PROTESTANT THEORY OF PERSECUTION 17 1
The severities of the Protestants were chiefly provoked by the Anabaptists, who denied the lawfulness of civil government, and strove to realise the kingdom of God on earth by absorbing the State in the Church. l None pro- tested more loudly than they against the Lutheran intolerance, or suffered from it more severely. But while denying the spiritual authority of the State, they claimed for their religious community a still more absolute right of punishing error by death. Though they acrificed government to religion, the effect was the same as that of absorbing the Church in the State. In 1524 Münzer published a sermon, in \vhich he besought the Lutheran princes to extirpate Catholicism. " Have no remorse," he says; "for He to whom all power is given in heaven and on earth means to govern alone." 2 He demanded the punishment of all heretics, the destruction of all who were not of his faith, and the institution of religious unity. '" Do not pretend," he says, "that the power of God will accomplish it without the use of your s\vord, or it will grow rusty in the scabbard. The tree that bringeth not forth good fruit must be cut down and cast into the fire." And elsewhere, "the ungodly have no right to live, except so far as the elect choose to grant it them." S When the Anabaptists were supreme at Münster, they exhibited the same intolerance. At seven in the morning of Friday, 27th February 1534, they ran through the streets crying, " A \vay \vith the ungodly! JJ Breaking into the houses of those who refused their baptism, they drove the men out of the to\vn, and forcibly rebaptized the \vomen who remained behind. 4 Whilst, therefore, the Anabaptists
abuses, it is not unjust, for the Papists wish to deserve heaven by their works, and so blaspheme the Son of God, That they should persecute the Anabaptists is also not wrong. for their doctrine is in part seditious." The divines answered: II If by God's grace our true and necessary doctrine is tolerated as it has hitherto been by the emperor, though reluctantly, we think that we ought not to prevent it by undertaking the defence of the Zwinglian doctrine, if that should not be tolerated. . . . As to the argument that we ought to spare the people while persecuting the leaders, our answer is, that it is not a question of persons, but on1y of doctrine, whether it be true or false" (Correspondence of Brenz and Melanchthon with Landgrave Philip of Hesse, Bretschneider, ii, 95, 98, 101). 1 Hardwicke, Reformation, p. 274.
Seidemann, Thomas Jl.1iinzer, p. 35. 3 Schenkel, Hi. 381,
· Heinrich Grosbeck's Eerie/x!, ed. Cornelius, 19.
