Evangelicals Now
<< December 1996 >>

Seminal Baptists

Seminal Baptists

Kiffin, Knollys & Keach
By Michael A.G. Haykin
Carey Publications
125 pages, £??? ISBN 0 9527913 0 7

The author of this slim and stimulating survey is Professor of Church History at Heritage Baptist College, Ontario. He is fast becoming one of the most prolific and careful of Baptist historians.
The book investigates the emergence of the Calvinistic Baptists from the Puritan movement of the 17th century in England. The backbone of the text is the linked stories of three early Calvinistic Baptist leaders: William Kiffin (1616 ù 1701), Hanserd Knollys (1599 ù 1691) and Benjamin Keach (1640 ù 1704). They are very different characters. Kiffin was an extremely wealthy merchant in the cloth trade with connections in high places during the time of Cromwell and Charles II. Knollys was a Cambridge graduate and Church of England minister who felt constrained to resign from the established church. Keach left the General Baptists to become the leading Calvinistic Baptist theologian of his era.
These biographies are fleshed out by excursions into the classic Baptist doctrinal statements of the 17th century. Such men as these were involved in formulating the first (1644) and Second (1689) London Confessions of Faith. Haykin's ability to crisp explanation and his grasp of the historical background make the Confessions come alive. Of particular interest is the way that these early Baptists felt it necessary to oppose the ideas of Quakers concerning the Spirit's inner leading which are parallel to much that passes muster today among some charismatic.
These were days in which the struggle was fought to regain the vision of the church as a gathered body of regenerate people. The quotation Haykin gives from Professor Stanley Grenz of Vancouver, stayed with this reviewer: 'Because people are the church, ongoing Baptist congregational life demands the involvement of each member in a way unparalleled by the leader-centred polity of both the traditional churches and the newer charismatic groups.'
This is a book to be highly recommended for its laudable attention to historical detail and the insights it brings from the past into the present church scene.

JEB
Dr John Benton