THE LONDON CONFESSION
And its Place in Baptist History
INTRODUCTION
Much has been said and written in recent years about confessions of faith, and about the London Confession of 1689 in particular. A movement called the Founders is presently endeavoring to take the Southern Baptist Convention back to the London Confession, even though it is clear that most Southern Baptists would object vigorously to much that is taught in that confession. Some of that contention has spilled over among the Primitive Baptists. In this little study we will endeavor to look at both sides of that controversy.
Before we make any comment, we must take time to point out—in the most solemn way—that we are treading on sacred ground.
We must exercise extreme care in what we say. Whatever anyone may believe about the London Confession, there is nothing history makes more clear than it does that the generation that adopted the London Confession were some of the most devout, the most sincere, the most godly people who ever professed the Christian name, or the name Baptist. No other generation suffered more for what they believed, nor were more steadfast in defending it. They were tortured, mutilated, and killed in every diabolical way imaginable. In this book we will record some of their suffering, and the way they were brutalized by the English religious Establishment. Until that final day, when our Lord comes again, their names, and their memory, will have a place among the rolls of those faithful martyrs who have suffered for the cause of Christ and his church.
For over two hundred years our nation has been protected by the First Amendment to the Constitution, and we have enjoyed the religious liberty that document affords. No matter how much time we may spend poring over dusty old volumes about that long ago age, we cannot begin to understand all they suffered.
It is also important to note that the suffering of Baptists in England in the 1600’s was at the hands of the Protestant Establishment. So much has been written about persecution of Protestants by Roman Catholics, and the way they persecuted Protestants, and burned them at the stake, that few people realize that when they were in power, the Protestants did the same thing to those who would not submit to their authority.
True enough, the Catholics in England did burn Baptists at the stake from 1400 until 1534, but, except for the five years Queen Mary (Bloody Mary) occupied the throne, from 1534 till 1611, it was the Protestants burning Baptists.
By the way, it was those five years of Queen Mary’s reign that prompted John Fox to write his book. Those who read Fox’s Book of Martyrs need to keep in mind that the Catholics burned Baptists in England for 134 years; except for the reign of Queen Mary, the Protestants burned Baptists for next 77 years. For over four hundred years Protestants have been busily rewriting their history. They are not anxious for you to know that fact.
We should keep in mind that it is common for writers to refer to English Churchmen as Anglo Catholics. There has never been a lot of difference between the Church of England and the Roman Catholic Church.
We should also keep it in mind that it was never the intention of the Reformers to forsake the Catholic religion. It was their highest goal to restore the Catholic religion to what it had been in Augustine’s day. In that they were totally successful. They would renounce the pope, and a thousand years of corruption in doctrine and practice that had accumulated in that body, but they would still be good Catholics.
No other person had more influence on the development and rise of the Roman Catholic Church than Saint Augustine. No other person had more influence on Catholic policy for the next one thousand years than he did. To this day there is no name more revered among Catholics. Martin Luther was an Augustinian monk. In his Institutes of the Christian Religion John Calvin quoted Augustine more often than all other writers combined. The Reformers taught very little Augustine would have objected to. They mimicked Augustine in every way. Especially, they mimicked his willingness to pursue and torture those who disagreed with him, and to persuade the secular authorities to pursue them to the death.
They would not be Roman Catholics; they would be Augustinian Catholics.
The Protestants quit burning Baptists with the burning of Edward Wightman in 1611. They saw they were gaining recruits for the Baptists. There is no more effective testimony anyone can give to the validity of his convictions than to submit to be burned alive rather than deny what he believes.
Regardless of whether the Anglican bishops or the Presbyterians were in control of Parliament—and thus in control of the Church of England—they constantly harassed the Baptists. Sometimes, with the approval of the authorities, the mob would storm into churches, drag the preacher out of the pulpit, and with swords and clubs waving, they would beat the congregation mercilessly, even women “great with child.” They would lead the preacher off to the judge, who would threaten to see to it the preacher was hanged, and impose a large fine. But, if they let him go, he would often be found preaching in the same pulpit that night, only to have the same thing happen all over again.
After 1611, they no longer burned preachers at the stake, but they did hang, draw and quarter them. Drawing and quartering meant that after they hanged him, they would cut his body in four parts (quarters), drag it through the town, and put the body parts on display. They would often chop off his head, mount it on a pole, and display it in front of his church.
They would arrest preachers, take them through a farce of a trial, and lock them up to starve and freeze in filthy jails, while their families starved and froze at home, if they still had a home. Often, in order to have a roof over their heads, their wives and children would join them in jail, and they would starve, freeze and die together. The principle was out of sight, out of mind. The spectacle of a public burning, and the sympathy it provoked, were avoided. The preacher was prevented from doing his work, and those who were connected with him were sufficiently warned. This continued right up until William of Orange came to the throne in 1689. It was against this background the London Confession was adopted.
We will deal with those persecutions in Part Three of the book, suffice it to say it does not behoove us in this twenty-first century, in the comfort of our studies, and protected by the First Amendment, to be particularly smug in pointing out their mistakes.
In America, Catholics have never had the power to persecute the way they did in England and Europe, but when they came to America, both the Congregationalists (Puritans) in New England, and the Anglicans in Virginia continued their tormenting of the Baptists. The Bill of Rights changed all that. The First Amendment only applied to the federal government, and it took another fifty years before Massachusetts was finally forced to give up its state church, but since that time, the power to persecute has been denied to Protestants and Catholics alike, so that their conduct in America does not remotely resemble what it was in the old country.
But while we want to be very careful in what we say about those honest and faithful English Baptists, we must also be faithful to say that no person, and no generation of people, is infallible. We all make mistakes, and those mistakes usually have consequences. Sometimes mistakes in religion have repercussions for centuries to come. From the very beginning, the Reformers divided into Lutherans, Presbyterians, English Churchmen, and so on. More than four hundred years later, those divisions still remain. It is doubtful that, at this late date, they will ever to be resolved.
For all the reverential respect we have for the generation of Baptists who adopted the London Confession, we must be faithful to point out that most all the problems that have afflicted the Baptists for the last three hundred years spring from mistakes made by the Particular Baptists of that day. We are still feeling the effects of their fallibility and arguing over their mistakes.
The most ironic thing about the entire conflict over the London Confession is that one of the most confused, and unstable, periods in Baptist history should produce the document so many people look to for Baptist orthodoxy.
The Particular Baptists of the 1600’s in England were a faithful and godly people, and they suffered in ways we can never imagine, but candor demands that we acknowledge they made mistakes from which we will never recover.
Are Baptists Protestants?
Baptists love to point out that we are not Protestants. We did not come out of the Roman Catholic Church, because we were never connected with Rome. We trace our history through that long line of believers who were never part of Rome. They were called by different names. In England, they were most often called Lollards, or Anabaptists. On the Continent, they went by a variety of names, depending on who their leaders were, or where they were located. They were called Anabaptists, Waldenses, Albigenses, Petrobrusians, Bogomilians, Paulicians, and so on. That went on all through the centuries of what has come to be called the Dark Ages.
That is all true—provided you are talking about the old-order Anabaptists. If you are talking about the General Baptists or the Particular Baptists it is not true.
The historical record is clear and to the point. Both the Generals and the Particulars grew out of the Protestant Independents, who were one element of the Church of England, which, in 1534, broke with the Roman Catholic Church. So indirectly, the General Baptists and the Particular Baptists both trace their pedigree back to the Roman Catholic Church.
John Smyth and his followers were driven out by the Independents in 1608. They became the General Baptists. The Particular Baptists began to separate from the Independents, when John Spilsbury set up the first Particular Baptist Church in London in September of 1633.
Sylvester Hassell records, “In 1633, September the 12th, the first Particular or Calvinistic or Predestinarian English Baptist Church was founded in London, under the pastoral care of John Spilsbury, from those members of an Independent Church who rejected infant baptism; it was called Broad Street Church, and was in the parish of Wapping, London,” (Hassell’s History, pg. 524). They were the New School Baptists of that day.
They continued to set up Particular Baptist churches, but they did not entirely separate from the Protestant Establishment, until their preachers were driven out of the Protestant churches by an act of Parliament in what has come to be called the Great Ejection of 1662. Often during those twenty nine years, Particular Baptist preachers would serve their Protestant churches in the morning, and preach to their Baptist churches in the afternoon.
They would administer communion in their Establishment churches, and they allowed Protestants to take communion in their Baptist churches. How could they object, when the same preacher was serving as pastor of both churches. If members of his Protestant church brought babies to be baptized, he would refer them to a Protestant preacher to do the work. It was because of such irregularities that the old-order Anabaptists insisted the new reformed Baptists were not sufficiently reformed. They brought too much of the corruption of the Establishment Church with them.
Neither the Generals, nor the Particulars, wanted anything to do with the old-order Anabaptists who were all around them, and they would not allow the old-order preachers to baptize them. Catholics and Protestants made the most false and outrageous charges against the Anabaptists. The Generals and Particulars repeated the same charges, and hurled them against the Anabaptists.
The old-order brethren were used to being libeled by Protestants and Catholics; but it had to be especially painful to be maligned by other Baptists.
Both the Generals and the Particulars believed that the true church had ceased to exist in England. They also believed that if the true church ceased to exist, and valid baptism was no longer available, two people, neither of which had been baptized, and neither of which had been ordained, could baptize each other, and thus start the church up again. That is not good Baptist doctrine, to say the least. Alexander Campbell believed that; Baptists do not.
What the old-order Anabaptists thought
of the new reformed Baptists
Jonathan Davis wrote his history of the Welsh Baptists in 1836. He is a good source of information about the old-order Anabaptists and the dim view they held of those who had so recently risen up among the Protestants.
In the following quote from Davis you will notice, he points out that (1) there were already old-order Baptists in Wales when the Reformation began, (2) that nobody knew how long they had been there, (3) that they believed the London Baptists had not been sufficiently converted, (4) that they objected to the London Baptists allowing unbaptized people to take communion, (5) that they believed the London Baptists (they called them reformed Baptists) had brought too much of the Church of England’s corruption with them, (6) that the old-order Welsh Baptists enjoyed the fellowship of each other more than they did the fellowship of these new reformed Baptists, but that, in spite of their doubts, (7) they found their differences to be no bar to communion.
On pages 19 and 20 we read, “The vale of Olchon, also is situated between mountains almost inaccessible. How many hundreds of years it had been inhabited by Baptists before William Erbury ever visited the place, we cannot tell. We have no account of him, or any other person, baptizing any there before the time we know that there was a Baptist church there; that is, in 1633. It is a fact that cannot be controverted, that there were Baptists here at the commencement of the Reformation; and no man upon earth can tell when the church was formed, and who began to baptize in this little Piedmont.”
“Whence came these Baptists? It is universally believed that it is the oldest church, but how old none can tell. We know that, at the Reformation, in the reign of Charles the First, they had a minister named Howell Vaughan, quite a different sort of a Baptist from Erbury, Wroth, Vavasor Powell, and others, who were the great reformers, but had not been reformed so far as they ought to have done, in the opinion of the Olchon Baptists. And that was not to be wondered at; for they had dissented from the church of England, and probably brought some of her corruptions from that establishment.”
“We know that the reformers were for mixed communion, but the Olchon Baptists received no such practices. In short, these were plain, strict, apostolical Baptists. They would have order and no confusion—the word of God their only rule. The reformers, or the reformed Baptists who had been brought up in the established church, were for laying on of hands on the baptized, but these Baptists whom they found on the mountains of Wales were no advocates for it.”
“As the Baptists of Piedmont were much disappointed in the reformation of Luther; so these on the mountains of Principality were, in some degree, disappointed in the reformation of their Baptist brethren in Wales; for the Olchon Baptists were like those Baptists that would not compromise with Austin.Indeed, they were so much like them, in many things too numerous to be mentioned, that they must have been a separate people, maintaining the order of the New Testament in every age and generation, from the year 63 to the present time.”
Old School/New School Baptists
It is hard to imagine a clearer statement of the difference between the old-order Anabaptists and the new reformed Baptists.
I am tempted to say that he sounds, for all the world, like a Primitive Baptist pointing out the difference between our people and other Baptists of our day. Both John Spilsbury, the founder of the Particular Baptists, and John Smyth, the founder of the General Baptists were brilliant men. They are bound to have known the doctrine of the old-order Anabaptists. Perhaps that is why they refused to allow them to baptize them.
In a footnote Davis points out “six or seven churches of the old Baptist order,” and shows that, in spite of their reservations, they made every effort to work with those Davis called reformed Baptists.
“Notwithstanding the Baptists in Wales were very numerous in 1653, yet there were but six or seven churches of the old Baptist order. However, the difference between them and V. Powell and other reformers, was not a bar to communion. At the same time, it is evident, that they had a more intimate fellowship with one another.”
Persecution, and a desire for peace and unity, had driven all three kinds of Baptists into one camp. They were together, but the union could not hold. There were too many differences. We should point out that, for all their differences, they really tried to work together. Six Welsh churches went so far as to send messengers to the 1689 London Convention. They were Glandwr, Swansea, Golchon [Olchon], Blaenau, Llanwenarth, and Glanhenock, (Ivimy vol. 1, ppg. 503-509). Of those six, Olchon, Llanwenarth, and Swansea were Old-order Anabaptist churches, (Davis, pg. 20).
The Generals and Particulars were a new thing in the earth. These were Baptists who wanted nothing to do with the old-order (old school) Baptists of that day. They were Baptists who could not trace their pedigree without tracing it through Protestant churches. Even after they began to establish their Baptist churches, they still insisted on their devotion to what they called that wholesome Protestant doctrine. They continued to refer to themselves as Protestants, and they did not separate from the Protestants until they were driven out. The Particulars refused to leave, until they were forced out in the Great Ejection of 1662.
They were the New School Baptists of that day, and they advocated many of the same notions as the New School Baptists of our day. We must keep that in mind if we are going to find our way through the maze of Baptist history in England in the 1600’s.
Before we go any farther, we need to point out three or four things.
1. The London Confession comes up for ratification just about every one hundred years. It was ratified in 1689, again in 1787, and again in 1900. It is right on time with this generation.
2. It always comes up during a time of instability among the Baptists. That instability will become more evident in the pages to come.
3. It has generally been used as an effort to bring into one camp people who are fundamentally disagreed. In that it has never been successful. (With the Founders, it seems they are more interested in dividing the Southern Baptists, than they are in uniting them.)
4. It has never brought unity among the Baptists. Rather, it has generally been a precursor to war. The fiercest conflicts among our people have immediately followed the dates given above.
Remembering these four facts, along with a better understanding of the true nature of the Presbyterian Westminster Confession, are the most important things to know about Baptist history.
In 1689, when the London Confession was adopted, there was great doctrinal disunity among the Particular Baptists. The men who signed the confession were at each others throats at the very time they signed the confession, and the ink was hardly dry before they broke into all out war.
Benjamin Keach was the single most influential Particular Baptist in England during the thirty years from 1689 until John Gill came along in 1719. He was thoroughly unsound on any number of points. It is hard to imagine any Primitive Baptist would agree with him on the purpose of the Lord’s Supper and baptism. In his Types and Metaphors, pg. 639, he says, “There is a mystical conveyance or communication of all Christ’s blessed merits to our souls through faith held forth thereby, and in glorious manner received, in the right participation of it.”
Baptists have always believed the Lord’s Supper is a figure or symbol of what Christ did for us, that the bread and wine are emblems. We do not believe they actually convey “Christ’s blessed merits to our souls.” This great 1689 Baptist was a long way from Baptist doctrine on that point. He also denied that baptism and the Lord’s Supper were the only ordinances in the Lord’s church. He was sure hymn singing, and laying on of hands, after a person was baptized were also church ordinances. If a person would not submit to have hands laid on him after baptism, he could not be a member of Keach’s church.
He was a domineering person with a fiery temper, and he was determined to have his way at all costs. The aged Hansard Knollys sided with Keach. Isaac Marlowe, a rich London jeweler, sided with William Kiffin, and in the war that followed they tore the London churches to pieces. Keach finally got his way through the influence of his son Elias, when those two articles were added to the Philadelphia Confession in 1742. It was half way round the world, but his idea finally prevailed—for awhile anyway.
The General Baptists had an Arminian confession of faith, and they believed in a general atonement. Hence, the name General Baptists. The Particulars adopted the Calvinistic London Confession. They believed in a particular atonement. But there were Calvinists among the Generals and Arminians among the Particulars. Many of the members had no idea what the difference was. Keach had himself been an Arminian General Baptist until he moved to London, and he was firmly convinced there was not enough difference to make any difference. He spent the remainder of his life trying to merge the Arminians and Calvinists.
He was so convinced they should be united, he helped to set up the coffee-house fraternals, where the Generals and Particulars could work together.
The fraternals were organizations separate from the churches, and outside the churches. They were self perpetuating; they decided who could or could not be members. They arbitrated disputes between churches. They decided who could, or could not be ordained, and they provided the presbytery. Until John Gill brought them to their knees in 1720, they effectively operated as a Baptist hierarchy.
Till this very day, John Gale is still quoted as the Baptist authority from that time on baptism, but Gale rejected the doctrine of the trinity, justification, and other evangelical principles. Matthew Caffyn was another leading Baptist preacher of that day who questioned the doctrine of the Trinity. Eventually, largely through his influence, almost the entire body of General Baptists went off into Unitarianism.
Those who are interested in exploring the doctrinal condition of the London Baptist churches in the 1690’s would do well to read George Ella’s book, John Gill: the cause of God and truth (1995). Ella’s research is both thorough and fair.
With such men as Benjamin Keach, John Gale, and Matthew Caffyn exerting influence over the Baptists, it is questionable whether the English Baptists would have withstood the storm, if it had not been for John Gill, and his stalwart stand for the doctrine. Gill’s contemporary, John Ryland “was convinced that God had specially chosen Gill to lead the Particular Baptists out of oblivion and doctrinal disunity” “He goes on to say, ‘Much of the credit for this unswerving allegiance to the doctrine of scripture, under God, must be attributed to John Gill, known affectionately as Dr. Voluminous.’” (Ella, pg. 20). Without question, most of what the London Confession states is true. That applies to the Presbyterian Westminster Confession as well. It is not the accurate parts that give all the problem. It is those parts that are patently false. Most of the major problems Baptists have contended with for the last three hundred years spring from inaccuracies in the London Confession.
Any number of efforts have been made to rehabilitate it. When the Separate and Regular Baptists in America were trying to find a basis on which to come together, they chose the London Confession for their platform. But they did it with the understanding that nobody was required to believe all of it. That was the result of a compromise with Arminians in their own ranks. Again, any combination of Arminians and predestinarians is not a good place to look for Baptist infallibility.
John Leland objected; he said the Baptists would have done better to come together without any confession.
John Leland was right. Their effort did not work. In 1787, the Separates and Regulars came together, using the London Confession as a rallying point; but, just five years later, beginning in 1792, they separated as New School and Old School, or Missionary and Primitive Baptists. They chose the wrong foundation, and the merger would not hold. Christ, revealed in his word, is the only sure foundation; no confession is an acceptable substitute. “For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Christ Jesus,” 1 Cor. 3:11.
In 1900, the Primitive Baptists were seriously divided. They were about to split three ways. A large and representative body of capable Primitive Baptist preachers came together at Fulton, Kentucky. The Primitive Baptists were in crisis, and they intended to fend off a division if they could. Like the Regulars and Separates one hundred years before, they tried to use the London Confession as a rallying point.
They reaffirmed what they could accept; they explained away what they could not accept; and they looked aside, and walked past what they could not explain away.
They did everything that could be done to rehabilitate a fundamentally flawed document—and they failed. They had hardly done their work before the Primitive Baptists split into Absoluters, Progressives, and Old-Liners. The elders who assembled at Fulton, Kentucky in 1900, were some of the brightest and best the Lord’s church has ever known—in any age. For doctrinal insight, and spiritual understanding, some of those men could more than hold their own against anyone two thousand years of church history has to offer.
If those elders at Fulton Kentucky could not patch up the London Confession, and make it a rallying point for unity, it cannot be done.
In the light of all the efforts that have been made over the last three hundred years to establish, or to rehabilitate, the London Confession, we need to acknowledge once and for all that, “The Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments are the Word of God, and the only rule of faith and practice.”
PART ONE
The General and Particular Baptists
and the London Confession of 1689
Baptists and Confessions of Faith
Baptists have never been fond of creeds, declarations of synods, and confessions of faith. They have always believed, “The Bible is the Word of God and the only rule of faith and practice.” Our articles of faith say that.
We read passages such as Rev. 22:18, “For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book.” We understand that to mean the Bible is all we need. We do not need man-made creeds and confessions of faith to supplement it, or back it up. The Bible can stand on its own.
And yet, in England, in the 1600’s the Baptists issued a spate of confessions of faith. How are we to look at those confessions? That is the question we will consider in this little study. We are often told, “The London Confession represents what Baptists have always believed. Any departure from that standard is a departure from Baptist doctrine.” But is that true? Did that document represent what all Baptists in England believed at that time, or did it represent what some of them believed? Was it precisely what they believed, or was it a close approximation of their doctrine? Did those men intend for that document to be a standard for all time, or was it simply an explanation put forth to answer the slanderous charges that were being made against them?
Generally, when people talk about the London Confession, they mean the Second London Confession of 1689. But why the second confession; why not the First London Confession of 1644? They are not the same. If it is a departure from the faith not to venerate the Second London Confession, why was it not a departure for them to discard the First London Confession? Or why either London Confession; why not the confession of 1611? You say that was a General Baptist confession. You are right; it was, but what about the Midland Confession of 1655, or the Somerset Confession of 1656? Those were Particular Baptist Confessions, and they were different from the London Confession of 1689.
There were two kinds of Baptists putting out confessions at that time. They were the Arminian General Baptists and the Calvinistic Particular Baptists. In the preface to the Second London Confession the Particular Baptists stated their purpose to be (1) to demonstrate their devotion to that wholesome Protestant doctrine, and (2) to demonstrate that they were as good Protestants as the Presbyterians, the Independents, or the Church of England.
The old-order Anabaptists were still present in substantial numbers, when the Generals and Particulars began. The last old-order Anabaptist to be burned at the stake in England was Edward Wightman in 1611. That was three years after John Smyth and the General Baptists were driven out by the Independents.
The Protestants made the most scurrilous charges against the Anabaptists. Without sufficiently investigating the matter, the Generals and Particulars accepted those charges at face value, and repeated them. They wanted nothing to do with those old school Baptists, and they bristled at being called Anabaptists. Persecution eventually forced all three kinds of Baptists into the same camp, and to the best of their ability they worked together, but they were never entirely agreed. It was not possible the Generals and Particulars would ever agree with each other, or with the old-order Anabaptists.
Suppose we were to put together a confession of what Baptists believe in our day. Who would we call on to put it together? How would it read? Who could put together a confession of faith which Southern (Missionary) Baptists and Primitives could agree to? If the Freewill Baptists could accept it, do you imagine the Landmark Baptists would be satisfied?
But I am told the English Baptists were more in agreement in the 1600’s than we are today. Where did anybody get that idea? When was the entire Baptist family ever in agreement? They were not entirely in agreement in the apostle’s day. Why do you think Paul wrote all those epistles? Sometimes he dealt with false doctrine; sometimes he dealt with false practice. In most of them, he called on them to change their ways. If the Baptists were not fully in agreement in the apostles’ day, and we are not entirely in agreement in this day, why should we believe they were in agreement in the 1600’s?
If the Baptists were going to put out a confession of faith, how did it happen that they adopted a Presbyterian confession? The London Confession of 1689 is simply the Presbyterian Westminster Confession of 1646 with a few critical changes to make it acceptable to Baptists. The preface to the London Confession states that they concluded to “retain the same order,” “without any variation in the terms,” and to use “the very same words,” as the Westminster Confession. They made every effort to explain themselves in the exact words of the Westminster Confession. Why would they do that? Why did they not come up with a distinctly Baptist confession?
Granted, most of what the Westminster Confession says is entirely accurate, but it contains at least five serious errors. That is not to say that everything else is accurate, but those are the major errors. Three of those errors have to do with infant baptism, church state union, and the responsibility of the secular authorities to regulate doctrine and practice in the church. Presbyterians share those three doctrines with the Roman Catholic Church, and it is those three principles that make it more of an Augustinian Catholic document than not. Those are not the notions that trouble the Baptists. They left those ideas out of the London Confession.
They copied two other errors from the Westminster Confession, and those two errors have troubled Baptists ever since that day.
Chapter ten, section four, of the Westminster Confession reads, “Others not elected, although they may be called by the ministry of the Word, and may have some common operations of the spirit, yet they never truly come unto Christ, and therefore cannot be saved; much less can men, not professing the Christian religion, be saved in any way whatsoever, be they never so diligent to frame their lives according to the light of nature, and the law of that religion they do profess. And to assert and maintain that they may, is very pernicious, and to be detested.” In other words, according to the Westminster Confession, if you do not profess the Christian religion, you are going to burn.
The last sentence was obviously too spiteful for the Baptists’ taste, and they left it out, but except for those final fifteen words they copied that doctrine from the Presbyterian confession word for word. For the last two hundred years the notion that one must hear the preached gospel—and believe it or burn—has caused untold contention among the Baptists.
Chapter three, section one, of the Westminster Confession says, “God from all eternity did, by the most wise and holy counsel of his own will, freely, and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass.” In other words, whatever happens, for good or evil, God ordained it and brings it to pass. He is the cause of it.
True, they did their little song and dance to soften the language. They go on to say, “Yet so, as thereby neither is God the author of sin, nor is violence offered to the will of the creatures, not is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established.”
In that, they parted company with John Calvin. Like the Westminster divines, John Calvin was also sure God ordained everything that happens in the world. But they differed in that Calvin believed God forces sinners to do all they do. The Westminster Confession teaches that he does it by remote control, using what they call second causes.
Calvin would have God operating and manipulating sinners like so many hand puppets. The Westminster Divines would rather have everything working like a giant Rube Goldberg machine, with all kinds of ramps, switches, pulleys, and elevators, between God and the action. Somehow, they seemed to think if they could keep God far enough removed from the action, it would negate the fact they still have him operating all the switches, and pulleys.
The Westminster divines make God the author of sin, as surely as John Calvin did. They just go to a lot of trouble trying to explain away what they have just said.
Those who defend such doctrine tell us that since God has the power to stop sin, the fact he does not stop it, proves he wants it to be. They explain that since God knows everything that will ever happen, he must have determined to bring it about; how else could he know it?
The fact that somebody can come up with clever little riddles we cannot fully explain does not mean we have to agree with them that God is the cause of all the wickedness in the world. They would have done better to simply admit we do not know everything there is to know. That would have been far better than flirting with the notion that God is the cause of sin. The Particular Baptists reworded the article somewhat; but they still said the same thing the Presbyterians had said.
Those two notions, patterned after John Calvin, and copied almost word for word from the Westminster Confession, have been the source of most of the trouble that has afflicted the Baptists for the last three hundred years.
Someone has ventured to say the London brethren had been persecuted for so long they compromised their principles in order to gain relief. Nothing could be farther from the truth.
You may differ with the wording of the London Confession. You may insist that on some points it does not square with the plain teaching of the Bible. You may insist that it is more Protestant than Baptist, but no person who has spent any amount of time studying the conditions that gave rise to the London Confession could, even for a moment, imagine those men compromised their principles.
A careful study of the lives and experience of the men who adopted that confession proves beyond all question that no more noble, no more godly, no more faithful, group of men ever lived. Nobody in this land of freedom has suffered the way the Baptists in England suffered in the 1600’s. They were as fallible as the rest of us, but I am not willing to question their integrity.
From Reformation to Revolution
Elder John Leland and James Madison met to discuss ratification of the U.S. Constitution. The American colonies had fought long and hard to gain their independence from England. Delegates from the former colonies had met at Philadelphia to draft a constitution for the new nation. But ratification was by no means a sure thing. Many of those who had fought for independence were highly suspicious of the proposed constitution. Much of what they had fought for was not included. There was no provision for freedom of speech, no provision for religious liberty.
Each of the states had its own state church and no other form of religion was allowed. Everyone in the different states was required to support the established religion, and pay to support their ministers. To the limit of their ability the various state churches had been as brutal as the established churches were in England and Europe. In New England the Congregationalists (Puritans) had been especially intolerant of Baptists and Quakers. They had forbidden them to meet, and when they had the audacity to erect meetinghouses, the Congregationalists had often seized their property and turned it to their own use. They had arrested them and beaten them mercilessly. The Anglicans in Virginia were just as intolerant. It was for defending Baptists against Anglican tyranny in Virginia that Patrick Henry gained the fame he enjoys till this very day. The proposed constitution left all that religious machinery in place. Patrick Henry said, “I smell a rat.”
Those who had risked everything to gain freedom from a foreign tyrant were not willing to trade that tyranny for a home grown tyrant.
It was against that background that Leland and Madison met. The Baptists were a growing force, and the Baptist preacher, John Leland was an influential leader, both religiously and politically. He could sway the Baptists. If he continued to oppose ratification, there is no way Virginia would approve it. Madison explained to Leland there was no way they could write religious freedom into the constitution before it was ratified. If it said anything about allowing any other religion than that established by law, John Adams and the New England firebrands would reject it. They had a stranglehold on religion in New England and they were in no mood to grant liberty to the Baptists, nor anybody else.
But, God was at work; Leland and Madison reached an agreement. Madison promised that if Leland could persuade the Baptists in Virginia to support ratification, as soon as it was ratified, he would go to work to acquire a Bill of Rights granting all the Baptists demanded. Both men kept their word; the Constitution was ratified; the Bill of Rights, those first ten amendments, were added to the Constitution, and America became the freest nation on earth.
It was that agreement, and those first ten amendments to the Constitution, that changed the course of American history, and forever changed the history of the world.
If I sound overly enthusiastic in talking about our American heritage, and the difference America has made in the world, I plead guilty. I still get goose bumps when I hear a band strike up The Star Spangled Banner, or America the Beautiful. It does something for me when Lee Greenwood lets loose with, “I’m proud to be an American, where at least I know I’m free.” There is no other nation like America. God used a brilliant and godly statesman, and a sometimes ragged, Baptist preacher to turn the world upside down.
There is no other explanation for this nation than that 200 years ago God intervened in the affairs of men, and enabled our Founding Fathers to carve out this nation in the American wilderness. How else could George Washington with his little rag-tag Continental Army stand up against the most powerful nation on earth. How else, after the war was over, could our forefathers break the stranglehold of religious tyranny that had been transplanted from the old country.
I must confess that I get more than a little annoyed when I hear those who lay claim to what happened here in America, and pretend to trace it to other events that accomplished nothing of the kind. England likes to boast of the Magna Carta, as if that document, somehow, was the beginning of liberation from bondage. In 1215, the English barons forced King John to sign what came to be known as the Magna Carta. That was, indeed, a historic document. It limited the power of the king, placed him under the law, and provided precedent for the representative forms of government that would follow, but it did nothing for the common people. They were still in serfdom. They were still bound to the land. The landed barons still held all the land, and the ordinary people had no choice but to serve them.
But what about the Protestant Reformation? On October 31, 1517, Martin Luther nailed his Ninety-five theses to the door of the Wittenburg Church. His bravery launched the Protestant Reformation, broke the power of the pope, and spread around the world. Why so much pride in America, as if America was, somehow, unique in the world?
Does the Protestant Reformation not, somehow, compare with Madison and Leland and the Bill of Rights? It might help to compare the two words reformation and revolution. According to Webster, to reform means “to improve by removing faults or weakness.” Reformation is literally a re-form-ation; it produces a new form of the same thing.
Webster defines revolution as any fundamental change; one complete turn, the act of revolving.” Reformation and revolution have some superficial similarity, but they are actually the exact opposite of each other.
Revolution indicates a complete turning about; reformation provides another form of the same thing. And that distinction is the difference between what was accomplished by the Protestant Reformation and the American Revolution. The Protestant Reformation provided new masters; the American Revolution set men free.
The Reformers intended to reform the Catholic religion; they did not intend to abandon it. They intended to continue to be Catholics; they just did not intend to be Roman Catholics. Protestantism in the Reformers’ day was precisely what Catholicism had been in Augustine’s day. They restored Augustinian Catholicism. In the pages to come we will see that the Reformers retained the character of their Catholic forebears. Especially they retained their determination not to allow any religion but their own.
An abundance of historical
material from that time
Anyone with the stamina and determination to read the available material can easily determine that there was as much diversity—and as much difference in doctrine— among Baptists in the 1600’s in England as there is among Baptists in this day.
Thomas Crosby published a huge four volume history of the English Baptists in 1738. That was the first history ever written about the English Baptists. If any historian was ever in a position to know something about the Baptists of that day, Thomas Crosby was the man. He was in the very thick of the battle. His father-in-law, Benjamin Keach signed the Second London Confession. Keach was one of the three leading Particular Baptists in England at the time. The other two were Hansard Knollys and William Kiffin.
Robert Robinson wrote his history in 1791. That was barely one hundred years after the London Confession of 1689. At that time he had available for his review documents, and personal papers, which no longer exist. Joseph Ivimy wrote a four volume history in 1813. Ivimy did not have such first hand knowledge as Crosby did, but he did have access to the actual church books of the churches involved in adopting the London Confession. He examined those church books extensively and gathered most of his material from them. His second volume gives the accounts of the lives of 130 preachers who were preaching in England at the time of the Second London Confession.
Joshua Thomas wrote his history in 1778. William Jones wrote his history in 1826. Jonathan Davis published his history of the Welsh Baptists in 1836. So there is a wealth of material available, dating from the very time of the London Confession and shortly thereafter. I have all these histories in my library, and have spent considerable amounts of time studying them.
Granted, reading those books has been almost mind-numbing work. There are over 7000 pages in the books we have listed, and that is just one of several stacks. Sometimes you have to read a hundred pages to find one good quote. But studying those histories makes one thing perfectly clear. Human nature does not change. The people who adopted those various confessions of faith were very much like we are in this day. They suffered persecution such as we cannot imagine, and they were faithful in ways that boggle our minds. Their faithfulness will redound to their credit till that final day, when the Lord comes again. But they were still men, with all the strengths and weaknesses men have.
England in the 1600’s
If we would understand the London Confession, we need first to look at the conditions that gave rise to it. For sixty years all England had been in a state of turmoil. During most of the 40’s there had been civil war between Parliament and those loyal to King Charles I. Parliament won; they overthrew the monarchy, chopped off the king’s head, and set up the Commonwealth under Oliver Cromwell.
The Presbyterians and the Anglican bishops were constantly warring over who would control Parliament and thus control the Church of England. The one thing the Presbyterians and the bishops agreed on was their bitter hostility toward the Baptists, and their determination drive them out of the land by any means necessary. Except for the fact they ceased to burn Baptists at the stake in 1611, both the Anglicans and the Presbyterians were as brutal with the Baptists as the Catholics had ever been.
Twice the Presbyterians seized control of Parliament, and twice they were driven out by force of arms. In 1648, Col. Thomas Pride came with his troops, and forced them out. In 1653, the Presbyterians in Parliament managed to pass a bill making it treason to present a petition to Parliament. This time it was Oliver Cromwell who came with his troops and drove them out.
England was a Protestant nation, but it only became Protestant when the pope refused King Henry VIII permission to divorce Catharine of Aragon and marry Anne Boleyn. Henry declared England’s independence from Rome, but he was as Catholic as he had ever been. He was not really interested in the Reformation. When John Calvin offered to come to England to assist, Henry sent word that he should mind his own business.
Until James II fled for his life in 1689, and William of Orange came to take the throne, the Protestant kings of England manifested all the characteristics of the Catholic kings of Europe. Parliament imposed a scale of fines and penalties on dissenting preachers and their hearers, with a lesser fine for the first penalty, a greater fine for the second, and an even greater fine for the third offense. There were different fines for the preacher, and the hearers, and the owners of the property where they met.
Informers were constantly looking for Baptist meetings, so they could turn the people in for the reward. One third of the fine went to the informer who turned them in. An entire industry of informers resulted, with some of the most depraved and unprincipled individuals becoming wealthy on the proceeds of auctions held to raise money to pay the fines. The bishops and Establishment preachers would often attend the auctions to pick up bargains from the misery of their victims.
With informers constantly on the prowl, they would often meet in the woods, sometimes before daylight, or late at night. They would make it a point to wait till near the time of service before they announced the place, and they would assemble and disperse from different directions. They would have guards posted to sound the alarm, if they heard somebody coming. One poor boy tried to sound the alarm, but his leather britches were frozen to the ground. By the time he broke loose, it was too late.
Reformation: a new form
of the old religion
Most of the persecution of Baptists in England from 1534 until 1689 was at the hands of the Protestant Establishment. After 1558, all of it was.
The Reformation was exactly what the name indicates. It was a re-form-ation. It produced a new form of the old religion. All the Reformers—King Henry VIII, John Knox, John Calvin, Martin Luther—all of them, intended to live and die as good Catholics. They just did not intend to be Roman Catholics.
The Roman Catholic Church had amassed a thousand years of corruptions both in doctrine and practice. They had become the scandal of religion. Rome was a sink of depravity. They reached their lowest point when the pope sent John Tetzel through Europe selling indulgences, in order to raise money to build St. Peter’s in Rome. It was claimed those indulgences would atone for any sin the purchaser had committed—or was about to commit. They were marketed as licenses to sin, and the people bought them with that in mind. When Martin Luther learned in the confessional that his people had been buying indulgences with that in mind, it was too much. On Oct 31, 1517, he rose in anger and posted his Ninety Five Theses on the door of the Wittenburg Church. The Reformation was under way.
The Reformers intended to sweep away the corruption that had become attached to the church. They would do away with the sale of indulgences, purgatory, auricular confession, and so on. In that they performed a great service to their countrymen, and to all those who have come after. In spite of all they got rid of, they kept the most fundamental principles of the Catholic religion.
To make the matter as clear as we can, we must point out that, in its most basic principles, Protestantism is Augustinian Catholicism. If we miss that point. very little in Protestant church history is going to make sense. Get that point right, and things begin to fall into place. Saint Augustine of Hippo was their guiding light. Luther was an Augustinian monk. John Calvin quoted Augustine more than all other writers combined. More than any other man, Augustine laid the foundation for the Roman Catholic Church, and for the various Protestant bodies. The Reformers stripped away a thousand years of accumulated corruption in doctrine and practice from the Catholic religion, and they came up with pure Augustinianism.
They wanted to restore the Catholic religion to what it had been in Augustine’s day. In that they were totally successful. Their crowning achievement came in England, in 1646, with the adoption of the Westminster Confession. The Westminster Confession was a clear break with Rome and the corruption of Rome, but it fully codified Augustinian Catholicism.
There is nothing in the Westminster Confession Augustine would have objected to. In Augustine’s day, the three distinctives of the Catholic religion were (1) infant baptism, (2) church-state union, and (3) the power of the state to enforce religious conformity. It was those three points that separated the Catholic party from the Donatists and Novationists of Augustine’s day, and on those three points neither the Catholics nor the Protestants have ever wavered.
The Westminster Confession retained those three indicators, and permanently bound the Presbyterians to them.
It makes little difference that most of the Westminster Confession is correct. Most of what Augustine wrote was correct—along with enough error to negate his entire system. Every false system involves much that is true. That is the way they confuse and deceive the unwary. Those three points are the key identifying marks of the false religion, and they poison the entire system. Like the porridge of Elisha’s day, “there is death in the pot.” In the pages to come we will see that the death in the pot was, indeed, death to those saints, who refused to bow to religious tyranny.
The main thing the Reformation accomplished in England was to deliver the sword from the Catholics to the Protestants. They persecuted Catholics, Baptists, and their fellow Protestants.
We have provided the story of Thomas Delaune. He and his wife, and both their children, starved and finally died in prison. He was one of literally thousands who suffered in just that way. These were men who could have gained their freedom— if they would only agree to compromise their principles. They refused, and, by the thousands, they died for it.
John Bunyon spent twelve years in Bedford jail. His suffering was made more unbearable, because he was separated from his little blind daughter, who was especially dear to him. He was still in prison when she died. I cannot help but feel a lump in my throat when I think of how he must have felt to know he could not be with her, especially at that moment. John Bunyon could have gained his freedom at any time, if he would only agree to quit preaching. His answer was always that if they released him today, he would preach again tomorrow. Those were not the kind of men who compromise their most fundamental beliefs.
We give the story of John James. He was one of the preachers hanged, drawn, and quartered.” After he was hanged, his body was butchered like an animal, and dragged through town on a sled, to be displayed on the city gates. His head was placed on a pole across from his church. It is impossible to imagine the feelings of his little church to see their pastor’s head so abused. Ivimy gives the account. “His quarters were taken back to Newgate, on the sledge which carried him to the gallows and were afterwards placed on the city gates, and his head was set upon a pole opposite the meeting-house,” (Ivimy vol. 1, pg. 227).
They would often strip a family of everything they had in the world, and leave them penniless and homeless. They were just as vicious with those who assisted them in their distress. One man was fined, because he shed a tear, when he saw a Baptist preacher beaten almost to death with a whip.
On numerous occasions, when an entire community had become Baptists, they would devastate the entire community. The authorities would strip them of their personal property, their little cash, and the very tools of their trade. The entire community was left destitute without the means to earn a livelihood. Since they usually were not acquainted with many people, if any, outside their own little community, their case was especially desperate.
Bear in mind this was at the hands of the Protestant Establishment; the Catholics had long since lost their power to persecute.
No one who has studied the available material could imagine those people compromised under pressure. We are treading on sacred ground, and however much we may differ with some expressions in the London Confession, it behooves us to be very careful about criticizing those who adopted it. We have never suffered the way they did. Those Particular Baptists who adopted the London Confession were as honest, as determined, and as faithful as anyone who ever graced the earth. If they signed their names to it, you can be sure they believed what they signed.
Presbyterians take over Parliament
John Milton, the author of Paradise Lost, pointed out the new presbyters had improved on the methods of the old priests. “The great increase of the Baptists seems to have provoked the Presbyterians, who were now the ruling party, to a very high degree; and the same spirit of intolerance which the Episcopalians had manifested towards the Puritans, was now exhibited by them against all dissenters from what they….were pleased to decree. The whole of their conduct in respect of those who differed from them, shows — what Milton said to be true; that ‘New Presbyter is but Old Priest WRIT LARGE,’” (Ivimy vol. 1, pg. 187).
While they were in control of Parliament, the Presbyterians endeavored to see to it that no one who disagreed with them could “be employed in any place of public trust.” “Their spirit of intolerance may be learned from the history of those times, and especially from some acts of the government. On May 26, 1645, the lord mayor, court of aldermen, and common-council, presented a petition to parliament, commonly called the City Remonstrance, in which they desired, ‘that some strict and speedy course might be taken for the suppressing all private and separate congregations; that….no person disaffected to Presbyterial government, set forth or to be set forth by parliament, might be employed in any place of public trust,’” (Ivimy vol. 1, pg. 187,188)
Crosby tells of a meeting in which the Presbyterians were struck dumb, when they learned the Anabaptists had petitioned for the “liberty to worship God according to their consciences.” They were shocked that the Anabaptists should make such a request. “The Lord-Chancellor told them, his Majesty had received petitions from the Anabaptists, who desired nothing more but to have liberty to worship God according to their consciences. At which they were all struck dumb, and remained in a long silence,” (Crosby vol. 2, pg 87).
Crosby goes on to record Richard Baxter’s recollection of that meeting. He is quoting Baxter, “‘The most of the time being spent thus in speaking to particulars of the declaration as it was read, when we came to the end, the Lord-Chancellor drew out another paper, and told us, that the King had been petitioned also by the Independents and Anabaptists; and though he knew not what to think of it himself, and did not very well like it; yet something he had drawn up, which he would read to us, and desire us also to give our advice about it. Thereupon he read, as an addition to the declaration; ‘That others also be permitted to meet for religious worship, so be it they do it not to the disturbance of’ the peace, and that no Justice of peace or officer disturb them.’”
“When he had read it, he again desired them all to think on it, and give their advice; but all were silent. ‘The Presbyterians,’ says he, ‘all perceived as soon as they heard it, that it would secure the liberty of the Papists. And one of them [Dr. Wallis] whispered me in the ear, and entreated me to say nothing, for it was an odious business; but let the bishops speak to it. But the Bishops would not speak a word, nor any one of the Presbyterians neither; and so we were like to have ended in that silence.”
“I knew if we consented to it, it would be charged on us, that we spake for a toleration of Papists and Sectaries, (but yet it might have lengthened out our own.) And if we spake against it, all sects and parties would be set against us, as the causers of their sufferings, and as a partial people, that would have liberty ourselves, but would have no others have it with us.”
“At last seeing the silence continue, I thought our very silence would be charged on us as consent if it went on; and, therefore, I only said this, that this reverend brother, Dr. Gunning, even now speaking against sects, had named the Papists and the Socinians. For our parts we desired not favor to ourselves alone, and rigorous severity we desired against none. As we humbly thanked his Majesty for his indulgence to ourselves, so we distinguish the tolerable parties from the intolerable. For the former, we humbly crave just lenity and favor, but for the latter, such as the two sorts named before, by that reverend brother, for our parts we cannot make their toleration our request.”
“To which his Majesty said, that there were laws enough against the Papists. And I replied, that we understood the question to be, whether those laws should be executed on them or not. And so his Majesty brake up the meeting of that day. Had these two great bodies united in their opinions, what could the Baptists have expected, unless Divine Providence had interposed, but an entire extirpation by banishment or death?” (Crosby vol.2, ppg. 86-89).
Presbyterians conspire
for the power of life and death
From the overthrow of the episcopacy until 1648, the Presbyterians were in control of Parliament. Finally in 1648, Col. Thomas Pride and his soldiers purged Parliament of the Presbyterians. If it seems strange that it should become necessary for them to be expelled by force of arms, it might help to read the next piece of legislation passed by the Presbyterians before they were expelled.
It becomes apparent that if the Presbyterians had gained the power they hoped for, they would have been far more brutal than the Catholics ever were.
For hundreds of years the Catholics had been brutal in their suppression of those who differed with them. But if a person would bring his babies to be baptized, if he would attend their meetings with some regularity, and if he would refrain from allowing any dissenting minister to baptize him after they had once baptized him as an infant, the Catholics would generally leave him alone.
That was not nearly enough to satisfy the Presbyterians. In the following Act they name 47 points on which a person must agree with them or face trial “before two justices of the peace, without the privilege of a jury, or liberty of an appeal.” The penalty called for was that “he shall suffer the pains of death, as in case of felony, without benefit of clergy.”
They tried to gain the power of life and death over anybody who disagreed with them on any one of 47 points, but they overreached themselves.
While the Presbyterians in Parliament were plotting to take the last vestige of liberty from the English people, Col. Pride came with his army and forced them out of Parliament at the point of a gun—or actually at the point of a large number of guns. Thomas Crosby provides the record.
“But it must be recorded, to the shame of this very parliament, or rather of those who had the chief influence in public affairs, that about a year after this, a more severe law passed against heresy and error, than any that has been made in England since the Reformation. Nay, I may challenge any one to produce a more cruel and bloody law in the times of popery, except the act de heretico comburendo. It bore date of May the 2nd, 1648, and was entitled, An ordinance of the lords and commons assembled in parliament, for the punishing of blasphemies and heresies.”
“In this there is first a catalogue of heresies, any of which whosoever did maintain and publish, with obstinacy therein, he was to suffer the pains of death, as in case of felony, without benefit of the clergy. Then an enumeration of certain errors, any of which whosoever should publish or maintain, and be thereof convicted before two justices of the peace, without the privilege of a jury, or liberty of an appeal, he should be obliged to renounce his said errors in the public congregation; and in case he refused, or neglected this, at the time and place appointed, the said justices are to commit him to prison, until he shall find two sufficient sureties, that he shall not publish or maintain the said error or errors any more.”
“Among the errors specified are these, viz. That the baptizing of infants is unlawful, or that such baptism is void, and that such persons ought to be baptized again, and in pursuance thereof shall baptize any person formerly baptized: That the church government by presbytery is antichristian or unlawful.”
“This being the most shocking law I have met with, and plainly proving that the governing Presbyterians in those times would have made a terrible use of their power, if it had been supported by the sword of the civil magistrate; I shall therefore oblige the reader with a transcript of the whole. The words of the ordinance are as followeth:”
“‘For the preventing of the growth and spreading of heresy and blasphemy, be it ordained by the lords and commons in this present parliament assembled: That all such persons as shall from and after the date of this present ordinance, willingly, by preaching, teaching, printing, or writing, maintain and publish [1] that there is no God, or [2] that God is not present in all places, [3] doth not know and foreknow all things, or [4] that he is not almighty, [5] that he is not perfectly holy, or [6] that he is not eternal; or [7] that the father is not God, [8] the son is not God, or [9] that the Holy Ghost is not God; or [10] that they three are not one eternal God; or [11] that shall in like manner maintain and publish that Christ is not God equal with the Father; or [12] shall deny the manhood of Christ, or [13] that the Godhead and manhood of Christ are several natures; or [14] that the humanity of Christ is pure and unspotted of all sin; [15] or that then maintain and publish as aforesaid, [16] that Christ did not die, [17] nor rise from the dead, [18] nor is ascended into heaven bodily; [19] or that shall deny his death is meritorious in the behalf of believers; [20] or that shall maintain and publish as aforesaid, that Jesus Christ is not the son of God, [21] or that the holy Scripture, viz. of the old testament, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1 Samuel, 2 Samuel, 1 Kings, 2 Kings, 1 Chronicles, 1 Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther, Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, The Song of Songs, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations, Ezekiel, Daniel, Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi of the new Testament, the gospels according to Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, the Acts of the apostles, Paul’s epistles to the Romans, Corinthians the first, Corinthians the second, to Timothy the first, to Timothy the second, to Titus, to Philemon, the epistle to the Hebrews, the epistles James, the first and second epistles of Peter, the first, second and third epistles of John, the epistle of Jude, the Revelation of John, is not the word of God; or [22] that the bodies of men shall not rise again after they are dead; [23] or that there is no day of judgment after death….[24] that all men shall be saved; [25] or that man by nature hath free-will to turn to God; [26] or that God may be worshiped in or by pictures or images; [27] or that the soul of any man after death goeth neither to heaven or hell, but to purgatory; [28] or that the soul of man dieth or sleepeth when the body is dead; [29] or that revelations or the workings of the Spirit are a rule of faith or Christian life, though diverse from, or contrary to the written word of God; [30] or that man is bound to believe no more than by his reason he can comprehend; [31] or that the moral law of God contained in the ten commandments, is no rule of Christian life; [32] or that a believer need not repent or pray for pardon of sins; [33] or that the two sacraments of baptism and the Lord’s-supper, are not ordinances commanded by the word of God; [34] or that the baptizing of infants is unlawful, [35] or such baptism is void, [36] and that such persons ought to be baptized again, [37] and in pursuance thereof, shall baptize any person formerly baptized; [38] or that the observation of the Lord’s-day, as it is enjoined by the ordinances and laws of this realm, is not according, or is contrary to the word of God; [39] or that it is not lawful to join in public prayer or family prayer, [40] or to teach children to pray; [41] or that the churches of England are no true churches, [43] nor their ministers and ordinances true ministers and ordinances; [44] or that the church government by presbytery is antichristian or unlawful; [46] or that magistracy, or the power of the civil magistrate by law established in England, is unlawful; [47] or that all use of arms though for the public defense (and be the cause never so just) is unlawful.”
“Provided always, and be it ordained by the authority aforesaid, that no attainder by virtue hereof shall extend either to the forfeiture of the estate, real or personal, of such person attainted, or corruption of such person’s blood. John Brown, Clerk Parliament.”
“It is easy to discern by this ordinance, that expressly all the Anabaptists, falsely so called, of whom there were not a few thousands in England at this time, all the Independents or Separatists, all Episcopalians, all the Arminians, yea, in a word, all England, save rigid Presbyterians, are expressly condemned. And doubtless, These rigid principles and severe laws would have been followed with a violent persecution, had not the confusions of the times, and the great number of the Dissenters prevented. And although the supreme power might design these ordinances only in terrorem; yet the mayors, justices, and other subordinate magistrates, were for practicing these methods, as far as it was in their power, or whenever they had the least encouragement for so doing, as appears plainly enough by the following prosecutions,” (Crosby Vol. 1, ppg. 197-206).
The General Baptists
The Lord commanded his people to come out from the world. “Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing, and I will receive you,” 2 Cor. 6:17.
Coming out from the world is not quite the same as being driven out.
The old-order Anabaptists in England had never been part of the Established religion. They had always been separate from them, and persecuted by them.
It was far different with the General and Particular Baptists. They did grow out of the Protestants. John Smyth and the General Baptists were driven out by the Independents in 1608. The Particular Baptists began when John Spilsbury founded the first Particular Baptist church in London on Sept 12, 1633, but it took another twenty nine years and an act of Parliament before the Protestants could entirely drive them out. They were finally ejected from the Establishment by the Great Ejection of 1662.
The General Baptists were founded by John Smyth (or Smith) after persecution in England forced him and his followers to flee to Holland. In Holland they first joined the Independents, but in a bitter dispute over infant baptism, they were later ejected. He founded the General Baptists in 1608, and in 1611, they adopted their Arminian confession of faith. In 1612, after the death of Smyth, they chose Thomas Helwysse as their pastor, and returned to England.
The Independents who gave birth to the General and Particulars were almost identical to the Presbyterians, except they were not willing for their churches to be governed by an all powerful group of preachers called a presbytery. They believed each church should be independent to govern its own affairs, hence the name, Independents. John Owen was their best known writer. They had been founded by Robert Brown, who later returned to the Church of England. For that reason they were often called Brownists. In New England they were first called Puritans and later Congregationalists.
Their leading preachers in Holland were a Mr. Ainsworth, Mr. Johnson, and John Robinson. It was that John Robinson who in 1620 led the Pilgrims to settle in New England. In his large three volume Works he relates his account of the division with Smyth. Facsimile copies of his books are presently available on the used book market.
Thomas Crosby tells us, “Mr. John Smith, of whom mention is made in the foregoing history, was a divine of the church of England, and did in the former part of the reign of King James I, embrace the opinion of the Baptists…..he was forced to fly out of the land, to escape the severity of the persecution then in England. And so well was he beloved and respected by those that were inclined to nonconformity, that a great company followed him out of their native country to Leyden in Holland.”
“Here he at first joined himself with the English congregation, who were called Browns, and his piety and learning soon procured him the reputation of being one of the grandees of the separation. But being now more zealously set to search out the truth, and in a country where he might safely divulge his opinions, he quickly after declared against several of the principles and practices of the Browns, and among the rest that of their baptizing infants. This exposed him to the hatred and censures of his brethren of the separation. And though they were in exile themselves, for the liberty of their consciences, yet they could not, with that charity and moderation as they ought, bear that others should differ from them: they called him out of the church for his errors, with all that adhered to him.” (Crosby vol. 1, ppg. 265, 266)
Smyth knew about the Anabaptists and he agreed with them on believers’ baptism, but, without investigating the matter, he accepted the slanders of the Protestants against the Anabaptists, and he entertained the same bitter contempt for them as the Protestants did. In this next quote from Crosby you will notice that Smyth considered his faithful, godly, and persecuted Anabaptist neighbors to be a heretical sect, and he would not accept baptism from them.
The old-order Anabaptists were the old school Baptists of that day, and the hostile attitude of Smyth toward them, and his wanting nothing to do with them, was much the same as that of many New School Baptists of this day toward their Old School brethren.
The Anabaptists had carried the banner, and the identity, of the true church all during the Dark Ages, and they were still being burned alive for doing so; but Smyth would have nothing to do with them. Especially he would not recognize them as true believers, nor allow one of them to baptize him.
Crosby goes on, “But it is to be observed, that at the same time that they [the Brownists] accuse him after this manner, they are forced to acknowledge that he was more refined than the common sorts of the Anabaptists, and that he did not go with that heretical sect. Nay more, that he had such a dislike and aversion to their gross errors, that his conscience would not permit him to be re-baptized by any of them.” (Crosby vol. 1, pg. 267).
The Brownists accused him of baptizing himself, rather than accept baptism at the hands of any Anabaptist minister. The fact is that he and another of his members probably baptized each other, and they then baptized the rest of the congregation. But however he was baptized, the fact is not questioned that he would not accept baptism from the Anabaptists.
Like most all people, the Anabaptists truly did have some error, but, as often as not, what their adversaries called heresies were simply points on which the Anabaptists were nearer the truth. Crosby points out that the errors John Smyth complained about were that they “denied Christ’s having taken flesh of the virgin Mary, the lawfulness of magistracy, etc.” (Crosby vol. 1, pg. 267).
The Anabaptists denied the lawfulness of magistracy in the sense they denied that the secular magistrate had any authority to rule in religious matters. Protestants and Catholics alike agreed that the secular authorities had the responsibility to suppress heresy, and they considered it rank heresy to deny that authority.
Unless the Presbyterians are willing to renounce their most famous confession of faith, they still claim the right of the secular authorities to regulate doctrine and practice . In Chapter 23, Section 3, the Westminster Confession still claims that right for the secular authorities.
Considering his other principles, it is hard to imagine Smyth actually understood what the Anabaptists believed on that point. Most any Baptist would agree with the Anabaptists that the secular authorities do not have the authority, nor the responsibility, to tell people what they can or cannot believe.
With regard to the Anabaptists having “denied Christ’s having taken flesh of the virgin Mary,” the Anabaptists were clearly in error.
They learned that doctrine from Menno Simons. He had been the most influential Anabaptist preacher in Europe during the 1500’s. The Mennonites trace their history through him. He taught that Christ’s human nature was formed in the womb of Mary, but it was not formed from her womb. Menno believed Christ brought his human nature from heaven with him, and that nature flowed through Mary as water flows through a pipe. Article VIII of their Waterland Confession reads that way. That is what people are talking about, when they talk about Menno’s doctrine of the celestial flesh of Christ.
The Dutch Mennonites did not long hold that opinion. The Swiss Mennonites never did. But many of the Dutch refugees brought the doctrine into England. On page 784 of The Complete Works of Menno Simons, the editor, J.C. Wenger, explains that “modern Mennonites are therefore a bit embarrassed by the peculiar view of Menno on this subject.” He acknowledges Menno’s error, but goes on to defend his motive. “Yet it should be noted that Menno is not guilty of heresy; and he had only the best of motives, namely, to uphold a high view of the person of Christ, to recognize him as the eternal Son of God, and to avoid regarding him as corrupted by the fallen nature of Adam which Menno thought the view of his opponents implied.”
Elder S.A. Paine resolved the question very well. His adversary had just quoted Job 14:4, “Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean.” Elder Paine replied, “They say if that be true, then Jesus Christ was depraved, because he was born of a woman, hence came from the unclean. They forget or rather ignore the fact that God was his Father and that his mother Mary was divinely prepared and made a clean source from which the babe sprang. When the angel told Mary that she should ‘conceive and bring forth a son,’ she replied and said,’How shall this be, seeing I know not a man?’ ‘And the angel answered and said unto her, the Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee; therefore (notice, therefore, because of the power of the Highest) also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God,’ Luke 1:35. Any one who wants to can see how the conception and birth of Jesus differs from the common or regular process of generation. The power of the Highest is able to reverse any law of nature at his option.” (The Writings of S.A. Paine, pg. 4).
Menno Simons and the Anabaptists of that day could have benefitted from the assistance of S.A. Paine. They made a mistake, but that is a far cry from willfully preaching heresy. The Anabaptists were clearly wrong on that point, but that was not a sufficient cause for the Protestants, or for Smyth and the General Baptists to wage such bitter war against them. That one mistake was the most convenient thing for their adversaries to pick up on, and to a man, the Protestants, and the Generals and Particulars, rode it to death.
Both Smyth and his successor, Thomas Helwysse, were Arminians. After John Smyth died, the church chose Thomas Helwysse as pastor and returned to England. In 1611, they issued their Arminian confession of faith. Article 4 reads, in part, “Man may receive grace, or may reject grace.” Article 7 reads “That men may fall away from the grace of God, and from the truth, which they have received and acknowledged, after they have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost, and have tasted of the good word of God, and of the powers of the world to come; and after they have escaped from the filthiness of the world, may be entangled again therein, and overcome. That a righteous man may forsake his righteousness, and perish. And therefore let no man presume to think, that because he hath, or had once grace, therefore he shall always have grace. But let all men have assurance, that if they continue unto the end, they shall be saved. Let no man then presume; but let all work out their salvation with fear and trembling,” (Crosby vol. 2, app. pg. 3).
Keep in mind that it was these Arminian General Baptists who rejected the old-order Anabaptists as a heretical sect.
Like the Pedobaptists, the General and Particular Baptists made some scurrilous charges against the old-order Anabaptists. It was because of those accusations that neither the Generals nor the Particulars would allow those old Baptists to baptize or ordain them.
Our Primitive Baptists have always traced our ancestry through the Anabaptists—by whatever name they were called—and if they were such heretics as these reformed Baptists claimed they were, it makes our claims questionable, to say the least.
The Particular Baptists
Like the General Baptists, the Particular Baptists grew out of the Protestant Independents. They protested against the Protestants.
Sylvester Hassell records, “In 1633, September the 12th, the first Particular or Calvinistic or Predestinarian English Baptist Church was founded in London, under the pastoral care of John Spilsbury, from those members of an Independent Church who rejected infant baptism; it was called Broad Street Church, and was in the parish of Wapping, London,” (Hassell’s History, pg. 524).
During the early 1600’s there were numerous individuals in the Church of England, and the Presbyterian, and Independent churches, who were becoming convinced that baptism should be limited to believers. As we have noticed, there were already old-order Anabaptist churches spread over the nation. These Protestant ministers, who had newly come to advocate believers’ baptism, could have easily gone to them for baptism. But, like their Old School Baptist counterparts in this day, the old-order Anabaptists had been maligned for so long, these Independent ministers would not consider accepting baptism from them.
In order to admit that valid baptism was still available, they would have had to admit those despised Anabaptists were the Lord’s church, and they were not about to admit that.
The Protestants with whom they were connected had vilified the Anabaptists so effectively, and for so long, that neither Smyth nor Spilsbury could recognize that those despised brethren had what they were looking for.
From Ivimy we read, “It was during this [Charles I] reign that an event took place among the Baptists, which has been commonly, but erroneously considered as the commencement of their [Baptist] history in this country. This was the formation of some churches in London, which many have supposed to be the first of this denomination in the kingdom [but]….During the reign of James, we have produced unexceptionable proof that there were great numbers of Baptists who suffered imprisonment in divers counties, and that a petition to the king was signed by many of their ministers,” (Ivimy vol. 1, p. 267)
Joan Boucher (Joan of Kent), who was burnt in the reign of Edward VI, was a member of the Baptist church at Canterbury. Ivimy goes on to show that church had existed for 250 years, and the church at Eyethorn had been there for 230 years. These were old-order (old school) Anabaptist churches. Both John Smyth and John Spilsbury shared the Protestants’ contempt for these old school brethren, and that is the source of the trouble that is afflicting the Baptists till this very day.
Ivimy says, “It is rather singular that Crosby should pay so little attention to his materials as to overlook these circumstances, and to confirm the common error respecting the origin of the Baptist churches, by the following statement. ‘In the year 1633, (says he,) the Baptists, who had hitherto been intermixed with other protestant dissenters without distinction, and who consequently shared with the Puritans in the persecutions of those times, began to separate themselves, and form distinct societies of their own.’” (Ivimy vol.1, pg. 138).
Ivimy was being unnecessarily polite in only saying Crosby’s comments were singular. Like his Particular Baptist colleagues, Crosby simply skated around the fact that for centuries there had been old school Baptists in England teaching essentially the same things the Particular Baptists would one day come to teach. In other parts of his history he would pay them ample attention, but when he came to the origin of his own Particular Baptists, he simply looked the other way.
Since the Particular Baptists adamantly refused to recognize their old-order Anabaptist neighbors as being any part of the Lord’s church, they were left in the same situation as John Smyth and the General Baptists. Who could they find to baptize them?
Rather than apply to the old-order Baptists for baptism, they sent to Holland looking for somebody to baptize them. Those old school Baptists were used to being maligned and misrepresented by the Pedobaptists, but to find themselves similarly maligned and misrepresented by these new reformed Baptists—in spite of the fact they taught essentially the same things—had to be painful and insulting.
Note: There is one thing we want to make as clear as we can possibly make it. When we point out the contention between the old order of Baptists and the new, we do not intend to imply the new reformed Baptists were any less sincere, any less faithful, or that they suffered for their faith any less than the old order of Baptists did.
The General and the Particular Baptists could match the old-order Anabaptists stroke for stroke, stripe for stripe, and beating for beating. They came along too late to be burned at the stake, but that did not diminish their capacity for suffering, nor the capacity of the Pedobaptists to inflict pain and misery. Their Protestant tormentors referred to all Baptists as Anabaptists, and they treated them all alike. In those dreadful times, all three kinds of Baptists suffered a similar fate, and nobody can point out that one party suffered more than the other, or that one party was more faithful to their convictions than the other.
During that time of tribulation it was almost impossible to distinguish one party from the other. They worked together, worshiped together, suffered together, and often died together. Whether they were General Baptists, Particular Baptists, or old-order Anabaptists, we must never lose sight of the way they all suffered for that cause we all hold dear.
The Generals and Particulars taught
the true church had ceased to exist in England
The main problem of both the Generals and the Particulars was that they were mistaken about the true nature of the Lord’s church, and God’s promise that he would preserve his church throughout all ages. God had been faithful to that promise, but neither group of these new school Baptists believed it. On many points they enjoyed great light, but on that point they were totally in the dark.
Even though there were still large numbers of old-order Anabaptists in England at the time, the General Baptists under John Smyth, and the Particular Baptists under John Spilsbury, insisted the true church had ceased to exist in England. But they had a remedy. Both the General Baptists and the Particular Baptists were sure that if the church ceased to exist, two people, neither of which had been baptized, and neither of which had been ordained, could baptize each other, and start the church all over again.
Alexander Campbell preached that doctrine, but it has never been good Baptist doctrine. On that point the Particular Baptists were much closer to Alexander Campbell than they were to Paul the apostle.
Ivimy tells us, “The great objection was the want of an administrator, which as I have heard was removed by sending certain messengers to Holland, whence they were supplied….Crosby says that this agrees with an account given of the matter in an old manuscript said to be written by Mr. William Kiffin. This relates, that ‘several sober and pious persons belonging to the congregations of the dissenters about London were convinced that believers were the only proper subjects of baptism, and that it ought to be administered by immersion, or dipping the whole body into the water, in resemblance of a burial and resurrection, according to Rom. 6:4, and Col. 2:12….That they could not be satisfied about any administrator in England to begin this practice; because, though some in this nation rejected the baptism of infants, yet they had not, as they knew of, revived the ancient custom of immersion.’” (Ivimy vol. 1, pg. 142,143).
When Ivimy refers to those who “rejected the baptism of infants,” but “had not….revived the ancient custom of immersion,” he was referring to others like these Protestant inquirers. The Anabaptists did not need to revive baptism of believers by immersion. They had been baptizing all along. That was the very reason they were called Anabaptists— literally re-baptizers. But until they were forced together by persecution, these Protestant inquirers wanted nothing to do with them.
“But hearing that some in the Netherlands practiced it, they agreed to send over one Mr. Richard Blunt, who understood the Dutch language; that he went accordingly, carrying letters of recommendation with him, and was kindly received both by the church there; and by Mr. John Batte their teacher; that on his return he baptized Mr. Samuel Blacklock, a minister, and these two baptized the rest of their company, whose names are in the manuscript to the number of fifty three.” (Ivimy vol. 1, pg. 143)
Notice, if you will, that he does not say that John Batte actually baptized Richard Blunt. He only says they received him. We can charitably conclude he was baptized, but the record does not actually say so.
Ivimy goes on, “‘But the greatest number of the English Baptists, (says Crosby,) and the more judicious, esteemed all this but needless trouble, and what proceeded from the old popish doctrine of right to administer sacraments by an uninterrupted succession, which neither the church of Rome nor the church of England, much less the modern dissenters, could prove to be with them. They affirmed therefore, and practiced accordingly, that after a general corruption of baptism, an unbaptized person might warrantably baptize, and so begin a reformation.” (Ivimy vol. 1, pg. 143,144).
Sylvester Hassell records that John Smyth was called a Se-Baptist, “because he was said to have baptized himself; but it is more probable that one of the brethren baptized him, and he then baptized the others,” (pg. 524).
Ivimy again, “Now for baptizing a man’s self, there is as good warrant as for a man’s churching himself, for two men singly are no church; jointly they are a church, and they both of them put a church upon themselves, for as both these persons unchurched, yet have power to assume the church, each of them for himself and others in communion; so each of them unbaptized, hath power to assume baptism for himself with others in communion,” (Ivimy vol. 1, pg. 118).
Both the General and Particular Baptists objected strenuously against being connected with the old-order Anabaptists. They did not make the same objection against being identified with each other. Considering that the General Baptists had a clearly Arminian confession of faith, and the Particulars adopted a Calvinist confession, you might expect them to resist being identified with each other, but that was not the case. Thomas Crosby was one of the best known Particular Baptists in that day. Listen to his comments on the question.
“It may be proper to observe here, that there have been two parties of the Baptists in England ever since the beginning of the reformation; those that have followed the Calvinistical scheme of doctrines, and from the principal point therein, personal election, have been termed Particular Baptists, and those that have professed the Arminian or Remonstrant tenets, and have also from the chief of those doctrines, universal redemption, been called General Baptists. I shall not trouble myself to enquire into the reasons for their thus distinguishing themselves, so as to hold distinct communities thereupon….but this much I think fit to declare, that I am fully persuaded, and clearly of opinion, that this difference in opinion is not a sufficient or reasonable ground of renouncing Christian communion with one another, and therefore have not in the course of this history, leaned either to one side or the other, but have taken facts as they came to my hands, without regarding to which of the parties they were peculiar. And I know that there are several churches, ministers, and many particular persons, among the English Baptists, who desire not to go under the name either of Generals or Particulars, nor indeed can justly be ranked under either of these heads; because they receive what they think to be truth, without regarding with what human schemes it agrees or disagrees.” (Crosby vol. 1, ppg. 173,174).
Notice that he points out there were churches and ministers who refused to identify themselves as being either General or Particular Baptists. In fact there were Arminians among the Particulars and Calvinists among the Generals. Also notice that he says he has not “leaned either to one side or the other” in his history. A careful reading will discover that he often seems to make a concerted effort to conceal whether individuals and churches are Generals or Particulars.
How they came to adopt confessions of faith
Those who adopted the London Confession of 1689 do not leave us in doubt as to how it came about. The preface to the confession mentions three distinct reasons for their putting forth a confession at that time, and why it so closely parallels the Presbyterian Westminster Confession.
1. They wanted to explain their principles, so as to disprove some of the false charges made against them, and, hopefully, to gain some relief from the persecution brought on by those false charges. In the first sentence of the preface they say their purpose was “for the information and satisfaction of those that did not thoroughly understand what our principles were, or had entertained prejudices against our profession by reason of the strange representation of them by some men of note who had taken very wrong measures, and accordingly led others into misapprehension of us and them.” You will notice that they intended for the confession to be an explanation—not a standard for all future ages.
2. They wanted to express their “hearty agreement with them [the Westminster Assembly] in that wholesome Protestant doctrine, which with so clear evidence of Scripture they have asserted.” They were pleading they had the same devotion to “that wholesome Protestant doctrine” as other Protestants did.
3. They wanted to demonstrate that, though they did differ on some points, such as infant baptism, church government, and the power of the secular authorities to regulate doctrine, there was not a lot of difference between them and the Presbyterians. They point out that they found “no defect,” in the work of the Assembly; they concluded to “retain the same order”…. “without any variation of the terms”….and “to follow their example in making use of the very same words.”
The conclusion is irresistible that they wanted to prove they were as good Protestants as anyone. They wanted to prove they were as devoted to that wholesome Protestant doctrine as the Presbyterians, the Independents, the Church of England, and other Protestants. Others have put forth various explanations as to why they issued the confession, but since they were the people who actually adopted it, it seems to me their own explanation should resolve the question.
The old-order Anabaptists were never connected with the Protestant Establishment, and they wanted nothing to do with them. They were determined to remain a separate people. The Particulars were entirely different. As we will soon notice, it took 29 years, and an act of Parliament, to dig the Particulars out of the Establishment churches.
Being as convinced as they seem to be that they were good Protestants, the Particular Baptists were convinced they had as much right to serve parish churches as other Protestants. For that reason there were Particular Baptist preachers serving parish churches until the Act of Uniformity in 1662 cleared the parish churches of all Dissenting ministers.
The commandment is clear enough. “Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you. And will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty,” 2 Cor. 6:17,18.
The Lord’s church is to be separate from the world. We have no right to join forces with the secular world, and we have no right to join forces with the denominational world. It was that principle, more than anything else, that separated the old-order Anabaptists from the new reformed Baptists. The old-order Anabaptists had always been outcasts, and they were perfectly willing for it to stay that way. They wanted nothing to do with the religious Establishment.
It was very different with the new reformed Baptists. The General Baptists grew out of the Protestant Independents in Holland, but they did not so much withdraw, as they were expelled by the Protestants. They published several books attacking the doctrine of the Independents, and they very unceremoniously ran them off.
Crosby records that the Independents called out John Smith over his doctrine. He goes on, “They represented him to be one that had proclaimed war against God’s everlasting covenant, and a murderer of the souls of babes and sucklings, by depriving them of the visible seal of salvation. They published several books against him; wherein they endeavored to expose both him and his opinions to the world. Two were written against him by Mr. Ainsworth, elder of the church which called him out; one was published against him by Mr. Johnson, pastor of the ancient English church at Amsterdam; and another by Mr. Robinson, minister of the English congregation at Leyden; with some others.” (Crosby vol. 1, pg 267).
Particular Baptists in Protestant pulpits
Smyth could not have stayed with the Independents if he tried. The case was different with the Particulars. They made every effort to remain with the Establishment, and they succeeded for several years. The Puritans thought they could convert the Church of England along Puritan lines. It was a hopeless task to try to make Protestants out of an organization that was more Romanist that Protestant; but you have to give the Puritans credit; they really tried.
The Particular Baptists were of much the same mind as the Puritans. They thought they could make Baptists out of the Protestants. That was the reason they continued for so many years to operate as part of the Protestant Establishment, and from time to time, it appeared they were having some success. That will become increasingly clear as we go along. Notice, if you will, that the Independent church which John Spilsbury left had already quit baptizing babies. So it must have appeared they were having some success in making Baptists of them.
Some of the leading Particular Baptist preachers continued to serve as rectors of Establishment churches all the while they served as pastors of Baptist churches. They would often preach at the Establishment church in the morning, and at their Baptist church in the afternoon. Some of them went so far as to serve the Establishment as Triers. That was a board of examiners who decided whether a minister was qualified to serve as the pastor of an Establishment church.
At this point we are compelled to point out one more time that we are in no way questioning the integrity or the faithfulness of these new reformed Baptists—the Generals and the Particulars. They sincerely believed they were as truly Protestants as anyone, and they believed they had the same right to occupy Establishment (Protestant) pulpits as any Anglican, any Presbyterian, or any Independent.
The Particulars’ problem was not a matter of integrity; it was a problem of understanding the nature and identity of the true church.
We also must point out one more time that all three kinds of Baptists suffered in the persecutions of that age, and there is no one who can prove that any one group suffered more than the others. If the case could be made that any one group suffered more, that group was the Particulars. Many of their preachers were determined to participate in the Establishment, and the Presbyterians were just as determined to drive them out. In that they exposed themselves to a measure of suffering that was not experienced by the Generals, who were driven out from the beginning, nor by the old-order Anabaptists who had never been any part of the Establishment.
But persecution forced them all into the same camp; they worked and worshiped together; and they suffered and died together. Their tormentors made no distinction. They persecuted, and tortured, and killed them all alike. In the white heat of persecution, they shine equally in the history of the Lord’s church. Their faithfulness in the brutality of that time will shine in the history of the church until that final day when the Lord comes again. We tremble to think anybody might get the idea, we would take away one iota from the faithfulness of any Baptist of that day. When we point out that there was fundamental difference in their doctrine and practice, that is all we are pointing out.
Having pointed out that the Particulars made every effort to continue to operate within the Establishment, it is necessary that we give examples.
John Tombes: John Tombes was one of the brightest and best of the Particular Baptist preachers. Richard Baxter called him “the chief of the Anabaptists” and “the most learned writer against infant-baptism.” “Wood, the Oxford biographer says that there were few better disputants than he was.” Nelson called him “the head of the Anabaptists,” (Crosby vol. 1, pg. 292). We could easily fill a page with such endorsements. Suffice it to say that he had few equals, and there were few, if any, who tried harder to reform the Establishment Church along Baptist lines, to purge parish pulpits of corrupt, and unqualified preachers, and to put Baptist preachers in their place.
Tombes, a Baptist, exercised considerable influence over Establishment practice. He managed to place his Baptist brethren in parish (Protestant) pulpits, with the livelihood that went with the position, and, at one point, he persuaded the Establishment to recognize the Baptists as brethren. He must have felt a great sense of accomplishment, until he and all his Baptist friends, along with all Dissenters, were tossed out of the parish churches in the Great Ejection of 1662.
He entered Oxford when he was fifteen, and was made a lecturer when he was twenty one. His star was rapidly rising among the religious apparatus of the day. The scholar that he was, he was able to meet the brightest and best the Establishment had on equal terms. He became convinced that infant baptism had no scriptural foundation and began to question the scholars of the day.
Crosby relates, “He was among the first of the clergy of those times, who endeavored a reformation in the church, and the purging out of all human inventions in the worship of God; and while he continued in this parish, preached an excellent sermon on that subject, which was afterward printed by an order of the House of Commons. But this exposed him to the rage of the church party; and therefore at the very beginning of the civil wars, some of the king’s forces coming into that country, he was in 1641, drove from his habitation, and plundered of almost all he had in the world,” (Crosby vol. 1, pg. 280).
The Westminster Assembly was the most august gathering of Protestant scholars ever gathered at any one time and place. According to Crosby, “The assembly of divines were now sitting at Westminster, and had declared, that their design was to reform religion, in England and Scotland, according to the word of God, and the example of the best reformed churches. Mr. Tombes was also informed, by one of that assembly, that they had appointed a committee to consider the point of infant-baptism. Whereupon he drew up in Latin, the chief reasons of his doubting the lawfulness of that practice, and sent them to Mr. Whittaker the chairman of that committee; hoping that an assembly of such grave and learned divines would either answer the scruples of a brother in the ministry; or, if they appeared to be justly founded, that they would, according to their professions and covenant, endeavor to reform this abuse of the ordinance of baptism.”
“He waited many months, but could get no answer, or hear that the point was so much as admitted to a debate in the assembly. Instead of that, he found that some of the assembly, both by sermons and pamphlets, endeavored to render odious to the people those that should deny baptism to infants; that they passed a vote, tending to explode, if not censure, any that should but dispute against it; and that instead of considering his arguments impartially, his papers were tossed up and down from one to another, in order to expose him….He had waited nine months for the assembly’s answer to his doubts; but instead of receiving any, his papers were handed about, and by some publicly exposed in their pulpits. When he had long solicited Mr. Marshal’s answer to the remarks he had made upon his sermon, the best return he could get was, that since he had a place for his ministry, without baptizing of infants, he expected him to be quiet,” (Crosby vol. 1, ppg. 284-286).
Not being able to get the Assembly to answer his inquiries about infant-baptism, he finally began to preach publicly against it. He was soon baptized by immersion and gathered a Baptist church, all the while continuing to serve as rector of the parish church. He continued to serve both churches until the restoration in 1662, when all Baptists and other Dissenting preachers were ejected.
Crosby gives the record. “After this, the people of Bewdly in Worcestershire, the town of his nativity, chose him for their minister. And now he began to preach and dispute publicly against infant-baptism, and to put his opinion into practice, being baptized by immersion, on a personal profession of faith. And seeing no prospect of any reformation in the established church in this point, he there gathered a separate church of those of his own persuasion, continuing at the same time minister of the parish. His society of Baptists was not very large, but consisted of such who were of good esteem for their piety and solid judgment; and three eminent ministers of that persuasion were trained up in it, viz. Mr. Richard Adams, Mr. John Eccles, and one Capt. Boylston; and it continued till about the time of the king’s restoration,” (Crosby vol. 1, ppg. 285, 286).
During the time he was serving both churches he appeared to be making considerable progress toward bringing about a reformation along Baptist lines. He was appointed as one of the Establishment Tryers. That was a committee whose responsibility it was to determine whether a minister was qualified to be in charge of an Establishment Church. During that time, at least for the moment, he persuaded the commissioners “to own the Baptists as their brethren.” That was, indeed, an accomplishment—to get these Protestant commissioners to recognize the Particular Baptists as brethren.
More than that, as one of the Tryers, he found himself, a Baptist, in the position of determining who would, or would not, be allowed to serve as rector of a Protestant church. If he discovered that an Establishment preacher was drunken, or incompetent, he had the power, along with his fellow Tryers, to reject the Establishment preacher, and place a Baptist preacher in the parish church. No doubt, he considered that to be an advantage.
Crosby gives the account: “In the year 1653, as there was some alteration made in the form of the civil government, so there was likewise in the ecclesiastical. A certain number of men were authorized to examine and approve all such as should be allowed the public exercise of the ministry, and were therefore called Tryers. Mr. Tombes being known to be a person as well qualified for such a post, as most men then in England, was, notwithstanding his different opinion, appointed to be one of them. And among other good effects that followed hereupon, this was one, viz. the commissioners agreed to own the Baptists as their brethren, and that if any such applied to them for probation, and appeared in other respects to be duly qualified, they should not be rejected for holding this opinion. And hence it came to pass, that at the restoration several parishes were found to have Baptist ministers fixed in them.” (Crosby vol. 1, pg. 289, 290).
He and his colleagues would have done better to entirely separate from the Established religion, but they seemed determined to prove that Baptists were simply another kind of Protestant.
If it should seem strange that Baptists could be accepted,and appointed to serve, on such a committee, Ivimy points out that it was not the Assembly, but the protector, Cromwell, who appointed its members. It is hard to imagine those Protestant divines, as they were called, would allow Baptists any such authority, but the decision did not belong to them; it belonged to Oliver Cromwell. During much of his career Cromwell befriended the Baptists.
“We have said that there were several eminent Baptist ministers among the Triers who were appointed by the protector, instead of the Assembly of Divines at Westminster, for removing those from the parish churches who were ignorant and scandalous…. And with all their faults, this much must be said of these Triers, that they did a great deal of good to the church, and saved many a congregation from ignorant, ungodly, drunken teachers.”
“That sort of ministers who either preached against a holy life, or preached as men that never were acquainted with it; all those who used the ministry only as a common trade to live by, and were never likely to convert a soul, they usually rejected; and in their stead admitted of any that were able, serious preachers, and lived a godly life, of what opinion soever they were that was tolerable.’”
“It was doubtless at this time that some of the Baptists accepted of livings in the national establishment, though it is presumed the far greater part of them viewed this as a dereliction of principle in Dissenters, and more especially in Baptists. Of those who thus conformed were those who accepted the appointment of Triers. Mr. Tombes, B. D. had the living of Leominster in the county of Hereford; Mr. Daniel Dyke, M. A. of Great Hadham in Hertfordshire; and Mr. Henry Jessey, of St. George’s, Southwark,” (Ivimy vol. 1, pg. 263).
Tombes and his friends were making considerable progress in getting recognition by the authorities, but others were not so sure. They felt that it was too much of joining forces with the enemy.
Henry Jessey: Henry Jessey is a name we encounter frequently among the leading preachers of that day. He first tried to convert his Protestant brethren on the question of infant baptism, and failing at that, he submitted to baptism by Hansard Knollys.
Crosby records, “But about the year 1644 the controversy about the subjects of baptism was again revived, and several debates held in the congregation about it; by which not only several private Christians were convinced that infant-baptism was an unscriptural practice, but Mr. Jessey himself also came over to this opinion. However, before he would absolutely determine the point, and practice accordingly, he resolved to consult with divers learned and judicious ministers of those times; and therefore had a meeting with Dr. Goodwin, Mr. Philip Nye, Mr. Jeremiah Burroughs, Mr. Walter Craddock, and several others.”
“But these giving him no satisfaction, he was in June, 1645, baptized by Mr. Hansard Knollys; and it proved no small honor and advantage to the Baptists, to have a man of such extraordinary piety, and substantial learning among them. But notwithstanding his differing from his brethren in this, or any other point, he maintained the same Christian love and charity to all saints as before, not only as to a friendly conversation, but also in respect of church-communion,” (Crosby vol. 1, ppg. 311).
Jessey did not seem to think becoming a Baptist meant he needed to give up his Protestant privileges.
Ivimy records that he continued to serve as rector of an Establishment church in the morning, at the same time he served his Baptist church in the afternoon. He had another Protestant minister to baptize the babies in the Establishment church.
“Mr. Jessey appears to have continued as pastor of his church, notwithstanding his being rector of St. George’s: — He was ordained over Mr. Lathorpe’s church in 1637; and in this vineyard, it is said, he continued a faithful and laborious minister till his death. Crosby says, ‘He divided his labors in the ministry according to the extensiveness of his principles. Every Lord’s day in the afternoon he was among his own people; in the morning he usually preached at St. George’s church, Southwark…. and as Mr. Jessey always admitted of mixed communion in his church, he would find no difficulty in administering the Lord’s supper, as it is presumed the canons of the church were now no longer binding, and ministers would be at liberty to admit those only to the table of whose piety they were well satisfied,” (Ivimy vol. 1, ppg. 263, 264).
One of the complaints the old-order brethren made against the Particulars was their practice of mixed communion, but Jessey could not well refuse to allow members of the Establishment church to take communion in his Baptist churches, since he was the pastor at both places. He continued to serve both churches until the monarchy was restored and Parliament put an end to the practice in 1662.
“Upon the restoration he was ejected from his living at St. George’s, Southwark, silenced from his ministry, and being committed to prison for his religion, he died there, full of peace and joy, on the 4th of Sept. 1663, having that day completed the sixty third year of his age. He was buried three days afterwards from Woodmongers Hall; and there appeared an uncommon number of mourners at his funeral, several thousands of pious persons of all denominations attending his obsequies,” (Crosby vol. 1, pg. 320).
It is doubtful our brethren in this day would approve of one of our preachers serving as pastor, and administering communion in a Protestant church, at the same time he was serving as pastor of a Primitive Baptist church, and administering communion there. It is even more unlikely our brethren would approve of his serving a Protestant church jointly with a Protestant preacher. That was a frequent practice among the Particular Baptists.
The more we learn about the Particular Baptists in England in the 1600’s, the more sure we become they are not a good source for Baptist infallibility.
Henry Denne: Henry Denne was another well known name among the Baptists, who managed, as it were, to ride two horses. He continued to serve an Establishment Church after he became a Baptist and preached against infant baptism. He was immersed at London in 1643, “and joined himself to the congregation of that persuasion there, of which Mr. Lamb was the pastor. This of course exposed him to the resentment of those who now sat at the helm of ecclesiastical affairs. And the next news we hear of him is, that he was taken up in Cambridgeshire, and committed to prison by the committee of that county, for preaching against infant-baptism, and presuming to rebaptize some in those parts. Mr. Denne appealed to the parliament; upon which he was, by an order from the house, brought up to London, and, till his case could be heard, was kept prisoner in Lord Peter’s house in Bishopsgate-street,” (Crosby vol. 1, ppg. 302,303)
But like so many of his colleagues, even though he had joined the Baptists, he fought to maintain his standing in the Establishment Church. In spite of his publicly opposing infant baptism, he managed to obtain the care of the parish church at Elsly with the living (the livelihood) that went with it.
Crosby goes on to say, “After Mr. Denne was set at liberty, notwithstanding his opposing the common opinion in this particular, he obtained by some means or other the parish of Elsly in Cambridgeshire, where he preached publicly in the church, and enjoyed the means [livelihood] belonging to it for some time, and was very much followed for his popular preaching. But this gave great offence to some of the Presbyterian party, who now began to think none ought to be admitted into public livings but themselves. And more especially the neighboring ministers were greatly prejudiced against him….He was also in the year 1646 taken up by two justices of the peace at Spalding in Lincolnshire, and committed to prison, for having baptized some persons in a river there, as has been before observed. By such proceedings as these, Mr. Denne was obliged to quit his living; and finding such laws enacted, as would hinder his being useful, or enjoying any benefice in the church, he went into the army; and being a man of great courage and zeal for the liberties of his country, took upon him the profession of the soldier as well as the divine, and behaved himself so well, as to gain a reputation, not inferior to many, in both these characters,” (Crosby vol. 1, ppg. 304, 305).
These three names are only a tiny sampling of the Particular Baptists who managed to ride both horses.
They continued to be recognized by the Establishment and to serve parish churches, all the while they served as pastors of Baptist churches. When the Act of Uniformity was passed in 1662, two thousand non-conforming ministers were ejected from their livings—their livelihood as parish pastors. Many of them were Baptists. Ivimy lists a few of the Baptists who were ejected from their parish churches.
“Another design to oppress the dissenters was avowed in the year 1662, when a bill was introduced to enforce uniformity in religion, and to eject all ministers from the Established church who could not declare unfeigned assent and consent to the articles of the church of England, and of every thing contained in the book of common prayer, and also that would not declare upon oath that it was not lawful on any pretense whatever to take arms against the king, etc. The consequence of this act, was, that upwards of two thousand eminently godly, learned, and useful ministers were obliged to leave their livings, and were exposed to many hardships and difficulties. This act passed, but Bishop Burnet observes, with no very great majority, and received the royal assent May 19, and was to take place from the 14th of August following. Amongst these pious confessors and intrepid sufferers, were some of the Baptist denomination. In Palmer’s Non-conformist’s Memorial we meet with the names of several Baptists, and it is not improbable but some others were of this denomination, as it is well known that
Calamy has not always mentioned their sentiments on this subject.
Henry Jessey, M. A. ejected from St. Georges, Southwark.
William Dell, M. A. from the living of Yeldon, In Bedfordshire.
Francis Bampfield, M. A. from the living of Sherborne, in Dorsetshire.
Thomas Jennings, from Brimsfeld, in Gloucestershire.
Paul Frewen, from Kempley, in the same county.
Joshua Head, place of ejectment uncertain.
John Tombes, B.D. from Leominster, in Herefordshire.
Daniel Dyke, M. A. from Hadham, in Hertfordshire.
Richard Adams, from Humberstone, in Leicestershire.
Jeremiah Marsden, from Ardesly Chapel, near Wakefield, in Yorkshire.
Thomas Hardcastle, from Bramham, in Yorkshire.
Robert Browne, from Whitelady Aston, in Worcestershire.
Gabriel Camelford, from Stavely Chapel, in Westmoreland.
John Skinner, from Weston, in Herefordshire.
— Baker, from Folkestone, in Kent.
John Gosnold, of the Charter-house and Pembroke Hall, Cambridge.
Thomas Quarrel, from some place in Shropshire.
Thomas Ewins, from St. Evens Church, Bristol.
Lawrence Wise, from Chatham Dock, Kent.
John Donne, from Pertenhall in Bedfordshire.
Paul Hobson, from the chaplainship of the College, Buckinghamshire.
John Gibbs, from Newport Pagnell.
John Smith, from Wanlip, Leicestershire.
Thomas Ellis, from Lopham, Norfolk.
Thomas Paxford, from Clapton, Gloucestershire.
Ichabod Chauncey, M. D. chaplain to Sir Edward Harley’s Regiment,” (Ivimy vol. 1, ppg. 327,328).
A multitude of confessions
In spite of their resistance to confessions of faith, early in the 1600’s the Baptists did begin to draw up confessions. They intended for those confessions to act as a defense mechanism against the false accusations that were being leveled against them. They were put forth to deal with a serious present need, and for that reason, if for no other, we should not be overly harsh with them for doing so. We must keep it always in mind that those confessions were never meant to be official standards or supplements to the Bible. The Protestants make that claim for their confessions; the Baptists do not.
The General Baptist John Smyth put out his confession in 1608. It set the tone for the Baptist confessions that were to follow. The preface states that “they are forced against their whole minds to publish it, for the clearing of their innocency in such things,” (Crosby vol. 2, pg. a2 preface). Notice that he says they were forced to do it; the danger of the times demanded it.
No one living today has suffered the way they did. None of us have known the anguish of freezing and starving in a filthy jail, knowing that our wives and tiny children are freezing and starving at home—if they even have a home. We cannot imagine how it must have torn the heart out of a poor Baptist preacher to know it was his preaching that was bringing misery on those who were so dear to him. So if those good brethren sometimes used poor judgment, it still behooves us that we be very careful how we talk about them.
The Particular Baptists put out their first confession in 1644. They were never entirely satisfied with it, but they kept fine tuning it, and they issued new editions in 1645, 1646, 1651, 1652, and 1653. The confession was a benefit in that it helped to clear up many of the slanderous charges being made against them. Those outside the Baptist ranks were surprised that it did not contain the wild notions that had been charged against them. Some were so surprised, they denied that it was a true representation of what Baptists believed, but acting on the confession, on March 4, 1647, Parliament gave a favorable response, and granted legal toleration to the Baptists.
Difference in doctrine and practice
among the 1689 Baptists
The First London Confession of 1644 continued to be in use for awhile, but by the time the Second London Confession was first adopted in 1677, copies of that first confession were almost impossible to find, and very few Baptists knew anything about it. By his own admission, Benjamin Keach, who signed the Second London Confession, knew nothing of that First London Confession. He learned of it in 1691, two years after the Second Confession was put forth. It seems that if they had intended for the confession to be a standard of orthodoxy, their leaders would have been aware of its existence.
Keach began his ministry as an Arminian General Baptist, and was well received by them. Few men had more impact on the English Baptists of his day than he did. He was still a General Baptist when he was put in the pillory, and pelted with spoiled fruit and rotten eggs, while his books were burned before his face. He was converted to Calvinism by Hansard Knollys and William Kiffin after persecution forced him to move to London in 1668. So, regardless of how sincere and devout he was, he was still a new convert when he signed the first draft of the London Confession put forth in 1677. Even after he was converted, Keach never ceased to be in sympathy with the Arminian General Baptists, and believed the Arminians and Calvinists should be able to minimize their differences and come together as one people.
The General Baptists followed with their Orthodox Creed in 1678. The influence of Keach is obvious. The title they adopted for the confession was: An Orthodox Creed or a protestant confession of faith; being an essay to unite and confirm all true Protestants. Notice that their intention was to unite and confirm all true Protestants. Both the Generals and the Particulars came out of the Protestants; and it is clear they thought of the Baptists as another kind of Protestants. They wanted to unite the Baptists under the Protestant banner.
In spite of the denying Arminianism expression in the preface to the Second London Confession, with so many Arminians among the Particulars, and so many Calvinists among the Generals, it is obvious that many of their leaders did not consider those differences as a great obstacle to union. They did not believe there was enough difference to make a difference.
The Generals and Particulars put out a steady stream of confessions for well over a hundred years. They could never come up with a confession they could agree on. No sooner would one confession be advanced, than another group of churches would adopt a different confession. They would generally avow their agreement with the former confession, but they did not agree enough to allow it to stand without putting forth their own alternative.
There was John Smyth’s General Baptist Confession in 1608, and Thomas Helwysse’s General Baptist Confession in 1611, and the Particular Baptists’ First London Confession first put out 1644, and revised in 1645, 1646, 1651, 1652, and 1653, and the Midland Confession in 1655, and the Somerset Confession of 1656, and the Standard Confession in 1660, and the Orthodox Confession in 1678, and the Second London Confession put out by the Particular Baptists in 1677, 1678, 1688, and 1689, and Keach’s Goat Yard Confession in 1697, and John Gill’s Goat Yard Confession in 1729. None of them were entirely right; none of them were entirely wrong, and none of them entirely agreed with any of the others. With so many confessions being tried and rejected, it is hard to imagine that any of them were divinely inspired. With so many efforts made, if God was the author of any of them, you would think they would have found one confession they could live with.
What the Particular Baptists finally did was to adopt the Presbyterian Westminster Confession, make such strategic changes as were necessary to make it acceptable to Baptists, and adopt it as their own. They were more successful with that modified Presbyterian confession than they had been with any of their Baptist confessions. There were any number of reasons for that. For one thing, the Westminster Confession had a distinct air of authority about it. It had been drafted by the Westminster Assembly which was, without question, the most august assembly of Protestant Bible scholars ever assembled at any one time and place. With both the Generals and the Particulars protesting so loudly that they were simply another kind of Protestants, they could not help but be impressed by the Westminster Confession.
It was hard for the Presbyterians to object to the new Baptist confession, seeing that, except for a few subjects such as baptism, church government, and submission to the secular authorities, it was an almost verbatim copy of their own. The Presbyterians were no longer in control of Parliament. James II had fled the country. William of Orange had assumed the throne, and the Act of Toleration was now the law of the land.
The Baptists were very explicit in pointing out that they had simply copied the Westminster Confession. In their preface they point out that they “retained the same order,” that they used “words concurrent with the former,” “Without any variation in the terms,” that they used “the very same words,” and that their “faith and doctrine is the same with theirs.”
Even that might have been a benefit, if they had changed somewhat more than they did. As it happened, they retained far more than they rejected, and most of the problems that have afflicted the Baptists from that day till this are traceable to notions the Baptists copied from the Presbyterian Westminster Confession.
The London Confession:
fiercely resisted from the first
Even though the Second London Confession was more widely accepted than others had been, it fell far short of universal acceptance. The people in that day had less confidence in it than many in later generations have had. Those who today place such great value on the London Confession seem not to realize how vigorously it was resisted, and how little it was appreciated in its own day.
For thirty years, from 1689 until John Gill appeared on the scene in 1719, Benjamin Keach towered above the Baptists of that entire century. He was one of the most prolific Baptist writers of any age. John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress has endured in a way which no other human production ever has; but in their own day, Keach’s War With the Devil was fully as successful as Pilgrim’s Progress. His contemporaries predicted that War With the Devil would continue to be reprinted until the end of time. It did continue to be republished for over one hundred years.
Benjamin Keach was one of the main forces behind the Second London Confession, but after only eight years, even he rejected it. Keach became pastor of the Goat Yard Church, later served by John Gill. It is not entirely clear whether he was not able to hold his church to the confession, and they demanded a better confession, or whether Keach was himself dissatisfied, and wanted to produce a confession more to his liking. George Ella relates that in 1697 they replaced it with “a shortened, less specific, though still highly evangelical version.” (George Ella’s John Gill, pg. 35). So within eight years of its adoption, not even this great signatory of the London Confession subscribed to his own work.
John Gill was called as the pastor of the same Goat Yard Church in 1719. He rejected the London Confession out of hand. He wanted nothing to do with either the London Confession of 1689, or the substitute confession issued by his own church in 1697. He drew up his own confession of faith, and the Goat Yard Church entered that confession in their church book in 1729. The church continued to use Gill’s confession until well into the 1800’s. (George Ella, pg. 69)
There are those, today, who are so totally unaware of the confusing array of confessions produced at that time, that they imagine the Baptists received the Second London Confession as some kind of oracular pronouncement. But even though many of the greatest leaders of that day rejected the London Confession, it persisted, and today, it is the only Baptist confession most people know anything about.
We must acknowledge it owes most of that success to its similarity to the Westminster Confession. Pedobaptists though they were, those who made up the Westminster Assembly were some of the most brilliant scholars ever gathered in one place. They were master wordsmiths, and they knew how to present their points of view. There was more sophistry than sagacity in many of their arguments; but they were fully in command of the language, and they always had a proof text they could apply, rightly or wrongly, to their arguments. There were a few subjects, such as infant baptism, and the right of the authorities to regulate religion, which they were not willing to debate, but on other subjects they were simply brilliant.
God has given us the Bible as our one rule of faith and practice. We do not need any supplements to the Bible, any secondary authorities. But for some, the Bible has never been enough. Other people have their creeds, and confessions of faith, and there will always be those who want whatever others have. It is ironic that those whose favorite motto is sola scriptura (scripture only) are the most determined not to settle for the Bible as their only rule of faith and practice.
Not only did the London Confession not succeed in uniting the Baptists of that day; the next thirty years (1689 til 1719) saw some of the fiercest infighting the Baptists have ever known.
Benjamin Keach’s Goat Yard Confession of 1697 denied that baptism and the Lord’s Supper were the only ordinances of the Lord’s church. He was sure hymn singing, and laying on of hands after baptism were also church ordinances. If a person was not willing to have hands laid on him after baptism, he could not be a member of Keach’s church. That was a hobby of his during his entire ministry, and he was determined to carry the day, regardless of the cost.
History has been kind to Keach, but his own people were not so gentle. With his domineering personality and fiery temper, he saw to it those principles were included in his new confession. From the time the confession was signed, Keach, Hansard Knollys, William Kiffin, and Isaac Marlowe were at each others throats. The aged Hansard Knollys sided with Keach against William Kiffin and Isaac Marlow. Keach, Kiffin, and Knollys all signed the London Confession, but the ink was hardly dry before those three giants were engaged in an unholy war. No doubt, personalities became involved, and neither side would budge. The battle was so hot they tore the Goat Yard Church and the other London churches to pieces.
Keach was himself one source of the heterodoxy of the time. Not only was he willing to divide churches over the question of whether hymn singing, and laying on of hands were church ordinances; his sacramental views regarding baptism and the Lord’s Supper were closer to the Protestant than they were to the Baptist view. In his Types and Metaphors, pg. 639, he says this about the Lord’s Supper. “There is a mystical conveyance or communication of all Christ’s blessed merits to our souls through faith held forth thereby, and in glorious manner received, in the right participation of it.” (Ella. pg 191). Baptists have always believed the Lord’s Supper is a figure or symbol of what Christ did for us, that the bread and wine are emblems. We do not believe they actually convey “Christ’s blessed merits to our souls.” This great 1689 Baptist was a long way from Baptist doctrine on that point.
A Baptist Episcopacy
Another problem that vexed the Baptists during the thirty years after the adoption of the London Confession was the usurping of church authority by the coffee-house fraternals. In his zeal to unite the Arminian General Baptists and the Calvinistic Particular Baptists, Keach and his colleagues organized fraternals which met at coffee-houses in London. George Ella records, “The difficulties found in adopting a common creed prevented the Particular Baptists and their General Baptist brethren from enjoying true fellowship with one another, but a number of pastors believed that if they could only persuade their fellow office-bearers from the various Baptist churches to meet in fellowship, eventually some form of church unity could be worked out. The venue chosen for these minister’s fraternals of clubs, sometimes meeting within the denomination, sometimes together, were not the Baptist chapels, but the many coffee-houses springing up at the time in London and other major towns. These coffee-house fraternals of special approved pastors (club members determined who could join them, not the churches) gradually became the true governing bodies of both the General and Particular Baptists in the years between 1697 and 1720 when Gill succeeded Benjamin Keach’s son-in-law Benjamin Stinton as pastor of Goat yard church. Their unifying aim was made clear right from the start as, when the Hanover Coffee House club was founded by Keach and like-minded brethren, it was done with the recorded determination to seek union with the General Baptists,” (George Ella’s John Gill, pg 35).
So, the two goals of these fraternals were (1) to unite the Arminian General and the Calvinistic Particular Baptists, and (2) to regulate the churches.
They were self perpetuating; they determined who could belong to their number. They operated outside the churches, and exerted authority over the churches. They decided grievances within churches, and between churches. They decided who could be ordained, and they provided the presbytery. The Baptists had complained bitterly about the Anglican episcopacy, but there is little discernible difference between the Anglican episcopacy and these Baptist coffee-house fraternals. Unscriptural as they were, they exercised authority over the Baptist churches until John Gill brought them to their knees in 1720.
Not only were the next thirty years after 1689 a time of vicious infighting among the Baptists, it was a time of serious doctrinal departure.
According to George Ella, “John Gale, the pastor at Paul’s Alley….was considered by many Baptists as the theologian of the movement, chiefly because of his writings on baptism,” (Ella. pg 67). Til this day, Gale is quoted as the Baptist authority from that age on the subject of baptism. But in spite of the fact that Gale is still thought of as a Baptist authority, Ella goes on to point out that, “Gale, besides rejecting the doctrine of the Trinity, rejected almost all Reformed doctrines, including justification by faith. Soon Gale, like his co-pastor Burroughs and successor Foster, became an out and out Socinian who preached mere rational and humanistic moralism.” (Ella, pg 68).
Such skepticism and unbelief were rampant among the upper echelon of the Particular and General Baptists of that age. Matthew Caffyn was another leading Baptist preacher of that day who questioned the doctrine of the Trinity. Eventually, largely through his influence, almost the entire body of General Baptists went off into Unitarianism.
With such men as Benjamin Keach, John Gale, and Matthew Caffyn exerting influence over the English Baptists, it is questionable whether they would have withstood the storm, if it had not been for John Gill, and his stalwart stand for the doctrine. Gill’s contemporary, John Ryland “was convinced that God had specially chosen Gill to lead the Particular Baptists out of oblivion and doctrinal disunity” “He goes on to say, ‘Much of the credit for this unswerving allegiance to the doctrine of scripture, under God, must be attributed to John Gill, known affectionally as Dr. Voluminous.”
Gill effectively reversed much that had been taught by the Particular Baptists of the previous generation.
There are any number of points on which not many people of today would agree with Gill. Not many pre-millenialists, would accept Gill’s views on the millenium. Early in his ministry he believed the gospel was a means in regeneration. He later changed his mind about that. He was far too preoccupied with Jewish Kabbalistic writings. He was as fallible as any other mortal, and he changed his mind from time to time, but he did what the London Confession was totally unable to do. He did more to stabilize the Baptists of his day than any other man.
Particular Baptists and seminaries
Another of the areas in which the old-order Anabaptists and the Particular Baptists were different was in the commitment of the Particulars to seminaries. Most of the early Particulars were university trained. When they became Baptists, the universities were closed to them, and they felt to be severely handicapped. New ministers were rising up who did not have university training, and the old university trained ministers were embarrassed. They were convinced they had to do something about it.
In August, 1675, Daniel Dyke, William Collins, and William Kiffin sent a circular letter to the churches in England and Wales, proposing the establishment of a seminary. Ivimy says, “We know not what was the result of this proposal, but it is probable the severity of persecution against the Non-conformists prevented their meeting. It however proves that the learned men who were amongst the Baptists, and pastors of their churches were very desirous of providing a learned ministry, which could not now be expected without establishing seminaries of their own, as the universities and public schools were shut against them,” (Ivimy vol. 1, ppg. 416).
At his death in 1686, Edward Terrill bequeathed funds to establish the Bristol Education Society. Ivimy also mentions their London Education Society. The same 1689 convention that adopted the Second London Confession called for establishing seminaries at London and Bristol.
In his history Davis provides short biographies of the leading Welsh preachers. In the early part of the century, the old Welsh preachers were somewhat suspicious of the new London preachers, but a very large number of the ministers listed by Davis went to be trained at Bristol. They had obviously overcome their suspicions by the time the seminaries began to be established.
Summary
It has been our intention to demonstrate that the Particular Baptists in England who adopted the London Confession of 1689 were some the most honest, decent, God-fearing people who ever lived. We could easily swell this book to a thousand pages with examples of their suffering, and their heroic stand for what they believed. But we have also demonstrated that, like all the rest of us, they were not infallible. For all they got right, they made some serious mistakes. And we have tried to show that those mistakes have been the source of most of the major problems among Baptists since that time. I hope I do not sound judgmental. We are making our share of mistakes in this age. We could fill an equally large volume, cataloging our own mistakes, and the price we are paying for our own mistakes. At risk of being redundant, we will take time to briefly recap a few of those areas in which they erred.
1. Their first error was in refusing to have anything to do with the old-order Anabaptists all around them. Those Anabaptists were like the rest of us. They made mistakes; but it was those faithful Anabaptists who carried on the true church all during the centuries of the Dark Ages.
2. They erred in their notion that if the true church should die out, and there is nobody to go to for baptism, two people, neither of which have been baptized, and neither of which have been ordained, can baptize each other, and so start the church and baptism up again.
3. They erred in going out of the country, looking for somebody in Holland to baptize them, rather than condescend to apply for baptism to those despised Anabaptists.
4. They erred in continuing to serve Protestant churches at the same time they served as pastors of Baptist churches, and they erred in serving Protestant churches jointly with Protestant preachers.
5. They erred in administering communion in Protestant churches, and allowing Protestants to take communion in their Baptist churches.
6. They erred in their notion that no man is truly qualified to preach unless he has been to seminary.
7. They erred in retaining from the Westminster Confession the doctrine that God ordained all things soever come to pass.
8. They erred in retaining the doctrine that everybody who does not hear the preached gospel, and believe it, is going to burn.
9. They erred in allowing the coffee-house fraternals to act as a Baptist hierarchy, arbitrating disputes between churches, deciding who could be ordained, and providing the presbytery.
10. They erred in allowing General Baptists to participate with them, and advise them, in those coffee-house fraternals.
11. They erred in minimizing the danger of Arminianism.
12. They erred in failing to realize the unique nature of the Lord’s church, and that the church is to remain separate from both the secular and the denominational world.
13. Some of their ministers erred in serving on a governing board (triers), whose job it was to determine who would be allowed to serve as rectors (pastors) of Protestant churches.
Some of their leading preachers erred in their doctrine: Keach defending fellowship with General Baptist Arminians, in his sacerdotal view of the Lord’s Supper and baptism, and his insistance that hymn singing and laying hands on those newly baptized were holy ordinances, etc.
Matthew Caffyn and John Gale erred in denying the doctrine of the trinity, etc.
More than that, at the very time the London Baptists were adopting the Confession, the signatories were poised and ready go to war with each other.
This list is becoming far too long; but perhaps, enough has been said to show that neither that generation, nor any other, is a sufficient source for Baptist infallibility. Those were good, and decent, and honorable men, but they were just men. Infallibility is not to be found in the church. The only infallible standard is the Lord Jesus Christ as he is revealed in the Bible. Every other source is liable to err.
PART TWO
The old-order Anabaptists
Baptists in England
During the Dark Ages
When we are told the first Particular Baptist church in England was founded by John Spilsbury in London on September, 12, 1633, we are not to imagine that was the first Baptist church in England. There had been vast numbers of old-order Anabaptists, in England for hundreds of years before the Particular Baptists came along.
Spilsbury founded the first Particular Baptist church; he did not found the first Baptist church.
Ivimy shows that the Particular Baptists were not the first Baptists in England in spite of what others (mainly Particular Baptists) have pretended to the contrary. There were already large numbers of those old-order Anabaptist churches “in London and in the country.” Those Anabaptists had been in England “in every period of the church” in England. He shows that “during the reign of James” there were “great numbers of Baptists” who suffered imprisonment “in divers counties.” James’ reign ended in 1625. That was eight years before John Spilsbury constituted his church in London.
Crosby tells us, “In the year 1633, the Baptists, who had hitherto been intermixed among other Protestant Dissenters, without distinction, and so consequently shared with the Puritans in all the persecutions of those times, began now to separate themselves, and form distinct societies of those of their own persuasion,” (Crosby vol. 1, ppg. 147,148). He was talking about the Particular Baptists, but we will see later that Crosby made little distinction between the Particulars and the Generals.
These were Protestants in the process of becoming Baptists.
In that, they were very different from the old-order Anabaptists, who had never been connected with the Protestants or with Rome. But even though these Particular Baptists separated from their old Protestant churches, they wanted nothing to do with the old-order Anabaptist churches which were all around them. Rather than accept baptism from them, they sent Richard Blunt to Holland looking for somebody to baptize him.
A desire for unity in the face of the fiercest and most cruel persecution drove Baptists of differing opinions into the same camp. If an old-order Anabaptist church was without a pastor, because their pastor was in prison for offending the Pedobaptists, and the Particular Baptist preacher who lived just down the road, preached most of the same things, it was inevitable he would be requested to help out. The distress of the times drove them together, and they stayed together for one hundred and fifty years.
The different kinds of Baptists became thoroughly intertwined in their various churches, but they were never entirely agreed. The distress of the times made it inevitable they would join forces, but their fundamental differences made it just as inevitable they would eventually go their separate ways. It is that fundamental difference that explains much about the various confessions of faith of the 1600’s.
In spite of the serious differences between them, in the distress of the times, the old-order Baptists did all they could to work with the new reformed Baptists.
Lest anybody might get the idea we are being judgmental in calling them three different kinds of Baptists, we will show it was they who insisted they were not the same. Their tormentors refused to acknowledge any difference. They called them all Anabaptists. That infuriated the Generals and Particulars, but there was little they could do about it.
The persecution of the time forced them all into the same camp, and they often found themselves working together, worshiping together, praying together, and suffering together. They cooperated to the best of their ability; but even in the best of times, the Generals and Particulars could not refrain from insisting they were falsely called Anabaptists.
Before we get to the ways in which they were different, we need to look at the ways in which they were all alike. There are some points on which all professing Christians generally agree. All acknowledge the existence, and the nature and attributes of God. All acknowledge the person and work of Jesus Christ. There are other doctrines, such as the authority of the Bible, the resurrection of the dead, heaven and hell, etc. which most profess to believe. There is a wide difference in the way those doctrines are expounded, but, for the most part, all professing Christians claim to believe them. Those are not the doctrines that set Baptists apart.
There are some doctrines on which all Baptists in every day and age have been in substantial agreement. It does not matter where they have been found, or by what name they have been called; on these basic points Baptists have always agreed. If a person does not believe these points, he is simply not a Baptist.
Those principles are: (1) believers’ baptism, as opposed to infant baptism, (2) a regenerate membership, as opposed to a national membership, or membership including children brought into the church before they have opportunity to manifest faith, (3) a godly membership, as opposed to a state wide church, embracing the righteous and the wicked, (4) liberty of conscience, and (5) separation of the church from the world. With those points in mind we will be better able to see the difference between those three kinds of Baptist.
Persecution drove the three kinds of Baptists into the same camp, but persecution was much reduced with the coronation of William of Orange, and the Act of Toleration in 1689. By 1689 they were not so much divided up into General, Particular, and old-order Anabaptist churches, as there were three mindsets intertwined in the same churches.
Beginning in 1689, the three kinds of Baptists were free to worship openly, and to openly make war on each other.
John Gill was called as pastor of the Goat Yard Church in 1719, and for the next fifty years, his towering influence held the warring factions together. But they were so fundamentally different, that soon after Gill died in 1771, the skirmishes broke into open warfare, and the Baptists spent forty years, from 1792 til 1832, warring against each other, and coming to an ultimate division.
The first Christians in England
When did the first Christians reach Britain? Joseph Ivimy tells us, “There are different opinions respecting when the gospel was first preached in Britain, and also by whom the message of salvation was at first proclaimed. Bishop Newton says, ‘There is some probability that the gospel was preached here by Simon the Apostle; there is much greater probability that it was preached here by St. Paul; and there is absolute certainty that Christianity was planted here in the time of the apostles, before the destruction of Jerusalem. Tacitus says, that ‘Pomponia Graecina, wife of Pautius, and Claudia Ruffina, a British lady, are supposed to be of the saints that were of Caesar’s household, mentioned by Paul, Phil. 3:22.’ It is probable, Claudia may have returned with him; and it has been thought, from this statement by Tacitus, that this lady was the first British Christian,” (Ivimy’s History, vol.1, pg. 35,36).
They suffered greatly during the tenth general persecution under Diocletian about 300 A.D., and they suffered even more when Gregory sent Augustine of Canterbury to England in 596 A.D., to impose Roman practices on the English.
Note: The Augustine who was sent to England by Gregory was a different person from Augustine of Hippo. This Augustine is sometimes referred to as Augustine of Canterbury.
Augustine’s forces managed to impose infant baptism on the low country, but the old Britons fled into Wales, and continued to worship God in the old way. From that time those who insisted on a spiritual, Bible-based religion suffered from the Pedobaptists. The pedo- in Pedobaptists means infant. They were called Pedobaptists, because they baptized babies. The tragedy is that the Pedobaptists persecuted, sometimes to the death, those who refused to do the same.
Those who would not baptize infants, and who would not recognize infant baptism as being valid, later came to be called Anabaptists. The ana- in Anabaptists means again. They were called that, because if someone had been baptized as an infant, they insisted he must be baptized again before he could enjoy church privileges.
Actually they objected to being called Anabaptists, because they insisted they did not baptize anybody again. They insisted they simply baptized them. The first baptism was not preceded by faith and repentance; it was not baptism. For that doctrine and practice they were tormented and tortured for over a thousand years, both in Europe and England.
Bibles were scarce and expensive, and the Anabaptists were bound to make mistakes. We have an abundance of Bibles today, and we still make mistakes. Among other things, they had trouble keeping it straight about predestination, but to the limit of their light and understanding, they maintained the true religion all through the ages from Augustine until the Reformation. Not even the Dark Ages could entirely destroy their witness. The Anabaptists’ enemies made false and shameful accusations against them. The earliest General and Particular Baptists accepted those charges without finding out if they were true, and they vehemently denied any connection with the old-order Anabaptists. But it was through that Anabaptist line the Lord preserved his church all during what we call the Dark Ages.
If we allow our adversaries to cut us off from that spiritual line, we allow them to prove the Lord has not preserved his church; he has not always had a church in the world; and we Primitive Baptists have no claim to being the New Testament church in this age.
We will leave that dilemma to those Baptists who believe the Baptists began with John Spilsbury and that first Particular Baptist church in London in 1633.
I hope that nothing we write will be taken to be a reflection on any of those good and faithful people. If we point out some areas in which they differed from each other, and from the Bible, it is only that. We are pointing out errors in doctrine, and practice, not deficiency in their profession, or in their devotion to the cause. Even those we believe to have had considerable error in their teachings often manifest such faithfulness as I cannot imagine. To the limit of their light and understanding even those who were in error on some basic points suffered just as much, and were often just as faithful to what they believed, as those who were more accurate.
We will relate some of their sufferings. But the little we will put on paper, will demonstrate that their sufferings cannot be put on paper. Human language can never record all they suffered for the truth’s sake. And that applies to all three kinds of Baptists.
Their names are not heralded in the history books. Very few people would recognize their names—not even the names of the best known and most faithful among them. But I cannot utter their names without a deep sense of gratitude and veneration rushing over me. No country, and no century, ever produced greater witnesses to the truth than England did in the 1600’s. If our feelings are not quickened, when we read of their incredible suffering, there is something wrong with us. In their steadfastness for what they believed, and their willingness to suffer any indignity, and any pain, for their principles, these men are unsurpassed in the annals of mankind. No honest man can read their experiences without realizing these were the most honest and the most faithful of men.
But, for all their suffering, and all their faithfulness, they were still men—frail, fallible men. They had the same strengths and the same weaknesses we have. They had as many disagreements as we have in this day. There was as much difference of opinion in their day as there is today.
Old-order Anabaptists through the ages
The Bible provides an abundance of proof texts to show that God will have a church in every day and age. The Lord promised Peter, “Upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it,” Matt. 16:18. Long before that we read, “In the days of these [Roman] kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed; and the kingdom shall not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand for ever,” Dan. 2:44.
Paul tells us, “Unto him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end, Amen,” Eph. 4:21.
God promised to build his church and to sustain it throughout all ages. He could not be glorified in the church throughout all ages if the church did not exist throughout all ages. He has had a church ever since he set it up. They have gone by a multitude of names, usually based on who their greatest leaders were, or where they were located, but they were to be found in Europe and England from the time of the Apostles until the Reformation. Under a variety of names and in numberless locations, they endured persecution and torture for the truth’s sake. We need to remember there were Baptists in England from the time of the apostles until the Reformation, and during most of that time, they were persecuted for their faith.
The old-order Anabaptists had been in England for over 1500 years before the General Baptists and the Particular Baptists came out of the Independents.
The first Christians to come into England preached essentially what Baptists preach today. In addition to those principles all professing Christians believe, they advocated those five principles we mentioned before. That does not constitute all they have believed. There are many points on which they have agreed with all professing Christians; but it is those five points that have set them apart, and on those points the Baptists have not wavered.
More than anything else, it is believers’ baptism, as opposed to infant baptism, that has set Baptists apart; and it is that doctrine that has subjected them to the wrath of those who do baptize babies. Infant baptism originated in North Africa, at the close of the 300’s, in the time of Augustine of Hippo. It was unknown in England until Pope Gregory sent Augustine to England in 596 A.D. Many of the Christians in the low country were forced to submit to Augustine’s demand that they bring their babies to be baptized. Others refused and were driven, largely, into the mountains of Wales.
It was at that point those who refused to submit began to be characterized as Anabaptists; re-baptizers. They refused to recognize the baptism of those who had been baptized as babies, and if they applied for membership in a Baptist church, they required them to be baptized. The detractors insisted they baptized them again; the Baptists insisted they had never been truly baptized in the first place. Their first baptism only got them wet. In beginning to be called Anabaptists they did not become anything they had not always been. Rather, they refused to change—refused to submit to Augustine and the Catholic party—and for the next thousand years, they suffered the wrath of the baby baptizers—the Pedobaptists. They were pursued, tortured, and killed in the most diabolical ways. “According to Fox, he [Augustine] baptized ten thousand in the River Swale,” (Orchard’s History, pg. xxii). Augustine failed to force those old-order Anabaptists to have their babies baptized, but he did make them suffer for it. Orchard goes on to say, “The Saxons shortly after invaded Wales, it is thought through the influence of Austin, and slaughtered incredible numbers,” (pg. xxiii).
It would be difficult, if not impossible, to find any religious principle—connected with any religion—with a more bloody history than pedobaptism, infant baptism, has had.
Outrageous charges against the Anabaptists
Their tormentors made the most scurrilous charges against the Anabaptists. They twisted everything they were able to seize on, and made it say what they never intended. The Anabaptists denied the king had authority over religious questions, and their tormentors charged them with treason. They denied the religious hierarchy had the authority to persecute and torture those who disagreed with them, and those in the hierarchy charged them with trying to overthrow religion. They refused to have their babies baptized, and they were accused of destroying the souls of their babies. They baptized by immersion, and they were accused of trying to drown their subjects. In order to avoid detection and arrest, they often met in secret, and they were accused of plotting secret and subversive mischief. Sometimes, the Pedobaptists simply made up charges. They accused them of such outrages as baptizing people naked, and conspiring to offer their own children as human sacrifices to the devil.
They attached the name of Anabaptist to anybody and everybody. If there was somebody who differed with the Catholic and Protestant Pedobaptists, they gave them that name. Many of those they so named had no real resemblance to the Anabaptists. Some of them could not be described as any kind of Christians, but they made good targets, and the Pedobaptists gave them that name. They are still doing it. I have before me a book by one James Edward McGoldrick, “professor in the department of history at Cedarville College in Ohio.” The book was published in 2000, and he makes the same stale, and long since disproved, charges.
Among those who were improperly called Anabaptists, even Cardinal Hosius, the chairman of the Council of Trent, admitted there were those humble and godly Anabaptists, Christians, who had patiently and meekly suffered every kind of abuse rather than deny their Redeemer. There were large numbers of them in England at the beginning of the Reformation. Rather than deny their faith, they were still suffering themselves to be burned at the stake, when that practice was finally laid aside in 1611.
The sad thing is that the false and scurrilous charges made against these humble, suffering saints were made by those in authority. Among their accusers were men whose books are being reprinted even till this day, and are still respected for their position in the Established Church. Those charges were made so often, and so regularly, by men in authority, that many of the population accepted the charges—no matter how outrageous—as proven fact.
In spite of the persecution that went on for centuries, and in spite of the fact that leading Pedobaptists repeated the most egregious charges against them, there were still substantial numbers of old-order Anabaptists in England, when the General and Particular Baptists came along in the 1600’s.
The Anabaptists were not perfect, and they made serious mistakes, but they were never guilty of most of the charges the Protestants, and Catholics, made against them. They lumped together everybody who disagreed with the Establishment, and called them all Anabaptists. If one group advocated a particular error, they pretended that everybody who disagreed with the Establishment preached that same error. Some of the people they lumped under the name Anabaptist could hardly be called Christian. They bore no resemblance to any kind of Christians, much less to Anabaptists. If some of them were not actually insane, they certainly appeared to be. Some of them were out and out occultists.
Baptists in England all through the Dark Ages
In the following pages we trace some of the landmarks of Baptist history in England. The record is clear enough that there were old-order Anabaptists in England all during the thousand years from Augustine until the General and Particular Baptists appeared in the 1600’s. The record is not always easy to trace, because very little of English history is easy to trace during much of that time. Most of the time, because of persecution, they were trying to remain out of sight. If they did not want those early Pedobaptists to find them, we should not expect it to be easy for us to trace them a thousand years later.
During much of the time there was an ebb and flow. Many of them would flee to the continent to escape persecution in England. At other times, they would flee to England to escape persecution on the continent. During those times of hiding from their enemies, we should not expect them to be easy for us to locate.
But regardless of how they tried to hide from the Pedobaptists, all during that one thousand years, they were forever popping up all over England and Europe. Showing up so often as they did, and over such a wide range as they did, there can be no doubt that, during the times in between, their little faithful assemblies were tucked away all over that part of the world.
To believe anything less is to deny the Lord’s promise. “And in the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed,” Dan. 2:44. “Upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it,” Matt. 16:18. “Unto him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. Amen.” Eph. 3:21. The following pages give the record of some of the times when the old-order Anabaptists have popped up in English history.
Jonathan Davis wrote his History of the Welsh Baptists in 1835. He was of the opinion the gospel reached Wales during the time of the apostles. He says, “About fifty years before the birth of our Savior, the Romans invaded the British Isle, in the reign of the Welsh king, Cassibellan; but having failed, in consequence of other and more important wars, to conquer the Welsh nation, made peace with them, and dwelt among them many years. During that period many of the Welsh soldiers joined the Roman army, and many families from Wales visited Rome; among whom there was a certain woman of the name of Claudia, who was married to a man named Pudence. At the same time, Paul was sent a prisoner to Rome, and preached there in his own hired house, for the space of two years, about the year of our Lord 63. Pudence and Claudia his wife, who belonged to Caesar’s household, under the blessing of God on Paul’s preaching, were brought to the knowledge of the truth as it is in Jesus, and made a profession of the Christian religion. These, together with other Welshmen, among the Roman soldiers, who had tasted that the Lord was gracious, exerted themselves on the behalf of their countrymen in Wales, who were at that time vile idolaters,” (Davis, ppg. 6,7).
“Geoffrey of Monmouth tells us, that ‘in the country of the Britons Christianity flourished, which never decayed even from the apostles’ time; amongst whom, says he, was the preaching of the gospel, sincere doctrine, and living faith, and such form of worship as was delivered to the churches by the apostles themselves; and that they even to death withstood the Romish rites and ceremonies; and that as long as the British churches possessed the country, they kept themselves sound in the faith, and pure in the worship, order, and discipline of Christ, as it was delivered to them from the apostles and evangelists,’” (Ivimy vol. 1, pg. 43).
The last old-order Anabaptist burned at the stake in England was Edward Wightman in 1611. That was three years after John Smyth founded the Arminian General Baptists. So the old-order Anabaptists were still active—and visible— in England when the new wave of General and Particular Baptists began.
Sometimes the record of Baptists in England is sketchy, because there are long periods of time where English history is itself sketchy. For instance, the best known king from early English history is King Arthur. Geoffrey of Monmouth wrote extensively about him and his vast kingdom, and yet historians cannot agree on whether there ever was such a king. Some historians present convincing arguments that he never existed, and they may very well be right. It is certain that many of the stories told about him are pure fiction.
If historians cannot agree on whether there ever was such a famous and powerful king as Arthur is supposed to have been, we should not be surprised that the history of tiny Baptist churches, which were usually hiding from their tormentors, is not all that easy to come by.
There is a record of Baptists in England, beginning with the time of the apostles and continuing all during the Middle Ages, right up until the Reformation. On the continent they were called by a variety of names. They were called Anabaptists, but in many places they went by names like Waldenses, Albigenses, Paulicians, Petrobrusians, Berengarians, and so on. In England they were more often called Lollards, or Anabaptists. It is through those Waldenses, Anabaptists, etc., that we Primitive Baptists trace our spiritual ancestry.
The history of these people is a trail of blood. We can trace their travels by the sufferings and the persecution they endured. The Lord promised to preserve his church, and he has preserved enough of history to demonstrate that he has kept his promise.
Some of the record is broken and spotty, but sketchy though it is, we still find frequent glimpses of Anabaptist churches in England during that entire time. There is sufficient proof to demonstrate there were old-order Anabaptist churches in England for over 1500 years, from the time of the apostles, until the Generals and Particulars appeared in the early 1600’s.
For centuries the Pedobaptists, the baby baptizers, persecuted the Baptists in the most diabolical ways. In the year 1400, they began to burn them at the stake. but by the early 1600’s, burning Baptists proved to be too much of a public spectacle. It called attention to the Baptists and to their faithfulness, and increased their number, rather than decreasing it. After 1611, their tormenters more often arrested them and left them to freeze and starve in cold, filthy jails.
For the most part, in the interest of brevity, I will simply provide quotes from the old histories, with no comment of my own.
[63 A.D.] We will begin our inquiry with Jonathan Davis’s history. “About fifty years before the birth of our Savior, the Romans invaded the British Isle, in the reign of the Welsh king, Cassibellan; but having failed, in consequence of other and more important wars, to conquer the Welsh nation, made peace with them, and dwelt among them many years. During that period many of the Welsh soldiers joined the Roman army, and many families from Wales visited Rome; among whom there was a certain woman of the name of Claudia, who was married to a man named Pudence. At the same time, Paul was sent a prisoner to Rome, and preached there in his own hired house, for the space of two years, about the year of our Lord 63. Pudence and Claudia his wife, who belonged to Caesar’s household, under the blessing of God on Paul’s preaching, were brought to the knowledge of the truth as it is in Jesus, and made a profession of the Christian religion. These, together with other Welshmen, among the Roman soldiers, who had tasted that the Lord was gracious, exerted themselves on the behalf of their countrymen in Wales, who were at that time vile idolaters,” (Davis, pg. 6,7).
[169 A.D.] “It is certain there were Christians in Britain in 169 A.D. Fox mentions a letter written by Eleutherius to Lucius the king of Britain, A.D. 169, in which Eleutherius says, ‘You have received through God’s mercy, in the realm of Britany, the law and faith of Christ; you have with you both the parts of the Scripture; out of them, by God’s grace, with the council of your realm, take ye a law, and by that law, by God’s sufferance, rule your kingdom of Britain.’” (Ivimy vol. 1, pg. 37).
[179 A.D.] Ivimy also mentions a brass plate on the church of St. Peters, Cornhill which reads, “Bee it knowne to all men that in the yeare of our Lorde God 179, Lucius, the first Christian king of this Land, then called Britaine, founded the first church in London,” (Ivimy vol.1, pg. 37).
[303 A.D.] “That which was the last of the ten persecutions under the Roman emperors, seems to have been the first that affected this island. But in the general calamity, in the reign of Dioclesian and Maximian, about 303, the Christians here were very great sufferers. It is said, that Maximian almost rooted out the Christian religion from Britain, and that they who suffered martyrdom were almost beyond number. Gildas tells us, that their churches were thrown down, and all the books of holy scriptures that could be found, were burnt in the streets; and the chosen priests of the flock of our Lord, together with the innocent sheep, murdered. St. Alban of Veralam, and Julius of Carlisle upon Usk in Monmouthshire; and many others, sealed the truth with their blood. But when the storm was over, which did not last much above a year, the Christians here, as well as in other parts, fled out of the woods and dens and caves, where they had hid themselves, and rebuilt their demolished churches, and flourished to a great degree, both in peace and unity. They were much favored by Constantius, the father of Constantine, who continued for the latter part of his life here in Britain, and would suffer no man to die for his religion in his dominions. It was here also that Constantine himself, who was a native of this island, first declared himself a Christian, or inclined that way, which it is not likely he would have publicly done, had not a good part of his army been of that religion,” (Ivimy vol.1, pg. 47).
What Ivimy here records of the saints in that age was true all during the times of persecution. While the storm raged, they would hide in the woods, in dens and in caves, and when the storm subsided, they would return to their homes and churches.
[359 A.D.] “Some affirm there were British bishops at the council of Nice, A. D. 325. But though this cannot be fully proved, it is not at all unlikely, since twenty-two years after, there were certainly three British bishops at the council of Arles, who are supposed, to have been those of London; York, and Caerleon in Wales. There were also some at the council of Arminum in 359; but so poor, that their charges were borne by their brethren. Du Pin says, ‘The bishops of France and Britain chose rather to bear their own expenses than accept of the emperor’s allowance, which they thought it beneath them to do,’” (Ivimy vol. 1, pg. 39).
[448 A.D.] “About the year 448, the Saxons began to settle in Britain; and for more than a century were perpetually harassing the natives, till they forced them to retire from their country, and settle in Wales. Their cruelties are described in a very affecting manner by Bede and Gildas, the latter of whom says, ‘From the east to the west nothing was to be seen but churches burnt and destroyed to their very foundations. The inhabitants were extirpated by the sword, and buried under the ruins of their own houses. The altars were daily profaned by the blood of those slain thereon,’” (Ivimy vol.1, pg. 39).
[450 A.D.] “These Saxons, whom Gildas calls, ‘A nation odious to God and man,’ came hither to be a scourge to the Britons, about the year of Christ 450. They were at first received as guests, and treated as stipendiaries, in opposition to the barbarians; but at length found themselves strong enough to set up for masters, laid the whole country waste, drove the old British Christians into the barren mountains of Wales, and occasioned such confusion and desolation, as Gildas, who wrote a few years after, thought could never be enough lamented. That writer describes their cruelties, and the judgment of heaven upon a sinful people, which they were the instruments of inflicting, in such a manner, as must needs affect all that read his account….And our historians say, that they scarcely left the face of Christianity where they prevailed. And yet pure religion was not even then extirpated from the island,” (Ivimy vol. 1, pg. 48).
[596 A.D.] “After they were driven [by the Angles and Saxons] into Wales, whither their invaders could not follow them, religion began again to flow….In this state was religion in Wales, when Austin the monk was sent into England by Gregory, the seventh bishop of Rome, with the design of converting the Saxons, or English, and bringing them into conformity to the church of Rome. To accomplish this, ‘Gregory ordered him not to pull down the idol temples, but convert them into Christian churches. The reason of this injunction was this; that the natives, by frequenting the same temples they had been always accustomed to, might be the less shocked at their entrance into Christianity: and therefore his Holiness directed that the idols should be destroyed, and those places of worship sprinkled with holy water’ This was in the year 596, when Ethelbert was king of Kent,” (Ivimy vol.1, ppg. 39,40).
Prior to the time of Augustine, infant baptism was unknown in England. Believers’ baptism and a regenerate church membership has always marked the boundary line between the true church and the false. It was Augustine who introduced infant baptism to England about 596 A.D. Prior to that time most Christians in England advocated the same fundamental doctrines and practices that have always identified the Baptists. Since Augustine’s time there have always been two kinds of churches in England, those who insisted on believers’ baptism and a regenerated membership, and those who followed Rome, with her infant baptism and a membership of both regenerate and wicked people. Since that time there have always been those who conformed to Rome and those who refused.
[598 A.D.] “Bede, who wrote his history about the year 731, gives us a great deal of light, though allowance must be made for his being himself a Saxon, and not very friendly to the British churches, and for his having a monastic tincture. Christianity, in a new edition of it, with great improvements as to outward pomp, was during this period received from Rome, through the hands of Austin [Augustine] the monk, about the year 598. But there was a purer Christianity in the island before, that was much freer from adulterations and corruptions than that which was now introduced under the same name.”
“There were great contests between those of the old stamp, and those of the new. The former lived in Wales and Scotland, and the latter in the heart of the country. So that there were considerable debates on foot in this island, between Conformists and Nonconformists, in ancient as well as in modern times; and the one sort were apt to carry it with a high hand, and the other forced to be satisfied with the consciousness of their own integrity then as well as now. The Conformists then were, in all things, for the methods of the church of Rome; and the Nonconformists were for the ways and methods of the ancient Christians, and disowned impositions. They were called too, the Schismatics of Britain and Ireland; because they would not receive the Romish alterations, nor submit to the authority by which they were imposed,” (Ivimy vol. 1, pg. 49).
A long void in English history: For the next five hundred years after Gregory sent Augustine to convert England, English history records little with regard to the Baptist Non-Conformists, or Anabaptists, as they were then called. The powers that be were more concerned with their own survival than they were with crushing Anabaptist non-conformists.
For most of that time England was locked in a three hundred years struggle, first against the Danish Vikings in the late 700’s and 800’s, and then against the Normans under William the Conqueror in the eleventh century. In 1066 William came to claim the English throne for himself. William and the Normans won the Battle of Hastings in 1066, and William became the new king. During that time, the Romanizing party was too preoccupied with preserving the English monarchy, and thus their own place in society, to be very concerned that the Anabaptists still refused to have their babies baptized.
But after the Norman conquest had become an established reality, and times returned to normal, there were still those old-order Anabaptists—still worshiping God according to the Bible pattern, and still refusing to deliver their babies to be baptized.
God had promised that he would preserve his church, and he was doing just that. They would worship in private homes. They would worship in the woods. They would worship in the dark of the night. And when persecution subsided, they would worship in the open. But they would worship God, and no power on earth could stop them, or wipe them out.
[1182 A.D.] “Roger de Hovedon, in his Annals, says, that in the year 1182, ‘Henry II. was very favorable to the Waldensian sect in England; for whereas they burnt them in many places of Flanders, Italy, and France, in great numbers, he would not suffer any such thing here; and being in his own, and his queen’s right, possessed of Aquitain, Poictou, Guien, Gascoyne, Normandy, etc. the principal places inhabited by the Waldenses and Albigenses, and they being his subjects, they had free egress into his territories here.’ During the reigns of Richard I. and King John, which were times of great trouble, we read of no opposition made against them. Richard was long absent in the holy war. John had great contests with the pope, who laid his kingdom under an interdict, and forbad all public worship for the space of six years, only admitting of private baptism of infants. This, with the opposition made to him by the barons, found him so much employment, that these Christians had no molestation, but had great opportunities for disseminating their principles; while the king by his arms defended the Waldenses and Albigenses in Aquitain and Gascoyne, who were so much oppressed by the crusading army of the pope,” (Ivimy vol. 1, ppg. 58,59).
[1315 A.D] There were clearly Waldensian Anabaptists in England in the 1300’s. “In the reign of Henry III., Archbishop Usher says, from Matthew Paris, ‘the orders of the Friars Minorites came into England to suppress this Waldensian heresy.’ And in the reign of Edward III., about the year 1315, Fuller informs us, in his ecclesiastical history, that ‘Walter Lollard, that German preacher, or, (as Peter Perin calls him in his history of the Waldenses,) one of their barbs, came into England, a man in great renown among them; and who was so eminent in England that, as in France they were called Berengarians from Berengarius, and Petrobrusians from Peter Bruis, and in Italy and Flanders, Arnoldists, from the famous Arnold of Brescia; so did the Waldensian Christians for many generations after bear the name of this worthy man, being called Lollards,” (Ivimy vol.1, pg. 59).
Some well known leaders of that age
With the scant history we have of the time under consideration, it is not always possible to know for sure who was a Baptist, and who was actually a Catholic, who happened to advocate Baptist principles. And it is not always possible to make the determination by reading their writings. In coming from darkness to light, no one ever bursts instantly into the light, so that all of a sudden he has understanding of all the parts of the system of truth. We learn little by little, and as we come to the light of truth, we almost always reach some conclusions we later reject. Because of that, in studying any man’s writing, we need to know at what period in his life did he write the material under consideration. Did he later reject what he wrote in a particular quote? In reading some of the following material, there will be those who insist the man was not a Baptist, and they may very well be right. These names are not included, because we know for an absolute certainty they were all Baptists.
What we do know is that, at some point in their lives, they all advocated Baptist principles, and they had a great impact on the witness for truth in the world.
John Wycliffe: 1328-1384: John Wycliffe has often been called the Morningstar of the Reformation. He was certainly one of the earliest and brightest lights in that struggle. In his early ministry he wrote many things in support of Romanism, and there are still extant writings of his in which he advocates such Catholic doctrines as purgatory, transubstantiation, and so on. It is not possible at this late date to prove whether he ever truly became a Baptist or not.
It is clear he did not suddenly come to embrace Baptist doctrine. Most people, who come to reject their old errors, surrender those doctrines little by little. That was, clearly, the case with Wycliffe. Perhaps, he was simply a Roman Catholic priest who preached Baptist doctrine to his Catholic followers. During much of his life, he was at war with the Roman Church, and with their hierarchy, but we cannot prove whether he ever completely broke with Rome. We cannot name a date when he received believers’ baptism, or if he ever did. I am inclined to think that he did not, though many of his followers did. It is clear that he later renounced much of what he had once believed. He did preach Baptist doctrine, and, whether he ever became a Baptist or not, many of his followers, the Lollards, did become Baptists and they suffered the wrath of the religious establishment for it. The Lollards’ Tower was built in London to accommodate them for their Baptist beliefs.
We continue to quote from Ivimy. “It is very probable that Bradwardine, Islip, and Wickliffe, received their sentiments from the followers of [Walter] Lollard; and that on this account the followers of Wickliffe are indiscriminately denominated Wickliffites and Lollards. Bishop Newton, having mentioned the Lollards, says, ‘There was a man more worthy to have given name to the sect, the deservedly famous John Wickliffe, the honor of his own and the admiration of all succeeding times.’ This extraordinary man, who has been justly called the morning star of the Reformation, began to be famous about the year 1361; and though he was greatly persecuted by several popes, and by the clergy in England, yet the providence of God so protected him from their malice, that he died peaceably at his own house at Lutterworth, Dec. 31, 1384. By the command of the pope his bones were taken out of the grave and burnt, and his ashes cast into a brook adjoining, called the Swift, in 1428. The doctrines of Wickliffe spread very wonderfully through the land, if the testimony of Knyhton, a contemporary historian, who appears to have been his inveterate enemy may be believed. ‘Such (says he) was the success of his teaching, preaching, and writings, that more than half the people of England became his followers, and embraced his doctrines.’”
“Their character is thus, given by Reinhar, a popish writer. ‘The disciples of Wickliffe are men of a serious modest deportment, avoiding all ostentation in dress, mixing little with the busy world, and complaining of the debauchery of mankind. They maintain themselves wholly by their own labor, and despise wealth, being fully content with bare necessaries. They are chaste and temperate; are never seen in taverns, or, amused with the trifling gaieties of life; yet you find them always employed, either in learning or teaching. They are concise and devout in their prayers, blaming an unanimated prolixity. They never swear; speak little; and in their public preaching lay the principal stress on charity.’ It was not long after the death of Wickliffe, that his disciples began to form distinct societies. Rapin says, that in the year 1389, the Wickliffites or Lollards began to separate from the church of Rome,” (Ivimy vol. 1, ppg. 67,68).
“The sufferings of these people from this period till the Reformation were very great. The Lollards’ Tower still stands as a monument of their miseries, and of the cruelty of their implacable enemies….The vast staples and rings to which they were fastened, before they were brought out to the stake, are still to be seen in a large lumber-room at the top of the palace, and ought to make Protestants look back with gratitude upon the hour which terminated so bloody a period,” (Ivimy vol. 1, pg. 69).
“That these people opposed the baptism of infants, is corroborated by the Dutch Martyrology, or Bloody Theatre, which says from Walsingham, ‘that one Sir Lewis Clifford, who had been a friend of Wickliffe, did discover to the Archbishop of Canterbury, that the Lollards would not baptize their new–born children,’ Fox says, that it was upon these charges, that in the space of four years, one hundred and twenty Lollards, men and women, were apprehended; and suffered greatly. And though some upon trial recanted; yet William White, Father Abraham of Colchester, and John Waden, were burned at Norwich, Sep. 18, 1428; and in the reign of Henry VII, eight others, whose names he mentions, were burned at the same place,” (Ivimy vol. 1, ppg. 71,72).
Walter Brute: died about 1393: Wherever we turn in the history of the Baptists in Wales, we constantly encounter the ancient Baptist church at Olchon. “In the history of Welsh Baptists already mentioned, there is an account of one of these named Walter Brute. Mr. Thomas says, ‘I suppose he lived in or near Olchon,’ and mentions several reasons which make this appear probable….Mr. Fox, in his martyrology, has given a large account of Mr. Brute and his religious sentiments, taken from the register of the bishop of Hereford. Our countrymen did confute popish errors in many articles, and reformed much concerning baptism. He held that faith should precede baptism, and that baptism was not essential to salvation…. Mr. Fox indeed, speaking of the opinion of W. Brute, as to the sacrament of baptism and of infants dying without it, seems to extenuate the matter, because he himself was for infant baptism! Mr. Davye further says, that Swinderby was one of Brute’s followers, and supposes that Mr. Brute was more a Baptist than was represented by Mr. Fox,” (Ivimy vol. 1, ppg. 73,74).
Sir John Oldcastle: burned 1417: “Another reason assigned by Mr. Thomas, for concluding that Brute and his friends preached in and about Olchon is, that Sir John Oldcastle, who was so zealous for Wickliffe’s doctrine, was a native, and resident of this part of the country. ‘His birth-place and patrimony (says he) bear the name to this day. Oldcastle is a small parish adjoining to Cludock in Monmouthshire.”
“The valiant King Henry V was also born at Monmouth; and having a great regard for his countryman, introduced him into his household. Sir John Oldcastle married Lord Cobham’s daughter, and at his father-in-law’s death was created Lord Cobham. The noble Briton though in the king’s court, was full of zeal against popery, and was reckoned the chief man through the kingdom in supporting, defending, and encouraging the Lollards, who were the Protestants and Dissenters of these times. For these things the popish clergy were full of bitterness and rage against him, as they knew very well that he was much in favor at court.”
“However, after many consultations, they found means, like Daniel’s enemies, to prevail with the king to have him apprehended and brought to trial as an enemy to the Holy Church. It is said of this excellent nobleman, that it was publicly known that he had been at great expense in collecting and transcribing the works of Wickliffe, which he dispersed among the common people without any reserve.”
“It was publicly known also that he maintained a great number of the disciples of Wickliffe as itinerant preachers in many parts of the country, particularly in the dioceses of Canterbury, Rochester, and Hereford. When the archbishop, at the head of a large body of the dignified clergy, waited on the king, he laid before him with as much acrimony as decency would admit, the offence of his servant Lord Cobham, and begged his majesty would suffer them, for Christ’s sake, to put him to death. The king told the archbishop that he had ever been averse to shedding of blood in the cause of religion; such violence he thought more destructive of truth than of error. He therefore enjoined the convocation to postpone the affair a few days; in which time he would himself reason with Lord Cobham, whose behavior he by no means approved; and if this were ineffectual, he would then leave him to the censure of the church.”
“With this answer the primate was satisfied; and the king sending for Lord Cobham, endeavored by all the arguments in his power to set before him the high offence of separating from the church, and pathetically exhorted him to retract his error. Lord Cobham’s answer is upon record. ‘I ever was (said he) a dutiful subject to your majesty, and I hope ever shall be. Next to God, I profess obedience to my king. But as for the spiritual dominion of the pope, I never could see on what foundation it is claimed, nor can I pay him any obedience. As sure as God’s word is true, to me it appears fully evident that he is the great antichrist foretold in holy writ.’”
“This answer of Lord Cobham so exceedingly shocked the king, that, turning away in visible displeasure, he from that time withdrew from him every mark of his favor. Deserted by the king, the archbishop soon found means to get him committed to the tower; and on Sept. 23, 1413, he was cited to appear before the consistory; but not appearing, he was declared contumacious, and excommunicated without further ceremony. But though committed to the tower, and condemned to die, yet by some means he made his escape; and taking advantage of a dark night he eluded pursuit, and arrived safe in Wales, where he found an asylum, and was secured by some of the chiefs of that country from the rage of his enemies. It is supposed that all this was under the connivance, and with the approbation of the King, who was not willing to put him to death.”
“‘We are told (says Mr. Thomas) by a Monmouthshire author, that Sir John lay concealed among his tenants and friends at or about Oldcastle, above four years; till at last, Lord Powys, a covetous and bigoted papist, for a considerable sum of money, apprehended him.’ He was then taken to London; and, the King being at that time out of the Kingdom, the Romish clergy made all speed to dispatch him by a most inhuman death. He was hanged up by an iron chain round the waist, and burnt, or rather roasted, to death, over a slow fire….His martyrdom was in 1417, two years after that of the celebrated John Huss, who likewise was a worthy disciple of Wickliffe, and a hundred years before Luther began the reformation in Germany,” (Ivimy vol. 1, ppg. 76-79).
William Tyndale [1526 A.D.] “The name of Tyndal having been mentioned, it may not be improper to give a short account of his labors and sufferings in the cause of God. He went young to Oxford, and had part of his education there, and part at Cambridge. After leaving the university, he settled for a time in Gloucester shire; but was obliged to leave his native country on account of persecution. On the continent he translated the new testament into English, and printed it in 1526. This edition was bought up by Sir Thomas More and bishop Tonstall. With the money procured from this source, it was republished in 1530. But as this also contained some reflections on the English bishops and clergy, they commanded that it should be purchased and burnt. In 1532, Tyndal and his associates translated and printed the whole Bible; but while be was preparing a second edition, he was apprehended and burnt for heresy in Flanders. He was a great reformer. It is generally supposed he was born on the borders of Wales. Mr. Thomas thinks this to be very probable, as ‘Mr. Llewelyn Tyndal and his son Hezekiah were reputable members of the Baptist church at Llanwenarth near Abergavenny, about the year 1700, as appeared by the old church book, and there were some of the same family in those parts still remaining.’ It is probable, therefore, that Tyndal might derive his superior light from some of the Wickliffites about Hereford and the adjoining counties, where we have already proved that much scriptural truth was for ages deposited,” (Ivimy vol. 1, pg. 92).
Joan of Kent: Joan Boucher, better known as Joan of Kent, was burnt in the time of King Edward. Ivimy specifically identifies her as being a Baptist. Her denying that Jesus took flesh of Mary indicates that she was an old-order Anabaptist. That was one of the errors taught by the Dutch Anabaptists. They learned the doctrine from Menno Simons, who was the leading Dutch Anabaptist preacher of that age. He taught that the human nature of Christ was formed in the womb of Mary, but it was not formed of her womb. He believed that Christ brought his human nature from heaven with him, and it passed through the womb of Mary “like water through a pipe.” The Dutch Mennonites (Anabaptists) did not long hold that opinion. The Swiss Mennonites never did. Modern Mennonites are embarrassed by it. The doctrine was one of the errors the adversaries of the Anabaptists charged against them, and they used it at every opportunity. Joan Boucher was clearly in error on that point, but it did identify her as an Anabaptist of Dutch extraction.
Crosby has this to say, “In King Edward’s reign some were put to death for heresy. One Joan Bocher, or Joan of Kent. Mr. Strype tells us, her heresy was, that she believed the word was made flesh in the virgin’s belly, but not that he took flesh of the virgin. Now, says Mr. Fox, when the Protestant Bishops had resolved to put her to death, a friend of Mr. John Rogers, the divinity-reader in St. Paul’s church, came to him, earnestly desiring him to use his interest with the archbishop, that the poor woman’s life might be spared, and other means tried to prevent the spreading of her opinions, which might be done in time: urging too, that though while she lived, she infected few with her opinions, yet she might bring many to think well of it, by suffering death for it. He pleaded therefore that it was better she should be kept in some prison, without an opportunity of propagating her notion among weak people, and so she would do no harm to others, and might live to repent herself. Rogers on the other hand pleaded, she ought to be put to death. Well then, says his friend, if you are resolved to put an end to her life together with her opinion, choose some other kind of death, more agreeable to the gentleness and mercy prescribed in the gospel; there being no need, that such tormenting deaths should be taken up, in imitation of the Papists. Rogers answered, that burning alive was no cruel death, but easy enough. His friend then hearing these words, which expressed so little regard to poor creatures sufferings, answered him with great vehemence, and striking Rogers’s hand, which before he held fast, said to him, Well, perhaps, it may so happen, that you yourselves shall have your hands full of this mild burning. And so it came to pass; and Rogers was the first man who was burnt in Queen Mary’s time,” (Crosby vol.1, ppg. 59-61).
The English begin to burn dissenters
[1400 A.D.] “When the crown was usurped by Henry IV in gratitude to the clergy, who assisted him in coming to it, he granted them a law, to their hearts content, for the burning of heretics; which passed both houses in the second year of his reign [1400]. And to the eternal infamy of the Romish clergy, who procured this bloody law, upon the authority of which so much cruelty was afterwards acted, it was entered in the rolls….The first who was put to this cruel death, merely for religion, was William Sawtre, who was burnt in London, anno dom. 1400….This proto-Martyr of the English nation is thought by some to have been a Baptist, because the Lollards, who lived in the diocese of Norwich, where this man first received and professed his notions, were generally of that opinion,” (Crosby vol. 1, ppg. 20,21).
[1428 A.D.] “Agreeable to this, is the account which Mr. Fox gives of some faithful Christians, who were burnt at Norwich about the year 1428….There were about 120 of this opinion; three whereof were burnt alive. These were martyrs of the Anabaptists’ opinion in England, above an hundred years before Mr. Fuller’s date of their beginning, Anno. Dom. 1539,” (Crosby vol. 1, pg. 41).
[151l A.D.] “That the Lollards had been cruelly treated in his reign previously to this period, is evident from the history of those times. In the year 1511, Joseph Brown was burned. In 1512, William and James Seely, and Joseph Brewster, shared the same fate. In 1514, Joseph Hunn was murdered in the Lollards’ tower; and in 1519, Joseph Tewksby and many others ended their lives at the stake. In 1528, seven Baptists, who came over from Holland, were apprehended and imprisoned; two of whom were afterwards burned at Smithfield. In 1535, twenty-two Baptists were apprehended and put to death. In 1539, sixteen men and fifteen women were banished to Delpt in Holland, for opposing infant baptism. At this place they were taken by the papists and put to death. In the same year two Anabaptists were burned beyond Southwark, in the way to Newington; and a little before them, five Dutch Anabaptists were burned at Smithfield,” (Ivimy Vol. 1, pg. 83)
[1535 A.D.] “King Henry having renounced the pope, and married Anne of Bulloign, she being a special favorer of the gospel, no great persecution nor abjuration was in the church of England during her time; saving, that ten Anabaptists, which the registers of London make mention of, were put to death in sundry places of the realm, Anno Dom. 1535. Other ten saved themselves by recantation,” (Crosby vol.1, pg. 32).
[1538 A.D.] “In the next year we find a proclamation issued against heresies and heretics, which recites, ‘That of late many strangers born out of this land are arrived and come into this realm, which albeit they were baptized in their infancy or childhood, according to the universal church of Christ; yet notwithstanding, in contempt of the holy sacrament of baptism so given and received; they have of their own presumption lately rebaptized themselves.’ From these articles and proclamations it is easy to discern, that there were many persons in the kingdom who, objecting to infant baptism, were baptized on a profession of faith. The methods taken to prevent their increase were ineffectual, for ‘in October 1538, there was a commission, (says: Burnet,) sent to Cranmer, Stokesly, Sampson, and some others, to inquire after Anabaptists; to proceed against them; to restore the penitent; to burn their books; and to deliver the obstinate to the secular arm. But I have not, (says the bishop,) seen what proceedings there were upon this.’ From a passage in Brandt’s History of the reformation it appears that the Baptists in England were obliged to leave the country. He says, ‘In the year 1539 there were put to death at Delft, one hundred and thirty Anabaptists, that fled from England; the men beheaded and the women drowned.’” (Ivimy Vol. 1, ppg. 81).
[1546 A.D.] “But a pious and excellent lady, Anne Askew, who was frequently at court, and a great favorite of queen Catharine Parr, after suffering the most excruciating tortures on the rack, was burned at the stake about June 1546. Bishop Latimer, in a sermon preached before king Edward VI, alluding to the events of the reign of Henry VIII., says, ‘The Anabaptists that were burnt here in divers parts of England, as I heard of credible men, (I saw them not myself,) went to their death even intrepid as ye will say, without any fear in the world, cheerfully. Also I should have told you here of a certain sect of heretics that speak against this order and doctrine, [the king’s supremacy:] they will have no magistrates, no judges on earth. Then I have to tell you what I heard of late, by the relation of a credible person and worshipful man, of a town of this realm of England that hath above five hundred heretics of this erroneous opinion in it, as he said,’” (Ivimy vol. 1, pg. 84)
This was 87 years before John Spilsbury, and you will notice that Bishop Latimer mentions a single town with 500 old-order Anabaptists.
[1547]: “At this time [1547], says the Bishop, there were many Anabaptists in several parts of England, they were generally Germans, whom the revolutions there had forced to change their seats. Upon Luther’s first preaching in Germany, there arose many, who building on some of his principles, carried things much further than he did. The chief foundation he laid down was, that the Scripture was to be the only rule of Christians,” (Crosby vol. 1, pg. 47).
[1547 A.D.] “This popish protestant king [Henry VIII] died, Jan. 28, 1547, leaving in a very unfinished state, the reformation, which had been begun without his intending it. But the fetters of popery were broken; the scriptures in the mother tongue were sanctioned by parliament; and in 1540, it was enjoined by royal proclamation, that every parish should place one of the copies of the Bible….the people used to crowd to the churches after their hours of labor to hear it read, there is no doubt but the information which by these means was diffused throughout the land, laid the foundation for that glorious superstructure of Christian liberty, which by the patient sufferings of the zealous Puritans in the succeeding reigns was brought nearly to perfection,” (Ivimy vol. 1, pg. 85).
[1553 A.D.] “In the first year of her [Queen Mary’s] reign, 1553, we have an account of the examination of Mr. Woodman before the bishop of Winchester, in the church of St. Mary Overy’s, in which the bishop said, ‘Hold him a book: if he refuse to swear, he is an Anabaptist, and shall be excommunicated,’” (Ivimy vol.1, ppg. 97,98).
[1575 A.D.] Elizabeth was as vicious against the Anabaptists as her predecessors were, but, even at this late date, we can still identify Anabaptists during her reign. “The share the Baptists had in the severities of this reign, will appear by the following instances. Dr. Wall says, about the 16th year of Queen Elizabeth, a congregation of Dutch Antipedobaptists was discovered without Aldgate in London, whereof twenty seven were taken and imprisoned. And the next month one Dutchman and ten women were condemned. Anno. Dom. 1575. Marius de Assigny tells us, that it was at Easter, Anno. Dom. 1575, which must have been the 17th of Elizabeth, that four of the former recanted at St. Paul’s cross, the 25th of May; and that the rest were banished,” (Crosby vol. 1, pg. 68).
[1575 A.D.] In spite of those historians who pretend all the Anabaptists forsook England about this time, we learn that they rather began wonderfully to increase in the land. “Mr. Fuller says, ‘Now began the Anabaptists wonderfully to increase in the land; and as we are sorry that any country-men should be seduced by that opinion, so we are glad that the English as yet were free from that infection, for on Easter day was disclosed a congregation of Dutch Anabaptists, without Aldgate in London; whereof seven-and-twenty were taken and imprisoned; and four, bearing faggots at Paul’s cross, solemnly recanted their dangerous opinions. Next month, one Dutchman and ten women were condemned; of whom one woman was persuaded to renounce her error; eight were banished the land; and two more were so obstinate that command was issued out for their burning in Smithfield.’ What this writer says of the English being previously free from this infection, shows how little he was acquainted with the history of the church, as the numerous instances we have mentioned abundantly prove,” (Ivimy vol.1, ppg. 102,103).
[1589 A.D.] “From Dr. Some we learn also that at the time when he wrote, 1589, ‘There were several Anabaptistical conventicles in London and other places.’ It seems then the Baptists had at this early period formed distinct churches of persons of their own sentiments, both in London, and in different parts of the country. He adds, ‘Some persons of these sentiments have been bred at our universities,’” (Ivimy vol. 1, pg. 108).
In 1608, John Smyth pretended the true church had perished, and valid baptism had been lost. In 1633, John Spilsbury made the same claim. But 19 years before Smyth and 44 years before Spilsbury,“several Anabaptistical conventicles” were found in “London and other places.”
[1620] “In 1620, the Baptists presented a humble supplication to the king when the parliament was sitting. This was, dedicated, To the high and mighty King James, by the grace of God, King of Great Britain, France, and Ireland. In this, they in the first place acknowledge their obligation to pray for Kings, and all that are in authority, and appeal to God that it was their constant practice so to do. They then set forth, that their miseries were not only the taking away of their goods, but also long and lingering imprisonments for many years in divers counties in England, in which many had died, leaving their widows and several small children behind them, and all because they durst not join in such worship as they thought contrary to the will of God,” (Ivimy vol. 1, pg. 128).
“This Petition was published in 1620, and the former pamphlet of 1615 reprinted with it. Both these were also reprinted in 1662, with the design, as stated in the title page, ‘for the establishing some and convincing others.’ From this also it appears that there were still Baptists in many parts of the kingdom; for this petition states that they had suffered imprisonment for ‘many years in divers counties in England.’ We learn also by what has been written against them, that, notwithstanding all opposition, they kept up their separate meetings, and had many disciples who took joyfully the spoiling of their goods, endured cruel mockings, and probably scourgings also, yea, moreover bonds and imprisonments, rather than violate their consciences, or desert their principles,” (Ivimy vol. 1, pg. 130).
This was 13 years before John Spilsbury constituted his church. But lest somebody might pretend that, since this petition came nine years after the General Baptists issued their Confession of Faith, these must have been General Baptists, you should notice that they talk of being imprisoned for many years in many counties in England. It is hard to imagine we can squeeze those many years between 1608 and 1620. These were clearly old-order Anabaptists. They were still around, still visible, and still vocal.
PART THREE
Persecution by Protestants
The English Protestants
England became a Protestant nation, but it only became Protestant when the pope refused King Henry VIII permission to divorce Catharine of Aragon and marry Anne Boleyn. With the Act of Supremacy in 1534, Henry declared England’s independence from Rome, and England became Protestant, but Henry was as Catholic as he had ever been. He was not really interested in the Reformation. When John Calvin offered to come to England to assist with the Reformation, Henry sent word that he should mind his own business. He just wanted a queen, who could produce a male heir.
Until James II fled for his life in 1689, and William of Orange came to take the throne, the Protestant kings of England manifested all the characteristics of the Catholic kings of Europe. During all that time the Presbyterians, and the Anglicans, were constantly contending over who would control Parliament, and thus control the Church of England; but regardless of who was in control, Baptists, Quakers, Socinians, and other Dissidents suffered just as much as they had under the Catholics.
The Particular Baptists had withdrawn from the Independents in 1633, but they were determined to prove they were still good Protestants, and they had as much right to serve Establishment churches, and to receive the financial support that went with that position, as any Presbyterian, Independent, or Anglican.
At the beginning of his career, Oliver Cromwell was sympathetic toward the Baptists, and especially during the early days of the Commonwealth, they seemed to make some progress toward securing a place for the Baptists among the Establishment.
All the while, there were other Baptists, especially among the old-order brethren, who were upset with those efforts. They thought they should be an entirely separate people.
But as determined as the Particular Baptists were to prove they were good Protestants, many of the most influential Protestant ministers were just as determined to prove they were anything but good Protestants. Below we look at a few of their most bitter antagonists.
Thomas Edwards: One of their most bitter antagonists was Thomas Edwards, the author of the well known Gangraena. Far from allowing liberty of conscience, he opposed tolerating any other view than the Presbyterian. With all his energy he raged against what he called “that bastard-monster of a TOLERATION.”
Crosby provides this quote, “Now neither of these can be safe, [if] says Mr. Edwards, there should be a toleration; for a toleration is very destructive to the glory of God, and the salvation of souls; and therefore whosoever should be for a toleration, ministers ought to be against it, if the parliament, city, yea, all the people were for a toleration of all the sects, Anabaptists, Antinomians, Seekers, Brownists, Independents ….yet ministers ought to present their reasons against it, preach and cry out of the evil of it, never consent to it, but protest against and withstand it, by all lawful ways and means, within our callings and places, venturing the loss of liberties, estates, lives, and all, in that cause, and to inflame us with zeal against a TOLERATION, the great Diana of the sectaries,” (Crosby vol. 1, pg. 181).
Again he says, “Ministers must pray much to God, and call upon him night and day, that he would prevent and cast out of his church all the errors, heresies, roots of bitterness, poisonous principles got in among us, and to give a miscarrying womb to the sectaries, that they may never bring forth that misshapen bastard-monster of a TOLERATION,” (Crosby vol. 1, pg. 182).
One hundred years before that, the Presbyterians in Zurick had placed a death penalty on anyone opposing their doctrine and practice. Under that edict numerous Anabaptists were put to death in and around Zurick. Edwards expressed his desire to have such a law in England.
“He directs the magistrates, and tells them, they should execute some exemplary punishment upon some of the most notorious sectaries and seducers….and set themselves with all their hearts to find out ways to take some course to suppress, hinder, and no longer suffer these things; to put out some declaration against the errors and ways of the sectaries; as their sending emissaries in to all parts of the kingdom, to poison the countries; as their dipping of persons in the cold water in winter, whereby persons fall sick, die, etc., declaring, that they then be proceeded against as vagrants and rogues, that go from country to country; and if any fall sick upon their dipping and die, they shall be indicted upon the statute of killing the king’s subjects, and proceeded against accordingly…. that then the parliament should forbid all dipping, and take some severe course with all Dippers, as the senate of Zurick did,” (vol. 1, ppg. 182,183).
“The precedent he refers to plainly discovers the spirit of the man….for an edict was published at Zurick in the year 1530, making it death for any to baptize by immersion; upon which law some called Anabaptists were tied back to back, and thrown into the sea, others were burnt alive, and many starved to death in prison,” (Crosby vol. 1, ppg. 183,184).
The Presbyterians and other Protestants referred to any preacher not university trained as a layman preacher who should not be allowed to preach. Edwards was sure that if these laymen preachers and their doctrines were tolerated, every sort of heresy would result, and no man could keep them out. He was sure that if contrary views were tolerated, the devil and his kingdom would take over, atheism would be rampart, and their very families would fall apart.
Crosby has this to say: “This author [Edwards] in the epistle dedicatory to his book, entitled Gangrena, calls upon the higher powers to rain down all their vengeance on the sectaries: And to shew his malice against them, he says, ‘That ministers in our times may be a means to prevent and suppress errors, heresies, and schisms, they must not only often preach against them, but….oppose them by preaching and writing; as laymen preaching, the gathering of churches, and above all a toleration; for that would be an open door at which all kinds of heresies would come in, and no man could keep them out,” (Crosby vol. 1, ppg. 178,179)
Hear Edwards again, “And therefore if ministers will witness for truth, and against errors, they must set themselves in a special manner against a toleration, as the principal inlet to all heresy and error. And if a toleration be granted, all preaching will not keep them out. If a toleration be granted, the devil will be too hard for us, though we preach never so much against them. A toleration will undo all; first bring in scepticism in doctrine and looseness of life, and afterwards all atheism. The patrons of error, because they cannot at first plead for such and such doctrines…. therefore they plead for a toleration…..O let the ministers therefore oppose toleration, as being that by which the devil would at once lay a foundation for his kingdom to all generations! Witness against it in all places; possess the magistrates of the evil of it; yea, and the people too; showing them, how if a toleration were granted, they should never have peace in their families more, or ever after have command of wives,’” (Crosby vol. 1, ppg. 179,180).
“Nothing is more evident than this, that the most noted divines of the Presbyterian persuasion, when they had the ascendant, did both preach and write zealously against liberty of conscience, or a toleration of different opinions in matters of religion; and that at the same time that they endeavored to establish Presbytery, they were for using the civil power to suppress all who dissented from them,” (Crosby vol. 1, pg. 176).
Richard Baxter: Richard Baxter was one of the most famous Presbyterian preachers of that age. Even today, after almost four hundred years, he is described in the most glowing terms, and several of his books, such as The Saints Everlasting Rest and A Call to the Unconverted, are still being reprinted.
Crosby tells us Baxter argued that if Baptists, Quakers, Socinians and others were allowed liberty of conscience, human sacrifice and every other evil would be practiced.
“And in his cure of church-divisions, he [Richard Baxter] says, ‘We must either tolerate all men to do what they will, which they will make a matter of conscience or religion; and then some may offer their children in sacrifice to the devil, and some may think they do God service in killing his servants, etc. or else you must tolerate no error or fault in religion; and then you must advise what measure of penalty you will inflict,’” (Crosby vol. 1, pg. 178).
Richard Baxter challenged a Mr. Cox to a debate, and was obviously put to the rout. But no sooner had Cox bested Baxter in debate than Cox was arrested and put in prison. Crosby gives the account.
“For there comes out an order from the committee, requiring Mr. Cox to depart the city, and promise to come there no more; and upon his refusing to do this, he is immediately committed to prison. This was complained of as very hard and illegal usage; and Mr. Baxter was reflected upon as having procured his imprisonment; for he had a great interest in the committee, dwelt at the governor’s house, and was his intimate friend.”
“Mr. Baxter indeed, denies that he ever spoke a word for the putting him into prison. But if he had disliked such proceedings, ‘tis plain he might have prevented it; for when he had been some time in prison, upon Mr. Pinson’s applying himself to Mr. Baxter for his release, it was soon procured,” (Crosby v.1, p.220, 221).
In their efforts to put a stop to baptism by immersion the leading Presbyterian ministers made some of the most outlandish charges against the Baptists. One charge was that baptism by immersion was an attempt to murder the person being baptized. Ivimy preserves this quote from Baxter:
“It was very common at this time for the enemies of the Baptists to represent the practice of immersion as indecent and dangerous, and to argue that it could not be according to divine authority, because a breach of the sixth commandment, ‘Thou shalt not kill,’ and the divine declaration, ‘I will have mercy and not sacrifice.’ Who would have thought that Mr. Richard Baxter could have expressed himself in language like the following? ‘My sixth argument shall be against the usual manner of their baptizing, as it is by dipping over head in a river, or other cold water. That which is a plain breach of the sixth commandment, Thou shalt not kill, is no ordinance of God, but a most heinous sin.”
“And as Mr. Cradock shows in his book of gospel liberty, the magistrate ought to restrain it, to save the lives of his subjects — That this is flat murder, and no better, being ordinarily and generally used, is undeniable to any understanding man — And I know not what trick a covetous landlord can find out to get his tenants to die apace, that he may have new fines and heriots, likelier than to encourage such preachers, that he may get them all to turn Anabaptists ….In a word, it is good for nothing but to dispatch men out of the world that are burdensome, and to ranken church yards — I conclude, if murder be a sin, then dipping ordinarily over head in England is a sin and if those who would make it men’s religion to murder themselves, and urge it upon their consciences as their duty, are not to be suffered in a commonwealth, any more than highway murderers; then judge how these Anabaptists, that teach the necessity of such dipping, are to be suffered,” (Ivimy vol. 1, ppg. 192-194).
The Presbyterians went so far as to pretend the Anabaptists required the subjects to strip naked before they were baptized. The only record of such practice is in the wild imagination of their tormentors, but that did not keep the Presbyterian ministers from constantly making the fictitious charge.
Baxter again,“My seventh argument is also against another wickedness in their manner of baptizing, which is their dipping persons naked, which is very usual with many of them, or next to naked, as is usual with the modestest that I have heard of. If the minister must go into the water with the party — it will certainly tend to his death, though they may scape that go in but once. Would not vain young men come to a baptizing to see the nakedness of maids, and make a mere jest and sport of it?” (Ivimy vol.1, ppg. 192-194).
Edmund Calamy: The Presbyterians were largely in control of Parliament during most of the 1640’s, and the extremists among them pressed their advantage to gain such legislation as they could against the Anabaptists. Dr. Calamy was one of their most powerful, and most virulent leaders. Ivimy gives this account of his harangue of Parliament. It is hard to imagine anyone standing before such a body and castigating them the way Calamy did. But we must keep in mind that many in Parliament were already in agreement with his point of view before he made the speech.
“In a sermon preached before the House of Commons by Dr. Calamy, Oct. 22, 1644, it is said, ‘If you do not labor according to your duty and power to suppress the errors and heresies that are spread in the kingdom, all these errors are your errors, and these heresies are your heresies: they are your sins, and God calls for a parliamentary repentance from you for them this day. You are the Anabaptists, you are the Antinomians, and it is you that hold all religions should be tolerated,’” (Ivimy vol. 1, pg. 168).
Some Baptist martyrs
Words are not sufficient to record the persecution, and the privation, suffered by the Baptists and other Dissenters, in England in the 1600’s. The Roman Catholics had lost their power to persecute with the death of Queen Mary in 1558, but the Protestant Establishment was quick to step forward and fill the void. The Protestants were vicious with each other, depending on who was in power at the time, but regardless of whether the Presbyterians or the Anglicans were in control of the reins of government, the Baptists, Quakers, and Socinians were always on the receiving end of their wrath.
The Quakers and Socinians denied some of the most fundamental principles of the Christian religion, and the Baptists had little in common with them, except their misery. This is an account of Baptist suffering, and we cannot spend a lot of time relating the suffering of other Dissenters. We have no desire to obscure the fact that others were persecuted as maliciously as the Baptists ever were, but we will have to summarize by saying the Protestants were as determined to bring about the destruction of the Quakers and Socinians as they were the extermination of the Baptists, and they used as bloody methods with them as they did with the Baptists.
We have chosen a very few typical examples to record the way the Protestant Establishment dealt with Dissenters. Only the limits of the book prevent us from providing many times more. One of the great myths of church history is the notion that Protestants were never as brutal with those they disagreed with as the Roman Catholics were. It is true that they did not have such total power, and they did not have that power so long as Rome did, but to the limit of their ability the Protestants were fully as bloodthirsty as the Catholics ever were.
The examples we have chosen for this chapter were taken, as most of this book has been, from Thomas Crosby and Joseph Ivimy’s Histories. Those two histories have four volumes each, and together they run to almost five thousand pages. So this is the tiniest sampling of the accounts we might have provided.
Not many of our people are acquainted with those two histories. So far as I know, they have been unavailable for many years, except as facsimile copies from used book dealers. And, even if a person has the books, reading 5000 pages is such a task, it is unlikely that very many people are well acquainted with their contents. But if you should gain access to the books, you will discover that these examples are typical of the suffering of Baptists, and other Dissenters of that period in history.
None of the three kinds of Baptists in England were entirely free from error, but to the limit of their light and understanding they were faithful to what they believed. No group could claim to have been more faithful to their own principles than the others, and no group could claim to have suffered more than the others.
The old-order Anabaptists were far more inclined to leave the Establishment churches entirely alone. The Particulars were determined to participate in the Establishment. The General Baptists prospered for a time, and they were well represented in some areas. Some of them were picked up by the Particulars, but by the late 1700’s most of the General Baptists had gone off into Unitarianism.
Note: Eventually most Presbyterians also fell into Unitarianism. That apostasy spelled the virtual death of Presbyterianism in England. Today Presbyterianism in England is only the faintest shadow of what it once was. It is ironic that after so hotly pursuing anyone who differed from their rigid creed in the slightest way, the English Presbyterians should court extinction by denying one of the most fundamental facets of their own doctrine.
We have pointed out that the Particular Baptists grew out of the Protestant Independents, and they made a serious mistake in trying so hard and for so long to participate as part of the Establishment. They always thought of themselves as Protestants, and that conviction finally resulted in their removing from the Presbyterian Westminster Confession of Faith its most objectionable expressions and claiming it for their own. In spite of their efforts to be part of the Establishment, Parliament passed the Act of Uniformity and expelled them in 1662. After that point their persecution by the Establishment became even more severe.
While we have pointed out some of the mistakes of the Particulars, we do not wish to diminish their witness in any way. In the following examples I have usually made no effort to distinguish to which of the three groups these preachers belonged, because, in most instances, I do not know. Ivimy was not usually careful to record that information, and Crosby seems to have made a conscious effort to avoid mentioning it. Most of these instances took place after the Ejection of 1662, and by then most Baptists had been driven into the same camp.
But, while that it true, it appears that the most of them were Particulars, or had been absorbed by the Particulars. I make that point to call attention to the faithfulness of the Particular Baptists in the face of the most vicious and inhuman treatment. Till the very end of time their faithfulness will stand as an example of what faithful and God-fearing people can do in the face of persecution.
The determination of the Particulars to be a part of the Establishment did not diminish their suffering. If anything, it subjected them to even more suffering. It made the Presbyterians all the more determined to drive them out—by whatever means necessary. Those means were often very brutal.
The Presbyterians were not bluffing when they pretended that baptism by immersion was an attempt by the preacher to murder the person he was baptizing. They proved they were fully capable of bringing the preacher up on charges, if the person baptized happened to later die. Samuel Oates was one preacher so prosecuted. The Presbyterian ministers did all within their power to have him condemned and hanged.
Samuel Oates: “Mr. Samuel Oates, a very popular preacher, and great disputant, taking a journey into Essex in the year 1646, preached in several parts of that county, and baptized by immersion great numbers of people, especially about Bockin, Braintree, and Tarling. This made the Presbyterians in those parts very uneasy; especially the ministers, who complained bitterly that such things should be permitted; and endeavoring to spur on the magistrates all they could to suppress him; one writes after this manner:”
“‘No magistrate in the country dare meddle with him, for they say they have hunted these out of the country into their dens in London, and imprisoned some, and they are released and sent like decoy-ducks into the country to fetch in more; so that they go on in divers parts of Essex with the greatest confidence and insolence that can be imagined.’ However, at length they got something against him, which they thought would effectually answer their end, and therefore endeavored to pursue it to the uttermost.”
“It happened that among the hundreds which he had baptized in this county, one died within a few weeks after; and this they would have to be occasioned by her being dipped in cold water. Accordingly they prevailed upon the magistrates to send him to prison, and put him in irons as a murderer, in order to his trial at the next assizes. The books written against the Baptists frequently represented the practice of immersion to be extremely dangerous; and some termed them a cruel and murdering sect for using it. Now if they could but have carried this point, it would have confirmed their censures, fixed an eternal odium on the practice, and frightened many timorous persons from complying with their duty.”
“Great endeavors were therefore used that he might be brought in guilty. Nay, so fond were some of this story, that they published it for a truth before it had been legally examined, and added these circumstances to it, viz. That he held her so long in the water, that she fell presently sick; that her belly swelled with the abundance of water she took in, and within a fortnight or three weeks died; and upon her death-bed expressed her dipping to be the cause of her death. All which was afterwards made appear to be notorious lies.”
“They did indeed carry it so far, as to have him arraigned for his life at Chelmsford assizes. But upon his trial several credible witnesses were produced, among which the mother of the maid was one who all testified upon oath, that the said Anne Martin (that being her name) was in better health for several days after her baptism than she had been for some years before, and that she was seen to walk abroad afterwards very comfortably. So that notwithstanding all the design and malignity that appeared in this trial, he was in the end, brought in not guilty, to the great mortification of his enemies,” (Crosby vol. 1, ppg 236-238)
Thomas Delaune, and his entire family starve and die in prison: Dr. Edmund Calamy was one of the best scholars the Establishment had to offer. He issued a challenge for any Dissenter to answer his arguments. Thomas Delaune did answer his challenge, and routed the good doctor completely. Dr. Calamy and his cohorts reacted the same way Richard Baxter had, when he was so thoroughly trounced by Cox. As a reward for his audacity in putting their champion to rout, Delaune was arrested, and committed to prison. Delaune repeatedly pleaded to Calamy to intercede on his behalf. He argued that, since his offense was his answering Calamy’s challenge, Calamy was being unfair in having him arrested and starved in jail. Calamy responded that Delaune’s plight was none of his concern. With no one to support them, his wife and two children joined him in jail. The four of them lived together, starved together, and finally the four of them died in prison.
“Mr. Delaune was apprehended, Nov. 29, 1683, and by Sir Thomas Jenner, Recorder of London, committed to Woodstreet-Compter, and put in amongst the common-side prisoners, where he had a hard bench for his bed, and two bricks for his pillows. He was removed from thence by the Recorder’s warrant, committed to Newgate, and lodged amongst felons. Whose horrid company, says he, in his letter to Dr. Calamy, made a perfect, representation of that horrible place, which you describe when you mention hell.” (Crosby, vol. 2, pg. 369)
His family had no means of support, and they joined him in prison. Finally, the good preacher and his entire family starved and died in prison. “The same author declares, that he cannot conclude his preface, without giving the world the rest of the history of this Gentleman; which it was impossible for him to give of himself….The expensive prosecution, depriving him of his livelihood, which was a Grammar-School, and long imprisonment, had made him not only unable to pay his fine, but unable to subsist himself and his family.”
“He continued in close confinement, in the prison of Newgate, about fifteen months; and suffered there great hardships by extreme poverty; being so entirely reduced by this disaster, that he had no subsistence, but what was contributed by such friends as came to visit him….But long confinement and distresses of various kinds, at last conquered him. He had a wife and two small children, all with him in the prison; for they had no subsistence elsewhere. The closeness and inconveniences of the place first affected them; and all three by lingering sorrows and sickness, died in the prison.”
“At last worn out with trouble, and hopeless of relief, and too much abandoned by those, who should have taken some other care of him, this excellent person, sunk under the burden, and died there also. I cannot refrain saying, such a Champion of such a cause, deserved better usage. And it was very hard, such a man, such a Christian, such a scholar, and on such an occasion, should starve in a dungeon; and the whole body of Dissenters in England, whose cause he died for defending, should not raise him 66l, 13s. 4d. to save his life,” (Crosby vol. 2, ppg. 377-379).
Charles II was king of England from 1660 til 1685, but Crosby points out that Delaune was only one of eight thousand Dissenters who died in prison during those twenty five years.
The Establishment had quit burning Dissenters at the stake in 1611. They discovered that public burnings actually increased their success. But that did not keep them from arresting them, and leaving them to freeze, starve, and die in prison.
“I am sorry to say, he is one of near eight thousand Protestant Dissenters, that perished in prison, in the days of that merciful Prince, King Charles II, and that merely for dissenting from the church, in points, which they could give such reasons for, as this plea assigns; and for no other case were stifled, I had almost said murdered, in gaols, for their religion, in the days of these Gentlemen’s power, who pretend to abhor persecution,” (Crosby vol. 2, pg. 377)
Edward Bampfield dies in Newgate: “Mr. Edward Bampfield was the pastor of a seventh-day Baptist church which met at Pinners Hall in Broad-Street; but as this place was very public, he did not long escape the notice and the rage of his persecutors. On February 17, 1682, when they were assembled in the forenoon at their usual hour, Mr. Bampfield being in the pulpit, a constable with his staff and several men with halberts rushed into the meeting. The constable commanded him in the king’s name to come down; to which he answered that he was in the discharge of his office in the name of the King of kings.”
“I have, said the constable, a warrant from the lord mayor to disturb your meeting. I have a warrant from Jesus Christ, who is Lord Maximus, to go on, said Mr. Bampfield, and accordingly proceeded in his discourse. The constable then commanded one of the officers to pull him down. Upon which Mr. Bampfield repeated his text, the latter part of which was, ‘The day of vengeance is in his heart, and the year of his redeemed is come.’ He added, ‘He will pull down his enemies.’ They seized Mr. Bampfield and six of his people, and took them before the lord mayor. After examination by his lordship, they were fined ten pounds each, and desired to depart.”
“In the afternoon of the same day they went to their meeting-house again at the usual time. No sooner had Mr. Bampfield and a few of his friends entered the place than the officers came and shut the door to prevent those from entering who were coming in, and required those who were there immediately to disperse. Instead of attending to the mandate, they kept their places, and took this opportunity to tell the officers of the sin and disgrace of persecuting men on account of religion. They were all apparently affected with this address, and declared their unwillingness to engage in such a work, but said they were obliged to do it.”
“One of the people then demanded of the constable to produce his warrant for what he did, but he acknowledged that be had none, saying he would send to the lord mayor for one. Without any warrant, however, the constable commanded one of the officers to pull Mr. Bampfield down from the pulpit. After some time, with a pale face and trembling limbs, he took hold of him, and led him out into the street, where a great number of people were collected together. The constable fearing to proceed farther, Mr. Bampfield went with a large company to his own house, and performed worship, having been prevented from doing so in the meeting-house.”
“On the 24th of the same month they met again at Pinners Hall, but had not been long assembled before another constable and several officers rushed in upon them. Mr. Bampfield was engaged in prayer, which he did not discontinue till one of the officers came and pulled him away. As he was going through the streets towards the lord mayor’s, he carried his Bible in his hand, exposing it to the view of the people, who collected in great numbers, thus endeavoring to show that it was for the sake of Christ and his word that his liberty was taken away. The spectators as he passed were differently affected towards him. Some said he was a Christian Jew; others said, ‘See how he walks with his Bible in his hand, like one of the old martyrs….The hardships which Mr. Bampfield endured soon brought him to his end. At his last trial he was kept ten hours in the bail-dock, a cold and disagreeable place. But he soon received his discharge; death performing that kind office for him in Newgate, to the great grief of his fellow-prisoners and a very numerous acquaintance,” (Ivimy vol. 1, ppg. 405-407).
Vavasor Powell: shifted from prison to prison for ten years until he finally dies: “Mr. Vavasor Powell, was in these times greatly harassed by his persecutors. The High Sheriff of the county of Montgomery….accused him of Sedition, Rebellion and Treason….and so he became a prisoner, and continued such several months; all ordinary ways of relief by law allowed in such cases, being wholly obstructed….From the Fleet in 1662, he was suddenly removed to South-Sea Castle near Portsmouth, where he continued about five years; and upon the removal of Chancellor Hide, he and many others sued for an Habeas Corpus, and so at length he obtained his liberty.”
“This scarcely lasted ten months. For one George Jones, the Parson of Merthur in Glamorganshire, a man noted for whoredom, drunkenness, cheating, and putting away his wife, made complaint, and false information against him, before two deputy Lieutenants, and swore that Mr. Powell, and the congregation to which he preached, were met near two miles from Cardiff, and many of them armed; both which were false. Yet upon this information, or deposition, a warrant was granted against him; and he was thereupon apprehended and imprisoned again at Cardiff….Upon the eighth of November, 1668, and the thirteenth of January following, he was convened before the Justices, and the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy tendered to him. Much pro and con, as may be seen in his Life, was spent upon on this subject. In conclusion, Mr. Powell asked, whether they would be pleased to take sufficient bail till the next Sessions?”
“The Justices were silent. But the jailor made answer publicly, ‘No.’ Says Mr. Powell, ‘Sir, are you one of the Judges of the Court, that your No should stand?’ But the Justices did not give him the least check for his sauciness. Then P. said further; ‘Gentlemen, I have been near eight years a prisoner, and in thirteen prisons, and yet in all these, I have not received so much incivility as from this man, Mr. Jailor; and therefore I desire liberty to take a private chamber in the town, giving security for my true imprisonment. But to this the Justices returned no answer; but commanded the jailor to take the prisoner away, which was done accordingly, and returned to prison again. About three months after this, a friend in London got a Habeas Corpus, to remove him to the Common Pleas bar; which the Sheriff refused to obey….[he was later] committed to the Fleet Prison by the Court; where he remained a Prisoner from the twenty-fourth of the third month, 1669, ‘till he was discharged by death, the twenty-seventh of the eight month, 1670,” (Crosby v.2, ppg. 227-231).
John Bunyan: “It was about this time, that the famous Mr. John Bunyan was apprehended at a meeting, and carried before a Justice of the peace; who committed him to prison, though he offered security for his appearing at the next sessions. At the sessions he was indicted for an upholder and maintainer of unlawful assemblies and conventicles, and for not conforming to the Church of England. He was a man of a free and open spirit, and would not dissemble to save himself, especially in his Master’s cause; and therefore frankly owned his being at a meeting and preaching to the people, and that he was a dissenter from the established church.”
“The Justices took his open and plain dealing with them, for a confession of the indictment; and sentenced him to perpetual banishment, because he refused to conform, in pursuance of an Act made by the then Parliament. Upon which he was again committed to prison; where, though his sentence of banishment was never executed upon him; yet he was kept in prison 12 years, and suffered much under cruel and oppressing gaolers. There were in the prison with him, two eminent dissenting ministers, viz. Mr. Wheeler and Mr. Dun, both very well known in Bedfordshire; and above threescore dissenters besides,” (Crosby, vol. 2, ppg. 91,92).
“About seven weeks after, he was brought to trial at the quarter sessions held at Bedford in January 1661. A bill of indictment was preferred against him to the following effect: ‘That John Bunyan of the town of Bedford, laborer, being a person of such and such conditions, hath since such a time devilishly and perniciously abstained from coming to church to hear divine service, and is a common upholder of several unlawful meetings and conventicles, to the great disturbance and destruction of the good subjects of this kingdom, contrary to the laws of our sovereign lord the king, etc.’….After this Bunyan was so straitened that for seven years he could not look out of the door of his prison. All attempts to procure his release totally failed, and he was detained a prisoner till the year 1672, when he was discharged by means of Dr. Barlow, who received an order from the lord chancellor. This treatment of Mr. Bunyan was but a sample of the usage which was experienced by dissenters in every part of the land,” (Ivimy vol. 1, pg. 306).
John James: John James was one of those who were hanged, drawn and quartered. After he was hanged, his head was chopped off; his body was chopped into four quarters, and hauled through the streets on a sled. His quarters were then hanged on the city gates, and his head was placed on a pole opposite his church. We will give some portion of Ivimy’s account.
“Mr. John James, the minister of a congregation of Sabbattarian Baptists, meeting in Bulstake Alley, Whitechapel, was interrupted while preaching. About three o’clock in the afternoon one Justice Chard, with Mr. Wood a Head-borough came into the meeting place, and Wood in the king’s name commanded him to be silent and come down, having spoken treason against the king. On the 14th of November, Mr. James was brought before the Chief Justice Forster, Justice Mallet, Justice Twisden, and Justice Windham at the king’s bench, Westminster Hall. He was informed that he stood indicted for compassing and imagining the death of the king. For endeavoring to levy war against the king. For endeavoring a change of the government. For saying that the king was a bloody tyrant, a bloody sucker, and blood thirsty man, and his nobles the same. That the king and his nobles had shed the blood of the saints at Charing Cross, and the blood of the covenanters in Scotland.”
“To this he pleaded not guilty, neither in form nor matter…. He was then remanded to Newgate, and during the time betwixt this and his trial, he received on the 18th of November a letter from a person of note to advertise him there was such a jury of life and death impaneled to proceed upon him, as had not been for many years before, being all picked men, and most of them knights and gentlemen, and that if he did not except against them, or most of the chief of them, he was a dead man.”
“When Mr. James was brought before them, he concluded his defense by saying, though he should say but little for himself he would drop one word for the Lord, viz. that the Lord Jesus Christ was King of nations as well as King of saints; and that the government of kingdoms did of right belong to him. To confirm this sentiment he quoted Revelation 11:15. ‘The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ; and he shall reign for ever and ever.’ Addressing the Jury, he quoted Isaiah 29:21, ‘That make a man an offender for a word, and lay a snare for him that reproveth in the gate, and turn aside the just for a thing of nought.’ He was then remanded back to prison, and was brought up again on the 20th to receive sentence.”
“The next day, Wednesday, his wife by the advice of some friends endeavored to present a petition to the king; telling him of her husband’s innocency, and the character of the witnesses….In the evening as the king came out of the park, and entered the palace, Mrs. James presented him with a paper endorsed on the backside. To whom the king replied, holding up his finger, ‘Oh! Mr. James he is a sweet gentleman!’ and on her following him to get some further answer the door as shut against her. The next morning she came to the same place, and on the king’s entering the park, she entreated his majesty would answer her request. Who then replied, ‘He is a rogue, and shall be hanged….Sentence being passed Mr. James had only time to add, ‘Blessed be God, whom man hath condemned, God hath justified.’ On the 26th of November, he was executed at Tyburn, according to his tremendous sentence to be hanged, drawn, quartered, etc.”
“These terrors do not appear to have alarmed him, a consciousness of uprightness and integrity preserved him. When some of his friends who had desired leave to accompany him came into the prison, he exclaimed, ‘Here come my bride men!’ embracing them with the greatest joy. But said he, ‘Must not the sacrifice be bound?’ One answered, ‘Yea, it must be bound with cords.’ He rejoicing said, so he had heard.”
“When the keeper entered, he told him he was a welcome messenger, and hearing the noise of the multitude he said to a friend, ‘There will be by-and-by as many hallelujahs as shoutings of the people without.’ At the place of execution he obtained leave from the Sheriff to speak to the multitude. He began by denying a report that had been industriously circulated, that he was a Jesuit; declaring he was an Englishman, and had never been out of the land. That his parents were poor but pious people, and that his aged mother was still living. As to my principles, said he, ‘I do own the title of a baptized believer. I own the ordinances and appointments of Jesus Christ. I own all the principles in Hebrews 6:2.’ And concluded by charging his friends who were present not to forsake the assembling themselves together for worship, according to their principles, whatever might be the consequence. Adding the charge of David to Solomon, 1 Chronicles 28:8, ‘Now therefore in the sight of all Israel the congregation of the Lord, and in the audience of our God, keep and seek for all the commandments of the Lord your God; that ye may possess this good land, and leave it for an inheritance for your children after you for ever.’”
“He then addressed the young and old in a very solemn, impressive, and scriptural manner, concluding with, ‘To-day if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts’ Hebrews 4:7.”
“When the executioner proceeded to do his office, he said, ‘The Lord receive your soul.’ To which Mr. James replied, ‘I thank you.’ Another said, ‘This is a happy day.’ He answered, ‘I bless the Lord it is so.’ One of his friends said, ‘The Lord make your passage easy.’ He said, ‘I trust he will so.’ He was then asked if he had any thing to say to the Sheriff? He replied, ‘No, but only thank him for his civility.’ He then said aloud, lifting up his hands, ‘Father, into thy hands I commit my spirit,’ and so finished his course.”
“His quarters were taken back to Newgate, on the sledge which carried him to the gallows, and were afterwards placed on the city gates, and his head was set upon a pole opposite the meeting-house,” (Ivimy vol. 1, ppg. 221-227).
Hansard Knollys: Hansard Knollys was one of the three leading Particular Baptists of that day, and he had more than his share of persecution. He was one of the signers of the London Confession. Crosby provides this report: “Among the sufferers for Antipedobaptism in these times, the pious and learned Mr. Hansard Knollys must be numbered, though he had been ordained a minister by the bishop of Peterborough, and now was a zealous opposer both of episcopacy and common prayer, yet all this could not exempt him from the rage of the Presbyters, [nor will Mr. Neal’s invidious representation do any harm to his character] because he was a Sectary and an Anabaptist.”
“Once he was taken up for preaching against infant-baptism at Bow church in Cheapside. The occasion was this: The churchwardens of that parish wanting a minister to preach on the Lord’s day ensuing, applied themselves to Mr. Knollys. They renewed their request three days, one after another, and were denied. At length, their earnestness and great want of a supply prevailed with him.”
“When he was preaching, his subject led him to say something against the practice of baptizing infants. This gave so great an offence to some of his auditory, that they complained of him to the parliament, and a warrant from the committee for plundered ministers, was sent to the keeper of Ely-house to apprehend him, and bring him in safe custody before them. Hereupon he was presently seized, and kept several days in prison, his crime being too great to admit of bail when it was offered. At length his case was brought to a hearing before the committee. There were about thirty of the assembly of divines present; and Mr. White the chairman of the committee examined him about his authority to preach, the occasion of his preaching in Bow church, and the doctrine he had there delivered.”
“To all these he gave such full answers, that they seemed ashamed of what they had done; and ordering him to withdraw, called in the gaoler, reproved him sharply for refusing bail, and threatened to turn him out of his place. So he was dismissed without any blame, or paying of fees, which was a small reward for false imprisonment.”
“Not long after this, he went into Suffolk, where he preached in several places, as he had opportunity and was desired by his friends; but he being counted an Antinomian, and an Anabaptist, this was looked upon to be sedition and faction, and the rabble being encouraged by the high constable, set themselves zealously to oppose him. At one time when he was preaching, they stoned him out of the pulpit. At another time, when he was to have preached, they got into the church first, and shut the doors, both against him and the people, upon which he preached in the church-yard; but this was deemed a very great and an unsufferable crime.”
“At length he was taken into custody; and first he was prosecuted at a petty sessions in the country, then sent up a prisoner to London, with articles of complaint against him to the parliament. But when his case came to be heard before the committee of examination, he made it appear by witnesses of good reputation, that he had neither sowed sedition, nor raised tumults, and that all the disorders which had happened, were owing to the rage and malignity of his opposers, who had acted contrary both to law and common civility. He produced the copies of his sermons which he had preached in those parts, and afterwards printed them.”
“His answers were so full and satisfactory, that when the committee made their report to the house, he was not only discharged, but a vote passed, that he might have liberty to preach in any part of Suffolk, when the minister of the place did not preach there himself. But this business put him to a great deal of trouble and expense. He has left it under his own hand, that it cost him threescore pounds.”
“When Mr. Knollys found that his preaching in the churches, though but occasionally, gave so much offence, and brought so much trouble on himself, he set up a separate meeting in Great St. Helens, London, where the people flocked to hear him, and he had commonly a thousand auditors. But this was rather a greater offence to his Presbyterian brethren, than his former method. Now they complained that he was too near the church, and that he kept his meetings at the same times that they had their public worship. And first they prevailed upon his landlord, to warn him out of that place. Next he was summoned to appear before a committee of divines, which used to sit at Westminster, in the room called the Queen’s court, to answer for his conduct in this matter.”
“Upon his examination, Mr. Leigh being chairman, he asked him why he presumed to preach without holy orders. To which he replied, that he was in holy orders. Hereupon one of the committee said to the chairman, that he had renounced his ordination by the bishop before the committee for plundered ministers. Mr. Knollys confessed that he did so; but said, he was now ordained, in a church of God, according to the order of the gospel, and then declared to them the manner of ordination used among the Baptists. At last, the chairman in the name of the committee, commanded him to preach no more; but he told them he would preach the Gospel, both publicly and from house to house; saying it was more equal to obey Christ who commanded him, than those who forbad him, and so went his way.” (Crosby vol. 1, ppg. 226-230)
Entire communities plundered
In spite of the persecution against them, the Baptists spread all over England. The 1600’s in England clearly demonstrated the old proverb, “The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church.” “The more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied and grew,” Exo. 1:12. Before long, like the saints in the first century (Acts 5:28), they had filled the country with their doctrine.
Their tormentors had them arrested, often on the basis of perjured testimony, and took them through mock trials. They had them beaten, and left them to starve, freeze, and die in cold, filthy jails. More than that, they stripped them of such few material possessions as they possessed. They seemed to take special delight in taking the tools of their trade. That impaired their ability to earn a livelihood, and served as a powerful warning to anyone who might be encouraged by their faithful witness.
The informers received one third of the proceeds from the auction of their confiscated goods. Some of the most depraved individuals enriched themselves at the expense of those who only wanted to worship God in peace. When they were plundered and left destitute, they were sometimes able to turn to friends and relatives for relief, in spite of the fact that anyone who ventured to relieve them placed himself at risk. Once a man was fined for shedding a tear at the sight of someone being publicly beaten for his testimony.
During the persecution of Baptists by Protestants in England, the inquisitors not only stripped individuals of every material possession, and left them standing in the rain, with nothing but the clothes on their back. We have picked a few instances where that was the case.
Glocestershire: “Great were the sufferings of the Baptists in Glocestershire. The most eminent Cavaliers, embittered persecutors, rode about armed with swords and pistols; ransacked their houses, and abused their families in a violent manner. Mr. Jessey has published part of many letters sent to him, setting forth the hard usage, and great persecutions that befell the people of God in that county, more particularly those of the Baptist persuasion, as will appear by a letter from the house of a godly strict Presbyterian, which says that they of that family, as others fearing the Lord, were as a beacon on a hill, and under great reproach, accounted not worthy to live, and counted as Elias was by Ahab, troublers of Israel, troublers of the place they lived in, with other such like aspersions, counting them Anabaptists and Quakers, and were in fear of being plundered therefore,” (Crosby vol. 2, ppg 27,28).
Dover: “The magistrates of Dover were very severe upon these people. They took them from their meeting-house in the year 1660, and committed them to prison. After keeping them there four and twenty days, they were admitted to bail, paying their charges and appearing at the next sessions, were forbid to meet any more at their meeting-house and allowed to meet together in one of the churches. The which they did every Lord’s-day for about the space of five months, meeting together about eleven in the morning, and continuing till about three in the afternoon. This privilege being denied them by the succeeding Mayor, they assembled again at their own meeting-place. The Mayor disturbed them, took their names, and warned them to appear at the hall. They appeared, and four of them; viz. Thomas Williams, Christopher Streetind, John Hales and James Houson, were committed to prison. The next Lord’s day the Mayor disturbed them again, took their names, and sent six who were country-men to prison.; viz. Thomas Partridge, John Finis, Edmund Finis, Simon Loveless, John Barrows, and John Hobbs. And the next Lord’s-day after sent four more. The Mayor disturbed them a fourth time, and then committed them all, being ten in number. At the Quarter-sessions, a bill of indictment was found against them, some traversed it, others submitted to the court, and the rest were remitted to prison again,” (Crosby vol. 2, ppg 154,155).
Bricklane: “On the eighth of June 1662, the soldiers came again to Brick-lane, exercising their wonted violence and tumultuous behavior. They carried away seven men before John Robinson, who committed them to New-prison, where they yet remain. On the same eighth of June, the soldiers came to the meeting in Beech-lane, manifesting their fury and rage. They took away only him that was preaching, and carried him before Richard Brown. When the man was before him, amongst the rest of his learned discourse, he told him, he should teach him a new trade (meaning, as we suppose, that he would send him to Bridewell) and have the skin from his back. He committed him to Newgate.”
“On the fifteenth of June 1662, the soldiers came again to Brick-lanes in such manner as they were wont. They took six men and carried them to John Robinson, who committed them to Newgate. And on the same day they came to the meeting at Beech-lane, and violently set upon them with drawn swords, pulling of them out of their meeting-place with great rage. The place they stood to preach in they broke it down with such fury, that they broke their muskets: They struck several persons to their detriment in point of health. After which they took two men more, carried them to Pauls-yard, and from thence to Newgate, where they were kept while Sessions, not being at all committed, or had before any magistrate; and at Sessions returned to Newgate, nothing being laid to their charge, where they still remain,” (Crosby vol. 2, ppg 174).
“In the afternoon the soldiers came to Brick-lane, practicing their wonted cruelty, by pulling, hauling, and beating them; and took several, had them before J. Robinson, who committed them to New Prison. On the sixth of the month, called July, the soldiers came like beasts of prey, to Brick-lane, where they shut the door, and kept in all that were there, and with great violence they broke the forms before their faces; they left not one form whole, taking the legs and hurling them against the windows, pulling and hauling many; not regarding sex, childhood, nor old age. They took six men, and had them before John Robinson, who committed them to New Bridewell. In the morning following, they were by the keepers of Bridewell, called to beat hemp, which they refusing to do, were put into New-prison, to the rest of their fellow-sufferers, where they still are.”
“On the 27th of the same month, the soldiers came to Brick-lane aforesaid, with a multitude of rude people, as butchers out of White-chapel, bailiff’s-followers, boys and such like unruly and debauched fellows, with a constable like themselves, who, as we heard, told John Robinson, that he could not overcome them, nor break the meeting at Brick-lane. John Robinson answered, as was said, That then he should let in the multitude upon them, and let them tear the clothes from their backs; or words to that purpose, which may very well be judged to be true, for the above said ungodly wretches, soldiers and constables, after they had beat, pulled, and hauled them in a very inhuman manner themselves, set the great gates wide open. The constable, namely Bartlet a cook, and Brown the marshal, a wicked lewd fellow, calling the rude multitude in, marched down before them, saying to them, Do your work, boys, which they did, for they beat the women and maids, broke the forms, the glass windows, and the door, making such spoil and havoc as was seldom heard of; sparing none, no not women big with child. This Brown the marshal being asked, why he beat the women? he said, ‘Who saw me? Who will swear it?’ And with those words, fell more violently upon the women, some whereof were with child; striking of them with his fists, such blows that made them reel. Again, a maid had her Bible snatched away she laboring to get it again, was struck over the eye, that it was black a long time after. Then the soldiers took six men and a woman, and carried them to John Robinson, who notwithstanding committed them all to New-prison.”
“On the third day of the month called August, 1662, when the prisoners in Newgate, called Baptists, were in their chamber, seeking the Lord, and speaking to one another, that they might as their duty is, provoke one another to love and good works. About four of the clock in the afternoon, the thieves, as house-breakers, pick-pockets, highwaymen, came with violence into our room, one took up a Bible from the table, and threw it down to the ground, asking what we did there? Struck one in the face with his fist, and he with the rest fell upon us, drew their knives, and endeavored to stab some of us. But the Lord was pleased to deliver us from their cruelty; for we took courage to defend ourselves, and escaped their bloody hands. And on the same day, the like violence, as we were informed, was offered to those brethren in the White- Lyon, Southwark, by the felons there. And on the first of June so called, 1662, which was upon the first day of the week, after we were brought to prison, some of the keepers did come up to us, and charge us that we should not pray nor preach, for if we did, they had order to put us into the hole, and that they must do it. And though that was not executed; yet the felons did come violently upon us in our room, and did beat some of us, and threaten us all, saying, they would now order us well enough, for they had commission so to do,” (Crosby vol. 2, ppg 176-179).
Petty-France: “On the same fifteenth of June, 1662, the soldiers came with great fury and rage, with their swords drawn, to the meeting at Petty-France; where they very inhumanly wounded a boy almost to death; it was doubtful whether he would recover. They took away him that preached, and carried him to Newgate, and never had him before any magistrate, where he remained till Sessions, and from thence was returned to Newgate again, where he yet remains. On the twenty-ninth of June, soldiers came to Petty-France, full of rage and violence, with their swords drawn. They wounded some, and struck others, broke down the gallery, and made much spoil,” (Crosby vol. 2, pg. 176).
Wapping-wall: “On the 25th of May 1662, at a meeting in Shakespear’s-walk, near Wapping-wall, where some people were peaceably met, there came soldiers in a hostile manner, with swords and muskets, pulling and hauling some of them; and the man that was preaching, they pulled violently down from the place where he stood, though it was his own hired house. And such was their rage, notwithstanding he was their prisoner, because he continued speaking, they cried, ‘shoot him,’ before he had any trial, or was found worthy or not worthy of death.”
“And such was their violence, that a child belonging unto the family, about a year and a quarter old, was so affrighted and awaked out of its sleep, as it lay, in the cradle; with which fright it fell sick, and never recovered its sickness, but died three days after. And whether they were the cause of its death or no, is left to the Lord to determine at the last day. They carried two of the said meeting before John Robinson; who committed them to Newgate, where they still remain, nothing being laid to their charge.”
Beech-lane: “On the same 25th of May, the soldiers came to Beech-lane, to a meeting there, with their swords drawn, pulling and hauling of them violently. And two of them they carried in the morning to Newgate, where they were kept, and never had before any magistrate to be heard, nor accused by any till the quarter-sessions, which was a month or five weeks after. On the first day of June 1662, they came to the aforesaid Beech-lane, with their swords drawn as before. The Ensign came in with his sword drawn, holding it over the head of him that was preaching; pulling them violently down the stairs, carrying them to Paul’s yard, and from thence to Richard Brown, who committed them to Newgate,” (Crosby vol. 2, pg. 173).
Lewes: I have saved the plundering of the community of Lewes until last, because it is longer, and more tedious to read, but especially, because it shows so clearly how determined their tormentors sometimes were to strip entire communities of everything they could lay their hands on.
The most depraved men in England often brutalized, and plundered entire communities of everything they had. They enriched themselves by such wickedness— and all in the name of defending the Christian religion.
Their plight was made worse when entire communities of Baptists were plundered. Often the poor people in those little communities were unacquainted with very many people outside their own immediate area, and if their entire community was plundered, it left them especially destitute.
“Some Christians in and about Lewes, in the county of Suffix, (to the number of 500, say their adversaries) were met together to hear the word of God, and that they might, if possible, avoid exasperating their enemies on one hand, and provide for their own security on the other, the meeting was appointed at three a-clock afternoon (by reason of the peoples being at the publick) an hour of the greatest privacy.:
“People were appointed to go to a house, where usually they met, within a mile of Lewes; but from thence were directed to a private by-lane, within a quarter of a mile of the house. This may be enough to take off that imputation of contempt of authority, so frequently cast upon them by some; and that of rashness as frequently objected by others. Sir. Thomas Nutt, a violent persecutor.”
“There were two persons, who seeing some people go that way, followed them to the place of meeting, and became Informers. Upon which Sir Thomas Nutt, a violent persecutor, and three other Justices, whom he had drawn into a compliance with him, convicts the Minister and above forty of the hearers, without hearing what they had to plead in their own defense. Many sin’d for being at a meeting.”
“The hearers were fined 5s. a piece, and the minister 20l. The minister’s fine was laid upon five of the hearers; so that Walter Brett and Thomas Barnard were fined each 6l. 5s. Richard White 3l. 15s. Thomas Ridge 1l. 10s. and the rest in smaller fines; the lowest 5s. Warrants were issued out under the hands of the Justices for recovery of the said fines by distress and file of goods; and directed to the Constable of the hundred, the Church-wardens and Overseers of the parish.”
“And, says the Author of the Narrative, (p. 3.) after one of the warrants, and beneath the hands and seals of the Justices, was written as a postcript somewhat to this purpose, That all other officers whatever were required, within their liberties, to assist the said officers in making the distress. Warrant granted to make distress.”
“Sir Thomas Nutt sends out these warrants by his Clerk; who carrying them to the Headborough of Ringmire, told him, that Sir Thomas had sent him those warrants, and that if he knew any others that had been at the meeting, he must put in their names, and levy 5s. a piece of them. The Headborough telling him he was at church, and so knew not who was at the meeting the other replied, that if he heard of any that were there he should put them in.”
“The constable declared to one of the Justices, that he would rather forfeit his 5l. than act. The Justice told him he was only to go with them, and see the peace kept; it was the others that were to distrain: Which he did accordingly, but would not meddle in the distress.”
“Distress made on J. Prior. And on T. Ridge. On the first of June they began to make their distresses, and took from John Prior (who was fined 10s. for himself and his wife) four cheeses. He only told them, he never sold any thing for so great advantage, for this would bring him in an hundred fold. Within a few days after, he was by warrant brought before Sir Thomas, for bidding. Goring the informer, repent of being such a Judas, and warning him of the judgment to come. But Sir Thomas only obliged him to pay 2s. for the warrant.”
“On the same day they made distress upon Thomas Ridge, being fined 30s. and took as many goods from his shop as amounted to 50s. He peaceably submitted, only assuring them, he parted as willingly with them as with any goods he ever sold. They would have deposited their spoil at the sign of the Cats in the Cliff, but the master of the house, though a churchman, said he would let no such goods come within his doors; which made them take up quarters in another place.”
“On Rich. Whiteand. Richard Thomas, Edward Henly, Samuel Cruttenden, Thomas Elphick, Richard Bennet, Edward Whiskets, N. Grisbrooks, On the seventeenth of June, at the town of Lewes, they distrained from Rich. White as many brass kettles, with a still, which were worth 10l. 13s. though his fine was but 3l. 15s.”
“From Richard Thomas, a butcher, they took his, weights for 5s. From Edward Henly, a shoemaker, they took five pair of shoes; his fine was 5s. From Samuel Cruttenden, a haberdasher, they took three hats, worth 15s. for 5s. From Thomas Elphick, a shoemaker, three pair of shoes, worth 9s. for 5s. From Richard Bennet, a taylor, fined 10s. they plundered his kitchen; taking goods of several sorts.”
“From Edward Whiskets, a victualler, fined 5s. they took goods to a considerable value. From Nicholas Grisbrooks, a blacksmith, they took, amongst other things, part of a Flitch of bacon. J. Tabret, William Humphry, June the twentieth, John Tabret of the Cliff, fined 55s. they took from him a cow. She not liking her new masters, at night returned home, but they soon fetched her back again.”
“Benjamin Wood, J. Knapp, Henry Owden, T. Tourle, R. Mantle, Walter Brett. June the twenty first, they visit Lewes again, and took from William Humphry, a barber, a looking-glass of a considerable value, with other things belonging to his employment. Entering the house of Benjamin Wood, a mason, they took the sheets from the bed, and four of the good woman’s new shifts, but she being unwilling to part with them, redeemed them by paying the 5s. for which they distrained.”
“They plundered the shop of John Knapp, a barber, fined 5s. He desired them, amongst the rest, to take Mr. Dodd’s sayings hanging by; but, says the Author, them they refuse, knowing, belike, that they prophesied no good to them. From Henry Owden’s, a carpenter, fined 5s. they took a good musket and a jack, worth 10s. From Thomas Tourle, a butcher, fined 5s. they took his horse. And from Richard Mantle they took another, for the like fine.”
“They took from Walter Brett, a grocer, fined 61. 5s. two barrels of sugar, which cost him above 15l. Two days after this, says the Author, being the twenty third of June, these mauling officers rally their forces, consisting of Relph the informer, a brother of Goring’s the informer, and another, who encouraged by Sir Thomas Nutt, newly entered on that employment. To which the Constable and Headborough of that hundred, within which Northease farm in the parish of Radmill lies, being added, they intend to make a distress there for 11l. 10s. being the fines imposed on Thomas and Richard Barnard of Lewes.”
“The distressors pretended, that these brothers were with their mother partners in the stock, and the goods by partnership distrainable. It was offered to be made appear, that Thomas, upon whom 6l. 5s. of the fine was laid, had no propriety in the stock for above three years past. But it seems they think it a good reason, that his mother (though not at the meeting) should pay for him, as that he should pay for others.”
“Besides, when these things were questioned to Sir Thomas Nutt, he bid them distrain however: For, said he, come the worst, they can but appeal to us. The distressors comfort themselves also with this, that how illegally soever they act, persons can but appeal to the sessions, and they have four of the Justices hands to their warrant already.”
“Sir Thomas told one whilst this distress was levying, that if he pleased he would levy their fines upon him, and how would he help himself, though the party were not at the meeting.”
“Before these blades could make up their full company, the oxen, which Buckland had especially threatened, were by the servants belonging to the farm locked up. When the Constable came, Buckland commands him to break the door. The Constable demanded of him a warrant to empower him to do it. Many sore strains Buckland himself gave the door, but finding himself prevented here, in a fume he steers his course another way, threatening that he would take the whole herd of about twenty cows; upon which the dairy-maid is said to tell him, that then she believed they would have store of sillibubs, having gotten so much sugar from Mr. Brett.”
“The barn where the cows were, being locked, the Constable durst not break them open, at least not without a warrant. Buckland took his old warrant out of his pocket, and purposely misreading it, would have made the Constable believe, that he was included in the warrant; and producing the act (at the rate he read it) made as if that clause, empowering the breaking open of a house in order to the taking of a meeting, had empowered him to break open upon a distress.”
“Moreover Buckland offered him his word, if not his bond, to bear him harmless; but his word and bond were both of like value in the Constable’s account; who willing to have better security for what he did, immediately went to the Justices concerned in the conviction, desiring a special warrant to break open if he must do it. Two of them civilly told him they should give out no other warrant.”
“Sir Thomas Nutt could say more than both the others; he tells him, that the Constables at Lewes had broke open doors, and so might he as well: A further warrant he denied him, but threatened immediately to fine him if he did not assist them in the distress. They were from eight in the morning till nigh two in the afternoon, before they made their distress.”
“Buckland sent to Lewes, being about two miles, to inform Sir Thomas Nutt, that there was such a company there, that he dare hardly to do his office. Upon which Sir Thomas was heard to say, that he would make a riot of it, and that it should cost the two Barnards an 100 l. a man.”
“It seems there were present most of the servants, few else; and these only to be witnesses of what was done; the best armed amongst them had only an ox-goad, which was he that drove the oxen. It seems Buckland esteemed him a second Shamgar, &c. Distress on Tho. and Richard Barnard.”
“The Constable returns in great perplexity; if he breaks the door he lays himself open to an action from the owners; if he do not, Sir Thomas threatens that he then be fined; who in such cases useth not to be worse then his word. The Constable chose rather, though importunately desired by Buckland to break open the bars for cows, than the barn for oxen. They took six cows, three of which, indifferently sold, would more than countervail their fines.”
“One of the parties distrained told them, he wondered that men skilled in the worth of cattle, should make such an unreasonable distress. Buckland replied, but we take one for your peremptoriness, and another for our pains. Some of their own gang report, that the distrainers will get above 10l. a piece by the bargain. — There was severally by both the persons distrained demands made of a copy of the warrant, which the other refused to give them.”
“They then demanded the sight of it, which was likewise denied. The six kine aforesaid, says the Author, were driven to Buckland’s, who had some land he hired, that wanted stock. The next Saturday sevennight, being the second of July, these with the cow taken from John Tabret, were brought to Lewes market, and placed just before Sir Thomas Nutt’s door.”
“It being quickly known upon what account they were taken, they had many spectators, but few chapmen; probably they had lain in their hands, but that there being at Sir Thomas Nutt’s, an own brother of his, he becomes the purchaser, buyeth the seven cows, for what is not certainly known, for 14l. 5s. say they that report the highest, though they were not ill worth 27l. Having no ground of his own, he first sends them, and then selleth them to one that is tenant to Sir Thomas.
“It was stranged by some, why Sir Thomas should, beyond others, bestir himself to procure them distrained. But now that riddle may be easily read; his brother is to have the first purchase of them, and his tenant the second. The same day, sale was cried in the market, to be held at the Star in Lewes, the Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday following, for the rest of the goods, where they sold cheap, I cannot say good pennyworths.”
“The same day with that at Lewes, there was a meeting at the town of Brighahelmstone, some six miles off. To take away all occasion of offence, they did lessen their number, and alter their place of meeting; but were beset by Captain Tettersol, Constable of the place, and his gang.”
“Finding the door shut, that they could not enter, they surrounded the house, that none of the meeters might come out. Thus they kept them prisoners till they sent to Lewes, to Sir Thomas Nutt for a warrant to break open the door. When the warrant came, entrance was given; they find no minister, nor were the people, when they came in, about any religious exercise.”
“They pretended they had heard the sound of a voice, which they please to say is preaching these men going to Sir Thomas Nutt; and making some deposition upon oath, a warrant is issued out to bring the meeters before him and some other Justices. W. Beard fined 20l. and distress made for it.”
“When they came; the business was to pump something by way of confession out of them; in which, if they would be ingenuous, a promise is made that they should set their own fines; but these, keeping their own counsel, the Justices not being able to convict them by the parties confession, are forced to do it, by that notorious evidence before specified. They fine William Beard, mailer of the house, where the meeting was, 20l.”
“Tettersol breaks open locks to come at malt: Being gotten to the heap, filleth, without all measure, sixty of five bushel sacks, which he hath sold to one of his gang for 12s. per quarter. One that went out of the house where the meeting was, just as the disturbers were coming to it, is notwithstanding convicted. Nicholas Martin fined 20l, and distress made for it. Appeals, was cast, and fined 60l.”
“At Chillington, three miles from Lewes, one Nicholas Martin was upon slight evidence convicted by Sir Thomas Nutt, for having a meeting at his house fined 20l. for which they drain his land, and took from him six cows, two young bullocks and a horse, being all the flock he had these were returned to him again upon his entering an appeal; but being strangely call at the Sessions, he was by the court fined 60l. which was at last remitted to 23l.”
“For non-payment whereof, he was committed to the Jaylor’s hands; nor could he be released, though one Salisbury, Vicar of the place, his grand persecutor, being convinced he had dealt injuriously with him, offered to give bond to pay the whole fine within a quarter of a year.”
“Such was the great rage and malice, with which in those days, the persecutions were carried on against the Nonconformists, by the Justices and Clergy throughout the kingdom, that more mercy was extended to criminals, than to those whom they could charge with no crimes, either against the church or state.”
“It is observed by one Mr. Josiah Diston, who had been often committed to prison, and bound over to several Assizes and Sessions, for having private meetings in his house; that he found the spirit and temper of the Judges and Justices in those times to be such, that when any person or accusation came before them concerning Dissenters, they were zealous in aggravating their crimes; and many who were usually fluent in other cases, were very forward speakers in these: Whereas in other criminal matters they were cool, and very willing to shew all the favour they could. An account of some persecutors in Oxsfordshire.” (Crosby v.2, ppg 247-259).
Those who would not submit to the religious hierarchy were not safe in their own homes: “In a letter wrote to Mr. Jessey, April 3, 1660, it is said, that the houses of Captain Crofts, Mr. Palmer of Barton, Mr. Helme of Winchcombe, and many others, were ransacked for arms. Mr. Fletcher and his family forced to fly for their lives. It so fell out, says the writer of the letter, that Mr. Helme not being at home, on the 6th day of the last week, they came to his house, ransacked his trunks, study, and all his goods, for arms, not sparing the bed whereon his children lay, to their great affrightment, being in bed. One of them held up his pistol to strike Mrs. Helme, having given her most uncivil language; so that the terror hath brought upon her a very sore distemper, and brought her nigh unto death. They drink the King’s health stoutly, and rage against any that have the face of godliness; and not only soldiers, but the people who had long obscured their malice to the people of God, are now confident, and act barbarously.”
“Take two late examples. One was of Mr. Warren, a minister in the county, who upon the ejection of a malignant (as then that denomination was given men) was put into the parsonage of Rencome; upon this new encouragement, the said ejected minister (one Mr. Broade) brake in with a company of rude companions into the parsonage house, penned up Mr. Warren, and his wife and family into an upper room; so distressing and afflicting the poor man, night and day, making a noise with hautboys, so that he died in the place. His blood will cry. Another was one Mr. Fletcher, a godly man, who lately came out of New England, being put into a vacant place by authority, a rude cavalier in the parish came in upon him in his house, beat him and used him very inhumanly, threatened to cut off his head with a bill, which one of them carried; at last, after much vile carriage, one took his coat and carpet off his table, and marched with them in the streets on the top of a bill, so that the poor man and his family are fled for their lives,” (Crosby vol. 2 , ppg. 29,30).
They were not allowed to remain at rest after they died and were buried. Sometimes after they died, their tormentors would dig up their corpse, drag it back home, and dump the muddy remains at their doorstep, for the grieving widow to discover the next morning.
“The people thus set on by the encouragement of magistrates and wicked priests, their enmity rose to such a pitch against the Baptists, that they denied the benefit of the common burying places. Yea, so inhuman, says Mr. Grantham, hath been the usage of some, that they have been taken out of their graves, drawn upon a sledge to their own gates, and there left unburied,” (Crosby vol. 2, p. 239).
“This Mr. Shalder had suffered much by imprisonment for his zeal towards God, and dying soon after his release from prison, was interred in the common burying ground amongst his ancestors. The same day that he was buried, certain of the inhabitants of Croft in the county of Lincoln, opened his grave, took him from thence, and dragged him upon a sledge to his own gates, and left him there; upon which some verses were written, and placed upon the grave, entitled, The Dead Man’s Complaint, designed to check the envy of the Spiritual Court, who thus disgraced the dead….The chief actors in this inhumanity, so prodigiously rude and unnatural, did not long survive it. For one of them died suddenly, and the other languished for same time; being greatly terrified with the remembrance of what he had done to the dead,” (Crosby, vol.2, ppg. 240,241).
There is a day coming when all mankind will be gathered before God. On that day the saints will be gathered into that blessed home above, and the wicked will be dispatched to the lower regions. There they will receive the just punishment of their deeds. But sometimes judgment does not wait. Sometimes, God deals in judgment with the wicked soon after the wicked deed is done. That was often the case with those wicked miscreants who tormented the saints in the time we are studying.
“On the day of the King’s proclamation at Waltham near Theobalds, in the evening there was a bonfire made to express the people’s joy. A cooper who was present swore and tore, and struck the ground, and said, Now have at the Annabaptists. Now as the fire burned he took a faggot, and said, here is a round head, and cast it into the fire which burned; and then took another faggot, and laid, here is an Anabaptist, and that burned, etc. But the Lord struck him that night, so that he never saw the morning. Attested by several of the same town,” (Crosby vol.2, ppg. 30,31). Crosby’s and Ivimy’s histories both provide such accounts.
It has been painful to trim the size of this book. There are so many edifying accounts we have had to omit. The account of the steadfastness of these English Baptists in face of such cruelty is inspiring beyond expression. It would be far easier to let this book grow to a thousand pages than it has been to select such examples as we have room for. But perhaps these few cases will give some idea of the magnitude of the persecution and suffering of the Baptists in that day. It is only against this background we can begin to understand our Baptist heritage.
The London Confession was not divinely inspired
Before closing, perhaps I should make one final comment as to why I considered the book needed to be written. We must acknowledge that the London Confession has a place in Baptist history, and any student of church history should have a copy in his library.
But we should always keep it in mind that no confession of faith is divinely inspired. It does not belong on the same shelf with the Bible. It is not a secondary authority. It belongs on the shelf with other fallible writings. It belongs on the same shelf with Arthur Pink, Gilbert Beebe, John Calvin, Andrew Fuller, and Charles Spurgeon.
The problem is that confessions of faith are ambitious creatures. They are not willing to stay on the shelf where they are put. They are forever trying to climb. They never claim to be divinely inspired; but they are sure they can serve as secondary authorities—secondary only to the Bible. And those who are the most committed seem just as convinced we need those secondary authorities.
But we do not need any secondary (or tertiary) authorities. The Bible is our one and only rule in faith and practice. In that sense, there is the Bible, and there is everything else. The Bible is divinely inspired; it is always right. Everything else is man-made. Regardless of who its author or authors are, everything else can be— and often is—in error.
When I insist the London Confession was not divinely inspired, I am almost always told that nobody believes it is— everybody knows it is only a human production. But that is not the case. There are ever so many, who, if they do not believe the London Confession was divinely inspired, they certainly act as if they do. To illustrate my point I will copy an article written by Elder H. H. Lefferts in 1945. Elder Lefferts was one of the leading preachers of his day. In this same article he points out that he was the pastor of three churches in Virginia, one in Delaware, and three in Pennsylvania.
At the time he wrote the article there was a heated battle going on between our people and the Absoluters. Listen to what Elder H.H. Lefferts has to say about the London Confession, and decide whether he believed the London Confession was divinely inspired. I have added emphasis to highlight a few expressions I want you to notice.
Elder Leffert’s article
“I have nothing but admiration and respect for our brethren of a former generation who were of such stalwart stature spiritually as to have been enabled by the Holy Ghost to so ably formulate their denominational standing relative to doctrine and practice. I should be the last person to suggest that any change be made in them at this late day. I deny the accusation being made against them that they are man-made. There were seven churches in London, which announced their doctrinal and practical position in 1642, then in 1689 delegates from one-hundred congregations in England and Wales met in London, and further enlarged and declared their Faith and this Confession called the London, because it was formulated in that city. Then in 1742 the Philadelphia Baptist Association, the oldest Baptist assembly in this country went on record as adopting the London Confession of Faith, as a declaration of Baptist belief and practice in this country, with the addition of two further articles; that on the Singing of Psalms and the other on the Laying on of Hands.”
“Every single principle of doctrine, enumerated in this Confession is backed up by scripture. The authors of it were very careful to give scripture citations for each and every principle they set down. The assembled Baptists, who drew it up, set forth their interpretation and understanding of Baptist faith and practice as they believed the scriptures to teach. In this they were plainly not left to their own understanding nor vain imaginations, but were governed and directed by the spirit of all truth, the Holy Ghost, in the matter. Therefore I deny that the London Confession of Faith is man-made.
“To say so is to affirm the guidance and teaching of the Holy Ghost were not efficient in the matter, and it is a slur on the person of the Spirit, who has promised to lead and guide the church into all Truth. No mere men could ever have given forth such a document as this Confession of Faith. Were it man-made, it would bear on its face and in its writing errors plainly inconsistent with the scriptures. Instead of that, it bears the evident stamp of truth in all its particulars because it is a Confession faithful to, and consistent with, the inspired word of God. Far be it from me to emend it in any particular. I do unhesitatingly affirm that never since the Bible itself was written has there been such a comprehensive and faithful statement of Bible truth as is in this confession. It needs no apology from me at this late day, nor should I wish to tone down in the least the holy doctrine it confesses…. Whenever I have found an Old Baptist preacher who cries out against the word absolute, I mark him as no predestinarian at all.”
“No true predestinarian ever objects to the word absolute…. Likewise when I find any Old Baptist preacher or brother, who derides our Confessions of Faith, I put him down as having an axe to grind of his own….I have said before, and I repeat here, no man should ever be ordained by Old-order Baptists to the gospel ministry unless he is in hearty accord with the principles of truth enunciated in our original covenants and articles of faith.”
If this elder was not claiming divine inspiration for the London Confession, I am not sure what more he could have said.
While not many people would use the strong language he uses, it seems to me that those who are the most committed to that confession have much the same idea. They are just not willing to put it in such strong language.
So long as there are those who have that kind of devotion to any confession of faith, it will be necessary from time to time, for somebody to speak up, and insist that the Bible is our only rule of faith and practice.
THE END