Well, it was 19 years ago, 1997, that we founded, organized our association of churches. We piggybacked on the meeting of the Reformed Baptist Mission Services Convention in March of that year. And we had a morning in which we were able to organize our association. And there were two of us who spoke. Earl, I don't see Earl around, he must be here. Earl spoke on the topic Our Great Cause. He gave to us a biblical basis for the work of doing an association of churches. And I was also asked to speak that morning. And I delivered a lecture that I called A Tale of Two Associations. It was put into print. And it's available, I think, even today. I haven't noticed if Mike has it on the book table, but he might. And I was asked in preparation for this GA to repeat that lecture that I gave 19 years ago. But because it was already in print and there may even exist somewhere an audio tape of it, I thought, well, I'm not really sure that I want to do that. And so I asked if I could take the title and change it slightly and call this A Tale of Two Associations Revisited. Now basically, I want to tell the same story but I've learned a lot more about what happened than I knew 19 years ago. And there's the picture is much fuller today and I hope to be able to convey that to you. So this is a similar story, but perhaps with some nuances that weren't present 19 years ago. Now, eyewitness reports tell us that the late summer of 1689 in London was a beautiful time of year. William and Mary were on the throne. There were new freedoms that were offered to dissenters. And dissenters means those who could not, in good conscience, participate in the Church of England. So when you hear me using the word dissenters, that's what I mean. Typically, we use dissenters to speak of Protestants. But it also, in a technical sense, could refer to Roman Catholics. And that'll take on some significance a little bit later on this morning. In late July of that beautiful summer, seven London particular Baptist pastors sent out a letter to churches all around England to invite them to organize a general assembly, or really an association of churches, in September. There was a great deal of hope and optimism that was expressed in that letter. But if you look closely, There are dark storm clouds already that were gathering on the horizon. Now the letter, it's contained in the book Faith and Life, and I'll be making a lot of references to this book today. The letter could be summarized, and there are a couple of points that they wanted to make. They said that many of their churches were moribund. They needed refreshing. They had been through a long period of persecution, and things were difficult, and they recognized that, and they thought that coming together might be an encouragement to help those churches to stimulate a sense of the presence and power of God in their midst. They also recognized that many pastors out in the countryside in village churches were being neglected. And they hoped to find a way to provide financial support from the larger churches where there were more wealthy people and encourage the work of God in the countryside of England. And then the third thing that they emphasize in their letter is that there weren't many young men who were coming up for the ministry. Oxford and Cambridge at that point had been closed to dissenters for several decades. And they had not yet developed what were called the dissenting academies, basically seminaries for the training of men. But these seven London pastors were concerned to find a way to encourage and to help prepare young men for the ministry. Now it's interesting if you analyze this letter and especially the signatures at the end. You'll notice that it was signed by pastors of all but one of the prominent London churches. And the fact that no signatures from pastors of that church are present on the letter points to the first storm that was on the horizon. Strangely, the Petit France Church and William Collins, its pastor, was not part of the group of men who signed that letter of invitation. The Petit France Church was probably the largest of the particular Baptist churches in London. They had nearly 600 members. And it was probably the largest in all of England and all of Wales. And yet their name, William Collins' name, Nehemiah Cox had already passed away earlier in the year. William Collins' name is not on that letter. Now there are two possible reasons for this. The first is that there is a letter that exists from 1688 that William Kiffin sent to one of his correspondents. And in that letter, Mr. Kiffin indicates that Nehemiah Cox and William Collins did not agree with the other London elders on a plan to meet some of these identified needs. Now, I don't think that that means that they disagreed that the needs were present, but they weren't satisfied with the initial plans to meet those needs. And we don't know any more except to say that there was already some difference of opinion between this significant church and the other seven. The second reason why William Collins and the Petit France were not, Petit France Church were not present or signing, didn't have signatures on the letter is a little bit more serious. And I have to go into this in a little bit of detail. There was a really strong disagreement about a political matter that was affecting all of the churches. Now here's the story. The Stuart Dynasty, if we can call it that, began when King James I came to the throne early in the 17th century. He died in 1625. He was followed by his son, Charles I, who was executed by Parliament in January of 1649. Then you have the Cromwell regime until Charles II, Charles I's son, is invited to return to the throne in 1660. And he takes the throne from 1660, he dies in 1685. He's known as the Merry Monarch. He was a wicked man who had lots of illegitimate children, but no legitimate children. He had no heir from his own loins to take the throne. And so his brother, James II, came to the throne upon the death of Charles I in 1685. Now Charles, it's said of Charles II that he converted to Roman Catholicism on his deathbed. Whether or not that's true, we don't know, although there's good reason to think so. But when James came to the throne, he was an open Roman Catholic. And the dissenters, who were not Roman Catholics, were deeply concerned with the fact that, once again, they had a Roman Catholic king. The fear was, of course, that he would return the Church of England to the papacy and that persecution would come upon all Protestants again. So this was really a big deal. In fact, it was so important that in June of 1685, just a couple of months after he came to the throne, the illegitimate son of Charles II, the Duke of Monmouth, organized a rebellion in the west country of the south of England trying to remove James from the throne, and he was defeated. Much of his army included people from dissenting churches. In fact, a lot of Baptists were in the army of the Duke of Monmouth. In fact, two of William Kiffin's grandsons, the Hewling boys, were actually executed for their role in the rebellion of the Duke of Monmouth. So this directly affected the dissenters. Well, James began, though the rebellion was put down, and James began to take steps to promote the cause of Roman Catholics. And in 1687, King James issued what was called the Declaration of Indulgence. Now this provided relief from laws that hindered all of the dissenters, all of the Protestants, but also the Roman Catholics. It gave them relief from the penal laws that had been enacted by the Church of England. And it's important to note that this included Roman Catholics. Now, you have to look at this in a couple of different ways. On the one hand, it provided a helpful climate to dissenters, because now the Presbyterians, the Congregationalists, the Baptists had a certain freedom of religion that they had not enjoyed for a couple of decades. That's a good thing. But most of them viewed this act with disdain, because not only did it elevate themselves to that freedom of religion, it also gave an opportunity for Roman Catholics, once again, to worship in public. But there's something more. This was also technically an illegal power play on the part of James I. He didn't have the right to do this. He ignored and abused the power of parliament, drawing power to himself. Now I think that to help us understand this, there's something of an analogy between what James did and the frequent use that we've seen in the last two decades of presidential declarations here in the United States. where the President will make a declaration to circumnavigate the demands of Parliament and impose things upon the country. It's really President Bush who began to do this. And since George Bush, this has been followed along the way. And it's not always been the best thing. Now, that's an analogy to what James did. He made a royal declaration of indulgence. Now, Parliament protested heavily that their rights had been impugned. And so James decided to act with an even higher hand, and he sought to pack Parliament with his own supporters. Now, Parliament was not elected by direct vote in the way that it is done today, but the vote, the appointment to the members of Parliament was held in the hands of various corporations. For example, the town council in a town might have the right to appoint someone to Parliament so that there would only be perhaps 20 electors for that seat in Parliament. It's not the general election that we know today. And Parliament, I'm sorry, James sought to change the complexion of Parliament by means of men that were called regulators. These regulators were assigned to go out into the counties and visit the members of Parliament and ask them some specific questions. And if they gave the wrong answer to those questions, they would be removed from Parliament and then others who would be supportive of the King's policies would replace them in seats of parliament. So you see, it's a means of manipulating the governmental body so that the governmental body will follow after the commands of the king. Ultimately, of course, it leads to James being pushed off of the throne and William and Mary coming to the throne in the glorious revolution of 1688. But we're in 1687. Now, what does this have to do with a particular Baptist? Why is this important? Well, there were some Baptists. including Nehemiah Cox and William Collins of Petit France, who were regulators, who represented the king, who went out on his behalf and sought to do his bidding. Now, they certainly participated in this for the purpose of promoting religious freedom. That's what they were about. They were more interested in providing a climate for the churches of England where there could be freedom of worship and less concerned with the presence of Roman Catholics. Nevertheless, this was a significant difference in political views because the majority of the Presbyterians, Congregationalists, in particular Baptists, were opposed to the power play of the king and they were deeply concerned by the actions of some of their brothers in participating in this and being regulators on behalf of the king. And so the absence of the name of William Collins and the petty France church perhaps is related to this problem. And as we'll see, it actually appears in the narrative of the General Assembly. Now, the letter goes out for the General Assembly and it went out into a storm. Because in reality, the churches in London, in the great metropolitan area, were already living with internal tensions among themselves. And the most important, the largest church, is at the heart of these tensions. Now, the 1689 narrative, which is the second document in this book, mentions this difference in a brief statement, and if you have a copy, Rich told me that many of these have been taken. If you have a copy, it's on page 52 and 53. It's actually attached to the narrative of the General Assembly. I won't take the time to read it, but they say, some of our men went out and they participated in the actions of the king, but we don't authorize this and we don't want anyone to think that because there were Baptists who were included, we support this cause. This was, if I remember correctly, it's nearly the last thing that comes out in the narrative of the General Assembly. Now, in the Petit France church book, a couple of, actually in the next month in October, you'll find this entry. The following question was put, so in the church meeting, the church discussed this. The following question was put, namely, whether it be the opinion of the brethren that the substance of the paper at the end of our late assembly's narrative, referring to regulators and regulations, was a proper subject for their consideration, and the publication of that paper expedient. Should the General Assembly have talked about this? Was it right for them to do so? And the answer from the church was, this was carried in the negative. So the Petit France Church says, it was not appropriate. for the General Assembly to have discussed this matter. You're beginning to see there are some tensions that are present here, even at the beginning. Now, when you read the narrative of the General Assembly, you'll see that from all appearances, the rest of that meeting was positive. But this beginning was not everything that it might have been. It's a little bit more difficult, and there is a storm cloud on the horizon. Now, what happened? Well, in 1689, there were over 100 churches that communicated in response to this invitation that came out from the seven elders in London. The list of churches is included in the narrative. On the first day, they laid out what they call the preliminaries. And the preliminaries, that's the name that it has as the associations continue for years. The preliminaries seem to be basically the bylaws that they agree upon to govern their meeting, how they will discuss matters, what they'll do, what are proper and improper subjects for discussion. And you find these at the beginning and they're reiterated each year. They also, after they agreed upon these preliminaries, basically the ground rules for how the assembly will function, they read letters from the churches and they prayed. They wanted to hear from all of these churches. On the second day, they began to deal with their business and they discussed how to find a way to establish a fund that would help ministers in difficult circumstances. Now, they're not consistent in the way that they record what happened at the General Assembly. In my reading of their narrative, I would say that they probably took two or three days to discuss this and come to the conclusions that they came to. How can we help ministers in difficult financial circumstances? So they ask questions. How do we raise funds? What should we do? They suggested that all of the churches ought to take up offerings, even quarterly offerings that would be sent in. There should be special annual collections that are taken up in order to send money to ministers who are in need. They asked the question, how should we distribute these funds? What should we do with the money that we collect? And there were three things that they identified as goals for the support. There was ministerial support, sending money to poor ministers. I can imagine men who are farmers or who are blacksmiths out in a village and who need help because they have a tiny congregation and the church can't give much to their support. Secondly, they also wanted to use the money that was collected to support ministers to do itinerant work, basically to go out on preaching tours to try to plant churches. They believed that it was important for established men to be involved in cultivating the work of planting churches. So for example, Benjamin Keech and a man named Richard Tidmarsh were both chosen by the Assembly and sent out to different counties in order to be able to begin the process of planting churches. Now they had over a hundred churches in much of Britain, but they wanted more. It's a good motivation. And then the third thing that they identified as a way to distribute the funds was, in fact, to support ministerial training. Now, when you read the narrative, it says to train young men in the languages because they recognize the importance of learning the original languages. And they mean Greek and Hebrew and Latin. They mean all three of those. And to provide for their men who can't go to Oxford and can't go to Cambridge some kind of formal education so that they will be better trained to lead their churches forward. Those are the three things that they discussed. That's how the funds were to be distributed. And then they asked the question, how do we administer these funds? Well, what do we do? How do we do this? And they chose nine men. It's actually an interesting list, and you notice the names that are present and the names that are absent on that list of nine. They chose nine men. to receive the funds and distribute the funds. That was their task. They take them in, they administer them, they make the choices, and then they send them out. And then the following days, by the way, I don't think I mentioned this, they met for eight days. One of my questions is what did they do on the Lord's Day? They began on a Tuesday. What did they do on the Lord's Day? Did they attend the London churches? Did they actually have meetings where they transacted business? I don't know. I doubt it. I assume that they would have attended the churches, but they include the Lord's Day in the days that they say that they met. On the further days, they began to have questions, theological discussion. There's a whole lot of them. Here are some of the questions, just summarizing for you. Is it the duty of churches to support their pastors? Now, you'd expect that they'd already be thinking in those terms, but that's the first question they ask. And of course, they answer it in the affirmative. All of the churches ought to be encouraged to support their pastors. Another question early on, may Baptists and Baptist churches invite pedo-Baptists into their pulpits? Is it appropriate to invite a Congregationalist minister or Presbyterian minister into the pulpit? And their answer was yes, in the affirmative. It's right to recognize them and to invite them into the pulpit. They ask another question that you probably think they ought to already know this, but it's who may believers marry? a discussion on this question, and they came to the right answer, only those in the Lord, that's only those who believers should marry. They asked this question, what should be done with people in churches who can give to the support of the church but don't? And the answer is, they ought to be, quote, duly admonished, and if they don't respond, they should be withdrawn from. Not excommunicated, but withdrawn from because they don't contribute to the work of the church. There's another long question, or question with a long answer, and it deals with the excess of apparel. Things like wearing white wigs by men, you know, you've seen the pictures of the, and all kinds of fancy things. And basically, the answer, you can read it for yourself, is the principles of modesty and propriety need to be pressed upon our people. Another question, and this is an important question, what day of the week are we to devote to the worship of God? And once again, you might think that's a no-brainer, but it's the longest answer in the entire narrative. And the reason for this is that there was a seventh day particular Baptist church, in London that believed all of the same things. They subscribed to the Confession, except they differed on the day of the week in which we were to worship. And they actually sought admission to the General Assembly and were refused. They didn't meet the standard. So they were refused admission. But it was important for the Assembly, in a sense here, to take a stand and say, it is the first day of the week, not the seventh day of the week, upon which we worship. Then we have the statement in which they adopted the confession, you remember that language, they say, which we own, it's our own. And they approve an interesting little book that's never been reprinted but it's in here, it's called the Gospel Ministers Maintenance Vindicated. And it's an argument for the support of the gospel ministry, but it also has a really interesting section about what the duties of a gospel minister are all about. It gives us insight into the thinking of our brothers in the 17th century. Well, over the course of a week, they accomplished a lot. And this is a brief summary of what they accomplished. The 1690 meeting was moved to June, which was only nine months later. The record that they give to us from 1690 is brief, and it is positive. And there are no real hints of trouble, except perhaps for the verse that they included on the title page of their narrative that they sent out to the churches. Haggai 1.4. Is it time for you, O ye, to dwell in your sealed houses, and this house lie in waste? That's the verse. on the cover of the 1690 narrative. That might be a hint as to what's going forward. When you read the narrative, you don't get that, but you look at the cover and you think about the reason that they chose that verse. And when they came together, again, it was for a week, they continued to discuss the implementation of the fund. How shall it work? They talked about it publicly on the General Assembly floor, and they attempted to promote the cause of more local or county associations. In fact, what they did was divide up all of the churches into various counties and created these local associations. Some of them had already been in existence, others were new. In 1691, they met again in June. This meeting was devoted mostly to the ministerial fund, the Particular Baptist Fund, but there were some ominous hints of difficulty. In the 1691 narrative, we read this. This is apparently the public discussion. For the preserving of peace and conquered amongst the churches of our association, in a due tenderness to all the members in communion with us, the following questions were proposed and answers concluded thereupon as followeth. Query one. Whether a person excommunicated or withdrawn from by the church he is in fellowship with and judgeth himself wrong therein may not have relief in that case, carried in the affirmative. Two, what then is the regular way such a person ought to take for relief? And there's several steps that the person ought to take. It's basically go to another church, ask the church, ask to join that church, and let that church then take the responsibility of investigating. talking to the church that pronounced the discipline and coming to a conclusion, right or wrong. It's very similar to the way that we would proceed ourselves. But I wonder, did the fact that this question was proposed and discussed point to the deep schism that would come during the next year? And probably, it does point to that fact. Because 1692, which was only the fourth year of this association, was a defining year. They were meeting now in May. They started in September, then moved to June, now they're meeting in May, and a very difficult matter arose. The narrative for 1692 contains four basic sections. First, there's a general epistle that is written to all the churches. And once again, it's signed by a very interesting assortment of men, including some of the men who are on different sides of the divisive issue that would arise. The second thing that it describes is a plan to divide the General Assembly into two meetings. One that would be held in London, I'm sorry, in Bristol just after Easter. Bristol is out in the West Country. And the other that would be held in London just after Pentecost Sunday in early June. So they're about seven weeks apart between the two meetings. And they hope that there would be representatives sent from the one to the other, back and forth. The third thing that you find in the narrative for 1692 is a statement about a very difficult and unpleasant controversy about singing. And it was an attempt to resolve only part of the controversy, not the whole controversy, but only part of it. And then there was a statement from seven men who had been appointed by the General Assembly to adjudicate matters of the controversy. Those are the four sections of the 1692 narrative. Together, the second, the third, and the fourth spelled disaster. for the continuance of this General Assembly. Now, what was it about? In 1689, Benjamin Keech had introduced the practice of singing hymns, man-made compositions as they were called, into the public worship of his church, Horsley Down, in Southwark on the South Bank of the Thames in London. There were protests and angry words from a minority in his church, and it ended up as a church split. Remember what I said about 1691 and that question? Well, the May's Pond Church in London was formed as a result of this split. And there were several very prominent and outspoken men, especially one named Isaac Marlow, a rich jewel merchant in London, who took up the cause against Keech. Battle lines were drawn, men took sides, and a pamphlet war erupted. There were more than 20 pamphlets that were published. And it was really bad. In fact, I would say, looking back with all of the love that I had for our particular Baptist fathers, it was really embarrassing. Poor exegesis on both sides, harsh words, name-calling, pride, arrogance, it was terrible. And what had been a good beginning was shattered. Now what surprises me is that the Association did not address the theological issues involved. And I wonder if they feared that a riot would break out if they tried to do so. Tensions were already high. Did they fear that men would not be able to discuss the matter civilly? And why didn't they seek to settle this from the text of our confession, chapter 22, which speaks to the matter of singing? And it does so positively. It's a riddle. I don't know how to solve that riddle. The seven men who were appointed to look into this controversy only addressed the unchristian language that was used against each other, seeking to restore broken relationships. But the theological controversy was never resolved, and the consequence was the death of the association. It must have been very discouraging to leave that meeting. There are, you'll find it here in the book, there were, they asked two, Benjamin Keech and then another group of participants who were on opposite sides, they actually asked them to write letters of apology. And you read those letters of apology and they say, I apologize, I apologize, I apologize, but I was right. 1693, the next year, brought about two association meetings. One was held in Bristol, and there was one that was held in London. And these marked the birth of the Western Association and the death of the London Association. Because while the Western Association began and continued for decades, the London Association ended. There are some hints that there was an attempt to hold a meeting in 1694, but no known records survive. And so we use the year 1689. If you ever go to a Reformed Baptist church and you have to get into the security system, try 1689 as the code. We use that number. But in four years, it was dead. Brothers, this is part of our history. It's a very sad part of our history. We need to learn from it. Well, the London Association died. It was a sad and terrible end to something with noble ideas and important goals. Well, let's turn then to the second association, the Bristol or the Western Associations. I wonder, Did the men in the West learn anything from their experience in London? Well, I hope so, because they started well. Now, they did something different. London, of course, was the metropolis and all of the meetings were held there, but they decided to move their annual meeting from place to place. They continued the work that was begun in London. And the record that they give us of their 1693 assembly tells us something about their interest in ministerial training. It didn't happen in London. Interestingly, it happened out in the West Country. And it actually, at the beginning, involved two schools, one in Trowbridge and the other in Bristol. Now, the Trowbridge School very quickly fell apart. But the Bristol School struggled on for a couple of decades. And then finally after 1732 really became an important force as Bristol Baptist College, but I anticipate what I will say a little bit later. Now the Western Association faced problems as well, largely in terms of theological drift. Let me talk about this very briefly. Two reasons why they struggle. The Second London Confession, our confession, was originally the standard for the Association, but the Western Association was not centered on it in the way that we might have liked. Two reasons. The first is a man named Thomas Collier. Collier had been sent out in the 1640s from the Devonshire Square Church in London. And he had served in the west counties as an evangelist, as a church planter, as a leader among those churches, but ultimately he became a heretic. He asserted the physicality of God, that God has a body. He denied the eternal sonship of our Lord Jesus Christ. He adopted Pelagian views of humanity. And in 1677, the same year that our confession was first published, the London elders had to issue a refutation against him. He was so prominent that they chose Nehemiah Cox, who interestingly enough was 28 years old, a young man. They chose him to write a book called Vindicii Veritatis or Confutation of the Gross Errors of Thomas Collier. It's really a fine piece of theological work, Cox at 28. was a very careful, knowledgeable theologian. But Thomas Collier was tremendously influential in the West. He had planted many of the churches. He had functioned as an itinerant missionary among them after they had been established. In 1678, Collier published a book highly critical of our confession of faith. Here are some of his points. Here's a photocopy of the title page of Collier's book. This is what he says. I don't have time to read everything that I had intended to. He dislikes a lot, but he focuses on seven points, just a couple of them. Christ dying to redeem the elect only, and that none else can possibly obtain salvation. The impossibility for any to believe with the gospel helps that God affordeth without a mighty miraculous power, misunderstanding and so wronging the scripture for its combination. Justification by faith without works, and not by faith neither. The impossibility of falling from grace which is contrary to the whole current of scripture, etc. He's rejecting the doctrines of grace wholeheartedly. And he's a man of great influence in the West Country. Though there is no reason to believe that the men from the Western churches who attended the London General Assemblies dissimulated in their subscription to the Confession, it is clear that when they included some of Collier's churches into the Western Association, they diluted the theological commitments of the entire Association, see, by letting these churches be participants. But there's a second reason why things were difficult for a while in the West. In the early 18th century, the West Country was a hotbed of rationalism. The Enlightenment took hold among the churches in the West. And there's a famous story from Exeter, one of the major cities out there, where there erupted a debate over the necessity for ministers to subscribe to a Trinitarian creed in order to maintain their status as gospel ministers. And many of those present argued that it was not necessary. You did not have to subscribe to a Trinitarian creed. It erupted into a debate that was held in a very famous debate in London in 1719 called the Salters Hall Controversy. You can look it up. It's a fascinating debate, but we have to move on. Rationalism and deism made great inroads into the thinking of many, creating what was really a minimalist theological climate out in the West Country. And from about 1700 to 1732, the Western Association drifted. It softened its commitments and its expectations of the churches so much so that several of the congregations, part of the association that had been started by Collier by 1730 had themselves drifted into Unitarianism. So the Western Association was in serious decline. In 1731, the meeting was planned for the town of Tiverton. And before the meeting could be held, a terrible fire destroyed most of the town. Of course, back then, wooden structures, fire was incredibly dangerous. It destroyed most of the town, and so the meeting was called off. There was no meeting in 1731. Would the Association die from doctrinal drift and disinterest. Well, in 1732, there was no meeting held at all. 1731, it was the fire. But 1732, no meeting was held at all. And it seemed that the Western Association was about to die. But in October of that year, the two ministers of Broadmead, Bristol, the Broadmead Church in Bristol, their names were Bernard Foskett and Hugh Evans. You may never have heard their names, but they are one with us. Bernard Foskett and Hugh Evans sent out a letter inviting churches to reorganize and renew the Western Association. Listen to their letter. Dearly beloved in the Lord, We believe you are not insensible of the advantage of the associate meetings of the churches and the happy tendencies those assemblies, when well regulated, have to secure the truths of the gospel, what our affections are to one another, and by mutual Christian offices to promote spiritual and most valuable interests. An agreement in judgment and practice concerning baptism has always been thought necessary to our comfortable walking together. And we are still of opinion with our forefathers that harmony in the other doctrines of the gospel is of no less consequence than this. You cannot, we believe, be insensible of the revival and growth of the dangerous errors of Arius and Arminius and others. And are we not therefore obliged in conscience at this juncture to make a public stand against them? And for the most part, sacred and important truths of the gospel. And for that end, we declare our hearty amen to the confession of faith put forth by the elders and brethren of our denomination, the third edition, 1699. That was apparently the easiest one for them to obtain, but it's identical to our confession of faith. It would be like us talking about the 2011 Carlyle version, because the Carlyle church has supplied to us copies of the confession. It's the same thing. Let me go on. put forth by the elders and brethren of our denomination, the third edition, 1699, that being so good a system of principles and so agreeable to the Holy Scriptures, we think it proper that every associating church should every year, either in the preamble or body of their letter, signify their approbation of it. And upon this foundation, we propose a revival of the assembly, which an awful providence prevented the last year and has been neglected this year also. This, we hope, with a divine blessing, may answer the great and good ends proposed by such a meeting." Amen. Amen. You see, it was only when this association was reorganized on the basis of careful adherence to the confession. Do you hear what they asked for? Every church in their letter sent to the association every year affirmed their commitment to the confession of faith. It was only when careful adherence to the confession was, and the assembly was reorganized, that they began to have a significant impact for the future. Bernard Foskett became the primary tutor at Bristol Baptist College, which was housed at Broadmead. Among the graduates under his care are such notable men as John Colette Ryland, Benjamin Beddome, Caleb Evans, John Ashe, and a man of great importance for American Baptists, Morgan Edwards, who came to Philadelphia and helped to steer the American Baptists into a right direction. After Foskett's death, other important graduates included John Rippon, maybe you know his name, John Sutcliffe, some of you may have read Michael Hagen's excellent biography of John Sutcliffe, Joseph Kinghorn, and our brother Jerry's favorite man, Samuel Pierce. The Western Association was of great help in establishing churches, supporting the training of men, and providing a forward-looking, confessionally-based, outward-moving evangelical Calvinism. It did much good for the Baptist cause. Now the traditional narrative of 18th century English Baptist history says that our fathers were mired in hyper-Calvinism and shriveled as a result. But more recent scholarship demonstrates that while this may be largely true of the London churches and those in their circle, it is not true of the Western association of churches after 1732. They were a moving force in the theological and evangelical confessional identity of Baptist life. Now, we've revisited the two associations and learned much about each of them. London began in a climate of disagreement, and this escalated, though through different issues, until finally the entire project disintegrated. Friends became opponents. unity was shattered, and the good intentions were hindered. In the West, an indistinct and doctrinally tolerant stance produced indifference, and it wasn't until some men renewed the association on the basis of a strong theological foundation that lasting good resulted. So what may we say in response? Let me suggest three things. First, Associations and churches ought to stay away from controversial political actions. Were the regulators right or wrong in acting for the king? Certainly, their motivation to maintain religious liberty, especially after a long, difficult period of persecution, is laudable. But did this immunize them from recognizing that the king's actions were unilateral, illegal, and potentially dangerous? Whatever the case, the association ought not to have declared as it did. To put it simply, whenever church and state are mixed, bad things happen. So, keep your politics to yourself. Number two, the projects of the London General Assemblies were noble and righteous, and they ought to have kept the men on track. Who can argue with ministerial support and training men? But they were distracted from the real work because they allowed personal attacks and offenses into their lives. And it's really tragic, but it's a danger that we all face. How often does our personal pride influence our doctrinal views? It's one thing to have a disagreement with brothers over theological matters. Probably, if we tried hard enough, We could all find areas where we disagree with each other and disintegrate into our own personal associations of, well, they're not churches then, they're just us. But do we insult each other when we have differences of opinion? You see, this is not a case like Martin Luther's crude attacks on his obvious enemies. These were brothers, men whose names were signed to the same epistle of greeting to the churches. and yet who in print were speaking harsh words against each other in a place that all the world can see. It is far too easy to allow our pride to overcome propriety. Let us be men of conviction and pray to God that we will show grace to one another even when we disagree. And then thirdly, I have some equations. First one is this. Doctrinal drift equals spiritual drift equals associational death. Doctrinal drift equals spiritual drift equals associational death. But the second equation is this. Doctrinal vigor equals spiritual vigor equals associational life. This is the story of the Western or Bristol Association from 1700 to 1732. They drifted. taken away by the currents of unbelief. But in 1733, God used one church and its two pastors to restore health and vigor and brought much good in many places. Let us hold on to our commitment, standing graciously for the word of God in all of its fullness and beauty as expressed in the same confession of faith that was precious to them. When the cyclone bore down on London, It brought ecclesiastical devastation. But in Bristol, the currents of theological latitudinarianism threatened great danger, and for some churches brought destruction upon the rocks of unbelief. It was only solid confessional commitment that restored the foundation and paved the way for a century of gospel work. A tale of two associations revisited. Thank you.