Sermons of the Westminster Divines, by Zachary Cole

In April I wrote about some frontal and rear attacks on Confessional Bibliology in The Authority of the Septuagint, edited by Greg Lanier and William Ross. Sometime later I wrote the following (many months ago), after reading “Providential Preservation of Scripture and Textual Criticism in the Sermons of Westminster Divines” (Zachary J. Cole, JETS 68.3, 2025: 405–23) and hearing the rejoinder presented by Jeff Riddle.

Though some of the text critics seem excited about it, Coles’s article seemed fairly weak to me. Often he jumped to (preconceived) conclusions not warranted by the evidence he presented. The article’s very existence shows that text critics (at least Reformed ones) don’t want to clearly admit that they find Westminster/London 1.8 and Confessional Bibliology a thorny problem that they need to answer (e.g., by not actually acknowledging and engaging current writers in this piece), while they actually do see they have a problem they have to answer.

Also, a note on footnote 57 on page 419. Cole wrote that the “alternative ἀπωλείαις appears to be unattested in Greek manuscripts, but is nevertheless the reading of Stephanus, which is in turn followed by the KJV” (with the accompanying footnote). It seems odd that he mentioned only Stephanus, when in fact it is in Erasmus 1516, and in Beza 1598 (the text the KJV translators mostly followed). In the ETC blog comments, Hefin Jones pointed out an error here. The reading απωλειαις in 2 Peter 2:2 is in fact found in GA 2815, a manuscript used by Erasmus.

Lastly, Cole established a method (reviewing published sermons of the Westminster divines) and yet departs from his method to include a sermon by James Ussher – I suppose just because he thinks it helped further his thesis/purpose.

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Note: Comment by Beza on 2 Peter 2:2.

Exitia, ταις απωλειαις, Vulgata, Lasciuias, ἀσελγείαις: quae lectio confirmatur Complutensis editionis & sex praeterea codicum auctoritate, ac mihi quidem satis videtur conuenire spurcos illos Nicolaitas. Sed si recemptum illud sequamur, Exitiorum nomine intelligentur viae, seu potius errores illi multiplices quibus in exitium praecipitantur homines.

Exitia, ταις απωλειαις, Vulgate, Lustful, ἀσελγείαις: which reading is confirmed by the authority of the Complutensian edition and six other codices, and indeed it seems to me that those filthy Nicolaitans are sufficiently suitable. But if we follow that received tradition, by the name of Exitia are understood the ways, or rather those manifold errors by which men are precipitated into destruction.