ANABAPTISTS.

This sect sprang up quickly after the rise of Lutheranism. Nicolas Storch, Mark Stubner, and Thomas Munzer laid the foundation of it in the year 1521, by making an ill use of a doctrine which they had read in the book, “ De Libertate Christiana,” published by Luther in the year 1520. They found in it the proposition, that “ a Christian is master of all things, and is subject to nobody.” This doctrine which Luther promulgated in a very good sense, and deemed it adapted to gain the common people, each of them treated according to his talent. Storch having no learning, boasted of inspiration; Stubner who had wit and learning, dealt in subtle explications of the word of God; and Munzer, a bold and passionate man, made use of impudence, and gave a full scope to the most restless passions. They were not contented to cry down the ecclesiastical tyranny of the court of Rome, and the authority of consistories, but also taught, that the power of princes was a usurpation, and that men under the gospel ought to enjoy perfect liberty. They rebaptized their followers; and to make this practice the more current, they taught that infant baptism was null. They

however insisted much on rigid morality, and recommended mortifications, fastings, and plainness in apparel, by which means they seduced a vast number of people. After these successful beginnings, Munzer became so bold as to exhort the people publicly to oppose the magistrates, and force sovereigns to lay down their authority. Such a gospel proved so acceptable to the German peasants, who found the yoke of their masters a little too heavy, that they rebelled in several places, and committed abundance of outrages. Troops were raised against them, which easily defeated them, and a great number of them were put to death. Munzer who had imposed upon them, and who boasted so much of enthusiasm, was taken and beheaded in the year 1525. The disciples he had left in Switzerland multiplied the sect there, and occasioned many troubles, so that the magistrates were forced to have recourse to the most severe penal laws, in order to stop the progress of Ana-baptism. There was a necessity to do the like in several cities of Germany, and elsewhere.

The Anabaptists made a great progress in Moravia, and it had been greater notwithstanding the severe oppositions of the secular power, if they had not divided themselves into two factions. Every body knows that they made themselves masters of Munster, and that John of Leyden, the king of that new Jerusalem, defended himself as long as he could, until the town being taken at last, he was punished with death in the year 1536. Though the Anabaptists of Holland and Friesland disapproved the conduct of their brethren of Munster in several particulars, yet they occasioned many troubles. It is true that by degrees they have undeceived themselves; they boast no more of enthusiasm; they do not oppose the orders of the magistrates; they preach no more a total freedom from all manner of

subjection, the community of goods, and such like things. They divided themselves into many branches, as it is unavoidable by all sects that do not govern themselves by the principle of authority. They boast of a great many martyrs, and their martyrology is a large book in folio. I do not be\1 \2lieve that any author has spoken of them with so much equity as George Cassander. Being tolerated in the United Provinces, M. Turenne, who was one day in a coach with the Dutch ambassador, M. Van Benning, expressed his dislike of that indulgence, on which the latter made the following strong and lively reply: “ Why (said he) should they not be tolerated? They are very good and quiet people: they do not aspire to dignities; an ambitious man never meets them in his way; they never oppose us by any competition and canvassing. It were to be wished that one half of the inhabitants of the world would make a scruple of suing for places, the other half would get them with less trouble, and without using so many cunning, base, and unlawful means. We do not fear the rebellion of a sect, that teaches among other things, that men ought never to bear arms. Is it not a happy thing for a sovereign to know that such a doctrine will prevent the mutinies of his subjects, whatever imposts or taxes are laid upon them? The Anabaptists bear their share of all the charges of the state. We desire no more: we raise troops with their money, which do us more service than they would do by listing themselves. They edify us by their simplicity; they apply themselves to arts and trades, without lavishing away their estates by luxury and debauchery. It is not so in other communions; their voluptuousness and vain expenses are a continual cause of scandal, and weakens the state. But they refuse to swear. What signifies that? The authority of the courts of justice suffers no prejudice by it. Those people think themselves as much bound by their promise to speak the truth, as if they took an oath. All the use of oaths consists in this, that those who break them are afraid of a more severe punishment from God, and expose themselves to infamy, and even to be punished by men. The Anabaptists fear the same thing if they lie after they have given their word that they will speak the truth, and therefore they are no less bound than other men The wild conduct of certain fanatical sects, still furnishes the Catholics with their strongest offensive arms against Protestantism. This is the usual practice of religious controversialists: the folly,and fanaticism, and cruelty exercised by the Church of Rome, in its turn, is left quite out of observance. Each side tells much truth respecting the other.—Ed. ²⁴.”

The controversialists of the Roman party made use of this conjuncture with an extraordinary activity to cry down the Reformation, and arm all the powers against it A striking picture of active and passive fanaticism. ²⁵; but the reformers were no less vigilant to keep themselves from the scandal under which they endeavoured to bring them. They mightily exclaimed against the Anabaptists, they confuted them in writing, and engaged them in disputes wherever they could. In the year 1527, they were confuted at Bern in a public disputation, but in private they said that their reasons seemed still good to them; wherefore that the triumph of truth might be more authentic, another disputation was ordered in the year 1532, which lasted nine days, the acts whereof were published. They would have settled at St Gall, if the magistrates had not banished them. It was there that Thomas Schucker cut off his brother’s head in the year 1527. He convened a numerous assembly,

and declared to them that he was seized with the spirit of God; whereupon he caused his brother to kneel down, and took a sword. His father and mother and some other persons asked him what he was going to do. “ Be easy,” answered he, “ I will do nothing but what shall be revealed to me by our heavenly Father.” They waited impatiently to see the issue of all this, when he drew his sword and cut off his brother’s head It is not intended to select from all the notices of the Grecian philosophers found in Bayle, but from those only that contain valuable observations or illustrations of his own, which is the case with the article Anaxagoras, and a few others. Setting aside this motive to selection, it is scarcely necessary to observe, that in regard to the history and opinions of these ancient luminaties, more formal sources of information are available.—Ed. ²⁶. He was punished by the magistrates according to the heinousness of his crime; but he showed no sign of repentance, and declared on the scaffold, that he had only executed the orders of God. You may believe that the edicts of banishment were renewed at the sight of such a fanaticism.

Remarkable anecdote of an Anabaptist woman.

The magistrates of Augsburg putting the laws in execution against the Anabaptists, whereby sectaries are forbidden to meet in conventicles, and to perform the exercise of their religion, they were banished and imprisoned. There was a woman of good family, who boasted in prison, that if she had a conference with Regius, she would prove to him, that the cause of the Anabaptists was very good; she was therefore sent for to dispute with him in a full senate. She appeared there with the equipage of a prisoner, that is, with her hands chained, and her feet in irons. She alleged abundance of passages out of the Holy Scripture to maintain her opinions. Regius answered her, and clearly showed the true sense of those passages. But he could not undeceive her; she continued in her errors; and spoke to the minister thus:—“ Without doubt, brother Urban, this is a very strange way of disputing. You sit upon a soft cushion among the

burgomasters, and you speak like an oracle, and as it were from Apollo’s tripod. But as for me, I am prostrate on the ground, and forced to plead my cause in irons.” “ Sister, (replied Regius), there is nothing in it but what you deserve; since after you have been freed from the slavery of the devil through Jesus Christ, you have been willing to undergo that infamous yoke again. A furious spirit makes you appear in such livery, for an example to others.” The woman was at last banished from the town.

This woman wanted no wit: she made a very judicious reflection, and seasoned it with a great deal of salt; but she had too great a confidence, or rather, she was too rash. She believed, that if she should dispute with a minister of the prevailing religion, and before the judges who had already condemned Anabaptism, and imprisoned those who taught it, she might persuade them of the justice of her cause. To hope for such a thing, it is not enough to be in the right, one must besides hope for an extraordinary assistance of the divine spirit; for, according to the usual course of things, it does not appear that a prisoner for religion can confound such adversaries as speak to him with the greatest contempt, and who have on their side an outward pomp, and all the company prepossessed against him. Regius sat in an honourable place, and was surrounded with marks of favour; he spoke for a cause protected by the sovereign, and against a cause persecuted by the sovereign. His antagonist was a woman loaded with chains, and in the posture of a criminal already condemned. A very good reason alleged by that woman in such circumstances would not have balanced a very indifferent one alleged by Regius, with all the weight and emphasis of a man sitting on the bench of the burgomasters, and on a kind of tribunal. If Regius had disputed against a priest at Ingolstad,

in quite different circumstances from the dispute of Augsburg; if he had been in chains, and if the priest had sat on a cushion among the senators, this affair would have ended with Regius’s banishment, or something worse. He had been looked upon as a caviller, who wrested the Holy Scriptures; and the priest had been admired as a faithful interpreter of the word of God.—ArticlesAnabaptistsandRegius.