In Defense of "The Trail of Blood" by J M Carrol
(Defense Written by Mr Maranatha)
Recently I came across several bashers who were knowingly misrepresenting this authors work.
This Blog is being written in response and rebuttal of those bashers who would malign the work of a dead man who is not here to either explain his work or defend his position
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
Dr JM Carrol never saw the finished product of this book. It was published and distributed after the time of his death.
This link will take you to the Book … http://members.aol.com/libcfl/trail.htm
It will be my pleasure to go back through the basher's articles I have found online and to read them again and post them here... with the rebuttals that they are demanding of a dead man...
Answer's at least from the viewpoint of someone who has read the whole book and not just the Cliff notes or the pieces of other peoples posts...
I have been studying this issue for sometime now... and no, I am not a Harvard 0r Oxford Grad on history... but I have enough knowledge of this subject to see through the intentional deception that is being perpetrated by the so-called "Experts".
I don’t mind it so much when a person posts a wrong thing in ignorance of the facts... that is entirely possible in any study of history and religious beliefs... I dont even mind when someone attacks a legitimate weak point... but what annoys me to no end is when I read a person's rebuttal of this book and know full well that the individual knows more on the subject than they are telling and then they are intentionally maligning the details and ignoring material facts (that they are aware of) in order to sway an ignorant populace who just wants to receive some truth.
Understand the two sides of this Debate...
The Baptist side is that side taken by a man attempting to reconcile the past of his churches religious beliefs with a verse in the Bible which says that Christ’s church will not end before the Lord's return…
(Mt 16:18 And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. (KJV))
J M Carrol and other Christians today know that they are saved and that the Real Church is still here… It has to be because Christ Promised it would be…But in the secular world History we only see a continual visible Church presence in the “RC” and "GO"church.
(RC=Roman Catholic GO= Greek Orthadox)
This has caused many of us to do deeper studies into the church history looking for threads of truth as to our heritage.
Remember that secular History is written mostly by the Conquerors…
The other side of this issue is taken by many who follow other Church affiliations… some are RC some Methodists and still others Presbyterians, Lutherans, Anglicans and the rest… (And so called "Baptists" who have studied under Professors of Theology from these other Denominations)
The other side by its world view Must stand against Baptist Succession... Because if there is any truth to it... then it will show their position as the wrong one and show them to be apostates and in fact false apostles and teachers...
The word Baptist can be both Inclusive and Exclusive. It appears to me that the author while he Excludes the RC church from his definition of Baptist (for obvious Reasons) and while he separates the Protestants from the Baptists because they came out directly from the RC. (not rather emerging from hiding) He is not doing so to condemn the Protestants but rather to show difference between them and the line of Baptist which he believes has always been there in the shadows behind the whole Reformation.
In effect he is trying to show that a Baptist (you might say a "sola scriptura") Undercurrent has always been the catalyst behind the scenes. and that whenever this undercurrent was discovered it was viciously ferreted out and persecuted because of its potential as the true Church VS the Established State Religion.
This however becomes an emediate problem: The Protestants by not being catagorized as Baptist are then sorted into the catagory of Non-Baptist. Also as the author pointed out; the Protestants have also been guilty of the blood of Baptists... Even in our own United States history we see that this was one of the reasons for the first ammendment and the seperation of church and state talk that has been taken so far out of context as to promote the reverse of its inteded meaning. In another Blog we may discuss "The truth behind the Baptist Presence in American History".
Their side of this issue (The RC side) starts with several Biases (Due to weak Theology) that must be protected at all cost. For if one looks to close at the issue and admits truth on the part of your adversary then one must admit the fallacy of their position and that the establishment is in need of changes. These changes being the primary differences between them and their Baptist Counterparts must therefore never be admitted or addressed. Instead they must address the issues differently by attacking the weaker points in the book (written by a man now dead 77 years) and ignoring the points which are strong and in some cases are far more relevant.
For starters lets look at A few Commonly Miss-taught Verses….
Mt 16: 18 And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. {Peter: this name signifies a rock}
19 And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.
In these verses many Catholics find the hope that Jesus gave Peter the Keys of heaven and that the Catholic Church was built upon the apostle Peter.
But when you take these verses in their original context an entirely different picture emerges.
Understand that the people who study Church history are in the know about this verse… they are not ignorant of its true in context meaning… but they willfully overlook that truth in order to promote their own theological biases.
Lets look at it in context and in depth…
Matthew 16:13 ¶ When Jesus came into the coasts of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, saying, Whom do men say that I the Son of man am?
14 And they said, Some say that thou art John the Baptist: some, Elias; and others, Jeremias, or one of the prophets.
15 He saith unto them, But whom say ye that I am?
16 And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.
17 And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven.
18 And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter (Petros),
and upon this rock (Petra)
I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. {Peter: this name signifies a rock}
19 And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.
Petros 4074. petrov Petros, pet'-ros
apparently a primary word; a (piece of) rock (larger than 3037); as a name, Petrus, an apostle:--Peter, rock. Compare 2786.
Petra 4073. petra petra, pet'-ra
feminine of the same as 4074; a (mass of) rock (literally or figuratively):--rock.
Now understand that a Piece of a rock is smaller than a Mass of rock…
Now look at what IT is in Verse 17
"And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee"
The subject IT is the testimony that Peter had just made… “…Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.”
Now you have the Foundational Mass of Rock that the church would be built upon… the foundation that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God!!!
And yes Jesus did give the keys… Not necessarily to Peter himself but to the Church…
This is a simple Greek study. Too simple for one of those so called “Theologians” to get wrong… I’m not a Greek scholar but even I know this one…
Please remember as well.... J M Carrol did his work without the use of modern Computer search engines and the like... The work he did was painstaking and time consuming and represented countless hours of pouring over old books and the works of religious leaders and theologians from many ages... This work of his needs to be given more respectful treatment.
Several things are often completely Ignored when the bashers attack this book. Instantly they dismiss the quotes that are in the first few pages of the book.... they skip over these in a hope that noone will notice them since they are specifically attacking something else in the authors words... that is a typical tactic in war... dont attack the strogest point in his argument... attack the weakest point... I understand...
But for the sake of readers who havent read the book from cover to cover and who are only seeing the attacks... Lets look at some of the historical quotes that the book makes and see if they are valid...
Fair enough?
"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.)
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."
Last in this list of my favorite historical quotes from The Trail of Blood... is this one from:
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.
I have tried to track down the Edinburg Cyclopedia (Presbyterian) and in this case although I occasionaly find references to such a document it seems that it was some sort of internal publication that is relatively unknown today... If anyone can shed some light on this please by all means do so. Do we have a Presbyter in the house? May have been from around 1856 or it may have been earlier I dont know. I'm still trying to track this one down.
Here are some more good historical quotes of Baptist succession history:
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Historical Statements Concerning Baptists and their Origins
Edited by B. Myron Cedarholm
We are not ones to "beat a denominational drum," we are Independent Baptists by choice and believe fundamental Baptist doctrines (not necessarily the name "Baptist") can be directly traced to the time of Christ as the following quotes testify.
Historians testify that local churches; which hold the doctrines, beliefs, and practices of today's Bible-believing, separatist Baptists; have had continuous existence since the days of Christ. This cannot be said of any other church, churches, or religious organization. Here are a few statements by historians and religious leaders (only one of them a Baptist) regarding the history of the Baptists:
Sir Isaac Newton said,
"The Baptists are the only body of known Christians that have never symbolized with Rome."
SINCE THE APOSTLES
Ypeij and Dermout, eminent historians of the Dutch Reformed Church said,
"The Baptists may be considered as the only Christian community that has stood since the days of the apostles, and as a Christian society has preserved pure the doctrine of the Gospel through all the ages."
Alexander Campbell, founder of the Campbellites (Christian Church or Disciples of Christ) who rigorously opposed Baptists during the 19th century, wrote,
"The sentiments of Baptists and their practice of baptism from the apostolic age to the present, have had a continued chain of advocates, and public monuments of their existence in every century can be produced."
Robert Barclay, a Quaker historian, says of Baptists,
"We shall afterward show that the rise of the Anabaptists took place prior to the Reformation of the Church of England, and there are also reasons for believing that on the continent of Europe, small hidden Christian societies, who have held many of the opinions of the Anabaptists, have existed from the times of the apostles. In the sense of the direct transmission of divine truth, and the true nature of spiritual religion, it seems probable that these churches have a lineage or succession more ancient than that of the Roman Church."
John Clark Ridpath, doubtlessly the greatest historian the world has ever produced and a Methodist by denomination, said,
"I should not readily admit that there was a Baptist church as far back as 100 A.D., although without doubt there were Baptist churches then, as all Christians were then Baptists."
Mosheim, an outstanding Lutheran historian, said,
"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 the modem Dutch Baptists... the origin of Baptists is lost in the remote depths of antiquity... the first century was a history of Baptists."
Zwingli, a Presbyterian co-laborer with John Calvin, said,
"The institution of the Anabaptists is no novelty, but for 1300 years has caused great trouble in the church." Catholic Cardinal Hosius, President of the Council of Trent from 1545 to 1564, said, "Were it not for the fact that the Baptists have been grievously tormented and cut off with the knife during the past 1200 years, they would swarm greater than all the reformers If the truth of religion were to be judged by the readiness and boldness of which a man or any sect shows in suffering, then the opinions and persuasions of no sect can be truer and surer than those of the Anabaptist, since there have been none for the 1200 years past that have been more generally punished or that have been more cheerfully and steadfastly undergone, and have offered themselves to the most cruel sort of punishment than these people:'
"Crossing the Centuries" edited by William C. King, says,
"Of the Baptists it may be said that they are not reformers. These people. comprising bodies of Christian believers known under various names in different countries, are entirely distinct and independent of the Roman and Greek churches, and have an unbroken continuity of existence from apostolic days down through the centuries Throughout this long perio they were bitterly persecuted for heresy, driven from country to country. disfranchised, deprived of their property, imprisoned, tortured and slain by the thousands; and yet they swerved not from their New Testament faith, doctrine, and adherence."
Spurgeon said,
"History has hitherto been written by our enemies, who never would have kept a single fact about us upon the record if they could have helped it, and yet it leaks out every now and then that certain poor people called Anabaptists (Anabaptist was the name given to Baptists before the 16th century. "Ana" means "again," but the entire name, Anabaptist, was applied to those who believed and practiced what Bible-believing, separatist Baptists do today) were brought up for condemnation. From the days of Henry VIII to those of Elizabeth, we hear of certain unhappy heretics who were hated of all men for the truth's sake that was in them. We read of poor men and women, with their garments cut short, turned out into the fields to perish in the cold, and anon of others who were burnt at Newington for the crime of Anabaptism. Long before your Protestants were known of, those horrible Anabaptists, as they were unjustly called, were protesting for the 'one Lord, one faith, and one baptism.' No sooner did the visible church begin to depart from the Gospel than these m e n arose to keep fast by the good old way The priests and monks wished for peace and slumber, but there was always a Baptist or a Lollard tickling men's ears with Holy Scriptures, and calling their attention to the errors of the times. They were a poor persecuted tribe. The halter was thought to be too good for them. At times, ill-written history would have us think that they died out, so well had the wolf done his work on the sheep. Yet here we are, blessed and multiplied, and Newington sees other scenes from Sunday to Sunday As I think of the multitudes of your numbers and efforts, I can only say in wonder, 'What a growth!' As I think of the multitudes of our brethren in America, I can only say, 'What hath God wrought!' Our history forbids discouragements."
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More to come
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