Spiritual Declension: Lessons from Early 18th Century Particular Baptists, Part 2-Controversies over More or Less Minor Issues

Posted by jsmitheasley on January 13, 2009
22 Comments

In the interests of survival, theological debate was relatively rare among Particular Baptists during the time of persecution.[1] But once the Act of Toleration was in place and major persecution ceased, theological and personal differences came to the forefront. The problem was not so much that there were disagreements among Baptists on some issues. It was the divisive, mean-spirited attitude in which these disputes were sometimes engaged.

The first issue was the matter of singing in worship services. This debate actually began before the Act of Toleration, but it heated up in the decade immediately after it. There may have been exceptions, but the singing of “uninspired” hymns was not practiced in any of the English churches in general in the 17th century.[2] However beyond that, among Baptists, there were many who did not practice congregational singing at all. There is evidence that some churches did, but many were against it and didn’t sing at all.[3] In some cases, the omission of singing may have originated from fear that their secret meetings would be discovered by the authorities during the days of persecution.[4] But this expedient seems to have become a cherished tradition among some Baptists.[5] So even after religious liberty came many did not sing in worship.

In 1673, the Particular Baptist Benjamin Keach persuaded his church to sing a hymn at the close of the Lord’s Supper. He allowed those who objected to leave before the hymn. Fourteen years later, “At a church meeting on March 1, 1691, a large majority of the members” of Keach’s church “voted to have a hymn sung following the service every Sunday.”[6] Twenty-two of Keach’s members left. They felt this practice was an unscriptural innovation. For a number of years they attended the church pastored by Hanserd Knollys. Then they formed themselves into a new church that met at a place called Maze Pond. In the articles of faith that they drew up in 1694, they explicitly state their opposition to congregational singing. They stated that it was “a gross error equall with common nationall Sett forme Prayer.”[7] In other words, they put it in the same category as using the Church of England prayer book. Michael Haykin notes, “The convictions of these people were shared by a number of leading London Baptists, including William Kiffin, Robert Steed and Isaac Marlow.”[8] Steed preached against congregational singing and encouraged Marlow to publish a book against it. Others wrote against it as well, but Marlowe was the main antagonist writing eleven books that dealt with the issue.[9] Haykin further remarks,

The heat generated by this controversy may be discerned by the terms the two sides tossed at each other. Marlow tells us that he was labeled a ‘Ridiculous Scribbler’, ‘Brasen-Forehead’, ‘Enthusiast’, and “Quaker’. But Marlowe could give as good as he got. He viewed his opponents as ‘a coterie of book burning papists’ who were seeking to undermine the Reformation, for, as far as he was concerned, they were endorsing a practice that had no scriptural warrant at all”[10]

This division over hymn singing became quite a controversy. It split the Particular Baptist churches and was marked by a lot of grievous unchristian behavior and attitudes.

The second issue was the matter of closed versus open membership and open communion. This was a debate that also began early before the Act of Toleration. However the compilers of the 1677 confession (which is also the 1689 confession) charitably decided not to insist on either side of the issue. They explained, “We…are not in full accord among ourselves.”[11] So they were content not to insist on one position or the other in the confession. But again this debate was reopened in the 18th century and became quite heated.

So these two issues, congregational singing, including the singing of “uninspired” hymns, and open versus closed communion became matters of serious division among the churches. Lots of energy and time was taken up debating and fussing over these issues, all of which tended to distract from more important things. Also, no doubt, the spirit in which these debates were sometimes carried on did much to grieve the Holy Spirit. Mention was made in an earlier post of Howell Harris and the impression that he had of the Nonconformist churches. Apparently he knew many nonconformist pastors well, including Particular Baptists. David Martyn Lloyd-Jones commenting on this says that Harris even felt that the Nonconformists had the truth. In fact, he agonized for a long time over whether or not he should stay in the Church of England. Finally he chose to stay and one of several reasons he did was his impression that the nonconformists were constantly entangled in doctrinal disputes. Quoting Lloyd-Jones, “They were learned men, they were able men, and they were well versed in doctrine; but they spent most of their time in arguments and disputations with one another.”[12] It’s also interesting to read John Newton’s explanation of why he never became a Baptist. He considered doing so but one of the things that put him off was that while they were so strongly against other groups who agreed with them on every point but one, baptism, they were so divided among themselves.[13]

The lesson for us is clear as Reformed Baptists. In our relationships with one another as pastors and sister churches, we must guard against becoming embroiled in heated controversies over relatively minor issues. We must not allow such things to distract us from the higher priorities of the kingdom. Furthermore, when we do have disagreements we must be careful not to grieve the Holy Spirit by a mean-spirited attitude. Of course, there is the opposite danger of neglecting and minimizing the importance of sound doctrine. This too must be avoided. We must uphold our confessional standard when it comes to our closest inter-church relationships and ties. However, there are relatively minor issues that we can legitimately disagree about as Reformed Baptists that are not confessional issues. If we agree on the doctrines set forth in 32 detailed chapters of a confession of faith that’s a lot of agreement!! There’s no need to fight or divide over matters our confession never takes a dogmatic position about. There are, indeed, some differences among us of this nature. There are differences related to music and singing in our churches; whether we sing out of a hymn book all the time, or sometimes sing more modern songs, or even use power point, or whether and how we use musical accompaniment. There are differences regarding the best ways to engage in ministerial training and interchurch association. There are even differences regarding the nature of plurality, parity and diversity in an eldership. There are other things that could be mentioned. But if we can agree on all 32 chapters of our confession of faith, differences in other areas ought not to divide us. There’s a proper place for debating finer points, but it shouldn’t consume our best energies. Surely we should strive to maintain a strong bond of unity between churches that can agree on so much. Even with brethren who don’t agree with everything in our confession, there’s a unity of the Spirit that we ought to pursue and seek to express with all who hold to the essential fundamental doctrines of evangelical Christianity. According to Paul in Ephesians four there is a unity of the Spirit to be maintained with all who know and love Christ and hold to gospel essentials (4:3). While there is also a unity of the faith to be attained (4:13) through faithful, patient, ongoing instruction of the churches by their pastors and teachers. The implication is that our duty to keep the unity of the Spirit is not negated by the present lack of a perfect unity of the faith in every particular. If that is true in our relationships to all true gospel believing churches of Christ, how much more in our relationships to one another as Reformed Baptists who hold to the same confession of faith. In the next entry we’ll consider a third major factor in the decline among Particular Baptists in the early 18th century.

Jeffery Smith
Covenant Reformed Baptist Church
Easley, SC

[1] David Merck, “Modern Church History”; manuscript of lectures given for Reformed Baptist Seminary, 261.
[2] Thomas Ross, “English Particular Baptist Singing and Congregational Worship Practices,” accessed on Internet January 2009 here.
[3] Merck, 261.
[4] Ibid.
[5] Michael Haykin, Kiffin, Knollys and Keach (Leeds, England: Reformation Today Trust, 1996), 92.
[6] Ibid.
[7] Ibid.
[8] Ibid. 93.
[9] Ibid.

Spiritual Declension: Lessons from Early 18th Century Particular Baptists, Part I—An Excessively Inward Focus

Posted by jsmitheasley on January 9, 2009
6 Comments

In a previous post, we noted a decline in the early 18th century Particular Baptist churches. In this post, we’ll begin to examine some of the factors that contributed to that decline. Traditionally, writers on Baptist history have fixed the blame for this on the influence of Hyper-Calvinism among the Baptists. But as Tom Nettles and others point out this is an oversimplification.[1] The influence of Hyper-Calvinism was one of the factors but there were other factors at work in the declension of Particular Baptists. Factors, some of which, were not limited to those who were Hyper-Calvinists.[2] I will come back to the influence of Hyper-Calvinism later. The first factor we’ll consider is an excessively inward focus upon the maintenance of their congregational life. It appears that a good number of these Baptist churches were characterized by an excessively inward focus upon the maintenance of their congregational life. The reader will recall that the Act of Toleration gave great freedom to Baptists. But there was still a certain stigma that was placed upon them. Michael Haykin notes that though the Act of Toleration gave Baptists,

The freedom to organize and to gather congregations, only those buildings registered as meeting-houses with the bishop of the diocese or the local Justice of the Peace could serve as places of evangelism and worship. And while the act permitted them freedom of worship, it did not give them full civil rights.[3]

That didn’t come until the 19th century. “Significant obstacles, for example, continued to lie in the path of those Dissenters who sought to study at either Oxford or Cambridge University, or who wanted to pursue a career in the government at either the national or civic level.”[4] Consequently, Baptists, and other Nonconformist churches, were in a place of social inferiority throughout the 18th century. They weren’t experiencing the kind of overt physical persecution they had endured before. It was now a more subtle kind of pressure.

We might say that to be a Baptist was to be looked at by many as an oddball; as a kind of second-class citizen. Baptists tended to be viewed in a bad light in English society. They were out of step; they were out of the mainstream. This kind of subtle social pressure can be more dangerous for the church than out-and-out persecution. We all know what can happen when a person(s) feels marginalized or ostracized. The tendency is to become defensive and self-protecting. A kind of “us against the world” mentality can develop in which we huddle together with our own kind, people who understand us, with our cannons aimed at everyone else.

This is what happened. For much of the eighteenth century Baptists limited their horizons to the maintenance of their congregational life in order to preserve their distinctive beliefs and their mode of worship.[5] In the words of Haykin, “They closed ranks and delighted in describing themselves (in the language of Song of Solomon ch. 4:12) as ‘a garden enclosed.’”[6] He goes on to quote from a prominent Baptist pastor of that time:

As an enclosed garden, the church … is protected and “encompassed with the power of God, as a wall about it,” and is, “so closely surrounded, that it is not to be seen nor known by the world; and indeed is not accessible to any but believers in Christ.”[7]

Haykin says that, this “language well reflects the inward-looking attitudes of many Calvinistic Baptists during the early years of the 18th century.”[8]

Apparently, many Baptists responded to the unfair discrimination (social and sometimes legal) by remaining behind the walls of their meeting houses and focusing on the maintenance of their own congregational life, church order, and the preservation of their distinctives. It’s interesting, and perhaps a bit embarrassing, to read the impression that some good men had of Nonconformist churches at that time. For example, Howell Harris, the Welsh preacher who was mightily used in the revivals that began in the 1730’s, made this comparison between the Nonconformists and his good friend George Whitefield, “Whilst they are in their warm rooms, he ventures his life for God.”[9]

It’s true that in England at that time Nonconformist ministers were required by law to proclaim the Word of God only within their meeting houses. However, one familiar with the history of the time knows that the Anglican authorities tried to make things difficult for Whitefield and the Methodist preachers as well. Yet such challenges did not stop or confine them. The same is true of many of the other great preachers that God used during the Awakening. For the most part, on the other hand, Baptists were content to enjoy the fruits of toleration, which allowed them to meet together and worship. There was a kind of “settleness” about them.[10] There were exceptions, like Benjamin Beddome. Moreover, men like William Mitchel and David Crosley evangelized towns and villages throughout parts of Lancashire and Yorkshire.[11] There were others. But on the whole there was this excessively inward focus upon the maintenance of congregational life.

I’m not asserting that Reformed Baptists are characterized by this tendency today. But this is a danger that we need to guard against. I wonder if perhaps there is this tendency to be inwardly focused in some of us or in some of our churches; the tendency to focus most of our energies upon reforming, establishing and maintaining biblical order in our churches and preserving our distinctives as Reformed Baptists. We should be concerned about these things. Our distinctives are very important. But in the context of a culture that often views us as oddballs; that often views us as churches that are out of step with the spirit of the times and out of step with mainstream evangelicalism, it can be easy for us to develop a fortress mentality. We can become content maintaining our own congregational life and preserving our distinctives. We can even become quite proud of our distinctives, have a sense of self-satisfaction about them, and become excessively defensive about them. We can, in fact, become more focused on our distinctives than upon the gospel. Thus, while preserving our congregational life, a terrible deadness can come over us. We no longer seek to take the gospel to sinners outside of the four walls of our meeting places.

Let us learn from our early 18th century forebears to be on guard against this danger. In the posts that follow I hope to address other factors that contributed to spiritual declension among early 18th century Particular Baptists and highlight important lessons we can learn from them.

Jeffery Smith
Covenant Reformed Baptist Church
Easley SC

[1] Tom Nettles, By His Grace and For His Glory (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House Company, 1986), 73-107.
[2] Robert Oliver, History of the English Calvinistic Baptists; from John Gill to C.H. Spurgeon (Carlisle, PA, Banner of Truth Trust, 2006), 97.
[3] Michael Haykin, One Heart and One Soul: John Sutcliffe of Olney, his Friends and his Times (Durham, U.K.: Evangelical Press, 1994), 20.
[4] Ibid.
[5] Ibid.
[6] Ibid.
[7] Ibid. The pastor quoted is John Gill.
[8] Ibid.
[9] Ibid., 21.
[10] Ibid.
[11] Ibid.