Valerie wrote:ken_sylvania wrote:Zwingli, Luther and the other Protestant reformers couldn't teach the full Bible truth about baptism because they were afraid to let go of infant baptism.
They have nothing to fear now- I have read the writings of for example the Presbyterian Church's reasons for infant baptism, they are closer to the writings of the early church writers- but certainly there has been no reason to 'fear' for 500 years anyone could recant if they desired now that the church has thousands of beliefs and practices.
As usual, never missing an opportunity to bemoan the multiple articulations of the Church.
Maybe this will clarify what Ken was saying:
Harold S. Bender wrote:Anabaptism is the culmination of the Reformation, the fulfillment of the original vision of Luther and Zwingli, and thus makes it a consistent evangelical Protestantism seeking to recreate without compromise the original New Testament church, the vision of Christ and the apostles.
Zwingli wrote:Although I know, as the Fathers show, that infants have been baptised occasionally from the earliest times, still it was not so universal a custom as it is now, but the common practice was as soon as they arrived at the age of reason to form them into classes for instruction in the Word of Salvation (hence they were called catechumens, i. e., persons under instruction). And after a firm faith had been implanted in their hearts and they had confessed the same with their mouth, then they were baptised.
Balthasar Hubmaier wrote:In 1523, on Philip and James’ Day [Friday, May 1], I have with you [Zwingli] conferred in Graben Street upon the Scriptures relating to Baptism; then and there you said I was right in saying that children should not be baptised before they were instructed in the faith; ... So you have also confessed in your book upon the unruly spirits, that those who baptised infants could quote no clear word in Scripture ordering them to baptise them.
Zwingli at one point knew that infant baptism wasn't right, but persisted in the practice because of political pressure. The desire to accommodate the city council won out over his conscience and the claims of Hubmaier and Grebel. He compromised and hardened his heart against the truth.
He was somewhat more courageous on the subject of fasting. The Affair of the Sausages, in which Zwingli and others violated the Lenten fast by eating smoked sausage, is considered the beginning of the Swiss Reformation.