And this is the firm tradition of the universal Church, in respect of the baptism of infants, who certainly are as yet unable “with the heart to believe unto righteousness, and with the mouth to make confession unto salvation,” as the thief could do; nay, who even, by crying and moaning when the mystery is performed upon them, raise their voices in opposition to the mysterious words, and yet no Christian will say that they are baptized to no purpose.—Augustine. Continue reading →

The actual account of the meeting between Featley and the Baptists is quite interesting. The substance of it begins when Featley was challenged by an anonymous “Scotch-man” who challenged him thus: Master Doctor, we come to dispute with you at this time, . . . Continue reading →

As noted previously, Featley’s volume, Καταβαπτιστοι καταπυστοι, which he politely translated as Dippers Dipt, was subtitled, The Anabaptists Duck’d and Plung’d over Head and Ears, at a Disputation at Southwark.1 This record of the event went through two editions in 1645 and I . . . Continue reading →

Today, under the influence of the Marxists, we would call William Kiffen a working-class guy who became successful. His opponent in the 1642 debate featured in Dippers Dipt, Daniel Featley (1582–1645), was also a working-class fellow.1 He was born in Oxford, but we . . . Continue reading →

In this installment, we focus on the major Baptist figure present at the debate, William Kiffin (1616–1701). He is worthy of attention, first because he was a central figure in the debate between Featley and the Baptists, but also because he was, as a nineteenth-century Baptist historian wrote, “FATHER OF THE PARTICULAR BAPTISTS. He played a “significant role” in the drafting of the London Confession of Faith (1644) and was the second signatory to the Second London Baptist Confession (1677) in 1689. A nineteenth-century historian called Kiffin an “extraordinary” person in the Particular Baptist tradition. One anonymous writer called him the “ordained Mufti of all heretics and sectaries. Continue reading →

In this series I intend to consider what was perhaps the earliest Reformed response to the Particular Baptist movement, a treatise by the Anglican theologian and Westminster Divine, Daniel Featley (1582–1645), which recounts a disputation (think of a debate) between Featley, an . . . Continue reading →