derby, and Mr. Stephen Ball, who were both of them preachers of note, and all maintaining the doctrines of Wickliffe. Fox, the Martyrologist, has given a particular account of Mr. Brute, and of his religious sentiments, extracted from the register of the bishop of Hereford. One of his tenets was, that faith ought to precede baptism, and that baptism was not essential to salvation. A commission was granted by Richard II. about the year 1392, addressed to the nobility and gentry of the county of Hereford, and to the mayor of the city, authorizing them to persecute Brute, on a charge of preaching heresy in the diocess and places adjacent, and also with keeping conventicles. In consequence of this, Mr. Brute retired into privacy, and Swinderby and his friends fled into Wales, to be out of the county and diocess of Hereford. Amidst the mountains and valleys of the principality, they continued for some time instructing all that came unto them. They seem, however, ultimately to have been apprehended and brought to trial, and Fox mentions that Swinderby, the friend of Walter Brute, was burnt alive for his profession in Smithfield, A. D. 1401; what became of the latter, he does not particularly say, but from what he relates of his bold and spirited, defence upon his trial, it is probable that he shared the same fate. Dr. Wall, the learned author of the History of InfantBaptism, seems desirous of pursuading his readers that there were no Baptists in England, when Henry VIII. ascended the throne at the commencement of the sixteenth century, A. D. 1511. But upon that supposition, it is not easy to account for the sanguinary statutes which in the early part of this reign were put forth against the Anabaptists. In the year 1535, ten persons avowing these sentiments, are mentioned in the registers of the metropolis, as having been, put to death in different parts of the country, while an equal number saved themselves by recantation, In the following year, the convocation sat, and after some matters relating to the king's divorce had been debated, the lower house presented to the upper a catalogue of religious tenets which then prevailed in the realm, amounting to sixty-seven articles, and they are such as respected the Lollards, the new reformers, and the Anabaptists, The latter are most particularly pointed at;-the indispensable necessity of bap tism, for attaining eternal life, is most peremptorily insisted on; that infants must needs be christened, because they are born in original sin, which sin must needs be remitted, and which can only be done by the sacrament of baptism, whereby they receive the Holy Ghost, which exerciseth his grace and efficacy in them, and cleanseth and purgeth those from sin by his most secret virtue and operation. Item. That children or men once baptized, can, nor ought ever to be baptized again. Item. That they ought to repute and take all the Anabaptists, and every other man's opinions agreeable to the said Anabaptists, for detestable heresies, and utterly to be condemned." On the 16th November 1538, a proclamation was issued, condemning all the books of the Anabaptists, and ordering those to be punished who vended them; and in the following month a circular letter was addressed to all the justices of peace throughout England, solemnly warning them to take care that all the injunctions, laws, and proclamations, against the Anabaptists and others, be duly executed. In the same year an act of grace was passed, from the provisions of which all Anabaptists were excepted. If the country did not abound with Baptists at this time, why were those severe measures enforced against them? 46 We learn from Fuller's Church History, that at the period when Henry VIII. was married to Anne of Cleves, the Dutch flocked into England in great numbers, and soon after began to broach their strange opinions, being branded with the general name of Anabaptists." He adds, that "these Anabaptists, in the main, are but Donatists new dipped. And this year their name first appears in our English Chronicles, where I read, that four Anabaptists, three men and one woman, all Dutch, bare fagots at Paul's cross; and three days after, a man and a woman of their sect were burnt in Smithfield."+ When the historian says, that it was in the year 1538 that the names of these sectaries first appeared in an English Chronicle, there is considerable obscurity attached to his meaning. To suppose him to assert that the Anabaptists do not appear in the annals of England before that year, is to accuse him of contradicting his own writings, and viola * Burnet's History of the Reformation, vol. 3. book 3. + Fuller's Church History, book 4. Slow's Chronicle, p. 576. ting the truth of history. Bishop Burnet says, that "in May 1535, nineteen Hollanders were accused of holding heretical opinions, among which was a denial that the sacraments had any effect on those that received them: fourteen of them remained obstinate, and were burnt by pairs in several places."* This denial of the efficacy of the sacraments evidently points to the Baptists, who strenuously opposed the administration of that ordinance to infants on the ground of its saving efficacy. In the same year, as has been already stated, the registers of London mention certain Dutch Baptists, ten of whom were put to death; and in the articles of religion set forth by the king and convocation, A. D. 1536, the sect of the Anabaptists is specified and condemned. In fact, it is easy to trace the Baptists in England at least a hundred years prior to the time mentioned by Fuller. His words must therefore be restricted to the punishments first inflicted in England upon the Mennonites, or Dutch Baptists, who had emigrated to this country. In the year 1539, the thirtieth of the reign of Henry VIII. we find certain legal enactments promulgated, one of which was "that those who are in any error, as Sacramentaries, Anabaptists, or any others, that sell books having such opinions in them, being once known, both the books and such persons shall be detected, and disclosed immediately to the king's majesty, or one of his privy-council, to the intent to have it punished without favour, even with the extremity of the law." From this it appears, that the Baptists not only existed in England, but that they were in the habit of availing themselves of the art of printing, which had not long been discovered, for the defence of their peculiar and discriminating tenets ; and to such an extent too, as to alarm the clergy, and induce them to call upon the legislature for measures of severity, in order to restrain their circulation. In the same year, it appears from the Dutch Martyrology, that sixteen men and fifteen women were banished the country for opposing infant-baptism. They retired to Delf in Holland, where they were pursued and prosecuted before the magistrates as Anabaptists, and put to death for their supposed errors, the men being beheaded and the women drowned. Such were the sanguinary proceedings against the * History of the Reformation, vol. 1. book 3. p. 195. Baptists, in the reign of Henry VIII. a monarch who fessedly espoused the cause of reformation. pro Edward VI. ascended the throne in 1547, and though only nine years of age, he was evidently a great blessing to the country. He encouraged the reading of the Scriptures in his own language, received home again such as had been banished during the former reign, and restrained persecution in all its direful forms to the utmost of his power. Fox tells us that" during the whole time of the six years' reign of this young prince, much tranquillity, and as it were a breathing time, was granted to the whole church of England; so that the rage of persecution ceasing, and the sword taken out of the adversaries' hand, there was now no danger to the godly, unless it were only by wealth and prosperity, which many times bringeth more damage in corrupting men's minds, than any time of persecution or affliction. In short, during all this time, neither in Smithfield, nor in any other quarter of this realm, was any heard to suffer for any matter of religion, either Papist or Protestant, two only excepted; one an English woman, called Joan of Kent; and the other a Dutchman, named Goorge. Bishop Burnet informs us, that at this time there were many Anabaptists in several parts of England.--These persons laid it down as a foundation principle, that the Scripture was to be the only rule of Christians. They denied that the baptism of infants could be fairly deduced from Scripture: "they held that to be no baptism, and so were rebaptized." On the 12th of April 1549, there was a complaint brought to the council, that with the strangers that were lately come into England, some of that persuasion had come over, who were disseminating their errors and making proselytes. A commission was accordingly ordered for the archbishop of Canterbury, the bishops of Ely, Worcester, Westminster, Lincoln, and Rochester, &c. &c. to examine and search after all Anabaptists, heretics, or contemners of the Common Prayer-to endeavour to reclaim them, or, if obstinate, to excommunicate and imprison them, and deliver them over to the secular power, to be farther proceeded against. Some tradesmen in London were brought before the commissioners, and were persuaded to abjure their former * Acts and Monuments, p. 685. opinions, one of which was " that the baptism of infants was not profitable." One of those who thus abjured, was commanded to carry a fagot on the following Sunday at St. Paul's, where a sermon was to be preached setting forth his heresy But Joan Boucher, commonly called Joan of Kent, was extremely obstinate. "The excuse for thirsting after this woman's blood (says one of our older historians) which Cranmer and the other bishops evinced was, that she was an Anabaptist, and that the Anabaptists in Germany had turned all religion into allegories, and denied the principles of the Christian faith-that they had also broke out into rebellion, and driven the bishops out of Munster, where they set up John of Leyden, one of their teachers, for king, and called the city New Jerusalem. But Joan Boucher was not charged' with rebellion, nor yet with a breach of peace. And bishop Burnet himself acknowledges, that there were Anabaptists of gentle and moderate principles and manners, whose only crime was, that they thought baptism ought not to be given to infants, but to grown persons alone. If the bishops did not distinguish this moderate sort of Baptists from the madmen of Munster, there is reason to judge the death of Joan Boucher to be no better than murder. She was indeed charged with maintaining, besides adult baptism, "that Christ was not truly incarnate of the Virgin, whose flesh being sinful, he could not partake of it, but the Word, by the consent of the inward man in the Virgin, took flesh of her" a scholastic distinction, incapable of doing much mischief, and far from deserving so severe a punishment. The principles of orthodoxy surely ought not to destroy the principles of humanity! It is not in a man's power to believe all that another may tell him; but is he therefore to be burned for not effecting an impossibility? Had the apostles promulged any such doctrine among either Jews or Gentiles, when Christ sent them to preach the gospel to all nations, and baptize those that believed, not even the power of miracles would have been sufficient to establish a religion thus founded on cruelty and injustice."* The bishops named in the commission for searching after the Baptists, were, Cranmer, Ridley, Goodrich, Heath, * Oldmixon's History of England, vol. 1. p. 187. |