02 - Tobias Crisp (1600–1643)

Tobias Crisp was born in 1600, matriculated at Christ's College, Cambridge, remained at Cambridge until he had taken his BA, after which he moved to Balliol College, Oxford, graduating MA in 1626. About this time, he married the daughter of a London merchant, an MP, and future member of the Council of State, by whom he had thirteen children. In 1627, having been a Church of England minister at Newington Butts for a few months, he settled at Brinkworth in Wiltshire, where he became a popular preacher. When he obtained the degree of DD is not known, but it was before 1642, in which year, because of royalist persecution, he retired to London. While at Brinkworth, he had been suspected of antinomianism, and as soon as his opinions became known from his preaching in London, his doctrine of free grace was bitterly attacked. So much so, towards the close of the year, he was involved in a confrontation on the subject with fifty-two opponents. Crisp died of smallpox on 27th February 1643. Robert Lancaster immediately published his discourses as Christ Alone Exalted. In 1690, this, with additions, was republished by one of his sons, Samuel, as Crisp's Complete Works. In 1755, John Gill republished the volumes, appending his own notes. And it was this last edition that was republished towards the end of the 20th century, along with another edition of selected portions. Benjamin Brook, in his Lives of the Puritans, describes Crisp's doctrine as ‘spiritual, evangelical, and particularly suited to the case of awakened sinners, greatly promoting their peace and comfort'. Yet Crisp is, even to this day, constantly dismissed as a dangerous antinomian!