English Baptists Research Articles

English Baptists Confessing the Faith in the Twentieth Century: A Response to Christopher Crocker

ABSTRACT This article is a brief response to the claim by Christopher Crocker that English Baptists in the twentieth century were post-confessionalism. The article argues that the Baptist Union’s Declaration of Principle of 1904 (revised in 1906 and 1938) is a theological and confessional text, which while it is brief, is in alignment with catholic and evangelical faith. In addition to the Declaration of Principle, the article provides further evidence in reciting the creed, statements of belief, denominational documents, and resources for worship to claim that Baptists remained a confessing people.

‘Some Agreeable Conversation’: Jonathan Edwards Among Early American Baptists

Abstract Jonathan Edwards has long been recognized for his theology, philosophy, biblical studies, and pastoral ministry. The influence of Edwards’s life and ministry has stretched both far and wide. While his effect among English Baptists has been examined in a variety of ways, less attention has been given to his influence among early Baptists in North America. This article provides a survey of the research concerning Edwards’s influence upon early Baptists in North America. It argues that early Baptists in North America have been more influenced by Edwards than previously recognized. These Baptists looked to Edwards for instruction on Scripture, theology, piety, conversion and revival, preaching and pastoral ministry, and missions. Yet, more work needs to be done to understand the full scope of the reception of Edwards by early Baptists in North America.

The State of Nineteenth-Century Baptist History

ABSTRACT The coverage of John Briggs’s The English Baptists of the Nineteenth Century (1994) allows us to examine many of the aspects of Baptist life as they had come to be understood nearly thirty years ago. Since then culture has come to the fore as a subject for historical study. At the summer conference of the Baptist Historical Society held at Woodbrooke, Birmingham, in July 2022 the theme was ‘Baptists in British Culture in the Nineteenth Century’. The papers delivered there point to fresh developments in Baptist studies and in particular the role of women, the place of slavery and the influence of the Enlightenment.

Inheritance of Delight: The Spirituality of Joseph Kinghorn

ABSTRACT Joseph Kinghorn is an underappreciated figure in the modern remembrance of Baptist history. Despite Kinghorn’s significant influence among English Baptists in his own time, he is rarely mentioned as a significant influence today. When he is remembered, it is often for his role in the controversy over strict communion. However, among those who knew the man, Kinghorn was best known for his remarkable amiability, character, and delight in the lord. In light of this, a reexamination of Kinghorn’s spirituality offers much to the modern reader. Of peculiar interest is how Kinghorn’s spirituality was formed in close relationship with his father. This study offers a short summary of Kinghorn’s spirituality within its historical context, with attention given to how it was formed in relationship with his father, and worked out in the life of the church.

‘A Very Remarkable Ministry’: John Charles Carlile C.H., C.B.E., D.D., D.Litt. (1861-1941)

ABSTRACT J. C. Carlile (1861-1941) was an English Baptist Minister, author and journalist. While at Spurgeon's Pastor's College he commenced his ministry in London dockland and actively participated in the 1889 London dockstrike. He was elected a member of the London School Board for the Borough of Southwark. Awarded a CBE for his wartime service during a 40 year ministry in Folkestone, in 1921 he was elected President of the Baptist Union of Great Britain. Later he briefly served as its General Secretary, and was for many years editor of the Baptist Times. In 1929 he was made a Companion of Honour. He made several visits to Canada and the USA, receiving honorary doctorates from two Canadian Universities. He was the author of several books, including The Story of the English Baptists (1905) and My Life's Little Day (1935).

The Münster Rising, Memories of Violence, and Perceptions of Dissent in Restoration England

AbstractThis article examines the ways in which the violent Anabaptist rising at Münster in 1533–5 was reinterpreted in Restoration England. Historians have often recognized that the incident was used to attack English Baptists in the seventeenth century, but there has been little systematic exploration of the processes behind this. This article suggests that recollections of Münster in later seventeenth-century England were a species of ‘cosmopolitan memory’ – an internationally shared memory of trauma put to distinctive local uses. References to Münster served as ways for English writers to tie nonconformists to specific acts of religious violence in England, including the Civil Wars and Thomas Venner's 1661 rising in London, without directly recalling these events. Historical discussions of the Münster rising therefore often directly transformed German Anabaptists into Quakers or Fifth Monarchists. Condemnations of the violence in the German city were also used by Congregationalists and Presbyterians to differentiate themselves from Baptists and Quakers and to emphasize their orthodoxy. Some Baptist writers responded by disclaiming their links to continental Anabaptists, while others moved to question the established historiography around the Münster rising. This article demonstrates these points through a range of sources, including sermons, letters, commentaries, controversial literature, and almanacs.

Seeking the Seekers

The Seekers, a supposed sect which flourished in late 1640s England, have generally been neglected by historians, with the exception of Quaker historiography, in which the Seekers play a pivotal but supporting role. This article argues that the Seeker phenomenon is worth attending to in its own right. Perhaps deriving from spiritualist, radical and Dutch Collegiant roots, it also represents the logical outcome of English Baptists and other radicals trying and failing to find ecclesiological certainty, and being driven to the conclusion that no true church exists or (for some Seekers) can exist. The article concludes by examining how the Seeker life was lived, whether as austere, apophatic withdrawal; a veering into libertinism; or by forming provisional communities, communities which did, in some cases, serve as a gateway to Quakerism.

Instruction, Education, Nurture – Changing Understandings of Christian Education among English Baptists in the Twentieth Century

ABSTRACT English Baptists regarded the Sunday School as an agency for producing a flow of committed members into the local church through the instruction of children. The twentieth century began with well-established patterns of instruction. This article examines the contribution of Baptists, throughout the twentieth century, to new thinking about educational methods, continuing faith development beyond childhood and the congregation as a learning community. Some changes were adopted such as organising children in age groups and moving Sunday School to the morning. However other proposals were not and the focus on the instruction given rather than the learning encouraged remained influential.

The Doctrine of the Extent of the Atonement among the Early English Particular Baptists

AbstractThis essay challenges the view that the early English Baptists who are often labeled as “Particular Baptists” always held a doctrine of strict particularism or particular redemption. It does so on the basis of the two London Baptist Confessions of 1644 and 1646. The main argument asserted here is that the two earliest confessions of the English Particular Baptists supported a variety of positions on the doctrine of the atonement because they focus on the subjective application of Christ’s work rather than his objective accomplishment. The first two editions of the earliest London Baptist confession represent a unique voice that reflects an attempt to include a range of Calvinistic views on the atonement. Such careful ambiguity reflects the pattern of Reformed confessionalism in the seventeenth century. This paper then goes on to argue that some individuals did indeed hold to “strict particularism”—which is compatible with, but not required by, the first two confessions.

English Baptists and the Struggle for Theological Authority, 1642–1646

This article explores interactions between Baptist lay theologians and ordained clergy during the first English civil war. Despite their marginalised position outside the national Church, Baptists employed a variety of innovative techniques to coerce ordained ministers into debates which the latter would have preferred to avoid. Though Baptists during the period did not achieve intellectual parity with the members of the Westminster Assembly and others whom they sought to influence, their efforts contributed to an ongoing transition within the early modern English Atlantic whereby religious culture was made more participatory and theological authority democratised.

Succession History: Some Early Baptist Perspectives

Most modern researchers have been dismissive of connexions between seventeenth-century English Baptists and the Anabaptists. It is often assumed that the eighteenth-century historian, Thomas Crosby, was the first to suggest a type of succession between the English Baptists and other religious radicals of centuries past. This article explores the historical theory of some early English Baptists who regarded the Anabaptists and other sects as their forebears. Some early leaders of the English Baptists did not embrace successionism, but others did, and their presence reveals an acceptance of Anabaptism that is seldom acknowledged in contemporary historiography.

Faithful Accounts?: The Hampton Court Conference and The King James Bible in Early Eighteenth-Century Dissenting Histories

In the first decades of the eighteenth century, English Dissenters composed several histories in order to vindicate the theological standards of Protestant nonconformity, to agitate for the civil liberties denied Dissenters by the Test and Corporation Acts, and to fashion new identities for the latest generation of Dissenters which was suffering defections to the Anglican Church. Interestingly, the 1611 translation received remarkably little notice in the three most notable histories from the three Dissenting traditions. Following Edmund Calamy's Abridgment of Mr. Baxter's Narrative (1702), arguably the most noteworthy Dissenting histories of the era were A Vindication of the Dissenters (1717 and 1718) by the presbyterian James Peirce, The History of the Puritans published in the 1730s by the Independent minister Daniel Neal (1678-1743), and The History of the English Baptists (1738-1740) written by the Baptist mathematician Thomas Crosby (c.1685-1752). This article summarizes the depictions of James I, the Hampton Court conference, and the resulting translation in the histories and the article contends that the treatments of the conference and translation serve as windows to the overarching arguments of the histories.

THE POLITICS OF ESCHATOLOGY

English Baptists viewed Scotland as a prime mission field from the early 1650s. Prominent Baptists such as Colonel Robert Lilburne, Commander-in-Chief of Cromwell’s forces in Scotland, did all they could to promote their cause. English Baptist congregations were formed, which included some Scottish converts. However, an indigenous Baptist infrastructure was never established. The churches did not survive the removal of English leadership following allegations of Baptist plots against Cromwell.

The early English Baptists, 1603–1649. By Stephen Wright. Pp. x+278. Woodbridge: Boydell, 2006. £50. 1 84383 195 3

An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content.

The Early English Baptists, 1603-1649

The Early English Baptists, 1603-1649

The Early English Baptists, 1603-1649

The Early English Baptists, 1603-1649

Book Review: Early English Baptists

Book Review: Early English Baptists

ENGLISH BAPTISTS OF THE 20th CENTURY

This was the Annual Lecture of the Baptist Historical Society, delivered on 16 April 2005 at the launch of Dr Randall’s book The English Baptists of the Twentieth Century, completing the new Baptist History series published by the Society

Book Review: The English Baptists of the Twentieth Century

Book Review: The English Baptists of the Twentieth Century

The English Baptists of the nineteenth century. By J. H. Y. Briggs. (A History of the English Baptists, 3.). Pp. 432. Didcot: Baptist Historical Society, 1994. £20 (cloth), £15 (paper) from The Treasurer, 28 Dowthorpe Hill, Earls Barton, Northampton NN6 oPB. 0 903166 19 4 ; 0 903166 18 6

The English Baptists of the nineteenth century. By J. H. Y. Briggs. (A History of the English Baptists, 3.). Pp. 432. Didcot: Baptist Historical Society, 1994. £20 (cloth), £15 (paper) from The Treasurer, 28 Dowthorpe Hill, Earls Barton, Northampton NN6 oPB. 0 903166 19 4 ; 0 903166 18 6