In the records of early Independency we meet with allusions to messengers appointed to take part in conferences between those Churches and others of the same denomination. A like practice existed among the Baptists, who seem to have gone beyond their brethren in the number and importance of such conferences. The Baptists were divided into Particular and General. The Particular Baptists were those who held the doctrine of particular redemption. Upon comparing the doctrinal part of the confession of the Particular Baptists, published in the years 1677 and 1689, with the doctrinal part of the confession of the Westminster Divines, it will be found to resemble it--differing in this respect from an earlier confession of faith, published by seven Baptist Churches in 1644 and 1646. That earlier confession presents a statement of doctrinal belief much shorter, couched in different terms, and arranged in a different order.[246] The Predestinarianism expressed by the Baptists in 1677 and 1689, is not less decided than the Predestinarianism of the Confession of 1644 and 1646, but in neither of these confessions can I find the doctrine of reprobation. The omission in the last confession, of the Westminster Article on that subject, is very significant. [Sidenote: DEVELOPMENT OF NONCONFORMITY.] The Article on the _nature_ of baptism in the Baptist Confession of 1677 differs but slightly from the Articles on the same subject in the Westminster Confession, and in the Savoy Declaration; but, of course, there is a great difference from these, in the Article touching the _subjects_ of baptism, and the _mode_ of its administration. The Baptist Confession says, “Those who do actually profess repentance towards God, faith in and obedience to our Lord Jesus Christ are the only proper subjects of this ordinance. The outward element to be used in this ordinance is water, wherein the party is to be baptized in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Immersion or dipping of the person in water is necessary to the due administration of the ordinance.” The General Baptists, whose early history can be reviewed more conveniently when we have passed the Revolution, were those who, resembling their brethren in other respects, held Anti-Calvinistic sentiments, and preached the doctrine of general redemption. Some of the Churches of this denomination kept Saturday as a day of rest and worship, and were on that account called Seventh Day Baptists. They seem to have been very strict in their ecclesiastical discipline, and to have drawn around them very closely the bonds of fellowship. Not only were formal letters of dismissal from one Church to another given when members removed to a new residence--as was a common practice amongst all Congregationalists--but an instance is at hand of “an epistle of commendation,” written in a very primitive style, being given to a person on the point of travelling to some distant part of the country.