THE SECOND EDICT BY THOSE OF ZURICH, IN WHICH ALL SO-CALLED ANABAPTISTS ARE THREATENED WITH DEATH, A. D. 1530.

There has existed, writes a certain author, in the Zwinglian churches, from their beginning, a great hatred and bitterness against the Anabaptists, or more properly speaking, against those baptized according to the ordinance of Christ as history certifies; by which they commenced very early to tyrannize over them; for we believe the Zwinglian church was not yet ten years old when said abuse occurred. Yet it did not stop at this, but they proceeded, the longer the worse, in this tyranny; so that those of Zurich, A. D. 1530, emitted an edict very much like the bloody decrees of the Roman Emperor, in which they write as follows:

“Therefore we strictly command all the inhabitants of our country, and those who are in any wise united with them, particularly high and low magistrates, bailiffs, constables, judges, elders of churches, and ecclesiastical officers, that, if they hear of any Anabaptists, they give us information concerning them, by virtue of the oath with which they are bound to us; that they nowhere tolerate them, or allow them to multiply; but that they apprehend them, and deliver them to us; for we shall punish with death, according to the purport of our laws, the Anabaptists with all those who favor them or adhere to them; and we shall also punish without mercy, according to their deserts, as having violated the faith and oath which they swore to their authorities,” those who assist, and do not report, 423 drive away, or bring as prisoners to us, all such persons.

This we have taken word for word from the edict, as Bullinger (contra, etc.) has cited it. Compare the note in the preface to the Offerboeck der Doopsgesinde, A. D. 1615, letter Y, with P. J. Twisck’s, Chron., p. 1031, col. 1, from different authors.