children. Instead of enquiring whether the theory was correct, they asked whether it was possible for infants to exercise faith; and concluding in the negative, they decided against the baptism of infants. The pædo-baptists might plead an exception in favour of infants on the ground of the Abrahamic covenant, and the analogy between circumcision and baptism; but this did not satisfy their minds. The baptists, still adhering to the erroneous theory of the evangelical party, saw no alternative but that of refusing outward baptism to all who were not spiritually baptized and prepared to profess their faith in Christ. They went even further than this: they came to regard baptism as the mode of admission to church fellowship, and the very basis of church organization. From this time pædo-baptist Independents, and anti-pædo-baptist Independents, became two parties; the former being known at a later period as Independents, and the latter as Baptists.

The principal parties engaged in this controversy, which was prolonged for a considerable period, were Smyth, Helwisse, and Murton on the baptist side, and Johnson, Clyfton, Robinson, and Ainsworth, on the other.

Smyth was in many respects a remarkable man. It is said that he went over from England to Amsterdam in the hope of being able to convert Johnson from "the errors of his rigid separation." If such was his object, it must be admitted that he failed, since he became one of the most rigid separatists himself. According to the testimony of one who knew him, "he first fell into some errors about the

* Cotton's Way, p. 7; Stillingfleet's Unreasonableness of Separation, p.

52.

Scriptures, and so into some opposition with Mr. Johnson, who had been his tutor, and the church at Amsterdam. But he was convinced of them by the pains and faithfulness of Mr. Johnson and Mr. Ainsworth, and revoked them; but afterwards was drawn away by some of the Dutch anabaptists, who finding him to be a good scholar and unsettled, they easily misled the most of his people, and others of them scattered away. He lived not many years after, but died there of a consumption, to which he was inclined before he came out of England."* Many testimonies might be adduced from the writings of his opponents respecting his instability; and to these may be added that of Helwisse, in a work published in 1611, in which he writes of him as a fallen man, and compares him to Balaam. † At the same time, much allowance should be made for him, in consequence of the unsettled state of things in relation to many important matters. On some points he was in advance of those who were in other respects his superiors, as we shall endeavour to show in another place. According to some he died at Leyden, in 1610; according to others, at Amsterdam, in 1614.‡

Helwisse was another writer of importance in this controversy. Before the death of Smyth he was regarded as a leader of the baptist party, and repaired to England, in all probability, as early as 1611-12. In 1611, he published a work, one object of which was to prove that no infants are condemned;" and has been supposed to have been the principal party to

* Governor Bradford's Dialogue, in Young's Chronicles of the Pilgrims, p. 450, 451.

† An Advertisement, &c., quoted by Hanbury, i. 418.

+ Cotton says,

"At Leyden he never came,” Way, p. 7.

the drawing up "The Declaration of Faith" of the independent baptists of Amsterdam. His reasons for leaving Amsterdam and settling in London, have been variously interpreted. Modern baptists writers, somewhat partial towards one of their early advocates, have set him forth as a hero "actuated by motives at once pure and exalted; "'* while his contemporaries were perhaps too much influenced by the prejudices which a difference of sentiments engenders. If he had been content to repair to England simply declaring that under existing circumstances he was convinced it was his duty to do so, no one would have blamed him. But this did not satisfy him. He must needs turn dictator to such men as Robinson, Ainsworth, Johnson, and others, asserting that it was their duty to follow his example, and terming them, "false-hearted leaders" when they refused. It is scarcely to be wondered at, that Robinson should meet this charge of recreancy, as he did in the following terms:

"The truth is, it was Mr. Helwisse who, above all, either guides or others, furthered this passage into strange countries, and if any brought oars he brought sails, as I could show in many particulars, and as all that are acquainted with the manner of our coming over can witness with me. Neither is it likely, if he and the people with him at Amsterdam could have gone on comfortably as they desired, that the unlawfulness of flight would ever have troubled him. But more than likely it is, that having scattered the people by his heady and indiscreet courses, and otherwise disabled himself, that natural confidence which abounded in him took occasion, under an

* Tracts on Liberty of Conscience, p. 90.

appearance of spiritual courage, to press him upon those desperate courses which he of late hath run. By which he might also think it his glory to dare and challenge King and State to their faces, and not to give way to them, no, not a foot; as indeed it far better agrees with a bold and haughty stomach thus to do, than with the apostle in the base 'infirmity' of Christ, to be 'let down through a wall in a basket,' and to run away. Where he saith, that the cities where we are neither receive us nor the word we bring, otherwise than they receive Turks and Jews, he speaks very untruly both of them and us, as, were it of use, I could show evidently. . . . . As we, then, shall perceive either our flying or our abiding to be meet for God's glory and the good of men, especially of our family and those nearest unto us; and for our own furtherance in holiness; and as we have strength to wade through the dangers of persecutions; so we are with good conscience to use the one or other : which our hope and comfort also are, we have done in these our days of sorrow; some of us coming over by banishment, and others otherwise."* This was the right spirit, and neither Helwisse nor any one else had any warrant to prescribe what course the exiles should follow. "God's glory and the good of men" were the pole-star of the pastor of the Leyden people, as their subsequent history fully proves. Helwisse's church in London was soon scattered; but Robinson's

* Of Religious Communion, Private and Public; with the silencing of the clamours raised by Mr. Thomas Helwisse against our retaining the baptism received in England, and administering of baptism unto infants; as also a survey of the Confession of Faith, published in certain conclusions, by the remainders of Mr. Smyth's company: by John Robinson (1614), pp. 41-45.

church laid the foundation of a mighty empire in the new world.

It would occupy too much space to mention the various publications issued by these parties on the one hand, and by Johnson, Clyfton, Ainsworth and Robinson on the other. Suffice it to say, that while none of them were wanting in ability, Ainsworth's and Robinson's generally bore the palm. With the views we have already expressed, it may be inferred that we deem none of them satisfactory. On particular points of the controversy, however, Robinson and Ainsworth were very successful. The reply of Robinson to Helwisse is, in many respects, a masterly production, and will be referred to again in connection with another subject. In opposition to Smyth, who made baptism the basis of the church's constitution, he argues, that "the church is not gathered, nor men thereinto admitted, by baptism. The church is not given to baptism, but baptism, on the contrary, to the church. John baptized many, but yet gathered no churches; living and dying a member of the Jewish church." The following passage on the same subject is interesting both in an historical and argumentative point of view. It refers to a matter already mentioned in the last volume.

"If the church be gathered by baptism, then will Mr. Helwisse's church appear to all men to be built upon the sand, considering the baptism it had and hath, which was, as I have heard from themselves, on this manner. Mr. Smyth, Mr. Helwisse, and the rest, having utterly dissolved and disclaimed their former church state and ministry, came together to erect a new church by baptism; unto which they also ascribed so great virtue as that they would not so