Journal: Journal of the Institute of Reformed Baptist Studies
Volume: JIRBS 03:1 (NA 2016)
Article: The Strange Case Of Thomas Collier
Author: James M. Renihan

JIRBS 3 (2016) p. 97

The Strange Case Of Thomas Collier

James M. Renihan*

* James M. Renihan, Ph.D., is Dean and Professor of Historical Theology at the Institute of Reformed Baptist Studies, Westminster Seminary California, Escondido, CA. This is a revised version of an article published under the title Thomas Collier’s Descent into Error: Collier, Calvinism and the Second London Confession in Reformed Baptist Theological Review I:1 (January 2004): 67–84.

From the time of their beginnings in the 1640s, the English Particular Baptists were noted for expansion. Looking upon their nation as a country desperately in need of churches proclaiming the truths of the Bible so recently discovered, they rapidly engaged in a program intended to bring such assemblies to birth. In London, John Spilsbury, William Kiffin, and Hanserd Knollys were effective leaders in the extension of Particular Baptist doctrines. In the Midlands, Daniel King, among others, provided leadership both through the Midlands Association and written treatises. Similarly, John Miles led the effort in South Wales. The Abingdon Association, which included such noteworthy men as Benjamin Coxe and John Pendarves, grew so large in just six years (1652–58) that it was necessary to form a second association in adjoining counties.1

Another important and rapidly growing center for Particular Baptist expansion was in the West Country2 of England, where the most influential leader was Thomas Collier. For more than 40 years, Collier labored to plant and strengthen churches in the West Country. He was and is an important figure in the development and growth of the Baptist cause in the southwest of England. Perhaps the most prolific author of the first generation of Particular Baptists (having published more than 40 books and pamphlets), Collier

JIRBS 3 (2016) p. 98

worked in towns and villages to promote the spread and growth of Baptist principles. His work was so effective that he aroused the attention of the famous Thomas Edwards, who wrote in his work Gangraena (1646) that Collier was “the first that sowed the seeds of Anabaptism . . . in these parts.”3

At the beginning of his ministry, Collier was closely associated with the London Particular Baptists, perhaps even holding membership in William Kiffin’s famous Devonshire Square church.4 Later events would indicate that it is plausible that Kiffin’s congregation actually authorized and sent out Collier for his mission to the West Country.