# Wcf i.vi & lbc i.vi compared



## msortwell (Feb 6, 2010)

I recently became aware of a difference between the 1689 Baptist Confession and the WCF. I would be interested in what anyone might be able to contribute regarding the reason for this difference. 

The difference involves the following.

LBC - I.VI: The whole counsel of God concerning all things necessary for his own glory, man's salvation, faith and life, is either expressly set down *or necessarily contained in *the Holy Scripture: unto which nothing at any time is to be added, whether by new revelation of the Spirit, or traditions of men.

WCF – I.VI: The whole counsel of God, concerning all things necessary for his own glory, man's salvation, faith, and life, is either expressly set down in Scripture, *or by good and necessary consequence may be deduced from* Scripture: unto which nothing at any time is to be added, whether by new revelations of the Spirit, or traditions of men.

It's not clear to me what difference would result were one to apply the LBC principle rather than that of the WCF. The difference would seem to be intentional.

Thanks in advance for any insights that you can provide.

Blessings,

Mike


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## Michael (Feb 6, 2010)

If you hold to paedobaptism [WCF] you do so because you have deduced by good and necessary consequence that such is the proper interpretation of entry into the New Covenant based upon the whole counsel of God and the continuous nature of his covenants. If you hold to credobaptism [LBCF] you do so because you are going with what's right in front of you, having each covenant established upon its own individual merits and therefore seeing a genuine personal profession of faith as the only available example of entry into the New Covenant necessarily contained in Scripture.


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## rbcbob (Feb 6, 2010)

Michael Turner said:


> If you hold to paedobaptism [WCF] you do so because you have deduced by good and necessary consequence that such is the proper interpretation of entry into the New Covenant based upon the whole counsel of God and the continuous nature of his covenants. If you hold to credobaptism [LBCF] you do so because you are going with what's right in front of you, having each covenant established upon its own individual merits and therefore seeing a genuine personal profession of faith as the only available example of entry into the New Covenant necessarily contained in Scripture.


 
Michael makes an excellent point. The WCF’s “or by good and necessary consequence may be deduced from Scripture” opens the door a bit wider than the LBC’s “or necessarily contained in the Holy Scripture” to the subjectivity of the theologian. The syllogism constructed by the WCF interpreter of Scripture may contain an unwarranted premise yielding an unsupportable conclusion.
Fred Malone makes this point when he says “… the hermeneutical error that establishes infant baptism is also found in dispensationalism, modern-day Theonomy, and a normative view of worship that misunderstands and misrepresents the regulative principle. What they all have in common is a misapplication of the rule of “good and necessary consequence.”
I believe that this is why the 1689 men avoided the language of the WCF and the Savoy at 1:6.


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## KMK (Feb 6, 2010)

I don't think there is any essential difference between the two. The LBC simply says the same the same thing with fewer words.

Sam Waldron:



> The phrase 'or necessarily contained in the Holy Scripture' is equivalent to the phrase in the Westminster Confession it is intended to clarify: 'or by good and necessary consequence may be deduced from Scripture'. What may be by sound logic deduced from Scripture, that is to say, what is necessarily contained in it, has the authority of Scripture itself. _1689: Baptist Confession of Faith_, pg. 42,43


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## Contra_Mundum (Feb 6, 2010)

*Malone is all wet*. Nice of him to lump in a whole host of disagreeing parties, just to make his side look good. *Waldron is much more honest, in my opinion*.

"Good and necessary consequence" is the only rational rule. It means nothing more or less than that the plain principles on the face of Scripture yield further _obligatory_ conclusions when they are rightly combined. There may be disagreements as to whether a conclusion is warranted or not, and those disagreements may be hashed out by rigorous exegesis. But the principle is indubitable.

It is hard to say, really, if the LBC does close the door "further" than the WCF. If it does so, then it is to its own fault. In fact, what is comical is that one might as well say that greater subjectivity reigns under the LBC rubric. What is an "unwarranted premise"? Could it be a previous "necessary conclusion," something thought "necessarily contained in Scripture"? If it is simply something unbiblical, then it fails the WCF rule.

Seems like the obvious "problem" is with the open admission that deduction is an inescapable product of theological reflection. If we got rid of deduction yeilding obligation, there would have to be far less "certainty" of doctrine, regardless of how many centuries of study had gone into the word. So much for doctrinal advance. We would all need to be still in the infancy of the church. So much of our understanding of Scripture would needs be provisional.

On the LBC's proposal (unless they make it to say exactly what the WCF does), one could argue that no orthodox doctrine of the Trinity, such as found in the early church creeds, is possible. So, one man's "necessarily contained in" deduction concerning the essential equality of a three Person godhead that he wishes to impose on the whole church as the orthodox view, is another man's "ain't necessarily so."

But according to the Trinitarian LBCer, the Trinity is "necessarily contained in" Scripture, whereas infant baptism is not. In fact, because he claims it isn't, he is obligated to accuse the WCFer of going beyond "necessary" and therefore of using some other principle to arrive at it. So he absurdly finds fault with the terms "good and necessary consequence."

The LBCer would be better off just admitting that he too uses the same basic rule. He simply appears to prefer that the church do less deduction. Could this be why there are so few Systematic Theology texts that have not been produced by Reformed and Presbyterians? I'm simply pointing out that a prior determination to "limit" one's deductions from Scripture leads naturally to the result that there is less product of theological reflection.

In accusing the Reformed of "too much speculation," the Baptist has contented himself with a skin-and-bones theology. Meanwhile, they continue to receive the sustenance of the more robust theology of those Protestants they dispute. Its a cherry-pick. "This makes sense to me, ergo it must be necesarrily contained in Scripture. This doesn't, so that must be your speculative deductions."


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## Michael (Feb 6, 2010)

rbcbob said:


> Michael Turner said:
> 
> 
> > If you hold to paedobaptism [WCF] you do so because you have deduced by good and necessary consequence that such is the proper interpretation of entry into the New Covenant based upon the whole counsel of God and the continuous nature of his covenants. If you hold to credobaptism [LBCF] you do so because you are going with what's right in front of you, having each covenant established upon its own individual merits and therefore seeing a genuine personal profession of faith as the only available example of entry into the New Covenant necessarily contained in Scripture.
> ...



I appreciate the kind words but I was really attempting an objective statement and not so much trying to make a point. While "good and necessary consequence" by no means excludes the possibility of human error, I think it an incredible proverbial stretch to draw parallels between the hermeneutic of infant baptism and the likes of dispensationalism, etc. In fact, I personally find much more warrant [especially] for dispensationalist theology in the _absence_ of "good and necessary consequence".


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## Kaalvenist (Feb 6, 2010)

rbcbob said:


> Michael makes an excellent point. The WCF’s “or by good and necessary consequence may be deduced from Scripture” opens the door a bit wider than the LBC’s “or necessarily contained in the Holy Scripture” to the subjectivity of the theologian. The syllogism constructed by the WCF interpreter of Scripture may contain an unwarranted premise yielding an unsupportable conclusion.
> Fred Malone makes this point when he says “… the hermeneutical error that establishes infant baptism is also found in dispensationalism, modern-day Theonomy, and a normative view of worship that misunderstands and misrepresents the regulative principle. What they all have in common is a misapplication of the rule of “good and necessary consequence.”
> I believe that this is why the 1689 men avoided the language of the WCF and the Savoy at 1:6.


I read through Malone, Kingdon, and Jewett during my training at Fort Polk last August, and found Malone's book to be terrible... particularly his treatment of the regulative principle, compared with "good and necessary consequence." He actually pitted John Murray, in his defense of consequences, against the regulative principle -- the same John Murray who coined the term "the regulative principle of worship;" who wrote the minority report of the Committee on Song in Worship for the OPC's GA, advocating exclusive psalmody; who formally protested the creation of Trinity Hymnal because it included uninspired hymns, and excluded parts of the Psalter. THAT John Murray is held up by Malone as "weak" on the regulative principle.

All theologians, whether Paedobaptist or Anti-Paedobaptist, attempt to reason from the Scriptures. The principle of which we are speaking, "GOOD and NECESSARY consequence," is just that. If it is not OF NECESSITY deduced from Scripture, then it is not covered by this principle. The principle is not stating that Scripture is a wax nose, to be molded by any passing theologian, the deductions of whom are to be binding on the masses. "May contain an unwarranted premise yielding an unsupportable conclusion?" Well, sure; we say the same about Anti-Paedos. Your premises are unwarranted, and your conclusions are unsupportable. That's not because you don't admit of the use of reason in "doing" theology; it's because of your insistence on reading the Bible from back to front, instead of from front to back.


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## msortwell (Feb 7, 2010)

Kaalvenist said:


> . . .All theologians, whether Paedobaptist or Anti-Paedobaptist, attempt to reason from the Scriptures. The principle of which we are speaking, "GOOD and NECESSARY consequence," is just that. If it is not OF NECESSITY deduced from Scripture, then it is not covered by this principle. The principle is not stating that Scripture is a wax nose, to be molded by any passing theologian, the deductions of whom are to be binding on the masses. "May contain an unwarranted premise yielding an unsupportable conclusion?" Well, sure; we say the same about Anti-Paedos. Your premises are unwarranted, and your conclusions are unsupportable. That's not because you don't admit of the use of reason in "doing" theology; it's because of your insistence on reading the Bible from back to front, instead of from front to back.



It would seem then, that you see no substantive difference in meaning between the terminology used in LBC I.VI and the WCF I.VI?

I understand much of the debate between paedo's and credo's, but it was not my intent to open up another discussion on that subject, unless that IS why the two confessions use different language in the text under consideration.


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## Scott1 (Feb 7, 2010)

Merriam Webster dictionary
http://www.merriam-webster.com/netdict/deduce



> deduce
> 
> 
> Main Entry: de·duce
> ...



Collins English Dictionary example
http://dictionary.reverso.net/english-cobuild/deduce



> deduce (deduces 3rd person present) (deducing present participle) (deduced past tense & past participle )
> 
> If you deduce something or deduce that something is true, you reach that conclusion because of other things that you know to be true. verb
> 
> ...






> London Baptist Confession
> Chapter I.
> Of the Holy Scriptures
> 
> ...


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## MW (Feb 7, 2010)

It is good that men like Sam Waldron are trying to find common denominators between WCF and LBC, but sometimes they are governed by the modern Calvinist revival in Baptist circles rather than historical considerations. If the 17th century debates are taken into account, it will be seen that there was a genuine difference of opinion on how to establish the divine authority of a belief or practice. This is evident in the various exchanges between paedobaptists and antipaedobaptists. Whereas both parties agreed that Scripture explicit and implicit is the sufficient rule of faith, the paedobaptist considered "implicit Scripture" to include that which may be deduced by good and necessary consequence from the teaching of Scripture, whereas the antipaedobaptist restricted "implicit Scripture" to that which is contained in the text of Scripture. For example, in Samuel Richardson's response to Daniel Featley, it is argued, "many of our opposites confess, there is no express command or example to baptize infants, and that infants sprinkled by one of the Priests, is sufficient baptism; and yet they cannot tell us *where we may find the place of Scripture where we may read it*, that it is so as they say." This kind of objection repeatedly appears in the 17th century literature. Reference to "the place of Scripture" shows that the antipaedobaptists only allowed what could be proven to be implicit in the text itself. Remarkably, not a few debates on PB come down to much the same divergence as to what constitutes "implicit Scripture."


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## rbcbob (Feb 8, 2010)

armourbearer said:


> It is good that men like Sam Waldron are trying to find common denominators between WCF and LBC, but sometimes they are governed by the modern Calvinist revival in Baptist circles rather than historical considerations. If the 17th century debates are taken into account, it will be seen that there was a genuine difference of opinion on how to establish the divine authority of a belief or practice. This is evident in the various exchanges between paedobaptists and antipaedobaptists. Whereas both parties agreed that Scripture explicit and implicit is the sufficient rule of faith, the paedobaptist considered "implicit Scripture" to include that which may be deduced by good and necessary consequence from the teaching of Scripture, whereas the antipaedobaptist restricted "implicit Scripture" to that which is contained in the text of Scripture. For example, in Samuel Richardson's response to Daniel Featley, it is argued, "many of our opposites confess, there is no express command or example to baptize infants, and that infants sprinkled by one of the Priests, is sufficient baptism; and yet they cannot tell us *where we may find the place of Scripture where we may read it*, that it is so as they say." This kind of objection repeatedly appears in the 17th century literature. Reference to "the place of Scripture" shows that the antipaedobaptists only allowed what could be proven to be implicit in the text itself. Remarkably, not a few debates on PB come down to much the same divergence as to what constitutes "implicit Scripture."



I wish to apologize for any offense which may have been caused by my first post in response to Mike’s OP. It was never my intention to offend my paedobaptist brethren. Neither did I intend to disparage the WCF or its adherents. The particular writer that I quoted seems to regularly provoke those brethren and thus I will forgo any future reference to him.

That being said I find that Mathew Winzer seems to be on target in post #10 (if indeed I understand him). 

I respect Sam Waldron and consider him a friend and dear brother. However I have not been able to find any historical evidence to either support or refute his assertion that:


> The phrase 'or necessarily contained in the Holy Scripture' is equivalent to the phrase in the Westminster Confession it is intended to clarify: 'or by good and necessary consequence may be deduced from Scripture'. What may be by sound logic deduced from Scripture, that is to say, what is necessarily contained in it, has the authority of Scripture itself. 1689: Baptist Confession of Faith, pg. 42,43


When it is remembered that the 1689 had as its pattern the WCF and the Savoy, and that it adopted whole paragraphs from either one or the other whenever conscience would allow, it is incredible that they would have changed the phrase in I.6 unless pressed to do so by conscience.


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## nnatew24 (Feb 8, 2010)

Kaalvenist said:


> I read through Malone, Kingdon, and Jewett during my training at Fort Polk last August, and found Malone's book to be terrible... particularly his treatment of the regulative principle, compared with "good and necessary consequence." He actually pitted John Murray, in his defense of consequences, against the regulative principle -- the same John Murray who coined the term "the regulative principle of worship;" who wrote the minority report of the Committee on Song in Worship for the OPC's GA, advocating exclusive psalmody; who formally protested the creation of Trinity Hymnal because it included uninspired hymns, and excluded parts of the Psalter. THAT John Murray is held up by Malone as "weak" on the regulative principle.



I'm not sure this is entirely fair to Malone. Obviously, one can strongly advocate a doctrine/principle and yet still be inconsistent with his own position. This is what Malone is accusing Murray of, which is not the least bit unreasonable. It is not unreasonable because both men recognize that scripture regulates the sacraments, even that it specifies who are the proper participants of them. We wouldn't baptize the family pet; we wouldn't use pizza and coke at the Lord's Table. And we know these things are improper because of the RPW. 

In other words, regardless of who is right or wrong, the proper participants/recipients of the sacraments are regulated by scripture. Anyone who does not allow scripture to regulate these things is guilty of violating the RPW, regardless of how staunchly one may support it otherwise. Malone makes a completely fair charge if his position on baptism is right. And if Malone is wrong on baptism, then it is his reasoning behind the charge that is wrong, not the charge itself.

So it's begging the question to say that Malone's charge is 'weak' or unreasonable, because it's only the debate at hand which can determine so.


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## msortwell (Feb 11, 2010)

I originally posted this question in the exegetical forum. I saw the difference as possibly indicative of two slightly (but significantly) different hermeneutic methods. I was disappointed when it was moved here because I was concerned that the discussion could easily stray from hermeneutics/exegesis, which I believe is really the issue.


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## Robert Truelove (Feb 13, 2010)

I think we can err when we try to understand the differences between the similar wording in the London Baptist Confession and the Westminster by not allowing for the differences between the 'assemblies' involved. My thoughts on this are theoretical but the evidence thus far continues to lead my thinking in this direction.

In the case of the Westminster, we have a strong Presbyterian influence. There is a tendency for exacting language to articulate the doctrines contained therein. This tendency for more exacting language is deliberate, and beneficial to the unity of Presbyterian churches where strict adherence to confessional standards is desired (and yes, I understand there were non-Presbyterians in the assembly but I am speaking generally and don't want to make a long post longer with clarifications).

In the case of the London Baptist Confession, the tendencies reflect wording that is less exacting. That is to say, where the wording of the LBC differs from the Westminster but seems to be saying the same thing using different language, I think that a comparison of each case will demonstrate that the LBC presents broader latitude for application. In these places, one can rightly hold to the LBC and hold to the exact same view presented in the WCF in more exacting terms. Alternatively, one can apply the statement in the LBC in a different way but still be within the spectrum in which it is worded. I think the comparison the OP presents is one of these cases.

Why did the framers of the LBC change wording in places to make their confession less exacting (in those places)? Because of the fundamental difference between Baptist and Presbyterian ecclesiology. The Baptists behind the LBF had more or less differences with some sections of the Westminster. Where there was not fundamental differences, the wording was retained. Where some, but not all, of the men involved had quibbles or issues, phrases were reworded or deleted to allow for a broader application that all of the men involved could live with. Because of the general bent of Baptistic ecclesiology, the need for more exacting language was not as important in these places.

6 examples...

1. How far and how one would take the idea establishing doctrine on "good and necessary consequence". (LBC 1.6 - WM 1.6)

2. Doctrine of the Covenants (LBC 7 - WM 7)

3. Doctrine of the Sacraments (LBC 28 - WC 27)

4. The doctrine of "sacramental union" (LBC 30.7 - WM 27.2 & 29.7)

5. Lawful Oaths and Vows (LBC 23 - WM 23)

6. The Doctrine of the Church or "Are paedobaptist churches true churches?" (LBF 26)
I add this point because it is believed that 17th Century Baptists, with one accord, denied that paedobaptist churches were true churches. This was simply not the case. There were differences of opinion and LBF 26.3 is worded in such a way that someone can subscribe to it and hold to either the view that paedobaptist churches are not true churches OR that they are but are "less pure" (26.3) in their practice of baptism. I'm not making a personal statement about that question, but rather relating that the LBC allows for either view; satisfying the differences in opinion upon this matter among 17th Century English Baptists.

In conclusion...

This is just a sampling. I believe that what we have in these places in the London Baptist Confession are not fundamentally baptistsic articulations (doctrinally speaking), but rather language that allows for broader understanding and differences among those who subscribe to this confession. In contrast to this, The Westminster Confession is more defined and allows for less divergences in the understanding/application of the doctrines presented therein.


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