Baptists Were Not Munsterites

      Thomas Crosby (ca. 1683-1752), in volume I of The History of the English Baptists, makes a vital point concerning guilt by association, which was unfairly imposed by enemies of Baptists, whom they slandered as one with the radicals of the Munster rebellion.

The extravagant doctrines, and seditious practices of these men, are every where charged upon the opposers of infant-baptism, to render them odious, and a dangerous and seditious sect, not fit to be tolerated in any nation.

The confusions at Munster, where the blackest part of this tragedy was acted, were begun by a Paedobaptist minister of Lutheran persuasion. …

Nor is there any color of justice, in charging those crimes upon other Christians of that denomination, who abhor their erroneous tenets and behave themselves after the most offensive manner. …

But that which is more material to our enquiry after the first rise of this sect is, That these men did not advance this tenant concerning baptism, as a thing entirely new, but what was taught by others, who rejected the errors and corruptions of the church of Rome, as well as themselves; and affirmed it to have been the opinion of the Waldenses and Petrobrussians, who had gone before them. (pp. xxiv-xxvi)

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[From Crosby's History via Daniel Chamberlin, editor of FOUNDATIONS, No. 1, 2024. The title to the article is supplied. Scanned and formatted by Jim Duvall.]

Crosby, Thomas, The History of the English Baptists, Volume I, 1738; Volume II, 1739; Volume III, 1740; Volume IV, 1740; are available in the Old Books section at the bottom of the Index Page.

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