Thomas Helwys: The Baptist Original

John Smyth baptized him, but Helwys surpassed Smyth by a long shot.

The Reformation in England was initially driven by the personal and political machinations of King Henry VIII (of the Tudor dynasty). However, there were many others in England with political and religious ambitions who worked to pull and push the kingdom during an unstable time for the entire European world.

When Henry went out, his son Edward came in. But Edward’s short monarchial reign was supplanted by Bloody Mary. Mary was Edward’s half-sister, but that’s about all they had in common. Henry had made England Protestant, and Edward was the figurehead for some actual Protestant advances of various sorts. After Edward, however, Mary yanked the kingdom back toward Roman Catholicism with a vengeance.

After Mary there was Elizabeth, and she led England into a full-fledged Reformation of its own, distinct from the other reformations going on in Germany, Zurich, and Geneva. During Elizabeth’s reign (which lasted 45 years), Protestantism made significant gains, enough that some Protestants started to argue that the English Reformation had not gone far enough. These Puritans (named thus because of their desire for a purer church) paid the price for their dissent in England under Elizabeth as well as James I of Scotland after her. But they also grew in number during that same period of persecution.

Over time, Separatists of various sorts arose from among the Puritan group, one of which was the Baptists. John Smyth was the first Baptist, and that honor is historically accurate. And yet Thomas Helwys was the first lifelong Baptist to establish a Baptist Church in England based on the doctrines and distinctives that mark Baptists throughout the centuries.

Helwys was baptized as a believer by Smyth in 1609 after Smyth had baptized himself. Soon thereafter, Smyth sought membership in a Mennonite church and adopted views that insulted Baptist convictions, not least of which was belief in a physical apostolic succession. Smyth was a Baptist for only about a year.

It was Helwys, and not Smyth, who penned a confession of faith for the first English Baptist church in history. It was Helwys who moved that congregation back to England in 1612 to be a faithful witness in a hostile environment. Helwys codified and maintained the distinctives of Baptist theology and practice:

• the chief authority of Scripture

• congregational polity

• believer’s baptism

• local church autonomy

• the two offices of pastor (or elder) and deacon

• religious liberty

It was Helwys’s English Baptist church that generated five other churches by 1626, all embracing the same basic doctrines and practices. And it was Helwys who made the first appeal in England for genuine religious liberty, even for the irreligious.

Thomas Helwys was imprisoned at Newgate shortly after he arrived back in England, and he died as a martyr for the cause of Christ in a land that claimed Christ as King.

His contribution to Baptist and Christian history is impossible to overstate. For more than 400 years, Baptists around the world have been perpetuating the doctrines and practices that Helwys pioneered at great cost to himself.

All Baptists believe (along with Helwys) that the visible kingdom of Christ ought to be comprised of conscious believers who are united by baptism in an actual assembly of covenanted members. May Christ advance His kingdom in this world until that day when the invisible kingdom of Christ shall be completely joined to the visible one.