Holy Scripture (3)

It must be remembered that the Baptists wrote their confession nearly thirty years after the Westminster Confession was written. Much had happened in England in the intervening years. The Baptists faced doctrinal problems not faced in the mid-1640s. This was especially true concerning the Scriptures. The Baptist emphasis on the sufficiency and infallibility of Scripture was probably written to refute erros about the nature of Scripture circulating in mid-17th century England.

Christopher Hill has summarized the attitude toward the Scriptures by radical groups in England in terms of two main approaches. One approach was to "use its stories as myths to which each could give his own sense, a sense that need not consider the original meaning of the text." (Christopher Hill, The World Turned Upside Down (Middlesex: Penguin Books, 1975), 261). Such a use was illustrated in the writings of the Quaker apologist Robert Barclay. Writing in 1675, Barclay described the work of the Scriptures, their service to us, as a mirror in which we see the experiences of the saints of old. Through this we are strengthened and confirmed and given the hope of obtaining the same end. Scripture is something to be fulfilled in us. As Scripture is fulfilled in us, we "discern the stamp of God's spirit and ways upon them." (Robert Barclay, An Apology for the True Christian Divinity being an Explanation and Vindication of the Principles and Doctrines of the people called Quakers (Philadelphia: Friends Book Store, n.d.), 88).