Baptists between 1640 and 1689 (Part 1)

Oliver Cromwell

In the 1640s England went through a period of civil war as Oliver Cromwell first came to dominate Parliament and then defeated King Charles I.  Cromwell’s new society was established through his innovative ‘New Model Army’, which kept order in a period of colossal political unrest.  Cromwell believed profoundly he was the instrument of Divine providence:  ‘I have not sought these things; truly I have been called unto them by the Lord.’ 

By 1648 Cromwell was finally convinced that the Puritan cause would never be successful until the King was removed.  He signed the order of Parliament which authorized Charles II’s execution in 1649.  Politically, Cromwell persisted with the inefficient ‘Long Parliament’, which was dominated by small cliques, until in 1653 he lost patience with it. He then introduced an Instrument of Government that made him Lord Protector, consistently refusing to be King, and ruled by a series of constitutional experiments. 

Cromwell effectively abolished the Church of England; removed Bishops, the Book of Common Prayer and The 39 Articles; and severed the close ties between church and state.  Cromwell, as a Puritan, embraced the intense spirituality of the Congregationalists; but his alternative ecclesiastical organization can only be called chaotic. 

How did Baptist Christians fare between 1640 and 1690, as England first flirted with republicanism, then endured the inevitable persecuting Royalist, Anglican backlash?  ‘Cromwell and after’ is the political and religious background of the Broadmead Records, Bristol. This provides a West Country description of Baptists, which is largely mirrored nationwide.  In the midst of the Civil War, a significant minority of Bristol Christians were in favour of ‘reformation without tarrying for any’. 

Dorothy, the wife of the vicar Matthew Hazzard, gathered a group of lay people around her.  They ‘separated’ themselves from the parish and began house meetings for worship.  They left parish worship, and identified with the Parliamentary forces in the English civil war.  In 1642 the city fell to Prince Rupert, and a large group of future Broadmeadians moved to London, where some joined William Kiffin, a Particular Baptist pastor, and others joined Henry Jessey, whose church had a communion table open to all.  When they returned to Bristol after Cromwell’s victory, the Broadmeadians received pastoral oversight from Thomas Ewins, a City Lecturer in Bristol.


Debates about the traditional relationship between Church and State raged, and presented Baptists with a series of awkward questions.  Should Baptist ministers be paid with the state funds Cromwell promised to give to all ‘godly ministers’ who preached faithfully? Baptists generally answered negatively, and after Cromwell, became convinced that congregations should support their ministers.  Should Baptists pay the ‘tithe’ [state tax] that enabled the state to pay godly magistrates? Most Baptists said ‘yes’. 

In this revolutionary period many, Baptists among them, believed the end of the world was very near.  The execution of Charles I, linked to prophecies in Daniel, led some Baptists to believe Christ’s millennium, a reign by Christ on earth for a 1000 years was about to begin, now, in England.  When Cromwell took ‘Lord Protector’ as his title, some saw this as a sure sign that Cromwell was the ‘anti-Christ’ of scripture.  Vavasor Powell, a Welsh minister in London, was reported to have sent his congregation home with this task: ‘Let us go home and pray, and say: “Lord, wilt Thou have Oliver Cromwell or Jesus Christ to reign over us?” and he was in no doubt as to what answer God would give.  It was not until 1658 that another contentious question in Broadmead, about the form of baptism, was resolved.  Broadmead adopted the practice of adult believers’ baptism, but in the words of John Bunyan’s 1673 pamphlet, it agreed that Differences in Judgment about Water-Baptism [provided] No  Bar to Communion. 

Once Cromwell had died, King Charles II returned to restore the monarchy in England.  The re-action of many Anglican clergy and re-instated Bishops, as well as the Anglican laity, was to persecute all Christians who declined to become a part of the restored Church of England.  Various Acts of Parliament were put through to re-establish the Church’s position in society.  Many Baptist pastors and people who failed to observe these Acts, were fined, had property and goods impounded, went to prison, and some were even transported to the West Indian plantations.  This happened in the West Country, under the regime of the notorious Judge Jeffery.  It was only the Test and Corporation Act[1689] that Baptists and other dissenters were finally allowed to have pastors, buildings for worship, and opportunities to engage in mission.

ROGER HAYDEN