The Westminster Confession of Faith, published by the Banner of Truth Trust, in their Pocket Puritans series, gift edition, softcover, 136 pages, £10.00.
This Confession, drawn up in the 1640s, has stood the test of time and needs no praise from us. B B Warfield described the Westminster standards as “the richest and most precise and best guarded statement ever penned of all that enters into evangelical religion and of all that must be safeguarded if evangelicalism is to persist in the world”.
The publishers would seem not to have availed themselves of the corrections to various editions of the Confession which were published by S W Carruthers in 1937.2 It would also have been better to have published the Confession in its original form, without adding a second version of chapters 20, 23 and 31, as revised by the American Church in 1788 in a less scriptural direction. Yet it would have been helpful to have printed the understanding of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland that some parts of chapter 31 referred only to “kirks [churches] not settled, or constituted in point of government”.3 Footnotes indicate some further changes which appear in the versions of the Confession adopted by the Orthodox Presbyterian Church and the Presbyterian Church in America; among other matters, these changes remove the reference to the pope as the Antichrist, as well as other expressions from 2 Thessalonians 2.
Like other books in this series, this edition of The Westminster Confession is nicely produced and convenient to carry around. However, the Confession is also available in booklet form from Free Presbyterian Publications for a mere £1.50. FPP also publishes The Westminster Confession of Faith, which also contains the Larger and Shorter Catechisms and the other Westminster documents, including The Directory for the Public Worship of God (it costs £15.00 in hardback and £8.00 in paperback). The Larger Catechism is also available separately in booklet form for £1.95.
The Face of Jesus Christ, The Person and Work of Our Lord, by Archibald G Brown, published by the Banner of Truth Trust, paperback, 290 pages, £8.00. In spite of the crowds who flocked to hear Brown in the East London Tabernacle in the second half of the nineteenth century, he has till recently been largely forgotten. When his life was written by Iain H Murray (reviewed in this Magazine in April 2012), the subtitle described Brown as “Spurgeon’s successor” (although his ministry in the Metropolitan Tabernacle was relatively short). Several volumes of Brown’s sermons were published in his lifetime, but none of them followed any particular theme. The present publishers have now collected, for this new book, 22 sermons from these volumes, appropriately on texts that speak of the Saviour.
The description, “Spurgeon’s successor”, invites comparison between the two preachers, and it has to be said that Spurgeon’s sermons are distinctly superior. Yet Archibald Brown conveys scriptural truth in a lively manner. Speaking on Isaiah 50:8,9, he says, “If [Jesus] is demonstrated to be the Son of God, then every power that He ever claimed to possess is proven. The resurrection of Jesus not only put heaven’s stamp upon His Sonship, but upon every other claim that those dear lips of His ever uttered” (p 253). And while it is not appropriate to tell the unconverted, “God loves you” (p 80), it is appropriate to warn that “it is a dangerous thing for any preacher to take it for granted that all his congregation are converted” (p 242).
Brown once preached on Revelation 22:16 and explained how, not long before, he sat alone in “deep depression”, possibly after a bereavement. “I mechanically took this Testament . . . and opened it without thought . . . my eye fell on two words, ‘I, Jesus’. They were enough . . . The thought which flashed . . . through my soul was the one I have tried to give you this evening – that Jesus is still alive. Though children die, though wives be cut down, though husbands go to the grave, though fortunes break . . . yet in the darkness. . . a voice . . . says, ‘I, Jesus – I live still. Whatever else thou mayest have lost, I, Jesus am with thee yet’” (p 168). A thought of genuine comfort!
Conviction of the saving virtue of the blood of Christ is not from a common illumination but from sanctifying and saving light; whenever men are convinced of the saving virtue of Christ’s blood, they will receive Him. It is for want of conviction and understanding that men reject Christ.
Solomon Stoddard
1The books reviewed here may be obtained from the Free Presbyterian Bookroom.
2John Murray’s review of Carruthers’ book appears in Collected Writings, vol 3, pp 291-5.
3A very useful chapter, entitled “The Westminster Confession of Faith on the Relation Between Church and State”, appears in William Cunningham’s volume, Discussions on Church Principles, in which he particularly discusses issues connected with chapter 23 of the Confession (Of the Civil Magistrate).