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"...The church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth."
I Timothy 3:15
The Persecution of Daniel Defoe,
Author of Robinson Crusoe
Cook, 1887
Defoe and other illustrious men suffered during the reign of the Stuarts for being Baptists.
Daniel Defoe, the author of Robinson Crusoe was a man of eminence, and in sentiment a Baptist. He was born in London in the year 1661, and is the author of a number of books both of prose and poetry. His Robinson Crusoe was by no means the ablest of his literary productions.
One of his works, published in 1702, is entitled, The Shortest way with Dissenters.
It is written in an ironical style, and attacks with severe sarcasm those who persecuted others for conscience sake.
This book the House of Commons declared to be a seditious libel.
The author was sentenced by the court to be fined, imprisoned and pilloried. He bore this punishment with meekness and cheerfulness, knowing that it is only crime, and not the prison or the scaffold that causes shame, and remained in prison two years.
In the reign of Queen Ann, he was again imprisoned for writing another book of the same character.
Defoe was a man of very superior natural abilities, possessing a vivid imagination along with a sound judgment. He was a vigorous writer and he wielded his pen in defense of the Baptists and in advocacy of human liberty, and for this he suffered.