Further, the Independents were frequently reminded that the position of the Baptists was only the logical development of their own, and did not like the accusation of short-sighted inconsistency. The Presbyterians cordially detested the Baptists, and it was proposed that they should be invited to a disputation, and if they were proved to be in error should be put down by Parliament. This growing irritation against them was due to the rise of numerous sectaries—the Seekers, the Family of Love, the Fifth-Monarchy Men, and the like, whose tenets were mostly imported from Holland, and all rested upon some development of the principles of the Anabaptists. One of the Presbyterian divines has left an account of sixteen such sects, who possessed amongst them 176 opinions which he denounced as blasphemous and heretical. It was to meet these objections and to prove the harmless nature of their tenets, that the first Baptist Confession was put forward in 1646. The doctrines which it professes are those of moderate Calvinism, and it defines the Church as "a company of visible saints, called and separated from the world by the Word and Spirit of God, to the visible profession of the faith of the Gospel: and all God's servants are to lead their lives in this walled sheepfold and watered garden". They further asserted: "Concerning the worship of God there is but one lawgiver, Jesus Christ, who hath given laws and rules sufficient, in His Word, for His worship. It is the magistrate's duty to tender the liberty of men's conscience, without which all other liberties will not be worth the naming. If any man shall impose on us anything that we see
