Thomas Lamb was a pastor and evangelist during the seventeenth century.
His birth date and parentage are unknown. He lived with his wife, Dorcas Prentice, and eight children in St Giles in Colchester, England. They were excommunicated from the Church of England in 1636, for failing to attend worship services, and for refusing to have one of their children baptized.
Thomas Lamb was a Baptist pastor during turbulent times. King Charles I had a Catholic wife who sought to use her position to bring Catholicism back into the Church of England.
King Charles I used the archbishop of Canterbury, William Laud, to purge England of dissenting groups. Laud dragged Thomas Lamb in chains from his home town to London. The Archbishop asked him, "If he had dared to administer the holy sacrament of the Lord's Supper?" Lamb pleaded the right of an Englishman not to bear witness against himself, and refused to answer. He was kept in prison for four months. When he was released with the injunction "not to preach, baptize or frequent any conventicle.", he instead went right back to preaching. He was said to have stated, "the man was not fit to preach who would not preach for God's sake, though he were sure to die for it as soon as he had done."
Lamb moved to London around 1640 and began to pastor the Coleman Street Church in Bell Alley. He was joined there by other leaders, Samuel Oates and Henry Denne. Thomas Lamb was a close associate of Richard Overton, a "Leveller," who ran an underground printing operation from Bell Alley.
The Levellers were a movement which some have stated was England's first political party. They were led by artisans and working class people. They wanted parliamentary terms, voting rights for all men (during this time only property owners were allowed to vote), absolute freedom of religion, abolishment of capital punishment for theft, and abolishment of imprisonment for debt. This belief of "general redemption" caused Lamb and his followers to be called General Baptists.
Lamb traveled across England preaching, baptizing, and planting churches. It was said that he had been jailed in nearly every prison in London, but when he was released, he returned to preaching, writing, and pastoring in the church.
Even though he was persecuted by the government, he condemned any violence against them.
To escape the persecution of his enemies, he joined the military. Mr. Lamb was made chaplain to Colonel Hunke's regiment. This allowed him to preach among the soldiers and officers. He baptized six of the soldiers in the sea on various occasions. The ship in which he sailed was believed to be part of the fleet that picked up King Charles II in the year 1660. Afterwards, he was implicated in a mutiny, he was sentenced to be shot. He was granted a pardon but was stripped of his duty as ship’s chaplain.
During the civil war, he can be traced going through Gloucestershire, Norfolk, Essex, Surrey, Hampshire, Kent, and Wiltshire preaching and annoying the local clergy.
Lamb was most noted for his writings. He wrote The Fountain Of Free Grace Opened, a Treatise of Particular Predestination, The Unlawfulness of Infant Baptism, and Absolution from Sin by Christ's Death for the World.
He believed Jesus died on the cross for everyone, that we can do nothing to earn salvation, that we are incapable of being saved by works, and that anyone, anywhere, could come to Christ through hearing and responding to the gospel. He also believed in eternal security.
There are some who say the early Baptists poured water on those they would baptize instead of immersing them under the water; they are contradicted by historical documents that recorded Lamb as baptizing converts in the Severn River and the Colne River by immersion. Lamb was clear that baptism was an ordinance that be administered only to those who have already experienced salvation. He believed it was blasphemy to attribute to water baptism what only the blood of Christ could do- redeem a soul.
Lamb's occupation was noted as a soap boiler. After the collapse of the Leveller movement, Lamb became a Philanthropist donating to many charities and advocating for the improvement of prisons. He died an old man with hundreds said to have attended his funeral.
