Radical reformers in England

http://www.anabaptistnetwork.com/pdf/EnglishRadicalsQuakers.pdf

WHO WERE THE ENGLISH RADICALS?

Doug Gwyn

Two sources of early Quaker radical witness:

1. Spiritualist Reformation

figures such as Caspar Schwenckfeld, Sebastian Franck, Jacob Boehme, etc.
a radical internalisation of the Spirit‘ s work
Christ within‘
eg, communion with Christ in the Spirit (outward elements unnecessary); Christ as inward teacher; the need for a !Stillstand‘ , a suspension of proliferating reformations, to wait for God to reveal something more decisive and uniting.

This tradition filtered in to England in the C16 and was embodied in groups like the Family of Love in Elizabeth‘ s reign, then by Seekers (dropouts from all churches, waiting for a new revelation and new apostles) in the 1640s – Gerrard Winstanley and the Diggers, as well as the Ranters, generate from this scene

2. The Anabaptist Reformation

particularly the resistance politics and willingness to suffer for one‘ s Christian witness
AnaB tradition filtered into England in early C17 through separatist congregations emigrating to Holland and coming into contact with Mennonite groups (particularly Waterlander stream)
General Baptists were particularly strong in their countercultural behavioral codes (no pagan day-names, no swearing of oaths, endogamy, open for business on Sundays), many of which were picked up by early Friends – GBs also engaging in more Spirit-led worship and allowing women‘ s ministry, which also carry over into early Quakerism
George Fox (1624-91) seems to be the key, synthesizing figure who is able to put these and other elements together into a prophetic movement in the 1650s that revitalised radical Christian witness and republican politics / raised in village in Leicestershire / left home in 1643 at age 19 / became a Seeker, drifting from group to group, teacher to teacher, unaffiliated / 1644, visited with General Bs in London for a few weeks, probably very influenced / but remained apart.

Early 1647, met a group of shattered Baptists‘ a splintered congregation of General Bs near Mansfield, Notts major connection

the group now calls itself 'Children of the Light‘ and Fox is its key figure
Elizabeth Hooton, a prominent member of the group, becomes an important spiritual ally of Fox in latter 1640s
Fox builds a network of these groups in Midlands October 1650
Fox arrested and imprisoned at Derby for blasphemy under the new Blasphemy Act designed to round up Ranters
his preaching of moral perfection in the power of the Spirit sounded to some like Ranter equation of good and evil
spent one year in prison there
the Parliamentary army tried to recruit him out of prison but he refused on pacifist grounds – wrote provocative epistles to town leaders, debated clergy in his cell, was generally radicalised during this period toward a more confrontational ministry.

October 1651

released
writes in his Journal that he felt like a lion set loose among the beasts of the field
now preaching an apocalyptic message
the day of the Lord
Christ is come to teach his people himself and bring them off all the world‘ s ways and religions‘
a second-coming message, but centered in present experience
the light within each person‘ s conscience is Christ‘ s presence to teach them directly, lead them into all righteousness, obviating the need of a professional clergy, gathering people into worship groups to wait upon the Lord‘ s direct teaching in silence, speaking only as spoken through by Christ‘ s own direct revelation in the light/Spirit
anyone moved by Christ, male or female, rich or poor, has authority to speak and help Christ lead the group in that moment Moving up into Yorkshire, Fox began to connect quickly with some able Seekers and ex-soldiers
along with the apocalyptic message came confrontational, conflict-producing methods – entry into parish churches to argue and denounce the clergy
denunciations of unfair trading practices in the marketplaces
preaching repentance and the day of the Lord in the streets
these polarizing tactics often unleashed mob violence or arrest and imprisonment against early Quaker preachers
but they also drew sympathetic individuals out and these formed new Quaker worship groups.

1652

Fox moved across Yorkshire into Westmorland and Lancashire with exponentially increasing effects
hundreds of Seekers in Westmorland were convinced in two weeks time in June 1652
Fox‘ s message was the call northern radicals had been waiting for and they quickly became the vanguard of a movement that grew so rapidly in the north that neither local nor national authorities could see a way to repress them as had been so easily done with Levellers, Diggers and Ranters in the previous decade.

Quaker preaching and tracts restated many of the religious and political ideas already articulated by those groups, but had a way of turning previous ideas and experiments into a concrete and practical programme of radical religious witness and community building.

Quaker apocalyptic witness targeted the established church most centrally as the primary obstacle to Christ‘ s reign on earth through the free consciences of men and women willing to turn to his teaching

but tracts like The Three-fold Estate of Antichrist also suggest that the gentry and magistracy were in deep collusion with the established clergy in upholding the power of the Dragon in England Early Friends called their movement the !Lamb‘ s War‘ , utilising images from the Book of Revelation
they viewed themselves as the faithful on Mt Zion following the Lamb into apocalyptic holy war against the forces of the Dragon
Fox and early Friends read Revelation not as predictions of an imminent future but the description of an unfolding present
they followed its imageries and understood that the kind of eschatological change they were experiencing and catalyzing around them must be deeply conflictual in nature
just as they experienced deep-seated deceit and resistance in their own personal transformation in the light of Christ, they understood that they must confront the same dark forces in society around them
but they understood that their conflict was nonviolent, their weapons spiritual – mobs and magistrates might deal violently with them, but the tactics of the Lamb‘s War were consistently nonviolent.

Early Friends shifted the focus of political conflict from the political superstructure to the social infrastructure of England

they learned from the hollow victory of the Civil War and from the defeated republican agenda of the Levellers that the new Puritan powers would maintain control jealously
the logic of the kingdom was transformation from the grassroots, not an attempt to seize state control
and as Christ had shown in his own life and death, this transformation involves suffering.

Quakers were soon filling up prisons around England like no other group had done in living memory

they cheerfully accepted this as part of their witness and kept meticulous records of what Friends were suffering across the nation
I think this martyrological impulse derives partly from the Anabaptist tradition and partly from the Lollard tradition, which was strong around Fox‘s village in Leicestershire.

The Lamb‘ s War can be seen as a nonviolent cultural revolution

it confronted a variety of social mores and modeled an alternative, more peaceful and egalitarian social order among Friends
the behavioural codes of early Friends were aimed to reach to the light, or witness, of Christ within each person
these included plain speaking, a more simple dress and lifestyle, a respect for the spiritual authority of women, etc.
these codes could get an individual in trouble quickly in the highly mannered society of C17-England – eg, not showing verbal and gestural deference to social superiors, employers, parents, judges, clergy, etc. were very unnerving and suggested all sorts of threatening meanings to a Puritan establishment anxious to settle church and state into something viable in the 1650s.

Friends threatened the government like no other movement of the period

their exponentially growing numbers and surprisingly quick communications and coordination inspired fear and repression, particularly from 1656 onwards
their apocalyptic warnings to Oliver Cromwell, Parliament and others could easily be construed as veiled threats of a Quaker insurrection – though a few Quakers did get drawn into plots in 1659, they were strongly denounced by the leadership of the movement.

THE LEVELLERS

'The Levellers are the first modern political movement organized around the idea of popular sovereignty. They are the first democrats who think in terms, not of participatory self-government within a city-state, but of representative government within a nation-state. They are the first who want a written constitution in order to protect the rights of citizens against the state. The first with a modern conception of which rights should be inalienable: the right to silence (torture to extract a confession was a normal judicial procedure over most of Europe) and to legal representation; the right to freedom of conscience and freedom of debate; the right to equality before the law and freedom of trade; the right to vote and, when faced with tyranny, to revolution. The Levellers are thus not merely the first modern democrats, but the first to seek to construct a liberal state. Not only do their objectives have a contemporary ring, but the very language they use is often indistinguishable from our own'. David d Wootton '-The, Levellers', in J. Dunn, ed., Democracy's Unfinished Journey, 508BC to 1993AD (OUP 1992), p. 71.

The Diggers came to prominence in 1649 when they occupied some common land in Surrey, England. They established a self-sufficient commune there, issued a manifesto called The True Levellers Standard Advanced, and appealed to others to join them. Among their leaders were Gerrard Winstanley and William Everard, and they took their action both as a practical response to their hunger and as a first step towards creating a communist ‘ that is, moneyless and propertyless - society. They inspired similar ventures across England, but opposition from local gentry forced their experiment to close after a year. A key Digger tenet was that the earth was created by God for all to share ‘ a ’Common Treasury". Individual ownership was not part of the creation story, and Diggers aimed to restore the earth to communal ownership. In this they went further than many of their contemporaries who, while they accepted that a ’propertyless" age had once existed, argued that the ’Fall" made its realization again impossible. Fallen humanity was so subject to impulses of greed, fear, envy and lust that society could not only survive unless accommodation were made to the need to own and protect private property. The Diggers, however, believed that human nature was affected by social factors, that self-interest and greed were sustained by the system of buying and selling; and therefore as people discovered the benefits of communitarian living they would be transformed and the process of breaking down the system built upon private ownership would be unstoppable. Diggers envisaged a gradual process in which, as people set up communes, the system of hiring labour - the only way the rich could manage their huge estates - would disintegrate. Had their programme succeeded it would have transformed society in a profoundly radical way.

Also underpinning the Diggers" hopes for the restoration of society to its original communitarian state was a belief that such a restoration constituted the second coming of Christ. Christ would not appear suddenly or dramatically but ’rise up" in men and women and enlighten them to the delights and benefits of owning land in common. Christ"s appearance would effect a change at the level of the individual and society, leading to a recovery of that state of true community not known since before the Fall. To the Diggers, Christ remains ’buried" in the earth, giving it a sacred quality. It is our ’true Mother...that brought us forth" and that ’loves all her children", wrote Winstanley, though she is hindered from ’giving all her Children suck" because landlords enclose the land and force poor people to starve. The Diggers" theology was very different from that taught by the Church. Diggers stressed the immanence of God and how everybody has their creator dwelling within them, and thought the doctrines of the Church were designed to keep people in subjection to the authorities. They saw the clergy, along with landlords and lawyers, as a sort of unholy trinity upholding the iniquitous system under the king, and while they welcomed the removal of the monarchy and introduction of the Commonwealth, they argued that only a total transformation of the system over which the king presided would lift the people"s burden. Hence they appealed for the interests of the poor majority to be recognised, for Parliament to make the Common-wealth exactly that.

Although the Diggers were committed to appeals to Parliament and to direct action they never advocated the use of violence. They believed that the use of the sword would merely result in one section of society lording it over the other, as was the case at present. And since, once Christ began to rise in men and women he could not be stopped, the question of using violence to change society did not arise.

Although the Diggers" venture was short-lived their ideas have long survived them, mainly because of the powerful pamphlets of their main theorist Gerrard Winstanley. The Diggers stand within that marginal political tradition which has argued the case for communitarian and ecologically-sensitive economic arrangements over market-based economies predicated on profit, competition and individualism. They continue to inspire writers and activists on the left, from anarcho-syndicalists to antiroads protestors, from Christian socialists to Greens.

Andrew Bradstock United Reformed Church, London, UK _ Gerrard Winstanley: the emergence of private property as the Fall of Adam in leafy Surrey

Between 1648 and 1652 Winstanley wrote tracts while he was actively involved in the 'Digger' colony he helped to create on St George's Hill in Surrey. The Diggers had a vision, not just to improve the lot of the hungry and landless through the cultivation of the commons, but to create a communist, that is, moneyless and propertyless, society of the kind they believed had existed before the Fall. Diggers held the Earth to have been originally a 'common treasury' for all to share. The Fall they regarded as the practice of buying and selling land, which allowed some to become rich and others to starve. From the consequences of this Fall humanity stood in need of redemption. True freedom could not be enjoyed by all until the land was held again in common. The practice of …digging‘ soon spread to many parts of the south and midlands, but the hostility of local landowners ensured no colonies survived for long, though it is arguable that, had the movement not been suppressed, the 'commonwealth' then being fashioned under Cromwell might have been more literally that.

Online Resources

Anabaptist historical roots:

http://www2.gospelcom.net/chi/GLIMPSEF/Glimpses/glmps017.shtml Glimpses: The Anabaptists and http://www2.gospelcom.net/chi/GLIMPSEF/Glimpses/glmps107.shtml Menno Simons
http://www.ku.edu/~ibetext/texts/gilbert/15.html World of Ren/ Ref: The Radicals of the Reformation (Chapter 15)
http://www.mb-soft.com/believe/txc/radrefor.htm Radical Reformation
http://www.mb-soft.com/believe/ BELIEVE an online glossary of theological terms.
http://history.idbsu.edu/westciv/reformat/ana01.htm History of Western Civilization: The Anabaptists Dr. E. L. Skip Knox - Boise State University
http://www.mich.com/~lhaines/History.html AnaBaptist Beginnings and http://swiftsite.com/mennonite/begin.htm Mennonite Beginnings
http://www.sbcollege.mb.ca/SBC/FacPub/anabap.htm The Anabaptist View of the Church by Jack Heppner
http://www.personal.psu.edu/staff/w/x/wxc21/anabapt/d-av.htm The Anabaptist Vision by Harold S. Bender
http://www.victorshepherd.on.ca/Heritage/menno.htm#MennoSimons Victor Shepherd's Heritage page on Menno Simons
http://www.christianity.net/ct/6TB/6TB044.html The Mennonites' Dirty Little Secret What Christians could learn from Menno Simons and how he rescued the Anabaptist movement. by John D. Roth
http://www.hccentral.com/gkeys/hbmier.html Balthasar Hubmaier and
http://www.chof.org/hübmaier.htm A portrait of Hubmaier
http://www.bibleviews.com/menno-heritage.html Mennonite Origins and the Mennonites of Europe By Harold S. Bender
http://reformed.org/sacramentology/lee/index.html The Anabaptists and their Stepchildren by F.N. Lee
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/5578/ Charlie's Heretics Tour : Amish, Cathars, Hussites, Hutterites, Jews, Mennonites, Unitarians, Waldensians ... presented geographically & chronologically.
http://www.educ.msu.edu/homepages/laurence/reformation/Radical/Radical.htm Reformation Guide: Radical Reformation
http://www.emporia.edu/socsci/history/wh528.htm Links for WH 528–The Reformation

http://www.anabaptists.org/history/schleith.html Schleitheim Confession (1527)
http://www.bibleviews.com/Dordrecht.html The Dordrecht Confession of Faith (1632)
http://www.mennolink.org/doc/cof/ A Confession of Faith in a Mennonite Perspective (1995)
http://www.issuesetc.org/resource/archives/feuerhhn.htm The Roots and Fruits of Pietism

There are quite a few Home sites online related to Anabaptism and its subsequent history - and the continuing groups:

Mennonites, Hutterites, Amish, and various Brethern.

http://www.mhsc.ca/ Canadian Mennonite Online Encyclopedia
http://www.mhsc.ca/encyclopedia/contents/C46083ME.html Contents .. http://www.mhsc.ca/encyclopedia/source.html Source Documents
http://www.mhsc.ca/whoare/index.html Who are The Mennonites – http://www.mhsc.ca/whoare/tamish.html The Amish
http://www.anabaptists.org/ Anabaptists.org
http://www.anabaptists.org/history/sepamarg.html Anabaptists: Separate By Choice, Marginal By Force by Elizabeth Scott
http://www.anabaptists.org/history/ Historical articles
http://www.anabaptists.org/history/sattler.html Micheal Sattler
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~bpl/menno.html Mennonite Connections on the WWW A catalogue of Mennonite and Amish resources on the Internet - Extensive links
http://www.cob-net.org/ Church of the Brethren Net
http://cob-net.org/text/history_menno.htm Menno Simons
http://www.cob-net.org/anabaptism.htm Anabaptism in 16th Century Europe by Ronald J. Gordon
http://www.cob-net.org/docs/groups.htm Brethren Groups - Information and links of various groups
http://bibleviews.com/index.html Bible Views: Mennonite-Anabaptist Links to articles, books, confessions
http://www.bibleviews.com/Schleitheim.html Schleitheim Confession (1527)
http://www.hutterianbrethren.com/ Hutterian Brethren in North America
http://www.hutterianbrethren.com/history.htm

History :
http://www.hutterianbrethren.com/hutter.htm Jacob Hutter
http://www.hutterianbrethren.com/peter.htm Peter Riedeman
http://www.hutterianbrethren.com/wieder.htm Jacob Wiederman
http://www.hutterianbrethren.com/groups.htm Groups of Hutterites in NA http://www.hutterianbrethren.com/religion.htm Religion
http://feefhs.org/hut/frg-hut.html Hutterite Genealogy HomePage
http://feefhs.org/masteri.html Master site Index
http://feefhs.org/maps/indexmap.html Map Index
http://www.bruderhof.org/ Bruderhof Hutterites
http://www.seattletimes.com/news/lifestyles/html98/peast_100498.html An article about Hutterite communities in Eastern Washington State
http://www.lancnews.com/lanc/amish.html An Article about the Amish in Lancaster, Penn.

Bibliographical links:

http://www.mph.org/books/crr.htm Classics of the Radical Reformation: A Books List
http://www.goshen.edu/mhl/Refocusing/f-av.htm Anabaptist Bibliography
http://www.mennolink.org/books/michaelsattler.html MennoLink Books
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~bpl/mennread.html Mennonite Bibliography
http://www.mennonitebooks.com/books.htm Mennonite Books Online
http://www.amishacres.com/aa_history/bibliography.htm Amish Bibliography
http://www.freeyellow.com:8080/members6/huttschools/books.html Hutterite Books
http://www.masthof.com/anabaptism.html Mennonite Family History: Books on Anabaptism

The Mayhem at Munster:

http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/journals/EH/EH35/howard1.html Charisma and History: The Case of Münster, Westphalia, 1534-1535 by Tal Howard
http://www.mb-soft.com/believe/txc/melchior.htm Melchiorites
http://efb.ch/Texte/admuenst.htm Cathedral Taeufer 1534-1535: (German) The short-lived city state in Westphalia and its catastrophic end.
http://www.uni-muenster.de/Rektorat/internatio/int-cite.htm City of Munster
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/10634b.htmhttp://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01445b.htm Anabaptists
http://www.canyonweb.com/thetailorking/index.htm Web site for The Tailor King by Anthony Aurthur, includes illustrations.

FOR FURTHER READING ON EARLY FRIENDS: Douglas Gwyn, Apocalypse of the Word: the life and message of George Fox (Friends United Press, 1986). Douglas Gwyn, The Covenant Crucified: Quakers and the rise of capitalism (Pendle Hill, 1995). Douglas Gwyn, Seekers Found: atonement in early Quaker experience (Pendle Hill, 2000). Ben Pink Dandelion, Douglas Gwyn, Timothy Peat, Heaven on Earth: Quakers and the second coming (Woodbrooke/Curlew, 1998). Rosemary Moore, the Light in Their Consciences: the early Quakers in Britain, 1646-1666 (Penn State University Press, 2000).

23 MARCH 2002 ANABAPTIST NETWORK
WORKSHOP ON EARLY QUAKERS
Doug Gwyn Quaker Studies Tutor Woodbrooke Quaker Study Centre (doug@woodbrooke.org.uk)

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Sektierer, Spiritualisten, Sozialutopisten, Bibelkommunisten last edited on 24 January 2005 at 5:35 pm by d116232.adsl.hansenet.de