In determining who were the first Baptists, you must first identify who you are referring to. You could mean those persons or churches which held to the Baptists beliefs although they may not have called themselves Baptists.

Or second, you could be referring to those who held to Baptist beliefs and were called by the name Baptist.

The first group those who held Baptist beliefs ( which means the teachings of the New Testament), yet were not called Baptists,  are difficult to trace in history. Some Baptist historians, have made attempts at doing this, but in many cases those they refer to groups as early Baptists who did not in fact hold to pure Baptist beliefs as held today.

   They try to establish that "according to history, Baptist have an unbroken line of churches since Christ". (Quote from Dr. J.M. Carroll's booklet "The Trail of Blood")

These historians, in an attempt to show an unbroken line of Baptists in history, have embraced groups which were clearly not doctrinal sound. In the simplest of terms a true Baptist is one which follows the New Testament as his sole authority for his faith and practice.

      Whether these groups of believers called themselves Baptists or not if they were doctrinally pure following the New Testament for their polity and doctrine they were  New Testament churches and thus they can be called Baptist.

In examining many so-called early "Baptist" churches you find many doctrinal errors and false teaching. Surely, no church that practiced the  false doctrine as many of these groups did can in truth be called a Baptist church.   It is my conviction that it is not possible to "trace" an unbroken line of Baptist churches from Christ until today.

    However, let me strongly say there has always existed an unbroken line of churches who have not erred from the faith, and been true to the Bible, God's Word.    In fact Jesus emphatically stated in Matt. 16:18, concerning the church, that even "the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." These churches have always existed from the time of Christ and the Apostles until today.

   To call these people Baptists, in the sense that the believed the Bible and followed it as their sole authority for faith and practice, in the way same Baptist churches do today, is acceptable,  although it serves no purpose. To go so far as to say there is a unbroken line or succession of Baptist churches from the time of Christ until today cannot be shown from history.

The importance of these churches was not in their name, but in what they believed and practiced. These churches patterned themselves strictly after the New Testament example, and this made them valid churches approved of God. This is the true heritage that the Fundamental Baptists holds dear, that there have always been churches which submitted themselves only to the sole authority of the Word of God.

There were always groups and sects which held to the truth. However, as earlier stated, these groups were rarely in the spot light of history.  For an example there is Patrick of Ireland. Patrick was born in Scotland in 360 AD and sold into slavery at age sixteen and carried to Ireland. Later, he escaped and became a Christian missionary. Although the Roman Catholic Church claims him as one of their "saints,"  there is no evidence he even knew the Catholic church existed. In his writings he appears totally ignorant of the practices of the Roman Church and never refers to church councils, creeds, traditions or even to the existence of a pope.

There was no hierarchy in the churches he founded, which were patterned after the simple New Testament example. These churches were very missions minded and formed schools to train preachers and missionaries. Later in history, under Roman Catholic influence these missionary centers digressed into monasticism.

However, history is clear that in the beginning and also into the 9th Century these churches were sound in doctrine and practicing the faith of the New Testament. These churches are good examples of Bible believing churches that existed independent of the Roman Catholic Church, and were for some time not corrupted by its influences. They were in fact churches founded on the same New Testament principles that modern day Baptists traditionally founded their churches.

Some have pointed to the Anabaptists as the examples of early Baptist churches. This again can not be proven from history. The Anabaptists were mostly a God fearing group of people. They loved the Lord and many of them gave their lives and fortunes for the sake of Christ. However, history does not record even one Anabaptist group or church becoming or founding a Baptist church. Most of the Anabaptists successors became the Mennonites, Amish and Quakers. Not one Baptist church can show in its history a direct succession from the Anabaptists.

Many Anabaptists churches were strong New Testament churches believing and following the Word of God. Other Anabaptists groups were in gross error and corrupted. As with any true New Testament church, its validity as a true church approved of God, does not nor or ever did rest on it name or upon a succession of churches, but on its adherence to the principles of God's Word.

Some Baptist churches believe in a succession of Baptist churches who passed down the authority to baptize and give the Lord's Supper. 

  It is my conviction that this is contrary to the very foundation of what is a true New Testament church.   A true New Testament church bases its faith,  practice and authority solely in the Word of God.   To hold to the "secessionist" position takes the authority away from the New Testament and places it in the hands of man.

  Secessionism is the gross error of Catholicism.   God said He would preserve His church and that task was not left in the hands of  fallible men or groups.  God,  I believe deliberately used isolated groups in many different places during time to preserve His church and did not choose to use a line or chain of churches to past His Word and authority on to the next generation.

   He preserved His word and the Word preserved a true Gospel witness during every moment of history since Pentecost.   What possible value is there in appealing to a supposed unbroken line of Baptist churches as a church's authority.

   There is every value in appealing only to present aberrance to the New Testament as one's sole authority for faith and practice.

    The best illustration of this point can be made this way.   Suppose an airplane flew over some completely isolated country that had no past or present contact with anyone else in the world.  Further, suppose that a Bible somehow was to fall from the plane and the inhabitants of this isolated land were to be able to pick up that Bible and read the text from themselves.

   Suppose too that some of them upon reading that Bible were to believe and repent of their sins and  place their trust in God's Son and His redemption for personal sin.   These new believers would then following the New Testament example would submit to believer's baptism and  organize a local church.

  That local body of baptized believers would be as valid a true New Testament church as any church Christ ever founded.   Why, because it was founded on God's Word

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