New Brunswick’s First Baptists Were Confessional

Over the past couple of weeks, as the world’s largest Baptist denomination prepared for its annual convention, a heated debate arose among Baptists in the United States. A couple of churches had been expelled from the denomination for actions that were incompatible with the denomination’s statement of faith. This decision was appealed and the issue was brought to the floor of the convention. One of the arguments made in defence of the disfellowshipped churches was the idea that “Baptists are not a creedal people.” Some made the case that Baptist principles such as congregational autonomy and “soul liberty” were incompatible with enforcing compliance with a statement of faith.

So are Baptists a “creedal” or “confessional” people? Is it out of keeping with Baptist principles and practice for a denomination, convention, or association of Baptist churches to require adherence to a common creed or confession? An example from just north of the border—right here in Atlantic Canada, actually—helps to put this question into historical and theological perspective.

On June 20, 1800, the Baptist churches of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick formally constituted an Association at a meeting in Granville, Nova Scotia. At the meeting they adopted "Rules of the Association,” that is, basically the bylaws of the new denomination. Rule 7 laid out the new Association's confessional commitments, as follows:

The Faith and Order of this Association to be expressed in a Confession of Faith, the same as set forth by upwards of one hundred congregations in Great Britain in the year 1687, and adopted by the Association of Philadelphia in 1742, some of the leading principles of which are as follows: the imputation of Adam's sin to his posterity; the inability of man to recover himself; effectual calling by Sovereign grace; justification by imputed righteousness; immersion for baptism on profession of faith and repentance; the congregational mode of worship and discipline; and the independence of Churches and reception of members upon evidence of sound conversion. (From Fifty Years With the Baptist Ministers and Churches of the Maritime Provinces of Canada, by I.E. Bill, 1880, pp. 38-39).

There are a couple important observations we can make from this example.

First, this document proves that Atlantic Canada’s (and Canada’s, period!) earliest Baptists were confessional. The life of the new Association was to be ordered in accordance with a statement of faith—and a detailed one at that. The statement chosen, known today as the Second London Baptist Confession of Faith of 1677/89 (the date noted in the Rule above seems to have been a misprint), was no “bare-bones” summary of just the basics; more than fifteen thousand words in length, it is a systematic summary of all the major doctrines of the Christian faith from an explicitly Protestant, Reformed, and Baptist perspective. Almost a half-decade prior to the founding of the Southern Baptist Convention in the United States, we see that Canadian Baptists were already self-consciously confessional in their associational life. 

Second, this shows that these Canadian Baptists were connectional in their use of a confession of faith. Adherence to a statement of faith, far from being intended to be divisive, actually helped them to identify with like-minded believers elsewhere. We see from the text of the Rule itself that these Maritime Baptists were not being innovative or creative—far from it. In fact, these churches had been founded by, or had been influenced in their conversion to Baptist principles by, the Baptists across the border in New England. At this first meeting, there were American representatives present; the churches of New England provided important guidance and support to their Canadian brothers. This guidance included advice about the constitutional and confessional basis of the new Association. Adopting the same confession as their American mentors served to strengthen the ties that already connected them to other believers of Baptist convictions. And in citing the churches of London as the original provenance of their confession, these first Canadian Baptist churches publicly aligned themselves with a broader tradition that not only crossed the (at the time) relatively new international border, but the very Atlantic Ocean itself. Stressing the international character of their faith would have been especially meaningful for Baptists in particular, who were, after all, theologically opposed to “state churches” and facing harassment from the local Anglican establishment of their day.

There’s also another very important theological point about these first Canadian Baptists, one that goes beyond the mere fact of Baptist confessionalism, that can be made from this historical example. We’ll save that for a future post, however!