The Wapping Baptists

A People, Their Pastors, and Their Church Records (1677–1712)

Nathan Sherman

• Publisher: Pickwick Publications
• Year: 2026
• Print ISBN:
  9798385268146
  9798385268153
• eBook ISBN:
  9798385268160
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Denominations

Church history often focuses on significant events or individuals, while neglecting the everyday lives of ordinary church members. The Wapping Baptists explores the culture and convictions of a congregation. While the church has attracted some attention from historians—primarily, because of the published works of one of its pastors, Hercules Collins—this book explores the interplay between doctrine and devotion. That is, beyond its pastors, who were the people? What did they value? How did they apply these values? And then, how did they document their decisions and actions?



This examination reveals a congregation who recorded itself in its minute book as a people committed to baptistic convictions such as believer’s baptism, church membership, congregationalist polity, the discipline of unrepentant sin, and the autonomy and internal authority of their church. However, they were also embedded within their community as people with jobs, houses, families, and lives beyond the walls of the meetinghouse. The Wapping church, then, becomes an ideal test case for understanding Baptists, Dissent, and social life in the East End of early modern London.

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Foreword by John Coffey
• A Note to the Reader
• Acknowledgments
• Abbreviations
• Introduction
• Part 1. A Culture of Dissent
• Part 2. The Texts of the Congregation
• Part 3. The Anatomy of the Congregation
• Conclusion
• Appendix A: Book List for the Wapping Gifted Brethren
• Appendix B: Wapping Days of Corporate Fasting and Prayer
• Appendix C: Total Roster
• Appendix D: A Sample Transcription of the Wapping Church Book
• Bibliography