many of the General Baptists gradually adopted the Arian, or,
perhaps, the Socinian theory; whilst, on the other hand, the Calvinism of
the Particular Baptists in many of the churches became more rigid, and
approached or actually became Antinomianism. In 1770 the orthodox portion
of the General Baptists, mainly under the influence of Dan Taylor (b.
1738), formed themselves into a separate association, under the name of the
General Baptist New Connection, since which time the "Old Connection" has
gradually merged into the Unitarian denomination. By the beginning of the
19th century the New Connection numbered 40 churches and 3400 members. The
old General Baptists "still keep up a shadowy legal existence." Towards the
end of the 18th century many of the Particular Baptist churches became more
moderate in their Calvinism, a result largely attributable to the writings
of Andrew Fuller. Up to this time a great majority of the Baptists admitted
none either to membership or communion who were not baptized, the principal
exception being the churches in Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire, founded or
influenced by Bunyan, who maintained that difference of opinion in respect
to water baptism was no bar to communion. At the beginning of the 19th
century this question was the occasion of great and long-continued
discussion, in which the celebrated Robert Hall (1764-1831) took a
principal part. The practice of mixed communion gradually spread in the
denomination. Still more recently many Baptist churches have considered it
right to admit to full membership persons professing faith in Christ, who
do not agree with them respecting the ordinance of baptism. Such churches
justify their practice on the ground that they ought to grant to all their
fellow-Christians the same right of private judgment as they claim for
themselves. It may not be out of place here to correct the mistake, which
is by no means uncommon, that the terms Particular and General as applied
to Baptist congregations were intended to express this difference in their
practice, whereas these terms related, as has been already said, to the
difference in their doctrinal views. The difference now under consideration
is expressed by the terms "strict" and "open," according as communion (or
membership) is or is not confined to persons who, according to their view,
are baptized.

In 1891, largely under the influence of Dr John Clifford, a leading General
Baptist, the two denomination