A Baptist tradition. We share believer's baptism by immersion and the autonomy of the local church. Where we differ, Scripture's whole counsel settles the question; we receive those who believe the Gospel as brethren while we answer what we believe is error.
Where It Came From
Reformed Baptists trace their heritage to the Particular Baptists of seventeenth-century London, named for their belief in particular redemption. Their churches formed in the 1630s and 1640s, issued the First London Confession in 1644, and published the Second London Confession in 1677, adopting it in 1689. Charles Spurgeon stood in this stream. A revival of confessional Reformed Baptist churches began in the mid-twentieth century in Britain and North America. Many Reformed Baptists see themselves in continuity with the Reformation and English Puritanism. Their 1689 Confession closely follows the Westminster Confession and the Savoy Declaration, and they often describe their churches as carrying the Reformers' appeal to Scripture through to baptism and the church. Theologica honors that confessional heritage but holds that Baptist churches did not come out of Rome. Christ's churches of baptized believers existed before the Reformation, and the London churches are where these particular congregations enter the documentary record.
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In Their Own Words
This profile describes the tradition from its own official documents and standard teaching:
- Second London Baptist Confession of Faith (1689)
- First London Baptist Confession of Faith (1644)
- The Baptist Catechism (Keach's Catechism)