THE Munster affair, like an evil genius, has followed the Baptists all over the world, or at least, wherever they have been found. As all, who have done the Anabaptists the honor of writing their history, have begun and ended with the mad men of Munster, it seems proper that we should say something respecting them, before we close the accounts of the Baptists in foreign countries and ancient times.

We shall in the first place give some account of the insurrection in Germany, and then endeavor to show what hand the Baptists had in them.

The condition of the peasants in Germany in the year 1524, about the time they began to meditate a revolt from the galling yoke of their tyrannical masters, was deplorable indeed, if there be any thing to deplore in a deprivation of most of the rights and liberties of rational creatures. “The feudal system, that execration in the eyes of every being, that merits the name of man, had been established in early ages in Germany in all its rigor and horror. It had been planted with a sword reeking with human gore in the night of barbarism, when cannibals drank the warm blood of one enemy out of the skull of another, and it had shot its venomous fibers every way, rooted itself in every transaction, in religion, in law, in diversions, in everything secular and sacred, so that the wretched rustics had only one prospect for themselves and all their posterity, one horrid prospect of everlasting slavery. “The great principle of the feudal system, that all lands were derived from, and holden mediately or immediately of the crown, was always productive of unjust and oppressive consequences, tyranny in a thousand shapes, under the names of fines, quit-rents, alienations, dilapidations, wardships, heriots, and the rest, fleeced the unhappy people, deprived them of their property, depressed their spirits, and drove them sometimes to despair and distraction.

To these innumerable evils must be added another innumerable mass brought in by popery. Tithes great and small, christenings, churchings, marriage dues, offerings, mortuaries, with a thousand other servile appendages of a horrible system of oppression, were incorporated in a pretended religion, itself the greatest affront that ever was offered to the reason of mankind. “At the beginning of the sixteenth century, Germany was divided into six circles, and governed by sovereign princes, whose tyrannical oppressions would exceed belief, were they not well attested. Of the great number of good historians, who speak of the rustic war, we have not seen one, who pretends to deny the excessive and insupportable tyranny of the nobility and gentry, or one, who does not expressly affirm, that the peasants groaned under intolerable grievances, which they were no longer able to bear. “The love of liberty, which is natural to every human being, is of itself an ingenuous and active principle, but it is not unfrequently invigorated by circumstances, and the peasants were emboldened by several favorable circumstances now. The attempt was not only just in itself, and an obedience to an universal and almighty impulse; but in the present case it was countenanced by precedents, and could not be taxed with even the paltry plea of novelty. “There is,” says Hume, “an ultimate point of depression, as well as of exaltation, from which human affairs naturally return in a contrary progress, and beyond which they seldom pass, either in advancement or decline.” The German peasants sunk to this ultimate point of depression in different places at different periods, and then they took a contrary direction, and made noble efforts to recover their freedom. Within the memory of the present insurgents, there had been many insurrections, as one against the oppressions of the bishop and canons of Spire, in 1502, another against the tyranny of a neighboring abbot, in 1491, and several more. The recollection of these encouraged the present peasants to rise. This was their first motive. In the second place, good authors assure us, that they expected aid from their neighbors the Swiss. A third circumstance was the lamentable condition of both church and state. The whole of their wretched lives were spent in earning money for a cruel, profligate, and quarrelsome set of gentry to consume in luxury or war; and as to religious privileges, they had none. A fourth event that animated them, was the example of Luther. Within the last seven years, Luther and his associates had broke out of prison and set tyranny at defiance. All Europe knew this, and as all had as many reasons and as much right as he had, all were agitated, and some acted. Luther had published in 1520 a small tract in German on christian liberty, which was read with the most astonishing avidity, and the contents communicated by such as could read, to others who could not. Many, it appears, carried Luther’s maxims of liberty as well as those relating to baptism farther than he did, and much farther than he intended they should.

He had renounced the authority of the pope, and at Wittemberg, in the presence of ten thousand spectators, committed to the flames both the bull that had been published against him, and the decretals and canons relating to the pope’s supreme jurisdiction. The writings and examples of the Saxon Reformer could not but stimulate the miserable peasants to throw off the enormous load of tyranny under which they groaned. Their plan was fast maturing, and many, who were neither mad men nor monsters, favored their cause. And as Germany was now agitated by disputes of various kinds, and the ancient barriers of oppression were in many places shaken, this seemed a favorable juncture for the wretched rustics to put in their claim for some portion of that freedom, which is the natural right of every rational being. They were not exclusively Anabaptists, nor Lutherans, nor Catholics; but they were a mixture of different religious opinions, who had been galled to the quick by the horrid tyranny of their masters, and who, uniting their efforts in one common cause, were determined to be free or perish in the attempt. But a wise providence saw fit not to favor their designs; they were defeated and ruined, and their names, by a thousand writers, have been loaded with infamy and disgrace. “In the summer of 1524, the peasants of Suabia, on the estate of count Lutfen, sounded the alarm of a revolt. The counts Lutfen and Furstenberg, and the neighboring gentry in Suabia, who had all a mutual interest in suppressing the insurrection, and who had entered into a confederacy for another purpose, agreed to suppress them, and Furstenberg, in the name of all the confederates, went to inquire into their grievances. They informed him that they were Catholics, that they had not risen on any religious account, and that they required nothing but a release from those intolerable secular oppressions, under which they had long groaned, and which they neither would, nor could any longer bear. The second insurgents were the peasants of a neighboring abbey, and they declared as the first had done, the oppression of the abbot, and not religion, was the cause of their conduct. The news, however, flew all over Germany, and the next swing three hundred thousand men, having more reason to complain than the first had, left off work, and assembled in the fields of Suabia, Franconia, Thuringia, the Palatinate, and Alsace. They consisted of all sorts of peasants, who thought themselves aggrieved in any manner. “Of all the teachers in Germany at this time, the Baptists best understood the doctrine of liberty; to them therefore the peasants turned their eyes for counsel. Of the Baptists one of the most eminent was Thomas Muncer of Mulhausen in Thuringia. He had been a priest, but he became a disciple of Luther, and a great favorite with the reformed. His deportment was remarkably grave, his countenance was pale, his eyes rather sunk as if he was absorbed in thought, his visage long, and he wore his beard. His talent lay in a plain and easy method of preaching to the country people, whom (it should seem as an itinerant) he taught almost all through the electorate of Saxony. His air of mortification won him the hearts of the rustics. It was singular then for a preacher so much as to appear humble. When he had finished his sermon in any village, he used to retire either to avoid the crowd, or to devote himself to meditation and prayer. This was a practice so very singular and uncommon, that the people used to throng about the door, peep through the crevices, and oblige him sometimes to let them in, though he repeatedly assured them, that he was nothing, that all he had came from above, and that admiration and praise were due only to God. The more he fled from applause, the more it followed him. The people called him Luther’s curate, and Luther named him his Absalom, probably, because he stole the hearts of the men of Israel. Muncer’s enemies say, all this was artifice. It is impossible to know that. The survey of the heart belongs to God alone. This was not suspected till he became a Baptist. They say he was all this while plotting the rustic war; but there was no need to lay deep plots to create uneasiness the grievances taught the peasants to groan, and rise, and fight before Muncer was born, and nobody ever taxed him with even knowing of the first insurrections now. The truth is, while Luther was regaling himself with the princes, Muncer was preaching in the country, and surveying the condition of their tenants, and it is natural to suppose he heard and saw their miserable bondage, and that on Luther’s plan there was no probability of freedom flowing to the people. “Luther wrote to the magistrates of Mulhausen, to ad. vise them to require Muncer to give an account of his call, and if he could not prove that he acted under human authority, then to insist on his proving his call from God by working a miracle. The magistrates fell into this snare, and so did the monks, for persecution is both a catholic and a protestant doctrine, and they set about the work.

The people resented this refinement on cruelty, especially as coming from a man, whom both the court of Rome, and the diet of the empire had loaded with all the anathemas they could invent, for no other crime than that for which he accused his brother, and they carried the matter so far in the end, that they expelled the monks, to which the Lutherans had no objection, and then the magistrates, and elected new Senators, of whom Muncer was one. To him, as to their only friend, the peasants all looked for relief. “Muncer’s doctrine all tended to liberty; but he had no immediate concern in the first insurrections of the peasants. It was many months after they were in arms before he joined them; but knowing their cause to be just, he drew up for them that memorial or manifesto, which sets forth their grievances, and which they presented to their lords, and dispersed all over Germany. This instrument is applauded by every writer who mentions it, as a master piece of its kind. Mr. Voltaire says, a Lycurgus would have signed it. It was the highest character he could have given it. Some, by mistake, ascribe it to Stapler. “This manifesto consists of twelve articles, in which are set forth the grievances of the peasants, and the redress which they required, and on the grant of which they declared themselves ready to return to their labors.

I. The first sets forth the benefit of public religious instruction, and they pray that they may be permitted to elect their own ministers to, each them the word of God without the traditions of men; and that they may have power to dismiss them, if their conduct be reprehensible.

II. The second represents that the laws of tithing in the Old Testament ought not to be enforced under the present economy, and praying that they may be allowed to pay the tithe of their corn, and be excused from paying any other; and that this may be divided by a committee into three equal parts, the first to be applied to the support of their teachers, the second to the relief of poor folks, and the third to the payment of such public taxes and dues as had been exacted of people in mean circumstances.

III. The third sets forth, that their former state of slavery was disgraceful to humanity, and inconsistent with the condition of people freed by the blood of Christ, who extended the benefits of his redemption to the meanest as well as to the highest, excepting none that they were determined to be free, not from the control of magistrates, whose office they honored as of divine appointment, and whose just laws they would obey; that they did not desire to live a licentious life after their own sinful passions; but they would be free and not submit to slavery any longer, unless slavery could be proved right from the Holy Scripture.

IV. The fourth shows, that they had hitherto been deprived of the liberty at fishing, fowling, hunting, and taking animals wild by nature; which prohibition was incompatible with natural justice, the good of society, and the language of Holy Scripture; that in many places they had not been suffered even to chase away the wild animals that devoured their herbage and their corn, which was a great injury to them, contrary to all principles of justice, and to that free grant of wild animals, which the Creator of the world bestowed on all mankind at the beginning; that they did not desire to enter by force on any man’s private property great or small, under any pretence of right to fish, but they prayed that pretended private privileges might yield to equal public benefit.

V. The fifth sets forth, that the forests were in the hands of a few great men, to the inexpressible damage of the miserable poor, who d been obliged to pay double the value of what little wood they wanted for firing or repairs; they therefore prayed, that such woods and forests, as had not been purchased and become private property, either of individuals, or of corporate bodies, ecclesiastical or civil, might hereafter be reserved for the public use; that they might be allowed to cut wood for necessary building, repairs, and firing, without any expense, under the direction, however, of a board of wood-wards duly elected for the purpose; that in case the forests could all be proved to be private property, then the matter should be amicably adjusted between themselves and the proprietors.

VI. The sixth sets forth the various hardships of base and uncertain villenage, the innumerable and ill-timed services, which the lords obliged their tenants to perform, which kept increasing every year, and which had become absolutely intolerable; they pray that these services may be moderated by the princes, according to laws of equity, and the precepts of the gospel, and that no other burdens might be imposed on them, than such as were warranted by ancient custom.

VII. The seventh complains of abuses in regard to such tenures of farms, lands, and tenements, as were called beneficiary, and originally held on certain terms fixed in the first grants, as then agreed on between the grantors and the grantees, but which were now charged with a great many oppressive fines, fees, and payments detrimental to the tenants; they pray that these tenures may be held in future on the terms of the original grants.

VIII. The eighth article regards the rents of the farms, held from year to year; they complain that these annual rents far exceeded the worth of the lands, and they pray that honest and indifferent men may Be employed to survey the estates, and report the fair value, and that the princes, if the rents should appear enormous, would remit a part, so that the husbandmen might be allowed a certain livelihoods and not reduced as they had been to extreme indigence, as every workman is worthy of his meat.

IX. The ninth complains of the wanton exercise of the power of making and executing penal statutes; they say what new laws were daily published, creating new crimes, and inflicting new fines and penalties, not for the improvement of society, but merely fur pretences to extort money, and for the gratification of private resentment, or partial attachment; they pray, therefore, that justice may not be left to the care of discretion or affection, but administered according to ancient written forms.

X. The tenth sets forth, that formerly there was reserved in every village in Germany, commons which had been granted to the inhabitants; that now they were monopolized and held as private property to the total exclusion of the poor; that the lords had seized them under pretence, that they were only indulgencies, which former lords in times of security had granted for a little while to their tenants for pasturage only; that they were employed now only to maintain a great number of useless horses for luxury or for need, less wars; that they reclaimed these commons, and did not allow this late prescription the value of a good title, and therefore they required the holders to restore them, unless they would rather choose to make a purchase of them, and in that case they engaged to settle the business on friendly and brotherly terms.

XI. The eleventh complains, that the demand of heriots is the most unjust and inhuman of all oppressions; that the affliction of the widow and children for the loss of their father and friend, appointed by Heaven to be their guardian, made no impression on the officers; that instead of pitying the survivors, and supplying the place of the deceased, they increased their wretchedness, by swallowing up all their property; they required therefore that the custom of claiming heriots should be utterly abolished.

XII. The last article says, that this memorial contains their present grievances; that they are not so obstinately attached to these articles, as not to give up any one on receiving conviction that it was contrary to the word of God; that they were ready to admit any additions agreeable to truth and scripture, tending to promote the glory of God, and the good of mankind; and that though this memorial contained a list of their present grievances, yet they did not mean by this to preclude the liberty of making such future remonstrances as might be found necessary.

These are the infernal tenets, the damnable anabaptistical errors, (garbled and recorded by their enemies too) which the Pedobaptists of all orders, from Luther to the present time, have thought fit to execrate under all the most monstrous names that malice and rage for persecution could invent.

For almost three hundred years hath this crime of the Baptists been visited upon their descendants.

Thus we see that the Rustic War was not a wanton and heedless rebellion of unprincipled men, but was, on the contrary, a serious and patriotic attempt to throw off a cruel and excessive yoke, which could no longer be borne. “And had they succeeded, ten thousand tongues would have celebrated their praise. Indefatigable writers would have sifted every action to the bottom, tried the cause by rules of equity, examined the credibility of every witness, and would not have suffered improbable, contradictory, and even impossible tales, told by ignorant and interested men, to have seized the credit and honor, which are due to nothing but impartial truth. If the procuring of liberty for three hundred thousand wretched slaves, and their posterity, had been accompanied with some imperfections, and even with some censurable actions, the latter would have been attributed to an unhappy fatality in human revolutions, and in comparison with the benefits thrown into the great scale of human happiness, they would have diminished till they had totally disappeared.”

Great political struggles have always been attended with acts more or less unjustifiable upon the principles of war, reason, or humanity. Many will attach themselves to large bodies of warriors, who voluntarily rise in defense of their rights, whom neither the voice of reason, nor the authority of generals can restrain from acts of violence and injustice. Many such acts were undoubtedly committed in different parts of Germany, by the wretched rustics, who had been provoked by enormous oppressions, to a high degree of resentment; but we may also conclude, that their censurable actions have been greatly exaggerated by a set of prejudiced and defaming historians.

We shall now go back to the beginning of these insurrections, and endeavor briefly to describe the progress of insurgents till they were defeated and dispersed.

In the spring of 1525, we are informed, that three hundred thousand men left off work, and assembled in the fields of Suabia, Thuringia, the Palatinate, and Alsace. They soon after published a manifesto, setting forth their grievances and stating their demands. Men in power viewed them as an ignorant herd, who might be easily brow-beaten out of their demands, and terrified into submission. Luther began to be greatly alarmed, for he found himself deeply implicated in the affair. Many pretended that they had received their notions of liberty from his writings, and that they were stimulated in their present attempts by his example of throwing off the papal yoke. Luther, in this critical situation, wrote four pieces on the subject of the threatening affairs. The first was an answer to the peasants’ manifesto. The second was addressed to the German princes, and in it he taxes them with having caused all the present ills by their excessive tyranny. To this he added a third, addressed to both princes and peasants, setting forth the wickedness of tyrannical governors, and the calamities of seditious insurrections, and he advised both parties to settle their disputes, and be at peace for the public good of Germany. This was good advice, but neither party gave heed to it. The princes continued their oppressions and the peasants persisted in their demands, which they had determined to support, peaceably if they could, forcibly it they must; and now they begun their operations. When Luther found nobody minded his papers, he drew up a fourth, addressed to the princes, in which he conjures them to unite their force to suppress sedition, to destroy these robbers and parricides, who had thrown off all regard for magistracy, etc. About this time, Mosheim informs us, “kings, princes, and sovereign states, exerted themselves to check these rebels and enthusiasts in their career, by issuing out first, severe edicts to restrain their violence, and by employing at length, capital punishments to conquer their obstinacy.” But their number was too powerful to be easily restrained or soon reduced. In different places, under different leaders, they drove forward in those destructive measures always attendant on war. This army of the peasants was a promiscuous assemblage of various characters, some were Anabaptists, some Lutherans, some Catholics, some christians, and some republicans, but the greater part, we have reason to suppose, had no fixed principles either in religion or politics, but were determined to throw off the oppressive yoke of their tyrannical masters.

They, it seems, first made themselves masters of Mulhausen, an imperial city in Alsace; here they expelled the monks and magistrates, and elected new senators, of whom Muncer was one; and it was in a pitched battle near this town that the peasants were defeated and Muncer was slain.

The populous city of Munster was taken by these revolutionists in 1533, and held by them about three years. “Munster is the capital city of the bishopric so called in the circle of Westphalia. It is the largest of all the Westphalian bishoprics and yields the bishop, who is a prince of the empire, seventy thousand ducats a year. There are in the city five collegiate and six parish churches, a college belonging to the jesuits, a great number of convents, and other religious houses. The chapter consists of forty noblemen, and maintains seven regiments of soldiers.”

Such was the state of this city, according to Robinson, before the late revolutions. Munster is rendered famous in the history of the Baptists, both by the censures of their enemies, and the apologies of their friends; but after all that has been said on both sides, I am sorry to find that so imperfect an account has been given by either, of the memorable tragedy which was acted here, and which has been handed down to posterity by a thousand Pedo-baptist writers, as an everlasting monument of infamy to the Baptists, and a thundering memento against the dangerous principles of believer’s baptism. At Munster was brought to a close the Rustic War, not by treaty, but by the defeat, and the indiscriminate slaughter of the rustics, and the utter extirpation of their confederacy. I find no description of the scenes, which were transacted here, except that given by Mosheim; and as his account of the Rustic War is throughout peculiarly unfair, we have good reasons for concluding that his history of the Munster affair is of the same character. According to this prejudiced author, “certain Dutch Anabaptists chose this city for the scene of their horrid operations, and committed in it such deeds, as would surpass all credibility, were they not attested in a manner that excludes every degree of uncertainty. A. handful of mad-men, under the guidance of John Matthison, John Bockhold, or John Leyden, and one Gerhard, made themselves masters of the populous city of Munster, deposed the magistrates, committed enormous crimes — made this city the seat of their New Jerusalem and proclaimed John of Leyden, who was a tailor, king of their new hierarchy.” Thus Mosheim ascribes the whole of the Munster affair to a handful of mad Anabaptists.

They must indeed have fought like the band of Leonidas to have taken this famous capital. No, it was not a handful of mad Anabaptists; it was a powerful, and probably the main division of the army of the peasants, that besieged and took this city, which henceforward became their principal place of rendezvous, and from which they sent forth agents and detachments to other places. What were the horrid crimes they committed we are not informed, but we may conclude they were such as are always attendant on war and conquest. They are complained of for deposing the magistrates, etc. This is truly a ridiculous charge. They must have been fools indeed, not to have taken the government of the city, which they had fairly conquered, out of the hands of their enemies, and put it in those of their friends. They made John Bockhold king or chief legislator. But what was there novel, or wicked, or ridiculous in this? Every one acquainted with the history of Germany, knows that it abounded with free imperial cities, which were independent of any foreign power, and were governed by their own legislators and laws. The peasants, in making Munster an independent sovereignty, acted in perfect conformity with the maxims and examples of their country, and they doubtless had sufficient reasons for making John of Leyden, though a tailor by trade, their chief magistrate. “But the reign,” says Mosheim, “of this tailor king was transitory, and his end deplorable. For the city of Munster was, in the year 1536, retaken after a siege of fourteen months, by Count Waldeck, the bishop and sovereign of the place, etc.” This worldly ecclesiastic was doubtless assisted by the other princes of Germany. John of Leyden was put to a most painful and ignominious death, the confederacy of the peasants was broken, and multitudes of them suffered death in the most cruel and tormenting forms. Vengeance and havoc every where pursued those who had been any ways concerned in the Rustic War.

We shall now close with some general observations on this unhappy affair.

We have thus seen that the Rustic War lasted about eleven years, and that the number of the insurgents was three hundred thousand. Many of them were doubtless either persuaded or terrified soon to return to their former stations and employments. And we may reasonably suppose that according to the success or adversity which attended the measures of the peasants, so their number increased or diminished.

Mosheim has ascribed the whole of this unhappy war to the influence of religious fanaticism, and has east the whole odium of it on the German Anabaptists. This statement is certainly both erroneous and unfair. That much fanaticism mingled with the operations of this war, and that many Anabaptists were concerned in it, we do not deny; but it was the freedom of their country, and not the defense of their creed, which led them to unite with the struggling peasants.

Dr. Isaac Milner, the brother, and continuator of the history of the late Joseph Milner, has touched upon the tumults of Germany, and his account, though by no means free from the prejudice of his party, is by far more candid and probable than Mosheim’s. He acknowledges that “the causes of the Rustic War, or the war of the peasants, were purely secular.” A writer in the Encyclopedia observes, “It must be acknowledged that the rise of the numerous insurrections of this period ought not to be attributed to religious opinions. The first insurgents groaned under the most grievous oppressions. They took up arms principally in defense of their civil liberties; and of the commotions that took place, the Anabaptist leaders, viz. Muncer, Stubner, Stork, etc. seem rather to have availed themselves, than to have been the prime movers.” This writer concludes that “a great part of the main body was Anabaptists; “ this may be true when we consider in how vague and indefinite a sense the term was then used; “that a great part also were Roman Catholics, and a still greater of persons who had no religious opinions at all.” “Bishop Jewel, in his defense of the Apology of the church of England in reply to Harding, etc. answers thus:

The hundred thousand Boors in Germany of whom you speak, for the greatest part, were adversaries unto Luther, and understood no part of the gospel; but conspired together as they said against the cruelty and oppression of their lords,” etc. Most writers compute the number of those, who perished in these insurrections, at a hundred thousand, and that they were nearly all Anabaptists. If this statement be correct, the German Anabaptists were literally a church militant, engaged in a very unsuccessful campaign. And this church was truly large, for besides the hundred thousand slain in war, many thousands were left to be dragooned, tortured, burnt, drowned, confined in prisons, and driven into exile. This statement gives the dippers much more than they ask. They do not pretend that there ever were at one time in Germany, any where near a hundred thousand advocates for their sentiments.

But Dr. Milner from Beausobre has made a statement which seems very likely to be near the truth. He supposes that this unfortunate war cost Germany the lives of more than fifty thousand men; 3 that is, of both sides, for many of the oppressors were slain, although the peasants were the greatest sufferers.

It is not our wish to justify acts of violence in men, by whatever name they are called, nor to apologize for the censurable acts of these rising peasants, whom oppression had made mad. We do not deny that many, who bore the name of Anabaptists, were found in their ranks. Many of them were doubtless such Anabaptists as we have found in Poland, who had rejected infant baptism, but who had never been baptized, nor were fit subjects for the ordinance. And multitudes, who were reputed Anabaptists, we have good reasons for believing, had no religious principles at all, but were so called by way of reproach, because they had adopted their notions of civil liberty. Although some of the measures pursued by the peasants cannot be justified, yet they set out in a righteous cause as their Manifesto shows. Baptist ministers were induced from this consideration, to encourage their attempts, to become chaplains in their armies, and this again induced many of their brethren to enlist under the standards of the strugglers for freedom, Many who were Baptists both in principle and practice, appear to have entertained the erroneous opinion so prevalent at a certain time in England among those who were called fifth monarchy men, that dominion is founded in grace, that the pure church establishment to which they were aspiring, was to be under the protection and guidance of religious rulers, who were to fouled a pure christian republic, to be governed wholly by the laws of Christ. Those who had not imbibed this opinion, were induced to hope that some good would come out of the struggles of the peasants, and that the present commotions of Germany would settle down in some system favorable to their views.

Many others doubtless united with the revolutionary party, either of their voluntary accord, or by the persuasion of their friends, without much reflection on the subject, only they knew their present condition was wretched, and they hoped that it might be made better in the end. But some of the Baptists of these times, it appears, were opposed to the Rustic War altogether. We are informed that a teacher by the name of Peter was beheaded at Amsterdam as guilty of the late insurrection, who had used his utmost endeavors to hinder it. But the whole crime of the civil war was laid to the charge of the Anabaptists, and all, who bore their name, whether they were such or not, were marked out as the objects of vengeance and death. If they had not taken a part in the insurrections, it was considered their principles lead to them, and therefore they were everywhere extirpated with fire and sword.

But why has the whole balance of the tumults in Germany been always east upon the Baptists? It has been their unhappiness to have some hand in other scenes of a similar nature. Many Baptists were in Ziska’s army in Bohemia, which besieged towns and took them, pulled down monasteries, expelled monks, and seized upon their revenues, and dealt out destruction and death to all who opposed them. In the army of Cromwell were many who had espoused the Baptist principles, and two of the regicides of Charles the first, viz. Harrison and Hutchinson, became Baptists after the death of the king. Harrison was at one time but a little below the Protector in authority and influence, Hutchinson was governor of Nottingham.

Baptists were in the Parliament, in the navy, and army of the commonwealth. Some were also engaged in the ill-fated expedition of the Duke of Monmouth, the rival of James the second. But for all these overt acts they have received a public pardon. Why have they not been charged with being the promoters of the civil wars in England, of the tumults of the commonwealth, and the murder of the English monarch? This would be as just as to charge them with being the authors of the insurrections in Germany. Why have not historians dealt as fairly in the case of Germany, as in that of England, and given to each party its due proportion of blame?

The following seems the only satisfactory solution of this mysterious affair. All parties are anxious to clear themselves of the reproach of an unsuccessful and unpopular enterprise. 4 Such a one was that of the German peasants. The Catholic historians of the times excuse all their brethren, who were concerned in it, and lay the whole blame at the door of Luther and the reformation. The Lutheran historians, from whom the English took their accounts, endeavored to clear themselves by accusing the Anabaptists of being the prime movers and principal promoters of the insurrections. The papists were doubtless very unfair and erroneous, in charging the reformation with being the direct cause of the troubles, wars, and commotions, of which it was certainly no more than the indirect and innocent occasion; but they were not mistaken when they charged the Lutherans with being deeply engaged in the Rustic War. The Lutherans have conceded that some of their party perverted and misconstrued the reformers’ doctrine of christian liberty, and flocked to the standard of the rebels. But the papists are not content with these concessions, they have constantly laid theWHOLE mischief of this intestine dissension at the door of Luther and his disciples, etc. “This,” say they, “is the fruit of the new doctrine! This is the fruit of Luther’s gospel!” It is certain that the disturbances, in the very city of Munster, were begun by a Pedobaptist minister of the Lutheran persuasion, whose name was Bernard Rotman or Rothman; that he was assisted in his endeavors by other ministers of the same persuasion; and that they began to stir up tumults, that is, teach revolutionary principles, a year before the Anabaptist ring-leaders, as they are called, visited the place. These things the papists knew, and they failed not to improve them to their advantage. They uniformly insisted that Luther’s doctrine led to rebellion, that his disciples were the prime movers of the insurrections, and they also asserted that a hundred and thirty thousand Lutherans perished in the Rustic War. Such were the aspersions east upon the Lutheran party by the papists.

And though many Catholics were engaged in the war, yet the Lutherans knew it would be unavailing to retort upon them; for whatever resistance the oppressed Catholics had shown, the Catholic doctrine did not lead to it, for that taught nothing but blind and dumb submission to every law of their superiors, whether civil or religious. But as the Anabaptists were the advocates for liberty, and as many of them had taken a part in the war which they hoped would set them free, the Lutherans found it easy to cast all the blame upon them. And they having no one to tell their story as it was, nor put in any plea for them, which could be heard, the Munster affair, as it was first related by the Lutheran historians, has been transmitted from one generation to another, without any correction or amendment; it has been transcribed by a thousand Pedobaptist pens, as a salutary memento for the seditious dippers; it is the dernier resort of every slanderous declaimer against them; it is the great gun, the ultima ratio of every disputant, which they keep in reserve against the time of need.

But why all this din about Munster and the War of the Peasants, since everybody knows, who knows ally thing of the matter, that it was not a quarrel about baptism, but about the feudal system; that it was not for water, but in opposition to the horrid oppressions of the princes, that the German peasants rose.

Why are not the Independents and the Congregationalists their offspring, visited from age to age with the deeds of a few of their zealous predecessors, and of the promiscuous multitude, who attached themselves to their cause, and bore their name? They were accused by their enemies of everything horrid and flagitious. “The most eminent English writers, not only among the patrons of episcopacy, but even among those very Presbyterians, with whom they are now united, have thrown out against them the bitterest accusations and the severest invectives, that the warmest imagination could invent. They have not only been represented as delirious, mad, fanatical, illiterate, factious, and ignorant both of natural and revealed religion, but also as abandoned to all kinds of wickedness and sedition, and as the only authors of the odious parricide committed on the person of Charles I. Rapin represents the Independents under such horrid colors, that were his portrait just, they could not deserve to enjoy the light of, the sun or breathe the free air of Britain, much less to be treated with indulgence and esteem by those who have the cause of virtue at heart.” But Mosheim could discover the tongue of slander in these representations; he could apologize for the Independents so far, that Dr.

Machine has thought it necessary to give him a check. He could, in giving their history, adopt “the wise and prudent maxim, not to judge of the spirit and principles of a sect, from the actions or expressions of a handful of its members, but from the manners, customs, opinions, and behavior of the generality of those who compose it, etc.” But no such things could be thought of in treating of the German Anabaptists.

Why this partiality in cases so exactly alike? The answer is plain, the Independents held to infant baptism, which the Anabaptists rejected.

The respectable body of Presbyterians have at different times been loaded with the foulest aspersions. A certain writer observes, that “the Presbyterians in England, in the meridian of their strength, differed from popery only as a musket differs from a cannons, or as a kept mistress from a street-walking prostitute.” Millot, in speaking of the Parliament army, says “it breathed only the fervor of Presbeterianism and the rage of battle; and knew no pleasures but prayer and military duty.” We forbear to select examples of the kind, and these we have related with no other view, than to shiny the reader the impropriety of judging of the character of a sect or party from the accounts of its adversaries.

We shall now close our observations on the affair of Munster. The sum and substance of the matter as represented by the adversaries of the Baptists, is, that they had no existence in the christian world until the beginning of the sixteenth century; that then they originated all at once, in a stormy, seditious period, out of the scum of the reformation, and increased so rapidly, that in a very short time, they led about a quarter of a million into the field to defend and propagate their opinions, and that a hundred thousand of them were slain!! The sum and substance of the matter as understood and conceded by the Baptists, we have already stated. We have shown before, that our denomination did not originate with the tumults of Germany, but with John the Baptist, in the land of Palestine, fifteen hundred years before they happened. It is hoped that no Pedobaptist will in future follow us with the riot of Munster, or the seditions of Germany; but if they do, we can only inform them, that we shall consider, as we always have done, that for the want of argument they resort to slander.

We have thus endeavored to give a general view of our Baptist brethren in countries abroad and in times of old, and we have seed that they have generally been described by all historians, as a dangerous set of men, whose principles lead to rebellion and sedition, and that for this reason they have been proscribed in some governments, banished from others, and in others burnt and drowned, and allowed to live no where only as a matter of favor and indulgence. Why should they thus be universally abhorred and persecuted? Baptism is a thing so inoffensive in itself, that if it were repeated every month, no serious consequences could follow to any one, except to the person baptized. There must be something more than water in this affair; and that something is, that the Baptists have held from time immemorial that the civil magistrate hath no right to give or enforce law in matters of religion and conscience. This principle has been at the bottom of all their sufferings in every age. And this principle hath subjected the Quakers and Independents, properly so called, to the terrible persecutions, which they have at different times endured. The Baptists, Independents and Quakers have each their peculiarities, but they are the best qualified to live together of any three sects in christendom; for they all separate religion from civil patronage, they are each willing that every one should be his own judge in matters of conscience, and all that either of them has ever asked of civil government is to be let alone.