We have seen Benedict's History of the Baptist denomination in America, and take the liberty of making the following quotation from his works:
"About sixty years after the ascension of our Lord, Christianity was planted in Britain, and a number of the royal blood, and many of inferior birth, were called to be saints. Here the gospel flourished much in early times, and here also its followers endured many afflictions and calamities from pagan persecutions. The British Christians experienced various changes of prosperity and adversity, until about the year 600. A little previous to this period, Austin the monk, that famous Pedo-baptist persecutor, with about forty others, were sent here by Pope Gregory the Great, to convert the Saxon pagans to popery, and to subject them to the dominion of Rome. The enterprise succeeded, and conversion (or rather perversion) work was performed on a large scale. King Ethelbert and his court, and a considerable part of his kingdom, were won over by the successful monk, who consecrated the river Swale, near York, in which he caused ten thousand of his converts to be baptized in one day. Having met with so much success in England, he resolved to try what he could do in Wales. There were may British Christians who fled hither in former times, to avoid the brutal ravages of the outrageous Saxons. The monk held a synod in their neighborhood, and sent to their pastors to request them to receive the pope's commandment; but they utterly refused to listen to either the monk or pope, or to adopt any of their maxims. Austin meeting with this prompt refusal, endeavored to compromise matters with these strenuous Welshmen, and requested that they would consent to him in three things: one of which was, that they should give baptism to their children. But with none of his proposals would they comply. `Sins, therefore,' said this zealous apostle of popery and pedobaptism, ` ye wol not receive peace of your brethren, ye of other shall have warre and wretche.' And accordingly he brought the Saxons upon them to shed their innocent blood, and many of them lost their lives for the name of Jesus. The Baptist historians in England, contend that the first British Christians were Baptists, and that they maintained Baptist principles until the coming of Austin. `We have no mention,' says the author of the Memoirs, ` of the christening or baptizing children in England, before the coming of Austin in 597; and to us it is evident, that he brought it not from heaven but from Rome.' But though the subjects of baptism began now to be altered, the mode of it continued in the national church a thousand years longer, baptism was administered by dipping. From the coming of Austin, the church in this island was divided into two parts, the old and the new. The old, or Baptist church, maintained the original principles. But the new church adopted infant Baptism, and the rest of the multiplying superstitions of Rome." [Benedict's History of the Baptist Denomination in America, p. 190]
Austin's requesting the ancient British Christians, who opposed his popish mission, to baptize their children, is a circumstance which the English and Welsh Baptist consider of the greatest importance. They infer from it, that before Austin's time, infant baptism was not practiced in the Isle of Britain, and that though he converted multitudes to his Pedo-baptist plan, yet many, especially in Wales and Cornwall, opposed it; and the Welsh Baptists contend, that Baptist principles were maintained in the recesses of their mountainous Principality, all along through the dark reign of popery.
http://www.wayoflife.org/fbns/early.htm
The Baptists were so named Anabaptists simply because they baptized again, which the word means.
DHK
