§95. ANALYSIS OF THE WESTMINSTER CONFESSION

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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.