Anyone who has been involved in drafting a Doctrinal Statement for a new Christian organization will tell you how frustrating an exercise it can be, even when all those sitting round the table are Bible-believing evangelicals. Therefore, we are left all the more amazed by the very existence of the WCF, which did not fall from heaven fully complete, but is the result of painstaking committee work.

Dr Bower’s book is part of a series where the principal documents of the Westminster Assembly are introduced with discussion of the critical text. This book was a revelation to me. As Sinclair Ferguson says in in his Foreword: "Here the door into the Jerusalem Chamber is opened for us and we catch something of the very Sitz im Leben of the assembly and the atmosphere of the debates."

The book is divided thus: Nine chapters describing the work of the three sub-committees among which the various doctrinal headings were divided. Then a critical text of the Confession is presented, followed by a comparison of the four authoritative texts. The order of the Confession is then compared with the Irish Articles, the other Reformed Confession which the Westminster divines found most helpful. Finally, there is the text of the revised Thirty Nine Articles of the Church of England, which was the initial project required of the divines by Parliament.

This is a scholarly work, and anyone wishing to understand the formation of the WCF, and therefore the theology behind it, will benefit greatly from it. Charts comparing the original committee drafts of the chapters with the final version provide insight into just how careful and exact the divines were. It’s interesting to note where there was no controversy, and what generated heated debate (eg the Eternal Decree). The fault lines between the Presbyterians and Independents are explored; and it is gratifying to note just how willing the Presbyterian majority were to accommodate their Independent brothers.

There is a helpful glossary of words now obsolete or are used in an archaic way.

This book is available to purchase from Eden.co.uk.

Ian Watson, Hope Church, Blackwood & Kirkmuirhill