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We want to be up front and answer the question most often posed when relating that we are confessional: "How can you hold a man made document above Scripture?" The answer is simple, we don't. We believe the that Confession we confess, the 2nd London Baptist Confession of Faith....to have authority in the church and amongst its members ONLY in that they agree with Scripture and are concise, yet thorough, statements of the orthodox faith. The Creeds and Confession are subservient to Scripture. Would they disagree with Scripture, we would reject them. But they don't disagree, so we don't reject them. They do agree, so we accept them.

Consider that most churches have a Statement of Faith developed from that church's understanding of Scripture. These statements explain what the church teaches and what its members believe. Members of the church are expected to understand that the Statement of Faith explains, as far as the church understands, proper doctrine in the church. In America, most of these statements are fairly ambiguous (some more than most). The Creeds and Confession are similar to a Statement of Faith, though much more thorough and much, much less ambiguous.

What an excellent statement - thank you for pinging me to it. The "2nd Confession" is the 1689 version of the Baptist Confession, right? There's a great deal of commonality with the Westminster Confession of Faith, which is what I hold to myself. Glad to "shake hands" with a fellow Trinitarian believer!

The "2nd Confession" is the 1689 version of the Baptist Confession, right?

That's the one! A quick and insufficient history of the confession would be that the Westminster Confession was so wonderfully thorough that the English Particular Baptists felt that the "initial cut" of the 1644 Version was woefully insufficient. So, in order to correct that, they used most of the Westminster Confession on matters to define matters of church doctrine; on polity they took from the Savoy Declaration; and on the sacraments/ordinances (I personally say sacraments) they restated from the 1644 Confession. Thus, the 2nd London Baptist Confession of Faith (1689).

More than a handshake, Alex, I thank God for you, Gamecock, and topcat54. You three, on this site, were the means by which I was first really exposed to the Reformed Faith (following a long story of not being "kept altogether from falling [yet not] falling altogether" -William Secker) a few years ago. Though I've never thanked you before, let me thank you now.

Thank you, and thank God for you.