C.H. Spurgeon
Foxe pleads for Baptists
In the year 1575 a most severe persecution was raised against the ‘Anabaptists’ in London, ten of whom were condemned — eight ordered to be banished, and two to be executed. Mr Foxe, the eminent martyrologist, wrote an excellent Latin letter to the Queen, in which he observes:—
‘That to punish with the flames the bodies of those who err rather from ignorance than obstinacy is cruel, and more like the Church of Rome than the mildness of the Gospel. I do not write thus from any bias to the indulgence of error; but to save the lives of men, being myself a man: and in hope that the offending parties may have an opportunity to repent and retract their mistakes.’
He then earnestly entreats that the fires of Smithfield may not be rekindled, but that some milder punishment might be inflicted upon them, to prevent, if possible, the destruction of their souls as well as their bodies.
But his remonstrances were ineffectual. The Queen remained inflexible; and, though she constantly called him Father Foxe, she gave him a flat denial as to saving their lives, unless they would recant their dangerous errors. They, both refusing to recant, were burnt in Smithfield, July 22, 1575, to the great and lasting disgrace of the reign and character of Queen Elizabeth.
Neither from Elizabeth, James or Charles I did our brethren receive any measure of favour. No treatment was thought too severe for them: even good men condemned them as heretics for whom the harshest measures were too gentle. To destroy this branch of the true vine, all available means were used without hesitation or scruple, and yet it not only lives on, but continues to bear fruit a hundredfold.
When Charles I was unable to uphold episcopacy any longer, liberty of thought and freedom of speech were somewhat more common than before, and Baptists increased very rapidly. Many of them were in Cromwell’s army, and were the founders of not a few of our village churches.
While these men were to the front doing such acceptable work for the Parliament, their brethren could not be hunted down quite so freely as before. Accordingly we find that contentious divine Daniel Featley groaning heavily, because they were permitted to breathe, and between his pious groans recording for our information certain facts which are peculiarly useful to us:—
‘This fire which in the reigns of Queen Elizabeth and King James, and our gracious sovereign [Charles I] till now was covered in England under the ashes; or if it brake out at any time, by the care of the ecclesiastical and civil magistrates, it was soon put out.
‘But of late, since the unhappy distractions which our sins have brought upon us, the temporal sword being otherways employed, and the spiritual locked up fast in the scabbard, this sect among others has so far presumed upon the patience of the State, that it hath held weekly conventicles, re-baptised hundreds of men and women together in the twilight, in rivulets, and some arms of the Thames, and elsewhere, dipping them over head and ears.
‘It hath printed divers pamphlets in defence of their heresy, yea, and challenged some of our preachers to disputation. Now although my bent has always been hitherto against the most dangerous enemy of our Church and State, the Jesuit, to extinguish such balls of wildfire as they have cast into the bosom of our Church; yet seeing this strange fire kindled in the neighbouring parishes, and many Nadabs and Abihus offering it on God’s altar, I thought it my duty to cast the water of Siloam upon it to extinguish it.’
The waters of Siloam must have been strangely foul in Featley’s days if his Dippers Dipped is to be regarded as a bucketful of the liquid.
Baptists of Southwark
The neighbouring region which was so sorely vexed with ‘strange fire’ was the borough of Southwark, which is the region in which the church now meeting in the Metropolitan Tabernacle was born.
The fortunes of war brought a Presbyterian parliament into power, but this was very little more favourable to religious liberty than the dominancy of the episcopalians; at least the Baptists did not find it so.
Mr Edwards, a precious brother of the stern ‘true blue’ school, told the magistrates that ‘they should execute some exemplary punishment upon some of the most notorious sectaries,’ and he charges the wicked Baptists with ‘dipping of persons in the cold water in winter, whereby persons fall sick’.
He kindly recommends the magistrates to follow the example of the Zurichers who drowned the dippers, and if this should not be feasible he urges that they should at least be proceeded against as rogues and vagabonds. No party at that time understood religious liberty to mean anything more than liberty for themselves.
The despised Baptists and Quakers and Independents alone perceived that consciences are under no human rule, but owe allegiance to the Lord alone. Even the Puritans considered universal toleration to be extremely dangerous. All the powerful churches thought it right to repress heresy (so called) by the secular power.
Things have gloriously altered now. No Presbyterian would now endorse a word of Edwards’ bitterness. Thank God, the light has come, and Christian men heartily accord liberty to each other.
Curbing of conscience
Moved by the feeling that it was the duty of the State to keep men’s consciences in proper order, Parliament set to work to curb the wicked sectaries, and Dr Stoughton tells us:—
‘By the Parliamentary ordinance of April, 1645, forbidding any person to preach who was not an ordained minister, in the Presbyterian, or some other reformed church — all Baptist ministers became exposed to molestation, they being accounted a sect, and not a church.’
The Metropolitan Tabernacle took its rise from one of the many Baptist assemblies which met in the borough of Southwark. Crosby says:—
‘This people had formerly belonged to one of the most ancient congregations of the Baptists in London, but separated from them in the year 1652, for some practices which they judged disorderly, and kept together from that time as a distinct body.’
They appear to have met in private houses, or in such other buildings as were open to them. The first pastor was William Rider, whom Crosby mentions as a sufferer for conscience sake. Oliver Cromwell was just at that time in the ascendance, and Blake’s cannon were sweeping the Dutch from the seas, but the Presbyterian establishment ruled with a heavy hand and Baptists were under a cloud.
When Cromwell was made Protector the old parliament was sent about its business and England enjoyed a large measure of liberty of conscience.
Mr Henry Jessey was at that time minister of St George’s Church, Southwark, and being a man of great weight, both as to character and learning, and also a Baptist, there is no doubt that Baptist views had much influence throughout the borough of Southwark and adjacent places.
If it is asked how a parish minister became a Baptist, we reply that Jessey first preached against immersion, and by his own arguments converted himself to the views which he had opposed, practising for some time the dipping of children.
Finding that many of his people went to Baptist meetings he studied the subject still further in order to be prepared to face these robbers of churches, and the result was that he was convinced of the scriptural nature of their opinions and was immersed by Mr Hanserd Knollys.
This event greatly strengthened the hands of the many Baptist churches on the south side of the river, and, no doubt, Mr Rider’s congregation felt the benefit. This would seem to have been a period of much religious heart-searching in which the ordinances of churches were tried by the Word of God, and men were determined to retain nothing which was not sanctioned by divine authority.
Thus there were many public disputes upon baptism, and, as the result, many became adherents of believers’ immersion, and Baptist churches sprang up on all sides.
Sword & Trowel 2006, NO 2