1692, Lavenham. A rector named William Burkitt burst into a Baptist meeting uninvited and preached a sermon, delivering to them the grounds for infant Baptism, warning them of their sin and calling them to repentance. Provoked to action, Benjamin Keach, a Particular Baptist Minister, responded with a point by point defence of the Baptist position – outlining the necessity of immersion and believer’s Baptism.

The purpose of this book is to examine this controversy and consider some crucial issues it raised, principally the nature of the church of the Lord Jesus Christ. It involved three men, William Burkitt (1650–1703), John Tredwell, and Benjamin Keach (1640–1704). It is the hope of the author that these events in the 1690s and their thoughtful consideration found within these pages will help Christians think through issues of church membership, Baptism, church discipline and other issue pertaining to the theology and practice of ecclesiology.