Grace is a historic Baptist church. Our statements of faith are the Baptist Confession of 1689 and the Abstract of Principles.*
The Baptist Confession of 1689 played a vital role in the history of Baptist churches and associations in America. The first Baptist association in America, the Philadelphia Association, officially adopted this confession in 1742 and the first association in the South, the Charleston Association followed suit. This confession became the confession of the vast majority of Baptist churches and associations for almost a century and a half. At the formation of the Southern Baptist Convention in 1845 at the First Baptist Church of Augusta, GA, "each of the 292 'delegates,' as they were called, belonged to congregations and associations which had adopted this confession". [1]
In the formative stages of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary its founders determined to lay down a condensed version of the 1689 Confession without failing to affirm "a complete exhibition of the fundamental doctrines of grace"[2] resulting in the Abstract of Principles. When the original charter of the seminary was adopted in 1858 it contained the follow statement which continues as a part of the fundamental laws which states, "Every professor of the institution shall be a member of a regular Baptist church; and all persons accepting professorships in this seminary shall be considered, by such acceptance, as engaging to teach in accordance with, and not contrary to, the Abstract of Principles hereinafter laid down, a departure from which principles on his part shall be grounds for his resignation or removal by the Trustees".
We are blessed to have both the Baptist Confession of 1689 and the Abstract of Principles to be an "assistance in controversy, a confirmation in faith, and a means of edification in righteousness,"[3] and we do officially adopt these statements to serve as the statements of faith of Grace Baptist Church.*
[1]Baptist Confessions, covenants, and catechisms. ED Timothy George p. 11.
[2]James P. Boyce on the Doctrinal Position of Southern Seminary
[3] Charles Spurgeon on the 1689
*Excluding Chapter 22 sections 7 & 8 and chapter 26 section 4 of the 1689; Excluding Section 17 of the Abstract. See Appendix of church constitution.