The Westminster
Assembly
and the Inspiration
and Preservation of the Word of God
By Doug Kutilek
[Reprinted from “As I See It,” 6:9]
“The Old Testament in Hebrew (which was the native
language of the people of God of old), and the New Testament in Greek (which at
the time of the writing of it was most generally known to the nations), being
immediately inspired by God, and by his singular care and providence kept pure
in all ages, are therefore authentical; so as in all controversies of religion
the Church is finally to appeal unto them.
But because these original tongues are not known to all the people of
God who have right unto, and interest in the Scriptures, and are commanded, in
the fear of God, to read and search them, therefore they are to be translated
into the vulgar language of every nation unto which they come, that the Word of
God dwelling plentifully in all, they may worship him in an acceptable manner,
and through patience and comfort of the Scriptures may have hope.”
So reads chapter I, paragraph 8 of the famous Westminster
Confession of Faith (1646). One
particular phrase of this paragraph has been introduced into the present
English Bible translation controversy, namely, “by his singular care and
providence kept pure in all ages.”
This clause has been presented as proof positive by some in the KJV Only
camp that the great Westminster assembly of puritan divines held to the
self-same doctrine of infallible preservation of Scripture as that which is a
hallmark of the modern KJV Only movement.
Before addressing and exposing the error of this claim, we must first
gain some background understanding of just who these divines were and why their
confession is considered of great importance.
In the turbulent decade of the 1640s, an assemblage of
learned pastors, theologians, scholars and laymen, dominated by the Puritan
party, was gathered in London for the express purpose of reforming the Church
of England. This assemblage, known today
as the Westminster Assembly of Divines, sat from 1643-1649, and produced
several important theological documents including the famous Longer and Shorter
Catechisms, but their most famous production was the Westminster Confession of
Faith (WCF). In 33 chapters, they
detailed their doctrinal beliefs on the spectrum of Christian doctrines. Their completed confession became normative
for Presbyterian bodies for centuries and continues as such for many
Presbyterians today, being treated as virtually just below the Bible in
authority for doctrine (for the complete text of The Westminster Confession
of Faith, in both English and Latin, see Philip Schaff, ed., The Creeds
of Christendom. Grand Rapids: Baker,
1983 reprint of Harper and Row, 1931, 6th revised ed., revised by
David S. Schaff. Vol. III, “The
Evangelical Protestant Creeds,” pp. 598-673.
I. 8 is found on pp. 604-5)
Baptists view confessions of faith as convenient summaries
of doctrinal views, boundaries delineating orthodox theology, but do not
ascribe to them any authority beyond or above that of any other human
writings. Even so, several Baptist
groups have adopted confessions of faith based in large measure on the WCF,
with only such alterations (chiefly in matters of ecclesiology) wherein
Baptists differ from Presbyterians. One
such Baptist confession is the Second London Confession of 1677. For the most part it agrees verbatim with the
WCF, and does so precisely in section I. 8
(see W. L. Lumpkin, Baptist Confessions of Faith. Valley Forge, Pa.: Judson Press, 1969. Revised edition. Page 251).
The statement in I. 8 concerning the inspiration, preservation
and authority of the Scripture, coming from the highly respected puritans, and
acquiesced in by mainstream Baptists is brought forth as evidence that the
“perfect preservation” doctrine espoused by modern KJV Only partisans is no
recent innovation but is a long-held view of doctrinally sound Christian
theologians. A careful examination of
the facts will prove that this understanding of the WCF is erroneous in every
detail, and that the WCF dissents from the KJV Only movement at every step.
First of all, note that inspiration and authority is
ascribed to the original manuscripts alone: “The Old Testament in Hebrew . .
. and the New Testament in Greek . . . being immediately inspired by God . . .
are therefore authentical; so as in all controversies of religion the Church is
finally to appeal unto them.” The
absurd notion of having “the final authority in one’s hand” in the form of an
English translation of the Bible, namely, the KJV, is discredited (see my
article “Having ‘The Final Authority’ in One’s Hand,” AISI 3:12). No, any and every English version without
exception is dependent on, subordinate to, inferior to and subject to
correction by the original texts of the Scripture in Hebrew and Greek. Nor is any translation singled out as the
standard by which all other translations are to be judged; such a position
would usurp the unique and sole authority of the original language
Scriptures. In an age in which the Roman
Catholic Church was making extravagant claims for the Latin Vulgate translation
of the Bible--claiming it was infallible, perfectly preserved, superior to the
extant Greek and Hebrew texts and the ultimate standard for all truth, in
brief, virtually every claim made by the KJV Only movement for the KJV--the
Westminster assembly explicitly or implicitly rejects every one of these
claims.
Such is the logical deduction from this clause of the
WCF. Or, as John Gill (1697-1771) well
said: “To the Bible, in its original languages, is every translation to be
brought, and judged, and to be corrected and amended; and if this was not the
case, we should have no certain and infallible rule to go by,” (A Complete
Body of Doctrinal and Practical Divinity: Or, a System of Evangelical Truths,
[London: Mathews & Leigh, 1839; Sovereign Grace reprint,1971; The Baptist
Standard Bearer reprint, 1984 ], p. 13).
According to the Westminster divines, we do have an infallible
rule to go by--the Bible in the original languages, not in any translation in
any language.
Second, “because these original tongues are not known to
all . . ., therefore they are to be translated into the vulgar language of
every nation unto which they come, . . .”
No one language, whether English or any other, is singled out as the
channel through which one superior translation is to be produced and preserved,
to become a new standard by which all translations are to be judged and emended
(the Roman Catholics were making just exactly this claim for the Latin Vulgate
version). The preposterous modern notion
that translations in Spanish, Japanese, Romanian, French and other languages
are to be judged by and conformed to the KJV as a standard is wholly alien to
what the Westminster divines professed.
Rather, every language is to have its own version, and the
translation is to be made out of “the original tongues,” most assuredly not
out of the KJV English.
Furthermore, by stating that the Bible should “be
translated into the vulgar language of every nation,” it may be reasonably
concluded that they would favor in principle the making and use of modern
language English Bible translations. We
do not today speak early 17th century British English; our language
is early 21st century American English, and as such, on the
principle voiced by the WCF, we have a right to modern American English translations,
rather than being constricted to the use of a version in archaic British
English.
Third, the providential preservation of Scripture which the
WCF affirms is a preservation in the original languages, not in any
translation: “The Old Testament in Hebrew . . . and the New Testament
in Greek . . . being immediately inspired by God, and by his singular care and
providence kept pure in all ages, . . . “ The WCF hereby dissents
from the claim that “the King James Version of the Bible is God's Word preserved
for the English-speaking people," as the KJV Only movement generally
affirms. God’s providential preservation
is to be seen in the accuracy and quality of original language Bible
manuscripts, not in translations. To
look for providential preservation in translations is to de facto
discredit the original language texts, and by implication to charge God with
failure to preserve the Scriptures in the languages in which they were
originally inspired. And most
definitely, there is NO affirmation in the WCF that the KJV is the object of
extraordinary Divine attention and care beyond that of other translations.
Finally, what shall we make of the WCF statement: “by his
singular care and providence kept pure in all ages”? Do we here at least have one claim of the KJV
Only advocates affirmed? To determine
that, we must first discover what it is that KJV Only advocates claim with
regard to God’s preservation of Scripture.
A recently published book from the KJV Only side is
advertised as “A Biblical theology of the perfect preservation of Scripture,”
by which they mean “the verbal, plenary preservation” of the Bible’s inspired
text. “Preservation” is there alleged to
be as extensive and intensive as the original inspiration, that is,
preservation must extend to every single word and letter of the Bible, as did
its original inspiration. No allowance
is made for the least scribal error, variation or alteration (nor indeed for
printer’s errors, nor errors of translation).
It is further alleged in this advertisement that this perfectly
preserved Scripture must be always and ever available to every generation of
believers from the day the various parts of the Bible were originally penned.
No one in the least familiar with the history of the
transmission of the Bible text in manuscript form and in print, to say nothing
of translations, would affirm what is entirely discredited by every single
Hebrew and Greek manuscript and printed edition in existence. No two manuscripts exactly correspond in
every letter and word. Every Masoretic
Hebrew manuscript has hundreds of marginal notes of scribal errors and
variants, besides its inherent differences from other manuscripts. No two NT Greek manuscripts are identical,
and not a single one corresponds precisely to any edition of the textus
receptus or to any edition of the KJV; nor do any two textus receptus
editions agree in every detail and word.
Nor do any two KJV editions agree in all details, without
variation. And there is certainly no
trail of preserved identical manuscripts from the prophets and apostles to the
present day. Any such trail is purely
the fabrication of someone’s imagination, completely devoid of basis in
evidence and fact. Rather, the
preservation of Scripture is of a different sort, a fact long recognized by a
broad spectrum of Christian scholars (see “The Preservation of Scripture,"
with quotes from Dean J. W. Burgon, F. H. A. Scrivener and J. L. Dagg, AISI 2:3; “T. H. Horne’s Expert Opinion on the Preservation
of Scripture,” AISI 4:2; “The Providential Preservation of Scripture:
the Views of [Sir Richard] Bentley, [Robert Lewis] Dabney, and [Sir Frederick]
Kenyon,” AISI, 4:7).
The Westminster divines were not ignorant of the reality of
manuscript variants in all exiting Hebrew and Greek manuscripts. It was a fact known to every close student of
the Greek NT that no two of the printed Greek texts were identical, just as
there were known to be variations between all manuscripts. As early as 1550, Robert Etienne in the 3rd
edition of his Greek NT, the text that became the standard textus receptus
edition in England, published in the margin hundreds of variant readings he had
found in printed texts and manuscripts; such variants were increasingly
catalogued by later scholars, a process that continues even to this day. So also, the Westminster divines would have
known full well the manuscript variants which the KJV itself reports in its
margin (see the original 1611 edition at Ezra 10:40; Matthew 1:11; 26:26; Luke
10:22; 17:36; Acts 25:6; Ephesians 6:9; James 2:18; etc.). In the face of such evidence, these learned
and rational men would not have affirmed the infallible, perfect preservation
of Scripture in the copying process, a thing neither to be expected, nor by God
promised (It is notable that the darling of the KJV Only movement Dean Burgon
himself declared in his book The Revision Revised, “That by a perpetual
miracle, Sacred Manuscripts would be protected all down the ages against
depraving influences of whatever sort,--was not to have been expected;
certainly, was never promised." [p. 335]).
That our understanding of the WCF at this point is sound,
and the “spin” put on it by certain KJV Only zealots is erroneous, consider the
following remarks, quoted at some length, by B. B. Warfield (1851-1921), one of
the most diligent and careful students of the Westminster assembly and its
works (for a listing of some of Warfield’s very numerous published writings on
the subject of the Westminster assembly and its works, see the bibliography at
the end of this article).
“The providence of God in preserving so good a text in
constant use; in preserving material for its improvement; in raising up men of
scholarly minds and critical powers to give themselves to the task of reforming
the text; it is in these and such things that God’s hand is seen by his
singular care and providence keeping his Word pure in all ages for the use of
man.” (Benjamin B. Warfield: Selected
Shorter Writings, vol. 2, edited by John E. Meeter, p. 557)
“[T]he Confession affirms the providential preservation of
the inspired Scriptures in purity in the originals and the adequate purity of
the Word of God in translations.
The necessity of looking upon the original Scriptures only
as ‘authentical,’ that is, authoritative in the highest sense, and appealing to
them alone as final authorities ‘in all controversies of religion,’ is based by
the Confession on the fact that these original Scriptures, and they alone, are
the inspired Bible. The Confession
uses the strongest phrase of technical theological terminology to express their
divine origin: ‘Being immediately inspired by God.’ It thereby points to the originals as the
very Word of God, authoritative, as such, in every one of their deliverances of
whatever kind. The possibility of
appealing to the original Scriptures, as we now have them, as the Word of God,
is based on the further fact that they have been ‘by God’s singular care and
providence kept pure in all ages.’ The
Confession thus distinguishes between the autographic text of sacred Scripture,
which it affirms was ‘immediately inspired of God,’ and its subsequent
transmission in copies, over the course of which it affirms, not that an
inspiring activity of God, but a providential care of God has presided,
with the effect that they have been kept pure and retain full authority in
religious controversy. This distinction
cannot be overlooked or explained away; it is intentional, as is proved by the
controversies of the day in which the framers of the Confession were actively
engaged.
When it is affirmed that the transmission has been ‘kept
pure,’ there is, of course, no intention to assert that no errors have crept
into the original text during its transmission through so many ages by hand-copying
and the printing press; nor is there any intention to assert that the precise
text ‘immediately inspired by God,’ lies complete and entire, without the
slightest corruption, on the pages of any one extant copy. The difference between the infallibility or
errorlessness of immediate inspiration and the fallibility or liability to
error of men operating under God’s providential care alone, is intended to be
taken at its full value. But it is
intended to assert most strongly, first, that the autographs of Scripture, as
immediately inspired, were in the highest sense the very Word of God and
trustworthy in every detail; and, next, that God’s singular providential care
has preserved to the Church, through every vicissitude, these inspired and
infallible Scriptures, diffused, indeed, in the multitude of copies, but safe
and accessible. ‘What mistake is in one
copy is corrected in another,’ was the proverbial philosophy of the time in
this matter; and the assertion that the inspired text has ‘by God’s singular
care and providence been kept pure in all ages,’ is to be understood not as if
it affirmed that every copy has been kept pure from all error, but that
the genuine text has been kept safe in the multitude of copies, so as never to
be out of the reach of the Church of God, in the use of the ordinary
means. In the sense of the Westminster
Confession, therefore, the multiplication of copies of Scripture, the several
early efforts towards the revision of the text, the raising up of scholars in
our own day to collect and collate MSS., and to reform the text on scientific
principles--of our Tischendorfs and Tregelleses, and Westcotts and Horts--are
all parts of God’s singular care and providence in preserving His inspired Word
pure.
No doubt the authors of the Confession were far from being
critics of the nineteenth century: they did not foresee the course of criticism
nor anticipate the amount of labor which would be required for the
reconstruction of the text of, say, the New Testament. Men like [John] Lightfoot are found defending
the readings of the common text against men like Beza; as there were some of
them like Lightfoot, who were engaged in the most advanced work which up to
that time had been done on the Biblical text, Walton’s ‘Polyglott,’ so others
of them may have stood with John Owen, a few years later, in his strictures on
that great work; and had there lot been cast in our day it is possible that
many of them might have been of the school of Scrivener and Burgon, rather than
of Westcott and Hort. But whether they
were good critics or bad is not the point.
It admits of no denial that they explicitly recognized the fact that the
text of the Scriptures had suffered corruption in process of transmission, and
affirmed that the ‘pure’ text lies therefore not in one copy, but in all, and
is to be attained not by simply reading the text in whatever copy may chance to
fall into our hands, but by process of comparison, i.e., by criticism. The affirmation of the Confession includes
the two facts, therefore, first that the Scriptures in the originals were
immediately inspired by God; and secondly that this inspired text has not been
lost to the Church, but through God’s good providence has been kept pure,
amidst all the crowding errors of scribes and printers, and that therefore the
Church still has the inspired Word of God in the originals, and is to appeal to
it, and to it alone, as the final authority in all controversies of religion,
The defense of the right of the people to translations of
Scripture in their mother tongue is based by the Confession on the universality
of the Gospel and the inability of the people at large to read and search the
Scriptures in the original tongues. In
making good this right, the competence of translations to convey the Word of
God to the mind and heart is vigorously asserted; and as well the duty of all
to make diligent use of translated Scripture, to the nourishing of the
Christian life and hope. The sharp
distinction that is drawn between the inspired originals and the uninspired
translators is, therefore, not permitted to blind men to the possibility and
reality of the conveyance in translations, adequately for all the ordinary
purposes of the Christian life and hope, of that Word of God which lies in the
sense of Scripture, and not in the letter save as in a vessel for its safe
conduct. When exactness and precision
are needed, as in religious controversies, then the inspired originals only can
properly be appealed to. But just
because of the doctrine of the perspicuity of Scripture, as set forth in
section 7, and that of its perfection, as set forth in section 6, translations
suffice for all ordinary purposes, and enable those who truly seek for it to
obtain a thorough knowledge of what is ‘necessary to be known, believed, and
observed, for salvation.’ The use of
translations is, thus, vindicated by the Confessional doctrine of the
properties of Scripture.” (The Works of Benjamin B. Warfield, volume VI,
pp. 237-241. All italics in original).
“[T]he Confession asserts that final appeal in all
controversies is to be made to the original Hebrew and Greek Scriptures, which
are alone safeguarded in their accuracy by divine inspiration, and it asserts
that these originals have been, ‘by God’s singular care and providence, kept
pure in all ages.’ Nevertheless, it
vindicates the right of all to the possession and use of vernacular
versions. The Confession does not mean
here to deny that any corruptions have entered the text of Scripture in the
process of transmission, which require the care and study of men to
remove. It only means to affirm the
adequately exact preservation of Scripture in the original texts, and the
transference of the ‘Word of God’ into translations so far forth as to make it
available to their readers. This general
position is illustrated sufficiently by [William] Lyford [1598-1653; he was a
member of the Westminster assembly--ed.]: ‘I lay down these two conclusions:
First, that Divine Truth in English is as truly the Word of God as the same
Scriptures delivered in the Originall, Hebrew or Greek; yet with this
difference, that the same is perfectly, immediately, and most absolutely in the
Originall Hebrew and Greek, in other Translations, as the vessels wherein it is
presented to us, and as far forth as they do agree with the Originalls.’ “ (Benjamin
B. Warfield: Selected Shorter Writings, vol. 2, edited by John E. Meeter,
p. 569)
Beyond Warfield’s own comments, he produces in the
first-cited work numerous quotations from the published works of various Westminster
divines showing that his interpretation of the meaning of the WCF in section I.
8 is entirely in harmony with that of the original authors. The reader is urged to procure and examine
these quotes for himself.
One additional fact may be noted to reinforce the truth that
the WCF and its authors had no sympathy with the notion of an infallible and
inspired KJV, and indeed were decidedly at odds with this eccentricity. While the assembly was still sitting and the
writing of the WCF was still in progress, John Lightfoot (1602-1675), the most
learned Hebraist in the assembly, and for that matter in all of the British
Commonwealth and likely beyond, preached a sermon to the House of Commons on
August 27, 1645 in which he urged the making of a new English translation to
supercede and replace the KJV (see William Barker, Puritan Profiles, p.
61). Some attention was given to this
proposal and tentative measures were undertaken to carry it through a few years
later. A bill was introduced into
Parliament in 1653, proposing the appointment of a committee led by John Owens,
Ralph Cudworth and several other scholars, for the express purpose of revising
the KJV under the supervision of Thomas Goodwin, Anthony Tuckney and Joseph
Caryl. Unfortunately, the dissolution of
that Parliament led to the suspension of the project, though four years later,
the matter was referred to a committee directed to consult with several noted
scholars. Subsequent events,
particularly the Restoration of the pro-Catholic Stuarts to the throne of
England, left the design of revision unfulfilled (see Philip Schaff, A
Companion to the Greek Testament and Revised Version [New York: Harper and
Brothers, 1883], pp. 329, 330; William F. Moulton, The History of the
English Bible [London: Charles Kelly, 1911.
Fifth edition], pp. 212, 213).
This proposal for revision merits further study. I for one sincerely regret that this design
was not carried through to completion.
Let us hear the conclusion of the matter: the Westminster assembly
of divines, their views being plainly expressed in their famous Confession,
cannot legitimately be appealed to as providing aid and encouragement to those
who claim perfect preservation of Scripture in the copying or translating
processes, and who claim perfection for one translation (the KJV) in one
language (English). For KJV Only
advocates to claim the agreement of the WCF with their views is a gross
misrepresentation and distortion, not unlike their blatant abuse and
misinterpretation of such Scripture texts as Psalm 12:6, 7; Matthew 5:18; and
Matthew 24:35 to the same end.
---Doug Kutilek
[For Warfield’s extensive writings on the Westminster
Assembly, its confessions and its catechisms, see: The Works of Benjamin B.
Warfield (Oxford University Press, 1931), volume VI, “The Westminster
Assembly and Its Work,” 400 pp., which contains six separate and lengthy
studies, and gives reference to 11 other shorter studies not reproduced in that
volume. Also, Benjamin B. Warfield:
Selected Shorter Writings, vol. 2, edited by John E. Meeter (Presbyterian
& Reformed Publishing, 1973), pp. 560-594 has 4 additional relevant
articles.
For information on many of the more prominent Westminster
divines, see Puritan Profiles: 54 Influential Puritans at the time when the
Westminster Confession of Faith was written, by William S. Barker
(Christian Focus Publications, 1996); 320 pp.
Informative brief
articles on the “Westminster Assembly,” “Westminster Catechism,” “Westminster
Confession” and many of the Westminster divines can be consulted in The
Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, edited by Frank L. Cross; Cyclopedia
of Biblical, Theological, and Ecclesiastical Literature, edited by John
McClintock and James Strong; and The New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of
Religious Knowledge, edited by Samuel M. Jackson. These abound in bibliography for further
study].
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