'All things necessary for their saluation'? The Dedham Ministers and the 'Puritan' Baptism Debates



French, Anna
(2019) 'All things necessary for their saluation'? The Dedham Ministers and the 'Puritan' Baptism Debates. In: CHILDHOOD, YOUTH AND RELIGIOUS MINORITIES IN EARLY MODERN EUROPE. Palgrave Studies in the History of Childhood . Springer International Publishing, pp. 75-98. ISBN 978-3-030-29198-3

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Abstract

In December 1583, a group of Dedham ministers arrived at Lambeth Palace to meet with the Archbishop of Canterbury, John Whitgift. The ministers sought to clarify the Church’s position on baptism. This chapter examines the views of these zealous ministers, to unpick their beliefs about the sacrament, asking what they can tell us about perceptions of the very young. This chapter draws together the histories of Protestant beliefs about salvation, infancy and women, to consider how the now theologically fraught rite of baptism was used to negotiate concerns surrounding infancy in post-Reformation England. The chapter will argue that radical reformers’ anxieties surrounding the spiritual status of infants, and their acute emphasis on sin (expressed through clerical debate and within puritan polemical literature alike), influenced and shaped wider Protestant belief.

Item Type: Book Section
Depositing User: Symplectic Admin
Date Deposited: 26 Jun 2020 08:18
Last Modified: 16 Mar 2024 22:22
DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-29199-0_3
Related URLs:
URI: https://livrepository.liverpool.ac.uk/id/eprint/3091616