The Sum Of Saving Knowledge

[GulfCoast Presbyterian]

Do any of the NARPC denominations have included in their confessional documents "The Sum of Saving Knowledge?" That is to say, TSOSK being included along with the WLC/WSC, etc? I was told by an old elder that at one point it was common for this little book to be included in the confessional documents of the Presbyterian reformed denominations. Is it still included? Frankly, I was unfamiliar with it until fairly recently.

Thanks,
Mark

 

[NaphtaliPress]

The sum was never officially adopted by the Scottish church. It came to be included because a printer agreed to include David Dickson and James Durham's work in a 1650 edition of the Scottish standards. See this bit https://www.puritanboard.com/threads/sum-of-saving-knowledge-authors-and-history.24551/

 

[Deleted member 6112]

I was told by an old elder that at one point it was common for this little book to be included in the confessional documents of the Presbyterian reformed denominations. Is it still included? Frankly, I was unfamiliar with it until fairly recently.

Thanks,
Mark

It's in the Free Presbyterian Publications edition of the Westminster standards (the green hardback one). As Chris said, it's not a confessional/constitutional document, but it's an excellent summary of confessional doctrine. Very useful little book.

 

[Logan]

It's also in the more recent BoT edition of the Westminster Standards, as well as my own Kindle edition.

 

[NaphtaliPress]

It is some what interesting (and curious) that the Sum's inclusion in some editions of the Westminster Standards (regularly included since the pattern setting edition of Lumisden and Robertson of Edinburgh in 1728) is that this predates the numbering of the questions in the catechisms. I've edited the below somewhat (if you try to cut and paste you'll see why) from https://www.cpjournal.com/articles-...raditional-form-of-the-westminster-standards/

"The chapters and paragraphs of the Confession of Faith were numbered from the first editions, but the catechisms are not even numbered in the surviving manuscripts. The benefit of having the questions numbered is obvious, and one can find examples of early editions where they have been numbered by hand. Yet despite this, the only seventeenth century editions found that numbered the questions were the two printings by George Swintoun and Thomas Brown of 1671 (Wing C5769) and 1683 (Wing C5770B). Carruthers notes that the Robert Sanders edition of 1703 does not number the questions (Three Centuries, 58), and it is likely the earlier Sanders editions are unnumbered. The catechisms in the 1710 Watson edition are also unnumbered."

"The rules for rightly underst anding the Ten Commandments in Larger Catechism 99 were numbered as early as the 1659 Latin edition by John Field, and presumably earlier in his 1656, of which the 1659 is a careful line for line setting (Carruthers, Three Centuries, p. 75). Rothwell ‘B’ of 1658 also numbers the rules (but type ‘A’ does not), as does the Third edition of 1688 (Wing C5798), Glasgow Fourth edition (Sanders, 1675), and the two by Swintoun & Brown. The Covenanter 1679 edition was the earliest edition found that also numbers the aggravations of sin in Larger Catechism 151. Other editions that number the subdivisions of both questions are the anonymously published editions of 1688, 1694, and 1700."