It would be a painful and useless task to detail the cruelties that followed. No persecution was ever more gratuitous and unfounded. Some of its later apologists have alleged that it was more political than religious, that it was a necessary measure to protect the State from seditious persons. It is sufficient to reply that contemporary records make no charge of sedition against the Anabaptists. They were condemned for Anabaptism, and for nothing else; the record stands in black and white for all men to read. The Zwinglians found that having once undertaken to suppress what they declared to be heresy by physical force, more stringent remedies than fines and imprisonments were needed. In short, if persecution is to be efficient and not ridiculous, there is no halting-place this side of the sword and the stake.
The Zwinglians did not lack courage to make their repressive measures effectual, On March 7, 1526, it was decreed by the Zurich Council that whosoever rebaptized should be drowned, and this action was confirmed by a second decree of November 19. Felix Mantz, who had been released for a time and had renewed his labors at Schaffhausen and Basel, was rearrested on December 3, found guilty of the heinous crime of Anabaptism, and on January 5 was sentenced to death by drowning.
This barbarous sentence was duly carried out. On the way to the place of execution, says Bullinger (a bitterly hostile historian), "his mother and brother came to him, and exhorted him to be steadfast; and he persevered in his folly, even to the end. When he was bound upon the hurdle and was about to be thrown into the stream by the executioner, he sang with a loud voice, ‘In rnanus tuas, Dornine, comniendo spiritum rneum‘
(‘into thy hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit’); and herewith was drawn into the water and drowned."
No wonder Capito wrote to Zwingli from Strasburg: "it is reported here that your Felix Mantz has suffered punishment and died gloriously; on which account the cause of truth and piety, which you sustain, is greatly depressed." If anything could depress the Zwinglian movement, one would think it would be this brutal treatment of those whose only fault was that they had been consistent where Zwingli himself had been inconsistent, in keeping close to New Testament teaching and precedent.
About two years later Jacob Faulk and Henry Rieman, having firmly refused to retract, but rather having expressed their determination to preach the gospel and rebaptize converts if released, were sentenced to death, taken to a little fishing-hut in the middle of the river Limat, where, says Bullinger, "they were drawn into the water and drowned."
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