In the decades after 1689 controversy over the sacrament of baptism significantly disturbed the ecclesiastical peace. The performance of baptisms by Dissenting ministers developed into a point of fierce contention because it stretched the meaning of ambiguous statutory language. Separate baptism signified the spiritual authority of the leaders of Dissenting congregations and demonstrated the denominational status particularly of the Presbyterians, sealing their long drift away from the establishment. Whatever their feelings on the concept of toleration itself, many churchmen felt that Dissenting pastors should be limited to preaching and the administration of communion, with the ceremony marking admission into England's Christian commonwealth remaining the sole prerogative of establishment clergy. The provision of baptisms by Dissenters engendered not only furious complaints from those bitter at any toleration, but also concerned responses from those confused by the lack of clear boundaries. Some were moved to deny the validity of baptism outside the Church of England and hence the full Christian status of Dissenters. Furious debates in the literary public sphere were linked to a few publicised cases in which Dissenters received second baptisms from establishment clergy. In response, ‘moderate’ bishops sought to chart a path through the uncertain religious and legal landscape.

The sacrament of baptism

It would be difficult to overstate the importance of baptism in early modern England. In the language of the Thirty-Nine Articles, the Church of England's doctrinal standard, it was one of the two sacraments ‘ordained of Christ our Lord in the Gospel’. The Articles described baptism in a variety of ways, both symbolic and instrumental. It was a ‘mark of difference whereby Christian men are discerned’ and the method through which new Christians were ‘grafted into the Church’. It was the means by which the Gospel's promises of forgiveness of sins and ‘adoption to be the sons of God’ were ‘visibly signed and sealed’ to the faithful. The baptismal rite in the Book of Common Prayer, replete with imagery of washing and rebirth, assured parents that ‘children which are baptized, dying before they commit actual sin, are undoubtedly saved’. However, the precise connection between the sacrament and salvation was subject to differing interpretations throughout the early modern period. The Prayer Book catechism, intended to be learnt by ‘children, servants, and [ap]prentices’, included the statement that baptism made one ‘a member of Christ, the child of God, and an inheritor of the kingdom of heaven’.