Early church manual which taught that baptism should follow catechesis and fasting, and should ideally be done in flowing water. It also cites Matthew 28:19, the trinitarian formula, for the proper baptismal address.

Describes baptism as belonging to those who are persuaded of Christian teaching, believe it, and commit themselves to live accordingly. Candidates then fast and pray before being brought to the water.

Argued that baptism should ideally be delayed, especially for little children. He objected to involving children in baptism. He also cites Matthew 19:14 and Luke 18:16, to argue that people should “let them come” on their own after they have become able to know Christ.

Recommends waiting until roughly age three, when a child can hear something of the mystery and answer, even imperfectly. He permits infant baptism in danger of death, so he is not a credobaptist in the modern sense, but he argues against it as the default.

Medieval reformer remembered for rejecting infant baptism and insisting that baptism belongs to those able to exercise personal faith.

Associated with the Petrobrusian stream and remembered as a medieval critic of infant baptism who stressed repentance and personal response.

The evidence for a full believer’s baptism position is debated, but some Waldensian strands strongly emphasized personal faith, repentance, and critique of merely external religion.

In Zurich, the first Anabaptists rejected infant baptism and baptized confessing believers, making believer’s baptism a defining mark of their movement.

After the Zurich disputations went against the Anabaptists, the city council, with Ulrich Zwingli’s backing, made rebaptism a capital crime, decreeing on March 7, 1526 that those who baptized again should be drowned, called the third baptism. The phrase was chosen as a mockery of their conviction, a forced third baptism answering the believer’s baptism they had received, summed up in the taunt that “whoever dips shall be dipped.” One example, Felix Manz, one of the original Swiss Brethren, was bound and drowned in the Limmat on January 5, 1527, the first Anabaptist martyr executed by Protestant authorities. Months after Manz’s death, Zwingli published his “Refutation of the Tricks of the Catabaptists,” arguing that the Anabaptists were seditious rather than merely mistaken and that the magistrate was right to put them to death. Hundreds more were drowned, burned, or beheaded across Swiss and South German lands.

States that baptism is for those who have learned repentance and amendment of life and who personally desire to walk in the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

One of the clearest early Anabaptist defenders of believer’s baptism, arguing that baptism follows teaching, repentance, and personal faith.

Helped consolidate the Anabaptist case that baptism belongs to regenerated believers who confess faith and commit themselves to Christian discipleship.

English reformer who pioneered Separatism by establishing an independent, covenant-based congregation in Norwich. Known as Brownists, they rejected the state-run parish model and emphasized local church autonomy and covenantal membership, which became the structural basis for later Baptist ecclesiology.

John Smyth, a former Anglican clergyman, joined and led a Separatist congregation in Gainsborough along with Thomas Helwys. The members entered a covenant to walk in all God’s ways, marking their clear split from the Church of England.

To escape relentless religious persecution under James I, John Smyth and Thomas Helwys led their Gainsborough congregation to Amsterdam, seeking religious freedom and coming into contact with local Mennonites.

Convinced that infant baptism was unscriptural and that the Gainsborough congregation’s existing baptisms were invalid, Smyth baptized himself by pouring (se-baptism) and then baptized Thomas Helwys and the rest of the group. This established the first modern English-speaking Baptist church based on covenant, believer’s baptism, and local church freedom.

Led a portion of the exiled Amsterdam congregation back to Spitalfields, London, establishing the first General Baptist church on English soil. He also wrote the groundbreaking tract “A Short Declaration of the Mystery of Iniquity,” formulating the first complete plea for universal religious liberty in the English language.

Pastor of the first documented Particular (Calvinistic) Baptist congregation in London, which split peacefully from the Jacob-Lathrop-Jessey (JLJ) Separatist church. He rejected infant baptism and defended a distinct, covenantal view of believer’s baptism.

The famous nonconformist congregation in Bristol was founded, initially meeting as a Separatist group led by Dorothy Hazard. By and by, the church developed strong credobaptist convictions, which were subsequently championed by early deacon and writer Robert Purnell (Prunell).

A leader in the London Particular Baptist JLJ congregation who was sent to the Collegiants in the Netherlands to research baptism. This led to the recovery and standard implementation of Baptism by immersion (submersion) among English Baptists, replacing pouring.

Oxford-trained minister, once settled in a Devonshire living, who by the outbreak of the Civil War was preaching at Bedford against the validity of infant baptism. Invited to Coventry, he was met by Richard Baxter, then chaplain to the parliamentary garrison there, who challenged him to a public disputation on baptism. Coxe accepted and made his case before a town whose sympathies already lay with his opponent. When the dispute was over the Presbyterian authorities ordered him out of Coventry, and when he refused to go they threw him in prison. Baxter was long reproached for having instigated it; he denied the charge, though he did little to prevent it. On his release Coxe went to London and cast his lot with the Particular Baptists.

Published by seven Particular Baptist congregations in London to distinguish themselves from General Baptists and continental Anabaptists. It defined Calvinistic theology and explicitly required baptism of believers by immersion. It was published years before the Westminster Confession which came in 1647.

Benjamin Coxe published this supplement to the First London Confession, written to answer questions put to the Particular Baptists about their position. It defends believer’s baptism by immersion and argues from the covenants themselves, denying that the promise of a natural seed given to Abraham carries over to the new covenant, an argument his son Nehemiah would later develop at length.

Prominent writer, leader, and deacon of the Broadmead Church who was baptized as a believer. He published several treatises defending nonconformist, congregational, and baptistic views of church order and the covenant of grace.

Son of Benjamin Coxe and a cordwainer by trade, who taught himself Greek and Hebrew and was later licensed as a physician. He joined John Bunyan’s congregation at Bedford in 1669.

Nehemiah Coxe began a joint pastorate with William Collins over the Petty France church in London, a closed-membership Particular Baptist congregation that became one of the most influential in the city.

Coxe recorded in the Petty France church book that a confession of faith with its appendix had been read, considered, and should be published, the first known notice of the document. He and Collins are generally credited with editing it. The confession follows the Westminster Confession closely while stating Baptist convictions on the church, baptism, and the covenants. The general assembly of Particular Baptist churches adopted it in 1689, months after Coxe’s death, and it became the standard Baptist confession.

Nehemiah Coxe’s treatment of the covenants God made with men before the law, tracing Adam, Noah, and Abraham. He argued that the Abrahamic covenant carried a promise of an earthly seed and land alongside the covenant of grace, and that only the latter passes into the new covenant, so the children of believers are not on that ground members of the church. It remains the fullest early statement of Particular Baptist covenant theology.

Distinguished English Particular Baptist pastor, biblical scholar, and theologian who ministered at Southwark for over fifty years. He published the first ever complete verse-by-verse commentary on the entire Bible, and his “A Body of Doctrinal Divinity” deeply shaped 18th-century Particular Baptist theology, defending Calvinist orthodoxy, the Trinity, and believer’s baptism.