CHAPTER FIVE

POLITICAL ENTHUSIASM: THE AND RELIGIOUS RADICALISM

5.1. INTRODUCTION

As I mentioned in the previous chapter, in Enthusiasmus Tnumpha- tus, More considered the "philosophical enthusiasm" of Vaughan the less dangerous of two kinds. The greater threat was among those "political" enthusiasts who come to "fancy themselves great Princes ... and Deliverers of the people sent from God."1 More's Enthusi• asmus Triumphatus (1656), marked the beginning of his increasing preoccupation with religious radicalism. To understand his con• cern it is necessary to review the history of the early Quakers and their place among the religious radicals. During the , separatist sects had multiplied rapidly along with a hodge-podge of self-proclaimed prophets and Messi• ahs. Anabaptists, Grindletonians, Ranters, Levelers, , Fami- lists, and Quakers called for a variety of religious, political, social, and economic reforms, many of which would still be classified as radical today. The Levelers called for a "practical Christianity" which took action against various forms of oppression, pressing for a radical of political power through democratic reform of parliament, the law, and local government. The Diggers, led by the visionary Gerrard Winstanley, advocated and briefly prac• ticed a kind of agrarian . The Ranters took the antin- omian view that all things are pure to the Christian and that sin exists only in the imagination. The Fifth Monarchy Men, who saw prophetic implications in the political upheavals of their day, sought and expected a millennial reign of Christ in a new theo• cratic government based on the laws of the Old Testament. These radical sects rebelled, not only against the organized religion of their day, but against political and economic oppression. The rad• icals fiercely challenged the organized clergy and charged that their pretensions to scholarship were merely a tool to make simple reli-

1 ET 22. THE QUAKERS AND RELIGIOUS RADICALISM 131 gion inaccessible to the common people, to conceal and enhance their own role as exploiters, and to maintain the power of the rul• ing class.2 Two sects of religious radicals particularly occupied More's thought, the Quakers and the "Familists" or Family of Love.3 The Family of Love was founded by Henrik Niclaes and seems to have been based upon the teachings of David George. Niclaes was born in Westphalia in 1502. After imprisonment for heresy he traveled to Amsterdam in 1530 where he declared himself a prophet and founded the Familia Caritatis. He was alleged to have collaborated with Thomas Münzer in an insurrection at Amsterdam. His books were prohibited by the Council of Trent in 1570 and 1582 and by Papal bull in 1590. At some unknown time Niclaes visited England where he gained a nucleus of followers, but Familism in England seems to have been spread primarily by Christopher Vittels. Niclaes preached that men and women might regain in this life the inno• cence and freedom from sin of prefallen humanity, that property should be held in common, and that only the spirit of God within the Christian could understand scripture. Familism cultivated anti- clericalism by emphasizing the importance of an itinerant apostolic priesthood. The perception that Familism was profoundly seditious seems to have been based, at least to some extent, on its apparent panthe• ism. This led the Puritan divine, John Knewstub, to say that "H.N. turns religion upside down. He buildeth heaven here upon earth; he maketh God man and man God."4 A further subversive element was perceived in the Familist use of scripture. Because of the supe• riority of the Spirit (as the agent of inspiration) over the letter, the historical meanings of scriptures were sacrificed for allegorical in• terpretations.5 Familists were hardly distinguished from the Anabaptists who had received a bad name for their activities in Ger• many during the sixteenth century. In 1535 a group of Anabaptists

2 Manning 1984, 66. 3 The following account of Familism and the general background of the reli• gious radicalism of this period draws variously from Nicolson 1930, 296n; Jones 1932, 123-132; Hill [1972] 1991, 26-27; Burrage [1912] 1967, 1:209-220; McGregor and Reay 1985; Heriot 1933-1936; Hamilton 1981; Martin 1980; and Knox 1950, H7ff., 140ff. 4 Knewstub 1579, quoted by Hill [1972] 1991, 27. 5 Hamilton 1981,4.