Benjamin Keach

Benjamin Keach (1640-1704) was from Buckinghamshire. He was the first Particular Baptist minister to introduce congregational hymn singing as a part of public worship. He ministered at the Particular Baptist meeting in Horsleydown from 1672 to his death. He attacked Quakerism and Baxterianism. To further what was at that time a highly controversial practice, he published Spiritual Melody (1691), a collection of some three hundred hymns. His church split in 1691 over his practice of hymn singing, with a new congregation forming in Tooley Street, Southwark. Among his other numerous writings are Instructions for Children: Or, the Child’s and Youth’s Delight (1664), War with the Devil (1674; 1683), The Grand Imposter (1675), The Glorious Lover (1679), Distressed Sion Relieved (1689), and Spiritual Songs (1700). For more on Keach, see Hugh Martin, Benjamin Keach, Pioneer of Congregational Hymn Singing (London: Independent Press, 1961); Richard Arnold, The English Hymn: Studies in a Genre (New York: Peter Lang, 1995), 16-25;  Tom J. Nettles, “Benjamin Keach (1640-1704),” in The British Particular Baptists, ed. Michael A. G. Haykin, 5 vols. (Springfield, MO: Particular Baptist Press, 1998-2019), 1.95-131; Austin Walker, The Excellent Benjamin Keach (Kitchener, Ontario: Joshua Press, 2004; 2nd ed., 2015), 279-309; and Matthew Ward, “Pure Worship: The Early English Baptist Distinctive” (Ph.D. Diss., Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, 2013), 213-52.