"Beyond question, God has ordained, as a means of grace and indoctrination, the oral explanation and enforcement of divine truths by all preachers. Thus Ezra [Nehemiah 8.8] causes the priests to "read in the book of the law of God distinctly, and give the sense, and cause them to understand the reading." Paul commanded Timothy [2 Timothy 4.2] to "reprove, rebuke, exhort with long-suffering and doctrine." He, as an apostle of Christ, not only permits, but commands, each uninspired pastor and doctor to give to his charge his human and uninspired expositions of what he believes to be divine truth, that is to say, his creed. If such human creeds, when composed by a single teacher and delivered orally, extempore, are proper means of instruction for the church, by the stronger reason must those be proper and scriptural which are the careful, mature, and joint productions of learned and godly pastor, delivered with all the accuracy of written documents. He who would consistently banish creeds must silence all preaching and reduce the teaching of the church to a recital of the exact words of Holy Scripture without note or comment."
- R.L. Dabney, "The Westminster Confession and Creeds"
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