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Handbook for Bible Students

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    “W” Entries

    Westminster Confession.—Section IV. “The authority of the Holy Scripture, for which it ought to be believed and obeyed, dependeth not upon the testimony of any man or church, but wholly upon God (who is truth itself), the Author thereof; and therefore it is to be received, because it is the word of God.”HBS 485.2

    Sec. V. “We may be moved and induced by the testimony of the church to a high and reverent esteem of the Holy Scripture; and the heavenliness of the matter, the efficacy of the doctrine, the majesty of the style, the consent of all the parts, the scope of the whole (which is to give all glory to God), the full discovery it makes of the only way of man’s salvation, the many other incomparable excellencies, and the entire perfection thereof, are arguments whereby it doth abundantly evidence itself to be the word of God; yet, notwithstanding, our full persuasion and assurance of the infallible truth, and divine authority thereof, is from the inward work of the Holy Spirit, bearing witness by and with the word in our hearts.”-The Westminster Confession, chap. 1, secs. 4, 5; quoted inA History of Creeds and Confessions of Faith,” William A. Curtis, B. D., D. Litt., p. 269. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1912.HBS 485.3

    Westminster Confession, Doctrine of.—The Westminster Confession, then, does for the whole system of Calvinistic doctrine what the Canons of Dort did for one doctrine: it marks the maturest and most deliberate formulation of the scheme of Biblical revelation as it appeared to the most cultured and the most devout Puritan minds. It was the last great creed utterance of Calvinism, and intellectually and theologically it is a worthy child of the Institutes, a stately and noble standard for Bible-loving men. While influenced necessarily by Continental learning and controversy, it is essentially British, as well by heredity as by environment; for not only is it based upon the Thirty-nine Articles, modified and supplemented in a definitely Calvinistic sense at Lambeth and at Dublin, but it literally incorporates Ussher’s Irish Articles, accepting their order and titles, and using, often without a word of change, whole sentences and paragraphs. To the reader of both documents the debt is patent on the surface, and the obligation goes down to the very heart of the thought. Ussher could not have secured more of his own way had he deserted the king and taken his seat in the Jerusalem Chamber. Only Laudian Anglicans could seriously have dissented from the doctrine laid down. Born on the Thames, in the capital of the southern kingdom, the Confession, itself a painful reminder to the revelers of the Restoration of the sternness of the Long Parliament, soon was discarded by the national church for which it was primarily prepared; it found a home and instant welcome in Scotland, to pass out thence into all the world with the strenuous and hardy emigrants who planted their faith wherever they sought to make their way in life. It still remains, in spite of changing times and altered formul a of adherence, the honored symbol of a great group of powerful churches throughout the British Empire and the great American Republic, embracing within their membership a large proportion of the foremost representatives of the world’s highest material, social, educational, moral, and religious interests. The English-speaking Presbyterian Churches throughout the world without exception adhere either to it or to some comparatively slight modification of it; while its hold, direct or indirect, upon Congregationalists and Baptists and others is a further tribute to its power both of education and of revival.—“A History of Creeds and Confessions of Faith,” William A. Curtis, B. D., D. Litt., pp. 275, 276. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1912.HBS 485.4

    Wycliffe, “The Morning Star of the Reformation.”—In England the oppressions of the papal see were felt with double force since it became openly dependent upon the hostile power of France. Government and Parliament, impelled and supported by the general voice of the nation, resisted them with resolution and success. But in consequence of this, the eyes of many were opened to other ecclesiastical corruptions, and chiefly the agency of the mendicants, the Pope’s most zealous officers, was visited with censure from all sides.HBS 486.1

    In John Wycliffe, a fellow of Merton College, Oxford, distinguished for keen-sightedness and learning, this general opinion was firmly based upon his love for his fatherland, and his zeal for true Christianity. He was the first to come forward as a bold champion in the quarrels of the university with the Begging Friars, a. d. 1360. He denounced without disguise the corruptions of these orders. When Edward III in 1366, with the help of his Parliament, delivered himself from the shameful tax paid to the Pope, Wycliffe boldly defended this step likewise. As he addressed himself in numerous works in his native language to the whole nation, he met with great sympathy among all classes, except the monks; this was further strengthened by the fact that Geoffrey Chaucer (1400), the father of English poetry, joined in the assault upon the mendicants. Wycliffe became professor of divinity at Oxford in 1372, and in 1375 rector of Lutterworth. And when the government endeavored more seriously than ever to withdraw the Church of England from under the Pope’s arbitrary power, Wycliffe was one of the ambassadors who negotiated a convention for this purpose with the papal delegates at Bruges in 1374. Under these circumstances he had opportunities enough to recognize the corruption of the Papacy, as well as the shameful working of monasticism. When he declared his convictions with candor, he was accused by the Pope in 1376 of nineteen errors in doctrine. Gregory XI instituted an inquiry upon him. All danger on this account, however, was warded off from him by the favor of the secular nobles, especially the Duke of Lancaster, who held the regency after Edward’s death (1377).HBS 486.2

    From the great Papal Schism (1378) Wycliffe derived a fresh call, as well as greater freedom, to search out the crimes of the church and propose amendment. He summoned the secular powers to avail themselves of this favorable time for the reformation of the church, and sent out his disciples through the country (poor priests called Lollards by their adversaries), to oppose a genuine apostolical agency to the pretense of the Begging Friars, and to preach against the anti-Christian hierarchy and the abuses in the church. Hitherto he had attacked only the ecclesiastical constitution and discipline; now he advanced with bolder steps. In 1380 he began to translate the Bible into English, and as this undertaking was forthwith assailed as heretical, he maintained the people’s right to Holy Writ. When he began in the year 1381 to impugn even the doctrine of transubstantiation, many who were his partisans up to this point were alarmed, but Wycliffe had already so many adherents among the learned, especially in Oxford, that he could not be quite put down. William Courtney distinguished his promotion to the archiepiscopal see of Canterbury by condemning a string of Wycliffite opinions as heretical, at a council in London (May and June, 1382). When the hierarchy contrived to make it generally believed that the peasants’ rising in 1381 was occasioned by Wycliffe’s doctrines, the king seemed for some time to be induced thereby to give effect to the ecclesiastical degrees. Wycliffe was obliged to leave Oxford, and withdraw to his cure at Lutterworth. However, here he could proceed without opposition in his zeal against church abuses. Not long before his death (1384) he wrote the Trialogus, in which he drew up the knowledge he had attained with regard to the church and theology, as his theological bequest.—“A Compendium of Ecclesiastical History,” Dr. John C. L. Gieseler, Vol. IV, pp. 242-250. Edinburgh: T. & T. Cark, 1853.HBS 487.1

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