Neither Calvinist nor Arminian but Baptist:
The New Hampshire Confession and the Rise of the Southern Baptist Zion.128
About a decade before the formation of the Southern Baptist Convention, Baptists in New Hampshire were about to write what would become the most disseminated confession in the history of Baptist life in America.129 This document would serve as the predecessor of the Baptist Faith and Message. The doctrine was so unique that longtime Southwestern Seminary theologian James Leo Garrett explains, “One can conclude that the label ‘moderately Arminian’ would be as accurate as the term ‘moderately Calvinistic.’”130 Another writer asserts, “Calvinism and Arminianism are almost ignored.”131
According to Dr. Richard Land, the New Hampshire Confession (1833) solidified the fact that the Sandy Creek soteriology, with its skepticism towards Calvinistic interpretations of particular redemption, unconditional election, and irresistible grace, was now the majoritarian view of early Southern Baptists.132 While there were and are classical Calvinists in Southern Baptist life – men like P. H. Mell (1814-1888) who served as president of the SBC for a record seventeen years133 – they were not and are not the “melody” but the “harmony.”134
The New Hampshire Confession can be best described as a simple biblicism that unites doctrines of Scripture without philosophical speculation. While some may find it ambiguous in its rendering, many Baptists found it refreshing in its uncomplicated articles. For example, compare Article III, “Of the Fall of Man,” with the Philadelphia Confession of Faith, “On the Fall of Man”:
Philadelphia Confession of Faith (1742)
They being the root, and by God’s appointment, standing in the room and stead of all mankind, the guilt of the sin was imputed, and corrupted nature conveyed, to all their posterity descending from them by ordinary generation, being now conceived in sin, and by nature children of wrath, the servants of sin, the subjects of death, and all other miseries, spiritual, temporal, and eternal, unless the Lord Jesus set them free… From this original corruption, whereby we are utterly indisposed, disabled, and made opposite to all good, and wholly inclined to all evil, do proceed all actual transgressions.135
New Hampshire Confession (1833)
We believe that man was created in holiness, under the law of his Maker, but by voluntary transgression fell from that holy and happy state; in consequence of which all mankind are now sinners, not by constraint but choice;…positively inclined to evil.136
The difference is not merely in the articles themselves, but in distinct articles omitted from the New Hampshire Confession, including the following soteriological articles:
1. Of God’s Decree
2. Of Divine Providence
3. Of God’s Covenant
4. Of Effectual Calling
5. Of Adoption
6. Of the Gospel, and of the Extent of the Grace Thereof
In its place, the New Hampshire Confession places heavy emphasis on a new article: “Of the Freeness of Salvation.” The statement sets the 1833 confession apart for its importance to Baptists who at the very least believed in human responsibility if not libertarian will. Article VI states:
We believe that the blessings of salvation are made free to all by the gospel; that it is the immediate duty of all to accept them by a cordial penitent, and obedient faith; and that nothing prevents the salvation of the greatest sinner on earth, but his own inherent depravity and voluntary rejection of the gospel; which rejection involves him in an aggravated condemnation.137
The confession, quoting different Scriptures, references Matthew 23:37 as a defense of the article, the passage where Jesus cries out to Jerusalem and His desire for her, yet she was not willing.
With the confession gaining prominence across the South, many churches and associations began adopting the statement. In 1843, three associations in Tennessee affirmed the new confession’s article on the freeness of salvation and then articulated that none of the articles adopted were to be “construed in their meaning as to hold with the doctrine of particular, eternal and unconditional election and reprobation.”138 Two years later, the Sandy Creek movement adopted a new confession of faith at the same time as the Southern Baptist Convention was formed. The confession was a near replica of the New Hampshire Confession, with the exception of excluding two articles (“Of Repentance and Faith” and “Of Sanctification”). The new Declaration of Faith (1845) was different than the 1816 confession that spoke of effectual calling and election from eternity. Like the New Hampshire Confession, the new Sandy Creek confession affirmed in full the “freeness of salvation.” The discussion of election, under the article “Of God’s Purpose of Grace,” is now “consistent with the free agency of man.”139….(Part 3 tomorrow).
http://sbctoday.com/historical-southern-baptist-soteriology-pt-23/
