1LBCF About First London Baptist Confession of Faith (1644)

About the First London Confession

A Confession of Faith of the seven Congregations or Churches of Christ in London, which are commonly (though unjustly) called Anabaptists; published for the vindication of the truth, and information of the ignorant.

The First London Confession was issued in 1644 by seven Particular Baptist congregations in London, at a time when their churches were widely suspected of the errors of the continental Anabaptists. It is the earliest Calvinistic Baptist confession, and it predates both the Westminster Confession and the Second London Confession of 1689, which later became the fuller Baptist standard.

Unlike the 1689 confession, which follows the chapter order of Westminster and Savoy, the First London Confession is arranged as 52 short articles, each supported directly by scripture. Its distinctive concerns are the sole mediatorship of Christ, the church as a gathered company of visible saints, baptism by immersion upon profession of faith, and the liberty of conscience under the civil magistrate.

The text presented here is the Comprehensive Edition (2022) from london1644.info, which is based on the second edition of 1646 and integrates readings from the four London editions of 1644, 1646, 1651, and 1652. The numbered paragraphs within each article follow that edition's own line numbering.

Scripture proofs are shown as cited by that edition. A small number have been mapped to the versification of the Berean Standard Bible used throughout this site.