Westminster Confession

Chapter 1 settles the question by naming a judge and excluding the rivals by name. Councils, the ancient writers, doctrines of men and private spirits are all placed under examination rather than alongside Scripture, and 1.6 closes the canon against additions from either direction - new revelations of the Spirit and traditions of men are refused in the same clause. The church's testimony is granted a real but preliminary role in 1.5: it may move and induce a reader to esteem Scripture, but the full persuasion of its authority comes from the Spirit's inward witness, not from the church's warrant.

WORTH CORRECTINGThe 1.5 clause about the church's testimony is sometimes read as a concession toward scripture-primary. It is the opposite: the sentence grants the church an inducement and then withholds from it the thing that would matter, locating assurance in the Spirit rather than the church.

The supreme judge by which all controversies of religion are to be determined, and all decrees of councils, opinions of ancient writers, doctrines of men, and private spirits, are to be examined; and in whose sentence we are to rest; can be no other but the Holy Spirit speaking in the Scripture.WCF 1.10 (1646 text, Carruthers ed.)

WCF 1.2 lists the books by name - thirty-nine Old Testament, twenty-seven New - and closes the list with 'All which are given by inspiration of God, to be the rule of faith and life.' 1.3 then rules on the Apocrypha directly and negatively. The ground given is not ecclesiastical decision but the books' own character: they are 'not being of divine inspiration', and the canon is treated as recognised rather than conferred.

WORTH CORRECTINGThe stance label 'Apocrypha useful but not Scripture' is milder than the Confession. WCF 1.3 allows the Apocrypha no more standing in the church than any other human writing - it does not commend it for edification the way Article VI of the Thirty-Nine Articles does.

The books commonly called Apocrypha, not being of divine inspiration, are no part of the canon of the Scripture; and therefore are of no authority in the Church of God, nor to be any otherwise approved, or made use of, than other human writings.WCF 1.3 (1646 text, Carruthers ed.)

The Confession opens on this question rather than on Scripture, and gives both halves of the stance in one sentence: creation and providence manifest God far enough to leave men inexcusable, and not far enough to save. WCF 21.1 repeats the positive half - 'The light of nature showeth that there is a God' - and WCF 10.4 closes the inclusivist door explicitly, calling it 'very pernicious, and to be detested' to hold that men may be saved by framing their lives according to the light of nature.

WORTH CORRECTINGThe Confession states the inexcusability and the insufficiency in its own words; the 'moral suppression' half of this stance is carried by the proof texts the Assembly attached (Romans 1:19-20, Romans 1:32) rather than by the Confession's prose, which never uses the language of suppressing or holding down the truth.

Although the light of nature and the works of creation and providence do so far manifest the goodness, wisdom, and power of God, as to leave men unexcusable; yet are they not sufficient to give that knowledge of God and of His will, which is necessary unto salvation.WCF 1.1 (1646 text, Carruthers ed.)

WCF 2.3 states the Nicene settlement in a single sentence and then adds the Western eternal-relations clause: the Father of none, the Son eternally begotten, the Spirit eternally proceeding from the Father and the Son. The filioque is affirmed without argument. Chapter 2 spends its first two paragraphs on the divine attributes and simplicity ('without body, parts, or passions') before naming the persons, so the unity is established before the distinctions are.

WORTH CORRECTINGThe first proof text the Assembly attached to 2.3 is 1 John 5:7 - the Johannine Comma, which the critical text does not carry. The doctrine does not rest on it, and the same paragraph is proved from Matthew 3:16-17, Matthew 28:19 and 2 Corinthians 13:14, but a reader checking the proofs against a modern Bible will find the first one missing.

In the unity of the Godhead there be three persons, of one substance, power, and eternity; God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost. The Father is of none, neither begotten, nor proceeding: the Son is eternally begotten of the Father: the Holy Ghost eternally proceeding from the Father and the Son.WCF 2.3 (1646 text, Carruthers ed.)

WCF 8.2 reproduces the Chalcedonian formula and its four negations in seventeenth-century English, insisting on 'two whole, perfect, and distinct natures' in one person, and adding 'with all the essential properties and common infirmities thereof, yet without sin' so that the humanity is not thinned. WCF 8.7 states the communicatio idiomatum in its Reformed form: Christ acts according to both natures, 'by each nature doing that which is proper to itself', and the exchange of predicates is a way Scripture speaks of the one person rather than a transfer of properties between the natures.

So that two whole, perfect, and distinct natures, the Godhead and the manhood, were inseparably joined together in one person, without conversion, composition, or confusion. Which person is very God, and very man, yet one Christ, the only Mediator between God and man.WCF 8.2 (1646 text, Carruthers ed.)

The question is never posed. Chapter 2 is titled 'Of God, and of the Holy Trinity' and treats divine unity, simplicity and the three persons; the elohim of Psalm 82 and Deuteronomy 32 are nowhere in view, and neither passage appears in the Assembly's proof texts for that chapter. The only other spiritual beings the Confession recognises are angels, and it speaks of them only as creatures - elect and reprobate (3.3), capable of sin (5.4), and to be judged at the last day (33.1). WCF 21.2 is the nearest the document comes to the locus's question, and it settles a worship question rather than an ontological one. What was checked is all thirty-three chapters and the Assembly's proofs for chapters 2, 3, 5, 21 and 33. The tier is contested rather than researched because no quotation can establish an absence - the cite below shows the category the Confession does use, not a ruling on the one this locus asks about.

Religious worship is to be given to God, the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost; and to Him alone; not to angels, saints, or any other creature.WCF 21.2 (1646 text, Carruthers ed.)

Chapter 6 supplies the anthropology - fallen nature 'utterly indisposed, disabled, and made opposite to all good' (6.4) - and chapter 9 draws the conclusion about the will. The loss in 9.3 is total but bounded: what is lost is 'all ability of will to any spiritual good accompanying salvation', not the will's natural liberty, which 9.1 has already affirmed. Deliverance is by grace alone and produces real freedom rather than compulsion (9.4).

WORTH CORRECTINGWCF 9.1 - 'God hath endued the will of man with that natural liberty, that is neither forced, nor by any absolute necessity of nature determined to good or evil' - is placed before the bondage clause on purpose. The Confession is not saying the will is coerced; it is saying it is unable toward one specific object.

Man, by his fall into a state of sin, hath wholly lost all ability of will to any spiritual good accompanying salvation: so as, a natural man, being altogether averse from that good, and dead in sin, is not able, by his own strength, to convert himself, or to prepare himself thereunto.WCF 9.3 (1646 text, Carruthers ed.)

WCF 3.5 rules out foreseen faith by name, and then rules out every substitute for it - foreseen works, foreseen perseverance, 'or any other thing in the creature, as conditions, or causes moving Him thereunto.' WCF 3.2 has already separated foreknowledge from decree: God knows what would come to pass on all supposed conditions, and has decreed nothing because he foresaw it. Chapter 3 is infralapsarian in shape - 3.6 speaks of the elect 'being fallen in Adam' - and 3.7 states reprobation asymmetrically, God passing by the rest and ordaining them to wrath 'for their sin'.

WORTH CORRECTINGThe decree is not stated as fatalism: WCF 3.1 attaches to the same sentence the denial that God is the author of sin and the insistence that 'the liberty or contingency of second causes' is established rather than removed. Quoting 3.5 without 3.1 misrepresents the chapter.

Those of mankind that are predestinated unto life, God, before the foundation of the world was laid, according to His eternal and immutable purpose, and the secret counsel and good pleasure of His will, hath chosen, in Christ, unto everlasting glory, out of His mere free grace and love, without any foresight of faith or good works, or perseverance in either of them, or any other thing in the creature, as conditions, or causes moving Him thereunto.WCF 3.5 (1646 text, Carruthers ed.)

WCF 14.2 has both elements the triad requires. Assent to revealed truth comes first and is grounded in the authority of God speaking, not in the believer's judgement of the content; trust follows as the 'principal acts', which are directed at a person rather than at propositions. The knowledge component is implied by the object of the assent - 'whatsoever is revealed in the Word' - rather than named. WCF 14.1 makes faith a gift: it is 'the work of the Spirit of Christ in their hearts', ordinarily wrought by the ministry of the Word.

WORTH CORRECTINGThe Confession never uses notitia, assensus and fiducia, and it does not treat the three as equal parts. It subordinates the assent to the trust by calling the latter the 'principal acts', so a reader arguing that Westminster is closer to the fiducia stance has real footing in the text.

By this faith, a Christian believeth to be true whatsoever is revealed in the Word, for the authority of God Himself speaking therein... But the principal acts of saving faith are accepting, receiving, and resting upon Christ alone for justification, sanctification, and eternal life, by virtue of the covenant of grace.WCF 14.2 (1646 text, Carruthers ed.)

WCF 11.1 is unusually explicit for a confession: it denies infusion by name, denies that the act of believing is itself what is imputed, and names imputed obedience and satisfaction as the ground. Faith is the instrument, not the righteousness. WCF 11.2 immediately blocks the antinomian reading - faith 'is not alone in the person justified, but is ever accompanied with all other saving graces' - and 11.5 distinguishes the state of justification, which cannot be lost, from God's fatherly displeasure, which can be incurred.

...not by infusing righteousness into them, but by pardoning their sins, and by accounting and accepting their persons as righteous, not for anything wrought in them, or done by them, but for Christ's sake alone; nor by imputing faith itself, the act of believing, or any other evangelical obedience to them, as their righteousness, but by imputing the obedience and satisfaction of Christ unto them.WCF 11.1 (1646 text, Carruthers ed.)

The restriction is stated in chapter 3 rather than chapter 8, and it is stated as an exclusive: no one other than the elect is redeemed by Christ. Chapter 8 then makes purchase and application coextensive - 8.5 says Christ purchased reconciliation and inheritance 'for all those whom the Father hath given unto Him', and 8.8 says that to all those for whom he purchased redemption he 'doth certainly and effectually apply and communicate the same'. The argument is about the design and the effect of the atonement, not about its value.

WORTH CORRECTINGThe Confession is more restrained here than the scholastic Reformed tradition that cites it. It never uses 'limited atonement', never states a limit on the sufficiency or value of the sacrifice, and never adjudicates the sufficient-for-all / efficient-for-the-elect formula in either direction. What it asserts is that redemption is not applied beyond the elect. Reading the later doctrine's full apparatus off WCF 3.6 is reading the heirs, not the text.

Wherefore they who are elected, being fallen in Adam, are redeemed by Christ... Neither are any other redeemed by Christ, effectually called, justified, adopted, sanctified, and saved, but the elect only.WCF 3.6 (1646 text, Carruthers ed.)

WCF 17.1 rules out both partial and final apostasy for the same class of people - those accepted, effectually called and sanctified - so the doctrine is tied to a description of what God has done rather than to a description of the believer's constancy. 17.2 makes that explicit by listing the grounds: the immutability of the decree, the merit and intercession of Christ, the abiding of the Spirit, and the nature of the covenant, 'not upon their own free will'.

WORTH CORRECTINGWCF 17.3 is the half that gets dropped in summary. The saints may fall into grievous sins, continue in them for a time, have their hearts hardened and their consciences wounded, and bring temporal judgments on themselves. The Confession denies final falling away, not serious falling.

They, whom God hath accepted in His Beloved, effectually called, and sanctified by His Spirit, can neither totally, nor finally, fall away from the state of grace: but shall certainly persevere therein to the end, and be eternally saved.WCF 17.1 (1646 text, Carruthers ed.)

The Confession fixes the order rather than the moment. WCF 10.2 makes the person 'altogether passive' in effectual calling until quickened and renewed by the Spirit, and only then 'enabled to answer this call' - regeneration precedes and produces faith rather than following it. WCF 13.1 then locates the Spirit's dwelling in those already 'effectually called and regenerated', sanctified 'by His Word and Spirit dwelling in them'. Put together, the indwelling belongs to the regenerate as such, which is what this stance claims.

WORTH CORRECTINGThe Confession never asks when the Spirit begins to indwell, and no paragraph answers that question directly. This assignment joins two things it does state - the priority of regeneration over faith (10.2) and the Spirit's dwelling in the regenerate (13.1) - and is an inference from them rather than a quotation of a single sentence.

This effectual call is of God's free and special grace alone, not from anything at all foreseen in man, who is altogether passive therein, until being quickened and renewed by the Holy Spirit, he is thereby enabled to answer this call, and to embrace the grace offered and conveyed in it.WCF 10.2 (1646 text, Carruthers ed.), with WCF 13.1

WCF 28.4 includes the infants of one or both believing parents alongside professing adults, and the Assembly's proofs run through the covenant sign rather than through any account of infant faith - Genesis 17 with Colossians 2:11-12 and Acts 2:38-39. WCF 28.5 rules out the regenerationist reading in both directions: no one is barred from salvation for want of baptism, and not everyone baptised is regenerated.

WORTH CORRECTING'Sign' understates WCF 28.6, which says the promised grace is 'not only offered, but really exhibited and conferred by the Holy Ghost' through the right use of the ordinance. The Confession is stronger than a bare memorial sign; what it denies is that the conferring is tied to the moment of administration or extends beyond those 'as that grace belongeth unto'.

Not only those that do actually profess faith in and obedience unto Christ, but also the infants of one or both believing parents are to be baptized.WCF 28.4 (1647 text)

WCF 29.7 rejects both rival positions inside one sentence. Transubstantiation has already been dismissed in 29.6 as 'repugnant, not to Scripture alone, but even to common sense and reason'; 29.7 then denies the Lutheran formula word for word - the body and blood are 'not corporally or carnally in, with, or under the bread and wine' - while insisting the presence is nonetheless real. The comparison at the end is the load-bearing part: Christ is as really present to faith as the elements are to the senses.

WORTH CORRECTINGThis is not the memorial view. WCF 29.5 grants the elements a real 'relation to him crucified' and 27.2 a 'sacramental union' between sign and thing signified; the elements remain bread and wine in substance, but the Confession refuses to make the Supper a bare remembrance.

Worthy receivers, outwardly partaking of the visible elements in this sacrament, do then also inwardly by faith, really and indeed, yet not carnally and corporally, but spiritually, receive and feed upon Christ crucified, and all benefits of his death: the body and blood of Christ being then not corporally or carnally in, with, or under the bread and wine; yet as really, but spiritually, present to the faith of believers in that ordinance, as the elements themselves are, to their outward senses.WCF 29.7 (1647 text)

This is blank of the third kind - never framed in these terms - and the blank is worth more than a stance would be. WCF 1.1 says the former ways of God's revealing his will are 'now ceased', 1.6 forbids adding to Scripture 'by new revelations of the Spirit', and 18.3 says assurance is attainable 'without extraordinary revelation'. All three are claims about revelation and the closure of the canon. None of them mentions tongues, healing, or miracles; none dates a cessation to the apostolic age; and all thirty-three chapters have now been read, with no chapter, paragraph or clause on the charismata in any of them. The 1.1 sentence passed word for word into 2LBC 1.1, so on this locus the Westminster Confession and the Second London Baptist Confession are not two witnesses but one, and this corpus records the same blank for both. WCF 1.1 is quoted by both sides of the modern cessationist debate, which is why the tier here is contested rather than researched.

WORTH CORRECTINGWCF 1.1 is routinely offered as the Confession's cessationism. It will not carry that weight. The sentence is the conclusion of an argument about why Scripture had to be committed to writing - the modes of revealing have ceased because the revelation is now inscripturated - and says nothing about whether God still heals or whether tongues occur. The nearest the document comes to the vocabulary is 26.1, where saints 'have communion in each other's gifts and graces', proved from 1 Corinthians 12:7; that paragraph is about what believers share with one another, not about which gifts remain.

...which maketh the Holy Scripture to be most necessary; those former ways of God's revealing His will unto His people being now ceased.WCF 1.1 (1646 text, Carruthers ed.)

WCF 33.2 states eternal conscious punishment in the Confession's own words and pairs it with the eternal life of the righteous in the same sentence, so the two destinies are given the same duration. WCF 32.1 has already described the intermediate state: the souls of the wicked are 'cast into hell, where they remain in torments and utter darkness, reserved to the judgment of the great day', and the Confession adds that Scripture acknowledges no third place for separated souls - a direct refusal of purgatory.

...but the wicked, who know not God, and obey not the gospel of Jesus Christ, shall be cast into eternal torments, and be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power.WCF 33.2 (1647 text)

The Confession requires no millennial position. It never mentions a millennium, never cites Revelation 20, and never uses the word. What it does fix is the shape of the end: one last day on which the living are changed and 'all the dead' - just and unjust together - are raised (32.2-3), followed immediately by one general judgment of angels and of 'all persons, that have lived upon earth' (33.1), followed by the two eternal states. For a confessional document, that silence is normative rather than accidental: what the Confession does not require, ministers subscribing it are not bound to hold.

WORTH CORRECTINGThe silence is not perfectly neutral, and it has been argued over in Presbyterian churches, chiefly in America and chiefly since the nineteenth century. A single simultaneous resurrection of the just and the unjust, with judgment following at once, leaves no interval for the classic premillennial scheme of two resurrections a thousand years apart. Amillennial and postmillennial readings both fit the text without strain, which is why no stance beyond 'no required position' can be assigned from the document itself.

At the last day, such as are found alive shall not die, but be changed; and all the dead shall be raised up with the self-same bodies, and none other, although with different qualities, which shall be united again to their souls forever.WCF 32.2 (1647 text), with WCF 33.1