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CENT. here a maxim, already verified by repeated experi SECT. III. ence, received a new degree of confirmation; for PARTI. the conduct of the Anabaptists, under the pressures

XVI.

of persecution, plainly shewed the extreme difficulty of correcting or mauencing, by the prospect of suffering, or even by the teriors of death, minds that are either deeply tainted with the poison of fanaticism, or firmly bound by the ties of religion. In almost all the countries of Europe, an unspeakable number of these unhappy wretches preferred death, in its worst forms, to a retractation of their errors. Neither the view of the flames that were kindled to consume them, nor the ignominy of the gibbet, nor the terrors of the sword, could shake their invincible, but ill-placed constancy, or make them abandon tenets, that appeared dearer to them than life and all its enjoyments. The Mennonites have preserved voluminous records of the lives, actions, and unhappy fate of those of their sect, who suffered death for the crimes of rebellion or heresy, which were imputed to them []. Certain it is, that they were treated with severity; but it is much to be lamented that so little distinction was made between the members of this sect, when the sword of justice was unsheathed against them. Why were

the

years

tical tribe. These laws were renewed frequently in the
1527, 1528, 1534. See a German work of the learned Kap-
pius, entitled, Nachlesse von Reformations Urkunden, part I.
p. 176.)-Charles V. incensed at the increasing impudence
and iniquity of these enthusiasts, issued out against them severe
edicts, in the years 1527 and 1529. (See Ottii Annales Ana-
bapt. p. 45.)-The magistrates of Switzerland treated, at first,
with remarkable lenity and indulgence, the Anabaptists that
lived under their government; but when it was found that this
lenity rendered them still more enterprising and insolent, it was
judged proper to have recourse to a different manner of proceed-
ng. Accordingly the magistrates of Zurich denounced capital
punishment against this riotous sect in the year 1525.

[] See Joach. Christ. Jehring, Piafat. ad Historium Minnonicarum, P. 3.

XVI.

the innocent and the guilty involved in the same C E N T. fate? why were doctrines purely theological, or, SECT. III at worst, fanatical, punished with the same rigour ARTIL that was shewn to crimes inconsistent with the peace and welfare of civil society? Those who had no other marks of peculiarity than their administering baptism to adult persons only, and their excluding the unrighteous from the external communion of the church, ought undoubtedly to have met with milder treatment than what was given to those seditious incendiaries, who were for unhinging all government and destroying all civil authority. Many suffered for errors they had embraced with the most upright intentions, seduced by the eloquence and fervour of their doctors, and persuading themselves that they were contributing to the advancement of true religion. But, as the greatest part of these enthusiasts had communicated to the multitude their visionary notions concerning the new spiritual kingdom that was soon to be erected, and the abolition of magistracy and civil government that was to be the immediate effect of this great revolution, this rendered the very name of Anabaptist unspeakably odious, and made it always excite the idea of a seditious incendiary, a pest to human society. It is true, indeed, that many Anabaptists suffered death, not on account of their being considered as rebellious subjects, but merely because they were judged to be incurable Heretics; for in this century the error of limiting the administration of baptism to adult persons only, and the practice of rebaptising such as had received that sacrament in a state of infancy, were looked upon as most flagitious and intolerable heresies. It is, nevertheless, certain, that the greatest part of these wretched sufferers owed their unhappy fate to their rebellious principles and tumultuous proceedings, and that many also were punished for their temerity

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CENT. merity and imprudence, which led them to the XVI. commission of various crimes.

SECT. III.
PARTII

The Ana

baptists of Munster.

VII. There stands upon record a most shocking instance of this, in the dreadful commotions that were excited at Munster, in the year 1533, by certain Dutch Anabaptists, that chose that city as the scene of their horrid operations, and committed in it such deeds as would surpass all credibility, were they not attested in a manner that excludes every degree of doubt and uncertainty. A handful of madmen, who had got into their heads the visionary notion of a new and spiritual kingdom, soon to be established in an extraordinary manner, formed themselves into a society, under the guidance of a few illiterate leaders chosen out of the populace. And they persuaded, not only the ignorant multitude, but even several among the learned, that Munster was to be the seat of this new and heavenly Jerusalem, whose ghostly dominion was to be propagated from thence to all the ends of the earth. The ringleaders of this furious tribe were JOHN MATTHISON, JOHN BOCKHOLD, a tailor of Leyden, one GERHARD, with some others, whom the blind rage of enthusiasm, or the still more culpable principles of sedition, had embarked in this extravagant and desperate cause. They made themselves masters of the city of Munster, deposed the magistrates, and committed all the enormous crimes, and ridiculous follies, which the most perverse and infernal imagination could suggest [p]. JOHN BOCKHOLD. was proclaimed king and legislator of this new Hierarchy; but his reign was transitory, and his

end

[] Bockholdt, or Bockelson, alias John of Leyden, who headed them at Munster, ran stark naked in the streets, married eleven wives, at the same time, to shew his approbation of polygamy, and entitled himself king of Sion: all which was but a very small part of the pernicious follies of this mock monarch.

XVI.

SECT. III.

end deplorable. For the city of Munster was, in c E N T. the year 1536, retaken after a long siege, by its bishop and sovereign, Count WALDECK, the New PART II. Jerusalem of the Anabaptists destroyed, and its mock monarch punished with a most painful and ignominious death [7]. The disorders occasioned by the Anabaptists at this period, not only in Westphalia, but also in other places [r], shewed

too

[9] See Anton. Corvini Narratio de miserabili Monaster. Anabapt. excidio, published first at Wittemberg in the year #536-Casp. Sagittar. Introduct, in Histor. Ecclesiast. tom. i. p. 537 & 835.-Herm. Hamelmann. Historia Renati Evangeli in Urbe Monaster. in Operib. Genealogico Historicis, p. 1203.-The elegant Latin Poem of Bolandus in Elegiac verse, entitled, J. Fabricii Bolandi Matus Monasteriens Li bri Decem. Colon. 1546, in 8vo.-Herm. Kerssenbrock, Histor. Belli Monaster.-Dan. Gerdes, Miscellan. Groningens. Nov. tom. ii. p. 377. This latter author speaks also of Bernard Rothman, an ecclesiastic of Munster, who had introduced the Reformation into that city, but afterwards was infected with the enthusiasm of the Anabaptists; and though, in other respects he had shewed himself to be neither destitute of learning nor virtue, yet enlisted himself in this fanatical tribe, and had a share in their most turbulent and furi ous proceedings.

[r] The scenes of violence, tumult, and sedition, that were exhibited in Holland by this odious tribe, were also terrible. They formed the design of reducing the city of Leyden to ashes, but were happily prevented, and severely punished. John of Leyden, the Anabaptist king of Munster, had taken it into his head that God had made him a present of the cities of Amsterdam, Deventur, and Wesel; in consequence thereof, he sent bishops to these three places, to preach his gospel of sedition and carnage. About the beginning of the year 1535, twelve Anabaptists, of whom five were women, assembled at midnight in a private house at Amsterdam. One of them, who was a tailor by profession, fell into a trance, and after having preached and prayed during the space of four hours, stripped himself naked, threw his cloaths into the fire, and commanded all the assembly to do the same, in which he was obeyed without the least reluctance. He then ordered them to follow him through the streets in this state of nature, which they accordingly did, howling and bawling out, Woe! woe! the wrath of God! the wrath of God! woe to Babylon! When, after being seized and brought before the magistrates,

Gg3

clothes

STII.

CEN T. too plainly to what horrid lengths the pernicious XVI. doctrines of this wrong-headed sect were adapted PART II. to lead the inconsiderate and unwary; and therefore it is not at all to be wondered, that the secular arm employed rigorous measures to extirpate a faction, which was the occasion, nay the source, of unspeakable calamities in so many countries [s].

Menno
Simon.

VIII. While the terrors of death, in the most dreadful forms, were presented to the view of this miserable sect, and numbers of them were executed every day, without a proper distinction being made between the innocent and the guilty, those that escaped the severity of justice, were in the most discouraging situation that can well be imagined. On the one hand they beheld, with sorrow, all their hopes blasted by the total defeat of their brethren at Munster; and, on the other, they were filled with the most anxious apprehensions of the perils that threatened them on all sides. In this critical situation they derived much

comfort

clothes were offered them to cover their indecency, they refused them obstinately, and cried aloud, " We are the naked truth.” When they were brought to the scaffold, they sung and danced, and discovered all the marks of enthusiastic frenzy.-These tumults were followed by a regular and deep-laid conspiracy, formed by Van Geelen (an envoy of the mock-king of Munster, who had made a very considerable number of proselytes) against the Magistrates of Amsterdam, with a design to wrest the government of that city out of their hands. This incendiary marched his fanatical troop to the town-house on the day appointed, drums beating and colours flying, and fixed there his head quarters. He was attacked by the burghers, assisted by some regular troops, and headed by several of the burgomasters of the city. After an obstinate resistance, he was surrounded with his whole troop, who were put to death in the severest and most dreadful manner, to serve as examples to the other branches of the sect, who were exciting commotions of a like nature in Friesland, Groningen, and other provinces and cities in the Netherlands.

[] Ger. Brandt, Histor. Reform. Belgica, tom. i. lib. ii. p.

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