Many writers have given themselves the trouble to inform the world what this something more is: but there are three forts, who have not fucceeded, annalists, theorifts, and disciplinarians. An annalist makes out a catalogue of thofe in all ages, who have rebaptized, and, if it be anything like a fair one, it begins with Tertullian, St. Cyprian, the Novatians and Donatifts of Africa, it proceeds with Firmilian and the Afiaticks, and takes in the council of Nice, it goes on with Novatus and the Italians and all others in Europe, Bohemians, Poles, Britons, French, German, Swifs, Dutch, and it ends with the Americans. Of all these he makes one regular body of rebaptizers, and to credit him would lead a reader to believe that St. Cyprian of Carthage, and the three hundred and eighteen bishops of the council of Nice were exactly such men as John Bunyan, Tinker of Bedford, for all held rebaptization. A theorift, orthodox, or heterodox, fucceeds no better. He either begins with Arius, Socinus, or Servetus, and ends with Dr. James Fofter: or with Menno, and ends with the particular English Baptifts. A difciplinarian always fets out with Nicholas Stork or Thomas Munster, takes in fome naked Anabaptifts at Amfterdam, and concludes with a compliment to the modern Baptifts for having feen into the errours of their ancestors, and behaved with propriety for feveral years last past like a very good fort of

men.

It is not an eafy thing to write the hiftory of a body of people, especially of fuch a body as this. Natives of all ages, and all countries, with education and without it, rude and refined, living in different habits and customs, fubjects of different governments, here protected, and there plundered and driven to madness, having for ages no local legal fettlement, entertaining different notions of government, learning, and religion itfelf, divided in opinion about every fpeculation of theology, as all other denominations are, of different languages and without any common ftandard of belief, agreeing in nothing except three or four articles neceffarily connected with adult baptifm: How is it poffible to give a true account of all these people under one general name of Anabaptists? Their history must be divided and fubdivided, and it must be fhewn wherein they differ, and in what they agree. Two or three fuch confused writers as were just now mentioned have mided many other writers much wifer and better than themselves (5). Some were in other refpects men of learning and merit: but utter ftrangers to the general hiftory, which they

(5) Jo. HENRICIOTTI Annales. Anabapt. Bafil. 1682.....FRED. SPANHEMII Diatriben de origine, progreffu, &c. Anabaptiftarum.....EZECHIEL. SPANHEMII Elenchus.....M. LUTHERI advers. cæleftes prophetas, Tom. iii.....Jo. CLOPPENBURGII Gangræna Theologia Anabaptifticæ.....PHIL. MELANCHTONIS refutat. erroris Serveti et Anabaptiftarum. cum multis

.aliis.

pretended

pretended to give. Mr. Arnoldi (6), and Dr. Schyn (7), have proved by irrefragable evidence from ftate papers, publick confeffions of faith, and authentick books, that Ezechiel and Frederick Spanheim, Heidegger, Hoffman, and others have given a fabulous account of the hiftory of the Dutch Baptifts, and that the younger Spanheim had taxed them with holding thirteen herefies, of all which not a fingle fociety of them believed one word; yet later hiftorians quote thefe writers as devoutly as if all they had affirmed were undifputed and allowed to be true. That learned critick Father Simon paffed a most severe, but a very just cenfure on the fame Spanheim for the many false tales which in the fame book he had told of the Eastern Christians (8). It is diverting to see historians on the continent quote an obfcure fcribbler in England in evidence of what was done an hundred and fifty years before within a few miles of the places where these foreign hiftorians themselves lived. They have done this honour, in the moft pompous manner, to one Ephraim Pagitt (9). Ephraim Pagitt! Who was this Ephraim Pagitt, a name never heard of among learned men? This old man was minifter of a parish in London in the reign of Charles i. Not having fo much prudence as the late Mr. Quin (to ufe Quin's words) the old man kept whistling Falftaff in publick after he had loft his teeth. His parishioners were tired and left him, and went to hear the fe&taries, as he calls them. This made him go mad. He taxed his people with heresy and schism, and he had not the prudence to avail himself of the wife advice, which Bishop Bancroft gave one of his neighbouring minifters in a like cafe. This minifter had been to confult his lordship what to do in a very difficult cafe in his parish. One of his parishioners named Jacob would fit at receiving the facrament. He had preached to him, and prayed for him, and cried for grief, and had threatened him, but all would not do, Jacob would not kneel. What would become of the church,, what should he do? Go home, faid his lordship, and be quiet, and leave the matter to the church-warden. Pagitt knew this, but he did not relish it, fo he drew up a volume of all the falfe and filthy tales about town, and added a lift of herefies and half herefies, and prefented it to the Lord-Mayor, humbly hoping that the parliament would fupprefs the blafphemous Anabaptifts, for in other countries "Chriftian princes and magiftrates had never left burning, drowning, and deftroying them till their remainder was contemptible. Pontanus faid, they abroad.

(6) ENGEL ARENTZOON van Dooregeeft. Scnd. Schreiben an den Herm. Frid. Spanhemius, Sc.. 1694.

(7) HERMANNI SCHYN ut fup. præfat.

(8) RICHARDI SIMONIS Bibliot. Crit. Tom. i. Cap. xxii. pag. 326..

(9) EPHRAIMI PAGITTI Hærefiographia, Londini. 1645.

had deftroyed one hundred and fifty thousand perfons, and he hoped the house would fupprefs them here." This is the herefiography, which German writers quote in proof of what was done at Munfter in Germany, though of all the contemptible authors of thofe times Ephraim Pagitt is undoubtedly the first in ignorance, intolerance, and falfehood (1).

ALL BAPTISTS, HOWEVER DIVERSIFIED, AGREE IN HOLDING WHAT ARE CALLED ANABAPTISTICAL ERROurs.

Leaving all fuch writers to fuffer or to enjoy their own reveries, and private piques, at their own difcretion, it is proper to go on to opponents worth anfwering, for it must be allowed, Englifh Anabaptifm is connected with what are called anabaptiftical errours, and it would be a vain undertaking to attempt to deny or difprove facts, which no lefs than five refpectable claffes of men have always objected against them. Every writer, who knew what he was about, from the days of the Donatifts and the Acephali (2), to the prefent time (3), hath directed his main force. against these anabaptistical errours, in comparison with which rebaptizing is not worth a moment's attention. The baptifm of an adult is of no confequence at all but as it is connected with thefe errours: and if thefe errours be difproved adult baptifm falls of itself. It is, therefore, abfolutely neceffary to give a fketch of this heart of the hiftory of the Baptifts.

History is a monument erected for pofterity, and facred to truth, and a reverential awe for what appears to be true ought to be confidered as a fufficient apology for any man's ftating a cafe differently from what it may appear to others. Several refpectable bodies of men have taxed the Baptifts with holding many dangerous errours. Thefe errours are properly reducible to five heads, and from these as from so many springs

(1) Herefiography, or a defcription of the heriticks and fellaries of these latter times. By E. P. London. 1645. 4to. pag. 131.

(2) MENNE patriarchæ Conftantinop. Sententia contra Severum, Petrum et Zoaram. concil. Conftantinop. Actio. v. An. 536. Severum, et Petrum, et Zoaram anathemate ferimus, non ipfos folum fed et alios, qui conventicula et illegitima baptifmata faciunt: nec non et omnia ab ipfis confcripta, ut pote quæ venenum draconis autoris mali in ipfis nutriunt, et ipfum in animis fimpliciorum immittunt.

(3) HEYLIN'S Hift. Prefbyt. p. 242. Form. of recantation prefcribed to certain Anabaptifts, an. 1575. Whereas I, N. N. being feduced by the fpirit of error, and by false teachers his minifters, have fallen into many damnable and deteftable herefies....now by the grace of God.... I fubmit myself, utterly abandoning and forfaking all and every anabaptiftical error..... HULDRICHT ZUINCLIT Elenchus. 1548. Articuli quos tractavimus hi funt: Baptifmus, abftentio, fractio panis, devitatio abominabilium paftorum in ecclefia, Gladius, Jusjurandum.... vere adfero, noftra tempeftate nullum dogma quantumvis inauditum, ita jure poffe hærefim adpellari, atque hanc fectam. Sefe feperarunt ab ecclefia credentium, denuo baptizarunt, et pecudiaria habent conventicula.

all

all other fmall articles like rivulets proceed. Some Baptifts, too haftily it fhould feem, have difowned thefe errours in the grofs, but it is impoffible to difprove the existence of them, on the contrary, they are the bafes and bonds of their focieties. Here it is that their history becomes of confequence, for if the practice of rebaptizing naturally and neceffarily includes thefe errours, the baptifm of an adult is not fuch a futile unconnected thing as fome have imagined, and there is great reafon to expect objections against it.

A few outlines fhall fuffice, and two previous remarks are necessary to them. It was faid, fome time ago, that the established church in the council of Nice ordered fome to be rebaptized: but they foon after difcovered, that the baptifm of adults was connected with fome other articles dangerous to their fyftem: they therefore forbad rebaptizing, and have held it in abhorrence ever fince. So extremely cautious hath the Catholick church been in this affair, that infant baptifm performed by any body was allowed valid, and in the cafe of an infant deferted by its parents, and found in the street, the priest was directed to dip the child with these words (4). Peter, I do not intend to rebaptize thee: but if thou haft not been baptized, I baptize thee in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghoft, Amen.

It is to be observed fecondly, that it is not the mode of baptifm, dipping, or fprinkling, that hath excited the refentment of the opponents of the Baptifts, for fuch as baptized adults by fprinkling have been as much involved in the fcandal of holding anabaptistical errours as others, who practife dipping. It is the baptifm of an adult, precifely, that forms the grand objection, and this it is, which is connected with the errours charged upon Anabaptifm. As thefe errours cannot be denied in regard to fuch Baptifts, let five opponents ftate their objections themselves.

MAGISTRACY.

The first is a statesman, who, in behalf of emperours, kings, princes, barons, burgomafters, and civil rulers of every defcription, objects, That the Anabaptifts affirm "a Chriftian ought not to execute the offices

(4) WILKIN. Concilia. Vol. ii. An. 1287. Synod. Exoniens. Cap. ii. De Baptifmo. Ne autem alicujus dubietatis pretextu, non baptizatus quifpiam relinquatur, quod in infantibus expofitis, et aliis domi baptizatis extra formam fuperius traditam de facili poffit contingere; præcipimus, quod in hujufmodi dubio baptizentur fub hac forma verborum: non intendo te rebaptizare; fed fi non es baptizatus, ego baptizo te in nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti. Amen. Nec tum dubietas talis facit facramentum baptifmatis iterari, quoniam non monftratur iteratum, quod nefcitur effe factum.....F. BARTH, CARRANZE Summa Concil. Statut. Odonis Paris. Petre, fi es baptizatus, &c.

of

ment.

of magiftrates, an errour teeming with fedition (5)." It would be trifling to reply, Adult baptifm hath no connection with the fubject of governIt hath a clofe connection with it. An infant is baptized by ORDER of authority: but if when he grows up he be rebaptized he practically rejects the order, and the power from which it proceeded, and confequently the baptifm of an adult is connected with government, and the baptized difowns all government in this matter of confcience except his own. This man will not baptize his fon, and a person brought up without baptifm is left in a condition of freedom to dispose of himself as he thinks right. Such a ftate implies liberty to examine religion, to reafon about it, to reject or to embrace it by being baptized into what belief and profeffion a man judges proper. There is, therefore, an infeparable union between adult baptifm and civil liberty, and in this great. principle all Baptifts every where agree. The old Donatifts ufed to fay, "What have we to do with the Emperour? What bufinefs hath the Emperour with our religion? What have bifhops to do at court (6)?” When in any age Baptifts appear in defpotical governments, they are feen: ftruggling for liberty, and the end of the ftruggle is burning, banishment, or freedom. They cannot live in tyrannical states, and free countries, are the only places to feek for them, for their whole publick, religion is. impracticable without freedom. They differ, as other denominations do, about the best means of obtaining and preferving liberty. The English Baptifts approve of a limited monarchy, the Dutch of a republick, the Poles of a government nearly aristocratical. The English Baptifts, think, it is lawful for the members of their churches to execute the office of a magiftrate, provided it be not clogged with religious tefts (7).. The Dutch, the Swifs, and the Moravian Baptifts execute no offices,. take no oaths, bear no arms, fhed no human blood, and in civil cafes, refift not government (8). The old German Baptifts fought for liberty, fo, did many in Oliver's army here in England, and the only principle, in which they all agree, is, that the civil magiftrate hath no right to give or enforce law in matters of religion and confcience. Whether this be

(5) HEYLIN as above. I have fallen into many damnable herefiès....as, that no Chriftian › man ought to be a magiftrate, or bear the fword or office of authority..

(6) FR. BALDUINI Annotat, in Optatum. p. 171. Quid chriftianis cum regibus? Quid epifcopis cum palatio? Quid eft imperatori cum ecclefia? Quid mihi eft imperatori? Quid nobis cum regibus fæculi, quos nunquam chriftianitas nifi invidos fenfit ?

(7) CROSBY, Vol. iii. Append. N. ii. Art. xxiv. It is lawful for Chriftians to accept and execute the offices of magistrates, &c.

(8) H. SCHYN. ut fup. Art. xxxvii. De officio Magiftratus politici. Agnofcimus, verbo Dei nos obligante, officii noftri effe, poteftatem revereri, eique honorem et obedientiam exhibere omnibus in rebus, quæ verbo domini non funt contrariæ, &c.