTIST CHURCH

POST OFFICE BOX 438

BELMONT, MASSACHUSETTS 02478

The following is from The Baptist Vision: Sir Isaac Newton said, "The Baptists are the only body of known Christians that have never symbolized with Rome."

Alexander Campbell, founder of the Campbellites wrote, "The sentiments of the Baptists and their practice of baptism from the apostolic age to the present have a continued chain of advocates, and public monuments of their existence in every century..."

Robert Barclay, Quaker historian said, "We shall...show that the rise of the Anabaptists took place prior to the Reformation in England and there are reasons for believing that on the continent of Europe...It seems probable that these churches have a lineage or succession more ancient than the Roman Church."

Methodist historian J. C. Ridpath: "I should not readily admit that there was a Baptist Church as far back as 100 A.D...as all Christians were then Baptists."

Mosheim, an outstanding Lutheran historian said, "Before the rise of Luther and Calvin there lay secreted in almost all the countries of Europe, persons who adhered tenaciously to the principles of the modern Dutch Baptists...the first century was a history of Baptists."

Zwingli, said, "The institution of the Anabaptists is no novelty, but for 1300 years has caused great trouble in the Church."

Catholic Cardinal Hosius, Presi- dent of the Council of Trent said, "Were it not for the fact that the Baptists have been grievously tormented and cut off with the knife during the past 1200 years, they would swarm greater than the Reformers...there have been none for the past 1200 years that have been more generally punished or...have offered themselves to the most cruel punishment than these people."

Anabaptists means rebaptize, for in the years between 300 AD. and 1500 (the Reformation), just about everyone was baptized into the Roman Catholic Church or the Orthodox church as an infant. In fact, all of the Reformation churches continued to baptize (sprinkle) infants. Anabaptists were also persecuted by Luther and other Reformers.

Today, there is a great clamor for unity, bringing all churches together in one great church. God’s Word reveals there will yet be a one-world church, but it will not be God’s Church but the devil’s.

When the Lord called for his people to be one, He was not calling for all who call themselves Christian to join together. He could not do that with all the exhortations in Scripture for His people to be separate from the religious but unregenerate. II Corinthians 6:14-17; I John 4:1; Acts 20:29-31, etc.

It is in the individual, local assembly, of which the Bible speaks. Ephesians 4:1-6; I Corinthians 12:1-28, etc. What is the Church? It is a body of baptized persons who believe in Christ’s death and resurrection for salvation and who adhere to the Word of God, to the doctrines of Jesus Christ.

Those who have been sprinkled, in reality, have not been baptized. Yes, I am a Fundamental Baptist by conviction and happy to be one in this day when many Baptists are taking that word out of their Church names.

Maybe you think it’s not important. Well, I do. I am not a bigot; I just believe Jesus Christ and the Bible! I would rather agree with God than with the worldly church crowd! .

If you’re not a true Baptist, you should change your name.

(Torch Editor: AMEN ! ! ! ! !)