The Price of Soul-Liberty and Who Paid It
A review of Henry Clay Fish’s account of Baptist contributions to soul-liberty.
The Price of Soul-Liberty and Who Paid It. By Henry C. Fish. Paris, AR: The Baptist Standard Bearer, Inc., 2008. 978-1-57- 978602-1
Introduction
Henry Clay Fish was born January 27, 1820, in Halifax, Vermont, to a Baptist pastor with a ministry centered in his own home that lasted more than four decades. Graduating from Union Theological Seminary in 1845, Fish soon after began his own pastoral career. For most of his adult life, he was the pastor of the First Baptist Church of Newark, NJ, a service that ended with his death in 1877. From his pastoral post in Newark, Fish was influential in the start and growth of other Baptist churches, in patriotic community activities during the Civil War, and in the growth of academic interest and institutions. Fish also wrote prolifically, authoring and publishing a score of books on preaching, revivals, and Christian living, as well as other subjects.
In this short book (The Price of Soul-Liberty and Who Paid It), Fish argued that “the people of the United States” are indebted to the Baptists “for that priceless boon of Religious Freedom.”[1] He wrote, “It is certain, beyond question, that the aspect of our institutions [i.e., those in America] had been entirely different, but for the influence of the Baptists.”[2] Baptists, he said, were persecuted in matters of religious conviction by all who had the opportunity, but they alone, among all other Christian denominations, never responded in kind. Fish’s aim in this volume was to encourage contemporary and future Baptists to enjoy the fruit of their forebears' labors with gratitude and also to embrace a commitment to continue laboring in their own fields for soul-liberty.
Oversimplified And Erroneous History
The overall emphasis on Baptist advocacy and activism for freedom of conscience is appropriate. Fish was right to perceive a unique experience and effort among Baptists in England and America, during the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries, regarding the development of religious liberty. Baptists did suffer much at the hands of their Christian brethren who held civil influence and power. Thus, it is important for us today to know and remember what happened and how we arrived at our present moment.
However, historical accounts of Baptists beliefs and actions must be scrupulously accurate in order to sustain the pressure of prudent application. This is even more necessary when the author intends to lay moral imperative upon the reader. Unfortunately, Fish did not deliver on this point. His history is generally oversimplified, and it is even misleading at times. With some facts of historical development, he is either ignorant or dishonest, but the result is the same – his history is untrustworthy, his imperatives unimposing.
For example, Fish oversimplified the subject at hand by conflating “soul-liberty,” “liberty of conscience,” and “religious freedom.” These concepts are certainly related, but they are not synonymous. Indeed, Baptists of various sorts have defined these differently, and Baptists have come to different conclusions about how these should be understood and practiced.
Fish defined his understanding of soul-liberty in the first sentence of this book. He said that soul-liberty is “the liberty to think and act in religious matters without human dictation or control.”[3] He went on to say, “Everything pertaining to religion, must be a matter of intelligent conviction and voluntary choice.”[4] Near the end of the book, Fish claimed that “Soul-Liberty” was “incorporated into the Constitution of the Federal Union,” adopted in 1787 and amended in 1789.[5] This, he said, was to “secure still more perfectly religious freedom.” And yet, some states in the Union at that time still had established churches, and there were still laws on the books regarding blasphemy and Sabbath-breaking. Fish’s own definition and record is not compatible with the reality because he oversimplified the concept he attempted to explain and promote.
So too, Fish misled the reader at various points in his description of historical developments. For example, Fish wrote, “Baptists, who were formerly called Anabaptists, and in later times Mennonites, were the original Waldenses… the Baptists may be considered as the only Christian community which has stood since the days of the Apostles, and as a Christian society which has preserved pure the doctrines of the Gospel through all the ages.”[6] Such a historical claim betrays Fish’s ignorance. Some of the earliest English Baptists aggressively distinguished themselves from Anabaptists, arguing that seventeenth-century English Baptists were wrongly associated with Anabaptists, and the claim of a historic Baptist lineage that extends unbroken from the Apostles to today has been thoroughly exposed as farcical.
Fish also claimed, “At a very early day the Baptists published their ‘Confessions of Faith,’ to show precisely what they did believe,” and then Fish went on to cite article eighty-four of the posthumously published “Propositions and Conclusions” which were attributed to John Smyth in 1612.[7] This confession, however, was published after Thomas Helwys’s Declaration of Faith, which was a clear departure from Smyth and the Anabaptist sentiments that Smyth seemed to embrace during and after the former pair’s separation. In Smyth’s Propositions and Conclusions, article eighty-five clearly states that a Christian cannot truly follow Christ and simultaneously bear the sword of civil government.[8]Helwys affirmed quite the opposite in 1611, and Helwys (not Smyth) is representative of later Baptists, both in England and America.
Conclusion
Baptists have indeed been united on fundamental distinctives throughout history, such as believer’s baptism, congregationalism, and the disestablishment of state churches. However, Baptists have never been a uniform bunch on the definition of soul-liberty or their expectations about how such a thing should be fostered or preserved by civil magistrates. The history and development of Baptists is vitally important for every generation, and the complicated reality is worth knowing and telling. Only after we properly understand our roots can we better recognize our shoots and subsequently cultivate Baptist fruit that will be a blessing to all.
[1] p. 90.
[2] p. 91.
[3] p. 19.
[4] p. 20.
[5] p. 89.
[6] p. 23.
[7] William Latane Lumpkin, Baptist Confessions of Faith, ed. Bill Leonard, Second Revised (Valley Forge, PA: Judson Press, 2011). 123, 140.
[8] Lumpkin, Baptist Confessions of Faith. 140.