One night, after having consumed far too much pizza, an old school Presbyterian minister retired to bed. About two in the morning, after much turning and spindling up in the covers, he awoke in a sweat, and there, hovering over the foot of his bed, in a nimbus cloud of glory, was the Westminster Confession, without the American revisions. He sat bolt upright, his eyes like a couple of shiny hubcaps.
“I didn’t know you were an angel!” He exclaimed. “Who knew!”
“My son, my faithful son. I am no angel, but merely a system of sound doctrine. But as far as the seventeenth century goes, I have been told I won ‘best in show.'”
“I should say! You’re the best!”
“Nay, my son. For like all other synods and councils, whether general or particular, I may err, and have erred, and am not to be made the rule of faith or practice, but rather used as a help in both.” The Confession arched her eyebrows, as much as to say that ‘we have been over this before.’
“Not a rule of faith or practice?”
“Right. But just a help in both.”
The minister was muttering into the covers, bunched up in both fists. “Beg pardon?” said the Confession. The minister lowered his hands. “Uh oh,” he repeated.