Westminster Confession Research Articles

"Before His Head was Cold": Puritan Piety and the Pipe Organ

It is well known that musical activity in colonial New England was quite low; this was in no small part caused by the Puritan emphasis on the unaccompanied singing of psalms in their churches. What is often neglected when discussing Puritan musical activity is how Calvinism’s grip on Puritan theology loosened throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, leaving room for changes to worship traditions. The same Puritans who destroyed pipe organs across England in the seventeenth century started building these instruments in their New England meeting houses towards the end of the eighteenth century. This paper uses primary sources to compare the Puritan theology of the Westminster Confession to statements of belief from Boston’s most progressive Congregationalist churches in the late eighteenth century. Such comparisons, when paired with a timeline of rhetoric surrounding instruments in worship music, connect doctrines of separation to the destruction of organs and doctrines of unity to the reinstatement of organs.

The birth of the deep state

A number of political scientists believe that the ‘deep state’ originated simultaneously with the state itself. But in fact, the authors of the article prove that the first effective ‘deep state’ in modern history appeared in England during the time of Henry VIII. Then, having nationalized the church, the king added to his powers the right to create and interpret norms. In response, reacting to the imbalance of the political system created by the king, the English aristocracy set out to control the monarch. The newly created network of influence was based on corruption: belonging to it guaranteed, to an official in the king’s service, additional benefits and career perspectives. The mean of internal control of the network was ‘ritual compromising evidence’, when other members witnessed the violating of generally accepted norms and rules. This guaranteed that in case of betrayal the reputation and future of any potential renegade would be destroyed. However, this triggered the processes of ‘normalization of violations,’ which culminated in the Cromwellian revolution and the Westminster Confession, which not only nullified out all compromising evidence, but also abolished the concept of sin in general. After recovering from the upheaval, England managed to summarize and theorize its experience. In the following century, it started to extrapolate it to France, which was its main geopolitical rival, mastering the techniques of cognitive programming. The same processes, that had spontaneously developed in England a century earlier, were launched in France, but in a controlled and guided form. England managed to create its own ‘deep state’ in France, which, in fact, inspired and supported the French Enlightenment by introducing into the public discourse concepts, which were in fact, cognitive operators: their implementation led to the natural conclusion of the backwardness of France compared to England. At the same time, the ‘deep state’ became a stable construct: thus, classical institutionalism assumes it as an integral part of the secular political system. In particular, this was realized, and promoted as a norm, by J.-J. Rousseau. The authors draw a number of conclusions on the construction of the deep state. It is always a network of influence, an alternative to power, which actively uses corruption as an instrument of stimulation and employs compromising evidence as an instrument of control.

Shall We Speak of the “Covenant of Works?”: A Study of Hosea 6:7 in the Masoretic Tradition and its Pastoral Implications

The main question that this paper seeks to answer is whether the language of “covenant” in the “covenant of works” is biblically warranted. One text that has been used within some Reformed circles to support a covenant made between Adam and God is Hosea 6:7, “But like Adam they transgressed the covenant, there they dealt faithlessly with me” (ESV). This passage, however, has been thwart with various readings within biblical scholarship. This paper argues that the only viable reading of Hosea 6:7 is that Adam transgressed a covenant. If this language of covenant is warranted, then ministers, elders, and the whole church have very good reason to teach and preach the covenant of works and use the language of covenant which the Westminster Confession of Faith uses (7.2).

Adapting the Structural Perspectives of the Westminster Larger Catechism for Biblical Counselor Training

Abstract Biblical counseling resources lack structural coherence with the doctrine and Christian life model of the Westminster Standards. This article proposes reorienting counselor-trainers and counselors with these perspectives as a contribution to David Powlison’s vision to formulate a unified theory of systematic theology for soul care. The twofold structure of the Larger Catechism, called the symphonic-pedogogical perspective —building up the saints to know our Triune God and his work—is paired with teaching disciples to do everything that Jesus commanded. We observe five substructural patterns to integrate its instructional method. This essay explains the significance of each perspective for counseling cases. KEYWORDS: Westminster Confession of Faith, Westminster Larger Catechism, Grand Unified Theory, perspectivalism, descriptive and prescriptive presuppositions, God’s attributes, lex Christi, man’s derivative reflections

Eternal Torments in the Westminster Confession

The Westminster Confession’s teaching on ‘eternal torments’ has nuances that need to be explored, and the historical context can be brought into sharper focus. Despite an almost deceptive simplicity, the chapters are contextually poignant. Also considered is just how vital eternal torments and eschatology are to the document. Puritanical eschatological expectation was rife in the 1630s and 40s, and Christ’s return was held to be the principal issue, so chs 32–33 are no mere addendum. The proposal is that eschatology, with eternal torments, forms one of the Confession’s metanarratives and is a contender for that which has architectonic status. Eschatology is woven throughout. It is an eschatological Confession.

The Background to ‘Believing Criticism’ in the Free Church of Scotland

This article argues that the introduction of ‘believing criticism’ in the Free Church of Scotland in the 19th century was not just a sudden development in the 1870s. Rather, the seeds of it go back much further, even to the Disruption itself. Some inappropriate decisions of the Free Church General Assembly, among other factors, paved the way for A. B. Davidson to commence lecturing on Pentateuchal criticism. His student, William Robert Smith, was not so discreet, and openly espoused views that departed from the teaching of the Westminster Confession of Faith. Dealing with him took several years, until he was relieved of his position in 1881, though not deposed from the ministry. By that time, ‘believing criticism’ was firmly entrenched in the Free Church.

The Lambeth Articles (1595) and the Doctrinal Stance of the Church of England

Abstract The Lambeth Articles have always bulked large in debates about the Calvinist tenor of sixteenth-century English Protestantism. But in a recent article, Debora Shuger has raised the stakes dramatically. Not content to deny that the Lambeth Articles were ‘Calvinist’, she claims that they were the work of a group of ‘non-Calvinist divines’, specially commissioned by Archbishop Whitgift to produce a ‘consensus document’ designed to put an end to the predestinarian controversy which had broken out at Cambridge University. Paradoxically, Shuger combines this with the view that the Lambeth Articles were nevertheless suppressed, on the orders of Queen Elizabeth. It follows that the idea of a subsequent ‘rise of English Arminianism’ is fundamentally flawed. The present piece argues that the Lambeth Articles in their final form (a) emanated from a meeting of the Court of High Commission at Lambeth, presided over by Whitgift himself, Bishop Richard Fletcher of London, and Richard Vaughan, the bishop-elect of Bangor, all of them Calvinists; (b) are best understood as speaking the language of sublapsarian Calvinism; and (c) were not suppressed but continued to be regarded as interpretative guidelines until the 1620s. The 1620s, however, witnessed a dramatic renversement when, unlike the 1590s, Calvinism was indeed suppressed by royal command and at the hands of a new breed of anti-Calvinist divines. Nevertheless, via the Irish Articles of 1615, the Lambeth Articles were to attain an afterlife as part of the Westminster Confession of Faith promulgated in 1648.

Making sense of the ‘Word of God’ and ‘fundamental doctrines’: The questions and Formula in Church of Scotland ordination and setting-apart

This article considers references to the ‘Word of God’ and ‘fundamental doctrines’ in the Formula and questions used in ordaining ministers, elders and deacons, and in setting apart readers. History and research suggest that ‘contained in’ has different meanings in two of the questions, and ‘fundamental doctrines’ means some but not all of the Westminster Confession of Faith doctrines, together with some doctrines on which that Confession is silent. A 1935 statement helps clarify what doctrines are ‘fundamental’, as do a 1992 statement, and the first 1926 Article Declaratory. The little-known 1935 statement is included as an Appendix.Note: This paper was not part of the original conference and does not necessarily reflect the views of the Theological Forum.

‘Three Subsistences … One Substance’: the Doctrine of the Trinity in the Second London Confession

Abstract This article examines the doctrine of the Trinity taught in the Second London Confession of Faith of 1677. It begins by examining a trinitarian controversy among the Particular Baptists of England in the mid-seventeenth century. After outlining the doctrinal deviations of Thomas Collier, the article proceeds to describe some of the responses to Collier from the Particular Baptist community. In many ways the Second London Confession can be seen as a response to Collier. The article also explores the theology of Hercules Collins, a signatory of the Second London Confession, in contrast to the doctrinal deviations of Collier. The article shows that the Particular Baptists continued in the orthodox Christian tradition of the Apostles, Nicene, and Chalcedonian Creeds. They adopted the Reformed confessional language of the Westminster Confession of 1646 and the Savoy Declaration of 1658 while at the same time not fearing to adjust the language in accordance with their orthodox commitments.

Warfield, Infallibility, and the Westminster Confession

To what degree is A. A. Hodge’s and especially B. B. Warfield’s understanding of inerrancy consistent with the Westminster Confession? Does their emphasising of truthfulness as a dominating quality of Scripture correlate with the Confession’s perspective? Is their concept of the unerring ancient texts present in the Confession? Did they retreat from what the Confession says about the purity of the extant original-language copies of Scripture? It is argued that the answer to all three questions is broadly in the affirmative, with appropriate qualifications.

Origins of Order: Project and System in the American Legal Imagination by Paul W. Kahn

Reviewed by: Origins of Order: Project and System in the American Legal Imagination by Paul W. Kahn Carli N. Conklin (bio) Keywords Law, American legal history, Declaration of Independence Origins of Order: Project and System in the American Legal Imagination. By Paul W. Kahn. (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2019. Pp. 325. Cloth, $40.00.) In Origins of Order: Project and System in the American Legal Imagination, Paul W. Kahn explores the nineteenth-century American legal imagination through two constructs: project and system. According to Kahn, a project begins with an abstract norm, which then takes shape through a designed plan. The purpose of the project is the material realization of the norm; the project is then measured by how successfully that existing norm was realized. Projects have both a creator and a beginning; they are best understood by narrative. In contrast, Kahn claims that systems are understood not by narrative but by structural analysis. A system has no known creator and no known beginning, but, instead, is a set of immanent principles of order. The ethos of a system is to maintain itself. It is both self-healing and self-correcting. A system is emergent or discovered, not directed. Its immanent principles of order may be unknown to those who are fulfilling the system's purpose. [End Page 129] While it seems clear, early on, that ideas of project and system must have bearing on how we think about high-conflict questions of constitutional interpretation today, Kahn is refreshingly evenhanded in his discussion throughout the text. The result is a fair-minded exposition of the philosophies of legal thinkers as dissimilar as the theologically minded William Blackstone—operating on the basis of immanent principles believed to be both known and knowable through reason—and Oliver Wendell Holmes—a social scientist operating on data and underlying patterns that may be unknown to those in the relevant social group. In short, Kahn takes the philosophies of prior legal thinkers seriously—on their own terms and in their own contexts. That work, alone, is complicated enough. Legal thinkers across the long nineteenth century borrowed heavily from multiple philosophies, and not always in ways that would be recognizable to the original proponents of those philosophies or to us today. On the former point, Kahn describes Holmes's application of Darwinism to the social sphere, noting it is a Darwinism that Darwin himself would not have fully recognized. On the latter point, Kahn describes Woodrow Wilson's invisible-hand, system-based legal philosophy as owing a debt to Wilson's somewhat pale view of providence. If as described, Wilson's view of providence was pale, indeed, running counter to the sustaining and intervening providence highlighted in the Westminster Confession of Faith, the faith confession of Wilson's own Presbyterian upbringing. Kahn mentions at several points that project and system are often in tension and not always mutually exclusive, stating, for example, that the project of the Declaration of Independence was informed by systemic thinking about law and natural law in the Enlightenment Era. This interdependence is worth exploring in more depth. For example, Kahn is correct that Blackstone's legal philosophy is system-based, but it was also conceptualized by Blackstone in the same type of architectural terminology that Kahn attributes to projects. That Blackstone believed the common law's system was not self-healing but, instead, needed human actors to intervene through a remediation project is evident through his persistent claim that it would be up to the MPs and judges of his day to take active steps to remove the faulty additions of prior jurists and thereby improve and perfect the structure of the common-law system. It is a fascinating combination of project and system in Blackstone's legal philosophy. Kahn's articulation of legal philosophy in architectural terms is supported by a robust discussion of Blackstone's propensity to do the same, [End Page 130] as seen in Carol Matthews, "A 'Model of the Old House': Architecture in Blackstone's Life and Commentaries," in Blackstone and His Commentaries: Biography, Law, History, ed. Wilfrid Prest (London, 2009); Cristina S. Martinez, "Blackstone as Draughtsman: Picturing the Law," in Re-Interpreting Blackstone...

Teologi Baptisan Kudus Dalam Pengakuan Iman Westminster [The Theology of Holy Baptism in the Westminster Confession of Faith

The sacrament of holy baptism is one of the sacraments recognized and accepted in the church. Holy baptism is carried out using water as an element that symbolizes the cleansing or washing of human sins. The Westminster Confession explains that holy baptism is a seal and a sign of the cleansing of believers. Holy baptism can be performed by believing adults as well as children with the beliefs of their parents. Valid holy baptism is in the name of God the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. In fact, there are some churches that have always considered holy baptism as an instrument of salvation and truly the water of baptism cleanses the sins of mankind. In addition, some churches also reject the baptism of children and baptism is believed to be done repeatedly for personal and church reasons. The truth held as the cleansing of sins is only the blood of Christ shed on the cross, baptism is only a stamp and a sign. The purpose of writing this paper is to explain theologically holy baptism in Wesminster's creed. The method of writing this paper is a literature review.

Progress and Protest in Late Nineteenth- and Early Twentieth-Century Presbyterianism

This Article Surveys The Presbyterian Conflict In America At The Turn Of The Twentieth Century, Which Was Marked By A Drive For Progress And A Reaction Of Protest. After Setting Up The Historical Context, It Looks At “progress” In Action, Theology, Preaching, And Presidents. It Then Focuses On The Protest Of J. Gresham Machen, Who Was Engaged In Church Debates And Publications (e.g., Christianity And Liberalism) And Who, In Response To Progressive Theology, Founded Westminster Theological Seminary, An Independent Mission Board, And A New Denomination. It Concludes With Observations About The Continuing Witness Of Westminster Seminary. KEYWORDS: Social Gospel, Progressive Theology, Presbyterian Conflict, Woodrow Wilson, Auburn Affirmation, J. Gresham Machen, Westminster Theological Seminary, Theological Education, Mission, Westminster Confession Of Faith

Analisis Teologis Konsep Pembenaran Berdasarkan Pengakuan Iman Westminster dan Katekismus Heidelberg [A Theological Analysis of the Concept of Justification Based on the Westminster Confession of Faith and the Heidelberg Catechism

Both Westminster Confession of Faith and Heidelberg Catechism discuss the core of Reformed teaching on Justification. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the doctrine of justification on both. As the result, the two documents point out similar essences of justification in Reformed theology. It is the work of Jesus Christ in fullfilling satisfaction to his Father’s justice in the elect behalf. Christ’s righteousness is imputed to the believers and their sin to Christ. Double imputation. Faith taking a role as an instrument for God’s people to be justified, and both documents emphasize that it is also God’s grace. Westminster Confession of Faith and Heidelberg Catechism are aligned in teaching the doctrine of justification.

Of the civil magistrate: John Witherspoon’s doubly religious toleration

ABSTRACTIn 1788, the newly unified Presbyterian churches in America adopted a version of the Westminster Confession which, in contradistinction to the 1647 version, prohibited the magistrate from ‘giving … preference to any denomination of Christian’. Instrumental to this change was John Witherspoon, whose views on religious toleration became encoded in the revised confession’s insistence on disestablishment. This paper discusses Witherspoon’s idea of religious tolerance, and argues that it is ‘religious’ in a double sense: Witherspoon endorses the toleration of religion for the sake of religion. This paper proceeds in three parts; first, by examining the springs of Witherspoon’s religious toleration through his life and thought in eighteenth-century Scotland; second, by turning to Witherspoon’s mature thoughts and actions in favour of religious toleration in America; and finally, by evaluating the legacy of religious tolerance bequeathed by Witherspoon to the Presbyterian Church and the United States at large.

After the Disruption: The Recovery of the National Church of Scotland, 1843–1874

In 1843, the established Church of Scotland was broken up by the Disruption, as nearly a third of the ministers and perhaps half the lay adherents left to form the new Free Church. Many predicted the ‘remnant’ established church would not long survive. This article explores the remarkable recovery of the Church of Scotland during the three decades after the Disruption, with emphasis on the church extension campaign and parish community ideal of James Robertson, the movement initiated by Robert Lee for the enrichment of public worship and ecclesiology, and the efforts, associated with Norman Macleod, John Tulloch, John Caird and Robert Flint, to provide greater theological freedom and openness to social and cultural progress, including a willingness to question the Reformed doctrinal standards of the Westminster Confession of Faith.

“How Firm a Foundation” and the Westminster Confession of Faith

The Protestant and Reformed view of Scripture over against the Roman Catholic view is that Scripture attests its own authority. This view does not, however, mean that there are no arguments available that point to Scripture’s self-attesting authority. The Westminster Confession of Faith affirms in chapter 1, section 4, that Scripture is its own foundation, then in the following section gives a helpful list of arguments that provide useful indications of Scripture’s divine authority. These arguments are reviewed and explained in the following presentation. KEYWORDS:

Introduction: The Westminster Confession in the Church of Scotland today

The papers that follow originate from a conference held by the Church of Scotland’s Theological Forum at New College, Edinburgh on 8 May 2019. The conference was organised as part of ongoing discussions resulting from the 2018 General Assembly’s instruction to the Forum to revisit issues related to the church’s confessional position.

Recovering Reformed catholicity

This article begins by outlining some of the questions raised within the Church of Scotland in recent decades concerning the role and value of the Westminster Confession of Faith (WCF) as the church’s subordinate standard. In addressing these, the article asserts that the content and teaching of the WCF continue to be relevant for Reformed churches today. By examining the work that went into the drafting of the WCF, the article argues that the cohesive picture of Reformed orthodoxy and catholicity that the WCF presents has immense practical value for contemporary ministry and church renewal in a challenging cultural moment.

A subordinate standard: Where next?

This article presents seven theses about the status of the Westminster Confession of Faith (WCF) as the subordinate standard of the Church of Scotland, charting the nature of the problems the church has had with the WCF, (ultimately unsuccessful) attempts to accommodate the views of those who took issue with it, and renewed efforts in recent years to revisit the confessional identity of the church. It outlines the functions of the WCF, considers some possible ways forward, and looks forward to a renewed appreciation of the confession.