HerculesCollins.com

Welcome to HerculesCollins.com, the online home for the 17th century British Particular Baptist pastor Hercules Collins. The purpose of this website is to provide information about this relatively unknown man of God, his times, and his contemporaries.

Much of what will be posted here will be the product of research which I am doing for a Th.M. thesis on the topic of “A SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY BRITISH PARTICULAR BAPTIST VIEW ON THE EDUCATION OF MINISTERS”. Obviously, the purpose of this thesis is to explore the views of seventeenth-century British Particular Baptists on the subject of the education of ministers. This purpose will be accomplished by a historical survey of the discussion in print during the seventeenth century beginning with Samuel How’s The Sufficiency of the Spirit’s Teaching Without Human Learning first published in 1640 and culminating with The Temple Repair’d written by Hercules Collins in 1702. The thesis will consist of two parts. In the first part, I will attempt to survey in approximately ten thousand words the historical background to the controversy on the subject of the education of ministers among the English dissenters of the seventeenth century, specifically among the Particular Baptists. The second part of the thesis will be a critical edition of the work which concludes the period under consideration for this project, The Temple Repair’d by Hercules Collins.