baptisms the baptisteiy doors were sealed with the bishop s seal. Baptisteries, we find from the records of early councils, were first built and used to correct the evils arising from the practice of private baptism. As soon as Christianity made such progress that infant baptism became the rule, and as soon as immersion gave place to sprinkling, the ancient baptisteries were no longer necessary. They are still in general use, however, in Florence and Pisa. The name baptistery is sometimes also given to a kind of chapel in a large church, which served the same purpose. (Of. Hefele s Concilien, passim; Du Cange, Glossary, article " Baptisterium ;" Eusebius, Hist. Ecd. x. 4 ; Bing-
liam s Antiquities of the Christian Church, book xi.)BAPTISTS, a denomination of Christians, distinguished, as their name imports, from other denominations by the views they hold respecting the ordinance of baptism.
The early history of the Baptists, both in this country and on the Continent, is very obscure. In the great awakening of religious thought and feeling which charac terized the beginning of the 16th century, it was inevitable that amongst those who burst the fetters which bound them to the see of Rome some should be willing to retain as much of the ancient doctrine and practice as they could with a safe conscience, whilst others, rejoicing in their new found liberty, would desire to cast aside every remnant of what they regarded as superstition, and to advance as far as possible in the path of what they deemed Christian liberty ; nor is it at all to be wondered at that strange and wild theories on matters even remotely connected with religion should spring into life. But amidst all the diver sities of opinion that existed, it was constantly held by Protestants that "holy Scripture containeth all things necessary to salvation, so that whatsoever is neither read therein nor may be proved thereby, although it be sometime received of the faithful as godly and profitable for an order and comeliness, yet no man ought to be constrained to believe it as an article of faith or repute it requisite to the necessity of salvation" (Articles of King Edward VI.) We must not be surprised that the right of private judg ment, which is involved in the principle thus broadly laid down, was nevertheless far from being conceded to the extent that was desired by those who departed farthest from the Church of Rome. In fact, each separate section of Protestants claimed for itself to stand on the ground of holy Scripture, and was prepared to resist alike the tyranny of Rome and what it considered the licence of other bodies of Protestants. Thus it happened that the Baptists, or as their opponents called them, the Ana baptists (or, as Zwingli names them, Catabaptists), were strenuously opposed by all other sections of the Christian Church, and it was regarded by almost all the early refor mers to be the duty of the civil magistrate to punish them with fine and imprisonment, and even with death. There was, no doubt, some justification for this severity in the fact that the fanaticism which burst forth in the early times of the Reformation frequently led to insurrection and revolt, and in particular that the leader of the " peasant war" in Saxony, Thomas Miinzer, and probably many of his followers, were " Anabaptists." One result of this severity is, that; the records of the early history of the Anabaptists both on the Continent and in this country are very few and meagre. Almost all that is currently known of them comes to us from their opponents. There is, how ever, much valuable information, together with detailed accounts of their sufferings, in the Dutch Martyrology of Van Braght, himself a Baptist, which bears the title Martelaers Spiegel der Doops-gesinde (2d ed. fol., 1685), an English translation of the latter half of which was published in 2 vok Svo, Lond. 1850-53, edited by Dr Underbill, now secretary of the Baptist Missionary Society. Probably the earliest confession of faith of any Baptist community is that given by Zwingli in the second part of his Elcnchus contra Catabaf)tistas, published in 1527. Zwingli professes to give it entire, translating it, as he says, ad verbum into Latin. He upbraids his opponents with not having pub lished these articles, but declares that there is scarcely any one of them that has not a written (deicriptum) copy of these laws which have been so well concealed. The articles are in all seven. The first, which we give in fall, relates to baptism:—
" Baptism ought to be given to all who have been taught repent ance and change of life, and who in truth believe that through Christ their sins are blotted out (abolita), and the sins of all who are willing (volunt) to walk in the resurrection of Jesus Christ, and who are willing to be buried with him into death, that they may rise again with him. To all, therefore, who in this manner seek baptism, and of themselves ask us, we will give it. By this rule are excluded all baptisms of infants, the great abomination of the Roman pontiff. For this article we have the testimony and strength of Scripture, we have also the practice of the apostles; which things we simply and also stedfastly will observe, for we are assured of them."
The second article relates to withdrawment (abstentio) or excommunication, and declares that all who have given themselves to the Lord and have been baptized into the one body of Christ should, if they lapse or fall into sin, be excommunicated. The third article relates to the breaking of bread ; in this it is declared that they who break the one bread in commemoration of the broken body of Christ, and drink of the one cup in commemoration of His blood poured out, must first be united together into the one body of Christ, that is, into the church of God. The fourth article asserts the duty of separation from the world and its abominations, amongst which are included all papistical and semi-papistical works. The fifth relates to pastors of the church. They assert that the pastor should be some one of the flock who has a good report from those who are without. " His office is to read, admonish, teach, learn, exhort, correct, or excommunicate in the church, and to preside well over all the brethren and sisters both in prayer and in the breaking of bread ; and in all things that relate to the body of Christ, to watch that it may be established and increased so that the name of God may by us be glorified and praised, and that the mouth of blasphemers may be stopped." The sixth article relates to the power of the sword. " The sword," they say, " is the ordinance of God outside the perfection of Christ, by which the bad is punished and slain and the good is defended." They further declare that a Christian ought not to decide or give sentence in secular matters, and that he ought not to exercise the office of magistrate. The seventh article relates to oaths, which they declare are forbidden by Christ.
in these articles, we cannot but be astonished at the vehemence with which they were opposed, and the epithets of abuse which were heaped upon the unfortunate sect that maintained them. Zwingli, through whom they come down to us, and who gives them, as he says, that the world may see that they are "fanatical, stolid, audacious, impious," can scarcely be acquitted of unfairness in joining together two of them, the fourth and fifth, thus making the article treat " of the avoiding of abominable pastors in the church" (Super devitatione abominabiliutn pastorum in JEccle*ia though there is nothing about pastors in the fourth article, and nothing about abominations in the fifth, and though in a marginal note he himself explains that the first two copies that were sent him read as he does, but the other copies make two articles, as in fact they evidently are. To us at the present day it appears not merely strange but shocking, that the Protestant Council of Zurich, which had scarcely won its own liberty, and was still in dread of
the persecution of the Romanists, should pass a decree