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Michael Haykin, in his book Rediscovering Our English Baptist Heritage: Kiffin, Knollys, and Keach, provides a valuable, crisp overview of the early years of Calvinistic Baptist development.  Anyone looking for a quick read of this history (97 pages) and an introduction to the major figures pioneering the movement would do well to read this well-written, succinct summary.

Of the many things I appreciated about Haykin’s summary was the frequent attention he gave to the major lessons we may appropriate from these forebears for our own day.  The concluding chapter draws our attention to three lessons in particular.

Confessional Heritage

These earliest Baptists were confessional.  The mid-1600s in England were terrible times for non-comformists and dissidents from the Church of England.  To be a Baptist required defending the faith on several fronts.  From within Calvinism, these early Baptists contended with the hyper-Calvinists who so stressed the sovereignty of God in election that they threatened the weakening of God’s call to evangelism, missions, and church planting.  Arising largely from Arminian quarters were General Baptists turned Quakers, with their emphasis on “inner light” and conscience.  They too posed a threat as they vested ultimate authority in subjective experiences and leadings of the Spirit over the Scripture, tending at times toward Universalism.  Then there were the political and theological errors of Anabaptists, whom the English Baptists openly distanced themselves from in favor of close kin to Puritanism.  And the early Baptists–often imprisoned and sometimes killed–faced the persecution of the state and the Church of England, which for decades limited religious freedom and toleration, causing many to make an exodus in search of religious liberty.

In this volatile climate of affliction and apostasy, the Calvinistic Baptists placed appropriate emphasis on the foundational doctrines of the faith.  They defined and settled their theological convictions into what is known as the First (1646) and Second London Baptist Confessions of Faith (1689).  In that way they contributed to all the generations of Baptists that followed a confessional theological heritage that still nourishes the faith of many.

Congregational Heritage

These men and their generation were churchmen.  Many of them came from Puritan stock.  Almost nursed into them was a concern for reforming the church according to the word of God.  This is what led them to Baptist convictions and an emphasis on the local church.  They were committed to congregational government under the Headship of Christ.  They rejected the idea of the state church.  I love the kind of folks who could write in their statement of faith, “the publick Worship of God ought to be preferred before the private.”  They did not marginalize private piety and devotion, but they placed the emphasis where, I believe, the Scripture does–on the gathered worship life of the congregation.

They recovered believer’s baptism, and with it regenerate church membership.  In all of this they risked the charge of anarchy and the wrath of the state.  But they took their stand with the Bible and they leave for us an example of highly valuing the ordinances that our Lord and Master himself established.  It’s to our shame that so often we neglect the call to baptism and the holy privilege of the Lord’s Supper when so many of our forebears literally risked life and property to honor these sacraments.

Reformed Heritage

Finally, Haykin does a great job of highlighting for us the ability of these men to hold to Baptist distinctives while at the same time giving great emphasis to what they had in common with other denominations and the broader Reformation movement.  They leave us a model of catholicity and cooperation.  For example, Haykin relays brief histories of the First and Second London Confessions, the doctrinal standards for the movement.  Those statements of faith happily built upon the earlier work of the Westminster Confession and the Savoy Declaration.  In doing this, they intentionally embraced the great unity of doctrine and belief shared between Presbyterians, Congregationalists, and Baptists.  They model for us the importance of laying stress on the great truths we have in common while lovingly holding fast to biblical convictions that distinguish us.

And though their policy made the local congregation central, that does not mean they were isolating themselves from other congregations or denominations.  They  joyfully formed associations and ministerial fraternals for cooperation with others, both Baptist and in some cases non-Baptists.  If the early Baptists were not under such persecution for most of this history, one wonders if they would not have had even wider associations despite some differences.  They owed much to their Puritan-separationists forerunners, and might have had more effective relationships with them.  Many came to Calvinist convictions from General Baptist backgrounds and maintained relationships across those lines.  In the best sense of the word, these men were “catholic” to the core.  They were ecumenical when it came to Protestant Reformed principles.

We could learn a lot from those who recognized their differences honestly but did not let two or three secondary matters overshadow the truths of first importance.  If you’re interested in a very readable and informative treatment of early English Baptist history, three of the key figures of the movement, and early Baptist theological thought, starting with Haykin’s Rediscovering Our English Baptist Heritage will repay the couple hours it takes to read its pages.

Can I Add One Additional Note of Appreciation?

Through these histories he demonstrates how the earliest Calvinistic Baptists were also ardent evangelists and church planters.  These men preached the gospel and planted churches (130 churches in the two decades of Cromwell’s reign).  They had a warm heart toward the lost and preached to see men converted.  Every Christian preacher can learn from their pleading with sinners.  Haykin cites one example typical of Benjamin Keach, quoted by Spurgeon, I believe:

Come, venture your souls on Christ’s righteousness; Christ is able to save you though you are ever so great sinners.  Come to him, throw yourselves at the feet of Jesus.  Look to Jesus, who came to seek and save them that were lost….  You may have the water of life freely.  Do not say, “I want qualifications or a meekness to come to Christ.”  Sinner, dost thou thirst?  Dost thou see a want of righteousness?  ‘Tis not a righteousness; but ’tis a sense of the want of righteousness, which is rather the qualification thou shouldst look at.  Christ hath righteousness sufficient to clothe you, bread of life to feed you, grace to adorn you.  Whatever you want, it is to be had in him.  We tell you there is help in him, salvation in him.  “Through the propitiation in his blood” you must be justified, and that by faith alone.

Now that’s preaching a Jesus people can come to!  I want to live, preach, serve, and contribute to the kingdom this way.  How about you?

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