Put up, or Shut up!

The apostle Paul wrote:

1 Tim 6:20-21

20 O Timothy, guard the deposit entrusted to you. Avoid the irreverent babble and contradictions of what is falsely called:knowledge," 21 for by professing it some have swerved from the faith.Grace be with you

And again:

2 Tim 1:13-14

13 Follow the pattern of the sound words that you have heard from me, in the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. 14 By the Holy Spirit who dwells within us, guard the good deposit entrusted to you.

I believe the Westminster Confession of Faith, is the most doctrinally sound confession or creed, historically and unlikely to be surpassed in the future. The whole purpose of it being written, (or one of the main ones) was the men who wrote it,  wanted to keep the people from error and to have an easily understandable worldview of Biblical doctrine. 

It refutes ever single heresy which preceeded its writing.

Its prepartion and writing of it was meticulous.

No one puts it on a par with Scripture. But if something is so Biblically sound, its hardly likely that something which is so faithful to God and His Word, would be not be used by God and have the power of God behind it even tho written by faillible men.

It seems in this Crazy Calvinist’s opinion, that arrogance and pride are usually at the heart of people who disagree with the WCF and find fault with it. In light of the time it took to both prepare and produce the WCF, and the Spiritual characters,  and the Scriptural understanding of the men involved, and sheer Godliness too, that all the elements above amount to Godly characters the calibre of which, is second to none in human terms. To either refute the confession, disagree, or bandy generalizations about the WCF being in error,  can only be rooted in pride and arrogance given the above.

If anyone can find any specific disagreements in doctrine with the WCF then I challenge you to find them and prove them from Scripture. Otherwise Hush! (Put up or Shut up!)

Myself I don’t understand it all. And that’s just the truth. But rather than bandy words about, it being not inerrant or infallible, would rather take the word of what it says, knowing the hearts of the men who wrote it,  and knowing I ain’t likely to die even having a quarter of their understanding. And until or unless I find Scriptural disagreement with it, I will hush too!! 

"See the reason why so many people are unsettled, ready to embrace every novel opinion, and dress themselves in as many religions as fashions; it is because they are ungrounded. See how the apostle joins these two together, ‘unlearned and unstable.’ 2 Pet 3: I6.  Such as are unlearned in the main points of divinity are unstable. As the body cannot be strong that has the sinews shrunk; so neither can that Christian be strong in religion who wants the grounds of knowledge, which are the sinews to strengthen and stablish him." [Thomas Watson-- A Body of Divinity]

"See what great necessity there is of laying down the main grounds of religion in a way of catechising, that the weakest judgement may be instructed in the knowledge of the truth, and strengthened in the love of it. Catechising is the best expedient for the grounding and settling of people.  I fear one reason why there has been no more good done by preaching, has been because the chief heads and articles in religion have not been explained in a catechistical way. Catechising is laying the foundation. Heb 6: 1: To preach and not to catechise is to build without foundation.  This way of catechising is not novel, it is apostolic. The primitive church had their forms of catechism, as those phrases imply, a ‘form of sound words,’ 2 Tim 1: I3, end ‘the first principles of the oracles of God,’ Heb 5: I2. The church had its catechumenoi, as Grotius and Erasmus observe.  Many of the ancient fathers have written for it, as Fulgentius, Austin, Theodoret, Lactantius, and others. God has given great success to it. By thus laying down the grounds of religion catechistically, Christians have been clearly instructed and wondrously built up in the Christian faith,  insomuch that Julian the apostate, seeing the great success of catechising, put down all schools and places of public literature, and instructing of youth." [Thomas Watson---A Body of Divinity]

The whole of Watson’s A Body of Divinity can be read here:

The Confession along with Scripture Proofs, can be read here:  WCF with Scripture Proofs  (exactly like it says on the packet, as they say on the commercials!)

(Its sure gone quiet around here, with all this hushing!)

The calibre of Godliness of some of the men who made up the Westminster Assembly:

Thomas Gataker during his final illness:

"I am now conflicting with my last adversary, though I believe the sting is taken out. Nature will struggle, but I humbly submit to the good pleasure of God, I hardly beg the pardon of my many sins, especially for the lack of hard work. Unfaithfulness in my public and private duties, hoping to be washed with Christ’s blood, and desiring to be translated out of this restless condition. I expect daily, yeah hourly, to be translated into that everlasting rest, which God has prepared for those who are in Christ, and So I pray that God would bless you and His entire ministry everywhere."

Another divine Quote

William Gouge: "When I look upon myself, I see nothing but emptiness and weakness. And when I look upon Christ I see nothing but fullness and sufficiency."

When in the illness that was to take him Home, he suffered a long, and grievously painful death and was afflicted with several physical maladies he was heard to say: "Soul be silent It is thy God and thy Father who orders thy condition. Thy are His clay and He may tread and trample on thee as He pleases Thou hast deserved much worse It is enough that thou art out of hell though thy pain be grievous yet it is tolerable. Thy God affords some intermissions. He will turn it, to thy good and at length put an end to all, none of which things can be expected in hell."

"Oh, that I may die like Simeon, with Jesus in my arms, saying, now lettest thou thy servant, depart in peace according to thy word For mine eyes have seen thy salvation." .

Another divine Quote

Alexander Henderson

"We know how ill you are. Why are you so cheerful?" A friend of Henderson’s asked him when he was dying.

"Well, I will tell you the reason. I’m near the end of my race, hastening home, and I am as glad of it as a schoolboy when sent home from the school to his father’s house.In a few days, I will sicken and die, In my sickness I will be much out of ease to speak of anything, but I desire that you maybe with me as much as you can and you shall see that all shall end well."

Prayer

Every Lord’s Day morning, Alex Henderson prayed this prayer, before reading the Scriptures.

"And therefore thou Lord who has power over our hearts and takes the Scepter of thy word and commands them as it pleases thee, we beseech thee O’Lord to see what is wrong in us, and make everything in us subject to thee, and command our hearts, speech words and action, so that none of them maybe dishonoring to thee and that we may not now sin against thee, but may enter in of the way of life. Lord to this end, let they word be spoken and accompanied by thy own Spirit that so we may know that it is not the word of man but the Word of the Living God, that so it may bring out fruits in us and may change our hearts within and then renew our lives without, that so our lives maybe honoring to thee exemplary to others and be in comfortable to ourselves in Jesus Christ."

Heb 11

These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. If they had been th"nking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city"

These men were all amongst the Westminster divines who were responsible for the Westminster Confession Of Faith. A Westminster Bibliography

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