About the Lecture

In 1642 England fell into its Civil War, during which royal oversight over religion disappeared, allowing new religious movements, such as the Ranters and Quakers, or older ones that had been in hiding, such as the Baptists, to take the stage. Mainstream Protestant leaders feared a descent into chaos leading to a restoration of Catholicism and disbelief.

In desperation Anglican writers turned readers’ attention to their cross-Channel neighbours, the Dutch Republic, to portray the ill effects of such religious diversity. For decades the Dutch were reputed to allow all sects to thrive, including Catholics, Jews, and even Muslims, something not regarded positively by conservative Protestants.

Accusing the Dutch of irreligion that would lead to divine punishment, English authors identified the root cause of all of this confusion as beginning with the 16^th century Anabaptists, with their kingdom at Münster (1534-35) that practiced community of goods and polygamy based on ecstatic prophecy. Such godless anarchy, they exclaimed, was continued by Anabaptism’s heirs, the Mennonites, who were loosely aligned with some English Baptists.

One Puritan writer, the lawyer William Prynne (1600-69) linked Independents, Baptists, Ranters, Quakers, and Catholics as direct descendants of the continental Anabaptists and “whose Opinions … are fatall to the Government.” In 1655 he also condemned the efforts of the Amsterdam Rabbi Menasseh ben Israel to promote the readmission of the Jews, a mission that was supported by the Baptist Henry Jessey (1602-63).

Fear of religious diversity and difference was, as we shall see, profound, but so too was ignorance of the actual Dutch scene. The lecture will therefore survey some of the dozens of anti-Anabaptist polemics to gauge what English writers thought about religious difference, the Dutch, and their own dissenter groups, such as the Baptists.