Amidst Us Our Beloved Stands

I

BLESSED FOOD

Baptism as a means of grace in the Particular Baptist movement

Spirituality lies at the very core of English Puritanism, that late sixteenth- and seventeenth-century movement that sought to reform the Church of England and, failing to do so, mainly splintered into a trio of denominations-Presbyterian, Independent or Congregationalist, and Particular (i.e., Calvinistic) Baptist.1 Whatever else these Puritans may have been-social, political, and ecclesiastical reformers-they were primarily men and women intensely passionate about piety and Christian experience. By and large united in their Calvinism, Puritans believed that every aspect of their spiritual lives came from the work of the Holy Spirit. They had, in fact, inherited from the continental Reformers of the sixteenth century, and from John Calvin (1506-1564) in particular, "a constant and even distinctive concern" with the person and work of the Holy Spirit.2 Benjamin B. Warfield (1851-1921), the distinguished American Presbyterian theologian, can actually speak of Calvin as "preeminently the theologian of the Holy Spirit."3 And of his Puritan heirs and their interest in the Spirit Warfield had this to say:

The formulation of the doctrine of the work of the Spirit waited for the Reformation and for Calvin, and . the further working out of the details of this doctrine and its enrichment by the profound study of Christian minds and meditation of Christian hearts has come down from Calvin only to the Puritans. [I]t is only the truth to say that Puritan thought was almost entirely occupied with loving study of the work of the Holy Spirit, and found its highest expression in dogmatico-practical expositions of the several aspects of it.4

Alongside this emphasis on the Spirit, however, the Puritans were also assured that, as the Elizabethan Puritan Richard Greenham (1540-1594) once put it, "we drawe neere to God by meanes."5 By this Greenham, speaking for his fellow Puritans, meant that there are various godly activities or spiritual disciplines that the Holy Spirit employs to help Christians grow to maturity in Christ. On one occasion Greenham identified three vital spiritual disciplines: "The first meanes [of grace] is prayer.. The second meanes is hearing of his word.. The third meane whereby we draw neere, is by the Sacraments."6 A later Puritan author, John Preston (1587-1628), recognized other key disciplines such as "meditation, conference, the communion of saints, particular resolutions to [do] good."7 Given the prominence of the Spirit in their thinking, the Puritans never for a moment believed that these means of grace or spiritual disciplines were sufficient in and of themselves to nourish the soul of the believer or sustain the inner life of a congregation. Only the Holy Spirit was sufficient for that. Yet, the Puritans were also certain that to seek the Spirit's strength apart from such means was both unbiblical and foolish. Benjamin Keach (1640-1704), the most significant Particular Baptist theologian of the late seventeenth century, put it this way in 1681 when, in a direct allusion to the Quakers, who dispensed with the ordinances of baptism and the Lord's Supper, he declared:

Many are confident they have the Spirit, Light, and Power, when 'tis all meer Delusion.. Some Men boast of the Spirit, and conclude they have the Spirit, and none but they, and yet at the same time cry down and villify his blessed Ordinances and Institutions, which he hath left in his Word, carefully to be observed and kept, till he comes the second time without Sin unto Salvation.. The Spirit hath its proper Bounds, and always runs in its spiritual Chanel, viz. The Word and Ordinances, God's publick and private Worship.8

Keach's fellow Particular Baptist Hercules Collins (1646/7-1702) similarly asserted that "if God have a Church in all Ages, he must have Ordinances there, because no Church of Christ can be constituted without them."9

Other Puritans who were Presbyterians or Independents would have wholeheartedly agreed with this coupling of ordinance and Spirit, though their preferred term was "sacrament" instead of "ordinance." Neither of the two most important Particular Baptist confessions of the seventeenth century, the First London Confession of Faith (1644/1646) and the Second London Confession of Faith (1677/1688), use the term "sacrament," although signatories of these confessions occasionally used this noun from time to time and did so unapologetically. William Kiffen (1616-1701), who signed both of these confessions and can be rightly regarded as the father of the Particular Baptist community,10 described baptism on one occasion as "the Sacrament of the Spiritual Birth."11 Keach, quoting the Arminian theologian Daniel Tilenus (1563-1633), stated without qualification that "baptism is the first Sacrament of the New Testament . in which there is an exact analogy between the Sign and the thing signified."12 And in his Baptistic adaptation of the Heidelberg Catechism, Hercules Collins used this term a number of times in the section "Of the Sacraments."13 For instance, Collins stated that

the Sacraments . are sacred Signs, and Seals, set before our Eyes, and ordained of God for this cause, that he may declare and seal by them the Promise of his Gospel unto us . that he giveth freely Remission of Sins, and Life everlasting, not only to his all in general, but to every one in particular that believeth, for that only Sacrifice of Christ which he accomplished upon the Cross.14

Of course, out of all these communities that came from Puritanism, only the Baptists baptized believers, and they uniformly baptized by immersion. As Timothy George has noted, this difference initiated a ferocious debate about baptism that lasted for the rest of the seventeenth century. This debate can be seen in the titles of the numerous tracts each side lobbed at each other, for example, Daniel Featley's (1582-1645) Katabaptistai Kataptustoi. The Dippers dipt. Or, The Anabaptists duck'd and Plunged Over Head and Eares, at a Disputation in Southwark (1645), or Hercules Collins's Believers-Baptism from Heaven, and of Divine Institution. Infants-Baptism from Earth, and Human Invention (1691).15 This Baptist tenacity in promoting their convictions earned them the reputation of being "sowers of division."16 They were also charged with being immoral-in particular, with "doing acts unseemly in the dispensing the Ordinance of Baptism, not to be named amongst Christians."17 Featley, for one, insisted that the Baptists were in the habit of stripping "stark naked, not onely when they flocke in great multitudes, men and women together, to their Jordans to be dipt; but also upon other occasions, when the season permits"!18

One of the earliest responses to charges like this and others that identified the Particular Baptists with the continental Anabaptists of the sixteenth century was a small thirteen-page booklet, The Confession of Faith, of those Churches which are commonly (though falsly) called Anabaptists, later known as the First London Confession of Faith.19 Neither the publisher nor the author (s) of this confession were named in the text, although, at the close of the introductory preface there did appear fifteen names-it was the pastoral leadership of the seven Particular Baptist churches then in existence, all of them located in London. As to which of these elders were the actual authors of the confession, it appears that John Spilsbury (c. 1593-c. 1662/1668), William Kiffen, and Samuel Richardson (fl. 1642-1658) drew up this confessional text in September of 1644.20 The confession went through at least two printings that year, and in January of 1646, it was reissued in a second edition. Although the confession seems to have failed to defuse the criticism of many of their fellow Puritans,21 it became the doctrinal standard for the first period of Particular Baptist advance, which ended in 1660 with the restoration of Charles II (1630-1685).22

A COMPANY OF VISIBLE SAINTS

The 1644 edition of the confession consisted of fifty-three articles. The first twenty articles dealt with the nature and attributes of God, the doctrine of the Trinity, divine election, the fall and sinfulness of all humanity, and the person and work of Christ in his offices of prophet, priest, and king. Articles XXI to XXXII covered the work of salvation and unequivocally revealed the confession's Calvinism.23 For instance, Article XXII, discussing saving faith, stated that "faith is the gift of God wrought in the hearts of the elect by the Spirit of God."24 And as the gift of God, this faith cannot be lost, as Article XXIII declared: "Those that have this pretious faith wrought in them by the Spirit, can never finally nor totally fall away."25 Moreover, such saving faith is possessed only by the elect of God. In the words of Article XXI: "Christ Jesus by his death did bring forth salvation and reconciliation onely for the elect, which were those which God the Father gave him."26 Yet, as Robert W. Oliver has noted, this...