Bye paths in Baptist history Part one – Introduction to Bye-Paths in Baptist History.
Jim Curran shared a link. January 6, 2020
Bye paths in Baptist history Part one
Introduction to Bye-Paths in Baptist History.
Recently I managed to get a copy of Bye-Paths in Baptist History. This is a book that has been on my want list for 25-30 years. I have found this to be an interesting little book full of little tidbits lost elsewhere. It is not, nor intended to be a comprehensive history but what it has in very interesting. Goadby tells the story of subjects that are fascinating to him. Bye-Paths is a rare book- mainly available in England. I think relatively few copies are in the USA- pretty much all copies I have see for sale over time with one exception have been from the UK. I am attaching a link to an online version. I had downloaded a copy on Kindle but you might try other formats there are glitches in the Kindle version. (I will however note references as I go along from the Kindle version) https://archive.org/details/byepaths00goad/page/n4 A few impressions
- He gives quite a few sources and typical of the time gives the name and the information without giving a specific page, I have found this common among many books of this era- printings varied. In addition many times he dates as in the reign of a king or queen rather than specific date.
- There is a wealth of information here about Baptists/ Anabaptists and immersion prior to the 1641 date advanced by those trying to make us among the Protestants.
- There is information here about several ancient Anabaptist/ Baptist churches that predate Smithe by a long shot.
- There is also a lot of info here that shows immersion before 1641 (although not quite as much as Armitage- but the examples are different.)
- Since he does concentrate on England and English speaking sources he does not touch on as much the Welsh Baptists. He does give a comprehensive look into the visit of Austin trying to convert them to Romanism. This has more details than I have seen on that subject. On the ancient churches there such as Olchon he does not give information. There is a language barrier there however to obtaining much of that information and this would have been more pronounced at the time the book was written. (In more recent history have seen a similar issue in doing research on the missionary efforts of JG Oncken and the Baptist Church at Hamburg Germany and its church planting efforts all over Europe.) The lack of addressing the Welsh Baptists is not necessarily a lapse or oversight but rather outside of the scope of the book. Likewise he does not address Baptists in the Americas, or in Europe- (even efforts in Scotland and Ireland are mentioned in passing) instead it concentrates almost exclusively on England.
- This book is not a year by year account as would be expected in a book that is entitled Bye-Paths in Baptist History. Instead it takes us down little trails. There are ones detailing church discipline, early associations, persecutions by each monarch, the singing controversy, and other areas. The little details are interesting and offer little vignettes into history at those times.
- As a note this will not be an everyday series but one I will be doing once or twice a week- time permitting. Jim Curran shared a link. January 6, 2020
Recent Comments