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. [1444] 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. [1445] 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, [1446] 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. [1447]
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.' [1448] 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. [1449]
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. [1450] On July 7th, 1645, Dr. Temple made a report of a part of the Confession touching the Holy Scripture, which was read and debated. [1451] 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.' [1452] 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. [1453] 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. [1454] 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. [1455]
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). [1456] 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.' [1457] 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.