Of Benjamin Keach I have also spoken. Although a good man, and of an ingenious turn, he must have been rather pugnacious, for his works are of a controversial stamp, relating to the seventh-day Sabbath and the question of psalmody. He was one of those who have not the smallest doubt of being themselves right, and of everybody else being wrong. Adult Baptism he described as _Gold Refined_; the Athenian Society he attacked for what it had said respecting Pædobaptism; he rectified a Rector by proving Infant Baptism unlawful in his _Axe Laid to the Root_, or one blow more aimed at that practice, which one blow would beat down for ever the arguments of Mr. Flavel, Mr. Rothwell, and Mr. Exell; finally, by _A Counter Antidote_, he strove to resist the assaults upon what his antagonists would call _Anabaptism_. His congregation is spoken of as the first to sing in public worship. So cautious were they, because of the prejudices of their brethren, that they went on step by step, for a long time restricting the practice to the close of the Lord’s Supper, then venturing upon a hymn amidst the exultation of a thanksgiving-day, and at last, after a struggle of fourteen years, becoming so bold and yet so temperate, as to sing every Sunday, after objectors to the practice had been allowed to retire.[538] The distinction between Particular and General Baptists assumed sharper form and greater prominence after the Revolution. The General Baptists of the county of Somerset, in the year 1691, published an original manifesto of doctrine. These articles, upon the Will of Man, the Work of the Spirit, God’s Decrees, and the Saints’ Perseverance, are decidedly anti-Calvinistic, and the final chapter bears a millenarian impress; but, to avoid being charged with the excesses of the old fifth monarchists, the brethren declared that the “kingdom ought not to be set up by the material sword,” that being “contrary to the very nature of Christianity.”[539] [Sidenote: NONCONFORMISTS.] Matthew Caffin was a celebrated man amongst the General Baptists. Five times he suffered imprisonment for his Nonconformity, besides which he was repeatedly fined under the Conventicle Act. Opposed to the doctrine of Calvinism, like the rest of his brethren, he also distinguished himself by opposition to the Athanasian Creed. He objected to its definition and to its damnatory clauses, although he did not adopt either Socinian or Arian tenets.