The Westminster Confession of Faith

The Westminster Confession of Faith

Padded softcover edition

Agreed upon by the Assembly of Divines at Westminster, with the assistance of commissioners from The Church of Scotland, as part of the Covenanted Uniformity in religion betwixt the churches of Christ in the Kingdoms of Scotland, England, and Ireland.

This edition contains the Westminster Confession of Faith as approved by the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland 1647. It also includes Chapters 20, 23, 31, as altered, amended, and adopted as the Doctrinal Part of the Constitution of the Presbyterian Church in American, 1788. Additional footnotes have been inserted at Chapters 22.111, 24.IV, and 25.VI, to indicate other places where the Confession has been altered in the editions adopted by the OPC and the PCA.

About the Authors

“This edition of the Confession of Faith is what our forefathers would have called a Vade Mecum — literally a “Go with me”—a book small enough to take anywhere, but substantial enough to be useful everywhere.’ — Sinclair B. Ferguson, Associate Minister, St. Peter’s Free Church of Dundee, Scotland

The Importance and Relevance of the Westminster Confession of Faith

The amount of work and time expended on the Confession of Faith will stagger us in these days of haste and alleged activism. But the influence exerted all over the world by the Confession can only be understood in the light of the diligent care and prayerful devotion exercised in its composition.

The Westminster Confession is the last of the great Reformation creeds. We should expect, therefore, that it would exhibit distinctive features. The Westminster Assembly had the advantage of more than a century of Protestant creedal formulation. Reformed theology had by the 1640’s attained to a maturity that could not be expected a hundred or even seventy-five years earlier. Controversies had developed in the interval between the death of Calvin, for example, and the Westminster Assembly, that compelled theologians to give to Reformed doctrine fuller and more precise definition.

In many circles today there is the tendency to depreciate, if not deplore, the finesse of theological definition which the Confession exemplifies. This is and attitude to be depreciated. A growing faith grounded in the perfection and finality of Scripture requires increasing particularity and cannot consist with the generalities that make room for error. No creed of the Christian Church is comparable to that of Westminster in respect of the skill with which the fruits of fifteen centuries of Christian thought have been preserved, and at the same time examined anew and clarified in the light of that fuller understanding of God’s Word which the Holy Spirit has imparted.  — quoted from The Collected Writings of John Murray, Vol 1: The Claims of Truth, (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1976), pp 316-322.