“The moderate, catholic and irenic character of the Westminster Confession has always made it a unifying document. Framed as an irenicon, it bound at once the Scotch and English churches together. It was adopted, and continues to be used by many Congregational and Baptist churches as the confession of their faith, been made the basis of union between the two great Presbyterian bodies, which united to constitute our church, and we are convinced that if Presbyterian union is to go further, it must be on the basis of the Westminster standards, pure and simple.”

The article by John Shirley Ward transcribed after this introduction responds to B. B. Warfield’s comments published while the Presbyterians were debating revision of the Westminster Confession in the Presbytery of New Brunswick. Ward’s views are on page ten of the Los Angeles Daily Herald, November 17, 1889. Ward was an attorney and an elder in Immanuel Presbyterian Church of Los Angeles. Later he published the pamphlet, A Common Sense View of the Westminster Confession, Los Angeles, 1894. Even though the article below is described as “No. II,” the previous article was not located.

Warfield had presented five points against revising the Confession before the Presbytery of New Brunswick, but Ward addressed only four of the five, skipping number four, however, it has been inserted into the transcription for reference. The reason Ward left out point four is not given, but it may be because Warfield’s appeal to “the Augustinian system of truth” showed the antiquity of Calvin’s doctrine with ancestry extending 1200 years. Ward’s points of contention with Warfield’s views were nothing new. He argued that several presbyteries opposed the Calvinism of the Confession and that its doctrine was out of date. Also, some candidates for the ministry were going against their consciences by subscribing to the Confession. But Warfield viewed the Confession as a summary expression of God’s revealed truth—God’s truth does not change. He added that the Confession had stood the test of time with 350 years of use by Presbyterians.

Something to consider in the revision debate is the removal of a sentence from the Confession in 1887 by Warfield and Wards’ denomination, the P.C.U.S.A. (the P.C.US. had made the same revision in 1886). This was the first revision since the newly formed P.C.U.S.A. General Assembly revised the Confession and published it in the first edition of The Constitution of the Presbyterian Church in 1789. For a century, the Confession had been used without modification despite attempts to revise its content. The revision of 1887 involved removing the last sentence of 24:4, “Of Marriage and Divorce.”

The man may not marry any of his wife’s kindred, nearer in blood, than he may of his own; nor, the woman, of her husband’s kindred, nearer in blood, than of her own.

The sentence says marriages are incestuous when they involve certain members of a deceased spouse’s kin, that is, the marriages are ones of affinity rather than consanguinity. The Scripture passages appealed to for the sentence are from Leviticus 18 & 20. The revision was well supported by the presbyteries in the approval process with 156 for its removal, 11 against it, 4 presbyteries took no action, and 31 had not reported. This was a popular and decisive change to the Confession. Once the revision was made even though it involved a lesser point, it could be said that the presbyters were more likely to make additional changes since the affinity sentence had been removed. However, it would be 1903 before the Confession would be revised further with significant doctrinal changes, and at least in part, B.B. Warfield’s efforts defending the accuracy and integrity of the Confession gave it a temporary reprieve. For more on the removal of the sentence see on this site, “Colin McIver, Salkehatchie Presbyterian Church”; in the Notes section at the end, additional resources are given. See also on this site, “Presbyterians Attempt to Revise the Westminster Confession, 1891.“

Warfield had presented his paper including five points at the summer meeting of the Presbytery of New Brunswick, but it was not taken up until the fall meeting. In the intervening weeks Henry J. Van Dyke responded to Warfield in the July 31, Herald and Presbyter. Warfield’s response to Van Dyke included the five points and was published in Ought the Confession of Faith to be Revised?, 1890, which also includes articles by Princeton Seminary director, Henry J. Van Dyke; McCormick Seminary Professor of Apologetics, John De Witt; and Union in New York’s W.G.T. Shedd.

Warfield describes the Confession as “a public document” which means it is accessible to all, but the “idiosyncrasies” he speaks of refer to the exceptions subscribers might take and judicatory debates regarding its meaning.

The header image is a painting of the Westminster Assembly provided courtesy of Reformation Art.

CONFESSION OF FAITH.

******************
The Westminster Confession—A Review of Dr. Warfield’s Position.
No. II BY JOHN SHIRLEY WARD

For a layman to presume to analyze or criticize the deliverance of a Princeton Professor on questions theological may be considered presumptuous, yet our great distance from the Professor geographically, and perhaps theologically, inspires us with courage to analyze some of his reasons why his Presbytery should oppose revision.

In order that our comments may be thoroughly understood we will give each of Dr. Warfield’s objections in full and follow with our comments.

Dr. Warfield says:

1.“Our free but safe formula of acceptance of the Confession of Faith, by which we ‘receive and adopt it’ as ‘containing the system of doctrine taught in the Holy Scriptures’ (Form of Government XV, 12), relieves us of all necessity for seeking each man to conform to the confession in all its propositions, to his individual preferences, and enables us to treat the Confession as a public document, designed not to bring each of our idiosyncrasies to expression, but to express the general and common faith of the whole body, which it adequately and admirably does.”

[Ward] Every officer received into the Presbyterian church adopts the Confession of Faith as “containing the system of doctrine taught in the Holy Scriptures.” Is it in strict accord with honesty and truth to say that the Confession of Faith contains “the system of doctrine taught in the Holy Scriptures,” when your mind revolts at the teaching of the Confession on the subjects of Election, Predestination and Decrees?

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