What is more, they were modern enough, at least in the earlier stages of the movement, to be conscious of this (which the Mystics were not), and to give it expression. All felt and thought as did a “simple man,” Hans Müller of Medikon, when brought before the Zurich magistrates: “Do not lay a burden on my conscience, for faith is a gift given freely by God, and is not common property. The mystery of God lies hidden, like the treasure in the field, which no one can find but he to whom the Spirit shows it. So I beg you, ye servants of God, let my faith stand free.”[615] And the Anabaptists, alone of all the religious parties in those strenuous times, seem to have recognised that what they claimed for themselves they were bound to grant to others. Great differences in opinion did not prevent the strictest brotherly fellowship. Hans Denck held a doctrine of non-resistance as thoroughgoing as that of Count Tolstoy, and fully recognised the practical consequences to which it led. But this did not prevent the ardent and gifted young Humanist working loyally with Hübmaier, who did not share his extreme opinions. The divergences among the leaders appeared in their followers without destroying the sense of brotherhood. Franck tells us in his Chronicle[616] that some, but very few, held that no Christian could enter the magistracy, for Christians had nothing to do with the sword, but only with spiritual excommunication, and that no Christian should fight and slay. The others, he says, including the very great majority, believed that Christians might become magistrates, and that in case of dire necessity and when they clearly saw the leading of God, might take their share in fighting as soldiers.
Melchior Hoffman, while he believed in the incarnation, held that Jesus received His flesh directly from God, and did not owe His body to the Virgin Mother, through whom He passed “as light through a pane of glass.” He also held that the whole history of the world, down to the last days, was revealed in Scripture, and could be discovered through prayer and meditation. He was an eloquent and persuasive preacher, and his views were accepted by many; but it would be a great mistake to assume that they were shared in by the Anabaptists as a community. Yet even contemporaries, who were opponents, usually attribute the extreme opinions of a few to the entire body.
It ought to be observed that this tolerance of different opinions within the one society did not extend to those who remained true to the State Churches, whether Romanist or Reformed. The Anabaptists would have nothing to do with a State Church; and this was the main point in their separation from the Lutherans, Zwinglians, and Calvinists. It was perhaps the one conception on which all parties among them were in absolute accord. The real Church, which might be small or great, was for them an association of believing people; and the great ecclesiastical institutions into which unconscious infants were admitted by a ceremony called baptism long before they could have or exercise faith, represented to them an idea subversive of true Christianity. They had no wish to persecute men who differed widely from them, but they would not associate with them. This enforced “separation,” like everything else connected with Anabaptism, differed considerably in the way in which it was carried into practice. In some of the smaller sections it appeared in very extravagant forms. Wives and husbands, Anabaptists whose partners belonged to the State Churches, were in some small sections advised to refuse cohabitation. It is more than probable that some recorded sayings on which opponents have founded charges of encouraging sexual irregularities,—that it was better for women to have connection irregularly with members of the brotherhood than to cohabit with unbelieving husbands,—were simply extravagant ways of expressing this duty of separation.
It is also true that as time went on and sects of extreme opinions multiplied, the excommunication of members for their views came to be a common practice. It was as frequent among some of the smaller divisions as it is among modern Plymouth Brethren; but the occasion was, as a rule, difference of opinion about the way to express and exercise the duty of not returning evil for evil—was it permitted to pay taxes or not? was it lawful to see without protest their protectors using force to prevent their enemies from attacking them, etc.?
The earlier ideas of non-resistance, whatever practical shape they might take, gave way before the continuous and terrible persecution which the Anabaptists had to endure. They were first definitely condemned by Melchior Hoffman and his followers. They believed in the speedy establishment on earth of the millennial kingdom of Christ, and they declared that they were ready to fight for it when it appeared. With them the conception was simply a pious opinion, and they had no occasion to reduce it to action. The Anabaptists, however, who followed the teaching of Jan Matthys and of his disciple Jan Bockelson, repudiated passive resistance both in theory and in practice.
Of course, there are many things about some, perhaps all, great religious awakenings which critics can lay hold of to their disparagement; and it was so with the Anabaptist movement. Everything, from the scientific frame of mind to the religious sensibility, has the defects of its qualities. When a man is seized and possessed by a new spiritual emotion which seems to lift him above all previous experience of life or of thought, all things are new to him, and all things seem possible. His old life with its limitations has departed. He is embarked on a sea which has no imprisoning shores. He is carried along on a great current of emotion, and others are borne with him. Human deep calleth unto deep when they exchange confidences. He and his fellows have become new creatures; and that is almost all that they know about themselves. Such experiences are quite consistent with soundness of mind and clearness of vision of God and Divine things—that is usual; but sometimes they are too powerful for the imperfect mind which holds them. The converts are “puffed up,” as St. Paul said. Then arise morbid states, distorted vision, sometimes actual shipwreck of mental faculties, not seldom acute religious mania. Leaders in a great religious awakening have always to reckon with such developments—St. Paul, Francis of Assisi, Eckhart, Tauler, to say nothing of modern instances. The Apostle addressed morbid souls with severe sarcasm. Did any man really think, he asked, that to commit incest, to take to wife his father’s widow, was an example of the freedom with which Christ had made them free?
The Anabaptist movement had its share of such cases, like other religious movements; they grew more frequent as the unfortunate people were maddened by persecution; and these exceptional incidents are invariably retailed at length by historians hostile to the movement.
The Anabaptists, as a whole, were subjected to persecutions, especially from the Romanists and the Lutherans, much more harsh than befell any of the religious parties of the sixteenth century. Their treatment in Zurich may be taken as an example of how they came in contact with the civil authorities, and how their treatment grew in severity.[617]
The Swiss Anabaptists were in no sense disciples of Zwingli. They had held their distinctive principles and were a recognised community long before Zwingli came from Einsiedeln, and were the lineal descendants of the mediæval Waldenses. They welcomed the Reformer; some of them were in the company who challenged the authorities by eating meat during Lent in 1522; but a fundamental difference soon emerged. After the Public Disputation of 1523, when it became clear that Zurich meant to accept the Reformation, a deputation of the Brethren appeared before the Council to urge their idea of what a Reformed Church should be. Their statement of principles is an exposition of the fundamental conceptions which lay at the basis of the whole Anabaptist movement, and explains why they could not join either the Lutheran or the Reformed branch of the Reformation Church. They insisted that an Evangelical Church must differ from the Roman Church in this among other things, that it should consist of members who had made a personal profession of faith in their Saviour, and who had vowed to live in obedience to Jesus Christ their Hauptmann. It could not be like a State Church, whether Romanist or other, to which people belonged without any individual profession of faith. They insisted that the Church, thus formed, should be free from all civil control, to decide for itself what doctrines and ceremonies of worship were founded on the Word of God, and agreeable thereto, and should make this decision according to the opinions of a majority of the members. They further asked that the Church should be free to exercise, by brotherly admonition and, as a last resort, by excommunication, discipline on such of its members as offended against the moral law. They also declared that the Church which thus rejected State control ought to refuse State support, and proposed that the tithes should be secularised. The New Testament, they said, knew nothing about interest and usury, tithes, livings, and prebends.