Edification and Beauty

Book excerpt: Edification and Beauty describes the practical application of confessional theological principles among English Particular Baptists at the close of the seventeenth century. It examines the theological summary of their views as contained and expressed in the Second London Confession (1677/89), fleshed out in various published works, and recorded in manuscript church books. It describes in detail a wide variety of ecclesiological practices, demonstrating that these churches and their leaders sought to work out in practice the principles they publicly confessed. The book demonstrates that confessional subscription was taken seriously and practiced carefully within the Particular Baptist churches.