London Baptist Confession of Faith

¶ … London Baptist Confession of Faith of 1644 and the Eighteen Dissertations of 1524 as spelled out in the book by William Lumpkin and named Baptist Confessions of Faith. This has been done specifically to gauge the development of the Baptist Movement from its Anabaptist predecessors to more full development over the course of a century.

The Anabaptists of course were the predecessors of the Baptist movement. A core question that we ask in retrospect was whether or not they believed in justification by faith. Considering that this was a central view of Martin Luther and his 97 Theses. However, to be certain, the author of this essay will consider this question in the light of the Eighteen Dissertations. Interestingly enough, they rejected justification by faith alone, which was the core of Luther's beliefs.

However, they made invaluable gifts to the Reformation. For example, several tenets of evangelical belief that would be identified as Anabaptist include a number that we would recognize right away.

The first of these is sola scriptura (scriptures as the only ultimate source of authority). Many times the Anabaptists were more consistent on this tenet than reformers such as Martin Luther or more definitively, John Calvin. The Anabaptist radicals insisted on biblical authority only for certain practices in matters of church worship and polity.

Secondly, the Anabaptist radicals preached a separation of church and state. The Anabaptists saw the church as the assembly of the saved. It was antithetical to this world and sometimes also antagonistic to society. This is why they advocated separation of church and state.

Thirdly, the Anabaptists preached freedom of conscience. This was because of the Anabaptist's beliefs about the secular state. They believed that excommunication was the ultimate cure for heresy. What they opposed was the persecution by the state that was so common at that time. For this reason, they denied the right of the state to execute or punish anyone for their religious beliefs or teachings. Even in the Reformation era, this was a radical notion and considered revolutionary.

Fourthly, the Anabaptists were practioners of believers' baptism. They were the first to point out the complete lack of an explicit biblical sanctioning of infant baptism. Most had no issue with the mode of baptism and practiced sprinkling (affusion). For this reason, they were not true baptists in the modern sense.

Finally, they emphasized the holiness of life. Anabaptists gave great emphasis upon spiritual experience, obedience to the divine standards and righteousness was to be of the practical kind. They based their lack of tolerance of justification by faith upon James 2:20 that stated "Faith without works is dead."

On most of the above five points considered so far in this essay, Baptists would strongly agree with the Anabaptists. However, the lack of justification by faith provides an important set of data points to illustrate the differences between the Anabaptists from modern Baptists in form and practice.

In the London Baptist Confession of Faith of 1644, we see a confession of faith statement that is much closer to that of what modern day Baptists would find familiar. With the coming and continuance of the English Civil War, Baptists saw the need and took the opportunity to write down their own statement of faith. The document was written and signed by seven separate congregations that collaborated to write the document. The document's purpose was to differentiate the beliefs of the Particular Baptists from the General Baptists. This was to formally define the beliefs of the Particular Baptists as opposed to the General Baptists. While not detailed, it was very clearly Calvinistic in tone. It rejected the notion that the law convicted of sin, claiming that the terrors of the law were not needed. They were not needed because the gospel alone has the power to do this. Secondly, it rejected the notion of the Son having eternal generation (Taylor and Young 244).

The Baptist movement represented the left wing of the Protestant movement. It was opposed to the more conventional convictions of Luther who though seemingly radical in the eyes of the Roman Catholic Church was absolutely terrified at the dogs of war that he unleashed with his 97 Theses and the radical splintering movements that they spawned such as the Anabaptists. What is very frustrating to the religious historian is that there is not a clear thread of development of the Baptist movement and whether or not it had a clear ancestry linking the pre-Baptist movements such as the Anabaptists with the later Baptists.

Due to the demise of the monarchy, the Westminster Confession was declared officially the faith statement of the Church of England (Anglican Church) and Church of Scotland (Presbyterian). The confession was not very expansive. This inspired more expansive confessions later. These confessions of faith represent two of Christ-exalting expressions of Baptist faith and practice that were written down at the time. The Particular Baptists were those who believed in a strict-Calvinist interpretation of scripture.