John Smyth (1570–1612)

John Smyth (c. 1570 – c. 28 August 1612) was an early Baptist minister of England and a defender of the principle of religious liberty. Historians consider John Smyth a founder of the Baptist churches.

Smyth is thought to have been the son of John Smyth, a yeoman of Sturton-le-Steeple, Nottinghamshire. He was educated locally at the grammar school in Gainsborough and in Christ's College, Cambridge, where he became a Fellow in 1594.

Smyth was ordained as an Anglican priest in 1594 in England. He preached in the city of Lincoln in 1600 to 1602. Soon after his ordination, he broke with the Church of England and left for Holland where he and his small congregation began to study the Bible ardently. He briefly returned to England.

In 1609, Smyth, along with a group in Holland, came to believe in believer's baptism (therby rejecting infant baptism) and they came together to form one of the earliest Baptist churches. Baptists generally believe that baptism is a sign of obedience to God. Baptists also believe that baptism by immersion is pictorially symbolic of the cleansing from sin and of the spiritual regeneration freely offered by the faith in the virgin birth, sinless life and the crucifixion, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ as the prophesied Messiah and the Son of God. Likewise, they believe that baptism does not save one from sin, but is a believer's identification with the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ. This is why Baptists reject the notion of infant baptism, because they believe baptism follows and identifies with belief in Jesus Christ.

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