Journal: Westminster Theological Journal
Volume: WTJ 55:2 (Fall 1993)
Article: Some Answers about the Regulative Principle
Author: T. David Gordon

WTJ 55:2 (Fall 1993) p. 321

Some Answers about the Regulative Principle

T. David Gordon

Professor John Frame very accurately entitled a recent article, “Some Questions about the Regulative Principle,” since questions, rather than solutions, dominated the article. This is not necessarily a bad thing. Often the road to cogent answers is first charted by raising cogent questions. Unfortunately, neither the questions raised nor the answers proposed were especially precise or cogent. It was never clear to this reader, for instance, whose regulative principle Frame was evaluating, or whose understanding of the “circumstances” of worship were problematic, or why a new category, “mode,” was deemed necessary, since the three existing categories of Reformed worship (elements, circumstances, and forms) would appear adequate to his concerns. Nor was it clear that Frame recognized the regulative principle to be an ecclesiological doctrine, designed to protect liberty of conscience against the abuse of church power. Since he has expressed a desire “to learn from my readers,”1 I will attempt to provide at least a provisional response.

It is not clear with whom Frame is debating. Although he quotes the Westminster Confession of Faith, he mentions the following, somewhat ill-defined designations for those with whom he disagrees (all emphases mine): “some traditional ways of understanding the principle” (p. 357); “in case anyone supposes” (p. 358); “some with covenanter views” (p. 360); “sometimes been regarded as a simple procedure for determining what may be done in worship” (p. 360); “Some people” (p. 364); “many would dispute that” (p. 360). The essay would have been much more helpful had some specific understanding of the regulative principle, as articulated in a particular confession or in a particular author’s writings, been identified. The lack of specificity makes it unclear to the reader whether Frame’s difference is with historic, clearly defined understandings of the principle, or with some of the particular individuals he may have met in his lifetime, who may not represent any other individuals than themselves.

WTJ 55:2 (Fall 1993) p. 322

Is Frame debating the regulative principle as articulated by the Westminster Assembly, by George Gillespie,2 by John Owen,3 by James Bannerman,4 or by the Southern Presbyterians (Dabney,5 Girardeau,6 Thomas E. Peck