Baptists were not and are not Calvinist Documented Historically starting with the Donatist.

B Dwayne Hinson Admin  · 7/20/21

Baptists were not and are not Calvinist Documented Historically starting with the Donatist.

Baptist were not Calvinist through Calvinist throughout history have tried with some success to take over true Baptist Churches and then dishonestly claim the Baptist Heritage. Many things contribute to this which would require chapters to layout. We will list a few.1. 1. First Calvinism is heresy as it teaches an unjust god for God commanded all men everywhere to repent and in the teaching of modern Calvinism there are men who could not obey that command as the god of Calvinism would not allow them to and are thereby punished for disobeying that command by the false god of Calvinism. This unjustness is not based on whether God could choose to save certain and not save others – salvation is his to offer. The unjustness is based on a god who would command all men to repent and deny the ability to repent to certain men and then condemn them for not repenting. This is condemning people for not doing what they had no ability to do which is unjust. The God of the Bible is just and no respecter of persons. a. On a side note, Calvinism in Calvin’s day was based on a state church marriage which most people have a hard time comprehending for we have lived, at least to a strong degree, in liberty, something Calvin opposed. The attempts to use Calvin’s teachings to apply to Americans is out of context for we do not live in a state church marriage society.2. Second to understand the confessions of faith requires a few things. We will show a couple.First approach the confessions with the biblical meaning of words not the Calvinist insinuations which have permeated much of Christianity today. For example, Election is a process not a person. The elect are those who lawfully complete the process. When the civil government has an election it is a process to determine which people are chosen and those people are chosen based on how they are viewed by the electorate, but are not pre chosen by a power for that is Communism. The elect are those who have gone through the process necessary to acquire the votes necessary to win, such as “president elect”. The elect in the Bible are those who chose to follow the process God has laid out which is repentance from dead works followed by faith toward God (we know God works repentance and grants faith, but that work and gift are offered to all). Predestination deals with the fact that God says those who repent and believe will be saved at that point but does not choose the individuals who will repent, and is dealing with God’s plan for the group of people who would repent and believe and not with individual persons.Secondly, concerning understanding of Confessions of Faith, it requires understanding the battles of their days. A common heresy of the 1600s was Universalism which taught that everyone would be saved, hence a strong emphasis is found in their confessions on the fact that only certain ones will saved. The elect as identified above and not everyone would be saved. This also gives understanding of Particular Baptist for they did not believe “all” would be saved but a particular group who choose to allow God to work in them.They were “particular” in regard to atonement in that atonement was particular in its application, only applied to those who repent and believe, but atonement was not particular in its availability,in that it is available to all mankind.3. Thirdly we give some examples of Calvinist dishonestly trying to claim the heritage of the Baptist. Donatist were one of the early ones and the Catholics tried to take them with their intellect and when that failed they killed the Donatist. Please see below Benedict’s record on the Donatist. The Presbyterians try to claim the Waldensians but the Waldensian records show that the Waldensians who joined the reformation had to “Change their doctrine” and did not believe Calvinism prior to the reformation and the Waldensians who did not compromise are ancestors of some of the Anabaptist. Calvinist tried to infiltrate the Sandy Creek Revival and were successful in some areas but here again they came to try to take over the work of God and then dishonestly claim its heritage. Bible churches in the last century did a similar thing by just changing their names to Baptist without any biblical authority to be a church. (Bible Churches came from the Presbyterians as did “fundamentalism” and both have tried to claim the name Baptist and the biblical Baptist heritage which goes back to the Apostles.) For those who choose to attempt to refute this please start with the fact that Calvinism teaches an unjust god.History of the Donatists by David Benedict chapter 4Quotations from the Writings of GaudentiusAgainst the Catholics “All who will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution. “The time will come when whosoever killeth you will think he doeth God service. “Our enemies boast of being in peace and unity, but their peace is gained by war, and their union is stained with blood. “For the teaching of the people of Israel the omnipotent God sent prophets; he did not enjoin this service on kings; the Lord Christ, the Saviour of souls, sent fishermen, not soldiers, for the propagation of his gospel; he who alone can judge the quick and the dead has never sought the aid of a military force.”On Man’s Free Will “God created man free in his own image. How, then, am I to be deprived of that by human lordship which God has bestowed on me? What a sacrilege, that human arrogance should take away what God has bestowed on me, and idly boast of doing this on God’s behalf? “It is a great offence against God, when he is defended by men. “What must he think of God who would defend him with outward force? Is it that God is unable to punish offenses against himself? “Hear what the Lord says: Peace I give unto you; not as the world giveth, give I unto you. “The peace of the world must be introduced among contending nations by arms and the force of war. The peace of Christ invites the willing, with wholesome mildness; it never forces men against their wills.” In reply to this eloquent and forcible argument of Gaudentius, in defense of a primordial principal of the Donatists, Augustine, with entire unfairness, reasoned in the following style: According to these most fallacious and most vain reasonings of yours, said he, the reins would be relaxed, and all classes of transgressors might sin with impunity, without restraint, and without correction; and the king would have no power or control over his kingdom, for the correction of any offenses; the general over his army; the judge in his province; the master with his servant; the husband with his wife; the father with his son. In the midst of this controversy, Augustine said to his opponent that he knew not the scriptures nor the power of God, which induced him to contend so strongly for man’s free will, and against coercion in religious concerns. The Ninevites, he said, were compelled to repentance against their wills by the power of their king. The term “compel them to come in” to the feast, in the parable of the supper, he held as available for his theory of coercion. His exposition of this parable was in the following terms: “By highways, we are to understand, heresies; by hedges, schisms. “But in this case,” said he, “we may be sure, highways signify diverse opinions, and hedges, mean perverse opinions.” I have thus given specimens of the writings of the prominent men amongst the Donatists, most of whom appear in the foregoing narratives. Enough of these writings has been copied to exhibit the ability of this people to defend their cause, and much is it to be lamented that so small a portion of their writings has been preserved. But scarcely any of all those from which I have made selections have hitherto been accessible to English readers, as they are in the Latin works of Optatus and Augustine; and although all that was published of the Donatists was intended by these men to operate against them, yet so far as their principles were concerned on church discipline, religious freedom, and whatever is connected with the confederacy of priests and princes, it was directly the reverse, and objectively they established the evangelical character of the Donatists. Augustine’s theory that the strict discipline of the Donatists would split the Catholic church into a thousand schisms, was a high commendation of the reformers, and thus, as it often happened, his censure was their praise. There was an early writer among the Donatists, Tichonius, all of whose writings were lost. He was a grammarian to whom Augustine ascribed a sprightly genius and copious eloquence. To this man Parmenian’s epistle was addressed.