I thought this was a useful quote from Mike Horton:

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Scott Roberts
Ruling Elder, Lakeside Presbyterian Church (PCA)
Southlake, Texas

Sounds like a fair assessment to me. I've heard it went from Episcopalian to Presbyterian to Congregationalism to Baptistic.

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Tyler Upchurch
Talkative Fellow
Grace Chapel Primitive Baptist Church
Mason, TN
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"...but separated from their Reformed churches over the issue of infant Baptism...."

...and the sacrament of the Lord's Supper...
--------sacrament or ordinance?
--------close or open? (See Bunyan)

...and Covenant Theology...
--------Only Internal Dimensions of the CoG
--------Dispensational?

...and ecclesiology concerning:
--------manner of church discipline (keys given to congregation)
--------authority of the offices being suggestive not coercive
--------head of household voting
--------authority of the congregation
-------- etc.

It needs to be a real assessment before it is a "fair" assessment....

Particular Baptists that beleive the doctrines of grace are quite a different color than the Ecclesiology, Sacramentaology, and Covenant Theology of the Reformed Church.

[Edited on 10-12-2006 by C. Matthew McMahon]

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C. Matthew McMahon, Ph.D.
John 5:39, "...search the Scriptures..."

Dr. C. Matthew McMahon.com, www.apuritansmind.com and www.puritanpublications.com
Member - Christ Presbyterian Church, Professor at WTS for Puritan History & Theology.

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But you'd agree that they're not derivatives of "the" Anabaptists of that time who were guilty of all sorts of crazy heresies, etc., right?

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Josh Hicks, Chloë's Dad
Attending CCRPC, Member of TRBC
Reformers & Puritans -lllll- Puritan Pub
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Matthew: The London Confession would track mostly with the WCF, including on the Lord's Supper being a sacrament, covenant theology, church discipline, etc.

I grow weary.

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Ivan Schoen, Pastor * Maranatha Baptist Church, Poplar Grove, IL * http://maranatha-sbc.org/

"I want to assist churches and to assist pastors in training pastors. But, after fourteen years of service in this capacity, I am absolutely certain that the finest theological seminary on earth is absolutely incompetent at replicating the actual life of a Gospel congregation. I want to train a generation of pastors who will train pastors, and I want to help them in that task." --- Dr. R. Albert Mohler, President of THE Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Louisville, KY

Just because a Presbyterian says a Baptist church is not Reformed does not make it so.

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Bill Brown
Elder
Grace Baptist Church
Anne Arundel County, Maryland

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Visit my BLOG Theology for the Rest of Us

Ah, well, we get to another crux of the matter, eh, mateys? Is Reformed theology simply the TULIP of salvation with a healthy dose of God's sovereignty? Perhaps.

Shall we be concrete and separate "Presbyterianism," i.e. ecclesiology, from "Reformed," or soteriology? I suppose we could. I daresay that the measuring stick for a (good) Presbyterian will be taller and more defined as he would tend not to separate the two.

In fact, when I hear "Reformed Baptist," that's exactly what I assume - that the doctrines of grace are solidly believed (a la the LBCF), but *not* the eccesiology (nor even the sacramentology?) of a Presbyterian. And I'm fine with that.

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BJ Mora
Grace OPC, Modesto, CA
Reformed & Presbyterian Churches & Denominations in North America

This looks like a bunch of "gnat" straining to me brethren. No offence intended.
I'm a Baptist. I'd consider myself 90% LBCF and about 10% Particular. Love to read Spurgeon and Philpot as well as Bunyan. I also LOVE to read after my Presbyterian brethren even though I have some differences with them about what I consider to be secondary issues. I attended an ARP Presbyterian church for several months before I ended up at Wilderness Road. It's a new start and I went over to help the brother get it going. If the Lord leads I would go back to the ARP church in an instant. Loved the people there and the Pastor. We still fellowship together. He was a big help to me when I was going through a horrible crisis in my life.

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1689 Baptist Confession

Psa 55:16 As for me, I will call upon God; and the LORD shall save me.
Psa 55:17 Evening, and morning, and at noon, will I pray, and cry aloud: and he shall hear my voice.
James Farley, Wilderness Road Baptist Assembly.
Husband of Melissa and father of Ann.
www.wildernessroadbaptist.org

Here is how I define "reformed baptist", I used to be Baptist & now I am Reformed:bigsmile: .

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Kevin Rogers
Sovereign Community Church, PCA
Moncton NB

I have seen old Scotch Presbyterian books that use the term "ordinance" as the normal term, so I doubt this was the point of difference.

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T.E. Wilder
Independent Reformed Church of Maplewood
Oakdale, MN
http://www.contra-mundum.org
http://secondscreenings.wordpress.com

BJ - being a Baptist, would it surprise you that I hold to baptism as a sacrament, not an ordinance? It is a visible proclaimation of the gospel and an act of grace. I am not accusing you of this, but too many are willing to lump Baptists into the same mold. Not all Baptists are dispensational (I'm not). Yes, we're credo. Yes, we do not practice Presbyterian polity. But I have no problem calling us Reformed.

Bill

It doesn't matter if a duck has no problem calling himself a moose. Declaring things don't make them so. Historical truths about the origins of doctrine and what it means to be so-and-so has to be taken into account, or we'll all end up looking like relativistic fools.

What is this? Beat up the Baptists day?

I thought every day was beat up Baptists day!

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Chad
He that putteth not out his money to usury, nor taketh reward against the innocent. He that doeth these things shall never be moved. (Psalms 15:5 KJV)

A Baptist calling himself Reformed is nothing more than the postmodern "this is what the word means to me" - the truth of a thing is no longer external and objective, but internal and subjective, and hence any person can define what "Reformed" means to them. The church I attend has a tract that they hand out with the question "what is a Reformed church", and then defines it in terms of the five solas. So Lutherans are Reformed, eh?

The only valid definition of "Reformed" is the historical one, and the historical definition of what it means to be Reformed is the original sense and intent of the Reformed confessions, understood and interpreted according to the works of the writers thereof.
:c alvin:


Here's another way to look at it: Calvin wrote the Institutes in four books. You can't deny the fourth and still be a Calvinist. There's no such thing as a three-book Calvinist!

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Philip A - Member, High Desert United Reformed Church, Apple Valley, CA.

"Reason also is choice" - Milton, Paradise Lost
"And then shall every word also seem consistent to him, if he for his part diligently read the Scriptures in company with those who are presbyters in the Church, among whom is the apostolic doctrine, as I have pointed out." - Irenaeus, Against Heresies, IV:XXXII.
"where there is text, there is hope" - Richard A. Muller

Dear Baptists,
we do this sort of catharsis now and then. Please don't be offended. Don't think for a minute that those who were of Apollos and those who were of Paul didn't have their distinctives, you bet they did. Not only that but they were very proud of the fact that they belonged to their slightly more pure and devote wing of the church. Some of the Paulites even questioned whether or not the Apollians had the right to call themselves the church. The one thing they all agreed on was that the Jews wanted to kill them and when they were running and hiding they didn't have time to split hairs. Praise the Lord, here on the board we don't have to run and hide for our lives so we have lots of time on our hands. Our blessing can easily become a curse.

1 Cor 3:5 What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, as the Lord assigned to each. 6 I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. 7 So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth. 8 He who plants and he who waters are one, and each will receive his wages according to his labor. 9 For we are God's fellow workers. You are God's field, God's building.

[Edited on 10-13-2006 by BobVigneault]

__________________
Bob Vigneault (Bawb Vēēn-yo)
"We are God's children and He's the Father of all fathers and we need to obey him." Jean-Baptiste Vigneault (5)

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I don't have a problem with recognizing the "reformed" character of some/many Baptists, provided that we all acknowledge that there are significant differences beside the meaning/mode/recipients of baptism. Unless we are discussing the historic separation of the branches of our family, I can speak knowlegably or intelligibly about Reformed Baptists. Yet, those separtist issues do need to not be obfuscated for the sake of "deeper" unity than honesty allows.

IOW, we are doctrinally on the same page in more than a handful of critical areas. But we are also doctrinally worlds apart in other areas, which are not reconcilable without one stopping being what he is now, in order to be the other.

But again, I am happy to stand with and not against RBs in the many areas of shared concern and common confession. Thank God for it.

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Rev. Bruce G. Buchanan
ChainOLakes Presbyterian Church, CentralLake, MI


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Calvin and Dabney were not sabbatarians. Were they reformed?

Luther and Calvin.
It is commonly supposed that the Puritans and Reformers were united in their acceptance of the "Christian Sabbath". It will therefore no doubt come as a surprise to some that both Luther and Calvin rejected the idea that the Sabbath command was binding for the church. I wish to extend my sincere thanks to the "Grace for Today" website for publishing the following quotations...


Luther criticized the Sabbatarian Carlstadt and certain Anabaptists for their Judiazing of Sunday: "that if Sunday were anywhere made holy merely for the day's sake or its observance set on a Jewish foundation, 'then I order you to walk on it, to ride on it, to dance on it, to feast on it, to do anything that shall remove this encroachment on Christian Liberty' " (p.17).
Calvin "regarded the external observance of the Sabbath rest as a Jewish ceremonial ordinance and no longer binding on Christians." He said of Sabbatarians that they "surpass the Jews three times over in a crass and carnal Sabbatarian superstition" (p.19).

For very practical reasons, Calvin wished to retain a stated rest day for rest and worship. "When Spirituals taunted Protestants as Judaizers for still keeping Sunday, Calvin replied that they celebrated it not scrupulously but 'as a remedy needed to keep order in the church.' " Solberg notes also that "in Calvin's Geneva, citizens were free to amuse themselves after Sunday worship, and they did so with military drill and bowling. Calvin himself bowled on Sunday and was buried on a Lord's Day afternoon" (p. 19).


Taken from REDEEM THE TIME - THE PURITAN SABBATH IN EARLY AMERICA by Winton Solberg



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The above text may be found at: http://grace-for-today.com/347.htm

Dabney agrees in his assessment of the views of Luther and Calvin, and acknowledges that these views were held by some of the Reformed Churches as well...


Opinion of Calvin.
We proceed now to state the opinions of Calvin, and some of the Reformed Churches. By consulting Calvin’s Institutes, (B. 2, chap. 8), it will be seen that his views of Sabbath observance are substantially those of Luther. He states that, among the Israelites, there were three grounds for the observance of the seventh day: first that it might be a type of that cessation of the works of self righteousness which true believers practice; second, that there might be a stated day for public worship; and third, that domestic animals and servants might enjoy a merciful rest from bodily labor. Only the last two of these grounds exist, according to Calvin, under the New Testament. Hence he says (ch. 8, ch. 33): “We celebrate it not with scrupulous rigor, as a ceremony which we conceive to be a figure of some spiritual mystery, but only use it as a remedy necessary to the preservation of order in the Church.” In the previous section he says: “Though the Sabbath is abrogated, yet it is still customary among us to assemble on stated days, for hearing the Word, for breaking the mystic bread, and for public prayers; and also to allow servants and laborers a remission from their labor.” And in section 34: “Thus vanish all the dreams of false prophets, who in past ages have infected the people with a Jewish notion, affirming that nothing but the ceremonial part of this commandment, which, according to them, is the appointment of the seventh day, has been abrogated; but that the moral part of it, that is, the observance of one day in seven, still remains. But this is only changing the day in contempt of the Jews, while they retain the same opinion of the holiness of a day; for, on this principle, the same mysterious signification would be attributed to particular days, which formerly obtained among the Jews,” And in the same tenor, he remarks upon Col. 2:16: (“Let no man, therefore, judge you in meat or in drink, or in respect of a holy day, or of the new moon, or of the Sabbath days”) “Such a distinction (of days) suited the Jews, to observe sacredly the appointed days, by separating them from other days. Among Christians, such a distinction hath ceased. But, somebody will say that we still retain some observance of days. I answer, that we by no means observe them, as if there were any religion in holy days, or as if it were not right to labor then; but the regard is paid to polity and good order, not to the days.”



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Dabney, R. L., Systematic Theology, (Escondido, CA: Ephesians Four Group) 1999.

There is no question that the Westminster divines were fully Sabbatarian, as were many of the Baptists, the Presbyterian Church in Scotland and the Reformed Churches in the Netherlands. It is interesting to note that, in contrast, John Calvin himself, the guiding star of Puritanism, as of all these Calvinistic groups, did not share their strict Sabbatarian views.


[Edited on 10-13-2006 by Blueridge reformer]

I am not aware of any evidence in primary historical documents or sources that proves that Calvin bowled on the sabbath (or ever!) or that the Genevan sabbath was kept as is suggested below. This is, I believe, a ficiton generated in the 19th century to justify opposition to the Reformed doctrine of the Christian Sabbath.

Calvin's sermons on the Sabbath were as precise as most sabbatarians. This fact is often neglected when calculating his doctrine of the sabbath.

rsc