In 1616 (in the reign of James I.) there was a mixed Protestant Dissenting church gathered in Broad Street, Wapping. Some of these good people were Baptists. The first pastor chosen by the mixed congregation was one Henry Jacob, an Independent—though even he eventually became a Baptist. Years passed (as they have a habit of doing), and Mr. John Lathrop became pastor of this old-time "Union” church. It was during Mr. Lathrop's ministry that the friends who held believers' baptism to be the only Scriptural order sought and obtained a peaceable and honourable dismissal from the mixed communion; whereupon they were formed into a distinct church on purely Baptist principles, and met regularly for worship in Old Gravel Lane, Wapping, the date of the formation…