Many of the reformers seem to have taken a barbarous pleasure in pursuing [Unitarians] with civil and ecclesiastical vengeance: and some of them avowed their desire to diminish the odium of their own heresy by torturing and burning others more heretical than themselves. Most of you are aware that the celebrated physician, MICHAEL SERVETUS, having escaped from the dungeons of the Inquisition in France, was detected in Geneva, delivered up to the magistrates by means of John Calvin, and condemned to death for the crime of denying the doctrine of the Trinity. He was accordingly burnt to death; and the great Reformer, who, from a window, beheld him dragged to execution, was so overjoyed at the spectacle that he burst into an irrepressible fit of laughter; and even at the distance of eleven years, in writing to a friend, he avowed and gloried in the deed. “Servetum, canem illum latrantem compescui!” . —“I quelled,” he says, “Servetus, that barking dog!” A similar fate overtook the learned GENTILI, at Berne. Poland alone afforded a refuge to the unhappy Unitarians; but after some years a fanatical outcry was raised against them—their churches were leveled to the ground—their university and flourishing schools were dispersed and broken up by armed force; and finally they were, one and all, by a public decree, banished from the territory of Poland, under pain of death, and scattered to the four winds of heaven, without a home or refuge—being allowed only one year to dispose of their property and prepare for their departure. [The popular fury being excited against the Unitarians, many of them, while in the act of departure, were robbed of their property, and some were massacred with impuuity. This calamitous event occurred in the year 1660.]
Such was the fate of the unhappy Unitarian Church in Poland, which at one time numbered upwards of 100 congregations, including several of the best and noblest families of the Republic, and adorned by divines whose works, even yet, are most valuable repertories of scriptural and ecclesiastical learning. The persecution was carried even to the death upon all such as remained, unless they could be prevailed upon to recant; and the same penalty was inflicted upon all persons whatever who should befriend or relieve the unhappy exiles, or even keep up any correspondence with them. The illustrious confessors were, by the spectacle of their sufferings, their virtues, and their heroism, the means of exciting in other countries to which they fled for refuge, a deep interest in the cause for which they endured so much and so patiently. This feeling was latent for a season; but in the progress of time it produced important results.
In the British empire, the ancient law was most severe against all professors of Unitarianism. Not to go farther back than the time of the Reformation, it is well known that after that epoch the writ “de heretico comburendo,” or, for burning the heretic, remained in full force; and under its bloody operation many Unitarians were put to death by their Protestant brethren—by those who had themselves so narrowly escaped the persecution of the Roman Catholics. In the reign of King Edward VI JOANNA BOCHER was condemned as guilty of heresy, in denying the doctrine of the Trinity, by a court in which Cranmer, Latimer, and Ridley, sat as judges. Cranmer extorted from the youthful sovereign his signature to the warrant for executing this virtuous and noble-minded lady; and she was burnt to death. And so was GEORGE VAN PARIS, a foreigner, two years afterwards, of whom his enemies have left this record—that “he was a man of strict and virtuous life, and very devout: he suffered with great constancy of mind, kissing the stake and fagots that were to burn him. In the reign of Queen Elizabeth, WIELMACKER, VAN TOORT, HAMMOND, LEwIS, COLE (a clergyman), and FRANCIS KET, were put to death “for the like heresies.” The Rev. Mr. Burton— who was an eye-witness of the execution of Ket, and one of those who thought his sentence just, and who approved of its being carried into effect, declares that he was a man of exemplary piety and integrity, and that the only words which he uttered amidst the flames were, “Blessed be God! blessed be God! blessed be God!”: And in the reign of King James I Mr. LEGATE and Mr. WIGHTMAN suffered in the same manner, for the same offence. During the protectorate of Oliver Cromwell, the learned and virtuous Mr. BIDDLE was apprehended, and would have been put to death by the Parliament, but the Protector rescued him from their fangs, and allowed him to spend the remainder of his life in exile, upon the rock of Scilly. In the reigns of Charles I and II and James II many hundred persons, accused of Unitarianism, were apprehended and lodged in jail; but lest their public sufferings might excite commiseration they were allowed to languish out their miserable lives in perpetual imprisonment. The last judicial execution in Great Britain, for this offence, was that of Mr. THOMAS AIKENHEAD, a student of divinity, who was hanged at Edinburgh, on the 8th of January, 1697, for denying the doctrine of the Trinity. This was in the reign of King William III. That monarch was known to entertain tolerant principles, and it was expected that he would interpose his royal clemency between the persecutors and their victim. To prevent this, all the Presbyterian clergy in Edinburgh and the neighbourhood so inflamed their flocks by violent and inflammatory harangues against the unhappy culprit, while he lay in prison, during the interval between his sentence and the day of execution, that the government thought it safest to allow the law to take its course; and he was put to death accordingly. The ever-memorable Mr. THOMAS EMLYN was punished in Ireland, in the reign of Queen Anne, by fine and imprisonment, for his opinions. He had been condemned to the pillory in addition; but that part of the sentence was not carried into effect. Unitarians were expressly exempted from the benefit of the Act of Toleration, both in England and in Ireland; and it was not till the year 1817 that Parliament removed the penalties to which the profession of our opinions subjected us in Ireland. It cannot, and ought not to be concealed, that for some years previously they had been left as a dead letter—they disgraced the statute-book—but were not carried into execution.
I recall these things to memory, not for the purpose of kindling afresh the expiring embers of religious discord—far, far otherwise. I am far from imputing the spirit which these barbarous enactments breathe, to my fellow-christians generally of other Churches, at the present day. They were the consequence of imperfect light; and advancing knowledge has taught men the great lesson of mutual toleration. Among those who now hear me there are probably many who differ from me very widely in doctrine; but I hope and firmly believe, there is not one among them who would wish to see me burnt for what he deems my heresy; nor even to be the means of injuring me in my person, property, or liberty. My object in referring to this point is simply to shew, that until very recently our opinions have not had a clear stage and fair play. Our advocates dared scarcely open their mouths. If they did on any occasion come forward, there were not wanting learned opponents to meet them in controversy;—that was perfectly fair: not only allowable, but desirable: but if argument failed, there was the last resource—the gibbet and the gallows—the pillory, imprisonment, and fine. I am of opinion, that Unitarianism has not even yet fair play. True it is, that the sanguinary and bloody laws which were intended to extirpate it, have been repealed; but, there still remains so much of exclusion—popular odium—misrepresentation—and clamour to contend against, that its advocates still require all the support and strength they can derive from their sense of the importance of their views, and their deep conviction of their truth, to nerve them against the obloquy and opposition which they are certain to encounter. Of this it would not be difficult to produce many striking examples; some of them very recent, and rather remarkable. But this would be an invidious task, and might lead to a misconception of my motives in adverting to the subject. I therefore pass it over, and proceed to shew, that notwithstanding all these adverse circumstances, Unitarianism has made a very considerable progress; fully as much as could reasonably have been expected, under these circumstances, and more than enough to encourage its advocates to zeal and perseverance.
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