The Westminster Doctrine of Holy Scripture

By the Rev. DONALD BEATON, Wick.

THE first chapter of the Confession of Faith, which deals with the doctrine of Holy Scripture, has been regarded by scholars and divines of different schools of thought as one of the finest statements of the doctrine of Scripture in the Protestant symbols. It moved Dean Stanley to compare it more than favourably with the Byzantine and English Confessions and to say—”In the first chapter, describing Holy Scripture, while it maintains with the Sixth Article its exclusive authority, it enters into a much larger and nobler description of the sacred volume than is to be found either in the Tridentine or the Anglican Confessions, and which is not to be found at all in the Nicene or Constantinopolitan.” Dr. Schaff also testifies that “No other Protestant symbol has such a clear judicious, concise, and exhaustive statement of this fundamental article of Protestantism.” Dr. Mitchell’s testimony is no less laudatory. “If any chapter,” he says, “of the Westminster Confession of Faith was framed with more elaborate care than another, it was that which treats ‘of the Holy Scripture.’ It was considered paragraph by paragraph—almost clause by clause—by the House of Commons, as well as by the Assembly of Divines, before it was finally passed; and its eighth paragraph was deemed worthy to be made the subject of a special conference between certain members of the House and the divines of the Assembly.” And without multiplying further testimonies, these notices may fitly conclude with that of Dr. Warfield, the distinguished Princeton theologian. “There is certainly,” he says, “in the whole mass of confessional literature no more nobly conceived or ably wrought-out statement of doctrine than the chapter ‘of the Holy Scripture’ which the Westminster divines placed at the head of their Confession and laid at the foundation of their system of doctrine. . . . Such a statement of a fundamental doctrine is a precious heritage, worthy not only to be cherished, but understood.”
Macmillan’s Magazine, August, 1881, xlv. 286.
Creeds of Christendom, vol. I., p. 767. Report of the Proceedings of the First General Presbyterian Council (Edinburgh, 1877), appendix vi., p. 371.
Presbyterian and Reformed Review, vol. iv., p. 582.

The superficial reader may discover nothing more in this chapter than the mere commonplaces of Protestant theology, but the trained theologian and careful student cannot fail to notice the fine balance of doctrine with that remarkable precision of statement so characteristic of this symbol. Withal the chapter reveals that remarkable knowledge of experimental religion which placed the Puritan writers in the very first rank of experimental theologians. It is this combination of the scientific and experimental that has given the Westminster standards such a hold over the minds and hearts of pious men and women.

It is suggestive that the confession starts not from any specific doctrine in theology however important, but directly from the Word of God as the only rule of faith and life. In this it differed from most of the Reformed symbols with the exception of the First and Second Helvetic Confessions (1536 and 1566) and the Articles of the Church of Ireland (1615). It places Scripture at the very beginning. “It was no accidental circumstance,” says the Rev. John MacPherson, “that led to the placing of the article of Holy Scripture in the forefront of the Confession. Especially in the 9th and 10th sections of that article it is shown that the setting of Scripture in the first place among the articles of faith is intended to indicate that, according to the Confession which it opens, Holy Scripture is regarded as the one source of Christian doctrine, and that it is the intention of the framers of that Confession to give in it to each doctrine that place and proportion which it seems to have in Scripture. Its Scripturalness does not rest on the Scripture proofs attached to the several articles. . . . The authors of the Confession intended that their work should approve itself as Scriptural in the broad sense of reflecting the whole teaching of the Word of God. The Confession is far more exactly Scriptural than one reading the selected proofs would suppose. And it is this above everything that has commended our Confession to the lovers of God’s Word—that its authors were men whose last resort and final appeal at all times and on all occasions were to the law and to the testimony.”
Morris’ Theol. of West. Symbols, p. 67.
²Presbyterian and Reformed Review, IX., 260.
British and Foreign Evangelical Review xxvi. 166 and Presbyterian and Reformed Review iv. 610.

The whole arrangement of the chapter shows the care with which it was drawn up. The sections may be said to come under four heads:—

I. Introductory—Section 1.

1. Reality and Trustworthiness of Natural Revelation.
2. Insufficiency of Natural Revelation.
3. Necessity of Divine Revelation.
4. The Committal of this Revelation to Writing.
5. Consequent necessity of Scripture.

II. The Contents of Scripture—Sections 2 and 3.

1. Positively—the Canon.
2. Negatively—the Apocrypha.

III. The Properties of Scripture—Sections 4, 5, 6, and 7.

1. Its Authority.
2. Its Perfection.
3. Its Perspicuity.

IV. The Use of Scripture—Sections 8-10.

1. In its Form and Transmission.
2. In Relation to Interpretation.
3. In Relation to Controversies.

The whole chapter impresses one with a sense of the very high place the Westminster divines gave to Holy Scripture. To them the Word of God was of absolute authority in matters of faith and duty. “The student,” says Prof. Norris, “of the deliberations and the acts of the Westminster Assembly will not fail to discover such supreme, loving, unflinching loyalty to the Bible signalizing and controlling the proceedings of that venerable body throughout. Its members were not only learned in the Scriptures, but devout believers in all that Scripture taught them, and determined in their purpose—according to the pledge or vow approved by Parliament and solemnly taken by each member at the first organization—that whatever they affirmed as doctrine should be both tested and sustained by the Word of God and by that Word only.”¹

From these introductory remarks on this important subject it will be observed that it is the opinion of eminent divines of different schools of thought that the Westminster statement of the doctrine of Holy Scripture is as fine a statement as can be found in any of the great creeds, and that furthermore the authors of the Confession placed Scripture on a peerless eminence and demand for it supreme, loving, and unflinching loyalty. Anyone, therefore, who accepts the Westminster symbols as the confession of his faith must, if he be consistent with his profession, hold a very high view of Scripture and recognise its absolute authority in matters of life and faith. To say, as has been said within the past few weeks, that a church which is bound to the Confession has placed the Bible in the background is downright nonsense. No church which sincerely accepts the whole doctrine of the Confession dare place the Bible in the background, for in the very act of so doing she ignores what the Confession insists on, and what is placed in the very forefront of the Westminster standards. It is not too much to say that this whole cry is the veriest claptrap, and it ill becomes men who have as little love to the Bible as they have to the Confession to flood the country with their misrepresentations. A few weeks’ study of the Westminster doctrine of Holy Scripture and some lessons in Christian ethics as to the moral standing of gentlemen who have broken ordination vows might produce silence on many a platform and give their hearers a not unwelcome rest.

¹ Morris’ Theol. of West. Symbols, p. 68.

The War in the East.—The end of this terrible trial of strength between superstitious Russia and heathen Japan is not yet in sight. The Russians suffered a severe reverse at Liao-yang, and have retreated northwards. Both nations are bracing themselves for further conflicts.