INTRODUCTION.

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tions of merciless persecution, could damp their zeal, or entirely ruin their cause.

12. "The attempts of Peter Waldus and his followers were neither employed nor designed to introduce new doctrines into the church, nor to propose new articles of faith to Christians.All they aimed at was, to reduce the form of ecclesiastical government, and the lives and manners both of the clergy and people, to that amiable simplicity, and that primitive sanctity, that characterized the apostolic ages, and which appear so strongly recommended in the precepts and injunctions of the divine author of our holy religion. In consequence of this design, they complained that the Roman church had degenerated, under Constantine the Great, from its primitive purity and sanctity. They denied the supremacy of the Roman pontiff, and maintained that the rulers and ministers of the church were obliged, by their vocation, to imitate the poverty of the Apostles, and to procure for themselves a subsistence by the work of their hands. They considered every Christian as, in a certain measure, qualified and authorized to instruct, exhort, and confirm the brethren in their Christian course, and demanded the restoration of the ancient penitential discipline of the church, i. e. the expiation of transgression by prayer, fasting, and alms, which the new invented doctrine of indulgences had almost totally abolished. They at the same time affirmed, that every pious Christian was qualified and

That those who become members of his church must believe in him, and acknowledge him to be the Son of God and the Saviour of the world; that such believers shall be baptized, according to the words of Christ and his Apostles: He that believeth, and is baptized, shall be saved. Mark 16: 16.-Repent, and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ, for the remission of sins-Then they that gladly received his word were baptized. Acts 2: 38, 41.

-But when they believed Philip preaching the things concerning the kingdom of God, and the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized, both men and women. Acts 8: 12.-And Crispus, the chief ruler of the synagogue, believed on the Lord with all his house: and many of the Corinthians hearing, believed, and were baptized. Acts 18: 8.—And believers were the more added to the Lord, multitudes both of men and women. Acts 5: 14.--And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house. And they spake unto him the word of the Lord, and to all that were in his

*Some contend that, as the Apostles baptized whole houses, or households, of course there must have been young children among them, which also were baptized. But this inference cannot justly be drawn from either of the above quotations for it is expressly said of Crispus, the chief ruler of the synagogue, that he believed on the Lord with all his house; and of the household of the keeper of the prison, it is said that the word of the Lord was spoken to him and to all that were in his house. Infants, or little children, as they are not capable to understand and receive the word, not knowing their right hand from their left, it would be useless

house. And he took them the same hour of the night, and washed their stripes; and was baptized, he and all his, straightway. Acts 16: 31, 32, 33.-That such believers only are fit subjects to receive the administration of Christian baptism; that little children or infants, not being capable of believing, and being freely saved from the transgression and sin of our first parents, by the atoning merit and blood of Jesus Christ, the immaculate Lamb of God, which taketh away the sins of the world, have no need of baptism in their infancy, neither are they capable of receiving it, until they arrive to maturer years, and be capable of thinking for themselves, and of believing on the Son of God, and by faith to behold that Saviour who bled and died on Calvary to redeem them from sin and death, and in whose name they are to be baptized: Also, that we have no commandment or intimation from Christ, or his Apostles, for infant baptism, but rather the reverse. For, when they brought young children to Jesus that he should touch them, and his disciples rebuked those that brought them, he showed great regard for them, and said to his disciples, to suffer the little children to come unto him and forbid them not for of such is the kingdom of God. And he took them up in his arms, put his hands upon them, and blessed them. Mark 10: 13, 14, 16. But neither did he baptize them him

to speak it to them. Hence it is inferrad: that there were no infants there.

Also, that a non-conformity to the world, and its vain and fleeting fashions, is a characteristic of a true Christian.

The above account is given to prove that the succeeding articles of our Christian Confession of Faith are no new thing; but, that they are based on a foundation as ancient, we presume, as any that can be produced by any Christian denomination. Yea, as we have the confidence to believe that they are based on the doctrine of Christ and his holy Apostles, may we not say, that their foundation is as ancient as the days of the Apostles? Notwithstanding,

We freely acknowledge that we derived the name Mennonites, from that famous reformer, MENNO SIMON-of whom we are not ashamed to say, that he was a shining light in the time of the reformation, proclaiming loudly against the superstitions, idolatries and abominations, of the church of Rome; and that we adhere to the doctrine which he, by the co-operating influence of the Divine Spirit, advanced, taught and inculcated both by precept and example. But, at the same time, many circumstances prove that the doctrine which Menno taught, was but an echo to that which was advanced and taught by those ancient witnesses of the truth above described, and in perfect unison with it. So that his sentiments on the subject of religion and true piety may be considered materially the same, and in perfect concordance with theirs, save that it was then, in Menno's time, reduced