§94. THE WESTMINSTER CONFESSION

Revision of the English Articles

The Assembly was at first employed for ten weeks on a revision of the Thirty-nine Articles of the Church of England, being directed by an order of Parliament (July 5, 1643) 'to free and vindicate the doctrine of them from all aspersions and false interpretations.' The Puritans regarded the doctrinal Articles as sound and orthodox in substance and spirit, but capable of improvement in the line marked out by the Lambeth Articles and the Irish Articles; in other words, they desired to make them more explicitly Calvinistic.

Fifteen of these Articles, including the most important doctrines, were thus revised, and provided with Scripture proofs. Very few changes were made. Art. I., on the Trinity, was left untouched. In Art. II., on the Son of God, the word 'all' before 'actual sins of men' is missing, which, if not an oversight, was a misimprovement in the interest of Calvinistic particularism.20 In Art. III. the unhistorical interpretation of Christ's descent into Hades, which makes it a mere repetition of the preceding clause in the Creed, is put in. In Art. VI. the allusion to the Apocrypha is omitted. The remaining Articles are retained with some verbal improvements, except Art. VIII. of the three Creeds, which is omitted in almost all the printed copies. But in the original copy which the Assembly sent to Parliament, Art. VIII. was retained with a slight verbal change,1436 and omitted in the copy which Parliament sent to the King at the Isle of Wight. The Assembly certainly had no objection to the doctrine of the oecumenical creeds, and teaches it in its own standards. And yet the omission of all allusion to them in the Confession of Faith is so far characteristic as it reveals a difference of stand-point. The Puritan Assembly was unwilling to adopt any rule of faith except the Scripture explained by itself; while the Episcopal Church was reformed on the basis of the Scripture as interpreted by the ancient Church, or at all events with respectful reference to primitive creeds and canons.

The work of revision was suspended by an order of Parliament, Oct. 12, 1643, requiring the Assembly to enter upon the work of Church government, and then given up in consequence of an order 'to frame a Confession of Faith for the three kingdoms, according to the Solemn League and Covenant.' The framing of the Westminster Confession is therefore due to Scotch influence

and the adoption of the Solemn League and Covenant.21

This was a wise conclusion. The alteration or reconstruction of an established creed (except in minor particulars) is in itself a difficult and ungrateful task, and more apt to produce confusion than harmony, as is shown by the history of the Nicene Creed and the Augsburg Confession.

Preparation of the Confession

The first appointment of a Committee to prepare matter for a joint Confession of Faith was made Aug. 20, 1644, and embraced, besides the Commissioners of the Church of Scotland, the following Englishmen: Dr. Gouge, Mr. Gataker, Mr. Arrowsmith, Dr. Temple, Mr. Burroughs, Mr. Burges, Mr. Vines, Dr. Goodwin, and Dr. Hoyle. The chairman, Dr. William Gouge, a graduate of Cambridge, was Minister of Blackfriars, London (from 1608), and stood in high veneration among the Puritans, there being 'scarce a lord or lady or citizen of quality in or about the city that were piously inclined but they sought his acquaintance.' He died Dec. 12, 1653, seventy-nine years of age. The Committee was enlarged Sept. 4, 1644, by adding Messrs. Palmer, Newcomen, Herle, Reynolds, Wilson, Tuckney, Smith, Young, Ley, and Sedgwicke.

This Committee, it seems, prepared the material and reported in the 434th session, May 12, 1645, when a smaller Committee was appointed to digest the material into a formal draught. The members were taken from the old Committee, with Dr. Gouge as chairman. The Scotch Commissioners were to be again consulted. On July 7th, 1645, Dr. Temple made a report of a part of the Confession touching the Holy Scripture, which was read and debated. The following day, Reynolds, Herle, and Newcomen, to whom were afterwards added Tuckney and Whitaker, were appointed a Committee 'to take care of the wording of the Confession, as it is voted in the Assembly from time to time, and report to the Assembly when they think fit there should be any alteration in the words,' after first consulting 'with the Scotch Commissioners or any one of them.' In the 470th session, July 16, 1645, the heads of the Confession were distributed among three large committees to be elaborated and prepared for more formal discussion. The chapters were reported, read, and debated, section by section, and sometimes word by word.

The sub-committees sat two days every week, and reported as they progressed. On Sept. 25, 1646, the title was fixed ('The Humble Advice,' etc.) and the first nineteen chapters were sent up to the House of Commons at their request. A few days afterwards (Oct. 1) a duplicate was sent to the

House of Lords. The House of Lords passed these chapters, after a third reading, unanimously (Nov. 6). The House of Commons delayed definite action till the whole was presented. In the 752d Session, Dec. 4, 1646, the Confession was completed and presented to both Houses of Parliament in a copy transcribed with great pains by Dr. Burgess, for which he received a vote of thanks from the Assembly.

The Confession was thus prepared in two years and three months, amid many interruptions by discussions on the Catechism and on discipline. No other symbolical book cost so much time and labor, except the Tridentine and Vatican Decrees, and perhaps the Lutheran Formula of Concord. Besides the chairman, Drs. Tuckney, Arrowsmith, Reynolds (afterwards bishop), Temple, Hoyle, Palmer, Herle, and the Scotch divines seem to have been the chief authors of the work.

The Confession was first printed Dec., 1646, or Jan., 1647, for the exclusive use of Parliament and the Assembly, without the Scripture proofs. The House of Commons, not satisfied, expressly requested the Assembly to send them the Scripture texts (April 22, 1647), which was promptly done (April 29).1446 Whereupon the House of Commons ordered 'that six hundred copies, and no more, of the Advice of the Assembly of Divines concerning the Confession of Faith, with the quotations and texts of Scripture annexed, presented to this House, and likewise six hundred copies of the Proceedings of the Assembly of Divines upon the Nine-and-thirty Articles of the Church of England, be forthwith printed for the service of both Houses and of the Assembly of Divines; and the printer is enjoined at his peril not to print more than six hundred copies of each, or to divulge or publish any of them.' At the same time a vote of thanks to the Assembly was passed 'for their great pains in these services.'

This second edition. appeared May, 1647, and contains the received and ecclesiastically authorized text. It must not be confounded with the revised text of Parliament.

The Action of the Parliament

The House of Commons began, May 19, 1647, the consideration of the 'Humble Advice,' chapter by chapter, resumed it in October, and completed it March 22, 1648. It made some alterations in the governmental chapters, and gave the document the title, 'Articles of Christian Religion approved and passed by both Houses of Parliament, after Advice had with the Assembly of Divines by authority of Parliament sitting at Westminster.'22

The House of Lords agreed to all the alterations, excepting to that on marriage, June 3, 1648. Whereupon the House of Commons, on the 20th of June, ordered 'that the Articles of Christian Religion sent from the Lords with some alterations, the which were this day read, and upon the question agreed unto, be forthwith printed and published.' The next day it was resolved 'that the texts of Scripture be printed with the Articles of Faith.'

A copy of the authorized edition of these Articles is preserved in the British Museum. It differs from the Assembly's Confession by the omission of the entire Ch. XXX. (on Church Censures) and Ch. XXXI. (on Synods and Councils), and parts of Ch. XX. (§4) and Ch. XXIV. (§§5, 6, and part of 4).

When, after Cromwell's death, the Long Parliament was restored in 1659, it adopted the Confession with the exception of Ch. XXX. and Ch. XXXI., and requested Dr. Reynolds, Mr. Calamy, and Mr. Manton to superintend the publication (March 5, 1660).

The English Parliament thus twice indorsed the Westminster Confession as to its doctrinal articles, but retained an Erastian control over matters of discipline. With the restoration of the monarchy the Confession shared the fate of Presbyterianism in England.

The Action of the General Assembly of Scotland

The Confession was at once brought to Scotland, and most favorably received. The General Assembly at Edinburgh, Aug. 27, 1647, after careful examination, adopted it in full as it came from the hands of the Westminster divines, declaring it 'to be most agreeable to the Word of God, and in nothing contrary to the received doctrine, worship, discipline, and government of this Kirk,' and thankfully acknowledging the great mercy of the Lord, 'in that so excellent a Confession of Faith is prepared, and thus far agreed upon in both kingdoms.' The Scotch Parliament indorsed this action, Feb. 7, 1649.

Thus the Confession, as well as the two Catechisms, received the full sanction of the highest ecclesiastical and civil authorities of Scotland. But the royal sanction was not obtained till 1690, under William and Mary.

It is a very remarkable fact that this Confession failed in its native land, and succeeded in foreign lands. The product of English Puritans became the highest standard of doctrine for Scotch and American Presbyterians, and supplanted the older Confession of their own Reformers. The Shorter Catechism, however, was for a long time extensively used in England.

Another remarkable fact is that the English authors, with their sad experience of the laws of uniformity, never intended to make their Confession binding upon the conscience as a document for subscription, while the Scots adopted it at once. Dr. M'Crie accounts for this difference partly 'by national idiosyncrasies, partly by the extreme desire of the Scots to obtain that "covenanted uniformity" for which England was not prepared, but which Scotland, with a Church fully organized and a Parliament favorably disposed, regarded as the sheet-anchor of her safety, and to which afterwards, as a sacred engagement, she resolutely clung, in hope and against hope, in days of darkness and storms. In England Presbytery had yet to be organized, and at every step it encountered conflicting and neutralizing influences.'

§95. ANALYSIS OF THE WESTMINSTER CONFESSION

Sources

The Westminster Confession sets forth the Calvinistic system in its scholastic maturity after it had passed through the sharp conflict with Arminianism in Holland, and as it had shaped itself in the minds of Scotch Presbyterians and English Puritans during their conflict with High-Church prelacy. The leading ideas, with the exception of the theory of the Christian Sabbath, were of Continental growth, but the form was entirely English.

The framers of the Confession were no doubt quite familiar with Continental theology; Latin was then still the theological language; the Arminian controversy had excited the greatest attention in England, and agitated the pulpit and the press for years; the English Church was well represented at the Synod of Dort; several divines of the Assembly had spent some time in Holland, where they found a hospitable refuge from persecution under Charles I., and were treated with great respect by the Dutch ministers and divines.

But while the Confession had the benefit of the Continental theology, and embodied the results of the Arminian controversy, it was not framed on the model of any Continental Confession, nor of the earlier Scottish Confessions, notwithstanding the presence and influence of the Commissioners from the Church of Scotland. On the contrary, it kept in the track of the English Articles of Religion, which the Assembly was at first directed to revise, and with which it was essentially agreed. It wished to carry on that line of development which was begun, several years before the Arminian controversy, by the framers of the Lambeth Articles (1595), and which was continued by Archbishop Ussher in the Irish Articles (1615). It is a Calvinistic completion and sharper logical statement of the doctrinal system of the Thirty-nine Articles, which stopped with the less definite Augustinian scheme, and left a considerable margin for different interpretations. In point of theological ability and fullness it is far superior to its predecessors.

The Westminster Confession agrees more particularly with the Articles which were adopted by the Protestant Church in Ireland, but afterwards set aside by Archbishop Laud through the Earl of Strafford. This is manifest in the order and arrangement, in the titles of chapters, in phraseology, and especially in the most characteristic features of Calvin's theology—the doctrine of

Predestination and of the Sacraments. The resemblance is so striking that it must have been intended for the purpose of showing the essential agreement of the Assembly with the doctrinal standards of the English and Irish Reformation. Ussher himself had pursued the same course and incorporated in his work the substance of the English Articles and the full text of the Lambeth Articles. He was a doctrinal Puritan, and although he declined the invitation to a seat in the Assembly, he was highly esteemed by the members for his learning, orthodoxy, and piety. His friend, Dr. Hoyle, Professor of Divinity at Dublin, belonged to the committee which framed the Confession.

The following tables will illustrate the relation of the Westminster Confession to the preceding standards of the English and Irish Church.