1645 THOMAS BEDFORD. London Puritan Wants Baptist Heretics Persecuted. Rare!

The present work was moderate by the standards of the age when. Written during the English Civil War, the Church of England and Presbyterians / Puritans were at war over who would run the country. Bedford, a Puritan, here addresses the issue of Baptism, especially the London Baptists, and of taking communion in a mixed assembly. He includes them in his rather generous pile of so-called "heretics," which for him was just about everyone aside from Presbyterians and Independents.  The work is emblematic of the reason Roger Williams and other Levellers and Baptists spoke so strongly against the Westminster Assembly and the Puritan Parliament. They were as oppressive, or nearly, as the Church of England. This conversation continued into the United States where Roger Williams was banished by those holding similar ideals.  Bedford was a prominent London puritan who signed the famed Vindication of the Ministers of the Gospel in and about London, along with Thomas Manton, William Gouge, Thomas