Trail of Blood - Introduction
By Clarence Walker
I
Dr. J. M. Carroll, the author of this book, was born in the state of
Arkansas, January 8, 1858, and died in Texas, January 10, 1931. His father,
a Baptist preacher, moved to Texas when Brother Carroll was six years old.
There he was converted, baptized, and ordained to the Gospel ministry.
Dr. Carroll not only became a leader among Texas Baptist, but an outstanding
figure of Southern Baptists, and of the world.
Years ago he came to our church and brought the messages found in this
book. It was then I became greatly interested in Brother Carroll's studies.
I, too, had made a special research in Church History, as to which is the
oldest Church and most like the churches of the New Testament.
Dr. J. W. Porter attended the lectures. He was so impressed he told
Brother Carroll if he would write the messages he would publish them in
a book. Dr. Carroll wrote the lectures and gave Dr. Porter the right to
publish them along with the chart which illustrates the history so vividly.
However, Dr. Carroll died before the book came off the press, but Dr.
Porter placed them before the public and the whole edition was soon sold.
Now, by the grace of God, we are able to present this 66th edition of 20,000.
I want to ask all who read and study these pages to join me in prayer and
work that an ever-increasing number shall go forth.
"To make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery which from
the beginning of the world hath been hid in God, who created all things
by Christ Jesus; to the intent that now unto the principalities and powers
in Heavenly places might be known by the Church, the manifold wisdom of
God ... unto Him be glory in the Church by Christ Jesus throughout all
ages, world without end, Amen."
(Eph. 3:9-10, 21)
II
It was wonderful to hear Dr. Carroll tell how he became interested in
the history of the different denominations--ESPECIALLY THEIR ORIGIN. He
wrote the book after he was 70 years old, but he said, "I was converted
unto God when I was just a boy. I saw the many denominations and wondered
which was the church the Lord Jesus founded."
Even in his youth he felt that in the study of the Scriptures and history,
he could find the church which was the oldest and most like the churches
described in the New Testament.
This research for the truth led him into many places and enabled him
to gather one of the greatest libraries on church history. This library
was given at his death to the Southwestern Baptist Seminary, Ft. Worth,
Texas.
He found much church history--most of it seemed to be about the Catholics
and Protestants. The history of Baptists, he discovered, was written in
blood. They were the hated people of the Dark Ages. Their preachers and
people were put into prison and untold numbers were put to death. The world
has never seen anything to compare with the suffering, the persecutions,
heaped upon Baptists by the Catholic Hierarchy during the Dark Ages. The
Pope was the world's dictator. This is why the Ana-Baptists, before the
Reformation, called the Pope The Anti-Christ.
Their history is written in the legal documents and papers of those
ages. It is through these records that the "TRAIL OF BLOOD" winds its way
as you find such statements--
"At Zurich, after many disputations between Zuinglius and the Ana-Baptists,
the Senate made an Act, that if any presume to re-baptize those who were
baptized before (i.e. as infants) they should be drowned. At Vienna many
Ana-Baptists were tied together in chains that one drew the other after
him into the river, wherein they were all suffocated (drowned)."
(Vida Supra, p. 61)
"In the year of our Lord 1539 two Ana-Baptists were burned beyond Southwark,
and a little before them 5 Dutch Ana-Baptists were burned in Smithfield,"
(Fuller, Church History.)
"In 1160 a company of Paulicians (Baptists) entered Oxford. Henry II
ordered them to be branded on the forehead with hot irons, publicly whipped
them through the streets of the city, to have their garments cut short
at the girdles, and be turned into the open country. The villages were
not to afford them any shelter or food and they perished a lingering death
from cold and hunger." (Moore, Earlier and Later Nonconformity in Oxford,
p. 12.)
The old Chronicler Stowe, A.D. 1533, relates:
"The 25th of May--in St. Paul's Church, London--examined 19 men and
6 women. Fourteen of them were condemned; a man and a woman were
burned at Smithfield, the other twelve of them were sent to towns there
to be burned."
Froude, the English historian, says of these Ana-Baptist martyrs--
"The details are all gone, their names are gone. Scarcely the facts
seem worth mentioning. For them no Europe was agitated, no court
was ordered in mourning, no papal hearts trembled with indignation. At
their death the world looked on complacent, indifferent or exulting. Yet
here, out of 25 poor men and women were found 14, who by no terror of stake
or torture could be tempted to say they believed what they did not believe.
History has for them no word of praise, yet they, too, were not giving
their blood in vain. Their lives might have been as useless as the lives
of most of us. In their death they assisted to pay the purchase of English
freedom."
Likewise, in writings of their enemies as well as friends, Dr. Carroll
found, their history and that their trail through the ages was indeed bloody:
Cardinal Hosius (Catholic, 1524), President of the Council of Trent:
"Were it not that the baptists have been grievously tormented and cut
off with the knife during the past twelve hundred years, they would swarm
in greater number than all the Reformers." (Hosius, Letters, Apud Opera,
pp. 112, 113.)
The "twelve hundred years" were the years preceding the Reformation
in which Rome persecuted Baptists with the most cruel persecution thinkable.
Sir Isaac Newton:
"The Baptists are the only body of known Christians that have never
symbolized with Rome."
Mosheim (Lutheran):
"Before the rise of Luther and Calvin, there lay secreted in almost
all the countries of Europe persons who adhered tenaciously to the principles
of modern Dutch Baptists."
Edinburg Cyclopedia (Presbyterian):
"It must have already occurred to our readers that the Baptists are
the same sect of Christians that were formerly described as Ana-Baptists.
Indeed this seems to have been their leading principle from the time of
Tertullian to the present time."
Tertullian was born just fifty years after the death of the Apostle
John.
III
Baptists do not believe in Apostolic Succession. The Apostolic office
ceased with the death of the Apostles. It is to His churches that He promised
a continual existence from the time He organized the first one during His
earthly ministry until He comes again. He promised--
"I will build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against
it." (Matt. 16:18)
Then, when He gave the great Commission, which tells what His churches
are to do, He promised--
"I will be with you alway, even unto the end of the age."
(Matt. 28:20)
This Commission--this work--was not given to the Apostles as individuals,
but to them and the others present in their church capacity. The Apostles
and the others who heard Him give this Commission were soon dead--BUT,
His Church has lived on through the ages, making disciples (getting folks
saved), baptizing them, and teaching the truth--the doctrines--He committed
to the Jerusalem Church. These faithful churches have been blessed with
His presence as they have traveled the TRAIL OF BLOOD.
This history shows how the Lord's promise to His churches has been fulfilled.
Dr. Carroll shows that churches have been found in every age which have
taught the doctrines He committed unto them. Dr. Carroll calls these doctrines
the "marks" of New Testament Churches.
"MARKS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT CHURCH"
1. Its Head and Founder--CHRIST. He is the law-giver; the Church is
only the executive.
(Matt. 16:18;
Col. 1:18)
2. Its only rule of faith and practice--THE BIBLE.
(II Tim. 3:15-17)
3. Its name--"CHURCH," "CHURCHES."
(Matt. 16:18;
Rev. 22:16)
4. Its polity--CONGREGATIONAL--all members equal.
(Matt. 20:24-28
; Matt. 23:5-12)
5. Its members--only saved people.
(Eph. 2:21
; I Peter 2:5)
6. Its ordinances--BELIEVERS' BAPTISM, FOLLOWED BY THE LORD'S SUPPER.
(Matt. 28:19-20)
7. Its officers--PASTORS AND DEACONS.
(I Tim. 3:1-16)
8. Its work--getting folks saved, baptizing them (with a baptism that
meets all the requirements of God's Word), teaching them ("to observe all
things whatsoever I have commanded you").
(Matt. 28:16-20)
9. Its financial plan--"Even so (TITHES and OFFERINGS) hath the Lord
ordained that they which preach the gospel should live of the gospel,"
(I Cor. 9:14)
10. Its weapons of warfare--spiritual, not carnal.
(II Cor. 10:4
; Eph.6:10-20)
11. Its independence--separation of Church and State.
(Matt. 22:21)
IV
In any town there are many different churches--all claiming to be the
true church. Dr. Carroll did as you can do now--take the marks, or teachings,
of the different churches and find the ones which have these marks, or
doctrines. The ones which have these marks, or doctrines, taught in God's
Word, are the true churches.
This, Dr. Carroll has done, to the churches of all ages. He found many
had departed from "these marks, or doctrines." Other churches, however,
he found had been true to these marks" in every day and age since Jesus
said,
"I will build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it."
(Matt. 16:18)
"I will be with you alway, even unto the end of the age."
(Matt. 28:21)
Or to express it differently, but still expressively--"A history of
the Doctrines as taught by Christ, and His Apostles and those who have
been loyal to them."
Copyright 1931, Ashland Avenue Baptist Church, Lexington, Kentucky