Alexander Gordon

“ By this time he had rejected infant baptism without as yet becoming an adult baptist. He encouraged female preachers, notably one Mrs. Attaway, 'the mistress of all the she-preachers in Coleman Street.' In 1645 he was brought before the lord mayor for unlicensed preaching, and imprisoned for a short time by order of a committee of parliament. Edwards, who calls him 'one Lam,' gives an odd account of a public disputation at the Spital in January 1646, between Robert Overton [q. v.] and Lambe and others, on the immortality of the soul. ”

“ He was an organiser of charity, contributing largely from own means, and distributing the bounty of others. 'Several hundreds of prisoners' were by his means set free, and the internal arrangements of prisons improved in consequence of his exertions. He was interested also in the religious education of children. ”

“ It was not till about 1653 that the arguments of William Allen, derived from Samuel Fisher (1606-1665) [q. v.] , brought him to belief in the necessity of adult baptism. For a short time he remained in communion with Goodwin, hut soon seceded with Allen and some twenty others, who met as a particular baptist church in Bell Alley. In 1658 Lambe and Allen had increased their following by about one hundred. Lambe was now living in the parish of St. ”