the authorities stating that their appear- | be stamped out by every means. Which ance in England was only recent. "Ana- was not surprising, seeing that its preachbaptists which be lately come into this ers and every man and woman amongst realm," is the stereotyped phrase. How them tended to be such-announced a ever, in two proclamations issued as early doctrine irreconcilable with any form of as 1534, they are denounced by name, and society established in Christendom. And as being both of foreign origin and English this attitude gave them a readiness for, subjects, and accused of "arguing and and a joy in, martyrdom, in itself a power disputing in open places," and "lurking more formidable than all the mercenary secretly in divers corners and places." armies brought together to crush them. "We must love death, and more desire to die than fear death; "* such was one of the heresies authoritatively denounced in 1530.

tion in 1525, defeated with wholesale | this Reign of Terror drove the popular slaughter and punished with ferocious mind is seen in the fact that legendary vengeance, that caused the rapid spread stories at once became current concerning of Anabaptism all over Europe during the miraculous occurrences attending certain next quarter of a century.* Cities and executions.* The force and extent of the districts, which formerly would have movement is further shown by the fact nothing to do with Luther, now became that the authorities made use not only of Anabaptist,† and many thousands of the wholesale executions, but the still more artisans who followed Luther went over wicked tyranny of delivering up the peasen masse to the Anabaptists. Sebastian ants into the power of their mercenary Franck, a sympathetic contemporary but troops. "From 1528 the Suabian League not an Anabaptist says: "The course of sent to scour the districts under their rule, the Baptists was so swift that their doc- four hundred, later eight hundred and one trine soon spread over the whole country, thousand, armed troopers, and the leaders and they quickly obtained a great body of of the companies were given authority at adherents, baptized many thousands, and once, and without law or trial, to put to also drew to their side many well-meaning death the fanatics they caught and to hunt souls. They were thrown into prison,' them like wild beasts." In Bavaria, he continues, "and tortured with brand- where the Anabaptists were very numering, sword, fire, water, and divers impris-ous, the duke ordered that those who reonments, so that, in a few years, some two thousand or more are estimated to have been put to death."§ It is, says Dr. Keller, "just from the trustworthy numbers that have come down of those executed that we get an approximate idea of the spread of Anabaptism at this time." Up to the year 1531, a contemporary chronicler estimates those killed in Tyrol and Görz at one thousand, at Ennisheim six hundred, in Linz seventy-three. In the Palatinate about the year 1529 three hundred and fifty men were executed by the command of the emperor; in 1527, twelve were put to death in Switzerland, and three at the Hague, the men in the latter case being roasted rather than burnt to death. Seven were executed at Munich, and others at Augsburg and Strasburg, while numerous executions also took place in Suabia, Brunn, Znaim, and Olmutz, at Bruck in Styria, and at Schwäbisch Gmünd,** and among the victims were persons admitted on all sides to be the best of men. The "Chronicle of the Anbaptists" accused the Austrian government of itself stirring up rebellion and then beheading those taken on the highroad and hanging on the door-posts those taken in the villages.tt The state to which

mus.

Ein Apostel der Wiedertäufer, p. 9. Keller here quotes the opinion of Ritschl, Geschichte des PietisKeller, p. 9. Also History of the Anabaptists, by Guy de Bres, 1565, p. 5. Thousands Baptized by Hubmeier in Switzerland, H. S. Burrage, p. 209.

Keller, p. 25, quoting again the opinion of Ritschl. Quoted by Dr. Keller, Ein Apostel, etc., p. 10. Keller, Ein Apostel, etc., pp. 11, 12. Erasmus, quoted by G. Brandt, Hist. of the Reformation, vol. p. 58. (1529.)

Brandt, Hist. of the Reformation, vol. i., p.

57; also p. 56.
**Keller, p. 12.

tt Ibid., p. 10.

canted should be beheaded, and those who did not should be burned. It was evidently determined, at any cost of human blood, to stamp out these very inconvenient believers in a Christ who knew what he meant and meant what he said. But instead of suppressing them, it simply turned men burning with indignation into enthusiasts, enthusiasts into fanatics, fanatics into moral lunatics. The Munster kingdom was the outcome of all this harrying of sincere, earnest souls.

Buckle in his "History of Civiliza tion," § says: “By 1546, thirty thousand persons had been put to death for Anabaptism in Holland and Friesland alone." It is true that the Netherlands became the centre of the exterminatory storm which raged over the greater part of Europe in the sixteenth century; but it must not be forgotten that those who directed that storm were rulers of every form of established religious opinion, from the Zwinglian Switzer to the Dominican Spaniard. Historians avoid the evident conclusion, allowing their readers to suppose it simply arose from religious bigotry. Even Dr. Keller, to whom I owe the figures showing the extent of the slaughter of the Anabaptists in Germany, does not sufficiently emphasize the fact that Anabaptism did not simply mean a reformation of religion, but that it also meant reformation social and political. He attributes the attitude of the authorities in Germany to the Peasant War, but the insurrection of the peasants was brought about by the same

causes which produced Anabaptism, and owed much of its origin and inspiration to the Anabaptists, of whom Munzer is the best-known representative.

ity, but they also saw that the animating force which created both the ideal and the desire to realize it was the Anabaptist sentiment, which refused to be satisfied Reference has already been made to the with anything less than the reign of jusmany Anabaptists who fled to England tice. Thus Whitgift, defending the preduring Alva's Reign of Terror in the latical form of Church government against Netherlands, and to the different reception the Presbyterian or Puritan party, tried to accorded them by the authorities and the show that their views were merely the first people. If, in the Netherlands, the history step towards Anabaptism. Exactly the of the Anabaptists from 1530 to 1566* is same argument was used by Dr. Some, in identical with that of the Reformation, we his attack on Barrow, Greenwood, and may fairly conclude that it was so to a large Penry in the days of James I.† And when extent in England. A long tradition of the Presbyterians themselves came into material suffering, a long tradition of out-power they were continually charging Inraged conscience, and now an overgrowing dependents, Separatists, Baptists, and instinct that the oppressed throughout others with Anabaptistical tendencies.‡ Christendom were one, and that God through them was about to set up his kingdom of eternal justice and truth this lay at the bottom of the wonderful willingness that came upon English men and women, especially the poor, mean people, to bear every torture, even the most cruel of deaths, rather than submit their consciences to authority, civil or religious. Where had the noble army of martyrs in the Marian persecutions, and their immediate precursors and successors, Protestants and Catholics, learnt this solemn awe of the voice of conscience, that rather than swerve one hair's breadth from what they conceived to be its teach ing, on points to us hopelessly obscure and of no practical interest, they went cheerfully to the stake; where, but from these despised Anabaptists, who filled the air with the doctrine that each man had within himself a divine teacher who would lead him into all truth and whose voice he must obey, let the cost be what it might? "This I know," said Hans Denck, "in myself certainly to be the truth; therefore I will, if God will, listen to what it shall say to me; him that would take it from me, I will not permit." And this Hans Denck was, according to Dr. Keller, the Anabaptist teacher who, between 1525 and 1530, possessed the greatest and most widespread authority.

Half a century of propaganda by writ ing, preaching, and suffering crowned by the Catholic Terror of 1555-58, bore fruit in England in a purer religious and political ideal, and the desire to realize it grew stronger and stronger as time advanced. Not only was this seen by those in author

De Hoop-Scheffer, Dutch Church Historian, quoted by Keller, p. 10.

† Ein Apostel, etc., Keller, p. 49 + Ibid., pp. 6, 7.

Thus we must think of Anabaptism as representing a vast deal more than the question of adult baptism. This point, probably fastened upon by their opponents as the one most likely to bring them into disrepute with a people brought up to believe that an infant's salvation depended on its being baptized, was of minor import to Baptists themselves. It is certain the earlier leaders thought little of it. Munzer never baptized, and it is doubtful if he was ever rebaptized himself. Cellarius, who was one of the very first group, while defending Baptist opinions, had his children sprinkled, probably on the same grounds as Paul had Timothy circumcized. If, then, we look at Anabaptism in its spirit, general tendency, and the ideas accepted by all its sections, rather than in the light of the doctrine and practice of its two extreme and opposing expressions - the Munster Kingdom and the Mennonites we shall find that it existed in widespread forms in every country in Christendom, and that its history had been almost exactly anticipated in England and in Bohemia; that, in fact, it might claim, through Hus,§ Wiclif as its greatest and most powerful teacher.

In the whole history of the Church su perstition has never met with a foe at once so learned and so thorough as Wiclif. No reformer ever cut away more determinedly at the root of the tree.

*Strype's Life of Whitgift, vol. i., p. 54.

In his

+ Godly treatise wherein are examined many execrable fancies, etc., by Robert Some, 1589. The calling men Anabaptistical who practised infant sprinkling of doctrine that gave the name, shows it was not the site of baptism but a certain body

Edwards's Gangræna. The Book of Common Prayer vindicated from the aspersions of all Schismatics, Anabaptists, Brownists, and Separatists, etc. London. Printed for John Thomas. 1641.

S Lechler and W. Berger and others recognize Hus as the most important representative of the Wiclifian tendency, and the whole Hussite movement as a consequence of Wiclif's teaching.

when it became clear that the ruling powers did not intend to permit anything of the sort, efforts commenced to separate the Kingdom of Heaven from the kingdoms of this world, and to form communities in which a life might be led in accordance with the pure doctrine of Jesus Christ, and which should be centres from whence his kingdom should extend over the earth.* Dr. Keller, in his sketch of the career of Hans Denck, has given us some idea of how such an Anabaptist Church was founded at Augsburg in 1525. In a year or two it numbered eleven hundred members, and from this centre the Anabaptist propaganda was successfully carried on until, its example being followed, similar communities were formed in other places.† A people maintaining as a fundamental principle that each man has a divine light within himself, must necessarily allow free scope for every variety of opinion, seeing that this light shines through all sorts of media, producing va

great work, "De Civili Dominio," he sweeps away the very basis of every unrighteous government and of every unjust social arrangement. Nothing, he asserts, has any right to exist which is not founded on righteousness.† Inheritance, or act ual possessions, cannot make good the claims of unrighteous rulers. § Nor can they transfer or transmit their authority to others. There is no basis for lordship of anything except its exercise in righteousness; and in harmony with this doctrine his itinerant preachers proclaimed the right of the people to call to account rulers failing to do their duty.** Again, he asserts the sufficiency of Christ's law for this life as well as that which is to come;tt he denies that any man is Christ's disciple who does not keep Christ's counsel; he affirms that nothing is to be followed that is not plainly taught in Scripture, but at the same time the written word is not to be worshipped.‡‡ Baptism does not save infants or confer grace; oaths should not be taken in bar-rious impressions of truth, even to the gains or contracts. Wiclif's simple priests, and the Lollard preachers, who were often laymen,§§ put these ideas into plain English, and showed their application to evil priests, bad lords, war, oaths, and litigation, and such was their acceptance that their opponents complained that "every second man one meets is a Lollard." Thus, before the end of the fourteenth century, the mass of the English people were indoctrinated with the ideas which, more or less, have ever since been at the basis of their religion.

As long as there appeared a possibility of these ideas being realized, the hopes of the people were directed to a truly grand Reformation which would cover all that was meant by " Church and State; "¶¶ but • Believed to exist only in a single manuscript in two volumes. Vienna. Ed. by R. L. Poole, M.A., and published by the Wiclif Society in 1885.

66

† De Civili Dominio, cap. i.

Ibid., cap. iii.

Ibid., cap. i.

Ibid., cap. xxxvi.

Ibid., cap i

extent of apparent contradictions. This they did not always themselves sufficiently recognize, and their opponents hardly at all, leading the latter to attribute to the Anabaptists various opposing doctrines. No one can study the whole tendency of their doctrine, especially as put forward by themselves, and not see that it was as much opposed to that of Luther and Calvin as it was to that of the Roman Catholic

called Brethren of the Law of Christ, or the United Brethren. Thus the Moravians originated in the same way as the Baptists. See "Poor Man's Gospel," Contemporary Review, vol. xiv., p. 815.

And a

"These little Christian societies thought," says Barclay, "that if Christianity were allowed full scope it would supersede civil government." (a) modern German author is quoted as saying: "The object of the community of believers was held to be 'the perfection of one and all by means of a complete Christocracy carried out into life!" (b) Exactly; the Anabaptists being the depositaries of the tradition of Wiclif's doctrine: "The Law of the Gospel is sufficient for all the purposes of human life without the addition of any other law." (c)

(a) Inner life of Relig. Societies of the Commonwealth, p. 486.

(b) Geschichte der Protestanten Sekten in Zeitalter

**Archbishop Courtney's Mandate 1382, Fasciculi der Reformation. Erbkum. Zizaniorum. Shirley, p. 280.

tt De Civili Dominio, cap. xvii. #Ibid., cap. xxv.

SS John Wiclif and his English Precursors. By Prof. Lechler. Vol. i., pp. 308-9.

490.

Green's History of the English People, vol. i., p. TT Such was the meaning of the Vision of Piers Ploughman, of the Sermons of Savonarola, of the first movements of the Reformation in France, and of the Twelve Articles, in which the German peasants set forth their complaints. In east central Europe this development of things occurred earlier. The people, led by Hus and Liska, having failed to turn Bohemia into a Kingdom of Heaven, Peter of Chicicky (1457) preached a doctrine akin to that of Menno Simons, and his disciples gathered themselves in a community

(c) Wiclif, der Civil? Dominio, cap. xvii.

Denck, coming to that city, found affairs morally and socially going to ruin. Grieved at the state of the people, he determined, as he phrased it, to enlist for an embassy; and to collect into a "fellowship of saints" those of his fellow citizens who not only believed in the merits of Christ, but who also followed him in their lives. In 1526 he was joined by Balthasar Hubmeier, a leader in the Church Reform party, calling themselves Apostolic Brethren, but by their opponents styled Anabaptists. The ideal which Denck and Hubmeier thought of setting up in the New Fellowship was not only the renewal of the Faith and of the Church, but above all the renewal and the purification of the moral man. Conversion to righteousness and brotherly love, self-abnegation, and imitation of Jesus Christ were the main tenets of their belief. (Keller, Ein Apostel, etc.)

teachers. For the Anabaptists denied all privilege in religion.* They had not a doubt of the absolute justice of God, or of the dignity of human nature, and they were quite sure that God dealt out equal measure to all men. They declared that all infants,† and all the heathen who possessed the spirit of Jesus Christ, would be saved, though they never had heard the Gospel. Some were even accused of thinking that all, even the wicked, would finally be restored.

A very influential party among them also believed Christ to have been entirely a spiritual being, and not to have taken flesh and blood of the Virgin Mary.§ They believed in his absolute identity with all who possessed his life and truly obeyed his commandments, and in the solidarity of the whole human race. Thus they were accused of saying: "All Crist's glory is ours; we have as great right and as moche to heven as Criste;" and "The woorst Turke lyving hath as much right to my goodes as his nede, as my owne househole or I myselfe." ||

They claimed to be able to prove all they held from Scripture, but at the same time they declared that the written word of God was not to dominate over the inner or spoken word of God.

They were in the sixteenth century the representatives of thought and action free, but profoundly religious. In their world there would be no laws but Christ's laws, no prisons, no scaffolds, no armies nor policemen, no judges nor hangmen, no kind of punishment except excommunication, which in some cases and under very extraordinary circumstances, might have to be from this world altogether.

Where did they get these ideas? Probably many amongst them said, like George Fox, that they were revelations, but Mr. Barclay's suggestion that even Fox only meant "that he had appropriated by the assistance of the Holy Spirit an idea originally received through ordinary sources," is a true explanation of the genesis of Anabaptist doctrine.

*

there was a new and revived interest in those German mystics who represent that tone of religious thought which desires to understand and know God, not only through the Scriptures and by the aid of the intellect, but also with the heart Luther, Munzer, Denck, all were for a longer or shorter time under their influence.' Tauler was the teacher by whom Munzer and Denck appear to have been impressed, and Tauler followed the les sons of one of the most influential doctors of the fourteenth century, the Dominican Eckart. "God is all and in all;" this is the leading idea of Eckart's theology. "All is coming from God or returning to him." Repose in God; this is the end to which all the tendencies of the soul aspire, and the torment of life consists in being ever driven by this tendency to seek God in terrestrial things and not finding him. Each man may discover God in himself, for there is in the human soul an uncreated spark-the scintilla of God. This spark is not a power of the soul; it is its very being, the image of the divine nature and the image of all creatures, it is essentially identical with them. Union with God can only be attained by selfrenunciation. Then in following the interior way the will of God will be manifested. To attain these heights, it is sufficient, so these teachers are said to have taught, to have a strong will.†

Eckhart complained that few people understood him; nevertheless he represented a widespread tendency of his time. His doctrines were already in spirit professed by the Beghards, and they had been very numerous for more than half a century at Cologne, where he preached. The Beghards, in fact, were spread all over the Flemish Netherlands, and in the very towns in Switzerland, the Rhine, and in Germany, where we afterwards meet the Anabaptists, of whom they appear to have been the spiritual ancestors. The Beg hards conceived of their own times as the age of the Holy Spirit, and said that men were henceforth to live directly under his

In the first days of the Reformation | guidance; they lived in a simple and free

form of community, preaching to the poor,

* Jessop's Errors of the Anabaptists, 1623; Ed-over whom, by their devotion and disinterwards's Gangræna, in many places.

† Smyth's Confession.

Jessop's Errors, etc.

This view is attributed to Melchior Hoffmann; and the early Baptists in England were mostly of this opinion.

Heresies condemned in 1530.

In the views of the early Anabaptists may be found the germ of all prison reform. One of the heresies condemned in 1530 said: "The temporall iawe must obey the gospell and them that we may amend by warning, we may not correct them by justice."

**Barclay, p. 213.

estedness, and probably by the very fact of their persecution, they had great in fluence. Their spirit of fraternity evolved certain associations more or less secret

Ein Apostel de Wiedertäufer, pp. 30, 31.

† Etudes sur le Mysticisme Allemand au XIVe Siècle, par Charles Schmidt, tome ii., 1847. Essai sur le Mysticisme Speculatif de Maître Eckhart. Jundt, A. Strasbourg. 1871.