Baptist History, Heritage and Distinctives – Burnt Alive for Opposing the Catholics. John Wickliffe and the Lollards. Part Three of Three

Thomas E Kresal shared a post  September 6, 2020

Thomas E Kresal

Baptist History, Heritage and Distinctives – Burnt Alive for Opposing the Catholics. John Wickliffe and the Lollards. Part Three of Three

Many of them had come to England from the Waldenses, and the principles advocated by them were in direct line with their predecessors. Among these, Walter Reynard, known as Reynard Lollard, a Dutchman, was apprehended and burned at Cologne. The name of William Sawter is found in that illustrious roll of martyrs who died for the cause of soul freedom in Britain. Not long after the king and a troop of his courtiers tracked and murdered one hundred of these down-trodden Christians, who had assembled at the hour of midnight to worship God among the bushes of St. Giles, near London; Sir John Oldcastle, Earl of Cobham, was apprehended, brought before the Bishops for trial, and promised honor and preferment if he would but recant. He refused to do so, preferring to die rather than to deny his Lord and Master. This noble man was dragged to Tyburn, where he was hung up by his waist and burned to death. In his agonies of suffering he prayed for his enemies and exclaimed, “I die in triumph.” But we forbear to record more of the sufferings endured by the Lollards of England, our purpose being only to show that they were persecuted as opposers of the Romish church. The faithful ones who, in different ages and countries, lifted their voices against the corruptions of Catholicism, were known by the general term anabaptists, because they baptized those who came to them from the Catholic party.Long before the Reformation inaugurated by Luther took its rise, the Baptists stood out against the abominable practices of the recognized “church,” and, unlike Luther, stood upon the plain teaching of God’s holy word.Presented by Thomas E. Kresal from: Elder John R. Daily, Primitive Monitor, 1897, pp. 558-60