1536 the "Articles about Religion" were sent out by the Convocation, and published by the king's authority. It reads:

Amongst other cures committed unto this our princely office, whereunto it hath pleased God in his infinite mercy and goodness to call us, we have always esteemed and thought (as we also yet esteem and think) this to be most chief, most ponderous, and of most weight, that his holy word and commandments may sincerely without lett or hindrance, be of our subjects truly believed, and reverently kept and observed; and that unity and concord in opinions, namely in such things as doth concern our religion, may increase and go forward, and all occasion of dissent and discord touching the same be repressed, and utterly extinguished. For the which cause we being of late, to our great regret, credibly advertised of such diversity of opinions, as have grown and sprongen in this our realm . . . . have not only in our own person at many times taken great pain, study, labour and travail, but also have caused our bishops and other the most learned men of our clergy in our whole realm to be assembled in convocation for the full debatement and quiet determination of the same: where after long and mature deliberation and disputations had they have finally agreed upon the said matters; and we have caused the same to be published, willing, requiring and commanding you to accept, repute, and take them accordingly.

....

In harmony with these articles a rigorous persecution was kept up throughout this reign. Under Edward VI. there was a relaxation in the execution of the law, though no disposition to repudiate the principle. Cranmer argued for persecution with overwhelming force, but Edward, in the tenderness of his youth, signed the martyr's death-warrant with tears.5 The return to Romanism under Bloody Mary produced the most distressing persecution. So great were the cruelties that Protestantism seemed well-nigh crushed out. As Elizabeth's claim to the throne was dependent on the legitimacy of Protestantism in the kingdom, it was brought into power again to sustain her cause. She also backed the ecclesiastical courts with the civil sword, and made it impossible to say that the victories of the church were bloodless.

Within this period there developed gradually an opposition, not only to uniformity as it then existed, but even to the idea that any creed should be forced upon the people. Frequent 4 BURNET, Hist. of Ref., Pocock ed., pp. 272, 273.

5 This is related concerning the condemnation of Joan of Kent. (BURNet, Hist. Ref., Vol. II, p. 112.)

references are made to the rise of this new thought. It was decried as anarchy. Its advocates were considered as especially dangerous. They were greatly maligned, and doubtless were more or less misunderstood. Our reports, coming as they do from their opponents, cannot be expected to be favorable to them, or even to be impartially truthful.

Concerning the year 1540 we are told that

notwithstanding the care of the king [Henry VIII.] about religion, and the security of some of his acts against some supposed errors; yet divers greater and real errors crept in about these days into the realm: but the king being resolved to leave such as held them unto his laws, excluded them his general pardon at the conclusion of the Parliament in July, this year. The errors were these; That infants ought not to be baptized; and if they were baptized they ought to he rebaptized when they come to lawful age. That it is not lawful for a Christian man to bear office or rule in the commonwealth. That no man's laws ought to be obeyed. That it is not lawful for a Christian man to take any oath before a Judge, &c.'

From the statement of these "errors it appears that the errorists were what were then called Anabaptists, and that they held that religious laws were not to be made by men nor obeyed when imposed on human authority. No reference is here made to civil authority or the civil functions of the magistrate. It is merely the assertion of the individual Christian's right to interpret the Scriptures for himself.

Archbishop Sandys, who sustained the ecclesiastical functions of the magistrate with great diligence, was at his prime at the middle of the sixteenth century. His opposition to all dissent was virulent. In one of his numerous sermons intended to strengthen the king's ecclesiastical power he burst out exclaiming :

Barbarous therefore, and wicked is the opinion of the anabaptists, which condemn all superiority, authority, and government in the church.7 The archbishop seriously charges this sect with holding the equality and responsibility of the people in their relation to divine law. Such views could not exist except with those who concede the Christian's right of private judgment. ·

JOHN STRYPE, Eccl. Memorials, Vol. I, pp. 552 f.

1 Sandys' Sermons, Parker Society.

sermons

At about this time (1550) Roger Hutchinson preached two on "Oppression, Affliction and Patience." In the second of these he shows that he has been impressed by the Anabaptists' demand for liberty of thought in religious matters, and their view of the significance of Christ's refusal to accept civil office:

Aye [saith the master Anabaptist], when the people would have made him (Christ) a king, he conveyed himself out of sight, and would not take on him any such office. Christ, the Son of God, would not have refused these offices and functions if with the profession of a Christian man it were agreeable with the temporal sword to punish offenders, to sustain any public room and to determine controversies and suits; if it were lawful for private men to prosecute such suits and to sue just and rightful titles. He non est dominatus, sed passus; would be no magistrate, no judge, no governor, but suffered and sustained trouble, injury, wrong and oppression patiently.

In Hutchinson's answer to this view he stated with clearness their teaching concerning persecution :

Instead of the temporal sword which you say Christ's coming hath put down, you teach that now excommunication is to be exercised upon offenders, so that they who in the Old Testament were punished with death, are only to be excommunicated.

Whatever else may be said of this arraignment of the Anabaptists, it is certain that the author found no place for coercion in their system of thought. He represents them as laying stress upon Christ's example in his refusal to unite his religious character and purpose with civil office. It is noteworthy that he does. not charge them with denying the civil function of the magistrate.

"A Short Treatise of Politike power and of the true obedience which Subjects owe to Kings and other civil Governours was printed in 1556, and is ascribed to one John Poinet. He says:

Some there be that will have too little obedience, as the Anabaptists. For they, because they heare of a christian liberty, would have all politike power taken away; and so indeed no obedience. . . . . For the Anabaptists mistake christian liberty, thinking that men may live without sin . . . . and that there fore God ordained civil power (his minister) to rule him and to call him back whensoever he should pass the limits of his duty, and would that an obedience should be given him.'

8 Works of Roger Hutchinson, Parker Society, p. 323.

• Commonwealth Tracts, p. 22. Newberry Lib.

Here this sect is represented as being peculiar in their thought in that they make too much of Christian liberty and too little of obedience. They are said to make a distinction between the obedience due the civil authority and that due directly to God. The magistrate, as a minister of God, is to rule man, restraining him "whensoever he should pass the limits of his duty." There is no mention as to what realm it is from which "all politike power" is to be taken, but since the civil ruler is admitted to be a minister of God and to have a sphere, it is clear that it is obedience in ecclesiastical matters that is refused to the king.

But that the incompleteness and vagueness of these statements arise from the lack of knowledge in the authors quoted, rather than in the minds of the Anabaptists, is made plain by the fuller presentation of their views by John Knox, the Scottish reformer. He has preserved for us an important document of the Anabaptists in a treatise entitled "An Answer to a Great Nomber of blasphemous Cavillations written by an Anabaptist' ("Works," Vol. V). He was candid enough to print these cavillations in his refutation of them. Considered an adept in handling this heresy, he doubtless was well acquainted with its advocates. The Duke of Northumberland wrote to Cecil in October, 1552, requesting that the king appoint Mr. Knox to the bishopric of Rochester, since "he would be a whetstone to the archbishop of Canterbury and a confounder of the Anabaptists lately sprung up in Kent." That Knox is made use of by the duke is seen by a letter written in December of the same year, "with which he returns Master Knox . . . . because he loves not to have to do with men neither grateful nor pleasable." From this it may be readily inferred that Knox was acquainted with the teachings of this class of thinkers some years previous to the publication of his answer to the "Cavillations." It is believed that this answer came out first in 1560, though it was republished at several later dates. In it the cavillator, arguing against the Calvinists, attacks their morals. He accuses the Genevan reformers of "indured malice" for having set forth books affirming that it was lawful to persecute and put to death 10 Cal. State Papers, Domestic Series, 1552, pp. 46-8.

such as dissent from them in controversies of religion. He affirms that

afore they came to authoritie they were of another judgment, and did both say and write that no man ought to be persecuted for his conscience saik; but now they are not only become persecutors, but they also have given as far as lieth in them the sword into the hands of bloodie tyrantes. Be these I pray you the shepe whom Christ sent forth in the midst of wolves? can the shepe persecute the wolf? doth Abel kill Cain? doth David (thoh he might) kill Saul? Shortly, doeth he which is born of the Spirit kill him which was born after the fleshe? (Pp. 207 f.)

Knox, not regarding a work on predestination the proper place to interject a discussion on this topic, replies:

Your Master Belius affirmeth that lawful it is not to the civil magistrat to use the sworde against heretikes. To whom that godlie learned man, Theodorus Beza, hath answered. In which if you or your Master thinke not yourselves fully answered; you may put pen to the paper when you list looking to receave answer with convenient expedicion. (Pp. 228 f.)

Yet the temptation is too strong to be resisted, and the reformer plunges into the argument:

sonne..

Where ye aske, If these be the shepe which Christ sent furth in the middes of wolves, and if the shepe can persecute the wolves? And I demand for answer, Whether Moses was a shepe or wolf, and whether that fearful slaughter executed upon idolaters, without respect of persons, was not as great a persecution as the burning of Servetus and Joan of Kent? To me it appeareth greater. For to them was granted no place of repentance: no admonition was given unto them, but without further delay or question, was the brother commanded to kill the brother; yea the father not to spare the When further ye ask, If Abel did kill Cayn, or David Saul, or he which is born of the Spirit did kill him which is borne of the flesh? I answer, If your question be of Abel, David and Isaak in their proper persons, that none of them did kill any of these fore named. But if thereof ye inferre more, Is it lawful for any of God's Elect to kill any man for his conscience sake? I answer that if under the name of conscience ye include whatsoever seemeth good in your owne eyes, that then ye affirm a great absurditie manifestly repugning" as well to Gods law as to the examples of those whom God hath highly praised in his holie Scriptures. But because continually ye claime to your conscience, to remove from you that vain coverture, I ask, If the Murtherer, adulterer, or any other malefactor, should be exempted from punishment of the law, although he alledge that, he oght to be mocked that will claim the patrocinie" of conscience, when that he doth Repugnant. 12 Patronage, support.