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06-15-2008, 03:53 PM
|  | El Tirano | | Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: Indianapolis
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| | | Commentary on the WCF
Which of the numerous commentaries on the WCF is the best one at showing what the intention of the Assembly was? It needn't be the greatest at arguing for the confessional propositions Biblically or anything: just the one which most accurately explains what the Assembly meant by their statements. My instinct would be to pick David Dickson, but I would like to know what others think.
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06-15-2008, 04:01 PM
|  | Puritanboard Senior | | Join Date: Feb 2008 Location: Rockville, CT
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I am kind of partial to A. A. Hodge's The Westminster Confession: A Commentary
__________________ Sterling Harmon
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06-15-2008, 04:04 PM
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Originally Posted by py3ak  Which of the numerous commentaries on the WCF is the best one at showing what the intention of the Assembly was? It needn't be the greatest at arguing for the confessional propositions Biblically or anything: just the one which most accurately explains what the Assembly meant by their statements. My instinct would be to pick David Dickson, but I would like to know what others think. | Dickson for proximity in time (his lectures were given shortly after the confession was completed, before 1650 if I recall correctly).
Last edited by NaphtaliPress; 06-15-2008 at 04:04 PM.
Reason: punc.
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06-15-2008, 04:19 PM
| | El Tirano | | Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: Indianapolis
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That makes sense, Chris. Thanks!
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06-15-2008, 04:53 PM
|  | Puritanboard Librarian | | Join Date: Jun 2004 Location: Warrenton, VA, USA
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For the best commentary at reflecting the intention of the Assembly itself, you would want to pick one that comments on the 1646 WCF, and that rules out some of the modern commentaries. In this regard, I too would pick Dickson first; then Shaw second.
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06-15-2008, 04:57 PM
| | El Tirano | | Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: Indianapolis
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Very true, Andrew. Dickson seems like a winner, especially in the nice reprint done by Presbyterian Armoury.
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06-15-2008, 05:02 PM
| | Puritanboard Doctor | | Join Date: Jun 2007 Location: Saintfield, Co. Down, Northern Ireland
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Originally Posted by py3ak Very true, Andrew. Dickson seems like a winner, especially in the nice reprint done by Presbyterian Armoury. | Banner of Truth have reprinted it in hardcover format. The PA edition might be sold out or out of print at present.
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06-15-2008, 06:51 PM
| | El Tirano | | Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: Indianapolis
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Reformation Heritage Books has it!
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06-15-2008, 07:01 PM
| | Puritanboard Librarian | | Join Date: Jun 2004 Location: Warrenton, VA, USA
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The PA edition is very fine; so is the BoT edition. The latter has a poem I like which appears also in an 18th century facsimile edition that I have: Upon Truth's Victory Over Error
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Andrew Myers
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"Let your Morning Thoughts, and your last Evening Thoughts, be what shall become of you to all Eternity." -- Matthew Poole
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06-15-2008, 09:47 PM
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Robert Wodrow on David Dickson's Truth's Victory Over Error: Quote: |
The following book, as it were, breaks the truths of our Confession small, and prepares them for the meanest capacities. The learned author brings in the different errors under proper heads, and in a most plain and solid way refutes them from the Holy Scriptures. At once he discovers the design of the particular branches of our excellent Confession of Faith, he establishes the truth therein laid down, and guards against the gangrene and poison of contrary errors, with judgment and perspicuity, and in a manner far above any character I can give.
| FWIW, as an aside, John R. De Witt provides a nice foreword to the BoT edition. He rightly notes, following the lead of John MacLeod's Scottish Theology in Relation to Church History Since the Reformation, that Dickson's commentary on the Confession was not, in fact, the first published (I can't say which was prepared first). Dickson's was the first sympathetic commentary on the WCF. There was another published in 1651 that was antagonistic. However, also following MacLeod, De Witt misattributes its authorship to Henry Parker, when in fact it was written by William Parker.
Parker, William. The late Assembly of Divines Confession of faith examined. As it was presented by them unto the Parliament. Wherein many of their excesses and defects, of their confusions and disorders, of their errors and contradictions are presented, both to themselves and others. London, 1651.
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Andrew Myers
Husband of Jessica, Father of Jackson, Katie and Samuel
Member, Presbyterian Reformed Church of Northern Virginia
Warrenton, VA USA
Editor, The Matthew Poole Project
"Let your Morning Thoughts, and your last Evening Thoughts, be what shall become of you to all Eternity." -- Matthew Poole
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06-15-2008, 10:45 PM
| | El Tirano | | Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: Indianapolis
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I suppose Mr. William Parker's would find many a cheerful reader in our time. It would be interesting to see it for historical curiosity.
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