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 ˘ 1701), Hanserd Knollys (1599 ˘ 1691) and Benjamin Keach (1640 ˘ 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.
