Stell, C.F.2019-09-252019-09-252016-06-091977http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12424/153439"The Three denominations of protestant dissenters, Presbyterians, Independents and Baptists, emerged in the seventeenth century r as often fiercely independent congregations setting a high value on individual liberty and variously suspicious of any exercise of external authority. Nevertheless, from an early stage they found the need to confer with similarly minded societies for the discussion of mutual problems and, wheI:e necessary, the determination of more difficult points of theology or church discipline. Several associations of Baptist churches were formed in the seventeenth century and the records of some of these have recently been published.1 The associations continued in varied form throughout the eighteenth century, further increasing in the following century into the largely county structure of today."engWith permission of the license/copyright holderBaptistseventeenth centuryPresbyteriansprotestantdissenterstheologyChristian denominationsReformed, Presbyterian, CongregationalBaptist, AdventistGlobal Church History and World ChristianityPractical theology and theological educationArticle