6 comments

1. It shocked me when I found out back when I used to be a baptist, but the 1689 does not teach that you have to be baptised (by immersion or at all) to be a member of the visible church.

   Chapter 26 Paragraph 2 of the 1689 says,

   All persons throughout the world, professing the faith of the gospel, and obedience unto God by Christ according unto it, not destroying their own profession by any errors everting the foundation, or unholiness of conversation, are and may be called visible saints; and of such ought all particular congregations to be constituted.

   Commenting on that in his book ‘To the Judicious and Impartial Reader’, James Renihan says on page 482, “It should be noted that baptism is not listed as a prerequisite for church membership. This is because there were differences of opinion on its relation to membership. In the Appendix on Baptism attached to the 1677 and 1688 editions, the confessors admit the diversities and indicate that their quest for unity among churches precluded adding a statement to the Confession advocating a specific position.”

   Later on, Paragraph 6 of Chapter 26 of 1689 says:

   “The Members of these Churches are Saints by calling, visibly manifesting and evidencing (in and by their profession and walking) their obedience unto that call of Christ; and do willingly consent to walk together according to the appointment of Christ, giving up themselves, to the Lord & one to another by the will of God, in professed subjection to the Ordinances of the Gospel.”

   Commenting on that last line Renhian says on pages 493-494,

   “The final phrase, in professed subjection to the ordinances of the gospel, may seem at first glance to indicate primarily and directly baptism and the Lord’s Supper, but these are not its principal referent. This paragraph is taken directly commands of Christ as recorded in Scripture.770

   Second, it must be remembered that not all subscribing churches agreed on the place and significance of baptism as it relates to church membership. Earlier in the exposition of this chapter, I point to the material in the appendix issued with the 1677 and 1688 editions of 2LCF. The “open-membership” churches could not subscribe to these words if they specifically denoted the sacraments. As I stated in Edification and Beauty, “A careful reading of the Confession will demonstrate that baptism is never explicitly tied with church membership.”771

   In his book Infant Baptism a Part and Pillar of Popery, John Gill seems to understand this phrase as used in the Savoy Platform of Polity to have a broad referent:

   It is said by the Independents, “that members of gospel churches are saints by calling, visibly manifesting and evidencing by their profession and walk their obedience to that call; who are further known to each other by their confession of faith wrought in them by the power of God; and do willingly consent to walk together according to the appointment of Christ, giving up themselves to the Lord and to one another by the will of God, in professed subjection to the ordinances of the gospel”: now are infants such? Do they manifest and evidence by a profession and walk their obedience to a divine call? And if they do not, and yet are admitted members, why not others, who give no more evidence than they do? Do they make a confession of faith wrought in them? Does it appear that from the Savoy Platform of Polity, which uses the identical language. While it is possible that the Baptists invested the word ordinance with a different sense than its use in the Savoy Platform, this is unlikely. Two reasons and an example from a close contemporary support this point.

   First, in the exposition of chapter twenty-eight, I suggest that the word ordinance is not intended as a substitute for sacrament, but rather has a broad semantic range in the Confession, the Baptist Catechism, and in the literature produced by the subscribers to the Confession. It refers generally to the hey have such a faith? and in a confession made, and so made as to be known by fellow-members? and if not, and yet received and owned as members, why not others that make no more confession of faith than they do? Do infants consent to walk with the church of Christ, and give up themselves to the Lord and one another, and profess to be subject to the ordinances of the gospel?772

   These comments are in a book intended to oppose infant baptism. Gill presses the point: those who practice infant baptism admit individuals to membership who cannot, by definition, live according to all the commands of Christ. If the phrase focused primarily on the sacraments, this would have been to Gill’s advantage and would have strengthened his argument. But he understood that it could not have this meaning for the Congregationalists and didn’t carry this sense for Baptists either.

   Together, these evidences demonstrate that the phrase in professed subjection to the ordinances of the gospel has a much broader sense than simply pointing to baptism and the Lord’s Supper. Rather, it teaches that those who join together in gospel churches must be committed to obeying all the commands of Christ expressed in the Scriptures, a fitting summary of the entire paragraph.”

   I think this contributes to your thoughts on catholicity. Maybe this means they are more catholic than you thought but then less so in not confessing that you had to be baptised to be a member of the visible church. Though they don’t deny it either, they are just agnostic.

   Interestingly the First London Baptist Confession did:

   “Jesus Christ hath here on earth a [manifestation of His] spiritual kingdom, which is His Church, whom He hath purchased and redeemed to Himself as a peculiar inheritance; which Church is a company of visible saints, called and separated from the world by the word and Spirit of God, to the visible profession of faith of the gospel, being baptized into that faith, and joined to the Lord, and each other, by mutual agreement in the practical enjoyment of the ordinances commanded by Christ their head and king”

   And later on they did in the New Hampshire Confession of Faith

   “Of a Gospel Church We believe that a visible Church of Christ is a congregation of baptized believers (66), associated by covenant in the faith and fellowship of the gospel (67); observing the ordinances of Christ (68); governed by his laws (69), and exercising the gifts, rights, and privileges invested in them by his Word (70); that its only scriptural officers are Bishops, or Pastors, and Deacons (71), whose qualifications, claims, and duties are defined in the Epistles to Timothy and Titus.”

   You should have Renihan on the podcast and have a friendly discussion with him about it. Or if you wanted to chat with me about it, send me an email.

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   • Martyn,

     I appreciate this but the Reformed used to complain about Baptist “tricks,” rhetorical sleights of hand.

     This seems to be one of those since, for the Baptists, living in obedience to Christ entails and is manifested by believer’s baptism. The great function of believer’s-only baptism was to achieve the sort of purity of the visible church the more extreme congregationalists desired. I say extreme because Owen and the Savoy congregationalists did not have the same eschatology and rejected the Baptist reading of redemptive history and the Baptist conclusion.

     Further, in the late 17th century, ordinance had a broader semantic range than sacrament. It does in the Westminster Standards, but it certainly included them.

     It was not as if the Baptists were indifferent to believer’s baptism or tolerant of infant baptism or that they, with a few exceptions, received infant baptism as valid. Those few who did were highly controversial among the Baptists.

     Thus, I don’t see how any of this throat clearing or semantic weight shifting materially changes anything.

     For the 1689 confessionslists, the vast majority of the church was unbaptized, and thus unchurched and outside the kingdom and salvation.

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     • “For the 1689 confessionslists, the vast majority of the church was unbaptized, and thus unchurched and outside the kingdom and salvation.”

       I think many would agree with the first part of this statement but you would be hard pressed to find many who agree with the second part. They would have a different flow of logic. In the preface of the 1689 they wrote,

       “We therefore did this to demonstrate as much and as clearly as possible our agreement with both [the Presbyterians and Congregationalists] in all the fundamental articles of the Christian religion, as well as those many others whose orthodox confessions have been published to the world on behalf of the Protestants in various nations and cities. We also wanted to convince everyone that we have no desire to clog religion with new words but we readily assent to that pattern of sound words which has been – in agreement with the holy Scriptures – used by others before us.”

       The appendix of the 1689 says,

       “And although we do differ from our brethren who are paedobaptists in the subject and administration of baptism, and such other circumstances as have a necessary dependence on our observance of that ordinance, and do frequent our own assemblies for our mutual edification and discharge of those duties and services which we owe unto God, and in His fear to each other—yet we would not be from hence misconstrued, as if the discharge of our own consciences herein did any ways disoblige or alienate our affections or conversation from any others that fear the Lord; but that we may and do, as we have opportunity, participate of the labors of those whom God hath endued with abilities above ourselves, and qualified and called to the ministry of the Word, earnestly desiring to approve ourselves to be such as follow after peace with holiness, and therefore we always keep that blessed Irenicum, or healing Word of the apostle before our eyes: “If in any thing ye be otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this unto you. Nevertheless,whereto we have already attained, let us walk by the same rule, let us mind the same
       thing” (Phi 3:15-16).”

       It goes on to continue to talk about Paedobaptists as “brethren” and “Christians”. Maybe they are being inconsistent but I don’t think they would have said that those who were baptised as infants were outside the kingdom and salvation.

       At the end of the appendix they say,

       “Yet inasmuch as these things are not of the essence of Christianity, but that we agree in the fundamental doctrines thereof, we do apprehend there is sufficient ground to lay aside all bitterness and prejudice, and in the spirit of love and meekness to embrace and own each other therein; leaving each other at liberty to perform such other services (wherein we cannot concur) apart unto God, according to the best of our understanding.”

       I don’t agree with the statement above but I think it shows where they were coming from and their ideas on catholicity. However, I think it would be fair to say that later generations might not have had this mindset on the issue.

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       • This illustrates the Baptist attempt to redefine catholic.

         These are issues I tried to address in the series on Baptists and Catholicity.

         Reply ↓

   • This is helpful, Martyn T and Dr. Clark.

     I do think the references to how Baptists may have used the 1658 Savoy Declaration of Faith and Order are interesting and I want to explore this further. You are correct that the 1689 Second London Baptist Confession of Faith, while based on the Westminster Confession, is mediated through the Savoy documents, and we need to understand that there are understandings of the WCF language which were understood by Baptists as the Independents understood them, not necessarily how the Scots and later Presbyterians understood them. That’s not necessarily a problem. The Dissenting Brethren, after all, were full members of the Westminster Assembly and their opinions were addressed (though often rejected by) the Assembly’s majority.

     However, if we’re going to use the English Congregational documents on church government to understand the Baptist documents, we need to be aware of their context, and that’s the 1648 Cambridge Platform.

     The Cambridge Platform is a far more detailed statement of polity written in New England by a synod called by the New England Congregational churches to respond to the documents of the Westminster Assembly, including but not limited to the Westminster Confession, the Catechisms, and its documents on worship and church government.

     John Owen knew he couldn’t get the English Independents (a term that included but was not limited to what later became known as Congregationalists) to agree to the full Cambridge Platform, so he took what he considered to be the key points of Congregational polity, placed them into the church polity part of the Savoy Declaration of Faith and Order, and they were adopted by English Congregationalists though not by their New England brethren. (Subsequent post-1660 persecution in England played a not-insignificant role in the Cambridge view of polity rather than the Savoy view of polity becoming the main Congregational position.)

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2. Dr. Clark, could the Baptist understanding of their own catholicity also be explained by their deficient sacramentology generally speaking? Often overlooked in Reformed criticism of the 1689 imo is how it completely mutilates the chapter on sacraments in general and (at least in every modern version I can find, so I assume it’s also true of the original although I know the early Baptists used the term) removes all cases of the term “sacrament”. As far as I can tell sacraments are not means of grace in the 1689 but mere badges of profession, case in point being WCF 28.6 which is completely removed from the 1689: “The efficacy of baptism is not tied to that moment of time wherein it is administered; yet, notwithstanding, by the right use of this ordinance the grace promised is not only offered, but really exhibited and conferred by the Holy Ghost, to such (whether of age or infants) as that grace belongeth unto, according to the counsel of God’s own will, in his appointed time.” So what I’m getting at is do they basically hold a view of baptism where it doesn’t really matter, therefore who cares if nobody was baptized until the 1520s?

   Reply ↓

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