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IRELAND. of the Prayer-Book, though completed at an earlier date, obtained no public sanction, and was therefore very seldom if ever used. In such a state of mal-administration it is scarcely matter of surprise that Bacon found the Irish. people so degraded; 'blood, incontinency, and theft' being 'not the lapses of particular persons, but the very laws of the nation,' and presenting what he deemed insuperable barriers to the progress of religion reformed.'

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carried it through the press was
Daniel or O'Donnell, archbishop of
Tuam. Among other hints given by
Bacon for the advancement of piety
he mentions the recontinuing and
replenishing the college begun at

Dublin, the placing of good men to be bishops in the sees there, and the taking care of the versions of Bibles and catechisms and other books of instruction into the Irish language:' Works, III. 215, Lond. 1765.

CHAPTER V.

SECTS AND HERESIES ACCOMPANYING THE

NEW MOVEMENT.

THE seeds of scepticism, of disbelief, and speculative licence, had been scattered here and there as early as the fourteenth century by William of Occam and that class of schoolmen who embraced the nominalistic' principles as modified in some of his productions1. At the middle of the following century a stronger impulse was communicated in the same direction by the literati of southern Europe2, owing partly to the feverish thirst which had been there excited for the works of Greek philosophers, and partly to a predilection felt in several quarters for the wild and mystic Cabbala of the Jews. No sooner, therefore, was the pressure of the papal yoke abated3 than multitudes of free-thinkers, who had hitherto been yielding a hollow and occasional compliance with the ritual institutions of the Church, began to ventilate their theories more publicly, and even went so far as to establish independent organisations, with the hope of leavening the whole of western

1 See Middle Age, p. 377.

Ibid. p. 379. John Sturmius, in a scarce epistle Ad Cardinales Delectos' (Argentor. 1538), sign. D, 2, makes the following complaint on this subject: Nam quid potest ibi syncerum dici ubi pro religione superstitio, pro Divina sapientia hominum hilosophia, pro Christo Socrates, pro sacris Scripturis Aristoteles atque Plato in Ecclesiam irruperunt. Neque hæc ita intelligi velim, quasi

reprehendam philosophiæ studium...
sed sic se res habet, ut nisi divinitatis
cognitio præmonstratrix, mens ipsa
hominis errans et vaga ad loca spinosa
deviaque deducatur.'

3 The dam, which for so many
centuries had repelled human under-
standing from truth, was too sud-
denly torn away, for the outbreaking
torrent not to overflow its appointed
channel.' Schiller, Hist. of Revolt of
the Netherlands, p. 382, Lond. 1847.

FREETHINKERS.

FREETHINKERS.

Christendom. Their fundamental tenet was the self-sufficiency of human reason, or the right of private Christians to determine, each one for himself, the course to be pursued in all religious matters: little or no deference being paid to formularies, creeds, and immemorial usages of the Church, nor even to the voice of Holy Scripture, where its oracles appeared at variance with those inspirations which were held to flow directly from the source of light and wisdom to the individual spirit.

The promoter of such lawless speculations, it is true. was frequently excited, in the first instance, by the Reformation-movement. He accompanied it so long as it accorded with his notions, or held forth a prospect of complete emancipation from authority; but when he ascer tained its real character, especially the strong determination it continued to evince in favour of the absolute supremacy of an objective revelation, as distinguished from his dreamy self-reliance, and onesided spiritualism, he seems to have been immediately converted into one of its implacable opponents while the leaders of the movement, although differing from each other on some minor topics, uniformly1

1 See, for instance, Luther's behaviour on the appearance of Anabaptism, above, pp. 41, 42. The innovators were at first treated with more tenderness in Switzerland (above, p. 121): yet Zwingli afterwards wrote vehemently against them in his Elenchus contra Catabaptistas, and Bullinger in his Adversus omnia Catabaptistarum prava Dogmata, ed. Tiguri, 1535. The former is even said to have urged the magistrates of Zürich to punish them capitally (using the expression Qui iterum mergit, mergatur:' see Brandt, Ilist. of Reform. in Low Countries, I. 58). Hooper in like manner was an energetic opponent of them (above, p. 216, n. 2). The denunciations of John Knox are no less clear and frequent: 'Sone after that God had

sowen his good sede, began the deuiä to sowe the cockell and darnell, i mean the pestilent secte of anabap tistes, whose frutes did sodeinl appere to the great slander of Christes Euangill, and to the grief of many godly heartes:' Answer to a grea nomber of blasphemous cauillations (1560), p. 408. While Ridley in a letter to Bradford, not long before his martyrdom, supplies the following additional testimony: Whereas you write of the outrageous rule that Satan, our ghostly enemy, beareth abroad in the world, whereby be stirreth and raiseth up so pestilent and heinous heresies, as some to deny the blessed Trinity, some the divinity of our Saviour Christ, some the divinity of the Holy Ghost, some the baptism of infants, some original

saw in him the special instrument of Satan for corrupting, thwarting, and discrediting the work which they were straining every nerve to carry out.

ANABAPTISTS.

FIRST RACE OF ANABAPTISTS.

THE great majority of these revolutionary spirits were at first distinguished by the general name of Anabaptists 2, owing to the prominence they gave to their denial of the Church's teaching on the efficacy of infant-baptism3, and their consequent reiteration of the sacred rite in cases where it was administered in childhood. But this feature of their system can hardly be regarded as its principal characteristic. The first race of Anabaptists who sprang up, as we have seen, while Luther was concealed at Wartburg (1521), under the guidance of an obscure draper

sin, and to be infected with the errors of the Pelagians, and to rebaptize those that have been baptized with Christ's baptism already; alas, Sir, this doth declare this time and these days to be wicked indeed!' Works, p. 367, ed. P. S.

So general was the term that John Gastius, whose work De Anabaptistarum Exordio etc. appeared at Basle in 1546, makes mention of secen distinct sects (pp. 496 sq.).

3 Cf. above, p. 41, n. 6. We see from evidence there adduced how difficult the question of infant-baptism appeared at first sight even to one of the most thoughtful of the Reformers. Zwingli also confesses (Werke, II. i. 245, new ed.) that for some time before he wrote (1525), he had been the victim of like misgivings: cf. above, p. 121, n. 5. Bucer even seems to have felt at one period that infant-baptism might be placed among the res non-necessaria'( Scripta Duo Adversaria, pp. 142, 145, Argentorati, 1544); but afterwards when pressed by his opponent he main

R. P.

tained the following ground (p. 248):
'Baptisma infantium et ab Aposto-
lis acceptum fuit, ut vetustissimi
Patres affirmant, et certo conclu-
ditur ex Scripturis' etc. It should
also be remembered that some of the
sectaries themselves estimated the
effects of baptism very highly when
it was administered to conscious and
believing subjects: see Der Wieder-
täufer Lehr und Geheimniss aus heil.
Schrift widerlegt, durch Justum Me-
nium (1530) in Luther's Works, Wit-
tenberg ed. II. 292, and Möhler's
Symbolik, II. 162, Lond. 1843.
Schenkel in like manner (Das We-
sen des Protestantismus, I. 462 sq.
Schaffhausen, 1846) adduces extracts
to shew that Servetus held the most
ultra-Mediæval opinions in this mat-
ter. Still their general leaning was
in the very opposite direction: sa-
craments being treated as 'nothyng
els than outward sygnes of our pro-
fession and felowship, as the badges
of capitaines be in warre.' Her-
mann's Consultation, sign, t, viii.
Lond. 1547.

T

ANABAPTISTS.

of Zwickau, named Claus (Nicholas) Storch, were animated by a deep conviction that the kingdom of Christ would be ere long established visibly on earth, and that the subjects of it, guided by a light within them, would be all exempted from human laws and human magistrates, and even raised above the elementary stages of religious knowledge furnished by the holy Scriptures. Thus, apart from miner aberrations which this picture served to stimulate, the Anabaptist opened his career with three main principles of action. Placing himself in the position1 of the Israelites of old, he laboured to subvert existing institutions for the sake of realising his visions of a Millennial kingdom. I anticipation of that kingdom he subordinated the written Word of God to inspirations of the individual preacher' And as one example of his disregard for old traditions be rejected infant-baptism on the ground that it was quite superfluous, if not utterly absurd.

The Peasants' wars which broke on many parts Germany in 1526 afforded an example of the way in which these principles might be applied. But long before check was given to their extravagancies in that district the fermentation they produced had spread on every side and roused the indignation both of civil and ecclesiasticall authorities1. The emissaries of Anabaptism had already

1 Ranke, Reform. III. 566, who shews that the idea of introducing the millennial reign by force was adopted gradually. The imaginations of the Anabaptists would be stimulated by the version of the Hebrew prophets, which appeared under the auspices of Hetzer and Johannes Denk as early as 1527, i.e. five years before Luther's version was completed.

2 The insufficiency of the Bible was one of the first points agitated by the prophets of Zwickau (Ranke, II. 22), their reasons being that the written word was inefficacious ('un

kräftig'), and therefore that men art
to be taught only by the Spirit:
Melancthon's Works, ed. Bretsch
1. 534. This belief in a contist
ous inspiration of the same bis v
that vouchsafed to the founders &
Christianity induced Nicholas Stere
to appoint twelve apostles the
among his own followers, some being
of his own trade. The more intell
of that number were Marcus St
ner and Martin Cellarius, studeak
from Wittenberg: always, of cours
excepting the erratic Carlstadt.
3 Above, pp. 43, 44-
4 Ranke, III. 570 sq.

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