and baptism. All maintained the sole authority of Scripture, in matters of religious belief and practice. All disavowed the authority of human traditions. All held that the churches of Christ should consist of truly pious men and women. All demanded and exercised the right of private judgment. Every one was at liberty to think, believe, profess, and worship, as he pleased, without the interference of priests, kings, councils, popes, or any other earthly power. In a word, they taught that man is responsible, in religion, not to his fellow-man, but to God. So have all Baptists taught, in all ages.

Immersion was still the ordinary mode. The proof of this is abundant, both as contained in theological treatises and in decrees of Councils. Ebrard and Ermengard, in their works "Contra Waldenses," written towards the close of the twelfth century, repeatedly refer to it.* At the Synod of Exeter, A.D. 1277, explicit directions are given for the baptism of children, should there be danger of death, immediately after birth; and immersion is strictly prescribed.† The Ecclesiastical Constitutions contain frequent instructions respecting baptismal fonts, directing that they should be made large enough for the convenient immersion of a child. Records of the baptism of royal or noble personages illustrate these statements. Prince Arthur, eldest son of Henry VII., was thus baptized. The Princess Elizabeth and Edward VI. were immersed. It was the universal practice.‡

*Biblioth. Maxima, xxiv. 1542, 1610.
+ Labbe and Cossart, xi. 1266.

Baptist Magazine, Feb. 1850, p. 84.

CHAPTER V.

THE REFORMATION PERIOD.

FROM A.D. 1517 TO A.D. 1567.

SECTION I.

Rise of the Reformation-Opinions held by the Baptists-Misrepresented by the Reformers-Their Wonderful Increase-Support under Sufferings.

HE period on which we are now entering is one of

THE wondrous interest. The shackles with which the

nations had been long bound were broken, and it was said "to the prisoners, Go forth, to them that were in darkness, Show yourselves." A great revival of religion took place all over Europe. Popery was renounced by a large portion of the German people, by the Swiss, the Dutch, the Danes, the Swedes, the Norwegians, the English, Welsh, and Scotch, and by great numbers in Austria, Hungary, Bohemia, Bavaria, Italy, and France.

When Luther blew the trumpet of religious freedom, the sound was heard far and wide, and the Baptists came out of their hiding-places, to share in the general gladness, and to take part in the conflict. For years they had lived in concealment, worshipped God by stealth, and practised the social duties of Christianity in the best. manner they could, under the most unfavourable circum

stances. Now, they hoped for peace and enlargement, and fondly expected to enjoy the co-operation of the Reformers in carrying into effect those changes which they knew were required in order to restore Christian churches to Primitive purity. They were doomed to bitter disappointment. The Reformers had no sympathy with Baptist principles, but strove to suppress them. Papists and Protestants, Episcopalians and Presbyterians, treated them in the same manner. The Baptists travelled too fast and went too far: if they could not be stopped by other means, the fire must be lighted or the headsman's axe employed. Thus the men were silenced: the Emperor Charles V., whom historians have delighted to honour, ordered the women to be drowned, or buried alive. Hundreds were sent out of the world by these methods; thousands more lost their lives by the slower processes of penury and innumerable hardships. The demon of persecution reaped an immense harvest in those days.

Although there was not absolute uniformity of opinion among the Baptists, for they were shy of creeds, knowing how they had been used to serve the purposes of soulbondage, certain important truths were viewed by all of them in the same light. Modes of expression varied, but they were substantially of one mind, those of Poland only excepted, who leaned to the system which was afterwards termed "Socinianism." Baptist theology harmonized with that of the Reformation in regard to the leading doctrines of the Gospel, such as justification by faith, the necessity of Divine influence, &c. The belief in the sole authority of Scripture in matters of religion was carried out to its legitimate issues, and everything was rejected which would not abide the test, so that all rites and observances that were not expressly enjoined in the Word of God were swept away at once. Steadfastly maintaining that believers, and

believers only, were the proper subjects of baptism, they pleaded for a pure church. The Reformers were astonished at this demand. They said that the thing was impossible; that there always had been tares among the wheat, and that so it would be till the end of time; that the good and the bad must be indiscriminately mixed in the Christian commonwealth. We need not wonder at this. Popery and Pædobaptism had blinded their eyes. They had never seen a New-Testament Church, and they practically kept out of sight the teachings of the New Testament on the subject, as it is quite necessary to do when the Pædobaptist theory is fully admitted; for if infants are baptized, and all who are baptized may claim church-fellowship, the church which is so formed must be a very different organization from that which was instituted at Jerusalem, when "believers were the more added to the Lord, multitudes both of men and women." Children, it will be perceived, are not mentioned. The historian seems to take special pains to exclude them, as if he desired his readers to note the difference between Judaism and Christianity, the former being the establishment of a national institute, which was kept up by the ordinary increase of the population, the latter the gathering together of individual servants of the Saviour, who "were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God" (John i. 12, 13). One point more may be alluded to. The Baptists sternly asserted the rights of conscience. All men might believe and act in religion as they pleased, without the interference of the civil magistrate. His duties, they said, were confined to the preservation of order and the protection of property and life; God had not given him the power to regulate religious affairs, nor authorized him to impose any mode of worship, or to punish such as might refuse to admit his usurpation. We have mentioned these principles before, but it seems desirable to repeat the statement, because the