ANABAPTISTS. 



illation. Here they soon gained over a portion of 

 the excited i*>pnlacc, iiml, among tin- rest, lloth- 

 inaiin, :i Protestant clergyman, initl the counsellor 

 hnippcrdolling. The magistrates in \ain excluded 

 them from tlir churches. They obtained possession 

 of the council house by violence. Their numbers 

 ilaily increased, and, towards tin- cud of the year, 

 they extorted a treaty, securing tlie religious liberty 

 of both i>arlies. Being strengthened by the acces- 

 sion of the restless spirits of the adjacent cities, they 

 -..on inatle themselves masters of the town by force, 

 and excelled tlu-ir adversaries. Matthiesen came 

 forward as their prophet, and ]>erMiaded the people 

 to devote their gold and silver, and movable pro- 

 perty, to the common use, and to burn all their 

 books but the Bible. But in a sally against the 

 bishop of Monster, who had laid siege to the city, 

 lie ht his life. He was succeeded in the prophetic 

 office by BockhoUl and Knipperdolling. The 

 churches were destroyed, and twelve judges were 

 . er the tribes, as in Israel ; but even this form 

 of government was soon abolished, and Bockhold, 

 under the name of John of Leyden, raised himself to 

 the dignity of king of New Zion (so the Anabaptists 

 of Monster styled their kingdom), and caused him- 

 self to be formally crowned. From this period 

 (1;V{4), Munsterwas a theatre of all the excesses of 

 fanaticism, lust, and cruelty. The introduction of 

 polygamy, and the neglect of civil order, concealed 

 from the infatuated people the avarice and madness 

 of the young tyrant, and the daily increase of danger 

 from abroad. Bockhold lived in princely luxury 

 and magnificence; he sent out seditious proclama- 

 tions against neighbouring rulers, against the pope 

 ami Luther ; he tlireatened to destroy with his mob 

 all who differed in opinion from him, made himself 

 an object of terror to his subjects by frequent execu- 

 tions, and, while famine and pestilence raged in the 

 city, persuaded the wretched, deluded inhabitant- to 

 a stubborn resistance of their besiegers. The city 

 was at last taken, June 24, 1535, by treachery, 

 though not without a brave defence, in which Roth- 

 mann and others were killed, and the kingdom of 

 the Anabaptists destroyed by the execution of the 

 chief men. Bockhold and two of his most active 

 companions, Knipperdolling and Krechting, were 

 tortured to death with red-hot pincers, and then 

 hung up in iron cages on St Lambert's steeple at 

 Munster, as a terror to all rebels. In the mean 

 time, some jf the twenty-six apostles, who were 

 sent out by Bockhold to extend the limits of his 

 kingdom, had been successful in various places, and 

 many independent teachers, who preached the same 

 doctrines, continued active in the work of founding 

 a new empire of pure Christians, and propagating 

 their visions and revelations in the countries above- 

 mentioned. It is true that they rejected the prac- 

 tice of polygamy, community of goods, and intoler- 

 ance towards those of different opinions, which had 

 prevailed in Munster ; but they enjoined upon their 

 adherents the other doctrines of the early Anabap- 

 tists, and certain heretical opinions in regard to the 

 humanity of Christ, occasioned by the controversies 

 of that day about the sacrament. The most cele- 

 brated of these Anabaptist prophets were Melchior 

 Hoffmann, and David Joris. f he former, a furrier 

 from Swabia, first appeared as a teacher in Kiel, in 

 1527 ; afterwards, in 1529, in Emden ; and finally, 

 in Stmsburg, where, in 1540, he died in prison. He 

 formed, chiefly by his magnificent promises of a 

 future elevation of himself and his disciples, a pecu- 

 liar srct, whose scattered members retained the 

 name of Hoffmannists, in Germany, till their remains 

 were lost among the Anabaptists. They have never 

 owned that Hoffmann recanted before his death. 



l>a\id Joris, or George, n class-painter of Delft, 

 born 1501, and rc-kipli/.ed in 1534, showed more 

 depth of mind and wiirinth of imagination in his 

 various \vork-. .\niid-t the ronfii-ion of ideas 

 which prevails in them, they da/./.le by their eleva- 

 tion and fervour. In hi-, endeavour- to unite the 

 di-coi-danl parties of the Aiiahapti-ts, he collected a 

 party of quiet adherent- in ihe country, who studied 

 his works (as the ( iiehtelians did those of liohme), 

 e-pecially his hook of miracles, which appeared ;:t 

 Deventer in 15k>, and revered him as a kind of new 

 Messiah. I'n-ettled in his opinions, he trav died a 

 long time from place to place, till, at la-t. to avoid 

 per-ecution, in I5o4, he became a citiy.cn ot Br.le, 

 under the name of John of Bruges. In I :">.'<<>. after 

 an honourable life, he died there, among the Calvin- 

 ists. In 1559, his long-concealed heresy was first 

 made public. He was accused*, though without 

 much reason, of profligate doctrines and conduct, and 

 the council of Bale condemned him, and ordered his 

 body to be burnt. A friend of Joris was Nicholas, 

 the founder of the Familists, who do not Ix'long, 

 however, to the Anabaptists. Afier the disturbance- 

 at Munster, an opinion slowly gained ground among 

 the Protestants, tliat no heretic could be punished 

 with drat h unless he was guilty of exciting disturb- 

 ances ; hence these and similar parties of separatists 

 were permitted to remain unmolested, provided they 

 continued quiet. But, till after the middle of the 

 16th century, prophets were constantly rising up 

 among the Anabaptists, and subverting civil order. 

 Of the heretics executed by Alva in the Spanish 

 Netherlands, a large proportion were Anabaptists. 

 In fact, they were never worthy of toleration, till 

 quiet and good order were introduced among them. 

 The institutions of Menno were the first occasion of 

 this chance. This judicious man, about the middle 

 of the 16th century, united them in regular societies, 

 which fonned an independent church, under the 

 name of Mennoniles, Mennists, or Anabaptists, as 

 they are still called in the north of Germany and in 

 Holland, imitating strictly the peculiarities of the 

 primitive apostolical church. But he could not pre- 

 vent the division, which took place among them as 

 early as 1554, in regard to the degree of severity 

 necessary in case of excommunication. The stricter 

 party punished every individual transgression against 

 morality and church order with excommunication, 

 and carried their severity so far that near relations, 

 even husbands and wives, were obliged to renounce 

 all connexion with one another, in case of such pun- 

 ishment. The more moderate party resorted to ex- 

 communication only in case of long-continued dis- 

 obedience to the commands of the Holy Scripture- . 

 Moreover, they never inflicted this punishment till 

 after various kinds of warnings and reproofs (gradua 

 adaionitionis), and even then it did not extend be- 

 yond the relation of the individual excommunicated 

 with the church. As neither party would yield, and 

 the strict often excluded the moderate from their 

 communion, the Anabaptists have continued, to this 

 day, divided into two parties. The moderate party 

 were called fPalerlanders, because their earliest 

 congregations lived in the Waterland, on the 1'am- 

 pus in the north of Holland, and in Franeker. By 

 the strict party they were styled the Gross, and even 

 the Dung-carts, as a designation of their inferior 

 purity. This latter party, who consisted of the 

 Frieslanders in and about Emden, Flemish refugees 

 (Flemingians), and Germans, called themselves the 

 Pure (Die Feinen), i. e. the Blessed, the Strict. 

 Menno did not wholly adopt the excessive rigour of 

 the Pure, nor yet would he abandon the Frieslanders, 

 among whom he taught. Immediately after his 

 death, in 1565, a contest broke out among the Pure, 



