A HISTORY OF UNITARIANISM - Starr King School for the Ministry

ut with the general form, purpose and spirit very much the same as of old. It
was to be systematically organized, its worship was to be sacramental, its faith
was to be strictly defined, and membership in it was to be conditioned on
conformity to an orthodox standard of belief, and to accepted usages. On the
other hand were those that wished a spiritual fellowship of free spirits, with
little formal organization, with no prescribed form of worship, with no
inflexible standard of belief, but with primary emphasis upon personal religious
experience in a direct communion of the soul with God. Out of the former
tendency came the Lutheran and Reformed Churches; out of the latter, the
Anabaptist movement.
It lay in the nature of things that in the former case individual freedom
would be considerably restricted by the spirit of the organization, that tradition
would weigh more heavily than reason, and that there would be little tolerance
of those that did not conform to the accepted standards; and that if spiritual
freedom were to be found and reason and tolerance to be widely exercised, it
would be rather in the other camp. Moreover, it might naturally be expected
that in case of conflict between the two contrasted systems, the churches of
organization and discipline would prevail over a movement that preferred
freedom of the individual soul to a régime of discipline and restraint. It would
have been well for the history of Christianity in Europe had both types of
religion been able, or been permitted, to exist normally side by side, each
making its contribution to the total of Europe’s spiritual life. The persecution
and repression of the Anabaptist movement, therefore, though no doubt in the
circumstances unavoidable, is one of the most regrettable phases of the history
of the modern Church.