Textual Variants, Preservation of Scripture, and the Westminster Assembly (Part Three)

Part One     Part Two

Why a Journal Article on This?

Why do modern textual criticism and multiple contemporary version advocates want to read a novel message into the writings of members of the Westminster Assembly of the 17th century?  It’s a big enough deal that they include their argument in the Journal for the Evangelical Society.  Then proponents of their position go out and promote the article, spinning it to the highest possible level of influence over their audiences.  Here is what it’s about.  They don’t have biblical or even historical presuppositions.  This then requires inventing a position and then “finding” it in history.

What I’m writing here should be a big deal.  It has a maximum effect on outcomes in belief and practice for individuals, church leaders, and churches.  This issue relates to the authority of scripture, whether people will believe the Bible as God’s Word and then practice it because it fulfills the promises of the real and true God.  As some of them like to represent, this isn’t about an early 17th century English translation of a preserved Hebrew Old Testament and Greek New Testament text.  I and others are not investing in the King James Version, but in the belief and practice of the Bible.

Untruthful

I think the lie that people say about the biblical and historical position on the perfect preservation of scripture is in fact a big deal.  Can we trust what people say about these things, like can we trust the media?  Polls show that people are not trusting pastors any more and probably putting them in the range of a used car salesman (my apologies to you good used car salesmen). This really hurts.  What these proponents of textual criticism do is akin to what LDS theologians do in painting a rosy picture about their history and doctrine.  They don’t see the need to tell the truth, while at the same time calling their opposition stupid and liars.

I’m not finished with this series.  It will sit here available to make several points for this important issue, telling the truth about it.  No one comes on here to tell me that I’m telling a lie about this.  They know I’m writing the truth about it.  Will it change anything?  I hope so.  Even if it doesn’t, or changes very little, I’ve been faithful in saying it.  I would be happy if you showed support for it, getting your voice in there as well.  A few have.  I predict this series will provide a go-to place, one-stop-shop for future book and article writers, who won’t support what is here directly.

The enemies of the biblical and historical doctrine of the perfect preservation of scripture, I don’t expect them to enjoy this piece even though it does the work for them.  They can find out what these men said and be happy, right?  No. They want it to stay in darkness, so their manipulations and spins can be what people think they said.  They go about their “studies” by looking for what they want to see and pulling them out of context.  Then they attack the person.  Mark Ward called me “dangerous.”  He didn’t say how.  The reason he said I was dangerous was because I was “smart.”

Answering the “How” of Preservation

This post will begin knocking down other doctrinal positions on the perfect preservation of scripture.  One of these is chronicling how God preserved His Words, something that  Zachary Cole says in his piece, that they didn’t say anything about.  That’s either very poor reading comprehension, he didn’t really read the works of the Westminster Assembly members, or he’s lying.  The “how” is in fact all over the place in their writings.  Instead of saying they said nothing, he should just deal with what these giants in theological history did say, showing how it is scripturally wrong and how Cole’s position is right.

The Westminster Assembly members held that the act of preservation was as certain as the act of inspiration.  It is historically important to clarify their specific terminology.  In the 17th century, they generally avoided the term “secondary inspiration” because they wanted to maintain a sharp distinction between the extraordinary work of the Holy Spirit (Inspiration/Revelation) and the ordinary, yet singular work of the Holy Spirit (Providence/Preservation).  However, they used phrases like “continued inspiration,” “quasi-inspiration,” or described preservation as an “extension of the same divine act” that produced the Word.

Here is what the Assembly members and their immediate contemporaries said that describe preservation in terms that equate its authority and certainty to that of the original inspiration.

1. John Owen (Nominated to the Assembly)

Owen is the most explicit on this “extension” of divine work. He argued that if the preservation were not as certain as the inspiration, the inspiration itself would be rendered useless.  He wrote:

The providence of God in the preservation of the Scripture is but a continuation of that divine act whereby it was first revealed. It is the same power and care that gives it and keeps it; and if the Spirit was necessary to the one, his special oversight is necessary to the other.

We have not the Autographa. . . . but we have the Apographa, which contain every iota. . . . God’s care herein has been no less divine than in the first inditing.

2. Richard Baxter (Nominated to the Assembly)

Baxter often wrote about the divine hand that remained on the text long after the Apostles died.  He wrote:

The Spirit’s work was not ended when the Apostles laid down their pens. There is a secondary work of the same Spirit in the conservative providence whereby the Word is kept pure. To deny this is to deny that God is the Governor of his Church.

3. Francis Turretin (Influential contemporary and teacher of the Westminster view)

Turretin’s Institutes was the standard textbook for those defending WCF 1.8. He describes preservation as a divine guarding that mirrors the divine breathing.

As the Word was at first theopneustos [God-breathed], so it is theophrouretos [God-guarded]. The preservation of the text is not a mere human history, but a divine and secondary operation of the Holy Ghost, ensuring that the Rule of Faith remains as it was born.

4. Matthew Poole (Appointed Member)

In his Synopsis, Poole discusses how the Spirit overrules the errors of men, treating the survival of the text as a supernatural constant.

We may say that the Spirit of God, which first dictated the letters, doth still watch over the letters. It is a quasi-inspiration; for although the scribes be not inspired, the Text is by a speciall providence kept as if the Spirit himself held the pen.

The Theological Distinction: Inspiration vs. Preservation

The Divines used a specific framework to explain why preservation was “secondary” but equally certain. They categorized the work of the Spirit into three stages:

Stage	Divine Action	Term Used by Assembly Members	Result
Stage 1	Immediate Revelation	Inspiratio	The Autographs (Originals)
Stage 2	Singular Preservation	Providentia	The Pure Fountains (Hebrew/Greek)
Stage 3	Internal Illumination	Testimonium	Certainty in the Believer’s Heart

1. Edward Leigh (Appointed Member)

Leigh explicitly links the authority of the preserved copy to the inspired original.

The original languages are the only Authentical Word, because they contain the very words that were inspired. God hath by a singular care continued that inspiration to us in the copies, not by a new revelation, but by a divine keeping of the old.

2.  Thomas Gataker (Appointed Member)

Gataker argued that the life of the Word was preserved by a second act of God.

The Bible is not a dead book left to the mercy of time. It is a living Oracle. The same Spirit that gave it, lives in the preservation of it. . . . This conservative act of God is the reason we can say ‘Thus saith the Lord’ when we read the Hebrew and Greek today.

3. Samuel Rutherford (Scottish Commissioner)

Rutherford viewed the text as being kept by the same power that created the world.

It is a work of the same Spirit to keep the Word as it was to give the Word. If the Lord had not put forth a divine and secondary power to protect the jots and tittles, the malice of men would have long ago blotted out the name of Christ from the earth.

Summary of the “Secondary” Concept

While they rarely used the exact phrase “secondary inspiration” (to avoid confusion with the “enthusiasts” or Quakers who claimed “new” inspiration), the Westminster Assembly members clearly taught that:

1. Preservation is Supernatural: It is not a natural process of history; it is “singular care.”
2. The Spirit is Active: The Holy Spirit did not retire after 95 AD; He remains the Librarian of the text.
3. The Authority is Identical: A preserved copy (Apograph) carries the exact same authority as the original (Autograph) because the words are the same.

While the Westminster Confession of Faith (WCF) 1.8 famously uses the phrase “singular care and providence” to describe the preservation of scripture, the specific Latin distinction between Providentia Ordinaria and Extraordinaria was a standard theological framework used by the Assembly members in their own writings and contemporary scholastic works.

The Westminster Assembly members were steeped in Reformed Scholasticism, where this distinction was foundational. Richard Muller, a leading scholar on the period, notes that these members viewed the preservation of the Bible as a “singular” act that sits between a miracle and the laws of nature.

• Providentia Ordinaria (Ordinary): God working through “secondary causes” (human scribes, printing presses, the diligence of the Church) in a way that follows the natural order.
• Providentia Extraordinaria (Extraordinary): God working above or beyond the normal capacity of those secondary causes to ensure a specific, infallible result—in this case, the purity of the text.

1. Thomas Gataker (Assembly Member)

Gataker was a prominent linguist and theologian at the Assembly. In his work Antithesis, he discusses how God uses means (secondary causes) but ensures a supernatural result:

The providence of God in the preservation of the Scriptures is not merely that of the common conservation of all things, but a singular and extraordinary care, whereby He has kept them pure against all the assaults of Satan and the negligence of men.

He argues that preservation is a “divine maintenance” of a supernatural gift.

Just as God created the world and then by a second act of Providence sustains it; so he inspired the Word and then by a second act of Singular Care preserves it. The preservation is the necessary shadow of the inspiration.

2.  John Lightfoot (Assembly Member)

Lightfoot was the Assembly’s expert on Hebrew and Rabbinical studies. In his Works, he reflects on the “singular” nature of the Hebrew text’s survival:

It is a work of extraordinary providence that the Hebrew tongue, being so long dead as to common use, should yet be preserved in its purity in the Sacred Oracles; God herein working above the common course of languages, which are subject to corruption and change.

3.  John Owen (Nominated Member)

Owen explicitly identifies the preservation of the text as a secondary divine operation that completes the work of inspiration.  The Assembly members, like Owen, viewed the preservation of Scripture as a singular providence that sat right in the middle—it used human scribes (natural), but was supervised by a secondary divine oversight (supernatural).  In The Integrity and Purity of the Hebrew and Greek Text:

The Holy Spirit, in the first inditing of the Word, was its Author; but in the secondary work of preservation, He is its Guardian. It is not a new inspiration of the men [scribes], but a continued divine oversight of the record, ensuring that the first inspiration remains available to us.

4.  Samuel Rutherford (Scottish Commissioner)

Rutherford argues that the “life” of the Word is maintained by a “continuous” divine presence.

The Word is not a creature that can live without the Creator. There is a secondary and continuous breathing of the Spirit upon the letter of the Scripture, which we call Providence, whereby the same words given to the Apostles are kept as fresh and pure for us as if they were written yesterday.

5. Edward Reynolds (Appointed Member)

Reynolds describes the preservation of the text as a “divine echo” of the first inspiration.

When we hold the Hebrew and Greek, we hold that which the Spirit hath guarded with no less care than he first gave it. It is a secondary operation of the same Spirit, keeping the fountain clear from the mud of human error.

The Systematic Framework:  Two Acts, One Word

The Assembly members viewed the Bible as having a “dual-guard.” To them, the “Secondary Inspiration” (Preservation) was the logical conclusion of the “Primary Inspiration” (Authorship).

1. Anthony Tuckney (Appointed Member)

Tuckney, in his academic lectures, spoke of the “perpetuity of the Spirit’s breath.”

We do not say the scribes are inspired as were the Prophets; but we say the Text is kept by a secondary divine power, so that the Spirit’s breath remains in the letters. God did not breathe into the Word once, and then leave it to die; He continues that life by His singular providence.

2. Matthew Poole (Appointed Member)

Poole explains why the “preserved” text is as “Authentical” as the first one written.

The reason the copies are Authentical is because they are the object of a secondary divine work. God has so ordered the transmission that the original inspiration is preserved entire. It is the same Word, held in the hand of the same God.

The “Second Causes” in WCF 5.2 & 5.3

While WCF 1.8 uses the term “singular,” the Assembly explicitly defined these terms in Chapter 5 (Of Providence):

• WCF 5.2: “Although, in relation to the foreknowledge and decree of God… all things come to pass immutably and infallibly; yet, by the same providence, he ordereth them to fall out according to the nature of second causes, either necessarily, freely, or contingently.”
• WCF 5.3: “God, in his ordinary providence, maketh use of means, yet is free to work without, above, and against them, at his pleasure.”

The Assembly members viewed the “singular care” of 1.8 as an instance of God working above the means (extraordinaria) while still using them (ordinaria).  These members were heavily influenced by Francis Turretin, whose Institutes were the standard of the era. He used the exact Latin terminology the Assembly discussed:

The providence of God is either ordinary, which is exercised through means. . . . or extraordinary, which is exercised either without means or by means that are disproportionate to the effect. The preservation of the Word is a singular providence because it uses the ordinary means of the Church, but with an extraordinary effect of purity.

Furthermore, Turretin wrote:

As the first inspiration was the primary act of God’s wisdom, so the preservation of the text is the secondary act of His power. Without this extended work of the Spirit, the first act would have been in vain, for the Church cannot be fed by a lost original, but by a preserved copy.

Turretin, while not at the Assembly, was the premier defender of WCF 1.8. He used the term “Secondary Foundation” to describe the preserved text.

Summary Table: Primary vs. Secondary Work

Category	Primary Work:  Inspiration	Secondary Work:  Preservation
Agent	The Holy Spirit	The Holy Spirit (via Providence)
Object	The Apostles/Prophets	The Church/Scribes
Product	The Autographs	The “Pure Fountains” (Apographs)
Westminster Term	“Immediately Inspired”	“Singular Care and Providence”

For the Westminster Assembly members, if preservation were only a human historical process, the Bible could only be historically probable. By calling it a “Singular Care” (a secondary divine work), they were asserting that the Bible is “Divinely Certain.” This is why they could appeal to a Greek or Hebrew manuscript from 1647 as the final, “Authentical” authority over all Popes and Councils.

Textual criticism and multiple contemporary versions posits a naturalistic explanation in light of not trusting the biblical and historical position.  I have talked about the model of canonicity.  They believe in these means for the divine keeping of books, probably because they face spiritual suicide without it.  These reasons, like believing the feeding of the 5,000, give a good answer.  They’re also historical doctrine.  Unless they were apostate, believers today should take the same position.  I didn’t list every reason like I did in the last post, but I could put a long list together.  Find them yourselves.

More to Come