Baptists: a confessional people1
Historically Baptists have been, and thankfully many still are, a confessional people. Yes, they are supremely a people of the Book, the Holy Scriptures. But confessions have been central to their experience of the Christian life. The twentieth-century attempt to explain Baptist life and thought in terms of primarily soul-liberty seriously skews the evidence. Of course, freedom from external coercion has always been a major concern of Baptist apologetics. But up until the twentieth century, this emphasis has generally never been at the expense of a clear and explicit confessionalism.
Of the many confessions of faith that Baptists have produced—and they have produced a goodly number—none has been more influential than the Second London Confession, popularly known as The 1689 Confession. It was not only the confession of faith adopted by the majority of Baptists in the British Isles and Ireland from the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries, but it was also the major confessional document on the American Baptist scene, where it was known as the Philadelphia Confession of Faith (1742) and which added an article on the laying on of hands and also one on the singing of psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. Among Southern Baptists this confession played an influential role as The Charleston Confession (1767),2 which became the basis of The Abstract of Principles, the statement of faith of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.3
This new leather-bound edition of the Second London Confession is indeed welcome. There were a number of editions in the twentieth century,4 but the advantage of this edition is not only the beautiful format in which it has been produced, but also its having James Renihan as the editor and the inclusion of the original letter to the reader and the addendum on baptism that accompanied the 1688 publication.5 Renihan is currently one of the most diligent and careful scholars of seventeenth-century Calvinistic Baptist life and his “Foreword” provides an extremely helpful introduction to the Confession, detailing both its provenance and its importance. The inclusion of the original letter to the reader and the addendum on baptism are also very welcome since they deepen the twenty-first century reader’s understanding of both the irenicism and rock-like convictions of the men who signed the Confession.
The list of the original signatories of the Confession is also included (p.69–70). It is quite a list of Baptist worthies; among them are the two great pioneers of Baptist life, Hanserd Knollys and William Kiffin; the most important Baptist theologian of the seventeenth century, Benjamin Keach; and those remarkable preachers Hercules Collins and Andrew Gifford, Sr.
An added bonus to this edition is the inclusion of what is known as Keach’s Catechism, though Benjamin Keach actually had nothing to do with the writing and publication of this catechism. In the minds of seventeenth-century Reformed Protestants, and Baptists are typical in this regard, confession and catechism went together. It too is nicely introduced by Renihan.
Michael A.G. Haykin
1 A review of The Baptist Confession of Faith & The Baptist Catechism (Birmingham, Alabama: Solid Ground Christian Books/ Carlisle, Pennsylvania: Reformed Baptist Publications, 2010), xvi+123 pages.
2 The sole area of difference between the Philadelphia Confession and the Charleston Confession was the latter’s omission of the article on the laying on of hands. The 1767 Charleston Confession was reprinted in 1813, 1831, and 1850.
3 For details of the links between the Charleston Confession and the Abstract of Principles, see Michael A.G. Haykin, Roger D. Duke and A. James Fuller, Soldiers of Christ: Selections from the Writings of Basil Manly, Sr., & Basil Manly, Jr. (Cape Coral, Florida: Founders Press, 2009), 36–40.
4 See Things Most Surely Believed Among Us: The Baptist Confession of Faith (London: Evangelical Press, 1958)—this edition of the Confession has been published in North America by Gospel Mission, Choteau, Montana, and Valley Gospel Missions, Langley, British Columbia; A Faith to Confess: The Baptist Confession of Faith of 1689 (Haywards Heath, Sussex: Carey Publications, 1975 and 1977); The Baptist Confession of Faith 1689, ed. Peter Masters (London: The Wakeman Trust, 1981). See also A Confession of Faith (1677 ed. repr. in a facsimile edition; Auburn, Massachusetts: B&R Press, 2000).
For an exposition of the Confession, see Samuel E. Waldron, A Modern Exposition of the 1689 Baptist Confession of Faith (Darlington, Co. Durham: Evangelical Press, 1989).
5 The Confession was published in 1677, 1688, and 1699, but apparently not in 1689. That was the year it was adopted at the General Assembly of the Particular Baptists in London (p.ix).
