John Griffith: Baptist prisoner of conscience: Baptists in late seventeenth-century England experienced persecution, just as Baptists had done since their beginning in 1609

Baptist History and Heritage, Wntr, 2009 by Keith E. Durso

Several English laws made the practice of any faith except that of the Church of England (the Anglican Church) dangerous. Since 1534, the Act of Supremacy demanded that English citizens declare that the king was not only "the only Supreme Governor of this realm, and all other [of] His Highness's dominions and countries," but also "in all spiritual or ecclesiastical things or causes." Moreover, the act required citizens to swear their loyalty to the king and "his heirs and lawful successors." (1) The Oath of Allegiance, first enacted in 1606, required citizens to swear their allegiance to the king, not the pope. After the rule of Oliver Cromwell from 1649 to 1660, during which the Anglican Church lost its favored status, Parliament reestablished Anglicanism as the state religion by passing a series of statutes from 1661 to 1665 called the Clarendon Code. Named for Edward Hyde, First Earl of Clarendon, an advisor to King Charles II, these statutes required public officials to be communicants of the Anglican Church, forced ministers to conduct services according to Anglican tenets, limited the number of people who could attend private meetings, and barred expelled ministers from traveling within five miles of their former parishes. (2)

Baptists near London who ran afoul of English law often found themselves tried at the Old Bailey Courthouse and imprisoned across the street in England's most infamous prison, Newgate. Built in the twelfth century, Newgate was notorious for its wretched conditions. One historian of the prison noted that it "must have been an abode of sorrow, suffering, and unspeakable woe, a kind of terrestrial inferno, to enter which was to abandon every hope.... The conditions of the prisoners in Newgate was long most deplorable. They were but scantily supplied with the commonest necessaries of life. Light scarcely penetrated their dark and loathsome dungeons; no breath of fresh air sweetened the fetid atmosphere they breathed; that they enjoyed the luxury of water was due to the munificence of a Lord Mayor." (3)

The Imprisonments of John Griffith

John Griffith (c. 1622-1700) was one of several Baptists who graced the wretched confines of Newgate. In 1661, shortly after publishing "A Complaint of the Oppressed, against the Oppressor," Griffith, a General Baptist minister, was arrested for preaching unlawfully and sent to Newgate, where he spent seventeen months. (4) Prison, however, was "no unpleasant thing," he wrote during his stay in Newgate,

   If Christ be there, that only blessed King;
   He with his Love doth make a Prison sweeter,
   (Though unto sense it seems to be so bitter)
   Than any Princely Court, or stately Palace,
   When with his presence he the soul doth solace.
   If in Prison Jesus Christ be there,
   It's cause of joy to meet him anywhere. (5)

Although many people would have disagreed with him, Griffith thought it "no shame to lie in Newgate for the sake and Name of thy dear Jesus." (6)

After being released in 1662, Griffith resumed his pastoral ministry in the London area. Little is known about his life until 1683, when he was arrested again for unlawful preaching. On April 18 of that year, Griffith and another Baptist, Francis Bampfield (1614-1684), appeared at the Old Bailey, where, according to court documents, they "were again tendered" the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy, which implies that they had refused to take them earlier. (7) The two Baptists refused to take the oaths again on October 10, 1683, and on January 16, 1684. (8) Following the 1684 appearance, they were found guilty for refusing to take the oaths. Bampfield died in Newgate a month later. Griffith, however, survived his imprisonment and was probably free by April 11, 1687. (9)

Griffith spent the remainder of his life preaching and apparently did not suffer again for his Baptist beliefs, for the religious climate in England changed drastically during the last years of his life. In February 1685, Charles II died, and on his deathbed, the king had converted to Catholicism. His brother James II (r. 1685-1688), a Catholic, succeeded him. James's attempt to establish Catholicism in England failed, resulting in the Glorious Revolution of 1688, during which James was deposed without bloodshed. To replace the king, Parliament invited William III, Prince of Orange (whose wife was James's daughter Mary), from the Netherlands to rule England.

In 1689, at William's request, Parliament passed the Act of Toleration, granting most dissenters the freedom to worship. The act granted such freedom only to dissenters who believed in the Trinity and the divine inspiration of the Bible, and who rejected the authority of Rome. The act also maintained the Church of England was the established church and declared that only Anglicans could hold public office. (10) Despite the inconsistencies and requirements in the act, English Baptists no longer had to fear being imprisoned for expressing their religious beliefs.

A Personal Account of the 1683 Imprisonment