The Early Baptists and the Church
Guy at “The M Blog” as written a fascinating post called “Baptist Identity.”
In his post, Guy quotes from the First London Baptist Confession of Faith of 1646. Specifically, he quotes several passages from the confession that deal with the church. Also, Guy highlights sections of those quotes that most baptistic churches today would find interesting, odd, and unfamiliar.
For example, here is part of the first quote:
XXXVI.
BEING thus joined, every church hath power given them from Christ, for their wellbeing, to choose among themselves meet persons for elders and deacons, being qualified according to the word, as those which Christ hath appointed in His testament, for the feeding, governing, serving, and building up of His Church; and that none have any power to impose either these or any other.
Guy includes seven such quotations (along with his short comment). The quotations deal with church leaders, church meetings, baptism, and even every member ministry.
What are your thoughts about these passages from the London Baptist Confession?
The 1646 was much more New Covenant regarding ecclesiology than the 1689 as they eventually caved into pressure and persecution from the “Reformed” Baptists.
Hutch,
I’ve never compared the 1646 version vs. the 1689 version. I’ve read the 1689 version, but not the earlier one. Do know of a comparison of the changes?
-Alan
About three years ago as I was doing a lot of in-depth study into New Covenant Theology I compared the two and it’s very interesting. I do not know of a side by side comparison, but I bet there is one out there somewhere. I’ll do some checking.
I also read some historic accounts of how the changes came about, as you may be aware, the first edition was published in 1644 and the 1689 Baptist Confession is based on the Westminster Confession of Faith, the 1644 Confession is of purely Baptist origin. The 1646 was a second edition “corrected and enlarged”.
When I was in my season of reading and reading about the various creeds, the Waldensian confessions of faith blew my mind, I thought wow; if I had lived then they would have been tying me to a stake!
The 1689 is almost word for word with the WCF is lots of places, almost as if they just made the WCF sound more “baptisty”.
Hutch,
This is intriguing to me… I think I’m going to do some research when I have time.
Arthur,
I just read something like that too. Interesting.
-Alan