ANABAPTISTS. 



149 



and they divided into three parties. Of these, the 

 Flemingians were more severe and fanatical than the 

 rest, and maintained the utmost severity in regard to 

 excommunication ; the Frieslanders did not indeed 

 exercise this discipline on whole congregations, nor 

 extend the curse, in the case of individuals, to the 

 destruction of their family relations ; ihe Germans 

 were distinguished from the Frieslanders only by 

 more carefully avoiding all luxury. To the party of 

 these Germans belonged those who were settled in 

 Holstein, Prussia, Dantzic, the Palatinate of the 

 Rhine, Juliers, Alsace, and Switzerland, and the 

 numerous Anabaptists, who inhabited Moravia till 

 the thirty years' war. In 1591, they were united 

 again with the Frieslanders by means of the concept 

 of Cologne, so called, or articles of faith, chiefly be- 

 ause their separation was injurious to commerce, in 

 which the Anabagtists soon became much engaged. 

 With these two seels, thus connected, after many 

 attempts towards reconciliation and friendship, the 

 strictest Anabaptists at length joined themselves, 

 and certain articles of faith were adopted by the 

 whole body. But these arrangements were insuf- 

 ficient to check the bitterness with which they per- 

 secuted one another. Soon after the union of the 

 Frieslanders with the Germans, a large number of 

 malcontents left the former, because they were dis- 

 pleased with this connexion,' and the laxness of the 

 church discipline. Under Jan Jacob, their teacher, 

 they constituted a separate church on the most rigid 

 principles. They were not numerous. During the 

 negotiations of the Flemingians with the Friesland- 

 ers, there appeared among the former a Friesland 

 peasant, Uke Wallis, who held the opinion that 

 Judas and the high-priests were blessed, because in 

 the murder of Jesus they had executed the designs 

 of God. In 1637, he collected a party of individuals, 

 who adopted this opinion, but still remained distinct 

 from the other Anabaptists, on account of their 

 aversion to the excessive strictness of the ancient 

 Flemingians. The Uke-VVallists, or Groningenists, 

 so called because the sect arose in the territory of 

 Groningen, received the malcontents of the united 

 parties, and therefore called themselves emphatically 

 the ancient Flemingians, or the ancient Frieslanders ; 

 but, by their adversaries, they were denominated the 

 Dompelers, i. e. Dippers, because some of their 

 churches used, in baptism, the three-fold immersion 

 of the whole body. The other Anabaptists, on the 

 contrary, regarded the sprinkling of the head as 

 sufficient. Beyond Friesland, though not numerous, 

 they spread to Lithuania and Dantzic. The Ana- 

 baptists in Gallicia, a part of the ancient Moravia, 

 who were divided, on account of their dress, into 

 Buttoners (those who buttoned their clothe*) and 

 Pinners (those who used wire pins instead of but- 

 tons, and wore long beards), and comprehended 

 about twenty-four families of the simple -country 

 people, agreed with the Uke-Wallists in maintain- 

 ing the ancient doctrines and strict exercise of ex- 

 communication, and were distinguished for purity of 

 morals. The ancient Flemingians, or the strictest 

 sect of Anabaptists, persevere firmly in the ancient 

 doctrines and practices of the sect. They reject the 

 word person, in the doctrine of the Trinity, and ex- 

 plain the purity of the human nature in Christ, ac- 

 cording to Menno, by saying, that he was created 

 out of nothing by God, in the womb of Mary, al- 

 though he was nourished by the blood of the mother. 

 They view the baptism of their own party as alone 

 valid, and practise the washing of feet, as an act 

 commanded by Christ, not only towards travellers of 

 their own party, like the Pure, but even in religious 

 assemblies. Like Anabaptists in general, they view 

 as improper, oaths, the discliarge of civil offices, and 



all defence of property, liberty, or life, winch re- 

 quires violence against their fellow men. Hence 

 they were formerly called, without distinction, the 

 unarmed Christians. Only in this particular, and in 

 church-discipline, are the ancient Flemingians more 

 strict than the other Anabaptists. Immorality, the 

 bearing of arms, marriage with a person out of their 

 church, extravagance in dress or furniture, they 

 punish by excommunication, without gradus admoni- 

 tionin, and extend their discipline to domestic life. 

 Those of Dantzic excluded persons who had their 

 portraits painted, as a punishment for their vanity. 

 In general, they strive to imitate, with the utmost 

 exactness, the simplicity and purity, and the demo- 

 cratic government, of the earliest apostolic church, 

 the restoration of which was originally the object of 

 every Anabaptist. Hence they appoint their teach- 

 ers by a vote of the whole church, forbid them to 

 enjoy any political office, and place but little value 

 on learning. In modern times, it is true, they have 

 gradually remitted their severity, and given up, in 

 particular, the rebaptism of proselytes from other 

 Anabaptist sects ; while Christians, who have only 

 been baptized in infancy, are admitted into any sect 

 of the Anabaptists only after rebaptism. The 

 Flemingians, Frieslanders, and Germans, who had 

 united, 1(549, and at first belonged also to the Pure, 

 gradually sided with the moderate party, with which 

 they are now reckoned. A division took place in 

 the general church of the united Waterlanders, 

 Flemingians, Frieslanders, and Germans, in 1664, on 

 account of the favour with which a part of them 

 regarded the doctrines of the Remonstrants. Galenus 

 Abrahamssohn, of Haen, a learned physician, and 

 teacher of the Anabaptists, of a gentle disposition 

 and distinguished talents, was the leader of this new 

 party, which was called, after him, the sect of the 

 Galenists. He maintained that sound doctrine is 

 less decisive of Christian worth than a pious life ; 

 and, therefore, church-communion should be refused 

 to no virtuous person, believing in the Scriptures. 

 But he betrayed, by these opinions, his Socinian 

 views of Christ and the Holy Ghost. Samuel Apos- 

 tool (also a physician and teacher of the church) 

 and the orthodox party in it, declared themselves 

 opposed to such innovations, and determined to 

 maintain their ancient faith and discipline. Besides 

 the branches of the ancient Flemingians, or the 

 proper Pure, described above, there are now two 

 leading parties of Anabaptists, the Apostoolians, 

 who, from their attachment to the ancient confes- 

 sions, founded on the doctrines of Menno, are called 

 Mennonites, in a more limited use of that word; and 

 the Galenists, who are likewise styled Remonstrants 

 and Arminian Baptists, after Arminius, the founder 

 of the Remonstrants. The Mennonites, as they be- 

 long to the moderate party, no longer maintain 

 Menno's doctrine of the creation of Christ in the 

 womb of Mary ; they rebaptize no proselyte, and 

 punish none but gross crimes with excommunication, 

 and that not without previous warning. They do 

 not require church-members utterly to avoid the 

 excommunicated. They carefully prohibit oaths, 

 military service, and the holding of civil offices. 

 The confession of faith of the true Mennonites, com- 

 posed by Cornelius Riss, one of their teachers, and 

 published in German, at Hamburg, in 1776, corres- 

 ponds, in almost every point, with the doctrines of 

 the Calvinist church. The Remonstrants have de- 

 parted the most widely from the faith and order of 

 the ancient Anabaptists. They reject all symbolical 

 books, and permit the most unrestrained reading ; 

 hence they have among them many Socinians. They 

 tolerate, in the bosom of the church, those of a dif- 

 ferent faith, and receive Christians of all creeds, but 



