Key to the debate between Zwingli and Hubmaier on the question of infant baptism was hermeneutical method. Zwingli, following the normative principle, defended infant baptism on account that it had not been prohibited in Scripture. Hubmaier, following the regulative principle, rejected it because there was no Scriptural precedent for the practice.
Hubmaier evidently felt the reformed argument was lacking in Scriptural foundation. Hubmaier wrote, "We have a clear word for baptizing believers and you have none for baptizing your children, except that you groundlessly drag in several shadows from the Old Testament."1 Hubmaier had also challenged Zwingli to defend his position with "bright, clear, and simple writing... without any additions."2 This Hubmaier requested after saying that he "would report on and testify to [his] reasons in the divine Scriptures that infant baptism is a work without any basis."3 Hubmaier's view was that those within the magisterial reformation that held over the practice of infant baptism were weak in their use of Scripture, adding to the Word in order to justify their position.
Hubmaier had pointed words directed toward the magisterial reformers use of Scripture that allowed them to hold to infant baptism. This abuse of the Scripture was against the sola scriptura ideal that had in large part sparked that reformation and Hubmaier recognized that the magisterial reformers were ignoring the Scriptures that had given them their starting point in the doctrine of justification by faith. He wrote:
Hubmaier had pointed words directed toward the magisterial reformers use of Scripture that allowed them to hold to infant baptism. This abuse of the Scripture was against the sola scriptura ideal that had in large part sparked that reformation and Hubmaier recognized that the magisterial reformers were ignoring the Scriptures that had given them their starting point in the doctrine of justification by faith. He wrote:
"You twist yourself, you bend back and forth, but no clear Scripture will come forth. Remember what you said against Faber and published in the Article 15,4 that all truth stands clear in the Word of God. If now infant baptism is truth, then point it out in the clear Word of God. Show it to us for God's sake. Do it; do not forget. Or the vicar will complain that you have used a sword against him that you now unbelt and that you cannot suffer to be stabbed with."
The force of Hubmaier's rebuke here is clear. As strong as Hubmaier's words may have been, they are quite chilling when compared to these lines from John Eck, former mentor of Hubmaier and constant antagonist to Luther:
"Even though, in the preceding and following articles, the new Christians [reformers] set up the principle that they would accept nothing that could not be defended with clear biblical references; after the Anabaptists had arisen they could not defeat them and were forced to give up their principle (foundation) and concede that many things had to be believed and practiced that were not written (contained) [in Scripture], as Zwingli asserted with respect to the baptism of Mary and also the baptism of children.”5
Just as Hubmaier had claimed, it did not go unnoticed among the Catholics that the magisterial reformers had turned against what they had once held up as their guide for truth, Scripture. Eck admitted that in terms of biblicism it was the Anabaptists who had the stronger argument. The Catholics indeed observed the magisterial reformers place back in its sheath the sword of Scripture that they had formerly wielded against their Catholic opponents. Hubmaier died before Eck wrote these words in 1530 but his rebuke foresaw what would become the rebuke of the Catholics against the same group.
1Balthasar Hubmaier, "Dialogue with Zwingli's Baptism Book," in H. Wayne Pipkin and John Howard Yoder eds. Balthasar Hubmaier: Theologian of Anabaptism, Classics of the Radical Reformation, no. 5 (Scottdale, Pennsylvania: Herald, 1989), 182.
2Ibid., 172.
3Ibid.
4This was an article in Zwingli's sixty-seven theses compiled for the first Zurich disputation, which set the pace for the growing reformation movement in that city.
5John Eck, Enchiridion, quoted in Abraham Friesen, In Defense of Freedom: Russian Mennonites and the State Before and During World War I (Winnipeg, Manitoba: Kindred, 2006), 348-349.
