'The Low Condition of the Churches’: Difficulties Faced by General Baptists in England – the 1680s to the 1760s

Abstract

The English General Baptists of the mid seventeenth century had a
number of things in their favour. They had some gifted leaders and they
developed the role of Messenger as an evangelistic office. Orthodox
beliefs were espoused. Oversight in the churches helped to ensure
commitment. Spirituality appeared, in churches of which there are
records remaining, to be quite vibrant. Yet one hundred years later there
had been considerable decline. It is often thought that this decline was
due primarily to theological weakness, to isolation and to the weariness
that General Baptists felt after years of persecution. These were certainly
factors, but they were not the only ones, and even these issues were
complex. Other crucial reasons for decline are analysed in this article. In
the critical area of leadership, few, if any plans were put in place to find
new, younger leadership. Gifted leaders were lost. At local level and also
nationally, spiritual oversight was exercised in a way that was too often
rigid and oppressive. Spirituality became to a large extent inward-
directed. In the mid eighteenth century a number of General Baptist
pastors and churches were expressing deep dissatisfaction and began to
take an interest in the new spirit coming from the Evangelical Revival.
Among many of the original General Baptist causes, however, despite
their earlier history as a very creative Baptist movement, the ‘low
condition’ which had come to characterise them was not remedied. But
General Baptist life did emerge in new forms.