Papacy, Parish Churches, and Prophecy: The Popish Plot and the London Particular Baptists — A Case Study

On 13 August 1678, King Charles II was made aware of details of a supposed conspiracy by Jesuits to assassinate him. Anti-catholic hysteria gripped England and the so-called “Popish Plot” wreaked considerable havoc until 1681. In his work, Antichrist in Seventeenth-century England, Christopher Hill contended that during this period, the concept of Antichrist disappeared and even radical nonconformists abandoned the physical concept of Antichrist. However, the events of 1678 to 1681 were not lost upon the Particular Baptists of London, many of whom had suffered sporadic persecution since the Restoration. Hanserd Knollys, whose pen had remained still since the 1650s, once again began to publish. From this point until his death in 1691, Knollys focused on eschatology, publishing treatises on the subject, two of which appeared in 1679 at the height of the “Popish Plot.” Mystical Babylon Unvailed aggressively attacked Roman Catholicism, and national churches, including the Church of England, emphasizing that their idolatry presented a threat to England’s national and spiritual security. His other work of this period, An Exposition of the Eleventh Chapter of the Revelation, examined the rise, martyrdom, and resurrection of the Two Witnesses (Churches of the Saints) of Revelation II, concluding that their death at the hands of Antichrist (Rome and national churches) and their ensuing resurrection would occur in “about 1688” in a great city such as London. Clearly Hill’s assumptions regarding theories of Antichrist among nonconformists did not hold true with the Particular Baptists of London. In fact, the “Popish Plot” and the following events ignited a renewed eschatological fervour among them. Particular Baptists prior to that point had published few eschatological works. However, following it Hanserd Knollys, one of their most prodigious writers, published several eschatological works, and his focus and that of the Particular Baptists upon the end days and the Antichrist would continue, encouraged by the Glorious Revolution of 1688.

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