Reformed Confessions Harmonized with an Annotated Bibliography of Reformed Doctrinal Works

Reformed Confessions Harmonized, with an Annotated Bibliography of Reformed Doctrinal Works. Edited by Joel R. Beeke and Sinclair B. Ferguson. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1999, 271 pp., $19.99 paper.

Many years ago in a course on the Westminster Standards taught by Dr. Morton H. Smith, I worked with the long, awkward pages of his cut and paste, spiral bound, homemade harmony of the Westminster Confession and Catechisms with the Three Forms of Unity. It was very helpful to see these Reformed doctrinal and didactic compositions laid side-by-side as we studied the various loci. I wished then (though thankful indeed for Dr. Smith's excellent idea), that someone had thought to do such a harmony in a more attractive, uniform, durable, and convenient format. Well, my wish (and more) has now been granted in the work of Joel Beeke and Sinclair Ferguson. Beeke is a prolific writer and editor, and Ferguson is a widely known and appreciated author in evangelical circles.

This book contains the Three Forms of Unity-that is, the Belgic Confession of Faith (1561), the Heidelberg Catechism (1563), and the Canons of Dort (1618-1619)-the Second Helvetic Confession (1566), the Westminster Confession of Faith (1646-1647), and Shorter and Larger Catechisms (1647), laid out in chronological order across two facing pages, from left to right. There is also a brief and helpful historical introduction to these confessions as well as a rather extensive and carefully selected annotated bibliography that follows the topical organization of the Belgic Confession.

The editors have chosen these seven confessional or catechetical documents because they represent the fruit of the various branches of the European Reformation tradition (Swiss, British, and Dutch-German) and are widely known, used, and adhered to in the sundry Reformed denominations today. For any student or teacher of dogmatics, symbolics, or historical theology, this work will prove a useful tool.

Ferguson's introductions to the respective documents are pithy and help immunize the unwary beginner against certain myths that are still, unfortunately, afoot today in the study of historical theology. For instance, he points out that the Belgic Confession's "objective" doctrinal arrangement does not undercut its warm, experiential tone. He resists the temptation, to which many succumb, to pit the Heidelberg Catechism against its British Calvinistic counterparts-while rightly stressing its subjective, mild and irenic quality. He properly identifies the Canons of Dort as "Calvinism's five answers to the five errors of Arminianism" (as opposed to a comprehensive presentation of Calvinism) and makes no attempt to distance Calvin's theology from Dort's doctrinal emphases, rather saying that "they lie at the heart of the Reformed faith." To hear some say it, the Reformed tradition has always believed in "the real presence," but Ferguson correctly notes the Second Helvetic Confession's accent on the spiritual, not carnal, reception of Christ in the Christian's participation in the Supper. He defends the Westminster Confession from the multitudinous and overwrought accusations of cold scholasticism while acknowledging the Confession as a high point in the development of federal (or covenant) theology and commending it as an "outstanding expression of classical Reformed theology." He compliments the Shorter and Larger Catechisms (a bane to some) and duly notices their grasp and incorporation of the doctrine of union with Christ even in their accentuation of the demand for Christian obedience.

Indeed, as one reads through these historic confessional statements side-by-side, one is pushed by the primary sources themselves to embrace the Muller thesis of the development of Reformed theology. That is, the substantial unity and continuity of Reformed theology from Calvin to Westminster, from the sixteenth-century Reformation to the seventeenth-century Protestant Scholastics, is confirmed. In a day and time in which many of our theological graduate students are painfully unfamiliar with the repository of historical and creedal theology, this volume is a welcome aid in providing light from old times.

J. Ligon Duncan III

First Presbyterian Church

Reformed Theological Seminary, Jackson, MS

Copyright Evangelical Theological Society Jun 2000
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