A Garden Enclosed: A historical study and evaluation of the form of church government practised by the Particular Baptists in the 17th and 18th centuries

To the Particular Baptists, Independency was the divinely ordained form of church government used by God as the vehicle to carry out the Great Commission. The Great Commission was carried out with the view of establishing biblically ordered churches, which upheld the 1689 Confession of Faith. These three components of church life - mission-mindedness, biblical church order, and the 1689 Confession of Faith - arose from the thorough biblicism of the Particular Baptists. The orderliness of the church does not exist for its own sake but for service to God. The well-ordered church is not static but dynamic, it is not merely beautiful but also full of vitality. This picture of the church was commonly expressed as a garden enclosed, and a fountain sealed in the 17th and 18th centuries. Baptist Independency is different from modern Congregationalism.