The Conditionalist Faith of Our Fathers, vol. 2

IV. Court Physician—Death a Sleep, With Resurrection Awakening

Another of the unique Conditionalists of this period, in the professions, was DR. PETER CHAMBERLEN (1601-1683), brilliant court physician to three Stuart kings of England—James I, Charles I, and Charles II, and their queens—beyond which time he still continued as court physician for several years. Chamberlen was a reformer in medicine and an independent in theology. He was a most colorful figure, taking the lead in spirited discussion and writing numerous broadsides and tractates in both fields. His medical reputation was such that the czar of Russia sought to obtain his services, but Charles II refused to release him from the British court. ²¹ CFF2 171.4

Chamberlen was highly trained, a graduate of Emmanuel College, Cambridge, then a student of medicine in Heidelberg, Germany, and Padua, Italy. He received the degree of M.D. from the latter university in 1619, and was licensed by Oxford in 1620 and by Cambridge in 1621. He succeeded his father as court physician to James I, and also taught anatomy under the authorization of the Royal College of Physicians. Chamberlen was a medical progressive and pioneered in various scientific advances, including the invention or perfection of the obstetrical forceps. He was a reformer in medical practice and midwifery, lifting professional standards and proposing a system of hydrotherapy. He was regarded as unsurpassed in his field and was in advance of his time. CFF2 171.5

Picture 3: Chamberlen
Dr. Peter Chamberlen (d. 1683), Illustrious Court Physician Death a Sleep, With Resurrection Awakening.
Page 172

Chamberlen was also a reformer in his religious views. He was usually classed as an Independent. But for several years he served as a Baptist pastor, though he was baptized an Anabaptist. At that time the Baptists were commonly classed as Anabaptists, and, as such, Chamberlen was the object of scorn and derision because of his religion. Nevertheless, he boldly entered the arena of religious discussion and participated in spirited debates—some even in St. Paul’s Cathedral—for public debates were the order of the day. Chamberlen was author of ten treatises, and was frequently the center of controversy. ²² His life span covered the troubled times of the Interregnum under Cromwell, and then through and past Charles II. CFF2 172.1

In 1654, 150 Baptist signatories asked him to become their pastor. So at the age of fifty-three Chamberlen entered the dual role of pastor and court physician. He was likewise a skilled student of Bible prophecy, and in 1677 and 1682 wrote on the prophesied course of world empires as revealed in Daniel 7 impressively fulfilled, he said, in Babylonia, Medo-Persia, Grecia, and Rome, which fourth world power was in turn divided into the ten kingdoms of modern Europe, with the “Little Triple Crowned Horn,” ²³ as he phrased it, constituting the Papacy, responsible for the change of the fourth precept of God’s law and its Sabbath “time” requirement. ² CFF2 173.1

Chamberlen began his personal observance of the seventh-day Sabbath in 1651, continuing this practice undeviatingly for thirty-two years. And for four of these he served as a Seventh Day Baptist pastor, subject again to the inevitable public jibes and jeers directed at all such innovations. Those were the rugged times when John Bunyan was imprisoned for his faith, writing part of Pilgrim’s Progress while in Bedford jail. CFF2 173.2

As a former Anabaptist this celebrated court physician not only rested in the love and mercy of God—and rejoiced in His free pardon and the full remission of sin—but believed in the inheritance of eternal life and immortality solely through Christ. Chamberlen, like many other keen thinkers and able scholars of the time, believed death to be an unconscious sleep—resting in darkness and peace from sorrow and labor. He looked for the glorious resurrection morn when he would be awakened, clothed in eternal light and life. ²⁵ He never wrote a formal treatise thereon, but represented many who personally held this view, reflected only in attitude and incidental expression. The voice of Conditionalism was increasing surely among men in all walks of life. CFF2 173.3

Thus in 1684 Dr. Chamberlen wrote An Elegy of that Faithful and Laborious Minister of Christ, Mr. Francis Bampfield. Bampfield was a prominent Anglican clergyman who had likewise become a Sabbatarian, and died for his faith in Newgate prison, February 16, 1684. In this printed broadside issued at the time, Chamberlen’s Conditionalist convictions are woven into this pensive poem:
“Sleep then (Dear Saint) in Peace and softly Rest.
Till Christ resuscitate thy Quiet Dust,
To cloath it with immortal Beams of Light;
That with its Bright’ned Soul it may unite.” ²⁶ CFF2 174.1

And in his own last will and testament Chamberlen looked forward to the “fruition of Eternall Life,” received at the great consummation, meantime being buried “in sure and certaine expectation of a joyfull Resurrection” at our Lord’s return. Most impressive of all are the final expressions carved on his imposing tombstone at Woodham Mortimer Hall (Essex), with the tiny but significant words chiseled in stone at the close of his epitaph, “Ordered by Doctor Peter Chamberlen, here enterred, for his Epitaph.” They were therefore of his own composition. Here are the telltale expressions excerpted from the lengthy epitaph: CFF2 174.2

“Death my last sleep ...;
The end of sorrow—labour and of care,
The end of trouble, sickness, and of fea re.
Here shall I sin no more—no more shall weep,
Here’s surely to be found a quiet sleep;
... intomb’d in sleep and night.” CFF2 174.3

But that was not all. That was not the end. Here is the “fruition“: CFF2 175.1

“But in the morning we renue our light;
And when I wake wrapt in Eternal light,
Crowned with Eternal glories ever blest,
Oh! happy rest that brings me all the rest.” ²⁷ CFF2 175.2

The caliber and prominence of some of these adherents to Conditionalism are impressive. CFF2 175.3