The Canon and the Apocrypha
The Assembly drew a sharper line against the Apocrypha than Article VI of the Thirty-Nine Articles.
Settled clearly
Background
The Tridentine session IV (1546) had decreed that the books of Tobit, Judith, Wisdom, Sirach, Baruch, 1-2 Maccabees, and the additions to Daniel and Esther were canonical and to be received 'with equal pious affection' (*pari pietatis affectu*) alongside the Hebrew Bible. The Reformed had unanimously rejected this — Calvin in the *Institutes*, the Belgic Confession (1561), the Helvetic Confessions, and the Synod of Dort — but the Church of England's Article VI (1571) had taken a milder line: the Apocrypha was not canonical for doctrine but might still be read 'for example of life and instruction of manners.' Lancelot Andrewes and the moderate-Anglican tradition kept the Apocrypha in the lectionary and on the printed page of the Authorized Version (1611) between the Testaments.
The Assembly’s handling
The Assembly's debate on canon ran in August 1645 alongside the drafting of WCF I.2-3. The Reformed majority pressed for the sharper Continental line; no significant voice argued the Article VI middle position; and Selden, who might have done so on antiquarian grounds, did not. The English bishops who would have defended the Article VI language were either absent (Ussher, Hall, Brownrig) or excluded (Featley, expelled by then). The committee's report carried.
Parties
The Reformed majority
The Apocrypha is 'no part of the canon of Scripture' and is to be treated as 'other human writings' — not to be used for doctrine, not to be 'made use of' in worship beyond such reading as one would give to any pious but uninspired text.
- Edmund Calamy the Elder (1600–1666)
- Stephen Marshall (c. 1594–1655)
- Cornelius Burgess (1589–1665)
- Thomas Gataker (1574–1654)
- Anthony Tuckney (1599–1670)
The (absent) Article VI position
The Apocrypha is not canonical for doctrine but is useful 'for example of life and instruction of manners' and properly read in public worship as the Anglican lectionary prescribed.
- James Ussher (1581–1656)
- Joseph Hall (1574–1656)
- Ralph Brownrig (1592–1659)
Confessional language
WCF I.3: 'The books commonly called Apocrypha, not being of divine inspiration, are no part of the canon of Scripture; and therefore are of no authority in the Church of God, nor to be any otherwise approved, or made use of, than other human writings.'
Ontology placement
This crux bears on the following attribute of the Westminster ontology. The Westminster baseline value is marked WCF.
I · Scripture · Canon
Legacy
The Westminster line on the Apocrypha became the standard English-speaking Reformed position. Printed Bibles in Reformed use omitted the Apocrypha entirely after the mid-17th century — the British and Foreign Bible Society's 1826 decision to exclude it from its editions confirmed the practice that Westminster had made confessional.