17 comments

1. The term “Reformed Baptist” really doesn’t make any sense because they were not “formed’ until the 17th century. They would be better described as Anti-Arminian Baptists. Also, I find it comical when a baptistic person calls baptism a second tier doctrine when the make baptism the primary distinction in the naming of their Churches. Barrett should probably not use the Nicene Creed as standard of orthodoxy and then in his very next breath claim one of its truths we confess to be secondary.

   • William,

     I appreciate esp. your point re the Nicene Creed. I suspect that Matt was thinking of the creed relative to its doctrines of God and Christ but it also has a doctrine of the church and sacraments. “Baptized for the forgiveness of sins” is just as essential as “I believe in one God…”.

2. Dr Clark, I’ve wondering this for awhile and I’m not sure how to answer it. Are congregationalists like Edwards et al truly Reformed? Unlike the Reformed and Presbyterian denominations, they reject the use of synod’s and councils as binding on local churches as I understand it. Congregationalists do agree with us on baptism but they disagree with us with regards to church government alongside the Baptists. If baptism separates the Reformed and Baptist traditions, why not church government?

   • Great question and it’s one that I have as well. The Congregationalists intentionally changed the Savoy regarding the Covenant and Ecclesiology. Why did they do this? If the Particular Baptists are not ‘Reformed’ because of differences regarding the reading of redemptive history and ecclesiology, then should the Congregationalists (Owen, Goodwin, Nye, Cotton, etc.) be regarded as truly ‘Reformed’? They had their own unique reading of redemptive history that led to their distinctive ecclesiology (the Congregational way).

     • Spencer,

       The Congregationalists had a more highly realized eschatology than that other dissenting group, the Presbyterians and a more highly realized eschatology than the Anglicans/Episcopalians but the fact is that there were no Baptists at Dort (and even had there been Particular Baptists in 1618 they would not have been admitted to Synod) and there were no Particular Baptists at the Westminster Assembly but there were Congregationalists at Dort (as observers) and at Westminster.

       It has been argued that the URCNA polity (in which I am a minister) is quasi-Congregational. I’m not sure that’s entirely accurate but we do say that a connectional polity is of the “well being” (bene esse) of the church and not of the being (esse) of the church. Many of our founding congregations were independent after they left the CRC and before they united to form the URCNA and I doubt that they had an over-realized or even highly realized eschatology.

       So, neither history nor logic sustains your attempt to bootstrap the Baptists to the Congregationalists and thereby squeeze them into the Westminster Assembly or into the Reformed tent.

       My explanation works better to explain what actually happened.

   • Ryan,

     See my response to Spencer.

     FWIW, Edwards is a hard case for a lot of reasons and probably not a good test for those reasons. E.g., he served a Presbyterian congregation in NY (where he introduced hymn singing; his doctrine of God is heterodox and his doctrine of justification is highly suspect).

   • Dr. Clark,

     I appreciate your response. I agree that Baptists are not properly ‘Reformed’ (if by that we mean subscription to the WCF or 3 Forms). My question is about why the Congregationalists are accepted as ‘Reformed’ when on important issues (for example, the definition of the visible church) they intentionally distinguished themselves from the Confession put forth by the Westminster Assembly? Can an Anglican who believes the 39 Articles, the Prayer Book, and the Homilies truly be considered ‘Reformed’? Since there were members from the Church of England at Dort, I am assuming they were considered ‘Reformed’ Christians. And yet, confessional Anglicanism has a different rule of worship from the Reformed tradition. Perhaps I am wrong, but I would argue that Anglicans are not properly part of the Reformed & Presbyterian tradition. Anglicanism is a distinct tradition from the P&R tradition. Similarly, I wonder whether or not Congregationalism is a distinct tradition from the P&R tradition?

     • Spencer,

       It’s true that most Anglicans, especially since the 17th century (but more than a few before and during) have not held the Reformed rule of worship BUT when the Assembly adopted the Directory for Public Worship (in 1644) the Anglicans presented agreed to it. I’ve argued that Anglican Articles present a challenge in re the rule of worship but Calvin seems to have regarded the sixteenth-century C of E as (at least broadly) Reformed. I think he hoped for a further Reformation (contra those Anglicans who want to remake Calvin into an Anglican).

       Are you assuming that the homilies and a prayerbook is a disqualification for being Reformed. Calvin published set prayers and the Reformed have long had written sermons on hand to be used by ruling elders in the absence of a minister. Neither of those practices is a disqualification.

       Rejecting the continuity of the covenant of grace (or even its presence in the types and shadows) is a rejection of a fundamental article of the Reformed confession. The continuity of the covenant the substance of the covenant of grace (in multiple administrations or accidents) is a sine qua non of the Reformed confession. Prayerbooks, homilies etc do not rise to the same level.

       No, Episcopalians are not Presbyterian but as I keep pointing out, Reformed and Presbyterian are not exact synonyms. Historical facts matter. When the English Reformed were confronted with the Particular Baptist churches in the 1640s, they denounced them as Anabaptist. Crawford Gribben argues that Owen softened toward them but he might be the exception that tests the rule.

   • Dr. Clark,

     I should have been clearer. Having the Prayer Book and Homilies is not a disqualification from being ‘Reformed’. My intention was to say that confessional Anglicanism is a distinct tradition from the P&R tradition. Though Anglicans agree with the Reformed tradition on the continuity of the covenant of grace and its presence during the OT, my argument is that they represent a distinct historical and theological tradition. Though they have historical (and theological) connections to the Reformed tradition, over time Anglicanism gradually developed into a distinct expression of broad Reformed Protestantism with a distinctive liturgy (not strictly RPW) and a retention of episcopal polity.

     Similarly, though Congregationalism shares many historical and theological similarities to the P&R tradition, the Congregationalists tradition developed a distinctive confession that changed the language regarding the covenant of grace and their own distinctive ecclesiology. If Particular Baptists shouldn’t claim John Owen as one of their own, then should the P&R tradition claim Owen as part of the ‘Reformed’ tradition? Could John Owen or Thomas Goodwin (with their distinctive ecclesiological commitments) be ordained in a confessional Presbyterian body? If not, then should be they properly be considered ‘Reformed’?

     Thanks for the discussion.

     • Spencer,

       The question Particular Baptists should ask themselves is this:

       Why weren’t any of the framers of the 1644 London Confession invited to the Westminster Assembly but Anglicans, Congregationalists, and Presbyterians were?

       You can (implicitly) complain that their priorities were wrong but doesn’t that illustrate the dichotomy between, on the one side, those who hold to the continuity of the covenant of grace (and implicitly the continuity of the church since the time of the Apostles) and, on the other side, the Baptists who deny the continuity of the covenant of grace (and implicitly the continuity of the church since the Apostles)?

       These are just “theological similarities.” These are essential commitments.

       We’re not Baptists and the gulf between the one group and the other is greater than many of us realize.

       Hence the series.

   • Dr. Clark,

     That’s a valid point and question. The group that we now identify as Particular Baptists were relatively new (having origins in 1630s), numerically small, and theologically suspect because of their baptismal doctrine. Again, my argument is not that Baptists are properly ‘Reformed’ (or that they should have been allowed at the Westminster Assembly). Also, I likewise have concerns about the way that some Particular Baptists describe the covenant of grace and its presence in the Old Testament. My argument is about applying the same standard to the Congregationalists like Owen and Goodwin. Even Carl Trueman in the past has argued that Owen’s theology pushes in a Baptistic direction. This doesn’t mean that Owen was a Baptist or that he denied paedobaptism. But it might mean that its more precise to say that Owen was a theologian the Congregationalist tradition rather than the strictly Reformed or Presbyterian tradition.

     It’s true that during the Westminster Assembly the Particular Baptists were not invited. But it is also true that in the 1650s the Particular Baptists were not simply tolerated but welcomed into the ecclesiological and political life of the Cromwellian establishment. Parliament had resolved that ‘True Reformed, Protestant, Christian Religion… and no other, shall be asserted and maintained, as the publick Profession of these Nations.” And yet, baptistic men like Henry Jessey, Henry Lawrence, William Kiffin, and John Tombes were not regarded as outsiders to this establishment. Some served as triers and ejectors in the Cromwell church. So, while it is entirely appropriate to ask the question about why the Particular Baptists were not present at the Westminster Assembly. It is also appropriate to ask why they were welcomed into the established religious life under Cromwell in the 1650s. No doubt, part of this is due to Baptist involvement in the New Model Army. But it is interesting that for some reason the Particular Baptists were seen as within the broad pale of the “True Reformed, Protestant, Christian religion”.

     • Spencer,

       We need to distinguish between is/was and ought. The latter is not a historical category.

       I’m trying to help you understand the differences between the paedo-continuity group (if you will) and the Baptist group. The former read Scripture in a significantly different way. The 17th-century Reformed, in different polities, all saw that.

       You want to use polity as a lever to break apart the Reformed consensus. You’re entitled to your opinion that polity is so important that it makes unity on hermeneutics and the history of redemption less significant but the fact is that the Reformed have always disagreed.

       The polity in Heidelberg and Zurich were both mixed. The polity in Zurich was quasi-episcopal. They didn’t have a strong presbyterial system. Indeed, arguably, they didn’t adhere to the RPW (contrary to the typical story) the way the rest of the Reformed did. Who doubts that Zurich or Strasbourg were Reformed? Ditto for Basel. Buyer’s approach to the RPW was problematic but not widely accepted by the Reformed until the mid-20th century and after.

       In Heidelberg they had a “superintendent” of the churches which was a quasi-episcopal but one could hardly say that therefore Heidelberg wasn’t Reformed. Indeed, there are varieties within Reformed polity (e.g., the differences between the Europeans and the Scots Presbyterians). As I keep noting, most of the English Presbyterians at Westminster melted quietly back into the C of E after the Assembly, after 1662. Did that make them no longer Reformed? No one at the time thought so.

       Calvin treated Cranmer as Reformed. He was more aligned with Zurich than Geneva but the Articles of Religion are (imperfectly) Reformed. They aren’t Lutheran and they aren’t Roman and they aren’t Anabaptist.

       It’s not just that the Particular Baptists weren’t invited. They were denounced as Anabaptists. That’s a fact. It’s not a mystery as to why they weren’t invited, whatever their relations to Cromwell. I have Baptist friends. Were I forming an army I would probably invite some of the, to join me but our theological differences remain profound. After all, they regard all those of us who were baptized as infants as unbaptized and thus outside the visible church. The Belgic Confession denounced the Anabaptists for holding what we know as the Baptist view of Baptism. They don’t practice the pure administration of the sacraments, which is one of the three marks of the church.

       I don’t think you can use Cromwell to leverage the Baptists into the Reformed churches in the face of the clear testimony of the Reformed churches (as institutions) to the contrary.

       As to Owen, I disagree a little with Carl. I don’t think Owen was saying anything very deviant re the Mosaic covenant. All he was saying is that Moses works for Christ.

   • Dr. Clark, you wrote this: “It has been argued that the URCNA polity (in which I am a minister) is quasi-Congregational. I’m not sure that’s entirely accurate but we do say that a connectional polity is of the “well being” (bene esse) of the church and not of the being (esse) of the church.”

     Something to consider: Abraham Kuyper was regarded, in my view correctly so, as a “small-c Congregationalist” or as a “crypto-Congregationalist.” That’s not a new position. It’s what I was taught at Calvin Seminary by people who said that’s a problem with Kuyper and was his improper overreaction to his abuse at the hands of the Hervormde Kerk (the state church). The Calvin Seminary professors who addressed Kuyper’s position typically said Kuyper had overcompensated and had failed to account for the fact that the Synod of Dordt, and the regional synods and classes, were willing to depose Remonstrants from the ministry, and that Kuyper had failed to take into account the position of the conservatives in the early days of Dutch Reformed ecclesiastical development.

     However, Kuyper was obviously welcomed into fellowship with the Princeton theologians, and gave his famous lecture series there, in the era when Princeton was the most prominent conservative Reformed seminary in the Northern Presbyterian mainline tradition. He was certainly regarded as a brother in the Reformed faith. But the founders of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church didn’t seek to join the Christian Reformed Church when they were thrown out by the Northern Presbyterians. Perhaps at first that could have been due to the presence of the group that later became the Bible Presbyterians who believed the Dutch were a “foreign influence” at Westminster Seminary, and also due to litigation over church property in which a change of confessions, given the legal standards in effect at that time, would have made it difficult if not impossible for the seceding Presbyterian churches to claim they were the legitimate heirs of the people who had paid to build the church buildings.

     But why, once it became clear by the mid-to-late 1940s that the OPC was going to remain a very small group, did the OPC not join the CRC? And why did (most) of the churches that left the CRC decide to create the URCNA and not join the OPC? It’s not as if many OPC men, including some of the most prominent men in the OPC with decades of history of close ties with the Dutch Reformed, had not extended invitations over and over and over again for those who seceded from the CRC to join the OPC.

     I sat listening to debates in the ARC and early URC days where things were said about Presbyterianism that go far beyond merely “unkind” or “misunderstandings.” There are real and serious differences in church government between the Dutch Reformed tradition and the Presbyterian tradition.

     I do not dispute that there are URC ministers who could subscribe to WCF 31:2, which reads as follows: “It belongeth to synods and councils, ministerially to determine controversies of faith, and cases of conscience; to set down rules and directions for the better ordering of the public worship of God, and government of His Church; to receive complaints in cases of maladministration, and authoritatively to determine the same: which decrees and determinations, if consonant to the Word of God, are to be received with reverence and submission; not only for their agreement with the Word, but also for the power whereby they are made, as being an ordinance of God appointed thereunto in His Word.”

     At least among the people I knew who were the key movers in the 1990s in founding the URC, I do not think I am being unfair in saying that language would have been widely criticized as “synodocracy.”

     The Three Forms of Unity are largely silent on matters of church government beyond the local church elders. WCF 31:2 is not silent, but quite clear.

     Not only did I sit at ARC and early URC meetings, I sat at meeting of the Orthodox Presbyterian General Assembly when prominent OPC ministers were expressing serious concern that the CRC seceders were moving in a non-Reformed and Congregational direction. Other prominent URC men, among them GI Williamson who had spent years working among the Dutch Reformed, stood up and in response said, essentially, “These men are Reformed, they are merely returning to their own tradition, which is not the same as ours.”

     I think that sentiment is a fair expression of the older conservative Presbyterian attitude toward the Dutch Reformed — close to us, and brothers in the Reformed faith, but not the same.

   • This is a serious typo: “Other prominent URC men, among them GI Williamson who had spent years working among the Dutch Reformed…”

     I hope it is obvious that I know Rev. GI Williamson was attending the OPC General Assembly as an OPC minister, not a URC minister. The URC didn’t even yet exist when Rev. Williamson made the comments to which I am referring, and the churches that were seceding from the CRC were still generally known as “Independent Reformed” within the umbrella of the Alliance of Reformed Churches.

3. Dr. Clark,

   I’ve enjoyed this discussion. You’ve given me lots to think about. I think I understand where you are coming from. The variety of polity found in the Reformed churches in the past is interesting.

   You mentioned that the gulf that separates the Baptists from the Reformed is greater than we might have imagined. Do you think that the gulf that separates the Savoy from the WCF (or 3 Forms) could be greater than imagined as well?

   Don’t hesitate to ask your Baptist friends to join your army. As long as you feed us and there is plenty of water!

4. “I suspect that there are more than a few Baptists who would agree with me that Baptism is not a “secondary” locus since many of them would not accept me as a baptized person—which is sort of the point of being a Baptist, is it not?”

   A hearty Amen!!! From this Sovereign Grace Baptist…These Baptists you mention need to go back to school and take Baptist Theology 101.

5. Having been raised a Baptist and baptized as a Baptist, I am sure that baptism is not a secondary issue. It is clear from the Second London Confession that it is not since it is an ordinance of the Lord Jesus. Any Baptist who considers it secondary needs to think again. As for the way the Second London Confession opens its treatment of Holy Scripture by noting the marks of Scripture, I believe they did so to address theological issues raised by Quakers and Rationalists in England in the mid-1600s. This is how I accounted for the difference approaches in Chapter 1 when I wrote my ThM thesis at WTS in 1980.

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