A Baptist Model Of Worship

Baptists emerged from a variety of Separatist congregations in seventeenth-century England. While Baptists disagreed theologically on the issue of predestination, they eventually came to share the same form of worship. Like the Congregationalists, Baptists looked to the Bible for their liturgical guidance. At the same time, early Baptists strongly emphasized the leading of the Spirit in worship and avoided a strict structuring of the Sunday service. As the texts below make clear, Baptist liturgical patterns began to solidify on both sides of the Atlantic by the eighteenth century. Introduction As Baptists developed in England in the seventeenth century, they worshiped in a variety of ways (see Origins of Baptist Worship), but by the end of the century a prevalent pattern had formed. The "Churchbook" of the congregation at Paul's Alley, Barbicon (London), illustrates that pattern. Seventeenth-Century Baptists Text: A MODEL OF BAPTIST WORSHIP, 1695 ORDER OF SERVICE Psalm Praye…