“In answer to questions the Barbes said: “All our ministers live in celibacy, and work at some honest trade.” “Marriage, however”, said Œcolampadius,, “is a state very becoming to all believers, and particularly to those who ought to be in all things examples to the flock. We also think that pastors ought not to devote to manual labour, as yours do, the time they could better employ in the study of Scripture. The minister has many things to learn; God does not teach us miraculously and without labour; we must take pains in order to know.” When the Barbes admitted that under stress of persecution they had sometimes had their children baptized by Romish priests, and even attended mass, the Reformers were surprised, and Œcolampadius, said: “What! has not Christ, the holy victim, fully satisfied the everlasting justice for us? Is there any need to offer other sacrifices after that of Golgotha? By saying Amen’ to the priests’ mass you deny the grace of Jesus Christ.”
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E.H. Broadbent (1861 - 1945)
lived at a time when documents and books – many of them now lost or very rare – which told the true story of the Christian church could still be found. His scholarship is attested to by the scores of books in several languages available in his day, from which he drew much of the vital information he has passed on to us. The Pilgrim Church of which he writes so eloquently and accurately was persecuted to the death for a thousand years before the Reformation.The story has been almost lost to the present generation and desperately needs to be retold.The Pilgrim Church. Edmund Hamer Broadbent, a Plymouth Brethren travelling missionary, is the author. You can purchase a hardcover copy of the Pilgrim Church on the Gospel Folio website.