CHAPTER IV.. The Anabaptists.

THE ANABAPTISTS.

The Rev. Thomas Shepard, pastor of Charlestown, was such an example, “in word, in conversation, in civility, in spirit, in faith, in purity, that he did let no man despise his youth;” [Footnote: Magnalia, bk. 4, ch. ix. Section 6.] and yet, preaching an election sermon before the governor and magistrates, he told them that “anabaptisme ... hath ever been lookt at by the godly leaders of this people as a scab.” [Footnote: Eye Salve, p. 24.] While the Rev. Samuel Willard, president of Harvard, declared that “such a rough thing as a New England Anabaptist is not to be handled over tenderly.” [Footnote: Ne Sutor, p. 10.]

So early as 1644, therefore, the General Court “Ordered and agreed, yt if any person or persons within ye iurisdiction shall either openly condemne or oppose ye baptizing of infants, or go about secretly to seduce others from ye app’bation or use thereof, or shall purposely depart ye congregation at ye administration of ye ordinance, ... and shall appear to ye Co’t willfully and obstinately to continue therein after due time and meanes of conviction, every such person or persons shallbe sentenced to banishment.” [Footnote: Mass. Rec. ii. 85. 13 November, 1644.]

The legislation, however, was unpopular, for Winthrop relates that in October, 1645, divers merchants and others petitioned to have the act repealed, because of the offense taken thereat by the godly in England, and the court seemed inclined to accede, “but many of the elders ... entreated that the law might continue still in force, and the execution of it not suspended, though they disliked not that all lenity and patience should be used for convincing and reclaiming such erroneous persons. Whereupon the court refused to make any further order.” [Footnote: Winthrop, ii. 251.] And Edward Winslow assured Parliament in 1646, when sent to England to represent the colony, that, some mitigation being desired, “it was answered in my hearing. ‘T is true we have a severe law, but wee never did or will execute the rigor of it upon any.... But the reason wherefore wee are loath either to repeale or alter the law is, because wee would have it ... to beare witnesse against their judgment, ... which we conceive ... to bee erroneous.” [Footnote: Hypocrisie Unmasked, 101.]

Unquestionably, at that time no one had been banished; but in 1644 “one Painter, for refusing to let his child be baptized, ... was brought before the court, where he declared their baptism to be anti-Christian. He was sentenced to be whipped, which he bore without flinching, and boasted that God had assisted him.” [Footnote: Hutch. Hist. i. 208, note.] Nor was his a solitary instance of severity. Yet, notwithstanding the scorn and hatred which the orthodox divines felt for these sectaries, many very eminent Puritans fell into the errors of that persuasion. Roger Williams was a Baptist, and Henry Dunster, for the same heresy, was removed from the presidency of Harvard, and found it prudent to end his days within the Plymouth jurisdiction. Even that great champion of infant baptism, Jonathan Mitchell, when thrown into intimate relations with Dunster, had doubts.

“That day ... after I came from him I had a strange experience; I found hurrying and pressing suggestions against Pædobaptism, and injected scruples and thoughts whether the other way might not be right, and infant baptism an invention of men; and whether I might with good conscience baptize children and the like. And these thoughts were darted in with some impression, and left a strange confusion and sickliness upon my spirit. Yet, methought, it was not hard to discern that they were from the Evil One; ... And it made me fearful to go needlessly to Mr. D.; for methought I found a venom and poison in his insinuations and discourses against Pædobaptism.” [Footnote: Magnalia, bk. 4, ch. iv.