The Westminster Confession of Faith and it's incompatibility with Anglicanism

Clipped from: https://thewayofwalsingham.substack.com/p/the-westminster-confession-of-faith-b67
By The Way of Walsingham

Introduction

Orthodox Anglicanism has never spoken timidly about what God does in and through the waters of baptism. Her liturgy does not presume, it confesses. At the font she does not wonder if grace might be given; she gives thanks for the grace being bestowed. The priest prays, the water is sanctified, and the Church rejoices: “Seeing now that this Child is regenerate, and grafted into the body of Christ’s Church…” In those words, the English Church bears the witness of the ancient faith — that through water and the Spirit, a sinner is born again.

This confidence is not presumption, but trust in the promise of God. The Sacrament does what it declares, not because of any human worthiness, but because God is true to His promises. In the baptismal font, God and man intersect; grace is not imagined, it is infused. To be regenerated is not an inward wish or a future hope, but a divine act already accomplished through the means appointed by Christ Himself. This is the realism of Anglican theology. It is a faith that sees in every sacrament the living hand of God, objectively at work.

When the Westminster divines gathered in 1643, they could not speak in affirmative language. Theirs was a system that sought certainty not in the sacrament, but in their understanding of election. The waters of baptism could no longer be trusted to convey grace; they could only signify what God might have already done in secret. What the Church had always proclaimed as the beginning of a justified life was redefined as a sign of it. In that moment, the revelation of the liturgy was replaced by the logic of a decree, and the baptismal font became, for many, an uncertain symbol of a hidden mystery.

The Jacobean Prayer Book (1604) and the Sacrament of Regeneration

In the Baptismal Service in the 1604 BCP, there is no uncertainty as to what God accomplishes through the holy mystery of baptism. The language is declarative, not hypothetical. It gives thanksgiving, not mere petition. Notice the verbage below:

We yield thee hearty thanks most merciful Father, that it hath pleased thee to regenerate this infant with thy holy Spirit, to receive him for thine own child by adoption, and to incorporate him into thy holy Congregation. And humbly we beseech thee to graunt, that hee being dead unto sinne, and living unto righteousness, and being buried with Christ in his death, may crucify the olde man, and utterly abolish the whole body of sinne, that as he is made partaker of the death of thy Sonne, that he may be partaker of his resurrection, ſo that finally, with the release of thy holy Congregation, he may be inheritors of thine everlasting kingdome, though Christ our Lord. Amen,^[1]

Every word of this prayer carries the weight of certainty. The Church gives thanks not for a possibility, but for a grace already bestowed. “It hath pleased Thee to regenerate this infant”. The verb is not future. Regeneration is not something expected at a later conversion, but a divine act already accomplished. The Church’s thanksgiving reveals her doctrine: grace is not presumed, it is recognized.

The structure of the prayer also embodies the rhythm of the sacramental life. It is followed by: thanksgiving, petition, and hope. Having given thanks that the child “ has been ”regenerated, the Church immediately prays that the same grace may bear fruit — that the baptized, now “ dead unto sin and living unto righteousness,” may persevere in the life that has been given. Baptism is thus both a gift and calling; is is an event and vocation. What God has done, He now commands the regenerate to live out because God saves before He commands.

This unity between grace received and grace lived distinguishes the Anglican doctrine of baptism from both the Puritan and the merely symbolic views (Zwinglian). In baptism, the old man is buried, and a new creation arises. The prayer’s language of adoption, incorporation, and death with Christ all flow from this same sacramental reality. The baptized child is not simply welcomed into a mere covenant community but in the very Body of Christ Himself.

The Prayer Book speaks, therefore, as the Church catholic has always spoken. That baptism is no empty ceremony but the very means by which the Holy Ghost gives life to the soul.

The Catechisms

Further support of this comes from the Catechisms at the time. Under the reign of King James 1, the whole Convocation of the Church was gathered to provide a new set of systematic and universal canon law, Guided by future Archbishop of Canterbury, the then Bishop of London, Richard Bancroft.

Among their many provisions, Canon 79 stands out for the purposes here. It mandates that children, after mastering the Lord’s Prayer, Creed, and Ten Commandments, should also be taught the Catechism appended to the Book of Common Prayer; Nowell’s Catechism being approved as a companion to it. This reveals the mind of the Church at the turn of the 17th century. The Catechism’s theology was an official instrument of formation, bearing canonical weight.

From this, here reads some of Nowells Middle Catechism:

Ma. Of how many parts consisteth a Sacrament?

Sch. Of two parts: of the outward element or creature, being a visible sign, and of that invisible grace.

Ma. What is the outward sign in Baptism? Sch. Water, wherein the person baptised is dipped, or sprinkled with it, in the name of the Father, the Son, and the holy Ghost.

Ma. What is the secret and spiritual grace? Sch. Forgiveness of sins and regeneration: both which we have by the death and resurrection of Christ; and thereof we have this Sacrament as a Seal and Pledge.

Ma. Show me the effect of Baptism vet more plainly. Sch. Where by nature we are the children of wrath, and none of God's Church or household, we are by baptism received into the Church, and assured, that we are now children of God, and joined and grafted into the body of Christ, and become his members, and do grow into one body with him.

Ma. What is required of persons to be baptised? Sch. Repentance and faith.

Ma. Declare the meaning of these more largely.

Sch. First we must truly repent us of our former life, and believe assuredly that we are cleansed from our sins by the blood of Christ, and so made acceptable to God, and that his spirit dwelleth in us. And then according to this be- lief and promise made in Baptism, we must endeavour our selves to mortify our flesh, and by our good life to show that we have put on Christ, and have his Spirit given us.

Ma. Why then are Infants baptised, which by age cannot perform these things?

Sch. Because they be of God's Church; and God's blessing and promise made to the Church by Christ (in whose Faith they are baptised) pertaineth unto them. Which, when they come of age, they must themselves learn, believe, and acknowledge, and endeavour in their lives to express the duty at their Baptism promised and professed.^[2]

While the Catechism appended to the 1604 Prayer Book was intended as a tool of uniform formation, its language concerning regeneration was read ambiguously, depending on one’s underlying assumptions about the nature and timing of the new birth. The phrasing “a death unto sin, and a new birth unto righteousness” may be interpreted in two ways: either as a moral or experiential renewal that follows faith, or as a sacramental act effected in Baptism itself.

From the catechism in the 1604 BCP we have.

Question. What is the outward visible sign or form in Baptism?

Answer. Water; wherein the person is baptized, In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.

Question. What is the inward and spiritual grace?

Answer. A death unto sin, and a new birth unto righteousness: for being by nature born in sin, and the children of wrath, we are hereby made the children of grace.

Question. What is required of persons to be baptized?

Answer. Repentance, whereby they forsake sin; and Faith, whereby they steadfastly believe the promises of God made to them in that Sacrament.

Question. Why then are Infants baptized, when by reason of their tender age they cannot perform them?

Answer. Because they promise them both by their Sureties; which promise, when they come to age, themselves are bound to perform.

However, from both of these catechisms, I think it should be taken in a sacramental manner in support of baptismal regeneration. As John H.R Moorman, IX Bishop of Ripon writes:

The Prayer Book of 1604 was virtually the same as that of 1559 but with one important addition. In previous books the Catechism had ended with the “desires"; but it was now extended to contain twelve questions and answers on the sacraments. These helped to support the idea that Anglican religion was essentially sacramental and that children should be made to recognize this fact. ^[3]

Further more, notes on the Book of Common Prayer can shed much light on its theology. For instance, we will look at John Boys. Below as he is commenting on Trinity Sunday and the Gospel reading for that day which was John 3 he sheds light on how baptism was understood and also misunderstood by some. His very telling commentary reads as follows:

Except a man be born of water—some few modern divines have imagined that these words should not be understood of external baptism. They claim that Christ here uses “water” figuratively for the Spirit of God, whose effects it signifies; and therefore, that “water and the Spirit” mean the same thing.

To this interpretation, we answer: First, it is an old rule in the interpretation of Holy Scripture that where the literal sense will stand, the meaning farthest from the letter is usually the worst. There is nothing more dangerous in a Christian university than this licentious and deluding art of changing the meaning of words, just as alchemy pretends to change the substance of metals—perverting the truth by twisting the text. Of these men, Augustine’s saying is prophetic: “Si praeoccupaverit animum alicuius erroris opinio, quicquid aliter asseruerit Scriptura, figuratum homines arbitrantur.” (De Doctrina Christiana, lib. 2, cap. 10.) — “If the opinion of some error has taken hold of a man’s mind, whatever the Scriptures affirm contrary to that opinion, he will interpret as figurative.”

Secondly, we tell them: if water were placed here only for explanation or clarification, it ought not to be set before, but after the word “Spirit,” as in their own example, Matthew 3:11—“He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire.”

Thirdly, Origen, Chrysostom, Augustine, Cyril, Bede, Theophylact, Euthymius, in their commentaries upon this passage; Justin Martyr, Tertullian, Ambrose, Jerome, Basil, Gregory of Nyssa, and many more—indeed, nearly all the Fathers—and Hooker, a man of incomparable learning, speak plainly and decisively that all the ancients have understood this text as our Church does, of outward baptism. (See Bellarmine, De Effectu in Sacramento, cap. 5; De Sacramento Baptismi, lib. 1, cap. 4–5; also Calvin, Maldonatus, and Hooker, Ecclesiastical Polity, lib. 5, §§59–60; Beza, Annot. in locum.)

By baptism, then, a man is made a member of Christ, a child of God, and an inheritor of the kingdom of heaven, as our Church teaches from this very passage. In baptism, there is a visible sign, which is water, and an invisible grace, which is conveyed to us by the Spirit. For as “the wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh nor whither it goeth; so is every one that is born of the Spirit.”

As the Spirit is an inward and necessary cause, so water is an outward and necessary means to our regeneration. For baptism is not only a sign of profession, and a mark of difference by which Christian men are distinguished from those who are not baptized; it is also a sign of regeneration—whereby, as by an instrument, those who receive baptism rightly are grafted into the Church, and, as Leo says, incorporated into Christ: “Ut susceptus a Christo, Christum suscipiens, non idem sit post lavacrum qui ante baptismum fuit, sed corpus regenerati fiat caro crucifixi.”—“That he who is received by Christ and receives Christ is no longer the same after baptism as he was before, but becomes the body of one regenerated, the flesh of Him that was crucified.”

Thus we become, as it were, “flesh of His flesh, and bone of His bone.” “Quoniam sicut natus est Dominus caro nostra nascendo; ita nos nati simus ipsius renascendo.” — “For as the Lord was made partaker of our flesh by being born of us, so we are made partakers of His by being born again of Him.”

In this our new birth, the Spirit is, as it were, the Father, and the water the Mother. In this sense, the Scripture calls baptism “the bath of regeneration,” whereby God cleanses His Church unto the remission of sins: “Omni homini renascenti aqua Baptismatis instar est uteri virginalis, eodem Spiritu Sancto replente fontem, qui replevit et virginem; ut peccatum quod ibi evacuavit sacra conceptio, hic mystica tollat ablutio.” — “To every man that is reborn, the water of baptism is as the womb of the Virgin, being filled with the same Holy Spirit who filled her; that the sin which was destroyed there by the sacred conception may here be taken away by the mystical washing.” ^[4]

With these beautiful quotations of the Fathers in support of his view, he give a very illustrated understanding of baptism. He corrects the misconception of some divines during his time while also presenting the proper understanding.

The WCF and Baptism

From this, it gives greater elucidation as to why the Puritans banned the Book of Common Prayer. Before going into the 28th chapter of the Westminster Confession, it is imperative to know who drafted that section in order to give a proper interpretation.

The drafter of the section on Baptism was a Puritan by the name Cornelius Burgess; he would hold the highest view of baptism among Calvinist sacramentology. To have any higher view would make him near, if not at, a Lutheran position of baptism.

In the year 1629 he wrote a work with the title: “ Baptismal Regeneration of Elect Infants professed by the Church of England, according to the Scriptures, the Primitive Church, the present Reformed Churches, and many particular Divines apart”. Below are some excerpts that help elucidate his belief and subsequently, gives a baptismal regenerationist view of the Westminster Confession. Though, at odds with how the Church of England understood baptismal regeneration and distorts positions to suit his he states:

““It is most agreeable to the institution of Christ, that all elect infants that are baptized, (unless in some extraordinary cases) ordinarily receive from Christ, the Spirit in baptism, for their first solemn initiation into Christ, and for their future actual renovation, in God’s good time, if they live to years of discretion, and enjoy the other ordinary means of grace appointed to this end.” ^[5]

He affirms, on the one hand, that “elect infants” ordinarily receive the Holy Spirit in baptism—yet it could still happen before or after. The efficacy of baptism is contingent upon an unknowable decree of election rather than upon the objective promise of Christ. Baptism becomes an empty sign whose power is suspended in the hidden will of God rather than the visible action of Christ in His Church.

In this scheme, the sacrament no longer does what Christ says it does. It merely signifies something that may or may not occur, depending on whether one is among the elect. The font ceases to be the womb of new birth and becomes a mere stage for divine bookkeeping. Even when the Westminster divines admit that “the Spirit” is given in baptism, they immediately qualify the statement—limiting the grace to the “elect,” and deferring its effects to “God’s good time,” as though the Holy Ghost is hesitant to fulfill his promises.

Gillespie tries to defend this by stating that it is the position of the Church of England as stated in the articles on what it says on baptism. However when one looks at Article 16 concerning Sins Committed after Baptism it shows that this idea of the elect only receiving the gift of regeneration goes against this claim:

Not every deadly sin willingly committed after Baptism is sin against the Holy Ghost, and unpardonable. Wherefore the grant of repentance is not to be denied to such as fall into sin after Baptism. After we have received the Holy Ghost, we may depart from grace given, and fall into sin, and by the grace of God we may arise again, and amend our lives. And therefore they are to be condemned, which say, they can no more sin as long as they live here, or deny the place of forgiveness to such as truly repent ^[6]

E. J. Bicknell, D.D points out:

There are several statements in them that Calvinists have always found it hard to accept. Art. 16 says that a man who has received the Holy Ghost and fallen into sin, ‘ may rise again.’ The Calvinist would say ‘ must rise again.’ ^[7]

The wording presupposes baptismal regeneration. The Article assumes that the baptized have received the Holy Ghost — that they have truly been made regenerate and incorporated into Christ. The possibility of falling away, then, is not from mere outward membership, but from a state of real grace. Gillespie and the Westminster divines, in contrast, have a different view of how grace operates in order to safeguard their monergistic doctrine of perseverance. Their theology renders baptism neither the means of new birth nor the beginning of the Christian life, but as a signpost pointing toward a hidden, selective operation of grace.

The twenty-eighth chapter of the WCF bears unmistakable traces of this influence. What Burgess speculated in academic form, the Assembly enshrined in dogmatic language—thereby institutionalizing a view of baptism whose efficacy depends not upon the administration of the sacrament itself, but upon a hidden decree within the divine will. Ch. 28.1 reads:

Baptism is a sacrament of the New Testament, ordained by Jesus Christ, not only for the solemn admission of the party baptized into the visible Church, but also to be unto him a sign and seal of the covenant of grace,.of his ingrafting into Christ, of regeneration, of remission of sins, and of his giving up unto God, through Jesus Christ, to walk in newness of life: which sacrament is, by Christ’s own appointment, to be continued in his Church until the end of the world.

However, it states a qualification. In 28.5-6 it reads:

5. Although it be a great sin to contemn or neglect this ordinance, yet grace and salvation are not so inseparably annexed unto it, as that no person can be regenerated or saved without it,or that all that are baptized are undoubtedly regenerated.
6. The efficacy of baptism is not tied to that moment of time wherein it is administered; yet, notwithstanding, by the right use of this ordinance the grace promised is not only offered, but really exhibited and conferred by the Holy Ghost, to such (whether of age or infants) as that grace belongeth unto, according to the counsel of God’s own will, in his appointed time.

In the schema of the Westminster Confession, baptism’s meaning dissolves into abstraction: it points to regeneration without ever ensuring it, offers forgiveness without necessarily bestowing it, and admits into the visible Church without guaranteeing incorporation into the mystical Body.

Here lies the tragic irony. The Westminster divines, in seeking to protect the sovereignty of divine grace, end up obscuring its visibility and incarnational reality. Grace becomes an event hidden in eternity rather than a gift given in time. The Church ceases to be the instrument of salvation and becomes instead a witness to something that may or may not have happened before the foundation of the world.

Such a view breeds the rotten fruit of presumption. By restricting baptismal grace to “elect infants,” the Westminster divines dared to draw distinctions where Christ Himself made none. The Savior’s words, “ Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of God” (Mark 10:14), are not hedged with theological conditions. He does not say, “of such as are elect,” but simply, “of such.” When He took them into His arms and blessed them, He revealed but a manifest grace — a grace visible, tangible, and unconditional to those whom the Church brings to the font.

To teach that only certain infants secretly belong to some covenant of grace is to turn that scene on its head. It replaces the open arms of Christ with the cold ledger of predestination. It tells anxious parents that though they may present their child to God, the sacrament may mean nothing if heaven has decreed otherwise. This is not faith but presumption — a counterfeit piety that defers hope and makes the heart sick.

The Gospel’s picture of Christ among the children stands as a rebuke to such narrow theology. In the kingdom of God, the weak, the small, and the helpless are received before they can prove or comprehend anything. Grace precedes knowledge, faith, and moral capacity. So too in baptism: the infant is given before it knows, cleansed before it chooses, and reborn before it hopes.

Thus, the Anglican doctrine upholds what the Puritans obscured. Baptism is not a sign of grace deferred but grace conferred. It is the moment in which the Spirit broods over the waters of the font and God says: “Let there be life."