Lord, notwithstanding that he was just come out of prison at Metlyng. He gathered the faithful together, and formed a church agreeably to God's command. But he could not escape the foils of a crafty knave, who, feigning a desire to learn from him, as a minister, the nature and ground of the truth, brought with him many servants, whom he ordered to lay hold and capture this Juriaen Vaser when a suitable opportunity should occur. This was faithfully performed.' Vaser was beheaded. In the year 1545, "Brother Hans Blietel, having been sent by the Church to Riet, in Bavaria, was there apprehended; for money had been offered by them of Riet to any one that should take him. There was in consequence a traitor who gave him good words, affected much zeal, wished ardently to be with him, and drew him to his house. The brother thought it was for the welfare of his soul, and went with him." The wretch endeavoured to extort money from him, and, failing in that, betrayed him to the magistrates, who condemned him to the flames. "When the dear brother Hans reached the place of execution outside the city, he thought upon the Church, and called out with a loud voice, in the midst of the assembled people, asking if there was any one present who would have courage to inform the Church of God in Moravia, that 'I, Hans Blietel, have been burnt for the sake of the Gospel, at Riet, in Bavaria.' A zealous man, full of piety, then discovered himself. His zeal was inflamed by this question, and, as he could not get near Hans, he called out to him and said that he would tell and make known to the Church in Moravia that he had been burnt at Riet for the faith."†

*Martyrology, 161.

† Martyrology, 268. The Martyrology is an abridgment of a large folio volume, in Dutch, by T. J. van Braght, a Mennonite minister. The first edition was published at Dordrecht, in 1660; the second, illustrated by more than a hundred engravings, at Amsterdam, in 1685. A full

SECTION VII.

Baptists in England-Proclamation of Henry VIII.-Latimer's Sermon before Edward VI.-Baptists excepted from "Acts of Pardon "-Royal Commissions against them-Ridley-Cranmer-Joan Boucher-RogersPhilpot-Bishop Hooper's Scruples-George Van Pare-Protestant Persecutions Inexcusable-Congregations in Essex and Kent-Bonner -Gardiner-Disputations in Gaol-Queen Elizabeth's Proclamation against Baptists-Bishop Jewel-Archbishop Parker-Dutch Baptists.

WH

HEREVER the Reformation prevailed, Baptist sentiments sprang up with it. So it was in England. In 1534, when Henry VIII. assumed the headship of the English Church, he issued two proclamations against heretics. The first referred to certain persons who had presumed to dispute about baptism and the Lord's Supper, some of whom were foreigners: these were ordered to depart the realm within eight or ten days. The second stated more explicitly that foreigners who had been baptized in infancy, but had renounced that baptism and had been re-baptized, had entered England, and were spreading their opinions over the kingdom. They were commanded to withdraw within twelve days, on pain of suffering death if they remained. Either some of them did remain, or others visited England the following years, for ten were burnt, by pairs, in different places, in 1535, and fourteen more in 1536. In 1538, six Dutch Baptists were detected and imprisoned; four of them bore faggots at St. Paul's Cross, and two were burnt. Bishop Latimer refers to these circumstances in a sermon preached before Edward VI., in the year 1549. "The Anabaptists," says he, "that were burnt here in divers towns in England (as I heard of

translation of the work, by J. Daniel Rupp, was published at Lancaster, Pennsylvania, in an octavo volume of 1048 pages, in 1837. The late Rev. Benjamin Millard, of Wigan, was the author of the translation issued by the Hanserd Knollys Society.

credible men, I saw them not myself), went to their death even intrépide, as ye will say, without any fear in the world, cheerfully. Well, let them go!"* That good man was blind on the subject of religious freedom, as the Reformers generally were. He and his fellow-labourers might think for themselves; but if others ventured to do so, and thought themselves into Baptist principles, the fire was ready for them, and even Latimer could say, "Well, let them go!" Let us be thankful that the "times of that ignorance" have passed away.

There is some reason to believe that a Baptist church existed in Cheshire at a much earlier period. If we may credit the traditions of the place, the church at Hill Cliffe is five hundred years old. A tombstone has been lately dug up in the burial-ground belonging to that church, bearing date 1357. The origin of the church is assigned, in the "Baptist Hand-Book," to the year 1523. This, however, is certain, that a Mr. Warburton, pastor of the church, died there in 1594. How long the church had been then in existence there are no written records to testify.†

Henry VIII. had a keen scent for heresy. He claimed to be an infallible judge in that matter, as free from error as the Pope himself. And so he was, no doubt; the one was as good as the other. Baptists were particularly distasteful to him. In the year 1538, Peter Tasch, a Baptist, was apprehended in the territories of the Landgrave of Hesse. It was discovered on searching him that he was in correspondence with Baptists in England, and expected soon to go thither in order to aid them in propagating their opinions. The Landgrave gave information to the King, who immediately appointed a Commission, of which

* Sermons, p. 160. Parker Society's Edition.

These statements are made on the authority of the Rev. A. Kenworthy, the present pastor of the church.

Cranmer was chairman, charging the Commissioners to adopt severe measures against the alleged heretics if they should be detected, to burn all Baptist books, and, if they did not recant, to burn the Baptists themselves. They were not slow to obey the King's commandment. On the 24th of November, three men and one woman escaped the fire by bearing faggots at St. Paul's Cross; that is, they were brought before the people, assembled opposite the great

cross outside St. Paul's Cathedral, and walked in procession, each with a bundle of faggots on the shoulder, to signify that they had deserved to be burnt; after which they confessed and renounced their supposed errors. Three days after a man and a woman were committed to the flames in Smithfield. All these were natives of Holland. Fuller, the Church historian, writes of them in his peculiarly quaint

style. He says: "Dutchmen flocked faster than formerly into England. Many of these had active souls; so that whilst their hands were busied about their manufactures, their heads were also beating about points of Divinity. Hereof they had many rude notions, too ignorant to manage them themselves, and too proud to crave the direction of

others. Their minds had a by-stream of activity more than what sufficed to drive on their vocation; and this waste of their souls they employed in needless speculations, and soon after began to broach their strange opinions, being branded with the general name of Anabaptists."* This is amusing enough. And yet it is a melancholy specimen of

* Church History, book v. sect. I, II.