baptism, but you call “ baptism ”’ that which is rebaptism. And while your words appear as though you were unwilling to admit any one to the table of the Lord unless he has been baptized, what you mean really is that no one in your evil church should hope to be a participant at the table of the Lord unless he has been rebaptized. This is what you mean, I say. Behold the tricks of the impostors, my reader. ‘They talk simply about bap- tism, but will not be understood about simple but about double baptism. To this the confirmation of their law bears witness when they add: For, as the divine Paul teaches, we cannot at the same time participate at the Lord’s table and at demons’. By which they mean only that initiates who were baptized in youth belong to the demons, though they beautifully cover up this error so as not to be compelled to answer a new question which is beyond them, z. e., whether the baptism which we as children received is not sufficient? For they were vanquished by us when they at length declared this baptism to be from the Roman pontiff, and so from a demon. Nevertheless they carry around a long document in their church, in which they show from the decrees of the pontiffs that infant baptism was begun under popish rule—wicked men that they are, since I showed them before that in Origen’s time, who lived about 150 years after Christ’s ascension, baptism was in common use, and after- wards in Augustine’s time, who flourished about 400 years after.
For both testify that infant baptism had remained to their own times from the custom of the apostles. But in those times the name of pope, and also monarchy or tyranny, had not come into. the churches. And I refuted their statement (that you may lose nothing of our side, reader,) that the baptism of the pope is not Christ’s, but a demon’s, in the following way: If baptism were of the pope alone, I would not object to their calling the pope’s bap- tism either “not Christ’s’” or a demon’s. But the baptism of Christ is not the pope’s, even though the pope were the arch- demon himself and used Christ’s baptism, for when the devil REFUTATION OF BAPTIST TRICKS. 185 used the prophet’s word in the temptation of Christ, the prophet’s word did not become the devil’s; and again, when the demons cried out: “ Thou art the Christ the Son of the living God,” so salutary a confession was no less salutary because a demon made it; so when the pope baptized not in his own name, but in that of the Father and Son and Holy Ghost, it could in no way be vitiated so as not to be the baptism of Christ’s church. In the second place Christ himself said: “ He that is not against us is with us.” The pope therefore has this much of good, that he baptizes in no other name than that in which we were baptized; in this he is with us as was he [with Christ] who expelled a demon by the power of Christ’s name, although he neither fol- lowed nor cherished Christ. Finally the apostles have left us in the matter of matrimony a fine example, both in this matter and in others which pertain to disputes about externals. For as some had married among the Gentiles before the apostles had carried: to them the salutary teaching of the gospel, so they [the apostles] left those marriages intact. This is clear from the testimony of Paul in 1 Cor. vii. 13, where he commanded the faithful wife to: dwell with the unbelieving husband, provided she did what was pleasing to him. This is nothing but the confirmation of the marriage laws which each nation had, even of those marriages entered upon in idolatry. Equally therefore we may not repudiate a baptism which is not only not founded upon the pope’s invention or authority, but depends upon the authority of Christ himself and the apostles. For the popes baptized in no other name than that of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost. But in whose name do they suppose marriages among idolaters were made? Yet the apostles left these marriages whole and intact, no matter what the laws and gods under which they were undertaken. The more therefore will baptism be untouched by us when it is given in that name in which we give it, even though the pope have adminis- tered it. Then they offered as objection too hatefully the matters of salt, butter, saliva, mud and that class of things, nay, even the 13 186 ZWINGLI SELECTIONS.
prayers made over infants, on the ground that neither John nor the apostles are said to have begun or celebrated baptism with prayer. To which I replied, first as to ceremonial: Christ re- stored some blind men to sight by the medium of touch or of mud others by the words “ Receive thy sight” alone, and they saw no less distinctly who regained sight by the medium of touch or mud than they who did by the words alone. But we care nothing for those externals if the church orders them to be abolished, and it has been brought about that it forthwith gave the order, we who preside over the church not being ignorant that in the beginnings of the church there was need of these things, though not so much was attributed to them as in our times, whence we cut them off without difficulty. As to the prayers which they attempted also to tear away, I replied: The Lord Jesus himself prayed over the infants brought to him. What madness is it then to be unwilling that we pray over infants! I had the best of it in this part, the Catabaptists in the other. All this, I say, they know and conceal in their false church, or rather their conspiracy. And so, to return from my digression, since they know from these reasons and this basis of Scripture that it is not the pope’s baptism, but Christ’s, in which we are baptized, and yet they contemn it, it is clear that they act by no right or reason, but in violence and fury—by which they call, though not truly yet plausibly, their own rebaptism baptism—so as to be able to draw the hearts of the untaught to a rebaptism.
Finally, lest by their words it may be manifest whither they tend, they bring finally an exposition of this their baptism and separation, 7. e., they say: All who have communion with the dead works of the shades have no communion with those who are called from the world to God. You will consider diligently all this, reader, and I am sure you will discover by what wiles and stratagems they allure to their conspriacy untaught men. Do you not see that in this exposition they wish to seem to intend only that they who most impudently sin ought not to attend the REFUTATION OF BAPTIST TRICKS. 187 supper of the Lord? But while you see this most clearly, do they not do this same thing under the action of the law of excom- munication or banning that immediately precedes? Therefore whither reaches the treatment of one and the same cause under two constitutions? You infer therefore with no trouble that by this principle they wish—no matter what string of words they put together—that he who would come with them to the table of the Lord must also be rebaptized in their catabaptism, and that they who were baptized as infants these men consider to be of the devil’s table. This is therefore the sense of their exposition —-men who have gone over to the church of their rebellion and conspiracy belong to those who have been called of God from the world, but they who will not with them betray the church of Christ belong to those who communicate with dead works. For their words and daily abuse testify to this. For when they see marriages or public feasts celebrated among us they straightway cry out: They are Gentiles, and are of the world, not of the church. And they accept as satisfactory neither that Christ and the apostles appeared at a marriage nor that the tribes of Israel celebrated joyously three times a year, nor that the Lord’s Supper would have perpetually remained a friendly feast if the Corin- thians had not abused it—or indeed anything else. You see how on the one side what unjust judges they are, in that as soon as they see those things done among us which Christ himself did not abhor, they traduce, curse and condemn. And on the other hand, how sincerely they act when they think of themselves so finely that they boast that they are the people who have been called to God from the world. As if indeed lewdness, adultery, murder, hatred, envy, arrogance, hypocrisy—in which these people excel—all mortals were not worldly. I am not speaking of the im- moderate expense, voluptuousness and wantonness of marriages and feasts, but I am so far from condemning joy in moderation that I think he who takes it away from the pious will have to restore it with interest. In a word, by this law they mean that no one shall 188 ZWINGLI SELECTIONS.
approach their supper unless he has been rebaptized, unless he has been called to God from the world, z. e., unless he is of the church and heresy of the Catabaptists. For whatever they do or say, a conspiracy it is, according to the word of the prophet in Is. viii, and a most wretched pretence. For what iniquity is equal to his who prefers himself to others on account of his inno- cence and who winks at no slip of his brother’s, when he ought to forgive seventy and seven times, even if he were really most innocent who so acts? But what do I? They were not of us, therefore they have gone away from us.
Catabaptists. Fourth. We thus decide about the revolt, sepa- ration and avoidance, which ought to be manifested as to that evil planted by the devil—that we have no commerce with those nor agree with them in the communication of their abominations, i. e., inasmuch as all who have not yet yielded in obedience to faith, and have not yet given their name to the Lord as wishing to do his will, are exceedingly abominable in the sight of God, therefore nothing is done by them that is not abominable. Now in the world and in all creation there is nothing else but good and evil, faithful and unfaithful, darkness and light, worldly and those out of the world, the temple of the Lord and idols, Christ and Belial, and no one of these can have part with the other. Known to us also is the precept of the Lord in which he orders us to separate from evil, for then he will be our God and we shall be his sons and daughters. Hence he commanded us to go forth from Babylon and the Egyptian land lest we share their evils and penalties which the Lord is going to bring upon them. From all of which we ought to learn that what is not united to our God and Christ is nothing but an abomination which we should shun. Here we understand are all the popish and secundo- popish works and the contentions of idolatry, processions to churches, homes of feastings, states and alliances of unbelief and many like things. ‘They are held by the world in esteem, yet nevertheless they fight and lead directly against the precept of REFUTATION OF BAPTIST TRICKS. 189 Christ according to the measure of wickedness that is in the world. We ought to be alien and separate from all of these; they are pure abominations, which make us hateful to Christ, who has freed us from servitude to the flesh and made us fit for the service of God through the spirit of God which he has given us. By the strength of this constitution there fall away from us the devilish arms of violence, such as swords and other arms and things of this character, and all use of them for either friend or enemy by reason of this word of Christ: Ye must not resist evil.
Reply. What they mean by so confused a statement, which is so torn and patched that it contains nothing sound and fresh, you would hardly divine if they had not said in the title of the work that they dealt with the avoidance of abominable pastors in the church. First, they have so heaped together those statements of nothing in the world but good and evil, Christ and Belial, and the other matters these divine men have piled up together, that they would be very fine, and would give a reason for not assem- bling in our churches. You must not suppose this is horror of popish pastors. It is against us they rail in this fashion. For they meet with the popish and do not shun their meetings. We who stand by the gospel are assailed here. The reason is that we alone show up and shun catabaptism and their wholesale sedition. By the papists we are called heretics, by the catabap- tists secundopapists, because we preserve in the church infant baptism and some other things which they will have nothing of. So are we exercised in the Lord’s glory that we may bring to him a victory the more excellent the more numerous those are by whom we are assailed. I will show in a few words the deceit they conceal in the words of this article. What they allege from Scripture about separation is not said in the sense to which they wrest it. For otherwise we should be compelled to retire not only from the world, as Paul says, but also from the church.
For there is nothing human so holy and blameless that it does not fail in some part. We ought therefore first to be separated 190 ZWINGLI SELECTIONS.
from ourselves, of which Christ also speaks. Who hates his own life in this world, he says, saves it for life eternal. This separa- tion results when we daily set forth a desire for betterment, and with our might exhort the brethren to this by example and prayer. But according to this we do not seek to be separate from those who have infirmities in common with us. The thing itself warns us, if only we be truly pious and cherish God, how far in each case we must bear. Nay, we should hear piety alone in this matter of condemning or seceding, so that establishing another law is neither possible nor due. Second, we are sepa- rated from those who are not weak, but malign, a thing that both piety and love will teach. For Christ himself also taught that the contumacious and impudently wicked man ought to be shunned only when he had reached in obstinacy the point of not respecting the church. But I know whither tends this supercilious avoidance. As soon as they have allured one to their faction, above all they forbid him to go for a month at least, if they can- not get it for all time or for longer, to any assemblage where one teaches who is opposed to their sect. And this order is at the beginning strongly suspected by those who are not yet wholly demented. Indeed, many who return to a good mind testify to this. For they immediately think of the apostles’: “ Prove all things.” In order that by the figure of anticipating arguments they may cut off consideration of this among foolish men, they show great diligence in inculcating separation. They therefore condemn conventions, even those in which for the most honor- able purposes the city holds assembly, for there are always found men who arraign the audacity of the men. And it is strange that they have omitted here what elsewhere they have urged as a prime objection. In the assemblies of the city [they allege | murders often take place—as if this did not happen more fre- quently in the market place and the country. According to that we must not assemble in the country or the market place. They condemn also the processions to the churches; they do this with REFUTATION OF BAPTIST TRICKS. Ig!
such a form of words as might seem to apply to those votive processions which we formerly engaged in to the image at Lau- retum, Baden, Oetingen and elsewhere, while really they con- demn the processions to the churches appointed for certain days. These grieve them, for they prefer those where many meet in some wood by night rather than by day, when the way home has to be felt out through the dense darkness by the more comely girls and matrons, and they consummate spiritual marriages with carnal copulation; or where two or three meet at the house of e man who is a little better off, and eat and chat, lead astray the women, and in a word do many things you would hardly dare imagine. By this hunting they find much greater booty than if their auditors should hear in the assemblage of the churches what is against their doctrines. For who will protect the foolish girls and women and countrymen and simpletons from wolves of this sort when they never openly appear, nor after the manner of the apostles go to the synagogues first and disclose the sources of their doctrines in the Scriptures.* But for some months they will waste the time with some worthless idler and contaminate the whole family not only with error, but with harlotry also, and then appear in some spot. And as soon as they are asked to give the reason for their doctrine they fly away and leave the featherless chick to the hawk. Thus they are at variance with both the word and institution of Christ, who both said: “ In secret have I said nothing,” and commanded that what they heard in the ear they should preach upon the housetop. Now see these circum- cised! Having gained permission of some house owner they ascend the roof, and there caw out that they are now fulfilling what Christ said: preach upon the housetop, etc. But when a traveler or policeman is seen at a distance they turn tail, as is recorded in the fable of the little fox. Now they condemn states * The authorities, with Zwingli’s assent, first forced these oppressed people into holding secret meetings, if they met at all, and now Zwingli taunts them for their secrecy! Alas.
192 ZWINGLI SELECTIONS.
also, not seeing that Paul preserved himself from violence by this one means. Is it not clear now that they have come to the point of obscuring all things, of dissolving all friendship and all union? Who ever forbade one to be a citizen? These learned men have spoken of alliances of unfaithfulness in place of alliances of the unfaithful after the Hebrew style. Alliances then are to be given up, unless we are not ready to make shipwreck by their baptism. Do you see whither they tend? For they add that they are sheer abominations which make us hateful to Christ, who has freed us from the servitude to the flesh, etc. What is this servitude of which they speak? Of course it is obedience to the Christian church, assemblage in all honesty at public meet- ings and in private interests of brotherhood for the sake of order and quiet, where obligations that are lawfully undertaken and cannot be left undischarged without injury and similar observances are preserved. Freedom from these and all obligations, I say, these pious interpreters in this matter assert in somewhat obscure terms at present they have received from Christ, but they will preach this openly as soon as they have gained a church upon the strength of which they suppose they can rely. So that new tragedies are to be looked for by us. I do not greatly condemn that carrying of arms which some nations have always done as a custom *—such as the German and Swiss—but I detest murder.
This, however, does not always come through the sword, but sometimes by spear or rock. ‘Therefore you will have mountains and forests removed, for out of these weapons are obtained. One man dies from the seed of a raisin, another from a goat hair in a glass of milk. I myself saw a man among my people of the Toggenburg who died from the sting of a single bee. Are then grapes, goats and bees to be done away with? But I know whither this also points. ‘The power of every magistracy is par- ticularly hateful to them, and they are not content with what the *In Switzerland it was the custom to carry side arms in the senate, courts, popular assembly, and even at baptisms. (Edd. Zwingli’s Works. ) 5 REFUTATION OF BAPTIST TRICKS. 193 apostle commands: Fear not authority, but do what is right and lawful. Not applicable to the magistracy is the saying of Christ: Resist not evil, nor that other; you ought not to rule. This has reference to apostles and bishops and each private individual, for authority is of God. It belongs to those to fear legitimate authority who seek the confusion of all things. Hence they snarl out I don’t know what foolish statements all the time about laying down arms. Not that I either approve or assail this custom of carrying arms. But I do condemn the disposition toward slaughter beyond all mortals so thoroughly that nothing do I hate more.* JI, too, teach that arms are to be laid aside, but I teach that the sword is to be drawn by which they may be struck who have done injury, those be relieved who have suffered, and those praised who have done their work well.
Catabaptists. Fifth. We thus determine about pastors of the church of God, that there be some one pastor of a flock according to the order of Paul in all things, who shall have good testimony from those who are outside the faith. Let it be his duty to read, warn, teach, instruct, exhort, correct or communicate in the church, and to preside well over all the brethren and sisters, as well in prayer as in breaking of bread, and in all things pertaining to the body of Christ to watch that it may be supported and increased, that the name of God be cherished through us and be praised and the mouth shut to blasphemy. But support ought to be supplied him from the church which elects him, if he lack. For he who serves the gospel should live by the gospel, as the Lord ordained. But if a pastor have done aught worthy of blame or correction, action should not be taken against him unless by the testimony of two or three witnesses. When they sin they should be publicly reproved, that the others may fear. But if a pastor be either driven out or be led by the cross to the Lord another should succeed him at once, so that the people and flock * He refers here to his antipathy to the foreign military service of the Swiss, which he assailed and condemned. (Edd. Zwingli’s Works.)
194 ZWINGLI SELECTIONS.
of God be not scattered, but receive consolation and be pre- served by exhortation.
Reply. We have seen in a former paragraph how perplexingly and confusingly, captiously and obscurely they treated of separa- tion from abominations, for their cause had little justice in it. Here we see how clear they are when they deal with their church (it is wonderful, the effrontery with which they call it a church) and their pastors. There they were after this one thing—to show their treachery legitimate, both because of the morals of men and the bishops, and they were torn by conflicting emotions, and, as is said, held the wolf by the ears. For if they extrava- gantly blamed the morals of the faithful they would incur the charge of evil speaking and malevolence, but if they thought moderately well of them, those whom they had brought over to themselves would not be sufficiently aroused to their secession. So since they dared not speak freely, both because of fear and caution as well as because of the injustice of their cause and malice, they concluded to speak obscurely and suspiciously, so that none attacking in open contest might easily catch the oily and chameleon-like adversary. For when you were going to say: Why do you encourage secession from the churches of the faithful, they would be ready to reply that they taught only separation from the evil, and that legitimately. When you objected that you do not denounce separation from the wicked, but that they seem to speak of separation from those whose life is wholly endurable, they could reply by heaping up, in dramatic forestalling of objec- tions, what they can in no way correctly defend—the world, those out of the world, good and evil, God and the devil, Christ and Belial, etc. By this you could be led to reason thus: It is true what they say; all things known are either divine or worldly, and so if you found aught worldly in yourself you would condemn yourself, even if you should have commerce with worldly matters; and so being aroused would go over to the betrayers, not reflect- ing that when you had gone over to them you would at once find