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AUGSBURG was the headquarters of Baptists in Southern Germany. It was a rich city with a large laboring class, whose chief comfort sprang from the Gospel. Dr. Osgood writes that in 1527 the Baptist church there numbered 800 members. [Bap. Qu. Rev., iii, 332] When Hetzer was a young man he gathered the first company of Baptists there, 1524. After him JOHN DENK became their leader. [Keller, ein Apostel der Wiedertaufer, p. 101] Uhlhorn speaks of him as intellectual, of elegant manners, classical culture and profound nature. He was born in Bavaria, near the close of the fifteenth century, and studied at Basel. He graduated a first-class Latin, Greek and Hebrew scholar. For a time he acted as proof-reader to two publishers in Basel and attended the lectures of Œcolampadius, who procured for him the position of principal in St. Sebald’s school, Nurnberg, the German center of printing if not of learning. According to Keller, when this school was formed Melancthon was selected for its principal and he accepted, but for some reason did not serve. The next best man for the place was Denk, who was installed in 1523. His high and independent views of God’s word and of the Supper soon brought him into collision, however, with Osiander the Reformer, and after eighteen months’ service he was banished, January, 1525, and forbidden to come within ten miles of this famous free city, on pain of death. Osiander was one of those harsh and unlovely spirits who anticipated the narrow Lutheranism of the next generation.

Denk went to Augsburg and kept a private school. There he met Hubmeyer, who baptized him before he went to Moravia.

Wagenseil, in his History of Augsburg (1820-’22, ii, p. 67), says of the Baptists of 1527, they held ‘That baptism should be given to none who had not reached years of discretion, and the candidates must not be merely sprinkled with water, but wholly submerged.’ Clement Sender, a Catholic contemporary, from 1518 to 1533, in his Rise and Progress of Heresy in Germany, Ingoldstadt, 1649, p. 25, writes: ‘In Augsburg, in three gardens attached to houses, there used to assemble more than eleven hundred men and women, rich, mediocre and poor, all of whom were rebaptized. The women, when they were rebaptized, put on trousers. . . . In the houses where a baptistery was these trousers were always kept.’ [Quoted by Dr. Osgood]

Denk soon drew many noted merchants to the Baptists, including two members of the lower council and other citizens, to the number of eleven hundred in the city alone, besides forming many churches in adjacent villages. Hans Hut was one of his converts and became a strong leader. Denk’s powerful pen was kept busy in defending his cause against attacks from Rome, Wittenberg and Zurich. Rhegius, the Lutheran, soon persecuted him out of the city, and he found refuge in Strasburg, where most sects were tolerated. Capito and Zeil were the leading Reformed ministers there; both opposed police interference with the Baptists, whose ranks were full of public men and many first-class scholars. Denk stirred the whole city by a tract, and met Bucer in public disputation, winning great honor by his dignity and mental expertness. This was followed by violence, and he retired to Landau. Here Baader, the Lutheran pastor, drew him into debate, the result being that he and all his congregation abandoned the practice of infant baptism.

We find Denk at Worms with Hetzer in 1527, translating the Old Testament prophets. Osiander had its sale prohibited at Nurnberg, but with little effect, as it soon passed through thirteen editions, and in all has numbered seventeen. This was the first modern German translation of the prophets. Possibly Keller, the present archivist of Münster, has given this subject as full investigation as any one now living. He says that from 1466 to 1518 eighteen editions of the entire German Bible had been issued, besides twenty-five editions of the New Testament. Dr. Jostes and others claim Catholic origin for some of these, but he stoutly contends that all editions published down to 1518 were the work of the Waldensians; and this is likely, for the inquisitors at Strasburg found and destroyed German Bibles in 1404, and at Freiburg in 1430; and in 1468 the German primate, Berthold of Mayence, prohibited the use of the German Bible. The Bible of 1483 puts a print of the pope at the head of the host overthrown by the angels in the Apocalypse, which proves its anti-catholic origin. Dr. Keller also puts Denk and Hetzer amongst the standard translators of the German Bible; and Metzger thinks that the frequent agreement between the Zurich and Wittenberg versions is due to the fact that both used the ‘Worms’ translation. The translation made by Baptists in 1527 leaned to the ancient Waldensian version, and for a century the Mennonites preferred the Waldensian version to the Lutheran.

In August, 1527, there was a gathering of sixty Baptist leaders at Augsburg, over which Denk presided, which, amongst other things, declared that Christians should never take possession of government in an unlawful way. The result of that meeting unified their faith and enkindled their missionary zeal, so that the empire felt the pulsations which it sent out. For a time he sought rest in Basel, but just before his arrival Baptists had been forbidden there; to the honor of his old friend, Œcolampadius, however, he was made an exception, and the gentle wanderer was protected. Worn out with labor and persecution while yet young, he passed through a quiet illness, and died a natural death at Basel, in great peace of soul, 1527. Almost his last work was a series of articles setting forth his faith in the sweetest and most apostolic spirit. Arnold was so struck with these features that he remarks: ‘From them it may be seen whether he can be regarded as godless and his followers as diabolical.’ The following extract from Dr. Keller presents this beautiful character in his true light:

‘John Denk, according to the opinion of competent judges, belonged to the most distinguished men of his time. Although by his position in reference to the Church he drew upon himself the opposition of the ruling powers, and in all places was surrounded by enemies, no one has been able to bring into doubt His masterly gifts, or to discover even the smallest spot in his character. Unstinted praise is accorded to him in the testimonies that have come down to us concerning him, a fact which is all the more important since we have only the testimony of his opponents. The well-known Strasburg reformer, Wolfgang Capito, praises Denk’s most exemplary walk in life, his remarkable talent, and his outward bearing, qualities which, as Capito says, drew the people to him and held them in a wonderful manner. Vadian, the friend of Zwingli, made a brilliant sketch of the young man. "In Denk, that distinguished young man," he says, "were all talents so extraordinarily developed that he surpassed his years and appeared greater than himself." The pastor of St. Gall, John Kessler, who had the opportunity of making Denk’s acquaintance, says concerning him: "This John Denk was exceedingly familiar with the letter of the Holy Scriptures, and had a good knowledge of the three leading languages. In person he was tall, of most agreeable manners, irreproachable in life and highly indeed to be commended, had he not defiled his mind and doctrine with such fearful errors."’ [Preussische Jahrbücher, Sep., 1882]

Another contemporary said of him: ‘The world will not heed the dear man. Well, when the time of misfortune comes, it will have to say that it brought on itself its evil days.’ A late biographer says of him: ‘The prophecy came true in a more powerful manner than could have been anticipated. As long as Denk’s words, "In matters of faith every thing must be left free, willing and unforced," were despised, an unlucky star ruled the destiny of Germany. Nearly three centuries were necessary to make room for Denk’s ideas. The injustice which has been done the men of Denk’s party cannot be made good by later times, but it is the duty of the historian to see that the property right in the ideas for which they suffered be not snatched from them, or ascribed to those who battled against their principles, as may be proved in the most decisive manner.’

Beard says in his Oxford Lectures: ‘There is a great concurrence of testimony both to the depth of the influence which he exerted, and the integrity and sweetness of the character which justified it.’

Franck calls him ‘a quiet, retiring, pious man, the leader and bishop of the Anabaptists. . . . He belonged to that age of Anabaptism when it was at once a deeply religious and a truly ethical movement, before the relentless rage of stupid persecution had deprived it of its natural leaders, and handed it over to extravagance and license. Men gathered eagerly about Denk, hung upon his lips, adopted his principles, and were afterwards not afraid to suffer for their faith. He showed himself, in the three years within which all his activity was comprised, a great religious leader, and be might, possibly, had his life been .prolonged, have developed into a philosophical theologian too. In a quiet, singular way, he united the qualities which Kindle religious enthusiasm in others with a sweet reasonableness, such as belongs to hardly any other theologian, orthodox or heretical, in the age of the Reformation. . . . In him, radical Protestantism lost a leader whose place no Spanish or Italian rationalist can supply.’ [Herbert Lec., 1883, p. 206,207]

This ‘Apollo of Anabaptism,’ as Haller calls him, died nearly eight years before the Münster outbreak. God enabled him to lay the foundations of Baptist truths very solidly in Southern Germany, and no wonder. His heart was brimful of child-like purity and simplicity, his thinking was elastic, forceful and versatile, and his literary compositions were finished and winsome, for his discussions laid open his entire heart. No man of his times commanded a fitter cast of mind or broader literary powers to lead men back to first principles and make himself the center of a great movement. His body was frail, but his whole being delighted in Christ’s teachings, he had no suspicion of his own honesty and his heart never failed him or the truth.

In the year that Denk died, Langenmantel, a nobleman, became the Baptist pastor at Augsburg, and faithfully did his work in this powerful Church. [Keller, Life of Denk, p. 102; Uhlhorn, Life of Rhegius, pp. 116,123,128] ] At first he received the Baptists to his house and then defended them. October 15th, 1527, he was arrested for complaining of the reformed preachers that they were avaricious, that they charged double fees for baptizing children, that they neither preached nor lived according to God’s word, but that they taught this doctrine: ‘He who is foreordained to sin must sin.’ These he calls words of ‘horrible blasphemy, the voice of Satan, not of Christ, as God gives no cause for sin,’ and he exhorted his brethren to ‘stand firm, for soon they will hang, burn and behead.’ When brought into court, he was told that he deserved to be beheaded, but because his noble relatives pleaded for him, perpetual banishment should suffice. He wrote a hymn and four tracts, which are extant. One of the latter was on the ‘Old and New Papists,’ in which he defended the Gospel Supper as a simple memorial, in reply to Luther’s absurdity that Christ is in the bread, as fire is in the red-hot iron. Another is a complete defense of the Baptists from the Scriptures. He rejects the term ‘Anabaptist,’ which means to baptize again, for he says: ‘We are Co-baptists, but you are Anti-baptists. . . . You do not keep the commandments of Christ, especially that relating to baptism. Is it right, when Christ speaks four or five words, for one to take the last word and put it first and the first last? You turn it about and take the last word first, according to your will. Where is it said to baptize without preaching the Gospel and faith? Now, I demand testimony before the whole world, and give them all the Scriptures to show where God has so commanded.’ He was finally put to death by the sword, although his family offered five thousand florins for his release.

Several other leaders were imprisoned and condemned at Augsburg, amongst whom were Gross, Hut and Snyder. The ‘Martyrology’ says, that many of the Baptists there were branded and one had his tongue cut out. Hans Koch and Leonard Meyster were put to death in 1524, and Leonard Snyder in 1527. Hut had refused to bring his babe to baptism in 1521. Early in his religious life he had tendencies to sedition and was always a strong millenarian. Hubmeyer contended with him on these points, and in his preaching he said much of the end of the world. The circular which called for his capture described him as ‘a very learned man;’ his conduct shows him to have been brave and even daring. In his prison he kindled straw to burn the beam and loosen the chain which bound him, and was suffocated in the effort. His corpse was brought out amid the ringing of the city bells and burnt on the public square, and his ashes thrown into the Wertach. In 1527 the Dukes of Bavaria issued decrees for the arrest and imprisonment of all Baptists. This document was posted in the market-places and read from all state pulpits. Duke William was very zealous, and wrote a full description of one poor offender to the Bishop of Passau: ‘His name is Anthony, born at Salzburg, a last-maker, a big, heavy fellow, thirty years old, lame in his right hand, wears a red cap, left Augsburg without a coat, will stop with Hermann Kheil, a brother, on the fish-market.’ Soon the prisons were crowded with Baptists, many died in prison, others were branded, burned or drowned in the Isar; but few left the Falcon Tower unpunished. At Augsburg it was made the duty of one of the city councilors to be present at the opening and closing of the gates, so that no Baptist should enter. [Wagenseil’s Augsburg, ii, 67] Sender, a monk of the city, kept an account of the daily outrages practiced upon them: January 12th, 1528, twelve were banished; 13th, thirty were imprisoned; 18th, ten perpetually exiled; 19th, twenty driven out of the city; 22d, seven scourged out of town; 23d, three men and five women driven out; 24th, one refusing to take the oath was branded on the cheek. [Uhlhorn, Life of Rhegius, p. 132] The barbarous crusade ran on till February, when a general sweep was made. At Easter two hundred were surprised at the house of Ducher, as they were holding a ‘love-feast;’ then Seebold preached and his sermon cost him his life, for he was slaughtered April 25th, his congregation being driven in all directions; a little later twelve were slain at Augsburg.

Rhegius, the reformed preacher, was at the bottom of this bloody work, and a lady of the nobility, a prisoner, said to him: ‘There is a great difference between you and me. You sit on a soft cushion beside the Burgomasters and declaim as Apollo from his tripod, while I must speak here on the ground bound in chains.’ He said that if the ‘Anabaptists would keep their errors to themselves they would be let alone; but if they proposed to gather a peculiar people to God and return from banishment, then the government must use the sword.’ [Uhlhorn, Life of Rhegius, p. 134,135]

In February, 1527, George Wagner (Carpenter), was captured by dragoons and cast into prison at Munich, and every means was used to make him recant, even the duke visiting him to change his mind, but in vain. The fourth charge against him was, ‘That he did not believe that the very element of the water itself in baptism doth give grace’ (regeneration). He was asked why he esteemed baptism lightly, knowing that Christ was baptized in the Jordan. He then showed why Christ was baptized, but that our salvation stands in his atonement and not in his baptism. Then he opened the true use of baptism. [Foxe, i, 402] When brought out for execution, the procession halted at the steps of the City Hall to hear the charges of heresy read, and a school-master asked him, ‘George, are you not afraid to die, would you not be glad to go back to your wife and children?’ He replied, ‘To whom would I rather hasten?’ ‘Recant and you can go.’ On his way to the stake his wife and children came, and kneeling before him, begged him to recant and save his life. [Hast, p. 221] He said: ‘My wife and children are so dear that the duke could not pay me for them with the revenue of the State, but I part with them for my inmost love to God.’ ‘Do you really believe in God as confidently as you say?’ ‘It would be hard for me to face a death so terrible if I did not.’ He offered prayer, and a priest promised to say masses for his soul, when George said: ‘Pray for me now that God will give me patience, humility and faith. I shall need no prayer after death.’ A brother asked him for a sign of perseverance in the flames, when he promised to confess Christ as long as he could speak. As he fell in the fire he cried, ‘Jesus! Jesus!’ and was with him.

Two letters from prisoners fell into the hands of Rhegius, 1528, in which they show most beautifully their reliance on the saving work of Christ. Amongst other things this is set forth:

‘The only answer to give our enemies is faith and patience, for this is the hour and power of darkness. . . . If any one asks you why you were baptized, tell him to go and ask Jesus, the Son of God. He will tell you why he gave the command. If you reply out of the Holy Spirit you will not contradict the command of Christ, for the Holy Spirit gave the command through Christ. Christ, our Brother, was circumcised after the law when he was eight days old, but baptized to fulfill all righteousness, according to the New Testament, when he was thirty years old. The truth says that teaching is the principal and most needful thing, for the apostles made disciples before they baptized them. He who baptizes children confesses that baptism is more necessary than teaching.’

Another apostle amongst the Bavarian Baptists was Augustine Wurzelburger, a school-teacher who did a great work amongst them, but the dukes demanded his execution. The magistrates of Regensbarg, however, reported that they found so much ‘reason in his views,’ that they counted him not worthy of death, he had simply been rebaptized. The dukes frankly declared this guilt enough, according to many princes and prelates. On a second demand he was promptly put to death. Also, at Salzburg, many were slain. Seventeen of them were discovered in the pastor’s house, and all were burned, but those who recanted had the privilege of being beheaded beforehand. Many were locked in their place of worship and burned therewith. Also a beautiful child of sixteen was condemned to be burned, and the whole town interceded for her life. But she remained steadfast, and as an act of mercy the executioner carried her, like a lamb, in his arms, held her under water in a trough and drowned her, and then threw her body into the flames. [Ranke, Hist. Ref., iii, 363] At Vienna one day a large number were drowned in the Danube, being bound together in such a manner that as one fell into the water he drew another after him. All met their fate with joy. [Gastius, 178] Martyrdoms took place also in many other cities, where Baptists were treated like reptiles and wild beasts. This was especially true at Rothenburg on the Neckar, where Michael Sattler, who had been a monk and had become a Baptist, was slaughtered. The fiendish sentence was carried out to the letter in 1527. His tongue was cut out, twice his flesh was torn with red-hot pincers, and then he was brought in a cart to the city gate, where his flesh was torn five times more before he was burned to ashes. His wife and several other women were drowned, several men were beheaded and about seventy more were murdered in one way or another.

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A HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS

By Thomas Armitage

1890

[Note from the publisher. This valuable out-of-print book was scanned from an original printing and carefully formatted for electronic publication by Way of Life Literature. We extend a special thanks to our friend Brian Snider for his labor of love in diligently scanning the material so that it might be available to God's people in these days. For a catalog of other books, both current and old, in print and electronic format, contact us at P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061-0368, [e-mail] (e-mail), http://wayoflife.org/~dcloud (web site).]

[Table of Contents for "A History of the Baptists" by Thomas Armitage]

THE ERA OF THE REFORMATION

THE GERMAN BAPTISTS Continued

Most interesting facts are connected with the Baptists of the Tyrol. Fugitives from other lands flocked to this Austrian province as early as 1525, and Ferdinand began to persecute them in 1527. Their places of worship were torn down and their ministers made to suffer by water, fire and sword. When Bishop George issued his command for their arrest, Ulrich Mailer was forthwith burnt alive at Brixen, for the king had confiscated all Baptist property and ordered the burning of all their preachers. Sunday after Sunday his decrees were read from the State pulpits, and priests failing to publish them were to be punished. Despite all this activity, Baptists filled Innthal and the Brenner Pass. Schwatz, a town of twelve hundred people, had eight hundred of the new faith. A prisoner at Innsbruck, confessed that he had himself baptized four hundred. This sudden growth was due in part to the coming of Blaurock from Switzerland, whose eloquent enthusiasm ranked him, in the eyes of the people, as a second Paul. Many fled from this persecution to Moravia, and, angered by their escape, the king issued a a new order in 1529, inflicting death on all, regardless of recantation. Baptists were burnt in every village and city wherever found, and amongst them Blaurock, at Claussen. The town records say that sixty-seven perished at Kitzbuhel, sixty-six at Rattenburg, and twenty-two at Kuffstein. Down to 1531 one thousand had been put to death in the Tyrol, or two hundred and fifty a year; whereas only two hundred and sixty-four persons were martyred in the reign of ‘bloody Mary.’ No writer of the present day possesses such facilities for full and accurate statement on this subject as Dr. Keller, of Munster; and, on what he pronounces ‘reliable statements,’ the number of Baptists put to death was as follows: In 1531, 1,000 had been martyred in the Tyrol and Gortz, 600 at Enzisheim, 73 at Linz, from 150 to 200 in the Palatinate. In 1527, 12 had suffered death in Switzerland and about 20 at Rottenburg. He cites Hase, a stout opponent of the Baptists, who says: ‘The energy, the capacity for suffering, the joy in believing, which characterized the Christians of the first centuries of the Church, reappeared in the Anabaptists.’

Under the edict of 1530 all houses were searched, to discover who refrained from mass, and what children had been held back from baptism; the houses of all who sheltered Baptists were to be destroyed, informers were rewarded from twenty to forty gulden and Baptist property was to meet the costs of the Inquisition. The trials were private, and the purpose of Ferdinand was to annihilate these homeless disciples. When the storm was at its height the Baptists of Moravia heard ‘what a great work God was doing in the Tyrol,’ and sent Jacob Huter, their leader, to assist them. He saved many of them from the blood-thirst of Ferdinand by sending them into Moravia; but on his second visit he was arrested and executed. A gag was put in his month, he was led to Innsbruck, where he was first thrown into cold water, then into hot, then his flesh was torn with pincers, the wounds filled with brandy and set on fire.

Sigmund von Wolkenstine, a young noble of seventeen, was another victim. After a year’s imprisonment he was set free for a little time, to choose, between recantation and new sufferings. He selected the latter, but his powerful family induced the king to permit him to enter the army. A price was put upon the head of Griessteller, now the Baptist leader. The officers of a dozen districts combined and found him in the mountains, between Bruneck and Rodeneck. After a long hunt, the king was delighted with his capture and he was speedily put to death at Brixen. The fagots had been soaked in rain the night before and would not burn, so the people begged for the sword as the easier death, but dry fuel was brought and he was burnt alive. Spies were hired to be baptized, to gain the confidence and find out the secrets of the sect, and after all other measures had failed to crush them it entered into somebody’s head that possibly argument and exhortation might convert them! Hence, Cardinal Bernard ordered his priests to preach the word of God, according to the Scriptures--the best cure for ‘Anabaptism’ ever devised. But, in the eyes of Ferdinand, this made things worse and worse and he went back to the old weapons. Then he made his edicts cover all Austria and her dependencies, and thus, in 1545, Moravia became as perilous to the Baptists as the Tyrol. Yet, these Tyrolese brethren stood as firmly as their own mountains; when the king became emperor, State affairs so absorbed his attention that he forgot all about this hated people. When he returned to his task, however, every valley and ravine was scoured, and the old scenes were re-enacted. Baptists swarmed in Pusterthal, and in Au they were the ruling power in society.

In 1585 four Tyrolese Baptists ventured from Moravia to labor in their own country. Jacob Panzer had left home when seventeen, but was now a man of forty, simple-hearted, active and strong in the faith. Ruprecht Sier, thirty years of age, Leonard Mareez, aged forty-two, and a fourth, whose name is not given, formed the heroic band. Each of them was rooted in the faith, and would stretch upon the rack rather than betray a brother. They met their friends in forests, by-ways and crags, as best they could, but some of their relatives were in prison and could not be reached. They were hunted at every point, two of them wavered and one fled, but Panzer met martyrdom by the axe. These facts, with many others of equal interest, are found in Kripp’s Contribution to the History of the Anabaptists in the Tyrol: Innsbruck, 1857.

The first effect of the Reformation in Germany was to drive away the old Catholic priests, often in disgust and angry controversy, long before Reformed pastors could fill their places, and when they did come the community was convulsed more than ever. At first the change was not for the better in the public morals, but the contrary. The newly-preached doctrine of Justification by Faith alone without the merit of works was not understood, and many acted as badly as they could, because good works could not save them. People paid absolute obedience to the old authority; but when that discipline was thrown aside the new clergy had little power over them, and were obliged to depend upon the secular arm to bring under moral restraint a multitude of nominal believers without the bond of heart-love for the Gospel. Blaurer, the Reformer at Constance, complained: ‘Ourselves bear a great share of the blame. We want to hear so little of real penitence that our doctrine itself is open to suspicion. My labor and my life become distasteful to me when I regard the condition of many cities, evangelical to such a small degree that scarcely any trace of genuine conversion can be shown in them at all. Out of Christian liberty they make, by a godless interpretation, liberty to commit sin. It is agreeable to be justified, redeemed, saved for nothing; but there is not one who does not resist with bands and feet mortification of the flesh, crosses and sufferings and Christian devotion.’

Luther said, in 1526: ‘Those who want to be Christians in earnest, and confess the Gospel by hand and mouth, ought to enlist themselves by name and assemble apart from all kinds of people in a house alone to pray, read, baptize, receive the sacrament and practice other Christian duties. In this manner we could know who were not Christians, punish, correct, exclude and excommunicate. Then we could expect general thanksgiving, giving willingly and distributing among the poor. I cannot yet found such a church, for I have not the people to do it with, and do not see many who are urgent for it.’

This frank utterance shows that at heart he shared the high and pure intentions of the Baptists for a thorough reform, and a return to a purely regenerated church, after the Gospel pattern. But his hands were tied, for the condition even of the German clergy was much like that of the Swiss, of whom Ballinger honestly confesses that only three deans in Switzerland could read the Old Testament, some did not know of the Bible at all, and not all of them could read the New Testament. After the general upbreaking, this was the material on which the Reformation was obliged to depend for its ministers in many places. Luther and several other leaders were more than half Baptists at that time. Early in his ministry he told certain Bohemian brethren that he did not like their views of infant baptism because they used it in hope of future faith when they came to years of responsibility. It either regenerated the children or it meant nothing. He said: ‘If you receive the sacraments without faith, you bring yourselves into a great difficulty, for we oppose against your practice the saying of Christ: "he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved."’ [Stan. Hosii. De haeres. nostri temporis, lib. 1] At that time he also taught the practice of immersion. He said:

‘The term baptism is Greek, and may be rendered dipping, as when we dip something in water, so that it is covered all over. And although the custom is now abolished amongst many, for they do not dip children, but only pour on a little water, yet they ought to be wholly immersed and immediately withdrawn. For this the etymology of the term seems to demand. And the Germans also call baptism taufe, from depth, which in their language they call tiefe, because it is fit that those who are baptized should be deeply immersed. And certainly, if you look at what baptism signifies, you will see that the same is required. For it signifies this, that the old man and our sinful nature, which consists of flesh and blood, are totally immersed by divine grace, which we will point out more fully. The mode of baptizing, therefore, necessarily corresponded with the signification of baptism, that it might set forth a certain and full sign of it.’ [Opera Luth. Tom., i, pp. 70-2]

Keller shows that most of the [Protestant] leaders stood on semi-Baptist ground at that time. Œcolampadius writes, February 6th, 1525: ‘I have some letters to friends advocating infant baptism, but hardly any one will listen to me;’ so general was the defection on that subject. And in 1528, William Farel, Calvin’s patron, defended the Baptists against their foes. A year before, September 7th, 1527, he said: ‘It is not understood by many what it is to give one’s name to Christ and fight for Christ, to walk and persevere in newness of life by the infusion of the Spirit with whom Christ immerses his own, who, in this mind and by this grace wish to be immersed in water [intingi aqua] in the presence of the Christian congregation, that they may publicly protest what they believe in their hearts, that they may be dearer to the brethren and closer bound to Christ by this solemn profession, which is only rightly dispensed as that great John, and that greatest of all, Christ, commanded.’ [Keller, Ref., pp. 374-386]

In this state of the public mind Baptist evangelists came preaching personal repentance, faith and a holy life, salvation finished, full and free through Christ’s atonement; with a church sustained by pure love to him and not by the secular arm. They taught that ‘The water of baptism does not save by its natural force, for it is no more than any other creature of God,’ but that men are effectually saved from their sins by faith in Christ’s sacrifice. ‘But,’ said they, ‘if faith in Christ saves, wherefore baptism? Faith is a root of a faithful heart. If you believe, you do the works of a believer, as a good tree bears good fruit. Yet, these works do not merit salvation. The word that teaches me to believe teaches me to be baptized, for faith without works is dead.’ This preaching threw new light upon the whole Gospel system, and so effectually turned men to holiness that a net of small Baptist churches was formed in all the districts of Germany, from Alsace to Breslau, from Hesse to Etschland. [Cornelius, ii, p. 43] In many places the commotions of the times had left the people without teachers, and these evangelists were plain men who supported themselves, preached in barns, woods, gardens, private houses, the people heard them and many were radically converted. These formed themselves into simple churches, with the Bible as their only guide, each choosing its own pastor and officers. They met for prayer (the prayer-meeting was commonly called ‘the Heretics’ School’), for fellowship, the breaking of bread, and the exercise of brotherly watch-care and discipline. Not believing in State support and receiving none, they voluntarily divided the results of their daily industry, without selfishness, as did the saints at Jerusalem under similar circumstances of persecution. They had ‘all things common,’ not in the sense of renouncing the right of property, but in the sense of sharing it freely one with another, in suffering.

It is needless to say that people living such lives have always been systematically traduced, as these men were in the heat of their adversaries; but as the world has had time to cool, every man now owes the naked justice to himself to read their history with open eyes, throwing aside the old trick of defaming those whom it is not convenient to understand. Historical aptitude should be quickened by the unveiling of three centuries to a sharper insight into this great movement, so that its length and breadth can be taken in, with that round compactness which the Germans themselves call combinationsgabe. The branding of men with ink who cannot be reached with iron should cease. Day by day their entire trend is becoming clearer and clearer, until the best investigators of passionless history accord to nineteen twentieths of them the honest aim of restoring apostolic Christianity by molding simple societies of godly men after the ideal of Christ. Their foundation idea was to develop all goodness, not by bringing the State into the Church as a part thereof but by taking each citizen into the Church on his individual consecration to Christ. This, of course, destroyed sacerdotalism, uprooted all political bases in religion and made the Bible, which embodies Christ’s will, the touch-stone of all Christian truth. The State was to protect all its citizens as citizens, without regard to their religious opinions, so that the civil magistrates could control no man’s conscience. Zwingli would have them do no injustice in exacting tithes, but the Baptists said that the civil authorities should levy no such tithes at all. Catholic and Protestant alike made it the duty of the magistrate to establish religion and enforce it by fine, imprisonment and death; but the Baptists said, ‘No; this is a remnant of heathen usurpation, of which Christ’s law knows nothing.’ Few authorities have caught the broad view of the Baptists better than the Encyclopaedia Britannica, which says:

‘The Anabaptists of Germany were historically noteworthy, not because they insisted on rebaptism as a condition of admission into their communion, but because the enthusiasm of the Reformation manifested itself to them in a form and manner altogether peculiar. Their views as to the constitution of the Church and its relations to the State, and the efforts they made to realize these views, furnish a problem, partly theological, partly historical, of which the satisfactory solution is not easy. Anabaptism, as a system, may be defined as the Reformation doctrine, carried to its utmost limit; the Anabaptists were the extreme left of the army of the Reformation. It is true that they regarded each other as in different camps; but their mutual denunciations cannot conceal the fact that even the most peculiar doctrines of the Anabaptists were to them only corollaries illegitimately drawn, as the more orthodox Reformers thought, from the fundamental principle common to both, of the independence of the private judgment, and the supreme importance of the subjective element, personal faith in religion. The connection of this principle with this theory of the Church and its connection with the State, their doctrine of the sacraments, and even their political rising, is so obvious that it need not be dwelt upon.’ [Art. Anabaptists]