Key Verse: Verse 19 – “But when the Jews spake against it, I was constrained to appeal unto Caesar; not that I had ought to accuse my nation of.”
Key Words: I was constrained
The following is taken from the book This Day in Baptist History, written by Thomas and Cummings.
“Sadly, we must be consistent with our reporting that the Protestant reformers were sometimes as guilty of atrocities as the Romanists and that more often than not, Anabaptists and Baptists were the objects of their violence. ‘Catholics and Protestants taught that tradition, reason and Scripture made the pious duty of the saints to torture and burn men as heretics out of pure love for their holiness and salvation. Protestants told them that it was a sacred duty to slaughter those as schismatics, sectaries, malignants, who corrupted the Church and would not live in peace with the Reformation.
The sad instances of persecution practiced against the Baptists by the Protestants in King Edward VI’s reign are the Latin version of Foxe’s Book of Martyrs but were left out of his English edition in order to protect the reputation of some of the martyrs of Queen Mary’s day who has persecuted the Baptists during Edward’s reign. John Rogers, one of Foxe’s friends, called for the death of those who opposed the baptism of infants. It is reported that Rogers declared ‘that burning alive was no cruel earth, but easy enough.’ It is believed it was Foxe who responded, ‘Well perhaps, it may so happen, that you yourselves shall have your hands full of this mild burning.’ And so it came to pass, and Rogers was the first man who was burned in Queen Mary’s time.
During the last year of King Edward’s reign, Humphry Middleton was kept prisoner by the archbishop and was dreadfully tormented by him. On the occasion of being condemned in open court, Middleton said unto him, ‘Well, reverend Sir, pass what sentence you think fit upon us; but that you may not say you were forewarned, I testify that your own turn will be next.’ And accordingly it came to pass; for a little while after, King Edward died, and the bishops were cast into prison. Humphry Middleton, however, was burned at Canterbury, July 12, 1555, during the reign of Mary.
It seems at that period the contention was not so much over the mode of baptism but the time. Some reformers immersed but also taught that baptism put away original sin. The disputation relating to infant baptism and believers’ baptism was so hot during the reign of Mary that the crowded prisons were filled with controversy between the different groups of prisoners over the nature of baptism.
We must keep in mind that the nature of the systems of theology of state churches oftentimes became the foundation of persecution. In contrast, there is no record of persecution carried out by Baptists.
Dr. Mike Rouse
What to do:
✞ Remember, your religious freedom did not come cheaply. Be faithful to the house of God.
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