A Note on Peter Chamberlen and the Sacrament of the Washing of the Saints’ Feet

Matthew Pinson

The London General Baptist physician Peter Chamberlen (sometimes spelled “Chamberlain”) was probably best known for books he wrote about poverty in England, how it should be addressed, and how poor relief in England should be reformed. The learned Dr. Chamberlen was a noted physician who served as a personal physician to Kings Charles I, Charles II, and James II. He had some strange ideas, flirting with Fifth Monarchist and seventh-day Sabbath ideas, and was never part of the General Assembly. He did, however, have a great deal of contact with typical General Baptists who were part of the General Assembly. For more information on Chamberlen, see the delightful article by J. W. Thirtle, “Dr. Peter Chamberlen, Physician to Stuart Kings and Baptist Pastor,” Transactions of the Baptist Historical Society 2 (1910), sixth page (unnumbered).

I recently came across a quote from a pamphlet Chamberlen wrote against a London Presbyterian named Thomas Bakewell entitled Master Bakewells Sea of Absurdities Concerning Sprinkling Calmely Driven Back. Their debate was over sprinkling versus dipping as the biblical mode of baptism. The quote that caught my eye most recently concerned the washing of the saints’ feet, sometimes referred to by the Latin term pedilavium.

In the course of his discussion with Bakewell, Chamberlen argued for the washing of the saints’ feet as a standing sacrament in the church of Christ, using the words “sacrament” and “sacramental” to describe the washing of feet in John 13. Here is what Chamberlen said to Bakewell:

“[Y]ou as desperately attempt to clear this by the Conference of Jesus Christ with Peter about the washing of his Feet. Jo. 13.8. Read on to the 10. verse. He that is Washed (saith he) or he that is already Baptized, needeth not save to cleanse or wash his feete, &c: This shewes (say you, from the 8. verse instancing, in me for with me, as almost in all the Scriptures you quote, you mistake somewhat) this shewes that washing was sacramentall. If you mean it is a Sacrament, why do you not so practise it? If it be the Sacrament of Baptisme, why do not your Ministers wash the feet of Infants as Christ did his Disciples, rather than sprinkle the face onely, which Christ never did?” [1]

The quotation is interesting, not only because of how Chamberlen turns around Bakewell’s reasoning into an anti-paedobatist argument, but also because it indicates Chamberlen’s positive views on the washing of feet as a sacrament.

[1] Peter Chamberlen, Master Bakewells Sea of Absurdities Concerning Sprinkling Calmely Driven Back (London, 1650), 12.