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CHAPTER 18. — THE ANABAPTISTS AND THE
MUNSTER DISORDERS.
In the consideration of the Anabaptists and the Munster disorders:
(1.) There were several kinds of Anabaptists at the time of the Munster
troubles. Says Hase:
“These Anabaptists … were … a class of enthusiasts resembling each other,
but very unlike each other in moral and religious character. … Some of them
were persons who renounced the world, and others were slaves of their own
lusts; to some of them marriage was only an ideal religious communion of
spirit; to others it resolved itself into a general community of wives; some did
not differ from the reformers with respect to doctrine, but others rejected
original sin and the natural bondage of the will, denied that we are to be
justified by the merits of Christ alone, or that we can partake of his flesh and
maintained that our Lord’s body was from heaven, and not begotten of the
virgin.” f510
Mosheim:
“It is difficult to determine, with certainty, the particular spot which gave
birth to that seditious and pestilential sect of Anabaptists. … It is most
probable that several persons of this odious class made their appearance at the
same time in different countries. … The first Anabaptist doctors of any
eminence were, almost all, heads and leaders of particular sects. For it must be
carefully observed, that though all these projectors of a new, unspotted and
perfect church were comprehended under the general name of Anabaptists, on
account of their opposing the baptism of infants, and their rebaptizing such as
had received the sacrament in childhood in other churches, yet they were,
from their very origin, subdivided into various sects which differed from each
other in points of no small moment. The most pernicious faction of all those
that composed this motley multitude, was that which pretended that the
founders of the new and perfect church, already mentioned, were under the
direction of a divine impulse, and were armed against all opposition, by the
power of working miracles. It was this detestable faction which began its
fanatical work in the year 1521, under the guidance of Munzer, Stubner,
Storck and other leaders of the same furious. complexion, and excited the
most unhappy tumults and commotions in Saxony and other adjacent
countries.” f511
They were called Anabaptists, not because they were the same denomination,
but solely because they rejected all baptisms not administered by themselves.
Just as all immersionists of the United States are often, in books and