'The divine authority of the whole Bible': William White's 'Commentaries Suited to Occasions of Ordination'

Do you unfeignedly believe all the Canonical Scriptures of the Old and New Testament?

Answer. I do believe them.

In considering the third question asked at the Ordering of Deacons, William White's Commentaries Suited to Occasions of Ordination (1833), points to how Jewish and Christian understanding has been remarkably settled on the matter of, respectively, the canons of the Old and New Testaments:

There is something worthy of remark in the unanimity of testimony which the Church, in all the various places of her settlement, has borne to the integrity of the Scriptures handed down in her. In regard to the Old Testament, indeed, the Roman Catholic Church has added to the canon. But this does not affect the principle maintained; because the witness in that department is the Jewish Church, and not the Christian ... In regard to the Scriptures of the New Testament, there is no diversity. And that this should be the case, after all the contentions which have taken place in regard to the sense of their contents, would seem ascribable to nothing less than the good providence of God, which has preserved the sacred canon in such integrity, that the contending parties consent in it, however widely they may differ in the interpretation.

It might be worth noting at this point that PECUSA's 1789 revision of the Prayer Book excluded the Apocrypha from the lectionary. Just as the candidates at the Ordering of Deacons were asked if they "unfeignedly believe all the Canonical Scriptures of the Old and New Testament", so it was only the Canonical Scriptures that deacons would be reading at divine service.

White continues by emphasising that the Canon of the Old and New Testaments is unified in providing the proclamation of our "redemption":

If we first consider the Scriptures as a connected chain of divine dispensations, given at different times, but all relative to the same object, that of the redemption; this being at last brought about by the intervention of passions and prejudices, in which nothing was less contemplated than the end to which they were made subservient, such a mutual relation is itself an argument of divine design throughout the whole. 

To "unfeignedly believe all the Canonical Scriptures" is to confess that this is their proclamation. There is a Hookerian quality to White's description of the "object" of the Scriptures. As Hooker declares in the Lawes:

The ende of the word of God is to save, and therefore we terme it the word of life. The waie for all men to be saved is by the knowledg of that truth which the worde hath taught ... To this end the word of God no otherwise serveth then onlie in the nature of a doctrinall instrument ... beinge it selfe the instrument which God hath purposlie framed, thereby to work the knowledg of salvation in the hartes of men (V.21.3).

This being so, and mindful that those who receive the order of deacon will soon thereafter be priested, then having ordinary responsibility "to preach the Word of God", the candidates must grow in knowledge of the Scriptures and their "divine authority":

This part of the discourse ought not to be left without its being suggested to candidates to make

themselves more and more acquainted, as well with the occasion, the design, and the distinguishing properties of every book of Scripture, together with the grounds on which the Church has included it in the canon, as with the evidences of the divine authority of the whole Bible, in relation to all the points to which they apply, and as cleared from all the objections which the enemies of our faith have set against them ... Were candidates for the deaconship designed to be stationary in that grade, perhaps less knowledge might serve, than under the present circumstances, of their looking forward to the priesthood.

In other words, the requirement that deacons "unfeignedly believe all the Canonical Scriptures of the Old and New Testament" prepares them for the ordinary, regular ministry of Word which will later be committed to them as presbyters, with this question setting a basis for that subsequent ministry and office.