Christian Baptism

                                                                                                 Vol. XVIII, No. 5, May 2005

In 1525 in a booklet entitled "On the Christian Baptism of Believers," [Balthasar] Hubmaier wrote: "Now do you ask in solemn earnestness. What must I know, or how much must I know, if I want to be baptized? The answer: This much you must know of the Word of God, before you may be baptized: that you are a miserable sinner, and confess it, also, that you believe in the forgiveness of your sins through Christ Jesus, and you desire to begin a new life with the purpose of amending your life in conformity with the will of Christ in the power of God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. And you must know that if you go astray therein, you will, according to the rule of Christ in Matt. 18, permit yourself to be chastised, whereby from day to day you may grow in faith just as a mustard seed reaches the heavens." William R. Estep Jr., Anabaptist Beginnings (1523-1533) (Nieuwkoop: B. DeGraaf, 1976), 82.

Quoted by Paige Patterson in Baptist Why and Why Not Revisited, Broadman & Holman, Nashville, 1997, p. 123.