The Women Behind The 1689: Mrs. Gifford


reformed baptista

Like many signers of the London Baptist Confession of 1689, Andrew Gifford had a wife. Her name, dates of birth and death, and other basic facts have at the present eluded me, but by looking at her husband’s life we can glance at a sliver of hers. Andrew was born in 1642, baptized in 1659 and began preaching in 1661. He also worked as a cooper (barrel maker and repairer), which would have produced a steady and comfortable living in a seaport. A son, Emanuel, was born in 1673.

When Andrew was not welcome in churches due to the Act of Uniformity, he would preach in woods, fields, and homes. In 1677 he was ordained a pastor at the Pithay church in Bristol by the laying on hands of Daniel Dyk and Nehemiah Coxe. He was imprisoned four times, and an anecdote found in Joseph Ivemy’s History of the English…

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