An unfortunate incident occurred in the 1530’s which made holding Biblical beliefs even more difficult and dangerous.
There was a group in Germany which, while believing in adult immersion and the Fifth Divine Kingdom put forward not only that the date for the Second Advent was 1533 but that they had the authority to establish it by force in advance This was absolutely contrary to the outlook of the earlier Taufer but as the practice of immersion was common to both parties the term Anabaptists (Rebaptisers) became applied as a term of decision in official and general parlance to both despite their fundamental differences The militant German group captured the town of Munster and committed many excesses All that happened in 1533 was the extinction by fire and sword of these extremists the sins of the false bringing odium on the true All who upheld adult immersion were automatically suspected of sedition There is extant a number of documents produced by the true Anabaptists with a view to showing that they were (a) not me baptisers but only baptisers after the true mode and (b) completely loyal to the state and opposed to force and even litigation But It made no difference and another savage persecution broke out all over Europe In 1565 the public burning of ten Anabaptists was an occasion for gleeful jollity That this systematic repression went on in Britain throughout the sixteenth century is Indicated by records in various parts of the country A document of 1575 mentions as commonplace the burning at the stake of to o Anabaptists in great honor with tears and crying while in 1593 It is noted that several persons in East Anglia w ere burnt for diverse detestable heresies —because they had scruples according to Professor Trevelyan as to the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity There were many more whose sufferings are unrecorded But repression did not stifle the testimony There is but One God wrote David Joris of Delft in the Netherlands in 15-12 sole and indivisible and it is contrary to the operation of God throughout creation to admit a God in three persons. The Holy Ghost is not God said John Assheton of England in 1548 but a certain power of the Father Jesus Christ was conceived by the Holy Spirit of the Virgin Mary but was not the true and living God We have notice of a group in northeastern Italy in 1550 who accepted the Scriptures as the only authority are known to have taught the true nature of God and practised adult immersion They had to flee to Poland but there their days of freedom were short and they were exterminated in the counter Reformation It was possibly from this group that the Italian Bernardo Ochino came to London and took charge of an assembly of Bible lovers known as the Strangers Church This interesting group consisted of refugees from various Baptiser churches in different Continental countries Dutch French German Swiss and Italian They sought the comparative freedom of England in the short reign of Edward VI but the group was destroyed by the Catholic Queen Mary In 1549 the testimony of the believers was such as to necessitate a Commission to hunt out all anabaptists heretics and contemners of Common Prayer. Such was the attitude of the Anglican Church The attitude of the Calvinist Reformed church is illustrated by its treatment of the Basque scholar Miguel Serveto (Latin Servetus) an enthusiast c student of the Bible who came to have doubts about infant sprinkling, and the Trinity Though not an Anabaptist his doubts got him into trouble with Calvin in Geneva. By a dastardly piece of double crossing Calvin got Serveto into Geneva where he had powers of life and death and Serveto suffered the latter The conscience of Genevans has never been easy since about it and today a statue to Serveto can be seen in their city. Ye build the sepulchers of the prophets and your fathers killed them (Luke 11 47) One of the most heinous heresies of the Baptiser groups was their theology of the Atonement The view of Romanist and Reformed churches alike was that Jesus died to appease the wrath of an angry God and so reconcile God to man This view was of course useful in upholding the power of the priests in the case of the Romanists and the extreme views on divine election on the part of the Reformed church The Baptisers were a voice in the wilderness calling attention to the love of God revealed in Christ showing that the sacrifice of Jesus was a giving by God Himself that it was the supreme appeal of God to fallen men that they may be reconciled to Him (2 Corinthians 5 19) through understanding the Word repentance and baptism
Development Of Minorities
During the early seventeenth century the picture of the spasmodic and scattered movements of the previous century becomes clarified into a more coherent pattern A group founded by Menno Simons of the Netherlands diverging in some respects from the main stream we are following developed into the Mennonites Excerpts from their Confession of faith in 1580 are interesting. We believe and teach that Jesus Christ our glorious King and Lord visibly Just as he ascended will return from heaven with power and great glory and will manifest himself as the Judge of the living and the dead (the Just) will put on incorruption and enter with him into eternal life and will possess for ever that Kingdom which God the Father had prepared for them from the beginning of the world The Mennonites still exist as a body in the Americas affected somewhat since by orthodoxy though It is said that they still refuse to bear arms or take the oath Our main interest now centres in England tracing by the few scattered Anabaptists documents the chain of true succession.
The Truth s literature in those days reveals a hearty vigour Against the myth of hell fire torments we have the following Of the torments of hell The foundation and pillar thereof discovered searched shaken and removed With many infallible proofs that theme is not to be a punishment after this life for any to endume that shall never end This broadside sparked a reply: “Everlasting fire no fancy.” Similarly we have a magnificent production by Richard Overton in 1643 entitled “Man’s Mortallitie, or a treatise wherein ’tis proved, both theologically and philosophically. that the whole man (as a rational creature) is a compound wholly mortall, contrary to that common distinction of soul and body: and that the present going of the soule into Heaven or Hell is a mere fiction: and that at the Resurrection is the beginning of our Immortality and then actual condemnation and salvation, and not before.” The text of the pamphlet had as a quotation for heading Ecclesiastes 3:19-20, and the title of the first chapter is typical: “Of Man’s Creation, Fall, Restitution and Resurrection and how they disprove the Opinion of the Soul.” So is the following (speaking of the foolishness of asserting God condemned only Adam’s body, not his soul): “then the principal or efficient cause deepest in the Transgression was less punished than instrumental, the body being but the soul’s instrument whereby it acts and moves, as if a Magistrate should hang the hatchet and spare the man that beat a man’s brains out with it.” Perhaps the author thought that the title “Man Wholly rather long as a revised and enlarged edition appeared in 1655 under the title “Man Wholly Mortall.” On the 26th August 1644 the House of Commons ordered that the “authors, printers, and publishers of pamphlets against the immortality of the soul shall be diligently enquired for.” We can guess the object and result of their sinister enquiry.
Movement not Unified
The independent Bible Christians of those days were not “organized” as a unified movement. Various denominational description were used–mainly by adversaries. As well as “Anabaptists,” there were the “Soul Sleepers” to which Richard Overton belonged, possibly the same as the Mortalists whom we meet elsewhere; there were the early “Baptists,” growing out of the Taufer-Anabaptist roots, to whom Bro. John Thomas refers in his pamphlet “What is Truth?” It might be said of them, as of Tyre, “thou wast perfect in thy ways from the days that thou wast created, till iniquity was found in thee” (Ezekiel 28:15). Early in their history. when this group first officially adopted the denomininational name “Baptists” about 1613, they were believers in the Truth. They suffered as others, and one of their earliest members, Edward Wight-man was burned at the stake at Lichfield. Believers in the Second Coming, they state their belief that they will reign with Christ on the earth; that the saints will be rulers of the nations: that there will be one resurrection at Jesus’ appearing and another at the end of the the Millenium: that Jesus will reign on David’s throne in Jerusalem as “visible, supreme King of the whole world.” The extract quoted in “What is Truth?” was taken by Bro. Thomas from an early edition of Crosby’s “History of Baptism.” It is revealing that it was deliberately omitted from later editions of Crosby’s work, and does not now appear in present-day Baptist histories. who—traitorous to their early founders—are embarrassed by their anti-trinitarian and mortalist beginnings. But the following (1644) is clear enough: “The way and manner of the dispensing of this ordinance (baptism) the Scripture holds out to be dipping or plunging the whole body under water, it being a sign of the interest the saints have in the death, burial and resurrection of Christ . . . that as certainly as the body is buried under water, so certainly shall the bodies of the saints be raised by the power of Christ, in the day of and to reign with, Christ.” Later many of the Baptists, especially at the time of the Civil War, compromised with the world and joined the army of Cromwell which contained many who had mortalist, anti-trinitarian and baptist views. Some faithful, however, remained quite aloof, as did some groups of others in the Anabaptist tradition who were not “Baptists.” In fact, apostate Baptists began to persecute their more faithful fellow-sectaries. One of the latter groups in 1654 during the Commonwealth, protested at the unseemliness of Christians engaging in warfare, politics or worldly activities: “The saints expect it as their portion patiently to suffer from the world, as the Scriptures direct them, than anywise to attain the rule and Government thereof.” In 1660, about the time that the Monarchy was restored, there was an insurrection in the City of London. As New’s day in Rome, scapegoats were required, and these “anti-social” Anabaptists were blamed, entirely without evidence. A document is extant entitled “The Humble Apology of some commonly (though unjustly) called Anabaptists.” In it the 30 signatories disclaim all connection with the “recent insurrection.” They claim only legitimate freedom to worship God according to the pattern of his Word in peace and neither molesting nor being molested. “We desire therefore that it may be considered whether our persuasion in the matter of baptism hath any connection with these doctrines against the Government.” The “apology” was signed by thirty men, and attached to the copy examined by the present writer is a copy of “Article 47” from some confession of faith, in which Article the true Christian attitude on war, politics and government is ably set forth.
The Origin of the Organic World – Part One