Under Construction

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Subsections

In Scotland
In France
In America
Waiving a Ministerial Requirement

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Order of Contents

Articles  12+
Quotes  6+
History  48+
.     Elders & Deacons  2

How to Take & Interpret Vows
Strict Expressions
“Doctrine”
“Agreeable to”
“Founded upon”
“Contained in”

System Subscription
Insofar as
Origins & Examples of Exceptions
.     Allowing a View while Prohibiting Teaching it  1
.    Tolerating Errors without further Subscription  1
Latin

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Articles

Most Scottish and American authors are on their respective pages: ‘Subscription in Scotland’ and ‘In America’.

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1600’s

Durham, James – pp. 385-88 of pt. 4, ch. 14, ‘What is to be done in order to union about divisions concerning doctrinal determinations?’  in The Dying Man’s Testament…  (1659)

Durham’s context is not precisely subscription, but the whole chapter elucidates timeless ethical principles, including means, methods and ends, which may apply to subscription issues.

“…it is not simply unlawful or hurtful to truth for a Church-judicatory, out of respect to peace in the Church, to condescend abstractly to waive a ministerial decision without wronging of the matter;” – pp. 385-86

“…in such cases, where two parts of a Church are divided, having independent authorities as to one another, and there being contrary determinations in the same question, it seems convenient and necessary for peace, that either both should waive their decisions, or that both should permit the decisions of each other to stand and be in force, to such only as should acquiesce therein, and willingly acknowledge the same.” – p. 387

“where there is nothing like a parity or equality, but the division is in the same one Church betwixt a greater and smaller number, and the greater will not be induced to remove their determination, it is no way sinful to the lesser to join with them notwithstanding thereof, they having their own freedom and liberty cautioned, as was formerly said; Yea, this seems not unexpedient that they should do for the good of the Church. ” – p. 387

Polhill, Edward – sect. 10  in The Samaritan Showing Healing

Baxter, Richard – ch. 8, ‘Of Subscribing & Declaring Assent & Consent’  in The English Nonconformity as under King Charles II & King James II Truly Stated & Argued  (1683; London: Parkhurst, 1689), pp. 42-48

Baxter here gives his reasons why he could not affirm the formula needed to remain in the Anglican establishment at the Great Ejection of puritan ministers in 1662, namely by:

“Subscribing according to the canon that [1.] there is nothing in the book of Common-Prayer contrary to the Word of God, and that we will use no other form. 2. And publickly declaring our assent and consent to all things contained and prescri∣bed in and by it, and our approbation of all the forms, orders, etc, as aforesaid.”

He also argues against interpretations of this wording that conformists thought allowable.

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1800’s

Stanley, Arthur P. – A Letter to the Lord Bishop of London on the State of Subscription in the Church of England and in the University of Oxford  (Oxford: Henry & Parker, 1863)  100 pp.  ToC

Stanley (1815–1881) was a broad Churchman and professor of Church history.  He argues for repealing subscription to the 39 Articles and Book of Common Prayer in the Church of England.  There is real value in his Letter.

McClintock & Strong – ‘Subscription, Clerical’  in McClintock & Strong’s Biblical Encyclopedia

This article mainly summarizes Stanley above.

“All language is more or less ambiguous, so that it is difficult always to understand the exact sense, or the animus imponentis [intention of the imposer],especially when creeds have been long established.”

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1900’s

Curtis, William – ch. 25, ‘Subscription & its Ethics: The Ideal Creed’  in A History of Creeds & Confessions of Faith in Christendom & Beyond…  (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1911), pp. 447-66

“Assent to a historic Creed or Group of Articles, under whatever formula, involves a reference, not merely to what is fondly termed the ‘plain meaning’ of its sentences, but also to its historical meaning, purpose, background, and spirit.  It is not more antiquated, unjust, and disastrous to accept the Bible in the letter of its language wihtout subordinating the Old Testament to the New and both to the Spirit of Christ, and without regard to historical and linguistic and textual research and its invaluable interpretative aids, than it is to prescribe or accept a subordinate and vastly inferior document without some knowledge of the spiritual and scholarly attitude of its formulators, and of the limited purpose and information behind their work.” – p. 455

Preus, Robert – 6. ‘Confessional Subscription’  in eds. Kiehl & Werning, Evangelical Directions for the Lutheran Church  (1970), pp. 43-52

Cochrane, Arthur C. – ‘The Act of Confession-Confessing’  in Sixteenth Century Journal, vol. 8, no. 4, The Formula of Concord: Quadricentennial Essays (Dec., 1977), pp. 61-83

Cochrane is a confessional Lutheran professor at Wartburg Theological Seminary (ELCA, Iowa) that here gives helpful thoughts and observations about confessing in general and historically in the Post-Reformation up through to the (German) Barmen Declaration (1934).

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2000’s

Gonzales, Jr., Robert

‘Confessional Subscription: Strict vs. Substantial’  (2016)

Gonzales Jr. is a minister and has been a professor at Reformed Baptist Seminary (FL).  He is careful in explaining the full subscription view and then critiques it as “unwise and potentially unhealthy.  In particular, I see at least three problems with strict subscription,” which are that it is: Inconsistent, Unrealistic and Unhealthy.

He, alternately, argues for substantial subscription (following Sam Waldron), which Gonzales distinguishes from “substance subscription”.  “Substance subscription,” he says, entails only needing to approve the essentials or fundamentals of a confession.

“‘Substantial subscription’ is closer to the kind of ‘system subscription’ known as ‘Good Faith Subscription,’ which has been officially adopted by the PCA and which reflects the ‘Old School Presbyterian’ version of system subscription.  This mode of subscription requires that the subscriber affirm the system of doctrine contained in the Confession, which ‘system’ is presumably ‘Reformed theology.’

Moreover, it requires the ordaining entity to query the candidate concerning any scruples and requires the candidate in ‘good faith’ to be open and honest about any and all scruples he may have with respect to the confessional standards.  The ordaining authority must then determine whether any of the candidate’s reservations or exceptions are ‘out of accord with any fundamentals of the system of doctrine’ and ensure that his exception is ‘neither hostile to the system nor strikes at the vitals of religion.’

Though similar to system subscription, I prefer the modifier ‘substantial.’  The primary usage of ‘substantial’ is ‘of ample or considerable amount, quantity, size, etc.’  Thus, unlike ‘substance’ or ‘system’ forms of subscription, substantial conveys the message that the subscriber is in agreement with a significant proportion of the Confession…

But substantial subscription goes farther than system subscription in that it formally conveys a high level of agreement not merely with the system in the Confession but with the Confession as a whole.  Indeed, since substantial subscription takes the whole Confession as its starting point and since by its nature only allows for a limited amount of non-substantive exceptions, it may be viewed as a version of ‘full subscription’ that formally allows for a limited number of non-substantial caveats or exceptions.”

‘Confessional Subscription: its Terms & Types’  (2018)

Gonzales explains the terms:

Quia vs. Quatenus (Because or That vs. Insofar as), Ex animo (Good Faith), Scruples or Exceptions, Animus imponentis (the intention of the imposer) and doctrine.

Gonzales then describes different degrees of subscription:

Absolute subscription, Historical subscription, Full (or Strict) subscription, System subscription, Substance (of the Evangelical Faith) Subscription, and Substance (of the Christian Religion) Subscription.

Foreman, Matt – ‘Subscription Among Reformed Baptist Churches: the Proper use of the Confession’  (2022)  17 pp.

Foreman, a reformed baptist pastor, argues against Strict Subscription, and for Substantial Subscription.  For what the latter means, see Gonzales above.

Bartle, Roy S. – ‘Reformed Confessionalism & the Belhar Confession [1986]’  in KOERS, Bulletin for Christian Scholarship  (2025)  12 pp.

The short Belhar Confession (1986, Wiki) “addresses issues of race, culture and socioeconomics.  It originated from the Dutch Reformed Mission Church’s rejection of apartheid theology and has been adopted by other Reformed denominations, in and beyond Africa [e.g. RCA, PCUSA, CRC], alongside the historical Reformed confessions of the Three Forms of Unity and the Westminster Standards.  This article examines whether the Belhar Confession can be subscribed without conflict alongside these historical Reformed confessions.  Three common positions taken on confessional subscription are outlined: non-, quia and quatenus subscription.” – Abstract

Bartle (associated with Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary) lists as problematic statements of Belhar:

2.4 “that this unity [of the church] must become visible so that the world may believe that separation, enmity, and hatred between people and groups is sin, which Christ has already conquered”

3.2 “that God’s life-giving Word and Spirit has conquered the powers of sin and death, and therefore also of irreconciliation and hatred, bitterness and enmity…”

4.1 “God is in a special way the God of the destitute, the poor and the wronged [and] calls the church to follow him in this”

4.3 “the church must witness against all the powerful and privileged who selfishly seek their own interests and thus control and harm others”

Bartle finds things in these statements to be at odds with teachings of the Three Forms of Unity and the Westminster Confession, and hence concludes: “These potential conflicts are…  with quia [strict] subscription but are avoidable with quatenus [insofar as] subscription.”

However, it is not hard to find teachings to be in conflict if one interprets them in a negative way.  But if one interprets Belhar’s language in the best allowable way, it does not necessarily conflict with Westminster and the Three Forms of Unity.

Fentiman, Travis – 4. “White Towers & Unifying Christ’s Church”  in “Editor’s Extended Introduction”  in English Puritans, A Refutation of the Errors of Separatists  (1604; RBO, 2025), pp. 160-89

“The principles that have been learned and our rebalancing of priorities ought to not only show us that the unifying of Christ’s Church is possible, but it is obligatory and this ought to cause us to endeavor after it…

The civil allowance of the more sound protestant denominations in England [in 1690]…  could only tend toward facilitating and cementing those denominations into remaining separate, entering us into modern denominationalism.  To seek to reverse that trend, Phil.
3:15-16, “whereto we have already attained, let us walk by the same rule, let us mind the same thing,” will be expounded and cleared from the separatistic construction often put on it.

Lastly, principles of Scripture, Westminster, the Scots and the London presbyterians for unifying the Church will be laid out and recommended, versus erecting denominational white towers.  The fundamentals (at least) of Christianity will be seen to be sufficient and obligatory Scriptural doctrinal grounds for organic Church union (with
all due care and prudence), as the post-apostolic early Church, many of the reformed (including the leading Scottish covenanter James Durham) and the London presbyterians taught, it being no sin, but a divine obligation for the stronger to help and be united to the weaker (though they must relinquish rights and privileges for the here now to do so).

Consequently, secondary teachings and practices which do not tend to overturn the fundamentals or the power of godliness will be seen to be no grounds for division, or schism.  Objections will be resolved and the reform of Christ’s one Church will be encouraged and set on its way.” – p. 160

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Quotes

Order of

Paget
Rutherford
Baxter
Corbet
Burnet
Early-1700’s Ireland
Stanley

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1600’s

John Paget

An Answer to the Unjust Complaints of William Best…  (Amsterdam, 1635), pp. 88-90

“6. It is also false and absurd which they [Separatists] say touching the authority of the classis [presbytery], that it is such ‘as does not become any except the apostles, that could not err, to have.’  But it is the less marvel that these men do speak on this manner when as they see Mr. [John] Davenport himself going before them and using a much-like-speech in his letter to the classis touching his consent required to the writing of the five ministers, namely that:

‘such a subjection is greater than may be yielded unto any council, whether of classis or synods, etc. that thereby the writings and decrees of men are made infallible, and equal with the Word of God, which is intolerable.’

But what wise man is there that sees not the strange folly and vanity of such assertions as these?  Is no truth uttered or described by men in our times, whereunto the consent of men may be required, because there be now no apostles?  Do not all Reformed Churches at this day require a subscription unto their confessions of faith in the several articles thereof?  Do they hereby make their writings of equal authority with the Word of God, and themselves equal to the apostles that could not err?  It is far from them.

Neither Mr. Davenport, nor these complainants, shall ever be able to justify these slanderous complaints.  Nay, if this were true, how could Mr. Davenport subscribe his name unto his own writing sent unto the classis, to show his consent unto it?  Did he thereby make himself an apostle or his writing equal with the Word of God?  Why may we not show our consent and subscribe to other writings of men upon persuasion of the truth so appearing unto us, as well as he subscribed to his own?

They are so far from proving these assertions that they offer not to go about it; we acknowledge there is no judicatory on earth, either civil or ecclesiastical, either of consistory, classis or synod, but they are subject to error: when that error is showed by the Word of God, it ought to be corrected.  This also is their practice, one synod often reforming that which has been decreed by another.  Yet does not this take away their authority for the judgment and deciding of controversies.  For by such reasoning they might take away all government and bring in confusion.

By these and such-like injurious speeches they do exceedingly gratify many sorts of Libertines, Arians, Socinians and other heretics which do therefore so much abhor the subscriptions required in the Churches of God because they serve for detection and discovery of their errors.  But as the preaching of the Word is not therefore to be condemned, because some preach error, so are not subscriptions and that consent which is required to many truths therefore to be rejected, though some do unjustly urge subscription unto errors.”

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Samuel Rutherford

Examination of Arminianism  tr. by AI  (1639-1642; 1668; Monergism, 2024),

ch. 1, ‘Of the Holy Scripture’

pp. 86-87

“4. Certain innovators who measure all faith by the courts of kings and regard gain as godliness think they can compile a catholic catechism—a summary of fundamentals to which all may subscribe.  Thus, Jews and Christians might subscribe to the sum of the Old Testament, which indeed implicitly contains the New Testament and all its fundamentals, and thereby constitute one true Church.

For if we swear to the fundamental articles in a confused and implicit manner, understood according to the vague and indefinite sense that the Holy Spirit intends, even if we do not know it specifically, then surely the Jews and we could rightly and properly subscribe to the Old Testament.  But if any sect has its contrary and mutually opposed meanings concerning these articles, then there cannot be one fundamental catechism to which we all assent; rather, there will be as many catechisms regarding meanings as there are diverse opinions among different sects.

For doctrine must be received according to its sense, not according to letters and syllables; otherwise, it would be permissible to subscribe to any general doctrine, and thus the Arians might swear that Christ is God, but they would understand Him to be God only nominally, not essentially.”

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p. 88

“Yet Thomas Aquinas rightly responds in 2nd of 2nd, q. 1, art. 7:

“The articles of faith have increased in succession of times, not indeed with respect to faith, but with respect to the explicit and expressed profession; for what was explicitly and more extensively believed by the later generations was implicitly and to a lesser extent believed by the earlier Fathers.”

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p. 89

“3rd Rule: The Apostles’ Creed, the Decalogue, and the Lord’s Prayer, in terms of their literal words and syllables, are not exact rules for distinguishing fundamentals.  For this reason, Papists, Arians, Socinians, and all heretics willingly subscribe to them.”

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pp. 92-93

“2. Even if that assembly were to verbally profess all fundamental articles and acknowledge the Word of God as the rule of faith, it would not thereby be proven that the Roman Curia is metaphysically a Church or the bride of Christ that adheres to Christ the bridegroom with true faith.

For there is no impure Christian sect that does not subscribe to the Apostles’ Creed, the Decalogue, and the Lord’s Prayer.  Would such a subscription overturn formal fundamental errors?  And even if the most impure sect were to believe as much of the Word of God as could suffice for the salvation of a person (as the Jews today profess to believe in the Old Testament), it would not thereby be established as a Church truly and physically.

For there is a difference between salvation existing in the Word, which some assembly acknowledges as the Word of God, and that assembly being truly a congregation of believers.  For true faith requires attention not only to the material object but also to the formal object of faith.”

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ch. 2, ‘On God’, pp. 165-66

“It is asked whether Christ is truly God, co-essential (ὁμοούσιος) and consubstantial with the Father, according to the mind of the Arminians? Some of them say so in words, but in reality, they deny it; hence, we have just reason to suspect them of Arianism.

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13. The Remonstrants say that many of the Fathers deny that Christ is consubstantial with the Father. But I believe this was for two reasons:

14. Hilary, in his book on Synods, and Athanasius, in his letter on Synods, teach that the Fathers at the Council of Antioch denied that the Son was ὁμοούσιος (of the same essence) with the Father in the sense of a participated deity, as Paul of Samosata claimed.  And I believe this is the view of the Arminians; thus, He is ὁμοούσιος with the Father [only] by grace.

15. Because Jerome writes against the Luciferians that the whole world wondered to see itself become Arian.  By the command of Constantius, a Synod was held in Nicea of Thrace, where it was decreed that the Son is not consubstantial with the Father but similar. When the Fathers at Ariminum, terrified by the Emperor, subscribed at the Synod of Sirmium, they decreed that the Son is neither ὁμοούσιος nor ὁμοιούσιος (similar in essence) to the Father but merely similar in all things; and this Synod was entirely Arian, to which Pope Liberius and Hosius, the bishop of Corduba, subscribed. Add that Hilary understood “ὁμοιούσιος” to mean “ὁμοούσιος,” and Augustine, against the Arian Pascentius, expounded “similarity in substance.“

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Free Disputation

“Now that it is not sufficient that they be put to subscribe a confession of faith in only scripture words is clear:

1. Because the Jews will swear and seal the Old Testament in their own sense, but their sense makes the Old Testament to be the word of man, not the Word of God.  The Sadducees acknowledged the five books of Moses to be the Word of God, yet because they denied the resurrection of the dead, Christ argues them, Mt. 22:45, ignorant both of the power of God asserted in the books of Moses and of the scriptures, especially of that scripture which God spake out of the bush to Moses: ‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, etc.’ Ex. 3:6.  Yet would the Sadducees have sworn and subscribed all the book of Exodus as the undoubted word of God, but when they denied the resurrection, sure these words ‘I am the God of Abraham etc.’ making the Covenant of grace to die when Abraham died, and Abraham to have perished in soul and body as they expounded it, was not the Word of God;

And Papists will subscribe the Old and New Testament and the three Creeds, the Nicene Creed, the Creed of Athanasius and that which commonly is called the Apostles’ Creed.  Yet as they expound the Word and these Creeds, we say they transform the Word of God into the doctrine of devils and most abominable idolatry.

The greatest heretics that were, Arius, Nestorius, Appolliuaris, Macedonius, the Tritheists, acknowledge the Scripture to be the Word of God and will swear and subscribe the Word of God and contain themselves intra sacra scripturae locutiones, ‘within the words of scripure’.  But their faith is not the faith of the Scripture, and this makes ten thousand and millions of faiths whereas the word ‘faith’ there is but one faith.  For Arius has one faith, Apollinaris another, Nestorius another, and every heretic a faith according to the sense that he falsely puts on the Scripture, and all may swear one confession of faith in Scripture-words.”

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Richard Baxter

Catholic Theology, Plain, Pure, Peaceable...  (London: White, 1675), ‘Assertions’

“2. All that were baptized did profess to believe in God the Father, Son and Holy Ghost, and devoted themselves to Him, with profession of repentance for former sins, and renouncing the lusts of the flesh, the world and the Devil, professing to begin a new and holy life, in hope of everlasting glory.
…

7. Therefore the Church had a summary and symbol of Christianity (as I said before) about twelve years before any book of the New Testa∣ment was written, and about sixty six years before the whole was written: and this of God’s own making: which was ever agreed on, when many books of the New Testament were not yet agreed on.

8. Therefore men were then to prove the truth of the Christian religion by its proper evidences and miracles, long before they were to prove that every word (or any book) of the New Testament was the infallible perfect Word of God.

9. Therefore we must still follow the same method, and take Christ’s miracles to be primarily the proof of the Christian religion, long before the New Testament books were written.

10. Therefore if a man should be tempted to doubt of the certainty of this or that book, words or reading, it follows not that he must therefore doubt of the Christian Faith.

11. A thousand texts of Scripture may be not known and understood, by one that is justified: but all the baptismal articles and Covenant must be understood competently by all that will be saved.
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13. Therefore our further additional confessions must be only to other subordinate ends,as 1. To satisfy other Churches that doubt of our right understanding the Faith; 2. To be an enumeration of verities which preachers shall not have leave to preach against (though they subscribe them not).

14. Objection: Heretics may profess the baptismal creed.  Answer:

1. And heretics may profess any words that you can impose on them, taking them in their own sense.  All the councils are not large enough to keep out subscribing heretics.  We must not make new symbols, rules and laws as oft as knaves will falsely profess or break the old ones: there being none that may not be falsely professed and violated.

2. Many subscribe to the whole Scriptures, that yet are heretics.

3. Church governours are for this, to cast out those or punish them, who preach, teach and live contrary to the certain and sufficient Rule which they profess.   Judicatures are not to make new laws, but to punish men for breaking laws.  A heart-heretic-only is no heretic in foro Ecclesiae.  He that teaches heresy must be proved so to do, and judged upon proof: which may be done without new additional symbols, rules or laws of Faith.  So that all this contradicts not the sufficiency of the baptismal creed as the symbol of Christian love, communion and concord.

I thought meet to add this more fully to what I said in the epistle, to convince men of the true terms of union and of the heinous sin of all the sorts of adding and corrupting overdoers that divide us.”

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The True Catholic, & Catholic Church Described…  (London: A.M., 1660), pp. 153-212

“2. Another cause of our distractions and hindrance of concord is that very few men have peaceable spirits, even when they are extolling peace.  A peaceable spirit must have these qualifications which most men want [lack]:

1. He must be united to Christ the Head and Center of union, and have a sanctified nature, and value God’s honor above all things else, that so his desires of peace may flow from a right principle, and may proceed upon right grounds and to right ends; and he may seek a holy peace.  And alas, how few such spirits have we?

2. A peaceable spirit must be a public spirit, highly esteeming the welfare of the whole body above any interest of his own, or of any sect or part.  The great grace of self-denial is of necessity herein.  No man has a Christian peaceable spirit that does not most highly value the peace and prosperity of the universal Church so far as to submit to losses or sufferings himself for the obtaining of it, and that had not rather his party suffered than the whole.  But, alas, how rare is a public spirit in any eminency!  How private and selfish are the most!  The good of the Church can no further be endeavored with too many than self will give leave, and then their party will give leave: These must be made the masters of the consultation.

3. A peaceable spirit must be a charitable spirit: loving all the saints as saints, and that with a pure heart and fervently: This would put by the matter of contentions: This would provoke men to healing endeavors, and it would put the best construction on men’s opinions, words and actions that they can bear:

‘Charity suffers long, and is kind: Charity envies not: Charity vaunts not itself: is not puffed up, does not behave itself unseemly, seeks not her own; is not easily provoked, thinks no evil; rejoices not in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things; hopes all things; endures all things,’ 1 Cor. 13. 4, 5, 6, 7.

O what an effectual healer is charity! what a tender hand will it bear to any distressed member! much more to the whole Church: what causes our distractions more than want of charity! what else makes men look so scornfully, and speak so disgracefully of every sort of Christians but themselves? and to endeavor to make others as odious as they can! and to make mere verbal differences seem real, and small ones seem exceeding great, and to find out a heresy or a blasphemy in the smallest error and perhaps in a harmless word: All is blasphemy with some men, or error at least, which they do not understand.  Alas, we have real heresies and blasphemies now, among Arians, Socinians, Ranters, Quakers, Seekers, Libertines, Familists and many others; let us reject these that are to be rejected and spare not…  but we need not feign heresies and blasphemies where they are not, as if we wanted matter for our indignation.

4. A peaceable spirit must be in some measure meek and patient, with a humble consciousnes of its own frailties and offenses: But alas, what passionate, rash and turbulent spirits do abound in the poor divided Church? such as are made of gunpowder and speak fire and sword, that will do no right, nor bear no wrong, that will speak well of few but their own party, and yet cannot endure to be ill spoken of themselves? that are possessed with the wisdom which is from beneath, which is earthly, sensual and devilish, Jam. 3:15, and are strangers to the heavenly wisdom, which is first pure and then peaceable, gentle and easy to be entreated, v. 17.  Even preachers of peace are some of them become the fervent agents of the Divider, and go up and down with destroying rage and make their tongues the bellows of Hell, resisting the peaceable endeavors of their brethren.

5. A peaceable spirit must have a high esteem of peace, and be zealous for it, and industrious to obtain it.  Only against ungodliness and unpeaceableness must he be unpeaceable.  Many have a good wish and a good word for peace, as hypocrites have for godliness, but this will not serve the turn.  He that is not for us is against us, and he that gathers not with us, and he that gathers not with us, scatters abroad.  The wicked and unpeaceable are zealous and industrious against peace; and those that are for peace are cold and indifferent for the greater part; and the zealous and industrious are so few that their voices cannot be heard in the contentious crowd.  The unpeaceable are commonly the loudest and are actuated by a fervent zeal, which nature agrees with and Satan cherishes and excites: such will even as the Quakers, go up and down from one assembly to another, and in the market-places and other places of concourse, revile and rail, and reproach the ministry, and speak as earnestly as if they were the agents of Christ.

And others are busy in secret, that will not incur the disgrace of such visible impiety.  And when the enemies of unity and peace are many, and hot and loud, and the friends of unity and peace are either few or cold and dull and silent, what’s like to be the issue, but even the mischiefs which we feel?  Forsooth, some dare not be fervent for peace, lest they be censured for their fervor to be unpeaceable: These show how much they love the praise of men and stick yet in the power of self.  There’s need of zeal for peace, as well as for other parts of holiness.  All the resistance that the enemies of Hell and earth can make, will be made against it: And will it be carried on against all by sleepy wishes and sitting still?  I am sure this agrees not with the precepts of the Spirit.  ‘Follow peace with all men,’ Heb. 12:14.  If it be possible, as much as in you lies, live peaceably with all men, Rom. 12:18.  It’s a sorry surgeon, or physician that will think it enough to wish well to their patient: the House of God will be neither built, nor repaired without zeal and industry and patience in the work.  If men’s hearts were set upon the Church’s peace, and they did but feel the disjoiting of her members, the breaking of her bones, and the smart of her wounds, as sensibly as they feel the like in their own bodies; and if ministers and other Christians were as sensible of the evil of divisions as they are of drunkenness, and whoredom, and such other sins, and if we were all awakened to quench the flames of the Church, as earnestly as we would do the fire in our houses, and would preach for peace and pray for peace, and plead and labor and suffer for peace, then some good might be done on it, against the rage and multitude of dividers.

3. One of the greatest hindrances of concord and peace, is the setting up of a false center and building peace on grounds that will never bear it.  Christian unity is nowhere centered but in Christ the head, and no way maintained but by the means which He has ordained to that end.  But the miserable world will not discern or take up with this…  The Church is the spouse of Christ and must not be made a harlot by being wedded to the Pope or any other.  Nothing has more hindered the fuller union of the Church than this idol, self-exalting head and false center of union.  And if any would unite the Church in kings, in councils, in any human devices, they will but divide it.

4. And the same course take they that must needs build our union on insufficient, subordinate means.  Some must have confessions in words of their own, to which all that will be accounted Christians must subscribe, or at least all that would have communion with them, though we would subscribe to the whole Scripture or any confession drawn up in its phrase and matter, yet this will not serve for union and communion.  They tell us: Heretics will subscribe to the Scripture.  And I tell them that heretics may subscribe also to their confessions and force a sense of their own upon them: and that God never left them to make better confessions and fitter to discover heresies than Scripture does afford.  But if heretics will subscribe to the Scriptures, or confessions taken wholly out of them, they should be no heretics in our account till they discover that they maintain some heresy against the sense of the Scripture or Confession which they subscribed to; and then they are to be censured by the Churches accordingly, not for want of subscribing to a sufficient confession, but for abusing and contradicting the confession which they did subscribe, and so to be corrected for it as a crime against a sufficient law and rule; and we must not think to prevent it by making a better law or rule which shall tie them stricter and which they cannot break.

It’s a strange rule which can necessitate the subject to observe it and which cannot be violated.  And it’s a wild head that must have new laws and rules made because he sees that malefactors can break these!  The Law is sufficient to its own part, which is to be the rule of duty and of judgment.  It tells men sufficiently what they must believe and do; but if they will not do it, it judges them as offenders.  You’ll never form a confession or make a law that cannot be misinterpreted and broken.

The Papists have set up whole volumes of councils and decrees for the rule, forsooth because the Scripture is dark, and all heretics plead Scripture.  And what have they done by it, but cause more darkness and set the world and their own doctors too in greater contentions so that now councils cross councils and they can neither agree which be true approved councils and which not; nor when they intend a decree to be an article of faith and when not; no nor what sense to take their words in, and how to reconcile them.

And thus men lose themselves and abuse the Church because God’s Word will not serve their turn as a rule for us to unite upon.  This is the one rule that God has left and men will needs blame this as insufficient and mend God’s works by the devices of their addle brains and then complain of divisions when they have made them!

One company of bishops must needs make a company of canon laws for the Church, and all must be schismatics that will not be ruled by them: Another company that are of another mind make contrary canons and those must be obeyed, or else we are schismatics.  They must make us our sermons and call them homilies, and make us our prayers and call them a ‘Liturgy’: and the fruit of their brains must be the rule of all others or else they are schismatics.  So wise and holy are they, above all their brethren that none must publicly speak to God in any words but what they put into their mouths (Read Dr. Heylin’s Discourse of Cant. 5:5 against ministers praying in the Church in any other words but what is in the common Prayer-Book).  So they do also by their vestures and gestures, and other ceremonies.

Nothing has more divided the Church than the proud impositions of men that think so highly of their own words and forms, and ceremonious devices that no man shall have communion with Christ and the Church in any other way.  Never will the Church unite on such terms.  The rule that all must agree in must be made by one that is above all and whose authority is acknowledged by all.  Experience might tell these men that they are building but a Babel and dividing the Church.

In the Lord’s Supper, where they have limited us to a gesture [in receiving it kneeling], we are all in pieces.  In singing psalms where they left us free, we have no dissension.  In the places where garments and other ceremonies are not imposed, God’s worship is performed without contention and with as little uncomeliness as with them.  Proud quarrelsome men that must needs be lording it over the Church and turning legislators may set all on fire for the promoting of their ways, and rail at all that will not be under their yoke: but when they have all done, they will find they are but busily dividing the Church and their canons are but fiery engines to batter its unity and peace.  A thousand years experience and more might have taught us this to our cost.  Never will the Church have full unity till the Scripture sufficiency be more generally acknowledged.

You complain of many opinions and ways, and many you will still have till the one Rule, the Scripture, be the standard of our religion.  As men that divide and separate from us do use to accuse the ministers and then be every man a teacher to himself, so they use to accuse the Scriptures and (as the Papists) call them dark and dangerous, and insufficient: and then every sect must make us a new rule when they have disparaged that which Christ has given us.  Then one makes the Pope a rule by his decretals, and another a council, and another the bishops’ canons or articles, and another his own suggestions and impulses.  Stick close to this one Bible, and let nothing come into your faith or religion but what comes thence, and when controversies arise, try them by this; and if you cannot do it yourselves, then take the help of ministers or synods and use them not as masters, but as helpers of your faith; not to make you another rule, but to help you to understand this Only Rule, and thus you may come to be of one religion, but never otherwise.

5. To these I may add the damnable sin of pride and selfishness (touched at before).  All men would have peace: but most would have it on their own terms, yea, and most parties would be the very center of the Churches.  If all the world will come over to them, they will be at peace with them, otherwise not.  If we will all swear allegiance to the Pope and turn to them, we shall have concord with the Papists: If we will all renounce presbyterian ordination and submit to episcopacy with all their canons, forms and ceremonies, we shall have concord with the rigid of that party.  If we will all be for an office of unordained elders that have no power to meddle with preaching or sacraments, we shall have peace with the rigider sort of that way!  If we will causelessly separate and make the major vote of the people to be Church governors, we may have peace with men of that way: And if we will be rebaptized, we may have peace with the Anabaptists [baptists].

But can all the catholic Church unite upon these private, narrow terms?  Every man would be the Pope or the general Council himself: or rather everyone would be the God of the world, that all men may receive the Law at his mouth, and his name may be honored, and his kingdom may be set up, and his will may be done throughout the world: This is the nature of self-idolizing pride.  And hence it is that the Church has as many dividers as unsanctified men, because every unsanctified man is thus made an idol by his pride and knows no further end but self.  Is there never a man of you that hears me this day that would not have all the town and country and world to be of one mind?  I think there is not one but wishes it.  But what mind must it be?  It must be of your mind! or else it will not satisfy you!  And alas you are so many and of so many minds among yourselves that this way will never unite the world!  One must have all of his mind and another must have all of his mind, when no man well agrees with another, and yet none will be brought to another’s mind.  But God is one, and his mind is certainly right and good: and the Spirit is one, and the Scripture indicted by it is one; and if you would come to that as the Only Rule, you might be of one religion and mind and way?  But till then, you do but labor in vain.  But you’ll say still that every sect pretends to the Scripture and there is so many expositions of it that we see no hopes that this way should unite us.  To this I next answer.

6. It is the bane of unity when men must make every inferior opinion the seat of unity and will not unite in the essentials of Christianity, endeavoring in love to accord as well as they can in the rest.  Though the truth of the whole Scripture (that is known to be holy Scripture) must be acknowledged, yet the understanding of the meaning of the whole Scripture is not of necessity to salvation or Church-unity.  Otherwise woe to everyone of us.  For there is no man on earth that has the perfect understanding of all the holy Scriptures.  And yet all that is in it propounded to be believed is de fide, matter ‘of faith’, and it’s our duty to believe it and understand it, and our sin that we do not, but not a sin that proves us graceless or unjustified.  I wonder the Papists have not venial errors in matter of faith as well as venial sins against moral precepts! but all that is de fide must with some of them be fundamental or essential to Christianity.

The Scripture is a full and beautiful body which has its flesh and skin, and a multitude of nerves and veins, and arteries as well as the head, the heart and stomach, and other natural parts, without which parts that are the seat or chief instruments of the animal, vital and natural spirits, the body were no body.  All in the Scripture is true and useful but all is not essential to Christianity.  And in the essentials all Christians do agree; and if you would know how such should behave themselves to one another, hear the Holy Ghost Himself, Phil. 3:12-16:

‘Not as though I had already attained, or were already perfect, but I follow after that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus: Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended, but this one thing I do: forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forth to those things that are before, I press towards the mark for the price of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.  Let us therefore as many as be perfect be thus minded, and if in anything ye be otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this unto you: Nevertheless, whereto we have already attained, let us walk by the same rule, let us mind the same things.’

So 1 Cor. 3:11-15:

‘Other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ.  Now if any man build on this foundation, gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble, every man’s works shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire, and the fire shall try every man’s work of what sort it is: If any man’s work abide which he has built thereupon, he shall receive a reward: If any man’s work shall be burnt, he shall suffer loss; but he himself shall be saved, yet so as by fire.’

Errors may bring heavy judgments in this life, and out of this fire the erroneous may escape, and not fall into the eternal fire; for thus will God ‘sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and will purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer to the Lord an offering in righteousness,’ Mal. 3:3.  Dislike every error and escape as many as you can, but think not that every error must dissolve our unity or that every truth is necessary to our unity.

And where you say that all sorts do plead the Scriptures, I answer:

1. That all sorts of Christians in the essentials do rightly understand the Scripture.

2. And for the rest, their very pleading that shows that all sorts are convinced that it is the Rule of truth, even where they do not understand it.

3. And this is no proof of the insufficiency of Scripture, but of the imperfection of men’s understandings; and instead of seeking for another Rule, you should labor for a better understanding of this and use the help of ministers thereto.

The law of the land is the rule of the subjects’ actions and tenures, and yet what controversies are about it, even among the wisest lawyers? and one pleads it for one cause and another says that the law is for the contrary cause: yea, one judge differs from another.  What then! must we cast away the law?  Let us know where to have a better first!  But rather men should labor to know it better and live quietly in obedience of what they know, and meddle not contentiously with the niceties of it without need.  And thus we must do about the Law of God.  Agree in the essentials and learn the rest as well as we can.

7. Another great impediment to our concord is abundance of dividing, unpeaceable principles that be grown into credit or entertained in the world: And if such principles meet with the most peaceable disposition, they will make the man become unpeaceable.  For the best men that are will think they must obey God, and therefore when they mistake his will they will think they do well when they are sinning against Him.  There are too few in the world of peaceable principles: some lay all peace, as is said, on the opinions of their own parties, and some lay it on a multitude of such low opinions and such doubtful things that they might know can never be the matter of universal consent: some think they must not silence anything which they conceive to be a truth for the peace of the Church or the promoting of greater undoubted truths.  Some think they ought to reproach and disgrace all that are not of their mind, and some think they ought to destroy them or cast them out, and think this a part of their faithfulness to the truth of Christ, and that this is but to help him against his enemies.  And there is no more desperate principle of division and persecution than this uncharitableness, which makes the children of God and the members of Christ to seem his enemies, and then use them as his enemies: to dress them in a false attire, as they did Christ, and then smite him: to put them in the shape of schismatics or heretics, or devils (as the Papists do when they burn them) and then use them accordingly.  Many more unpeaceable principles I might recite; and if it were not too tedious, I think it would be useful.

8. Another hindrance of unity and peace is a carnal zeal in matters of religion, which is frequently mistaken for the true zeal of the saints.  When men are confident that their opinions are the truth, and overvalue them as to the necessity (because they are their own, though they observe not the reason), they presently think they must be hot against all the gainsayers of their opinions; and herein they place the most, or at least too much, of their religion.

There’s not one of many that has this zeal but thinks it is of God and is part of their holiness, when as it is often from the Devil and the flesh, even when the doctrine is true which they contend for.  You may know it from true zeal by these following marks:

1. It is more for controversies and speculations than for practical holiness.

2. It is selfish and kindled by an overvaluing their own conceits or ways.

3. It is private and would promote a lower truth to the loss of a greater, or a doubtful point, to the loss of undoubted truth; or a single truth, to the loss or hindrance of the body of common truth; and it is hotter for a party than for the catholic Church, and will promote the interest of an opinion or purity to the wrong of the common interest of the Church.

4.  It is blind and carries men to sinful means, as resisting authority, order or ordinances, or the like.

5. It is unmerciful and unpeaceable, and little sensible of the case of others or smart of the divided Church.

Many are calling for fire from Heaven for the cause of Christ, that little know what spirit they are of, Lk. 9:55.  O how true is this of many that think they excel in knowledge or zeal and are but defending the truth against erroneous adversaries.  But

‘who is the wise man and endued with knowledge among you? let him show out of a good conversation, his works with meekness of wisdom: But if you have bitter envying and strife in your hearts, glory not, and lie not against the truth: This wisdom descends not from above, but is earthly, sensual, devilish: For where envying and strife is, there is confusion, and every evil work: But the wisdom that is from above, is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, without hypocrisy; And the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace of them that make peace.’ Jam. 3:13 to the end.

But of this I have formerly spoken at large in many sermons on these words of James.  Dividing zeal is a grievous distracter of the Church’s peace.

9. Another hindrance is that of the many that are for peace and unity there are few that have any great skill to promote it, and those few that have skill, want opportunity or interest and are cried down by the opposers.  There’s a great deal of skill necessary to discern and manifest the true state of controversies, and to prove verbal quarrels to be but verbal, and to take off the false vizors which ignorance and passions put on them to agravate the differences that are debated.  There’s much wisdom necessary for the securing of truth while we treat for peace, and the maintaining peace while we defend the truth.  Alas, how few escape one of the extremes in most differences themselves; and therefore are unfit reconcilers of others.  Few are possessors of that blessed light that does show the error of both extremes and must be the means of our concord, if ever we agree!  Few know that truth between contrary errors in which both must meet.  How much skill also is necessary to deal with touchy, froward spirits and to handle both nettles and thorns that must be dealt with.  And how few men of wisdom and peace are much regarded by the firebrands of the Churches?  And how few of them have languages and health, and maintenance and authority, and a skillful activity to set others on work, which are almost needful for this healing design?  And what abundance of private wishes have been buried by the skillfullest men for want of opportunities.  And how many private writings cast by that have that in them that deserved public entertainment and might have been very fit instruments for this healing work.

10. And the various carnal interests of the world are an exceeding hindrance to the Churches’ peace.  The interest of one prince lies for one party, and another’s for another party: One prince thinks it for his Interest to unite; and another thinks it for his interest to divide, or secretly to cherish and continue divisions.  The ministry also have too oft a carnal interest, which lies usually in siding with the prince; and the great carnal interest of the Roman clergy, lies sticking close to the Pope.  The people hereupon are commonly in such distractions and disturbances by wars or secular cares and wants that motions of peace can scarce be heard or attended, but the noise of guns and drums, and lamentations, and reproaching of enemies drowns all.  And when the crossing of secular interests has made them one another’s enemies, they’ll hardly treat as friends for unity in religion or the healing of the Church.

11. And it’s no small hindrance that the princes of the earth are commonly so bad as either to be strangers to the true interest of Christ and his Church or else to prefer their own before it.  It’s they that have the greatest interests and opportunities and might do most for unity if they would.  And withal they think that nobody should meddle without their leave; and commonly, when they do nothing themselves, they will not suffer the ministers to do it that are their subjects.  How easy were it with the Christian princes and States if they had so much wit and grace to agree together to bring the Churches in their dominions to much agreement?  But alas, highest places have greatest temptations, and therefore too oft the worst men: so that they that should do it, and might do it, have no heart to it.  And the princes are very rare that prefer Christ’s interest before their own and have truly learnt the lesson of denying themselves and forsaking all they have for Him.  The great work of converting the heathen world should be promoted by them, but how little is there done in it by any princes.

12. Moreover, the multitude are everywhere almost averse to holy unity and peace: Their dispositions are against it: their principles are against it: their parts unfit for it: and yet how to do it without them will be hard, for:

1. They have all of them almost conceits of their own fitness and think all matters in religion should be regulated by them.  They detest that a few should over-top them and do the work while they stand by; and they grow to a hatred of those few because they are counted wiser and better than they; yea, they naturally hate the godly and the practical truths of God: and yet the greater vote must carry it or else the swarm will be about your ears when its a hundred to one, but a hundred for one in most places of the world are in the wrong, if not bitter enemies to the right.  And in the best parts of the world it’s a wonder if the greater part be not the worse.  Or if in a corner or two it should be better, what’s that to all the Christian world?

2. At least if they will not be passively peaceable, how little can we do when it’s they that must (in part) consent and it’s they that have the strength to resist.

13. And even among the godly, the peacemakers are far the smaller number (I mean as to the healing of our common divisions).  For the younger sort of Christians, in age or grace, or gifts, are the greatest number: And these also are of the most active hot dispositions and will be forwardest in all agitations and will not stand by.  And alas, how few of them have meekness, prudence and charity answerable to their heat and activity.  They will lead their leaders and their way must carry it or else all are censured and trod down by them: And how ordinarily is their way unpeaceable and confusive; and how seldom does it end according to their expectations for the Church’s good.

But for the wise and judicious, experienced, sober, peaceable men, alas, how few are they?  Till they grow aged, few attain to this.  And yet nothing will be done for the peace and welfare of the Church but by the conduct and direction of these few experienced, judicious, moderate men.  None else can do it: and yet few others will suffer them to do it.  And thus we see here in these nations that even religious men have been the hinderers of our peace.

14. And withal, the Devil who is the great enemy of peace and unity, is still watching to cast in some bone of contention and to make use of the opinions and passions of all, both good and bad, for the accomplishing of his ends.  And alas, his subtlety overreaches not only the ignorant people, but the most learned divines and prudent princes.  They shall not manage their affairs of State so carefully, but he will engage them against Christ and the peace of the Church before they are aware: He will do his utmost to make the interest of Christ and the prince, of the Church and the commonwealth, to seem to stand at an enmity to each other, and make princes walk in a jealousy of Christ and his Gospel and ministers, lest they should encroach upon their honor and greatness: And too oft he engages them in flat opposition till this stone fall upon them and grind them to powder.

And the ministers of the Gospel shall scarcely manage their work so wisely, but he will cast in some wildfire and find some occasion to make a dissension by.  Either the subtlety of men too wise and learned (in their own eyes) shall start some dividing fruitless controversies or the zeal of men that are orthodox overmuch shall rise up unpeaceably against all dissenters: or he will entangle the godly in some dangerous errors, or he will seek to make men lay snares for their brethren by needless impositions under pretence of order and decency, and unity and authority, or some passionate words shall kindle the fire:

There are many unsound hypocrites among godly ministers; and there’s too much pride and passion in the best, and Satan knows how to make use of all: ‘What’ says he to the proud,

‘shall such a one be preferred before thee? shall he bear away the applause? shall he eclipse and stand in the way of thy reputation?  Did he not speak dishonourably of thee? or carry himself disregardfully towards thee?  Did he not disgrace thee by such an opposition or dispute.’

A hundred temptations has Satan at hand to kindle dissension, even among the ministers of Christ: And where he meets with proud hearts, he seldom misses of his purpose.  If the disciples were striving which should be the greatest, and if Paul and Barnabas fall out to a parting, no wonder if pride and dissension be yet found among the most renowned men.  Though it’s a sad case that it should be so, when we daily preach humility to our people, and know that except Conversion make us like little children, we can in no wise enter into the kingdnm of God, Mt. 18:3.

How hard a task has a peaceable minister to keep one congregation of Christians in peace?  But differences will be rising and one will be provoking another by injuries or hard words, and few can bear and forbear and forgive: yea a master of a family finds it hard to keep one small family in peace.  Yea, two persons will find somewhat to do to keep peace, especially if they have much trading or dealing with each other, or any crossing in matters of commodity: yea husband and wife that are as one flesh have much ado to avoid dissensions.  No wonder then if the enemy of peace can disturb the Church of Christ.

15. Another cause of divisions is living among and hearkening to schismatical persons that are still blowing the coles.  It’s a dangerous case, especially to young inexperienced Christians, to fall among those that make it their religion to vilify others as are enemies of Christ: when they hear one sect only extolled and all others spoken of as ignorant or carnal, or enemies to the Church: it’s two to one but this imprints a schismatical disposition in the hearers’ minds.  Conversing only with one party does usually occasion great uncharitableness towards all others and scare the conscience so that it grows insensible of revilings and opprobrious speeches against those that differ from them.

16. And the unity of the Church is exceedingly hindered by an unworthy privacy and retiredness of most Christians that live like the snail in a shell and look but little abroad into the world.  Some know not the state of the world or of the Church, nor much care to know it, but think it is with all the world as it is with us in England: when as if they knew the fewness of Christians, the huge numbers of infidels, the corruptions of other Churches in comparison of ours, it would sure set them a lamenting and praying that the kingdom of Christ might come.  Yea, many ministers are of so base a privacy of spirit that they look little further than their own parishes and think if all be well there, all’s well everywhere: and seldom inquire how it goes with the Church in the rest of the world: nor will scarce be brought to associate and keep correspondence with their brethren, for the union and communion of the several Churches and the common good: Far unlike the temper of Paul and the other apostles and servants of Christ in those days.  They have not a care of all the Churches.  They long not to hear of their welfare.  They would think it much to travail and labor for it the thousandth part so much as they.  They cannot say, ‘Who is weak, and I am not weak? etc.’

17. Yea some are drawn from the Church’s unity and peace by misunderstanding those texts of Scripture that call for separation from the world and that speak of the fewness of those that shall be saved.  I have heard of one that turned separatist upon this conceit, because he thought that seeing the flock of Christ is little, the Protestants were too many to be it: At last the separated Church grew so big that he thought, ‘Sure this is not the little flock,’ and so turned to the Anabaptists [baptists]: At last the Anabaptists’ church so increased that he thought, ‘Sure this is too big to be the little flock,’ and so went seeking about for the least, as thinking that must needs be in the right.

Alas, what low thoughts have such of the Church of God? yea, and of the love and gracious nature of God, and of the great design of Christ in the work of redemption?  But the main cause of the delusion of these poor souls is because they know not the state of the world abroad.  If they did but know that it is the sixth part of the world that are baptized, common, Christians, and not past a sixth or seventh part of that sixth part that are common Protestants, but all the rest are Papists and Greeks and many sorts of more ignorant unreformed Christians; and among the Protestants, no country for godliness is like to England, they would not go about to pen up the Church into a narrower room.  To believe that Christ died and made so much ado for so small a part of the world as comes not to one of forty or fifty, or an hundred-thousand, is next to flat infidelity itself which thinks He died for none at all.

And for the command, ‘Come out from among them and be ye separate,’ it’s pity that any Christian should need to be told that it speaks only to the Church to come out of the heathen, infidel world (such as are Jews and Mohammedans, and heathens); but there is never a word in all the Bible that bids you ‘Come out of the Church and be ye separate!’  Wonderful! that God should be so abused by misunderstanding Christians!  Because He commands men to come out of the infidel world into the Church, they plead it as if He commanded them to come out of the Church into a separated sect.  The Church is the House of Christ: Forsake it not, while he stays in it: Forsake it not, for He has promised never to forsake it.  Particular Churches indeed he may cast off, but never the universal: Dwell therefore where He dwells.

18. Another hindrance of peace is that so many Christians, as they have carnal dispositions, so they are still looking at carnal means.  The endeavors of the ministry they account as nothing, but they are still looking what the magistrate will do: and till he force them, they will not stir; and till he do it, they think there’s nothing done: such base thoughts have some, even ministers of their own callings.  And hence it is that such men are always on the stronger side and of the king’s religion, or else are seeking carnal advantages to carry on their cause.  So the Jesuits are more busy to get the princes of the world engaged for them and the arms of the nations employed for their ends than we are to treat of unity and peace: And every party, instead of seeking peace, is seeking to get highest, that they may be able to force all others to their will: And we can never get any peaceable debates upon equal terms because the several parties do seldom stand on equal terms: But still one is up and another is down: and he that is in the saddle will not light [off] to treat of peace, nor hearken to any equal motions, but must have his will and nothing less will serve the turn: And when he is down and the other party is up, the case is the same.  Still he that is lowest is most reasonable
and peaceable (except some impious implacable spirits), but the party that is highest will not be brought to reason.  And thus the peace of the Church is hindered to our grief and shame.

19. Another great hindrance of unity and concord is the great weaknesses and miscarriages of the professors of godliness, partly because of hypocrites among them and partly because they are sanctified but in part.  Among others, by these several ways, they do disturb our peace:

1. By an ignorant quarrelling with their teachers, thinking themselves fit to correct their guides before they are considerably grounded in the catechism.

2. By entertaining false opinions and making a disturbance for them.

3. By the great diversity of opinions among themselves, by which they become a scorn or stumbling-block to many about them.

4. By the uncharitable bitterness of their spirits in rash censures and contendings.

5. By their scandalous lives and falls, disgracing their profession and hardening and alienating the minds of others.

6. And by their imprudent and intemperate dealing with others, using proud or provoking language or carriage that more favors of contempt than of compassion.  And thus the children of the Church do divide it.  Especially by their childish fallings out with one another and hearkening to malicious contentious hypocrites that would lead them to despise their guides and break them into shreads among themselves, Rom. 16:17.

20. Lastly, the greatest hindrance of our unity is the ungodliness of the most that profess themselves Christians, whereby they become uncapable matter for our truest, nearest union, and yet think that we must be united to them all: when they will not join with us in the vitals of Christianity, but stick in the bark and take up with the name, yet do they think that we must join with them and be of their communion and opinions in all external things; and if we differ from them, they think we are schismatics.  Men lay the Church’s unity too much in mere speculations, which they call the Articles of faith, and too little in practicals and holiness of life: whereas there is no article of faith, but [it] is for practice; and as truly as the understanding and will are both essential to the soul, so truly the sanctity of understanding and will are both essential to a Christian: And as the holiness of the heart is as essential as faith to a real Christian, or member of the Church-regenerate, so the profession of holiness is as essential as the profession of faith to make a man a member of the Church, visible or congregate[d].

And therefore as we can have no inward union and communion with any but the truly sanctified, so can we have no visible Church-union or communion but with those that profess to be truly sanctified.  It’s a shameful thing to hear every drunkard and scorner at godliness to rail at the many divisions in the Church and to call for unity and concord when it’s he and such as he that hinder it, that will not be united to Christ Himself, nor join with us in the only center of union, nor in the greatest and most necessary things, without which all Christian union is impossible.  But because I take this to be a necessary point, I shall handle it, God willing, more fully by itself.

To conclude all, let me exhort all Christians to drink in this truth into their judgments and affections.  If you are Christians indeed, you are catholics; and if so, you must have: 1. catholic principles and 2. affections.  I beseech you look to both these well.”

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The True & only Way of Concord of all the Christian Churches, the Desirableness of it & the Detection of False Dividing Terms  (London: Hancock, 1680), pt. 2, ch. 5, ‘What are the terms necessary to the office and exercise of the sacred ministry?’, pp. 222-23

Ҥ40. II. It is greatly needful to the well-being of the ministry and the success that doctrine be kept sound: And therefore:

1. That the Christian simplicity be retained, and many subtle and curious decisions be not made necessary: A few great, necessary certain truths are easilier preserved than multitudes of uncertain controverted niceties.

2. It is needful that such as are ordained ministers, be tried men, of sound understanding in that which they must teach and do, and therefore that both the ordainers and the hearers try them.  This account of their understanding is better than the imposing of human forms upon them for subscription: Not but that teachers should know more than the flock, that is, than the essentials; nor that I presume to condemn all the Churches that impose their confessions to be subscribed in their own and not in Scripture-words, while they keep only to necessary, certain things: But I shall afterward prove that this way, though tolerable, is not best, but unnecessary and dangerous:

1. The Scripture affording us apt words enough to form our confessions in, which are past controversy;

2. and there being no probability of bounding men’s impositions of this kind, when once they set upon this way;

3. and most confessions of that nature now extant, having some needless words which other Churches or good Christians do dissent from:

4. And the ancient Creeds understood (which the ordainers must try) and the old catechistical verities being sufficient to this use.

5. And there being means of restraining men from preaching and vending heresies which are more safe and congruous.

3. I add therefore that a certain confession containing the certainest and needfulest integrals of religion should or may well be drawn up as a law, forbidding all upon meet penalties to preach or speak against them, without any subscribing, promising or professing.

4. And upon proof of the violating of such a law, and preaching against such articles it is sufficient that both the Church and the Christian magistrate in their several ways may judge them and by just penalties correct them (of which more after in due place).  For it is very hard so to form long confessions (beyond the old creeds, Lord’s Prayer, Decalogue, and the general belief of Scripture) and this not in Scripture-terms, which shall not have some words which sound and honest Ministers cannot assent to (without lying, which they will not do):

But to silence many words which yet we conceive true, and forbear speaking against some things which yet he cannot profess assent to, there are very few sober men but will do.  And an error never spoken or written hurts not others, nor is to be judged, being not known; Non apparere here is as non esse.  And if it be vended, the person may be judged as well as if he had sworn, subscribed or promised.  And they that will tell us yet what evil may befall secret whispering errors without such oaths, subscriptions or promises, do by this over-doing dangerously undo; and lest man should be man and the Church imperfect, on pretence of avoiding a possible unavoidable hurt, they will set up knaves that will say any thing, shut out honest men, and necessitate divisions, confusions and persecutions, where they can never stop on this side banishing or killing or continued imprisoning multitudes of faithful men, and never the more attain their ends.  Sound doctrine may be kept up as far as is to be hoped by the aforesaid means.”

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John Corbet

The Interest of England in the Matter of Religion, pt. 2

“The former treatise of the interest of England in the matter of religion makes known the way of peace in the reconciling of those two grand parties, the episcopal and presbyterian, which, if made one, would take in and carry along the strength of almost the whole nation.  The whole structure thereof rests upon these positions as its adequate foundation:

– That whilst the two forenamed parties remain divided, both the Protestant religion and the kingdom of England is divided against itself.

– That the presbyterians cannot be rooted out, nor their interest swallowed up while the state of England remains Protestant.

– That their subversion, if it be possible to be accomplished, will be very pernicious to the Protestant religion and the kingdom of England.

– That the coalition of both parties into one may be effected by an equal accommodation, without repugnancy to their conscientious principles on either side, insomuch that nothing justifiable by religion or sound reason can put a bar to this desirable union.

…
Hereupon this question arises, which is the great case and question of the present times:

Whether we should assert the contracted and dividing interest of one party before the general interest of Protestantism and of the whole kingdom of England, in which the episcopal and presbyterian parties may be happily united.

Be it here observed that such is the joint stock of both parties in things of greatest moment, that by declining extremes on both hands, the Protestant religion may be strengthened with unity in doctrine, worship and discipline among all its professors and the kingdom of England, by an inviolable union between these comprehensive parties may flourish in peace and plenty: for those discords that divide the members and distract the
whole body will cease; and those common concernments which tend to uphold and increase the universality, will be acknowledged and pursued.

To turn aside from this common interest of the whole body, to those inferior partial ones, is to set up the trade of monopolizers, which inevitably brings this mischief, that a few grow rich by impoverishing the commonwealth; and this inconvenience also to them that follow the trade,
that they grow rich upon the sudden, but are not secure, because many are oppressed and more excluded from sharing in the benefit.

In the present case, if the one party be the only exalted ones, and the other trodden underfoot, the damage will redound to the Protestant cause and to the Church and kingdom of England.  For whatsoever some men think, this Church
and kingdom is concerned in the one, as well as in the other party.  In the same case, though one side should rise suddenly to a great height, yet their estate would be more secure and lasting if they held the way open and secure to those of the other side, seeing they are willing to close upon terms just and reasonable.

Moreover, those kingdoms and commonwealths, and societies of all kinds which are of the largest foundation, are of the greatest potency.  Now a comprehensive interest that takes in vast multitudes is indeed a large foundation, and a society that builds upon it shall become great and mighty; but a contracted interest that draws all to a fewer number is a narrow foundation; and if it exclude many that should be taken in, it is
too narrow for the fabric that should rest upon it.  As a large house cannot be built upon a narrow foundation, so a great kingdom (such as is the kingdom of England) and an ample society (such as is that of the Protestant religion) cannot be built upon a narrow interest.

Let it be considered that the adverse kingdom, to wit, the Papacy, is ample and powerful: Should not the Protestant religion and the Church of England aim at enlargement and lengthen their cords to take within their line all those that are entirely affected to them?  Then might they send forth much more numerous forces of able champions against the armies of
Antichrist: So should this national Church become terrible as an army with banners.
…

I am not ignorant that designs of pacification between disagreeing parties are liable to much suspicion, misconstruction and hard censure; that the attempts of reconcilers have commonly proved fruitless and sometimes [a] matter of disreputation to themselves: and no marvel that such cross effects should commonly follow such attempts, for sometimes they are made to reconcile light and darkness, the temple of God and idols.  This was the way of a great one [Martin Bucer?], even a prince in Learning’s empire, who would make an accord between the [Lutheran] Augustane Confession and the [Romanist] Council of Trent; and also of a certain Romish ecclesiastic who would make the like accord between the said Council and the Articles of the Church of England, than which nothing could be more absurd and vain; for it could be nothing else but a violent wresting of those decrees and articles to a forced sense, against the propriety of language and the scope of the whole matter, and the apparent judgment of both parties; and so it could never heal the breach: For if both parties were drawn to subscribe the same forms of confession, but with meanings so far distant from each other, as are the doctrines of the Protestant and Roman Churches, they would not really advance one step the nearer to peace and concord.

Such designs as these sometimes proceed from lukewarmness or indifferency in religion and an undervaluing of main truths, together with a contempt of godly zeal as a thing superfluous and impertinent.  And sometimes they proceed from vastness of mind, whereby some through too great a sense of their vast abilities assume to themselves a dictatorship in religion, to approve or condemn, admit or reject according to their own estimation of things, which is a dangerous kind of ambition and (as a learned man speaks) is to take up the office of an umpire between God and men.

But many times such a design is set on foot with much craftiness for the undoing of one of the parties, as it has been undertaken by some Romish spirits for the undermining of the Protestant Churches.  A divine of chief rank observes the arts and stratagems of some Popish preachers, even of those orders that have been held most implacable, whereby far otherwise than the accustomed manner, they extenuate the controversies and acknowledge that too much rigor has been used in some points, and in others too little sincerity: yea, some Jesuits went about making fair promises, yet in the meantime abating no point of the chief foundations of Papal authority, which standing firm, they knew that the other concessions granted for a time might easily be drawn back and the opposite rigors imposed on those that had been taken in the snare by a pretended yielding to some reformation.

Philip Melancthon (as the same author observes) being a most pious and learned man, and zealous of the Churches’ peace, at first whilst he conceived that some reformation might be hoped for from a General Council, was free and forward in some points of yielding to the Papists; but when he found that such a benefit was neither hopeful nor possible, he testified by his writings how far distant he was from the aim of the conciliators.

But the pacification here propounded is not by aggregating things inconsistent, nor by devising mongrel ways and opinions, made up out of both extremes, which can satisfy the consciences of neither party, but by taking out of the way such extremes on both sides as both may well spare and part with, being such as are acknowledged no part of the foundation, nor yet of divine institution, but mutable, according to times and occasions, and therefore cannot be of that importance as to break unity amongst brethren that agree in the doctrine of Faith and the substance of divine worship.  This desired union is grounded upon the apostles’ commandment and the pursuing thereof is no other than the urging of St. Paul’s doctrine throughout the whole fourteenth chapter to the Romans, that none judge or despise another about things indifferent, or ceremonious observances, wherein as several men will abound in their own sense, so it is meet that everyone be persuaded in his own mind concerning his particular practice, that nothing be done with a doubting conscience.

His Majesty’s wisdom has rightly comprehended this matter in his Declaration touching Ecclesiastical Affairs, wherein he says:

“We are the rather induced to take this upon us (that is, to give some determination to the matters in difference) by finding upon a full conference that we have had with the learned men of several persuasions that the mischiefs under which both Church and State do at present suffer, do not result from any formed doctrine or conclusion which either party maintains or avows, but from the passion and appetite, and interest of particular persons, which contract greater prejudice to each other by those affections than would naturally arise from their opinions.”

In old time there was a partition wall of legal ceremonies and ordinances raised up between Jews and Gentiles; but when the fullness of time was come, wherein God would make both Jews and Gentiles one in Christ, He was pleased to take down that partition wall which Himself had reared up.  In these latter times there has been a partition wall of man’s building, namely, controverted mutable rites and forms of religion, which have kept asunder Christians of the same nation, and of the same Reformed Protestant profession: Both reason and charity pleads for the removing of these offenses that brethren may dwell together in unity.  And to transgress this rule of charity is not only to lay a yoke upon the necks of Christians, but also to lay snares for their consciences.

Nor will any defect in the State Ecclesiastical ensue upon the removal of these matters in controversy: for the points of doctrine, worship and discipline acknowledged by both parties are a sufficient and ample foundation for the edification and peace of the Church to rest upon; for which we cannot have a fuller testimony than what is given by his Majesty in his aforesaid declaration:

“We must for the honor of all those of either persuasion, with whom we have confered, declare that the professions and desires of all for the advancement of piety and true godliness are the same, their professions of zeal for the peace of the Church the same, of affection and duty to us the same; they all approve episcopacy;¹ they all approve a set form of liturgy; and they all disapprove and dislike the sin of sacrilege, and the alienation of the revenue of the Church.  And if upon these excellent foundations, in submission to which there is such an harmony of affections, any superstructure should be raised to the shaking of these foundations, and to the contracting and lessening of the blessed gift of charity, which is a vital part of Christian religion, we shall think ourself very unfortunate, and even suspect that we are defective in that administration of government with which God has entrusted us.”

¹ [English Presbyterians often acknowledged that (1) episcopacy has some form of good in it, whether as so used by God in the Old Testament priesthood, or in common civil governance; and (2) that episcopacy by human right (not divine right) can be tolerable.]

These his Majesty’s words I receive with much veneration, for they are a divine sentence in the mouth of the king, and they fathom the depth of this grand business.

It is therefore manifest, as from reason, so from his Majesty’s testimony, that those unhappy discords do not result from any formed doctrine or conclusion, that either touches or borders upon the foundation; and that excellent foundations are contained in those points, in submission to which there is found such an harmony of affections; and consequently, that the laying aside of all the points in controversy would not cause any defect in the State Ecclesiastical.  What then is the root of these mischiefs of division?  Is it the perpetual hatred between the seed of the woman, and the seed of the serpent? or is it an uncharitable and froward spirit of opposition, by reason of irritated animosity, and deep suspicion or jealousy? or is it some temporary carnal design?”

.

Gilbert Burnet

History of his own Time…  new ed.  (London: Orr, 1850), vol. 2, Conclusion, p. 904  Burnet (1643–1715) was a Scottish philosopher and historian, and Bishop of Salisbury.

“The requiring subscription to the 39 Articles is a great imposition: I believe them all myself, but as there are some which might be expressed more unexceptionably, so I think it a better way to let such matters continue to be still the standard of doctrine and to censure those who teach any contrary tenets, than to oblige all who serve in the Church to subscribe them.

The greater part subscribe without ever examining them, and others do it because they must do it, though they can hardly satisfy their consciences about some things in them.  Churches and societies are much better secured by laws than by subscriptions: it is a more reasonable as well as a more easy mode of government.”

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On Early-1700’s Ireland

Charles S. Sealy, Church Authority & Non-subscription Controversies in Early 18th Century Presbyterianism  PhD thesis  (Univ. of Glasgow, 2010), p. 216

“[Hugh] Fisher [d. 1734] contends that this skepticism, by making the rights of one’s conscience absolute, sabotages legitimate authority.  The Non-Subscribers, he claims, are ‘as much against the authority of God Himself, speaking in Scripture…  as they are, against the ministerial authority of the Church’.  While accepting that individual Christians have a right to read Scriptures and make judgements based on their understanding, ‘their private judgement of discerning, is only for their private use; and is not, for declaring any thing to others’.

This is distinguished from ‘faithful ministers’ who ‘are capable of an authority to determine articles of faith, and to require assent to them’.  Ministers do not exercise ‘mere human authority’ as the Non-Subscribers assume, but ‘the authority of Christ himself, vested in his ambassadors; an authority fit to make the boldest sinner tremble’.  This authority, however, is not exercised by force or constraint, but rather through showing in the Scriptures what is to be believed and obeyed.  Fisher rejects the notion that it can be considered imposition to require ‘any true Christian’ to give assent to a ‘creed, consisting of the fundamentals of Christianity’.

Fisher admits that there is no Scriptural mandate as to a method of how one should give assent to the Bible.  Subscription is simply a particular method of fulfilling a Biblically ordained command.  Signing a confessional statement forces someone to explain their understanding of the words of Scripture.

The Non-Subscribers, in allowing appeal only the express words of Scripture allow those words to have different interpretations.  Fisher seems to allow other possible means of giving assent to Scripture, and consistent with Reformed views of confessions, he does not claim a single confession is authoritative.  Finally, against the persistent charge that requiring subscription to a creed undermines the authority of Scripture, he argues that it does not damage the authority of Scripture to recognize that creeds and the Bible have different purposes.”

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1800’s

Arthur P. Stanley

A Letter to the Lord Bishop of London on the State of Subscription in the Church of England and in the University of Oxford  (Oxford: Henry & Parker, 1863), p. 51

“But, after all, the best security for sound doctrine is in ‘the force of truth.’  The Bible has maintained its hold on the world, virtually, without subscription to its contents.”

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History

See also the relevant sections on the Scottish, French and American pages.

.

Order of

Early Church
Post-Reformation
1500’s
Switzerland
Westminster
England
Ireland
Netherlands
Lutheranism

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On the Early Church

Article

Janssen, Roelf Christiaan – ‘The Credal Period’  in By this our Subscription: Confessional Subscription in the Dutch Reformed Tradition since 1816  PhD diss.  (Theologische Universiteit, Gereformeerde Kerken, 2009), pp. 16-17

“It has been claimed that confessions were originally a statement of faith but were modified by the Roman Catholic Church into statements of what is to be confessed.  “We believe” (Nicea) became “we teach that this is to be confessed” (Chalcedon) and finally “whoever does not believe… is condemned” (Athanasian Creed).

With the adoption of anti-heretical creeds, binding to such creeds by means of subscription was also introduced.  According to Schaff, the signing of the Creed adopted by the Council of Nicea (AD 325) is “the first instance of such signing of a document in the Christian Church.”  Also worth mentioning is the seventh canon of the council of Laodicea (AD 364) which states that heretics are “to have thoroughly learned the symbols of faith.”  In 1273 or 1274 the deputies sent from the Eastern Church to the Council of Lyons II were obliged to subscribe the unchanged NiceneConstantinopolitan Creed.  It would thus seem that the custom of subscribing credal formulas is as
old as the oldest extant credal formula adopted by an ecumenical council.

It would be wrong, however, to assume that subscription as a custom was identical in both the Western and Eastern Churches.  In the Western Church it was commonly practised.  However, though the Eastern or Orthodox Church considers the decisions of the seven ecumenical councils to have credal authority, it does not have a tradition of confessions and subscription like that found in the Catholic and Protestant traditions.  An authority on Orthodoxy states it as follows:

‘At a true Ecumenical Council the bishops recognize what the truth is and proclaim it; this proclamation is then verified by the assent of the whole Christian people, an assent which is not, as a rule, expressed formally and explicitly, but lived.'”

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Quote

Arthur P. Stanley

A Letter to the Lord Bishop of London on the State of Subscription in the Church of England and in the University of Oxford  (Oxford: Henry & Parker, 1863), pp. 35-36

“For the three early centuries the Church was entirely without it.  The members of the Church made a profession of their faith at baptism.  But this was in the simplest form; it was not a precautionary assent to a variety of intellectual propositions, but a profession of service under a new Master, and of entrance into a new life.  No deacon, no presbyter, no bishop, made any subsequent profession.  The distinction between the requirements of belief from clergy and from laity was as yet wholly unknown.

The first subscription to a series of dogmatical propositions as such, was that enforced by Constantine at the Council of Nicea.  It was the natural but rude expedient of a half-educated soldier to enforce unanimity in the Church, as he had by the sword enforced it in the empire.  It was accompanied then by the same casuistry, by the same ambiguity, by the same inoperative results as at present [in the Church of England].  At each [subsequent] council the same process was repeated by the bishops who were present.  But the practice, as far as appears, never extended to the clergy generally or to the laity;

and, as it was then in the Ancient Church, so on the whole has it been in those portions of Christendom which have clung most tenaciously to Catholic usages, and been most steadfast in the defence of Orthodoxy.  The Roman Catholic clergy and the clergy of the Eastern Church neither formerly nor now are bound by any definite forms of subscription.  The unity of the State is preserved everywhere, not by preliminary promises or oaths, but by the general laws of discipline and order, and by the general public sentiment of the whole community.”

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On the Reformation to Today

Article

1900’s

Godfrey, W. Robert – ‘Subscription in the Dutch Reformed Tradition’  in ed. David Hall, The Practice of Confessional Subscription  (1997), pp. 67-77  Also in The Outlook (1998)

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Book

1900’s

Cooper, James – Confessions of Faith & Formulas of Subscription in the Reformed Churches of Great Britain & Ireland, especially in the Church of Scotland  (Glasgow: MacLehose & Sons, 1907)  120 pp.  ToC

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On the Post-Reformation

Articles

Heppe, Heinrich – ch. 4, ‘The Union of Protestant Christians of all Countries about the middle of the Sixteenth Century: its destruction, caused by the “Ubiquitarian” Lutheranism of the so-called Formula Concordiae of 1577′  in The Reformers of England & Germany in the Sixteenth Century: their Intercourse & Correspondence  (London: Hatchard, 1859), pp. 78-86

See also the following two chapters (ToC) and the whole of the book in general.

eds. Rouse, Ruth & Stephen C. Neill – A History of the Ecumenical Movement: 1517-1948  (Philadelphia, 1967)

John T. McNeill – 1. “The Ecumenical Idea & Efforts to Realize it, 1517-1618”, pp. 27-72  ToC

Martin Schmidt – 2. “Ecumenical Activity on the Continent of Europe in the Seventeenth & Eighteenth Centuries”, pp. 73-122  ToC

Norman Sykes – 3. “Ecumenical Movements in Great Britain in the Seventeenth & Eighteenth Centuries”, pp. 123-70  ToC

Svensson, Manfred – ‘Fundamental Doctrines of the Faith, Fundamental Doctrines of Society: Seventeenth-Century Doctrinal Minimalism’  in The Journal of Religion  (2016), pp. 161-81

Svensson discusses the minimalism of Erasmus, Hobbes, Locke, Spinoza, the Socinians, Arminians (van Limborch) and Latitudinarians; he also discusses the less than minimalism of Calvin, Turretin, Wistsius and Hoornbeeck.

“In fact, if one focuses on the number of doctrines confessed, it could hardly be denied that Roman Catholicism represents classical creedal Christianity, while the Protestant Reformation would seem to be one of the first great steps toward the minimalism we are addressing.  But this holds true only if this minimalism is characterized by the number of doctrines confessed.” – pp. 168-69

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On the 1500’s

Articles

Lillback, Peter A. – ‘Confessional Subscription Among the Sixteenth Century Reformers’  in ed. David Hall, The Practice of Confessional Subscription  2nd ed.  Buy  (1997; Covenant Foundation, 2001), pp. 33-66

Heron, Alasdair – ‘Calvin & the Confessions of the Reformation’  Herv. Teol. Stud., vol. 70, no.1 Pretoria (Jan. 2014)

“Calvin did not, however, only write one confessional document and influence some others.  His concern for an agreed confessional statement to be subscribed to by the population of Geneva dates back to his first term of service there, from 1536-1538.”

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On Switzerland

1500’s

The Form of the Confession of Faith, whereunto all subscribe as are received to be scholars in the University of Geneva, and it is very profitable for all towns, parishes and congregations to discern the true Christians from Anabaptists, Libertines, Arians, Papists and other heretics  1561

in The Works of John Knox, ed. David Laing  (Edinburgh: Wodrow Society, 1846), vol. 6, pt. 2, pp. 361-68

“I protest that I will follow and hold the Doctrine of Faith which is contained in the Catechism of this Church, and to submit myself to the Discipline which is established here: neither will I join myself or consent to any sects which might trouble the peace and union that God has here approved by his Word.

And to declare this more at large, and to cut off all cavillations and shifts, I confess…”

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On the Westminster Assembly

Articles

1800’s

Mitchell, Alexander – Appendix: “Subscription to the Confession”  in The Westminster Assembly: its History & Standards  (1884), pp. 511-12

“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 [Archbishop] 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

‘there 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 [this is not actually true, as the WCF was not enacted to be subscribed till 1693], 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.”

Mitchell, A. & Struthers, J. – Footnote 1  in Minutes of the Westminster Assembly  (1874), pp. lxxi-lxxii

The authors document and discuss that Westminster, and the English Church, did not require subscription to the Westminster Standards.

“Some will have it that English Puritanism from its origin was narrow and illiberal, and that it lagged behind all other parties in the matter of religious toleration.  It cannot be denied, at least, that it led the van and bore the brunt of the battle in the struggle for civil liberty; and that shows unmistakeably in what direction its principles tended.

Its ecclesiastical struggle was also from the first a struggle for liberty, at least in things indifferent, and things not expressly enjoined by Scripture; and to the last it was more willing to tolerate differences whithin than without the Church.  It objected to the gradual tightening of the subscriptions in the English Church, desiring that these should be limited to the [39] Articles, and to those of them directly relating to matters of faith.  Among its first uses of its victory in 1640 were the abolishing of the Court of High Commission, and setting aside the canons of Archbishop Laud, which had required the clergy should bind themselves by oath never to consent to changes in the government of the Church.

The Westminster divines themselves, from their earnest desire to form one comprehensive Church, did not require subscription to their directories for worship and for church government, or exact conformity to their minute details, as Laud had done to those of the Prayer-book.  It has been doubted whether the English section of them meant to make their Confession more than the norm of public teaching, like the Irish Articles of 1615.  A sentence of Tuckney’s has been often quoted, in which he says, that

‘in the Assembly he gave his 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.’

But in his famous sermon on 2 Tim. 1:13, a copy of which is still preserved in the University Library at Cambridge, he advocates such forms of sound words not only as declarations of what we ourselves believe and judge that all should believe, and ‘desire and require that all should profess, or at least not openly contradict, with whom we join in nearest church communion;’ but also ‘as communionis tesserae et judices’— badges of our Christian church communion, and great helpers and furtherers of it, ‘whereby uncomfortable divisions may be prevented, and the peace of the Church the better preserved, while we all profess the same truth and speak the same thing.’

[Francis] Cheynell shows the same toleration in his sermon before the House of Commons in March 1646; and as much has been said of his extravagances, it is right this should be recorded to his credit:

‘I conceive it is requisite to a Christian state to hold forth the Christian religion in a wholesome form of sound words that cannot be condemned, that there may be a sweet harmony between all the churches of Christ; and if a Christian state shall find it necessary to descend to some disputable points in their Confession that they may top the rising errors of the time, I shall never move that learned men of a different persuasion should be forced, or by preferment tempted to subscribe or swear to that form against their judgment, to which the civil sanction is annexed, because I know full well what a great temptation it was to young and old in the time of the prelates’ reign to subscribe to such forms as they had never thoroughly examined, because they could not be preferred unless they subscribed.  Yet I humbly move that men’s mouths may be stopped from blaspheming or reviling the truth of God, held forth for the increase of Christian uniformity.’

The Church of Scotland, however, while agreeing with the English Puritans as to the details of worship and government, has always required her ministers to regard her Confession of Faith as something more than a norm of teaching [this is not actually true, as the WCF was not enacted to be subscribed till 1693], to which they were to conform in their public ministrations; and by Act 1693 she was specially empowered to require all her ministers to own it as the confession of their faith, and the true doctrine to which they will constantly adhere.  When we look at the history of Presbyterianism in England and in our own country since the seventeenth century, we think we have good cause to be thankful for the course the Church of Scotland has followed in this matter.”

.

1900’s

Leith, John H. – ‘The Confession as Normative Theology’  in Assembly at Westminster: Reformed Theology in the Making  (John Knox Press, 1973), pp. 103-7

The ultimate source for Leith’s statement: “Something of the attitude of the Assembly may be reflected in Philip Nye’s report that the Assembly voted down a proposal that the Catechism be subscribed. (Conscientious Nonconformity, 1737, p. 77 [Nye, Beams of Former Light, 1660])” does not bear this out.

.

2000’s

Milne, Garnet H. – ch. 7, ‘Subscription & the Westminster Confession’  in The Wesminster Confession of Faith & the Cessation of Special Revelation  (Wipf & Stock, 2008), pp. 257-84

.

Quotes

Order of

Baxter
Tuckney
Nye
Burges

.

1600’s

Richard Baxter

Richard Baxter’s Confession of his Faith…  (London: R.W., 1655), ch. 2, sect. 6

“…
Many other moderate passages I could show in our Assembly’s Confession to some that have need to imitate them, and the Antinomians may see their doctrine subverted in their excellent definition of saving faith, in both Catechisms and in the Confession; in their determination of the natural effects of sin in whomsoever, ch. 6, sect. 6, in their determination of the necessity of repentance (as sine qua non) to remission, ch. 15:3, with more the like.

And now if they have any standing rule to know a Papist or Arminian, I think I have acquit myself from their accusation; But if there be no rule of the orthodox doctrine and for rejection of error but the giddy distracted brains of Libertines that know not where to fix themselves, then I am content to bear the name of Jesuit, Papist or what these men shall please to call me.

Yet let me add this, lest my seeking to satisfy the offended may draw me into guilt; Though I have voluntarily myself professed my consent to these several canons and confessions of faith, yet, for the Synod of Dort, the Confession of our Assembly; yea, or the larger Catechism, without some correction, I do hereby protest my dissent against the so imposing them to a word upon all ministers, that no man that cannot subscribe to them shall be permitted in the Church: Whether our Confession were intended for such a necessary test, I know not well; But that the Synod of Dort was, is expressed in the end.

I abhor unlimited liberty of conscience, so called, that is, of divulging intolerable doctrines; and I lament also that instead of moderation, the Churches for 1,300 years [since 300 AD] have been so guilty of proud and cruel tyranny.  There is 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.

But before any forms be tendered us to subscribe, we must have them reduced into a narrower room, and into phrase so clearly rational or Scriptural, as no sober, studious, competent, godly divine shall scruple: Call it Socinian, or what name soever imperious faction shall put upon it, yet tender consciences will expect this, and the Churches shall never have peace in any other way, unless I be a false prophet; and the contrary course does but tend to do the same in doctrine, as the Common Prayer Book did in worship, even to ensnare the most conscientious, and work them out of the ministry by degrees, and to create us insensibly a lazy formal ministry that will take all upon trust and run to the authority of their confession instead of their Bible.

I have long feared that the toleration threatened in these times for all is a judgment of God for our running into the tyrannical extreme so long; and I withal hope that He will turn this judgment to a mercy.  Though I dislike too much liberty in the commonwealth more than too little (and in the Church much more such toleration is intolerable, in cases of clear duty or sin), yet I fear tyranny more than too much toleration:

1. For experience sadly tells me that tyrannical usurpation of dominion over men’s faith has distracted the Church, even beyond any visible probability of recovery; and it has been the cause of its misery for 1,300 years; but the experience of the mischiefs of toleration is nothing so great.

2. And I know that man’s nature is so prone to proud domineering, and so idolatrously inclined to have all men of their mind, and to dance after their pipe, that it will be still by assing rulers to that extreme: So that it’s easy without a spirit of prophesy to foretell that unlimited tolerations will not long be granted by anyone except a mere infidel, that having no religion himself, cares for nothing but his own politic ends; or a Julian that is contriving the extirpation of religion, and intends by the tailing of foxes to fire the field of Christ rather than by the yoking of oxen to plow and sow it.  And policy will never long work that way neither, without some persecution intermixed.

It’s easy to prognosticate this to him that knows what the heart of man is.  So that for my part, I think the cause of God’s permission of too much looseness in these times, is to cure our former rigor and our being righteous and orthodox overmuch, by suffering men to go as much too far into the contrary extremes.  Little do some men lay this to heart, who only continue exclamations (though deserved) against toleration, when it is but their own disease and what they have caused, that God is curing by this sad remedy.  They should rather see their sin in this glass and be humbled.”

.

Anthony Tuckney

in Moral & Religious Aphorisms collected from the Manuscript Papers of the Reverend & Learned Doctor Whichcote...  ed. Samuel Salter  (London: Payne, 1753), 3rd Letter, pp. 76-77  Tuckney (d. 1670) was a Westminster divine.  For context to this quote, see Leith, p. 104.

“For matter of imposing-upon, I am not guitly.  In the [Westminster] Assembly, I gave my vote with others; that the Confession of Faith, put out by authority, should not be required to be subscribed to, we having been burnt in the hand in that kind before: but so as not to be publicly preached or written against; which indeed is contrary to that ‘liberty of prophesying’ which some so call for…”

.

‘The Form of Sound Words’ a sermon on 2 Tim. 1:13  in A Good Day well improved, or Five Sermons upon Acts 9:31…  to which is annexed a sermon on 2 Tim. 1:13…  (London: 1656), pp. 252-54

“3…  these forms of sound words are useful, and in some cases are necessary, and so have been used as declarations, not only of what we ourselves believe, but also, of what we judge that all should believe (unless we could think that others might rightly believe that as true, which we in our conscience judge to be false, a goodly piece of our ingenuous, loving-hearted Arminians’ charity) and also desire and require, that all should profess, or at least not openly contradict, with whom we join in nearest Church communion:

So it was with the apostles in their canons, Acts 15.  And so it is with particular Churches in their articles and confessions to this day; and so may it be always; Ringantur licet et rumpantur Socino-Remonstrantes [Let the Socinians and Remonstrants rage and burst, if they please].  Notwithstanding all the rage and invectives of Socinians, Arminians, Libertines and other sectaries, who will rather disturb, yea and ruin both Churches and States, and snap asunder the sacred bond of peace, than be thus hampered.

4. They [creeds and synopses of theology] are therefore in the 4th place Communionis Tessarae et Judices, not only badges of our Christian Church communion, but also great helps and furtherers of it, whereby uncomfortable divisions may be prevented, and the peace of the Church the better preserved, whilst we all profess the same truth and speak the same thing, being perfectly joined together in the same mind, and the same judgment, 1 Cor. 1:10.  The Remonstrants indeed tell us that there are Non pauci pii, et probi, many honest godly men (they mean their own sweet selves and their dear party, for who [are] so honest and godly as they?) who dislike such forms and confessions…”

.

Philip Nye

Beams of Former Light: discovering how Evil it is to Impose doubtful and disputable forms or practices, upon ministers: especially under the penalty of ejection for non-conformity unto the same. As also something about catechizing.  (London: 1660)  This was published just before the Great Ejection of 1662.

pp. 10-11

“The Shorter Catechism agreed upon by the Assembly of divines at Westminster, and presented to the honorable Houses of Parliament then sitting, and by them ordered to be printed and published, but no man enjoined to use it, or punishable if he made use of any other to instruct his people in.

This little book for the comprehensiveness of it, as also exactness of order and expression, has (as it deserves) a great esteem with many learned men, notwithstanding to be the one and only book for all capacities that are to be instructed in principles throughout the nation, is a perfection not to be expected from any common gift, nor is this for such purpose the fittest in its kind, as we shall endeavor to show in this dispute.”

.

pp. 86-87

“Neither has this variety [of catechisms] been looked upon as hurtful, for if so, then holy men would have kept to what they found, and have made conscience of increasing this evil by adding to the number; ‘I find’ (says Dr. Gouge, Epistle to his Catechism):

‘in all ages of the Church, God has stirred up many of his servants to publish several forms, all agreeable in the substance, and I observe among many other, these two good uses to arise from thence, etc.’

which there he specifies; nay, since this of the [Westminster] Assembly, composed by a synod of holy and learned men, approved of, and commended to the nation by the parliament then sitting, and received and settled in Scotland, yet men’s consciences have not been satisfied in this, as the only catechism fit to be used, as appears in the great number and variety of catechisms composed and printed since this was published, a greater number then in so short a time were ever published before.”

.

pp. 220-21

“Now it is professed by the [General] Assembly of Scotland that they receive this Catechism under no other notion but as a Directory for Catechising (Act of the General Assembly for approving the Catechism), and not as a stinted catechism.  And thus the parliament understood the [Westminster] Assembly, in all the forms they presented to them; and condescended so far as to reason with our brethren of Scotland, and justify the liberty and freedom they had given by the [Westminster] Directory, as being according to the judgement of moderate presbyterians here in England.  ‘When we consider,’ says the parliament:

‘what some ministers of the presbyterian judgment (and members of that [Westminster] Assembly) in their book subscribed, Smectymnuus, dedicated to the parliament, say of the Liturgy then established by Law,’

(it was never established to be so punctually observed, so rigorously pressed to the casting out of all that scruple it, or any thing in it)

‘we have reason well to consider what we put the stamp of public authority upon, for if this uniformity of the [Westminster] Directory, Church-Government, Confession of Faith and Catechism, should produce such a rigid conformity unto them, it is not easy to foresee all the mischiefs and inconveniences it would beget, though we may easily guess they would not be small, by what we have felt in the like kind. (Declaration of the Lords and Commons in Answer to the Scots Papers)’

.

Cornelius Burges

Reasons showing the Necessity of Reformation…  (London: Cotrel, 1660), I. ‘Of Doctrine,’

p. 5

“1. It has been already declared (yea, adjudged) that, by that statute [the Act of Parliament in the 13th year of Elizabeth], there is no liberty for any man to subscribe the [39] Articles with any limitation, or explication, if any credit be given to Sir Edward Cook, who says (Institutes, 4.47, p. 324, ed. 1658), that he has heard Wray, chief Justice in the King’s Bench, Pasch. 23 Elizabeth (quoting Dier 23 Elizabeth, 377, bk. 6, fol. 69, Grene’s Case, Smith’s Case) report that where one Smith subscribed to the said 39 Articles of Religion with this addition, ‘so far forth as the same were agreeable to the Word of God,’ that it was resolved by him and all the judges of England that this subscription was not according to the Statute of 13th Elizabeth, because the statute required an absolute subscription, and this subscription made it conditional; and that this act was made for avoiding diversities of opinions, etc.  And, by this addition the party might by his own private opinion take some of them to be against the Word of God: and by this means diversities of opinions should not be avoided, which was the scope of the statute; and the very act itself made touching subscription, hereby [be] of none effect.  Thus, he.

2. This shows a necessity of repealing that branch of the act, so far as it concerns subscription, because:

1. If we may not subscribe with such an addition, ‘so far forth as the same Articles are agreeable to God’s Word,’ it must needs be granted that the composers of them are admitted to be infallible; and their Articles, of equal authority with canonical Scripture: or else that the statute intended to tyrannize over the consciences of men, which is not to be imagined.”

.

p. 6 (Notice Burges does not hold subscription to be equal with assent.)

“But the statute does require belief of every one of these [39] Articles, when it enjoins not only subscription, but an assent unto them, punishing all with deprivation that shall affirm, and maintain any doctrine repugnant to them; which every man must do, if they be found contrariant to the Word; or, he must be false to God.”

.

England

See also, ‘On the View that…  One may Pray for the Salvation of One who has commited the Sin unto Death’ regarding WCF 21.4 and Matthew Poole and John Howe.

.

Articles

1600’s

Baxter, Richard – ‘Of the Westminster Shorter Catechism, Larger Catechism & Confession’  in Samuel Clifford, An Account of the Judgment of the Late, Reverend Mr. Baxter…  Collected from his own Writings…  (London: Lawrence, 1701), pp. 3-6

.

1800’s

Stanley, Arthur P. – A Letter to the Lord Bishop of London on the State of Subscription in the Church of England and in the University of Oxford  (Oxford: Henry & Parker, 1863)  100 pp.  ToC

.

1900’s

Cooper, James – Confessions of Faith & Formulas of Subscription in the Reformed Churches of Great Britain & Ireland, especially in the Church of Scotland  (Glasgow: MacLehose & Sons, 1907)

1. ‘The Church of England’  7

The great ambiguity of what might otherwise seem to be clear and simple language in subscription formulas is seen especially on pp. 10-11 in what phrases were added to the formularies to try and make them more strict.

2. ‘English Presbyterian Church’  14-15

Roger, Thomas – ‘The Non-Subscription Controversy amongst Dissenters in 1719: the Salters’ Hall Debate’  in Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 4, no. 2  (1953), pp. 162-186

.

2000’s

Milne, Garnet H. – pp. 262-75  in ch. 7, ‘Subscription & the Westminster Confession’  in The Wesminster Confession of Faith & the Cessation of Special Revelation  (Wipf & Stock, 2008)

Sealy, Charles Scott – ch. 1, ‘English Controversies: Exeter & Salters’ Hall’  in Church Authority & Non-Subscription Controversies in Early 18th Century Presbyterianism  PhD thesis  (Univ. of Glasgow, 2010)

Cooper, Tim – ch. 6, ‘Collision’  in When Christians Disagree: Lessons from the Fractured Relationship of John Owen & Richard Baxter  Pre  (Crossway, 2024), pp. 87-101

This surveys Baxter’s view of making creed’s mandatory.  Baxter was a minimalist, desiring unity at the level of the Apostles’ Creed, or in a creed made purely out of Scripture’s language, so as to avoid and limit divisions of Christians, while holding to “Scripture sufficiency,” so that Scripture can always be appealed to and enforced.

Owen’s view and practice is also touched on, who was appointed under Oliver Cromwell to make a creed for England in the 1650’s, with Baxter and others.  Baxter and Owen were at continual odds with each other in this project, and through the decades generally.

Owen was the leader of the congregationalists through the era (1660-1688) and Baxter was the most prominent leader of the “presbyterians”.  Baxter desired a “comprehension” of the dissenters into the Church of England while Owen was content with, and pleaded for, a mere toleration of dissenters.

Owens, Jesse – ‘The Salters’ Hall Controversy: Heresy, subscription, or both?’  in Perichoresis 20(1) (March, 2022), pp. 35-52

Owens was a pastor and PhD candidate at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary at the time of this article.

Clary, Ian H. – ‘‘Not the Same God’: Alexander Carson (1776-1844) & the Ulster Trinitarian Controversy’  in Perichoresis 20(1) (2022), pp. 71-87

.

Books

1800’s

Donaldson, James – The Westminster Confession of Faith & the Thirty Nine Articles of the Church of England: The Legal, Moral & Religious Aspects of Subscription to Them  (London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1905)  200 pp.  ToC

This was published in the context immediately following the union of the Free Church of Scotland which formed the United Free Church of Scotland in 1900.  Donaldson includes reflections on the constitutionalist party that continued the Free Church of Scotland after 1900.

Cooper, James – Confessions of Faith & Formulas of Subscription in the Reformed Churches of Great Britain & Ireland, especially in the Church of Scotland  (Glasgow: MacLehose & Sons, 1907)  120 pp.  ToC

Cooper (1846–1922) was a Church of Scotland minister and church historian.  He was a leading Scoto-Catholic of his day (having an emphasis on catholic Christianity).  This work is documentary and very helpful in numerous regards.

.

2000’s

Steers, Anthony David Garland – ‘New Light’ Thinking & Non-Subscription amongst Protestant Dissenters in England & Ireland in the Early 18th Century, & their Relationship with Glasgow University & Scotland  unpublished doctoral thesis  (University of Glasgow, 2006)

Sealy, Charles Scott – Church Authority & Non-subscription Controversies in Early 18th Century Presbyterianism  PhD thesis  (Univ. of Glasgow, 2010)  250 pp.

Abstract: “…While other studies have examined the local controversies, this thesis offers a comprehensive examination of the question of subscription and the connections between the debates…  It identifies the common background and influences, especially in questions of ecclesiastical authority in the Church of England that preceded and greatly influenced the subscription controversy, which itself was essentially a debate over Church power.”

Owens, Jesse – The Salters’ Hall Controversy of 1719  PhD diss.  (SBTS, 2021)

Abstract: “The Salters’ Hall Controversy (1719) was a key event during a transitional period in English Dissent.  The controversy has often been viewed as a demonstration of the theological decline of the General Baptists and Presbyterians.  A careful consideration of the Salters’ Hall Controversy, however, reveals that the issue at hand for the Non- subscribers was not the doctrine of the Trinity, but the requirement of subscription.  Consequently, a minister’s siding with the Non-subscribers at Salters’ Hall should not immediately be interpreted as opposition to the doctrine of the Trinity.  Orthodox non-subscriptionism was a live option at Salters’ Hall…  Chapter 3 focuses on the orthodox Subscribers, many of whom viewed the controversy as being about the doctrine of the Trinity.”

.

Quotes

Order of

Mid-1600’s
Baxter
Owen

.

On the Mid-1600’s

On John Tombes

Alexander Gordon, ‘Tombes, John’ in Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900

“He [Tombes] laid his scruples on infant baptism before the Westminster assembly of divines, but got no satisfaction.  Declining to baptise infants, he was removed from St. Gabriel’s early in 1645, but appointed (before May) master of the Temple, on condition of not preaching on baptism.

He published on this topic; for licensing one of his tracts, the parliamentary censor, John Bachiler, was attacked in the Westminster assembly (25 Dec. 1645) by William Gouge, D.D., and Stephen Marshall was appointed to answer the tract.”

.

Richard Baxter

Reliquiæ Baxterianæ: or, Mr. Richard Baxter’s Narrative of the most Memorable Passages of his Life & Times  (London: Parkhurst, 1696), bk. 1, pt. 1, p. 73

“For my own part, as highly as I honor the men [the Westminster divines], I am not of their mind in every point of the government which they would have set up; and some words in their Catechism I could wish had been more clear;”

.

1700’s

James Owen

Moderation a Virtue, or the Occasional Conformist Justified from the Imputation of Hypocrisy…  (London: Baldwin, 1703), p. 15

“They [occasional non-conformists] agree in all the Articles of the Church of England [the 39 Articles], which the dissenting ministers have subscribed, except part of the Twentieth, which gives the Church power to decree rites and ceremonies, and 35th and 36th, about the second Book of Homilies, and consecration of bishops, etc. which are private articles and not articles of the catholic Church; as Mr. [Thomas] Rogers [d. 1616] confesses, whose Exposition was allowed by public authority. (Rogers, English Creed, London, 1585)”

.

Biblio

1700’s

Disney, John – A Short View of the Controversies Occasioned by the Confessional & the Petition to Parliament [1772] for Relief in the matter of Subscription to the Liturgy and Thirty-Nine Articles of the Church of England  (1772)  32 pp.

The Confessional (1766), by Francis Blackburne (1705–1787), an English clergyman of the Church of England, defended requiring subscription to the 39 Articles and other tests by clergy.

Disney (1746–1816) was against the requirement, and documents both sides of the literature that sprung up.  The 1772 peitition was defeated.  Disney later resigned his Anglican benefice and became a Unitarian minister, illustrating how the debate contributed to the rise of English Unitarianism and rational dissent within and beyond the Church of England.

Some of the orthodox defenders of subscription included: John Randolph, William Warburton and George Horne.

.

Ireland

Articles

McClachlan, H. J. – ‘The Non-Subscribing Presbyterian Church of Ireland: its Heritage & Ethos’  in Transactions of the Unitarian Historical Society, 17, (1982), pp. 144-54

Barlow, Richard B. – ‘The Career of John Abernethy (1680-1740), Father of Nonsubscription in Ireland & Defender of religious liberty’  in Harvard Theological Review, 78 (1985), pp. 399-419

Thompson, John – ‘The Westminster Confession in the Presbyterian Church in Ireland’  in The Westminster Confession in the Church Today: Papers prepared for the Church of Scotland Panel on Doctrine  (Edinburgh: St. Andrews Press, 1982), pp. 90-94

.

Books

1800’s

Cooper, James – Confessions of Faith & Formulas of Subscription in the Reformed Churches of Great Britain & Ireland, especially in the Church of Scotland  (Glasgow: MacLehose & Sons, 1907)  120 pp.  ToC

Cooper (1846–1922) was a Church of Scotland minister and church historian.  He was a leading Scoto-Catholic of his day (having an emphasis on catholic Christianity).  This work is documentary and very helpful in numerous regards.

.

1900’s

Allen, Robert – ‘Principles of Non-Subscription to Creeds & Confessions of Faith as Exemplified in the Irish Presbyterian Church’  unpublished doctoral thesis  (Queen’s University Belfast, 1944)

.

2000’s

Steers, Anthony David Garland – ‘New Light’ Thinking & Non-Subscription amongst Protestant Dissenters in England & Ireland in the Early 18th Century, & their Relationship with Glasgow University & Scotland  unpublished doctoral thesis  (University of Glasgow, 2006)

Sealy, Charles Scott – Church Authority & Non-subscription Controversies in Early 18th Century Presbyterianism  PhD thesis  (Univ. of Glasgow, 2010)  250 pp.

Abstract: “…While other studies have examined the local controversies, this thesis offers a comprehensive examination of the question of subscription and the connections between the debates…  It identifies the common background and influences, especially in questions of ecclesiastical authority in the Church of England that preceded and greatly influenced the subscription controversy, which itself was essentially a debate over Church power.”

.

Netherlands

Articles

1900’s

Monsma, Martin – “Signing the Form of Subscription”  in The New Revised Church Order Commentary: a Brief Explanation of the Church Order of the Christian Reformed Church  (Zondervan, 1967), pp. 38-42

Godfrey, W. Robert – ‘Subscription in the Dutch Reformed Tradition’  in ed. David Hall, The Practice of Confessional Subscription  (1997), pp. 67-77  Also in The Outlook (1998)

.

2000’s

Sinnema, Donald – “The Origin of the Form of Subscription in the Dutch Reformed Tradition”  in Calvin Theological Journal (July 2007), pp. 256-82

“Early Reformed confessions, besides being educational and apologetic tools, commonly functioned as witnesses to the unity of the scattered Reformed churches in various countries. The tendency was to formulate a confession in such a way as to accommodate the diversity within the Reformed community. Thus, key doctrines were included and differences were not highlighted. Calvin’s preface to his 1545 Latin edition of the Geneva Catechism clearly expressed this view. In this ‘token of holy union’ dedicated to the ministers of East Friesland, Calvin ‘takes care not to deliver anything in this Catechism… that is not agreeable to the doctrine received among all the pious.’

Later in the sixteenth century, confessions tended to become viewed more as standards by which to exclude ideas not considered orthodox. Rather than serving primarily as forms of unity, confessions also became forms of purity. It is within this understanding of the role of confessions that early forms of subscription came to be developed. A good example is the Lutheran Book of
Concord (1580)…” p. 256

“Except for isolated instances, elsewhere in the Netherlands it does not appear that such forms [of subscription for ministers, as opposed to simply signing the confession] were in use during this period [1574-1605].” p. 260

“By the 1580s, the role of the confessions began to change. Rather than primarily witnessing to the unity of the Reformed churches, they also came to be used as standards of orthodoxy. This shift occurred in the context of an increasing tension in Dutch Reformed circles between the strong Calvinist party and Libertines and others who opposed it. By the 1580s, the role of the confessions began to change. Rather than primarily witnessing to the unity of the Reformed churches, they also came to be used as standards of orthodoxy. This shift occurred in the context of an increasing tension in Dutch Reformed circles between the strong Calvinist party and Libertines and others who opposed it… ‘And if at any time there is the least suspicion about a minister in any point of doctrine, the synod earnestly admonishes that the classis in its meeting shall deal with such a minister on these points of doctrine…’ There is some indication that by this time subscription of the confession was generally practiced in the Dutch churches, at least in the province of North Holland… In the church order that it adopted, this Hague synod [1586] specifically required ministers and professors of theology to sign the confession, but not elders or deacons; for the first time it also added a penalty… Subscription was now required under the threat of deposition. Soon after this time, while in most places the confession was still simply signed, in other places, one begins to find a short form of subscription.” pp. 261-62

“As the Arminian controversy arose and escalated, the orthodox Calvinist side of the Dutch churches more and more used the Belgic Confession and the Heidelberg Catechism as standards of orthodoxy.” p. 263

“In this polemical context, a simple signing of a copy of the confession hardly served as a guarantee of doctrinal orthodoxy. To prevent ambiguity in what signing meant, the Calvinists realized that a more precise means of determining confessional adherence was necessary. It was in this context that forms of subscription for ministers rapidly became prevalent in the Dutch churches.” p. 264

The Dort formula is on pp. 273-74

“Dort’s form of subscription [1619] remained in use in the Reformed churches of the Netherlands for almost two hundred years.  In 1816, after the monarchy was restored following the Napoleonic wars, the Dutch Reformed church was reorganized, and a new form of subscription replaced that of Dort…  the new version contained a weaker declaration of agreement with ‘the doctrine, which, in agreement with God’s Holy Word, is contained in the accepted forms of unity.'” p. 279

.

Book

Janssen, Roelf Christiaan – By this our Subscription: Confessional Subscription in the Dutch Reformed Tradition since 1816  PhD diss.  (Theologische Universiteit, Gereformeerde Kerken, 2009)  480 pp.

On the era before 1619, see pp. 22-33.

On the era from 1619 to 1816, see pp. 33-45.

.

Lutheranism

On the Post-Reformation to Today

Cochrane, Arthur C. – ‘The Act of Confession-Confessing’  in Sixteenth Century Journal, vol. 8, no. 4, The Formula of Concord: Quadricentennial Essays (Dec., 1977), pp. 61-83

Cochrane is a confessional Lutheran professor at Wartburg Theological Seminary (ELCA, Iowa) that here gives helpful thoughts and observations about confessing in general and historically in the Post-Reformation up through to the (German) Barmen Declaration (1934).

Preus, Robert – 6. ‘Confessional Subscription’  in eds. Kiehl & Werning, Evangelical Directions for the Lutheran Church  (1970), pp. 43-52

.

On the 1800’s

Lee II, James A. – ‘Theodosius Harnack & Confessional Subscription’  in Concordia Theological Quarterly, vol. 89:1 (Jan. 2025), pp. 61-83

Harnack (1817–1889) was a Baltic, German, Neo-Lutheran theologian of the Erlangen school.

Abstract: “This essay explores the significant contributions of Theodosius Harnack to the nineteenth-century discourse on subscription to the Lutheran Confessions, contextualized against the debate over Johannes von Hofmann‘s theory of the atonement.”

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On Elders & Deacons Subscribing

See also ‘On Subscription to Confessions in Scottish Church History’: ‘On Elders & Deacons’.

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Netherlands

1570’s

Donald Sinnema, “The Origin of the Form of Subscription in the Dutch Reformed Tradition”  in Calvin Theological Journal (July 2007), p. 259

“Up to this time [1573], the prevailing practice was that only ministers signed the Belgic Confession.  In 1574, however, the provincial Synod of Dordrecht decided that ‘it would be useful that the elders and deacons also subscribe to the Netherlands Confession, and to the articles of the [Emden] Synod.’  For this purpose, it was considered advisable that a copy of the confession and of the articles of the Emden Synod be kept by all consistories [sessions] or at least by all classes [presbyteries].  For the first time, schoolteachers were also required to sign the confession and to submit to the ‘discipline’ or articles of the Emden Synod.

The idea of elders’ and deacons’ subscribing was not immediately accepted in all the churches.  For example, at Delft the elders and deacons refused to sign the confession, while at Middelburg they did. Gaspar van der Heyden, pastor at Middelburg and president of the recent Dordrecht Synod, on 16 November 1574 wrote to Delft pastor Arent Cornelisz: ‘Our elders and deacons have signed the Confession of Faith and the articles of the [Emden] synod; I certainly wish that yours had done the same. How would they who now refuse to sign the Confession with ink seal it with their own blood?'”

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Synod of Dort, 1619

Donald Sinnema, “The Origin of the Form of Subscription in the Dutch Reformed Tradition”  in Calvin Theological Journal (July 2007), pp. 274-76

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How to take Vows, on Interpreting them & on their Obligation’s Extent

Articles

1600’s

Baxter, Richard – A Christian Directory...  (London, 1673), pt. 3, ch. 5, pp. 694-713

Title 1, ‘Directions for the right making of such vows and covenants’

Title 2, ‘Directions against perjury and perfidiousness: and for keeping vows and oaths’

On Baxter’s views of breadth in ethically interpreting confessions, and subscription to them, see also his material under ‘Origins of & Historical Examples of Scruples & Exceptions to Confessions’ below.

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1700’s

Henry, Matthew – Matthew Henry’s Self-Examination Before Ordination  (†1714)  13 pp.  being questions Henry put to himself before his ordination.

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Quote

1600’s

Richard Baxter

The Non-Conformists’ Plea for Peace, pt. 2

“§31. p. 356, etc. Rule 23. [The opponent said:] ‘Subscription to Articles and forms of Confession in any particular Church is wholly of political consideration.’

Subscription ought to be so intended that he who has subscribed may not perceive himself taken in a snare: but yet he that subscribes must do it to those purposes and in that sense and signification of things which the supreme power intends in commanding it; that is, at least that he that subscribes do actually approve the Articles overwritten: that he does at that time believe them to be such as it’s said they are; i.e. true, if they only say they are true; useful, if they pretend to usefulness; necessary, if it be affirmed that they are necessary.  For if the subscriber believes not this, he by hypocrisy serves [only] the ends of public peace and his own preferment.

When Articles are established without necessity [i.e. the establishment of non-necessary articles], subscription must be required without tyranny and imperiousness.  That is, it must be left to the
liberty of the subject to profess or not profess that doctrine.  To bring evil on men that do not believe the Article and dare not profess to believe what they do not, is injustice and oppression; it is a law of iniquity, and therefore it is not obligatory to conscience, and no human authority is
sufficient for the sanction and imposition.

Question: Can it be lawful for any man to subscribe what he does not believe to be true, giving his hand to public peace and keeping his conscience for
God?

Answer: No, if subscription signify approbation; for in that case it is hypocrisy, etc.  But if subscription were no more than the office of a clerk of the signet or council, who in form of law is to sign all the acts of the council, it were different.  For it is not as an account of his own opinion, but as a formality of the court: all the world looks on it as none of his personal act.  But in subscription to Articles of Confession every ecclesiastic that subscribes does it for himself, lubens et ex animo subscripsi [‘I have subscribed willingly and from the heart’], is our form in the Church of England.

If the intention of our superior be to require our assent, he that subscribes does profess his assent; and whatever he thinks himself, it is the intention of the imposer that qualifies the subscription.  No particular Church ought with rigor to require subscriptions to Articles not evidently true and necessary to be professed: because in the division of hearts that is in the world, it is certain that some good men may dissent, and then either they shall be afflicted or tempted to hypocrisy: of either of which if ecclesiastic laws be guilty, they are not for edification: they are neither just, nor pious, and therefore oblige not.

§32. pp. 358-59, ‘At least let the Articles be made with as great latitude of sense as they can and so that subscriptions be made to the form of words; let the subscribers understand them in what sense they
please which the truth of God will suffer and the words can be capable of.’

This is the last remedy; but it is the worst: It has in it something of craft, but very little of ingenuity; and if it can serve the ends of peace or of external charity, or of fantastic concord [a concord of the fantasy], yet it cannot serve the ends of truth and holiness, and Christian simplicity.”

[Note that Baxter along with many other puritans used this “last resort” in 1689 in subscribing to most of the 39 Articles, in order to be civilly tolerated.  See under ‘Exceptions’ below.]

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Examples of Strict Expressions which could have been used in Subscription Formulas if Desired

Romanism  1564

Intro

The following was required for profession or subscription for all priests by the Pope, as a part of the Counter-Reformation.  It was requisite for all protestants who converted to Romanism.  This is as given in ed. Hall, Practice of Confessional Subscription, p. 37.

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The Profession of the Tridentine Faith  1564

“I. I, ____, with a firm faith believe and profess all and every one of the things contained in that creed which the holy Roman Church makes use of: ‘I believe in one God, the Father Almighty,’ etc. [The Nicene Creed.]

II. I most steadfastly admit and embrace apostolic and ecclesiastical traditions, and all other observances and constitutions of the same Church.
…”

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Lutheranism

1576-1577

Arthur P. Stanley, A Letter to the Lord Bishop of London on the State of Subscription in the Church of England and in the University of Oxford  (Oxford: Henry & Parker, 1863), p. 37

“The most stringent and elaborate subscription probably ever enforced was that in the duchy of Brunswick, when duke Julius [1528-1589] required from all clergy, from all professors, from all: magistrates [in 1576-1577], a subscription to all and everything contained in the Confession of Augsburg [1530], in the Apology for the Confession [1531], in the Smalcaldic Articles [1537], in all the works of Luther, and in all the works of Chemnitz.”

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1580

The Book of Concord, Preface  1580

“…this declaration herewith presented concerning all the controverted articles aforementioned and explained, and no other, is our faith, doctrine and confession…  and that we will neither privately nor publicly speak or write anything contrary to it, but, by the help of God’s grace, intend to abide thereby…”

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Netherlands

Donald Sinnema, “The Origin of the Form of Subscription in the Dutch Reformed Tradition”  in Calvin Theological Journal (July 2007), p. 260

“Classis Walcheren in Zeeland [in 1574] drafted the earliest form of subscription used by ministers:

‘We the undersigned ministers of the Word of God, within these islands of Walcheren, do hereby believe and confess that the written [Belgic] Confession of Faith of the Christian churches of the Netherlands, lying under Spanish rule, contained in 37 articles and printed again in the year 1573 at Dordrecht, conforms (ghelijkformigh is) in all parts to the Word of God.  And so we promise to orient our doctrine and worship to it, in our teaching, consolation, and admonition, and to oppose what conflicts with it, according to our abilities.'”

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Robert Godfrey, “Subscription in the Dutch Reformed Tradition” in Practice of Confessional Subscription, pp. 68-69

Classis of Alkmaar  1608

“We the undersigned preachers, under the jurisdiction of the Classis of Alkmaar, declare and witness that the teaching which is in that catechism adopted unanimously by the Reformed [the Heidelberg Catechism] and which is comprehended in the 37 articles of the Dutch Reformed Churches [the Belgic Confession] agrees in everything with the Holy Word of God, and consequently with the foundation of the teaching of salvation.  We promise to maintain this same teaching, through God’s grace; and openly to reject teachings that are brought against or oppose it; and with all diligence and faithfulness according to our ability to stand against them, as we affirm the same with our signatures.”

 

Donald Sinnema, “The Origin of the Form of Subscription in the Dutch Reformed Tradition”  in Calvin Theological Journal (July 2007), p. 268, fn. 52

“The Classis Buren form [1610] reads:

‘I the undersigned call on God as witness that I, having been called to serve as a minister in Classis Buren at ___ , and having been asked by the Classis, according to the prescribed order, what my opinion was of the Netherlands [Belgic] Confession, the [Heidelberg] Catechism, and the new fanaticism of Jacobus Arminius, have confessed and hereby do confess, not only by mouth but with my whole heart, without any duplicity or dishonesty, that what is taught in the Netherlands Confession and the Catechism is completely and sincerely scriptural (schriftmatich), and that I have never, nor shall I ever, be devoted to the novelties of Jacobus Arminius and his followers, but have cleaved to and shall cleave to the aforesaid Confession and Catechism, as the unanimous confession of the churches, to which I duly submit myself, as I also to this end in my examination and complete acceptance of the aforesaid Catechism and Confession, according to the order of Classis, by hand and mouth promise to sign, so help me God Almighty.'”

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“The Zeeland form for ministers reads:

‘We the undersigned ministers of the Word declare by this subscription, that we heartily believe and are persuaded that all the articles and points of doctrine contained and explained in this Confession and Catechism, from greatest to least, do fully conform (in alles conform syn) to the Word of God, and we also hereby solemnly promise, as the occasion requires, to teach and advocate all these points of doctrine publicly and privately.  And if at any time we should have any sentiment or objection against any article or point of doctrine, contained in the aforesaid Confession and Catechism, we promise that we will neither publicly nor privately present the same except properly in classical or synodical assemblies, under the penalty of being censured as schismatics.  And if at any time the classis or synod may deem it proper, to maintain unity in doctrine, to require of us our further sentiments and explanation of any article of the aforesaid Confession or Catechism, we also hereby promise to be always ready and willing to do so, without refusal, under the penalty above mentioned.'”

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England

Canon 36  in 1604

in Cooper, Confessions, pp. 10-11  The phrase “and every,” amongst other phrases, were additions to what had gone before in 1583.  It appears puritans had not been subscribing these things “willingly” (but only conceded such under coercion).  While some had subscribed to them collectively, in a general sense, yet they had not, by their intention or practice, meant to subscribe “all things…  in them”.

“… that he acknowledges all and every the Articles therein contained, being in number nine and thirty, besides the ratification, to be agreeable to the Word of God.”

“To these three Articles, whosoever will subscribe, he shall, for the avoiding of all ambiguities, subscribe in this order and form of words, setting down both his Christian and surname — viz.: I, N. N., do willingly and ex animo [from the soul], subscribe to these three articles above mentioned, and to all things that are contained in them.”

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Ireland

Irish Articles, 1615

Of the Old Testament, of the New Testament

“7. All and every the articles contained in the Nicene Creed, the Creed of Athanasius, and that which is commonly called the ‘Apostles’ Creed ought firmly to be received and believed, for they may be proved by most certain warrant of holy Scripture.”

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Presbyterian Synod of Ulster  1698

in Cooper, Confessions, p. 18

“that young men, when licensed to preach, be obliged to subscribe the Confession of Faith in all the articles thereof, as the Confession of their faith,”

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Scotland

General Assembly  1566

This is a letter to Theodore Beza approving the 2nd Helvetic Confession, albeit with one exception.  The Works of John Knox, ed. David Laing  (Edinburgh: Wodrow Society, 1846), vol. 6, pp. 546-48

“We are therefore altogether compelled, as well by our consciences, as from a sense of duty, to undertake its patronage, and not only to express our approval, but also our exceeding commendation of every chapter and every sentence.  For that little treatise rests altogether upon the Holy Scriptures, which we both profess and are prepared to defend at the risk of our lives, or even to the shedding of blood.  And we have all of us, as many as by reason of the shortness of the time allowed us, were able to be present, both subscribed our names, and sealed this letter with the common seal of this University.
…

This one thing, however, we can scarcely refrain from mentioning, with regard to what is written in the 24th chapter of the aforesaid Confession concerning the “festival of our Lord’s nativity, circumcision, passion, resurrection, ascension, and sending the Holy Ghost upon his disciples,” that these festivals at the present time obtain no place among us; for we dare not religiously celebrate any other feast-day than what the divine oracles have prescribed.  Everything else, as we have said, we teach, approve, and most willingly embrace.”

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General Assembly  1638

Session 26, Dec. 20, Act concerning the Confession of Faith renewed in Feb. 1638  in Acts of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, 1638-1842  (Edinburgh: 1843), p. 31

“…The Assembly allows and approves the same [National Covenant of 1638] in all the heads and articles thereof, and ordains that all ministers, masters of universities, colleges, and schools, and all others who have not already subscribed the said Confession and Covenant, shall subscribe the same, with these words prefixed to the subscription, viz.,

The article of this Covenant, which was at the first subscription referred to the determination of the General Assembly, being now determined at Glasgow, in December 1638, and thereby the Five Articles of Perth, and the governement of the Kirk by bishops, being declared to be abjured and removed, the civil places and power of kirkmen declared to be unlawful [which things had previously not thought to have been prohibited by the National Covenant of 1580-1581 by many], we subscribe according to the determination [stated interpretation] of the said free and lawful General Assembly holden at Glasgow;”

 

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General Assembly  1639

August 30, 1639, Session 23  in Acts of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, 1638-1842  (Edinburgh: 1843), p. 42

“…we, by our act and constitution ecclesiastical, do approve the foresaid [National] Covenant [of 1638] in all the heads and clauses thereof…”

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Presbyterian Commission’s Inquisition at the College of Edinburgh  1690

Alexander Monro, Presbyterian Inquisition, as it was lately Practiced against the Professors of the College of Edinburgh, August & September, 1690…  (London: Hindmarsh, 1691)  Monro, an episcopalian, is narrating.

“…some of the Commission declared that by the acknowledging and subscribing the Westminster Confession of Faith is not only meant an owning of it, in so far as it is a system of theology conform[ed] to the Holy Scriptures, and one of the best designed for distinguishing the Reformed Church, from these heretics and schismatics that now disturb it, but that it also imports an absolute owning of every particular Article thereof, as the only and most perfect Confession, that has been or can yet be composed; and that therefore it was to be acknowledged, professed, and subscribed, without any limitation, restriction, or reservation whatsoever.
…

It had been soon enough then, for the presbyterians to have fled to their old experimented way of libelling, when the masters had stood their ground against that New Test, which originally had no end but to make vacant places [and so replace episcipalian professors with presbyterians].  But the preachers of that party (members of the visitation) judged it more convenient, boldly and indefatigably to calumniate the professors, lest if they had been turned out for mere and just scruples of conscience, the people should have murmmured and complained…”

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Parliament  1693

Act for Settling the Quiet and Peace of the Church  in Cooper, Confessions, pp. 53-54

“Our Sovereign Lord and Lady, the King’s and Queen’s Majesties, with advice and consent of the Estates of Parliament, ratify, approve, and perpetually confirm the fifth act of the second session [in 1690] of this current parliament, entitled, ‘Act Ratifying the Confession of Faith and settling Presbyterian Church government’ in the whole heads, articles, and clauses thereof…”

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Parliament  1700

For Securing the Protestant Religion and Presbyterian Church Government  in Cooper, Confessions, pp. 55-56

“…His Majesty with advice and consent forsaid ratifies approves and confirms the fifth act of the second session [in 1690] of this current Parliament entitled, ‘Act Ratifying the Confession of Faith, and Settling Presbyterian Church Government’ in the whole heads articles and clauses thereof as if at length herein set down…”

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French Reformed  1620

in Donald Sinnema, “The French Reformed Churches, Arminianism and the Synod of Dort”  in The Theology of the French Reformed Churches... (Reformation Heritage Books, 2014), p. 123

“I, N.N., do swear and affirm before God and this holy assembly that I do receive, approve, and embrace all the doctrine taught and decided by the Synod of Dort [1619], as entirely conforming (entierement conforme) to the Word of God and the Confession of our churches.  I swear and promise to persevere in the profession of this doctrine during my whole life, and to defend it with all my ability, and that I will never, neither by preaching, nor by teaching in the schools, nor by writing, depart from this rule (regle)…

So may God help me, and be gracious to me, as I swear all this before him without any ambiguity, equivocation or mental reservation.”

[Note that this formula was only for “all members of the French provincial synods” and that it shortly got relaxed due to pushback from various quarters in 1623 to:

‘We, the undersigned pastors and elders…  declare with all possible sincerity that the…  Canons are grounded on the Word of God and conform to the [1559] Confession of Faith approved and received in the Reformed Churches of this Kingdom…’ (p. 126)”

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That “Doctrine” may Signify Basic or Fundamental Teachings, whether of Scripture, Christianity or of a Confession

Order of

Bible Verses  12+
Quotes  50+

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Bible Verses

Old Testament

Dt. 32:2 “My doctrine shall drop as the rain, my speech shall distil as the dew, as the small rain upon the tender herb, and as the showers upon the grass:”

[See the rest of this chapter for what this doctrine and “small rain upon the tender herb” entails.]

Prov. 4:1-2  “Hear, ye children, the instruction of a father, and attend to know understanding.  For I give you good doctrine, forsake ye not my law.”

Isa. 28:9-10  “Whom shall he teach knowledge? and whom shall he make to understand doctrine? them that are weaned from the milk, and drawn from the breasts.  For precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little:”

Jer. 10:8  “But they are altogether brutish and foolish: the stock is a doctrine of vanities.”

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New Testament

Acts 2:42  “And they continued stedfastly in the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers.”

Acts 5:28  “Saying, Did not we straitly command you that ye should not teach in this name? and, behold, ye have filled Jerusalem with your doctrine, and intend to bring this man’s blood upon us.”

Rom. 6:17  “But God be thanked, that ye were the servants of sin, but ye have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you.”

Rom. 16:17-19  “Now I beseech you, brethren, mark them which cause divisions and offences contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned; and avoid them.  For they that are such serve not our Lord Jesus Christ, but their own belly; and by good words and fair speeches deceive the hearts of the simple.  For your obedience is come abroad unto all men.”

1 Tim. 6:1-4

“Let as many servants as are under the yoke count their own masters worthy of all honour, that the name of God and his doctrine be not blasphemed.  And they that have believing masters, let them not despise them, because they are brethren; but rather do them service, because they are faithful and beloved, partakers of the benefit. These things teach and exhort.

If any man teach otherwise, and consent not to wholesome words, even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to the doctrine which is according to godliness; He is proud, knowing nothing, but doting about questions and strifes of words, whereof cometh envy, strife, railings, evil surmisings…”

2 Tim. 3:10  “But thou hast fully known my doctrine, manner of life, purpose, faith, longsuffering, charity, patience,”

[Compare this with 2 Pet. 3:15-16.]

Titus 2:1-8  “But speak thou the things which become sound doctrine: that the aged men be sober, grave, temperate, sound in faith, in charity, in patience.  The aged women likewise, that they be in behaviour as becometh holiness, not false accusers, not given to much wine, teachers of good things; that they may teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children, To be discreet, chaste, keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God be not blasphemed.  Young men likewise exhort to be sober minded.  In all things shewing thyself a pattern of good works: in doctrine showing uncorruptness, gravity, sincerity, sound speech, that cannot be condemned…”

Titus 2:10-15  “Not purloining, but shewing all good fidelity; that they may adorn the doctrine of God our Saviour in all things.  For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men, teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world; Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ; who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works.  These things speak, and exhort, and rebuke with all authority.

Heb. 6:1-2  “Therefore leaving the principles of the doctrine of Christ, let us go on unto perfection; not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works, and of faith toward God, of the doctrine of baptisms, and of laying on of hands, and of resurrection of the dead, and of eternal judgment.”

2 Jn. 1:9  “Whosoever transgresseth, and abideth not in the doctrine of Christ, hath not God. He that abideth in the doctrine of Christ, he hath both the Father and the Son.”

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Quotes

Order of

Early Church

Didache
Barnabas
Ignatius
Smyrna
Justin
Irenaeus
Clement
Tertullian
Origen
Dionysius
Theonas
Apostolic Constitutions
Nazianzus
Augustine

Post-Reformation

Luther
Augsburg Confession
Tyndale
Erasmus
Melanchthon
Bullinger
Sturm
Ridley
Wishart
Bucer
Calvin
Scots Confession
Musculus
Vermigli
Hungarian Confession
Tarcal & Torda
Hyperius
Bullinger
Nassau Confession
Ursinus
Bridges
Beza & Faius
Napier
Bremen Consensus
Rollock
William Perkins
English Puritans
Sutcliffe
Bernard
Forbes
Harris
Attersoll
Cameron
Guild
Mestrezat
Tuckney
Ussher
Heywood

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In the Early Church

The Didache  1st century

Didache is Greek for “Doctrine”.  See Wikipedia.

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Barnabas  A.D. 100

Epistle of Barnabas, ch. 1  in ANF 1.137

“The doctrines of the Lord, then, are three: the hope of life, the beginning and the completion of it.  For the Lord has made known to us by the prophets both the things which are past and present, giving us also the firstfruits of the knowledge of things to come…”

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Ignatius  d. 107 or 116

Epistle of Ignatius to the Philadelphians, ch. 8  in ANF 1.84

“And I exhort you to do nothing out of strife, but according to the doctrine of Christ.  When I heard some saying, If I do not find it in the ancient Scriptures, I will not believe the Gospel; on my saying to them, ‘It is written,’ they answered me, ‘That remains to be proved.’  But to me Jesus Christ is in the place of all that is ancient: His cross, and death, and resurrection, and the faith which is by Him, are undefiled monuments of antiquity;”

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Church at Smyrna  mid-2nd century

The Encyclical Epistle of the Church at Smyrna concerning the Martyrdom of the Holy Polycarp, ch. 22, ‘Salutation’  in ANF 1.43

“We wish you, brethren, all happiness, while you walk according to the doctrine of the Gospel of Jesus Christ…”

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Justin Martyr  d. 165

The Martyrdom of the Holy Martyrs, ch. 1  in ANF 1.305

“Rusticus the prefect said, ‘What kind of doctrines do you profess?’  Justin said, ‘I have endeavoured to learn all doctrines; but I have acquiesced at last in the true doctrines, those namely of the Christians, even though they do not please those who hold false opinions.’  Rusticus the prefect said, ‘Are those the doctrines that please you, you utterly wretched man?’  Justin said, ‘Yes, since I adhere to them with right dogma.’  Rusticus the prefect said, ‘What is the dogma?’  Justin said:

‘That according to which we worship the God of the Christians, whom we reckon to be one from the beginning, the maker and fashioner of the whole creation, visible and invisible; and the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who had also been preached beforehand by the prophets as about to be present with the race of men, the herald of salvation and teacher of good disciples.'”

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Irenaeus  c. 180

Against Heresies, bk. 4, ch. 34  in ANF 1.511

“…read with earnest care that Gospel which has been conveyed to us by the apostles, and read with earnest care the prophets, and you will find that the whole conduct, and all the doctrine, and all the sufferings of our Lord, were predicted through them.”

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Clement of Alexandria  d. c. 215

The Stromata or Miscellanies, bk. 1, ch. 1  in ANF 2.301

“Well, they preserving the tradition of the blessed doctrine derived directly from the holy apostles, Peter, James, John, and Paul, the sons receiving it from the father (but few were like the fathers), came by God’s will to us also to deposit those ancestral and apostolic seeds.  And well I know that they will exult; I do not mean delighted with this tribute, but solely on account of the preservation of the truth, according as they delivered it.  For such a sketch as this, will, I think, be agreeable to a soul desirous of preserving from escape the blessed tradition.”

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Tertullian  d. c. 220

Prescription against Heretics, ch. 6  in ANF 3:246

“In the Lord’s apostles we possess our authority; for even they did not of themselves choose to introduce anything, but faithfully delivered to the nations (of mankind) the doctrine which they had received from Christ.  If, therefore, even ‘an angel from heaven should preach any other gospel’ (than theirs), he would be called accursed by us.”

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Origen  d. c. 253

On Principles, bk. 4, ch. 1, sect. 5  in ANF 4.352

“…after a short period had elapsed…  the whole world, nevertheless, became filled with his doctrine, and with faith in his religion.”

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Against Celsus, bk. 1, ch. 27  in ANF 4.408

“And although, among the multitude of converts to Christianity, the simple and ignorant necessarily outnumbered the more intelligent, as the former class always does the latter, yet Celsus, unwilling to take note of this, thinks that this philanthropic doctrine, which reaches to every soul under the sun, is vulgar, and on account of its vulgarity and its want of reasoning power, obtained a hold only over the ignorant.  And yet he himself admits that it was not the simple alone who were led by the doctrine of Jesus to adopt His religion; for he acknowledges that there were amongst them some persons of moderate intelligence, and gentle disposition, and possessed of understanding, and capable of comprehending allegories.”

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Dionysius  d. 265

Extant Fragments, pt. 2, Epistle 6, to Bishop Sixtus  in ANF 6.102

“For, indeed, in the most considerable councils of the bishops, as I hear, it has been decreed that they who come from heresy should first be trained in catholic doctrine, and then should be cleansed by baptism from the filth of the old and impure leaven.”

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Bishop Theonas  fl. 300

Epistle to Lucianus, sect. 8  in ANF 6.161

“Besides this, your servants should be the most thoroughly honest, and circumspect, and modest, and as serviceable to you as possible.  And see that you instruct and teach them in true doctrine with all the patience and charity of Christ; but if they despise and light esteem your instruction…”

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Apostolic Constitutions  375-380

bk. 1, sect. 1  in ANF 7.391

“The catholic Church is the plantation of God, and His beloved vineyard; containing those who have believed in his unerring divine religion; who are the heirs by faith of his everlasting kingdom; who are partakers of His divine influence, and of the communication of the Holy Spirit; who are armed through Jesus, and have received his fear into their hearts; who enjoy the benefit of the sprinkling of the precious and innocent blood of Christ; who have free liberty to call Almighty God, Father; being fellow-heirs and joint-partakers of His beloved Son: hearken to this holy doctrine, you who enjoy his promises, as being delivered by the command of your Savior, and agreeable to his glorious words.  Take care, ye children of God, to do all things in obedience to God; and in all things please Christ our Lord.

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Gregory of Nazianzus  d. 390

Select Orations, tr. Martha Vinson  in The Fathers of the Church  (Catholic University of America Press, 2003), Oration 6, p. 12

“…so that, even in our quarrels we were sustained by that greatest of all blessings, our unanimity in matters of doctrine, as well as by the awareness that, where the truth was concerned, we were neither mismated or opposed to one another, but molded by the same impress of faith and our primal hope.

12. Indeed, for those whose faith in God is pure there is no greater stimulus to unanimity than using the same words when we speak of Him…”

.

Augustine

NPNF1

vol. 1, p. 433

Letter 111, to Victorianus

“For unto those men who incessantly reproach the Christian faith, impiously saying that the human race did not suffer such grievous calamities before the Christian doctrine was promulgated throughout the world, it is easy to find a reply…”

.

vol. 2

The City of God, bk. 1, ch. 31, p. 20

“For there had not yet been revealed to the Gentiles the heavenly doctrine which should purify their hearts by faith, and transform their natural disposition by humble godliness, and turn them from the service of proud devils to seek the things that are in heaven, or even above the heavens.”

.

On Christian Doctrine, bk. 3, ch. 10, pp. 560-61

“Purity of life has reference to the love of God and one’s neighbor; soundness of doctrine to the knowledge of God and one’s neighbor.  Every man, moreover, has hope in his own conscience, so far as he perceives that he has attained to the love and knowledge of God and his neighbor.”

.

vol. 6

The Harmony of the Gospels, bk. 1, ch. 1, p. 78

“All those other individuals, however, who have attempted or dared to offer a written record of the acts of the Lord or of the apostles, failed to commend themselves in their own times as men of the character which would induce the Church to yield them its confidence, and to admit their compositions to the canonical authority of the Holy Books.  And this was the case not merely because they were persons who could make no rightful claim to have credit given them in their narrations, but also because in a deceitful manner they introduced into their writings certain matters which are condemned at once by the catholic and apostolic rule of faith, and by sound doctrine.”

.

vol. 7

On the Gospel of St. John, Tract 51 on ch. 12:12-26, pp. 286-87

“…when you hear the Lord saying, ‘Where I am, there shall also my servant be,’ do not think merely of good bishops and clergymen.  But be yourselves also in your own way serving Christ, by good lives, by giving alms, by preaching his name and doctrine as you can; and every father of a family also, be acknowledging in this name the affection he owes as a parent to his family.  For Christ’s sake, and for the sake of life eternal, let him be warning, and teaching, and exhorting, and correcting all his household;”

.

1500’s

Patrick Hamilton

A Most Excellent & Fruitful Treatise called Patrick’s Places…  (d. 1528; 1598)

“So in a Christian man’s life, and in order of doctrine, there is the Law, there is repentance, there is hope, charity, and deeds of charity; all which in life and in doctrine are joined, and necessarily do concur together:”

.

Martin Luther  1529

Luther’s Short Catechism, Preface  in ed. B.J. Kidd, Documents Illustrative of the Continental Reformation  (Clarendon Press, 1911), pp. 96-97

“In setting forth this [Shorter] Catechism or Christian doctrine in such a simple, concise and easy form, I have been compelled and driven by the wretched and lamentable state of affairs…  the common people knowing nothing at all of Christian doctrine…  and though all are called Christians and partake of the holy sacrament, they know neither the Lord’s Prayer, nor the [Apostles’] Creed, nor the Ten Commandments, but live like the poor cattle and senseless swine…”

.

Augsburg Confession  1530

The Confession of the Faith of the Germans exhibited to the most Victorious Emperour Charles the V in the Council or Assembly holden at Augusta…  1530, to which is added the Apology of Melanchthon...  (London, 1536), The Principal Articles of the Faith, p. 7

“And to the true unity of the Church it is enough to consent of the doctrine of the gospel and ministration of the sacraments.”

.

William Tyndale

An Answer unto Sir Thomas More’s Dialogue…  First he declares what the Church is…  (Antwerp, 1531), p. v

“This word ‘church’…  signifies a place or house whether Christian people were wont in the old time to resort at times convenient for to hear the word of doctrine, the law of God and the faith of our Savior Jesus Christ, and how and what to pray and whence to ask power and strength to live goodly.”

.

Desiderius Erasmus

Bellum Erasmi (London: 1534)

p. 25

“Finally all the doctrine of Christ is so defiled with the learning of logicians, sophisters, astronomers, orators, poets, philosophers, laweyrs and gentiles that a man shall spend the most part of his life ere he may have any leisure to search holy Scripture, to the which when a man at last comes, he must come infected with so many worldly opinions that either he must be offended with Christ’s doctrines, or else he must apply them to the mind and doctrine of them that he has learned before.

And this thing is so much approved, that it is now a heinous deed if a man presume to study holy Scripture, which has not nosilled himself up to the hard ears in those trifles, or rather sophistries of Aristotle.  As though Christ’s doctrine were such that it were not lawful for all men to know it, or else that it could by any means agree with the wisdom of philosophers.”

.

p.28

“…why does both all the life and doctrine of Christ preach none other thinge but sufferace?”

.

Philip Melanchthon

The Confession of the Faith of the Germans exhibited to the most Victorious Emperour Charles the V in the Council or Assembly holden at Augusta…  1530, to which is added the Apology of Melanchthon...  (London, 1536), The Apology, that is to say the Defense of the Confession of the Germans made by Philip Melanchthon, ‘Of the Church’

“They will that the rites and ceremonies taken of the apostles, be kept and maintained, but they will not that the doctrine of the apostles be reserved and kept.”

.

Heinrich Bullinger

A Commentary upon the Second Epistle of St. Paul to the Thessalonians…  (Southwarke, 1538)

p. 34

“Christ has given us in the prophets and by the preaching of the apostles an absolute and perfect doctrine, which alone is sufficient enough to get everlasting life.”

.

p. 53

“It is the judgment of God, which has showed miracles enough by his Son, by his prophets and apostles, and has also prescribed us doctrines, and rites clearly and sufficient enough.”

.

Johannes Sturm

The Epistle that Johan Sturmius…  sent to the Cardinals and Prelates that were chosen and appointed by the Bishop of Rome, to search out the Abuses of the Church  (London, 1538), no page number  Sturm (1507–1589) was a German educator and Protestant reformer.

“…to speak somewhat of doctrine.  I doubt not but you know how necessary a thing the knowledge of Christ’s doctrine is.  For if the mind be stirred up with lively teachng, to put full confidence in Christ, and is after this confidence fully inflamed with the love of religion, honesty, and goodness, it is almost necessary all kinds of vices to reign there where no voice instructed with godly sentences is heard, Christ must needs be unknown there, where his benefits with all his acts lie unspoken of…

You amongst all men are chosen for great causes, your honour is to restore Christ’s doctrine, and to appoint such as will and shall be able to teach the gospel, to amend the ceremonies, and to put a difference between the ministers of the Church.”

.

Lancelot Ridley

A Commentary in English upon Saint Paul’s Epistle to the Ephesians…  (London, 1540)

on ch. 3

“…of the hearers’ part is required that they should diligently hear the Word of God, give credence to it and live according to God’s doctrine, or else it profits them nothing, the Gospel truly preached of faithful men sent of God.”

.

on ch. 6

“Therefore let children learn eloquence and worldly wisdom of gentile authors if they will, and a Christian faith and godly manners to order their living according to the doctrine of Christ and of the holy Scripture, which alone teaches faith, true judgments and good manners.”

.

George Wishart  d. 1546

The Tragical Death of David Beaton, Bishop of St. Andrews in Scotland, whereunto is joined the martyrdom of master George Wishart…  (London, 1548)  John Knox was a bodyguard to Wishart for a time.

“Therefore I exhorted all men equally in my doctrine, that they should leave the unsure way, and follow that way, which was taught us by our master Christ.  He is our only Mediator and makes intercession for us to God his Father.  He is the dore by the which we must enter in.  He that enters not in by this door, but climbs another way is a thief and murder.  He is the verity and life.  He that goes out of this way, there is no doubt but he shal fall into the mire: yea verily he is fallen into it already.  This is the fashion of my doctrine, the which I have ever followed.”

.

Martin Bucer

The Gratulation…  unto the Church of England for the Restitution of Christ’s Religion…  (London, 1549), no page number

“…princes and bishops ought most especially to regard this, that Christ’s doctrine and discipline may thereby be purely and faithfully ministered to his people:”

.

John Calvin

Institutes Christian Religion, ed. John T. McNeill, tr. Ford Lewis Battles  in The Library of Christian Classics, vol. 20  (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1960), vol. 1

“Subject Matter of the Present Work” French ed., 1560

“Although Holy Scripture contains a perfect doctrine to which one can add nothing…”

.

bk. 1

ch. 6, p. 72

“2….  Now, in order that true religion may shine upon us, we ought to hold that it must take its beginning from heavenly doctrine and that no one can get even the slightest taste of right and sound doctrine unless he be a pupil of Scripture.  Hence, there also emerges the beginning of true understanding when we reverently embrace what it pleases God there to witness of Himself…

3…  Then we may perceive how necessary was such written proof of the heavenly doctrine…”

.

ch. 7, pp. 76-77

“2…  He testifies that the church is ‘built upon the foundation of the prophets and apostles’ [Eph. 2:20].  If the teaching of the prophets and apostles is the foundation, this must have had authority before the church began to exist…  For if the Christian church was from the beginning founded upon the writings of the prophets and the preaching of the apostles, wherever this doctrine is found, the acceptance of it–without which the church itself would never have existed–must certainly have preceded the church.”

.

ch. 9, p. 93-94

1…  But I should like to know from them what this spirit is by whose inspiration they are borne up so high that they dare despise the Scriptural doctrine as childish and mean…  Paul, ‘caught up even to the third heave’ [2 Cor. 12:2], yet did not fail to become proficient in the doctrine of the Law and the Prophets, just as also he urges Timothy, a teacher of singular excellence, to give heed to reading [1 Tim. 4:13]…

Therefore the Spirit, promised to us, has not the task of inventing new and unheard-of revelations, or of forging a new kind of doctrine to lead us away from the received doctrine of the gospel, but of sealing our minds with that very doctrine which is commended by the gospel.”

.

ch. 13, p. 129

“For, as Peter testifies, the ancient prophets spoke by the Spirit of Christ just as much as the apostles did [1 Peter 1:10-11; cf. 2 Peter 1:21], and all who thereafter ministered the heavenly doctrine.”

.

bk. 2

ch. 9, p. 424

“2.  Now I take the gospel to be the clear manifestation of the mystery of Christ.  I recognize, of course, that since Paul calls the gospel ‘the doctrine of faith’ [1 Tim. 4:6], all those promises of free remission of sins which commonly occur in the law, whereby God reconciles men to himself, are counted as parts of it.”

.

ch. 10, ‘The Similarity of the Old & New Testaments’, p. 428

“1. Now we can clearly see from what has already been said that all men adopted by God into the company of his people since the beginning of the world were covenanted to him by the same law and by the bond of the same doctrine as obtains among us.  It is very important to make this point.”

.

ch. 11, p. 463

“13…  Thus, God’s constancy shines forth in the fact that he taught the same doctrine to all ages, and has continued to require the same worship of his name that he enjoined from the beginning.”

.

The Scots Confession of Faith  1560

in The Works of John Knox, ed. David Laing  (Edinburgh: Wodrow Society, 1846), vol. 2, p. 109

Ch. 16, Of the Kirk

“For as without Christ Jesus their is neither life nor salvation, so shall their name be participant thereof but such as the Fatehr has given unto his Son Christ Jesus, and those [that] in time come to Him, avow his doctrine, and believe into Him (we comprehend the children with the faithful parents).”

.

Ch. 18, Of the Notes by which the True Kirk Is Discerned

“and greater multitude followed the Scribes, Pharisees, and Priests, than unfeignedly believed and approved Christ Jesus and his doctrine…

And such kirks we, the inhabitants of the realm of Scotland, professors of Christ Jesus, confess us to have in our cities, towns, and places reformed; for the doctrine taught in our kirks is contained in the written word of God, to wit, in the Books of the Old and New Testaments…  in the which we affirm that all things necessary to be believed for the salvation of mankind, is sufficiently expressed; the interpretation whereof…  appertained to the Spirit of God, by the which also the Scripture was written…

we ought not so much to look what men before us have said or done, as unto that which the Holy Ghost uniformly speaks within the body of the Scriptures, and unto that which Christ Jesus Himself did, and commanded to be done.”

.

Wolfgang Musculus

Common Places of the Christian Religion  (1560; London, 1563)

‘Of the Church’, fol. 259.b

“Doctrine.  For we do take the same to be the pure doctrine of the Church, which comes from Christ, conveyed unto us by the apostles, which appointed us nothing of their own choice, but did faithfully prefer unto all nations the discipline which they received of Christ: in which is not heard the voice of any man, but of the only begotten of God, the true and only shepherd and teacher…  The pure preaching of Christ’s Gospel does aright bear the first sign and token of the true Church…  and so where the Gospel of Christ our Savior is taught, there is declared to be the Christian Church.”

.

‘Of the Supper of the Lord’, fol. 294

“…this commandment was added by Christ, that they which were baptized, should be taught to keep all things which He commanded.  ‘Teaching them,’ says He, ‘to observe all whatsoever I have commanded you.’ (Mt. 18)  Therefore like as there be in the doctrine of Christ two parts, one concerning faith, the other obedience: so they be both also requisite of them that be baptized.”

.

‘Of the New Doctrine’, fol. 357

“For the holy angels do not like any sacrifice, but that which by the doctrine of true wisdom and true religion is offered unto the only true God, whom they do serve in one holy society and fellowship.”

.

Peter Martyr Vermigli

The Common Places (d. 1562; London: 1583), pt. 2, ch. 18,  ‘A Plain Exposition…  upon the Twelve Articles of the Christian Faith’, p. 631

“And men’s inventions are more esteemed than the lawful doctrine of the truth, drawn out of the holy fountains of the scriptures…  But they, which have embraced the principal and sincere doctrine of Christ, be utter enimies against those superstitions;”

.

The Hungarian Catholic Confession  1562

in ed. James Dennison Jr., Reformed Confessions of the 16th & 17th Centuries…  (RHB, 2010), vol. 2, pp. 612-13

“Concerning the Origin, Authority & Certainty of Christian Doctrine

Heavenly doctrine came directly from God Himself, who has spoken to us directly in his Son, and through the prophets and apostles…  After Christ, the doctrine which is contained in the sacred Bible takes its origin from the prophets and apostles.  Hence, the apostle teaches that this doctrine is built on the foundation of the prophets and apostles (1 Tim. 3:4; 2 Tim. 2:3).  Also, the authority of this doctrine depends on God the lawgiver, for so it is written in the prophets…  The Father is He that testifies concerning this doctrine and defends it…  The universal (catholica) church is only the witness of heavenly doctrine.  Therefore the truth and authority of the heavenly doctrine depend on God, not on the church.

.

The Certitude of the Doctrine consists of the Following:

1. As its authors are God and the Son of God, who have the Law before all ages and before all doctrine began (Heb. 1; John 1), it is the most ancient, the most true.

2. Because it has been handed down by the Holy Spirit, Christ, inspiring his holy prophets by his Spirit, has spoken and handed to us this heavenly doctrine (1 Peter 4).

3. Because it is established upon Christ as a foundation, and on the doctrine of the prophets and apostles (1 Cor. 3; 1 Tim. 3:4; 2 Tim. 2).

4. Because prophets and apostles have from the beginning maintained and propagated this doctrine in the church, and illustrated and confirmed it frequently by miracles and divine proofs (Heb. 1; Rom. 1; Col. 1, 3; John 4).
…”

.

Confession of Tarcal (1562) & Torda (1563)

Intro

Tarcal was in northern Hungary and Torda was in Translyvania.  This is taken from Reformed Confessions  of the 16th & 17th Centuries, ed. James Dennison, Jr. (RHB, 2010), p. 727

.

pt. 5, Concerning the Church, Article 7

“Likewise, he writes elsewhere that beleivers are built up on the foundation of the prophets and apostles, i.e. they lean on the doctrine planted by the apostles and evangelists in the church, the foundation and support of which is Jesus Christ (Eph. 2:20; Acts 17:11; 2 Pet. 1:19).”

.

Andreas Hyperius

The Practice of Preaching…  (d. 1564; London: East, 1577), p. 86

“I. Doctrine. The foundation whereupon our faith in Christ does stay, are the revelations sent of God to the godly, or the Church.  For by this means were taught and instructed the shepherds, Simeon, Anna, Zacharias, Elizabeth and many other more inflamed with the Holy Ghost, which all confessed and testified that Jesus is the promised Messiah and Savior of our souls.”

.

Perre Viret

A Christian Instruction...  (London: Veale, 1573), ‘Sum of the Principal Points of the Christian Faith & Religi∣on’, ‘Of the Doctrine of the Church’, p. 54

“For final conclusion, as the Church holds, receives and allows for heavenly and divine doctrine, all the doctrine contained in the canonical books of the holy Bible, as well of the Old as of the New Testament, and takes it for the true foundation of her Faith…”

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Henry Bullinger

Fifty Godly & Learned Sermons divided into Five Decades…  (London: 1577), 5th Decade, 4th Sermon, ‘Calling unto the Ministry of God’s Word,’ p. 907

“The manner of teaching extends itself to public and private doctrines.  By public doctrine the pastor either catechizes, that is to say, instructs them that be younglings in religion, or others which are grounded therein.  To the younglings or ignorant sort he opens the principles of true religion.  For catechesis, or the form of catechising, comprehends the grounds or principles of faith and Christian doctrine, to wit, the chief points of the covenant, the Ten Commandments, the Articles of Faith or Apostles’ Creed, the Lord’s Prayer, and a brief exposition of the sacraments.”

.

Nassau Confession  1578

ed. James Dennison Jr., Reformed Confessions of the 16th & 17th Centuries…  (RHB, 2012), vol. 3, pp. 459-60

“Doctrine in General

It is a great and unspeakable favor of God that He has revealed Himself to mankind with clear and assured testimonies and miracles, and sent his Son, and delivered a sure doctrine by which we know Him, rightly call upon Him, and honor Him with due obedience.

The almighty and true God has comprised this doctrine in the writings of the prophets and apostles, and has borne witness that what pertains to God’s being and will, and what pertains to all other points of that religion which alone saves, ought to be held and believed only in the way and in the form that He Himself has recorded and laid down in his revelation through the writings of the prophets and apostles.

Through this doctrine, God is always gathering to Himself from the human race an everlasting church, and binds it to this sole doctrine, so that assuredly there are neither church nor heirs of eternal salvation where this doctrine is absent, as at this day among the heathern, the Mohammedans, the Jews, and the Papist persecutors of the gospel.

For thus St. Paul declared, ‘No other foundation can be laid than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ’ [1 Cor. 3:11].  And Gal. 1[:8-9]: ‘If anyone, even an angel from heaven, were to preach another gospel, let him be accursed.’ Eph. 2[:20]: “You are built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ being the cornerstone.
…

And though there is not in all places an equal light emitted in the doctrine…  nevertheless the unity of the churches is not hereby dissolved.

They are are members of the universal, true, and single church, although there may still be observed all kinds of stubble and weaknesses, and there may also be discerned a difference about ceremonies (provided only that they are not contrary to the foundation of Christian doctrine), as such things are copiously handled in the Epistle of Paul to the Corinthians.

For, he says, on that sole foundation (by which the church of God is differentiated from sects) some build gold, silver, precious stones, while some build wood, stubble, hay…

Therefore with mouth and heart we profess this agreed and true doctrine comprised in the writings of the prophets and apostles, in the sense contained in the Apostolic, Nicene, and Athanasian creeds.

We consider as assured and indubitable every and each essential article of the Christian religion comprised in this Word of God and in the creeds, and that what is opposed to these is errant and to be rejected, and that the writings of the prophets and apostles are the sole standard by which all teachings are at all times to be judged, and to which all human writing and confession must be subject and remain subject.
…

And inasmuch as in the foundation and chief principles of the Christian religion, it [the Augsburg Confession, 1530] accords with the confessions publicly issued and approved by the other evangelical Reformed churches beyond Germany; therefore, next after the Word of God and the orthodox creeds, we hereby profess the aforesaid Augsburg Confession, understood in a legitimate and well-grounded sense, which duly remains subject to the true and infallible Word of God (as do also the public confessions int he other orthodox churches)…”

.

Zacharias Ursinus

The Sum of the Christian Religion…  in his Lectures upon the Catechism...  (d. 1583; Oxford: Barnes, 1587), 2 ‘How many things are necessary’, ‘Three parts of the study of divinity’, pp. 2-4

“A catechism is a brief doctrine, framed for youth and the ruder sort, containing in it the sum of the doctrine of the law and gospel, or of Christian religion…  Catechumeni in the primitive Church, were those who learned the catechism: that is to say, such as were now of the Church, and were instructed in Christian doctrine…

This catechising doctrine has ever been in the Church.  For in the Old Testament God Himself in brief-wise delivered the doctrine of the Law and Gospel, the Decalogue and the promises, as when He says, ‘Walk before Me, and be thou perfect.’  Likewise, ‘In thy seed shall all nations of the earth be blessed.’  Now these things God would that Abraham and his posterity should teach their children, and their whole family: and therefore this doctrine was framed fit for the capacity of children, and the ruder sort…

In the New Testament, in the apostles’ time, there was likewise a catechising doctrine: as the author of the epistle to the Hebrews reports [Heb. 6:1-2]:

‘Therefore, leaving the doctrine of the beginning of Christ, let us be led forward unto perfection, not laying again the foundation of repentance:’

that is the beginning of Christian doctrine, which comprehends repentance and faith.  These first beginnings or principles of Christian doctrine are called in the same place the doctrine of baptisms, because they that were of some years before they came to Christ, were first instructed, before they were baptised.

It is called also the doctrine of laying on of hands, because the catechism was required at their hands (that they should be able to answer in it) on whom hands were laid, that is to say, of the children of Christians, who were baptised in their infancy.  The parts of these rudiments of Christian doctrine, which they call catechism, are the Law and the Gospel, or (as it is said in the place aforenamed unto the Hebrews) repentance and faith in Christ.  Similarly the fathers also write brief sums of doctrine…

Now it behoves that the youth be by and by instructed in this doctrine, and do know the foundation: 1. Because of the commandment of God, ‘Thou shalt tell them unto thy children.’…  3. Because we are to hold the foundation, upon which we may build…”

.

John Bridges

A Defence of the Government Established in the Church of England for Ecclesiastical Matters  (London: Windet, 1587), bk. 2, p. 227

“There is no doubt but Peter the apostle expounded the whole doctrine catechistical (or teaching by voice the principles of Faith) in the house of Cornelius the centurion, before that he baptized any, Acts 10.”

.

Theodore Beza & Anthony Faius

Propositions & Principles of Divinity...  (Edinburgh: Waldegraue, 1591), bk. 74, ‘False Ministry of the Gospel’, pp. 234-35

“The other, because that the apostolical function, being appointed for the laying of the foundation of the Christian catholic Church; now, that the same is laid, and the apostles called into Heaven, is ceased here upon earth, in respect of their personal ministry; and in respect of the building upon the foundation which they laid, the doctrine delivered by them, preserved from above, and which is to continue to the world’s end, is so sufficient, that there is no need of any successor of the apostolical authority…”

.

John Napier

A Plain Discovery of the Whole Revelation of Saint John  (Edinburgh: Waldegrave, 1593)  Napier (1550–1617) was a Scottish scholar.

“And so the Temple of God in heaven, is properly taken for his heavenly elect Church upon earth, and for their true doctrine, profession, and religion…

the true Christian Churches, professors of Christ his true testimony, were visible and patent, their true doctrine and Christian religion opened up, and the majesty of God thereby made known, and manifested in the days of the apostles:”

.

Bremen Consensus  1595

ed. James Dennison Jr., Reformed Confessions of the 16th & 17th Centuries…  (RHB, 2012), vol. 3, p. 646

“Christian doctrine in General, and the Judgment of the Universal, Orthodox Church

I…  Therefore with mouth and heart we profess this agreed and true doctrine respecting the whole substance and content of the Christian religion given in the writings of the prophets and apostles, acknowledging it, as received in the proper and true sense from the context of Scripture (which is its own best interpreter), to be the sole standard by which all teachings are at all times to be judged, and to which all human writing and confession must be subject and remain subject.”

.

Robert Rollock

Lectures upon the Epistle of Paul to the Colossians…  (d. 1599; London, 1603), 1st Lecture, on Col. 1:1-6

“Thirdly, the doctrine it self (short, but exceeding effectual) of the Lord Jesus and his office, as we shall hear hereafter.

Fourthly, after the doctrine, he comes to the exhortation, exhorting the Colossians to constancy and perseverance in the faith and doctrine of Jesus Christ.
…

for the office of every Evangelist was to water where the apostles before had planted, and to build where they had laid the foundation of the true doctrine of Jesus Christ the Savior.”

.

1600’s

William Perkins

An Exposition of the Creed, on the Church, on the Church  in A Golden Chain  (Cambridge, 1600), p. 496

“Furthermore, the Churches of Helvetia, and Savoy, and the free cities of France, and the Low Countries, and Scotland, are to be reverenced as the true Churches of God, as their confession make manifest.  And no less must we think of our own Churches in England and Ireland.  For we hold, believe, and maintain, and preach the true Faith, that is, the ancient doctrine of salvation by Christ, taught and published by the prophets and apostles, as the book of the [39] Articles of Faith agreed upon in open parliament do fully show…”

.

English Puritans

A Refutation of the Errors of Separatists  (1604; 1644; RBO, 2025), pt. 1, Answer 4, p. 231

“First, the Word, when it describes Antichrist and teaches us how to know him, marks him out by his false doctrine. [1 Jn. 2:22; 4:3; 2 Jn. 1:7]  Neither can we find in holy Scripture anyone accounted an antichrist or antichristian who, holding the truth of doctrine and professing all the fundamental articles of the Faith, does swerve either in judgment or practice from that rule which Christ has given for the discipline of his Church.  Now it is evident that our bishops both do and, by the laws of our land, ought to hold and teach all doctrines and truths that are fundamental.  Yea some of them have learnedly and soundly maintained the truth against heretics that have gainsaid it; some have not only by their doctrine and ministry converted many to the truth, but have suffered persecution also for the Gospel.”

.

Matthew Sutcliffe

A Full & Round Answer to N.D., alias Robert Parsons…  the First [Book] contains a Defence of Queen Elizabeth’s most pious and happy government…  (London: 1604), bk. 2, ch. 3, pp. 137-38

“…We have the apostles for authors of our doctrine, says Tertullian (Prescription against Heresies).  He says also, It lies not in man’s power to determine any thing (in matters of faith) of his own head. Quamuis sanctus sit aliquis post Apostolos, etc. Howsoever holy, or eloquent a man be, says Jerome in Psalm 86, yet coming after the apostles he deserves no authentical credit.  The Lord declares in Scriptures.
…

The last foundation of Romish faith is the preaching of mass-priests and friars.  Quomodo Christus eius(que) doctrina (says Stapleton):

Christianae religionis fundamentum est, sic alii nunc a Christo missi, eorumque doctrina, praedicatio, determinatio, fundamenti apud me vim et locum habebunt.

As Christ and his doctrine is the foundation of Christian religion: so others now sent of Christ, and their doctrine, preaching, and determination shall in my opinion have the force and place of a foundation, says he. (Praetat ante relect princip. doctrin.)”

.

Richard Bernard

Plain Evidences the Church of England is Apostolical, the Separation Schismatical...  (London: 1610), 8th Error

p. 251

“We have it [God’s Word] in our doctrines, in all the main and fundamental truths which we hold, agreeing to the holy Scriptures: but so the Papists have it not…”

.

p. 271

“Thirdly, true matter [of the Church] are all such [persons] as are baptized, and openly profess that Jesus the son of Mary is the Son of God, made Christ the Lord, by whom only and alone is salvation…

…
Thirdly, because it is the sum of the whole Gospel, and Covenant in the New Testament, in respect whereof, there is no other point of religion necessary, but as it tends either to bring men unto, or to confirm them in this main truth.  Hence it is, that St. John concludes his Gospel with this scope…

And therefore since such as do profess this truth do summarily and in general profess all the evangelical doctrines in God’s book, such must needs be fit matter of the Church.”

.

Patrick Simson

A Short Compend of the History of the First Ten Persecutions moved against Christians  (Edinburgh: Hart, 1613)  Simson (1566-1618) was a Scottish presbyterian minister.

“…they were chosen to be faithful witnesses to the world of the doings, sufferings and doctrine of Christ: the Holy Ghost was sent to teach them in all truth.  Here we may rest upon a sure foundation, against the which the gates of hell cannot prevail…  To this antiquity of apostolic doctrine, let us firmly adhere.  This is the clearest mirror whereinto the precepts of wholesome doctrine are contained.
…

those bishops and doctors following, who keep inviolably that form of wholesome doctrine which they received from the apostles, these, I say, alanerly are to be counted true successors of the apostles.”

.

Patrick Forbes

A Defense of the Lawful Calling of the Ministers of Reformed Churches against the Cavillations of Romanists  (Middleburgh, 1614)

“…the pastors of our reformed Churches, having (in common) had even an ordinary calling: and, therewith holding the true apostolic doctrine, we are the true successors of the apostles, and not our adversaries…

…as says Gregory Nazianzen.  His words are notable, and which alone are even enough to oppose to all our adversaries shameless brags of bare succession.  They
are to this sense: The succession of piety is properly to be holden succession: for who professes the same doctrine of faith, he is partner of the same chair: but who embraces a contrary faith, he ought to be accounted an adversary…
…

therefore, to approve themselves true successors to the apostles, they must also verify themselves to hold the same doctrine:”

.

Richard Harris

The English Concord in Answer to Becan’s English Jar  (d. 1613; London: 1614), p. 179

“The canons and doctrines of the apostles are the foundations whereupon the Church of Christ is built (Eph. 2:20), and contain that absolute certainty of divine truth, that If an angel from heaven should teach otherwise, he should be accursed.'”

.

William Attersoll

The New Covenant, or a Treatise of the Sacraments…  (London: Jaggard, 1614), bk. 3, ch. 15, pp. 514-15

“Fourthly, howsoever many have years of discretion, and the common use of natural gifts of understanding: yet if they neither have the knowledge of God, nor the knowledge of themselves, nor the knowledge of the doctrine of the sacraments, and other fundamental points of religion, they are not to be admitted [to the Supper,] but refused.”

.

John Cameron

An Examination of those Plausible Appearances which seem most to commend the Romish Church and to Prejudice the Reformed  (Oxford: Lichfield, 1626)

“They then are the true children of Abraham which are his children in the faith, and they are truly the successors of the primitive Churches, which have succeeded them in the doctrine of the faith.”

.

William Guild

The Old Roman Catholic, as at first he was taught by Paul: in opposition to the new Roman Catholic: as of latter he is taught by the Pope  (Aberdeen, Raban: 1649)

“…these, therefore, who teach and practice conform to true doctrine, contained in the Scriptures, are the true servants of Christ Jesus and members of His Church: and consequently that true doctrine, and practice in God’s worship conform, is the essential note to know Christ’s Church thereby.”

.

Jean Mestrezat

Tract on the Church (1649), bk. 1, ch. 1  as quoted in J.A. Turretin, Discourse concerning Fundamental Articles  (London: Darby, 1720), Appendix, “Testimonies from Church History”  tr. ChatGPT-5

“For it is said [in Acts 8] that Philip, having found the eunuch reading a passage from Isaiah, announced to him, beginning from that text.  Now to announce Jesus is to announce Christian doctrine.  And how many years, on this reckoning [of the Romanist opponent], would have been required for catechumens to be introduced into the Church, since they could not enter the Church except through knowledge of the doctrine?

Thus the matter here concerns a knowledge sufficient for salvation, which consists in a measure of light of which the simple and the lowly are capable in a short time.  The matter here is not to form a doctor of theology, but a Christian…”

.

Anthony Tuckney

A Good Day Well Improved, or Five Sermons upon Acts 9:31  (London: J.F., 1656), ‘And were edified’, p. 75

“…our unhappy times are most unhappily become like those which the Psalmist in his days spake of, in which foundations were destroyed.  For now (that I may use the apostles words) [Greek], ‘the very principles of the doctrine of Christ’ [Heb. 6:1], the most fundamental Scripture-truths…”

.

James Ussher

The Judgement of the late Archbishop of Armagh…  of Babylon (Rev. 18:4) being the present See of Rome…  (London: Crook, 1659), ‘Sense of Heb. 6:2’, p. 176

“A well ordered discipline is the ornament of the Church, but upon the confession and doctrine of saint Peter [Mt. 16:16], it was to be founded, in which sense the apostles and prophets in their doctrines are called the foundation of it [Eph. 2:20]; Jesus Christ being the chief corner stone, and (as some think) is the sense of that, Rev. 21:14, that in the twelve foundations were the names of the twelve apostles, in relation to their doctrinals;”

.

Oliver Heywood

Heart Treasure...  (London: 1657), ch. 13, p. 150

“A Christian is to store up all truths…  ‘Tis very dangerous to be careless of lesser truths…  yet we are especially to treasure up fundamental and seasonable truths, doctrines that we are to venture our souls upon…  hence it is that the apostle would have believers established in the present truth, 2 Pet. 1:12, i.e. say some, the doctrine of the Gospel…”

.

.

On the Meaning of the Phrase, “Agreeable to the Word of God”

Instances of “agreeable to the Word of God” being used generally and broadly with respect to Church government, etc., as something less than by divine right, or derived exactly, necessarily and only therefrom.

At Westminster

Article

De Witt, John Richard – p. 85, 128-29 & 140-41  in Jus divinum. The Westminster Assembly & the Divine Right of Church Government  (Kampen: Kok, 1969)

.

Quotes

Order of

Vermigli
English Puritans
Bucanus
Elton
Attersoll
Hall
Featley
Ward
Shields
Scottish Parliament
Cunningham

.

1500’s

Peter Martyr Vermigli

The Common Places  (d. 1562; London: 1583)

pt. 1, ch. 11, ‘Of Prescription & Custom’, p. 98

“Wherefore custom is not made by examples, but by the assent, approbation and ordinance of the people…

11…  But whereas he says that that use ought to be agreeing with reason, that is not enough: but this ought first to be preferred, that it must be agreeable to the Word of God.  For that is to be accounted for the chiefest reason; and afterward let it be allowed by the institution of the people…”

.

ch. 5, 2nd Commandment, sect. 19, p. 349

“And most vain is that which these men have always in their mouth, ‘It is a tradition, inquire not of it.’  But I on the other part say: It is a tradition, therefore inquire diligently of it, whether it be agreeable to the Word of God, or whether it were in times past allowed of all the ancient fathers.”

.

1600’s

English Puritans

A Refutation of the Errors of Separatists  (1604; RBO, 2025), pt. 1, Answer 5, p. 235

“…it is the magistrate’s principal honor in the sight of God and man to yield and submit himself to the instructions, reproofs and censures of the Church so far forth as they are agreeable to the Word of God…”

.

William Bucanus

Institutions of Christian Religion  (London, 1606), Commonplace 49, ‘Concerning Magistrates’, ‘Which are just wars?’, p. 883

“3. The war must be undertaken upon a cause just, and necessary, and agreeable to the Word of God.”

.

Edward Elton

An Exposition of the Epistle of St Paul to the Colossians (London, 1615), on Col. 3:20, p. 1,118

“…obey the sayings and doings of your parents that concern you, even that which they say or do to you ‘in all things’; we are to expound these words by those, Eph. 6:1, ‘Children obey your parents in the Lord,’ and so the meaning is in all things honest, lawful and agreeable to the Word of God.”

.

William Attersoll

A Commentary upon the Fourth Book of Moses, called Numbers  (London: 1618), on Num. 26:57-61, p. 1,118

“For as we must give obedience to the Scriptures, whether they speak as we would have them, or whether they speak not as we would have them: so in a reformed Church where a private man does dwell, if any thing be commanded by authority, either agreeing or not agreeing to our affections, yet if the same be agreeable to the Word of God, we must yield obedience unto it.”

.

Joseph Hall

The Works  (London: 1625), Honor of the Married Clergy Maintained, bk. 2, sect. 12, p. 764

“And may not a lawful synod or convocation, with the concurrence of the three States, and the sway of Royal authority, make or re-establish a law agreeable to the Word of God, and the received practice of their progenitors…”

.

Daniel Featley

Clavis mystica: a Key Opening Diverse Difficult & Mysterious Texts of Holy Scripture  (London: 1636), Collection of Sermons, Philip his Memento, 22nd Semon, p. 287

“What do we? what are we about? is it a commendable work? is it agreeable to the Word of God? and suitable to our calling? is it of good report? and all circumstances considered expedient?  If so, go on in God’s name and the Lord prosper your handy-works…”

.

Richard Ward

Theological Questions, dogmatical observations and evangelical essays, upon the Gospel of…  Matthew...  (London: Cole, 1640), ch. 15, p. 156

“What may we safely hold concerning the traditions of the Church?

First, that besides the written Word of God there are profitable and necessary constitutions and ecclesiastical traditions, to wit, of those things which respect the outward decency and comeliness of the Church and service of God.

Secondly, the efficient cause of all true traditions is the Holy Spirit, which directs the bishops and ministers assembled together in council or convocation for the determining of such orders and constitutions, according to the word of God [Acts 15:28]: and does also direct the Churches in the approving and receiving of such traditions.

Thirdly, no tradition of the Church can constitute or ratify a doctrine contrary to the written word of God, neither any rite or ceremony: for both constitutions and doctrines ought to be agreeable (at least not contrary) to the written Word.  And as all civil laws ought to have their beginning from the Law of nature, so all ecclesiastical traditions from the Word of God, Rom. 14:23; 1 Cor. 14:26, 40.

Fourthly, although ecclesiastical traditions may be derived from the Word, yet they are not of equal authority with the Word.

How may the true traditions of the Church be known or discerned from human and superstitious ordinances?

By these four notes and marks, to wit:

First, true traditions are founded upon the word, and consentaneous unto the Word, and deduced, derived and taken from the Word.

Secondly, true traditions are profitable for the conserving and promoting both of piety and external and internal worship.

Thirdly, true traditions make for the order, decorum and edification of the Church.  And

Fourthly, are not grievous and intolerable, as the traditions of the Pharisees were, and the Papists are, Mt. 23:4.”

.

Alexander Shields

A Hind let Loose, or an Historical Representation of the Testimonies of the Church of Scotland for the interest of Christ  (1687), pt. 3, Head 1

p. 226

“…providing he holds the testimony of Christ, under all the former considerations, and owns and adheres unto the true received principles of the Church of Scotland, in doctrine, worship, discipline and government, founded upon the written Word of God, and whatsoever declarations or testimonies, former or latter, particular or more general, are agreeable thereunto;”

.

p. 251

“…either in doctrine, worship, discipline, or government, contrare to the Scriptures, our [Cameronian] confessions, and principles of our covenanted reformation, and contradictory to our testimony founded thereupon and agreeable thereunto…”

.

Scottish Civil Parliament  1690

Act of June 7, 1690, Act ratifying the [Westminster] Confession of Faith and settling presbyterian church government  in The Records of the Parliaments of Scotland to 1707, eds. K.M. Brown et al. (St Andrews, 2007-2025)  On the interpretation of this see Cooper, Confessions, pp. 45-49 & 50-51.

“Our sovereign lord and lady the king and queen’s majesties and three estates of parliament, conceiving it to be their bound duty, after the great deliverance that God has lately wrought for this country and kingdom [in 1689], in the first place to settle and secure therein the true Protestant religion according to the truth of God’s word as it has of a long time been professed within this land.  As also the government of Christ’s church within this nation agreeable to the word of God and most conducive to the advancement of true piety and godliness and the establishing of peace and tranquillity within this realm…

.

1800’s

William Cunningham

Historical Theology, vol. 1, p. 76

“The language here employed [in the Scottish subscription formula in 1694 & 1711] is cautious and temperate, and is thus well suited to the circumstances of a solemn profession to be made by a numerous body of men, who might not all see their way to concur in stronger and more specific phraseology.

Besides, it is to be observed that the profession respects not merely the fundamentals or essentials of Presbyterianism in the abstract, which alone can be reasonably maintained to have the clear and positive sanction of apostolic practice; but ‘the Presbyterian government and discipline of this church,’ including the detailed development of the essential principles of Presbyterianism as exhibited in the actual constitution and arrangements of our church, and of all this in the concrete, or taken complexly, nothing higher or stronger could with propriety be affirmed, than that it is founded upon the word of God, and agreeable thereto.”

.

.

On the Meaning of the Phrase, “Founded upon the Word of God”

Instances of “founded upon” being used broadly with respect to Church government, civil policy, etc.

1500’s

Calderwood, David – The History of the Kirk of Scotland  (Edinburgh: Wodrow Society, 1849), vol. 4, p. 86

.

1600’s

Acts of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, 1638-1842  (1843), pp. 316, 390

.

Quotes

Order of

French Reformed
Ward
Shields
Cunningham

.

1600’s

French Reformed Churches 1626

ed. John Quick, Synodicon in Gallia reformata  (London: 1692), 25th National Synod, of Castres, ch. 28, ‘Particular Matters’, p. 201

“And the pastors of Bearn should be exhorted to exercise the discipline more strictly and carefully than ever, because it is founded upon the Word of God, and the canons and practice of God’s ancient Church.”

.

Richard Ward

Theological Questions, dogmatical observations and evangelical essays, upon the Gospel of…  Matthew...  (London: Cole, 1640), ch. 15, p. 156

“What may we safely hold concerning the traditions of the Church?

First, that besides the written Word of God there are profitable and necessary constitutions and ecclesiastical traditions, to wit, of those things which respect the outward decency and comeliness of the Church and service of God.

Secondly, the efficient cause of all true traditions is the Holy Spirit, which directs the bishops and ministers assembled together in council or convocation for the determining of such orders and constitutions, according to the word of God [Acts 15:28]: and does also direct the Churches in the approving and receiving of such traditions.

Thirdly, no tradition of the Church can constitute or ratify a doctrine contrary to the written word of God, neither any rite or ceremony: for both constitutions and doctrines ought to be agreeable (at least not contrary) to the written Word.  And as all civil laws ought to have their beginning from the Law of nature, so all ecclesiastical traditions from the Word of God, Rom. 14:23; 1 Cor. 14:26, 40.

Fourthly, although ecclesiastical traditions may be derived from the Word, yet they are not of equal authority with the Word.

How may the true traditions of the Church be known or discerned from human and superstitious ordinances?

By these four notes and marks, to wit:

First, true traditions are founded upon the Word, and consentaneous unto the Word, and deduced, derived and taken from the Word.

Secondly, true traditions are profitable for the conserving and promoting both of piety and external and internal worship.

Thirdly, true traditions make for the order, decorum and edification of the Church.  And

Fourthly, are not grievous and intolerable, as the traditions of the Pharisees were, and the Papists are, Mt. 23:4.”

.

Alexander Shields

A Hind let Loose, or an Historical Representation of the Testimonies of the Church of Scotland for the interest of Christ  (1687), pt. 3, Head 1

pp. 225-26

“4…  providing they hold, not only all the former testimonies under the foresaid considerations, but the presbyterian testimony as stated in the ecclesiastical constitutions, and sworn to in the national covenants and engagements of that Church, founded upon the Word of God, against Popery, Prelacy, Erastianism, Sectarianism, Toleration, Schism and Defection;”

.

p. 251

“…either in doctrine, worship, discipline, or government, contrare to the Scriptures, our [Cameronian] confessions, and principles of our covenanted reformation, and contradictory to our testimony founded thereupon and agreeable thereunto…”

.

1800’s

William Cunningham

Historical Theology, vol. 1, p. 76

“The language here employed [in the Scottish subscription formula in 1694 & 1711] is cautious and temperate, and is thus well suited to the circumstances of a solemn profession to be made by a numerous body of men, who might not all see their way to concur in stronger and more specific phraseology.

Besides, it is to be observed that the profession respects not merely the fundamentals or essentials of Presbyterianism in the abstract, which alone can be reasonably maintained to have the clear and positive sanction of apostolic practice; but ‘the Presbyterian government and discipline of this church,’ including the detailed development of the essential principles of Presbyterianism as exhibited in the actual constitution and arrangements of our church, and of all this in the concrete, or taken complexly, nothing higher or stronger could with propriety be affirmed, than that it is founded upon the word of God, and agreeable thereto.”

.

.

On the Phrase “Contained in”

On Scotland, 1680’s ff.

Article

Cooper, James – pp. 39-47 & 50-51  in Confessions of Faith & Formulas of Subscription in the Reformed Churches…  (Glasgow: MacLehose & Sons, 1907)

.

Ireland

Synod of Ulster, Pacific Act, 1720

“we heartily recommend and enjoin the said [Westminster] Confession (as being a very good abridgment of the Christian doctrines contained in the Sacred Scriptures) to be observed according to an Act of the General Synod, in the year 1705…”

.

America, 1800’s

Quote

American Presbyterian, New School Assembly 1838

Minutes of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church
in the United States of America (New School)  (NY: Stated Clerks, 1838-1858); reprint: (Philadelphia: Presbyterian Board of Publication & Sabbath-School Work, 1894), p. 34

‘We love and honor the Confession of Faith of the Presbyterian Church as containing more well-defined, fundamental truth, with less defect, than appertains to any other human formula of doctrine, and as calculated to hold in intelligent concord a greater number of sanctified minds than any which could now be framed; and we disclaim all design past, present or future to change it.”

.

.

Instances of System Subscription

Scotland, 1680’s, episcopal, in Cooper

.

Ireland, 1720

Quote

Charles Sealy, Church Authority & Non-subscription Controversies in Early 18th Century Presbyterianism  PhD thesis  (Univ. of Glasgow, 2010), p. 139  This was after the Pacific Act of 1720.

“The Presbytery of Belfast..  They therefore ‘understood not the substance of every particular proposition (to take it in that sense, would make the indulgence given by the clause very small and unsatisfying) but the substance of the doctrine of the Confession considered as a system’.”

.

America, 1788

Subscription formula to the Westminster Confession

.

.

Insofar as, or Quatenus Subscription

This principle is often assumed in correcting confessions (insofar as those correcting had previously agreed to the confession in some manner), though not in all confessional revisions (as not all revisions entail that the previous confessional clauses were incorrect or deficient).  See ‘On Confessional Revision’.

.

Order of

Polanus
Westminster Divine
Church of Scotland  1584 & 1647
Dutch Arminians

.

Amandus Polanus

A System of Christian Theology  tr. ChatGPT-4, with Latin  (Hanau, 1609-1610)  at Monergism

bk. 1, Theology & Scripture, p. 1,889

“245. Therefore, the confessions of particular Churches and the decrees and canons of particular synods, and the catecheses of particular Churches and the liturgies or ecclesiastical agendas and similar formulas, their doctrines or declarations are not the immutable and universal norm of faith and truth, according to which it ought to be judged or pronounced what is to be believed and conceded, what is to be repudiated and condemned, what is true or false, orthodox or heretical.

For it is not always necessary that what agrees with the confession of some particular Church, synodical decrees, catechesis, liturgy or ecclesiastical agenda, formula of doctrine or some other declaration, is true; nor is it always false what disagrees with it.

Therefore, it should not be demanded that all Churches subscribe to the declaration and formula of one particular Church: but indeed those formulas do not even bind one Church or any private person to approve them and to contain themselves within them, except with this condition, insofar as they agree with divine Scripture and universal Symbols.”

.

Westminster Divine

1600’s

Cornelius Burges

Reasons showing the Necessity of Reformation…  (London: Cotrel, 1660), I. ‘Of Doctrine,’ p. 5

“1. It has been already declared (yea, adjudged) that, by that statute [the Act of Parliament in the 13th year of Elizabeth], there is no liberty for any man to subscribe the [39] Articles with any limitation, or explication, if any credit be given to Sir Edward Cook, who says (Institutes, 4.47, p. 324, ed. 1658), that he has heard Wray, chief Justice in the King’s Bench, Pasch. 23 Elizabeth (quoting Dier 23 Elizabeth, 377, bk. 6, fol. 69, Grene’s Case, Smith’s Case) report that where one Smith subscribed to the said 39 Articles of Religion with this addition, ‘so far forth as the same were agreeable to the Word of God,’ that it was resolved by him and all the judges of England that this subscription was not according to the Statute of 13th Elizabeth, because the statute required an absolute subscription, and this subscription made it conditional; and that this act was made for avoiding diversities of opinions, etc.  And, by this addition the party might by his own private opinion take some of them to be against the Word of God: and by this means diversities of opinions should not be avoided, which was the scope of the statute; and the very act itself made touching subscription, hereby [be] of none effect.  Thus, he.

2. This shows a necessity of repealing that branch of the act, so far as it concerns subscription, because:

1. If we may not subscribe with such an addition, ‘so far forth as the same Articles are agreeable to God’s Word,’ it must needs be granted that the composers of them are admitted to be infallible; and their Articles, of equal authority with canonical Scripture: or else that the statute intended to tyrannize over the consciences of men, which is not to be imagined.”

.

Church of Scotland

Divine Right Presbyterian, Covenanter Ministers  1584

James Kirk, Development of the Melvillian Movement in Late Sixteenth Century Scotland  PhD  (Univ. of Edin., 1972), vol. 2, pp. 463-68

“Even in its approval of episcopacy, the legislation of 1584 [the ‘Black Acts’] represented a departure from earlier ideas…  ecclesiastical measures came with the obligatory subscription.  By assenting to the supremacy of the crown in ecclesiastical matters and to a form of episcopacy no longer subordinate to the assembly the ministers were not only departing from Melvillian principles but were in effect condoning a series of innovations which marked a clean breach with the past…

With ‘subscription going on apace’ (Calderwood, History, 4.351), others who remained at home devised formulae for evading the full force of the subscription.  When confronted by a subscription which was obligatory, the conscience-striken sought to make it conditional upon the inclusion of a face-saving, escape clause such as ‘in so far as it was agreeable to God’s Word’. (Calderwood, 4.213, 246)…

By signing, [John] Craig and another colleague, John Duncanson, made it unmistakably clear that their ‘subscription was neither sought to be allowance, either of the acts of parliament, nor of the state of the bishops, but to be a testimony of our obedience to his Majesty”.  It was, moreover, along these same lines that Craig persuaded other ministers to subscribe, but this, in effect, rendered the whole subscription quite meaningless.

It is not surprising that even prominent Melvillians like John Durie should also come to terms with the subscription.  Andrew Simson, the brother-in-law of archbishop Adamson, was perhaps typical of many when he refused to subscribe any subscription other than a qualified or limited version.  By swearing he would not “preach any heresy or seditious doctrine, nor shall privately or publicly stir up the king’s Majesty’s subjects to any rebellion; and shall obey all his laws and acts of parliament, so far as they agree with the Word of God”, Simson succeeded in extricating himself from a tricky situation…  according to Spottiswoode, that the ‘principal ministers’ all refused to accept the subscription on any terms other than on the inclusion of the clause ‘agreeing with the word of God’…

it is clear that mere acquiescence cannot be taken as necessarily indicating any widespread or active approval for either episcopacy or royal supremacy.”

.

General Assembly  1647

Session 23, Aug. 27, 1647, Act Approving the Confession of Faith  in Westminster Confession of Faith (Free Presbyterian Publications, 1994), p. 17

“The General Assembly does, therefore, after mature deliberation, agree unto and approve the said Confession, as to the truth of the matter (judging it to be most orthodox, and grounded upon the Word of God; and also as to the point of uniformity, agreeing, for our part, that it be a common Confession of Faith for the three kingdoms.”

.

Netherlands, The Arminians, early-1600’s

Donald Sinnema, “The Origin of the Form of Subscription in the Dutch Reformed Tradition”  in Calvin Theological Journal (July 2007)

p. 264

“Others [of Arminians] signed the confessions but did so in their own sense. For example, in the 1610 Remonstrance, Arminian ministers called for recognition of the principle that church confessions should be regularly examined by the standard of Scripture and be open to improvement, ‘notwithstanding that they earlier signed the same writings, since such subscribing ought not to be understood other than under such a condition, whether expressed or not.'”

.

pp. 266-67

Uytenbogaert  1609

“From the beginning of the Reformation many ministers have bumped against [predestination], so that many for this reason should never have signed the Confession and Catechism except with this condition, expressed or kept in their conscience, ‘insofar as they agree with holy Scripture.’  There are those who have signed with such an expressed exception on this point.”

.

.

Origins of & Historical Examples of Scruples & Exceptions to Confessions, & the Approving of Confessions in a Qualified Way, possibly against the Intent of the Authors or its Original Context (the animus imponentis)

See also ‘On the American Adopting Act’ (1712), which allowed them.

.

Reformed taking Exception to a Lutheran Confession  1557

Reformers & Divines

Thomas Morton, Confessions & Proofs of Protestant Divines of Reformed Churches…  (Oxford: Hall, 1644), Thesis 4, p. 12

“…it is testified by a theological professor¹ that other Protestants were ready to subscribe to the Augustane [Augsburg] Confession [1530] (per omnia) excepting only the article of the Eucharist, because it was not clearly explained: among these Protestants he names Calvin, Beza, Vermilius, Marlorat, and Zanchius…

¹ Conradus Vorstius in Apol. pro Eccles. Orthodox; de Augustan. Confess. p. 285. In Colloquio Possiaceno Augustanae confessioni per omnia se subscribere paratos esse, testati sunt, praeterquam articulo doctrinae de Eucharistia, utpote obscurius posita.”

.

Nassau Confession  1578

ed. James Dennison Jr., Reformed Confessions of the 16th & 17th Centuries…  (RHB, 2012), vol. 3, pp. 461-62

“And inasmuch as in the foundation and chief principles of the Christian religion, it [the Augsburg Confession, 1530] accords with the confessions publicly issued and approved by the other evangelical Reformed churches beyond Germany; therefore, next after the Word of God and the orthodox creeds, we hereby profess the aforesaid Augsburg Confession, understood in a legitimate and well-grounded sense, which duly remains subject to the true and infallible Word of God (as do also the public confessions in the other orthodox churches)…”

.

Bremen Consensus  1595

ed. James Dennison Jr., Reformed Confessions of the 16th & 17th Centuries…  (RHB, 2012), vol. 3, p. 647

“III. In our time in Germany, the Augsburg Confession [1530] is known to everyone as the first and oldest Protestant confession…  since in the foundation and chief principles of the Christian religion it accords with the confessions publicly issued and approved by the other Protestant and Reformed churches beyond Germany, as indicated in the Harmony of Protestant Confessions.

Therefore, next after the Word of God and the universal Apostolic, Nicene, Athanasian, Ephesian and Chalecedonian creeds, we hereby profess the aforesaid Augsburg Confession, understood in a legitimate and well-grounded sense so as it agrees and harmonizes with the true and infallible Word of God to which all must duly remain subject.  In like manner, we hold the confessions of the other Protestant and Reformed churches as that which is not in opposition to the Word of God but derived from it and in accord with it…”

.

On Zanchi

Samuel Clarke, The Marrow of Ecclesiastical History  (London: T.V., 1654), Life of Zanchi, pp. 805-6

“…he came to Strasbourg…  which was in the year 1553.  He lived, and taught divinity in that city about 11 years…  his adversaries proceeded so far as to tell Zanchi that if he would continue to read [teach] there, he must subscribe the Augustane [Augsburg] Confession [1530], to which he yielded for peace-sake, with this proviso, modo orthodoxe intelligatur [it being understood in an orthodox way]; declaring his judgment also about Christ’s presence in the sacrament, wherewith they were satisfied.  And thus he continued to the year 1563, being very acceptable to the good, and a shunner of strife, and a lover of concord.

At the end whereof the divines and professors there accused him for differing from them in some points about the Lord’s Supper, the ubiquity [everywhere-ness] of Christ’s body, the use of images in the churches, predestination and the perseverance of the saints: About these things they raised contentions, which were partly occasioned by the book of Heshusius, printed at this time at Strasbourg, About the Lord’s Supper; and it came to this pass that they put Zanchi to his choice either to depart of himself or else they would remove him from his place.  And though many ways were tried for the composing of this difference, yet could it not be effected.

But it pleased God that about this time there came a messenger to signify to him that the pastor of the church of Clavenna, in the borders of Italy, being dead, he was chosen pastor in his room; wherefore obtaining a dismission from the senate of Strasbourg, he went thither…”

.

John Calvin

Calvin, Calvin’s Selected Works  (Baker, 1983), vol. 6, p. 345

“…Valerand had disseminated his poison as far as this, whose ambition or temerity forced the French and English strangers at Frankfort to subscribe the [Lutheran] Confession of Augsburg [1530], with one exception however, respecting the word ‘substantially’.  It was decreed that the German preachers should not hence forward give them any molestation until the leaders of both parties should come to some agreement.”

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Church of Scotland

General Assembly approving but taking exception to 2nd Helvetic Confession  1566

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General Assembly, Act approving Westminster’s Form of Presbyterial Church Government, Feb. 10, 1645, session 16

“…does agree to and approve the propositions afore-mentioned, touching Kirk-government and ordination…

Provided always, that this act be no ways prejudicial to the further discussion and examination of that article which holds forth, That the doctor or teacher has power of the administration of the sacraments, as well as the pastor; as also of the distinct rights and interests of presbyteries and people in the calling of ministers; but that it shall be free to debate and discuss these points, as God shall be pleased to give further light.”

.

Also in their approving the Confession, on synods, etc.  1647

.

On the Early-1700’s ff.

M’Crie, C.G. – pp. 232-41  in Lecture 5, II. Scottish Confessions as Bonds of Agreement & Adherence’  in The Confessions of the Church of Scotland: their Evolution in History  (Edinburgh: MacNiven & Wallace, 1907)

Sealy, Charles Scott – pp. 69-74  in Church Authority & Non-subscription Controversies in Early 18th Century Presbyterianism  PhD thesis  (Univ. of Glasgow, 2010)  250 pp.

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French Reformed

ed. John Quick, Synodicon (London, 1692)

National Synod of Verteuil  1567, ch. 3, p. 72

“XVII. Whenever elders and deacons are received into office, they shall subscribe our Confession of Faith and Church Discipline, or else make a public protestation to observe it.”

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3rd National Synod of Rochelle  1607, ch. 10, p. 291

“20. Our brethren in the Baylywick of Gex shall subscribe the Church-Discipline, yet with this restriction, that they shall not be obliged unto some particular canons, which shall be excepted by name in their subscribed copies, and this because of their present estate and circumstances.”

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Netherlands

Uytenbogaert, an Arminian  1609

Donald Sinnema, “The Origin of the Form of Subscription in the Dutch Reformed Tradition”  in Calvin Theological Journal (July 2007), pp. 266-67

“From the beginning of the Reformation many ministers have bumped against [predestination], so that many for this reason should never have signed the Confession and Catechism except with this condition, expressed or kept in their conscience, ‘insofar as they agree with holy Scripture.’  There are those who have signed with such an expressed exception on this point.”

.

Baxter on the Canons of Dort

Richard Baxter’s Confession of his Faith…  (London: R.W., 1655), ch. 2, sect. 6, pp. 23-26

“6. I have perused over all the Articles or Decrees of the Synod of Dort, and unfeignedly honor them, as containing sound and moderate doctrine, and heartily lament that some late divines have to the great detriment of the Church and truth, forsaken the moderate way of that Synod, and laid the weight of the Anti-Arminian cause so much upon higher points not owned by them.  And there is nothing that I have observed in it all that my judgment does contradict, if I be allowed these few expositions following:

Where it is said, article 1, sect. 12, De hac aeterna electione, electi suo tempore variis licet gradibus, et dispari mensura, certiores redduntur, non arcana, etc. [“The elect in due time, though in various degrees and in different measures, attain the assurance of this their eternal and unchangeable election, etc.”], I understand it as showing only what way the elect do attain assurance, who more or less do attain it, and not as affirming that all the elect do more or less attain a certainty of their election.  For as I think that doctrine uncomfortable to many poor Christians, so I think it cannot he proved of all the elect.

2. In the 3rd Article, sect. 12, it’s plain by the annexed words that persuasionem moralem [“by moral suasion”] they mean external suasion, and do not determine whether the name of suasion be agreeable or not to the internal work of the Spirit, which for my part I am certain is beyond my reach to know and, I am confident, [is] beyond the reach of all men on earth, even those that most pretend to know it.  But that this grace of the Spirit is necessary to sanctify both the understanding and will, and that it is an act of omnipotency, and infallibly effectual (commonly called ‘irresistible’) on all the elect, I am ready against all Pelagians to defend.

3. Where it is said, sect. 15, that, Qui illam non accipit, is aut haec spiritualia omnino non curat, et in suo sibi placet: aut securus se habere inaniter gloriatur, quod non habet [‘Whoever is not made partaker thereof, is either altogether regardless of these spiritual gifts and
satisfied with his own condition, or is in no apprehension of danger and vainly boasts the possession of that which
he has not’]: I understand it as spoken of the ordinary sort of graceless unregenerate men, and not of all; for I doubt not but it’s possible for a wicked man to know that he is wicked, and be afraid of Hell, yea, and to despair.  I am loth to think desparation is a mark of grace, and that none are graceless but the secure and confident.

4. In the 5th Article, sections 9-10, where it is said that believers may be, and are certain of their perseverance, according to the measure of their faith, I understand that word, ‘are certain pro mensura fidei’:

1. As supposing the certainty of their sincerity; for a man must be certain that he has grace, before he can be certain to persevere in it.

2. As supposing a certain understanding of the truth of the doctrine that all true believers shall infallibly persevere: for none can be certain to persevere merely as a believer, that is not first certain that all believers shall persevere.

3. I suppose therefore that this is not spoken of all believers, but of some, for:

1. All are not certain that they are sincere.

2. All are not certain that the doctrine of infallible perseverance is true; for to conclude that all the Lutheran Churches that deny this, and all the Arminians and Anabaptists that deny it, and all the ancient fathers and Churches that denied it, besides Musculus and others of our own, were certainly graceless and unbelievers, were not only inconsistent with the faith and charity, but with the reason of a Christian; and [this is] no less than an inhumane charge.

5. Where it is said, sect. 11, that God per Spiritum Sanctum perseverantiae certudinem in iisdem rursus excitat [‘by the Holy Spirit again inspires them with the comfortable assurance of persevering’], I understand it as true of some, but not of all; for I dare not pronounce damnation on all that die unassured of their sincerity, much less on all that are unassured of perseverance.

6. To the 13th section, I doubt not but the meaning is that certainty of perseverance does not of itself, and of its own nature beget carelessness or negligence; and so I believe it’s true.  Nay, I think that love and gratitude are ordained to be the master ruling graces in the Kingdom of Christ (under faith); and that fear is but to supply the defects of our yet-imperfect love.  And therefore the more any man loves, the more he will obey: and the more he is assured of God’s love, the greater advantage he has to love Him again.  But yet I doubt not, but the remnants of our corruption, by the strength of temptation, may make assurance an occasion, or accidental cause of negligence and actual sin: which I suppose this section does not deny.

These are all the limiting expositions which I desire liberty to make use of, and with which I do, as is aforesaid, profess my consent to the Canons or Decrees of the Synod of Dort.  And how far any of these are from favoring Arminianism, they that will see, need not to be ignorant.  Yea, in the very article of perseverance, which some were pleased to quarrel with me about, I subscribe to the Synod: Yea, in the article of the extent of redemption, wherein I am most suspected and accused (and was fain to use a limiting exposition in my consent to our Assembly’s Confession of Faith) I do subscribe to the Synod of Dort, without any exception, limitation or exposition of any word as doubtful and obscure.  I do also freely consent to the rejections, with the liberty of three or four the like explications, which I will not mention, lest I seem quarelsome, or be further tedious, because they are about smaller matters than those I have mentioned, and no way touching the quick of the controverted articles, and I am persuaded that my sense of them is the same with the Synod’s.

And because it is, this Synod [was] purposely called against Arminianism, that is the best discovery what is to be accounted Arminian or Anti-Arminian doctrine, as I think, by consenting to it: I do clear myself from that calumny with all men of conscience and reason that know it, so I shall think that those who go as much on the other hand, and differ from the Synod one way, as much as the Arminians did the other way, remain censurable as well as they, till somebody shall convince me that there is but one extreme, in this case, and that a man may hold what he will without danger, so he be but sure it go far enough from Arminianism.

A man that holds to the moderation of the Synod of Dort, need not say that Christ did not die or satisfy for all men, nor need he trouble himself with presumptuous determinations about many mysteries in the decrees of God, which many volumes are guilty of; Nor does he need to aver the necessity of immediate, physical, efficient predetermination by God (as the First Cause) of every second cause natural and free, as without which they cannot act: Nor need he say, that God so predetermines to the act which is sin, and not to the sinfulness of the act: Nor need he subscribe to all that Dr. [William] Twisse or Mr. [Samuel] Rutherford, or such like, have written on these points.

Nay, as this Synod, so our own [Westminster] Assembly gave an example of modesty in these points, to them that will follow it, not only silencing many things which others make the pillars of Anti-Arminianism, but expressing that the will is endued by God with that natural liberty, that is neither forced, nor by any absolute necessity of nature determined to do good or evil, and therefore they never tell you that God as the First Cause must of natural necessity determine man’s will by physical, immediate premotion, before it can act either good or evil: But they reserve the honor of determining man’s will to special grace, renewing the will, and by almighty power determining it to that which is good, ch. 10, sect. 1 and ch. 9, sect. 1.”

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England

Puritans  1599

William Bradshaw

A Trial of Subscription…  (1599), no page numbers

“First, it is avowed by some that they have not subscribed simply, but with protestations and exceptions, though they be not recorded, which (say they) is not their fault…

Others would justify themselves because (as they say) it is not affirmed by their subscription that all things in the Books of Common prayer and of ordaining bishops, priests, and deacons, be agreeable to the Word of God, but [it is] only said that those books contain nothing contrary to the Word of God…

A third sort of subscribers would…  that of two evils the less is to be chosen: And therefore some things are to be tolerated, rather than the Church should lose the benefit of their ministry…

As is evident by these words of the preamble: That the Churches of the Queen’s Majesty’s dominions may be served with pastors of sound religion, Be it enacted, etc.  Again, the statute requires subscriprion to the [39] Articles of Religion, and not to all, but such as only concern the confession of the true Christian faith, and the doctrine of the sacraments.  Yea that the exception of some articles might be more manifest (and for no other cause) is this word ‘only’ inserted.”

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British Delegation at Dort  1619

A Joint Attestation, avowing that the Discipline of the Church of England was not Impeached by the Synod of Dort  (London: Flesher, 1626), pp. 12-13

“But on the contrary part it has been suggested here at home [in England] by some, that herein we came short of our duty, that we ought to have stepped yet farther by exhibiting in writing a formal protestation to be entered and kept by the actuary of the Synod [of Dort about their presbyterian Church government].  Whereto we answer:

First, that the course there taken for the manner of delivering our judgments was not (as in the 5 Questions controverted [in the Canons of Dort]) by subscription, but only by vocal suffrage: which gave no oportunity of putting in a written protestation; whereas, if we had subscribed our names unto that Confession [the Canons of Dort], we would infallibly have added with the same pen our exception against the articles concerning discipline.”

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Baxter & on Baxter

Christian Concord, or the Agreement of the Associated Pastors & Churches of Worcestershire, with Richard Baxter’s Explication & Defence of it, & his Exhortation to Unity  (London: A.M., 1653), n.p.

“The Propositions agreed on by the Associated Ministers of the County of Worcester and some Adjacent Parts [which Baxter was behind]:

…
19… Rule 6.  If any [layman] deny or delay to express their consent [to the platform of the particular church and form of church duties], we shall endeavor carefully to discern on what grounds he does it, and whether it be a flat denial of the matter, or only some scruple at the manner at the manner, and accordingly shall distinguish between:

1. Professors of consent, as being members certain.

2. Or deniers of consent as to the matter, as bein no membes of that church;

3. And delayers or deniers to consent to the manner, as being uncetain, or less certain, whether they are members or no, till they further discover it.
…

20…  Rule 3.  We shall give notice to all ministers of piety, and competent ability, who now are not among us, and desire them to join with us, and offer them a free debate of anything which they may scruple [at in these articles], and desire them to adjoin themselves to which association they judge most convenient.”

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An Explication of some Passages in the Propositions, p. 1

“As I dare not undertake to give the full sense of all my reverend brethren who have subscribed to these propositions, so I must intreat the reader to understand that I have no commission from them for any explication of their minds, further than what is done already in their words: and therefore that you must not take what I write as coming from them, but as my own private thoughts: and if in any thing you mislike my interpretations, do not therefore mislike our propositions:

For it is the text and not the comment that is publicly owned: The text is theirs, the comment is mine.  Yet I thought it meet to explain some few points according to my own meaning, and according to what I heard from my brethren in their debates; lest the obscurity should occasion the stumbling of any, that have not had opportunity to understand our intentions.”

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On the Anglican 39 Articles

William Orme, The Practical Works of the Rev. Richard Baxter, with a Life of the Author…  23 vols.  (London: Duncan, 1830), vol. 1

pp. 16-18

“Till this time [1634], he was a Conformist in principle and practice.  His family, though serious, had always conformed. His acquaintances were almost all of the same description; and, as Nonconformist books were not easily procured, his reading was mostly on the other side.  Mr. Garbet, his chief tutor, of whose learning and piety he had a high opinion, was a strict churchman; he supplied him with the works of [George?] Downame, [John] Sprint, [John] Burgess, [Thomas] Hooker, and others, who had written strongly against the Nonconformists (Baxter, Apology for Nonconformists, p. 59).

One of that party also, Mr, Barnel, of Uppington, though a worthy, blameless man, was but an inferior scholar, while the Conformists around him were men of learning.  These things increased his prejudices at the cause which he afterwards embraced.  By such means he was led to think the principles of churchmen strong and the reasonings of the Nonconformists weak.
…

About his twentieth year, he became acquainted with Mr. Symonds, Mr. Cradock and some other zealous Nonconformist ministers in Shrewsbury and the neighborhood.  Their fervent piety and excellent conversation profited him exceedingly; and discovering that these were the people persecuted by the bishops, he began to imbibe a prejudice against the hierarchy on that account; and felt persuaded that those who silenced and troubled such men could not be followers of the Lord of love.

Still, when he thought of ordination, he had no scruple about subscription.  And why should he? for he tells us himself:

“that he never once read over the book of ordination, nor the half of the book of homilies, nor weighed carefully the liturgy, nor sufficiently understood some of the controverted points in the Thirty-Nine Articles.  His teachers and his books made him think, in general, that the Conformists had the better cause; so that he kept out all particular scruples by that opinion.”

It is very easy to keep free from doubts on any subject, by restraining the freedom of inquiry and giving full credit to the statements and reasonings of one side.”

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pp. 19-20

“Baxter preached his first public sermon in the upper church of Dudley, and while in that parish began to study with greater attention than he had formerly done the subject of Nonconformity.  From some of the Nonconformists in the place, he received books and manuscripts which he had not before seen; and though all his predilections were in favour of the church as it was, he determined to examine impartially the whole controversy…

…The result of his studies at this time, according to his own account, was as follows:

…
Subscription he began to judge unlawful, and thought that he had sinned by his former rashness; for, though he yet approved of a liturgy and bishops, to subscribe, ex animo, that there is nothing in the articles, homilies and liturgy contrary to the word of God, was what he could not do again.  So that subscription, the cross in baptism, and the promiscuous giving of the Lord’s supper to drunkards, swearers and all who had not been excommunicated by a bishop, or his chancellor, were the three things to which at this time he became a nonconformist.  Although he came to these conclusions, he kept them, in a great measure, to himself; and still argued against the Nonconformists, whose censoriousness and inclination to separation he often reproved.”

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p. 393

“An act of toleration, however, was passed [near the beginning of the Glorious Revolution, 1689], by which the dissenters, on taking the oaths to government, and subscribing thirty-five and a half of the Thirty-Nine Articles, should be placed under the full protection of the law.  This, though an imperfect measure, was an unspeakable blessing to men who had long been oppressed and persecuted for righteousness’ sake.  It was the last public measure, also, in regard to which Baxter appears to have taken some active part.

To relieve his own mind, and to assist his brethren in coming to such conclusions as might at once satisfy their consciences, and enable them to avail themselves of the benefit of this act, he drew up a paper containing his sense of the articles which he was called to subscribe.  The substance of this paper [Richard Baxter’s Sense of the Subscribed Articles of Religion (London: Cox, 1689)] deserves to be communicated, as it shows what were the sentiments of Baxter on some important points, towards the close of his life, the construction which he put on some doubtful expressions in the articles, and the principle on which he thought it lawful to subscribe according to the act of parliament, that he might enjoy the benefit of a tolerated ministry.

The last clause of the second article originally contained an expression in Latin, which, though left out in the English, led Baxter to demur about the sense.  It stated that Christ died to be a sacrifice for all (omnibus) the actual sins of men.  This, he supposed, was not meant to include final impenitence, but all sorts of sin which had been forsaken. [The Latin term can mean “every kind”.]

Christ’s descent into hell, in the third article, he explained [the word “hell” or inferos] of the state of separate[d] souls.

That Christ, on his resurrection [fourth article], “took again his body with flesh and bones, and all things appertaining to the perfection of man’s nature, and therewith ascended into heaven,” he understood as signifying that Christ sits in heaven with the same body, glorified, rendered spiritual and incorruptible, which on earth had consisted of flesh and bones.  In the strict interpretation of the article, the words would be contradictory to 1 Cor. 15:50, that “flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God;” it would also give us a degrading idea of his body, as inferior to what his people will possess, who are to rise incorruptible and immortal.

He agreed to the sixth article, as [Scripture] ‘containing all things necessary to salvation,’ if the ministry, sacraments and church communion came under this description: and if, under the title of ‘canonical books’ were included the epistles to the Hebrews, the 2nd of Peter and the 2nd and 3rd of John, Jude, and the Revelation.

He entered his protest against the clause in the seventh article, “That the civil precepts of the law given from God by Moses, ought not of necessity to be received in any commonwealth,” unless it referred only to the particular civil laws peculiar to the Jewish commonwealth, and not to those moral laws included in the Mosaic dispensation, which are of universal obligation and common to all Christian nations.

He assented to the eighth article on the three creeds, provided he was not understood to admit two Gods by subscribing the clause in the Nicene creed, “God of God, very God of very God;” or to assent to the damnatory clause of the Athanasian creed.

He explained the infection of nature remaining even in the regenerate, according to the ninth article, to be so, not in predominant force or unpardoned, but in a modified and subdued degree.

The language of the tenth article, that “we have no power to do good works,” he softened into an acknowledgment that “our natural powers or faculties are not sufficient without grace.”

That the eleventh article might not be construed as giving countenance to a disregard of righteousness of life, he enters at large into it.

He was anxious to be understood as expressing, by the twelfth article, that ‘good works do spring out necessarily of a true and lively faith,’ an hypothetical necessity, consistent with freedom; and he expounded the last clause, ‘that by them,’ i.e. good works, ‘a lively faith may be as evidently expressed, as a tree discerned by the fruit,’ to mean a truth of evidence, not an equal degree.

His explanation of the thirteenth article, ‘Of works before justification,’ seems to set it aside, by asserting the existence of common grace, preparatory to special grace; and to contradict it, by referring to the texts which declare that ‘to him that has by improvement shall be given,’ and, ‘in every nation he that fears God and works righteousness, is accepted of Him;’ and by observing that believing in the being of God, and that He is the rewarder of them that diligently seek Him, is ‘better than nothing, and than mere sin.’

He supposed that the phrase, “voluntary works,” in the fourteenth article, or work of supererogation, was not designed to stigmatize as arrogant and impious voluntary canons, impositions, oaths and church offices.

The sixteenth article, “Of sin after baptism,” he supposes to refer only to the unpardoned sin against the Holy Ghost, and a total departure from common grace, and some degree of habit and act of some special grace, but that it does not determine the controversy concerning a total and final falling away from such an unconfirmed grace as would otherwise save.

On the eighteenth article, ‘Of obtaining eternal salvation only by the name of Christ,’ he observes that God judges men by no other law than that which they were under: that the Jewish peculiarity did not repeal the gracious law made to fallen mankind in Adam and Noah: that God had more people of old than the Jews and proselytes.  On these principles he conceives that the article could not mean to denounce a curse on all who thought that the spirit and grace of Christ extended beyond the knowledge of his name, and who hoped that some who never heard it would be saved.  If it were intended to apply to such, he declares that he would not curse them, adding, all were not accursed who hoped well of Socrates, Antoninus, Severus, Cicero, Epictetus, Plutarch and such characters.  He appeals to the case of the Jews of old as having more imperfect notions of the character of Christ than the apostles before his resurrection; and to the erroneous sentiments of even the apostles themselves before that event, who did not, till afterwards, believe in the death of Christ for our sins, in his rising again, in his ascension and intercession.  ‘Though faith,’ he considered, ‘in these facts not to be essential to Christianity,’ he declares, ‘If I durst curse all the world, who now believe no more than the ancient Jews and the apostles then did, yet I durst not curse all Christians that hope better of them.

The twenty-third article, ‘of ministering in the congregation,’ he interprets so as to make it comprehensive of the holy orders of the Nonconformist.  The article itself describes and judges those to be lawfully called to preach and administer the sacraments, ‘who are chosen and called to this work by men who have public authority given them in the congregation, to call and send ministers into the Lord’s vineyard.’  He declares he understood public authority to mean ‘authority given by Christ in his Scripture institution, and by those whom Christ authorizes under Him.’  This was a latitude of interpretation beyond the intention of the compilers, who certainly had in view the exclusive authority of bishops.

On the twenty-fifth article, of ‘The Sacraments’ in which they are represented, ‘not as badges and tokens only of the Christian profession,’ he explains himself as holding them to be ‘certain sure witnesses and effectual signs of grace and of God’s goodwill’: that they signify what God offers, invest the true believing receiver in the right of pardon, adoption, and salvation; and are morally operative.’

On the twenty-sixth article, ‘Of the unworthiness of ministers, which hinders not the effect of sacraments,’ he says, ‘That though the ignorance and wickedness of the minister do not make void the sacraments, yet the prayers, preaching, and example of able and godly men, are usually more effectual, since ‘God hears not sinners,’ as the blind man argued: ‘but if any be a worshipper of Him, and does his will, him He hears;’ and to the wicked God says, ‘What hast thou to do to take my covenant into thy mouth?”  He observes also on this article:

‘That to prefer a bad man before a better, was sin; and that it was dangerous to encourage in daily sin those who, though destitute of the essential qualifications, usurped the sacred office of bishops or pastors.”

Baxter concludes his sense of the subscribed articles by saying [Baxter’s Sense of the Subscribed Articles, pp. 11-12]:

‘If I have hit on the true meaning, I subscribe my assent; and I thank God that this national church has doctrine so sound.  I pity those who write, preach, or practice contrary to the articles which they subscribe; and that accuse those who refuse to subscribe them, take those for sinners who take not them for pastors, because that their wickedness nulls not their sacramental administrations.’

When he subscribed, he produced this explanation of the thirty-five articles and a half, that his views in doing so might not be misunderstood.  Eighty of the dissenting ministers in London concurred with him in his explanations and objections; and thus satisfied themselves that they had done what was right.  It was probably the best thing which the government could do at the time, so that the dissenters were glad to accept of it.

But such a subscription was found to be a poor protection, either to church or state, and has long since been entirely done away.  Baxter’s objections to many of the clauses in the subscribed articles, discover both his conscientiousness, and, on some points, the peculiarity of his sentiments.  The number who united with him in this paper, shows the extent to which his views were then held among the dissenters, as well as the great influence which he had among his brethren.”

.

Baxter on Westminster

Richard Baxter’s Confession of his Faith…  (London: R.W., 1655), ch. 2

Contents

“Sect. 3. My subscription to the [Westminster] Assembly’s lesser Catechism.

Sect. 4. My consent to the larger Catechism of the Assembly; supposing a liberty of expounding four passages.

Sect. 5. My consent to the Assembly’s Confession of Faith, supposing the liberty of expounding six passages, as is expressed.

Sect. 6. My hearty approbation of the doctrine or articles of the Synod of Dort, with the liberty of expounding but six words of small moment, wherein I am perswaded I miss not their sense: with a profession of my dissent against the forcible imposing of such large confessions.”

.

sect. 3, pp. 14-15

“3. I do heartily approve of the shorter Catechism of the [Westminster] Assembly, and of all therein contained: and I take it for the best catechism that ever I yet saw, and the answers continued for a most excellent sum of the Christian faith and doctrine, and a fit test to try the orthodoxness even of teachers themselves.

I know the faith of many in these latter ages of the world is more extensive then intensive…  These men will think that I am yet too short to be accounted orthodox, and that in embracing this Catechism, it is but a childish faith that I embrace.  But I am bold to tell them these things by way of answer…

Nay, all the creeds and confessions of the Church set together for many hundred years (except the Scriptures) were not comparable to this, for fulness and exactness of order and expression.  Only in the point of the mystery of the Trinity, you may find many more copious, and wordy, as urged to it by the several heresies of those times.  But whether they are therefore ever the more excellent, I will not presume to censure.  Nay, what talk I of creeds and confessions, when you may read many and many volumes of the fathers that contain not so much of the body of theology, as this Catechism.

.

sect. 4, pp. 18

“4. I have perused the larger Catechism of the Assembly, and judge it a most excellent sum of divinity: and so much the more excellent, in that it is sparing in the difficult and more abstruse part, and most full in the practical part: And I find no word that I dissent from, so I may have leave but to interpret four words, as follows:

1. Where it is said, that the Covenant of Grace was made with Christ, as the second Adam, and in Him, with all the elect.  I understand it of the genus of the Covenant, one species being made with Christ, and another with man, and not as if it were one and the same Covenant in specie that was made with Christ and with man: though I acknowledge that the promise made to Christ contained the salvation of his elect as the matter of it.

2. Where it is said: Nor as if the grace of faith, or any act thereof were imputed to him for his justification:

1. I understand it thus, and so assent to it, that our faith is not imputed to us, as being instead of a perfect righteousness of obedience, to the ends as it was required by the Law of Works, nor is our faith the matter, or the meritorious cause of the remission of our sin, our right to salvation.  I think this is the meaning of the reverend Assembly (if I may think that they had all one meaning) and that in sense I differ not from them.

2. But I will never subscribe these words, nor any like them, without the liberty of an explication, when they are expressly in terminis [in the words], contrary to the Scripture, and must have such an interpretation to reconcile the sense.

Nor will I ever approve of such passages in catechisms and confessions, as shall determine a point expressly against the words of God, though heretics might abuse those words; but would rather distinguish, and show in what sense faith is not imputed for righteousness, than flatly and simply to say it is not, when God says it is.

Else we shall give the adversary the greatest advantage that he can desire or expect; when he shall show those words in Scripture which we flatly deny: And hereby we shall lay the greatest temptation before the ignorant, that know not how to interpret those Scriptures.  And that I have not missed the sense of the Assembly, I am induced to believe, by what that learned reverend man Mr. [Thomas] Gataker, who was one of them, has wrote in explication of this controversy against Saltmarsh, Shadows, pp. 53-57, to which I wholly subscribe (expounding the word instrument, as I have declared); and where he shows that the difference is but merely verbal, so far is it from being in fundamental doctrine.

3. Where the next words say, ‘but only as it is an instrument by which he receives and applies Christ and his righteousness,’ as note that they say not that it is an instrument of justifying us, so I understand them thus, as it is the moral reception of Christ and righteousness freely given, improperly called an instrument: and that they speak of that aptitude in faith, for which it was chosen to this office, supposing its being a condition of the Covenant, or gift, as its nearest interest.  If I have hit their sense, I assent to this.

4. Where it is said, ‘The word of God is to be preached only by such as are sufficiently gifted, and also duly approved and called to that office,’ I understand it only of that sort of preaching which is proper to ministers, believing that there is also a preaching which a master may use in his family, and other Christians occasionally: and herein I doubt not but I hit their sense.

By the spirits that I have been haunted with, and the measure that I have received, I am forced to expect that some should here charge me with taking an occasion to quarrel with the Assembly, or shew my own conceited wisdom in the correcting of their works.  But I appeal from unconscionable calumniators to the righteous Judge.  I so highly reverence that Assembly that I think this nation, since the Apostles’ days, had never any that excelled it for piety and ability: and I doubt not, but the frustration of much of their labour lies heavy on some, that yet make light of it.

But with such envious and censorious persons as I have to deal, I find myself in the case of Poggius Countryman with his ass (they that would laugh may read the fable, but I am serious): I am cast into an impossibility of escaping their censures.  Should I have professed my assent, without these explica∣tions, I should wrong my conscience.  Should I have said nothing of this Catechism, they would have concluded that I dissented in some weighty points, and durst not subscribe it.  I considered these, and chose rather to cast myself on the smaller censure than the greater; hereby manifesting that it is a small matter, or nothing, wherein I dissent.

The like I must say of the Assembly’s Confession of faith: Some have told me, If I be orthodox, they expect my assent to that: But without some explications I cannot assent, which will give the same occasion of censure to these men: and if I wholly pass it by, they will surmise that it is for greater matters that I refuse.  I will therefore in this also venture on the lesser inconvenience, seeing one is become unavoidable.”

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sect. 5

“5. I have perused oft the Confession of the Assembly, and verily judge it the most excellent for fulness and exactness that I have ever read from any Church; And though the truths therein being of several degrees of evidence and necessity, I do not hold them with equal clearness, confidence or certainty; and though some few points in it are beyond my reach, yet I have observed nothing in it contrary to my judgment, if I may be allowed these expositions following:

1. Ch. 3 sect. 6 & ch. 8, sect. 8, which speak against universal redemption, I understand not of all redemption, and particularly not of the mere bearing the punishment of man’s sins and satisfying God’s justice, but of that special redemption proper to the elect, which was accompanied with an intention of actual application of the saving benefits in time.

If I may not be allowed this interpretation, I must herein dissent: and if this Confession was intended for a test to all that should enter into, or exercise the ministery, I hope it was never the mind of that reverend Assembly to have shut out such men as Bishop Ussher, Davenant, Hall, Dr. Preston, Dr. Staughton, Mr. William Fenner, Dr. Ward and many more excellent English divines as ever this Church enjoyed, who were all for general redemption, though not for an equal general redemption: to say nothing of the divines of France, Bremen and Berlin, and other foreigners that go this way.

2. About the instrumentality and non-imputation of faith, ch. 11, sect. 1-2, I must have the same indulgence as I desired about the Catechism, for exposition.

3. Where our certainty of salvation is called an assurance of faith, ch. 18, sect. 2, I understand it participative et causaliter, that faith is an eminent cause in the production of our assurance, and assurance a fruit of faith, but not that it is strictly de fide, that is, a truth of supernatural divine revelation propounded to be believed, as I have fullier expressed my thoughts to Master [Thomas] Blake.  And because authority in such a case will do more with some than my reasons, I refer them to the British divines in the Synod of Dort, who speak fully and excellently to this point, in their Suffrage 2, article 5, de persev. certit. quoad nos Thes. 3, explicat. 1. p. 198, part 2 (Impression 1620, folio).

4. Whereas in ch. 19 and also in the larger Catechism (which I forgot to mention before) it is expressed that the promise of life upon fulfilling the Law, is still in being; I understand it only that such a promise is on record still in the Bible, as having been once in force; but I judge it now to be no promise, but to be ceased, Cessante materia, the thing made its condition (perfect obedience) being not only of moral, but natural impossibility, as soon as mankind was once sinful, so that God is not, nor can be now obliged by that promise, and it is now no promise, though the preceptive part and the penal or comminatory part remain still: For we cannot disoblige ourselves, though we may, as it were, disoblige the Promiser.

5. Where it is said, ch. 21, sect. 7, that ‘by a positive, moral and perpetual commandment, binding all men in all ages, He has particularly appointed one day in seven for a Sabbath,’ I understand it only of a virtual obligation, as much as belongs to the Law, as enacted before promulgation, but not of a true actual obligation.  For no law can bind till it is promulgated; and positives are not promulgated by nature; therefore not to all men in all ages; therefore they bind not all men in all ages.

6. Where it is said ch. 25, sect. 1, that the catholic Church, which is invisible, consists of the whole number of the elect that have been, are or shall be, etc.

1. I understand it not of the Church, as now existent, but as it shall be in its perfection at the end of the world, when all the elect shall be called; or else as it now contains only so many of the elect as are called.  For otherwise the elect are no members of the Church, as elect, before their calling and union with Christ: As [William] Amesius, Medulla, truly notes, Ecclesia est coelus vocatorum [The Church is the heaven, or dwelling place, of the called], and is not to be defined coelus electorum [the dwelling place of the elect].

2. I understand those words, ‘which is invisible,’ as distinguishing the Church as invisible from the Church as visible, and not as expository, as defining the catholic Church to be so invisible (in respect of faith) as not to be also visible (in respect of profession).  For I conceive that Christ has one universal, visible Church, called one by the unity of their profession, though not for any visible head on earth, whether personal or collective, Pope or general council.

And now I leave to Mr. Crandon and others to consider, whether a Jesuit, a Papist, a Socinian, an Arminian, will consent to this copious Confession of the Assembly, with these expositions or limitations, as I have here done?  Or whether they will make all the Assembly to be Papists, Socinians or Arminians?  I truly profess, I take the labors of the Assembly, especially these three pieces now mentioned, for the best book, next my Bible, in my study: However the Libertines, and other giddy sectaries of these times have despised them, as if they were childish toys:

And though I have read over the exceptions [1651] of one William Parker against the Assembly’s Confession of Faith, which whosoever reads may see with half an eye that the author was a Papist.  He sets up the main body of Popish doctrine; only instead of the Pope’s supremacy and infallibility, he draws people to receive that doctrine from some new inspired prophets: but if these cheaters could draw people once to receive the doctrine, it were easy to disgrace those pretended prophets, and to take them down out of the chair at their pleasure and so set up the Pope again.”

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Ireland

Cooper, James – Confessions of Faith & Formulas of Subscription in the Reformed Churches…  (Glasgow: MacLehose & Sons, 1907), pp. 19-22

“In 1720, the [Presbyterian] Synod [of Ulster] adopted the so-called ‘Pacific Act,’ which in the same breath professed adherence to the Westminster Confession, extended the Act of 1705 to all intrants to the ministry, though licensed and ordained elsewhere; and ‘legalized the practice of receiving explanations of objectionable phrases.’

In 1721 a motion was made and carried that all the members of Synod who are willing to subscribe the Westminster Confession of Faith, according to the terms of the Pacific Act, be allowed by this Synod to do it.

Charitable declarations were made by both parties in the Synod and approved by Synod.  The great majority of the members of Synod signed the following formula:

‘Reserving to ourselves the benefit of the Pacific Act, we believe the Westminster Confession of Faith to be founded on the Word of God, and therefore as such, by this our subscription, we do own the said Confession as the confession of our faith.'”

…
In 1735 the formula was set forth as follows:

“I do believe ye [the] Westminster Confession of Faith to be founded on and agreeable to the Word of God, and therefore as such, by this my subscription, I do own ye said as confession of my faith.”

…
In 1832 an overture was adopted…  In case a candidate should take exception to any phrase or phrases of the Confession, he was to be at liberty to explain in writing such phrase or phrases, and explanations, if satisfactory, were to be accepted, but every such case was before license or ordination to be fully reported for the judgment of the General Synod.”

Sealy, Charles Scott – Church Authority & Non-Subscription Controversies in Early 18th Century Presbyterianism  PhD thesis  (Univ. of Glasgow, 2010), pp. 104-68

ch. 3, ‘Background to the Irish Subscription Controversy: to 1720’

ch. 4, ‘Ireland: From the Pacificum to the Expulsion of the
Presbytery of Antrim (1720-1726)’

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America

Before the Adopting Act of 1729

Charles S. Sealy, Church Authority & Non-Subscription Controversies in Early 18th Century Presbyterianism  PhD thesis  (Univ. of Glasgow, 2010), p. 176  quoting [John Thomson], An Overture Presented to the Reverend Synod of Dissenting Ministers, Sitting in Philadelphia, in the Month of September, 1728…  (n.l., 1729), pp. 24, 32

“While [John] Thomson has been portrayed as a strict Subscriber his overture [in 1727, which led to the Adopting Act] recognizes a need to deal with exceptions,

‘if any minister within our bounds shall take upon him to teach or preach any thing contrary to any of the said Articles, unless first he propose the said point to the Presbytery or Synod, to be by them discussed, he shall be censured’.

And as he closed the preface:

‘if there should be any paragraphs or clauses at which some may scruple, there are rational methods according to charity and piety, to have such scruples removed in a regular way, and it’s a pity to deprive a whole Church of the benefit of such and excellent Confession, for the scruples perhaps of a few, or for a few scruples about some particular and lesser points of religion.'”

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John Murray

Article

‘Blemishes & Inadequate Statement in the Confession’, pp. 261-62  of ‘The Theology of the Westminster Confession of Faith’  in Collected Writings  (Banner of Truth, 1982), vol. 4

Murray here first lists “A few instances of the way in which the [Westminster] Confession reflects the terminology of the period in which it was written”:

1. “Passions,” in God being “without body, parts, or passions,” bore a bit of a different significance then than it does today.

2. Murray believes one “essence” would be more clear terminology today than “substance” with regard to the Trinity.

3. “The term ‘covenant of works’ to designate the Adamic administration (Chap. VII, Sect. II) is not an accurate deignation.”  This reflects Murray’s own theological view, which is wrong.

4. “The term ‘frequently’ [7.4] reflects the position taken by the divines in interpreting the terms for covenant.  But it is very questionable if more than Hebrews 9:16, 17 could be cited in support of the propositions concerned, and so ‘frequently’ is scarcely warranted.”  Murray is arguably wrong on this.

5. “…biblical study will scarcely warrant the definition: ‘The visible Church…  consists of all those throughout the world that profess the true religion’ ([Ch. 25,] Sect. II).  The church as visible may not be defined in terms of mere profession.”  Murray is wrong on this.

In sum, none of these five points are errors in the Confession.  Murray then provides a weightier list: “As respects content, there are examples of oversight and of inadequate statement”:

1. Ch. 5, section 2 says “by the same providence, He ordereth them [all things] to fall out, according to the nature of second causes, either necessarily, freely, or contingently…”  Murray says: “there is surely a slip here.  Not all things come to pass by the operation of second causes.  And this is clearly stated in the next section, where we read that God is free to work without means, at his pleasure.”

Yet it is possible these two sections of the Confession, in close proximity (in which context the divines are less likely to make a mistake), are not contrary to each other, as it is plausible the divines understood even miracles to “fall out, according to the nature of second causes,” that is with and by second causes, whether they be considered in such operations as free or contingent.  All causes which are not God’s First Cause as the First Mover must be secondary causes.  If miracles happen in the created realm, then by definition they must occur through secondary causes in some respect, else they would not be created.

2. In ch. 6, section 3, Murray notes that Adam and Eve are called the “root” of all mankind, yet:

“Something else is needed to ground the imputation of Adam’s sin to posterity, namely, the representative headship of Adam.  This is an oversight.  The divines were not unaware of the headship of Adam…”

The likely explanation of this is that the Confession was a consensus document, and the divines did not have consensus on Adam being the “head” of all mankind, but could agree on Adam and Eve being the “root” of all mankind.  While such is not as full of a statement as one would like, the positive assertion is true, and not erroneous.

3. Murray:

“One could wish that the expression, ‘conceived by the power of the Holy Ghost, in the womb of the virgin Mary’ (Chap. VIII, sect. II) had been more accurately stated.  Jesus was begotten by the Holy Spirit and conceived by the virgin.”

The Confession reflects the wording of Lk. 1:35 and is inline with Lk. 2:21 (which does not say who does the conceiving).  The efficient cause of conception certainly was not Mary, but was the Holy Spirit, and this is clearly implied in Lk. 1:35.  Jesus being begotten of the Holy Ghost, making the Holy Ghost his father in this event, was a false teaching that the Medieval and Reformed Churches taught against.  To beget is to bear someone in one’s likeness, yet the Son is in the Father’s likeness, in eternity and in time, not the Holy Spirit’s.

To conclude, none of the claimed blemishes or inadequate statements of the Confession, to the extent that they are such, are actually errors respecting truth.

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Orthodox Presbyterian Church

60th General Assembly, 1993

“[An exception is] a dissent from, an objection to, or a mental reservation about any assertion contained in the [Westminster] Confession of Faith and Catechisms and is to be distinguished from an inconsequential objection to a proposition or from a quibble or from a reservation about terminology.  However, such a distinction is to be made only by the judicatory, never by the individual. No officer or licentiate shall presume to have the right of making self-evaluation regarding this distinction.

An exception to the confessional standards may be granted by a judicatory, for the sake of conscience, only if 1) it affects a peripheral and minor assertion in the standards, not a central and fundamental one, 2) it does not vacate the central teaching of any chapter in the Confession or overturn a complete answer to any question in the Catechisms, and 3) it does not undermine the system of truth in the Confession and Catechisms as a whole.”

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A Reformed Church History Example allowing a View, but Prohibiting Teaching against the Truth, or a Majority Opinion (though the Majority Opinion be not Confessionalized)

French Reformed Churches

Can’t teach Against the Imputation of Adam’s Sin

The French Reformed Churches’ Confession of Faith (1559), in Articles 10-11, on Original Sin, did not specifically and clearly teach the imputation of Adam’s sin to his posterity.  With time Joshua de la Place (c. 1596 – 1665 or possibly 1655), a theological professor at the Academy of Saumur, in formulating and publishing his own view, which would later become known as “Mediate Imputation,” seemed to challenge the idea of the imputation of Adam’s sin altogether.

The national synod of the French Churches in 1644-1645 consequently prohibited, first, persons departing from “the common received opinion of the Protestant Churches, who…  have all acknowledged the imputation of Adam’s first sin unto his posterity.”  About 15 years later, the synod changed this to persons being “forbidden to preach or print anything against the imputation mentioned,” though that imputation had not been expressly taught in their govering Confession of Faith, nor ever would be:

ed. John Quick,Synodicon in Gallia reformata, or, The Acts, Decisions, Decrees & Canons of those Famous National Councils of the Reformed Churches in France (London: Parkhurst, 1692)

Synod 28, of Charenton, 1644-1645, ch. 14, 10. Article of General Matters, pp. 473-74

“There was a report made in the synod of a certain writing, both printed and manuscript, holding forth this doctrine, that the whole nature of original sin consisted only in that corruption, which is hereditary to all Adam’s posterity, and residing originally in all men, and denies the imputation of his first sin.

This synod condemns the said doctrine as far as it restrains the nature of original sin to the sole hereditary corruption of Adam’s posterity, to the excluding of the imputation of that first sin by which he fell, and interdicts on pain of all Church-censures all pastors, professors, and others, who shall treat of this question, to depart from the common received opinion of the Protestant Churches, who (over and besides that corruption) have all acknowledged the imputation of Adam’s first sin unto his posterity.  And all synods and colloquies, who shall hereafter proceed to the reception of scholars into the holy ministry, are obliged to see them sign and subscribe this present act.”

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Synod 29, of Loudun, 1659-1660, ch. 8, Observations upon reading the last National Synod of Charenton, 1644, p. 532

“11. On reading that article of the last national synod concerning Original Sin, diverse provinces demanding with great importunity that this Assembly would be pleased to moderate it; this decree was made, That for the future all pastors and proposans who should offer themselves unto the holy ministry, shall be only obliged to subscribe unto the Tenth and Eleventh Article of the Confession of Faith held by all the Reformed Churches of this Kingdom; and in the mean while all persons are forbidden to preach or print anything against the imputation mentioned by the said synod in that article before named, nor shall anything more or less be changed in it.”

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On the Dangers of Requiring Further Subscription, in Counteracting Errors, beyond what a current Confession Requires, & of the Toleration of such Errors in order to Suppress them & Promote Healing

Geneva’s Advice to the French Reformed Churches

In the late-1500’s a dispute arose in the French Reformed Churches regarding whether the active obedience of Christ in positively fulfilling the Law was imputed to believers, in contrast to only Christ’s passive obedience of suffering being so imputed.  The French Reformed Confession of Faith of 1559 was not explicit on the issue (Articles 18, 20 & 22).  The majority of the Churches considered the denial of the imputation of Christ’s active obedience to be a serious error.

The 1603 national synod decided to officially interpret their Confession for Christ’s active obedience being imputed, censure the error, and sought to “silence” the error as well through various means.  The Synod of 1612, apparently finding this not enough, imposed a formula to be suscribed by all current pastors and those entering the ministry affirming in detail the imputation of Christ’s active righteousness.  This, of course, would exclude all those who disagreed from the reformed ministry in France.

Two years later, at the next national synod, the consistory of pastors at Geneva wrote a letter to the synod giving their counsel in the difficult matter.  The amount and depth of Geneva’s detailed wisdom, from much experience, is profound.  They give their reasons against the previous imposition of the formula, with further counsels, for the sake of the truth, to suppress the error and for the welfare of the Church.  Geneva states the French Reformed Churches “were well-pleased with our proceedings and intentions.”

All three documents are given below in full for the sake of all that can be learned from them; they will amply repay your reading:

ed. John Quick, Synodicon in Gallia reformata, or, The Acts, Decisions, Decrees & Canons of those Famous National Councils of the Reformed Churches in France (London: Parkhurst, 1692)

Synod 17, of Gap, 1603, ch. 2, Observations upon the Confession of Faith, pp. 226-27

“2. The Synod reading over the Confession of Faith, and explaining the 18th, 20th and 22nd Articles of the said Confession concerning our Justification before God, expresses its detestation of those errors which are now-adays broached to the contrary, and in particular their errors who deny the imputation of Christ’s active and passive obedience (by which He has most perfectly fulfilled the whole Law) unto us for righteousness.

And therefore Provincial Synods, Colloquies and Consistories shall have a careful eye on those persons who be tainted with that error, be they ministers or private Christians, and by the authority of this Assembly shall silence them; and in case of a willful stubborn persistency in their errors, to depose them, if they have a pastoral charge in the church; from the ministry.

And Letters shall be writ unto Master [Johannes] Piscator to entreat him not to trouble the Churches with his new-fangled opinions; as also from this Assembly to the Universities of England, Scotland, Leiden, Geneva, Heidelberg, Basil and Herborne (in which Piscator is professor), requesting them to join with us also in this censure.  And in case the said Piscator shall pertinaciously adhere unto his opinions, Master [Georg] Sohnius and Ferrier are to prepare an answer to his books, and that it be ready against the meeting of the next national synod.  And this article shall be read, and in all points most exactly observed by the provincial synods.”

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Synod 20, of Privas, 1612, ch. 4, Observation on Reading the Confession of Faith, p. 348

“2. That union in doctrine may be preserved among us, and no errors may be suffered to creep into our churches: All pastors in actual service, and all proposans who are to be received into the ministry, shall sign this following article,

‘I whose name is here under-written, do receive and approve the contents of the Confession of Faith of the Reformed Churches in this Kingdom, and do promise to persevere in it until death, and to believe and teach agreeably thereunto.

And whereas some persons contend about the sense of the eighteenth article, treating of our Justification, I declare and protest before God, that I understand it in the same sense in which it is received in our churches, approved by our national synods, agreeably to the Word of God, which is, That our Lord Jesus Christ was obedient to the moral and ceremonial law, not only for our good, but also in our stead, and that his whole obedience yielded by Him thereunto is imputed to us, and that our justification consists not only in the forgiveness of sins, but also in the imputation of his active righteousness; and subjecting myself unto the Word of God, I believe that the Son of Man came to serve, and that he was not a servant because He came into the world.

I do also promise, that I will never depart from the doctrine received in our churches, and that I will yield all obedience to the canons of our national synods in this matter.  And this article shall be religiously observed in and by all the provinces.’”

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Synod 21, of Tonneins, 1614, ch. 19, A Letter from the Church of Geneva. To the National Synod of the Reformed Churches of France assembled at Tonneins, pp. 442-44

“We are bound also in conscience to request and solicit you, though we be very well satisfied that it is already upon your hearts, to take care that those different sentiments, which for these last years have troubled your Church in the doctrine of justification may be suppressed.  Those opinions have been fomented and embittered by prejudices, grudges, and secret hateable; they have been spread abroad, and propagated, into a multitude of unprofitable and dangerous questions by frequent disputes and wranglings.

As for our part, although we hold absolutely the same faith with your churches, and do apply [the] whole Christ unto ourselves for redemption from death and wrath, and to obtain everlasting life, and that we judge it to be communicable by imputation of all his obedience done and suffered by Him in his human nature, which we were bound to have yielded according to the law of God in our persons; yet we could never approve of such great strife and altercation between brethren who were otherwise minded, much less can we approve of their bitter separation and mutual condemnation.

So that we had rather that little spark had been suffered of its own accord to have dwindled away into nothing, than by blowing it into a flame by so many oppositions to kindle a greater fire in the hearts of God’s people, which has tormented then with a world of ungodly jealousies, suspicions and prejudices, and those too in an age tossed and beaten with the tempestuous winds of contention and victory.

We have diverse time suggested this advice, and importunately insisted on it, that there might be a temperament and expedient found out for a concordat, which without condemning or prejudicing either party might be sufficient to guide and direct conscience, and totally to exclude all errors subversive of faith, and destructive of salvation in this fundamental point.  And we have received abundant consolation, for that the self-same counsels have been prescribed by a great and most potent monarch, and by very many learned men and most celebrated universities.

And we were exceedingly satisfied, that you did not reject, but were well-pleased with our proceedings and intentions, as we do according to the universal laws of Christian charity freely forgive their unkindnesses to us who have been displeased with us for them.  And you most honoured sirs, sith [since] you have not only knowledge and wisdom, but power also to judge and determine in these matters we beseech you to exert that power so forcibly and effectually, that you may pluck up by the roots all unprofitable and curious questions, and see to it, that your pastors and professors do with all sincerity pursue those things which make for the edification of your churches in faith and Godliness, and that they utterly abandon all those opposition of science falsely so called.

On which point we presume to deliver our mind with our usual freedom, and we desire you would revise that form couched and conceived in the Synod of Privas, and once more deliberate about it; not that we except against the substance of it in the least, but because its manner seems to threaten you with worse breaches, and far greater partialities.  We are not the first, who have observed the remedy of forms to be very dangerous, especially when a controversy is not formed into a party, unless it be in articles purely necessary, and determined by the Word of God itself; and when it’s otherwise impossible, all means failing us to detect the fallacies of our real adversaries; and such strait bands instead of conjoining and settling, have for the most part dislocated the members, and wounded them more sorely.

We desire also that when new authentic forms shall come to be framed, the churches might be first of all consulted, that so our ears may not be broken with the din, and complaints of their being surprised, and of an usurped domination over conscience, and of reproaches for precipitancy and connivency, as we are informed has been the issue of that at Privas.

And in short we should think it best to leave your Confession alone, immoveable, and not as you often do, dig it up and lay open this foundation, which though for the present it may be done, with a good intention, and with laudable moderation, yet may in after times produce a world of licentiousness.  Above all we most instantly request this of your piety totally to extinguish those accessory questions, which being altogether needless and unprofitable, do extremely endanger God’s Church, and are naturally apt to engender heresies or atheism among the ignorant people.

We very much fear that the printing of [Daniel] Tilenus’s book [against the imputation of Christ’s active righteousness] will be a great stumbling block, and hindrance to this work, and therefore we judged it necessary to obstruct the publication of its answer and are in great trouble what other lawful course we may take for the justifying of our dear brother, whom he has so grievously impeached.  However, if it shall be thought good for the weal of the Church that he be silent, and there be no more invectives or mutual recriminations left standing on the file; we hope some other expedients may be found out to salve the honor and the reputation of our brother, especially since the controversy is not about any point in itself fundamental, which is to be defended, but occasionally, and in disputation, where all sort of arguments, and ways of proving, though they be not always good and receiveable, do not consequentially import a simple and absolute assertion; because had it not been for their serviceableness to confirm the conclusions, they had never been at all mentioned.

And we cannot think it any wise convenient to redeem the honor of a private dispute from the laughter and scorn of the enemies of Truth, by letting in upon us a swarm of perilous and curious questions, together with horrible scandals, and scruples perplexing and tormenting conscience.  Let’s labor rather to extirpate these animosities, and to draw these divided spirits nearer in love one unto the other.  And then the offender, who in our opinion cannot with any conscience judge so unworthily of our brother, will be the first, as in duty bound, to acquit and clear him, exchanging his invectives into brotherly admonitions.”

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Latin Articles

1600’s

Voet, Gisbert

Select Disputations  (1659), vol. 3, 79. ‘On a Religious Vow’

Problem 1. Whether it is expedient or fitting that an oath be ordinarily required of ministers already called or about to be called?  1109-10

Ecclesiastical Politics  (Amsterdam: Jansonius, 1676), vol. 4, pt. 3, bk. 1, Considerations of the Absolute Government and Ordination of the Church, Tract 1, Of the Determination of the Doctrine of the Church and of the Agreed Upon Forms of Doctrine

ch. 4. Questions on Confessions in General

1. Whether the confessions of the Churches ought to be composed of the bare words of Scripture?  17

2. Whether all or some parts are to use general, indistinct and ambiguous words?  18
…

6. Whether public confessions are to be changed?  21
…

8. Whether it is permitted to subscribe public confessions, and to impose their subscription on ministers and ministerial candidates?  25

9. Whether in each national synod the public confessions ought to be re-read and reviewed, and whether a detailed inquiry, examination, and comparison of judgments should be conducted on all the articles individually, and finally synodical decrees be formulated by calling for votes; and whether, for this purpose, all the members of the synod ought meanwhile to be released from the subscription or promise once given by them?

10. Whether some one common confession of all the reformed Churches ought to be subscribed and held?  30

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ch. 5, Some questions on confessions in specific

1. On the Augsburg Confession  32

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Related Pages

On the Ordinances, Order & Policy of the Church

On Creeds & Confessions

Creeds are Not an Element of Worship

History & Texts of Christian Councils & Creeds

Constitutionalism

Commentaries on Westminster Standards

Commentaries on Heidelberg Catechism

Of Fundamental, Secondary & Tertiary Matters of Christianity, of Errors Therein & of Communion, Discipline & Separation Thereabout

Against Separatism

On Positive Laws & Ordinances

How Church Rulings Do & Don’t Bind

Human Laws: How Far They Bind

How Far the Church may Speak to Civil Issues

Truth

Social Covenanting