Historic Baptist Writings

Confessions of Faith:

• A True Confession (1596)

  • See a scanned version here.

  • See a transcription here.

• 1st London Baptist Confession (1644)

  • See a digital version here.

• 1st London Baptist Confession (1646)

  • See a digital version *here.

• 2nd London Baptist Confession (1677/88)

  • See a digital version here.

  • See a webapp version here.

  • See the Confession of the Philadelphia Baptist Association here (1742).

    • This includes:

      • The Baptist Confession of Faith with artices on the Laying on of Hands and the Singing of Psalms

      • A Short Treatise of Church Disciploine (1743)

      • The Philedelphia Baptist Association also adopted the Baptist Catechism without Question 96 (How do baptism and the Lord's supper become effectual means of salvation?). The Association proposed a number of other changes (see here) but ultimately did not accept them. See here for the version they adopted.

  • See the Confession of the Charleston Baptist Association here (1767)

    • This includes:

      • The Baptist Confession of Faith with an article on the Singing of Psalms

      • A Summary of Church Discipline

      • the Baptist Catechism

  • See Charles H. Spurgeon's revision here (1855).

  • See a modern English edition here.

• A Short Confession (1697, Benjamin Keach)

• New Hampshire Confession of Faith (1835, 1844, 1853)

• Abstract of Principles (1858)

• Baptist Faith and Message (2000)

  • See the BF&M1925, 1963, and 2000 compared here.

• Other important confessions can be found in Books by McGlothlin, Underhill, and Lumpkin (linked below):

Catechisms:

• An Orthodox Catechism (1680, scanned)

  • See here for a webapp version.

  • See here for a Modern English version.

• The Baptist Catechism (~1694)

  • See a webapp version here.

  • See the Philadelphia Baptist Association version here (adopted 1742, published 1851).

  • See the Charleston Baptist Association version here (1850).

  • See Charles H. Spurgeon's version, A Puritan Catechism, here (~1855).

  • See the 118 question version here. See here for some notes on the authorship and history of this edition.

  • See John Piper's adaptation here (1986).

• The Child's Delight... (~1702, Benjamin Keach)

• Instructions for Children... (1763, Benjamin Keach).

• A Catechism for Boys and Girls (1990)

• The Baptist Faith and Message (2000) Catechism (2007)

• The Baptist Larger Catechism (2014)

  • This is an adaptation of the Westminister Longer Catechism.

• Other Baptist Catechisms can be found *here at Reformed Reader.

Church Covenants:

• Covenant of Benjamin and Elias Keach here (1697).

• Covenant of Middleborough (MA) Baptist Church authored by Issac Backus (1756)

• Covenant of the Philadelphia Baptist Association (1798).

• Covenant of New Hampshire Baptist Convention (1833).

• Covenant of J. Newton Brown’s The Baptist Church Manual (1853).

• Other Baptist church covenants here (Note: this is a link to Baptist Church Covenants by Charles W. Deweese, now out of print. You will need to create an archive.org account to access, but it is free and, in my opinion, well worth the mild inconvenience).

Baptist Systematic Theologies

• A Body of Doctrinal Divinity, John Gill (1767)

• A Body of Practical Divinity, John Gill (1770)

• A Complete Body of Practical and Doctrinal Divinity, John Gill (1810, Abridged)

• A Manual of Theology, John Dagg (1858-1859)

  • See also here. 

• Abstract of Systematic Theology, James Petigru Boyce  (1887)

  • See also here.

• Systematic Theology, Augustus Hopkins Strong (1889)

Other Resources:

Books:

• Deweese, Charles W. Baptist Church Covenants

• Lumpkin, William L. and Bill J. Leonard. Baptist Confessions of Faith

  • An older edition of this book is available on archive.org here.

• McGlothlin, William Joseph. Baptist Confessions of Faith

• Underhill, Edward Bean. Confessions of faith and Other Public Documents Illustrative of the History of the Baptist Churches of England in the 17th Century 

• A variety of Particular Baptist reprints can be found at: 

  • https://www.particularbaptistbooks.com/

  • https://brokenwharfe.com

Websites:

• Founders Ministries Library

• Christian Creeds and Confessions

• Reformed Reader

• Tabular Comparisons of Reformed Confessions

Note:

I've discovered that in the world of historical documents online, it is highly likely that documents will be mislabeled and contain errors. When I am  able, I am presenting scans of the primary texts, published academic works that contain the documents, or my own transcriptions from reliable sources.

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*Indicates that, to my knowledge, a resource has not been obtained from or checked against a primary text, an online scan of a primary text, or a published, academic source. If you encounter any errors please contact me.