A Commentary on the Westminster Confession of Faith
Binding: Clothbound Page Count: 436Publisher: Banner of TruthISBN# : 9780851519494
Availability: Usually Ships the Same Business Day
Description : This book is not merely of historical
interest; it is also of considerable value now because many of the errors
refuted within its pages have surfaced again in the 21st century church under
new guises. Christians today can learn a great deal from the faithful witness of
former generations who experienced ‘truth’s victory over error’.
Truth’s Victory Over Error contains David Dickson’s
lectures on the Westminster Confession of Faith, delivered to the divinity
students of Edinburgh University in the early 1650s. Here then is a commentary
written just a few brief years after the Westminster Divines drew up their
famous Confession of 1647 by one of their senior contemporaries. Dickson's
comments reveal the burning issues of the day and supply fascinating insight
into the robust theology of the Scottish Puritans. In the Introduction to the
book Robert Wodrow writes that the author ‘as it were, breaks the truths of our
Confession small, and prepares them for the meanest capacities.’ Here, then, is
a useful aid for Christians who want to study and understand the doctrines of
the Confession itself.
Dickson was concerned to explain the truth and refute error. Not
content merely to establish the Confession’s articles from Scripture, he also
‘guards against the gangrene and poison of contrary errors, with judgment and
perspicuity’ (Wodrow). Like all true evangelicals, Dickson saw the vital need of
expressing the Bible’s teaching in both negative and positive propositions.
Author David Dickson (1583-1663) was the son of a wealthy
merchant in Glasgow. His early aspirations to enter the family business were
diverted through an illness and a subsequently lengthy period of convalescence.
The result was that he entered the University of Glasgow (then under Principal
Robert Boyd) and prepared for the Christian ministry. Following graduation he
remained in the University as a regent until, in 1618, he was called to the
parish of Irvine in Ayrshire. Deprived of his ministry in 1622 by the Bishop of
Glasgow for his opposition to the Five Articles, he was banished for a year to
Turiff in Aberdeenshire, but on his return was the instrument in the hand of God
of numerous conversions. It was out of his pastoral experience that his famous
manual of spiritual counsel,
Therapeutica Sacra, was written. In 1638 he
was present at the famous Assembly which restored Presbyterian government in
Scotland, and the following year was chosen Moderator of the Scottish Church.
In 1640 he became Professor of Divinity in Glasgow, transferring
to Edinburgh ten years later. During that period he played a considerable part
in establishing vital, orthodox Christianity throughout the land. He helped to
draw up the Directory for Public Worship, and with James Durham compiled the Sum
of Saving Knowledge (a work instrumental in later years in the conversion of
Robert Murray M‘Cheyne). Restoration troubles after the return of King Charles
II in 1660, hastened his death. As the end drew near, he spoke the memorable
words: ‘I have taken all my good deeds, and all my bad and cast them in a heap
before the Lord, and fled from both, and betaken myself to the Lord Jesus
Christ, and in him I have sweet peace.’
