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Samuel Renihan VU Research Portal From Shadow to Substance Renihan, S.D. 2017 document version Publisher's PDF, also known as Version of record Link to publication in VU Research Portal citation for published version (APA) Renihan, S. D. (2017). From Shadow to Substance: The Federal Theology of the English Particular Baptists (1642-1704). General rights Copyright and moral rights for the publications made accessible in the public portal are retained by the authors and/or other copyright owners and it is a condition of accessing publications that users recognise and abide by the legal requirements associated with these rights. • Users may download and print one copy of any publication from the public portal for the purpose of private study or research. • You may not further distribute the material or use it for any profit-making activity or commercial gain • You may freely distribute the URL identifying the publication in the public portal ? Take down policy If you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact us providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim. E-mail address: [email protected] Download date: 02. Oct. 2021 iv Acknowledgements I am indebted to my supervisor Prof. Henk Bakker whose encouragements and eagerness have remained consistent from the very first email I ever sent to him until this day. Without his willingness to oversee and assist me, this dissertation would not be a reality. Prof. Bakker’s insights and comments on my chapters, as they developed, were useful for correction and improvement in style and content. He guided and promoted my progress from start to finish. My co-supervisor, Dr. Aza Goudriaan, likewise provided needed and much-appreciated feedback on my first complete draft. Their contributions have been invaluable. I am grateful to the reading committee, to W. van Vlastuin, William H. Brackney, Curtis W. Freeman, Larry J. Kreitzer, and Michael A. G. Haykin. Their constructive criticisms and advice provided important balance and refinement in my work. I have special regard for and gratitude to Larry Kreitzer for patiently teaching me how to conduct research in key archives, for pointing me to important sources, and for helping me to interpret the results of my research. I can think of no greater tutor for such endeavors than Larry, for which I am humbly thankful that he has given me so much of his time. I am thankful to the staff of the London Metropolitan Archives, the National Archives, the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, the British Library, the Lambeth Palace Library, the Bedfordshire Archives, and the Huntington Library for their assistance in my research. I am thankful for the dear departed Ron Baines who offered me helpful advice and enlightened me about various aspects of Baptist History entirely unknown to me. I regret that my finished work could not benefit from his careful and useful discernment. I am thankful to Richard Barcellos, Gatlin Bredeson, Jim Butler, Stefan Lindblad, Cameron Porter, and my brother Micah Renihan for proof-reading chapters and offering helpful advice about style and readability. I am thankful to my church, Trinity Reformed Baptist Church, for their patience and support during my doctoral studies. The members and my co-elders have been an encouragement throughout this time. I am thankful to my father, James Renihan, for instilling in me a love for Baptist history. He brought me on my first research trip to the UK and showed me around London. He lent numerous books. He answered numerous questions. He corrected numerous errors. The resources he provided for my studies, the guidance he gave, and the knowledge he shared make me thankful that he is my Benjamin Coxe, or my Edward Harrison, as I am his Nehemiah Coxe, or his Thomas Harrison. It is impossible to measure or express the debt of gratitude I owe or the depth of love I have for my father. I am thankful to my wife, Kimberly, and my young son, Owen, for their love and support in these years. Kim perseveres despite many afflicting health conditions, and her perseverance has been a continual model of fortitude and patience for me. My work has, v at times, asked her to suffer for my sake. She has done so willingly and lovingly. Her parents have done the same, providing any and all needed assistance for me and my family in times of need. Owen has not understood what a Ph.D. is all about, but he knows that Nehemiah Coxe died in 1689 which means that all my work has paid off. Above all, I am thankful for my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and the everlasting new covenant of grace. vi Abbreviations 1LCF – A Confession of Faith of Seven Congregations or Churches of Christ in London, Which are Commonly (But Unjustly) Called Anabaptists. London: 1644. 2LCF – A Confession of Faith Put Forth by the Elders and Brethren of Many Congregations of Christians (Baptized Upon Profession of their Faith) in London and the Country. London: 1677. ODNB – Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Online edn. Oxford University Press. SD – A declaration of the faith and order owned and practiced in the congregational churches in England agreed upon and consented unto by their elders and messengers in their meeting at the Savoy, October 12, 1658. London: J.P., 1659. WCF – The humble Advice of the Assembly of Divines, Now by Authority of Parliament sitting at Westminster, Concerning a Confession of Faith, with the Quotations and Texts of Scripture annexed. Presented by them lately to both Houses of Parliament. London: Company of Stationers, 1647. The majority of the primary sources used in this dissertation come from the Early English Books Online database. Original spelling, capitalization, and emphases have been preserved in titles and quotations unless noted otherwise. 1 Introduction This is a study in Historical Theology, describing the federal theology of the English Particular Baptists within the years 1642-1704. In the early part of the seventeenth century doubt concerning the practice of paedobaptism arose among a group of English Separatists. A number of those who initially questioned paedobaptism eventually rejected it and came to be known as Particular Baptists.1 From the beginning of their formation and throughout their continued existence the Particular Baptists justified their dissent on the point of baptism and the nature of the church by an appeal to covenant theology in published books, pamphlets, and confessions of faith.2 Like their confessions of faith, the Particular Baptists’ federal theology was not a wholesale rejection of that of the paedobaptists,3 but rather a conscientious modification and realignment. In their minds, this produced a federal theology that was biblically faithfully and logically consistent. A. Status Quaestionis Scholarship of Reformed covenant theology has seen a shift in recent decades, leaving behind the shadow of “two traditions” theories that had previously enjoyed popularity and acceptance in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.4 These theories reduced a given theologian’s thought to a central dogma and interpreted their covenant theology 1 “It may be proper to observe here, that there have been two parties of the English Baptists in England ever since the beginning of the reformation; those that have followed the Calvinistical scheme of doctrines, and from the principal point therein, personal election, have been termed Particular Baptists: And those that have professed the Arminian or remonstrant tenets; and have also from the chief of those doctrines, universal redemption, been called General Baptists.” Thomas Crosby, The History of the English Baptists, (London: Printed for, and Sold by, the Editor, 1738), I:173. 2 In this work, the terms “federal theology” and “covenant theology” are equivalent. Some have distinguished covenant theology as a theological system in which the covenants play an important role as opposed to federal theology, a subset of covenant theology in which individual figures are understood to stand for a group of people in covenant. For more on this, see chapter seven. 3 By “paedobaptists” I am referring to those who baptized infants, i.e., the Church of England, Presbyterians, and Independents. 4 This analysis of the “two traditions” thesis and its critics relies heavily on the summaries of recent dissertations, namely, Won Taek Lim, “The Covenant Theology of Francis Roberts,” (PhD Dissertation, Grand Rapids, MI: Calvin Theological Seminary, 2000), 3-28; Brandon C. Jones, “Baptist Sacramental Theology: A Covenantal Framework for Believer Baptism,” (PhD Dissertation, Calvin Theological Seminary, 2010), 128-140. The same material is presented in Brandon C. Jones, Waters of Promise: Finding Meaning in Believer Baptism (Eugene, OR: Pickwick Publications, 2012), 73-81. 2 accordingly.5 Typically, a Genevan and Rhenish tradition were identified, represented by Calvin on the first part and Zwingli and Bullinger on the other. Calvin’s tradition was characterized by predestination and unconditionality, emphasizing God’s initiative in the covenant. Zwingli and Bullinger’s covenant theology was characterized by mutuality and the response of the recipient of the covenant. Later theologians were assigned to one of the two traditions based on their supposed connection to the one or the other’s central dogmas. Richard Muller, Lyle Bierma, and Peter Lillback, among others, reexamined the sources and criticized the methodology of the previous scholarship.6 They argued that Reformed theology in general, as well as covenant theology in particular, was not built on central dogmas nor should it be analyzed as such. Rather, a single Reformed theology developed diversely in a broad community of orthodoxy defined by confessions of faith. Andrew Woolsey’s work is the most important and comprehensive in drawing the lines of “unity and continuity” in Reformed covenant theology from its inception to its later and more developed models.7 The result is a clearing and resetting of the field for fresh scholarship directed at individual theologians and groups of theologians that can be studied and described in relation to their own influences.
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