1, From the Reformation to the French Revolution (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978), 221-262.)) As a result a rich body of literature was produced that reflects a vibrant spirituality of persecution and suffering for the sake of the gospel. Cragg, Puritanism in the Period of the Great Persecution 1660–1688 (Cambridge: University Press, 1957) and Michael R. ((In addition to Brown’s more recent study, see Gerald R.
White, The English Baptists of the Seventeenth Century (London: The Baptist Historical Society, 1996), 95-133.)) During this period all Dissenters, including the Baptists, were persecuted. White declared the same years to be the “Era of the Great Persecution” for Baptists. In his chapter on the period in The English Baptists of the Seventeenth Century, B. ((Raymond Brown, Spirituality in Adversity: English Nonconformity in a Period of Repression, 1660–1689 (Milton Keynes, England: Paternoster, 2012). He was not shock’d by the Fury of Persecutors, tho he suffer’d Imprisonment for the Name of Christ.” ((John Piggott, Eleven Sermons Preach’d Upon Special Occasions (London: John Darby, 1714), 235.)) In fact, Collins was imprisoned at least twice for his principled commitment to the idea of a believer’s church during the period labeled in a recent work by Raymond Brown as a “Period of Repression” for English nonconformity. In 1682, in a work provocatively titled, Some Reasons for Separation From the Communion of the Church of England, London Baptist pastor Hercules Collins declared to the state church, “If you do persecute us for our Conscience, I hope God will give us that Grace which may inable us patiently to suffer for Christ’s sake.” ((Hercules Collins, Some Reasons for Separation from the Communion of the Church of England, and the Unreasonableness of Persecution upon that Account (London: John How, 1682), 20.)) Apparently God granted this desire for John Piggott, in his funeral sermon for Collins, affirmed that he “continued faithful to the last.
“Patiently to Suffer for Christ’s Sake”: Hercules Collins as an Exemplar of Baptists During the Great Persecution” (1660-1688) ((Portions of this article have appeared in “Baptists and 1662: The Persecution of John Norcott and Hercules Collins,” which was published in Founders Journal 89 (Summer 2012): 34-43 and The Andrew Fuller Center Review 3 (Summer 2012): 17-26.
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