PART II.

comfort and assistance from the counsels and zeal c E N T. of MENNO SIMON, a native of Friesland, who had XVI. SECT.III. formerly been a popish priest, and, as he himself confesses, a notorious profligate. This man went over to the Anabaptists, at first, in a clandestine manner, and frequented their assemblies with the utmost secrecy; but, in the year 1536, he threw off the mask, resigned his rank and office in the Romish church, and publicly embraced their communion. About a year after this, he was earnestly solicited by many of the sect to assume, among them, the rank and functions of a public teacher; and as he looked upon the persons, from whom this proposal came, to be exempt from the fanatical frenzy of their brethren at Munster (though, according to other accounts, they were originally of the same stamp, only rendered somewhat wiser by their sufferings), he yielded to their entreaties. From this period to the end of his days, that is, during the space of twenty-five years, he travelled from one country to another, with his wife and children exercising his ministry under pressures and calamities of various kinds that succeeded each other without interruption, and constantly exposed to the danger of falling a victim to the severity of the laws. East and West Friesland, together with the province of Groningen, were first visited by this zealous apostle of the Anabaptists; from thence he directed his course into Holland, Gelderland, Brabant, and Westphalia, continued it through the German provinces that lie on the coasts of the Baltic sea, and penetrated so far as Livonia. In all these places his ministerial labours were attended with remarkable success, and added to his sect a prodigious number of proselytes. Hence he is deservedly looked upon as the common chief of almost all the Anabaptists, and the parent of the sect that still subsists under that denomination. The

CENT. success of this missionary will not appear very XVI. surprising to those who are acquainted with his PART II. character, spirit, and talents, and who have a

SECT. II.

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just notion of the state of the Anabaptists at the period of time now under consideration. MENNO was a man of genius; though, as his writings shew, his genius was not under the direction of a very sound judgment. He had the inestimable advantage of a natural and persuasive eloquence, and his learning was sufficient to make him pass for an oracle in the eyes of the multitude. He appears, moreover, to have been a man of probity, of a meek and tractable spirit, gentle in his manners, pliable and obsequious in his commerce with persons of all ranks and characters, and extremely zealous in promoting practical religion and virtue, which he recommended by his example, as well as by his precepts. A man of such talents and dispositions could not fail to attract the admiration of the people, and to gain a great number of adherents wherever he exercised his ministry. But no where could he expect a more plentiful harvest than among the Anabaptists, whose ignorance and simplicity rendered them peculiarly susceptible of new impressions, and who, having been long accustomed to leaders that resembled frenetic Bacchanals more than Christian ministers, and often deluded by odious impostors, who involved them in endless perils and calamities, were rejoiced to find at length a teacher, whose doctrine and manners seemed to promise them more prosperous days [t].

IX. MENNO

[] Menno was born at Witmarsum, a village in the neighbourhood of Bolswert in Friesland, in the year 1505, and not in 1496, as most writers tell us. After a life of toil, peril, and agitation, he departed in peace in the year 1561, in the duchy of Holstein, at the country seat of a certain nobleman, not far from the city of Oldesloe, who, moved with compassion at a view of the perils to which Menno was exposed, and the snares

that

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IX. MENNO drew up a plan of doctrine and CENT. discipline of a much more mild and moderate SE C T. III. nature than that of the furious and fanatical Ana- PART II, baptists already mentioned, but somewhat more His docsevere, though more clear and consistent, than trinc. the doctrine of some of the wiser branches of that sect, who aimed at nothing more than restoration of the Christian church to its primitive purity. Accordingly he condemned the plan of ecclesiastical discipline, that was founded on the prospect of a new kingdom, to be miraculously established by JESUS CHRIST on the ruins of civil government, and the destruction of human rulers, and which had been the fatal and pestilential source of such dreadful commotions, such execrable rebellions, and such enormous crimes. He declared, publicly, his dislike of that doctrine, which pointed out the approach of a marvellous reformation in the church by the means of a new and extraordinary effusion of the Holy Spirit. He expressed his abhorrence of the licentious tenets, which several of the Anabaptists had maintained, with respect to the lawfulness of polygamy and divorce; and, finally considered, as unworthy of toleration, those fanatics who were of opinion that the Holy Ghost continued to descend into the minds of many chosen believers, in as extraordinary a manner as he did at the first establishment

of

that were daily laid for his ruin, took him, together with certain of his associates, into his protection and gave him an asylum. We have a particular account of this famous Anabaptist in the Cimbria Literata of Mollerus, tom. ii. p. 835. See also Herm. Schyn, Plenior. Deduct. Histor. Mennon. cap. vi. p. 116.—The writings of Menno, which are almost all composed in the Dutch language, were published in folio at Amsterdam, in the year 1651. An excessively diffuse and rambling style, frequent, and unnecessary repetitions, an irregular and confused method, with other defects of equal moment, render the perusal of these productions highly disagreeable.

CENT. of the Christian church; and that he testified this SECT. III. Peculiar presence to several of the faithful, by PART II. miracles, predictions, dreams, and visions of va

XVI.

rious kinds. He retained, indeed, the doctrines' commonly received among the Anabaptists in relation to the baptism of infants, the Millenium, or thousand years reign of CHRIST upon earth, the exclusion of magistrates from the Christian church, the abolition of war, and the prohibition of oaths enjoined by our Saviour, and the vanity, as well as the pernicious effects, of human science. But while MENNO retained these doctrines in a general sense, he explained and modified them in such a manner, as made them resemble the religious tenets that were universally received in the protestant churches; and this rendered them agreeable to many, and made them appear inoffensive even to numbers who had no inclination to embrace them. It however so happened, that the nature of the doctrines considered in themselves, the eloquence of MENNO, which set them off to such advantage, and the circumstances of the times, gave a high degree of credit to the religious system of this famous teacher among the Anabaptists, so that it made a rapid progress in that sect. And thus it was in consequence of the ministry of MENNO, that the different sorts of Anabaptists agreed together in excluding from their communion the fanatics that dishonoured it, and in renouncing all tenets that were detrimental to the authority of civil government, and by an unexpected coalition, formed themselves into one community [u].

X. To

[u] These facts shew us plainly how the famous question concerning the origin of the modern Anabaptists may be resolved. The Monnonites 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 A

nabaptists

X. To preserve a spirit of union and concordC ENT• in a body composed of such a inotley multitudes. III.

XVI.

of PART II.

“་་

among the

tists.

nabaptists a more honourable origin. (See Schyn, Histor. Men The origin nonitar. cap. viii. ix. xxi. p. 223.) The reason of their zeal of the sects in this matter is evident. Their situation has rendered them that have timorous. They live, as it were, in the midst of their enemies, started up and are constantly filled with an uneasy apprehension, that some Anabapday 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 rende cd wiser than their ancestors, by reflection and suffering."

After comparing diligently and impartially together what has been alledged 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 connection between the ancient and modern anabaptists, will readily allow, to be true, all that has been here said of Menno.--2dly, 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 sprit and an unlimited submission to civil government (abstaining from every thing that carried the remotest aspect of sedition, and shewing the utmost abhorrence of wars and bloodshed), but have even banished

from