Thomas Helwys
Member of John Smyth’s congregation in Amsterdam who led the party that kept its new baptism, issued a confession in 1611 and returned to England. His book of 1612 tells the king that he has no power over consciences.
John Robinson names Helwys as the first person John Smyth baptized after baptizing himself (Robinson, Of Religious Communion, Works 3, pp. 160, 162–163, 168). When Smyth came to doubt what they had done, Helwys held to it and accused him of sinning against the Holy Spirit (Smyth, Last Book, Works 2, pp. 756–757). The confession printed by his party in 1611 defines the church as believers joined by baptism on their own confession of faith and denies baptism to infants (Declaration of Faith (1611), art. 10, 13–14).
In 1612 he called on those who had fled abroad to come and lay down their lives in their own country (Helwys, Mystery of Iniquity, p. 212), and Robinson, writing in 1614, speaks of him and his people as being in London (Robinson, Of Religious Communion, Works 3, pp. 160, 162–163, 168). His book of 1612 says that the king has no authority over anyone’s religion and that it is not for the earthly power to punish heretics, Turks or Jews (Helwys, Mystery of Iniquity, p. 69). See the First Baptist Congregations.
In the timeline
- 1609, estimated dateThe First Baptist Congregations
English Separatists in Amsterdam, led by John Smyth, reject infant baptism and found their church anew by baptizing believers on confession of faith. Thomas Helwys leads part of the group back to London and argues that no king has power over conscience.
Primary sources
The Last Book of John Smyth, Called the Retractation of His Errors and the Confirmation of the Truth
- Smyth, Last Book, Works 2, pp. 756–757archive.org