To the Judicious and Impartial Reader: Baptist Symbolics, Volume 2
To the Judicious and Impartial Reader is the long–awaited second volume in James Renihan’s monumental Baptist Symbolics series—an in-depth exposition of the 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith. Used for nearly 350 years, translated into numerous languages, and embraced by churches across the globe, the 1689 Confession remains one of the most significant doctrinal standards in the Christian tradition. Renihan’s work provides pastors, scholars, and thoughtful church members with the most thorough and historically grounded commentary on the Confession available today.
In this volume, Renihan continues his careful, scholarly treatment of the Confession by setting each chapter within its post-Reformation and Puritan theological context, demonstrating how the original churches and ministers who framed the Confession understood its doctrines. Drawing extensively from primary sources—commentaries, treatises, and doctrinal works from the very theologians who subscribed to the 1689—Renihan shows modern readers how the Confession arose from a rich ecosystem of biblical interpretation and theological reflection. His research allows readers not merely to interpret the Confession, but to enter the world of those who first penned it.
The structure of the book follows the Confession itself through four major units:
Unit One: First Principles
Covering Scripture, the Trinity, God’s decree, creation, providence, and the fall, Renihan guides the reader through the foundational doctrines that shape the whole of Christian theology.
Unit Two: The Covenant
The heart of Reformed Baptist theology is explored in depth through chapters on God’s covenant, Christ the Mediator, free will, effectual calling, justification, adoption, sanctification, faith, repentance, perseverance, assurance, the law, and the gospel.
Unit Three: God-Centered Living—Freedom and Boundaries
This section addresses the ethical and practical outworking of confessional theology: Christian liberty, worship and the Sabbath, oaths and vows, the civil magistrate, marriage, the doctrine of the church, communion of saints, and the ordinances of baptism and the Lord’s Supper.
Unit Four: The World to Come
Renihan concludes with the Confession’s teaching on death, resurrection, and final judgment, followed by the historic Appendix on Baptism.
Additional appendices—including an outline of the Confession, a theological distinction on Christ as God and Mediator, and an index to Richard Muller’s dictionary of technical terms—make this volume an exceptional academic and pastoral resource.
Clear, richly documented, and deeply rooted in the Reformed tradition, To the Judicious and Impartial Reader equips the modern church to understand the 1689 Confession as its framers intended. It is an indispensable companion for pastors, students, and anyone seeking to grasp the depth and coherence of historic Reformed Baptist theology.
