The Larger Catechism was designed by its authors to supplement the Shorter Catechism. It presents a full, balanced, and edifying summary of the Christian faith, suitable for those who have attained some level of spiritual maturity. It expands and clarifies the teaching found in the Shorter Catechism and Confession of Faith and focuses on the outworking of that teaching within the Christian community. This compact edition is ideal for individual or group study.

‘Today, churches face a greater educational task than they have done for several centuries. Pastors are often looking for useful, effective study materials. In response to this need the church must reclaim its great educational resources from the past. The Larger Catechism is a neglected tool the church needs today to help believers develop vital and balanced Christian faith and life.’ — W. ROBERT GODFREY

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This compact edition of the Westminster Confession of Faith is ideal for individual or group study. The Introduction by Sinclair B. Ferguson places the Confession in its own time and place, yet shows that far from being a mere historical document, it remains a deeply helpful and mind-shaping guide to the unchanging teachings of the Christian faith.

‘The truth the Confession expresses has the power to shape your thinking; its teaching will both stretch and clarify your understanding. In addition—and best of all—the pastoral wisdom of the Confession of Faith will help you to live the Christian life with the perspective magnificently expressed in the answer to the first question of the Shorter Catechism that accompanied it—glorifying God and enjoying him for ever.’ — Sinclair B. Ferguson

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On 1 July 1643, the Westminster Assembly of Divines, consisting of many of the foremost theologians of the English and Scottish churches, convened at Westminster Abbey in London. Their task from the English Parliament was ambitious to say the least: to reform the liturgy, discipline, and government of the Church of England; to promote church unity between England, Scotland, and the Continent; and to clarify and revise the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion of the Church of England.

Over the course of five politically tumultuous years, committees of the Assembly met and developed a set of documents that would have significant influence in defining the belief and practice of Presbyterian churches in Britain (especially in Scotland) and indeed the world. The doctrinal framework that the Assembly established in their Confession also provided the foundation of the central creedal documents of the Baptists and Congregationalists that were clarified in the decades following the Assembly.

Although the hoped-for unity between the English and Scottish churches did not materialise, nevertheless the documents produced by the Assembly, and especially the Confession of Faith and Larger and Shorter Catechisms, would become the touchstone for sound doctrine, cherished by generations of Christians as a well-honed summary of biblical truth.

Of the Confession of Faith itself, Professor John Murray noted: ‘The Westminster Confession is the last of the great reformation creeds. No creed of the Christian church is comparable to that of Westminster in respect of the skill with which the fruits of fifteen centuries of Christian thought have been preserved, and tat the same time examined anew and clarified in the light of that fuller understanding of God’s word which the Holy Spirit has imparted.’

This volume contains the Confession of Faith, the Larger and Shorter Catechisms, and the other principal documents to come out of the Westminster Assembly. The text is newly typeset, and biblical references are given in full. Later American revisions of the Westminster Confession are included in an appendix.

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‘This edition of the Confession of Faith is what our forefathers would have called a Vade Mecum—literally a “Go with me”—a book small enough to take anywhere, but substantial enough to be useful everywhere.’ — SINCLAIR B. FERGUSON

DESCRIPTION

Agreed upon by the Assembly of Divines at Westminster, with the assistance of commissioners from The Church of Scotland, as part of the Covenanted Uniformity in religion betwixt the churches of Christ in the Kingdoms of Scotland, England, and Ireland.

This edition contains the Westminster Confession of Faith as approved by the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland 1647. It also includes Chapters 20, 23, 31, as altered, amended, and adopted as the Doctrinal Part of the Constitution of the Presbyterian Church in American, 1788. Additional footnotes have been inserted at Chapters 22.111, 24.IV, and 25.VI, to indicate other places where the Confession has been altered in the editions adopted by the OPC and the PCA.

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The Larger Catechism was produced by the Westminster Assembly of 1643, whose members included the cream of the Reformed ministers in Britain – The Larger Catechism gives reasonably brief, yet wonderfully comprehensive, summaries of the main points of scriptural teaching.

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In the opinion of B.B. Warfield, the Westminster divines left to posterity not only ‘the most thoroughly thought-out statement ever penned of the elements of evangelical religion’ but also one which breathes ‘the finest fragrance of spiritual religion’. Their most influential work, The Shorter Catechism, though more than 350 years old, is undoubtedly still one of the best introductions to the key doctrines of the Christian faith.

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