CHAPTER I
A Glimpse Through the Centuries
[p. 7]
From the time that Christianity became the religion of an empire, there was a people that did not affiliate with the established Church. They were known by different names, as they were found in different places, acknowledged different leaders, and were referred to by different writers; but they uniformly agreed in holding scripture as their guide, in distinction from the traditions of, the clergy and the decrees of councils. For this they were called heretics, and were always denounced and, frequently persecuted. We know them mostly from the descriptions of their enemies. Quietness was their security. They kept records, and had a devotional and doctrinal literature, but it was destroyed by the persecutor as fast as found.In the Reformation these "scripture" people came to be called "anabaptists," because they rejected infant baptism and baptized "again" those who came to them. Persecution by civil governments still continued but the business of destroying writings was not so industriously followed, so that from this time onward we possess Baptist documents. One of the earliest is a Confession of Faith prepared at a conference of pastors held at Schleitheim, a village in the cantonment of Schaffhausen, in the northern part of Switzerland, February 24, 1527. It was addressed to "the children of light everywhere scattered abroad," and the occasion was because "scandal has been brought in among us by certain false brethren so that some have turned from the faith." The seven articles of the Confession are on baptism, discipline, breaking of bread, separation from abominations, duties of pastors, political duties, the judicial oath. It was practically a chart of Christian behavior. "Baptism," they declare, "should be given to all those who have learned repentance and change of life, and believe in the truth that their sins have been forgiven through Christ, and to all those who desire to walk in the resurrection of Jesus Christ and to be buried with him in death that they may rise. By this is excluded all infant baptism, the pope's first and highest abomination." The reason they felt so strongly concerning infant baptism was that by it people were authorized to call themselves Christians without forsaking their sins.
[p. 8]
When at the Reformation the Bible was unchained tbis people increased with amazing rapidity, as in a smaller measure they were increasing before. Two years before the Schleitheim conference a Reformed pastor, Balthazar Hubmeyer, was baptized on profession of his faith, and a large part of his congregation with him. They became essentially a Baptist church. Hubmeyer sealed his faith with his life three years afterwards.This was before the rise of modern denominations. The Lutherans, our oldest protestant denomination, date from the Augsburg Confession of 1530, but the Schleitheim Confession was read in the churches of believers three years before the Augsburg Confession was signed. Baptists are not therefore strictly protestants. The name Protestant comes from the Protest of April 15, 1529, of the German princes and free cities at the Council of Spires, against their emperor's edict commanding them under penalty to restore the old worship. But Baptists were not represented at Spires, nor if they had been would they have been allowed to join in the written Protest, for they rejected the infant baptism to which the Protesters clung and waived the governmental interference to which the Protesters appealed.
After a long time the "Ana" in the title "Anabaptist" was dropped. As to the Anabaptists of Munster, who brought the name into such disrepute, they never were true Baptists at all. They professed to follow the Spirit rather than the Bible, whereas Baptists invariably cling to scripture and seek the Spirit as its interpreter. He who supposes he has no more need of his Bible because he has the Holy Spirit, is deceived by the Evil One. "He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments is a liar: . . . Let no man lead you astray; he that doeth righteousness is righteous, he that doeth sin is of the devil." (1 John 2:4; 3:7, 8.)
============== [Edward P. Brand, Illinois Baptists -- A History, 1930, pp. 7-8. Scanned and formatted by Jim Duvall.]
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