Page:Historical Lectures and Addresses.djvu/73

 though some had rejected infant baptism, none had adopted the ancient custom of immersion. The Mennonite Baptists, from whom the English Baptists took their rise, were content with baptism by sprinkling; but it was discovered that in 1619 a new sect had sprung from them who bore the name of Collegianten. These Collegianten, so called from their Collegia, or meetings, claimed to carry out more exactly primitive practice in two points; they did not restrict preaching to elders chosen by the congregation, but left it free to all; and they administered baptism by immersion, as a symbol of admission into the Universal Church, not of any particular branch of it. To them the newly formed congregation in England had recourse. They sent into Holland one of their members who could speak Dutch, and he was baptised by immersion. On his return he baptised another, and these two baptised the rest. The new practice rapidly spread and superseded the former method of baptism by sprinkling. It was adopted by the General Baptists, and became an accepted article in the Baptist Confession of 1646. It still remains the practice of all the English Baptists.

This mode of baptism was at first performed in rivers or pools, and was naturally done in secrecy by night. It lent an air of mystery to the ritual of the Baptists and marked them out from other sects who denounced them as fanatics. Indeed the Baptists were by no means popular with the Presbyterians or even with the Independents. No one attacked them with greater vigour than did Richard Baxter, who even urged that their baptismal rite, unsuitable as it