of the Bible and the writings of Luther and Zwinglius, he came to the conclusion there was no foundation for it in the Scriptures. At the request of a little community near him holding like views he began to preach to them, and in 1536 formally severed his connection with the Church of Rome. Ere long he began to be recognized as the leader of the Doopsgezinde or Taufgesinnte, and gradually the sect assumed from him the name of Mennonites. His first book was a dissertation against the errors and delusions in the teachings of John of Leyden, and after a convention held at Buckhold in Westphalia in 1538, at which Battenburg and David Joris were present, and Menno and Dirck Philips were represented, the influence of the fanatical Anabaptists seems to have waned.[1] His entire works, published at Amsterdam in 1681, make a folio volume of 642 pages. Luther and Calvin stayed their hands at a point where power and influence would have been lost, but the Dutch reformer, Menno, far in advance of his time, taught the complete severance of Church and State, and the principles of religious liberty which have been embodied in our own federal constitution were first worked out in Holland.[2] The Mennonites believed that no baptism was efficacious unless accompanied by repentance, and that the ceremony administered to infants was vain. They took not the sword and were entirely non-resistant.[3] They swore not at all.[4] They practiced the washing of the feet of the brethren,[5] and made use of the ban or the avoidance
- ↑ Nippold's Life of David Joris. Roosen's Menno Simons, p. 32.
- ↑ Barclay's Religious Societies of the Commonwealth, pp. 78, 676; Menno's “Exhortation to all in Authority,” in his works. Funk's edition, vol. i. p. 75; vol. ii. p. 303.
- ↑ Matthew xxvi. 52.
- ↑ Matthew v. 32 to 37.
- ↑ John xiii. 4, 17; I. Timothy v. 10.
