ABSTRACT
The debate between Stephen Marshall and John Tombes on infant baptism began a spirited exchange of views among the english puritans of the midseventeenth century concerning the place of children in the church.2 This debate certainly made waves in Oxford, where John Owen was Dean of Christ Church (1651-60) and Vice-Chancellor (1652-8). At the annual academic convocation in 1652, for example, Henry Savage delivered a dissertation specifically against Tombes’ views. Moreover, in 1654 he was appointed a “Trier,” charged with the examination and approval of ministers, and this high-profile role would naturally have drawn attention to Tombes, “the archetypal Anglican Antipaedobaptist,” and his distinctive theological convictions, from the universities where new clergy were being trained by men such as Owen.3 it is into this rhetorical and theological context that we can place Owen’s short work Of Infant Baptism.4
