Title:                 An exercitation about infant-baptisme: presented in certaine papers, to the chairman of a Committee of the Assembly of divines, selected to consider of that argument, in the years, 1643, and 1644. With some few emendations, additions, and an answer to the new objection

Author:             John Tombes (1603-1676)

Publisher:          Printed by M.S. for George Whittington

Origin:              London

Date:                1646

Description:      Pamphlet

John Tombes was from Worchestershire, and graduated from Magdalen Hall, Oxford, with a B.D. In 1630 he was made Vicar of Leominster, where he demonstrated nonconformist tendencies. He was driven out of his office in Leominster by Royalists in 1642. In that same year he adopted antipedobaptist views as a result of a disputation in Bristol. He was a curate from Bewldy for a while, at which point he had a disputation with Richard Baxter over infant baptism. He returned to Leominster in 1649, served as a Trier for Cromwell, and was ejected again from Leominster in 1662. Six or seven Baptist churches “sprang up” in the West of England where he engaged in disputations. He fostered those churches, and trained three men for ministry. Towards the end of his life he married a wealthy widow and lived in Salisbury. His house there was licensed as a meeting place under the Indulgence of 1672, in which he described himself as a Presbyterian. He did not like being outside the communion of the Church of England and hoped to rejoin it when he rejected infant baptism. His writings are exegetically based, historically accurate and theologically informed. Of all the men in the history of the Church who have written about baptism, Tombes’ has more published pages than anyone.

The Westminster Assembly of Divines was appointed by the Long Parliament to restructure the Church of England. The Assembly met for six years (1643-1649), and in the process produced the documents which are the major Confessional Standards of the Presbyterian faith, including the Westminster Confession of Faith, the Westminster Larger Catechism, the Westminster Shorter Catechism, and the Directory of Public Worship.

Here is a glimpse into the baptismal debate that raged in England. Tombes addressed the question of infant baptism in a very logical and orderly manner in his Exercitation. He state the “tenet” which he was challenging, and then argued that which has no testimony in Scripture is invalid. The doctrine of infant baptism has no testimony in Scripture, therefore it is invalid. To prove this he then addressed arguments for infant baptism, and then addresses each scripture passage in terms of the argument, stated in logical syllogism, from the passage and the interpretation of the passage.

Developed from review by Mark Foster.