By Mark Owen - © 2010
Many will say unto me in that day, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in thy name, and by thy name cast out devils, and by thy name do many mighty works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity. - attributed to Jesus of Nazareth (Matthew 7:22-23)Rome did not readily acquiesce to the diminution of its authority in the era following the Reformation. Thus was born what came to be known as the Counter-Reformation. Perhaps in France more than any other country the clash between the supporters of the old religion and the new was most in evidence. Margaret of Valois, Queen of Navarre, sister of Francis 1st, supported the Huguenot (Protestant) cause, as did many of the nobles and the middle classes. However, Francis 1st was bitterly opposed to the reform movement and with the accession of Francis 2nd to the throne, persecution, execution and banishment became the order of the day. Under Louis 1st the Protestants, headed by Admiral Coligny, took up arms against their persecutors but the revolt petered out. The Edict of Romorantin (1560) placed the persecution of the Protestants in the hands of the Catholic bishops.
Catherine de' Medici was at first sympathetic to the Protestants and in July 1561 an edict was proclaimed which freed the Protestants from the penalty of death for practising their faith. In 1562 an edict gave noblemen the right to free exercise of religion on their own estates. Throughout this period the Guises maintained adherence to Catholicism. But strife continued between the opposing parties and the Duke of Guise was assassinated in February 1563. A peace was concluded and the Huguenots were allowed the freedom of worship except for certain designated areas. But the Queen also worked with the Spaniards to extirpate heresy and more strife followed and warfare erupted. A further peace was concluded in March 1568 but Catherine was responsible even after this for the deaths of an estimated 3,000 Huguenots.
A third outbreak of war followed, with the Protestants receiving aid from both England and Germany. A new peace was concluded and the Protestants assured through a treaty, effected in August 1570, of the free exercise of their religion in all of France except Paris. Two years later Catherine broke the treaty and unleashed the terrible Massacre on the religious feast day of St Bartholemew, Sunday, 24 August 1572. At 1.30 am in the morning a bell in the tower of Saint Germain L'Auxerrois began tolling. At daybreak messengers were sent, inciting the Parisian mobs to rise against their 'enemies'. Rumours were put about that the King was dead, killed by the Protestants. Terrible scenes followed, known Protestant families being dragged from their homes and slaughtered. Women and children were not spared. Typical of the horrible scenes was the spectacle of a naked little girl being dipped in the blood of her dead father and mother. Baskets filled with babies were emptied into the waters of the Seine. And Catholic children joined their parents in perpetrating cruelties upon the Protestant enemy.
Soon the terror had spread to the provinces. It only abated in Paris some three weeks or so later. Several provincial governors refused to allow the massacre to proceed but the slaughter and the cruelties continued in the majority of provinces until many thousands of citizens lay dead. How many died nobody knows with any degree of accuracy. It was probably at least 10,000 but may have been 50,000. The French reported abroad that an attack on the King had been repulsed with massive losses to the Huguenots. Even the astute Queen Elizabeth was deceived; she actually sent her congratulations. The massacre was greeted with even greater enthusiasm by the European Catholic powers and by Pope Gregory 13th, who commanded bonfires to be lit and a medal struck to mark the occasion of so great a slaughter. A year of jubilee was proclaimed and Catherine basked in the glory of the moment.
Even when peace had come to the land again, the troubles of the Huguenots had not ended. Violent persecution continued through the years until the Edict of Nantes was proclaimed on 13 April 1598, bringing peace once again to France. Yet this was still not the end of strife and more wars followed until, on 23 October 1685, Louis 14th, a fierce opponent of the Huguenots, signed the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. Thereafter Protestants were persecuted with the utmost rigour. Their marriages were declared null and void, and their children deprived of the right of inheritance, seized from their parents, and shut up in convents. Hundreds of thousands fled to England, Switzerland, Germany and the Netherlands, taking with them their skills and industry. One group persisted in the faith, the Camisards, holding out in the mountains of the Cévennes for some years until eventually crushed with great cruelty by the Catholic forces in 1706.
Subsequent years saw the fortunes of the Huguenots wax and wane. Louis 15th, urged on by the Jesuits, instituted a new wave of persecution against them in 1724. In this year an edict forbade 'heretical' religious assemblies. The penalties, for laymen - life servitude in the galleys, for women - life imprisonment. And for the preachers - death. Through the 1740s and 1750s persecution continued. In 1749 the parlement at Bordeaux ordered 23 Huguenot couples to separate as their marriages were not recognized by the State. Their children were declared illegitimate and as such unable to inherit the property of their parents. Three years later a Protestant pastor was hanged. But a turning-point was at hand: the French population at large was becoming restive as they saw their fellow-countrymen being driven from the shores of France. It was not, however, until the formulation of the Code Napoleon that Protestants were given equal freedom with Catholics. After all this we should not be surprised that the great intellectual force of Rationalism was to find its firmest footing in French soil.
Meanwhile the Reformation movement - which one might in some ways categorize as the theological aspect of the Renaissance - had unleashed mighty forces of dissent across Europe. Already the Protestants had splintered into several groups - chiefly the Lutherans in Germany and the Nordic countries, Anglicans in England, Presbyterians in Scotland, Calvinists in France, The Netherlands and Switzerland. And the cry of religious freedom was taken up by a hundred smaller groups. Many movement that had a shadowy existence under the threat of Rome's might now sprang into life. For example, in the early part of the 15th century the Adamites, a fanatical sect, had appeared in Bohemia and Moravia (also known as Picards or Brethren of the Free Spirit). They had philosophical links to a similar group in the early centuries of the Christian era. They believed in the abolition of the priesthood and a community of wives. At their nightly meetings they reportedly went naked, although this story may be an invention of their enemies. It does seem to be a fact, however, that the Adamites (not to be confused with an earlier sect of the same name with similar behaviour) ran naked through the streets as a form of protest against persecution. An 18th century painting depicted the sect members, male and female, running thus through Amsterdam in a 16th century protest. John Zisca, a famous general of the Hussites, another splinter group, attacked the Adamites, who were bringing discredit on his army, killed some and committed others to the flames. There were some of their persuasion still around in 1849.
There were numerous sects on the Continent broadly described as 'Anabaptists'. The central tenet of their faith, apart from belief in the Christ-god, was to deny the validity of the baptism of children. Dating from the Reformation era, some of these groups had extreme views and practices, and were condemned equally by both Catholics and Protestants. Indeed, one of their leaders, Felix Mantis, so enraged Zwingli, a Protestant reformer, that he suffered execution by drowning in 1523. But in their turn the Anabaptists were not reluctant to take up the sword against their enemies. According to Motley (The Rise of the Dutch Republic) the leaders of the sect were 'among the most depraved of human creatures, as much distinguished for licentiousness, blasphemy, and cruelty, as their followers for grovelling superstition.' When a Dutch baker, John Matthiszoon of Harlem, became the sect's leader he announced that he was Enoch returned, and later - that he was King of Zion. His assistant, John Boccold of Leyden, was a figure of notoriety. Together these men took charge of the city of Munster, confiscating property, plundering church buildings, raping females and murdered males who refused to join their rowdy gang.
From Munster they sent forth disciples, who headed armed bands, to endeavour to convert, by force if necessary, the people of Amsterdam and Leyden, but without success. The citizens of both places resisted with arms. However, the doctrines of the Anabaptists had penetrated Amsterdam and the madness erupted there. On a cold winter's night in February 1535, seven men and five women, inspired, so they claimed, by the Ghost, threw off all their clothing and paraded naked through the streets, crying as they went: 'Wo, wo, wo! the wrath of God! the wrath of God!' Upon being arrested they steadfastly refused to put on their clothes, claiming: 'We are the naked truth.' All twelve were executed shortly thereafter.
However, the martyrs inspired more to follow and the madness spread throughout the Netherlands, persecution following. Torture, beating and execution failed to halt the cult. An armed force sent by the Bishop of Munster succeeded in arresting the prophet, who was put to death with red-hot tongs. State and Church now turned in fury upon the followers, young and old. None was spared and tens of thousands suffered, large numbers of them entirely innocent of any connection with the crazy sect. Charles of the Netherlands and Queen Dowager Mary of Hungary were equally determined to treat the heretics ruthlessly. In 1535 the Queen issued an edict at Brussels, condemning all heretics, which included the larger Protestant groups as well, to death. Those males who repented of their heresy were still to die but by the sword rather than by burning at the stake. Females who repented were to suffer the tender mercy of being buried alive! During the next 20 years the persecution raged, the hands of the persecutors being strengthened by a further edict in 1547, both royal decrees being rigidly enforced.
The Church of Rome was by now seeing brushfires break out everywhere - even in far off Africa. Early in the 18th century a young woman in the Congo region of Africa, Kimpa Vita, aged about 20, was in contact with the Catholic missionaries. She was baptized as Beatriz. The lady was, so she later related, on her death bed when she had a vision of St Antony, dressed as a Capuchin. She knew it to be the Egyptian saint as he told her so and he also told her that he had been sent by God to preach through her. St Antony's mission was to hasten the restoration of the kingdom of God. Those who opposed the message would suffer terrible punishments. Beatriz further claimed that she had died but that in place of her soul St Antony had taken up residence. Beatriz gave away her possessions and took to the hills, soon developing a following, a sect known as the Antonians. She developed some distinctive doctrines, including the teaching that St Antony was the 'Second God' who held the keys of heaven. The ancient kingdom of the Kongo would be restored, she said.
Every Friday Beatriz 'died' in imitation of the Passion of Jesus. This enabled her to ascend into heaven and to intercede with God (while she dined with him) and plead the cause of the Negroes. She was born again each Saturday. Beatriz even managed to imitate the Virgin Mary, producing a son - from where? She did not know; he came from heaven! Beatriz claimed that the Kongo was the true Holy Land and even that Jesus was born there. Her disciples were enjoined not to worship the cross, because Jesus died on it. She declared polygamy was lawful.
Beatriz prophesied many things, among them that the area would reveal hidden and valuable mines, filled with precious stones and metals. Further, she was thought to work miracles. Twisted trees straightened as she walked past them. Her disciples treated her like royalty and sought to possess any item she touched. Noble ladies cleared the path before she set her foot upon it. It was claimed that many who were ill who visited her received back their health. Eventually it all became too much for the Capuchins. They had the Kongo ruler in their control so now they moved against Beatriz. She was arrested and the ruler thought he would banish her to another place. Not so, said the Capuchins. They demanded nothing less than the false prophet's death by fire. This took place on 2 July 1706.
An eyewitness account from one of the priests described how the slim, girlish figure, clutching her baby son, was brought before a judge, who appeared dressed head to foot all in black. On the ground nearby sat some of her disciples, also to be judged. The sentence was pronounced: 'Under the false name of St Antony she [Beatriz] had deceived the people with heresies and falsehoods. Consequently the king . . . and the royal council condemned her to be put to death at the stake, together with the infant . . .' The woman and her baby were thrown alive onto a great pile of wood and more wood piled on top of their bodies, after which they were set alight. And that was the end of the sect of the Antonians. It was not, however, the end of religious madness. The next 300 years were to see a hundred, nay, a thousand, nay, ten thousand dissident figures emerge from the wreck of the Church Triumphant and Universal. We shall meet up with some of them.
Meanwhile in Britain and in some European countries Protestants, supported by State power, instituted numerous cruel and abusive laws aimed at Catholics, who in many cases faced death for their faith. The fires now consumed Catholics as they had once consumed Protestants. And all the while the latter continued dividing among themselves. Time and again since Reformation days small numbers of Christians have 'come out' from a denomination to form a new group - often claiming that this is by no means to be construed as a new denomination, just a simple 'body of believers'. Of course, having distinctive beliefs, in time this body of believers assumes the nature of a denomination. Back around the 17th century, for example, some people called Baptists arose (not to be confused with the Anabaptists), dissenters from the mainstream of Christendom. These people were then simply known as Baptists - plain and simple. They differed from Anglicans and Lutherans and Calvinists and Presbyterians and Methodists and everybody else. But it wasn't long before they divided among themselves. Some, the General or Arminian Baptists, believed, as Methodists did, that salvation was available to all, while the Particular Baptists believed, as did the Presbyterians, that Christ died for the elect only (a Calvinist notion). But it did not end there. One group of Arminian Baptists in the USA called themselves the Six Principle Baptists, adhering to certain doctrines drawn from the book of Hebrews.
Then there were the Congregationalists, another dissenting group, and a similar body called the Separatists. Now the Congregationalists in time divided into two parties - the Old Light and the New Light, and some of these New Light people became Separates. More years went by and some of the Separates adopted Baptist views, which produced yet another church body, the Separate Baptists. Contrary to their name these people were known for practising 'touching' or physical contact between members as a manifestation of Christian love. They touched with hands, arms and even lips. But the Separate Congregationalists still persisted with their separation and the names 'New Light' and 'Old Light' were also attached to them. And again, there were Christians who believed in keeping the Jewish Sabbath and among those who thought Saturday was a holy day were some who had Baptist tendencies so they formed yet another Baptist Church - the Seventh-Day Baptists, while a different group, caught up in prophetic fervour, became the Seventh-Day Adventists. This in turn splintered and was to spawn the notorious cult known as the Davidian Seventh-Day Adventists, later known as the Branch Davidians.
In time the Calvinist or Particular Baptists called themselves the Regular Baptists, presumably opposed to irregular ones, still called Separate Baptists. And there were Strict Baptists and even Hyper-Calvinistic Baptists. Yet another group, the Free-Will Baptists, emerged in New England and some Congregationalists became Unitarians. German Baptists, known as the Baptist Brethren, split into several groups, one becoming known as the Church of the Brethren. Baptist seemed particularly prone to division for there were also New Connection Baptists, Bible Baptists, Independent Baptists and Reformed Baptists. Out of all these dissenting groups grew more dissenting groups and some of the major quasi-Christian sects, such as the Jehovah's Witnesses, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, otherwise known the Mormons (which in turn divided, with the formation of the Reformed Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints), the Christian Scientists and many more.
Back in Mother England other whirlpools of dissension were forming. The Wesleyans, followers of an Anglican clergyman, John Wesley, eventually came to be known as Methodists. In time one of their number, Alexander Kilham, got himself expelled from the Methodist ministry and set up a body known as the Kilhamites, or the Methodist New Connexion. The year was 1797. A few years later, in 1811, two local preachers, Hugh Bourne and William Clowes, formed the Primitive Methodists, while just four years further on William O'Bryan established yet another breakaway, The Bible Christian Society. And this is not to mention the Methodist Free Churches, formed of members expelled at various times, the Welsh Calvinistic Methodists, and back over in the USA, the Methodist Episcopal Church, divided into three large branches, North, South and Coloured [sic].
And if all these were not enough there were hundreds more. The Salvation Army thought the established churches were unfaithful to the Christ-god so it went its own way. In Australia in recent years a curious situation arose when an aggressive American fundamentalist group calling themselves the Church of Christ, set up shop, completely ignoring the fact that this country had Churches of Christ (know in the USA as the Disciples of Christ) for a hundred years back. And as for Pentecostalism, a relatively recent excrescence on the body Christian, it is a hydra-headed religious monster with innumerable denominations and congregations. It is almost impossible to gain a clear understanding of the fractions and factions making up this broad group; they far exceed even the Baptists. We shall return to this group in due course.
And while the mainstream of the Protestant revolt was busily dividing and subdividing there also arose numerous fringe groups perhaps best described as neo-Christian or quasi-Christian. The Quakers or Religious Society of Friends was one of the best known of these - founded by George Fox in 1646 and thereafter flourishing in England, Ireland, Europe and America. The popular name 'Quakers' came from the physical manifestations of religious ecstasy they experienced. The Quakers claimed a special revelation, their 'Inner Light' as they termed it. They rejected many of the traditional beliefs of Christianity, including the sacraments and the ministry. They were pacifists, refusing service in any force that was involved in killing, and they would not take oaths. All of which was sufficient to arouse the ire of 'traditional' Protestant Christians, both the Puritans and the Established Church. Well, no wonder: one of the favourite tactics of the Quakers was to enter a church and shout down the parson as he preached; a really fine way for believers to behave, one must remark. They did share something in common with the miserable Puritans, though: a dislike of the theatre and the arts, and a suspicion of music. These human activities could, they thought, lead to 'sensuality' and even arouse passions. And that would never do!
Meanwhile the 'established' followers of the Christ-god, unhappy at the proliferation of dissenting groups, set to work with a will to eradicate this latest cancerous growth on the body religious. Under successive English administrations, including both those of Cromwell and Charles 2nd, Quakers were hounded and ill-treated. The Star Chamber imprisoned hundreds of their number and in many cases confiscated their properties and personal goods and chattels. In the period between about 1655 and 1690 some 15,000 or so Quakers suffered in one way or another as a result of persecution and several hundred died.
In July 1656 two Quaker women, Mary Fisher and Ann Austin, embarked for Boston, hoping to establish the movement in an America that had become home for dissenters. However, the persecuted ones who had fled the European nations were quite able to give as well as they had gotten. They didn't take at all kindly to the Quakers. The poor women had barely set foot on American soil when they were seized by an unruly mob, stripped naked, bound to a cart's tail and whipped through the city's streets. Branded heretics they were sent back to England on the same ship that brought them to Boston. Soon, however, other English Quakers also reached Boston and began preaching. The New England Puritans were aroused and Governor Endicot instituted a terrible persecution of these peaceful people. Thereafter men and women where hounded from their homes, whipped unmercifully in public, often stripped naked or near-naked for the purpose, branded, mutilated and imprisoned. Some were even sold as white slaves to plantation owners. Indeed, the Friends were actively persecuted in all the non-Quaker colonies except Rhode Island.
There are endless accounts of men and women being seized. At Boston in 1657 Mary Clark was given 20 stripes with a whip made of thick knotted cord, the hangman wielding the lash with both hands. She was then thrown into prison, and kept there for 12 months. Soon after this the knotted whip fell on the backs of two male preachers, Christopher Holder and John Copeland. They were gagged for the occasion and Holder nearly chocked to death on his gag, while the blows were so vicious that onlookers were said to have fainted. They were further punished with nine weeks' close confinement in a cell, without bed or straw or fire, although it was winter. Some persons were even punished for showing sympathy towards them - Samuel Shattock, because he tried to prevent the gag from choking Holder, and an aged couple, named Southick, because they had in their possession a paper belonging to Holder and Copeland.
The fearful punishments continued, men and women being lashed and imprisoned simply because they differed from the Puritans in the manner of their worship. Thirty stripes was the common punishment, along with starvation. Sarah Gibbons and Dorothy Waugh were taken to the House of Correction, kept three days fasting, then whipped, and again made to fast three days. A woman named Gardner was publicly whipped at Boston, with her maid as well, with a 'cat' of three tails. Many Quaker women suffered the additional humiliation of appearing without upper garments before the crowds of ill-willed onlookers. An early account by John Whiting (Truth and Innocency Defended Against Falsehood and Envy, 1702) reported on a typical incident:
Mary Tomkins and Alice Ambrose were cruelly ordered to be whip'd at a cart's tail through eleven towns at one time, ten stripes apiece on their naked backs, which would have amounted to 110 in the whole, and on a very cold day, they were strip'd and whip'd through three of the towns (the priests looking on and laughing) and barefoot through dirt and snow, sometimes half leg deep, till Walter Barefoot, of Salisbury, got the warrant and discharged them.
Another writer from the same era, George Bishop (in his New England Judged by the Spirit of the Lord, 1703) told the story of the exceeding cruelty suffered by a Quaker, William Brend:
The jailer put him in irons, neck and heels, lockt so close together, as there was no more room between each, than for the horse-lock that fastened them on; and so kept him in irons for the space of sixteen hours (as the jailer himself confessed) for not working; and all this without meat, whilst his back was torn with the whipping the day before, which did not satisfy the bloodthirsty jailer, but as a man resolved to have his life, and by cruelties to kill him, he had him down again the next morning to work, though so many days without meat, his back beaten, his neck and heels bruised, by being bound so long together, because he could not bow to his will; yet he laid him on with a pitch'd rope twenty blows over his back and arms, with as much force as he could drive so that with the fierceness of the blows the rope untwisted and his arms were swollen with it.
Presently after this, the jailer having either mended his old, or got a new rope, came in again; and having hailed him downstairs with greater fury and violence than before, gave his broken, bruised, and weak body fourscore and seventeen blows more, foaming at the mouth like a madman, and tormented with rage; unto which great number he had added more blows, had not his strength and rope failed him, for now he cared not what he did do: and all this, because he did not work for him, which he could not do, being unable in body and unfree in mind. So he gave him in all 117 blows with a pitch'd rope, so that his flesh was beaten black, and as into a jelly, and under his arms the bruised flesh and blood hung down, clodded as it were in baggs, and so into one was it beaten, that the sign of one particular blow could not be seen.
The New Englanders eventually passed legislation to outlaw the Quakers altogether in the following terms:
That whosoever of the inhabitants should directly or indirectly, cause any of the Quakers to come into that jurisdiction, he should forfeit an hundred pounds to the country, and be committed to prison, there to remain till the penalty be satisfied. And whosoever should entertain them, knowing them to be so, should forfeit forty shillings to the country for every hour's entertaining or concealment, and be committed to prison till the forfeiture be fully paid and satisfied.
And further, that all and every of those people that should arise among them there should be dealt withal and suffer the like punishment as the laws provided for those that came in - viz, that for the first offence, if a male, one of his ears should be cut off, and be kept at work in the House of Correction till he should be sent away on his own charge. For the second, the other ear, and be kept in the House of Correction as aforesaid. If a woman, then to be severely whipt and kept as aforesaid, as the male for the first. And for the third, he or she should have their tongues bored through with an hot iron and be kept in the House of Correction close at work, till they be sent away on their own charge.
Tongues bored through with a hot iron! Are these the followers of Jesus of Nazareth? Or are they not the Protestant version of the Inquisitors? The Governor of Plymouth said that in his conscience he thought the Quakers to be a people that deserved to be destroyed, men, women and even children, along with their houses and lands, 'without pity'. And the Reformed Dutch were equally vindictive when it came to Quakers. Robert Hodshone, for preaching the Friends' message, was sentenced to be chained to a wheelbarrow, which he had to work with a black man overseeing him. The overseer was permitted to whip him as he thought best and eventually Hodshone was so badly bruised and swollen that he was quite unable to work at all. Dragged before the Governor for his failure to perform, he was stripped of his upper garments, taken into a room and hung by the wrists with a heavy log of wood bound to his ankles and was caned by the black man. He was then thrown into a cell; two days later he suffered the same treatment.
In 1659 and 1660 four members of the Friends were hanged on Boston Common while in Virginia another died from neglect after he was flogged. Year in, year out, the persecutions continued. Men and women were seized, imprisoned, flogged, even murdered. Some of the good Christians of Massachusetts even tried to sell the (white) children of Quakers as slaves to Barbados but could find no shipmaster who would take them. In 1662 Josiah Southick, whose parents were among the first to be banished, returned to Boston. He was sentenced to be whipped, and was tied to the cart's tail and flogged by the hangman through the streets with an implement made of dried guts with three knots at the end. The same day Southick was whipped at Rocksbury, and next day at Dedham, after which he was freed. At Dover (New England), three women, named Anne Coleman, Mary Tomkins, and Alice Ambrose, were sentenced to very cruel whippings. The warrant read as follows:
To the constables of Dover, Hampton, Salisbury, Newberry, Rosley, Ipswich, Wennam, Lynn, Boston, Roxbury, Dedham, and until the vagabond Quakers are carried out of this jurisdiction: You and every of you are required, in the King's Majesty's name, to take these vagabond Quakers, Anne Coleman, Mary Tomkins, and Alice Ambrose, and make them fast to the cart's tail, and, driving the cart through your several towns, to whip them upon their naked backs, not exceeding ten stripes a-piece on each of them in each town; and to convey them from constable to constable till they are out of this jurisdiction, as you will answer it at your peril; and this shall be your warrant. At Dover, 22 Dec. 1662, per me, Richard Walden.
Anne Coleman later again fell into the hands of the authorities at Salem. There she was whipped and on this occasion the knot of the lash split the nipple of her breast, and she nearly died from the effects of the wound. In 1664 her two friends, Mary Tomkins and Alice Ambrose, were pilloried and whipped in Virginia. The instrument was this time a cat-of-nine-tails, instead of three. No Christian compassion was allowed. Edward Wharton, who visited them in their sufferings, was arrested and sentenced to 30 stripes. The warrant was executed with full severity, the constable ordering the hangman to 'do his work well.'
Back in England, the Quakers were suffering also. George Fox was in and out of prison while his fellows continually fell foul of the authorities over their refusal to attend the services of the Established Church. Men and women alike were whipped for this terrible offence. In 1654, for example, Barbara Blangdon was hailed before the Mayor of Great Torrington, the good parish priest urging that she should be whipped as a 'vagabond'. She was lodged in a noisome prison at Exeter and eventually sentenced to be flogged. The local parish beadle carried out the sentence with such zeal that the blood reportedly ran down the lady's bared back in streams.
By the beginning of the 18th century some degree of toleration had become the order of the day. It is as a result of Quaker dissent that the English Affirmation Bill of 1696 was passed; this allowed for the giving of an affirmation in legal cases as an alternative to swearing on the Bible, for which we can all be thankful. A Toleration Act was passed in England in 1689, which greatly improved the situation of Quakers in that country. And, like the Seventh Day Adventists, the Quakers were pretty good at generating wealth. Some of their number founded great commercial enterprises such as Cadbury, Fry, Rowntree, Huntley & Palmer, Reckitt & Colman, Barclays Bank, Lloyds and Clark's Shoes. And, to be fair to them, they provided working conditions in their factories that were well in advance of most of those around them. Only one jarring note entered into the employer-employee relationship. They must needs interfere in an employee's morals. While Joseph Rowntree gave a marrying employee three days' holiday to bed his new bride, should such a wedding be performed in haste, due to, er, urgent necessity, the three days were forfeit.
The latter part of the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th century saw the rapid construction of a new Tower of Babel, a spiritual structure - with the builders every bit as confused as were those who built the first Tower. Where does one begin? We've already viewed a whole catalog of ever-dividing sects. Freedom of thought, freedom of religion and the increasing freedom of the individual to be just that - an individual - opened the proverbial floodgates to every possible shade of theological belief.
No longer held in the thrall to 'orthodox' theology, men (and sometimes women) speculated, and interpreted, and constructed, theologies all their very own. And they had private revelations, too, just as St Paul had at the very beginning, direct from the deity, or so many folk claimed (and still do today!). Thus did the noted 18th century Swedish philosopher-scientist Emanuel Swedenborg. Son of a Lutheran bishop, Swedenborg in mid-life all but abandoned his scientific work and began constructing a theology his father would scarcely recognize. But, of course, he had 'divine authority' for departing thus from the family religious fold. He had (like the Quakers and others yet to come) received a 'direct revelation' of the truth, the result of which was a peculiar variant of traditional Christianity, an early form of Unitarianism. Swedenborg taught that the Christ-god embodied within his person the aspects of the Trinity thought to belong to Yahweh and the Ghost. Thereafter a stream of esoteric Christian writings proceeded from Swedenborg's prolific pen and in the end he believed his work had ushered in a new dispensation. While Beatriz of the Kongo supped with the Almighty, Swedenborg claimed no such privilege. He did, however, converse with angels. Or so he confidently asserted.
But direct revelations from the heavens were not vouchsafed to men alone. In 1792 Joanna Southcott went about England declaring herself to be the woman driven into the wilderness (Revelation 12). She was said to be illiterate but she managed to prophesy in verse and prose, wrote letters and pamphlets and finally produced a work called The Book of Wonders. To her followers, who grew in number greatly and who included many confused clergy, she issued sealed papers, her seals, guarantied to protect them from the judgments of God in this world and the next, documents that hardly had any less validity than Rome's Indulgences.
By now men of learning and position were drawn to her cause and her disciples numbered thousands. Then a great announcement was made. The Prophetess was to give birth, at precisely midnight on 19 October 1814, to a second Shiloh, or Prince of Peace, miraculously conceived, for she was now about 60 years of age. The great date came and went but no Shiloh was born and soon after the Prophetess died. But not even her death deflected the disciples, many of whom believed she would rise again from her 'trance' as the mother of Shiloh. A post-mortem examination revealed the cause of her apparent 'pregnancy': she was suffering from dropsy.
