WHO WERE THE FIRST BAPTISTS?
In discovering who the first Baptists were, you must first identify to whom you are referring. You could mean those people or churches which held to the Baptists beliefs although they may not have called themselves Baptists. Or second, you could be referring to those who held to Baptist beliefs and were called by the name Baptist. It is difficult to trace churches that held to Baptist principles down through history. Some Baptist historians have made attempts at doing this, but in many cases refer to groups as early Baptists, who did not hold to pure New Testament beliefs held by Baptists today. Some have tried to establish that “according to history, Baptists have an unbroken line of churches since Christ.” These historians, in a try to show an unbroken line of Baptists in history, have embraced groups which were clearly not doctrinally sound. However, it should be understood that the name Baptist refers to a local assembly strictly held to the teachings of the New Testament. In the s
