Illinois Baptists: A History

p. 5On his retirement from the active labors of the leadership of the Illinois Baptist State Convention, Dr. E. P. Brand was requested by the Convention to prepare a history of Illinois Baptists. It was a labor of love, and he tirelessly gave himself to the task of gathering historical data and writing his book. He was called away before the work could be finished.

The Committee appointed by the Convention to edit and publish the history has felt strongly that the work should be given to the denomination as it c^Tne from its author. It bears upon it the marks of Dr. Brand. Intermingling with its story of the years of struggle in Illinois are the preachments of this stalwart laborer, who, for nearly a quarter of a century, spent his life for Jesus Christ in Illinois.

The book is not published as an official history. It is better than that. It is the outpouring of the rich mind of one whose life-root were deeply embedded in the life and progress of the Baptists in this State.

Acting under the instructions of the Convention the Committee publishes this work as a loving tribute to the great leader who so tirelessly built the kingdom among us.

p. 7From the time that Christianity became the rehgion of an empire, there was a people that did not affihate with the established Church. They were known by different names, as they were found in different places, acknowledged different leaders, and were referred to by different writers; but they uniformly agreed in holding scripture as their guide, in distinction from the traditions of the clergy and the decrees of councils. For this they were called heretics, and were always denounced and frequently persecuted. We know them mostly from the descriptions of their enemies. Quietness was their security. They kept records, and had a devotional and doarinal literature, but it was destroyed by the persecutor as fast as found.

In the Reformation these "scripture" people came to be called "anabaptists," because they rejected infant baptism and baptized "again" those who came to them. Persecution by civil governments still continued but the business of destroying writings was not so industriously followed, so that from this time onward we possess Baptist documents. One of the earliest is a Confession of Faith prepared at a conference of pastors held at Schleitheim, a village in the cantonment of Schaffhausen, in the northern part of Switzerland, February 24, 1527. It was addressed to "the children of light everywhere scattered abroad," and the occasion was because "scandal has been brought in among us by cenain false brethren so that some have turned from the faith." The seven articles of the Confession are on baptism, discipline, breaking of bread, separation from abominations, duties of pastors, political duties, the judicial oath. It was practically a chart of Christian behavior. "Baptism," they declare, "should be given to all those who have learned repentance and change of life, and believe in the truth that their sins have been through Christ, and to all those who desire to walk in the resurrection of Jesus Christ and to be buried with him in death that they may rise. By this is excluded all infant baptism, the pope's first and highest abomination." The reason they felt so strongly concerning infant baptism was that by it people were authorized to call themselves Christians without forsaking their sins.

p. 8When at the Reformation the bible was unchained this people increased with amazing rapidity, as in a smaller measure they were increasing before. Two years before the Schleitheim conference a Reformed pastor, Balthazar Hubmeyer, was baptized on profession of his faith, and a large part of his congregation with him. They became essentially a Baptist church. Hubmeyer sealed his faith with his life three years afterwards.

This was before the rise of modern denominations. The Lutherans, our oldest protestant denomination, date from the Augsburg Confession of 1530, but the Schleitheim Confession was read in the churches of believers three years before the Augsburg Confession was signed. Baptists are not therefore strictly protestants. The name Protestant comes from the Protest of April 15, 1529, of the German princes and free cities at the Council of Spires, against their emperor's edict commanding them under penalty to restore the old worship. But Baptists were not represented at Spires, nor if they had been would they have been allowed to join in the written Protest, for they rejected the infant baptism to which the Protesters clung and waived the governmental interference to which the Protesters appealed.

After a long time the "Ana" in the title "Anabaptist" was dropped. As to the Anabaptists of Munster, who brought the name into such disrepute, they never were true Baptists at all. They professed to follow the Spirit rather than the Bible, whereas Baptists invariably cling to scripture and seek the Spirit as its interpreter. He who supposes he has no more need of his Bible because he has the Holy Spirit, is deceived by the Evil One. "He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments is a liar. , . . Let no man lead you astray; he that doeth righteousness is righteous, he that doeth sin is of the devil." (1 John 2:4; 3:7,8.)

p. 9History nowhere goes back to the beginning. Wherever people live others lived there before them, and others before that, so long ago that records fail and traditions are silent. Before the white race came to Illinois the Indians were in possession, fished in the rivers, chased the buffalo over the prairies, and had their bark villages and patches of corn in the edges of the groves.

But before their time another race was here, whom from the works they left behind we have named the Moundbuilders. They were probably allied to the Aztecs of Central America and the Cliffdwellers of Arizona. They were not hunters but cultivators. …