Matthew Caffyn, Horsham, Sussex, 1691

Matthew Caffyn (1628-1714) 

Memorial window to Caffyn in Horsham Unitarian Church 

Matthew Caffyn inhabited a world very different from the literary, clerical and academic milieux of many others accused of heresy. 

He was a general Baptist (denominational labels were somewhat less precise than they became in subsequent centuries). He was a doughty nonconformist and his theology was unitarian and Arminian.

In 1645, aged 17, Caffyn was expelled from Oxford University for his refusal to accept a trinitarian faith. 

He returned to Horsham, Sussex where he was to serve as minister to the general baptist congregation for over 60 years, while continuing to farm. He was not shy of altercation and crossed verbal swords with Quakers and Socinians, publishing four works against those with whom he disagreed (WorldCat). He was imprisoned  for unauthorised preaching and, in 1653, for his opposition to infant baptism.

In 1673 Thomas Monk published ‘A Cure for the cankering Error of the New Eutychians’ attacking Caffyn’s views without naming him.

Caffyn became a lightning rod for the tension between those who adhered to Calvinism and those who favoured Arminianism in their theology and spirituality (wiki). In 1691 Caffyn was denounced by Joseph Wright to the general baptist assembly for denying both the divinity and the humanity of Christ. He demanded Caffyn’s expulsion. But the assembly accepted his defence and refused to censure him; and then repeated their refusal in 1693. 

Wright in his turn refused to give up. At the end of the century churches in Buckinghamshire and Northamptonshire insisted on a trial and, eventually, the assembly agreed an examination of the issues at Whitsuntide, 1700.

Except that Caffyn’s supporters worked a way around: instead of a trial they set up a committee of eight people, of whom four were Caffyn’s critics. This committee met with Caffyn and drew up a resolution intended to heal division, encouraged in part by Daniel Allen’s The Moderate Trinitarian (1699) which had been published not long before the assembly met (Google books). The committee issued a declaration which failed to address the disputed issues and nonetheless the following assembly declared by a large majority that they were satisfied with Caffyn’s defence. 

Not everyone was happy in moderation. Christopher Cooper of Ashford continued the complaint, describing Caffyn’s opinions as “nothing but a fardel of Mahometanism, Arianism, Socinianism and Quakerism”. At the 1701 Assembly representatives from Northamptonshire insisted that Caffyn had not been properly tried. Nonetheless debate concluded with a significant majority voting to accept Caffyn’s explanation and signed declaration.

Schism followed, if briefly. The minority were reconciled in 1704, the year after Joseph Wright's death. Caffyn died in 1714.

Sources:

Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Subscription required)

Dictionary of National Biography

Dictionary of Unitarian & Universalist Biography 

Horsham Church History

Last updated: 10/5/2020