The Register of a Baptist Church in Eccles, Lancashire, 1831-1842

To understand the position of the Eccles church in relation to others, a short explanation of some theological terms is necessary. Historically the Baptists in England are one of the three main early protestant non-conformist groupings^[36] and like the others they are polarised in two broad divisions, according to whether they follow arminian or calvinist beliefs relating to the life of a person’s soul after death. Among Baptists these two divisions have generally accepted names, being known as General and Particular Baptists respectively. For Arminians the ultimate fate is at least to some extent in the believer’s control, to exercise free-will and choose salvation or not; for Calvinists it is fixed so that a believer may become convinced of it but cannot decide it. Needless to say, the two sides of this divide describe each other’s positions in different ways, and each tends to reject the other side’s description of itself. Also needless to say, there are extremes on either side. On the calvinist side is the extreme of antinomianism, which says that if a person is predestined to eternal bliss there is no reason why they should not go on living a sinful life on earth. The orthodox position on this is that the believer has a duty to live a good life. Calvinists however accuse arminians of holding that a person also has a duty to believe. “Duty faith” and antinomianism are seen by calvinists as alternative deviations from the truth. Without going any further it will be obvious that from sermons and other writings it is quite easy to tell where the writer is placed in this spectrum of religious belief. At the same time it is important to emphasise that it is, or was, a fairly continuous spectrum, and it was only as time went on that the differences were formalised in separate denominational groupings.

Another distinction which was growing in importance at the time, is between “strict” and “open” communion. In churches which operate on the independent or “congregational” principle, a person admitted to membership is a member only of the local church. A person who wishes to transfer to another church, even one which is identical in doctrine and organisation, has to be formally transferred, and then becomes solely a member of the other church. In strict communion, no one may join in the communion service unless they are full members of the local church. The alternative is various degrees of open communion which may be extended to other churches of the denomination, or to other denominations. In the period we are dealing with, Particular Baptists increasingly tended to be Strict Baptists as well, and they were probably the majority among Baptists, at least in the North of England. But as time went on their numbers dwindled until today they are a small minority, in several denominations; the great majority being the single denomination simply called Baptists.^[37]

It is now possible to state unequivocally that William Giles senior was a Particular Baptist. This is clear from his writings, some of which were produced in response to published critiques of his own preaching,^[38] and from the fact that his Chatham^[39] and Preston^[40] churches, at least, were actually called Particular Baptist. We also know that after he had been in Preston for a few years he came into disagreement with another minister who held less strongly and/or less exclusively calvinistic views.^[41] We can say the same of Giles the younger for reasons that will be discussed below, and on this basis it seems that the Eccles Baptist church should also be classified as Particular Baptist, but without implying that it formally adopted such a title.

[36] In the seventeenth century government authorities in England divided the population into “conformists” (i.e. those who conformed to the Church of England), “papists” (Roman Catholics) and “non-conformists”; and the “three denominations” of nonconformists were Presbyterians, Independents (later called Congregationalist) and Baptists (known earlier as anabaptists). The Methodist movement began in the eighteenth century, with the missions of Charles and John Wesley, and others.

[37] A good general account is given by K. Dix (2001)

[38] One of these, entitled “A Modern Berean” (1812), may no longer be extant; but see J. Cundill (1817), and W. Giles [senior], various dates.

[39] W. Giles (1818), page [iii].

[40] “I William Giles am... pastor of the particular Baptist Chapel Leeming Street Preston...” – form prefixed to register of births, Leeming Street Chapel, p. 2.

[41] The account is given by W. T. Whitley (1913), pp 186-187. The argument concerned the Circular Letter to be issued by the new Lancashire & Cheshire Association. Giles was Moderator and the secretary was J. Harbottle, minister of a Baptist church in Accrington. Giles wanted to show on the cover of the Letter a list of doctrines, of typically calvinistic content, as on previous letters of the Lancashire & Yorkshire Association; but Harbottle wanted a selection of Scripture texts. The dispute was “resolved” (as Whitley put it) in that two editions of the letter were printed, one with the doctrines as “ordered” by Giles, the other as preferred by Harbottle. The main text of the letter was written by Harbottle and it shows a very moderate form of calvinism, with an emphasis on the duty of christians to evangelise, though still steering clear of free will or “duty faith”. Copies of both editions of the letter are in the Angus Library, Regent’s Park College, Oxford.