“Here in this country there were likewise scattered many Waldenses, who possessed clear insights into the truths of religion, and, distinguished by a godly conduct of life, might be called the salt of the earth. These upright Christians — out of whom the still-surviving Baptists in this land have arisen, as will be further related afterward — had no small influence upon the uneducated portion of the people, in promoting better religious ideas, which thus had to become more and more widespread, especially with regard to the public church-ceremonies.” pp. 95-96.==============================
“In defense of the respectable Baptists, we must note more; then we shall do this, while also recording their history here. Entirely different Protestant Christians were the Baptists than the Anabaptists. They were descended from the old, quite pure Evangelical, but, through hard persecutions, scattered to and in many lands, Waldensians, and thus already present in the Netherlands long before the times of the church reformation.” pp. 156-157.==============================
“From this historical report concerning the old Dutch Waldensians, as they already existed in the twelfth century, and concerning their doctrine, as it was then, and had remained through the following centuries, one sees how the old and later Dutch Baptists, whose existence and doctrine are generally known, resembled them in everything.” p. 159.==============================
“...and yet it is indubitable that the Dutch Waldensians always rejected infant baptism, and only administered baptism to adults. This is definitely asserted of the Dutch Waldensians by HIERONYMUS VERDUSSEN, (106) by the Abbot A CLUGNY, (107) and other Roman Catholic writers. Hence it is that they have been known in this country from ancient times more under the name of Anabaptists than under that of Waldensians. (108) Especially from consideration of this doctrine concerning holy baptism, one can explain how natural it was that, when in the sixteenth century some Anabaptists started mutinying, this crime was imputed to all Anabaptists, and all who would rather be called Baptists thereafter, were nevertheless still marked by their enemies with the hateful name of Anabaptists.” p. 159.==============================
“We have now seen that the Baptists, who in earlier times were called Anabaptists, and in later times Mennonites, were the original Waldensians, who, in the history of the church, have since long always received such well-deserved tribute. Therefore the Baptists may be regarded as from ancient times the only religious fellowship that has existed from the times of the Apostles on, as a Christian society which has kept the evangelical religious doctrine pure through all ages. The never deformed internal and external condition of the fellowship of Baptists then serves as proof of that truth, disputed by the Roman church, that the reformation of religion, as it came about in the sixteenth century, was necessary, most necessary, and also for the refutation of the Roman Catholics’ erroneous concept that their church denomination is the oldest.” p. 165.==============================
“Nor could the Waldenses be called “Reformed”; because they had from the earliest times remained pure in doctrine and therefore did not need to be reformed.” p. 277.==============================
“But also a large part of the Netherlanders who declared themselves for the reformation of the church consisted only of old Waldensians, who were then called Anabaptists, as we have already come to know them before, as those true, noble Christians who, through all centuries of our chronology, had preserved the doctrine of the Gospel intact.” p. 285.==============================
“It was therefore difficult, and still is, when dealing with the old history of this community, to distinguish the restless Anabaptists from the others by special names, especially since MENNO SIMONS made no other distinction between the two groups than that he admitted all the upright into his fellowship and excluded the wicked.In order to be recognized as such, they therefore wished to be called Mennonites or Mennists after their reformer.
They called themselves this; and even in the Dutch state resolutions they are recorded under that name.
But in later times, regarding that name as a sectarian one, they have preferred, like their brethren in England who are called Baptists, to call themselves and be called by others Baptists, as a community distinguished particularly by administering baptism only to adults.” p. 528.
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[From History of the Dutch Reformed Church, by A. Ypeij and I. J. Dermout; reprint by Kingstone Press, 2025. Document provided by Lucas King. Scanned and formatted by Jim Duvall.]
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