First London Baptist Confession (1644)

The Confession of Faith, of those Churches which are commonly (though falsly) called Anabaptists. Fifty-three articles, signed by fifteen men in the name of seven congregations in London, among them William Kiffin and John Spilsbery. It was the first confession of the Particular (Calvinistic) Baptists.

Background

So far as is known, these churches did not spring from the Continental Anabaptists. They grew out of the London Independent congregation gathered by Henry Jacob in 1616. During the 1630s, members who had come to reject infant baptism withdrew from it, and by 1641 they were baptizing believers by immersion. W. J. McGlothlin notes that they kept the Calvinistic theology and congregational order of their Independent past: “In becoming Baptists they needed only to change their views of the subjects and mode of baptism.”1

What Brought It About

The name “Anabaptist” still carried the memory of Münster, and the London churches were charged with every error that name could suggest. Their preface lists the accusations made against them “both in Pulpit and Print”: holding free will, falling away from grace, denying original sin, “disclaiming of Magistracy,” and conducting baptism in ways “not to be named amongst Christians.” The result, they wrote, was that some were encouraged, if they could find their meeting place, “to get together in Clusters to stone us.”2 McGlothlin adds that they also wished to distinguish themselves from the Arminian General Baptists.3

The Reasons They Gave

They answered that they could have borne slander against themselves in silence. It was the truth they held that compelled them to speak:

But being it is not only us, but the truth professed by us, wee cannot, wee dare not but speake. Seven Churches of LondonPreface, 1644

They published, they said, “for the cleering of the truth we professe, that it may be at libertie, though wee be in bonds.” They promised the civil magistrate obedience in all lawful things. Yet if he would not protect them, they would still proceed, “remembering alwayes we ought to obey God rather then men” (Article LI). The confession closes with Paul’s words before Felix:

And if any take this that we have said, to be heresie, then doe wee with the Apostle freely confesse, that after the way which they call heresie, worship we the God of our Fathers. First London Confessionconcluding article

The defense worked. McGlothlin records that the Confession “created great surprise by its orthodoxy, sanity, and moderation.” When Daniel Featley attacked it in The Dippers Dipt (1645), the churches answered with a revised edition in 1646, dedicated to Parliament.4

Continue to the Second London Confession

The Second London Baptist Confession (1677/1689) »
By 1677 the 1644 Confession was, in the framers’ words, “not now commonly to be had.” Its heirs recast their faith on the model of the Westminster Confession, and that confession became the enduring standard of the Particular Baptists. Read its introduction there, with a link to the full text.


Creeds and Confessions

Notes

  1. W. J. McGlothlin, Baptist Confessions of Faith (Philadelphia: American Baptist Publication Society, 1911), introduction to the London Confession of 1644, drawing on Crosby and the Kiffin manuscript. ↩
  2. Preface, “To All That Desire the Lifting Up of the Name of the Lord Jesus in Sinceritie,” in McGlothlin, Baptist Confessions, which reproduces the original 1644 edition. All quotations from the Confession keep its original spelling. ↩
  3. McGlothlin, Baptist Confessions, introduction to the London Confession of 1644. On the persisting fear of “Munster,” see J. M. Cramp, Baptist History (London: Elliot Stock, 1871), 267–68, who notes the compilers were “particularly careful” to set out their views on magistracy. ↩
  4. McGlothlin, Baptist Confessions, introduction to the second edition (1646). McGlothlin judges that the revisers, in meeting Featley’s six objections, went so far as to weaken “the distinctive Baptist character of some of the articles.” ↩