The propriety of the exclusive application of the term “Baptists” to those who baptize adults by immersion, has been questioned; and for this reason they are by many styled Antipædobaptists, {69} namely, opposers of infant baptism; but the term Anabaptist should not be applied to them, it being a term of reproach. The old General Baptists have been on the decline for many years; their churches are principally in Kent and Sussex. The English and most foreign Baptists consider a personal profession of faith, and immersion in water, essential to baptism: this profession is generally made before the church at a church meeting. Some have a creed, and expect the candidate for baptism to assent to it, and give a circumstantial account of his conversion: others only require him to profess himself a Christian. The former generally consider baptism as an ordinance which initiates persons into a particular church, and they say, that without breach of Christian liberty, they have a right to expect an agreement in articles of faith in their own societies. The latter think that baptism initiates into the Christian religion generally, and therefore think that they have no right to require an assent to their creed from such as do not join their churches. They quote the baptism of the Eunuch in Acts viii. in proof. The first mention of the Baptists in English History is as the subject of persecution in the reign of Henry VIII. During that of Edward VI. a commission was issued to bishops and other persons “to try all Anabaptists, heretics, and despisers of the common prayer,” and they were empowered, in the event of their contumacy, to commit them to the flames. The same inhuman policy was persisted in under Elizabeth. The last Baptist martyr burned in England was Edward Wightman; he was condemned by the bishop of Lichfield and Coventry, {70a} and burned at Lichfield April 11, 1612. {70b} The celebrated Whiston became a Baptist towards the close of his life, retaining nevertheless his Arian belief. * * * * *