1689 10:1-4 Of Effectual Calling: Its Efficacy | Sam Waldron

by Sam Waldron | Jun 8, 2026 | Systematic Theology

In this entry, we continue our consideration of Chapter 10 of the Confession and the crucial subject “of effectual calling.” We have seen the factuality, individuality, and priority of effectual calling. In the fourth place, consider the “efficacy” of effectual calling. By this I mean, of course, that the effectual calling actually and powerfully saves all those to whom it comes. There are a number of compelling arguments for this:

(1)   This is shown by the fact that the called are all saved. We have seen this in our study of the factuality of effectual calling. “The called” is, as we have seen, biblical language for “the saved.” If this language is correct, then the calling in view must be effectual. It saves all those to whom it is issued.

(2)   It is also demonstrated from its relation to election. Cf. Rom 8:28-30: “whom He did predestinate them He also called.” Cf. Rom. 9:22-24: it is the vessels of mercy prepared beforehand for that are called from among the Jews and Gentiles. Cf. 1 Cor 1:26-28: Our calling comes to us because God has chosen the foolish, weak nothings of the world for salvation. Cf. 2 Tim. 1:9: He called us … not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace which was granted us in Christ Jesus from all eternity.”  Calling according to all these passages is the outworking of election. Election is the pattern of calling. Since election predestines salvation and makes it certain, so also does its earthly outworking, effectual calling.

(3)   It is demonstrated from God’s voice being powerful in nature (Psa 29) and redemption.  John 5:25 affirms this: “Truly, truly, I say to you, an hour is coming and now is, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live.” So also does Rom 4:17 “… God, who gives life to the dead and calls into being that which does not exist.” Such a call infallibly creates the response it summons.

We owe our salvation to the sovereign grace that elected us and the sovereign grace that effectually called us to salvation. All glory to the God of sovereign grace.

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Sam Waldron

Dr. Sam Waldron is the Academic Dean of CBTS and professor of Systematic Theology. He is also one of the pastors of Grace Reformed Baptist Church in Owensboro, KY. Dr. Waldron received a B.A. from Cornerstone University, an M.Div. from Trinity Ministerial Academy, a Th.M. from Grand Rapids Theological Seminary, and a Ph.D. from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. From 1977 to 2001 he was a pastor of the Reformed Baptist Church of Grand Rapids, MI. Dr. Waldron is the author of numerous books including A Modern Exposition of the 1689 Baptist Confession of Faith, The End Times Made Simple, Baptist Roots in America, To Be Continued?, and MacArthur’s Millennial Manifesto: A Friendly Response.

1689 10:1-4 Of Effectual Calling: Its Individuality & Priority | Sam Waldron

by Sam Waldron | Jun 8, 2026 | Systematic Theology

In this entry, we continue our consideration of Chapter 10 of the Confession and the crucial subject “of effectual calling.” Previously, we considered the factuality of effectual calling. There is a call different from the general, gospel call, which actually brings men to salvation in Jesus Christ. Now consider the “individuality” of effectual calling. I mean to say that it comes to specific individuals and is not just a divine “group hug.” Effectual calling, that is to say, is specific, personal, and individual—not merely corporate.

John 10:3 … the sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.

An important passage on this personal and individual character of effectual calling is 1 Cor. 7:18-24. It speaks of how many different and individual circumstances may characterize the specific individuals who are called: “Was any man called when he was already circumcised? He is not to become uncircumcised. Has anyone been called in uncircumcision? He is not to be circumcised …. Each man must remain in that condition in which he was called. Were you called while a slave? … For he who was called in the Lord while a slave, is the Lord’s freedman; likewise he who was called while free, is Christ’s slave …. Brethren, each one is to remain with God in that condition in which he was called.” It is a wonderful truth that God calls us and knows us by name. He loves us individually and personally and so embraces us in Christ.

But having considered the factuality and individuality of effectual calling, notice its priority. This call is prior to human response. Rather, it creates the human response. It is, thus, prevenient, not in the watered-down, Wesleyan sense in which prevenient is sometimes used, but in the full meaning of the word. It precedes and creates the human response for which it calls.

2 Thess 2:13-14 God has chosen you from the beginning for salvation through sanctification by the Spirit and faith in the truth.  It was for this He called you through our gospel … We are called to faith in the truth. Therefore, we are called before faith in the truth.

Rom 8:29-30 … these whom He predestined, He also called; and these whom He called, He also justified; and these whom He justified, He also glorified. This calling precedes the justification which is by faith.

1 Cor 1:9 God is faithful, through whom you were called into fellowship with His Son … If we are called to union with Christ, then that calling precedes union with Christ and the faith which unites us to Christ.

1 Cor 1:26-30 For consider your calling…there were not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble; but God has chosen the foolish..weak..base..despised..things that are not…by His doing you are in Christ… Effectual calling is that act of God which places us in Christ and, thus, it precedes union with Christ and the faith that unites us to Christ.

It is a glorious reality. The call precedes and gives us faith, union with Christ, and justification.

But beware of a false conclusion from this priority. Though effectual calling is logically and causally prior to faith, it is not temporally or chronologically prior to faith. Rather, it immediately creates faith in that person to whom it comes. It does not precede faith in time.

Listen to John Murray’s excellent statement on this:

“the salvation with which Paul is going to deal in this epistle has no reality…apart from faith…The priority of effectual calling and of regeneration… should not be allowed to prejudice this truth either in our thinking or in the preaching of the gospel.  It is true that regeneration is causally prior to faith.  But it is only causally prior…Hence, the salvation which is of the gospel is never ours apart from faith…The person who is merely regenerated is not saved, the simple reason being that there is no such person. The saved person is also called justified and adopted.”

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Sam Waldron

Dr. Sam Waldron is the Academic Dean of CBTS and professor of Systematic Theology. He is also one of the pastors of Grace Reformed Baptist Church in Owensboro, KY. Dr. Waldron received a B.A. from Cornerstone University, an M.Div. from Trinity Ministerial Academy, a Th.M. from Grand Rapids Theological Seminary, and a Ph.D. from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. From 1977 to 2001 he was a pastor of the Reformed Baptist Church of Grand Rapids, MI. Dr. Waldron is the author of numerous books including A Modern Exposition of the 1689 Baptist Confession of Faith, The End Times Made Simple, Baptist Roots in America, To Be Continued?, and MacArthur’s Millennial Manifesto: A Friendly Response.

No Salvation Outside the Church? Yes and No | Quinn Privette

by CBTS Student | Jun 8, 2026 | Systematic Theology

*Editor’s Note: The views expressed in this series are not intended as an official statement of CBTS or a uniform position of its faculty. This material is offered in the spirit of faith seeking understanding and to encourage further theological reflection. To read more installments in this series, click here: 1, 2, 3.

The Holy Spirit, says Baptist Catechism 94, “maketh the reading, but especially the preaching of the Word, an effectual means of convincing and converting sinners, and of building them up in holiness and comfort through faith unto salvation.”^[1] The framers of The Catechism place special emphasis on the public proclamation of Scripture, as does the Apostle Paul:

How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!” But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah says, “Lord, who has believed what he has heard from us?” So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ. (Romans 10:14–17)

The public ministry of the Word is not only how believers are (very often) brought to faith, but also how they are preserved in the faith, such that they do not fall away.

In 1 Timothy, Paul speaks of Hymenaeus and Alexander: two men who made shipwreck of their faith. It is in this wider context of apostasy that Paul gives the following charge to Timothy:

Until I come, devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to exhortation, to teaching.Do not neglect the gift you have, which was given you by prophecy when the council of elders laid their hands on you. Practice these things, immerse yourself in them, so that all may see your progress. Keep a close watch on yourself and on the teaching. Persist in this, for by so doing you will save both yourself and your hearers. (1 Timothy 4:13–16)

Paul clearly has the local church in view. He has written so that Timothy will know “how one ought to behave in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, a pillar and buttress of the truth” (1 Timothy 3:15). In this epistle, salvation (consisting of both conversion and perseverance) is tied very closely to the church.

The gospel ministry has been given by Christ to the church so that His people will be nourished and grow in their understanding of the sacred oracles. By being taught the true faith,  Christians are protected from false doctrine and deadly heresy.

And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love. (Ephesians 4:11–16)

According to John Calvin,

That those who neglect this instrument should hope to become perfect in Christ is utter madness. Yet such are the fanatics, on the one hand, who pretend to be favoured with secret revelations of the Spirit,—and proud men, on the other, who imagine that to them the private reading of the Scriptures is enough, and that they have no need of the ordinary ministry of the church.^[2]

Reformed Baptists agree with Calvin’s assessment that it is especially through the preaching of the Word that God builds up believers unto salvation. Because of this, we understand that if at all possible, a believer must be in submission to duly called elders in a gospel preaching church. The elders not only teach the Word (publicly and in private), but give examples to their congregations of holy living. “Remember your leaders, those who spoke to you the word of God. Consider the outcome of their way of life, and imitate their faith” (Hebrews 13:7). “Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls, as those who will have to give an account” (Hebrews 13:17a).

But while preaching and teaching can take place outside the church, the Lord’s Supper cannot. The Apostle says that the Corinthians celebrate the Lord’s Supper when they come together “as a church.” It is a corporate act, whereby the many are made, as it were, one loaf.^[3]

Moreover, the Supper is a means appointed by Christ for the preservation of His people. 2LCF 14.1 affirms that the grace of saving faith is “increased and strengthened” not only by the Word, but also by “the administration of baptism, and the Lord’s Supper, and other means appointed by God.” This is why Paul says: “The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ?” (1 Corinthians 10:16). Drawing on this, 2LCF 30.7 says that,

Worthy receivers, outwardly partaking of the visible elements in this ordinance, do then also inwardly by faith, really and indeed, yet not carnally and corporally, but spiritually receive, and feed upon Christ crucified, and all the benefits of His death; the body and blood of Christ being then not corporally or carnally, but spiritually present to the faith of believers in that ordinance, as the elements themselves are to their outward senses.

Tom Hicks explains the Reformed Baptist perspective in this way:

The two ordinances of baptism and the Lord’s supper are “visible words” that preach the gospel of Jesus Christ in visible form…The Lord’s Supper preaches Christ when the believer eats of the bread and drinks from the cup, signifying the union of the believer with Christ’s broken body and poured out blood. Reformed Baptists agree with Calvin’s view of the Lord’s Supper as a means of grace. Calvin taught that the Lord’s Supper is not a mere symbol. Rather, when a believer takes the Lord’s Supper, the Holy Spirit effectually administers the benefits of the body and blood of Christ who is glorified and has ascended into heaven. The Holy Spirit brings the benefits of Christ in heaven to believers on earth by means of the Lord’s Supper. Thus, the Lord’s Supper is a means of grace. It is effectual for the salvation, or sanctification, of the elect in the sense that when a believer takes the Supper, the Holy Spirit strengthens and nourishes his faith as he participates in real fellowship or communion with Christ (1 Cor. 10:16). Christ is really present at the Lord’s Supper, not physically but by the Holy Spirit who conveys the benefits of Christ’s physical body and blood to the believer.^[4]

It is true, as Dave Chanski observes, that “the Lord’s Supper is not a means of our receiving a different kind of grace, but…is simply a different kind of means of grace—a symbolic one.”^[5] But this surely does not mean that a believer does not need the Lord’s Supper, so long as he has the Word. To the contrary, Thomas Watson writes that “when we see Christ broken in the bread, and as it were crucified before us, this doth more affect our hearts than the bare preaching of the cross.”^[6] To treat the Supper as optional or unimportant is to disparage the church’s Lawgiver by asserting that He gave us a superfluous ordinance. Catechism 96 calls it a “means of salvation.” To rightly partake, we must be in the pale of a local church. Many Baptists, historically, have seen church membership as a prerequisite to participation in the supper. Such was the position of James P. Boyce in his A Brief Catechism of Bible Doctrine, where it is asked “Who alone are authorized to receive it?” The answer is, “The members of his churches.”^[7]

In most circumstances, it is necessary for a Christian to become a member of a local church. If he does not, he is willfully cutting himself off from the means of grace appointed by Christ for his perseverance and sanctification. Moreover, he is disobeying the Lord he claims to serve. Jesus says “If you love me, you will keep my commandments” (John 14:15). Failure to obey such a fundamental precept in religion rightly calls the genuineness of someone’s salvation into question. “Whoever says ‘I know him’ but does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him…” (1 John 2:4).

However, Reformed Baptists must recognize that church membership is not absolutely necessary for salvation. A situation is conceivable in which a true believer is genuinely unable to join a local congregation. John Owen, in his work On Schism, says the following…

Let us suppose a man, by a bare reading of the Scriptures, brought to him by some providence of God (as finding the Bible on the highway), and evidencing their authority by their own light, instructed in the knowledge of the truths of the gospel, who shall thereupon make profession of them amongst them with whom he lives, although he be thousands of miles distant from any particular church wherein the ordinances of Christ are administered, nor perhaps knows there is any such church in the world, much less hath ever heard of the pope of Rome (which is utterly impossible he should, supposing him instructed only by reading of the Scriptures);—I ask whether this man, making open profession of Christ according to the gospel, shall be esteemed a member of the visible church in the sense insisted on, or no?^[8]

For Owen, the answer to the question he poses would seem to be, “Yes!” Later in the treatise, he asserts that,

A man may be a member of the catholic church of Christ, be united to him by the inhabitation of his Spirit, and participation of life from him, who, upon the account of some providential hinderance, is never joined to any particular congregation, for the participation of ordinances, all his days.  In like manner may he be a member of the church considered as professing visibly, seeing that he may do all that is of him required thereunto without any such conjunction to a visible particular church.^[9]

Because such a man has a saving interest in Christ, and confesses him before men, Owen asserts that not only is he a member of the invisible catholic church, but through his confession of the Savior, this man is even a member of the visible church, for he is a visible saint.

To sum up, there is surely no salvation outside of the invisible church. God has “put all things under (Christ’s) feet and gave him as head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all” (Ephesians 1:22–23). But can Reformed Baptists affirm there is normally no salvation outside of the visible church? Yes– but not because visible church membership makes us members of the invisible church. Baptists believe that only those already united to Christ by saving faith can join the visible church! John Gill says that, “into a gospel-church state; none (can be admitted) but such who are begotten again to a lively hope of the heavenly inheritance, and who, as new-born babes, desire the sincere milk of the word and ordinances, that they may grow thereby, having tasted that the Lord is gracious…”^[10] Reformed Baptists believe that, ordinarily, there is no salvation outside the visible church, because it was established to point the eyes of our hearts to Jesus Christ: the Author and Finisher of our faith. Indeed, this is the calling of every minister and every member in every local church!

Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near. (Hebrews 10:23–25)

About the Author

Quinn Privette is one of the pastors of Providence Reformed Baptist Church in West Jefferson, NC. He has been married to his faithful wife, Rose, since 2022, and they are blessed with one daughter.

Stay in touch with CBTSeminary

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^[1] The emphasis is my own.

^[2] John Calvin, Commentaries on the Epistles of Paul to the Galatians and Ephesians, trans. William Pringle, (Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software, 2010), 282.

^[3] See 1 Corinthians 10:17 & 11:17-20.

^[4] Hicks, What is A Reformed Baptist?, 210-211.

^[5] Dave Chanski, “Chapter 30 Of The Lord’s Supper,” in A New Exposition of the Baptist Confession of Faith of 1689, ed. Rob Ventura (Geanies House, Fearn, Ross-shire, IV20 1TW, Scotland, Great Britain: Christian Focus Publications Ltd., 2022), 516.

^[6] Thomas Watson, A Divine Cordial; The Saint’s Spiritual Delight; The Holy Eucharist; and Other Treatises, The Writings of the Doctrinal Puritans and Divines of the Seventeenth Century (The Religious Tract Society, 1846),  4.

^[7]  James P. Boyce, Abstract of Systematic Theology (Cape Coral, FL: Founders Press, 2025), 572.

^[8] John Owen, The Works of John Owen, ed. William H. Goold, vol. 13 (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, n.d.), 147.

^[9] Ibid, 175–176.

^[10] John Gill, A Body of Doctrinal and Practical Divinity, 563.

CBTS Student

This blog post is authored by a student of Covenant Baptist Theological Seminary.

No Salvation Outside the Church?: What is the Church Anyway? | Quinn Privette

by CBTS Student | Jun 8, 2026 | Systematic Theology

*Editor’s Note: The views expressed in this series are not intended as an official statement of CBTS or a uniform position of its faculty. This material is offered in the spirit of faith seeking understanding and to encourage further theological reflection. To read more installments in this series, click here: 1, 2, 3.

As noted in our previous post, Cyprian can be attributed with the theology behind the phrase: “outside the church there is no salvation.” Admittedly, he had a very strong conception of the church’s visible unity– one to which Reformed Baptists cannot subscribe. He saw the bishop as essential to the church’s character as the church– a sine qua non. Gregg Allison is justified in saying that “According to Cyprian’s concept of the church, the office of bishop is foundational to the very existence of the church.”^[1] In his On The Unity of The Church Cyprian claims that, “The episcopate is one, each part of which is held by each one for the whole. The Church also is one, which is spread abroad far and wide into a multitude by an increase of fruitfulness.”^[2] It is to the visible church, under the leadership of validly ordained bishops, that a man must belong. Otherwise, says Cyprian, he cannot be saved.

Whoever is separated from the Church and is joined to an adulteress, is separated from the promises of the Church; nor can he who forsakes the Church of Christ attain to the rewards of Christ. He is a stranger; he is profane; he is an enemy. He can no longer have God for his Father, who has not the Church for his mother. If any one could escape who was outside the ark of Noah, then he also may escape who shall be outside of the Church.^[3]

Louis Berkhof explains that Cyprian,

regarded the bishops, chosen by the Lord Himself, as the real successors of the apostles, and maintained on the basis of Matt. 16:18, that the Church was founded on the bishops. The bishop was regarded as the absolute lord of the Church. It was up to him to decide who could belong to the Church and who might be restored to its fellowship. He conducted the worship of the Church as a priest of God, and in that capacity offered sacrifices. Cyprian was the first one to teach an actual priesthood of the clergy in virtue of their sacrificial work. According to him the bishops constituted a college, called the episcopate, and as such represented the unity of the Church. He based the unity of the Church on the unity of the bishops.^[4]

Reformed Baptists reject not merely the authority, but the very existence of such an episcopate which exercises quasi-apostolic authority over various churches. Since the close of the apostolic age, only the ordinary offices of elder and deacon^[5] remain in Christ’s church on earth. These offices are local. Their jurisdiction is not universal, or even regional. Sam Waldron observes of the seven churches in Asia Minor to whom the Apostle John writes that, “each church is held solely responsible for its own members and their discipline. Christ never asserts, assumes, or implies, that the other churches may exercise church discipline by intervening in another church’s affairs.”^[6]

Indeed, it is the Baptist adherence to local church autonomy which leads the subscribers of Second London to part ways from their Presbyterian brethren as well. For while neither group believes in a divinely mandated college of bishops as the source of unity, Presbyterians do believe that the visible church finds expression, not only through local assemblies, but also regional presbyteries and synods. So says The Westminster Confession, that:

It belongs to synods and councils, ministerially to determine controversies of faith, and cases of conscience; to set down rules and directions for the better ordering of the public worship of God, and government of his Church; to receive complaints in cases of maladministration, and authoritatively to determine the same; which decrees and determinations, if consonant to the Word of God, are to be received with reverence and submission; not only for their agreement with the Word, but also for the power whereby they are made, as being an ordinance of God appointed thereunto in His Word. (WCF 31.2)

In fact, the Particular Baptist belief that each local congregation has all that it needs for worship and discipline may be why they followed The Savoy Declaration in omitting the assertion that outside the church there is no salvation– because they denied that there is a visible government of the catholic church. As James Renihan notes,

WCF embarks on a description of the “catholic or universal” visible church which includes believers and their children followed by a subsequent paragraph…asserting that this “catholic visible” church has received the deposit of the ministry and its gifts as well as the presence of the Spirit of God. This is the national church and is rejected in the congregational system of Savoy and 2LCF.^[7]

For congregationalists, affirmation of the visible church possessing such a synodal unity is unthinkable.^[8]

According to The Second London Confession,

The catholic or universal Church, which (with respect to the internal work of the Spirit, and truth of grace) may be called invisible, consists of the whole number of the elect, that have been, are, or shall be gathered into one, under Christ the head thereof; and is the spouse, the body, the fulness of him that filleth all in all. (2LCF 26.1)

This invisible church is not made visible in this age through an episcopate or presbyterial synods. Rather, it is made visible by visible saints, organized according to the mind of Christ in local congregations. Tom Hicks says,

For now, the universal church is invisible because it has no outward or visible structure, though God’s true people, who are part of the church universal, make themselves known by their holy speech and conduct….Individual local churches are the only divinely authorized institutional expressions of the universal church. A local church is a covenanted assembly of credibly professing believers. In order for a local church to exist, its people must have mutually agreed to believe and obey the Word of God together.^[9]

This is why the Particular Baptist Benjamin Keach could say in his The Glory of A True Church that, “if there be any such thing (as schism) in the world, it is of particular societies.”^[10] According to Baptist ecclesiology, the only way that someone could rightly be called “schismatic” is for disturbing the peace and order of the local church to which he belongs.

According to Matthew 18:15-20, the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven, which were promised to the church in Matthew 16:19, are held by each local assembly. Each assembly is therefore called to exercise those keys through discipline. “And if (the sinner) refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector. Truly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven” (Matthew 18:17b–18). That such authoritative censures and excommunication can even serve an individual’s salvation is easily demonstrated from 1 Corinthians 5. There Paul says, in regard to a member who was committing incest that “When you are assembled in the name of the Lord Jesus and my spirit is present, with the power of our Lord Jesus, you are to deliver this man to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord” (1 Corinthians 5:4–5). But the local church not only exercises these keys for the purposes of corrective discipline, but also for the purpose of what has been called formative discipline. In other words, the local church has been given the ministry of the Word and the ordinances as well.

In our final post, we will consider in what sense the ministry of the church can be properly understood as “salvific.”

About the Author

Quinn Privette is one of the pastors of Providence Reformed Baptist Church in West Jefferson, NC. He has been married to his faithful wife, Rose, since 2022, and they are blessed with one daughter.

Stay in touch with CBTSeminary

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Consider giving to CBTSeminary to help us train the next generation of gospel ministers.

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^[1] Gregg R. Allison, Historical Theology (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2011), 593.

^[2] Cyprian of Carthage, “On the Unity of the Church,” in Fathers of the Third Century: Hippolytus, Cyprian, Novatian, Appendix, ed. Alexander Roberts, James Donaldson, and A. Cleveland Coxe, trans. Robert Ernest Wallis, vol. 5, The Ante-Nicene Fathers (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Company, 1886), 423.

^[3] Ibid.

^[4] Louis Berkhof, The History of Christian Doctrines (Grand Rapids, MI: WM. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1949), 234.

^[5] See Acts 14:23,  Philippians 1:1 & 1 Timothy 3:1-13.

^[6] Sam Waldron, “Chapter 26 Of the Church,” in A New Exposition of the Baptist Confession of Faith of 1689, ed. Rob Ventura (Geanies House, Fearn, Ross-shire, IV20 1TW, Scotland, Great Britain: Christian Focus Publications Ltd., 2022), 457.

^[7] James. M. Renihan, To the Judicious and Impartial Reader: A Contextual Historical Exposition of the Second London Baptist Confession of Faith (Cape Coral, FL: Founder Press, 2022), 480.

^[8] This is not, however, an argument against the formal associations which the Confession endorses in 26.14 & 15. Baptist associations do not exercise church power.

^[9] Tom Hicks What is A Reformed Baptist? An Overview of Doctrinal Distinctives (Cape Coral, FL: Founders Press, 2024), 193-194.

^[10] Benjamin Keach, The Glory of A True Church, accessed March 12, 2026, https://www.chapellibrary.org/read/goat.

CBTS Student

This blog post is authored by a student of Covenant Baptist Theological Seminary.