Section 1075
XI. We cannot commune with the church of England, because it is of a persecuting spirit
And we cannot think such a church is a true church of Christ: that the Puritans were persecuted by it in Queen Elizabeth’s time, and the Dissenters in the reign of King Charles the second, is not to be denied; and though this spirit does not now prevail, this is owing to the mild and gentle government of our gracious sovereign King GEORGE, the head of this Church, for which we have reason to be thankful; and yet it is not even now quite clear of persecution, witness the Test and Corporation-acts, by which many free-born Englishmen are deprived of their native rights, because they cannot conform to the church of England; besides, the reproaches and revilings which are daily cast upon us, from the pulpit and the press, as well as in conversation, shew the same: and to remove all such calumnies and reproaches, has been the inducement to draw up the above reasons for our dissent; and which have been chiefly occasioned by a late Letter on the duty of Catechizing Children, in which the author, is not content highly to commend the church of England, as the purest church under heaven, but reflects greatly on Dissenters, and particularly on such whom he calls rebaptizers; and repeats the old stale story of the German Anabaptists, and their errors, madnessess and distractions; and most maliciously insinuates, that the people who now go by this name are tinctured with erroneous principles; for he says, they spread their errors in adjacent countries, which are not fully extinguished to this day: whereas they are a people that scarce agree with us in any thing; neither in their civil nor in their religious principles, nor even in baptism itself; for they were for the repetition of adult-baptism in some cases, which we are not: and used sprinkling in baptism, which we do not: the difference between them and us is much greater than between the papists and the church of England; and yet this letter-writer would think it very hard and unkind in us, should we rake up all the murders and massacres committed by Paedobaptists, and that upon principle, believing that in so doing they did God good service; I mean the Papists, who are all Paedobaptists; and yet this might be done with as much truth and ingenuity, as the former story is told: and besides, the disturbances in Germany were begun by Paedobaptists; first: by the Papists before the reformation, and then by Lutherans after it, whom Luther endeavored to dissuade from such practices; and even the disturbances in Munster were begun by Paedobaptist ministers, with whom some called Anabaptists joined, and on whom the whole scandal is laid. But what is all this to us, who as much disavow their principles and practices, as any people under the heavens? nor does our different way of thinking about baptism any ways tend to the same.