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.' [1458]
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). [1459]
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. [1460] 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. [1461]
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. [1462] 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.'
[1444] The revised Fifteen Articles have been reprinted from the copy as approved by Parliament, in Hall's Harmony of Protestant Confessions; in Appendix No. VII. to Neal's History of the Puritans; in Stoughton, Church of the Commonwealth, Append. pp. 228 sqq.
[1445] The 'all' was in the original edition of 1563 and the edition of 1628, but is missing in the edition of 1630 and other English editions, and also in the American Episcopal revision; see Vol. III. p. 478.
[1446] 'The three creeds that go under the name of the Nicene Creed, Athanasius' Creed,' etc., instead of 'The three Creeds, Nicene Creed, Athanasian Creed,' etc. Ussher and Vossius had proved the post-Athanasian origin of the creed which bears his name. Lightfoot (Journal, p. 10) notices, probably from an earlier stage of the debate, another change, viz.: 'for that the matter of them [for they] may be proved by most certain warrants of Holy Scripture.' He adds that 'at last it was concluded that the Creeds should be printed at the end of the Thirty-nine Articles.' Comp. Mitchell, in Minutes, p. 542.
[1447] See this important document and its history above, pp. 689 sqq. Marsden says (Later Puritans, p. 90): 'The taking of the Covenant in Scotland was perhaps the most solemn scene in the history of nations. The forced imposition of it in England was an insult and a burlesque.' Fuller refutes it at length from his English and Episcopal stand-point (Church Hist. Vol. VI. pp. 259 sqq.). It certainly turned out to be a blunder in England, but it was a sublime blunder for a noble end, and not without important results, among which is the one mentioned in the text.
[1448] Masson, Vol. II. p. 518. Gouge's Commentary on Hebrews was republished, 1866, at Edinburgh, in 3 vols., with a memoir, in which he is called 'the father of the London ministers and the oracle of his time' (p. xii.).
[1449] See excerpts from Vol. II. of the MS. Minutes, in Mitchell's ed. of Minutes (which begin Nov. 18, 1644), p. lxxxvi.
[1450] Minutes, p. 91.
[1451] Ibid. p. 110.
[1452] Minutes, p. 110.
[1453] Ibid. p. 114.
[1454] Ibid. pp. 290, 291; Journals of the H. of Commons, Vol. IV. p. 677; and the H. of Lords, Vol. VIII. pp. 505, 588.
[1455] Minutes, p. 308; Journals of the H. of Commons, Vol. IV. p. 739; of the Lords, Vol. VIII. p. 597.
[1456] Journals of the House of Commons, Vol. V. p. 151; Minutes, p. 352. Baillie (in a letter to Spang, Jan. 20, 1647, Vol. III. p. 2) ascribes this request of Parliament to the 'retarding party,' and as a change of tactics of the opponents, and remarks that the Assembly omitted the Scripture proofs at first 'only to eschew the offense of the House, whose practice hitherto has been to enact nothing of religion on divine right or Scriptural ground, but upon their own authority alone.'
[1457] Journals, Vol. V. p. 156, and Minutes, p. 354.
[1458] The original title, 'A Confession of Faith,' was voted down by sixty-one to forty-one.--Minutes, p. 415.
[1459] Journals of the House of Commons, Vol. VII. p. 862; Mitchell, in Minutes, p. 417. Mitchell gives no information of copies of this edition.
[1460] Baillie brought a copy of the first edition, without proofs, in January (Letters, Vol. III. p. 2); Gillespie probably a copy of the second ed., with proofs, in July, when he returned. The Assembly ordered an edition of 300 copies to be printed at Edinburgh, for the use of the members.--Minutes, p. 419.
[1461] See the Acts of the Scotch Assembly and Parliament, and of the English Parliament, in Minutes, pp. 419 sqq.; in the Edinb. ed. of the Conf., 1855; and in Innes, The Law of Creeds, pp. 95 sqq.
[1462] Dr. Tuckney, one of the chief authors of the Confession and Catechisms, says: 'For the matter of imposing upon I am not guilty. In the Assembly I gave my vote with others that the Confession of Faith put out by authority should not be required to be either sworn or subscribed to--our having been burnt in the hand in that kind before; but [only] so as not to be publicly preached or written against' (quoted by M'Crie, Annals, p. 221). Baxter, also, while highly recommending the Westminster Standards, expressed the hope that 'the Assembly intended not all that long Confession and those Catechisms to be imposed as a test of Christian communion, nor to disown all that scrupled every word in it [them]. If they did, I could not have commended it for any such use, though it be useful for the instruction of families' (Sylvester's Life of Baxter, p. 122, quoted by M'Crie, p. 222).