Resources

As a covenant family of Reformed, Presbyterian, and Confessional Christians, we subscribe to and teach the Westminster Confession of Faith and Larger and Shorter Catechisms as the vital emphases of the Christian faith and life.  Following are resource links to read them online in English and Spanish, and to listen to the Shorter Catechism in English.

“For those of us who believe the Bible, the [Westminster] Confession can supply an invaluable introduction to its main doctrines.  Growth in grace will follow upon a careful study of the Confession as we compare its statements with the Biblical passages which it combines and summarizes.  Let us not neglect this excellent document … any communicant member who neglects the Confession is thereby deprived of the best brief guidebook to an understanding of the Bible.” — Gordon H. Clark, What Presbyterians Believe

Westminster Confession of Faith
Westminster Confesson of Faith – in Spanish.

Westminster Larger Catechism
Westminster Larger Catechism – in Spanish

Westminster Shorter Catechism
Westminster Shorter Catechism – in Spanish
Westminster Shorter Catechism Audio MP3 files (from http://ipcnorfolk.org/resources.shtml):
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“The Westminster Assembly of Divines, representing all parties of English Protestantism … sat for about seven years, during which time 1163 sessions were held.  Ample time was taken for the unhurried and thorough investigation and discussion of the matters under consideration.  There was a patient and painstaking effort to ascertain the real sense of the Scriptures on these matters.   No doubt the Assembly’s work, for industry, patience, thoroughness and whole-hearted devotion to the Word of God, has never since been paralleled.” – J. G. Vos, The Visible Church: Its Nature, Unity and Witness

John Murray, Collected Writings: The Claims of Truth, Volume 1:

  • “It was the Westminster Assembly that gave to us the Westminster Confession of Faith and Larger and Shorter Catechisms.  Language fails to asses the blessing that God in his sovereign providence and grace bestowed upon his church through these statements of the Christian faith … the flower and fruit of some fifteen centuries of creedal or confession formulation of the Christian faith.” (“A Notable Tercentenary”, 312)
  • ” … the Westminster divines were the heirs of all the other evangelical creeds of the Reformation period … It is noteworthy … that the Westminster Confession and Catechisms are the last in the series of the great Reformation creeds … no other Protestant or Reformed Confession had brought to bear upon its composition such a combination of devotion, care and erudition as was exhibited in the work of the Westminster Assembly.” (Ibid, 313).
  • “The Westminster Confession and Catechisms are … the mature fruit of the whole movement of creed-formation throughout fifteen centuries of Christian history, and, in particular, they are the crown of the greatest age of confessional exposition, the Protestant Reformation.  No other similar documents have concentrated in them, and formulated with such precision, so much of the truth embodied in the Christian revelation.” (Ibid)
  • “They bear the marks of human infirmity and fallibility, but no other statements framed by men so adequately express the confession of Christian belief.  For this reason they have been the Confessions of faith of some of the most faithful churches upon earth since the Reformation.” (Ibid, 314)
  • “Let us prove all things; but let us also hold fast that which is good.” (Ibid, 315)
  • “The amount of work and time expended on the Confession of Faith will stagger us in these days of haste and alleged activism.  But the influence exerted all over the world by the Confession can only be understood in the light of the diligent care and prayerful devotion exercised in its composition.” (“The Importance and Relevance of the Westminster Confession”, 316-317)
  • “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 at the same time examined anew and clarified in the light of that fuller understanding of God’s Word which the Holy Spirit has imparted.” (Ibid, 317)