What is to be held of such a baptism, may easily be judged; but as it is not our purpose to refute this error, we let this matter rest; in the meantime it suffices us, that in the latter half of the fifth century there were people, yea, distinguished persons, who, notwithstanding the superstitions of popery, especially with regard to infant baptism, kept to the ordinance of Christ, baptizing only upon faith, or after previous instruction.
_A. D. 460._--About this time, according to the account of the ancients, the godfearing and noted persons, Anthymius, Sisinnius, and Sociorus, betook themselves, by baptism, under the peaceable banner of Jesus Christ, to be champions and servants of his, having confessed the faith and acknowledged him as their Lord; which took place after they had been instructed for seven days. Reference is had to this, in _Bapt. Hist., page 448_, from _Vicecom., lib. 2, cap. 8_, where it is related that when they had been learning, for seven days, the mystery of Jesus Christ, that is, the faith, they were baptized.
_A. D. 465._--_D. Vicecomes, lib. 5, cap. 48_, gives an account, from Nolanus, of the hymns which the Christians at that time used to sing over the newly baptized believers. “Nolanus,” he says, “also describes, in a special hymn the extraordinary spiritual joy which the Christians were (then) wont to have over the newly baptized.” _Bapt. Hist., p. 463._
What the contents of these joyful hymns were, is not stated, only that with them extraordinary spiritual joy was expressed. It undoubtedly was the endeavor, to praise God with them, to edify the church, and to strengthen the newly baptized in the accepted faith, in order that they might pay their vows unto God; always remember the day of their enlightenment; walk in the Lord Jesus Christ, whom they had now accepted, and if necessary, also lay down their life for him, and thus, having testified to the faith with their blood, obtain the unfading crown of honor.
NOTE.--In the meantime, those of the Roman church sought to abolish Christ’s true ordinance of baptism; to which tended the canon established in the council held A. D. 469, at Chalcedon, which read as follows: “Those who are not baptized, shall not be baptized by heretics.” _Seb. Fr., Chron. der Rom. Kett., fol. 71, col. 1._
_A. D. 470._--It appears that at this time, through the power of the Pope and the councils, they began to condemn Anabaptism, and, consequently, to excommunicate and treat as heretics, the so-called Anabaptists; which is stated to have been put into effect A. D. 470, in the fourth council of Rome. To this refers the annotation found in the _5th book_ of the _Chronijk_ of _P. J. Twisck, page 164, col. 1_, from _Valentinus Beyer, fol. 635_: “In the fourth council of Rome Anabaptism was condemned.”
But it did not stop here; for, A. D. 487, seventeen years afterwards, Pope Felix III., the fiftieth in the register of the popes, by the aid of a council then held, established different other articles against Anabaptism and the Anabaptists, very evidently, with a view to their suppression.
_A. D. 487._--Many now, from time to time, separated from the Roman church, rejecting her superstitions and invented ordinances of worship, and desiring to have no fellowship with the mystery of wickedness, which just then began greatly to rise among the Romanists, so that not only many of the common people, but also, it appears, some eminent clerical and learned persons, separated themselves from the Roman religion in such a manner, that they, in token of this, were baptized upon faith, by those who were called heretics or Anabaptists, notwithstanding they had been baptized in their youth by the Romanists. In order to prevent this, the Pope or Bishop of Rome, whose name was Felix, made the most strenuous efforts,[115] convoking for this end, A. D. 487, a synod or council, in the city of Rome; concerning which the following account is given in _Bapt. Hist., page 442_, from _Centuræ Magdeburgenses, fol. 538_: “In a synod held at Rome, A. D. 487, by Pope Felix, who had learned that in Africa, some ecclesiastics, priests, and bishops had been rebaptized together with numbers of the common people, it was decreed: