John Smyth (c. 1554 – c. 28 August 1612) was an English Anglican, Baptist, then Mennonite minister and a defender of the principle of religious liberty. Early life 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. Ministry He preached in the city of Lincoln in 1600 to 1602. In 1607, he broke with the Church of England and left for Holland where he, Thomas Helwys and his small congregation began to study the Bible ardently. He briefly returned to England. In the beginning, Smyth was closely aligned with his Anglican heritage. As time passed, his views evolved. Smyth's education at Cambridge included the "trivium" and "quadrivium" which included a heavy emphasis upon Aristotelian logic and metaphysics. Smyth's evolving ecclesiology was due to his applying biblical truth about the truth into numerous logical syllogisms. It was in Holland that Smyth discovered Anabaptist theology and retained its principles, notably on believer's baptism by immersion, opposed to infant baptism and the memorial of the last Supper, opposed to consubstantiation and transubstantiation. In 1608, he published The Differences of the Churches, in which he explained the characteristics of a biblical church: First, Smyth insisted that true worship comes from the heart and that there should be no books other than the Bible in worship. Praying, singing and preaching should be spontaneous only. He did not read the Bible translation during worship, preferring the original language version. Second, Smyth introduced a twofold church leadership, that of pastor and deacon and said that a church could have several pastors. Third, the financial support of the church should come only from the members and not from the government, because that would mean giving them control over the church. In 1609, Smyth, and Thomas Helwys, along with a group in Holland, came to believe in believer's baptism (thereby rejecting infant baptism) and they came together to form one of the earliest Baptist churches. He was utterly convinced that believer's baptism and a free church gathered by covenant were foundational to the church. Having been baptized as infants, like the Anabaptists of the Radical Reformation they came to believe they would need to be re-baptized. Since there was