Open and Closed Membership among English and Welsh Baptists*

among English and Welsh Baptists* Q UESTIONS concerned with" open" and" closed" membership among the English Baptists are closely related to, but are also separate from, those concerned with "open" or "closed" communion. Indeed, many churches which still practice "closed" membership open their communion table to Christians who have not been baptised as believers and hence practice "open" communion.1 Furthermore, historically, the arguments of those Baptists who only practice" closed" membership have been very similar to those used to justify both " closed" membership and "closed" communion. Dr. Payne has pointed out that it is important to realise 2 "that since the 17th century there has been difference of opinion among Baptists on the legitimate limits of local church fellowship ". Some of the earliest of these differences were discussed in a recent article in Foundations,B but the most systematic survey of the matter was that provided for the 17th century as a whole some years ago by E. P. Winter. 4 In addition, George Gould's book, Open Communion and the Baptists of Norwich, 5 if used critically, has a great deal of information relating to both the early period and to that in which he was writing. Unfortunately, even without the deliberate mixture of General Baptists and Particular Baptists by Thomas Crosby in his History (17381740), it has proved difficult to identify and to evaluate the contribution of the various groups whose stories together compromise our corporate Baptist tradition in this country. In the early years, that is, at least up to 1660 and, probably, effectively to the close of the 17th century, there were three, not two, significant groups. The first, and earliest, was the General Baptist community, this stemmed directly from John Smyth and the older Separatism. Their tradition in the matter of "open" and "closed" membership was simple and consistent: they all practised " closed " communion and, hence, " closed " membership. They tended not even to make acceptance of the Arminian position a condition of membership but in some cases they seem to have required that the newly baptised should receive the laying on of hands as a further condition of church membership.7 The practice of "closed membership" continued with the foundation of the New Connexion of General Baptists in 1770: 8 "We believe that it is the indispensable duty of all who repent and believe the gospel, to be baptised by immersion in water, in order to be initiated into a church state: and that no person ought to be received into the church without submission to that ordinance ". This continued to be their policy and their practice down to 1891 when they joined the Baptist Union.