The Bloody Theatre, or Martyrs Mirror of the Defenseless Christians / who baptized only upon confession of faith, and who suffered and died for the testimony of Jesus, their savior, from the time of Christ to the year A.D. 1660

by Thieleman J. van Braght

But it would require too much time to treat on, and show, all these things; hence we shall follow the custom we adopted in the beginning, and speak principally of baptism, showing briefly, by whom and in what manner the same was practiced according to the rule of Christ and the usage of his apostles, and confirmed by doctrine or example.

Alcimus writes (lib. 1, de Orig. Mundi) in the 6th Cent. Magdeburg., fol. 112, concerning the doctrine of baptism: “That baptism is prefigured in the suffering of Christ.” Thereupon follows a certain verse from Alcimus, in which baptism is compared to the water which flowed from Christ’s side, and to the blood of the martyrs; of which, however, we will not speak further at present, as we intend to reserve it for a place where it will be more to the purpose. Jacob Mehrning also notices this verse in Bapt. Hist., page 467.

A. D. 508.—Or at the time of the Emperor Anastasius, surnamed Flavius Valerius, the highly enlightened and gifted Cassiodorus, is stated to have lived and written, who says with regard to baptism (on Cant., cap. 7), “that it is a divine fountain, in which believers are regenerated to new creatures.” J. M., Bapt. Hist., page 467.

What else is this, than what our Savior himself says (Mark 16:16), that believers must be baptized; and (John 3:5), that one must be born again of water and of the Spirit; which accords with the words of Paul (Tit. 3:5), where he calls baptism the washing of regeneration, because, believers, when they are baptized, must forsake the old life, and be regenerated into a new life. Rom. 6:4.

Cassiodorus, on Cant., cap. 4, teaches (Bapt. Hist., page 468), That all believers shall (or must) be baptized. “There can be,” he says, “no believer without the washing of baptism (that is, no true believer, who can stand before God and his word, without baptism; for he who commanded faith, also commanded baptism).

Again, in cap. 7: “No one can enter the church, who has not previously been washed with the water of baptism, and made to drink of the fountain of wholesome doctrine. This well agrees with the words of the apostles, who thus testifies of himself and of the Corinthian church: “For by one Spirit we are all baptized into one body . . . and have been all made to drink into one Spirit.” 1 Cor. 12:13. By this, the apostle (like Cassiodorus) indicates that all who are true members of the church of Jesus Christ, must have communion in two things: First, they must have been made one body with each other by baptism. Secondly, they must have been made to drink into the Spirit, or the doctrine of the divine word; which, as every intelligent person knows, are things that cannot be complied with by infants, but only by adult and intelligent persons.

Cassiodorus, on Ps. 23 (page 469), says: “The water of refreshing is the washing of baptism, in which divine gifts are poured upon the souls that have become barren through the withering influence of sin, that they may bring forth good fruits.”

Again: “The souls of the elect (or of the baptized) have, in baptism, forsaken the corruption of the old man, and are renewed in Christ.”

Again: “As the people (of Israel) were preserved by the Red Sea, in which Pharaoh perished, even so, the church of the heathen, has been redeemed, through baptism, from the bondage of the devil, and brought into the true promised land, the liberty of the Gospel; and thus she (that is the church of the heathen) who was formerly a handmaid of iniquity, has now become the friend of Christ, and been washed, through baptism, from the filth of sin.”

Beloved reader, attentively consider the last three passages of Cassiodorus, and you shall find that they, in every particular, indicate that the baptism of which he speaks, is not at all infant baptism, but such a baptism as Christ commanded to be administered upon faith; for, when he says, in the first passage, that in (or through) the water of baptism, divine gifts are poured upon the souls that have become barren through the withering influence of sin, that they may bring forth good fruits, he certainly thereby indicates that he speaks of such candidates as had previously become barren through the withering influence of sin, and to whom gifts were now imparted in (or through) baptism (namely, by God, for the strengthening of their faith), that they might bring forth good fruits, which, as every one knows, can be done by none but adult and virtuous persons. By the second passage, in which he says, that the souls of the elect (or of the baptized) have forsaken, in baptism, the corruption of the old man, and are renewed in Christ, he again indicates that the persons of whom he speaks, had lived, before baptism, in the corruption of the old man, wherefore it was necessary for them to forsake it in baptism, and, by a pious life, to be renewed henceforth in Christ; but how this applies to infants, may be judged.