Paul Baynes

Paul Baynes (Bayne, Baines) (c.1573–1617) was an English clergyman. Described as a “radical Puritan”, he was unpublished in his lifetime, but more than a dozen works were put out in the five years after he died.[1] His commentary on Ephesians is his best known work; the commentary on the first chapter, itself of 400 pages, appeared in 1618.[2]

Life

He went to school at Wethersfield, Essex.[3] A pupil and follower of William Perkins, he graduated from Christ's College, Cambridge with a B.A. in 1593/4, M.A. in 1597, and was elected a Fellow of Christ's in 1600,[4] a position he lost in 1608 for non-conformity. He was successor to Perkins as lecturer at the church of St Andrew the Great in Cambridge, opposite Christ's;[5][6] they were considered the town's leading Puritan preachers.[7]

Influence

Baynes was an important influence on the following generation of English Calvinists, through William Ames, a convert of Perkins, and Richard Sibbes, a convert of Baynes himself. This makes Baynes a major link in a chain of "Puritan worthies": to John Cotton, John Preston, Thomas Shepard and Thomas Goodwin.[8] Ames quoted Baynes: "Beware of a strong head and a cold heart",[9][10] an idea that would be repeated by Cotton Mather, who was grandson to John Cotton.[11]

Works
  • Commentary on Ephesians (1618)
  • A Counterbane against Earthly Carefulnes (1619)
  • The Diocesans Tryall (1621)
  • Brief Directions unto a Godly Life (1637)

References
  1. Nicholas Tyacke, Aspects of English Protestantism, C. 1530-1700 (2001), p. 116.
  2. Nicholas Tyacke, Aspects of English Protestantism, C. 1530-1700 (2001), p. 119.
  3. http://www.graceonlinelibrary.org/articles/full.asp?id=39%7C%7C485
  4. "Baynes, Paul (BNS590P)". A Cambridge Alumni Database. University of Cambridge.
  5. http://www.puritansermons.com/banner/beeke01.htm
  6. Sargent Bush (editor), The Correspondence of John Cotton (2001), p. 327.
  7. http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=66630
  8. Kelly M. Kapic, Randall C. Gleason, The Devoted Life: An Invitation to the Puritan Classics (2004), p. 41.
  9. Francis J. Bremer, The Puritan Experiment: New England Society from Bradford to Edwards (1995), p. 22.
  10. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2006-05-08. Retrieved 2008-11-02.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  11. Leland Ryken, Worldly Saints: The Puritans as They Really Were (1991), p. 17.

Further reading
  • Andrew Atherstone, The Silencing of Paul Baynes and Thomas Taylor, Puritan Lecturers at Cambridge, Notes and Queries (2007) 54, pp. 386–389.
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