B. B. Warfield on the 39 Articles and the making of the Westminster Confession

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I love Warfield: so knowledgeable in his history and theology and yet communicates so plainly. Thanks for sharing this tidbit, I'd not read that perspective before.
 
I’ve posted this before on a thread but love it so much thought I’d post it here again. Reading Warfield’s insights into the dilemma faced in the English and Scottish church coming into agreement, and the amazing thing God wrought at Westminster:

“The truth is, our ancestors (speaking of the Presbyterian Scots) entered into this league with England in the hope, and with the desire, that they might be brought into a nearer conformity with the Presbyterian discipline, than with any sanguine expectation of seeing this accomplished. They never supposed that England would submit to their polity without some alteration suited to their (England’s) circumstance, and accordingly they joined with them in constructing a new Confession and Directory. ‘We are not to conceive,’ says Henderson in a letter dated 1642, ‘that they will embrace our form. A new form must be set down for us all. And although we should never come to this unity in religion and uniformity of worship, yet my desire is to see what form England shall pitch upon before we publish ours.’ In short, nothing is more apparent from the whole of their correspondence than that they went up to the Westminster Assembly with very slender hopes of being able to prevail upon the English to submit to Presbytery; and the result filled their hearts with unfeigned astonishment as well as gratitude to God, whose hand they recognized in all their proceedings.” ~ from McCrie’s ‘History of the Scottish Church’
 
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