In regard to the first accusation laid to their charge in the aforesaid manifesto, by the lords of Zurich, namely, that they had separated themselves from the obedience which they owed to the Christian church; they make this reply:
“Herein, right in the beginning; great wrong and injustice is done us; for we desire in no wise to separate ourselves from the Christian church, but seek to adhere to the same and the pure word of God, yea, to sacrifice our bodies, property and blood therefor; but the reason that we cannot unite with their (namely, the so called Reformed) church, is, that her doctrine in many respects is not like the ancient, pure, apostolical doctrine, nor does it agree with the words and commandments of Christ; and that we, through God’s gracious illumination, have before us a better way, namely, the true apostolical foundation, to which, by the help of God, we will also adhere.
“But that nevertheless not we, but the principal learned men, and some of their own number, are those who, having in the beginning of the change held the right views with us, touching baptism, the Supper, excommunication, and resistance or revenge, afterwards again turned away from it shall clearly appear, when we shall rightly examine their first teachings and writings of a hundred years or more ago.”
_Hereupon it is stated in the same answer, what teachers in the beginning of the Reformation taught the aforementioned articles aright, from which they subsequently, and especially their descendants, again departed; which appears from these words_:
Firstly, as regards baptism, this is declared by the conference of Zwingli and Balthazar Hubmor, held A. D. 1523, at Zurich, in the Graef; where Zwingli publicly confessed: “That infants are not to be baptized before they grow up and attain to a reasonable age.” He also promised that he should make mention of it in his Book of Articles; as he also did, in the eighteenth article respecting Confirmation, where he says:
“That in former times it was not common to baptize children; but that they were publicly instructed together with the rest; who afterwards, when they had attained to their understanding, were called _catechumeni_, that is, instructed ones in the word,[357] whereupon, when the faith was thus firmly implanted in the heart, and they had confessed it with the mouth, they were “baptized.”
[357] In the word of salvation, etc., it says: In the tract the order of the words is a little different, according to the Swiss style; however, the sense of the same is clearly expressed here.
This practice of the doctrine, he said, he wished to see readopted in this our time.
Thus also confessed his colleague, Oecolampadius in a letter to the aforementioned Hubmor, saying: “We have up to the present day not met with any passages in the holy Scriptures, that cause us to confess the baptism of infants, as far as we in our littleness can see.” In like manner, on the sixth chapter of the Epistle to the Romans, treating on the word, _Anignoratis_, he writes: “That every Christian shall first confess Christ, and then be baptized with the external baptism (of water).”
So also writes Sebastian Hofmeyster, preacher at Schaffhausen, to said Hubmor: “We have publicly confessed before the council at Schaffhausen: That if our brother Zwingli in any wise insists (contrary to his previous opinion), that children are to be baptized, he herein greatly misses the mark, and does not according to the truth of the holy gospel.”
Continuing, he writes: “Truly, I did not allow myself to be compelled that I should baptize my child, who is named Zacharias, hence you also act in a Christian manner, that you bring to light again the true baptism of Christ: which has long been neglected or kept down. We will also undertake to do this.”
Christopher Hogendorf, on the third chapter of the first Epistle of Peter, writes: “You have heard, that faith is put before baptism; hence it is not mere baptism, but also the faith of baptism, which saves us.”