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NICHOLAS (or NICLAES), HENRY (or HEND...

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Originally appearing in Volume V19, Page 656 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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NICHOLAS (or NICLAES), See also:HENRY (or HENDRIK) (c. 1501-C. 158o)  , founder of the See also:sect called " the See also:Family of Love," was See also:born in 1501 or 1502, at See also:Munster, where he was married and carried on the business of a See also:mercer . As a boy he was subject to visions, and at the See also:age of twenty-seven charges of See also:heresy led to his imprisonment . About 1530 he removed with his family to See also:Amsterdam, where he was again imprisoned on a See also:charge of complicity in the Munster revolution of 1534-1535 . About 1539 he experienced a See also:call to found his " Familia Caritatis." Removing to Embden, he lived there and prospered in business for twenty years, though he travelled with commercial as well as missionary See also:objects into the See also:Netherlands, See also:England and elsewhere . The date of his sojourn in England has been placed as See also:early as 1552 and as See also:late as 1569 . In 1579 he was living at See also:Cologne, where probably he died a See also:year or two later . His doctrines seem to have been derived largely from the Dutch Anabaptist See also:David See also:Joris or See also:George, who died in 1556; but they have mainly to be inferred from the jaundiced accounts of hostile writers . The outward trappings of his See also:system were merely Anabaptist; but he anticipated a See also:good many later speculations, and his followers were accused of asserting that all things were ruled by nature and not directly by See also:God, of denying the See also:dogma of the Trinity, and repudiating See also:infant See also:baptism . They held that no See also:man should be put to See also:death for his opinions, and apparently, like the later See also:Quakers, they objected to the carrying of arms and to anything like an See also:oath; and they were quite impartial in their repudiation of all other churches and sects, including Brownists and Barrowists . See also:Nicholas's See also:principal See also:disciple in England was one See also:Christopher Vitel, and towards 1579 the progress of the sect especially in the eastern counties provoked See also:literary attacks, proclamations and See also:parliamentary bills . But Nicholas's followers escaped the gallows and the stake, for they combined with some success the See also:wisdom of the See also:serpent and the harmlessness of the See also:dove . They would only discuss their doctrines with sympathizers; they showed every respect for authority, and considered outward conformity a See also:duty .

This quietist attitude, while it saved them from molestation, hampered propaganda; and though the " Family " existed until the See also:

middle of the 17th See also:century, it was then swallowed up by the Quakers, See also:Baptists and Unitarians, all of which de-nominations may have derived some of their ideas through the " Family " from the See also:Anabaptists . The See also:list of Nicholas's See also:works occupies nearly six columns in the See also:Diet . Nat . Biogr . See also See also:Belfort Bax, Rise and Fall of the Anabaptists, pp . 327-380 (1903) ; and See also:Strype's Works, See also:General See also:Index . (A . F .

End of Article: NICHOLAS (or NICLAES), HENRY (or HENDRIK) (c. 1501-C. 158o)
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