power and eloquence moved that city; he assisted Zwingli in the great debate at Zurich with the Catholics, 1523, after which they became the closest and warmest friends. His powerful ministry almost destroyed Romanism in Waldshut, and Austria compelled him to seek refuge elsewhere. This he found in Schaffhausen, but soon discovered that the Reformation in Zurich had not gone back to the Apostolic model. He had laid his best thoughts before Zwingli and Ecolampadius, who at first

saw their consistency, then rejected them. However, he followed his convictions, left the State Church and was baptized by Reublin, at Waldshut in 1525, with more than a hundred of his former congregation. He felt his way to Baptist principles very gradually and on thorough conviction. At first when children were brought to him as a Reformed pastor for baptism, he preached on the little ones being brought to Christ and blessed by him without the use of water (Matt. xix); but if their parents still demanded christening, he gratified them without yielding his own views. After forming a Baptist church, he baptized more than three hundred of his former hearers, and the population became largely Baptist. He preached in the

open air to great multitudes at St. Gall also, and made a deep impression on the popular mind in the second disputation at Zurich. Being obliged to leave Waldshut the second time, he now found refuge amongst the Baptists of Zurich.

There he was soon arrested and cast into prison, where he lay four months,. appealing to his old friend, to the emperor, to the Confederation and the Council, but in vain. His health was broken, his wife was in prison, and he lay in a dungeon. with more than twenty others: Where no light of sun or moon penetrated, wherebread and water were the only nourishment, and these could not be taken for days. together, on account of the sickening odors of the place; where the living were shut up with the dead, with no hope of escape but in death or recantation.' The Zurich Inquisition used all methods to compel him to recant, for he had written several powerful books which were stirring the public mind; amongst them one 'Concerning Heretics and those that burn them.' He showed that all butchery under the pretense of zeal for Christ was a fraud, and an open denial of him who came to save men and not to burn them. Another work of his on Baptism so aroused the Reformers of Berne, Basel and Strasburg, that Zwingli was forced to reply. Hallersaid: Many have been misled by Hubmeyer's book, but do not be alarmed toomuch, the Council has banished every Anabaptist.' Zwingli's reply was so bitter and vindictive, that Hosek says: 'He gave reins to his passions;' and Stern writes. of Hubmeyer's production, that he 'Showed moderation, respect for his opponents,. and force, not in coarse or violent language, but in thought.' Many of his positions. were fresh and very forceful. In answer to the evasive and shallow pretensions of Zwingli, that the silence of the New Testament permitted infant baptism, he said that. the spirit of our Lord's command to baptize the believing forbade its use to babes, thus: The command is to baptize those who believe. To baptize those who do not believe, therefore, is forbidden. For example, Christ commanded his Apostles topreach the Gospel; in so doing, the doctrines of men were forbidden.' Was he correct? Zwingli, Jud, Myconius and others visited him in prison, and by one means or another wrung from him a recantation. Faber says that he was laid on the rack, and Cunitz, that he was compelled to recant, April 6, 1526. His own words imply

the same.

His appeal to the Council of Schaffhausen says:

'I pray you, for God's sake, and in view of the last judgment, do not press and force me or any other Christian teacher, but hear me, summon my calumniators to appear against me, have no respect for persons, great or small, but judge righteously, for judgment is the Lord's and the judges are his servants. But should this, my earnest and heart-felt request, not be heeded, though even the Turks would not refuse it, and I should be compelled by prison, torture, sword, fire or water, or permitted by the withdrawal of God's grace, to say or confess any thing different from the opinion by the enlightenment of God I now cherish; then I do hereby protest that nobody may be offended at my deed, whatever God may bring to pass, and testify before God, my heavenly Father, and before all men, that I will suffer and die as a Christian. May God lend me a brave, unflinching, princely spirit, that I may abide on his Holy Word, and in a real Christian faith commend my spirit into his hands.”

EXHIBITED IN THE CATHEDRAL.

339

He also tells us that he offered to discuss these and other issues with Zwingli in public, and if convicted of error they might put him to death; but if Zwingli were shown to be wrong, all that he asked of him was to preach the truth. This Evangelical Inquisition, however, thought the rack their most conclusive answer to his holy convictions, and in a moment of weakness the great confessor fell into the relapse which met the noble Berengarius before him, and the learned Cranmer after him. And in the wail of a wounded and humiliated soul he exclaims: 'They compelled, or sought to compel, me, a sick man, just risen from a bed of death; hunted, exiled, and having lost all that I had, to teach another faith.' A great triumph, truly, for Christian men of their standing and pretensions !

The people were summoned to the great cathedral, which was crowded, to hear his recantation and the death-knell of the Baptists. Zwingli preached a great sermon on Christian steadfastness,' save the mark, and loud and long he declaimed against these heretics; then Hubmeyer was to mount the pulpit and renounce his firm faith, to the delectable edification of the Holy Inquisition of Zurich. Egli says that Zwingli warned the magistrates not to trust Hubmeyer to speak in the cathedral. 25 He had a lively memory of what many weeks of labor had failed to do in shaking his faith, till the rack summed up the whole Gospel case. As the inquisitors could not forego the show, all eyes now turned eagerly to the broken frame of the meek Baptist as he climbed the pulpit. He began to read his recantation in a broken, weak and quivering voice, until his heart choked his utterance and he broke down. He swayed to and fro before his audience like a bruised reed shaken by the wind; when suddenly the unseen hand of God was put forth to bind him up, and raising himself to his full height, he filled the sanctuary with the shout, that 'Infant baptism is not of God, and men must be baptized by faith in Christ!' The crowd surged like waves and burst into tumult. Some were seized with horror and some shouted applause, till the roof of the Minster rang. Zwingli screamed above the rest, the inquisitors were in a Pedobaptist panic, and the scene closed by dragging Hubmeyer from the pulpit, hustling him through the multitude, and thrusting him back into his dungeon. Once more in his cell, he rewrote his faith in Christ, which writing he closed in these words:

O, immortal God, this is my faith. I confess it with heart and mouth, and have testified it publicly before the Church in baptism. I faithfully pray thee graciously keep me in it until my end, and should I be forced from it out of mortal fear and timidity, by tyranny, torture, sword, fire or water, I now appeal to thee. O, my compassionate Father, raise me up again by the grace of thy Holy Spirit, and suffer me not to depart without this faith. This, I pray thee from the bottom of my heart, through Jesus Christ, thy most beloved Son, our Lord and Saviour. Father, in thee do I put my trust, let me never be ashamed.'

After much more suffering he was permitted to leave the canton quietly, whence he made his way first to Constance and then to Moravia, where we shall meet with him again in his new home.

THE SWISS BAPTISTS.-Continued.

T was customary for the ancient Baptists to use private declarations of their principles drawn up by some member of their communion, as they had no official ruling body to issue such statements. Persecution obliged their private use, because documentary evidence of heresy was greatly desired by their enemies, in proof of treason to the State religion. Such a Confession, the first now known, existed in the form of Seven Articles,' drawn in the year 1527. On July 31st Zwingli issued his Elenchus Contra Catabaptistas, in which he says that he had two copies of this Confession. He also says that scarcely one of the Baptists was without a concealed copy and upbraids them with failure to give their Articles to the world. He professes to give a copy of them, translated into Latin, ad verbum, and publishes it for the purpose of sustaining his charges that they were fanatical, stolid, audacious and impious.' Virtually he charged the Baptists with failing to stand up to their Confession like men, pitting their manhood against their patriotism and the fear of death. They must have felt this accusation keenly, as they were ready to die for their principles. SCHLEITHEIM was a little village near the foot of the lofty hill Am Randen, seven miles north-west of Schaffhausen, at the eastern termination of the Jura range. From this quiet retreat, away from their foes, these venerable Baptists promulgated their Confession of Faith in the form of a circular letter addressed without limit to the congregation of their brethren, thus: 'Letter of the Brotherly Union of certain believing, baptized children of God, who

I their

THEIR CONFESSION OF FAITH.

341

have assembled at Schleitheim Am Randen, dated on Matthias' day (February 24th), 1527. To the congregations of believing, baptized Christians.'

This Confession is given in full in the Appendix, in a translation from a German copy now in the archives of the Canton of Schaffhausen, made from the original document for Dr. Osgood. It was probably first printed by Beck.1 Of course, it is not accompanied by any statement as to who formed the assembly. Its value and bearing are determined not only by internal evidence, but it accords exactly with the copy of Zwingli, with such differences only as arise from his Latinized form. The number and order of its articles, with their subject-matter, expression and diction, are identical, allowing for his Latin transposition. Signature to it would only have courted death with Mantz, who had been drowned by order of the Council for the same sentiments, on the 5th of January of the same year. It is a clear and powerful document, evidently the work of one master-mind, as is shown not only by its unity but from the accidental retention of the personal pronoun 'me' (mich) in the Prologue. Its author is believed to have been Michael Sattler, an ex-monk, highly educated, quiet and amiable, who suffered martyrdom May 21st, 1527, at Rothenburg on the Neckar. Its substance and Christ-like spirit render it 'shocking,' as the 'Britannica' expresses it, that its adherents should have been treated with death. We shall find this Confession a perfect defense against the slanders of the sixteenth century Baptists, and an interpreter of their principles and conduct throughout.

A long list of Swiss Baptist worthies must be passed in silence for want of space, as Hottinger, Stumpf, Reublin, Castelberg, Ockenfuss and others; but something must be said here of the life and labors of

LUDWIG HETZER. Where he was born and educated is not certainly known, but he was a thorough scholar and distinguished himself at Zurich as an adept in the learned languages. He acted as scribe and editor of the second discussion there, the debate relating to the use of images; on which subject he wrote a popular tract, in which he challenged the Catholics to show that images are good for any thing but fuel. He adopted as his motto, God redeem the captives.' He translated Bugenhagen's Commentary on Paul's Epistles, in the preface of which he laments the timid interpretations of the Reformers and their half-hearted work. In Zurich he associated with the Baptists and was obliged to leave with their leaders, January 21st, 1525. He made his way to Augsburg and fell in there with the same class of brethren, but does not appear to have united with them. In September of the same year Ecolampadius employed him in literary work at Basle. That great author had prepared a work on the Lord's Supper, which Hetzer translated into the German and put to press in Zurich. In his preface to this work he objected to infant baptism, because salvation was attached to the water, also because unbaptized children were believed to be lost and were buried in unconsecrated ground.3