Lutherans, the Presbyterians, the Episcopalians, the Congregationalists or the Methodists, who endured the Romish persecutions; for none of these denominations existed earlier than A. D. 1520. Hence the oldest of these sects is but 318, and the last mentioned but 101 years old. From these unassailable facts you will perceive how vain it is for either of the above denominations to plead that they are the first true church. The Mormons, or any other sect that has sprung up within five or ten years past, could as well attempt to trace the chain of their history to Christ and the apostles. Whenever they have attempted it, they all uniformly acknowledge themselves the recent offspring of that church which they call the mother of harlots and enemy of God; and in attempting to prove their faith and practices correct, they quote her laws and usages as authority.

It is not expected that we history in this limited essay.

should give a church. All that will be done

is to glance at the existence of the church in each successive century; and we shall only be able to notice where the true church flourished in one or two places at the same time. For instance, in giving the history of the Baptists in this century, it would be requisite, in order to a correct view of the denomination, to notice its existence and condition in Europe and Asia; but the limits of this work will only allow me to mention that of our own country. It is acknowledged that there is a people in America called Baptists, and that they have at present 409 associations, 7,135 churches, 4,160 ordained ministers, and that their additions by baptism in A. D. 1837, was 23,070, and that their present number of communicants is 518,126, and that the first Baptist church in America was organized by Roger Williams, in Providence, R. I., A. D. 1639. Since that time the Baptists have been well known; but in tracing their history through

preceding ages, we are obliged to learn their existence and condition mostly from the concessions of Roman Catholics, and other opposers; for, during the Pagan and Papal persecutions, which continued from A. D. 66, to A. D. 1700, it was the constant aim of the Catholics and their allies to destroy the writings, as well as the persons of the true church.

Owing to the different languages of those nations where the followers of Christ have lived, and to the asperities of their opposers, the church has been known by the name of Baptists, Anabaptists, Wickliffites, Lollards, Hugonots, Mennonites, Hussites, Petrobrusians, Albigenses, Waldenses, Paulicans, &c.; and to oppose image worship, infant baptism, transubstantiation, and the unwarrantable power of the Pope, have ever been characteristics of this people. Therefore Roman Catholics have heaped upon us names as above, and persecuted us as heretics; and the pedobaptists, who are the offspring of the Romish church, as we have shown, have adopted the same course, realizing that if the true church can be traced down to the apostles, independent of the Romish church, it will set the origin of their denominations in no favorable light. Hence the calumny and reproach which Milner, Cave, Moshiem, &c., have cast upon Servetus, Wickliff, Muncer, Huss, Jerome, Waldo, Hugo, Claude, Constantine, Tertulian, Novatian, &c., and the unwarrantable encomiums which they constantly heap on Martin Luther and John Calvin, who were but imperfect imitators of the above named reformers.

In order to appreciate the writings of these pedobaptist authors, the reader should just consider how the Baptists in this age would be represented were our opponents (say Mr. Chapin,) to write a church history. Is it not evident that we should be wholly neglected or grossly misrepresented? And such has been the conduct of pedobaptist writers of past ages. To

obtain correct knowledge of the true church, I would refer you to the histories written by Perrin, Ivemy, Jones, Backus, Benedict, Robinson's researches, and Moreland's history of the Waldenses, &c. As it can be proved that all the dissenting pedobaptist churches arose in and since the sixteenth century, they have made a mighty effort to fix our origin at about the same time. Hence their endeavors to make the unlearned believe that the Baptists had their origin the Rustic war, or Munster rebellion. It is a fact that in A. D. 1524, there was much uneasiness among the German peasants because of the oppressions of the feudal system and Catholic tythes; and the Catholics of Saubia rebelled, but this was soon suppressed.

in

In A. D. 1520, Luther published, in the German language, a tract on Christian liberty, and during the winter of A. D. 1524-5 this tract was industriously circulated in Saubia, Munster, and vicinities; and the spirit of reformation had so kindled through Germany that in the spring of A. D. 1525, about 300,000 men, not exclusively Lutherans, Catholics, Baptists or nonprofessors, but of all sorts collectively, arose for liberty. One Thomas Muncer, a disciple of Luther, whom the people called Luther's curate, and Luther called him his Absalom, had now become a Baptist, and after the Munster revolt had been going on for some time, he drew up a memorial or manifesto for the revolutionists, which was a mild, pacific and religious document. That there were some Baptists engaged in that affair is evident, but "it is certain that the disturbance in Munster was commenced by Bernard Rotman, a Lutheran priest, and that several other Lutheran priests assisted in it for several months before Muncer visited the place."-Ivemy, p. 16.

"The Catholics uniformly say that Luther's doetrine led to the rebellion, and that his disciples were the prime movers of it, and affirm that 130,000 Lu

therans fell in the Rustic war.

This, they say, is the fruit of the new doctrine; this is the fruit of Luther's gospel."-Milner, vol. 5, pp. 320, 327.

It is thus evident, by referring to the Catholics, who equally hated the Lutherans and the Baptists, and, therefore, were impartial judges, that the Munster affair did not originate the Baptists, or the Baptists the Munster affair; but, that it was an effort for Christian liberty, moved on by the Lutherans,-and, had they been successful, no doubt but Luther would have appeared at the head, for it is evident he was at the bottom of it. But, as it failed, and therefore was inglorious, Luther disclaimed his connection, and modern pedobaptists have attempted to charge it to the Baptists.

But, leaving this, as none but the ignorant can be made to believe that the Baptist church had its origin in the sixteenth century, we pass to notice that, in A. D. 1764, there was a history of religion published in London, in four volumes, in which it was written :"It is clear from many authors that Wickliff rejected infant baptism, and that on this doctrine his followers agreed with modern Baptists." His followers were called Lollards, and Waldenses, and persecuted as heretics. In the eighteenth century we find John Howard, the philanthropist, and multitudes of others in England and other nations of Europe, decided Baptists. About A. D. 1655, the Duke of Savoy dreadfully persecuted the Baptists in the South of France and the vallies of Piedmont, whom he called Waldenses, Valdenses and heretics. At this time Oliver Cromwell was Protector of England, and John Milton, the poet, was Secretary of State. The intelligence of the Waldensian massacre reached London, May 20, A. D. 1655, upon which Milton wrote a thrilling son. net, of which this first verse is a specimen :

Avenge, O Lord, thy slaughtered saints, whose bones,
Lie scattered on the Alpine mountains cold:

Even them who kept thy truth so pure of old,

When all our fathers worshipped stocks and stones."

That Cromwell and Milton favored the Waldenses, or Baptists, in sentiment, is equally evident from the letters which Milton wrote to the Christian Princes of Europe, (see Jones' Church History, vol. 2, pp. 319-336,)the influence of which moved the Duke of Savoy to stop the persecution; but he renewed it again A. D. 1663, and thus persecutions continued until A. D. 1686, when he issued orders to remove or kill all the Waldenses in his territory, which resulted in destroying many and removing more into Switzerland and other countries. See Burnett's Letters from Italy, Letter 1, pp. 57, 58.

But, as it is well known that the Baptists were numerous in all Europe and America in the sixteenth century, we pass to notice that, in this century Martin Luther, John Calvin and some others, broke off from the Catholics. Luther took with him the doctrine of consubstantiation, which is but another name for transubstantiation, and the doctrine of infant baptism, together with other errors; and Calvin brought with him not only the doctrine of infant baptism, but the spirit of persecution, which was too manifest in the murder of Servetus and other acts of the kind. From A, D. 1250, up to A. D. 1400, the Waldenses suffered dreadful persecutions in France, Germany and Netherlands; and a small number of them fled to Calabria, where they formed a church and lived in the apostolic faith until A. D, 1560, when the Calabrian Waldenses formed a union with the Calvinists at Geneva, and so far conformed to the Romish religion that they baptized their infants. To this, with a few instances of the kind, modern pedobaptists refer, to prove that the Waldenses were not Baptists; but we