Paul Baynes

Paul Baynes (also 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 Described as a "radical Puritan", he was unpublished in his lifetime, but more than a dozen works were put out in the five years after he died.^[1] His commentary on Ephesians is his best known work; the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 College 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] In 1617, Baynes described the types of servitude then existing in England, from apprentices to chattel slaves born enslaved.^[8]

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.^[9] Ames quoted Baynes: "Beware of a strong head and a cold heart",^[10][11] an idea that would be repeated by Cotton Mather, who was grandson to John Cotton.^[12]

Works

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