Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from Minutes of the General Assembly of the General Baptist Churches in England, With Kindred Records, 1910, Vol. 2: Edited With Introduction and Notes for the Baptist Historical Society
This volume completes the official records of the original General Baptists down to 1811. During the nineteenth century they issued their Minutes annually in print, and those whose interest has been awakened will have little difficulty in following up the story.
These volumes bring out clearly two points, as to government and as to doctrine. The General Baptists inherited from the continental Anabaptists the system of government which the Calvinists also adopted, and which has become so well known: as Presbyterian; a system of graded courts all controlled by the General Assembly. A futile attempt was made by the Long Parliament to force this on the Established Church, in the very years when the English General Baptists framed their organi zation. By 1660 it broke down finally in the Establishment, by 1680 many General Baptists doubted its wisdom, more challenged it in 1697, and despite brave assertions that Independence was dangerous, a partial surrender was made in 1711. In practice the control has long been abandoned, but the old affinities show themselves in that the General Baptists even today are on friendly terms with the survivors of the Paedobaptist Presbyterians of 1662. The Society of Friends, which at its origin was so closely related to the General Baptists, and retained longer those peculiarities of attire, marriage, worship, and doctrine which were common to both, does yet maintain a similar system of organization. And the records of its Quarterly and Yearly meetings, dating from the same early period, deserve equally to be put before the world.
In the matter of doctrine, the General Baptists enshrine in their title the declaration that the grace of God' is available generally, for all men, and not for some only. When they first said this, they were as voices in a wilderness, for in a Calvinistic atmosphere the Articles of Religion had been revised for England, and the Five Points were sharpened at Dort just as John Smith challenged their peculiarities. The Midland Confession of must be read with the recollection of the Westminster Confession of 1646. Its companion Shorter Catechism is better known, and shows what the great Puritan party then held. Not only did mankind lack original righteousness, and suffer from corruption of the whole nature, but it was involved in the guilt of Adam's first sin, it was under God's wrath and curse, liable to all miseries in this life, to death itself, and to all the pains of hell for ever. The remedy for this was only of limited application, according to the Puritan theology, which announced that God out of His mere good pleasure, from all eternity, elected some to everlasting life. Against this ambiguity the General Baptists quoted scripture that God wished to redeem (not some, but) all men. And this was their cardinal doctrine.
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