Baptists ~ an Uninterupted Line?

I have a Muslim friend to whom I've tried to painstakingly show that Christians (true ones, who follow the Bible) were not involved in the Crusades against Muslims. The Roman Catholic church of the time, was "the" governmental power of much of Europe and Asia minor. Though it had emerged from the Biblical Christian faith, it had adopted teachings not of the Bible. The Roman Catholic Church was leading people away from the gospel of salvation by grace through faith alone in Jesus Christ alone, straight to hell. The true Christians were among those slain in the mass murders of the Crusades, that Christians of today are accussed of and blamed of being their descendents . And many Protestant Christians go around making apologies for the Crusades, as if that's a blemish on our past. It is no such thing for the true born-again followers of Christ.


There is a site I've linked on here, where I do increasingly more and more studying; http://www.reformedreader.org/. Their are many quotes, articles and sermons about Baptist faith and beliefs. C.H. Spurgeon, one of the greatest Baptist pastors of 19th Century in England, said this concerning the Baptist faith, and I thought it was really interesting.


We believe that the Baptists are the original Christians. We did not commence our existence at the reformation, we were reformers before Luther and Calvin were born; we never came from the Church of Rome, for we were never in it, but we have an unbroken line up to the apostles themselves. We have always existed from the days of Christ, and our principles, sometimes veiled and forgotten, like a river which may travel under ground for a little season, have always had honest and holy adherents. Persecuted alike by Romanists and Protestants of almost every sect, yet there has never existed a Government holding Baptist principles which persecuted others; nor, I believe, any body of Baptists ever held it to be right to put the consciences of others under the control of man. We have ever been ready to suffer, as our martyrologies will prove, but we are not ready to accept any help from the State, to prostitute the purity of the Bride of Christ to any alliance with Government, and we will never make the Church, although the Queen, the despot over the consciences of men.

—Charles H. Spurgeon

http://www.reformedreader.org/history/list.htm, accessed October 14, 2010.
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i.a In the early Middle Ages, investigation of heresy was a duty of the bishops. Alarmed especially by the spread of the Albigenses, the popes issued increasingly stringent instructions as to the methods for dealing with heretics. But they translated the New Testament into Provençal, and, soon after, those reading it for the first time saw, in the Scarlet Woman of Revelation, the Roman Church. In 1209, Innocent III lost his cool, and began preaching a crusade against the Albigenses.


The story of that crusade is a chapter in history that the Roman Catholic historians have done their best to obliterate.   
   H G Wells, Crux Ansata

The last discourse of S Dominic to the Albigenses betrays a man who, as Wells puts it, “has lost his faith in truth because his truth has not prevailed”:

For many years I have exhorted you in vain, with gentleness, preaching, praying and weeping. But according to the proverbs of my country, “Where blessing can accomplish nothing, blows may avail”, we shall arouse against you princes and prelates, who, alas! will arm nations and kingdoms against this land… and thus blows will avail where blessings and gentleness have been powerless.

http://www.askwhy.co.uk/christianheresy/0811Inquisition.php, accessed Oct. 14, 2010.

i.b Persecution by the Romans was rampant during the early centuries. It was not until the wedding of Church and State under Constantine in A.D. 313 that "Christians" began to persecute (true) Christians. While the Roman Catholic Church did not personally kill its opponents, the "State" to which it was wed did the work of killing those who opposed the Church's doctrines. It was this union which led to the bloodbath that ensued, and continued through the centuries. True believers were not allowed to worship and believe as the Bible taught. For their fidelity to Scripture, their reward was banishment, scourging, drowning, burning at the stake, etc. All this was because they strove to live a quiet life and follow the teachings of Scripture.


http://www.reformedreader.org/histb.htm, accessed Oct. 14, 2010.