A few months before Huebmaier’s death, Luther wrote, rather hastily, a tract against the
Anabaptists (January or February, 1528), in the shape of a letter to two unnamed ministers in
Catholic territory.^813 "I know well enough," he begins, "that Balthasar Huebmör quotes me among
others by name, in his blasphemous book on Re-baptism, as if I were of his foolish mind. But I
take comfort in the fact that neither friend nor foe will believe such a lie, since I have sufficiently
in my sermons shown my faith in infant-baptism." He expressed his dissent from the harsh and
cruel treatment of the Anabaptists, and maintained that they ought to be resisted only by the Word
of God and arguments, not by fire and sword, unless they preach insurrection and resist the civil
magistrate.^814 At the same time he ungenerously depreciated the constancy of their martyrs, and
compared them to the Jewish martyrs at the destruction of Jerusalem, and the Donatist martyrs.^815
He thought it served the papists right, to be troubled with such sectaries of the Devil in punishment
for not tolerating the gospel. He then proceeds to refute their objections to infant-baptism.
- Infant-baptism is wrong because it comes from the pope, who is Antichrist. But then we
ought to reject the Scriptures, and Christianity itself, which we have in common with Rome. Christ
found many abuses among the Pharisees and Sadducees and the Jewish people, but did not reject
the Old Testament, and told his disciples to observe their doctrines (Matt. 23:3). Here Luther pays
a striking tribute to the Roman church, and supports it by the very fact that the pope is Antichrist,
and reveals his tyranny in the temple of God, that is, within the Christian Church, and not outside
of it.^816 By such an argument the Anabaptists weaken the cause of Christianity, and deceive
themselves.
- Infants know nothing of their baptism, and have to learn it afterwards from their parents
or sponsors. But we know nothing of our natural birth and of many other things, except on the
testimony of others. - Infants cannot believe. Luther denied this, and appealed to the word of Christ, who
declared them fit for the kingdom of heaven (Matt. 19:14), and to the example of John the Baptist,
who believed in the mother’s womb (Luke 1:41). Reformed divines, while admitting the capacity
or germ of faith in infants, base infant-baptism on the vicarious faith of parents, and the covenant
blessing of Abraham which extends to his seed (Gen. 17:7). Luther mentions this also. - The absence of a command to baptize children. But they are included in the command
to baptize all nations (Matt. 28:19). The burden of proof lies on the Anabaptists to show that
infant-baptism is forbidden in the Bible, before they abolish such an old and venerable institution
of the whole Christian Church. - Among the positive arguments, Luther mentions the analogy of circumcision, Christ’s
treatment of children, the cases of family baptisms, Acts 2:39; 16:15, 33; 1 Cor. 1:16.
(^813) He calls it in a letter to Spalatin, Feb. 5, 1528 (De Wette, III. 279), "epistolam tumultuarie scriptam." He alludes to it in several other
letters of the same year (III. 250, 253, 263).
(^814) The passage is quoted in § 11, p. 60.
(^815) Letter to Link, May 12, 1528 (De Wette, III. 311): "Constantiam Anabaptistarum morientium arbitror similem esse illi, qua Augustinus
celebrat Donatistas et Josephus Judaeos in vastata Jerusalem, et multa talia furorem esse Satanae non est dubium, praesertim ubi sic
moriuntur cum blasphemia sacramenti. Sancti martyres, ut noster Leonardus Kaiser [a Lutheran of Bavaria who was beheaded Aug. 18,
1527] cum timore et humilitate magnaque animi erga hostes lenitatemoriuntur: illi vero quasi hostium taedio et indignatione pertinaciam
suam augere, et sic mori videntur."
(^816) See above, p. 529 sq.