Trail of blood, accurate history of Baptist churches?

You might have done better to have discarded the Scofield notes and kept the Trail of Blood. Both have fictional accounts.

Cheers,

Jim

 

Here at SWBTS several history profs recently (by recently I mean in the last 10 years) uncovered the original sketching of JM Carroll and his chart of the Trail of Blood. Its pretty interesting stuff, but many of the claims are wildly miscontrued and unfoudned (as Dr. Bob mentioned.) I was up at my grandfather's house recently and took home his copy of the ToB and a book of sermons on the ToB. Some of the claims are simply erroneous and even more Carroll in his original chart seems to have listed several groups holding heretical doctrines as being Baptist forefathers!

Its interesting to read, but then again I hold that Baptists came out of the English Separatist movement coupled with Anabaptist influences.

 

The idea of the Trail of Blood is that baptistic churches existed from the very beginning. It does not exclude errors that crept into the local churches and into organizations along the way. Just as the Church of Rome changed over time, as did many Baptist Churches after the English founding. Indeed there was a split from the very beginning of the English Baptists...between Arminianism and Calvinism...so, the Trail of Blood. In this sense, the Trail of Blood is more than an interesting read, but demonstrates a trail that we can lay hold to. Wrong in spots? No doubt, but show me the history text that has all the facts straight without some denominational bent.

Cheers,

Jim

 

In my chronology and overview of the New Testament (Baptist) Churches from 27 AD through 1832 I have used these following quotes from the Trail of Blood" to support Baptist Succession.I have assumed that Dr. Carroll would not have deliberately misquoted these men. Only once have I had anyone attempt to refute these quotes. Can anyone tell me if they can factually prove these quotes to be untrue? Just asking - not debating. [email protected]

Cardinal Hosius (Roman Catholic, 1524 - seven years after the start of the Protestant Reformation) as President of the Council of Trent: "Were it not that the Baptist have been grievously tormented and cut off with the knife during the past twelve hundred years, they would swarm in greater number than all the Reformers". (Hosius, Letters, Apud Opera, pages 112, 113)
Sir Isaac Newton: "The Baptist are the only body of known Christians that have never symbolized with Rome".
Mosheim (Lutheran): "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 modern Dutch Baptist".
Edinburg Cyclopedia (Presbyterian): "It must have already occurred to our readers that the Baptist are the same sect of Christians that were formerly described as Ana-Baptist. Indeed this seems to have been their leading principle from the time of Tertullian to the present time" Tertullian was born fifty years after the death of the Apostle John

 

Er...the Council of Trent did not convene until 1545/6...which rather renders the Hosius quote a bit suspect to say the least

Yours in Christ

Matt

 

There are many obscure quotes that come down through history via oral tradition. They eventually get embedded in some document as fact.

My contention is not in the veeracity of the statement made in the Trail of Blood, but based on the premise that we find the baptist distinctives in the NT church. If that be so, then there must have been churches that believed the same down through time. They prolly spread out, split off and followed new paths, and reformed after the Reformation in the English Baptists. This is my speculation. This is how I used the Trail of Blood; a guidebook in the journey of tracing our roots.

Cheers,

Jim

 

Brethren, Thank you for your comments. The slogan of my Bible Truth Forum is "Truth can withstand the most intense scrutiny". I must admit the date of 1524 for the Hosius quote and him being a Cardinal at that time of the Council of Trent fails to measure up to what little research I have just done. According to the RC Encyclopedia
"In recognition of these services Pius IV created Hosius cardinal on 26 February, 1561". This Hosius quote was called into question before but I have left it alone until now. I feel that honesty calls for me to remove it from my Overview. That will not change the fact that the New Testament Church established by Christ on the banks of the river Jordan was Baptist in practice.
[email protected]

 

rsr wrote:

I’m wondering if the someone who has done the research that you refer to is Sean Hyland, the Mary-venerating, Purgatory-believing, Rosary-Bead-twidling, Heresy-defending Roman Catholic.

On the home page of his website,

http://www.angelfire.com/ms/seanie/index.html


he states the following.

(1) “This website is dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Spouse of the Holy Spirit and the Handmaid of the Lord.”

(2) “Note: all information 100% faithful to the Magisterium of the Catholic Church...”

If that is the source of your enlightenment about Cardinal Hosius and the Trail of Blood booklet, you might want to re-examine your source.
I’ve had enough dealings with Catholic apologists over the last 30 years to doubt their neutrality and their honesty when dealing with history and what the Catholic Church believes and teaches.

As I recall, it was the Catholic Church who butchered the Anabaptists and many other groups who opposed the Pope and refused to submit to the yoke of Rome.

And it was the Catholic Church who destroyed the homes, churches and libraries of the Anabaptists so that much of what we “know” of these folks today, comes from Catholic sources.

 

The Protestants didn't do such a bad job of persecuting either; Zwingli in 1525 or thereabouts drowned some Anabaptists in the River Linner in Zurich.

The other aspect about the Hosius quote which is highly suspect is that he allegedly uses the word 'Baptist'; this word was unheardof prior to the 17th century; if he was quoted as referring to 'Anabaptists', this would have been more plausible

Yours in Christ

Matt

 

About these quotes on Baptist Perpetuity by Hosius, Mosheim, Newton, etc., some things need to be remembered. Unfortunately many Landmark Baptist historians have freely used secondary sources nds through the process of time these quotes have become modified slightly. Nevertheless, I think they are all authentic. For example:

1. The Moshem quote. I am looking right now at my own copy of a 1834 two-volume set of Mosheim's history. The quote is found in Volume 2 on pages 127-128 under the section "The History of the Anabaptists or Mennonites. While the quote has been slightly changed, the basic idea is still there.

2. The Hosius Quote: As far as I can tell this quote first appeared in Baptist literature back in 1826 in the "Baptist Magazine", CVIII, May, 1826. Again this quote seems to be slightly altered, but he basic idea is still there. While some have said that this quote is not found in Letter Apud Opera, it needs to be remembered there were many different editions of this work, published in different places, with different editors. I seriously doubt the Baptists back in 1826 would have made it up. Also Hosius does refer to "Anabaptists", but "Baptists".

3. The Newton quote. Brother RSR - check the book "the Memorials of Sir Isaac Newton" by William Whiston, page 201.

[ February 17, 2004, 05:33 PM: Message edited by: rsr ]

 

I view the use of the term "Baptist" as something that obviously came from someone who translated Hosius, since he wrote in Latin.

So using the word "Baptist" doesn't disqualify the quote as being accurate.

The quibbling over the 1524 date vs. the actual date of the Council of Trent can just as easily be an error in typing or type-setting.

As far as Zwingli and Calvin and others of the Calvinist Reformers persecuting true Christians who disagreed with them, some of that did happen.

But the scale of those persecutions, compared to the century after century organized, vicious attacks, instigated by the Great Whore of Rome, which took millions of lives, makes all the persecutions from the Calvinist Reformers pale by comparison.

There seems to be a cadre of Baptists who act as apologists for Roman Catholicism, even denying the millions of deaths of Anabaptists at Catholic hands, much like White Supremacists deny the Nazi Holocaust.

Or these apologists use Catholic talking point/Knights of Columbus answers, such as

"Well, the Reformers persecuted people too..." as if that excuses the violent depredations against Christians who refused subservience to the pagan errors of Catholicism.

 

Er...scarcely likely as the number of Anabaptists from the 1520s didn't come anywhere near 'millions', so I'm not quite sure where all these martyrs come from.

Yours in Christ

Matt

 

I believe the trail of blood is more fiction than actual history of the Baptist faith.

 

To me the ToB is wishful thinking.
It would be great to prove we have an unbroken line to Christ without going through the RCC, but it is impossible to prove historically.

I do believe that Christ has had true believers in all ages either in the RCC (not the RCC orthodox, but maybe on the fringe?) or in churches the RCC considered heretics.

Of course I believe that all believers from Christ to us makes up the Church. (I know I'll get disagreement here, But I do believe this.)
And if that is so then of course there has been no broken lines.

But no where can one historically prove that a local Baptist church can trace it's history back to Christ. Especially if one doesn't accept a universal church.

 

The Trail of Blood is not history but Propaganda. The errors in it are numerous. The most laughable is Carroll's assertion that Mariolatry started at the Council of Chalcedon in AD 451. If one was Landmarker in their ecclesiology, they would do better to rely on John T. Christian who is at least a Church historian though I disagree with his Baptist Successionism but at least he has done some research unlike Carroll who's Trail of Blood has no credibility.

 

I think most would agree that the Trail of Blood is not good history. So what would be the best reference material for Baptist history?