One of the most illuminating contrasts between the Westminster Assembly and the assemblies of the Particular Baptists lies not first in their confessions, but in the very manner of their gathering. The difference is more than historical; it is deeply theological. It reveals two distinct conceptions of the church’s relation to civil authority and the manner in which Christ governs His people.
The Westminster Assembly was summoned from above. The Particular Baptist assemblies were gathered from below.
In 1643, the Westminster Assembly did not arise because churches voluntarily united to deliberate upon matters of doctrine. It was convened by ordinance of the English Parliament for the purpose of reforming the Church of England. Parliament appointed the members, regulated the proceedings, and retained the authority to receive or reject the Assembly’s work. However sincere the piety and learning of the divines, and they were men to whom the church remains greatly indebted, the Assembly itself existed under the authority of the civil magistrate, serving the reformation of a national church.
The Particular Baptists stood upon altogether different ground. Having no established church and enjoying no favor from the state, they gathered only by the mutual consent of their churches. The Second London Baptist Confession was first published anonymously in 1677 during a season of persecution and was publicly owned in 1689 after greater liberty had been secured. In neither instance did king or Parliament summon these meetings. Elders and messengers assembled because independent congregations freely sent them, seeking together to confess the faith once delivered to the saints.
This distinction was not merely the consequence of differing political circumstances. It reflected differing ecclesiologies.
The Westminster divines generally assumed the legitimacy of a national church whose reformation might properly be assisted by a godly magistrate. The original 1646 Westminster Confession accordingly assigns significant responsibilities to the civil ruler in matters touching the visible church.
The Particular Baptists, however, believed that Christ had committed the keys of His kingdom immediately to each gathered congregation. Churches were not isolated bodies, nor were they subject to ecclesiastical hierarchies. Rather, they were bound together in voluntary communion under the supreme headship of Christ.
This conviction finds mature expression in Chapter 26 of the Second London Baptist Confession:
In cases of difficulties or differences, either in point of doctrine or administration, wherein either the churches in general are concerned, or any one church, in their peace, union, and edification; or any member or members of any church are injured, in or by any proceedings in censures not agreeable to truth and order: it is according to the mind of Christ, that many churches holding communion together, do, by their messengers, meet to consider, and give their advice in or about that matter in difference, to be reported to all the churches concerned;29 howbeit these messengers assembled, are not intrusted with any church-power properly so called; or with any jurisdiction over the churches themselves, to exercise any censures either over any churches or persons; or to impose their determination on the churches or officers.
Here one discovers the genius of Baptist polity. Churches ought to seek one another’s counsel. They ought to deliberate together concerning doctrine, discipline, and common concerns. They ought to strengthen one another in love and truth. Yet assemblies possess no jurisdiction over the churches themselves. Their authority is ministerial rather than magisterial, persuasive rather than coercive.
It should be granted, however, that this ministerial authority was not toothless in practice. Associations did exercise real discipline upon member churches, but that discipline operated by withdrawal of fellowship and correspondence, not by coercive decree. A church that persisted in disorder might find itself no longer received among its sister congregations, its messengers no longer welcomed, its name struck from the association’s letter. This is a severe thing, and no Baptist should pretend the associational principle was merely advisory in the sense of being inconsequential. But it remains categorically different from a synod’s power to bind by ecclesiastical censure enforceable through church courts. The Baptist association could withhold communion; it could not exercise dominion.
The confession, therefore, possesses authority in a congregation not because an assembly published it, but because that church has freely confessed it to be a faithful summary of Holy Scripture. Baptist confessionalism rests not upon external compulsion but upon shared conviction. Unity is maintained by common faith rather than institutional control.
This pattern bears a remarkable resemblance to the life of the apostolic church. The churches planted throughout Judea, Syria, Asia Minor, Greece, and beyond were not constituted by imperial decree, nor were they sustained by the patronage of earthly rulers. They arose through the preaching of the gospel, the gathering of believers into covenanted congregations, and the oversight of elders appointed according to Christ’s command. Though these churches maintained real fellowship with one another, sending messengers, offering relief, and seeking counsel in times of difficulty, they remained accountable above all to the Lord who had purchased them with His own blood.
The gathering described in Acts 15 illustrates this principle well. The apostles and elders met in Jerusalem to consider a controversy affecting many churches. Their conclusions carried extraordinary authority because the apostles spoke under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, an authority proper to their unique office, not to be confused with the ordinary counsel later churches might offer one another. Yet even this unique apostolic council does not furnish a perpetual model of a standing ecclesiastical court exercising jurisdiction over all churches. Rather, it belongs to that foundational period in which Christ governed His church through His inspired apostles. After the apostolic age, the churches continued to seek counsel together, but no assembly, Baptist association included, inherited apostolic authority. What remained was wisdom offered and freely weighed, not decree imposed.
The voluntary cooperation envisioned by the Particular Baptists therefore resembles, in important respects, the ordinary fellowship of the apostolic churches after the close of divine revelation. Churches communicated with one another, assisted one another, and sought one another’s wisdom, yet Christ alone remained their universal Head.
History itself would eventually move many heirs of Westminster toward a structurally adjacent conclusion regarding the church’s independence from the state, though by a different road and for different reasons. It should be said plainly at the outset: this is not to suggest that American Presbyterianism became Baptist in their ecclesiology. Presbyterians continued to affirm the binding authority of sessions, presbyteries, synods, and general assemblies in a manner Baptists never would. The convergence lies only in this: that both traditions came to confess the church’s authority as derived immediately from Christ rather than delegated through the civil government.
When the American colonies became independent of Great Britain, the assumptions underlying the Westminster Assembly’s original relationship to Parliament could no longer be maintained. In revising the Westminster Confession in 1788, American Presbyterians removed the magistrate’s authority in ecclesiastical affairs, deleting the language that assigned to the civil ruler responsibility for calling synods or overseeing the government of the church. This revision was occasioned chiefly by the absence of an established church in the new republic rather than by any independent embrace of gathered-church ecclesiology. The cause differed from the Baptist case even where the effect ran parallel. Yet living without an established church, American Presbyterians increasingly recognized what Baptists had confessed from the beginning: that Christ’s kingdom is spiritual, and the church must govern herself according to His Word rather than by the authority or auspices of the state.
There is a quiet providence in this history. God was pleased to preserve precious doctrinal truth through the Westminster Assembly, despite its connection to Parliament. Yet He was equally pleased to preserve and advance that same gospel through persecuted Baptist churches that possessed neither political influence nor civil protection. Their unity rested not upon acts of Parliament but upon a common confession, mutual love, and the gracious reign of Christ.
The contrast may therefore be stated simply. Westminster represents a confessional unity formed within the framework of a national reformation under the summons of Parliament. The Second London Baptist Confession represents a confessional unity arising from the free cooperation of churches already united by the gospel and gathered under the sole kingship of Christ.
In this respect, the Baptist assemblies stand in striking continuity with the ordinary pattern of the New Testament churches. As in the apostolic age, congregations voluntarily sought one another’s counsel, bore one another’s burdens, and confessed one faith, while acknowledging no earthly head but Jesus Christ Himself. Such unity is not weaker because it is voluntary. Rather, it manifests the spiritual character of Christ’s kingdom, whose citizens are gathered not by the power of princes but by the effectual call of the gospel, whose fellowship is maintained not by civil decree but by the truth of God’s Word and the communion of His saints.
