it,—in his catechism; and of course no distinction between justification and sanctification. This omission cannot be explained like many others; the importance that these doctrines assumed in the Reformation period, and the amount of attention given them by all writers, preclude any explanation, on grounds of lack of necessity, inadvertence, and the like, for their absence from the carefully elaborated and deliberately printed works of any man of the time. The omission must be deliberate, calculated, wilful. An omission of such character can be accounted for only on one ground, that Hübmaier was anxious to mark clearly his divergence from Luther in some matters that the latter reckoned cardinal in the Protestant theology. Beyond this we are utterly in the dark.
From his treatment of faith and regeneration Hübmaier passes naturally to the discussion of Ecclesiology, and, as we might expect from the circumstances that called forth his writings, this is the subject that receives by far the largest amount of space. Having heard the word, having believed in Christ, having been born again by the Spirit, one is fitted for the next step, which is to receive baptism.
