CHAP. though Allix remarks, it is said he was a martyr at Toulouse.' VII. Arnold of A. D. 1137. "From the zeal and assiduity of Gundulphus and Arnold in Italy, with Berenger, Peter de Bruys, and Henry in France; the followers and disciples of these reformers became sufficiently numerous to excite alarm in the catholic church, before Waldo, of Lyons, appeared as a reformer. They were in different kingdoms known by different names, and are supposed at this period to have amounted to eight hundred thousand in profession." m The celebrated Arnold of Brescia, who in these days carried the spirit of reform (perhaps indeed too violently for the meekness of Christian character) to the very palace of the pontiff himself, was also "de sacramento baptismo parvulorum, non sane ;"-"unsound respecting the sacrament of the altar and infant baptism." n That is, he denied the popish doctrine of transubstantiation, and the practice of infant baptism. 1 Allix's Albig. ch. xiv. p. 128. m Orchard's History of Foreign Baptists, pp. 179–182. " Dr. Miller thus ventures his dicta in the face of all history. The doctor has, perhaps, had a high character for veracity; but there are, however, few bows but may be bent till they break: "I can assure you, my friends, with the utmost candour and confidence, after much careful inquiry on the subject, that for more than fifteen hundred years after the birth of Christ, there was not a single society of professing Christians on earth, who opposed infant baptism on any thing like the grounds which distinguish our mo. dern Baptist brethren. It is an undoubted fact (!) that the people known in ecclesiastical history under the name of the anabaptists, who arose in Germany, in the year 1522, were the very first body of people, in the whole Christian world, who rejected the baptism of infants, on the principles now adopted by the antipodobaptist body."-Miller's Infant Baptism, p. 21.-A statement further from the truth can scarcely be imagined. It is charitably to be hoped that it arises from some unfortunate bias in the Doctor's mind while making his "careful inquiry." VIII. the truth to formation. These bodies existed, or rather attracted the notice of SECT. ecclesiastics, five hundred years before the Reformation; and the candid reader will perceive that there is all the Descent of evidence that the circumstance of the pen of history the era of being almost entirely in the hands of catholics, could the Re possibly admit, that bodies of Christians practising the immersion of believers only, have existed from the period when infant baptism was first at all considerably practised, (the fourth century,) down to the era of the Reformation. Certainly in England, as well as Bohemia, and other countries, it was the preaching of Waldensian teachers that gave rise to the first baptist churches after the time of Austin; and that among the followers of Wyckliffe, who were the first fruits of the Waldensian seed, that infant baptism was not held in esteem, does not admit of a doubt. church in formation. The oldest congregational churches in England, both The true baptist and podobaptist, trace their origin to a period dependent anterior to any of the efforts of Luther or Calvin. of the ReHenry VIII. was wont to burn baptists and papists at the same stake; these were not German baptists of recent origin, but the descendants of the Lollards or Waldenses. There is an original stream of the true church, independent of the Reformation, though in later times the streams overflow into each other, and intermingle their waters. That there has been since the days of our Saviour, an uninterrupted succession of baptists, if not of baptist churches, I have not a moment's doubt. The evidence I have adduced is sufficient to justify this statement; but further research amid the documentary evidence of Europe, may yet throw additional light on this point." • The efforts of the Rev. G. H. Orchard, in his History of Foreign Baptists, are highly commendable and very satisfactory: СНАР. It is then among men who dared to brave the power of papal despotism in its highest glory, as well as dispel the darkness of papal ignorance in its deepest night, that correct sentiments, on the subject of baptism, are found to prevail; men of whom the "world was not worthy;" men whose fearless labours have planted, and whose blood has nurtured the tree of liberty and of truth; whose works have followed them in long and brilliant train; and whose glory shall shine resplendently in that eternal day, when the deeds of the warrior, and the subtleties of the scholar, shall have faded for ever! they will, I trust, excite further research amidst documents which never yet have been examined for the purpose of bringing out the truth. CHAPTER VIII. THE DOCTRINES WHICH INTRODUCED AND SECTION I. PREFERENCE OF FORMS TO SPIRITUALITY. Ir it be a true adage that “a man may be known by SECT. the company he keeps," the case of infant baptism is a I. inseparably with infant sad one. Till after the Reformation, it is never found, Doctrines except, not only in association with, but dependent upon, associated doctrines at which every enlightened Christian revolts; baptism. till at length it leads to abominations so vile, that the writer could not allude to them more minutely without shocking the feelings of every delicate mind; and yet the abominations to which I allude, are but the necessary result of benevolence, if the doctrines on which infant baptism was originally based are true. tists vainly Podobaptist writers, when quoting from Origen, Cy- Podobapprian, and Augustine, find it necessary to observe, attempt to "With the absurd doctrines of these writers we have separate infant bapnothing to do." I am not so sure of this. Suppose it tism from should prove that an "absurd doctrine" is the reason trines. always given in the writings of the Fathers for any certain practice; would it not justly lead to a suspicion and inquiry, to say the least, that the doctrine was the basis these doc VIII. CHAP. of the practice, and introduced it? Let us pursue this reasonable inquiry with respect to the doctrines always found in direct connection with the fact of infant baptism. Forms preferred to spirituality. Observations of Mr. Taylor. First, then, we find the idea, that the administration of the outward ordinance to the infant, is invariably attended with immediate and concurrent spiritual blessings of the highest consequence. This is but one specimen of the general departure from the pure spiritual philosophy of the Scriptures, which prevailed in the earliest ages of the church. The observations of Mr. Taylor on this point are admirable: "How much turns often (and it is an observation perpetually offering itself in the perusal of church history,) upon an insensible substitution of a technical, for the general and genuine sense of an ethical term! It was just by the aid of some of these hardly perceptible substitutions that the eminent men we have now to do with (and Cyprian not less than any) found the ready means of gaining an apparent scriptural warranty for practices flagrantly contravening the spirit and meaning of scriptural morality. Thus it is that he reiterates his quotations from the Psalms, and the Book of Proverbs, in support of that ecclesiastical discipline which the vow of celibacy involved, by adducing texts in which the instruction, correction, or reproof recommended by David or Solomon is rendered disciplina, in the Latin version of the Old Testament, which he used: as thus-“ Those who refuse instruction shall perish;" or, as the Latin has it those shall perish," and under the anger of the Lord, who infringe the rules of this artificial discipline, enjoined for enforcing the system of factitious purity. Tertullian, long before, had appropriated this term in the same manner. The Greek Church writers employ the word philosophy in a sense nearly equiva |