A leading exponent of the new moderate Calvinism that brought new life to many Baptists, John Rippon (1751-1836) helped unite Baptists during his lifetime. Reared in the West Country and trained at Bristol Academy, Rippon served for over sixty years at the London church where John Gill had been minister. Through his 'A Selection of Hymns from the Best Authors', Rippon exerted a powerful influence on Baptist worship and devotional life. Through his Baptist Annual Register (1790-1802), the denomination's first periodical, Rippon recorded the denomination's growing maturity, encouraged a strong missionary commitment, and promoted links between Baptists in Britain and America. With a keen sense of English Protestant history, which he helped preserve, and an active leadership in many Baptist organizations, Rippon helped conserve the heritage of Old Dissent and stimulated the evangelicalism of the New Dissent.

Author - Ken R. Manley
Foreword - B. R. White

"John Rippon, a prominent leader of the Evangelical Baptists in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, receives thorough scholarly appraisal in this book. Pastor, preacher, hymn writer and editor, Rippon displayed a global vision of the advance of the gospel."

— David Bebbington, University of Stirling

"John Rippon was one of the makers of the Baptist denomination, helping it to benefit from the new life of the Evangelical Revival. He helped to develop denominational consciousness and began to provide it with those agencies and instruments — periodical literature, hymn and tune books, the preservation of historical documentation and the promotion of itinerancy — which helped achieve this purpose. Ken Manley's fine study of this influential London minister uses biography to illuminate the life of the Particular Baptists at a turning point in their history."

— John H. Y. Briggs, Regent's Park College, University of Oxford

"I am personally thrilled about the publication of Ken Manley's doctoral thesis on John Rippon, who was one of the important Baptist figures of his day. It has proven to be one of the most valuable and most consulted pieces of Baptist scholarship, and now can reach an even broader audience."

— Michael Haykin, Toronto Baptist Seminary and Bible College

From Woolloomooloo to 'Eternity': A History of Australian Baptists by Ken R. Manley

Towards Baptist Catholicity by Steven R. Harmon
Tracks and Traces by Paul S. Fiddes
"Redeeming Love Proclaim" by Ken R. Manley
Baptist Identities
Baptist Sacramentalism
Paradox and Perseverance by Dennis C. Bustin
"At the Pure Fountain of Thy Word"
More than a Symbol by Stanley K. Fowler
Recycling the Past or Researching History?
The Search for a Common Identity by Brian Talbot
From Woolloomooloo to 'Eternity': A History of Australian Baptists by Ken R. Manley
Calvinism, Communion and the Baptists by Peter Naylor
Baptists and Mission