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It was ominous, however, that Melchior Hoffmann was proclaimed as the prophet Elijah returned according to promise. Up to 1533 Strassburg continued to be regarded as the chief seat of Anabaptism, especially by Melchior and his disciples. It was, they declared, to be the New Jerusalem, from which the saints should march out to conquer the world.
We shall likewise endeavor the advancing and promoting the power of this true Reformed Religion, against all ungodliness and profanity, the securing and preserving the purity thereof, against all kinds of errors, heresy and schism, as namely, Independency, Brownism, Anabaptism, Antinomianism, Arminianism, Socinianism, Libertinism, Familism.
Moreover, at the same moment, she sent orders that a like punishment should be inflicted upon another person then in a Flemish prison, for the crime of anabaptism. The privy council, assisted by thirteen knights of the Fleece, had been hard at work, and the result of their wisdom was at last revealed in a "moderation" consisting of fifty-three articles.
The first executions were too rare to impress the public mind in an age when such spectacles were so frequent for other reasons, and the "placards," which had received the sanction of the States General, did not provoke much opposition. A new stage was reached in 1530 by the appearance of Anabaptism, which had spread from Münster into Holland and Gelder.
Moreover, at the same moment, she sent orders that a like punishment should be inflicted upon another person then in a Flemish prison, for the crime of anabaptism. The privy council, assisted by thirteen knights of the Fleece, had been hard at work, and the result of their wisdom was at last revealed in a "moderation" consisting of fifty-three articles.
Another man, whose name has perished, was hacked to death with seven blows of a rusty sword, in presence of his wife, who was so horror- stricken that she died on the spot before her husband. His crime, to be sure, was anabaptism, the most deadly offence in the calendar. In the same year, one Walter Kapell was burned at the stake for heretical opinions.
At first, like another Ecebolius, he loved simple truth; thence, diverting his eyes, he fell in love with idolatry. Those heathenish shrines had never any more doting and besotted client; and now of late he is leapt from Rome to Munster, and is grown to giddy Anabaptism. What he will be next as yet he knoweth not; but ere he hath wintered his opinion it will be manifest.
The new direction in Anabaptism began in the rich and powerful Imperial city of Strassburg, where peculiar circumstances afforded the Brethren a considerable amount of toleration. It was in the year 1526 that Anabaptism first made its appearance in Strassburg. It was Anabaptism of the original type and conducted on the old theologico-ethical lines.
'They are praised more than all others for the innocence of their life, he writes in 1529. Just in the last part of his life came the episode of the violent revolutionary proceedings of the fanatic Anabaptists; it goes without saying that Erasmus speaks of it only with horror. One of the best historians of the Reformation, Walter Köhler, calls Erasmus one of the spiritual fathers of Anabaptism.
The tour, apparently, had great success, the Baptist communities being founded in all important towns as far as Holland, in which latter country the doctrines spread rapidly. The Anabaptism, however, taught by Melchior and his disciples did not include the precept of patient submission to wrong which was such a prominent characteristic of its earlier phase.
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