Jarrel - Baptist Church Perpetuity - Landmark Baptist

One of the Baptist martyrs, Dryzinger, in 1538, only three years after the craze,
was examined as to whether he and his brethren approved of these vile
proceedings. He answered: “They would not be Christians if they did.” Hans of
Overdam, another martyr, complained of these false accusations of violence.
He said: “We are daily belied by those who say that we defend our faith with
the sword, as they of Munster did. The Almighty defend us from such
abominations.” Young Dosie, a beautiful character, who was a prisoner to the
Governor of Friesland, and endured cruel slaughter for his love to Christ, was
asked by the governor’s wife if he and his brethren were not of the disgraceful
people who took up the sword against magistrates. With the sweet innocence
of a child he replied:
“No, madam; those persons greatly erred. We consider it a devilish doctrine to
resist the magistrates by the outward sword and violence. We would much
rather suffer persecution and death at their hands and whatever is appointed us
to suffer.’ All this is no more than Erasmus said of them in 1529: ‘The
Anabaptists have seized no churches, have not conspired against the
authorities, nor deprived any man of his estate and goods.’ They had no
sturdier foe than Bullinger, yet he renders this verdict: ‘Say what we will of
the Baptists, I see nothing in them but earnestness, and I hear nothing of them
except that they will not take an oath, will not do any wrong, and aim to treat
every man justly. In this, it seems to me, there is nothing out of the way.’ But
Cornelius tells us plainly: ‘All these excesses were condemned and opposed
wherever a large assembly of the brethren afforded an opportunity to give
expression to the religious consciousness of the Baptist membership.’ … No
one outside of their number has better described their advanced position as a
people in all respects than Fusslin, in his preface to volume II of Beitrage:
‘The reformers rejected the superstitious abuses attached to the sacraments;
the Anabaptists restored the sacraments themselves to memorials for
believers. The reformers preached against unnecessary bloodshed; the Anabaptists
denounced war of every kind. The reformers protested against
Catholic tyranny; the Anabaptists denied to any civil power authority in
matters of religion. The reformers decried public vices; the Anabaptists
excluded f521 the immoral from their fellowship. The reformers sought to limit
usury and covetousness; the Anabaptists made them impossible by their
practice of communion. The reformers educated their preachers; the
Anabaptists looked for the inner annointing. The reformers condemned the
priests for simony; the Anabaptists made every preacher dependent on the
labor of his own hands and the free gifts of f522 the people. … There was a
great difference between Anabaptists and Anabaptists. There were those
among them who held strange doctrines, but this cannot be said of the whole
sect. If we should attribute to every sect whatever senseless doctrines two or
three fanciful fellows have taught, there is no one in the world to whom we
could not ascribe the most abominable errors.’ Grebel tells us that two
hundred moral and moderate Baptists in Munster heroically withstood the
iniquity, and it was not established until forty-eight of that number had been