§ 163.3. The English Baptists.—The notion that infant baptism is objectionable also found favour among the English Independents. Owing to the slight importance attached to the sacraments generally, and more particularly to baptism, in the Reformed church, especially among the Independents, the supporters of the practice of the church in regard to baptism to a large extent occupied common ground with its opponents. The separation took place only after the rise of the fanatical prophetic sects (§ [161, 1]). We must, however, distinguish from the continental Anabaptists the English Baptists, who enjoyed the benefit of the Toleration Act of William III., of A.D. 1689, along with the other dissenters, by maintaining their Independent-Congregationalist constitution (§ [155, 3]). In A.D. 1691, over the Arminian question, they split up into Particular and General, or Regular and Free Will, Baptists. The former, by far the more numerous, held by the Calvinistic doctrine of gratia particularis, while the latter rejected it.The Seventh-Day Baptists, who observed the seventh instead of the first day of the week, were founded by Bampfield in A.D. 1665.[480]—From England the Baptists spread to North America, in A.D. 1630, where Roger Williams (§ [162, 2]), one of their first leaders, founded the little state of Rhode Island, and organized it on thoroughly Baptist-Independent principles.[481]—Continuation, § [170, 6].
§ 163.4. The Quakers.—George Fox, born A.D. 1624, died A.D. 1691, was son of a poor Presbyterian weaver in Drayton, Leicestershire. After scant schooling he went to learn shoemaking at Nottingham, but in A.D. 1643 abandoned the trade. Harassed by spiritual conflicts, he wandered about seeking peace for his soul. Upon hearing an Independent preach on 2 Peter i. 19, he was moved loudly to contradict the preacher. “What we have to do with,” he said, “is not the word, but the Spirit by which those men of God spake and wrote.” He was seized as a disturber of public worship, but was soon after released. In A.D. 1649 he travelled the country preaching and teaching, addressing every man as “thou,” raising his hat to none, greeting none, attracting thousands by his preaching, often imprisoned, flogged, tortured, hunted like a wild beast. The core of his preaching was, not Scripture, but the Spirit, not Christ without but Christ within, not outward worship, not churches, “steeple-houses,” and bells, not doctrines and sacraments, but only the inner light, which is kindled by God in the conscience of every man, renewed and quickened by the Spirit of Christ, which suddenly lays hold upon it. The number of his followers increased from day to day. In A.D. 1652 he found, along with his friends, a kindly shelter in the house of Thomas Fell, of Smarthmore near Preston, and in his wife Margaret a motherly counsellor, who devoted her whole life to the cause. They called themselves “The Society of Friends.” The name Quaker was given as a term of reproach by a violent judge, whom Fox bad “quake before the word of God.” After the overthrow of the hopes of the Saints through the dissolution of the Short Parliament and Cromwell’s apostasy (§ [155, 2]), many of them joined the Quakers, and led them into revolutionary and fanatical excesses. Confined hitherto to the northern counties, they now spread in London and Bristol, and over all the south of England. In January, A.D. 1655, they held a fortnight’s general meeting at Swannington, in Leicestershire. Crowds of apostles went over into Ireland, to North America and the West Indies, to Holland, Germany, France, and Italy, and even to Constantinople. They did not meet with great success. In Italy they encountered the Inquisition, and in North America the severest penal laws were passed against them. In A.D. 1656 James Naylor, one of their most famous leaders, celebrated at Bristol the second coming of Christ “in the Spirit,” by enacting the scene of Christ’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem. But the king of the new Israel was scourged, branded on the forehead with the letter B as a blasphemer, had his tongue pierced with a redhot iron, and was then cast into prison. Many absurd extravagances of this kind, which drew down upon them frequent persecutions, as well as the failure of their foreign missionary enterprises, brought most of the Quakers to adopt more sober views. The great mother Quakeress, Margaret Fell, exercised a powerful influence in this direction. George Fox, too, out of whose hands the movement had for a long time gone, now lent his aid. Naylor himself, in A.D. 1659, issued a recantation, addressed “to all the people of the Lord,” in which he made the confession, “My judgment was turned away, and I was a captive under the power of darkness.”
§ 163.5. The movement of Quakerism in the direction of sobriety and common sense was carried out to its fullest extent during the Stuart Restoration, A.D. 1660-1688. Abandoning their revolutionary tendencies through dislike to Cromwell’s violence, and giving up most of their fanatical extravagances, the Quakers became models of quiet, orderly living. Robert Barclay, by his “Catechesis et Fidei Confessio,” of A.D. 1673, gave a sort of symbolic expression to their belief, and vindicated his doctrinal positions in his “Theologiæ vere Christianæ Apologia” of A.D. 1676. During this period many of them laid down their lives for their faith. On the other side of the sea they formed powerful settlements, distinguished for religious toleration and brotherly love. The chief promoter of this new departure was William Penn, A.D. 1644-1718, son of an English admiral, who, while a student at Oxford, was impressed by a Quaker’s preaching, and led to attend the prayer and fellowship meetings of the Friends. In order to break his connexion with this party, his father sent him, in A.D. 1661, to travel in France and Italy. The frivolity of the French court failed to attract him, but for a long time he was spellbound by Amyrault’s theological lectures at Saumur. On his return home, in A.D. 1664, he seemed to have completely come back to a worldly life, when once again he was arrested by a Quaker’s preaching. In A.D. 1668 he formally joined the society. For a controversial tract, The Sandy Foundation Shaken, he was sent for six months to the Tower, where he composed the famous tract, No Cross, no Crown, and a treatise in his own vindication, “Innocency with her Open Face.” His father, who, shortly before his death in A.D. 1670, was reconciled to his son, left him a yearly income of £1,500, with a claim on Government for £16,000. In spite of continued persecution and oppression he continued unweariedly to promote the cause of Quakerism by speech and pen. In A.D. 1677, in company with Fox and Barclay, he made a tour through Holland and Germany. In both countries he formed many friendships, but did not succeed in establishing any societies. His hopes now turned to North America, where Fox had already wrought with success during the times of sorest persecution, A.D. 1671, 1672, In lieu of his father’s claim, he obtained from Government a large tract of land on the Delaware, with the right of colonizing and organizing it under English suzerainty. Twice he went out for this purpose himself, in A.D. 1682 and 1699, and formed the Quaker state of Pennsylvania, with Philadelphia as its capital.The first principle of its constitution was universal religious toleration, even to Catholics.[482]
§ 163.6. The Quaker Constitution, as fixed in Penn’s time, was strictly democratic and congregationalist, with complete exclusion of a clerical order. At their services any man or woman, if moved by the Spirit, might pray, teach, or exhort, or if no one felt so impelled they would sit on in silence. Their meeting-houses had not the form or fittings of churches, their devotional services had neither singing nor music. They repudiated water baptism, alike of infants and adults, and recognised only baptism of the Spirit. The Lord’s supper, as a symbolical memorial, is no more needed by those who are born again. Monthly gatherings of all independent members, quarterly meetings of deputies of a circuit, and a yearly synod of representatives of all the circuits, administered or drew up the regulations for the several societies. The Doctrinal Belief of the Quakers is completely dominated by its central dogma of the “inner light,” which is identified with reason and conscience as the common heritage of mankind. Darkened and weakened by the fall, it is requickened in us by the Spirit of the glorified Christ, and possesses us as an inner spiritual Christ, an inner Word of God. The Bible is recognised as the outer word of God, but is useful only as a means of arousing the inner word. The Calvinistic doctrine of election is decidedly rejected, and also that of vicarious satisfaction. But also the doctrines of the fall, original sin, justification by faith, as well as that of the Trinity, are very much set aside in favour of an indefinite subjective theology of feeling. The operation of the Holy Spirit in man’s redemption and salvation outside of Christendom is frankly admitted. On the other hand, the ethical-practical element, as shown in works of benevolence, in the battle for religious freedom, for the abolition of slavery, etc., is brought to the front. In regard to life and manners, the Quakers have distinguished themselves in all domestic, civil, industrial, and mercantile movements by quiet, peaceful industry, strict integrity, and simple habits, so that not only did they amass great wealth, but gained the confidence and respect of those around. They refused to take oaths or to serve as soldiers, or to engage in sports, or to indulge in any kind of luxury. In social intercourse they declined to acknowledge any titles of rank, would not bow or raise the hat to any, but addressed all by the simple “thou.” Their men wore broad-brimmed hats, a plain, simple coat, without collar or buttons, fastened by hooks.Their women wore a simple gray silk dress, with like coloured bonnet, without ribbon, flower, or feathers, and a plain shawl. Wearing mourning dress was regarded as a heathenish custom.[483]—Continuation, § [211, 3].
§ 163.7. Labadie and the Labadists.—Jean de Labadie, the scion of an ancient noble family, born A.D. 1610, was educated in the Jesuit school at Bordeaux, entered the order, and became a priest, but was released from office at his own wish in A.D. 1639, on account of delicate health. Even in the Jesuit college the principles that manifested themselves in his later life began to take root in him. By Scripture study he was led to adopt almost Augustinian views of sin and grace, as well as the conviction of the need of a revival of the church after the apostolic pattern. This tendency was confirmed and deepened by the influence of Spanish Quietism, which even the Jesuits had favoured to some extent. In the interest of these views he wrought laboriously for eleven years as Catholic priest in Amiens, Paris, and other places, amid the increasing hostility of the Jesuits. Their persecution, together with a growing clearness in his Augustinian convictions, led him formally to go over to the Reformed church in A.D. 1650. He now laboured for seven years as Reformed pastor at Montauban. In A.D. 1657, owing to political suspicions against him spread by the Jesuits, he withdrew from Montauban, and, after two years’ labour at Orange, settled at Geneva, where his preaching and household visitations bore abundant fruit. In A.D. 1666 he accepted a call to Middelburg, in Zealand. There he was almost as successful as he had been in Geneva; but there too it began to appear that in him there burned a fire strange to the Reformed church. The French Reformed synod took great offence at his refusal to sign the Belgic Confession. It was found that at many points he was not in sympathy with the church standards, that he had written in favour of chiliasm and the Apokatastasis, that in regard to the nature and idea of the church and its need of a reformation he was not in accord with the views of the Reformed church. The synod in 1668 suspended him from office, and, as he did not confess his errors, in the following year deposed him. Labadie then saw that what he regarded as his lifework, the restoration of the apostolic church, was as little attainable within the Reformed as within the Catholic church. He therefore organized his followers into a separate denomination, and was, together with them, banished by the magistrate. The neighbouring town of Veere received them gladly, but Middelburg now persuaded the Zealand council to issue a decree banishing them from that town also. The people of Veere were ready to defy this order, but Labadie thought it better to avoid the risk of a civil war by voluntary withdrawal; and so he went, in August, A.D. 1669, with about forty followers, to Amsterdam, where he laid the foundations of an apostolic church. This new society consisted of a sort of monastic household consisting only of the regenerate. They hired a commodious house, and from thence sent out spiritual workers as missionaries, to spread the principles of the “new church” throughout the land. Within a year they numbered 60,000 souls. They dispensed the sacrament according to the Reformed rite, and preached the gospel in conventicles. The most important gain to the party was the adhesion of Anna Maria von Schürman, born at Cologne A.D. 1607 of a Reformed family, but settled from A.D. 1623 with her mother in Utrecht, celebrated for her unexampled attainment in languages, science, and art. When in A.D. 1670, the government, urged by the synod, forbad attendance on the Labadists’ preaching, the accomplished and pious Countess-palatine Elizabeth, sister of the elector-palatine, and abbess of the rich cloister of Herford, whose intimate friend Schürman had been for forty years, gave them an asylum in the capital of her little state.
§ 163.8. In Herford “the Hollanders” met with bitter opposition from the Lutheran clergy, the magistracy, and populace, and were treated by the mob with insult and scorn. They themselves also gave only too good occasion for ridicule. At a sacramental celebration, the aged Labadie and still older Schürman embraced and kissed each other and began to dance for joy. In his sermons and writings Labadie set forth the Quietist doctrines of the limitation of Christ’s life and sufferings in the mortification of the flesh, the duty of silent prayer, the sinking of the soul into the depths of the Godhead, the community of goods, etc. Special offence was given by the private marriage of the three leaders, Labadie, Yvon, and Dulignon with young wealthy ladies of society, and their views of marriage among the regenerate as an institution for raising up a pure seed free from original sin and brought forth without pain. The Elector of Brandenburg, hitherto favourable, as guardian of the seminary was obliged, in answer to the complaints of the Herford magistracy, to appoint a commission of inquiry. Labadie wrote a defence, which was published in Latin, Dutch, and German, in which he endeavoured to harmonize his mystical views with the doctrines of the Reformed church. But in A.D. 1671 the magistrates obtained a mandate from the imperial court at Spires, which threatened the abbess with the ban if she continued to harbour the sectaries. In A.D. 1672 Labadie settled in Altona, where he died in A.D. 1674. His followers, numbering 160, remained here undisturbed till the war between Denmark and Sweden broke out in A.D. 1675. They then retired to the castle of Waltha in West Friesland, the property of three sisters belonging to the party. Schürman died in A.D. 1678, Dulignon in A.D. 1679, and Yvon, who now had sole charge, was obliged in A.D. 1688 to abolish the institution of the community of goods, after a trial of eighteen years, being able to pay back much less than he had received. After his death in A.D. 1707 the community gradually fell off, and after the property had gone into other hands on the death of the last of the sisters in A.D. 1725, the society finally broke up.
§ 163.9. During this age various fanatical sects sprang up. In Thuringia, Stiefel and his nephew Meth caused much trouble to the Lutheran clergy in the beginning of the century by their fanatical enthusiasm, till convinced, after twenty years, of the errors of their ways. Drabicius, who had left the Bohemian Brethren owing to differences of belief, and then lived in Hungary as a weaver in poor circumstances, boasted in A.D. 1638 of having Divine revelations, prophesied the overthrow of the Austrian dynasty in A.D. 1657, the election of the French king as emperor, the speedy fall of the Papacy, and the final conversion of all heathens; but was put to death at Pressburg in A.D. 1671 as a traitor with cruel tortures. Even Comenius, the noble bishop of the Moravians, took the side of the prophets, and published his own and others’ prophecies under the title “Lux in Tenebris.”—Jane Leade of Norfolk, influenced by the writings of Böhme, had visions, in which the Divine Wisdom appeared to her as a virgin. She spread her Gnostic revelations in numerous tracts, founded in A.D. 1670 the Philadelphian Society in London, and died in A.D. 1704, at the age of eighty-one. The most important of her followers was John Pordage, preacher and physician, whose theological speculation closely resembles that of Jac. Böhme. To the Reformed church belonged also Peter Poiret of Metz, pastor from A.D. 1664 in Heidelburg [Heidelberg], and afterwards of a French congregation in the Palatine-Zweibrücken. Influenced by the writings of Bourignon and Guyon, he resigned his pastorate, and accompanied the former in his wanderings in north-west Germany till his death in 1680. At Amsterdam in A.D. 1687 he wrote his mystical work, “L’Économie Divine” in seven vols., which sets forth in the Cocceian method the mysticism and theosophy of Bourignon. He died at Rhynsburg in A.D. 1719.—From the Lutheran church proceeded Giftheil of Württemburg [Württemberg], Breckling of Holstein, and Kuhlmann, who went about denouncing the clergy, proclaiming fanatical views, and calling for impracticable reforms. Of much greater importance was John George Gichtel, an eccentric disciple of Jac. Böhme, who in A.D. 1665 lost his situation as law agent in his native town of Regensburg, his property, and civil rights, and suffered imprisonment and exile from the city for his fanatical ideas. He died in needy circumstances in Amsterdam in A.D. 1710. He had revelations and visions, fought against the doctrine of justification, and denounced marriage as fornication which nullifies the spiritual marriage with the heavenly Sophia consummated in the new birth, etc. His followers called themselves Angelic Brethren, from Matthew xxii. 20, strove after angelic sinlessness by emancipation from all earthly lusts, toils, and care, regarded themselves as a priesthood after the order of Melchizedec [Melchisedec] for propitiating the Divine wrath.—Continuation, § [170].
§ 163.10. Russian Sects.—A vast number of sects sprang up within the Russian church, which are all included under the general name Raskolniks or apostates. They fall into two great classes in their distinctive character, diametrically opposed the one to the other.
- The Starowerzi, or Old Believers. They originated in A.D. 1652, in consequence of the liturgical reform of the learned and powerful patriarch Nikon, which called forth the violent opposition of a large body of the peasantry, who loved the old forms. Besides stubborn adhesion to the old liturgy, they rejected all modern customs and luxuries, held it sinful to cut the beard, to smoke tobacco, to drink tea and coffee, etc. The Starowerzi, numbering some ten millions, are to this day distinguished by their pure and simple lives, and are split up into three parties:
- Jedinowerzi, who are nearest to the orthodox church, recognise its priesthood, and are different only in their religious ceremonies and the habits of their social life;
- The Starovbradzi, who do not recognise the priesthood of the orthodox church; and
- the Bespopowtschini, who have no priests, but only elders, and are split up into various smaller sects.
- Under the peasant Philip Pustosiwät, a party of Starowerzi, called from their leader Philippins, fled during the persecution of A.D. 1700 from the government of Olonez, and settled in Polish Lithuania and East Prussia, where to the number of 1,200 souls they live to this day in villages in the district of Gumbinnen, engaged in agricultural pursuits, and observing the rites of the old Russian church.
- At the very opposite pole from the Starowerzi stand the Heretical Sects, which repudiate and condemn everything in the shape of external church organization, and manifest a tendency in some cases toward fanatical excess, and in other cases toward rationalistic spiritualism. As the sects showing the latter tendency did not make their appearance till the eighteenth century (§ [166, 2]), we have here to do only with those of the former class. The most important of these sects is that of the Men of God, or Spiritual Christians, who trace their origin from a peasant, Danila Filipow, of the province of Wladimir. In 1645, say they, the divine Father, seated on a cloud of flame, surrounded by angels, descended from heaven on Mount Gorodin in a chariot of fire, in order to restore true Christianity in its original purity and spirituality. For this purpose he incarnated himself in Filipow’s pure body. He commanded his followers, who in large numbers, mainly drawn from the peasant class, gathered around him, not to marry, and if already married to put away their wives, to abstain from all intoxicating drinks, to be present neither at marriages nor baptisms, but above all things to believe that there is no other god besides him. After some years he adopted as his son another peasant, Ivan Suslow, who was said to have been born of a woman a hundred years old, by communicating to him in his thirtieth year his own divine nature. Ivan, as a new Christ, sent out twelve apostles to spread his doctrine. The Czar Alexis put him and forty of his adherents into prison; but neither the knout nor the rack could wring from them the mysteries of their faith and worship. At last, on a Friday, the czar caused the new Christ to be crucified; but on the following Sunday he appeared risen again among his disciples. After some years the imprisoning, crucifying, and resurrection were repeated. Imprisoned a third time in 1672, he owed his liberation to an edict of grace on the occasion of the birth of the Prince Peter the Great. He now lived at Moscow along with the divine father Filipow, who had hitherto consulted his own safety by living in concealment in the enjoyment of the adoration of his followers unmolested for thirty years, supported by certain wealthy merchants. Filipow is said to have ascended up in the presence of many witnesses, in 1700, into the seventh and highest heaven, where he immediately seated himself on the throne as the “Lord of Hosts,” and the Christ, Suslow, also returned thither in 1716, after both had reached the hundredth year of the human existence. As Suslow’s successor appeared a new Christ in Prokopi Lupkin, and after his death, in 1732, arose Andr. Petrow. The last Christ manifestation was revealed in the person of the unfortunate Czar Peter III., dethroned by his wife Catharine II. in 1762, who, living meanwhile in secret, shall soon return, to the terrible confusion of all unbelievers. With this the historical tradition of the earlier sect of the Men of God is brought to a close, and in the Skopsen, or Eunuchs, who also venerate the Czar Peter III. as the Christ that is to come again, a new development of the sect has arisen, carrying out its principles more and more fully (§ [210, 4]). Other branches of the same party, among which, as also among the Skopsen, the fanatical endeavour to mortify the flesh is carried to the most extravagant length, are the Morelschiki or Self-Flagellators, the Dumbies, who will not, even under the severest tortures, utter a sound, etc. The ever-increasing development of this sect-forming craze, which found its way into several monasteries and nunneries, led to repeated judicial investigations, the penitent being sentenced for their fault to confinement in remote convents, and the obdurate being visited with severe corporal punishments and even with death. The chief sources of information regarding the history, doctrine, and customs of the “Men of God” and the Skopsen are their own numerous spiritual songs, collected by Prof. Ivan Dobrotworski of Kasan, which were sung in their assemblies for worship with musical accompaniment and solemn dances. On these occasions their prophets and prophetesses were wont to prophesy, and a kind of sacramental supper was celebrated with bread and water. The sacraments of the Lord’s supper and baptism, as administered by the orthodox church, are repudiated and scorned, the latter as displaced by the only effectual baptism of the Spirit.They have, indeed, in order to avoid persecution, been obliged to take part in the services of the orthodox national church, and to confess to its priests, avoiding, however, all reference to the sect.[484]