The Character of the Beast, or The False Constitution of the Church
John Smyth’s defence, printed in 1609, of his congregation’s rejection of infant baptism and its new beginning by the baptism of confessing believers. It is the statement of the case by the man who led the change.
The book is cast as a written exchange with Richard Clifton, a minister among the English Separatists, whose arguments Smyth prints and answers in turn. Its title page states the two points at issue: that infants are not to be baptized, and that those converted from “Antichristian” churches are to be received into the true church by baptism. The preface explains why Smyth and his people had moved from Puritanism to Separatism and then to “true Christian baptism”.
It is a primary source for what Smyth taught and for the fact that the group had baptized itself, which he defends as “that which is done by us” without describing the occasion. The account of who baptized whom comes from an opponent, John Robinson, in Of Religious Communion, Private and Public. It is cited in the First Baptist Congregations.
Cited in
- 1609, estimated date