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[:]

In the Assembly I gave my vote with others that the Confession of Faith, put out by authority, should not be either required to be sworn or subscribed to, . . . but only so as not to be publicly preached or written against.

I have not come on any clear trace of this vote in the Minutes of the Assembly, but possibly it occurred on or soon after 26th November 1646, when the Confession was completed, and about to be sent up to the Houses, and when it is recorded that “Mr, Nye, Mr. Carter junior, and Mr. Greenhill enter their dissent to the sending up of the Confession of Faith in order to the Preface,” and is ordered that “before the Confession of Faith be sent up the Preface shall be debated and prepared to be sent up with it, if any be made.”’ But so far as appears from the Minutes none was debated or sent up.

The Church of Scotland, while agreeing with the English Divines as to the Directory of Public Worship, and Form of Church Government, has always required her ministers to regard the Confession of Faith as something more than the norm of teaching to which in their public ministrations they were to conform, and by the Act of the Scottish Parliament in 1693 she was sufficiently authorised to require more than this, including at least personal acceptance of its main doctrines, and of the sum and substance of the Reformed faith, as set forth in it.

Alexander F. Mitchell, The Westminster Assembly: Its Hitsory and Standards (Philadelphia: Presbyterian Board of Publications, 1884), 511-512. [Some reformatting, extended quotations cited as indented block quotations; and italics original.]

This entry was posted on Friday, September 5th, 2014 at 6:38 am and is filed under Confessional Subscriptionism. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.

Comments are closed at this time.