IX. Menno drew up a plan of doctrine and CENT. discipline of a much more mild and moderate SECT. III. XVI. PART II. nature than that of the furious and fanatical Anabaptists already mentioned, but somewhat more severe, though more clear and consistent, than His docthe doctrine of some of the wiser branches of that trine. 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 exiraordinary 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 snares 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. $35. See also Herm. Schyn, Plenior. Deduct. Histor. Mennon. cap. vi. p. 116.-The writings of Meno, 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 dis- agreeable. CENT. of the Christian church; and that he testified his XVI. peculiar presence to several of the faithful, by SECT. III. miracles, predictions, dreams, and visions of va PART II. rious kinds. He retained, indeed, the doctrines [u] These facts shew 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 X. To preserve a spirit of union and concord CENT. in a body composed of such a motley multitude XVI. of SECT. III. PART II. that have tists. Anabaptists a more honourable origin. (See Schyn, Histor. Mennonitar. cap. viii. ix. xxi. p. 223). The reason of their The origin zeal in this matter is evident. Their situation has rendered of the sects them timorous. They live as it were in the midst of their started up enemies, and are constantly filled with an uneasy apprehension, among the that some day or other, malevolent zealots may take occasion, Anabapfrom 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 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 spirit 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 CENT. of dissonant members, required more than human XVI. power; and Mennon neither had, nor pretended SECT. III. PART II. to from their confession of faith, and their religious instructions, all those tenets and principles that led on the ancient 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, Henricans, 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 conversion by the ministry of Menno, had been seditious fanatics. Nor can the acknowledgment of this incontestible 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, 2dly, 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 Anabpatists of Munster his Brethren (a denomination indeed somewhat softened by the epithet of erring, which he joined to it), it is undoubtedly true, that the doctrine concerning the nature PART II. to have, supernatural succours. Accordingly, CENT. the seeds of dissension were, in a little time, sown XVI. among this people. About the middle of this SECT. III. century, a warm contest, concerning 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 faults, 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 unne cessary; 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 enquire 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 appears evidently from this circumstance, among others, that they will not suf fer the people called Quakers to enter into their communion. |