Baptist History: Origins in England

1:27Well, that sounds nice, but. In terms of history based on written documents, I just don't see that. And so, really, that view has been pretty much debunked both by church historians and, of course, secular historians who are only so happy to do so. Then, you got the perpetuity view. Can you all say perpetuity? Oh, wow, y'all did a great job there. Remember, we were supposed to, by treaty with the Panama Canal, we'd have the canal in perpetuity. Well, apparently, that was not perpetuity there, you know. But this view holds that throughout history, ever since, of course, the beginnings of the church in the first century, we have had groups of Bible-believing Christians in spite of the church going off to era on many, many occasions. I think this view holds some water.

2:29I can go and find documents to back this view up. And then, of course, you got the spiritual view, at least some call it that, in which there's different groups that we can always feel spiritual kinship with. I think there's something to that as well. And then you got the new movement view. And the new movement view says that, in terms of Baptist history, that the English Baptists are a new thing, and they really have no connection to what. Came before. And particularly, they debunked the idea that the English Baptists have any connection whatsoever with the Anabaptists. And that, you know, it was totally coming out of the Puritans and, of course, the English Reform movement.

3:22Well, I have some problems with that view. I definitely would have to agree that a large part of the English Baptists come straight out of Puritanism. There's no doubt about that. However, I think it is foolish to say that a movement that preceded your movement by 100 years and everybody knew about them and to say they had no influence on you at all, I just have problems with that. I think there was some influence. And as we're going to find out, there was some actual direct connection. Turns out, not just with General Baptists, but with the particular Baptists as well. I'm already getting into some wording there.

4:14Who knows who this is? What year does he do this? 1517. 1517. Hey. By the way, for the new folks, I've already been through church history sessions, and you can find them on. YouTube, and so I'm not going to go back to that. But if you want further stuff, there's stuff there. Plus, there's all kinds of other historians who are probably a lot better than me that have lectures on the Reformation. But we have Luther nailing his 95 theses on Vittbear Church door, and that's going to touch off, of course, the Protestant Reformation. Now, some of you probably are not as familiar with this guy. Now, you notice it says he's the third man of the Reformation. Actually, chronologically, I would argue he's the second major figure, you know, and then Calvin's the third. But I think probably what they're referring to is he's not as well known as Calvin, right? In other words, some would say Luther, then Calvin, and maybe you might know about Zwingli. Zwingli, of course, is the guy that in some ways is responsible for the Anabaptist movement. Now, I'm sorry, I didn't realize this was going to look so small here, but you'll notice Zurich is up there in the northern part of Switzerland, and yes, this is Switzerland. And then you look way over here to that pointy end of Switzerland, and you got that funny lake there, Lake Geneva, and then you got Geneva. And that's where Calvin's at. And that's where, you know, It really takes off there with Calvin there in Geneva. But before Calvin is even there, you got up in Zurich the beginnings of Reformation in Switzerland, and that is led by Ulrich Zwingli. And Zwinkli, of course, was reformed and, you know, pretty much agreed with Luther on many major points. There were a few things that they never could quite agree on, and unfortunately, that meant that the two groups could never quite come together. But while Zwingli was there in Zurich, he had some disciples, had quite a few disciples, actually. Some of these were very zealous students of Scripture. And these were three of the more zealous ones: Conrad Grebel, George Braylock, and Felix Mons.

6:54And they had, you know, you have your church, and then you have sort of an inner group, and then you have an inner inner group. And they were part of that inner inner group that did Bible study with Zwingli. And when I say they did Bible study, we'd be embarrassed because they go to the Greek and the Hebrew. Forget, you know, these ordinary vernacular languages. We want to read the real scripture in the real original languages. And therefore, they're pretty serious. And apparently, in one of these Bible studies, Zwingli, Says something that they had all been noticing. Now, if you're a brand new Christian and you come to read the Bible for the first time and you're very zealous and you just gobble it up, you just, some of you, hopefully y'all went through this when you first went through your conversion, right? And hopefully, we continue to do that, but they just have the zealousness to come to Scripture. What might you notice about baptism that was totally being done differently at that time? Anybody?

8:10Yeah. In fact, you can read the entire New Testament, and what's the problem you're going to have? There is not a single example of a baby being baptized in the entire New Testament. All right? And yet, guess what? Here they broke away from the Catholic Church, which was baptizing babies. Supposedly, we're reformed, but when it came to the issue of baptism, looked like they had Catholic hangover. All right? They're still baptizing babies. And Zwingli says, you know, I don't see this in the New Testament. And they all jumped all over that. But then when they start talking about it, and I'm leaving a lot out here, the city council of Zurich got real upset. And you got to understand, Jeff will later explain when he gets into the magisterial church. I just like to say the state church. There is no separation of church and state. And that's hard for us as Americans to understand. Even after you have the reform, you have, of course, they're still state church. Now they're state Protestant churches. And they just could not conceive of having a local autonomous church in which the government could not tell you what to do.

9:35You got that? And so this was, you know, a big, big problem. And they came to the view that we should be baptized after we're adults. And then, you know, you search church history, you find out for the first two centuries of Christianity, that's what they did. You know, even as late as Constantine, you can go and see the baptistry where he is baptized. And let me tell you, it's not quite that big, but it's big. Obviously, they were dunking. And then, of course, there's the problem with the word itself, baptismo. You know, John mentioned earlier, it's a trans, you know, got transliterations. Well, that word baptized comes directly into English, directly from Greek. Anyone know what the actual translation at the time of Jesus, what that translates to?

10:30It means to dip or to immerse or to plunge. It was used especially for the dye workers. Now, you try sprinkling a piece of cloth with dye and get it baptized, right? Or, for that matter, washing clothes, you know. You're going to wash your clothes, you just sprinkle them. You see? And so you got that problem as well. Now, basically, they begin saying, okay, we think we should have adult baptism. And they are, long story short, I could go through the individuals and who did what, but they baptize each other. This angers the city council. They pass a law that if you baptize an adult, we will drown you.

11:27Okay. We'll give you the second baptism. I think Ferdinand, one of the Hausborgs, would make that statement. And so unfortunately, the guy on the far end there, Felix Montz, they're going to drown him. And, of course, some of y'all were over there, Switzerland. Y'all went right up to the river and saw where they took him out in a boat, put a stone around him, drowned him. And now this is Protestants drowning Protestants. Not too good. Is it? And of course, the other two, Grebel, all these guys were very well educated. They really knew their stuff. But they now fan out, they start, you know, witnessing, evangelizing. And apparently, what I see happening with what will be called the Anabaptists, and Anna from Latin means to re-baptize, right? Is that whenever you have people reading scripture, they're going to start recognizing stuff that the quote-unquote state church at whatever time or whatever group it is, they're not doing right. They're not doing it according to Scripture. And so, in that sense, the Anabaptists are very much like the English Baptists. But there's a hundred years' difference between the two. Okay? I'm getting ahead of myself, but long and short of it is, Blaivrock, he's going to be martyred, burned at the stake by the Catholics. And by the way, most of the persecution was by the Catholics. Yes, the Lutherans also persecuted the Anabaptists. Yes, the Calvinists even persecuted the Anabaptists, but the majority of it was done by the Catholic Church. And to their great, I think, finally, Pope John Paul II or something apologized for it, but several centuries late. There. Conrad Grevel dies of plague. But all those two that remain, they established churches all over the place. Apparently, all over Europe, people were, you know, now they have the Bible. Luther had translated the Bible in German. They can actually read the Bible for themselves. And so these Anabaptists, where they went, there are people who say, aha, that's what I thought. And they quickly joined, and they just grew like crazy. And of course, then the persecution sets in. And the persecution of the Anabaptist folks was one of the greatest persecutions against Christianity ever.

14:10Hundreds of thousands, we don't know what the exact numbers were, were killed. And sometimes they weren't just killed, they were horribly tortured beforehand. Now, this is from Martyr's Mirror, which is, of course, an Anabaptist record of the martyrs of the Anabaptists. And this, of course, shows she's being birched, you know, whipped with bushes. And, of course, burnings were the most usual method. You had all kinds of crazy stories. This guy here is an Anabaptist, the guy in the water drowning. He was chasing after him, and he stops to save him. Then he arrests him after he saves his life and then has him executed.

14:56Of course, you got this guy burned at the sky. And because he simply persisted in his faith. You have Jan's of Rotterdam was recognized as anabaptist because she is singing. And, you know, and so a hymn, and so they here she's being taken to be executed. She hands off her little baby to someone. It turns out, I believe, it's a baker. And he later on becomes mayor of the city, the little baby did. And here you got a guy, he's just standing there at one of these merchant stalls, and this Catholic procession comes by. I'm not sure what they had on the thing they were carrying, but you're supposed to kneel and pray and do the sign of the cross. And he refused. He just stood there because he's an Anabaptist. And of course, they identified him, so he's immediately arrested and he'll be executed. And then, of course, you had hideous, you know, he's checking the guy to make sure he's dead. I was like, duh, okay, he's pretty obviously dead there. This is a particular gruesome case. A young man, let's see, how old was he? 18 years old. They tried to get him to recant through torture. And this is one of the most incredible tortures, Telingen. They would take these giant screws, they hold you down, they put it here, and they screw the screw all the way down through your, comes out through your ankle, you know. And then they did to both legs, indescribable pain. And then he still would not recant his faith, and then they burned him.

16:42And of course, this is a case in Amsterdam, and they were told to recant. None of them would recant. The bravery of this people is just absolutely amazing. And of course, that's 18 in Salzburg. And this was 350 at one time, 350. None of them would recant. And they used various means of torture, which they illustrate there for you. You know, just incredible. Now, the problem is this is not from Martyr's Mirror. This is a woodcut, you know, in England. And it says he's an Anabaptist. He's actually one of the last people to be burned, 1611. Now, I will say this: King James recognized that these public executions were really turning people off. And so, now remember, prior to King James, who had you had?

17:46Well, before her, Queen Mary. Thank you. You got your order. Queen Mary, and what did she do? Well, there's a famous book published in England about that. Time called what? Fox's Books of Martyrs. Okay? And that's based upon all the Protestants that she had burned at the stake, starting with the Archbishop of Canterbury. You know, in our parliament, at least the older folks know what I'm talking about here. Some of you younger ones don't get it here. But that would be like, okay, I'm going to start persecuting Christians in America. Who do I start with? Billy Graham. Okay.

18:29That would be kind of shocking, right? Well, that's kind of what it was to start with the Archbishop of Canterbury. I mean, he refused to recant. She burns him at the stake, one of the leading religious figures of England. And so, but, you know, that had really turned people off. But they still, as late, as late as 1611, he's the last one that they burn. But the problem here is it says he's an Anabaptist. And herein is the problem for the poor Anabaptists. They, by this time, 1611, had such a terrible reputation because so many lies have been told about them. There have been so many smears about them that nobody, and I mean nobody, wanted to be called an Anabaptist. And that's why when you have the English Baptists appear, they were vociferously denied that they were Anabaptists because there's such a Reputation. Now, one of the main reasons for this bad reputation was the events that occurred in Munster, Germany. This is where a group calling themselves Anabaptists, I personally have my doubts about this, took over the city and just literally went nuts.

19:50Some of us older ones in here remember Waco, Dravidian branch. I mean, this is kind of terrible. I remember hearing some say the wacos in Waco, right? But, you know, that was a horrible tragedy, the ATF and the FBI, and just the incredible stupidity on how they approached that whole situation. But these guys were extremists, sort of like the guys up there in Waco, but they took our entire city. They instituted polygamy, all sorts of crazy things, which most Anabaptists would never believe, but they were accused of being the Baptists. And guess what everybody thought? Whenever they ran into an Anabaptist, he's like those guys at Munster. You see? And this was played up. And, you know, in fact, you know, a lot of Baptist churches in this country right today are dropping the Baptist part of their name. You've noticed that? Just a great big one over here, right? Central.

20:54Part of that, I strongly believe, goes to a little group calling themselves. themselves a Baptist church is just one family. And if you know anything about them, they're not really Baptists at all. Anyone give me the name? Westboro Baptist Church. It is amazing how one little group can totally besmirch and just destroy the reputation of a much larger group. Sad to say. And I think to a certain extent that explains what happens with the Anabaptists. But the majority of them were not nuts. The majority of them had a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. They're very radical. And in terms of trying to literally live out the Sermon on the Mount, I don't know of any group that went further than they did trying to do that. And this is a good little illustration to leave you with. You know what that screw is there?

21:50Even when they are being executed, they would preach with their last breath, sometimes even from the flames. Remember what I told you about, Michael Sadler in a previous lecture? And Hubmeier as well. They would actually try to win people to Christ even as they're being burned. And so to stop them from doing that, they'd take that, put it over their tongue, and screw it up so they couldn't talk. You know, wouldn't even allow any last words before they were to be executed. You know. All right, so that's the Anabaptists. And you've got the monster.

22:31So the movement begins about 1527. Then Munster happened about 1534. The persecution had already started long before Munster, but Munster really sort of sealed their doom in terms of public opinion. And you have some places, I know one kingdom, the guy hired hundreds of people whose job was to go out and kill Anabaptists. And, of course, they flee all directions. And it is remarkable to me that any survive. But of course, we know you have Anabaptist groups that continue on today. The sad thing is, if we could resurrect their ancestors, they'd be horrified at what some of these groups have become today. Because one of the big things about the Anabaptists was evangelization, winning people to Christ. And if you know anything about the Amish or some of these other groups, they've turned totally inward. And they, you know, in fact, some cases, they won't even allow conversions into their group, you know, which is somewhat sad. Okay. Now, some basic terminology that may show up as we go forth. Soteriology, you know, Bro Tab likes to use that. And ecclesiology. Okay. Soteriology is the study of religious doctrines of salvation. Ecclesiology, study of the church, its origins, relation to Jesus, and its governance.

24:00Okay, and then eschatology. I think that one's one most of us do know. And that's the end times. And then, of course, the one I always weld on every lecture I give when we talk about religious history is denomination. Because everybody thinks they know what that means, right? Got the definition. This is the most current one, American Dictionary. A religious group whose beliefs differ in some ways from other groups in the same religion. Now, the older definition, I like better, a particular sect, right, group with a particular set of beliefs. Now, we have in this country this huge group calling themselves non-denominational, right? Maybe some of y'all have been part of a non-denominational church. Well, if you are in a group that believes it is non-denominational, guess what you have just become?

25:03Yeah, you are a new denomination. Yeah. And please understand that. You just can't get away from it, in fact. You know, it's just the way it is. And so just keep that in your back of your mind. And of course, we already had that transliteration, and I've already talked about why I want you to make sure you know that. Okay, so here's the deal. Let's try and get into it now. The English Baptists, you got two groups. You got the General Baptists, and you got the Particular Baptists. Now, I'm curious, of these two groups, which group do you think we would most identify with having not had the lecture yet?

25:50The particular Baptists. Very good. Yeah, the Particular Baptists. Most definitely. All right. So, the General Baptists, they get the name from they believe in general atonement. Now, I'm going to let Jeff handle the theology because I'll get off of the bushes real quick if I start getting to the theology. But that means they're Armenian. And my problem with that is what that means is you believe you can lose your salvation. And there's so many different things I could say about that, but just, you know, I'm pretty simplistic. Eternal life to me means eternal life. You can lose it, you ain't eternal. Right? Okay, so I have problems with that, but that's what they were. And yet, in many other ways, they're very similar, you know, to what you and I believe today in other areas. The particular Baptists believe in particular atonement, which means they're Calvinists in doctrine, believe that Christ's death was for the elect, and those who repented and believed on Christ's. Alone. Now, I have found that a lot of people are just automatically upset when you say the word John Calvin, not the word the name. And usually these are people that have never ever read John Calvin.

27:18He is probably one of the most mirrored personages in Protestant history. And so I want you to see what Calvin himself. I'm going to let Calvin speak for Calvin and not have any comment on it. Here you have from his commentary on, I think, a verse in the Bible we've all are familiar with, right? John 3:16, pretty dear to us Baptists, John 3:16. Here's what he says about it. And he has employed the universal term, whosoever, both to invite all indiscriminately to partake of life and to cut off every excuse from unbelievers. Such is also the import of the term world, which he formerly used for though nothing will be found in the world that is worthy of the favor of God, yet he shows himself to be reconciled, Latin propition, propitius, merciful, favorable to the whole world, when he invites all men without exception to faith of Christ, which is nothing else than entrance into life. Let us remember, on the other hand, that while While life is promised universally to all who believe in Christ, still faith is not common to all. For Christ is made known and held out to the view of all, but the elect alone are they whose eyes God opens, that they may seek him by faith. That last statement, where you think he gets that? Well, I think he probably got from right there. Okay. Who's speaking? You want to argue with this authority? Jesus. No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up on the last day. All right, so I guess my thing is, does that sound wild-eyed, crazy theology to you?

29:14To me, it was more or less like, duh. You know, this is, you know, just explain what the Scripture says. But anyway, there is, though, without doubt, a tension throughout Scripture between free will and predestination. We don't need to kid ourselves about that. And I'm sure some of you could have picked better verses, but the one, two just came to my mind were these two. And who's speaking up here? If it is evil in your eyes to serve the Lord, choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods of your fathers served in the region beyond the river, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.

30:00Right? Okay. All I know, I'm not the theologian that Jeff and Tom and others are. I just know that the Lord wants me to choose him. And I also know that I could not do that without him drawing me first. And in between those two is a mystery that I don't think anyone can understand. And I'm comfortable in that. How in the world do you think you can understand God's mind totally? He's God. We are mere mortals. I know he is holy, just, and righteous. I also know he is merciful and he loves me. And I can only have gratitude for that. And know and trust that he is just and he is fair. And how all that comes together, maybe, well, I know one day when I see him face to face, I will fully understand. Because right now we see through that mirror darkly, don't we? So anyway, just beware, they were struggling with this. And I don't think anything's changed, has it? Okay? And we got good brothers, you know, who.

31:30Are Armenian, and we got others who are Calvinist, and that will continue, you know, because different people have different views on that. So, one can observe, therefore, that wherever there's a Protestant reform movement, what I would call baptistic type groups seem to pop out of the woodwork. And by baptistic, maybe we shouldn't even use that word. I'm just saying people who start reading the Bible for themselves will start noticing that whatever the established church is, things aren't lining up with what Scripture says. And my suggestion to any of you is that if you find yourself in a church like that, you need to get in a church where it lines up with Scripture. And that's what I think the Baptists were doing. They were not satisfied with the Anglican church, which is Church of England, same thing. And they weren't even satisfied with the Puritan Separatist churches because they too had some areas that, particularly baptism, that they did not see as lining up with Scripture. And so that's what we're going to have happening here. Now, is on this point of infant baptism as being unbiblical that you have both the Anabaptists of the 1500s and the English Baptists of the 1600s being pretty much. Total agreement. Of course, the argument is, though, perhaps they came to the same conclusion, but by different routes. And you have to make up your own mind, you know, looking at the evidence where you think the truth lies there. But, you know, that's as I see it. So one could argue that there's certainly a biblical and spiritual connection between the two groups because obviously they saw the same problems. And with the General Baptists, however, you've got to go a little bit further because as we're about to see, there's an actual connection between the General Baptist and the Mennonites who are an a Baptist group. This is not quite as clear with the particular Baptist, but you may, some of you, be surprised to find out, yes, there's even a direct link, at least on one occasion, particularly on the issue of baptism, where the particular Baptist sought the advice of yet another Mennonite group. So here we go. Similarities and differences. I think this is kind of important that you do understand English Baptists, and we just go forth and say modern Baptists, because Baptists, good Greek guys, you know, we think of Luther, Lutherism, and Calvin-Calvinism, and yet the group that has become the largest denominational group in the world in terms of Protestants. Protestantism are Baptists. I mean, the largest Protestant denomination in the United States of America is what?

34:40Glad y'all said that since you are in a Southern Baptist Church. I know there's some folks that don't seem to realize they're in Southern Baptist Church, but yes, definitely. But we're just one of several Baptist groups in America. You realize that? You got the National Baptist, you got the Conservative Baptists, you got the Regular Baptists, you got the Northern Baptist. I mean, there's so many. And then you've got all these Independent Baptists. Honestly, I don't think anyone knows how many Baptists there really are in America.

35:13And then you've got all these groups that don't say they're Baptists, but they're Baptists. John MacArthur, I think, is a great example of that. He fits all the definitions for being Baptist, but has a different history in terms of how they got to going. But they're definitely Baptistic today. And of course, when I say Baptist, that is a big umbrella, which I'm not going to get into that right now, but that's something to think about as well. Both come out of the Reformation movement. Now, I know you've heard Baptists say, well, we really aren't from the Reformed movement. Well, I'm sorry. It definitely comes out of the Reform movement, you know, whatever group we want to look at. Both believe in belief. Believers baptism. Some call credo baptism, all right, or adult baptism. Both believed in priesthood of believers. I wish I had time to get into that whole thing, in the priesthood of the believers. It is so important in American history, particularly on the very concept of freedom of conscience. The Baptists had a huge impact on the way we think about freedom of conscience, which sadly seems to be slipping away now.

36:28And then both believed in having autonomous congregations. Now, this, I might point out, is both their greatest strength and at the same time, sometimes their greatest weakness. Right? You know, I have a colleague at college that he knew something about Baptist history, and he would always use a little slogan: Ah, the Baptists, divide and multiply the Baptist way. Okay, well, that can be negative, but it can also be very positive. I mean, in fact, I think it has mostly been positive in actual fact, but once again, what we always notice? Only the negative. I mean, we've all heard about these Baptist splits. In fact, one of the most ridiculous ones I heard of, Baptist Church, this is like a turn of the century. They had a big on-the-grounds picnic, and they got into a dispute over chicken drumstick.

37:28And it got to be such a big conversation. Conflict between the members there that they literally brought out big old cross-saws and they tr sawed the building in half. And one group took their half and went down the road. Okay? All right, so, yeah, but on the other hand, how many churches they're really, you know, on fire and living for the Lord? They got great leadership, the body's, you know, really doing what they should be doing as a body, and they plant churches and they plant more churches. And we're about to learn about one that is one of the plantiest churches I can imagine. And the funny thing about it was it wasn't Baptist, but almost all the churches, once they left, they became Baptists, which is an interesting story. But anyway, so you got, they also believe church and state should be separate. The trouble with the Anabaptists, though, is that they just condemned all government as being evil. In fact, it was so evil, you would be evil if you participated in that government. Now, English, starting with English Baptists and modern Baptists, they have a total different attitude. Maybe this comes from their Puritan heritage, but they were very involved in government and they had no problem. And they wanted Christian government officials because they recognized that everybody would benefit from Christians being in government. And so, you know, the English Baptists were very different from the Anabaptists on that score. And I think that might help to explain why the English Baptists were not slaughtered. Okay? You know, they also had big differences about the issue of pacifism. You know, the Anabaptists thought you should never ever bear arms for any reason, whereas most English Baptists, remember, they come out of the Puritan experience, and you had got the English Civil War. I just don't have time to go all the history of England, the background of what was going on here. But the Puritans were, you know, very much involved in the overthrow of King Charles I, and fighting right along beside these Puritans were a lot of Baptists. If you know anything about the American Revolution, the American Baptists were also very involved in the American Revolution.

39:58And if the war they considered to be a just war, good fighting against evil, they did not see a problem with joining in with that. So, see if I can finish up with this real quick. The big thing, too, they at least initially both believed in evangelism. But as I said, the Abaptists, I think because the horrendous persecution they went through, they drew back and just totally, you know. Almost like the ostrich putting his head in a hole in the ground, they stopped reaching out to the rest of the world. Whereas, you know, Ba English Baptists and then modern Baptists still remain one of the most evangelistic Christian groups in the world today. And they're constantly involved in planting churches and, of course, looking for the spread of the message of Christ to any and all all who will listen to it. And so, anyway, I think we've already covered most of that. So, let's get to it.

41:06All these Baptist groups that we're about to talk about, they really start coming together during the reigns of James I, Charles I, and the protectorate of Oliver Cromwell, you know, the Puritan dictator of England, and then, of course, Charles II and James II. And I'll make mention of these monarchs as we go through this. Now, the initial beginnings really get underway with this guy. This is James I, who was already James VI of Scotland. He's the first king named James in England, but he had been six James's kings of Scotland.

41:56A lot of interesting stuff about this guy. I wish I had time to go through it. Just off the top of my head, here is a guy chosen by Queen Elizabeth. You know, she's the last of the Tudor line. He's the closest Protestant heir, but anyone knows what's so strange about her choosing him? Other than the fact, of course, he's Scottish. And, you know, making a Scots king of England was something itself. His mother. Elizabeth was a Catholic, right? Well, no, his mother was Mary Queen of Scots. Who executed her?

42:36Elizabeth. So she chose the son of the woman she had killed to be her heir. Doesn't that kind of sound strange? All right. Now, he's raised Presbyterian, but when he comes to England, he is vociferously going to support the Anglican church. Anyone know why? You can kind of get it from this quotation here. Read this for me, Mr. Davis. The state of monarchy is the supremost thing upon earth, for kings are not only God's instruments upon earth and sit on God's throne, but even by God himself they are called gods. To dispute what God may do is blasphemy. So it is sedition in subjects to dispute what a king may do.

43:28Okay. Y'all are all Baptists in here. Does that just get your hackles up hearing that? Okay. And that's the Parliament, by the way, which is the leading, you know, the closest thing to democracy they got, and that's what he tells them first day. So we're in trouble here, aren't we? Now, this is the guy that all these Baptist groups are going to have to deal with, which I'm going to run through in a huge hurry, but not in five minutes. We're going to stop right here.