The list highlights formative texts, confessional formulations, systematic consolidations, and modern recoveries, providing a historically grounded guide for study of Baptist covenant theology and its divergence from the Reformed tradition.

This reading list traces the historical development of the confessional Particular Baptist tradition from the 1640s to the present, with focused attention on covenant theology and its implications for baptism and church membership. Centered on the stream of English Baptists associated with the Second London Baptist Confession of Faith (1677/1689), the works included here demonstrate a theological trajectory in which credobaptism arises not from a distinct covenantal framework. Across more than three centuries, these authors consistently argue that the Covenant of Grace is formally established in the New Covenant, that its membership is defined by regenerate faith, and that its ordinance therefore belongs only to professing believers.

Chronological List

Particular Baptist / Confessional Baptist Covenant & Baptism Tradition

17th Century – Origins and Architectural Formation

  1. 1643 – John Spilsbury – London – A Treatise Concerning the Lawful Subject of Baptism
  2. 1645 – William Kiffin – London – A Briefe Remonstrance of the Reasons and Grounds of those People commonly called Anabaptists
  3. 1646 – Hansard Knollys – London – The Shining of a Flaming Fire in Zion
  4. 1646 – Benjamin Coxe – London – An Appendix to a Confession of Faith
  5. 1647 – John Tombes – London – Two Treatises and an Appendix
    (critical covenantal rebuttal of Westminster paedobaptism; contextual but essential)
  6. 1654 – Thomas Patient – Dublin – The Doctrine of Baptism, and the Distinction of the Covenants
  7. 1680 – Hercules Collins – London – The Orthodox Catechism
  8. 1681 – Nehemiah Coxe – London – A Discourse of the Covenants that God Made with Men before the Law
  9. 1677 / 1689 – Particular Baptists – London – The Second London Baptist Confession of Faith
    (esp. ch. 7 & 28; covenant theology intentionally revised from Westminster)
  10. 1689 – Benjamin Keach – London – Gold Refin’d, or Baptism in Its Primitive Purity

18th Century – Systematic Consolidation

  1. 1769 – John Gill – London – A Body of Doctrinal Divinity
  2. 1784 – Abraham Booth – London – Paedobaptism Examined

Early–Mid 19th Century – Transatlantic Expansion

  1. 1831 (expanded to 1844) – Alexander Carson – Ireland – Baptism in Its Mode and Subjects
  2. 1855 – R. B. C. Howell – United States – The Covenants
  3. 1857 – John Leadley Dagg – United States – Manual of Theology

Late 19th Century – Princely / Institutional Period

  1. 1864 – Charles Haddon Spurgeon – London – Baptismal Regeneration (sermon)
  2. 1887 – James Petigru Boyce – Louisville – Abstract of Systematic Theology

Early 20th Century – Historical Self-Consciousness

  1. 1902 – A. H. Newman – United States – A History of Anti-Pedobaptism

Mid-20th Century – Bridge Figure

  1. 1958 (posth.) – Arthur W. Pink – UK / US – The Divine Covenants

Late 20th Century – Confessional Recovery

  1. 1973 – David Kingdon – United Kingdom – Children of Abraham
  2. 1980 – Walter J. Chantry – United States – Baptism: A Matter of Obedience
  3. 1989 – Samuel E. Waldron – United States – A Modern Exposition of the 1689 Baptist Confession of Faith

21st Century – Systematic Precision and Historical Proof

  1. 1998 – Fred A. Malone – United States – A String of Pearls Unstrung
  2. 2003 – Fred A. Malone – United States – The Baptism of Disciples Alone
  3. 2010 – Jeffrey D. Johnson – United States – The Fatal Flaw of the Theology Behind Infant Baptism
  4. 2013 – Pascal Denault – Quebec – The Distinctiveness of Baptist Covenant Theology
  5. 2016 – Jeffrey D. Johnson – United States – The Kingdom of God
  6. 2019 – Samuel D. Renihan – United States – The Mystery of Christ, His Covenant, and His Kingdom
  7. 2022 – James M. Renihan – United States – Baptist Symbolics, Vol. 2

Verbum Dei lux est quae omnia clarificat

Johannes Oecolampadius