Historic Reformed Position on Preservation

[ThomasCartwright]

I am attaching this file after receiving a number of private requests for some of my articles and papers on this subject. I appreciate some of Rev. Lane Keister’s plea for tolerance on this subject as I agree that it should not be the test of salvation. However, it is not correct that important doctrine is not at stake in the ongoing KJV/TR/MT debate. My contention is that the CT position has no Biblical foundation, no historical acceptance by the Church, and is outside the bounds of the historic Reformed Confessions. I believe I have a right to be concerned and dismayed when Reformed adherents are positing a position on the identification of the Words of the Canon that has no Biblical presuppositional support, is not found in history, and cannot be found in our Creeds. If I am wrong in this, then please adduce evidence to the contrary.

We must all reserve the right to define our lines of separation within the grounds of doctrine and not be carried along on the winds of Western religious pluralism. I appreciate much of what Rev. Lane Keister writes on a Biblical presuppositional position on inerrancy, inspiration, canonicity, creation but when he adopts a contradictory paradigm of epistemology for the text of the Canon based on neutral scientific rationalistic principles then I am entitled to point out this inconsistency.

I have divided this paper into three main sections:

(1) Reformers and Preservation
(2) BB Warfield’s Overturning of the Historic Position on Preservation
(3) Preservation Views Today

It is lengthy but I think all will accept that I have sourced it in a comprehensive manner, without necessarily accepting the conclusions that I draw. I have prepared another paper on the transmission of the text and presuppositions that I may submit at another time. I make no apology for stating I am a Fundamentalist Bible Presbyterian who is committed to the WCF and the perfect preservation in the original languages of all of God’s Words today and in all generations. Please note that I am not “KJVO” if that implies I am an English language preservationist as I have no Biblical presuppositions to drive me to that conclusion.

 

[Prufrock]

Whether one agrees with this position or not, I'm sure all will thank you for providing this paper and for all the work that went into it; the numerous citations alone make it well worth the read, whether one uses the CT, the TR, the MT or whatever they will.

Also, I deeply appreciate the gracious, patient, courteous and learned manner in which many have been willing to discuss these issues from either "side," and to explain them to others; and especially for Rev. Keister's reminder that as these things are discussed here, they are done so publicly and openly before the "internet world;" and as such, we must be sure to never give the mistaken impression that we are divided over these things, but warmly and happily receive one another in the Lord Jesus, whatever disagreements about this may arise.

 

[JM]

I'll check it out, thanks.

 

[SolaGratia]

I love this (p. 84):

By eliminating God’s work of preservation, they have left the church disarmed, vulnerable and in total confusion. They are like those of old of whom God says in the last verse of the book of Judges “In those days there was no king in Israel: every man did that which was right in his own eyes” (Judg 21:25). The Lord promised He would simply “do wonders” to preserve his word (Josh 3:5) in taking the ark through the Jordan. He left no physical evidence that this miracle happened in the waters of the Jordan, yet Christ and the Apostles clearly had those Words in there day. In a similar manner, God does not necessarily leave tangible evidence of His providential preservation, yet we have all of the Words of God today.

 

[Ask Mr. Religion]

Thanks for this paper! It is proving to be a thought-provoking read.

AMR

 

[JM]

A few gems:

Quote, "...the logical conclusions of guilty man on spiritual matters will always be in error they need to explain what makes a modernist an expert on something that does not exist? The truth is that every believer using Biblical theological or philosophical presuppositions is led to some conclusion as to the content of the original autographs."

"The Reformers looked to ecclesiastical consensus in textual issues in the same manner they had in Canonical, Trinitarian and Christological issues."

"The Reformed arguments always proceeded from the theological principle to the empirical proofs; which has today been overthrown by textual criticism. Protestant theologians asserted in their confessions that the autographs and the apographs in the original languages were both inspired and preserved by God. "

"The Reformers asserted as a counterpoint to the Vulgate that the Received Text was the “authentic” text, with the locus of Biblical authority being the apographs not the Church. This was not from neutral science of textual criticism but in their pre-suppositional faith in the promises that God had preserved His Words for them. "

"Brook records that,

Mr. Cartwright defended the holy Scriptures against the accusation of corruption, and maintained that the Old and New Testaments written in the original languages were preserved uncorrupted. They constituted the word of God, whose works are all perfect, then must his word continue unimpaired; and, since it was written for our instruction, admonition, and consolation, he concluded that, unless God was deceived and disappointed in his purpose, it must perform these friendly offices for the church of God to the end of the world. If the authority of the authentic copies in Hebrew, Chaldee, and Greek were lost, or given up, or corrupted, or the sense changed, there would be no high court of appeal to put an end to disputes; so that the exhortation to have recourse to the law, the prophets, and the New Testament would be of very little effect. In this case our state would be worse than theirs under the law, and in the time of Christ; yea than those who lived some hundred years after Christ, when the ancient fathers exhorted the people to try all controversies by the Scriptures. Their own Gratian directs us, in deciding differences, not to the old translation, but to the originals of the Hebrew in the Old Testament, and of the Greek in the New"​

"The Confessional understanding of the doctrine of Holy Scripture was a dyke to keep out the deadly waters of disbelief in God’s word. Like the early Reformers, the Divines looked first at the history of manuscript transmission to see what God had done, rather than the manuscripts to see what man had to do. The Westminster Divines never argued for the preservation of a copy, but the preservation of the Words, because that is what the Bible teaches. "

"Dr William Orr in his commentary on the Confession makes clear, “Now this affirms that the Hebrew text of the Old Testament and the Greek of the New which was known to the Westminster divines was immediately inspired by God because it was identical with the first text that God has kept pure in all the ages. The idea that there are mistakes in the Hebrew Masoretic texts or in the Textus Receptus of the New Testament was unknown to the authors of the Confession of Faith."