He was born in London early in 1616. His family appears to have been of
Welsh descent. Both his parents died of the
plague which broke out in June 1625. His father left property which was invested by some relatives in their business; on their failure little was saved. Kiffin was likely apprenticed in 1629 to
John Lilburne, then a brewer (note: this probably is inaccurate; Liliburne was the same age as Kiffin; he was also not a brewer until 1641ish); he left Lilburne in 1631, and seems to have been apprenticed to a glover (Kiffin became a Freeman of the
Leathersellers' Company on 10 July 1638, having served an apprenticeship to John Smith, thought to have been a glover by trade). In 1631 Kiffin attended the sermons of many
Puritan divines, including
John Davenport and
Lewis du Moulin, but attached himself next year to
John Goodwin the
independent. He joined a religious society of apprentices, and became (1638) member of the Nonconformist church gathered in
Southwark by
Henry Jacob and then ministered to by
John Lothrop. Kiffin preached occasionally. In 1641–2, during the ministry of
Henry Jessey, he and others became
Baptists, but he remained a member of the church until 1644. Early in 1641 he was arrested at a Southwark
conventicle and committed by Judge Mallet to the
White Lion prison, bail being refused. Mallet was himself committed to
the Tower in the following July, whereupon Kiffin obtained his release. On 17 October 1642 he was one of four Baptist disputants encountered at Southwark by
Daniel Featley. In 1643 Kiffin began business in woollen cloth on his own account with
Holland and became a rich man. In 1647 he was parliamentary assessor of taxes for
Middlesex. In 1649 he made good use of the five weeks' grace before the coming into force of restrictions upon the import of foreign goods. In 1652, on the outbreak of the
first Anglo–Dutch War, he gained money and privileges by furnishing requisites for the English fleet. Meanwhile, he was pursuing his religious labours. In 1644, seven Baptist churches in London drew up the famous
First London Confession of Faith; His name heads in the signatories.
Josiah Ricraft, a
Presbyterian merchant, attacked him (1646) as "the grand ringleader" of the Baptists.
Thomas Edwards assailed him in 1646 as a "mountebank," and as adopting the "atheistical" practice of
unction for the recovery of the sick. Kiffin had offered in vain (15 Nov. 1644) to discuss matters publicly with Edwards in his church (
St. Botolph's, Aldgate). He joined
Hanserd Knollys in a public disputation (1646) at
Holy Trinity Church, Coventry, with
John Bryan, D.D., and
Obadiah Grew, D.D. In January 1649 Parliament, in response to a petition from Ipswich, gave him liberty to preach in any part of
Suffolk, where he travelled with Thomas Patience, his assistant. He corresponded (1653) with the Baptist churches in
Ireland and
Wales. His settlement with the congregation, which, on 1 March 1667, opened a meeting-house in Meeting-house Yard, Devonshire Square, London, is usually dated in 1653. But as early as 1643 Kiffin and Patience ministered to this congregation, which consisted of
seceders from
Wapping practising close communion. He signed the declaration of 1651. On 12 July 1655 Kiffin was brought before
Christopher Pack, the Lord Mayor, for preaching that infant baptism was unlawful, a heresy visited with severe penalties under the "draconick ordinance" of 1648. The execution of the penalty was indefinitely postponed. A pamphlet (
The Spirit of Persecution again Broke Loose, &c., 1655) contrasts this leniency with the severity used towards
John Biddle. He was M.P. for Middlesex, 1656–8. Between 1654 and 1659 Kiffin is spoken of as captain and lieutenant-colonel in the London militia. This may account for his arrest, and the seizure of arms at his house in
Little Moorfields, shortly before
the Restoration, in 1660, by order of
Monck, who was quartered near him. He was released by order of the common council, and the arms were restored to him. A more serious trouble befell him later in the year. A forged letter, dated 21 December 1660, and professing to come from
Taunton, implicated him in an alleged plot, following the death of the
Princess of Orange (24 December). He was arrested on 29 December, and kept in the guard-house at
Whitehall, but released on 31 Dec. by Sir
Robert Foster, the chief justice, the date and other circumstances proving the letter a forgery. On 7 January 1661
Venner's insurrection broke out. Kiffin at once headed a "protestation" of London baptists, but nevertheless was arrested at his meeting-house and detained in prison for four days. About 1663 he gave evidence before a committee of the House of Commons, and before the privy council, against granting to the "
Hamburg Company" a monopoly of the woollen trade with Holland and Germany. His evidence permanently impressed
Charles II in his favour, and gained him the goodwill of
Clarendon. A year later he was arrested at the instance of
George Villiers, 2nd Duke of Buckingham, on suspicion of being concerned in an anabaptist plot against the king's life. He wrote to Clarendon, and was at once released by the privy council, and though a prosecution was threatened nothing came of it. In 1669 his meeting-house was in Finsbury Court,
Moorfields. On two occasions, in 1670 and 1682, Kiffin, when prosecuted for conventicle-keeping, successfully pleaded technical flaws. On two other occasions (one in 1673) he obtained interviews with the king, securing the suppression of a libel against Baptists, and the pardon of twelve
Aylesbury baptists who had been sentenced to death under the
Religion Act 1592. Crosby relates that Charles wanted a loan of £40,000 from Kiffin, who made him a present of £10,000, and said afterwards that he had thus saved £30,000. In 1675 he took part in a scheme for ministerial education among baptists; and in the following year went into Wiltshire, to aid in dealing with the
Socinian tendencies of
Thomas Collier. In 1683 his house was searched on suspicion of his complicity with the
Rye House Plot; his son-in-law, Joseph Hayes, a banker, was tried for remitting money to Sir
Thomas Armstrong, and narrowly escaped with his life, "a jury of merchants" refusing to convict him. Treasonable letters were forwarded to Kiffin; he at once placed them in the hands of Judge Jeffreys. Two of his grandsons, Benjamin and William Howling, the former being just of age, were executed (Benjamin at
Taunton on 30 September, William at
Lyme Regis on 12 Sept. 1686) for having joined
Monmouth's rebellion. Kiffin offered £3,000 for their acquittal, but "missed the right door," not having gone to Jeffreys. The latter is said to have remarked to William Hewling: "You have a grandfather who deserves to be hanged as richly as you." Though his near relatives were thus involved, Kiffin himself was neither a plotter nor, in any active sense, a politician. On the revocation (1685) of the
edict of Nantes, Kiffin maintained at his own expense an exiled
Huguenot family of rank. Both on constitutional and on anti-popish grounds he refused to avail himself of
James II's declaration for liberty of conscience (April 1687), and did all in his power to keep his denomination from countenancing it; not a single baptist congregation admitted the dispensing power, though prominent individual baptists did, e.g.
Nehemiah Cox. In August 1687 James sent for Kiffin to court, and told him he had included his name as an alderman for the city of London in his new charter. Kiffin pleaded his age and retirement from business, and reminded the king of the death of his grandsons. "I shall find," said James, "a balsam for that sore." Kiffin was put into the commission of the peace and the lieutenancy. He delayed four months before qualifying as alderman, and did so at length (27 Oct. 1687) because there was no limit to the fine which might have been imposed on him. He gave £50 towards the lord mayor's feast, but would not have done so had he known the
papal nuncio (Count
Ferdinando d'Adda) was invited. For nearly a year he held office as alderman of
Cheap ward, being succeeded on 21 Oct. 1688 by Sir
Humphrey Edwin. After the death of Patience (1666) he was assisted in his ministry by
Daniel Dyke and Richard Adams (died 1716). He resigned his charge in 1692. He died on 29 Dec. 1701 in his eighty-sixth year, and was buried in Bunhill Fields; the inscription on his tomb is given in
John Stow's
Survey, ed.
John Strype, 1720. His portrait was in 1808 in the possession of the Rev. Richard Frost of Dunmow, Essex, a descendant; an engraving is given in Wilson, and reproduced by
William Orme and
Joseph Ivimey. He married late in 1634; his wife, Hanna, died 6 Oct. 1682, aged 66. His eldest son William died 31 Aug. 1669, aged 20; his second son died at Venice, and was supposed to have been poisoned; Harry, another son, died on 8 Dec. 1698, aged 44. His daughter Priscilla (d. 15 March 1679) married Robert Liddel. His granddaughter, Hannah Hewling, married Oliver Cromwell's grandson, Major Gen. Henry Cromwell. ==Works==