¹ Greaves, R. L., ‘Spilsbury (or Spilsbery), John (1593–c.1668)’, in Greaves, Richard L. and Zaller, Robert (eds), Biographical dictionary of British radicals in the seventeenth century, Brighton 1984, i. 193–4Google Scholar.

² Spilsbery, John, A treatise concerning the lawfull subject of baptisme, London 1643 (Wing S.4976), sig. A2rGoogle Scholar.

³ Bremer, Francis J., Lay empowerment and the development of Puritanism, New York 2015, 1–3 Google Scholar.

⁴ Hunt, Arnold, The art of hearing: English preachers and their audiences, 1590–1640, Cambridge 2010 Google Scholar; Ann Hughes, ‘A moderate Puritan preacher negotiates religious change’, this Journal lxv (2014), 761–79; Cambers, Andrew, Godly reading: print, manuscript and Puritanism in England, 1580–1720, Cambridge 2011 Google Scholar.

⁵ Ryrie, Alec, Being Protestant in Reformation Britain, Oxford 2013, 6 Google Scholar.

⁶ Paster, Gail Kern, Rowe, Katherine and Floyd-Wilson, Mary (eds), Reading the early modern passions: essays in the cultural history of emotion, Philadelphia 2004 Google Scholar; Schwanda, Tom, Soul recreation: the contemplative-mystical piety of Puritanism, Eugene, Or 2012 Google Scholar; Ryrie, Being Protestant, 17–98; Roberts, S. Bryn, Puritanism and the pursuit of happiness: the ministry and theology of Ralph Venning, c. 1621–1674, Woodbridge 2015 Google Scholar; Ryrie, Alec and Schwanda, Tom (eds), Puritanism and emotion in the early modern world, New York 2016 Google Scholar.

⁷ Cooper, James F., Tenacious of their liberties: the Congregationalists in colonial Massachusetts, New York 1999 Google Scholar; Hall, David D., A reforming people: Puritanism and the transformation of public life in New England, New York 2011 Google Scholar; Winship, Michael P., Godly republicanism: Puritans, pilgrims, and a city on a hill, Cambridge, Ma 2012 Google Scholar.

⁸ Bremer, Lay empowerment.

⁹ Lake, Peter, The boxmaker's revenge: ‘orthodoxy’, ‘heterodoxy’ and the politics of the parish in early Stuart London, Manchester 2001, 288 Google Scholar.

¹⁰ Capp, Bernard, ‘The religious marketplace: public disputations in civil war and interregnum England’, English Historical Review cxxix (2014), 48–78 Google Scholar.

¹¹ For example, in his survey of public disputations, Bernard Capp analyses the period in terms of religious ‘radicals’ in conflict with representatives of a more orthodox religious culture. Though he often mentions Baptists and notes that ‘Baptists were by far the most active challengers’ during the 1640s, it is clear that his interest lies with the phenomenon of public debate per se, rather than any distinctive Baptist contribution. There is nothing wrong with this, of course, and Capp's article testifies to the value of such an approach. But it is also worth noting that by treating a more-or-less undifferentiated mass of religious ‘radicals’ as the object of one's study, one risks losing the ability to register the distinctive theological and social timbres which might otherwise distinguish any particular separatist group from the religious cacophony swirling around them: ibid. 78, 53.

¹² Hill, Christopher, The world turned upside down: radical ideas during the English Revolution, New York 1972 Google Scholar; Watts, Michael R., The dissenters: from the Reformation to the French Revolution, Oxford 1978 Google Scholar.

¹³ See, for example, Taylor, John, A swarme of sectaries, and schismatiques, London 1642 (Wing T.514)Google Scholar; Pagett, Ephraim, Heresiography; or, A description of the heretickes and sectaries of these latter times, London 1645 (Wing P.174)Google Scholar; and Edwards, Thomas, Gangraena, London 1646 (Wing E.227)Google Scholar. For the best treatment of heresiography as an early modern phenomenon see Hughes, Ann, Gangraena and the struggle for the English Revolution, Oxford 2004 Google Scholar.

¹⁴ Accurate estimates of Baptist numbers during the period are almost impossible to ascertain. W. T. Whitley attempted to compile a list of all known Baptist churches prior to 1660. Looking at Whitley's record, J. F. McGregor concluded that ‘25,000 would be a generous estimate of Baptist strength by 1660’: ‘The Baptists: fount of all heresy’, in McGregor, J. F. and Reay, B. (eds), Radical religion in the English Revolution, Oxford 1984, 33 Google Scholar. Whatever one makes of that estimate, Baptist numbers during the mid-1640s were considerably smaller: Whitley, W. T., ‘Baptist churches till 1660’, Transactions of the Baptist Historical Society (hereinafter cited as TBHS) ii (1911), 236–54Google Scholar.

¹⁵ Halcomb, Joel, ‘A social history of Congregational religious practice during the Puritan Revolution’, unpubl. PhD diss. Cambridge 2009, 144–67Google Scholar.

¹⁶ McGregor, ‘The Baptists’, 31–2.

¹⁷ Creeds and confessions of faith in the Christian tradition, ed. Pelikan, Jaroslav and Hotchkiss, Valerie, New Haven 2003, ii. 642 Google Scholar; Moore, Jonathan D., ‘The Westminster Confession of Faith and the sin of neglecting baptism’, Westminster Theological Journal lxix (2007), 63–86 Google Scholar.

¹⁸ Hutchinson, Lucy, Memoirs of the life of Colonel Hutchinson, London 1863, 299–301 Google Scholar.

¹⁹ Tombes, John, An examen of the sermon of Mr. Stephen Marshal, London 1645 (Wing T.1804)Google Scholar; Renihan, Michael Thomas, Antipaedobaptism in the thought of John Tombes, Auburn, Ma 2001 Google Scholar.

²⁰ Milton, John, A treatise on Christian doctrine, trans. Sumner, Charles R., Cambridge 1825, 431–40Google Scholar. For the provenance and authorship of De doctrina Christiana see Campbell, Gordon and others, Milton and the manuscript of De doctrina Christiana, Oxford 2007 Google Scholar.

²¹ Chaplin, Jeremiah, Life of Henry Dunster, Boston 1872, 101–94Google Scholar.

²² Consider, for example, the very different sort of impact made by Socinians and anti-Trinitarians as described in Lim, Paul C. H., Mystery unveiled: the crisis of the Trinity in early modern England, Oxford 2012 CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Mortimer, Sarah, Reason and religion in the English Revolution: the challenge of Socinianism, Cambridge 2013 Google Scholar.

²³ Francis J. Bremer, ‘Phillips, George (d. 1644)’, ODNB.

²⁴ Lambe, Thomas, A confutation of infants baptisme, [London] 1643 (Wing L.209), ‘The epistle to the reader’Google Scholar.

²⁵ Phillips, George, A reply to a confutation of some grounds for infant baptisme, London 1645 (Wing P.2026), 1Google Scholar.

²⁶ Ibid. 2.

²⁷ Wright, Stephen, The early English Baptists, 1603–1649, Woodbridge 2006, 115 n. 9Google Scholar; Gura, Philip F., A glimpse of Sion's glory: Puritan radicalism in New England, 1620–1660, Middletown, Ct 1984, 110–11Google Scholar; McLoughlin, William G., New England dissent, 1630–1833, Cambridge, Ma 1971, i. 32–44 Google Scholar.

²⁸ Spilsbery, A treatise concerning the lawfull subject of baptisme, sig. A2r.

²⁹ Ibid.

³⁰ For example, compare the excerpted material in Lambe, A confutation of infants baptisme, 4, 5, 7 with that reproduced in Spilsbery, A treatise concerning the lawfull subject of baptisme, 1, 4, 5. These points of correspondence continue throughout the two treatises.

³¹ Stephen Wright identifies those discussed here as Baptists who disagreed with Spilsbery regarding the finer points of church order. But Wright was not aware of the connection between Spilsbery's treatise and the Lambe-Phillips dialogue and his identification ignores both this fact and the trans-Atlantic context in which Spilsbery set his discourse: The early English Baptists, 105.

³² Spilsbery, A treatise concerning the lawfull subject of baptisme, 43–4. Stephen Wright has argued for a more fluid relationship between Calvinistic and Arminian baptistic groups during this time period, downplaying the significance of soteriological division, and suggesting instead that, prior to 1644, ‘the lines of division were defined not by theology but by the proper method by which they should form and order their churches’. The evidence he adduces, however, is speculative and circumstantial. Moreover, Spilsbery's damning anti-Arminian comments cited here were published a year before Wright's crucial year of 1644 and directed toward the Arminian-learning Thomas Lambe, indicating that even at an earlier stage the division between the two baptistic groups was, pace Wright, very much driven by soteriological rather than ecclesiological differences: Wright, The early English Baptists, 12.

³³ Spilsbery's text is significant among historians of early English Baptists and is often cited as an important example of early Baptist polemic. See, for example, Kreitzer, Larry Joseph, William Kiffen and his world, Oxford 2013, iii. 196 Google Scholar; Renihan, James M., Edification and beauty: the practical ecclesiology of the English Particular Baptists, 1675–1705, Eugene, Or 2009, 5–6, 48–9Google Scholar; Bell, Mark R., Apocalypse how? Baptist movements during the English Revolution, Macon, Ga 2000, 74 Google Scholar; Weaver, G. Stephen, Orthodox, Puritan, Baptist: Hercules Collins (1647–1702) and Particular Baptist identity in early modern England, Göttingen 2015, 159–60Google Scholar; Tolmie, Murray, The triumph of the saints: the separate churches of London, 1616–1649, Cambridge 1977, 24 Google Scholar; and White, B. R., The English Baptists of the seventeenth century, Didcot 1996, 72 Google Scholar.

³⁴ See, for example, Como, David R., Blown by the spirit: Puritanism and the emergence of an antinomian underground in pre-civil-war England, Stanford 2004 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

³⁵ Lake, Boxmaker's revenge, 5.

³⁶ Ibid. 90.

³⁷ Ibid. 361.

³⁸ Ibid. 287.

³⁹ Cotton Mather allocates an entire subsection to Phillips: Magnalia Christi Americana; or, The ecclesiastical history of New England, London 1702, iii. 82–4Google Scholar.

⁴⁰ Phillips, A reply to a confutation, no pagination.

⁴¹ Lake, Boxmaker's revenge, 410.

⁴² Cooke, William, A learned and full answer to a treatise intiuled the vanity of childish baptisme, London 1644 (Wing C.6403), sig. B2rGoogle Scholar.

⁴³ Wynell, Thomas, The covenants plea for infants, Oxford 1642 (Wing W.3778)Google Scholar; Chidley, Samuel, A Christian plea for infants baptisme, London 1643 (Wing C.3836)Google Scholar; Stalham, John, The summe of a conference at Terling in Essex, Januarie 11, 1643, London 1644 (Wing S.6166)Google Scholar; Marshall, Stephen, A sermon of the baptizing of infants, London 1644 (Wing M.774)Google Scholar; Cooke, A learned and full answer; Blake, Thomas, The birth-privilege, London 1644 (Wing B.3143)Google Scholar; Blake, Thomas, A moderate answer to these two questions, London 1645 (Wing B.3148)Google Scholar; Waite, John, The way to heaven by water, London 1644 (Wing W.221B)Google Scholar; Blake, Thomas, Infants baptisme, freed from antichristianisme, London 1645 (Wing B.3146)Google Scholar; Featley, Daniel, The dippers dipt, London 1645 (Wing F.587)Google Scholar; Fage, Robert, The lawfulnesse of infants baptisme, London 1645 (Wing F.85A)Google Scholar; Phillips, A reply to a confutation; Bakewell, Thomas, An answer or confutation, London 1646 (Wing B.526)Google Scholar; Edwards, Gangraena; Baillie, Robert, Anabaptism, the true fountain of Independency, Antinomy, Brownisme, Familisme, London 1647 (Wing B.452A)Google Scholar.

⁴⁴ Baillie, Anabaptism, 48.

⁴⁵ Mabbatt, John, A briefe or generall reply unto Mr. Knuttons, London 1645 (Wing M.112), sig. A2rGoogle Scholar.

⁴⁶ Baillie, Anabaptism, sig. A4r. On anxiety in response to separatism see Cressy, David, England on edge: crisis and revolution, 1640–1642, Oxford 2006, esp. pp. 211–47Google Scholar.

⁴⁷ The diary of Ralph Josselin, 1616–1683, ed. Macfarlane, Alan, Oxford 1976, 63 Google Scholar; see also pp. 27, 34, 38, 58. For the frequency of Baptist debate during the period see Langley, Arthur S., ‘Seventeenth century Baptist disputations’, TBHS vi (1919), 216–43Google Scholar.

⁴⁸ Capp, ‘The religious marketplace’, 52.

⁴⁹ ‘John Stalham (CCEd Person ID 59550)’, The clergy of the Church of England database, 1540–1835, <http://www.theclergydatabase.org.uk>.

⁵⁰ Stalham, The summe of a conference, sig. A2v.

⁵¹ Ibid.

⁵² These observations lend credence to the arguments of those who have attempted to locate a modified form of Habermas's ‘public sphere’ within the context of mid seventeenth-century England. See, for example, Hughes, Gangraena, 409–15; Zaret, David, Origins of democratic culture: printing, petitions, and the public sphere in early-modern England, Princeton 2000 Google Scholar; Lake, Peter and Pincus, Steve, ‘Rethinking the public sphere in early modern England’, Journal of British Studies xlv (2006), 270–92Google Scholar; Cressy, England on edge, 322; Cambers, Godly reading, 159–61; and Capp, ‘The religious marketplace’, 70–5.

⁵³ Stalham, The summe of a conference, 36.

⁵⁴ A declaration concerning the publike dispute which should have been in the publike meeting-house of Alderman-Bury, London 1645 (Wing D.575), sigs A2v, A3rGoogle Scholar.

⁵⁵ Cressy, England on edge, 424.

⁵⁶ Goodwin, Thomas, A glimpse of Sions glory, London 1641 (Wing K.711), 20 Google Scholar.

⁵⁷ Powell, Hunter, The crisis of British Protestantism: church power in the Puritan Revolution, 1638–44, Manchester 2015, 5 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁵⁸ The minutes and papers of the Westminster Assembly, 1643–1652, ed. Van Dixhoorn, Chad, Oxford 2012, iii. 223 Google Scholar; Lightfoot, John, The whole works of the Rev. John Lightfoot, ed. Pitman, John Rogers, London 1824, xiii. 302 Google Scholar.

⁵⁹ The story is recounted in ‘A repository of divers materials relating to the English anti-paedobaptists’, ed. Benjamin Stinton, Angus Library, Oxford, MS. FPC. C8 D/STI Stinton, 1712. A published transcription can be found in Whitley, W. T., ‘Debate on infant baptism, 1643’, TBHS i (1910), 237–45Google Scholar.

⁶⁰ ‘9 August 1644’, in Journal of the House of Commons, 1643–1644, London 1802, iii. 584–6Google Scholar; ‘9 August 1644’, Journal of the House of Lords, 1643, London 1767–1830, vi. 664–6Google Scholar.

⁶¹ Lightfoot, The whole works of the Rev. John Lightfoot, xiii. 308; The minutes and papers of the Westminster Assembly, iii. 271–3.

⁶² The minutes and papers of the Westminster Assembly, v. 87–8.

⁶³ The confession of faith, of those churches which are commonly (though falsly) called Anabaptists, London 1644 (Wing C.5789)Google Scholar.

⁶⁴ ‘12 November 1644’ and ‘15 November 1644’, in Journal of the House of Commons, 1643–1644, iii. 693–4, 697.

⁶⁵ A confession of faith of seven congregations or churches of Christ in London, London 1646 (Wing C.5780)Google Scholar; Whitley, ‘Debate on infant baptism, 1643’.

⁶⁶ Lawrence, Henry, Of baptisme, Rotterdam 1646 (Wing L.663)Google Scholar; Timothy Venning, ‘Lawrence, Henry, appointed Lord Lawrence under the protectorate (1600–1664)’, ODNB online.

⁶⁷ Cf. Goodwin, Thomas and others, An apologeticall narration humbly submitted, London 1643/4 (Wing G.1225), 15–21 Google Scholar, with The confession of faith, of those churches which are commonly (though falsly) called Anabaptists, sections xlii, xlvii.

⁶⁸ Shagan, Ethan H., ‘Rethinking moderation in the English Revolution: the case of an apologeticall narration’, in Taylor, Stephen and Tapsell, Grant (eds), The nature of the English Revolution revisited: essays in honour of John Morrill, Woodbridge 2013, 49 Google Scholar.

⁶⁹ The minutes and papers of the Westminster Assembly, iii. 273.

⁷⁰ Collier, Jay Travis, ‘The sources behind the First London Confession', American Baptist Quarterly xxi (2002), 197–215 Google Scholar.

⁷¹ The minutes and papers of the Westminster Assembly, v. 88; The confession of faith, of those churches which are commonly (though falsly) called Anabaptists, title page.

⁷² The confession of faith, of those churches which are commonly (though falsly) called Anabaptists, sig. A2r; Calamy, Edmund, Englands looking-glasse, London 1642 (Wing C.237), 46 Google Scholar.

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⁷⁴ ‘29 January 1646’, in Journal of the House of Commons, 1644–1646, iv. 420–2.

⁷⁵ Acts and Ordinances of the Interregnum, 1642–1660, ed. Firth, C. H. and Rait, R. S., London 1911, i. 1133–6Google Scholar.

⁷⁶ Williston Walker notes that during the controversy ‘a dread of the prevalence of Baptist views, limiting baptism to adult believers, had also something to do with the reluctance of the New England pastors to confine the rite to the children of visible saints’: The creeds and platforms of Congregationalism, New York 1893, 249 Google Scholar. See also Pope, Robert G., The half-way covenant: church membership in Puritan New England, Princeton 1969 Google Scholar.

⁷⁷ Gribben, Crawford, John Owen and English Puritanism: experiences of defeat, New York 2016, 137–40, 152–4Google Scholar.