John Smyth

John Smyth was an English Separatist minister who helped establish the General Baptist movement in the early seventeenth century. He led an English congregation in exile in the Netherlands and came to reject infant baptism.

English Separatism: A movement of English Protestants who rejected the Church of England and formed independent congregations. Smyth’s ministry grew from Separatist opposition to the established church.
Believer's baptism: Baptism administered to people who profess their own faith, rather than to infants. Smyth adopted believer’s baptism and baptized members of his congregation.
John Robinson: An English Separatist pastor who led the Leiden congregation associated with the Mayflower emigrants. Robinson belonged to the same exile community as Smyth but led a separate congregation.
First Baptist Church in Amsterdam: An English-speaking congregation in Amsterdam associated with Smyth and the beginnings of Baptist history. This congregation embodied Smyth’s turn to believer’s baptism.
Scrooby congregation: A Separatist congregation in Nottinghamshire whose members later emigrated to the Netherlands. Smyth became minister to this congregation before its members’ Dutch exile.
Infant baptism: The practice of baptizing infants, usually on the basis of parental faith or church membership. Smyth came to reject the practice that he had earlier accepted.
William Bradford: A leader of the Plymouth Colony and author of an early history of the settlement. Bradford recorded controversies involving Smyth and the English exiles in the Netherlands.
First Baptist Church in England: A Baptist congregation established in London by Thomas Helwys and associates around 1612. Helwys’s return to England carried forward a strand of the movement Smyth had helped form.
Amsterdam: The capital of the Netherlands and a refuge for English religious exiles in the early seventeenth century. Smyth’s congregation settled here, where its beliefs and practices changed.
General atonement: The theological view that Christ’s atoning work is offered to all people. This doctrine distinguishes the General Baptist tradition associated with Smyth.

Linked from 1 page

BaptistsRelated: His congregation is often identified as the first English Baptist church.