# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1854 09 26_S20
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

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intend to hinder. Thereupon they answered with changed minds that they themselves would apply all possible diligence that the pure doctrine of the Gospel might increase and grow in Münster. Therefore a truce was set up between them and the city of Münster, and a copy of it was sent to Landgrave Philip of Hesse with a friendly and submissive request that he, for the furtherance of the holy Gospel, would take up these matters and help to bring them to a good end. Thereupon the Landgrave dispatched some of his most excellent counsellors, Jacob von Taubenheim, Dr. Walther and Vice-chancellor Nußbickler, to Münster, to settle the matters there amicably. The treaty was concluded duly, so that henceforth Lutheran sermons should be preached in six churches, but the cathedral should remain in its old condition. This agreement was on the 14th of February 1533 accepted, sealed and signed by the Landgrave of Hesse, then by the bishop, the cathedral chapter, the knighthood and the whole country. Thus the first tumult in Münster had passed happily over. They lived now quietly in the city, no one erred, no one bit another any more, but behold, a man came to Münster, on the 24th of November 1533, who was to raise a still greater uproar; it was the Anabaptist John Bockold of Leyden.

With the Anabaptists, however, it was thus. Just as out of the fertilizing mud of the Nile in Egypt worms creep forth that consume the fair seed, and vapors rise that cause the pestilence, so there crept out of Luther's Reformation Anabaptists who, if one had not been after them with fire and sword, with gallows and wheel, would have confounded everything and turned everything upside down. Whether imagination, whether pride or some other thing is the cause of fanaticism, wherever it has once arisen it spreads like plague and pestilence and brings tumult and murder, misery and ruin into the world. The strange fellows who are called Anabaptists forbade infant baptism, supposed that when a man has come to reason and years, only then must he be baptized, and now lives in Christian liberty, that is, he commits no more sin, even if he does what an upright Christian must otherwise hold for abomination and wickedness. Yea, they scolded Luther because he reformed only the outward part in the church; they wished to go to the inward. They wished to found a kingdom of Christ in which only saints, that is, Anabaptists, should be, to abolish rulers and magistracy, to use goods and wives in common, to heed nothing of the learned, of the Bible and of whatever else men have for a rule, but on the contrary to follow the spirit, that is, imagination, supposed or fabricated inspirations from above, and to carry out this spirit's commands, though the world should go to ruin over it. And against such people nothing could be accomplished with word and doctrine; they listened to nothing but themselves, and when one pressed upon them, they seized flails and dung-forks or whatever else they had at hand. God have mercy, who can live with such men!

The madness of the said Anabaptists had been haunting since 1521 in Germany, Switzerland and Holland. Melchior Hoffmann, a furrier from Swabia, raved in Holland and went from there to Strasburg. In Holland, however, he left behind one named John Trypmaaker as successor. He was zealous to make all men Anabaptists and gave to the worshipful brother John Matthiesen at Haarlem the power, by laying on of hands, to make apostles and afterwards to send them out into all the world.

These apostles went out always in pairs, and such a pair came also in the year 1533 to Münster, namely the journeyman tailor J. Bockold of Leyden and the bookbinder Gerhard.

Here follows the history of this tailor-majesty, how he crept out of his tailor-hell, mounted a throne and at last came upon a tower. Bockold, otherwise also called John of Leyden, was an illegitimate son of an unknown father, had learned the tailor's trade, but afterwards, perhaps in order thus to become more useful to men, set up a wine and beer tavern in Leyden, and, one knows not how, let himself be converted by the Haarlem baker Matthiesen and made an Anabaptist apostle. So he came into the world and thought to accomplish greater things than he had hitherto done with wine and beer. When Bockold had now come to Münster, he addressed some evangelical preachers, and in order that he might the more readily come into acquaintance with them, he put on a fine Christian and pious air; then he asked them whether they also held it right that young children should be baptized. When they answered him, yes, that it was right to do so, he always began to mock and laugh and to despise them on that account. The crafty man understood also how to creep in secretly among some, to mingle more and more among the crowd and to bring his doctrine among the common people. When Bernhard Rottmann learned of this, he exhorted his hearers several times in the sermon to call upon God heartily, that among them the pure doctrine might be kept unshaken and be defended against the insane men.

Just at the same time there had also come to Münster Hermann Strapeda, who was a pupil of Henry Rollius, whom they had burned at Utrecht for the sake of rebaptism. Strapeda joined Bockold, rebuked publicly in the sermon infant baptism and blew still more the fire which Bockold had kindled. The Anabaptists, however, betook themselves by night into the houses, and while honest folk slept, practised their secrets and knaveries. When now this came more to the light of day and almost the greater part of the citizens received a notable vexation thereat and let themselves be heard to be displeased that such new doctrine was permitted to be driven and spread secretly and even by night, there was resolved by the prudent Council of Münster a decree that all the beginners of such a sect should be commanded to depart from the city. It was done. But as soon as they had gone out at one gate, behold, they came in again at another and boasted that they had received command from God the Father to remain in Münster and to carry out with all earnestness the things begun.

By such things the Council was greatly moved and became anxious what would come of the game. But in order to try every means whereby greater mischief and danger might be prevented, Anabaptists and evangelical teachers, among whom was Hermannus Buschius, were summoned to the town hall to confer publicly there concerning the divided doctrine. They appeared on the 7th and 8th of August 1533 — how men can change round! — that very Rottmann who had exhorted his hearers to pray diligently that the unseemly doings of the wicked sect might be checked, the same now appeared as head of the new sect in Münster, and poured out his poison, which he had long carried hidden in his heart, all at once shamelessly, and said that infant baptism was godless and blasphemous. Whereupon H. Buschius gave him a fine Christian answer, in which he proved clearly from Holy Scripture the contrary, namely that infant baptism was divine and right. This pleased the whole Council also very well, and it therefore again earnestly commanded all Anabaptists to betake themselves out of the city forthwith. When they now pretended that they could not without danger pass through the bishop's lands, the Council obtained for them from the bishop a free safe-conduct and gave them besides money for travelling expenses. And now — did they depart? By no means, but turned in with those in the city who were of their opinion, and kept themselves hidden there. Concerning the travelling money which they had taken from the Council, they had no scruple; they used it according to their pleasure. The Council learned of this, but made no earnest of it, for since the faction grew ever greater, it feared an uproar and laid no hand on the people. Indeed all evangelical churches in the city, except that of St. Martin, where Brictius preached, were closed by order of the Council, for it was feared that the Anabaptists might fall unawares into the churches and cast out the preachers.

Now Rottmann had made a new church order, sent it to the Landgrave of Hesse with the request to look it over and also to submit it to his theologians at Marburg. But when these found in it all sorts of defects and faults, especially what the