BAPTIST HISTORY
"We do not intend that...all whom the Catholics or Protestants termed heretics were necessarily sound Baptists. However...from among those groups thus stigmatized are ...found our Baptist forefathers and they are a scarlet cord of witness for Christ." (Three Witnesses for the Baptists, Curtis Pugh, 1974)
"...anabaptism is...as contrary as can be to the doctrine of Christ and His Apostles:truly it is no marvel that the obstinate Anabaptists are kept under and punished by common laws...In the time that Decius and Gallus Caesar were Emperors, there arose a question in the parts of Africa of rebaptising heretics; and St. Cyprian, and the rest of the Bishops, being assembled together in the Council of Carthage, liked well of anabaptism...Against the Donatists St. Augustine, with other learned men, disputed. There is also an Imperial Law made by Honorius and Theodosius, that holy Baptism should not be iterated. Justinian Caesar hath published the same, in Cod. lib. I. Tit. 6, in these words. ‘If any Minister of the Catholic Church be detected to have rebaptised any, let both him which committed the unappeasable offence, (if at least by age he be punishable) and he, also, that is won and persuaded thereunto, suffer punishment of death." (Heinrich, or Henry Bullinger, 1504-1575, Protestant Swiss reformer that first aided then succeeded Zwingli, Sermons on the Sacraments, London 1811, p 186, 187, 189)
Decius, about 201-251 A.D., the first Roman Emperor to launch organized persecution against the Christians. (J.D. Douglas, et al, The Concise Dictionary of the Christian Tradition, Grand Rapids, 1989, p 119)
Bullinger testifies that as early as the Third Century A.D. the apostate church opposed the anabaptists!
Gallus Caesar (Gallerius), about 201-311 A.D., was probably responsible for initiating the persecution against Christians in 303. (Ibid, p 162)
Persecution by Decius failed to destroy anabaptism! According to Bullinger, anabaptists were still present, in Africa at least, into the Fourth Century!
Justinian Caesar, 483-565 A.D., was Roman Emperor from 527. He established many churches and monasteries. (Ibid, p 213)
Bullinger reveals that the apostate churches had joined with imperial Rome in the Sixth Century in outlawing anabaptism as a capital offense - proof of the pre-Reformation existence of persons outside of the state church that were holding Baptist views.
Bullinger is quoted as saying, "The Anabaptists think themselves to be the only true church of Christ and acceptable to God and teach that they who by baptism are received into their churches ought not to have any communion with evangelical or any other, whatsoever, for that our churches are not true churches any more than the Papists." (Graves, Old Landmarkism, 1881. P 115)
Ulrich (or Huldrych) Zwingli, 1484-1531, Swiss Reformer. Under his leadership, the Zurich City Council "...took the drastic step of decreeing death by drowning as the penalty for all those who persisted in the heresy" (of anabaptism). (G.W. Bromiley, The Library of Christian Classics, Vol XXIV p 120)
Zwingli is quoted as saying, "The institution of Anabaptism is no novelty, but for thirteen hundred years has caused great disturbance in the church, and has acquired such a strength that the attempt in this age to contend with it appears futile for a time." (John T. Christian, A History of the Baptists, 1922, Vol 1, p5-6.)
Zwingli also places Baptists in the Third Century, near the time when some apostate congregations began mixing Old Testament priesthood ideas with paganism under Christian names to form what is now known as the Catholic church. (The Christian Church, the Church of God of the Scriptures, in existence at that time was Baptist.) He testifies to the faithfulness of our Baptist forefathers in opposing the wicked innovations of Apostate Rome.
Wow! He did! It must be true then. After all, he was there and everything.
What? He wasn't? Who is this "Bullinger"?
Heinrich, or Henry Bullinger, 1504-1575
This guy live in the 16th century and yet he "tesifies" to events of the third century? This is scholarship?
Who else is likewise "testifying" here? Zwingli? What's his story?
Ulrich (or Huldrych) Zwingli, 1484-1531, Swiss Reformer.
Oh, another expert on the early church.
I am still looking for the source of your quote from the cardinal from yesterday? Does there exist somewhere in the secret Baptist history vault any other copies of the imaginary letter "OPUS APUD"? I'd love to read the rest of it.
SD
SD