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the authority of civil government, and, by an unexpected coalition, formed themselves into one community."

u These facts show us plainly how the famous question concerning the origin of the modern anabaptists may be resolved. The Mennonites oppose, with all their might, the account of their descent from the ancient anabaptists, which we find in so many writers, and would willingly give the modern anabaptists a more honourable origin. See Schyn, Histor. Mennonitar. cap. viii. ix. xxi. p. 223. The reason of their zeal in this matter is evident. Their situation has rendered them timorous. They live, as it were, in the midst of their enemies, and are constantly filled with an uneasy apprehension, that some day or other, malevolent zealots may take occasion, from their supposed origin, to renew against them the penal laws, by which the seditious anabaptists of ancient times suffered in such a dreadful manner. At least they imagine that the odium, under which they lie, will be greatly diminished, if they can prove, to the satisfaction of the public, the falsehood of that generally received opinion, that "the Mennonites are the descendants of the anabaptists," or, to speak more properly, "the same individual sect, purged from the fanaticism that formerly disgraced it, and rendered wiser than their ancestors, by reflection and suffering."

After comparing diligently and impartially together what has been alleged by the Mennonites and their adversaries in relation to this matter, I cannot see what it is, properly, that forms the subject of their controversy; and if the merits of the cause be stated with accuracy and perspicuity, I do not see how there can be any dispute at all about the matter now under consideration; for, in the

First place, if the Mennonites mean nothing more than this; that Menno, whom they considered as their parent and their chief, was not infected with those odious opinions which drew the just severity of the laws upon the anabaptists of Munster; that he neither looked for a new and spotless kingdom that was to be miraculously erected on earth, nor excited the multitude to depose magistrates, and abolish civil government; that he neither deceived himself, nor imposed upon others, by fanatical pretensions to dreams and visions of a supernatural kind; if, I say, this be all that the Mennonites mean, when they speak of their chief, no person, acquainted with the history of their sect, will pretend to contradict them. Nay, even those who maintain that there was an immediate and intimate connexion between the ancient and modern anabaptists, will readily allow to be true all that has been here said of Menno. Secondly, if the anabaptists maintain, that such of their churches as received their doctrine and discipline from Menno, have not only discovered, without interruption, a pacific spirit and an unlimited submission to civil government, abstaining from every thing that carried the remotest aspect of sedition, and showing the utmost abhorrence of wars and bloodshed, but have even banished from their confessions of faith and their religious instructions, all those tenets and principles that led on the an cient anabaptists, to disobedience, violence, and rebellion; all this again, will be readily granted. And if they allege, in the third place, that even the anabaptists, who lived before Menno, were not all so delirious as Munzer, nor so outrageous as the fanatical part of that sect, that rendered their memory eternally odious by the enormities they committed at Munster; that on the contrary many of these ancient anabaptists abstained religiously from all acts of violence and sedition, followed the pious examples of the ancient Waldenses, Henricians, Petrobrussians, Hussites, and Wickliffites, and adopted the doctrine and discipline of Menno, as soon as that new parent arose to reform and patronize the sect, all this will be allowed without hesitation.

But, on the other hand, the Mennonites may assert many things in defence of the purity of their origin which cannot be admitted by any person who is free from prejudice, and well acquainted with their history. If they maintain, 1st, that none of their sect descended by birth, from those anabaptists, who involved Germany and other countries in the most dreadful calamities, or that none of these furious fanatics adopted the doctrine and discipline of Menno, they may be easily refuted by a great number of facts and testimonies, and particularly by the declarations of Menno himself, who glories in his having conquered the ferocity, and reformed the lives and errors of several members of this pestilential sect. Nothing can be more certain than this fact, viz. that the first Mennonite congregations were composed of the different sorts of anabaptists already mentioned, of those who had been always inoffensive and upright, and of those who, before their

The origin of

have started up

x. To preserve a spirit of union and concord in a body composed of such a motley multitude of dissonant members, required more than human power; the sects that and Menno neither had, nor pretended to have, among the andsupernatural succours. Accordingly, the seeds baptists. of dissension were, in a little time, sown among this people. About the middle of this century, a warm contest, coneerning excommunication was excited by several anabaptists, headed by Leonard Bowenson and Theodore Philip; and its fruits are yet visible in that divided sect. These men carried the discipline of excommunication to an enormous degree of severity and rigour. They not only maintained, that open transgressors, even those who sincerely deplored and lamented their fault, should, without any previous warning or admonition, be expelled from the communion of the church; but were also audacious enough to pretend to exclude the persons, thus excommunicated, from all intercourse with their wives, husbands, brothers, sisters, children, and relations. The same persons, as might naturally be expected from this sample of their severity, were harsh and rigid in their manners, and were for imposing upon their brethren a course of moral discipline, which was difficult and austere in the highest degree. Many of the anabaptists protested against this, as unreasonable and unnecessary; and thus the community was,

conversion by the ministry of Menno, had been seditious fanatics. Nor can the acknowledgment of this incontestable fact be a just matter of reproach to the Mennonites, or be more dishonourable to them, than it is to us, that our ancestors were warmly attached to the idolatrous and extravagant worship of paganism or popery. Again; it will not be possible for us to agree with the Mennonites, if they maintain, secondly, that their sect does not retain, at this day, any of those tenets, or even any remains of those opinions and doctrines, which led the seditious and turbulent Anabaptists of old to the commission of so many and of such enormous crimes. For, not to mention Menno's calling the Anabaptists of Munster his brethren, a denomination indeed somewhat soften. ed by the epithet of erring, which he joined to it, it is undoubtedly true, that the doctrine concerning the nature of Christ's kingdom, or the church of the New Testament, which led, by degrees, the ancient Anabaptists to those furious acts of rebellion that have rendered them so odious, is by no means effaced in the minds of the modern Mennonites. It is indeed weakened and modified in such a manner as to have lost its noxious qualities, and to be no longer pernicious in its influence; but it is not totally renounced nor abolished. I shall not now inquire how far even the reformed and milder sect of Menno has been, in time past, exempt from tumults and commotions of a grievous kind, nor shall I examine what passes at this day among the Anabaptists in general, or in particular branches of that sect; since it is certain, that the more eminent communities of that denomination, particularly those that flourish in North Holland, and the places adjacent, behold fanatics with the utmost aversion, as evidently from this circumstance, among others, that they will not suffer the people called Quakers to enter into their communion.

all of a sudden, divided into two sects; of which the one treated transgressors with lenity and moderation, while the other proceeded against them with the utmost rigour. Nor was this the only difference that was observable in the conduct and manners of these two parties; since the latter was remarkable for the sordid austerity that reigned in their rules of life and practice; while the former, considering more wisely the present state of human nature, were less severe in their injunctions, and were not altogether regardless of what is called decent, agreeable, and ornamental in life and manners. Menno employed his most vigorous efforts to heal these divisions, and to restore peace and concord in the community; but when he perceived that his attempts were vain, he conducted himself in such a manner as he thought the most proper to maintain his credit and influence among both parties. For this purpose he declared himself for neither side, but was constantly trimming between the two, as long as he lived; at one time, discovering an inclination toward the austere anabaptists; and at another seeming to prefer the milder discipline and manners of the more moderate brethren. But in this he acted in opposition to the plainest dictates of prudence; and accordingly, the high degree of authority he enjoyed rendered his inconstancy and irresolution not only disagreeable to both parties, but also the means of inflaming, instead of healing their divisions."

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XI. These two sects are to this very day distinguished by the denominations of fine and gross, or, to and molerate express the distinction in more intelligible terms, anabaptists into rigid and moderate anabaptists. The former observe, with the most religious accuracy, veneration, and precision, the ancient doctrine, discipline, and precepts of the purer sort of anabaptists; the latter depart much more from the primitive sentiments, manners, and institutions of their sect, and approach nearer to those of the protestant churches. The gross or moderate anabaptists consisted, at

w See the Historia Bellarum et Certaminum quæ, ab A. 1615, inter Mennonitas contigerunt, which was published by an anonymous Mennonite. See also a German work, entitled Sim. Fred. Rues, Nachricten von dem Zustande der Mennoniten, published in 8vo. at Jena, in the year 1743.

x The terms fine and gross are a literal translation of groben and feinem, which are the German denominations used to distinguish these two sects. The same terms have been introduced among the protestants in Holland; the fine denoting a set of people, whose extraordinary, and sometimes fanatical devotion, resembles that of the English methodists; while the gross is applied to the generality of Christians, who make no extraordinary pretensions to uncommon degrees of sanctity and devotion.

first, of the inhabitants of a district in North Holland, called Waterland, and hence their whole sect was distinguished by the denomination of Waterlandians." The fine or rigid part of that community were, for the most part, natives of Flanders, and hence their sect acquired the denomination of Flamingians, or Flandrians. But new dissensions and contests arose among these rigid Anabaptists, not indeed concerning any point of doctrine, but about the manner of treating persons that were to be excommunicated, and other matters of inferior moment. Hence a new schism arose, and they were subdivided into two sects, distinguished by the appellations of Flandrians and Frieslanders, who differed from each other in their manners and discipline. To these were added a third, who took the name of their country, like the two former, and were called Germans; for the Anabaptists of Germany passed in shoals into Holland and the Netherlands. But in process of time, the greatest part of these three sects came over, by degrees, to the moderate community of the Waterlandians, with whom they lived in the strictest bonds of peace and union. Those among the rigid Anabaptists, who refused to follow this example of moderation, are still known by the denomination of the Old Flemingians, or Flandrians, but are few in number, when compared with the united congregations of the milder sects now mentioned. XII. No sooner had the ferment of enthusiasm subsided among the Mennonites, than all the different sects, into which they had been divided, unanimously from which agreed to draw the whole system of their religious ites drew doctrine from the Holy Scriptures alone. To give the duca satisfactory proof of the sincerity of their resolution in this respect, they took care to have confessions drawn up, in which their sentiments concerning the Deity, and the manner of serving him, were expressed in the terms and phrases of holy writ. The most ancient, and

The source

the Mennon

y See Frid. Spanhemii Elenchus Controvers. Theol. Opp. tom. iii. p. 772. The Waterlandians were also called Johannites, from John de Ries, who was of great use to them in many respects, and who, assisted by Lubert Gerrard, composed their Coufession of Faith in the year 1580. This confession, which far surpasses both in point of simplicity and wisdom all the other confessions of the Mennonites, has passed through several editions, and has been lately republished by Herman Schyn, in his Histor. Mennon. cap. vii. p. 172. It was also illustrated in an ample commentary, in the year 1686, by Peter Joannis, a native of Holland, and pastor among the Waterlandians. It has, however, been alleged, that this famous production is by no means the general confession of the Waterlandians, but the private one only of that particular congregation, of which its author was the pastor. See Rues, Nachrichten, p. 93, 94. 43

VOL. III.

also the most respectable of these confessions, is that which we find among the Waterlandians. Several others, of later date, were also composed, some for the use of large communities, for the people of a whole district, and which were consequently submitted to the inspection of the magistrate; others designed only for the benefit of private societies. It might not perhaps be amiss to inquire, whether all the tenets received among the Mennonites are faithfully exhibited and plainly expressed in these confessions, or whether several points be not there omitted which relate to the internal constitution of this sect, and would give us a complete idea of its nature and tendency. One thing is certain, that whoever peruses these confessions with an ordinary degree of attention, will easily perceive, that those tenets which appear detrimental to the interests of civil society, particularly those that relate to the prerogatives of magistracy, and the administration of oaths, are expressed with the utmost caution, and embellished with the greatest art, to prevent their bearing an alarming aspect. At the same time, the more discerning observer will see, that these embellishments are intended to disguise the truth, and that the doctrine of the Anabaptists, concerning the critical points above mentioned, are not represented, in their public confessions, in their real colours. XIII. The ancient Anabaptists, who trusted in an extraordinary direction of the Holy Spirit, were under gion was late the pretended influence of so infallible a guide, little solicitous about composing a system of religion, and never once thought of instilling into the minds of the people just sentiments of the Deity. Hence the warm dissensions that arose among them, concerning matters of the highest consequence, such as the divinity of Christ, polygamy, and divorce. Menno and his disciples made some attempts to supply this defect. But nevertheless we find,

Their reli

reduced into

a system.

z See an account of these confessions in Schyn's Plenior. Deduct. 'Hist. Mennon. capiv. p. 78, 115, where he maintains, that "these confessions prove as great a uniformity among the Mennonites, in relation to the great and fundamental doctrines of religion, as can be pretended to by any other Christian community." But should the good man even succeed in persuading us of this boasted uniformity, he will yet never be able to make his assertion go down with many of his own brethren, who are to this day quarrelling about several points of religion, and who look upon matters, which appear to him of little consequence, as of high moment and importance to the cause of true piety. And indeed how could any of the Mennonites, before this present century, believe what Schyn here affirms, since it is well known, that they disputed about matters which he treats with contempt, as if they had been immediately connected with their eternal interests.

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