Within the last few months, Dan and I have thrown our hat in the ring to retrieve the Particular Baptist view on the question of civil government. Our conclusions have bucked against the common ideas people have about the Baptist view of religious liberty. Many seem to assume that if they advocated any view of religious liberty and liberty of conscience, they must have advocated our modern view of those things. The prevailing notion of religious liberty we have today is so ingrained in the modern mind that it can hardly be imagined to have any other meaning. It should be no surprise, then, that there would be some push-back against evidence to the contrary, especially from those who are quite attached to the modern view and have been happily celebrating their Baptist forebears as the pioneers of it. But regardless of what one might want to be true about the matter, the reality is that the Particular Baptists did not push for a modern conception of religious liberty that seeks to divorce God from the state altogether. Instead, they advocated for a more moderate position chiefly concerned with freedom of worship, without throwing off all common-sense restrictions. This allowed them to protest the government overstepping its bounds in the punishing of dissenting Christian worshipers without countenancing blatant immorality.
We have presented and advocated their position in several places: see our podcast episode on the subject, my blog article, and also our response to Stephen Wolfe’s book. The purpose of this article is to vindicate our historical claims against challenges we have received, which the article will be broken down by. In the process, it will be demonstrated that the moderate view was not only present among the old Particular Baptists, but was, in fact, the consensus view.
Did Blackwood Recant?
We have made frequent use of a quote from Christopher Blackwood as representative of the views of the early Particular Baptists. It’s helpful to illustrate the complexity in the thought of Baptists when it came to religious liberty, showing that they were able to affirm liberty without affirming anything like a modern secular government:
“Objection 2. Magistrates are to be a terror to evil workers, Rom. 13. But heresy is an evil work.
Answer. Evil works are of three sorts.
1. Those that are committed against the light of nature and reason, as the setting up of Muhammad, or any other God besides him that is the creator of heaven and earth; Atheism, when any man shall boldly affirm there is no God, Polytheism, when men affirm many gods, Blasphemy, Murder, Adultery, False witness, Perjury, Theft, Disobedience to parents, Sedition, Sodomy, Buggery, Drunkenness, tumults against the public peace, &c. These and such like, the Magistrate, whether heathen or christian, is to be a terror unto.
2. Against the light of Nations; there is no nation in the world, but in it the magistrate will punish those that speak against the God they profess, and against that which they think his Scripture; So if any one rail against Christ, or deny the Scriptures to be his Word, or affirm the Epistles to be only Letters written to particular churches, and no rule for us, and so unsettle our faith; This I take may be punished by the Magistrate, because all or most Nations in the world do it.
3. A third sort of evil works, are those that are committed against the light of faith, as denial of Christ, walking contrary to a mans own principles, presenting our selves at false worship, pride, covetousness, unbelief, impenitence, rotten communication, heresy, schism; these I suppose, and many such, which are no less evil works, then the other, the Magistrate cannot be a terror unto, but they must be left to the respective Churches, of which the persons offending are members. The Apostle calls the Magistrate a terror to evil works, but not to all evil works, and if he be a terror to all evil works done against light of faith, what need we contend for any government by Ecclesiastical discipline, being the Magistrate hath power in his own hand to punish, therefore evil workers against the light of faith, may be permitted in the world, though not in the Churches.”
Christopher Blackwood, The Storming of Antichrist, pp. 23-24
I continue to find the threefold distinction of Blackwood quite helpful in addressing the full spectrum of the government’s boundaries. It rightly makes a distinction between things known by nature and things known by grace and provides the helpful category of the light of nations, which enables us to affirm common acts of governmental deference to religion (such as national holidays, laws against despiteful railings against the core values of the people, etc.). But this quote has come to receive more backlash than any other material we’ve presented on the subject on account of an alleged retraction that Blackwood made in a later work. Critics have argued that Blackwood abandoned his former position and came to embrace something much more akin to the modern absolute tolerationist view, making no room for the light of nations or the first table of the law in civil government.
From the outset, it should be stressed that the views of Blackwood do not automatically become the views of the whole Particular Baptist tradition on any issue he addressed (any more than my views represent all Baptists today). He was only one man. He undoubtedly was an important minister who contributed much to the movement, but he was not even a signer of any of the three editions of the First London confession. A change in his opinion would not mean a change in the opinion of the whole community without further evidence. I don’t continue to use him simply because anything he says is automatically representative, but rather because what he says in the quote does happen to be representative (as will be shown). It’s a very fine articulation of the general beliefs on the subject, and that would remain true even if he did completely reject those principles later in life.
That being said, the retraction he is accused of is exaggerated and there’s reason to believe it was only a brief one. The retraction itself (which can be found in his 1646 work, Apostolicall Baptisme) was not a retraction of his entire position, but only of his light of nations doctrine. Further, it was not even a full repudiation of that teaching, but only an admittance that he now found it to be “uncertain” [p. 83]. Here is the relevant section:
“I retract the foresaid distinction, as suspecting it of error, and distinguish sins, that they are either against the light of Nature, as tumults, whoredom, drunkenness, theft; or against the light of faith, as pride, covetousness, unbelief, schism, heresy, etc., the former belongs to the Magistrate to punish, the latter belongs to the respective Churches to censure, and not to the Magistrate to meddle with: and for sins against the light of Nations, I retract the same as being utterly uncertain, that the Magistrate hath any such power; yea, I do think the Magistrate hath no power, as he is a Magistrate, in or about matters of religious worship, but only to preserve the peace, that no man be molested in or about his worship.”
Christopher Blackwood, Apostolicall Baptisme, p. 83
As can be seen, Blackwood maintains his distinction of sins against the light of nature and the light of faith but drops the distinction he made about sins committed against the light of nations. He insists that magistrates have no power in matters of religious worship and can only work to preserve the public peace, evidently being concerned that the power to punish sins against the light of nations could result in the magistrate overstepping his bounds. But the fact that he treats such a power as “uncertain” implies that — even in his strongest retraction — he doesn’t completely dismiss the possibility that the power might be consistent with the boundaries he’s set for the magistrate. Rather, he’s unsure whether it would be or not, and so he retracts. For reasons we’ve explained elsewhere, however, we believe that this power isn’t necessarily inconsistent with the boundaries Blackwood sets, despite his (probably temporary) uncertainty about it.
So, there is a retraction, but only a partial one without a repudiation. He continues to affirm the light of nature and light of faith distinction.
Some, however, claim he does more than this. They claim he essentially takes a second table-only position and recants his statements about atheism and blasphemy being punishable by the magistrate. But he is clear about what he recants here, and it’s only the light of nations distinction. He plainly says that he continues to uphold the light of nature and light of faith distinction without a word about only affirming the second table. We’ve heard the objection that he tacitly changes his view because he didn’t mention atheism or blasphemy in the list of sins against the light of nature, but he doesn’t mention the sins of adultery, sodomy, or sedition either. In fact, he only mentions four of the fifteen sins that he listed against the light of nature in his first work, which is less than a third of them. This is a heavily truncated list, only containing a few instances of each category of sins (as the use of the word “as” in the above quote indicates — i.e., these are examples). There’s no reason to assume he recanted anything he didn’t mention when he is open and candid about the thing he is recanting.
Further, he had a good reason for not mentioning those sins here because he goes on to make a qualification about them in his postscript. This postscript has again been mistaken as a retraction, but he is explicit that the purpose of his qualification is “to avoid all retractions, and that I may not be urged by my conscience, to print any recantation, in case I should be mistaken in so weighty a matter” [emphasis added]. Rather than a retraction, Blackwood makes a qualification about how far the civil magistrate can go when it comes to sins against the first table of the law:
“Let the Reader also further inquire, whether the Magistrate have power to punish gross idolatry, and blasphemy against God, Christ, the Scriptures, and holiness, and seducements of persons by corrupt doctrines in fundamental points, when there is no violation of the public peace; These being real doubts to me, I will determine nothing on any side. Yet seeing there is nothing that I know of in the New Testament for the same, my conscience for the present inclines me rather to think, That conservation of peace, equity, sobriety, &c. is the adequate object of the Magistrates power: Yet (knowing there are many instances in the Old Testament, of Magistrates that have used a coercive power herein, and knowing how hard it is for a Christian spirit who loves his God to hear him blasphemed, or to see any man, much more a dear friend, seduced in doctrines that being fundamentally erroneous will damn their souls) I have some fear of the contrary.”
Chrisopher Blackwood, Apostolicall Baptisme, Postscript
To reiterate, Blackwood does not present this as a retraction like he did for the light of nations, but rather as a further inquiry. In other words, it’s contemplating a new distinction based on what has been established (rather than overthrowing what has been established). The new distinction is laid out in the first sentence: scenarios dealing with first table offenses (as well as even some of the light of nations offenses which were otherwise set aside) when “there is no violation of the public peace” [emphasis added]. Blackwood has already established that sins against the light of nature can be punished, including sins against the first table of the law such as blasphemy, but now — without retracting this — he considers whether this means that these kinds of offenses should be punished in all cases or whether a further distinction needs to be made. I.e., should these kinds of offenses only be punished if they violate the public peace?
One online interlocutor suggested that a “violation of the public peace” refers strictly to rioting, but in the next sentence Blackwood clearly defines the sphere of the civil magistrate as including the “conservation of peace, equity, and sobriety,” which would cover both rioting and its potential precursors. But for our purpose, the exact extent of his definition of public peace is not terribly important. The important thing is that he implicitly reaffirms that there are circumstances in which these violations of the first table can be punished. That is not insignificant. Even if we restrict ourselves to the extreme example of riots, there are many cases where the guilt of the riot lays exclusively upon the people who were provoked instead of the people they were provoked by (such as the riot against the Apostle Paul in Ephesus that we see in Acts 19). But to deny that this is necessarily the case for blasphemy and similar offenses is to affirm that those acts themselves could be justly blamed and punished in the event of a riot, which means they can be recognized by the state to be evil acts. Hence, even the attempt to make this distinction shows that Blackwood still fundamentally affirms what he asserted in Storming of Antichrist: sins against the light of nature can be punished by the magistrate.
To summarize: Blackwood makes a partial retraction in regards to the light of nations and considers a new distinction for the light of nature, but he in no respect advocates for a purely secular government or universal toleration of everything. Nor does he even deny anything that he previously affirmed; he simply views his light of nations doctrine as uncertain, and likewise professes uncertainty about the new distinction he suggests about only punishing blasphemy when it violates the public peace.
But even this uncertainty was not a result of the rest of the Baptist community pushing back against him. Far from it. In a contemporary work, Thomas Edwards records an account of Blackwood’s shifting views, and it was spurred by a single commander in the army who didn’t agree with the limitations he had expressed (The Third Part of Gangraena, p. 98). It was the result of push-back from a personal friend who may or may not have even been a Particular Baptist. There is nothing about Blackwood’s uncertainty in his opinions that would lead us to believe that the Particular Baptists as a whole were uncertain. On the contrary, we will see in the rest of this article that the Particular Baptists continued to push-back against universal toleration and that Blackwood himself, in a little over a decade, would come to align with men who were affirming the very things we saw him retract.
Was the Declaration of 1659 Anonymous?
We have now come to the section of the article where our claim will begin to be vindicated — namely, the claim that boundaries on toleration was the consensus view of the Particular Baptists. Blackwood is an interesting and helpful case study, but his personal opinions about the subject mean nothing unless there is evidence that his beliefs reflected the wider community. For the purposes of this article, Blackwood could have had the views of a Covenanter or a Quaker and it wouldn’t make an ounce of difference if his views reflected no one but himself. The best way to discover the consensus view of a historical group of people isn’t by looking at one or two individuals, but rather by looking at their consensus documents and any descriptions of the group by contemporary witnesses. And thankfully, by the providence of God, some such documents are still extant.
The most remarkable consensus document we have on the subject is the 1659 Declaration of Several of the People called Anabaptists, In and about the City of London. This document was signed by 24 Particular Baptists, including two of the three Particular Baptists who signed both the First London Confession and the Second London (William Kiffin and Hanserd Knollys), as well as many of the other most important leaders of the movement, such as John Spilsbury, Henry Jessey, and John Tombes. If there is any document that could be considered to be representative of the early Particular Baptists, it would be a document signed by these men. And this declaration is crystal clear on the very subject we have been reviewing:
“Whereas we are further charged with endeavoring an universal Toleration of all miscarriages, both in things Religious and Civil, under pretense of Liberty of Conscience; it is in both respects notoriously false. And we do before the Lord, that shall judge both quick and dead, yea, before Angels and men, declare our utter detestation of such a Toleration; for in matters Civil, we desire there may not be the least Toleration of miscarriage in any, much less in our selves. Nor do we desire, in matters of Religion, that Popery should be tolerated, the blood of many thousands of the people of God, having been barbarously shed, by the Professors thereof; or any persons tolerated, that worship a false god; nor any that speak contemptuously and reproachfully of our Lord Jesus Christ; nor any that deny the holy Scriptures, contained in the Books of the Old and New Testament, to be the Word of God.”
Declaration of Several of the People called Anabaptists, In and about the City of London
These leading Particular Baptists not only deny universal toleration, but decry any accusation of holding it as “notoriously false,” and take an oath before God and men that they have an “utter detestation” of such a universal toleration of everything in the civil and religious realms. They not only disagree with the doctrine of universal toleration, but hold it in contempt as a wicked accusation to be laid upon them. And when they go on to describe the things they had no desire to tolerate, we see them defend the involvement of the civil government in a way perfectly consistent with the very categories that Blackwood had in Storming of Antichrist. They were not at all influenced by his uncertainty thirteen years prior. They mention a light of nature sin (worship of a false god) and two light of nations sins (speaking contemptuously about Christ, denying the Scriptures), but allow for liberty in the light of faith: the next sentence after the above quoted section states, “And yet, we are not against tolerating of Episcopacy, Presbytery, or any stinted form, provided they do not compel any others to a compliance therewith, or a conformity thereunto.” They then expand a bit more on this liberty of the light of faith in the following paragraph:
“For as much as we are charged, with designs, to murder or destroy those that differ from us in matters of Religion; We do not only abhor and detest it, as a cursed practice; but we hope, have approved our selves, both in this City and the Nation, to the contrary; notwithstanding the great provocation of some, who have endeavored our ruin: for all we desire, is just liberty to men, as men; that every man may be preserved in his own just rights, and that Christians may be preserved as Christians, though of different Apprehensions in some things of Religion”
Declaration of Several of the People called Anabaptists, In and about the City of London
The Baptists again express their detestation of the charge laid against them, and repudiate any persecution that’s grounded on simple differences in religion (which, as I’ve argued before, refers chiefly to worship and practice rather than anything merely related to the supernatural). The only thing that might, at first glance, seem out of step with non-interference in the light of faith is their refusal to extend toleration to Roman Catholics. But the reason for this refusal is clear: they denied this liberty to Rome because Rome had proved itself to be a violent and subversive religion to them and their nation, slaying thousands of Protestants in England less than 100 years before the writing of this declaration. The Baptists here give no indication that they would have been unwilling to even extend such liberty to Roman Catholics if they would worship peacefully within the bounds of the light of nature and nations. With this in mind, all of their statements are perfectly in line with the principles laid out by Blackwood in 1644. 15 years later, the leaders of the Particular Baptist movement hadn’t moved an inch.
The weightiness of the words and authors of this declaration are so great that some went as far as to try to deny the legitimacy of the document altogether. To some, the words went so strongly against their conception of the Baptist view that they dismissed the document as having to have been made by somebody else. Because the extant document doesn’t list the names of the signers, some wrongly concluded that the declaration was published anonymously. This, however, is false. It’s true that the copy we have of the declaration doesn’t contain the names, but the declaration originally contained a postscript that listed the signatories. This postscript was referenced by two different Quakers who replied against the declaration in the same year it was published, one of whom prints the list of signatories in full, and the other (who wrote slightly earlier) also mentions the postscript and addresses the signatories as “the heads and Principal men of your congregations…chief Pastors, Elders, and Members (so-called) of Churches.” And, even more devastating to the nay-sayers, many of the same men who signed the declaration also signed another address a year later in 1660, which explicitly cites and owns the 1659 declaration as being one of their works. The 1660, again signed by such men as William Kiffin and John Spilsbury, included its own postscript to prove that their stance towards submission to the civil magistrate had not changed, and to that end they decided to “extract out of our former Confessions of Faith, and Declarations, our constant Principles to which we have been (and shall always endeavor (the Lord assisting us) that our practice may still be) conformable in this great point concerning Magistracy and civil Government” (The Humble Apology of Some Commonly Called Anabaptists, p. 16). Along with a piece from the First London Confession and a few other public documents, they quoted the first part of their response found in the 1659 declaration verbatim. If the 1659 was some kind of Quaker forgery, apparently Kiffin, Spilsbury, and the eight other men who signed both documents were fooled by it!
The 1659 can be even further vindicated by the other writings of the signatories. While most of them do not have much in the way of extant writings, much less writings on this specific subject, the historical record isn’t entirely wanting. Henry Jessey, for example, wrote a work in 1656 which advocated for the liberty of Jews to return to England. He went as far as to say they ought to even be allowed to worship in their own synagogues. Yet, he also gave a few caveats:
“Here they might have their Synagogues, &c. Provided that due care be had in respect of these, as much as is, or ought to be, in respect of our own, and other Nations, to prevent:
Henry Jessey, A Narrative of the Late Proceedings at White-Hall, Concerning the Jews, p. 5
Blaspheming the Lord Jesus Christ; Adoring the Law; Seducing others; All unrighteousness, &c.”
These statements fit well into the model advocated earlier by Blackwood. Even the Jews were seen to have freedom when it came to the light of faith and the right to worship God according to their conscience. Jews are not polytheists, and while they may worship God incorrectly because they worship Him outside of Christ, the object of their devotion was still based on God’s self-revelation in the Old Testament and in accordance with the light of nature. Accordingly, Jessey and others saw no reason why not to extend religious liberty to them. Yet, he still advocates for certain measures to be taken by the civil government to prevent them from committing sins against the light of nations (e.g., blasphemy of Christ) and the light of nature (e.g., all unrighteousness). While Jessey may be a somewhat unlikely witness for the mainstream Baptists in regard to questions of civil government due to his association with the Fifth Monarchy movement (which movement will be described later), he nevertheless belonged to the most moderate wing of that movement, continued to closely associate with the Baptists who stood against it, and was even willing to work with Cromwell’s government in spite of the movement’s utter detestation of that regime. Thus, despite some differences, we see he was in line with the rest of the mainstream Baptists when it came to this question of limited toleration — indeed, perfectly in line with what we observe in the 1659.
We see limits on liberty expounded in the writings of the signatory John Tombes as well. Tombes had his own idiosyncracies that have caused some to question what label should be assigned to him, but he was undoubtedly one of the most influential figures in the early Particular Baptist movement. In many ways, Tombes went even further than Blackwood when it came to the extent of involvement he allowed for the civil government. He made none of Blackwood’s distinctions in his interpretation of Romans 13, but flatly denies that we can make any at all:
“[The Apostle Paul] saith without limitation, that Rulers are not a terror to good works but to evil: wilt thou not be afraid of the power? do that which is good, and thou shalt have praise of the same, he is the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doth evil, Rom. 13:3-4. Kings and Governors sent by them are for the punishment of evil doers, and for the praise of them that do well, without limitation and distinction of Civil and Spiritual things, 1 Pet. 2:14. Now where the Law doth not distinguish, neither are we, and therefore are to understand the Governing in the text to be in Religious things as well as Civil”
John Tombes, A Serious Consideration of the Oath of the Kings Supremacy, pp. 19-20
Tombes, as can be seen, has no qualms allowing the civil government to be a terror to evil works even in the domain of religion. Yet, for all this, he is not entirely against liberty either. In fact, in the process of defending the oath to the king that they were asked to make (which was the main subject of the work), he explicitly addresses the concern that some had that it would be a violation of the “liberties of their consciences in Religion” (p. 24). He flatly denies that it would lead to any loss of religious liberty to the brethren, implicitly showing that he himself valued it. While Tombes may have had a more heavy-handed conception of the magistrate’s involvement in religion than many of the other brethren, his views were still in line with the general statements of the 1659. He is certainly another witness that Particular Baptists and those in their circles were not advocates of a purely secular government.
The legitimacy of the 1659, then, as well as its consistency with other Particular Baptist writings of the time, is soundly established. It has more to speak to its authenticity than a great portion of works from that era that are taken for granted without nearly as much corroboration — dismissals of it cannot be taken seriously without a willingness to overthrow huge swaths of the historical record altogether. What’s more, there’s another interesting signatory of the 1660 besides the men already mentioned: Christopher Blackwood. Despite his hesitancy in 1646, by 1660 he apparently had no issue standing shoulder to shoulder with the men who embraced the 1659 as their own work. Of course, he did more than simply stand with them — he himself signed the document that embraced the 1659 as a faithful expression of their views. It’s true that his signature is not on the 1659 itself, but he did the next best thing by signing the 1660. It appears he wasn’t even in England in 1659 to have signed that first declaration anyway, since he locates himself as still being in Dublin when he published his Expositions and sermons upon the ten first chapters of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, according to Matthew that year. But signing the 1660 gives us good reason to believe that Blackwood himself came around again as the Baptist opinion on these subjects further solidified.
The 1659, as great as a witness as it is, is not the only extant public document we have on the subject either. Several Particular Baptist churches in Northumberland met together in 1654 to sign their own address to the Lord Protector (i.e., Oliver Cromwell), and in the process expressed their prayers that Cromwell would “suppress all profaneness, idolatry, atheism, blasphemy, the contempt of scriptures, ordinances, and seasons of God’s worship,” the very same kinds of offenses that we have seen the Particular Baptists consistently give over to the ministry of the sword.
We also have the testimony of a very significant enemy: Thomas Edwards. We have already brought up Edwards as a contemporary witness of Blackwood’s hesitancy, with Edwards pouncing on this hesitancy as an instance of the radical errors he was seeing in his day. The very fact that Edwards elicits Blackwood’s uncertainty as significant is itself testimony that such views were extraordinary among Particular Baptists. Otherwise, Edwards would not have cited it as a remarkable thing. But besides this implicit testimony is the much more explicit one he gives later in the work. Setting his sights on a book licensor by the name of John Bachiler, he contrasts Bachiler’s radical view with the views of others in his time:
“This Master Bachiler hath Licensed several Pamphlets for a Toleration, yea not only for a limited bounded Toleration of some Sects and opinions, as suppose Anabaptists, Independents; but for a Universal general Toleration of all con∣sciences and opinions … pleading for a Toleration of Papists, Jews, every person or persons differing in Religion; and that it may be lawful, for them to write, dispute, confer, print and publish, any matter touching Religion, either for or against whomsoever”
Thomas Edwards, The Third Part of Gangraena, p. 103 [emphasis added]
In pointing out the radical views of Bachiler’s universal toleration, Edwards makes clear that he goes far beyond the views of the Anabaptists and Independents, who only argue for “a limited bounded toleration of some sects and opinions.” By Anabaptist, of course, he meant the English Baptists of his day, and probably especially referred to the Particular Baptists since they worked closely with the Independents and even signed joint-documents with them on occasion (such as the 1647 declaration on liberty of conscience). This testimony of Edwards is especially powerful given the fact that he had no desire to paint the Baptists as any less radical than they were and even wrote against the signers of the First London Confession. Yet, he treats it as a well-known fact that they did not advocate the limitless toleration of a man like Bachiler. Thus, we can see how the 1659 can justly say that claims to the contrary are “notoriously false.” Even their enemies knew it.
What About Roger Williams and John Clarke?
By this point, we have seen a consensus view of bounded toleration emerge from Particular Baptist public documents, personal works, and even through the description of one of their chief adversaries. Now, it remains to look at the figures who are commonly cited in opposition to this view, the chief of whom are Roger Williams and John Clarke.
The first things to note about these men is what they are known for. They aren’t remembered for being chief leaders of the early Particular Baptist community. Rather, they are known precisely for their innovations on the subject of religious liberty and for the sufferings they endured for their cause in New England. In other words, they are famous for being different on this subject, which makes them the last place to turn if we want to understand what was normal. Therefore, the practice of some people in citing them and one or two others in order to proclaim universal toleration as the unanimous position of the Baptists is inexcusable. It would be a bit like citing only a few prominent loyalists on the subject of the American Revolution and then concluding most Americans were against the war.
But there are yet additional reasons why we should not take the writings of these men as representative of the Particular Baptist view, and by the end of this section a clear pattern will emerge. First, for Roger Williams, any attempt to make him representative should mention the length of his career as a Baptist: about four months. Roger Williams may have helped found the First Baptist Church in America, but he quickly abandoned affiliation with any church or denomination and declared himself a Seeker for the rest of his life. The shortness of his time as a Baptist should make his ability to represent the Baptist position questionable, at best. Further, Roger Williams leans on the works of General Baptists, especially John Murton, in the articulation and defense of his position. As Tom Nettles notes of Williams’ work:
“His primary work began as a defense of Murton against John Cotton. The works of Helwys, Smyth, and Busher were also familiar to Williams and he employed arguments, vocabulary, and imagery reminiscent of these pioneer thinkers. Originality was not so much Williams’ accomplishment in this area as expansion and detailed application”
Tom Nettles, Beginnings in America, vol. 2, The Baptists: Key People Involved in Forming a Baptist Identity (Ross-shire, Scotland: Mentor, 2005), p. 39.
All four of those men Williams drew from (Murton, Helwys, Smyth, and Busher) were General (Arminian) Baptists. Roger Williams was not giving the Particular Baptist position of religious liberty in his famous work, but the General Baptist view. It does not belong to the Particular Baptist strand of thought on this subject, and therefore is not representative of it.
As one who remained in the Particular Baptist camp and had associations with some of the leading men, John Clarke would be a significantly better choice to represent the universal toleration position than Roger Williams. Of course, Clarke’s tight relationship with Williams in Rhode Island and the dependency his arguments had on his likewise makes it questionable how organically his positions arose out of Particular Baptist thought. But even more discrediting is his affiliation with a movement that would put him outside the confessional bounds of this topic of civil government — namely, the Fifth Monarchy movement. Fifth Monarchy men were known for desiring the overthrow of the ruling government in order to secure the advent of the Millennium. Some, such as Thomas Venner, sought to accomplish this dream through violence, but all of them were opposed to the powers that be (despite the inconsistency of some of the moderates like Jessey). This movement was opposed by the leading Particular Baptists, as can be seen by the letter signed by Kiffin, Spilsbury, and Joseph Fansom around 1653, where they say that the success of the Fifth Monarchists “would have brought as great dishonor to the name of God, and shame and contempt to the whole nation, as we think could have been imagined” (Letter from Mr. Kiffen and Others, to the People of Ireland). In fact, it was after the insurrection of the Fifth Monarchist Thomas Venner that the Particular Baptists made the 1660 Address that was mentioned in the last section, insisting to the government that they never held to the principles of these radicals by quoting the First London Confession, the 1659 Declaration, and other such documents. In other words, then, the views of the Fifth Monarchy men were outside the confessional bounds embraced by the mainstream Particular Baptist movement.
But John Clarke himself was a Fifth Monarchist. Thomas Dwight Bozeman, a former professor at the University of Iowa who specializes in the Puritan radicalism of 1640-1660, documents Clarke’s association with the movement as potentially beginning as early as 1649 and that he was certainly involved by 1654. In a letter written in 1655, Clarke saluted the Fifth Monarchist regicide John Carew. Attending the funeral of another leading Monarchist, John Pendarves, the funeral erupted into a pro-Monarchist rally. According to Bozeman, Clarke both “signed and may have helped author the ensuing protest” (p. 78). Clarke, then, was outside the confessional boundaries when it came to his view on civil government, which is precisely the doctrinal area where he is so often quoted for. He may have been orthodox in other areas of theology, but when it came to politics he was a radical, and therefore cannot be taken to be representative of Particular Baptist thought on political theology. He does not represent the mainstream view of the rights and authority of the state.
We conclude, then, that any citation of John Clarke and Roger Williams as representatives of Particular Baptist political theology is wrong headed. One was scarcely ever a Baptist, and the other was a political radical. But were there any other men of the 17th Century who held to their persuasion? The British historian, John Coffey, while prefacing his discussion by stating that the Particular Baptists likely “were generally more conservative on the issue than their Arminian cousins” (p. 966), nevertheless documents six Particular Baptists who favored universal toleration: John Clarke, Samuel Richardson, Thomas Collier, John Vernon, Henry Danvers, and Richard Laurence. We have already discussed Clarke, but a few brief comments on the rest of these individuals will allow the pattern we mentioned to become evident:
- Samuel Richardson and Thomas Collier: I combine these men together because they are the classical examples of men who fell into heretical doctrine from the Particular Baptist community — Richardson from the era of First London, and Collier from the era of Second London. It gives me no delight to say that, especially for Richardson. Richardson signed the first two editions of the First London Confession, worked closely with men like Spilsbury and Kiffin, and zealously advocated for the perfect sufficiency of the work of Christ for sinners (although he fell into the error John Gill would later make regarding the timing and reception of justification, yet likewise without denying the true nature of justification itself). Unfortunately, however, it appears he eventually departed from the orthodox circles, and by 1660 wrote a treatise denying the biblical doctrine of Hell. As for his political views, Coffey notes that Richardson drew heavily on Roger Williams and was also a close friend of John Lilburne, the Leveller (a leader of another radical political movement which sought a near-total democratization of British society, including the removal of all kings, lords, and the state church). As for Thomas Collier, his departure into heresy was so notorious that it was likely the impetus for the Baptists to draft the Second London Confession to defend the rest of them. His errors are well-known to those familiar with Particular Baptist history, including a denial of the orthodox doctrine of Hell, promotion of Arianism, and a form of (literal) universalism that extended salvation to every rock and tree.
- John Vernon and Henry Danvers: These men likewise belong together because they followed the same course — both Vernon and Danvers were Levellers in the 1640s, and by the 1650s “both had thrown in their lot with the Fifth Monarchists” (p. 978). In other words, they went from one radical political movement to another. Danvers, furthermore, became a General Baptist in the 1650s and made numerous plots to overthrow the government after the restoration in 1660. Needless to say, both were well outside the confessional bounds on the question of civil government.
- Richard Laurence: While it’s entirely possible that Coffey is aware of something that I’m not, I haven’t found any evidence that Richard Laurence was a Baptist at all. In the work cited by Coffey where Laurence affirms universal toleration, Laurence plainly shows no interest in identifying with any specific group of Christians: “I would not have thee flatter thy expectation, by thinking to meet with something in this Discourse, that should tend to the setting up, or casting down any one practice or opinion now received or held forth by the Believers (of several judgments) in this Kingdom, which are but as so many Bubbles risen upon the water: And when a strong gale of that Spirit, which bloweth where it listeth, shall breath upon them, they shall all break and fall” [Richard Laurence, The Antichristian Presbyter, Epistle to the Reader]. Further, in another work of his, he explicitly denies the opportunity to make his stance known on particular redemption and baptism because of his “insufficiency and disability” to argue for or against either of those positions, instead contenting himself to affirm that all sides are generally within orthodoxy [Gospel-Separation Separated from its Abuses, p. 86]. In other words, he refused to acknowledge whether he is either particular or baptistic, let alone identify as a Particular Baptist! He seems to be better classified as a Seeker like Roger Williams than a Particular Baptist. If he ever was a committed Baptist, it must have been only for a brief time.
To include Roger Williams, then, we have examined a total of seven men who held to the doctrine of universal toleration, and have found them to all to be men who were either political radicals, imbibers of heretical doctrine, or else had questionable ties to the Particular Baptist movement altogether. Therefore, for one reason or another, every one of them would end up falling outside the bounds of the Particular Baptist confessions — if not right away, at least eventually. Nor is this a hand-picked selection on my part, these are the men who have been cited in the literature. Not a single one passes the confessional test, and quite a few fail on the very subject of civil government. If these are the best “Particular Baptist” representatives of universal toleration, we can safely say that the mainstream denied it.
Weren’t They Taking the First Steps?
Among those who admit that the early Particular Baptists were not on their side, some argue that they simply hadn’t finished fleshing out their views but were heading in the direction of a full-blown secular liberty. But this argument fails for several reasons.
- Unless it’s demonstrated that their principles must lead to the secularist view, this argument is little better than the slippery slope fallacy. The world is burdened enough by “this-led-to-that” arguments based on superficial similarities in positions, with many of these arguments being mutually contradictory. A Catholic will argue that Protestantism led to secularism because they both reject the Pope, a Polytheist might argue that Christianity led to Atheism because Atheists just deny one more God, an evolutionist might argue that a cow became a whale because certain bones look like hind-legs, etc. It’s not enough to simply say that B looks more C than A did, you need to prove that the internal principles of B logically result in C. Otherwise, however compelling such an argument might sound, it’s as hollow as the rest.
- The arguments, in fact, were formed. We covered a number of the defenders of absolute religious liberty in the last section, with the General Baptists having argued for it 50 years before the Particular Baptists expressed their abhorrence of it in the 1659 Declaration. The arguments were fleshed out, the Particular Baptists simply rejected them.
- By and large, the Particular Baptists didn’t buy them afterwards either. Several examples can be brought forward to show that this is true, proving that the views of the mainstream Baptists didn’t lead their followers to embrace a view of government that ignores God and all things supernatural.
For example, Benjamin Keach wrote a whole work proclaiming the duty of national prayer and repentance. In one part, he bemoans the fact that laws against blasphemy and profaneness are not enforced:
“The truth is, while the Nation continueth in its Rebellion against God, and all Prophaneness aboundeth to such a degree, as to this day it doth, what can we expect but Wrath and fearful Judgments? What signifies a few formal Prayers, whilst men hold fast their sins? Are such Laws made and executed, to check and restrain the cursed enormities of the ungodly? That may tend as an effectual way to accomplish such a Reformation that God calls for. Alas, whilst every Mans Hand at Sea and Land is up against God, fighting against him; can we expect he should appear to fight for us? O what horrid Pride, Uncleanness, Oaths and Blasphemy, and all Prophaneness do we see and hear of every day?”
Benjamin Keach, God Acknowledged: Or the True Interest of the Nation and All that Fear God Opened, pp. 37-38
John Gill, in his Body of Practical Divinity, is quite clear and presents a view that is reminiscent of John Tombes’:
“[Magistrates] are to discountenance and suppress impiety and irreligion; and to countenance and encourage religion and virtue; even Aristotle observes in his book of Politics, that the first care of government should be the care of divine things, or what relate to religion… Kings are the guardians of the laws of God and man; and Christian kings have a peculiar concern with the laws of the two tables, that they are observed, and the violators of them punished; as sins against the first table, idolatry, worshiping of more gods than one, and of graven images, blaspheming the name of God, perjury, and false swearing, and profanation of the day of worship: and those against the second table; as disobedience to parents, murder, adultery, theft, bearing false witness, &c. most of which, under the former dispensation, were capital crimes, and punishable with death; and though the punishment of them, at least not all of them, may not be inflicted with that rigor now as then; yet they are punishable in some way or another; which it is the duty of magistrates to take care of.”
John Gill, Body of Practical Divinity, Book 4 Chapter 4
In America, Isaac Backus was a fierce advocate of religious liberty. But despite his admiration for Roger Williams as a sufferer for the cause of credo-baptism, he does not follow his radical conclusions. He advocated religious tests for civil office and well as Sabbath laws, confining his quest for religious liberty to freedom of worship and freedom from a state-established church. Here is an excerpt from a bill he proposed to Massachusetts which illustrates the point:
“As God is the only worthy object of all religious worship, and nothing can be true religion but a voluntary obedience unto his revealed will, of which each rational soul has an equal right to judge for itself; every person has an inalienable right to act in all religious affairs according to the full persuasion of his own mind, where others are not injured thereby.”
Isaac Backus, Bill of Rights (as cited in William McLoughlin’s article, Isaac Backus and the Separation of Church and State in America [The American Historical Review, Vol. 73, No. 5 (Jun., 1968), 1403. https://doi.org/10.2307/1851375%5D)
Notice, that Isaac was in favor of the Massachusetts Constitution explicitly acknowledging that God ought to be worshiped according to His revealed will (i.e., Scripture). The kind of liberty that he advocates is very much in line with the freedoms Blackwood sought in the light of faith, which he advocates without at all separating God or basic Christian sentiments from the state altogether.
But perhaps more powerful than the quotes we’ve produced is how comparatively few times it was brought up as a serious issue after the early days by the Baptists. To be sure, mention of religious liberty is frequently made, but it is typically mentioned as a matter of boasting for the Baptists as something they have achieved, rather than something they were still striving after. The greatest instance of this can be seen after the passing of William and Mary’s Toleration Act of 1688 which facilitated the assembly of the Particular Baptists to sign the 1689 Confession. In the circular letter sent out from London to convene the general meeting, the London ministers referred to the deliverance wrought by the Act and Glorious Revolution as “the more full and perfect deliverance of the church of God” in respect to their civil and religious liberties (this letter is recorded in Joseph Ivimey’s The History of the English Baptists, p. 478). This Toleration Act, however, intentionally excluded Roman Catholics, anti-Trinitarians, and others who didn’t hold to the substance of the Protestant faith from holding office in Parliament. It was a limited toleration for the Protestant dissenters. This statement of the Baptists is all the more remarkable considering that the previous monarch, James II, had issued a much more general Declaration of Indulgence in 1687 which extended toleration to both the dissenters and to Roman Catholics (James II himself being a Roman Catholic). That declaration by James II, however, was met with suspicion by many of the Baptists. William Kiffin gives us his summary of the matter in his autobiography:
“A new project, therefore, was set on foot to engage the Protestant Dissenters by giving them the liberty of their meetings and promising them equal authority in the nation with other men. But this was in the tail of it to engage them thereby to promote the taking off the test, and to strengthen the Popish interest by setting the Protestant Dissenters against the Protestants of the Church of England. This plot, being carried on with all diligence, took with several Dissenters, but indeed they were but few and for the generality of the meaner sort, William Penn being indeed the head of that party.”
William Kiffin, Remarkable Passages in the Life of William Kiffin, ed. William Orme, p. 84
Thus, while certain dissenters like the Quaker William Penn were in favor of this more general toleration intended to eventually remove the religious test to office, Kiffin tells us that he and the majority of the other dissenters (Baptist or otherwise) were in favor of keeping the religious test. They merely wanted to extend religious liberty to other Protestants outside the Church of England, but not at the expense of allowing Roman Catholics into the government. They were thus satisfied with William and Mary’s Toleration Act.
The few exceptions where we see Baptists continue to push for religious liberty were centered around fights against forced taxation for the established churches, which the Baptists themselves didn’t always agree on in Britain (compare James Haldane and Charles Spurgeon on that topic in the 19th Century). Otherwise, they championed religious liberty as a victory that they had won as soon as they had the right to worship God according to their conscience, regardless of the fact that — on both sides of the pond — they lived in countries that continued to embrace blasphemy laws and blue laws into the 20th Century. 9 of the 13 original state constitutions in America, for example, mandated that anyone who takes office must embrace broadly Protestant principles. Where are all the Baptists who spoke against this? If the principles of the Particular Baptists truly necessitated that they embrace unbounded religious and non-religious pluralism, it apparently took until the radical reframing of our government in the last century for Baptists to get the message.
Conclusion
Despite the claim of some that Baptists have been consistently in favor of universal toleration and unlimited liberty in anything religious, almost the exact opposite is the case. The few figures who are propped up in defense of that proposition are typically men who are seldom cited for anything but their radicalism on this subject, fall outside of Particular Baptist confessional bounds, and have had their views explicitly condemned by the only 17th Century Particular Baptist public documents which address such views. In contrast, restraints on liberty were advocated by the biggest names of the early Particular Baptist community (Spilsbury, Kiffin, Jessey, Knollys, Tombes, etc.) as well as some of the biggest names to follow (Keach and Gill). The centuries of Baptists that followed tended to have few, if any, qualms about the remaining restrictions that existed after they had achieved the right to worship God as they pleased. Hence, the Particular Baptist community can be characterized as one that advocated for moderation: religious freedom but with common-sense restrictions against blatant immorality. The role of church and state are distinct, but both of them must acknowledge God according to their sphere and jurisdiction.
Sources Cited:
Backus, Isaac, Bill of Rights
Blackwood, Christopher. The Storming of Antichrist
Bozeman, Theodore Dwight. “John Clarke and the Complications of Liberty.” Church History 75, no. 1 (2006): 69–93.
Coffey, John. “Puritanism and Liberty Revisited: The Case for Toleration in the English Revolution.” The Historical Journal 41, no. 4 (1998): 961–85.
Edwards, Thomas. The Third Part of Gangraena
Gill, John. A Body of Practical Divinity
Jessey, Henry. A Narrative of the Late Proceedings at White-Hall, Concerning the Jews
Kiffin, William, et al. Declaration of Several of the People called Anabaptists, In and about the City of London
——. The Humble Apology of Some Commonly Called Anabaptists
——. Letter from Mr. Kiffen and Others, to the People of Ireland
Laurence, Richard. The Antichristian Presbyter
——. Gospel-Separation Separated from its Abuses
McLoughlin, William G. “Isaac Backus and the Separation of Church and State in America.” The American Historical Review 73, no. 5 (1968): 1392–1413.
Nettles, Tom. Beginnings in America. Vol. 2. The Baptists: Key People Involved in Forming a Baptist Identity. Ross-shire, Scotland: Mentor, 2005
Tillam, Thomas. Address from the Baptized Churches in Northumberland, &c., to the Lord Protector
Tombes, John. A Serious Consideration of the Oath of the Kings Supremacy
Note: Spelling has been modernized for any pre-modern quotes, but the wording and grammatical features have been preserved.
The Particular Baptist 
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