“Two things are remarkable, at least to the modern observer, about this list [of the author-annotators] and the Annotations–on the one hand, the list was broadly constructed, drawing not only on the Presbyterian and independent constituencies of the Parliament that would be called together into the Westminster Assembly, but also on the Episcopalian, and indeed, Royalist constituency that would not contribute to the Assembly and its standards. In the latter group we count Ussher and Richardson, both bishops in Ireland; Featley, and Smallwood. On the other hand, the annotators remained anonymous in the published text: despite the eminence of many of the contributors, their names were not listed in the prefaces, nor were they affixed to the commentaries on the various books of the Bible”(Richard A. Muller and Rowland S. Ward, Scripture and Worship: Biblical Interpretation and the Directory for Worship, 21-22).

“Their [the annotators] intention had not been to produce an original work, but rather a standard commentary that drew on the already sizable and significant Reformed exegetical tradition (Richard A. Muller and Rowland S. Ward, Scripture and Worship: Biblical Interpretation and the Directory for Worship, 19).

“The context for understanding the Westminster Confession is, certainly, the exegetical and doctrinal heritage of the Reformation as presented through the interpretive glass of the English and Scot Reformed theology of the mid-seventeenth century, which was itself part of the larger phenomenon that has been called ‘international Calvinism'” (Richard A Muller and Rowland S. Ward, Scripture and Worship: Biblical Interpretation and the Directory for Worship,  9).

“Charles II once asked John Owen (1616-1683), “the prince of Puritans,” why he went  to hear the preaching of the unlearned tinker of Bedford, John Bunyan. Owen responded, “May it please your majesty, could I possess the tinker’s abilities for preaching, I would willingly relinquish all my learning” (Andrew Thomson, “Life of Dr. Owen,” in The Works of John Owen, 1:xcii, quoted in Joel R. Beeke and Mark Jones, A Puritan Theology, 712).

“One of the most fruitful ways of analyzing the continuities and commonalities, as well as the discontinuities and nuances of divergence and difference, between the Reformers and the writings of the Reformed orthodox or Puritan writers is to examine trajectories of exegesis–specifically to chart the rise of orthodoxy in and through the developing Reformed exegetical tradition” (Richard A. Muller and Bruce S. Ward, Scripture and Worship: Biblical Interpretation and the Directory for Worship, 3).

“What, then, is the context within which catechizing is to occur if it is to have its optimum sanctifying impact? First, the well-ordered Christian home is the foundation upon which is built the discipleship of covenant children in the ‘discipline and instruction’ (NASB, ESV), what the old version termed the ‘nurture and admonition of the Lord’ (Eph. 6:4 KJV). Fathers are charged with this responsibility” (Terry L. Johnson, Catechizing Our Children: The Whys and Hows of Teaching the Shorter Catechism Today, 2).

“Without conviction of sin there will never be acceptance of the gospel. It is the preaching of man’s total depravity and inability manifested in the overt transgression of God’s law that is calculated to induce this sense of sin, of helplessness and of need. And so this doctrine of depravity and inability is not only necessary as belonging to the whole counsel of God but is also one of the most fruitful elements of that counsel in promoting the interests of wholesome effective evangelism” (John Murray, Collected Writings, vol. 1, 129).

“The faith which God foresees is the fruit and not the root of electing grace” (John Murray, Collected Writings, vol. 1, 121).

“I will argue in this book that the fundamental physics of every socioreligious, cultural-religious formation consists of practices concerning holiness, purity and sacrifice. . . . Relocate the sacred, rearrange the boundaries of purity and pollution, revise its sacrificial procedures, and you have changed the fundamental physics of the society. A revolution here is the most profound of social revolutions, and it is the revolution achieved by Jesus in his cross and resurrection” (Peter J. Leithart, Delivered from the Elements of the World, 12).