Mitchell:

NOTE (Additional), p. 369.—Subscription to the Confession.

I have said elsewhere that the Westminster Divines, from their earnest desire to form one comprehensive Church, did not require subscription to their Directories for Public Worship and for Church Government, nor exact conformity to their minute details, as Laud had done to those of the Prayer-Book and Canons. It may be doubted if the English section of them meant to require more for their Confession of Faith than that it should be (like the Irish Articles) the norm of public teaching. They felt with Baxter that:

[T]here is a singular use for a full body of theology or a profession concluded on by such reverend assemblies, that the younger ministers may be taught by it, and the reverence of it may restrain them from rash contradicting it; and there is a necessity of exercising power in ministerial assemblies for the actual restraint of such as shall teach things intolerably unsound, and all ministers should be there accountable for their doctrine.

Such a full body of theology in a non-liturgical Church was essential as a guide in prayer as well as in preaching, and its authority as the norm of both was the least restriction that could be imposed if reasonable soundness was to be maintained, and due security given to the congregations that the liberty allowed in the devotional services should not degenerate into licence. Probably this was all that the majority of the English divines were disposed to insist on. At any rate a sentence of Tuckney often quoted, seems to point in that direction[:]

Read the rest of this entry »