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Baptist History, Heritage & Distinctives Catholics and Protestants both engaged in burning Baptists Protestant reformers were sometimes as guilty of atrocities as the Romanists against the Baptists and Anabaptists.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Catholics and Protestants taught that tradition, reason and Scripture made it the pious duty of saints to torture and burn men as heretics out of pure love for their holiness and salvation. Protestantism told them that it was a sacred duty to slaughter those as schismatics, sectaries, malignants, who corrupted the Church and would not live in peace with the Reformed.The sad instances of persecution practiced against the Baptists by the Protestants in King Edward VI\u2019s reign are in the Latin version of Foxe\u2019s Book of Martyrs but were left out of his English edition in order to protect the reputation of some of the martyrs of Queen Mary\u2019s day who had persecuted the Baptists during Edward\u2019s reign. (NOTE from Tom: the 5th edition is the last one printed during Foxe\u2019s lifetime later editions were corrupted, chapters removed, RCC \u201csaints\u201d inserted, etc.).John Rogers, one of Foxe\u2019s friends, called for the death of those who opposed the baptism of infants. It was reported that Rogers declared:\u201cThat burning alive was no cruel death, but easy enough.\u201dIt is believed that Foxe responded that Rogers himself may be the first to experience this mild burning. And so it was, Rogers was the first to be burned when the Catholic Queen Mary came to the throne.During the last year of Edward\u2019s reign Humphry Middleton was cast into prison by the Archbishop. After Bloody Mary arose to power, the bishops were cast into prison and Middleton was burned at Canterbury on July 12, 1555. The time of baptism as well as the mode was debated at this time because some of the Protestants immersed.So the issue was believer\u2019s baptism vs. infant baptism.During Mary\u2019s reign the prisons were crowded because both of these positions were anathema to the Catholic Mary. None was recorded by BaptistsPresented by Thomas E. Kresal from: This Day in Baptist History Vol. I: Cummins\/Thompson, pp. 285-86. <\/p>\n\n\n\n