Clarity Amid Confusion: How Drafting Confessions of Faith served 17th Century Particular Baptists

16th and 17th century England was a place of constant religious change, turmoil, and confusion. The Reformation in England was unique compared to that of Germany, Switzerland, and other parts of Europe. Seismic shifts in ecclesiastical polity occurred during the relatively short period of time in the sixteenth century through the game of thrones that was the Tudor dynasty, and which would continue on into the 17th century with the rise of the Stuart Dynasty in the reign of James I and his son Charles I.

Charles made many ecclesiastical decisions that had alienated zealous English Puritans, a group known for their hopes of a complete morally and doctrinally reformed English church. The Puritans saw Charles, and then Archbishop William Laud, as crypto-Catholics who were carrying the established state church back towards Catholicism by filling its bishopric with those who held to Arminian theology and who attacked the Puritan’s Calvinism, while openly tolerating Roman Catholics.[1] Charles did not just alienate religious groups with his policies, but also many powerful nobles and leaders when he refused to call a single parliament for 11 years.[2] This religious and political resentment against Charles would ultimately boil over into the English Revolution and two civil wars in the 1640s and 1650s creating the short lived English Republic under the leadership of “Lord Protector” Oliver Cromwell.

The English Revolution created a domino effect that led to the collapse of censorship and traditional institutions. This coupled with Cromwell’s policies of religious toleration led to “the unprecedented proliferation of religiously and politically radical groups.” This period is known as “the saints regime.”[3] Yet this time of toleration would not last, as the 1660s would see a return of the monarchy, and with it a time of intense persecution for religious dissenting groups. One scholar says that during the 28 years between 1660 and 1688 dissenters were treated with “calculation and often malicious persecution.”[4] It is within the up and down context of the 17th century that we find the birth and rise of the English Particular Baptists.

Though English Baptist origins in general can be traced back to a congregation led by John Smyth and Thomas Helwys in 1611, a specific branch of Baptists, the Particular Baptists, grew out of the Separatist branch of Puritanism in the early to mid-17th century. Particular Baptist origins have been traced back to a London Independent Congregationalist church known as the Jacob-Lathrop-Jessey (JLJ) church, named after its first three pastors.[5] Their name, Particular Baptists, denotes two major aspects of their theological identity. They were “particular” in that they held to Calvinistic soteriology and its teaching of “particular redemption” as opposed to the General Baptists who were Arminian in their theology.[6] They were Baptists in that they advocated for believer’s baptism only (credo-baptism) while rejecting the infant baptism held by both Catholic, Lutheran, and other Reformed churches. From the sources available on the JLJ church, sometime during the 1630s, a particular group of the church became increasingly convinced that the New Testament nowhere taught infant baptism, but that of believer’s baptism only. This group ultimately broke away and formed the first official Particular Baptist Congregation led by the London cobbler and lay minister John Spilsbury.[7]

Throughout the 17th century, English Particular Baptists continued to grow into a well established ecclesiastical movement and denomination, as opposed to the General Baptists, who by the 18th century only had a few remaining congregations left that had not abandoned major tenants of historical Christianity.[8] Perhaps few things were more important to the growth and survival of 17th century English Particular Baptists than through its drafting and adopting of two notable confessions of faith, The 1644 London Baptist Confession and 1677 London Baptist Confession of Faith later revised and reissued in 1689.[9] These two confessions of faith served English Particular Baptists as a defense against slanderous charges of heresy and immorality, as demonstrations of their lineage within reformed orthodoxy, and as points of unity for the formation of an association of Particular Baptist churches. Confessions of faith established doctrinal clarity in a time of great social, religious, and political confusion and ensured the lasting success of English Particular Baptists.

A Defense against Slanderous Charges

Perhaps there was no label more harmful in the Reformation era than “Anabaptist.” One Scottish divine wrote in 1646 that Anabaptism was the “true fountain of all heretical groups and most of the other errors which trouble the Church of England.”[10] Anabaptism would forever be linked in the mind of many Europeans with Thomas Muntzer and the Peasants’ War (1524–1525). Muntzer, a radical apocalyptic reformer, called for the violent overthrow of the established ecclesiastical and political order, and many Anabaptists joined the ranks of Muntzer to fight on his side in the War. These Anabaptist fighters were sympathetic to the aims of the “Common Man” and desired to drastically remake the social, political, and ecclesiastical order, and as such history has labeled them and the Anabaptist leaders during the 16th century as the “radical reformers”[11] Though the Anabaptists who participated in the Peasants’ War differed from many of the other pacifistic Anabaptist groups during that time, the legacy of Continental Anabaptism would forever be marked with great disdain because of its association with Muntzer and the rebellion of the Peasants’ War. Thus to be labeled with the title “Anabaptist” was to immediately lose one’s religious and political credibility in the Reformation era. It was to be branded as a doctrinal heretic and a political rebel.[12]

The late 1630s and early 1640s in England was a time of great political, social, and religious turmoil. And this turmoil would boil over to the point of civil war. At the center of the war lay the struggle for sovereignty between parliament and monarchy, and religion stood at the center of it.[13] Most Baptists sided with parliament believing that their victory would mean further religious liberty. The problem, however, was that many of the Presbyterian parliamentarians were just as opposed to religious liberty as Church of England loyalists were. Yes, the Westminster divines believed in the freedom to publish truth, but the teachings of the Baptists were considered by many of the Presbyterians as blasphemies and heresy needed to be suppressed by the civil magistrate.[14] Because of their similar views on baptism, it would not be long before the Particular Baptists began being referred to by their opponents as Anabaptists. This was a problem, especially since so many Baptists had join the ranks of Parliament’s army to fight against the King.

Baptists, found themselves fighting for religious liberty in the 1640s next to many men who would have no desire in granting it. What also didn’t help the Particular Baptists during the era of the English Revolution was that a few of them, like Henry Danvers, became a part of a radical millenarian group known as the Fifth Monarchy Movement. This group believed that they were living in the last days of the last days, that the fourth empire of Rome was collapsing, and they would serve to usher in the millennial reign of Christ (hence the 5th monarchy).[15] Though this group played a major part in Cromwell’s army, even their beloved “Lord Protector” called out and rejected the beliefs and radical plots of the fifth monarchy men in 1653.[16] This caused the group to become even more violent and outspoken in their plots. This radical and revolutionary movement seemed to many to be another Munster waiting to happen, and the fact that some Baptists were key leaders of the movement further gave their opponents the ammunition necessary to label the Baptist movement as another attempt at Anabaptist revolt. This was an identity that the Particular Baptists immediately and fervently distanced themselves from.

The original title of their first confession of faith drafted in 1644 reads, “The Confession of Faith, of those Churches which are commonly (though falsly [sic]) called Anabaptists.”[17] Particular Baptists refused to be cast into the mold of Anabaptism, and thus they produced a full confession of faith to undermine both the political subversion and doctrinal heresy they were falsely charged with. In the preface of the 1644 Baptist confession it reads, “for the clearing of the truth we profess…briefly published a Confession of our Faith, as desiring all that fear God, seriously to consider whether…men have not with their tongues in Pulpit, and pens in Print, both spoken and written things that are contrary to truth.”[18] The first confession of faith served a major apologetic purpose for Particular Baptists to defend themselves from the slanderous attacks being leveled against them, and to prove themselves a legitimate strand of English Separatism. One scholar notes, by “submitting their own confession of faith for public evaluation, the London Baptist lay theologians were declaring that their churches and ministers were as valid as those established and ordained by the national Church.”[19]

Though the 1644 Confession confesses a complete denial of any continental Anabaptist influence, from a scholarly point it is hard to definitively prove or disprove whether this was the case. Many scholars have pointed to the Dutch connections of some of the early important Particular Baptists, namely Richard Blunt and William Kiffin, as evidence of Anabaptist influence. One scholar has even paralleled symmetrical argumentation between the 1644 Baptist confession and Menno Simon’s Foundation Book.[20] Nevertheless, such similarities can be easily accounted for by the use of the same common Scriptures to support believer’s baptism and congregational autonomy.

Anabaptism, was not merely a pejorative utilized towards political rebels, but also heretics. These suggested “heresies” usually referred to Arminian theology which was common among Anabaptists. Other heresies included teaching like: Unitarianism, denial of original sin, conditional salvation, and other forms of Christian teaching usually regarding aspects of full sanctification and complete holiness, which taught one could be sinless in this life. Both the 1644 and 1689 Baptist Confessions of Faith lay out their apologetic purpose in disproving these charges of heresy. During the “Royal Restoration” between 1660–1688, Baptists faced their most severe period of persecution to date because of the supposed heresies they taught.[21] The preface to the 1689 confession states that the confessing Baptist churches “were in no way guilty of those heterodoxies, and fundamental errors, which had too frequently been charged upon [them] without ground, or occasion give on [their] part.”[22] This was especially important for the drafters of the second confession of faith after a former Particular Baptist minister, Thomas Collier, produced his Body of Divinity in 1674, in which were found many of the heretical teachings noted earlier.

Rather, than recanting this work after being challenged by his fellow Particular Baptists, Collier published a supplementary work in 1676 titled, An Additional Word to the Body of Divinity. Particular Baptists had sought to do all they could to defend against charges of heresy, but with Collier claiming to be a “Baptist” minister producing a work of systematic theology that was filled with the very teachings that Particular Baptists had claimed they didn’t believe, they could waste no time in responding. One of the major Particular Baptists leaders, Nehemiah Coxe, wrote a scathing rebuke against Collier titled, Vindiciæ Veritatis or A Confutation of Heresies. Coxe claimed to do this “not so much prompted by natural inclination, as to the joint and earnest perswasion of several of the elders.”[23] Collier wrote a refutation back against Coxe, and thus proved that he was fully convinced of the teachings he had advanced like denying original sin, holdin an unorthodox view of hell and punishment, and ascribing to quasi-Arian Christology, all while still maintaining that he was a Baptist.

The major Particular Baptist Congregations and their leaders knew they needed to ensure that Collier’s beliefs could not be mistaken for their own, and thus they produced their second confession of faith in 1677, though they would not be able to publish it until 1689 when the Act of Toleration was passed granting them the freedom of religion that they had fought for so long to obtain. Particular Baptist scholar Samuel Renihan, argues that the defection and works of Thomas Collier may provide the single most important reason for the production of what would become known as the 1689 Baptist Confession of Faith.[24] Both the 1644 and 1677/89 confessions of faith made strong doctrinal declarations that aligned themselves with the Reformed heritage of many of their opponents (as will be especially noted in the next section) and against the slanderous charges of heresy. Both confessions included articles clearly articulating their historically orthodox beliefs and a commitment to civil authority where Scripture prescribes as such.

Remarkably, the confessions not only served as a defense against the slanderous charges heresy, but also of immorality. In the preface to the 1644 Confession, it states that one of the purposes of this confession is to speak against the charges of “doing acts unseemly in the dispensing the Ordinance of Baptism, not to be named amongst Christians.”[25] Many opponents had claimed that during the act of baptism, Baptist ministers called their people to perform perverse acts, and to be completely nude during their baptism. One example of this kind of slander comes from Daniel Featley, an outspoken Church of England minister and opponent of the Particular Baptists, who wrote that Baptists were in the habit of “stripping stark naked, not onely when they flocke in great multitudes, men and women together, to be dipt, but also upon other occasions.”[26] It was against these slanderous charges of both immorality and heresy that the two confessions of faith effectively served the 17th century Particular Baptists.

A Reformed Heritage

Not only did the English Particular Baptists wish to defend against slanderous charges in their confessions of faith, but they also wished to establish themselves firmly as heirs of the Reformed heritage, along with the English Presbyterians and Independents. Drafting these confessions were so important in this process, because confession are a central aspect of Christian history, especially within the Protestant tradition where they served to solidify its theology.[27] Particular Baptists believed that they were fully within the Calvinist Reformed heritage with the exception of their views on baptism and other aspects of ecclesiology (who constitutes the visible church), which though important matters, were secondary in the realm of faith and practice.

In order to demonstrate their Reformed Heritage, Particular Baptists chose not to draft completely novel confessions, instead they utilized existing confessions of faith held by the other major Reformed dissenting groups in England to show that they were more in line with than apart from those who had launched slanderous attacks against them. The 1644 confession of faith drew from both the 1596 True Confession and The Marrow of Sacred Divinity, a major work written in 1639 by the Puritan theologian William Ames. In a few examples it can be quickly shown the way in which Particular Baptists drew from those sources to draft their first confession. In the very opening article of the 1644 Baptist Confession, it reads, “That God as he is in himself, cannot be comprehended of any but himself, dwelling in that inaccessible light, that no eye can attain unto, whom never man saw, nor can see…”[28] Compare that with this portion of Ames’ work from 5 years earlier, “God as he is in himself, cannot be apprehended by any but himself. 1 Tim. 6:16, Dwelling in that Inaccessible light, whom never man saw, nor can see.”[29] One can clearly claim plagiarism here, but plagiarism in matters of the faith “once and for all delivered” was exactly the point. The Particular Baptists wanted to prove that they in almost every way held the exact doctrinal views as those who often slandered them.

In its article regarding the priesthood of Christ, the 1644 Confession reads, “Touching his Priesthood, Christ being consecrated, hath appeared once to put away sin by the offering and sacrifice of himself, and to this end hath fully performed and suffered all those things by which God, through the blood of that his Cross in an acceptable sacrifice, might reconcile his elect only.”[30] This is verbatim to what the True Confession reads regarding the same subject.[31] The only major difference between the teachings of the 1644 confession and the source documents it leans on is that of baptism. This should not be surprising, but an important note is that the Baptists here did not see themselves as diverging from the Reformed tradition, they believed they were simply seeing the Reformed tradition through to its logical end. Particular Baptists believed that the concept of Sola Scriptura along with the Regulative Principle of Worship[32] which had come out of the Reformation were the key pillars that upheld their view of baptism. So the 1644 confessors were unashamed in their theology of baptism, but in no way saw this as thus removing them from the Reformed heritage. They also desired to inform political leaders through their confession of faith that they were not like the Anabaptists in their views of civil government. They wanted to make it clear that they would exist as good English citizens upholding the “divinely established authority of the civil magistrates.”[33]

When the English Particular Baptists set to draft their second confession in 1677, one would think that they would merely build upon the already established first confession, and though they did not disagree with that confession, they saw fit once again to utilize other major prominent confessions to serve as the basis of their new statement of faith. The two primary source documents behind the 2nd London Baptist Confession of Faith, was the Westminster Confession of Faith (1646), and even more so the Congregationalist revised form of the Westminster Confession, known as the Savoy Declaration (1658). In the preface to the second confession of faith, the drafters made it much more clear that they indeed utilized these sources for their new confession. They write, “finding no defect in this regard in that fixed on by the Assembly (Westminster), and, after them by those of the congregational way (Savoy), we did readily conclude it best to retain the same order in our present Confession.[34]

Their primary use of the Savoy Declaration against the WCF was primarily due to the Savoy’s theology of congregational autonomy. For instance, in the 1677/89 Confession it borrows verbatim paragraph IV of the Savoy Platform of Polity which reads, “Christ has likewise given power to his whole Church to receive in and cast out, by way of Excommunication, any member; and this power is given to every particular Congregation, and not one particular person, either member or Officer, but the whole.”[35] It is important to not here, however, that though there was a preference for the more congregational reading of Savoy, the Baptist confessors did at times choose the Westminster definitions over the Congregationalists.[36] The only area of major disagreement between the Baptists and the doctrinal articulations from the two other confessions was the acceptance of believer’s baptism. However, what is fascinating is they chose to keep the teachings on baptism from the other confessions mostly the same, and simply changed the recipient and mode of baptism. They did, however ,provide a small appendix on baptism to the end of the Confession to further articulate their doctrinal position, but the primary focus of their second confession of faith was to show agreement in Reformed orthodoxy with their Presbyterian and Independent brothers and sisters.[37]

Baptists were not ashamed of their doctrinal distinctives, and that is clear in their revising and expanding on parts of the Westminster and Savoy confessions that they believed needed to be clarified in light of Baptist distinctives.[38] These additions and revisions were primarily made in the second edition of the Covenant published in 1689. The new found religious freedom ushered in by the Act of Toleration gave them an opportunity to exemplify their theological distinctives more than they were originally able to in 1677. Particular Baptists had zero desire to claim any sort of doctrinal novelty, rather, they drafted the two confessions of faith to show that they were simply carrying the Reformed heritage forward, and thus wanted to borrow and build upon existing Reformed Christian works and confessions of faith.

Association and Cooperation

A final purpose that the two confessions of faith served for the 17th century Baptists was that it provided the doctrinal standard for Particular Baptist congregations to establish church associations. The overwhelming majority of early Baptist pastors were lay leaders, and the primary demographic of early Baptists churches was that of working class and poor middle aged women, with men slowing catching up over the next century.[39] Many of these lay leaders, though very intelligent, often had little to no formal theological training, so those who did like Thomas Crosby, Benjamin Cox, William Kiffin, and Hanserd Knollys, saw it vitally important to draft statements of faith that were theologically sound and distinctly Baptistic.[40] This would serve to help guide these particular Baptist congregations forward, especially as they became more welcomed in the 1640s and later again in the 1690s. These men also knew that in their smaller numbers there was a great need to form associations of faithful Particular Baptist congregations for the purpose of cooperating together to care for less fortunate members, to engage in political and social engagement, and to conduct greater acts of public evangelism.[41]

The drafting of the 1644 Confession of Faith was one of the most important reasons for the explosion of Particular Baptist congregations throughout the 1640s and 1650s, helped preserve them through the returning persecution of the 1660s-1680s. When the 1677/89 Confession of Faith was adopted as the new doctrinal standard of faith by Particular Baptists, they were experiencing religious liberty like never before, and without the fear of persecution, the Baptist denomination began to explode throughout England and America. As one Baptist scholar notes, “The Baptist confessions of faith broke any idea of isolationism and provided the bond of cooperation and mutual care that launched Baptists forward into one of the leading denomination movements in England over the next two centuries.”[42]

This cannot be completely romanticized though, even with such strong associations and comprehensive doctrinal standards, Baptists still had their doctrinal feuds. The two most important ones were in relationship to communion and hymn singing. During the 1640s, Particular Baptists were divided into two camps on who should be allowed to partake in communion. One camp of Baptists followed the position of John Bunyan, writer of the renowned Pilgrim’s Progress. Though not necessarily a confessional Baptist himself, Bunyan argued that the Lord’s Supper should be open to all believers, while Particular Baptist leader William Kiffin argued for closed Communion.[43] What may seem to be a minor issue for the modern reader was a big deal in the 1640s and 1650s. Since the 1644 Confession had not addressed the issue of open or closed communion, there was no set doctrinal standard of faith which would exclude a Baptist congregation for holding to either. This would sadly cause major strife among Baptists, which perhaps if fully unified could have used this time to become an even more predominant faith tradition in England, which in turn may have prevented further persecution later on.

It is important to note that when the 1677/89 confession was drafted it sided with a more closed communion stance, this was done to try and prevent further division among confessional Baptists. Yet once again, by the 1680s and 90s new controversy arose among Baptists on the issue of corporate hymnody. The primary question the debate revolved around was, does the regulative principle of worship allow for the singing of uninspired hymns in the church? Baptists wrestled with this and their confession of faith was fairly gray on the topic. Fortunately, the issue would not cause a huge break in the cooperation of Baptists as they ultimately concluded that such was a secondary matter of faith and both views should be tolerated within the Particular Baptist Associations.[44] Perhaps, second only to the Confessions which made it possible, Particular Baptist associationalism became the staple that held the Baptist Community together through a time of major turmoil and strife, and it is this kind of associationalism that protected the Particular Baptists from fading into doctrinal and ecclesiological obscurity as was the case with many early English General Baptists.

Conclusion

Historians generally agree that the Baptist witness was a major factor in leading to the passing of the Toleration Act in 1689.[45] Yet, hard on the heels of this new found toleration crept in a thick fog of religious indifference and decay that led many groups to abandoning historic Christian orthodoxy all together. Yet it was the continual use of these Confessions of faith that both protected Particular Baptists and corrected them when they also slipped in doctrinal error. Such was the case with the rise of hyper-calvinism during the 18th century which killed Baptist evangelism and missionary effort before it was recovered by the likes of William Carey and Andrew Fuller.

From the 17th century forward, confessions of faith would remain a central part of Baptist life, especially as Baptists crossed the Atlantic into the Americas. The first Baptist Confession of faith to be drafted in the colonies was the 1742 Philadelphia Baptist Confession of Faith, which maintained much of the teaching found in the 1677/89 London Baptist Confession. This is a really important point as it shows that it was the English Particular Baptists not General Baptists or Continental Anabaptists that had the most lasting influence on American Baptist Faith. This would continue well into the 19th century with the 1833 New Hampshire Confession of Faith, and into the 20th and 21st century with the three editions of the Baptist Faith and Message drafted and published in 1929, 1963, and 2000. In the 19th and 20th centuries American Baptists would sadly begin to swing away from the Calvinism and Covenantal theology prominent within early Baptist confessions especially in the North and West of the continent (though the South would not be far behind), and begin to adopt a more synergistic soteriology and dispensational hermeneutic.[46] Fortunately, the pendulum presently seems to be swinging back the other direction among conservative Baptist theologians and pastors.

Throughout their history, Baptists have maintained the use of the confessions in the same way their 17th century forefathers did. These confessions of faith still serve as a defense and polemic against heretical claims. Note for instance the three editions of the Baptist Faith and Message all of which were edited and revised to address major social and theological issues of the day[47], and to provide a clear declaration of where Southern Baptists stood on those issues just as the early Baptists did in regards to their views on the relationship with civil government, their views of soteriology, their rejection of sexual immorality, etc. Confessions of faith have also continued to provide one of the fundamental tenants of Baptist living, and that is congregational autonomy and associationalism, all which finds its beginning in the 1644 Confession.

Many modern Reformed Baptists have recently abandoned the modern confessions in favor of the 1689 Confession as it provides the clear bridge for Baptists to their Reformed heritage, and is far more substantive than most of modern confessions of faith. These historic confessions of faith remind the modern reader that in matters of faith and practice, it is important to look back on what has been before looking forward to what will be. The 1644 London Baptist Confession and 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith served English Particular Baptists as an apologetic against slanderous charges, as demonstrations of a Reformed heritage, and as points of unity for the formation of an association of Particular Baptist churches which provided security and success in a time of religious turmoil and upheaval. These confessions established doctrinal clarity in a time of great social, religious, and political confusion and ensured the lasting success of Baptists to the present day.

Footnotes

[1] Samuel D. Renihan, From Shadow to Substance: The Federal Theology of the English Particular Baptists (1642–1704), (Oxford, England: Regent Park’s College, 2018), 7.
[2] Brad S. Gregory, The History of Christianity in the Reformation Era: Course Guide, (Chantilly, VA: The Great Courses, 2001), 125.
[3] Gregory, 127.
[4] Michael R. Watts, The Dissenters, (Oxford; Clarendon Press, 1978), I, 222.
[5] James M. Renihan, “The Practical Ecclesiology of the English Particular Baptists, 1675–1705: The Doctrine of the Church in the Second London Baptist Confession as Implemented in the Subscribing Churches,” PhD diss. order no. 9811602, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, (1997), 4.
[6] Particular redemption is also known as “limited atonement,” in that it teaches that the atoning work of Christ is limited and efficacious for the elect only.
[7] Matthew C. Bingham, “English Baptists and the Struggle for Theological Authority, 1642–1646.” The Journal Of Ecclesiastical History 68, no. 3 (2018): 546.
[8] Michael A.G. Haykin, Kiffin Knollys, and Keach: Rediscovering our Baptist Heritage, (Peterborough, Canada: H&E Publishing, 2019), 31.
[9] These were not the only confessions of faith drawn up by 17th century Particular Baptists, as there was also The Midland Confession (1655) and The Somerset Confession (1656), but because of their larger use and greater circulation this blog primarily focuses on the other two.
[10] A.B. Bradstock, Radical Religion in Cromwell’s England: A Concise History of the English Civil War to the End of the Commonwealth, (London: I.B. Taurus, 2010), 29.
[11] Gregory, 47.
[12] Tyacke, Nicholas. England’s Long Reformation, 1500–1800, (Routledge, 1998), 243.
[13] D. Alan Orr, “Sovereignty, Supremacy, and the Origins of the English Civil War,” History 87, no. 288 (February 2003): 486.
[14] H. Leon McBeth, The Baptist Heritage, (Nashville: B&H Academic, 1987), 107.
[15] McBeth, 86.
[16] Ibid., 87.
[17]William L. Lumpkin, Baptist Confessions of Faith, revised ed., (Valley Forge: Judson Press, 1969), 153.
[18] 1644 London Baptist Confession of Faith, Preface, accessed August 11, 2021, Romans45.org/ 18 creeds.bc1644.htm.
[19] Bingham, 565.
[20] J.M. Renihan, “An Examination of the Possible Influence of Menno Simons’ Foundation Book upon the Particular Baptist Confession of 1644,” American Baptist Quarterly 15, no.3 (1996): 194
[21] McBeth, 113.
[22] 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith, preface, accessed August 13, 2021, www.rblist.org/1689.pdf
[23] Nehemiah Coxe, Vindiciæ Verita,s, Or, A Confuta,on […] the Heresies and Gross Errours Asserted by Thomas Collier in His Addi,onal Word to His Body of Divinity Written by Nehemiah Coxe, (London: Printed for Nath. Ponder, 1677), preface. Original Spelling and grammar maintained.
[24] Samuel D. Renihan, The Petty France Church, pt.1, (Oxford: Regent’s Park College, 2019), 98.
[25] 1644 Baptist Confession of Faith, preface.
[26] Gordon Kingsley, “Opposition to Early Baptists (1638–1645),” Baptist History and Heritage 4, no. 1 26 (January, 1969): 29. Spelling left unaltered from original source.
[27]Michael Allen, “Confessions,” in The Cambridge Companion to Reformed Theology, edited by Paul T. Nimmo and David A. S. Fergusson, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016), 30.
[28] 1644 LBCF, Article I.
[29] William Ames, The Marrow of Sacred Divinity, (London: Printed by Edward Griffin, 1639), I.4.2.
[30] 1644 LBCF, XVII
[31] The True Confession, 14.
[32] This idea teaches that only the New Covenant sacraments and worship practices explicitly taught and prescribed in Scripture should be practiced in the church.
[33] 1644 LBCF, XXXIV.
[34] 1689 LBCF, preface.
[35] Savoy Declaration, article IV and 1644 LBCF XXXII
[36] See WCF 6.1; 10.3; 16.1; 16.7; 18.2; 21.1; 22.5; 27.2; 29.2; 30.2; 32.3
[37] Thomas Crosby, History of the English Baptists, (Lafayette, TN: Church History Research and Archives, 1978), 161.
[38] For example, see the Covenantal distinctions in 1689 LBCF 7.3 from WCF 7.5. Baptists held to the 38 Covenant of Grace being promised to Adam, progressively revealed through the Old Covenant, and then fully realized in the New Covenant. Presbyterians held to the covenant of Grace being given to Abraham in Genesis 12,15,17 and realized under two administrations — The Old Covenant and The New Covenant.
[39] B.R. White, “The Organisation of Particular Baptist Churches, 1644–1660.” The Journal of Ecclesiastical History 17, no. 2 (1966): 212.
[40] Benjamin Coxe, William Kiffin, and Hanserd Knollys, A Declaration Concerning the Publike Dispute, (London: s.n., 1645), ii.
[41] Timothy Edward Dowley, “The History of the English Baptists during the Great Persecution, 41 1660–1688,” PhD diss. Order No. U417319, The University of Manchester (United Kingdom), 1976, 44.
[42] R. Dwayne Connor, “Early English Baptist Associations: Their Meaning For Baptist Connectional Life,” Foundations 15, (1972): 167–168.
[43] Fisher Humphrys, “Baptists and Their Theology,” Baptist History and Heritage 35, no.1 (2000): 16.
[44] James M. Renihan, “The Practical Ecclesiology of the English Particular Baptists, 1675–1705: The Doctrine of the Church in the Second London Baptist Confession as Implemented in the Subscribing Churches,” 148.
[45] McBeth, 122.
[46] Humphreys, 21.
[47] Some of the theological issues and controversies addressed by modern Baptist confessions of faith 47 include the issue of biblical inerrancy and sufficiency, egalitarianism vs. complementarianism, distinctions between original sin and original guilt, etc.