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The Doctrine of the Extent of the Atonement among the Early English Particular Baptists
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 08 July 2019
Abstract
This essay challenges the view that the early English Baptists who are often labeled as “Particular Baptists” always held a doctrine of strict particularism or particular redemption. It does so on the basis of the two London Baptist Confessions of 1644 and 1646. The main argument asserted here is that the two earliest confessions of the English Particular Baptists supported a variety of positions on the doctrine of the atonement because they focus on the subjective application of Christ’s work rather than his objective accomplishment. The first two editions of the earliest London Baptist confession represent a unique voice that reflects an attempt to include a range of Calvinistic views on the atonement. Such careful ambiguity reflects the pattern of Reformed confessionalism in the seventeenth century. This paper then goes on to argue that some individuals did indeed hold to “strict particularism”—which is compatible with, but not required by, the first two confessions.
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References
1 David, L. Allen, The Extent of the Atonement: A Historical and Critical Review (Nashville: B&H, 2016) 459Google Scholar.
2 The confessions of 1644 and 1646 may be best understood as two editions of one confession, the latter being an update of the former: The Confession of Faith, of those Churches which are Commonly (though falsly) called Anabaptists (London: n.p., 1644) and A Confession of Faith of Seven Congregations or Churches of Christ in London, Which are Commonly (but unjustly) Called Anabaptists: The Second Impression Corrected and Enlarged (London: Matthew Simmons, 1646).
3 The word “particular” occurs six times in identical locations in the 1644 and 1646 London confessions. Article 33 uses the word “particular” in a context referring to Christ’s church as his “particular inheritance.” This article refers to the church and its relation to Christ, but it says nothing about the intent or design of the atonement.
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11 For comments on ambiguity with respect to limited atonement in the London Baptist Confession of 1677/1689 see Allen, Extent of the Atonement, 512.
12 Allen characterizes “ ‘General’ and ‘Particular’ Baptists [as] nomenclature chosen to illustrate their theological differences primarily over the extent of the atonement” (Extent of the Atonement, xiii). Similarly, see Robert, W. Oliver, History of the English Calvinistic Baptists 1771–1892: From John Gill to C. H. Spurgeon (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust, 2006) 166Google Scholar.
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19 John Spilsbury argues in God’s Ordinance, the Saint’s Privilege, that “Christ hath not presented to his Father’s justice a satisfaction for the sins of all men; but only for the sins of them that do or shall believe in him; which are his elect only,” as cited by Chute and Finn, The Baptist Story, 22.
20 Hanserd Knollys is cited as a supporter of strict particularism, based on his comments in the dedication of Robert Garner’s volume on strict particularism in Robert, Garner, Mysteries Unveiled Concerning Redemption by Jesus Christ (London: n.p., 1646Google Scholar), as referenced in Dennis, C. Bustin, Paradox and Perseverance: Hanserd Knollys, Particular Baptist Pioneer in Seventeenth-Century England (Studies in Baptist History and Thought 23; Milton Keyes: Paternoster, 2006) 255Google Scholar n. 117; Knollys is also listed as supporting strict particularism by Allen (Extent of the Atonement, 766).
21 Barrington R. White, “The London Calvinistic Baptist Leadership 1644–1660,” Baptist Quarterly 32 (1987) 34–45, at 36–40.
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23 William, J. McGlothlin, Baptist Confessions of Faith (Philadelphia: American Baptist Publication Society, 1911) 169Google Scholar. For Allen, the term “moderate Calvinism” refers to the rejection of “a strictly limited atonement” (which this article identifies as “strict particularism”) (Extent of the Atonement, 16).
24 Glen, H. Stassen, “Anabaptist Influence in the Origin of the Particular Baptists,” Mennonite Quarterly Review 36 (1962) 323–48Google Scholar, at 327.
25 For a similar suggestion see David, H. Wenkel, “Only and Alone the Naked Soul: The Anti-Preparation Doctrine of the London Baptist Confessions of 1644/1646,” Baptist Quarterly 50 (2019) 1–11Google Scholar, at 4.
26 Allen, Extent of the Atonement, 15.
27 Gisbert, Voetius, “Problematum de mertio Christi, Pars Secunda,” in Selectarum Disputationum Theologicarum, Pars Secunda (Utrecht: Johannem à Waesberge, 1654) 251–53Google Scholar. This taxonomy of four positions is supported by Lee, Gatiss, “A Deceptive Clarity? Particular Redemption in the Westminster Standards,” Reformed Theological Review 69 (2010) 180–96Google Scholar, at 180.
28 Bill, Pitts and Rady, Roldán-Figuera, “Hanserd Knolly’s Life and Work,” in The Collected Works of Hanserd Knollys (ed. Pitts, W. L. Jr. and Roldán-Figuera, R.; Early English Baptist Texts; Mercer, GA: Mercer University Press, 2017) 7-44Google Scholar, at 21.
29 Here I draw my definitions from Fesko, Theology of the Westminster Standards, 191.
30 As cited by Paul, Brewster, Andrew Fuller: Model Pastor-Theologian (Studies in Baptist Life & Thought; Nashville: B&H, 2010) 74Google Scholar.
31 Fesko, Theology of the Westminster Standards, 189.
32 Oliver, D. Crisp comments, “most Reformed theologians (though perhaps not all) assert a doctrine of monergism” (“Faith and Experience,” in The Oxford Handbook of Evangelical Theology [ed. Gerald, R. McDermott; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010] 68–80Google Scholar, at 70).
33 Samuel Richardson, who co-signed the London Baptist Confession of 1644, argues that justification precedes faith and cannot rest upon human agency in Justification by Christ Alone (London: n.p., 1647).
34 Mark, E. Dever, Richard Sibbes: Puritanism and Calvinism in Late Elizabethan and Early Stuart England (Mercer, GA: Mercer University Press, 2000) 122Google Scholar.
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37 There are certainly points of theological similarity between Amyraldianism and English hypothetical universalism. See David, H. Wenkel, “Amyraldianism: Theological Criteria for Identification and Comparative Analysis,” Chafer Theological Seminary Journal 11 (2005) 83–96Google Scholar. The classic treatise on the topic is Moïse, Amyraut, Brief Traitte de la Predestination et de ses Principales Dependances (Saumur: Jean Lesiner & Isaac Debordes, 1634; 2nd ed., rev. and corr.; Saumur: Isaac Debordes, 1658Google Scholar).
38 Allen, Extent of the Atonement, xxv.
39 Williamson, G. I., The Westminster Confession of Faith: For Study Classes (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R, 2004) 103Google Scholar.
40 Chad Van Dixhoorn, “Reforming the Reformation: Theological Debate at the Westminster Assembly 1643–1652, Volumes 1–7,” (PhD diss., Cambridge University, 2004) 6:202–11.
41 Gatiss, “A Deceptive Clarity?,” 184.
42 Richard, Baxter, Certain Disputations of Right, Certain Disputations of Right to Sacraments, and the True Nature of Visible Christianity (London: R.W., 1658Google Scholar) preface, n.p.; also see the discussion by Allen, Extent of the Atonement, 250.
43 Robert, Letham, The Westminster Assembly (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R, 2009) 182Google Scholar.
44 Gatiss, “A Deceptive Clarity?,” 182.
45 Allen, Extent of the Atonement, 248.
46 Baxter, Certain Disputations of Right, preface, n.p.
47 Allen offers helpful comments on the concept of redemption accomplished and applied, and asserts, “This is a distinction that Scripture itself makes” (Extent of the Atonement, 712).
48 Michael Thomas, G., The Extent of the Atonement: A Dilemma for Reformed Theology from Calvin to the Consensus (Paternoster Theological Monographs; Milton Keyes: Paternoster, 1997Google Scholar).
49 Fesko comments, “Few people are likely aware of the doctrinal diversity that marks the so-called doctrine of ‘limited atonement’ ” (Theology of the Westminster Standards, 204).
50 The name “Anabaptist” was “a byword for fanaticism and violent anarchy well into the seventeenth century” (Chute and Finn, The Baptist Story, 13). See the anonymous pamphlet published in Germany in 1642 entitled: “A Warning for England, especially for London; in the famous History of the frantick Anabaptists, their wild Preachings and Practices in Germany.”
51 For a discussion on these charges see Howson, Erroneous and Schismatical Opinions, 38–9.
52 Stephen Wright argues that the confession of 1644 was the origin of the Particular Baptists functioning as a “denomination” or “proto-denomination” in The Early English Baptists, 1603–1649 (Woodbridge, UK: Boydell, 2006) 110.
53 Pitts and Roldán-Figuera, “Hanserd Knolly’s Life and Work,” 32.
54 Matthew C. Bingham comments, “the timing and intent of the Baptists’ decision to publish their 1644 confession only becomes explicable when set in the micro-context furnished by debates taking place within the Westminster Assembly itself” (“English Baptists and the Struggle for Theological Authority, 1642–1646,” JEH 68 [2017] 546–69, at 562).
55 Bingham suggests that the ministers from the Westminster Assembly who may have been in contact with the Baptists may have been Philip Nye, Thomas Goodwin, and Jeremiah Burroughes (“English Baptists,” 565).
56 Bingham, “English Baptists,” 567.
57 For example, see the comments by Oliver, D. Crisp, Deviant Calvinism: Broadening Reformed Theology (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2014) 2Google Scholar.
58 John Calvin’s position is notoriously difficult, and one scholar has recently stated that in the debate over particular vs. universal language, “neither side has been able to claim an outright victory in this debate” (Richard Snoddy, The Soteriology of James Ussher: The Act and Object of Saving Faith [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014] 41). An introduction to Calvin’s view of atonement and its “unlimited” aspects may be found in Alan, C. Clifford, Calvinus: Authentic Calvinism, A Clarification (Norwich: Charenton Reformed Publishing, 1996Google Scholar).
59 Snoddy, Soteriology of James Ussher, 90.
60 The Minutes and Papers of the Westminster Assemblies, 1643–1653 (ed. Chad Van Dixhoorn; 5 vols.; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012).
61 William, L. Lumpkin, Baptist Confessions of Faith (rev. ed.; Valley Forge: Judson, 1969) 145–46Google Scholar; similarly, Renihan, “Confessing the Faith,” 32.
62 Bingham, “English Baptists,” 565.
63 For two seventeenth-century critiques of the Baptists, see Thomas, Edwards, Gangraena: or A Catalogue and Discovery of many of the Errors, Heresies, Blasphemies and pernicious Practices of the Sectaries of this time, vented and acted in England in these last four years (London: Ralph Smith, 1646Google Scholar) and Daniel, Featley, The Dippers Dip’t: or, The Anabaptists Duck’d and Plung’d over Head and Eares, at a Disputation in Southwark (6th ed.; London: Richard Cotes, 1651Google Scholar).
64 Bingham, “English Baptists,” 547.