David J. Chanski
The recent booklet, A Reformed Baptist Perspective On Associations Of Churches, by Jim Renihan, raises three crucial questions for Reformed Baptists at the end of the twentieth century. 1) Did early Reformed Baptists hold communion via formal associations? 2) Is the practice of holding communion via formal associations Scriptural? 3) Does the Second London Confession of 1689 require organization into associations of churches?
Did early Reformed Baptists hold communion via formal associations?
To the first of these questions we may answer, Indisputably, yes. As Renihan writes,
From their beginning in the 1640’s, the Calvinistic Baptist churches in England believed in and practiced inter-church communion. . . . and put this belief into practice by means of associations.1
The notion that Baptist associations have not been willing to develop formal mechanisms to meet pressing needs has no support in the historical record.2
We cannot but conclude, if we are to conclude honestly, with Renihan when he writes, “Is there historical precedent for active, formal Baptist associations? Undoubtedly.”3
Is the practice of holding communion via formal associations Scriptural?
Here, we must answer with Renihan that the early Reformed Baptists certainly believed it to be. So, in fact, do a number of Reformed Baptists today. Yet, while there may have been a general uniformity of opinion regarding this question in the seventeenth century, there are many Reformed Baptists today who do not believe that the practice of holding communion via formal associations is Scriptural. In addition, there are Reformed Baptists who are undecided on the subject, as well as many who might agree to some degree of formal organization, but balk at such things as the right to hold property, ordain officers, etc.
Obviously, no amount of historical research can resolve this question. This, however, in addition to being a subject that must be studied exegetically rather than historically, is an entire topic for discussion in itself and is not part of the scope of this paper.
Does the 1689 Confession require organization into associations of churches?
The question is framed in these terms for a reason. Renihan, commenting on paragraphs 14 and 15 of Chapter 26 of our Confession, writes, “These two paragraphs speak of the necessity and functioning of associations.”4 He further asserts that, in these two paragraphs of the Confession, its authors “are expressing their conviction that churches providentially placed together should associate themselves. There is an ‘oughtness,’ a duty, to this doctrine.”5 But this conclusion is not nearly so indisputable as it can be made to appear. However ubiquitous the practice of uniting in formal associations may have been among seventeenth century Reformed Baptists, there are weighty reasons for caution before drawing any conclusion from the statements in the Confession. In fact, there is every reason to maintain that the Confession is not specifically advocating associations at all.
Renihan focuses attention on the phrases “hold communion” and “holding communion” in paragraphs 14 and 15 of Chapter 26 respectively. The pivotal statement is found in paragraph 14. It reads in part, “. . . so the Churches ought to hold communion amongst themselves. . . .” Renihan is right to focus our attention on these words. He is right to place the greatest weight in his argument upon them. He is also right to remind us that “we need to use the same kind of caution in exegeting the Confession as we do with the Scriptures.” For, “Words are very flexible, and often have different senses at different points in the history of their usage.”6 These are timely reminders that if we simply approach the Confession with assumptions based on the way we use these words today, we are liable to widely miss the mark.
Therefore, we must begin with the question, What did the original authors mean by these words, “hold communion”? And, in this case, that begs an antecedent question: Who were the original authors of the words? The Baptists who assembled in London in 1677 borrowed the wording from the Congregationalists who framed the Savoy Platform of Church Polity in the year 1658. To ignore this fact is to run the risk of arriving at a faulty conclusion regarding the meaning of the phrase “hold communion.” Following is a comparison of the relevant portions of both the 1689 Confession and the Savoy Platform of Church Polity.
1689 Confession, Chapter 26
Par. 14. As each Church, and all the Members of it are bound to pray continually, for the good and prosperity of all the Churches of Christ, in all places; and upon all occasions to further it . . . so the Churches . . . ought to hold communion amongst themselves. . . .
Par. 15. In cases of difficulties or differences, either in point of Doctrine, or Administration;. . . it is according to the mind of Christ, that many Churches holding communion together, do by their messengers meet to consider, and give their advice, in or about that matter in difference, to be reported to all the Churches concerned; . . . .
Savoy Platform of Church Polity (1658)
Par. XXV. As all Churches and all the Members of them are bound to pray continually for the good or prosperity of all the Churches of Christ in all places, and upon all occasions to further it; . . . So the Churches themselves . . . ought to hold communion amongst themselves . . . .
Par. XXVI. In Cases of Difficulties or Differences, either in point of Doctrine, or in Administrations, . . . it is according to the minde of Christ, that many Churches holding communion together, do by their Messengers meet in a Synod or Councel to consider, and give their advice in, or about that matter in difference, to be reported to all the Churches concerned . . . .
The differences between the two documents (except those of spelling, capitalization, or punctuation) are italicized. It is evident that the differences are minimal and that they do not affect the important words “holding communion” at all.
The Congregationalists’ Definition of the Words “Holding Communion”
If the words properly belong to the Congregationalists—men like John Owen and Thomas Goodwin—what did they mean by the words? It is no mystery, since the Puritans wrote voluminously on the subject. Owen wrote,
The communion of churches is their joint actings in the same gospel duties towards God in Christ, with their mutual actings towards each other with respect unto the end of their institution and being, which is the glory of Christ in the edification of the whole catholic church.7
Did he mean that this communion must express itself in formal organizations above and beyond the local church? Far from it. Owen emphasized that genuine communion between churches is to a great extent spiritual in character: “This communion of churches in faith consists much in the principal fruit of it, namely, prayer.”8
In Owen’s mind, when two churches pray for one another, they are holding communion with each other. That is not all that is involved in communion, but that is genuine communion of churches.
Thomas Goodwin, a prominent Congregationalist and member of the Savoy Assembly, wrote regarding communion between churches,
This communion with other churches is not in a fixed set way, but occasional. The Sanhedrim was a set and fixed court, and therefore by institution; but this communion is but as the communion of saints one with another in a general way.9
This statement is a far cry from the convictions and practices of the Baptists, whose associationalism represented fixed, formal, institutionalized communion.
Goodwin also believed, with Owen, that there ought to be communion between churches that are not uniform in doctrine and practice:
Though this principle is to be held sacred by virtue of the universal catholic communion, that so far forth as churches have anything that is good in them, so far forth (whether in respect of doctrine or worship, or the like) there is to be a communion held with them (when in practice there cannot, yet in judgment there ought to be) to acknowledge them the churches of Christ and the ministers of Christ, and approve whatever is good in them; and if in one practice we cannot join, yet in others we may. This we do acknowledge to be the universal law of communion between church and church throughout the world.10
In other words, Goodwin was asserting that churches which differed in doctrinal convictions and ecclesiastical practice and who were not proximate to one another geographically, so long as they could judge each other to be true churches, should, and in fact could, “hold communion” with one another. That is to say that churches so diverse and isolated from each other as to render formal association—i.e. “firme communion”, “close communion”, “strict communion”—between them impossible could nevertheless “hold communion” as the Congregationalists understood those words. It is evident that the Puritan Congregational authors of the phrase “holding communion together” in our Confession did not refer to associations per se, regardless of how the Particular Baptists
saw fit to express their communion between their churches.
It is evident that the Congregationalists did not refer to formal association by the words “hold communion”. Nor did they fail to explicitly state what the words did involve for them. John Cotton, who has been considered the father of New England Congregationalism, wrote in The Way of the Churches of Christ in New England,
Seven wayes there be, wherein wee exercise holy communion one with another; . . . First, by way of Participation [i.e. in the Lord’s Table]: secondly, of Recommendation: thirdly, of Consultation: fourthly, of Congregation [assembly of messengers from all churches]: fifthly, of Contribution [e.g. of money or manpower]: sixthly, of Admonition: seventhly, of Propagation or multiplication of Churches.11
Communion is held, so far as Cotton is concerned, when churches engage in all of these seven exercises or in any one of them. And while the Congregationalist authors would not have denied that the Baptists genuinely held communion through their associations, they would in no wise have maintained that the Baptists alone held communion because they alone joined associations. Certainly, they did not consider the words “hold communion” to be a mere synonym for “associate.”
The Congregationalists’ Practice in “Holding Communion”
Renihan has shown that the Baptists joined in formal associations from early days. What about the Congregationalists? At the time of the Savoy Assembly in 1658, whereas the Baptists had a well-established practice of holding interchurch communion via formal associations of churches, the Congregationalists did not. Owen wrote in the preface to the Savoy Declaration,
We confess that from the first, every, or at least the generality of our [Congregationalist] Churches, have been in a maner like so many Ships (though holding forth the same general colours) lancht singly, and sailing apart and alone in the vast Ocean of these tumultuating times, and they exposed to every wind of Doctrine, under no other conduct then the Word and Spirit, and their particular Elders and principal Brethren, without Associations among our selves, or so much as holding out common lights to others, whereby to know where we were.12
The words neither approve nor disapprove of associations, but simply acknowledge that by and large the Congregationalists did not have them. Further, whereas the Baptists generally approved of the creation and use of extra-church structures to facilitate their fellowship, the leading Congregationalists did not. So although we might expect the Baptist mind to think of formal association whenever it thought of holding communion, yet the Congregationalist mind would not. The words “hold communion” did not and could not have meant “associate” to the Congregationalist authors, whatever they might connote to the Baptists.
Even without formal organization among Congregational churches at the time of the Savoy Assembly, it is evident that some of the duties of interchurch communion required more concentrated joint effort. This is true, for example, of what Cotton called “Congregation” and “Admonition”, both of which are addressed in Paragraph XXVI of the Savoy Platform of Church Polity. The Congregationalists sometimes referred to such joint efforts as “consociation.” Originally, consociation referred to the meeting of brethren from more than one church in an advisory council. The New England Congregationalist Thomas Hooker wrote in 1645 in his “Summary of Congregational Principles”, “Consociation of churches should be used, as occasion doth require.” This accords with the above quote of Thomas Goodwin: “This communion with other churches is not in a fixed set way, but occasional.”13 In other words, the Congregationalists jointly carried out many of the same functions as the Baptist associations, but without the creation of any formal organizations. In fact, they were consciously—and conscientiously—avoiding the erection of such formal structures.14 The Congregationalists were convinced that the most intimate interchurch communion desirable did not require the erection of an organized “extrachurch structure”.15
It is safe to conclude that the original authors of the words in paragraphs 14 and 15 of Chapter 26 of our Confession were not urging the formation of formal associations of churches. They used the words “holding communion” as a general expression to mean all aspects of biblical interchurch fellowship, not as a technical term to refer to the creation and/or maintenance of formal associations.
The Baptists’ Adoption of the Words “Holding Communion”
But the question remains, did the Baptist framers err? That is, were they ignorant of the original authors’ meaning, and did they simply load their own meaning into the words? Or, could it be that they were fully aware of the original meaning of the words, but for some reason consciously and deliberately departed from the original intent? Not only do we have no reason to suspect that they did this, but we have every reason to believe they did not. We have their own testimony. The Baptist framers of the London Confession explicitly stated their agreement with the doctrinal convictions of the Congregationalists at the points in their Confession in which they followed the wording of the original documents. In the preface to the Confession they explained their method thus:
And therefore we did conclude it necessary to express ourselves the more fully and distinctly, and also to fix on such a method as might be most comprehensive of those things which we designed to explain our sense and belief of; and finding no defect in this regard in that fixed on by the [Westminster] Assembly, and after them by those of the Congregational way [in the Savoy documents], we did readily conclude it best to retain the same order in our present Confession. And also when we observed that those last mentioned did, in their Confession (for reasons which seemed of weight both to themselves and others), choose not only to express their mind in words concurrent with the former in sense, concerning all those articles wherein they were agreed, but also for the most part without any variation of the terms, we did in like manner conclude it best to follow their example, in making use of the very same words with them both, in those articles (which are very many) wherein our faith and doctrine is the same with theirs. And this we did, . . . also to convince all that we have no itch to clog religion with new words, but to readily acquiesce in that form of sound words which hath been, in consent with the holy scriptures, used by others before us;. . . . Some things, indeed, are in some places added, some terms omitted, and some few changed; but these alterations are of that nature, as that we need not doubt any charge or suspicion of unsoundness in the faith, from any of our
brethren upon the account of them.In those things wherein we differ from others, we have expressed ourselves with all candour and plainness, that none might entertain Jealousy of aught secretly lodged in our breasts, that we would not the world should be acquainted with; yet we hope we have also observed those rules of modesty and humility as will render our freedom in this respect inoffensive, even to those whose sentiments are different from ours.16
The Baptists consciously and deliberately used the same words as their predecessors, and did so to consciously and deliberately express the same convictions as their predecessors. This is not to say that the Baptists agreed with the Congregationalists regarding precisely how to carry out interchurch communion. They did not agree. However, the Baptists and the Congregationalists were in complete agreement regarding the assertion that “the Churches ought to hold communion amongst themselves.” The term “hold communion” in the 1689 Confession, as in the Savoy Platform, is used in a generic sense, not a technical sense. The Baptists held communion via Associations, and the Congregationalists held communion without them.17 Regardless of whose ecclesiology we prefer, it does not change the original intent of the words “hold communion” in the Confession. The Baptists made it plain in the preface to their Confession that they were not expressing any disagreement with the Congregationalists regarding this particular point.18
Conclusion
In conclusion, we may say that one of the peculiar ways that the Baptists held communion is via associations. But that is not the only way that church communion is held. And the Baptists did not assert in their Confession that churches which are not part of a formal association do not therefore “hold communion.” To make that assertion today is to depart from the original intent of the words as they are found in the 1689, and it is to contradict the Baptists’ own statements regarding their use of the Congregationalists’ words. It is to argue, in effect, that our Baptist forefathers were saying, “churches ought to form themselves into formal associations just as we have.” But that is not what they said, and there is no reason to believe that that is what they intended to say.
There are many Reformed Baptists today who zealously and tirelessly engage in and promote interchurch communion, who nevertheless cannot with good conscience participate in the formation of “extra-church structures.” Neither the authors of the Savoy Platform of Church Polity nor the authors of the 1689 Confession would have denied that these brethren “hold communion” with other churches. Reformed Baptists today who feel the freedom to “associate” ought not to deny that their non-associating brethren hold communion, let alone suggest that they are not faithful to their Confession of Faith. Such suggestions are unjust, and they are wholly unsupported by the evidence of history.
Notes:
1. Jim Renihan, A Reformed Baptist Perspective On Associations Of Churches (Fullerton: Reformed Baptist Publications, 1997), 1.↩
2. Ibid., 21.↩
3. Ibid.↩
4. Ibid., 7; italics added.↩
5. Ibid., 14; italics original. Other Reformed Baptist pastors have seconded Renihan’s claim regarding this point: “I would urge you to also obtain copies of Dr. Renihan’s new booklet entitled, A Reformed Baptist Perspective on Associations of Churches. His work has convinced many that a strict subscriptionist view of the 1689 Confession of Faith not only permits associations of churches, but actually requires them.” (David Dykstra, in an e-mail communication dated April 4, 1997; italics added.)↩
6. Ibid., 7-8.↩
7. The Works of John Owen, ed. William H. Goold, vol. XVI [Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1968], 191.↩
8. Ibid., p. 192; italics original.↩
9. The Works of Thomas Goodwin, D.D., ed. Thomas Smith, vol. XI., The Constitution, Right Order, and Government of the Churches of Christ, &c., (Edinburgh: James Nichol, 1865), 275.
10. Ibid., 278; italics added.↩
11. The Way of the Churches of Christ in New England, (London: Matthew Simmons), 103.↩
12. “A Preface”, The Savoy Declaration (London: John Field, 1658).↩
13. Goodwin, 275; italics added.↩
14. Owen himself was so convinced that the only legitimate standing structure permitted by the New Testament was the local church that he opposed the ordination of any man to any office outside of a local church. “Nor is there in the Scripture the least mention of the call or appointment of any one to be an ecclesiastical officer in an ordinary stated church, but with relation unto that church whereof he was, or was to be, an officer.” (Owen, vol. IV, 449, italics original.) Contrast the ordination of Thomas Collier by the Western [Baptist] Association in England in 1654 (Renihan, 16ff.). Owen further held that the only way to legitimize a standing body in which a convention of church officers exercise “office-power” is by the “constitution of a new kind of particular churches by a combination of them into one”—i.e. the coalescing of several churches into, in effect, one larger church (Works, vol. XVI, 202).↩
15. To say that formal organizations are not required is really not strong enough to represent the Puritans’ views. Owen wrote, “Instead hereof, to erect a machine, the spring and centre of whose motions are unknown (any other, I mean, but external force), compacted by the iron joints and bands of human laws, edifying itself by the power of offices and officers foreign unto the Scripture, acting with weapons that are not spiritual but carnal, and mighty through him whose work it is to cast the members of the church of Christ into prison, as unto an outward conformity, is to forsake the Scripture and follow our own imagination” (vol. XVI, 194f.; italics added). Certainly, he had primarily in view the most extreme expressions of “extra-church structures”, most notably Rome; nevertheless, the principles are generally applicable. This is not to anathematize Baptist associations. It is simply to underscore that to enlist the Puritans’ wording to endorse associations is untenable.↩
16. William L. Lumpkin, Baptist Confessions of Faith (Valley Forge: Judson Press, 1969 rev. ed.), 245f.; italics added.↩
17. Naturally, when the Baptists used the phrase specifically in reference to their formal associations, “hold communion” and “associate” could function as virtual synonyms. That does not, however, transform the meaning of the original phrase. It retains its more common generic meaning.↩
18. Despite their disagreement regarding associations, the early Reformed Baptists not only agreed with but also confessed their dependence upon the Congregationalists in much of their ecclesiology, interchurch communion included. Appreciation of this fact can help to keep us from a multitude of mistakes, not only in our interpretation of church history, but also in our own practice.↩