Mike Farris:
The words of Terwoot, the young Anabaptist executed in 1573, were perhaps the finest of the era in proclaiming that God was on the side of liberty.

Observe well the command of God; Thou shalt love the stranger as thyself... oh! That they would deal with us according to natural reasonableness and evangelic truth, of which our persecutors so highly boast... From all that it is clear that those who have the true Gospel doctrine and faith will persecute no one, but will themselves be persecuted.

It is of considerable interest that Robert Browne, one of the first voices for religious liberty in England, also proclaimed a clear theory of the right of self-government in matters of both ecclesiastical and civil government.

Church governors are persons receiving their authority and office of God… received and called thereto, by due consent and agreement of the Church... Civil Magistrates, are persons receiving their authority and office of God... whereto they are duly received and called by consent and agreement of the people and subjects.

Here, at the close of the sixteenth century, in the voice of a persecuted leader of a despised minority sect, is a clear articulation of the basic concept of religious liberty and self-government—that voluntary consent lies at the heart of every form of liberty. Browne got these ideas from his reading of the Word of God. Tyndale’s ploughboys had become the prophets of liberty.

I’m Mike Farris.