The Theology of the Westminster Standards

Historical Context and Theological Insights

J. V. Fesko

• Publisher: Crossway
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781433533143
• Topic: Teologia e religione
• Subtopic: Teologia cristiana

For centuries, countless Christians have turned to the Westminster Standards for insights into the Christian faith. These renowned documents—first published in the middle of the 17th century—are still considered by many to be some of the most beautifully written summaries of the Bible's teaching ever produced.

Church historian John Fesko walks readers through the background and theology of the Westminster Confession, the Larger Catechism, and the Shorter Catechism, helpfully situating them within their original context.

Organized according to the major categories of systematic theology, this book utilizes quotations from other key works from the same time period to shed light on the history and significance of these influential documents.

1

Introduction

The Westminster Standards (1646–1647) are loved by many and employed as the confessional standards by numerous Presbyterian denominations around the world. The Confession and catechisms of the Westminster Assembly have been praised by theologians, both in the seventeenth century and in our own day, as being the high-water mark of Reformed theology in the early modern period (ca. 1500–1800). Given that the Westminster Standards are admired and confessed, it is only natural that over the years theologians would write a number of books that explained the doctrine of the Standards. Such works appeared quite quickly following the creation of the Standards. Most notable, for example, is David Dickson’s (1583–1663) Truths Victory over Error, or Thomas Watson’s (ca. 1620–1686) Body of Divinity, which was a series of sermons upon the Shorter Catechism.¹ Other notable works include, but are not limited to, those by Thomas Boston (1676–1732), A. A. Hodge (1823–1886), and Edward Morris (1825–1915).² Theologians immediately saw a need to explain and comment upon the Confession and catechisms. Other commentaries were written, and the practice continues unabated in our own day, not only with the contribution of new commentaries but also with the republication of older volumes, as well as studies on specific sections of the Standards.³

But characteristic of the older commentaries, in contrast to their contemporary counterparts, is a better connection to the history, events, and theology of the seventeenth century. Dickson was alive during the creation of the Westminster Standards, interacted with theologians who were present, and was one of the theologians who wrote The Summe of Saving Knowledge, which was a summary of the Westminster Standards appended to the documents by the Scottish Kirk. Dickson, by virtue of being alive during the period, was intimately familiar with the context of the Standards. Present-day commentators, on the other hand, stand at a significant disadvantage. Not only are they separated from the assembly by hundreds of years, but also they often have different theological questions pressing them and at times different philosophical assumptions, given that they live after, rather than prior to, the Enlightenment.

For example, one commentary on the Larger Catechism discusses the theology of neoorthodoxy, especially the thought of Karl Barth (1886–1968) and Emil Brunner (1889–1966), in its treatment of the catechism’s doctrine of Scripture.⁴ As necessary as it is to bring the historic teaching of the Reformed faith to bear upon present-day theological challenges, it is important first to establish historically what the Standards have taught before its theology can be pressed into service. Another challenge to a proper understanding of the Standards is when contemporary historians and commentators read the Standards through the grid of later theological developments.⁵

Recently promising steps have been made to situate properly the Westminster Standards within the doctrinal and historical context of the seventeenth century.⁶ However, given the massive amount of primary-source literature and the scope of the Standards, there is much more that can be done to unearth the original context of the assembly. Much of this work has been greatly assisted by the publication of the extant minutes of the assembly, which provide the contemporary reader with a window into the inner workings, debates, and concerns of the assembly.⁷ But the theology of the Standards does not lie exclusively in the minutes, as important as they are. Rather, the Westminster Assembly was part of a broader ongoing conversation with Patristic, medieval, Reformation, and contemporary seventeenth-century theologians. Anyone who wants to understand the thought and ethos of the Standards must enmesh themselves, as much as possible, in the literature of the period. What theological works, for example, were the Westminster divines reading? What were their theological interests, concerns, fears, and passions? What were the historical events of the day, and how did they shape seventeenth-century English life?

The Importance of the Original Historical Context

It is often said that the three most important rules to purchasing real estate are location, location, location. A similar maxim is true for good historical theology—context, context, context. The best explanations of the doctrine of the Standards must rest upon the testimony of the time.⁸ Such a contextual reading of the Standards will undoubtedly produce several important results. By enmeshing the Standards in their original context, the reader is forced to look for cognitive dissonances, that is, things that do not quite fit the contemporary way of stating or understanding things. True, many people still profess the Reformed faith as found in the Westminster Standards, but much has changed over the last 350-plus years. Think for a moment about what was happening in our own country twenty-five, fifty, or one hundred years ago; things were quite different. The seventeenth century was a period that was marked, for example, by different general beliefs about the world. The seventeenth century was a period when most Protestant theologians, with little dissenting opinion, believed that the pope was the antichrist; this was a virtually unquestioned fact. It was also a period when people believed in ghosts and spirits. In one such account, the supposed testimony of the ghost of an old woman played a role in the execution of a bishop, John Atherton (1598–1640).⁹ What has this ghost’s tale to do with the Westminster Standards?

This slice of early modern English history is but one small example of how differently things functioned during the time of the Westminster Assembly. One might certainly debate the existence of ghosts in our own day, but to say with a serious face that a message from a ghost would play a part in the arrest, conviction, and execution of a church official must surely be the stuff of fiction, not history. Yet, this is precisely what happened in the case of Bishop Atherton’s execution.¹⁰ When the layers of this bizarre case are pulled away, they reveal that Bishop Atherton was opposed to Laud’s imposition of high-church Arminian and Papist practices upon the Church of England, and that the rumors surrounding Mother Leakey’s ghost, as well as the false charge of buggery, were quite possibly an elaborate conspiracy to discredit and remove Atherton and replace him with a bishop more congenial to Laud’s policies.¹¹ Adding to the complexity of the politics and religion of the time, a number of Presbyterians, including Westminster divine Robert Baillie (1602–1662), saw the conviction of Bishop Atherton as further reason to reject and remove Episcopacy “root and branch,” given its corruption.¹² This whole event is but one illustration of the differences between the seventeenth century and the present day.

Theologically speaking, the Standards contain curious turns of phrase, oblique rejections of doctrines without persons or responsible parties named, and peculiar terms—such things that often pass unnoticed by contemporary readers but were well known to theologians of the period. What, for example, does the term general equity mean (19.4) and what is the difference between the moral law as a covenant and as a rule (19.5)? Why does the Confession say that the kingdom of Christ is the visible church (25.2), whereas God, not Christ, is the “Supream Lord and King of all the world” (23.1)? When the Confession states that God has ordained “whatsoever comes to pass,” but at the same time his decree has not taken away “liberty or contingency of second Causes” but rather has established them (3.1), how can the divines affirm both a sovereign decree and contingency? Why do the Standards never employ the word atonement (or its variants) when such a word is commonplace in contemporary Reformed theology, especially with regard to popular terms such as limited atonement? All of these are questions that we need to ask when reading the Standards, and they can only be answered by investigating the Standards in their original context. Early modern Reformed theologians had a slightly different outlook on life and theology than we do today, and despite whatever similarities in doctrine and conviction are shared with theologians in the twenty-first century, the differences can be significant.

Learning to Read a Confession of Faith

A benefit of reading the Standards within their original historical and theological context is that the contemporary reader learns how to read a confession of faith. In the present day those who employ confessions of faith often fail to understand that confessions can be highly nuanced documents. The running joke in Presbyterian circles is, “Put three Presbyterians in one room and you’ll get five different opinions.” This humorous observation is equally true of Reformed theology in the early modern period. Confessions of faith were typically written to define truth and fence off heterodoxy and heresy while allowing a degree of doctrinal latitude within the boundaries of the confession. The Confession, for example, explicitly rejects certain doctrines, such as predestination based upon foreknowledge (3.2), justification based upon the worthiness of one’s faith (11.1), or transubstantiation (29.6). However, the Westminster Confession is equally silent about a number of other teachings, which typically were viewed as issues of doctrinal liberty—issues upon which theologians could disagree but still be within the bounds of confessional orthodoxy. In the debates over God’s decree, for example, and the composition of the Confession’s third chapter, one of the divines, George Gillespie (1613–1648), wanted the assembly to compose certain phrases in such a manner that “every one may injoy his owne sence.”¹³

In other words, at many points the Confession is very specific in terms of what it rejects or teaches, but at other points it is brilliantly ambiguous or vague, thus allowing various theologians to assent to the document even though it might not advocate each theologian’s precise view on a particular subject. Such deliberate ambiguity or vagueness can only be discovered by reading the Confession and catechisms in tandem with the minutes of the assembly and works of the period. For example, one of the more complex issues in theology, whether in the present day or in the seventeenth century, is the relationship of the Mosaic covenant to the other covenants in Scripture; or alternatively stated, what is the Christian’s relationship to the Mosaic law? Today many might not realize that at least five different views were held by various commissioners to the assembly. The Confession states the basics of what was the most common view, but when it came to its rejection of other views, it singled out only one position, namely, that of Tobias Crisp (1600–1643). Crisp advocated that there were two covenants of grace, something the Confession explicitly rejects (7.6). It is silent with regard to the other views held.

The Methodology of the Present Study

Given the importance of reading the Standards in their original context, in this study I have opted to place emphasis upon primary over secondary sources. There are numerous commentaries on the Standards that make theological and historical judgments about their doctrinal content, but do so devoid of primary-source analysis. Instead, while I have read much secondary-source analysis of the Standards over the years, I have chosen only to employ what is, in my judgment, essential or necessary secondary literature; I have given preference to primary-source literature, or literature that was within a generation or so of the Westminster Assembly. Moreover, I have chosen to use works not of my own liking, but rather those that primary sources have identified as important or noteworthy.

In this respect it is interesting to follow the bread crumb trail that many of the primary sources have left. In our own day many Reformed theologians would never positively cite Patristic, medieval, Lutheran, or pagan sources, but this is precisely what numerous early modern Reformed theologians did. Hence, for many contemporary readers the sources I have chosen to illustrate certain doctrinal points may seem counterintuitive, but for the early modern Reformed theologian they were perfectly natural, desirable, and necessary. Unlike our own day, when Reformed theologians are content to labor for their entire ministries in theologically sectarian-like settings where orthodoxy is measured by a very narrow set of criteria, the Westminster divines had a different index by which they measured orthodoxy. The divines considered themselves reformed Catholics and therefore did not want to isolate themselves from the rest of the church, but saw their broader engagement with other periods of history and other theological traditions as evidence of their catholicity.¹⁴

In my effort to return the reader to the seventeenth century, I have chosen to cite an original edition of the Westminster Standards with its archaic spelling and punctuation. This has a number of benefits. First, it causes the contemporary reader to slow down and reread each tenet rather than sailing over familiar words. The archaic spelling, punctuation, and capitalization give the contemporary reader a sense of what it would have been like for a seventeenth-century theologian to sit down and read this document for the first time. Second, contemporary readers might not be aware of this, but the original edition of the Confession and catechisms are different at key places in comparison with modern editions. Scripture proof texts have been changed, and punctuation, at least in one place where it affects the meaning of the statement about the active obedience of Christ, has also been changed. Such changes, while perhaps benefiting the contempora...