The 1689 Confession of Faith
The small booklet, 'A Faith to Confess', being the 1689 Baptist Confession of Faith rewritten in modern English, is a most helpful summary of fundamental Christian belief. These words are taken from the Introduction in the recent Carey Publications edition of the confession. Here is a link to an online edition.
"A Faith to Confess is designed to present a clear outline of Biblical truth to all interested persons. Since the Bible , the fully inspired Word of God, does not change from one age to another, the truths contained in the Confession, wholly based as they are upon Scripture, are as relevant today as when 'the Elders and Brethren of many congregations of Christians, baptised upon profession of their faith' stated them in 1677. Charles II was then upon the British throne. It was a time of persecution.
Between the years 1644 and 1648 an Assembly of Puritan Divines of England and Scotland had drawn up the Westminster Confession which was highly esteemed by believers. But its church Order was that of Presbyterianism and the Baptists differed from it on important matters such as the nature of the gathered church, baptism, the Lord's Supper and church government. Hence, when the opportunity arose, they drew up their own Confession of Faith, accepting the fundamental doctrines of the Westminster Confession but making such adjustments to, and correction of, that Confession as seemed to their minds and consciences demanded by the pure Word of God. Thus a comparison of the two Confessions will reveal many word-for-word similarities but also sundry changes.
A dozen years after the Baptist Confession was drawn up by persecuted ministers a new era of liberty dawned, and in 1689 thirty-seven leading Baptist ministers re-issued the Confession. In England and Wales it became the definitive Confession of the Particular and Calvinistic churches..."
It is to this Confession that we adhere.