Creeds and Confessions

I've been reading a good bit about the historical confessions of the Reformed church. The one most familiar to me has been the Westminster Confession. Three other historic Reformed confessions known as the "Three Forms of Unity" are the Heidelberg Catechism, the Belgic Confession, and the Canons of Dort. Reformed Baptists also have a historic confession, the 1689 Baptist Confession of Faith, also called the Second London Confession.

The serious use of and adherence to such confessions has fallen out of favor, both among Reformed and Baptist churches. I think this is a problem! Without common beliefs about such weighty doctrines as the inability of man and the sovereignty of God in predestination and election, how can a local church maintain and enjoy the fellowship with one another God means us to maintain and enjoy?

Churches who don't use and adhere to these historic reformed Confessions will have members who disagree on all kinds of doctrinal issues. People who join the church will not have a clear idea on where the church stands on various important doctrines. Lack of commitment to a reformed confession seems to me to be a recipe for disunity. 

Here's an article by Carl Trueman about the importance of creeds and confessions and why we need to return to them. He has also written a book about the subject which can be purchased here.

The 1689 Baptist Confession of Faith can be found here.

Truth Was From The Beginning

I voraciously read a lot of books on doctrine and theology in the first years of a 'personal' reformation. God was good to show me how to better know Him from His word, and those books helped clear up a lot of wrong notions. Nothing wrong with good, sound theological books.

But I see arguments about doctrinal things (mostly on the Internet) in which the arguments are being based on what this or that author has said, rather than on the Scripture. Some who are advocating for their views refuse to go back to Scripture for honest, heartfelt searching.

So, came across this quote from Matthew Henry this morning. It's in reference to Matthew 19, where the Pharisees were questioning Jesus on divorce. They had the same problem as do modern advocates for their pet position. Because of their hard hearts, the Pharisees didn't really want to hear what God has said about it.

"Corruptions that are crept into any ordinance of God must be purged out by having recourse to the primitive institution. If the copy be vicious, it must be examined and corrected by the original. Thus, when St. Paul would redress the grievances in the church of Corinth about the Lord's supper, he appealed to the appointment (1 Corinthians 11:23): 'So and so I received from the Lord'.

"Truth was from the beginning; we must therefore enquire for the good old way (Jeremiah 6:16), and must reform-- not by later patterns, but by ancient rules."