led to his expulsion from the city. He visited his brethren in South Germany and Switzerland, everywhere at the peril of his life. At last, wearied in body and mind from incessant wanderings and debatings, he came to Basel in the autumn of 1527, and threw himself upon the gentle and generous protection of (Ecolampadius, who cheerfully received him and conscientiously, though vainly, strove to convert him. But soon he was attacked by a power no earthly protector could cope with—he fell sick of the plague and died in Basel, November, 1527. He was a pure, honest and noble man and fine scholar. Ludwig Haetzer (or perhaps oftener written Hetzer, 7. e., baiter, as being an objectionable form, and therefore more suitable for a hated ‘‘Anabaptist ’’) was born at Bischofszell, near St. Gall, Switzerland, about 1500; educated at Freiburg im Breisgau, and became proficient in Latin, Greek and Hebrew. He lived in the circle of the early Swiss Reformers, and showed himself a bril- liant though excitable youth. When chaplain at Wädenschwyl, on the south shore of the Lake of Zurich, and fifteen and a half miles from the city, he published a widely read pamphlet advocating the destruction of the images in the churches, the consequence of which was that on September 29, 1523, the crucifix in one of the city churches was destroyed. In the Second Zurich Disputation (October 26-28, 1523,) he came into prominence, and drew up the official report. In Zurich he remained for months occupied in literary work, but there he joined the radicals, who eventually became the first Swiss Baptist party. In the end of June, 1524, he went to Augsburg, with a letter of recom- mendation from Zwingli, but returned at the end of the year, and then‘allying himself with the Baptist party he was ordered from the city, January 21, 1525. He went again to Augsburg, and found employment with the printer Ottmar. But his associations with the dreaded and detested Baptists caused his banish- ment in the autumn. By way of Constance and Basel, where CEcolampadius received him as he had Denk, he came once more to Zurich and won at length the return of Zwingli’s confidence. But he had not altered his opinions, although out of prudence he concealed them, and when he published a book revealing his Baptist views Zwingli did not stay his banishment from Zurich. So in March, 1526, he was back in Basel. Then, at Strassburg (whence he was banished in the end of December, 1526), and later in Worms, he trans- lated the prophetical books of the Old Testament from the Hebrew, and with Denk issued the volume as already mentioned. The two were expelled (June, 1527,) and Haetzer went again to Augsburg, whence he had to go, in the spring of 1528. These repeated and now long-continued experiences of persecution seem to have broken his spirit. He went to his native village, 148 ZWINGLI SELECTIONS.
time takes away from us the Scriptures of the Old and the New Testament, for at Griiningen you tread upon the Old Testament thence to St. Gall, and finally, in the autumn of 1528, to Constance. There he married Anna, the widow of his Augsburg patron, George Regel. But he was charged with having married also her maid, and so he was arrested for big- amy, and on February 4, 1529, beheaded. But then the Baptists were popu- larly believed to be capable of all the sins and crimes in the calendar, and the probability is that Haetzer really was innocent of the accusation and died for his faith. Anyhow, his death was considered by many as that of a martyr, and was surely faced with religions ecstacy and commemorated by the Baptists.
The last person to be mentioned in this connection is Jacob Kautz, called by Zwingli under his Latinized name Cucius. He was born at Bockenheim in Prussia, three miles northwest of Frankfort on the Main, about 1500. He entered the priesthood, but a little later accepted the Reformation and preached it at Worms. He took his coloring rather from Zwingli than from Luther, and so was on bad terms with both the Roman Catholic and Protestant clergy in the city. When Denk and Haetzer visited Worms in 1527 they made his acquaintance, and he joined the Baptist company there, which had become quite numerous, and it was he who on Whitsunday (June oth), 1527, gave out in German the Seven Articles (printed in Zwingli’s Works, viii., 77, both in German and Latin,) as topics for a public debate on June 13th. These Arti- cles of Kautz were as follows: “I. The external word is not the true, living or eternally abiding Word of God, but only the testimony or indication of the inner to satisfy the demand for external things.
“]I. Nothing external, whether word, sign, sacrament or promise, has power to assure, console or make certain the inner man.
“III. The baptism of infants is contrary to the teaching of God given us through Christ.
*‘TV. In the Lord’s Supper neither the body nor the blood of Christ is cor- poreally present.
«V. All that was lost in the first Adam is and will be found more richly restored in the second Adam, Christ; yea, in Christ shall all men be quickened and blessed forever.
«VI. Jesus Christ of Nazareth suffered on the cross and made satisfaction for us in no other way than that we should stand in his footsteps and walk in the way which he has opened, and obey the command of the Father, even as the Son did. They who speak, think or believe otherwise of Christ, each in his own way makes out of Christ an idol.
“VII. Just as the literal bite of the forbidden fruit would have harmed neither REFUTATION OF BAPTIST TRICKS. 149 just as much as at Worms upon the New. If you admit it not to be true, what boldness is it to simulate the divine Spirit with [Adam] himself nor his descendants if he had not eaten of the same with his mind, so also the bodily suffering of Jesus Christ is not real satisfaction and reconciliation with the Father without internal obedience and the greatest desire to yield to the eternal will.
‘Of these articles thus formulated, no one must be judge except only He who speaks and testifies in the hearts of all men, as Scripture says. For no man has been commanded by God to call the truth into judgment, but only to testify.”
It must be confessed that some of these Articles were repugnant to the pre- vailing orthodoxy, but in a less strenuous time they could have been debated without persecuting those who held them.
There were at that time close connections between the Reformed in Worms and in Strassburg, and many of the Baptists in the former place had come from the latter. Accordingly the Strassburg Reformed pastors issued, on July 2, 1527, a pamphlet entitled: ‘‘A faithful warning of the preachers of the gospel in Strassburg against the Articles which Jacob Kautz, preacher at Worms, has lately issued concerning the fruit of the Scripture and the Word of God, Infant Baptism and the redemption of our Lord Jesus Christ, and other doctrines.”’
There is no evidence that the purposed debate ever came off, but the city banished Kautz, along with Denk and Haetzer, and henceforth he was a wan- derer. He went first to Augsburg, then to Rothenburg and in the beginning of 1528, to Strassburg. There he had a debate with Capito and Butzer, June, 1528, and remained at liberty till January, 1529, when he was cast into prison for street preaching. He was released only to be banished. He is heard of only twice again. In 1532, he applied in vain for permission to return to Strassburg; in 1536, he was teaching school in Moravia. The date and place of his death are unknown.
The allusion to a Baptist denial of the whole Old Testament at Worms is to that by the company of Baptists already mentioned as gathered in that place. Grüningen, which is also mentioned in that connection, is a village in the Can- ton of Zurich, and twelve miles southeast of that city and some three miles back of the north shore of the lake. It was an early Baptist important center and, therefore, a scene of ruthless persecution.
Capito in his letter to Zwingli of June 9, 1527 (see latter’s Works, viii, 76- 78) reveals the attitude of the Strassburg Reformed clergy towards the Baptists, to whom he had for a while inclined. He charges them with fantastic belief and fanatic conduct. It is very likely there were mystics and fanatics among them, but testimony from violently prejudiced quarters should be received with caution, for from all that appears, the rank and file of the Baptists were good and God-fearing people.
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such persistency and wantonness! But in vain do I offer you this alternative, for you will never admit your spirit to be a lying one. I will arraign it then by the very power of him who silences the kind of spirit in which you abound, so that it does no more dare to assert: Thou art the Son of God. For as falsely and faithlessly as you did they say: Thou art the son of God. For as often as you confess Christ (by “ you’”’ I mean your leaders) you make a confession worse than the demons. For pain con- strained them, for they so experienced his power and might that sincerely they confessed that he is the Son of God. But if you ever confess him you do it with pretence, for as soon as you hope for such an increase of your forces that you may speak dis- dainfully of him without being called to account, suddenly you assail his kingdom and goodness. For does he who denies that Christ has thoroughly made satisfaction for the sins of the world by one offering of himself—does he say aught but: Christ is false, he is not God, he is not our souls’ salvation? Of this enough has been said above, I think. But it is time to prove your spirit. You openly teach that felicity can come to none but by works of righteousness. So Clırist, whom the Father sent into the world to become a victim for the de- spairing, is made void. Of this victim you have no need, for you trust in your righteousness But do you truly trust? By no means. For not only does divine Scripture teach that all men are liars and that all things are under sin through the law; even the human reason of wise men reaches the same conclusion, so that it sees that man thinks and does nothing except by his favor. I have adduced the testimony of Cicero in my Com- mentary for this purpose—it would take too long to repeat this here.* So the oracle attributed to Apollo, “Know thyself,” makes clear to us that man within and at heart is worthless and evil. For man is not told to inspect himself that he may con- * Allusion to his Commentary on the True and False Religion, see Works, REFUTATION OF BAPTIST TRICKS. 151 template himself with pleasure, but that he may descend into himself and weigh both himself and his [works]. He will find such corruption that he will not rashly think highly of himself whom he finds so low, or have a low estimate of another than whom he sees himself no better. Since then even human reason perceives, when it is quite frank and thrusts itself into the hidden recesses, that man is altogether evil, with what boldness do you assert trust in human innocence? Or will you perhaps say that we must not trust at all? According to your opinion then we shall all be adjudged to ultimate condemnation. For if felicity must come by our innocence, and this innocence is wholly denied us, then felicity for us has perished. Then why do you simulate innocence? Why do many of you take to themselves these words of Christ and boast: Which of you convicteth me of sin? I therefore judge that this is the result, whether you assert that innocence is man’s and from this innocence (which the apostle calls righteousness) felicity [flows], or whether you deny it, your hypocrisy is made clear. For if you insist that felicity follows from our deeds, reason and common sense oppose. What have you to do with sacred Scripture, which you so hold as a supple- ment or appendage that you lay it aside whenever you please? If you deny that it [innocence?] can be obtained, why then do you pretend that what you see can pertain to no mortal, that you hold with both hands? Read again and again this refutation, I beg, and you will come to know yourselves, unless you are more obstinate than the demon. What then? At Worms you deny Christ, and lead the way back to trust in works, because the men there who have recently become interested in religion are little trained in the wiles of hypocrisy, and so are susceptible to your tricks. For when they see your squalor and hear also your sounding words about innocence they assert that you have assumed this squalor that you might the more put on God; they therefore receive you as men of God, and supply richly what they possess. For what chest is so firm that it will not yield to such sanctity, 152 ZWINGLI SELECTIONS.
what pouch so close as not to open to so vehement a spirit? Worshippers of the belly! At Grüningen you deny the Old Testament, for you see there many who are not affected by a pretence of sanctity, and detest the boldness with which you talk about “ spirit ” when Scripture does not suffice. Since therefore you see that catabaptism, from which you hope as from a fountain to derive all your counsel, is proved by no Scripture; while infant baptism can be defended by the Old Testament, you reject the Old Testament. Since then you disparage part of the Old and part of the New, you only show that you are the very worst and most fickle of men, indeed atheists. For while you draw from the records which are written about Christ the matters that con- cer baptism, you make Christ himself of no account. So it is known to all that you do everything for contention’s sake, however much in hypocrisy you simulate sanctity and simplicity. Further, since you reject the Old Testament for the reason that you cannot endure what is deduced from it in reference to infant baptism, you clearly evince that you make of no account him who is God both of the Old Testament and the New. Let me not seem too immoderate, dear reader. You will see that in all matters the case of these people is worse than my pen can show. What hidden ulcer is that they cherish—but why do I say hidden ulcer, when it is not hidden that they deny both the Old Testament and Christ himself? Weigh a little carefully their words, which we copy here. Paul, they say, teaches that whatever is not in the gospel or discourses of the apostles is anathema. You see how openly they reject the Old Testament. You see them as wishing to appear to strive by Scripture, yet distorting Scripture as they do here by Paul, even making that Scripture lie which Christ called in as testimony. And have the apostles taught anything that they had not drunk in or proved from this Scrip- ture? A fine and learned saying that: “ Whatever is not in the gospel or in the discourses of the apostles, let it be anathema.” The oracles of the prophets or of the poets [7. e., poetical books.
REFUTATION OF BAPTIST TRICKS. 153 of the Old Testament,] are not contained to the word in the gospel and apostolic commentaries, so they are anathema. ‘Thus ought they to speak who make themselves masters of all. Who, pray, thus speaks? Do not all who base their speech on this axiom speak thus: Whatever is asserted without the testimony of the Old and New Testament, let it be anathema? But now I will restrain my chiding, for I think that you, most devout reader, see clearly this hidden ulcer.
Catabaptists. John xvii. 20 gives a good reason through the mouth of Christ as he says: Neither pray I for these (7. ¢., the apostles,) alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word. The apostles have their word from Christ, but Christ has [his] from the Father.
Reply. Unite these words, reader, to those immediately pre- ceding, that you may see how trained a sense they have in citing Scripture and how excellently they square what they thus caw out before an unskilled people. What will they of the authority of Christ? Is it that he is to be believed because what he has said and taught he has drawn from the Father and his disciples. from him? Then why do they not believe Christ, who just before- said: For their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also might be- sanctified through the truth, z. e., really and truly sanctified?’ By which words he means only what Paul does when he says,. Heb. x. 14: For by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified. Why do they not believe him whem he says: God hath not sent his Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through him. He who believeth in him is not judged, etc. And: No one cometh to the Father but by me. Why do they not believe his apostles? Peter, e. g., saying: Ye yourselves are built up as living stones into a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacri- fices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. And Paul: Through him we have access to God. And: He is our redemp- tion. In fact whither does the whole teaching of Paul tend if II 154 ZWINGLI SELECTIONS.
not to show that through Christ alone sins are done away and salvation is given. Why do they not believe John? Little children, he says, I have written these things to you that ye sin not. But if any man among you sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. He is the propitiation, not for our sins only, but for the sins of the whole world. These people then have not the purpose of proving that faith is to be had in Christ’s words and his apostles’, for they have none them- selves; if they had they would not assert justification by works.
Catabaptists. Sixth. By the same rule by which Zwingli thrusts infants into the family I thrust them out, but by Scripture; this Zwingli does without Scripture, for infants cannot be counted among the baptized families.
Reply. First, Task by what rule do you think I thrust children into families. By none. Do you not see then that men are born of men, that parents support and protect children? You see how those angel messengers of the devil have put off all human sense. Their head in hell knows that a demon is not born of a demon. So having become his slaves they suppose that this has become obsolete among men viz., that man should beget man and foster what he has begotten. Hear therefore what I mean, and how I would say: It is more likely than otherwise that the apostles baptized infants. For in the sacred Scriptures we have whole families baptized by them, in which it is more than likely that there were children. So to you this does not seem the more likely? Show the reason, and teach us how it is more likely that there were no children in those households, of which we mentioned three. But I will throw them out by Scripture, he says. But who, pray, are you that throw them out? I throw them out, he says. He must be a man of great authority among you to promise that, yet he shows none, neither baton nor scourge. For however he promises, he furnishes no evidence by which he may demand that he be believed...Himself said it, forsooth! Children, he says, cannot be reckoned among the REFUTATION OF BAPTIST TRICKS. 155 families baptized. Here is Scripture for you! That master of ours thinks they cannot be reckoned in; who will dare to con- tradict him? Zwingli, he says, thrusts children into the family without Scripture. What then if upon you, you raging wild ass (for I would not call him a man who I think was baptized among the shades on the Phlegethon,* both because it seems funny to strive with ghosts and because I am not sure, even though I am led by certain assured conjectures to conclude who is the author of so learned a confutation ¢)—upon you I should bring down loads of proof from Scripture, from which you may learn that children are to be reckoned in baptized families. In Acts ii. 44 we read: And all that believed were together, and had all things common. Here I ask: Did the believers have their children with them or not? If they did, were they not in their families? If not, how is it we nowhere read that they were anxious because he who believed could not have his children with him? Was the spirit that impelled them so cruel as to dictate the abandonment of their children? Oh! Youdo not mean that they did not have them and nourish them, but that these did not belong to the Christian family! I ask then what you mean by family? You will doubtless say: Those who had come to such an age that they knew what law is and what sin is, for he must repent who wishes to be baptized, but since infants cannot repent, they cannot be included in the family. Thanks to God that you have learned to make so fine a rope of sand, twisting out lie from lie.
* Phlegethon was one of the five rivers of Hades.
t The document is generally attributed to Conrad Grebel, who had been converted by Zwingli from a licentious life, and who became one of his ardent followers. He joined the radical party in Zurich, and when Zwingli would not go their lengths he turned against him, and in letters to Vadian, his brother-in-law, abuses him. See Die Vadianische Briefsammlung, ed. Arbenz, passim, Grebel belonged to a prominent Zurich family. His father was be- headed as a traitor (November, 1526), and he himself was banished from the city for his Baptist faith in 1525, and died of the plague the next year at Maienfeld, in the canton of St. Gall and a couple of miles north of Ragatz.
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For having persisted in the statement that none is to be baptized but he who can repent, you will rightly assert that infants may not be baptized. But here there is need of a law forbidding, and you have no law. You therefore are ihe law, and where the lion fails you, patch on the fox. And why not? What one of your brethren weighs how correctly or incorrectly you reason? But we, who are accustomed to assert nothing not abundantly founded and supported by divine testimony, we know that Isaac, even when an infant, belonged to Abraham’s family so completely that he compelled his father to send forth the servant and the child born of her. Does not this seem so to you? But Paul joins Moses in saying: The son of a maid-servant shall not be heir with my son Isaac. He was heir, and doubtless of the family. For even they who are not heirs, such as slaves and freedmen, are of the family. I do not care to plead here that by lawyers this son whom you disinherit here is declared a member of the family. I hasten to this: Ex. xii. 48 we read—we who go to the Old and the New Testament as to two lights to prevent us from being deceived, while in the meantime you support your- selves on your own spirit—as pearls do on their own absorption when nothing flows into or moistens them from outside—we read, I say: And when a stranger shall sojourn with thee and keep the passover of the Lord, let all his males first be circumcised, and then he shall rightly keep it. Why is said here: All his males? Does this pertain only to adults? Why then the precept to circumcise every male on the eighth day? Yet infants are not of the family. ‘To me the opposite seems true, for they possess heirship. But it is yours to prove by Scripture that they who received the sign of the church of God in accordance with the rite and religion of the parents belonged not to their parents’ family. But that you will as soon do this as cut through an isthmus I will show by other evidence. In Acts xxi. 5 Luke writes: And after some days we went on our way, all bringing with us wives and children, etc. Were the children here only REFUTATION OF BAPTIST TRICKS. 157 adults? And if not adults, were they not of the family? What miracle is here, or what is the special attention, if the fathers of the family brought the apostle on his way with wives and youths or almost adults? This was the special attention, that fathers with their wives carried or dragged with them the children, as is customary during such eager times. Now they took with them not others, but their own sons; these were therefore in the family. There is no reason to admonish you, good reader, that I am exposing some trick or guile. For what difficulty will there be in discovering this to be malice, in that they do not reckon the infants of believers with the father’s family. For it cannot be foolishness, since they themselves are counted in the families of the Denks and Hetzers and Kautrs (wonderful flock) to their finger-nails.
Catabaptists. Seventh. Grant that there were infants in these families, the truth yet does not favor that those infants were baptized. But it follows with insult to truth and divine wisdom.
Reply. Who can wonder enough at the assurance of the man? He grants that children were in those families, but says they were not baptized. Yet in the first passage the words are: But I baptized also the house of Stephanas. In the second: But when she was baptized and her house. In the third: And he was baptized and all his house. How could he say in general, in the first place, that he had baptized the house of Stephanas, which he did not do if there were children in it whom he had not admitted? The same must be said about the second. But in the third case, when he asserts that the whole house was baptized, how is it that they do not see that in the beginnings the same custom obtained as with Abraham and his descendants, who circumcised the whole class of his servants, as well those taken in war as the home-born slaves and those bought, not to say the children, as appears from the passage just cited from Exodus? There it is expressly commanded to circumcise every male of the family, and there is never any mention of believing 158 ZWINGLI SELECTIONS.
or knowing God, which yet ought to be the especial care of all It follows, he says, with insult to the truth and wisdom of God. Though they know neither, they affirm insult to both. But what contumely is it to either God’s truth or his wisdom that Hebrew infants were circumcised and included in the faithful families? But these words of theirs are high-sounding; this is their mer- chandise—bombast and words a foot and a half long. To words of this sort, which they use in great rotundity, the unskilled mob erects its ears and then applauds.
Catabaptists. Eighth. The last chapter of this epistle shows that the apostle neither knew nor baptized children. Zwingli dishonestly keeps this back; it makes against his foundation of glass. Paul describes this family to the learned when he says: Ye know the house of Stephanas, that it is the first-fruits in Achaia, and that they have addicted themselves to the service of the saints—that ye submit yourselves to them and to every one that helpeth with us and laboreth. A family of this sort peedo- baptism and peedobaptists do not recognize; they do away with it, for it is against them.
Reply. As in many other places so here, we easily catch the author of this frivolous confutation, although the greatest proof is the Swiss tongue, in which it is so written that it has no foreign or imported words. Yet, as I have said, since the man now doubtless burns among the shades as much as he froze here through his catabaptist washings, I have concluded to omit his name.* What impudence is this, O shade, in that you assert that I wish to ignore these words of Paul. Were these words * The editors of Zwingli’s Works think that here, as on p. 155 and elsewhere, is an allusion to Balthasar Hubmaier because, as they say, (Ecolampadius an- nounced to Zwingli on July 19, 1527, that there was a rumor that Hubmaier had been burnt at the stake. The rumor was false and the editors made a slip, as this treatise of Zwingli’s is dated July 31, 1527, and the letter of (Ecolam- padius is really dated August 18, 1527. ( Works, viii., 85.) But the allusion probably is to Conrad Grebel, as already stated on p. 155. To burn among the shades it was not absolutely necessary to have been burnt at the stake first.
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