CARDINAL HOSIUS, A Catholic dignitary, spoke these words in the Council of Trent, A. D. 1554: "If the truth of a religion were to be judged by the readiness and cheerfulness which a man of any sect shows in suffering, then the opinions and persuasions of no sect can be truer or surer than those of the Anabaptists; since there have been none for these twelve hundred years that have been more grievously punished."- Orchard's History, p. 364

CARDINAL GIGGONS AND PATRICK J. HEALEY. In a work entitled "Crossing the Centuries," published in 1912 by the "Educational Association," edited by William King, and the two Catholic dignitaries just mentioned and with them former Presidents of the United States, Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson:

"Of the Baptists it may be said that they are no Reformers. These people

compromising bodies of Christian believers known under various names in

different countries, entirely distinct and independent of the Roman and Greek 'churches,' have had an unbroken continuity of existence from apostolic days

down through the centuries. Throughout this long period they were bitterly

persecuted for heresy, driven from country to country, disfranchised, deprived of their property, imprisoned, tortured and slain by the thousands, yet they swerved not from their New Testament faith, doctrine and adherence."

ZWINGLI, Great Protestant Reformer: In the Sixteenth Century he wrote: "The institution of Anabaptism is no novelty, but for thirteen hundred years has caused great disturbance in the 'church."

He admits Baptist existence back to within two hundred years of Christ and His apostles. What disturbance did the Anabaptists cause? They were our historic Baptist Brethren. In contending for the faith once delivered to the saints, they refuse to accept as valid baptism the immersions, sprinkling, or pouring of other group (church).

WADDINGTON, Episcopalian, Fellow of Trinity College, in fact an Episcopalian minister, in " 'Church' History from the Earliest Ages to the Reformation," page 290: There are some who believe in the Vaudois [Waldenses] to have enjoyed the uninterrupted integrity of the faith even from apostolic ages... A Dominican, named Ranier Acchoo, who was first a

member and afterwards a persecutor of their communion, described them, in

a treatise which he wrote against them, to the following purpose: 'There is no

sect so dangerous as the Leonists [another name for the Waldenses] for three reasons: First, it is the most ancient-some say as old as Sylvester, others as the apostles themselves. Secondly, it is very generally disseminated; there is no country where it has not gained some footing. Thirdly, while the other sects are profane and blasphemous, this retains the utmost show of piety; they live justly before men, and believe nothing respecting God that is not good; only they blaspheme against the Roman 'church and the clergy, and thus gain many followers.'"

ALEXANDER CAMPBELL: "The Baptist denomination in all ages and all countries has been, as a body, the constant asserters of the rights of man and the liberty of conscience. They have often been persecuted by Pedobaptists; but they never politically persecuted, though they have had it in their power."

Alexander Campbell on Baptism, p. 409, editions 1851, 1853. Clouds of witnesses attest the fact, that before the Reformation from popery, and from the apostolic age, to the present time, the sentiments of Baptists, and the practice of Baptism have had a continuous chain of advocates, and public monuments of their existence in every Century can be produced."

Campbell-McCalla Debate, p. 378.

"The Baptists can trace their origin to apostolic times, and can produce unequivocal testimony of their existence in every Century to the present time."

Campbell's Debate with Walker.

T.R. BURNETT, in his day a well known minister of the same faith as Alexander Campbell, in "Christian Messenger," December 8, 1886: "The Baptists have connection with the Apostles through the line of succession which extends back three hundred and fifty years, where it connects with the Waldensian line, and that reaches to the apostolic days. This is not a Baptist line, but the Baptists have connection with this line, and through it have connection with the Apostles."

"Christ formed His 'Church' [Assembly] upon a rock, and it has been there

ever since. In the days of Alexander Campbell it was wearing the name 'Baptist Church' [Assembly]. With Alexander Campbell we say the Kingdom was with the Baptists before he and his coadjustors started the Reformation "What and Where Is the Church,' by T.R. Burnett, p. 73

BANCROFT, Historian and American statesman: "Freedom of conscience, unlimited freedom of mind, was from the first the trophy of Baptists."

JOHN O. RIDPATH, METHODIST HISTORIAN: "I should not readily admit that there was a Baptist 'church' [Assembly] as far back as A. D. 100, though without doubt there were Baptists then, as all Christians were then Baptists."- Jarrell's "Church Perpetuity," p. 69.

ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RELIGIOUS KNOWLEDGE, History of Dutch

Reformed 'Church', Vol. 1 page 148: Dr. Dermont, chaplain to the king of Holland, and Dr. Ypeij, professor of theology at Gronigen, in 1819, were commissioned by the King's order to prepare a history of the Dutch Reformed Church, which was the State Church of Holland. The history was prepared under royal sanction and published officially. It witnesses the antiquity and orthodoxy, not of the Dutch Reformed Establishment, but of the Dutch Baptists. Here is what they reported to the king:

"We have now seen that the Baptists, who were formerly called Anabaptists, and in later times Mennonites were the original Waldenses, and have long in history received the honor of that origin. On this account the Baptists may be considered the only Christian community which has stood since the Apostles, and as a Christian Society which has preserved pure the doctrines of the Gospel through the ages. The perfectly correct external economy of the Baptist denomination tends to confirm the truth, disputed by the Romish Church, that the Reformation brought about in the Sixteenth Century was in the highest degree necessary; and at the same time it goes to refute the erroneous notion of the Catholics that their communion is the most ancient."

That was the sober verdict of these historians, who were not Baptists, but they reveal that historians long before them had conceded the facts which they record. And the historians to whom they refer were not Baptists!

Quotes and comments taken from THE HOUSE OF GOD by Frank A. Godsoe Copyright 1973