Baptists and Free Will

It is simply a falsehood to state that all Baptists have always believed that man has a free will that can either accept or reject the gospel.





The Philadelphia Confession (Baptist) of 1742 has this to say on the topic of man's "free will."




Man, by his fall unto a state of sin, hath wholly lost all ability of will to any spiritual good accompanying salvation; so as a natural man, being altogether averse from that good and dead in sin, is not able, by his own strength, to convert himself or to prepare himself thereunto.


When God converts a sinner, and translates him into the state of grace, He freeth him from his natural bondage under sin, and by His grace alone, enables him freely to will, and do that which is spiritually good; yet so that, by reason of his remaining corruptions, he doth not perfectly nor only will that which is good, but doth also will that which is evil.


The will of man is made perfectly and immutably free to good alone in the state of glory only.



Similarly, the Sandy Creek Association (one of the very first and most important Southern Baptist groups) included this statement in their confession:



That Adam fell from his original state of purity, and that his sin is imputed to his posterity; that human nature is corrupt, and that man, of his own free will and ability, is impotent to regain the state in which he was primarily placed.



(Just so that we're on the same page here, "impotent" means powerless, without strength. The Sandy Creekers believed that fallen man's will was powerless in the realm of salvation.)