Ceremonial law in Christian ethics: the Westminster Assembly’s hermeneutic of mosaic legal rites

There is a perceived point of contradiction within the 1646 Westminster Confession of Faith’s paragraph 19.3 concerning the Mosaic Ceremonial Law. This point of contradiction is glaring because of the extreme diligence the Assembly took in crafting every word, sentence and paragraph within the Confession. In that paragraph, the Assembly described the Ceremonial Law as being “now abrogated, under the New Testament.” This abrogation is presented to the reader as entire and complete without any provided exceptions or qualifications. Immediately preceding their declaration of a wholesale abrogation, they described these laws as “partly, holding forth divers[e] instructions of moral duties.” The tension in the paragraph lies between their wholesale affirmation of abrogation and their acknowledgment of instructions of moral duties expressed by these laws. Within the chapter, the Westminster Assembly intended the meaning of “moral” as “perpetual.” Therefore, there is a demanded explanation for the perceived contradiction between a system of abrogated case laws and the perpetually obligatory duties associated with them. A survey of expositions of the Westminster Confession of Faith revealed that this topic to date has been grossly ignored. When acknowledged, it is never fully explained according to the deeper hermeneutical understanding of this category of biblical law. Therefore, this thesis appeals to the Assembly members as primary sources to better understand their authorial intent of both phrases and how they harmonized seemingly contradictory statements. In doing so, the Thesis takes an intense investigation into Westminster’s systematics and hermeneutics of biblical law. Secondary source documents are also examined to determine if there is doctrinal uniformity in this area with broader Protestantism. The reason is because the Westminster Confession of Faith is a Protestant document resulting from the Solemn League and Covenant between Scotland and England, demanding a confession of faith in doctrinal accord with the best Protestant confessions then available.