Westminster Confession, Assembly and Divines

"All that learning the most profound and extensive, intellect the most acute and searching, and piety the most sincere and earnest, could accomplish, was thus concentrated in the Westminster Assembly's Confession of Faith, which may be safely termed the most perfect statement of Systematic Theology ever framed by the Christian Church." - William Hetherington, The History of the Westminster Assembly of Divines, p. 345, SWRB Reprint.

"The Westminster Standards (including the Confession of Faith and Catechisms) were the fruit of the covenanted uniformity aimed at in the Solemn League and Covenant. The relationship between the Westminster Standards and the Solemn League and Covenant is so close, in fact, that to truly adhere to the Standards requires that an individual or church also adhere to the Solemn League and Covenant. In other words, all true Presbyterians must also be Covenanters. This is clear from 'The Directory for the Ordination of Ministers' in the original (1648) Westminster Standards' 'Form of Presbyterial Church-Government' where it says that every candidate for the ministry must 'bring with him a testimonial of his taking the Covenant of the three kingdoms,' i.e., the Solemn League and Covenant. All faithful Presbyterian ministers must adhere to the Covenant. As well, the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland ruled in 1648 'that all young students take the covenant at their first entry to colleges; and that hereafter all persons whosoever take the covenant at their first receiving the sacrament of the Lord's supper.' In other words, people who would not take the Covenant could not partake of the Lord's supper." - Dr. Michael Wagner, Up From Reconstructionism; or, A Short History of the Puritan Reformed Church of Edmonton, 1996.

"The Westminster Confession of Faith (WCF) is the greatest, most accurate, and most biblical of all the creeds of the Christian church. The church of Christ cannot be creedless and live. Especially in an age of doubt and confusion, it is her duty to define and proclaim the one true faith. Nowhere has the Reformed church done this so effectively as in the Westminster family of documents. The Westminster Standards represent Reformed thinking at its purest and best. The Westminster Standards were intended, as part of the covenanted reformation taking place during its compilation, to be the binding confessional standard for every individual, family, school, university,church, court, and legislature in England, Scotland and Ireland — and in 'all his majesty's dominions' (including Canada, the United States, Australia, etc.). The Westminster standards were produced in fulfillment of the Solemn League and Covenant, an international covenant with God and some of the most powerful nations on earth at the time of its publication. This Solemn League and Covenant and the Westminster Standards were produced to provide the blueprint for all levels of society to come into obedience to the Word of God in its fullness." - Cited from the "Further Study" section of Greg Barrow's The Covenanted Reformation Defended at http://www.swrb.com/newslett/actualNLs/misrep1.htm.

"The product of Puritan conflict, a perfection of statement never elsewhere achieved." - W.G.T. Shedd.

"These are worth an hundred victories on the battle field. We do not fear to say of them that they are the finest transfusion into uninspired language of the sublime, awful, blessed truths of the Word of God which the Church has as yet been honored to make... Never can the Covenanters be robbed of the immortal honor of having, while at the summit of their power, published this great principle to the world." - J.A. Wylie.

"As truly as in the cases of the Nicene and Chalcedonian formularies, the Westminster Standards mark an epoch in the history of human reflection on the truths of the gospel — an epoch in the attainment and registry of doctrinal truth; and as truly in the one case as in the other the statements they give of the truths that fall in their sphere are scientifically final. All attempts at restatement must either repeat their definitions or fall away from the purity of their conceptions or the justness of their language." - Benjamin B. Warfield, "The Significance of the Westminster Standards as a Creed," 1897.

Concerning the Westminster Shorter Catechism, A.F. Mitchell, in his Westminster Assembly: Its History and Standards, notes, "...it is a thoroughly Calvinistic and Puritan catechism, the ripest fruit of the Assembly's thought and experience, maturing and finally fixing the definitions of theological terms to which Puritanism for half a century had been leading up and gradually coming closer and closer to in its legion of catechisms" (p. 431). Richard Baxter said of the Westminster Shorter Catechism, "It is the best Catechism I ever saw — a most excellent sum of the Christian faith and doctrine, and a fit test to try the orthodoxy of its teachers."

Dr. Joel R. Beeke Reviews and Recommends
the Puritan Hard Drive

DR. JOEL R. BEEKE

Dr. Joel R. Beeke, Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary

The Puritan Hard Drive is a massive collection of primary Puritan resources, dozens of which are very hard to find anywhere else in the world.

Any lover of Puritan literature, which, more than any other body of literature ever written, powerfully expands our minds, convicts our consciences, allures our hearts, and moves our hands, will find a treasure trove here.

- Dr. Joel R. Beeke, President and Professor of Systematic Theology and Homiletics at Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary https://puritanseminary.org/, Author of many important Reformed books (including the must read, Meet the Puritans: With A Guide to Modern Reprints, https://www.heritagebooks.org/products/Meet-the-Puritans.html), Editorial Director at Reformation Heritage Books, Editor of the Banner of Sovereign Grace Truth magazine and Pastor of Heritage Netherlands Reformed Congregation in Grand Rapids, Michigan, USA.