The name of the eighteenth-century Baptist minister James Hinton (1761–1823) is not one that is well-known by any standard, even to those who specialize in the study of English Baptist history. Yet, along with his friends Andrew Fuller (1754–1815) and John Ryland, Jr. (1753–1825), Hinton was ‘one of those Baptist leaders who, at the end of the eighteenth century, secured the revival of Baptist life in Britain.’ And like many of his theological persuasion—Hinton was a Dissenter of Calvinistic Baptist convictions—Hinton regarded the keeping of a diary as a spiritual discipline. Hinton’s diary is no longer extant, but large portions of it can be found embedded in a biographical study of Hinton by his son John Howard Hinton (1791–1873). This book contains these portions that have been skillfully re-assembled by Chance Faulkner as a diary.
