Critical Continuity: The Structure of the Westminster Confession in the Reformed Tradition

This article originated as a theology paper written as part of my studies with Union Theological College in Spring 2026.

The influence of the Westminster Confession on later confessional documents is well-known. As Joel Beeke and Sinclair Ferguson claim, it is “undoubtedly one of the most influential documents of the post-Reformation period.”[1] For example, baptists and congregationalists utilised and refined it when developing their own standards.[2] However, the extent to which the Westminster Confession itself developed from prior documents is less commonly explored. This is not only true of its theological substance, but also its systematic structure.

As Richard Muller shows, during the first half of the sixteenth century, theology was increasingly systematised around certain topics and shaped into familiar structures. Beginning with Philip Melanchthon and Martin Bucer, and continuing in John Calvin and Heinrich Bullinger, this “locus method” became codified in early Reformed confessions.[3]Muller proposes this “systematic order” provided “the preliminary outline for the great systems of the ensuing confessional period”.[4] This assignment assesses this in relation to the Westminster Confession, arguing one of the ways it utilises and refines material from prior confessional documents is by refining this “preliminary outline”. It demonstrates this by critically discussing how the Westminster Confession relates to the structure of the Thirty-Nine Articles and Irish Articles.

The Thirty-Nine Articles

While the Westminster divines eventually produced a new confession, they were originally assembled to revise the Thirty-Nine Articles. This initial task was never finished. Nevertheless, how it sought to utilise and refine this document provides important context for how divines would later treat other confessions. This is particularly true of their deliberations on Article 8, which stated the Nicene Creed, Athanasius’ Creed, and Apostles’ Creed “ought thoroughly to be received and believed”.[5] After a series of debates, which John Lightfoot describes as “long & vehement”, they were unable to agree revisions.[6] As Chad Van Dixhoorn explains, a group of “biblicist” divines were “willing to question the legitimacy of creeds entirely.”[7] Despite postponing consideration of Article 8 indefinitely, the issue of how to treat these creeds became “the longest lasting dispute in the Westminster Assembly” and was never resolved.[8] From the very beginning, the Assembly demonstrated it would not utilise material from prior documents uncritically, but rather reexamine and refine it as necessary.

As a result, it is unsurprising that when debate began over the Westminster Confession, the divines adopted this same critical approach. This is particularly evident in how they widely discarded the structure of the Thirty-Nine Articles. Many topics outlined in the Thirty-Nine Articles are not included in the Westminster Confession. For example, as well as never covering the creeds (Article 8), it also fails to include chapters on eleven other articles, including works of supererogation (Article 14), purgatory (Article 22), and priestly marriage (Article 32).”[9] Further, the Westminster Confession includes numerous new topics in its structure, including significant subjects such as God’s covenant with man (Chapter 7), the perseverance of the saints (Chapter 17), and the resurrection of the dead and last judgment (Chapters 32–33). Letham correctly points out that many of these changes are due to the different historical contexts, with the goal of the new confession no longer being to primarily defend Protestant doctrine in light of a resurgent Catholicism and the Council of Trent.[10] Nevertheless, while the divines largely agreed with theological substance of the Thirty-Nine Articles, it is notable that they did not try to utilise or even refine its structure. Rather than providing a structural foundation for their new work, their relationship with it can be described as one of “confessional deconstruction”.[11]

The Irish Articles

It is clear the Westminster Confession was not developed from the outline of the Thirty-Nine Articles. However, it did utilise and refine the structure of the Irish Articles of Religion, written by James Ussher in 1615.[12] Ussher “showed clear dependence on the Thirty-Nine Articles” by replicating certain wording.[13] However, his work had a “more logical order” and “nearly fifty additional years of doctrinal refinement…making it among the most advanced confessions of the day.”[14] The popularity of the Irish Articles among the divines can explain the lack of deliberation over the arrangement of their new confession.[15] As John Bower points out, the basic outline was seemingly agreed without any debate, and the initial list of chapter headings prepared within a single day.[16] This initial list received few revisions during the process and bears a remarkable resemblance to the Irish Articles. For example, both the Irish Articles and Westminster Confession begin with revelation (Articles 1-7; Chapter 1), the triune God (Articles 8–10; Chapter 2), and the eternal decree (Articles 11–17; Chapter 3). These significant structural similarities continue throughout large parts of the two documents, until they end with the resurrection and last judgment (Articles 101–104; Chapters 32–33).[17] For this reason, many have concluded that “the structure of the Westminster Confession of Fath has been shown to derive, in large measure, from the Irish Articles”.[18]

While we should acknowledge this clear continuity, two clarifications must be made. First, the Irish Articles themselves utilised and refined the structure of previous confessions. For example, divine revelation was also the opening topic in the First Helvetic Confession, Second Helvetic Confession and Formula of Concord.[19] Further, a harmony of Reformed confessions comparing ten different documents against the Second Helvetic Confession was popular at the time and known to the divines.[20] Bower suggests “the model of content and organization documented in the harmony and conveniently distilled, honed, and augmented in the Irish Articles” enabled the Assembly to “readily draft a comprehensive order for its new confession that rooted itself in the tradition of the past.”[21] Indeed, just how rooted it was in tradition becomes apparent when it is compared to the order of the Apostles’ Creed. Despite the evident reluctance of the divines to reference it, Bower argues the Westminster Confession “followed the course of the Apostles’ Creed more explicitly than any of its predecessors.”[22] Beginning with the revealed God (Chapters 1–2) as maker of heaven and earth (Chapters 3–6), it teaches on Christ (Chapters 7–8), the Holy Ghost in the life of the Christian (Chapters 9–24), the church (Chapters 25–31), and finishes with the resurrection of the body and life everlasting (Chapters 32–33).[23] Muller observes that this historical order of creation to consummation, embedded in the earliest creed, as well as patterned in the biblical narrative, was increasingly adopted by Reformed theologians.[24] In this way, B. B. Warfield correctly concludes that by utilising the order of the Irish Articles, the latest major confession in this tradition, the divines completed their work “in the full light of the whole body of Reformed thought.”[25]

Second, despite continuity with previous Reformed confessions, the divines maintained their critical approach and refined aspects of the preliminary outline in the Irish Articles. For example, Article 7, which recited Article 8 of the Thirty-Nine Articles, was unsurprisingly overlooked. The scope of the Irish Articles on divine revelation was also expanded by including topics like inward illumination and literal sense from continental confessions.[26] Further, the divines departed from the Irish Articles and instead followed the Second Helvetic Confession with a chapter on free will (Chapter 9). They also broke new ground by preparing the first confession with a standalone chapter on adoption (Chapter 12).[27] Similarly, they included a new chapter on God’s covenant with man (Chapter 7), which was becoming a key doctrine in Reformed theology at the time. They likewise replaced the term “Lord’s Day” from the Irish Articles and Second Helvetic Confession with “Sabbath Day” in the heading of Chapter 21, reflecting the important role of the Sabbath in Puritan thought.[28]

Conclusion

The Westminster Confession has rightly been called “the queen of the Reformed Confessions”[29]. It not only became foundational for future standards, but also developed the preliminary outline present in prior documents. By critically discussing how its structure relates to the Thirty-Nine Articles and Irish Articles, this assignment has demonstrated that the Westminster Confession exemplifies a spirit of critical continuity, utilising and refining material from the Reformed tradition to best serve generations to come.

Bibliography

Primary Sources

An Harmony of the Confessions of the Faith of the Christian and Reformed Churches (London, 1643).

Bower, John R., The Larger Catechism: A Critical Text and Introduction (Grand Rapids, 2010).

___________, The Confession of Faith: A Critical Text and Introduction (Grand Rapids, 2020).

John Lightfoot’s Journals of the Westminster Assembly, ed. Chad Van Dixhoorn (Oxford, 2023).

Reformed Confessions of the 16th and 17th Centuries in English Translation, ed. James T. Dennison Jr., 4 vols (Grand Rapids, 2010).

Reformed Confessions Harmonized, ed. Joel R. Beeke & Sinclair B. Ferguson (Grand Rapids, 1999).

The Minutes and Papers of the Westminster Assembly, 1643–1652, ed. Chad Van Dixhoorn, 5 vols (Oxford, 2012).

Secondary Sources

Fesko, J. V., The Theology of the Westminster Standards: Historical Context and Theological Insights (Wheaton, 2014).

Hodge, A.A., The Confession of Faith (London, 1961).

Letham, Robert, The Westminster Assembly: Reading its Theology in Historical Context (Phillipsburg, 2009).

Muller, Richard A., Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics: The Rise and Development of Reformed Orthodoxy, ca. 1520 to ca. 1725, vol 1 (Grand Rapids, 2003).

Norris, Robert M., ‘The Thirty-Nine Articles at the Westminster Assembly’, in Ligon Duncan (ed.), The Westminster Confession into the 21st Century, vol 3 (Fearn, 2009), 139-73.

Van Dixhoorn, Chad, Confessing the Faith: A reader’s guide to the Westminster Confession of Faith (Edinburgh, 2014).

_________________, ‘New Taxonomies of the Westminster Assembly (1643–52): The Creedal Controversy as Case Study’, Reformation and Renaissance Review, 6.1 (2004), 82–106.

Warfield, B. B., ‘The Westminster Assembly and Its Work’, The Princeton Theological Review, 6.3 (July 1904), 353–91.

[1] Reformed Confessions Harmonized, ed. Joel R. Beeke & Sinclair B. Ferguson (Grand Rapids, 1999), xii.

[2] Reformed Confessions of the 16th and 17th Centuries in English Translation, ed. James T. Dennison Jr., vol 4 (Grand Rapids, 2010), 457–95, 531–71.

[3] Richard A. Muller, Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics, vol 1 (Grand Rapids, 2003), 56–58.

[4] Muller, Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics, 59.

[5] Reformed Confessions, vol 2, 757.

[6] John Lightfoot’s Journals of the Westminster Assembly, ed. Chad Van Dixhoorn (Oxford, 2023), 62.

[7] Van Dixhoorn, ‘New Taxonomies’, 105.

[8] Chad Van Dixhoorn, ‘New Taxonomies of the Westminster Assembly (1643–52): The Creedal Controversy as Case Study’, Reformation and Renaissance Review, 6.1 (2004), 102.

[9] Van Dixhoorn, ‘New Taxonomies’, 102.

[10] Robert Letham, The Westminster Assembly: Reading its Theology in Historical Context (Phillipsburg, 2009), 70.

[11] John R. Bower, The Confession of Faith: A Critical Text and Introduction (Grand Rapids, 2020), 9.

[12] Reformed Confessions, vol 4, 88–107.

[13] Letham, The Westminster Assembly, 65.

[14] Letham, The Westminster Assembly, 68; Bower, The Confession of Faith, 46.

[15] The Minutes and Papers of the Westminster Assembly, ed. Chad Van Dixhoorn (Oxford, 2012), 3:635.

[16] Bower, The Confession of Faith, 38.

[17] See the insightful comparison table in Bower, The Confession of Faith, 47.

[18] Robert M. Norris, ‘The Thirty-Nine Articles at the Westminster Assembly’, in Ligon Duncan (ed.), The Westminster Confession into the 21st Century, vol 3 (Fearn, 2009), 169; see also B. B. Warfield, ‘The Westminster Assembly and Its Work’, The Princeton Theological Review, 6.3 (July 1904), 376.

[19] Reformed Confessions Harmonized, xii.

[20] An Harmony of the Confessions of the Faith of the Christian and Reformed Churches (London, 1643).

[21] Bower, The Confession of Faith, 47.

[22] Bower, The Confession of Faith, 43.

[23] See Bower, The Confession of Faith, 47–48.

[24] Muller, Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics, 206.

[25] Warfield, ‘The Westminster Assembly and Its Work’, 376.

[26] Bower, The Confession of Faith, 52.

[27] Reformed Confessions Harmonized, xii.

[28] Bower, The Confession of Faith, 111.

[29] Reformed Confessions, vol 4, 231.