Francis Bampfield’s Appeal by W. A. S.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Dec 3, 1914

Francis Bampfield’s Appeal

By W. A. S.

FRANCIS BAMPFIELD was one of the witnesses for the Sabbath in England two centuries and more ago. One of his tracts preserved in the British Museum is entitled “A Just Appeal From Lower Courts on Earth to the Higher Court in Heaven.” It bears the imprint, “From Newgate Prison, the seventeenth day of the eighth month, 1683.”

Thus a prisoner for the Sabbath of the Lord not only bore witness before men in various hearings in the courts, but bore his testimony to the public by the aid of friends outside and the printing press.

In this leaflet Bampfield is evidently answering accusations of disloyalty made against him because of his refusal to take the oath of loyalty to the government. But he explains that the judge at the sessions “openly did declare it as law that he who did take this oath was thereby bound to go to common prayer, to partake of the sacrament as the law

required, to go to no more private meetings, which the law condemns as unlawful conventicles, and was moreover thereby obliged to obey all the king’s laws.” He explains that he had already suffered nine years’ imprisonment for nonconforming, and while loyal in all civil matters, was not prepared to subscribe to the terms of such an oath. So he was remanded to prison again.

Three months later Bampfield issued another leaflet, “A Continuation of a Former Just Appeal.” In it he says, “I have been four times already at the bar in open sessions at Old Bailey.” The Old Bailey was the law courts, at the rear of which stood the Newgate Prison. Still the authorities were endeavoring to extort from him an oath of allegiance which had mixed with it elements to which he could not subscribe.

One of his difficulties at this time was that he was being pressed to subscribe to a form of oath that had been leveled against popish recusants. He could not make the declarations abjuring popery. He said, “I never was, neither am I, infected with any of these gross and dangerous errors.” Therefore he argued that the authorities had no right to present such a declaration to him, and that to prosecute Protestants under those laws was illegal. In closing this tract, which explains his position regarding the oath of allegiance, he says:—

I cannot, therefore, as so legally ministered and so judicially interpreted, take it, but must in the supplies of the Holy Spirit, patiently, quietly, cheerfully, thankfully, compose my whole man, to a ready taking up and willing bearing of my further cross, glorying therein in thus following my Lord and Master. Men having been resolved upon it to put me out of the protection of man and man’s laws, and to bring me under confiscations and imprisonments, Christ has secured me of my being the more under his special care and custody. He hath promised me an hundredfold more now, and eternal life in the best world, and a liberty and glory with himself, with Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The whole of this case issueth into this sweet meditation, holy resolution, and free self-resignation. Jehovah my Elohim, himself do with me and for me and by me, or suffer others to do against me, what seemeth good in his eyes.

On this last of his leaflets appears the subscription:—

Francis Bampfield. From Newgate Prison; where my imprisonment, with other former imprisonments in other gaols, for the sake of Christ and his Word, has now filled up ten complete years; all the glory be to him! Vulgarly, twentieth day of eleventh month, 1683 or 4.

Very shortly following this appeal from courts on earth to the court of God, Bampfield fell ill under the privations of prison life, and died in prison.

His stand for the right and his eminence as a man gave to him the sympathy of very many who did not themselves lay hold of the Sabbath truth. One of the old chroniclers of the Church of England says that his body was followed to the grave by “a very great company of factious and schismatical people.” Thus in the olden time, amid hardships and perils, lovers of the Word of God bore faithful testimony to the Sabbath of the Lord.

They had not the inspiration of a great movement, based on fulfilling prophecy; but they had the inspiration of loyalty to God’s Holy Word, which was more to them than all else besides. They did not ask whether persecution or death for the truth of God lay before them. In fidelity to the command of Jesus Christ they followed him. Thus they kept the light of Sabbath truth glowing through dark days of intolerance and apostasy; and the “little” from their hands we receive the torch of truth to carry on to the end.

W. A. S.