Featured Baptist London Confession?

I have read the 1689 LBC and subscribe to it.

 

Sitting on my desk is a copy of the joint SGCB and ARBCA edition now.

I'd answer 'yes' to all three questions.

I've been considering picking up a copy of Waldron's 5th edition of the exposition, but I'm not sure it's worth buying since I own the 4th edition.

 

I've got it, have had it for many years, and substantially subscribe to it.

Only the English Strict Baptists adhere to it, the majority of general Baptists being Arminian.

I've been with the FIEC all my Christian life and rarely came across Strict Baptists, until a group of them wanted to plant a church in Southall, wanted to buy the Gospel Hall we had been using for 20 years, and didn't want any of the members to continue with them.

Sad. We had 15 members, attendance of 30, and around 50 for guest meetings, including the baptism services we held earlier in the year. We were worshipping in English and Punjabi/Hindi * with translation of every sermon.

I tried to join them but was assured that I was unwelcome. We continued to meet in homes.

* I learned to type in Punjabi and Hindi, transliterated into English, so we could all sing together. And know what we were singing. My avatar is playing the Indian harmonium I used for the Asian hymns.

I moved to an FIEC Baptist church led by a Pakistani pastor, married to a converted Sikh.

 

Yes, I'm familiar with it, and have read it -- though not just sitting down and reading it through as I would a book. I personally prefer the earlier First London Confession, but it is obviously the Second London, as you note, that had the greater influence on Baptists in America, though its adoption (with a few additional chapters) by the Philadelphia Baptist Association.

 

Yes, I've read it, albeit over fifteen years ago.
Yes, I am aware at least a bit of its influence on Baptists in the USA.

 

Sorry to be late coming across this thread.
My answer is yes to all three questions. I believe the 1689 confession is an accurate summary of Scripture and would be quite happy to be in a church that subscribed to it. However, like Covenanter, my church is in the FIEC which has its own Basis of faith, which is quite sound but by no means as comprehensive as the 1689.

There are around 150 churches in Britain which belong to the 'Grace Baptists' and subscribe to the 1689. There is also a number of unaffiliated churches that regard the Grace Baptists as dangerous liberals, but also subscribe to it.

 

What about London Baptist Association that adopted it way back when?

 

It got subsumed into the Baptist Union, which was a union of Calvinist and Arminian churches, and the 1689 was quietly dropped until Spurgeon brought it out of retirement. The Strict and Particular Baptists didn't join and they are the ancestors of the Grace Baptists.

 

Martin, do Gospel Standard Strict Baptists hold the 1689?

 

I am not absolutely sure, never having had anything to do with them, but I think at least some of them may adhere to John Gill's Goat Yard Confession.

 

A few years ago I did meet up with a contributor to another forum - Solly, in Northampton, who was at a Gospel Standard church. We had a meal & I went to the prayer meeting.

He though that by about 2020 there wouldn't be any GS churches.

 

Gospel Standard Articles of Faith and Rules available here (click What We Believe, then there is a link to the pdf):

Bethel Strict Baptist Chapel

"What we Believe
We believe in the doctrines of God’s free grace, often described as Calvinism. We practise baptism by immersion for believers only. Though not necessary for salvation, we believe this is necessary before church membership and partaking of the Lord’s Supper.
To read all our 35 Articles of Faith, click here."

 

Reading through it, aware of it!

 

Have you finished it?

 

Still going thru it, as have a copy with a running commentary on it included

 

What? You announced months ago that you hold to The Confession:

Yet you haven't read it through yet? Unreal.

 

I have read through it, but now am rereading it to have a real understanding of it, as working thru the commentary on it.

 

Oh, that makes much more sense. You'd think one would want to have real understanding of something before they announced they held to it. But to each their own.

 

Some of my Ancestors were members of St Mary's Baptist Church In Norwich which was one of the earliest Baptist churches in England after 1640 when the dissenters began to return from the Netherlands. They were one of the churches who sent delegates to London for the consultations for the 1689. They were a Particular Baptist Church. Among members of that church were the Founders of the Colman Mustard company and also the Jewson Family who at that time were timber and coal merchants, but now are a large chain of Builders Merchants, owned by the French. Among the Jewson Family was one who was a missionary to Calcutta, India and later Charles Boardman Jewson who was a historian of Baptists in Norwich and Norfolk.

I once went to a Gospel Standard church in Canterbury, as I had borrowed some old minutes from the church and that was the easiest way to return them. The preacher preached for an hour or so and didn't look at us once. He looked at his bible the ceiling, the left wall, the floor and the right wall. I believe that GS don't believe in offering the Gospel, but I may be wrong in that.