"ALL AMONG THE BAPTISTS."

NZ Truth, Issue 96, 20 April 1907, Page 7

"ALL AMONG THE BAPTISTS."

BALMY, BLASPHEMOUS BABY-BURNERS.

Hot and Soft-Shell Hell-Firers.

Bawdy, Bestial, Bloody Bipedal Beasts.

John Norton Challenges the Calvinistic Cftcktail* I ■;•-.■ • .- ■ . •

To Come from Under Cover ) .

And Publicly Debate their Damnable Doctrines

For £50 a Side.

WutJLUS FOR BAPTISTS. | In last Sunday's issue a scribe asecibing to himself the sobsiquet of "The Holy Lyre," wrote a lot of nonsense about the ministers a,nd members of the Baptist Church m Museum \ Street, Perth (Rev. Wilson, pastor). ; I propose m this issue to .administer j to Wilson, and the whole Baptistical brotherhood, and sisterhood, a compound Biblical and Historical bolus or cathartic, big enough,, and, powerful enough, to. purge the bunkum out of the most costive Anabaptist, Paedobaptist, or Antipaedobaptist of j their black and blasphemous hardshell, hell-fire heresies: Hallelujah ! •' ' * . • PARSONS WHO PREY WITHOUT WORKING. Wilson is no worse, or better, than j Dther men, who, having been born with a dislike for hard graft, take to gospel-grinding as an escape from honest toil, and the next best thing to thieving. Praying and preaching is less perilous than picking and stealing, and often quite as i profitable. This is why there are so many men m the world like Wilson, who, because they won't work, and are ashamdd jto beg, and afraid to steal, take to preying on the people by preaching, what they call, the Gospel of Glad Tidings. of Great Joy. This gospel-grinding game enables them to escape being sent, as rogues and vagabonds, to do another sort of grinding otf the treadmill or prank of a jail. They give the lousy loafers' usual application to , the pious old saying, "orare" est labored; and a, practical parsonical, or what is the same thing, a piratical interpretation to an equally well-known Scriptural saying : by "Preying without' ceasring." They faithfully follow the divine injunction:: "Whatsoever thine I hand firadeth thee to do, do it with all thy might," by' keeping both hands busily divine: deep ' down into people's sockets all the days of the week, all the year round, for ever i and ever, Amen ! BLASPHEMOUS BABY-BURNERS. All these pious paupers give m return, for being permitted to cadge 1 and cant their way through their lazy lives, : is btmkum and j blather,' frothand fudge, "gajJ? aflKr" gainmony m the case of some of the many sects, of blasphemous Baptists.— to brutally' damn to the eternal torments of Hell-; fire and burning brimstone innocent i unbaptized babes, referring to whom Cbrjst said :" Except ye become even as one of these little children, ye cannot enter the Kingdom of Heaven !" Yet these, pragmatical pitch-forkers Of poor little ba-bies to' Perditiqn, permit, and even teach the litftle children m their stuffy, stifling, spixitsaddening and -soul-soddening Sunday Schools to drearily drone— the wWle the blitbsome birds are singing m God's bright sunshine outside— the words of the Children's Canticle 'a

When mothers of Salem their children. •brought' to Jesus, ;. . ' The stern disciples drove them back, and bade them depart ; But Jesus saw them 'ere they flea, and sweetly smiled and kindly said, Suffer little children to come unto Me. For I will receive them, an-d iold them to My bosom? . I'll be a shepherd 1 to those lambs, Oa! •d'riye.them no;t away ; I And, if to Me their hearts they give, they shall with Me m glory live :•■ Suffer little ohil'dren to come unto ■Me. ' ■ Suoh blasphiomods, baby-»burning Baptists ought to go to Hell as the place best befittrn|r their bannine, blasting, burning business!, to which £bey a r e so savagely ready to send babies, and other better beings than they are themselves. Raca ! ■■ • ' \ * "' : ' BESTIAL BAWDY BAPTISTS. Now we'll come to Wilson, and inrtuire what, sort of a Baptist he and his Baptistieal brethren and sistern are* or are not. v He cannot tell any more than they. } There are many brands ;of Baptists fiplit-up into a multitude of sects. All the members of 'these sects believe themselves to be "Brands pluGkt.from the burning"; and the resft, who diiffer from them, an'di from all others, tp be reserved as fuel, for the furnaces of Hell. Whe, Holy Lyre" was not far from the trutfh when he said that probably neither Wilson himself, nor any of his congregation, knew to which brand of.. 'Baptists he, or they, belong; or if they -did know that much, they were ignorant of the pragma.tical proles- , sibn or principles or damnatory dogmas 4 pii which the particular brand to which they profepsed to adhere based its beliefs, non-beliefs, or misb&ljefs. For, be it borne m mind; these Baptistieal Burners or other Blokes who,, don't Believe, m their Danmatioiji Blasphemies are the most heretical, anarchical,' and, so far as a belief m a Merciful and Righteous Gpd is con-, cenied, the most atheistical of all schismatics ■ Tiieir infemarMeas, and. infamous institutiops have been among the most nasty and .noxious,, bloody and brutal, which, have ever degraded the sons of men a>nd debauched their daughters.' That this • is so : that Baptisms m one shape or another^ during the so-called* Refoi> , mation, and at subseiquen-t periods, 1 was synonymous with Salacious Socialism, Concupiscent Cpmmmnisin, and Pornic Promiscuity between the sexes, shall be shown, shortly. But before beginning to unroll the bestial, bloody, and brutal record of Baptism, it wil be as profitable as interesting to see how this has been thus with the prophets and pioneers of the Hard-Shell, Hell-fire Baptism of the present day. Sel-ah ! ■■ ■ • ' ■ • f ■ ■ •• 'JOHN BAPTIST AND JOHN MUNSTBR. The origin of the awful record of the anarchical Anabaptists, represent-

ed to-day by the Pacdopabti'sts, is to be traced to the origin of Baptism itself. The origination of Baptism was John the Baptist of the Bible. This John was the prototypo of Joh» of Munster, Kmpperdollin.s;, and the rest of the rascally ranting, robbing, religious Anabaptistical anarchists who staggered, and almost subverted,. Society with their fanatical fury, and shamed and shocked Humanity with their frantic fornications. They were meet successors of John the Baptist, who was, like them a lousy, lunatical loafer, at wai -with Property, Purity and Propriety. This Baptist was the Dowie of his day ; a vexatious, vituperative vagabond, with much method m his madness He must have been a kind of mesmeric madman, as were most of the Jewish prophets, who, like this balmy Jack, haunted the deserts and hills of Palestine, and rushed down into the villages and hamlets when they felt the fanatical fit-com-hvp- on. In the Jewish age of sacerdotalism, and of holy humbug and hypocrisy, the people turned with scorn and shame from tJh.eir Shepherds and favored fanatics who frightened them instead of shearing them like sheep. What took place m Palestine two thousand years ago, is taking place to-<lay ; the people are turning away from the Shepherds who shear the sheep, to more popular preachers and' prophets. Like 1 those of the Anabaptistical followers of the Baptist their religious' ideas are anarchical; if not, atheistical, even as their' industrial- ideals are socialistic, if not. communistic. For this the professional parson is to blame. lohajjddl ■■'"• ■■ I ■ •-. • ' CHRIST'S BAHTISM BY JOHN IN JORDAN. The apocryphaX. and contradictory Scripture stories; of the New Testament attribute a divine mission to the Baptist by saying : ; ''There was a man sent from Orod whose, nanie was John." whose particular mission was: "To prepare" the way of the Lord, and mat<e His path straight. " Now John, was a demented:delusion--ist : a Semitic schismatic, who succeeded only m making the path very crooked, and leaving the way to spiritual salvation very uncertain, and m losing Ms head m a double sense. At first, he was no friend to Jesus, whom he regard as a rival, and sought to side-track and scare out of the Messiah mission-field, vf'^h. his Baptistical bunkum. In order to placate him, Jesus went to Jordan and allowed John to Baptise Him, which conciliatory concession John recognised by freigning to think that, he was unworthy to baptise Christ. But Christ courteously coaxed or "codded" the cantankerous crank intp nerformina; the rite of baptism over Him. This seems to have been one of the most calamitous of the contradictory * concessions to popular clamor that Christ ever made, during His lifetime, and, as Ernest' Renan shows m Ms sympathetic "Life .of Jesus," The Man of Sorrows made many such mistakes. Christ's baptism left a large and .influential sco Won of the Christian Church m doubt j 'and confusion concerning, the manner I or form of baptismal consecration : ! ' whether he was wholly immersed ,or plunged head over heels by John into the Jprd-an, or was only sprinkled, out of pot or pariiwikin. This has afforded a loophole through which schisms crept into this already schismatic branch of the Church. It has enabled querimonious quidnuncs and quibbling quacks to - set the -saints by the ears over the question of imraersiion or sprinkling, dousing or drenching and given rise to. scores of warring sects' whose doctrines and ; doings have been more damnable than divine— rather of the Devil than of Deity, as we shall see subsequently. John didn't las"t long : he talked himself into prison ; and the lovely and graceful Herodias quickly danced the unhappy maniac's head, off his shoulders for scandalising her mother over her love liaison with Herod— which , after all, was only what a dutiful dancing daughter might be expected ,to do m defence of ' her beautiful and beloved mother's reputation so brutally blasted •by his balmy and blatant John. Slanderous stinkard •! FOUNDERS. AND PATRON SAINTS OF PAEDOBAPTISTS. John was the founder of the Baptists. He was also an anarchist m revolt against Law and Order and Religious Authority. He was the father of those Anabaptists, whom Luther's lovely Reformation let loose upon Europe, and to whom' that bestial, bloody brute, Henry the Eighth, was a most proper pornic patron saint. These Anabaptists began to play the very devil with Luther's Reformation. They revolted against Protestant and Paptist control alike ; defied, fought and overcame the civil aad military powers for a time ; seized -on cities ; set up a sort of Mormon or Dowie Zion m Munster, There they lived m a condition of liMd-inous^ lust, having all things m common, j including women, the sole exception being the blessed boodle or sacred spoils which the Anabaptist leaders kept for themselves. Johann Munzer and Knipperdolling refused tip share and share alike with the saints, pretty much after the manner of the latter-day Mormon prophets, Jo© Smith and Bri'ghani Young, of yesterday, or "Profit" Elijah Dowie, and the parsons of today, Luther, who was no religious Juggins, saw that the fanatical fat was m the fire. Like all fanaticslike Calvin and Knox— he couldn't stomach the fanatioism of others r He pleaded with the Protestant princes of Yarmany to put down and annihilate the Anabaptists. This was very muoh easier said than done. The Anabaptists were numerous and strong, and, like most fanatics, 'brave even unto death. Luther's Protestant Princes, who had favoured his crusade against Religious Authority and Law and Order, were willing enough to - take on the job, but they Were not strong enough to complete it. The power of the Papacy had to be invoked : Munzer and his forces of fren- , zied fanatics were only suppressed and exterminated by thost of a brave bish'OT) of the Roman Catholic. Church, A most fitting anti-climax to Luther's Glorious Godly Reformation, to be sure. Praise the Loard ! •. • • BAPTISTS AND THE BIBLE. Sjnce the days of these delirious, disgusting Baptists of Luther's begetting, the Baptists have split up into a score or more of anarchical sects. Schism has done one good thing ; it has split them up into so many small sections, who hate each [other worse than an Orangeman does

~ Catholic, and damn each other much readily, that they are as powerless now for evil as they have ever been for good. Outside the Anglican Church— the only sure and solid bulwark against the splendid organisation of Rome— Protestantism is split tip into- a hundred and more of warring sects. Many of these sects shred ■6S into religiohs« atheism and social anarchy. They all base their beliefs on the Blessed Book, which they, one and all, claim to interpret for, them-, selves. This they ' affect to do, with out the aid of tradition. They thus pretend that polemical printed pamphlets, merely because they are printed, are a surer foundation for. the faith, and a more certain revelation of .God's will to man, than the teachings of Christ and his apostles, as handed down by tradition by the Fathers of the early Christian Church. They reject the faith of the fa "•hers who lived nearest to Christ's time aad some 61 whom either converse! with some of the Apostles or w J h others who iiad. Without these fathers and their traditions there wquM have been no Bible a ( ; all., 'i'he Fj.)'j is based on their writings. They ha* 1 the original Scriptures, or the first translations of those who had had that advantage. But the battle cry of the Anabaptists— as" their very name denotes— was, and m their sec-.tc-uian successors ■ 'still-. -is, "Back to the Book : «,he wluto Bible and Notfi-. mg but the B;Me " ; t >c-s been seen to wlbat a piic«xi9 p3 ; eht their battlecry- brought .th.e;ti...i.n. Germany, ever,., as we see tie same religious anarchy, without the sectarian savagery, among their nudcin successors. Society's safety, as far as these sects are concerned', is in' their divisions ; were, they r.ol; split up viiey would jje strong, aggressive because the old Baptistical fanaticism is still there, ready ....t0... ourst forth, -it the first opportunity. But this is a reasonable and a rational age. Rationalism is top strong and respe'et- j ed to ever permit the. perpetration of anarchical Anabaptistical atrocities. Fverybwly may,, go. to-Heavan. or Hell m' their own way, .undisturbedso long as they .don't disturb- others, who do not wish' to go to either, because they believe m neither. These believe m Christ as a Divine Democrat, „ the ■■Ri.jrbteous Reformer j and accept bis sia^i'ng' "The ' Kingdom of Heaven is within you!" -as; true and all-satisfying for all men, for alltime. Salve ! j '■■•' ' ■■^■■■■'■•■ : ■■■ r^' ' ! JESSE THE JEW, "SON OF ... , NONE.", ■ ■.. „ • . . After all schisms into which Protestantism is split, those which liavei burst up the Baptists outTiumber j those of all other denominations. A! though they represent an abnormal | number o-t schisms, the Baptists, as a sect, are not numerically strong, .'as. cdm'paxed with other Protestant sects. '1 hey existed before I^he Reformation, and m one strange schism or other showed themselves, and stirred up strife m 'the Catholic' Church as early as Wickliffc.'s da}!. There j were' Baptists /among the Albisonses, also among the Waklens&s, m the.eleventh.and twelve centuries. But. the British Baptists did not take form and shape as a sect until tho middle of the. fifteenth century, when a section tliat had split off from the Independents— who were split off from the , Puritans, who, m , their turn, j were a split-off from the. .. Church of England— set up schismatic j shop on. their own account. Their | leader was an Ang-licanised - renegade j Jew, named Jesse. He was jocularly ■] styled, "Jesse, tte Son of None," be- | cause of religion or country he 'really had none. They were virtuaHv Anabaptists, being Mennonites, ibe followers of a Dutch schismatic named John Mennon, or Menno Simon, who was himself a wnegade and schismatic. He had been a Roman Catholic' i Priest, and, some say, a 'profligate;-! while others assert that he "only became profligate after turning Piro'bes'tant, Not long after his renunciation of Romanism, this renegade "reneged" on Protestantism- Although an Anabantist, he began to anathematize the aeiniae antics,' papiricious cap* ers, and ludiferous lecheries of the \ Anabaptists of Munster, under John j of Munster, Knipperdolling and Ko. I But he did no*t do this until he saw j that the. world, Catholic and Pro- j testant, would not stand such salacious savagery. Then, and not till Ilien, he turned dog on his old pals. Menno was no mug. He commenced denouncing Anabaptist absurdities and atrocities, when he found it danpierous tp advocate or approve them. But m doing this, John Menno, or Menno Simon, was only doing after the manner of all mountcbanks-r-he was a politician "among parsons, and a parson among politicians. Like so many of the parsonical politicians and political nairsons of .the present day, he went with the "push" that paid best. BRITAIN'S DELIGHT IN DUTCH SCHISMS, SAUSAGES AND SOVEREIGNS. It has been necessary to dwell somewhat at length ,on the doings of this devious Dutchman, Menno, ' because he was. really the foUnder\ and father tff the English Baptists of his own day, and of N our day. Menno, the renegade Catholic and the. Anabaptistical anathematizer of Anabaptists, was The John the Baptist of British Baptists ; and not the locust and wilc!-.honev-eatiug, lousy lunatic of the Bible. Here's the story, which reads like a chunk of comic opera. It was m 15^4 that the Baptists began to be known as a sect m England. They separated from the Independents, as already stated, about the year 1<538, and set up schismatical ' shop under the leadership of the schdsmatical Jew renegade Jesse. But they found themselves all at sea without a rudder, having renounced their former religious beliefs, and rejected the regular baptism, according to -the rites of the Anglican or Catholic Church. They sent over one of their number to be dipped or immersed, sprinkled or sluiched by one ar more of the delirious Dutch Anabaptists of Holland m order that he might re-damp or douse, after the Dutch manner, "the faithful" iri England. It is. not remarkable how fond Englishmen ' are' of things Dutch and of Dutchmen ; Dutoli schisms, Dutch cheese, Dutch sausages, and Dutch sovereigns ? God save the King ! What these Amsterdam Anabaptists believed,- or believed that they believed, is of no grest convenience, because they, like liheir..En"-li e h Aiiakapf isticul acolytes, ; soon u esan \o break nn int.) scy-ar-late s.hisms, some of which were as

monstrous and murderous as those upheld by the arch-Anabaptisticai apostle, Munzer, and his followers. • • • BRITISH BAPTISTS' " UNKNOWN GOD." If these newlyrbaptized British Amsterdamian Anabaptists were anything at all m the world' of wild'and warring, beliefs.' they were Menuonites of whom possibly Wilson, boss miller of the Baptist mill m Museum-street, Perth, never heard. Certainly, not a single Baptist m Perth could tell who Menna was, or what he taught or where he taught. It would be equally safe to say that all Baptists m Australasia would repudiate any belief m, Menno's doctrines, they having no knowledge of them, as emphatically and obstinately as they espouse others, of which they are equally ignorant. For the opportunist reasons above stated, the plan and doctrine of discipline drawn up by Menno was of a much more mild and moderate' nature than that of the furious and fanatical Anabaptists, to whose tumultuous proceedings we have already referred. His plan, however, though mare definite, was. more severe than desired by the most moderate section of the divided Dutch Anabaptists. The only pretension or aim or these latter was the restoration of the Christian Church— as these cranks called their "crook" combination — to its pristine purity — which was pure communism, when the faithful, ''had all things m common." Foi: politic reasons, Menno publicly repudiated the licentious tenets of the more advanced Anabaptists with regard to polygamy and divorce ; | and denounced as 'blasphemous the telief that the Holy Ghost still continued to descend on chosen believers, as He is alleged to have done so m the days of the Early Church, j proclaiming.. .His presence to. thefaithlful by predictions, miracles, dreams, !«vnd visions of various kinds. Menno. Simon savagely repudiated all those parts of Anabaptist beliefs and practices that it was not safe or profit- j able to stand by or perform. But! lie maintained, most of the/ blasphemers beliefs and mendacious mummeries, with regard to '• (1) the Baptism of Childircn ; (2) the Millennium : "(3.) exclusion of Magistrates from the Church; (4) Abolition cf War ; (5) Abolition of Oaths- (6) Vanity and Harm fulness of ■ Human Science. On all such matters as -these, especially the damnation to eternal hall-flames of unbaptized' ba|Nos, Ihpy were all agreed. The chief cause of division into schisms of the Mennonites was their worry over the question as to whether Christ w?s j conceived m the womb of the Vircin. I Mary by the creating power of the Holy Ghost or not ! I •■"■■••. » PRISMATIC COLORS OF PRAGMATIC SCHISMS. Such is v the origin and basis • of Britisa Baptism, of which British Baptists I. now little or, nothing, but the broken-up, split-up schismatic 'state cf the Baptistical sects m JLn^land, Australia, America, and elsewhere only shows one section of the score of sects into which Baptism is divided. Their name .is Legion. The complexions of their confessions are as complicated a,nfl coniouruding as the colors of the chameleon. To simply enumerate their ; n:\mes, and sumiijaiize their views j would require a book bigger than the" j Bible. Some sort of a succinct sumImary of their- sects and schisms, j however, must be given. To begin {with, there are Baptists and ■ Bapjsists, Dutch Baptists, and American ■Baptists. There are particular or Hard-shell, Hell-fire Baptists, i( as contradistinguished from the General or Go-as-you-please Baptists. Then again, there, are the Paedobaptists, and the Anti-Baedobaptists, who;differ as to the merits of Infant and Adult Baptism ; and, yet again, the Calvinistical and Arminran' Baptists, who differ widely about some things ! and slightly about all things connected with their tricky, tergivelrsat- . ing theology. Out of, this medley of misrepresentation and mystification I have sprung a. swarm of other schisms and sects— like fungi from a dung-heap. Let us consider these striving sects of conflicting schisms m their historical order and sequence, !as closely' as we can, beginning with | the Mennonites. '„ ■■ .*. • • THE MENNONITES. These we have shown to be an offshoot of the original Anabaptists, whose absurdities culminated m the atrocities of Munzer.-- Among otlia: Anabaptistical notions which they accept and adopt are these. They only .baptize adults ; admit no civil rulers into the communion ; forbid tbsir members to exercise the functions of magistrates >; forbid the repelling of force by force >; cpndemn war and capital punishment, and the taking 'of oaths. But while divided from the Anabaptists, the Mennonites are divided among themselves into FlemI ingians and Walterlandians. , The Flemingians adhere to the opinion pf Menno, as to the human nature of phrist, believing that it. was produced m Mary's womb by the creating power of the Holy Ghost. They follow the Saviour's example m washing, the feet of strangers ; and assert the necessity of excommunica'tin?; and avoiding, as one would do the plague, not only avowed sinners, but also all those who depart m the slightest degree from the sim- ! pi i city of their ancestors m dress, etc. And they denounce human leantr ing as Contemptible and unworthy a Christian. These monstrous Mennonitish notion^ were much modified by the, more moderate Waterlandians, who became the much more numerous sect. The numbers of the last named, during recent years^ have teen much diminished by internal dissentions, spread of education, progress of Rationalism, and public ridicule, and contempt., *»■ • * DUNKERS, DUNKARDS'OR DIPPERS ? From the Mennonites are descended the Dunkers, who are to be found principally m America, whither they migrated iri 1708, from Germany, the seed-plot or forcing place of all these pestiferious schisms. They quarreled with the other Mennonitish "sects over the question of immersing or dipping at baptism. Hence their various names of Dippers, Dunkers, Dunkards, or Tunkers. They call themselves Brethren or German Baptists, tp some of whose practices they adhere, although they are quakers, even more. than Baptists, m their queer Quietism. They bad not been 'long m .-nieiGi. when there was nnI other Baptist biust-up among them,

over the observance of Sunday. In 1728 ■ another aeet, known as the Seventh Day Dunkers, struck out for the Seventh Day, or Saturday, as "The Sabbath of the Lord, thy God," and stuck to it. But the other Dunkers drowned, damned them, and drove them forth, to keep the Sabbath on their ownsome and their lonesame. ARMINIANS OR BAPTISTICAL. The Arminians or Paedobaptista, or Baby-bathers, or Baptizers, are at once the more numerous ami reasonable of all the crazy cranks among the Baptistical bedlamites. Because they revolted against the revolting Hell-fare, To-Blazes-with-Babies brutality, of the Calvinistical HardShell Anabaptistical Antipaedo-bap-tists (baptizers of adults and burners of unbaptized babies), they were stigmatised as Atheistical Anarchists. But the chief offence of the Paedobaptists (Infant Baptizers or Baby-bathers) was their releasing, so m.a N y millions of their fellow-crea-tures—men and women and children— from the terrible torturing thrall ot Predestination preached by the cruel and bloody Calvin. This French renegade Romanist burnt his bid collegiate companion and personal friend, the Spaniard, Servetus, at the stake m Geneva, over . some trifling theological difference concerning the Persons of the Trinity. Calvin did this deadly, damning deed with all the cowardice, callous cruelty of a Familiar of' the Spanish. Inquisitionworthy of Torquemada himself. Like Baptism itself, Calvinism has been sub- I ject to so many schisms, and divided by many sects. They both have been degrading m their effects, and brutal and bloody, and often bestial m their processes, but of these twin scourges of schism, Calvanism was, and still j is, the greater curse. It has afflicted Humanity with greater misery, and j more sorrow;, suffering, and shame, j than war or pestilence. If there over was, .or is, a .n. Anti-Chirist, it is Calvinism. In breaking away from such n, cruel creed, the Paedobaptists mede towards light • and liberty, and helped Jo redeem the world from the thrall of a savage and servile superstition. This revolt from Calvinism effected. a greater' and a better Reformation than that of Luther and H<*nry the Eighth (the Heavenly Twins!) against Romanism. »• ■ • ARMINIANS VERSUS CALCINI; ISTS. ... But the A,rminians, through the more reasonable and , numerous i branch of the Baptists, were not, of j course, without their dissensions— | schismatics never are. Their leader was another Dutchman, Arminius, who, recoiling m horror at the hard and hellish doctrines of Calvin, leaned towards those 'of Luther. After he i became ' Professor of Theology at j Leyd?n, he started a schism and got (into holts with his Calvinistic colleague, Gomar. The rival sects were named after the two rival schismatics,. Gomarists ami Arminians. An i appeal was made to what wis called ia national Synod, convened by the J Dutch States General at Dort.. Deputies were present from the United Provinces, as well as from the "re- j I formed" churches of England, Hesse, j Bremen, the Falatiuate, and Switzerjland. From this Synod of Dort the; ! Arminians were excluded by a trick, [and they were pronounced guilty of j pestilential errors, and condemned as : corrupters of the true religion. Yet jArminiahism spread', especially m j England, where it has done much to jkeep down^ Calvinism, and bewray ! Baptistical blighters and blasters of i babies. A,rminianism was a , provideni.tial antidote to the Anaibaptistical j blasphemy, and to the Calvinis't/ic poiIson of Predestination. It had, and | what survives of it still has, much 1 , akin to the mjld and merciful tenets of Anglicanism 1 ; and it was largely due to the sympathy shown, by Archbishop Laud and other High Anglicans, to Arminianism m the days of its beginning, that the baby-banning and burning Anabaptistical anarchchists did not overwhelm it, and get? the upper hand m England. This they came nearly doing m Cromwell's time, under the delusive designation at Independents— who were all blatant Baptists, Fifth Monarchy, and Millennium Men, "Diggers," some of whom Cromwell shot pour encourage r les autres, not to start the reign of King Jesus m iEngland, Iwhile he (Cromwell) was alive. Had ! these Anabaptistical commuaisitic I not- Cromwell made 'short work o<£ ! cranks when they started their agi- j tn.tiop, England would have become the scene of an outbreak of Baptistieal bawdyism, brutality, and bestiality similar to that which Luther's "Reformation" had evoked not long before m Germany. • • * RATIONALISM RESTRAINS RANTERS. To further pursue these Anabaptis'tical and Baptistical schisms through all their ramifications would l:e too lows and too tedious a task. * Sufficient has been said of them to show to what depths of disgusting depravity, blatant blasphemy, atheistical anarchy; seditious socialism, and concupiscent communism, teachings' of the pornic prophets and .feculent, founders naturally lead. They are religious anarchists, who believe m the Bible— when it is interpreted by themselves ; m Hell-fire when they • are the stokers ; m persecution— when they have; the power to persecute ; m sedition— when it seems safe; m fact, m anything or every thine that seems to fit m with their frenzied fancies. The reason that they don't break out m disgusting demonstrations and ribald riots now-a-days is Ihat they are not strong enough. Economic anarchists are bad enough : religious anarchists are the worst of all anarchists. Religious and Rational society is too strong and sensible to require, or desire, to trouble, itself about the schisms of sects, s o ' long as these sects do not dare to disturb society. These Baptists are, one and all, great mouthers about "the milk of the world," and believers m the Bible as a real Divine revelation, which crazy cranks, or chousing coin-chaising charlatans, are at liberty to interpret for jthemsolves. And this is the snlit \v> state of schism to wnich their "Bible, and Nothing But the Bible" banging and bawling has brought them ; and those are the fruits— ararchv, blood, brutality, and bestiality— tp which their Calvinistic child-cursing cra?e broueht them. • .•• • * | ! .WHERE STANDS WILSON ? To Y'hich of thin, multitude of sects ,d>.es Wilson, of the Museum-street

Baptist Chapel belong ? To which does his coin-cpilecti&gV "cobfcer," of the clerical .cMy ati<i clerical-cyt clothes— barring "always that broadstriped and spotted . sporting "weskit," adhere ? . Is Wilson a Hard-shell or a Soft-shell ; a Baby Burner or a Heavenly Lamber ? : Is* he . a Calvinistical or Lutheran brand of Baptist, Anti-Paedeatinat-ing Paedobap-' tist, or a Paiedestinating anti-Pae-dqpabtist ;, a Gormarist, our an Arminian ; a Dunker, Digger, or Dipper •; an Immerser or Sprinkler r, a Plunger or Splasher ; a Foot-wash-er or Stale-socker •, a Sabbatarian or Sundayman ; a First or Seventh Day Adventist ? I&, he any one or all of these, or only /a bit of all of them ? Does he know much or anything at all about all or any of these sects 6r schisms? In" short; does Wilson really know ''w'ere ''e are" amid this raging, sea of schisms ? Of course, he doesn't, and no otbetr Baptistical bounder does. Wilson may think he does, but if he will submit himself to the proof of a discussion of the point, on a public platform, I'll wager half the salary or platescrapings of Wilspn's best year, that he doesn't know exactly what he believes m about Baptiam, Infant and Adult Baptism, Grace, Freewill, Perseverance and Predestination. He may think that he believes m a certain way- on these cardinal points of the Baptist jcal Creed ; and tha-t his beliefs are , the beliefs .of most of the Baptistical i schismatics, . but, he doesn't. " r • ; #■ ■•■«'■ ■ ■■■ ■ ">"* lam prepared to maintain, on a public platform, my contention concerning Wilson's beliefs on . the a-boye-cited cardinal points of the Baptistic-al-Calvinistical faith, and to p&.y a j nenalty of fifty pounds to the Perth Hospital if I fail to prove my assertion to the satisfaction of a popu-r lar, not ''packed," audience. This IM do, by words of ; Wilson's own mouth, if Wilson will meet me m public debate, as proposed.. Will \yilson meet me ? If he will, downi goes the dollars >: and , arrangements fox this theological "tpurney" may pro-, ceed forthwith.' Wilson, where are vqu ? Come forth ! Under which King, Baptistical Bezpnian ? .Speak or die ! Christ or Calvin ? There's the challenge.. '■..''. ' ; / JOHN NORTON. Perth, W.A., , ■ . * Wednesday, March 27th, 1907. -