The life of William Kiffin spanned the most convulsive period in English history. He was born during the reign of James I, a Calvinist-turned-homosexual king. He came to manhood under Charles I; served in the army of Oliver Cromwell; suffered in the Restoration; and spent his last years under the blessings of the "Glorious Revolution". His dates are 1616-1701.

At the age of nine, Kiffin was orphaned by one of the plagues that swept through London. Taken in by relatives, he was robbed of his inheritance and apprenticed to a brewer's clerk. He found this base occupation much to his disliking, and so, at about 15, he slipped off before dawn, planning to never return. But what does a boy do with himself so early in the morning? He didn't know. Providence, however, did. He saw several hundred people crowding into a church building. This puzzled the young William: "Why anyone get up so early to go to church?" He decided to find out. Entering St. Antholin's Church, he heard the puritan Thomas Foxley deliver a powerful sermon on "Honor Father and Mother". This commandment--Foxley argued--extended beyond the nuclear family, and required due respect to everyone in authority...including masters! Kiffin was deeply impressed: "How did he know that I would be here this morning?" he wondered. The young runaway went back to his master, and sneaked in before anyone else got up.

From that day forward, Kiffin resolved to hear no one but Puritan ministers. Soon after, he heard John Norton, who preached on Isaiah 57:21: "There is no peace, saith my God, unto the wicked". Kiffin wrote: "In this sermon he showed what true peace was, and that no man could obtain it without an interest in Jesus Christ. These statements made a great impression upon my heart; as I was convinced that I had not that peace, and how to obtain an interest in Jesus Christ I knew not. This occasioned great perplexity in my soul. Every day saw myself more and more sinful and vile. Pray, I could not; I thought myself shut up in unbelief..."

Under this sense of sin and misery, Kiffin pursued righteousness in the usual ways:

Needless to say, neither good works nor deep guilt could bring comfort to young Mr. Kiffin. Finally, under the preaching of John Goodwin, he learned what could. "Delivering his judgment about the way of God's dealings in the conversion of sinners, he showed that the terrors of the law were not of necessity to be preached to prepare the soul for Christ, because in the nature and tendency of them, they drove the soul further off from Christ; answering very many objections and Scriptures produced by other ministers to prove the contrary. This was of great use to me, so far as to satisfy me, that God had not tied himself to any such way of converting a sinner; but according to His good pleasure took several ways of bringing a soul to Jesus Christ. I had for some time seen the want of Christ, and believed that it was by Him only I must expect pardon; and had also seen the worth and excellencies that were in Him above all other objects; so that I now felt my soul to rest upon Him and trust in Him".

William Kiffin, now 17 years old, was converted. He "believed on the Lord Jesus Christ--and "was saved".

Conversion, of course, heightened his interest in the public worship of God. He read the Bible carefully, and began to see discrepancies between what it taught and what his church (the Church of England) practiced. He went to the ministers to find clarification. But he found something else: hostility. "...Instead of satisfying me, they rather despised by youthful years, showing more passion than reason". The Church of England had just lost a member.

From there, he went to the Independents (or Congregationalists). They were a holier people than the conformists, and urged Kiffin to "improve the abilities God was pleased to give him". They asked him to preach, and so he did, much to their satisfaction. But not everyone approved. Once, he was greeted with a barrage of stones, one hitting him in the face.

After some time among the Independents, Kiffin left them for the Baptists. Why? Let him speak for himself: "I used all endeavors, by converse with all such as were able, and also by diligently searching the Scriptures, with earnest desires to God that I might be directed in a right way of worship; and after some time concluded, that the safest way was to follow the footsteps of the flock, namely, the order laid down by Christ and His Apostles, and practiced by the primitive Christians in their times; which I found to be, that after conversion they were baptized, added to the church, and `continued in the Apostles' doctrine and fellowship, and breaking of bread, and prayer' according to which I thought myself bound to be conformable.

At 27 years old, William Kiffin became a Baptist pastor, and served the church till his dying day, nearly sixty years later.

The years were full of lights and shadows. Among the latter were the persecutions to which the Baptists were so often subject. Kiffin suffered several arrests, heavy fines and imprisonment for his faith. The saddest thing about his suffering, however, is its source. "For it is not an enemy who reproaches me; then I could bear it". Before 1640, it was Archbishop Laud (a crypto-Catholic) who savaged the Lord's people in England. But for the next 10 years, it was the Presbyterians who did the dirty work. It is hard to believe--but true: the Divines who drew up the Westminster Confession of Faith, also called for the flogging, jailing, and banishing of men whose only crime was "baptizing believers".

When they couldn't jail the Baptists (as under Cromwell), they slandered them. Thomas Edwards excelled in this pastoral gift. "William Kiffin...has now become a pretended preacher, and to that end, by his enticing words, seduced and gathered a schismatical rabble of deluded children, servants and people..." He also charged him with once being apprenticed to a criminal (guilt by association) and "faith healing". He even wrote at book against Kiffin, titled "Gangrena". Edwards, though, was such a scoundrel that John Milton called him "Shallow Edwards". He also wrote of him,

"Whose dispraise,

is high praise".

At this point, I should say something about William Kiffin's financial standing. He was born, it seems, of a well-off family. But he never saw an inheritance because his greedy relatives stole it. He was apprenticed to a brewer's clerk, and this was low-paying, too. But as a man in his early 20's he gambled in the woolen market (which had long been depressed) and won...big. Within two years, he went from poverty to become one of London's wealthiest merchants. This money, though, did not "go to his head". He used it to relieve the Lord's poor, and to advance His cause in the world. Later, he would give Charles II a gift of L10,000! (a huge sum in those days, many millions today). But, as Kiffin didn't love money, we won't either. Let's move on.

From 1643-1646, the Baptists (led by Kiffin) produced a fine Confession of Faith. It was Orthodox, Calvinistic, and Baptist. But it was not a creed! Some Christians take their doctrinal statement to be "the last word on the subject"--virtually infallible! Kiffin did not. "Also, we confess that we know but in part, and that we are ignorant of many things that we desire and seek to know; and if any shall do us that friendly part, to show us from the Word of God that which we see not, we shall have cause to be thankful unto God and them."

It was also not "an end in itself". They took doctrine seriously, to be sure. But they also expected it to be "a doctrine according to godliness". And so, in a reprint, Kiffin added an appendix: "Heart bleedings for professors' abominations; or a faithful general epistle (from the same churches) presented to all who have know the way of truth, forewarning them to flee security, and careless walking under the same, discovering some of Satan's evils, whereby also wanton persons and their ungodly ways are disclaimed".

The doctrine was both Calvinistic and Evangelical.

Kiffin lived in an age of political ferment. A king was beheaded, a Commonwealth established, a monarchy restored, a Catholic coup' attempted, and a "Glorious Revolution" put in place.

What part did the great Baptist play in it all? He did not agree with the Anabaptists who prohibited political involvement; or with the Levellers who advocated communism; or with the Fifth Monarchy Men who hoped implement in "God's Kingdom on Earth". He accepted the Biblical doctrine that "the powers that be are ordained of God". Thus, he served both Cromwell and Charles II. He deplored revolution on the part of the people and despotism on the part of the King. He "prayed for kings and all in authority...that we might live quiet and peaceable lives in all godliness".

Kiffin's relationship to John Bunyan also deserves our notice. As far as we know, the two never met in person; but they did meet in controversy. Bunyan wrote a book in which he argued that a lack of baptism is no bar to communion. The unbaptized should be invited to the Lord's Table. Kiffin took exception. His argument can be reduced to this:

Kiffin was unyielding on this doctrine. But he was not unyielding himself. He opposed Bunyan's ideas, but not Bunyan or others who shared his doctrine. "We propose on our judgment candidly and plainly without the least reflection or prejudice to our Christian brethren that dissent from us on this point, with whom and with all that can own the name of the Lord Jesus according to His Gospel we desire to live in brotherly love and Christian society".

He summed up this attitude with these beautiful words: "If we cannot see eye to eye, let us strive to meet heart to heart".

William Kiffin was a good husband to his wife of 44 years, and a loving father and grandfather. But alas! His domestic happiness was often disrupted. His wife left him a widower for more than twenty years; four of his children preceded him to the grave; as did two grandchildren, who went to the gallows in (what they thought of as) a good cause.

The later years were well-spent. Kiffin never retired, but "served His generation by the will of God...and then fell asleep". In his seventies, he produced the biography of Hanserd Knollys, the leading Baptist of his time. He also signed and helped produce the Second London Confession, dated 1689. He supported a Huguenot family who had fled persecution in their land. He wrote his memoirs--not for fame--but to tell his posterity "The LORD hath done great things for us, whereof we are glad".

In old age, he wrote a letter to his children, grandchildren, and posterity not-yet-born.

William Kiffin died, December 29, 1701, "old, and full of days".

He is buried in Bunhill Fields, alongside Bunyan, Owen, other men of renown.

William Kiffin's is a life worth knowing! And imitating. So great was this little known man that he eclipsed even the Immortal Tinker in his age. Macauley wrote about the two:

"Great was the authority of Bunyan among the Baptists;

Kiffin's was greater".