_istrates, who were all friends of the Old faith on this doctrine, he devoted a great deal of attention to it, with the result that he convinced himself that as to the subjects of baptism he had been wrong, and henceforth he took the ortho- ' dox side. As Zwingli was an honest man and morally courageous, his change of view should be accepted as sincere, and not as time-serving and hypocritical. He soon had a chance to attack his former friends and admirers on other than speculative grounds, because they had been influenced by men like Thomas Muenzer and Balthasar Hubmaier, who were in the stream of the Baptist movement in Germany. Balthasar, indeed, developed into the leading theolo- gian of the Baptists of Switzerland. From Germany the idea came to the little company of Baptists in Zurich to practice the rite of baptism upon believing adults who had already, as the Church claimed, been baptized, upon the theory that only those could be baptized truly who were old enough to have at the time an intelligent comprehension of the doctrines to which they were giving assent, and as this could not have been the case with those ‘‘ baptized’ in infancy, therefore they had never really been baptized. The first of these adult baptisms occurred in a gathering of these Baptists in Zollicon, a little village to the east of Zurich, and was by pouring from a dipper. But these first Baptists in Switzerland cared so little in regard to the mode of baptism that the question does not seem to have been discussed among them, and in the writings of REFUTATION OF BAPTIST TRICKS. 125 Then when he had not only endured the betrayer for so long a time, but also openly dissuaded or terrified him, the latter, so far from giving over the malicious design entered upon, of giving up master and parent, did not cease till he had placed the spirit in bonds.* So it is now, when the audacity of the Cata- Zwingli is not referred to. This is a curious fact, because the modern Baptist | church lays great stress upon a certain mode of baptism.
The elaborate attack upon the Baptists here presented derives additional interest from the two documents that it embodies. The first is the attack upon Zwingli written probably by Conrad Grebel, one of the earliest friends of Zwingli, and the second is the Confession of Faith written by the Baptists of Bern. Zwingli replies to both these documents, quoting them verbally and fully, and this enables us to reconstruct them. The Confession of the Bernese Baptists is in very simple language, showing a very honest and God-fearing mind, and is in itself a triumphant refutation of the charges of fanaticism and immorality which Zwingli brings against them. In fact in this paper Zwingli shows himself up in a very bad light.
This is no place in which to describe the outrageous treatment which the Baptist party received in Zurich and elsewhere through Switzerland. The writer feels the freer to use such aterm because he is not himself a Baptist, but he comes to the subject merely as a historical student. He considers that the part which Zwingli played in this wretched business is a serious blot upon his reputation, and reveals a defect in his character. The Baptists were pursued relentlessly; drowning, beheading, burning at the stake, confiscation of prop- erty, exile, fines and other forms of social obloquy were employed to suppress them and prevent their increase. The fact shows plainly that the persecuting spirit in the times of the Reformation was just as rife among Protestants as among Roman Catholics, and that the devil was abroad in the hearts of those who considered themselves on both sides as the true servants of the Lord Jesus Christ, whose tenderness and love must have been greatly tried by these wicked doings of his friends.
Peace came at last to Switzerland—the peace of the grave-yard and of the | sea which gives not up its dead. The orthodox party congratulated them- | selves upon having got rid of the pestilential heresy of adult baptism, yet the student of history as he looks upon the large, flourishing and world-wide | Baptist church of to-day asks himself which side really won the battle for the | right of private judgment and liberty of action, the side of the persecutor or the side of the persecuted?
* /. e., died by the halter; allusion to the death of Judas.
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baptists has been suffered to proceed so far that they have conceived the hope of confounding all things; who are so un- taught that by calling themselves by this name they would in- crease their estimation; so imprudent (while Christ would have the apostles prudent as serpents) that the confusion which alone they are eager for they suppose they will discover by means of their imprudence rather than find by any skill. This inauspicious race of men has so increased within a few years * that they now cause anxiety to certain cities. And this in no other way than through unskilled and impious audacity. For while pious learn- ing and discipline has no need of the ministry of hypocrisy (for it is sufficient unto itself through erudition, and by the very un- affected discipline of piety commends itself to others), yet men of this kind are so thoroughly ignorant of that which they boast they alone know (and), so pretend that from which they are farther distant than the hall of Pluto from the palace of Jove, that it is clear that they begin this web endowed with nothing but impious and untaught audacity. For as often as by the use of clear passages of Scripture they are driven to the point of hav- ing to say, I yield, straightway they talk about “the spirit” and deny Scripture. As if indeed the heavenly spirit were ignorant of the sense of Scripture which is written under its guidance or were anywhere inconsistent with itself. And if you rightly and modestly call in question their customs and institutions, even if you come as a suppliant and beg them to do nothing rashly, there is no abuse employed by the enemies of the Gospel these do not use, no threats they do not throw at you. What does all this mean, I ask, if it is not the sign of audacity and impious confidence? Since there is so rich a harvest of these—not men (for why must one call those men who have nothing but the + Waldshut, Zurich, St. Gall, Schaffhausen, Basel, Coire, Constance, Strass- burg, Worms, Ulm.
REFUTATION OF BAPTIST TRICKS. 127 human form?), but monsters of deceit—that now the good seed which the heavenly Father so lately sowed in his field must be on its guard, I beg this, that we watch, act, and not let the enemy overthrow us as we sleep. Let us judge soberly, lest we receive a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Let us labor, lest that evil that has arisen be attributed to our neglect. For there are, alas, not a few among us who are stricken and moved by every wind and novelty, just like the untaught rabble which embraces a thing the more quickly the more unknown it is. The Catabaptists speak in round tones of God, truth, the Word, light, spirit, holiness, flesh, falsehood, impiety, desire, demon, hell and all that kind of things, not only beautifully, but even grandly and finely, if only hypocrisy were more surely absent. If also you should investi- gate their life, at the first contact it seems innocent, divine, democratic, popular, nay, supermundane, for it is thought more noble than human even by those who think not illiberally of them- selves. But when you have penetrated into the interior you find such a pest as it is shame even to mention. For it is not suffi- cient for them to abuse the Gospel for gain and to live at the expense of another, and to give themselves up to such base cunning for the sake of their belly, weaving plot out of plot, but they must not only assail, but even destroy, the faith of matrons and girls from whose husbands and parents they obtain hospitality. And not contented with all this, they refuse to pronounce and recognize as wicked the hand made bloody at St. Gall with a cruel parricide, so that you see without difficulty that the same thing is to be expected from their assemblages (which are both nocturnal and solitary), which once at Rome improperly idle matrons when they had gained possession of a certain paltry Greek perpetrated in their subterranean meetings. And although all those deeds are in part so wicked and unworthy of good men, in part so obscene and impure, and in part so monstrous and cruel, that they would hand this age down to posterity as infam- ous, even though there were no other calamity; nevertheless 128 ZWINGLI SELECTIONS.
great as they are, they are insignificant in that they confined the contumely within human bounds, as compared with these which they are guilty of against the piety that regards both Christ and public morals. They deny that Christ himself perfected forever his saints in his one offering of himself. But what is this but drawing from heaven God’s Son who sits at the right hand of the Father? And when they have cast him from his kingdom, in whose name, pray, shall they be baptized? Does not the whole New Testament tend to this, that we should learn that Christ is our successful sacrifice and redemption? Out of what books do the Catabaptists draw their doctrine? When therefore they thoroughly deny the sum of the New Testament, do we not see them using catabaptism, not to the glory of God or with the good of their consciences, but as a pretext for seditions, confu- sion and tumult, which things alone they hatch out? With folly does he boast the baptism of Christ who denies Christ. It is to no purpose that they say after the manner of the Jews (some of whom we know do this) that Christ was a great prophet or a man of God, but not the Son of God, for he can be neither a prophet nor a man of God who brings a lie to wretched mortals —in which (lies) they abound to more than a sufficiency. But Christ asserted that he was the Son of God; on account of this he died; he therefore could not have lied when he said he was God’s Son if he was a true prophet or a man of God. How is it that the apostles baptized in Jesus’ name when he had given them the formula, “In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit?’ Jesus must be equal, nay, the same as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. For John, great as he was, and prophet and man of God, did not baptize in his own name. In brief, then, when they clearly deny that Christ is by nature the Son of God, it is through evil design that they rage about baptism, and not for zeal’s sake. Morals they corrupted in the following manner: No matter what crime they are caught in committing, even in the very act (for in their church so unstained shameful REFUTATION OF BAPTIST TRICKS. 129 deeds, adultery, parricide, perjury, theft, evil, guile, and about all crimes there are anywhere, are more common than among those whom they call for contumely “the flesh and the devil.” I tell the truth, I lie not; there is none of these that I cannot abundantly prove if the occasion demands)—In whatsoever sin they are taken, I say, they escape in no other way than: I have not sinned, for I am no longer in the flesh, but in the spirit; I am dead to the flesh, and the flesh to me. Do they not betray what they are by this reply? For how can they who are led by the Spirit of God and are sons of God allure to adultery a matron’s chastity? With what face offer insult to a simple little maiden! What an insult to God is this! What a handle this for those who would already have given themselves from the lust of the flesh to all vice if shame alone had not opposed! Will not the homicide share with the rake and adulterer, when accused, the formula, “I am now of the Spirit; the wrong done here is not mine, but is of the flesh.” What shame, pray, will be left us? What regard for modesty? For they do not reply with the same mind as do we ordinarily who trust in Christ. For we frankly confess: I have sinned, I will correct the error, I will flee through Christ to the mercy of God, from this I will never fall. For they do not refer to Christ; they have put off all shame, and what will he correct who denies that he has fallen? O, the crime, the audacity, the impudence! What swine of the school of Epicurus ever thus philosophized? Or what difference is there between right and wrong, O heaven, between holy and crime-laden, man and beast? If you take away shame from humanity, have you not admitted to the theatre all obscenity, have you not eliminated law, corrupted morals? You are not ashamed at slaughter, adultery, harlotry; you are more a beast than the wolf, lion or horse, which have some shame. Against this class of men we must be on constant watch, all our forces and machines must be brought, my brethren, and the more because they rage so in their hypocrisy and perfidy. They excel 130 ZWINGLI SELECTIONS.
in this Empusa, Proteus, the chameleon, or Tarandus,* or whatever is inconstant. By this they assert that the papal party will bring them aid—this openly. They assail far more sharply than do the Romanists all who stand by Christ, by which they evince to what purpose they spare those whom they so anxiously flatter. But all our material cannot and must not be sought elsewhere than from the armory of the Old and the New Testament. Do thou, Father of lights, illumine their darkness, that they may see their error, and as thou wilt sometime do, eliminate this error from the Church quickly, we pray! But thou, whosoever thou art, who boastest in the name or ministry of the Most High God or of the gospel of His Son, consider what and whence these matters are which we allege, and laying passion aside furnish the herb of truth. Farewell! ZuRICH, Fuly 71, 1527.
HULDREICH ZWINGLI’S REFUTATION AGAINST THE TRICKS OF THE CATABAPTISTS.
Thus far our preface. Now hear in what order we shall proceed. First, we shall reply to their calumnies, in which they assert they have confuted our fundamental arguments. Secondly, I shall overthrow the basis of their superstition. Then I shall discuss the covenant and the election of God, which abides firm and is above baptism and circumcision; nay, above faith and preaching. I shall add an appendix, in which, with the help of God, I shall refute certain errors recently wrought out by them. But all with a light hand. In the first two parts I shall always * Empusa was a spectre of huge size, having one leg of brass and one like that of an ass, sent out by Hecate to frighten travelers. It ate human flesh. It sometimes appeared as a beautiful young woman. Proteus was the Old Man of the Sea, who rose at noonday from the flood, came on land and fell asleep among the rocks. If any one could catch him there and hold on to him, not- withstanding his efforts to escape by changing his form, he would be able to learn from him the future with infallible accuracy. 7arandus was a horned animaj of Northern lands, perhaps the reindeer.
REFUTATION OF BAPTIST TRICKS. 131 put their words first, faithfuly translated from German into Latin; after that the reply. Thus then they begin: THE CATABAPTISTs. One of Zwingli’s grounds for advocating the baptism of infants is the family of Stephanas. For he says: It is more likely than not that the apostles baptized the children of the faithful, for Paul says, ı Cor. i. 16, And I baptized also the household of Stephanas; a second is in Acts xvi. 15, when Lydia was baptized and her house; a third in verse 33, a little after, And he was baptized, he and his house, straightway. In these families it is more likely than not that there were infants. Thus far they.
Before I go to the regular reply, I would warn thee of one thing, O reader. This work is called a “ Refutation of the Tricks, etc.,” because this class of men so abounds and works in tricks that I have never seen anything equally oily or changeable. Yet this is not wonderful. For add to their asseverations of holiness, which they are skilled in working up, their readiness in making fictions and scattering them, and (you see) how they deceive not only the simple, but even the elect, divine providence thus proving its own. The book containing the refutation of our positions * they had for a long time been passing through the hands of their brotherhood, who everywhere boasted that they could so tear up Zwingli’s positions that there would be nothing left. I had meanwhile been looking and searching everywhere to see if I *'As appears from the letter of CEcolampadius to Zwingli, dated July 19, 1527 (Zwingli’s Works, viii. 80), it is probable that the writing which called out the answers of (Ecolampadius and Zwingli had the title: ‘* Ein Gesprech Balthasar Hubemörs von Fridberg. Doctors. auff Mayster Ulrichs Zwinglens ze Zürich Taufbiiechlein. von dem Khindertauff. Die warhayt is untödtlich. Erd. erd. erd. höre das wort des herrens. Hiere.” Nicholspurg 1526 (quarto). Zwingli’s book on Baptism (‘* Vom Touf, vom widertouf und vom kindertouf”), appeared May 27 1525. Itisin his Works, ii. I, 230-303.
On July ııth in that year Hubmeier issued his ‘‘ Von dem christlichen Tauf der Gläubigen,” to which Zwingli replied by his ‘‘ Uiber doctor Bal- thazars toufbiichlin wahrhafte gründte antwurt (1525) Works, ii. 1, 337-369.
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could get it, but could find it nowhere, until CEcolampadius, a most upright man, and also most vigilant, found one somewhere and sent it to me. So the first trick was that they sent around their own writings, which through their seared consciences they knew could not endure the light, secretly by the hands of the conspirators, who are as purblind in their ignorance as they are blind in their desire to advance the sect. They did not allow it to come into other hands. But the evil-doer cometh not into the light lest his works be manifest. But how could they submit their works to the church when they have seceded from the church? For you must know, most pious reader, that their sect arose thus. When their leaders, clearly fanatics, had already determined to drag into carnal liberty the liberty we have in the gospel, they addressed us who administer the word at Zurich first,* kindly, indeed, but firmly, so that so far as could be seen from their appearance and action it was clear that they had in mind something inauspicious. They addressed us therefore after the following manner: It does not escape us that there will ever be those who will oppose the gospel, even among those who boast in the name of Christ. We therefore can never hope that all minds will so unite as Christians should find it possible to live. For in the Acts of the Apostles those who had believed seceded from the others, and then it happened that they who came to believe went over to those who were nowanewchurch. So then must we do: they beg that we make a deliverance to this effect —they who wish to follow Christ should stand on our side. They promise also that our forces shall be far superior to the army of the unbelieving. Now the church was about to elect from their own devout its own senate. For it was clear that there were many impious ones both in the senate and in this promiscuous church. To this we replied in the foJlowing manner: It is indeed true that there would ever be those who would live unrighteously, *In 1524. Cf. for these matters Zwingli, Works, ii. I, 230 sqq., 370 sqq. II., pp. 370 ff and 230 ff.
REFUTATION OF BAPTIST TRICKS. 133 even though they confessed Christ, and would have all innocence and therefore piety in contempt. Yet when they asserted and contended that they were Christians, and were such by their deeds—as even the church could endure—they were on our side. For who is not against us is on our side.
So Christ himself had taught in just such beginnings of things as were then ours. He had also commanded us to let the tares grow with the grain until the day of harvest, but we hoped boldly more would return daily toa sound mind who now had it not. If this should not be, yet the pious might ever live among the im- pious. I feared that in that condition of affairs a secession would cause some confusion. The example of the apostles was not applicable here, for those from whom they withdrew did not confess Christ, but now ours did. A great part of those would be unwilling to consent with us to any secession, even though they embraced Christ more ardently than we ourselves. By the continuous action of the word that alone should be promulgated which all ought to know, unless they wished to be wanting to their own salvation. I did not doubt that without disorder the number of the believing would ever grow larger by the unremit- ting administration of the werd, not by the disruption of the body into many parts. That although the senate seemed to them to be of very varying complexion, we were not of that mind. Especially because, while nothing humane seemed alien to them, yet they frankly not only did not oppose the word, but they favored it equally with that Jehoshaphat who strengthened with his cohorts by the law itself the priests and Levites that they might the more freely preach the word through all Judea. Yet one should especially observe that there were ten virgins awaiting the bridegroom, but five of them were wise and prudent and five were slothful and foolish. Replies on this line we made to them as they urged us, and they saw they would not succeed. They brought up other matters. They denounced infant baptism tremendously as the chief abomination, proceeding from an evil 134 ZWINGLI SELECTIONS.
demon and the Roman pontiff. We met this attack at once, promised an amicable conference. It was appointed for Tuesday of each week. At the first meeting the battle was sharp but without abuse, as we especially took in good part their insults. Let God be the witness and those who were present, as well from their side as from ours. The second was sharper. Some of them, since they could do nothing with Scripture, carried on the affair with open abuse. When they saw themselves beaten after a considerable conflict, and when we had exhorted them in friendly ways, we broke up in such a way that many of them promised they would make no disturbance, though they did not promise to give up their opinions. Within three, or at most four, days it was announced that the leaders of the sect had baptized fifteen brethren. Then we began to perceive why they had deter- mined to collect a new church and had opposed infant baptism so seriously. We warned the church that it could not be main- tained, that this proceeded from good counsel, to say nothing of a good spirit, and for these reasons: They had attempted a division and partition of the church, and this was just as hypo- critical as the superstition of the monks. Secondly, though the churches had to preserve their Jiberty of judging concerning doctrine, they had set up catabaptism without any conference, for during the whole battle about infant baptism they had said nothing about catabaptism. Third, this catabaptism seemed like the watchword of seditious men. Then when they learned this in great swarms they came into the city, unbelted and girded with rope or osiers, and prophesied, as they called it, in the market place and squares. They filled the air with their cries about the old dragon, as they called me, and his heads, as they called the other ministers of the word. They also commended their justice and innocence to all, for they were about to depart. They boasted that already they hold all things in common, and threatened with extremes others unless they do the same. ‘They went through the streets with portentous uproar, crying Woe!
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