Among the sects which arose about the period of the Reformation of the church in the sixteenth century, we find the Anabaptists {66} playing rather a conspicuous part, by exciting political tumults in Saxony and the adjacent countries. For this, Munzer, their leader, after the defeat of his forces, was put to death, and the sect generally was proscribed, and the profession of its doctrines punished capitally. What those doctrines were is not easy, nor is it essential now, to state, since the modern sect, which we now term Baptists, retain only so much of them as relates to baptism by immersion, and of adults only, and the rejection of episcopal church government. The more modern sect is subdivided into General and Particular Baptists. The General or Arminian Baptists admit “much latitude in their system of religious doctrine, which consists in such general principles, that their communion is accessible to Christians of almost all denominations, and accordingly they tolerate in fact, and receive among them persons of every sect, who profess themselves Christians, and receive the Holy Scriptures as the source of truth, and the rule of faith.” {67} They agree with the PARTICULAR BAPTISTS in this, that they admit to baptism adults only, and administer that sacrament either by dipping or total immersion; but they differ from them in another respect, for they repeat the administration of baptism to those who had received it, either in a state of infancy, or by aspersion instead of dipping: for if the common accounts may be believed, the Particular Baptists do not carry matters so far. The General Baptists consider their sect as the only true church; in baptism they dip only once and not three times as was the practice in the primitive church: and they consider it a matter of indifference whether that sacrament be administered in the name of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, or in that of Christ alone: {68a} they adopt the doctrine of Menno with regard to the Millennium; many of them also embrace his particular opinion concerning the origin of Christ’s body. {68b} They look upon the precept of the Apostles prohibiting the use of blood and of things strangled, as a law that was designed to be in force in all ages and periods of the church: they believe that the soul, from the moment that the body dies until its resurrection at the last day, remains in a state of perfect insensibility: they use the ceremony of extreme unction, and finally, to omit matters of a more trifling nature, several of them observe the Jewish as well as the Christian Sabbath. {68c} In some of their churches they have three distinct orders separately ordained, i.e. messengers, elders, and deacons; and their general assembly (where a minister preaches, and the churches are taken into consideration), is held annually in London on the Tuesday in Whitsun week, and they afterwards dine together. They have met thus for upwards of a century.