Baptist Alignments and the Restoration Of Immersion, 1638-44 - Part 2

Abstract

This completes the paper begun in January 2004, seeking to re-interpret the account transcribed by Benjamin Stinton of the origins of the Calvinistic Baptists. Before 1644 there existed alignments which, though more fluid and more provisional than those later established, did amount to a recognizable pattern based upon divisions not over theology but rather over the proper means of church formation; and that this temporary pattern of inter-congregational allegiance cut across, and is to be contrasted with the familiar later bipolar division into General and Particular Baptists.