CHAPTER
III
Presbyterian
Church from 1729 to 1741
The Adopting Act
The most prominent event during this period of our
history is the passing of the adopting act, by which assent to the Westminster
Confession of Faith was required of all members of the Synod, and of all
candidates for admission to the Presbyteries. This event forms an era in our
history, and has exerted an influence on our Church, which is still felt in all
her borders. The origin, design, and import of this celebrated act deserve
particular attention. It was stated in the preceding chapter that the Presbytery
of New Castle had begun, at least as early as 1724, to require the adoption of
the Westminster Confession by their candidates for the ministry. The first
record relating to this subject refers to Mr. William McMillan, who was
licensed September 22, 1724, for distant service in Virginia. His subscription
to the Confession of Faith bears the same date. What led to the adoption of this
measure is not recorded, and there does not appear to have been any previous
order of the Presbytery that such subscription should be demanded. From this
time, however, it seems to have been the common practice of the Presbytery.
It
is obvious that the same reasons which induced the Presbytery of New Castle to
adopt this measure themselves, would lead them to wish for the concurrence of
the whole Church of which they were a part. No one will be surprised, therefore,
to learn that the overture which led to the adopting act had its origin in this
Presbytery. Under the date of March 27, 1728, it is recorded that, “an
overture formerly read before Synod, but which was dropped, being now at the
desire of the Presbytery produced by Mr. Thompson and read, the Presbytery defer
their judgment concerning it until next meeting.” At the subsequent meeting
the subject was again deferred until the sessions of the Presbytery during the
intervals of Synod. No further mention of it is made on the minutes, and it is
therefore uncertain what was the decision of the Presbytery respecting it. It
is probable that they referred the whole matter to the Synod, without any
expression of their own opinion, as it is not reported as the overture of a Presbytery
but of an individual, and as Mr. Thompson speaks in it, throughout, in his own
name. This gentleman, who is thus prominently connected with this subject, was
a native of Ireland. He came to this country as a probationer for the ministry
in 1715, and was ordained over the congregation at Lewes in 1717. He had,
therefore, been at this time eleven years a member of the Synod. He appears to
have been a man of self‑command, learning, and piety. He took indeed an
active, and in some respects a very mistaken, part in opposition to Mr.
Whitefield and Mr. Tennent, yet no one can read his writings without being
impressed with respect for his character and talents. And it is a gratifying
fact that Mr. Tennent himself, after the excitement of controversy had subsided,
came to speak of him in terms of affectionate regard. Indeed, were nothing known
of these men but their controversial writings, the reader could hardly fail to
think, that in humility, candor, and Christian temper, Mr. Thompson was greatly
superior to his opponent. It is, however, the weakest side of Mr. Tennent’s
ardent and impetuous character that appears in those writings, and they
therefore would be a very unfair criterion of the man.
When
the overture respecting the adoption of the Confession of Faith was introduced
into Synod in 1728, though it had been presented the year before, and though
there were twenty‑nine members present, of whom seventeen were
ministers, it was deemed of so much importance that, by common consent, it was
deferred to the next Synod. There was, therefore, no attempt, as has been
ungenerously asserted, to take the Synod unawares. The record in relation to
this point is as follows: “There being an overture presented to the Synod in
writing, having reference to the subscribing the Confession of Faith, &c.,
the Synod, judging this to be a very important affair, unanimously concluded to
defer the consideration of it till the next Synod; withal recommending to the
members of each Presbytery to give timeous notice to the absent members, and it
is agreed that the next be a full Synod.”1
It
is strange that this measure, after the lapse of a century, should still be held
up to reprobation by members of our own communion. As every other church has a
creed, why should not the Presbyterians be allowed to have one? Why should
motives the most improbable be attributed to the advocates of this measure, when
reasons which the Christian world have, by their practice, pronounced
sufficient, lie on the very surface of the transaction? If it was so sectarian
in 1729 to adopt the Confession of Faith, why, in the course of more than a
hundred years, has the adopting act never been repealed? Why do those who impute
such evil designs to its authors, reject as injurious all suspicion that they
are in favor of such repeal, or of any modification of the Confession itself?
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1
By a full Synod is meant a Synod at which all the members were expected to
attend. In 1724, it had been agreed that the Presbyteries should appear by
delegates, except every third year, when all the ministers were required to be
present. It was provided, however. that if any important business arose, the
commission was to give notice fur a full meeting.
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It
is not pretended that Presbyterians were so much in advance of their generation
that they would have been free from reproach in this matter, had they been in
power. This however was nowhere the case, for even where they formed the
majority of the people, they were subject to Episcopal rulers over whom they had
no control. Had the case been otherwise, they might have been as intolerant as
their neighbors, and have pushed their principles to the extreme to which they
were carried in New England. There, not only all places of power and trust, but
even the right of suffrage was confined to members of the church. The
magistrates were clothed with power to punish for opinion’s sake, a power
which they frequently exercised. It is a poor service to the Puritans to deny
their principles, or to vindicate their conduct on grounds which they themselves
would have despised. The intolerance of the Puritans, such as it was, arose
out of their most cherished opinions. They came to this country to establish a
society in which God should reign, where his truth should be preserved and
his laws enforced. Hence all power was to be kept in the hands of the people of
God. Hence the denial of the truth, or any moral offense, was regarded as a
violation of the law of the land, and to be punished accordingly. Hence, too,
when Roger Williams broached his doctrine of liberty of conscience, not only was
he banished, but his opinions were laboriously controverted. A state founded
upon such a principle must be intolerant. Had no strangers come among them,
their own children would have been disfranchised. Yet the Puritans adhered to
this principle, and gave it up in practice by slow and reluctant concessions.
This
is not said to cast a reproach upon the pious founders of New England. Far
from it. Those who retain the great scriptural doctrines for whose sake they
constructed their whole economy, honor their memory far more effectually than
those who merely garnish their sepulchers. They were the people of God; they
loved and honored the Savior; and this is enough to preserve them in everlasting
remembrance, and to shield them from all unjust or unkind aspersions. They were
not fanatical persecutors, or blinded enthusiasts, but sober‑minded and
devout men. They allowed themselves, however, to be fascinated with the idea of
a Christian theocracy, which, beautiful as it is, cannot be carried out in the
present state of the world, without practical injustice. These men, therefore,
good as they were, should not be honored at the expense of truth, nor held up
as the friends of religious liberty in contrast with the Presbyterians, in order
to cast odium upon the latter. The assertion that the advocates of the adoption
of the Confession of Faith had the design of subjecting the Church to the State,
and were only prevented by the sons of the Puritans, appears still more
extraordinary when it is known that they unanimously declared their rejection
of the doctrine that the civil magistrates had the right to control
ecclesiastical bodies, or to persecute for the sake of religion. It is
certainly a very strange expedient to enforce a doctrine, openly and
unanimously to renounce it. A charge, however, which is so obviously unjust does
not merit even this brief refutation.
Another
assumption equally gratuitous is that the overture in question had its origin in
disaffection towards the New England portion of the Synod. Had such disaffection
existed, this was a singular way to manifest it. The Westminster Confession had
long before been adopted in New England, and the catechism was there taught as
faithfully as in Scotland itself. Even had the excepted clauses, about the
power of the civil magistrate, been insisted upon, what was there in those
articles to startle men brought up under the Cambridge Platform? New England men
were not to be excluded by the adoption of their own confession, nor by the
avowal of their own principles. There is, however, no ground for this suspicion.
The overture itself does not contain the slightest manifestation of this
sectional feeling. The Presbytery of New Castle, from the bosom of which it
proceeded, was not a homogeneous body of Scotch and Irish members. It had
scarcely a majority of such members; five were either originally or
immediately from New England, two were from Wales, and one from England. The
overture itself tells a plain story. It avows distinctly the object aimed at,
and the means for its accomplishment. It states that errors of various kinds,
Arminianism, Socinianism, and Deism, had begun to prevail even in the reformed
churches. This was true, to some extent, of Scotland, still more alarmingly true
of the North of Ireland, true of the Dissenters in England, who, a few years
later, looked askant at President Davies, because he came from a church which
had adopted the Westminster Confession, and are now applauded as “the friends
of religious liberty” for so doing. It was true also of New England, where the
Arminian declension had already begun. Is it wonderful, under these
circumstances,
that men who loved the truth should feel some anxiety, that being members of a
church whose doors were wide open, they should be desirous to place some bar at
the entrance, to exact some pledge that those who were admitted to the ministry
would not labor in the vocation of error? When motives so obvious are avowed for
this measure, why should evil motives and sinister designs be raked up from the
dark corners of a suspicious imagination, and gratuitously imputed to its
authors?
It
has been said also that the adoption of the Confession of Faith was the result
of sectarian bigotry and heartless orthodoxy. It is very easy to excite the
prejudices of the simple by such assertions. But zeal for the truth is surely
no evidence of indifference for religion. This unnatural connection does
indeed sometimes occur, and where these two things are united they produce a
most offensive form of human character. For any one such instance, however,
the history of the church furnishes a hundred of the far more congenial union of
indifference to the truth and disregard to religion. The strictest churches
have been the most pious, laborious, and useful churches. And the strictest age
of any particular church has almost always been its best age. Holland is not
better now than when she demanded a strict adherence to her doctrinal standards.
The Socinianized Presbyterians of England did not become better than Calamy,
Reynolds, and other members of the Westminster Assembly, when they rejected all
creeds but the Bible. The French Protestants are not better now than when their
noble army of martyrs and confessors, whose blood still calls to heaven for a
blessing on the remnant of their children, “swore” to live and die by their
confession of faith. And it may well be doubted if New England is more religious
at the present time than in the days of her rigid Calvinism, when the catechism
was taught at every fireside and in every district school.
The
mere adoption of the Confession of Faith, therefore, is not in itself an
evidence of heartless orthodoxy. And there is no evidence of any other kind
that the advocates of this measure were less zealous in their religion than
their opponents. It may be said it was the Scotch and Irish members who were in
favor of the measure, and the English members who opposed it. To a certain
extent this is true. But were not the Irish members the leaders in the great
revival of 1740–1744? Were not many of those leaders members of the obnoxious
Presbyteries of New Castle and Donegal? On the other hand, some of those who
were most averse to the adoption of the Confession of Faith, were most bitter in
their opposition to the revival. These facts are referred to, to show the
injustice of imputing a mere lifeless orthodoxy to the advocates of Mr.
Thompson’s overture, and of the assumption that it was designed to get rid
of the troublesome zeal of the better members of the Synod.
The
design is clearly expressed in the overture itself; it was to guard against the
inroads of error, which had begun to prevail upon every side. The chief
apprehension was directed, not towards New England, but towards Ireland. The
Synod had already rejected one ministerial applicant from that country, upon
suspicion of unsoundness in the faith, and doubtful character. A few years
later, they rejected another. And again, in a few years, they cast out a third,
who had gained admittance upon deceptive testimonials of orthodoxy. That the
chief immediate purpose of this overture was to keep out unsound men from the
Irish Presbyteries, is distinctly avowed by its author, and avowed in such a
way as to leave no doubt of his sincerity. In the appendix to his work on the
government of the church of Christ, published in 1741, he has some reflections
on the state of the church, which were written at an earlier period. He there
says, “When it pleased our glorious and almighty king Jesus, who has the
hearts of the kings of the earth in his hands, that, as the rivers of water are
turned, he can turn them whithersoever he pleaseth, to move the hearts of our
Synod, with such a remarkable degree of unanimity to adopt the Westminster
Confession and Catechisms, &c., it was matter of very great satisfaction to
most of us, and to myself in particular, who had been for some time before under
no small fears and perplexities of mind, lest we should be corrupted with the
new schemes of doctrine which for some time had prevailed in the north of
Ireland, that being the part from whence we expected to be, in a great measure,
supplied with new hands to fill our vacancies in the ministry, within the
bounds of our Synod. And I hope still, that that very step not only hath been of
good effect among us already, but also will still continue to be so while it
continues in force, in pursuance of the end for which it was first
intended.”2 To understand fully
the design of the adopting act, the overture which
led to it ought to be read, and
it is
therefore here inserted at length.
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2 Government of the Church of Christ, by John
Thompson, minister of the gospel, p. 115. As it has become common to speak in
very disparaging terms of this gentleman, and as he seems to have been a really
good man, it is a pleasure and honor to be allowed to vindicate his memory. This
can best be done by letting the reader see how he spoke of the state of religion
in our church, and of the duty of ministers, before the convulsion which
unhappily tore the church asunder. In these reflections, after describing the
confusions and divisions which had begun to prevail, he says to his brethren,
“This matter belongeth unto us in a special manner—firstly, by virtue of our
office end station; and again, because we have had a guilty hand in bringing in
the evil; we should, therefore, strive and endeavour to have a prime and leading
hand in healing and removing it. In order to this, I think these things are
undoubtedly incumbent on us: First, that every one of us endeavour, with an
impartial severity, to examine and look back upon our past conduct and behaviour,
as Christians and as ministers of the gospel, calling and setting our
consciences to work, to compare our past behaviour with the divine law, which is
holy, spiritual, just, and good; weighing ourselves in the balances of the
sanctuary, with the same exactness with which we expect to be weighed by our
holy and impartial Judge, that we may be convinced how far we have come short of
our duty, even of what we might have done, as Christians and ministers, for the
glory of God, our own and others’ salvation; and especially how far we have
come short of that exemplary piety, circumspection, and tenderness of walk, and
spiritualness of converse with others, which, as ministers of the gospel of
Christ, we should hate studied; as also, how far we have failed in degree of
love, care, zeal, and tender concern for the souls of men.
2.
“Another thing incumbent on us is that, whatever our consciences lay to
our charge in these matters, we confess the same before the Lord, and bewail
them with grief and sorrow of heart, in deep humiliation, earnestly praying
for pardon; and resolving in the strength of divine grace, to amend and reform
all we find wanting or amiss in these or any other particulars, resolving still
to grow in the exercise of every grace and the practice of holiness.
3.
“Another thing incumbent is that we labour to be possessed with an
earnest care and concern for the salvation of our own souls, and particularly to
make sure of a work of grace and regeneration in our own hearts, so as never to
be at ease and quiet without some comfortable evidence of it, in the discernible
exercise of grace in our hearts, together with the suitable genuine fruits of
holiness in
our lives.
4.
“Let us earnestly labour to get our affections weaned from the world
and all sublunary things, and to set them on things above, that our love to God
and to our Lord Jesus Christ, our concern for his glory in the faithful
performance of duty and the promotion of the kingdom of grace, by the conversion
and edification of souls, may so employ and take up our thoughts that all
worldly interests may appear but empty trifles in comparison with these things.
... There is a great difference between preaching the gospel that we may get a
living, and to desire a living that we may be enabled to preach the gospel. And
happy is that minister who is enabled cheerfully and resolutely to do the
latter, and truly and effectually to avoid the former.
5.
“Another thing to be endeavoured by us, is to strive to suit our gospel
ministrations, not so much to the relish and taste as to the necessities of our
people; and in order thereunto to endeavour, by all proper means, to be
acquainted with their spiritual state, as far as practicable by us; that knowing
their diseases and wants we may know how to suit our doctrine thereunto. And
particularly we should endeavour to bend our forces and to use our best skill,
to suit the prevalent distemper of this carnal and secure age, striving with all
our might to rouse secure sinners and awaken them out of their sleep, and drowsy
saints from their slumber and carnal security. For this purpose we should not
only assert and maintain the necessity of regeneration and converting grace,
and of a righteous and godly walk, and of increase and advancement therein,
but also endeavour to press the same home upon their consciences with all
earnestness, as if we saw them perishing and would gladly be the means of their
deliverance.
6.
“It would also contribute not a little to promote and revive a work of
grace, if we could effectually revive congregational discipline, in order to
convince sinners and make them ashamed of their scandalous outbreakings. For I
am afraid that most of us are too lax and remiss in this matter, so that the
highest privileges of Christ’s church, I mean external privileges, are too often given to such whose conversation is very unsuitable
unto them.”
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“Reverend Fathers and Brethren:
“I would be heartily grieved if the following overture, or any
thing in it, should, in the event, prove the occasion of any heat or contention
among us. Sure I
am that every thing of this kind is
far from my intention, and I hope
all my brethren will not only be persuaded of the peaceableness and sincerity of
my intentions, but also to judge for the necessity of such an expedient, when
they seriously ponder and consider these few particulars. First, that it is the
unquestionable duty of every Christian, according to his station and talent, to
maintain and defend the truths of the gospel against all opposition. Secondly,
that this work or duty is in an especial manner incumbent on the ministers of
the gospel in virtue of their office. Thirdly, that not only every Christian and
minister, but also every church, as an organized body politic, methodised by
order and government, is also obliged to act with Christian vigilance and
sagacity in maintaining and defending gospel truth. Fourthly, that the parties
aforesaid are not only obliged to maintain and defend the truth for
themselves, but also to endeavour to perpetuate and propagate it unto posterity
pure and uncorrupt. Fifthly, as the light of nature teaches all kingdoms, commonwealths,
cities, &c., even in time of peace to
prepare for war, so a principle of spiritual wisdom should direct the church of
Christ to fortify itself against all the assaults and invasions that may be made
upon the doctrine it professes, according to the word of God. Sixthly,
that secret bosom enemies of
the truth (I mean those who being visible members of
a church do not openly and violently oppose the truth professed therein, but
in a secret covert way endeavour to undermine it) are as dangerous as any
whatever; and, therefore, the church should exercise her vigilance in a special
manner against such, by searching them out, discovering them, and setting a mark
upon them whereby they may be known, and so not have it in their power to
deceive. The churches of Ephesus and Smyrna are commended for this, but Pergamos
and Thyatira are reproved for the neglect of it. Seventhly, that we, the members
of this Synod, together with the particular congregations of professors under
our care, are a church which is one entire organized body or society of
Christians united together by order and government, according to the institution
of the word, and therefore ought (especially when apparent dangers call for it)
to exert ourselves and the authority with which we are invested, in vindication
and defence of the truths which we profess, and for preventing the ingress and
spreading of error. Eighthly, that we are so a particular church as not to be a
part of any particular church in the world, with which we are united by the
joint exercise of church government, and therefore we are not accountable to
the judicial inquiry of any superior ecclesiastical judicature upon earth, and
therefore if we do not exert the authority inherent in us for maintaining the
purity of gospel truth, it is not in the power of any superior ecclesiastical
judicature to call us in question for our neglect, or for our errors or heresies
should we be corrupted with them. Ninthly, although, I hope, there are as yet
few or none among us (especially of the ministers) who are infected with any
gross errors or heresies in doctrine, yet I think I may say we are in no small
danger of being corrupted in doctrinals, and that even as to fundamentals, which
to me seems evident from the consideration of these few particulars of our
present circumstances.
“First,
it seems to me that we are too much like the people of Laish, in a careless
defenceless condition, as a city without walls (or perhaps my unacquaintedness
with our records may cause me to mistake). For as far as I know, though we be an
entire particular church, as has been observed, and not a part of a particular
church, yet we have not any particular system of doctrines, composed by
ourselves, or others, which we, by any judicial act of our church, have adopted
to be the articles or confession of our faith, &c. Now a church without a
confession, what is it like? It is true, as I take it, we all generally
acknowledge and look upon the Westminster Confession and Catechisms to be our
confession, or what we own for such; but the most that can be said is, that the
Westminster Confession of Faith is the confession of the faith of the generality
of our members, ministers, and people; but that it is our confession, as we are
a united body politic, I cannot see, unless, first, it hath been received by a
conjunct act of the representatives of our church; I mean by the Synod, either
before or since it hath been sub forma synodi.
Secondly, unless due care be, and hath been taken that all intrants into
the ministry among us have subscribed the said confession, or by some
equivalent solemn act, coram auctoritate ecclesiastica, testified their
owning it as the confession of their faith; which how far it is observed within
the bounds of our Synod, I am ignorant. Now, if this be so (for upon this
supposition I speak), I think we are in a very defenceless condition. For if we
have no confession which is ours by synodical act, or if any among us have not
subscribed or acknowledged the confession, ut supra, then first, there is
no bar provided to keep out of the ministry those who are corrupt in doctrinals;
they may be received into the ministry without renouncing their corrupt
doctrines. Secondly, those that are in the ministry among us may propagate gross
errors and corrupt many thereby without being discovered to preach any thing
against the received truth, because (supposito ut supra) the truth
was never publicly received among us.
“Secondly,
another of our present circumstances is that we are surrounded by so many
pernicious and dangerous corruptions in doctrine, and these grown so much in
vogue and fashion, even among those whose ancestors, at the beginning of the
reformation, would have sealed the now despised truth with their blood. When
Arminianism, Socinianism, Deism, Freethinking, &c., do like a deluge
overflow even the reformed churches, both established and dissenting, to such a
degree, have we not reason to consult our own safety?
“Tum
tua res agitur paries cum proximus ardet.
“A
third circumstance we are in, which increaseth our danger of infection by error,
is partly the infancy, and partly the poverty of our circumstances, which render
us unable to plant a seminary of learning among ourselves, and so to see to
the education of our young candidates for the ministry, and therefore we are
under the necessity of depending upon other places for men to supply our
vacancies in the church, and so are in danger of having our ministry corrupted
by such as are leavened with false doctrine before they come among us.
“Fourthly,
I am afraid there are too many among ourselves, who, though they may be sound in
the faith themselves, yet have the edge of their zeal against the prevailing
errors of the times very much blunted, partly by their being dispirited, and so
by a kind of cowardice are afraid, boldly, openly, and zealously to appear
against those errors that show themselves in the world under the patronage and
protection of so many persons of note and figure; partly by a kind of
indifference and mistaken charity, whereby they think they ought to bear with
others, though differing from them in opinion about points which are mysterious
and sublime, but not practical nor fundamental, such as predestination. Now,
although I would grant that the precise point of election and reprobation be
neither fundamental nor immediately practical, yet take predestination
completely, as it takes in the other disputed points between Calvinists and
Arminians, such as universal grace, the non-perseverance of the saints,
foreseen faith, and good works, &c., and I think it such an article in my
creed, such a fundamental of my faith, that I know not what any other articles
would avail, that could be retained without it.
“Now
the expedient which I would humbly propose you may take is as follows: First,
that our Synod, as an ecclesiastical Judicature of Christ, clothed with
ministerial authority to act in concert in behalf of truth and opposition to
error, would do something of this kind at such a juncture, when error seems to
grow so fast, that unless we be well fortified, it is like to swallow us up.
Secondly,
that in pursuance hereof, the Synod would, by an act of its oven, publicly and
authoritatively adopt the Westminster Confession of Faith, Catechisms, &c.,
for the public confession of our faith, as we are a particular organized church.
Thirdly, that further the Synod would make an act to oblige every Presbytery
within their bounds to oblige every candidate for the ministry to subscribe, or
otherwise acknowledge coram presbyterio,
the said confession of theirs, &c. and to promise not to preach or
teach contrary to it. Fourthly, to oblige every actual minister coming among
us to do the like. Fifthly, to enact, that 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 so and so. Sixthly, let the Synod
recommend it to all their members, and members to their flocks, to entertain the
truth in love, to be zealous and fruitful, and to be earnest with God by prayer,
to preserve their vine from being spoiled by those deluding foxes; which if
the Synod shall see cause to do, I hope it may, through the divine blessing,
prevent in a great measure, if not altogether, our being deluded with the
damnable errors of our times; but if not, I am afraid we may be at last infected
with the errors which so much prevail elsewhere.
“I
will only add one argument to press this, viz.: It is to be feared if such an
expedient be neglected (now I hope it is in our power), ere many years pass over
our heads, those, who now discern not the necessity thereof, may see it when it
will be too late; when perhaps the number of truth’s friends may be too few to
carry such a point in the Synod. Thus, brethren, I have offered to your consideration
some serious thoughts, in a coarse dress. May it please the Master of assemblies
to preside among us, and direct and influence us in all things, for his glory,
and the edification of his church. So prays your unworthy fellow labourer in
Christ’s vineyard.”
The
wisdom of this proposal to adopt the Westminster Confession has received the
sanction of the church for more than a hundred years, during which time the
only modifications which the adopting act has received, were intended to render
it more explicit and more binding. It is, therefore, a matter of surprise, that,
at first, it should have met with so much opposition, and that this opposition
should have come from the source it did. Mr. Andrews, in a letter dated April
1729, six months before the adopting act was passed, says, “I think all the
Scotch are on one side, and all the English and Welsh on the other, to a man.”3
This he gives as his impression, and it no doubt, in general, correctly
indicates the dividing line between the friends and opposers of the measure. The
expression, however, is certainly too strong. It is hardly possible that the
English and Welsh members of the Presbytery of New Castle, who had been for
several years in the habit of requiring the adoption of the confession by
their candidates, should have opposed the Synod’s doing the same thing.
Besides, when dissatisfaction was manifested on account of some expressions in
the adopting act, these members were among the first to render them more
explicit.
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3
As this letter of Mr. Andrews to Dr. Colman of Boston, dated Philadelphia,
April 7, 1729, is instructive and interesting, it is here inserted, as far as it
is preserved in Mr. Hazard’s MSS.
“As to affairs
here, we are engaged in the enlargement of our house, and by the assistance we
had from Boston, I hope we shall go on comfortably with that work. The
stone‑work at the foundation is laid, and all the materials are getting
ready. We are now likely to fall into a great difference about subscribing the
Westminster Confession of Faith. An overture for it, drawn up by Mr. Thompson of
Lewestown, was offered to our Synod the year before last, but not then read in
the Synod. Measures were taken to stave it off, and I was in hopes we should
have heard no more of it. But last Synod it was brought again, recommended by
all the Scotch and Irish members present, and being read among us, a proposal
was made, prosecuted, and agreed to, that it should be deferred till our next
meeting, for further consideration. The proposal is, that all ministers and
intrants should sign it, or else be disowned as members. Now what shall we do?
They will certainly carry it by numbers; our countrymen say they are willing to
join in a vote to make it the confession of our church, but to agree to making
it a test of orthodoxy, and term of ministerial communion, they will not. I
think all the Scotch are on one side, and all the English and Welsh on the other
to a man. Nevertheless I am not so determined as to be uncapable to receive
advice, and I give you this account, that I may have your judgment as to what I
had best do in the matter. Supposing I do believe it, shall I, on the terms
above mentioned, subscribe or not? I earnestly desire you by the first
opportunity to send me your opinion. Our brethren have got the overture with a
preface to it printed, and I intend to send you one for the better regulation of
your thoughts about it. Some say the design of this motion is to spew out our
countrymen, they being scarcely able to hold way with the other brethren in all
their disciplinary and legislative notions. What truth there may be in this I
know not. Some deny it, whereas others say there is something in it. I am
satisfied some of us are an uneasiness to them, and are thought to be too much
in their way sometimes, so that I think it would be no trouble to lose some of
us. Yet I can’t think this to be the thing ultimately designed, whatever
smaller glances there may be at it. I have no thought that they have any design
against me in particular; I have no reason for it. This business lies heavy on
my mind, and I desire that we may be directed in it, that we may not bring a
scandal on our profession. Though I have been sometimes the instrument of
keeping them together, when they were like to fall to pieces, I have little hope
of doing so now. If it were not for the scandal of a division, I should not be
much against it, for the different countrymen seem to be most delighted with
each other, and to do best when they are by themselves. My congregation being
made up of divers nations of different sentiments, this brings me under greater
difficulty in this contested business than any other minister of our number. I
am afraid of the event. However, I will endeavour to do, as near as I can,
what I understand to be duty, and leave the issue to Providence.
“P.S.: Ten
days ago was buried Mr. Malachi Jones, an old Welsh minister. He was a good
man, and did good. He lived about eleven miles from this town.”
______________________________________________________________
It
is obvious from the nature of these objections, that President Dickinson
belonged to that small class of persons who are opposed to all creeds of human
composition. The sense of the Christian world on this point is against him, and
it is not known that there is a single advocate of these views in the
Presbyterian Church at the present time. How many of the members of the Synod
agreed with him in these opinions, cannot now be ascertained. It is evident
that his objections had not a very firm hold even of his own mind, for he joined
in the adoption and imposition of the Westminster Confession the very year
these remarks were published. It matters not with what latitude he either
received it himself or imposed it upon others. His objection was not to a long
creed, or to a short one, but to any creed of human composition, and such is the
Westminster Confession in all its parts, essential and nonessential.
When
this subject was taken up by the Synod in 1729, Mr. Thompson’s overture was
referred to a committee, who brought in a report “which, after long debate
upon it, was agreed to in haec verba:
“Although
the Synod do not claim or pretend to any authority of imposing our faith upon
other men’s consciences, but do profess our just dissatisfaction with, and
abhorrence of, such impositions, and do utterly disclaim all legislative power
and authority in the church, being willing to receive one another as Christ has
received us to the glory of God, and to admit to fellowship in sacred ordinances
all such as we have grounds to believe Christ will at last admit to the kingdom
of heaven; yet we are undoubtedly obliged to take care that the faith once
delivered to the saints, be kept pure and uncorrupt among us, and so handed down
to our posterity; and do therefore agree that all the ministers of this Synod,
or that shall hereafter be admitted into this Synod, shall declare their
agreement in and approbation of the Confession of Faith, with the Larger and
Shorter Catechisms of the Assembly of Divines at Westminster, as being, in all
the essential and necessary articles, good forms of sound words and systems of
Christian doctrine; and do also adopt the said Confession and Catechisms as the
Confession of our faith. And we do also agree, that all Presbyteries within our
bounds shall take care not to admit any candidate for the ministry into the
exercise of the sacred function, but what declares his agreement in opinion with
all the essential and necessary articles of said Confession, either by
subscribing the said Confession of Faith and Catechisms, or by a verbal
declaration of his assent thereto, as such candidate or minister shall think
best. And in case any minister of this Synod, or any candidate for the ministry,
shall have any scruple with respect to any article or articles of said
Confession or Catechisms, he shall, at the time of his making the said
declaration, declare his sentiments to the Presbytery or Synod; who shall,
notwithstanding, admit him to the exercise of the ministry within our bounds,
and to ministerial communion, if the Synod or Presbytery shall judge his scruple
or mistake to be only about articles not essential and necessary in doctrine,
worship, or government. But if the Synod or Presbytery shall judge such minister
or candidate erroneous in essential or necessary articles of faith, the Synod or
Presbytery shall declare them incapable of communion with them. And the Synod
solemnly agree, that none of us will traduce or use any opprobrious terms of
those that differ from us in these extra-essentials, and not necessary
points of doctrine, but treat them with the same friendship, kindness, and
brotherly love, as if they had not differed from us in such sentiments.”
The
adopting act itself had reference only to the Confession of Faith and
Catechisms; the same year, however, “a motion being made to know the Synod’s
judgment about the Directory, they gave their sense of that matter in the
following words, viz.: The Synod do unanimously acknowledge and declare that
they judge the Directory for worship, discipline, and government, commonly
annexed to the Westminster Confession, to be agreeable in substance to the
word of God, and founded thereupon, and therefore, do earnestly recommend the
same to all their members, to be by them observed, as near as circumstances will
allow, and Christian prudence direct.” The “substance” of the Directory is
of course its Presbyterianism. What is not substantial about it, is its numerous
directions, having reference in many cases either to unimportant, or to local
and temporary circumstances. A stricter adoption of the Westminster Directory in
this country was impossible. It contemplated a very different state of things
from that which then existed, or which now exists among us. It directs, for
example, that the ministers of London should ordain ministers for the whole
country, until Presbyteries were regularly established, that prayer be made for
the queen of Bohemia (sister of Charles I, a great friend of the Protestants,
and therefore a great favorite with the Puritans) that the candidates for the
ministry, before being taken upon trial, should satisfy the Presbytery as to
what degrees they had taken in the University, &c., &c.
Though
the main subject now under consideration is the standard of doctrine adopted
by our church, reference is here made to the Directory for two reasons. First,
it has a natural connection with the adopting act, the one relating to the
doctrines, the other to the order of the church. Secondly, it is generally
united with the Confession of Faith in those declarations of the Synod to which
reference must presently be made.
It
will be observed that the Synod, in their preamble, “utterly disclaim all
legislative power in the church.” It need hardly be remarked that this must be
understood in a manner consistent with the passage of this act. It is not to be
presumed that the Synod, in the preamble to a law, would disclaim all authority
to make it. By legislative power in the church, was then understood the power to
legislate about truth and duty, to make laws to bind the conscience. The
disclaimer of such power is perfectly consistent with the assertion and the
exercise of the right to make rules for the government of the church. To make
the language above quoted include the denial of this latter right, reduces the
act to so glaring an absurdity, that no set of rational men could have enacted
it. There is not, in all the records of our church, a more striking example of
a standing rule, or law, than this act. It was binding on all the members
present or absent; it required of them the adoption of the Confession of Faith,
in the manner prescribed, as a term of communion; it bound all the Presbyteries,
prescribing a rule by which they were to regulate themselves in all their future
licensures, ordinations, and admission of members. Its validity as a law of the
church, though proceeding from the sole authority of the Synod, has never been
questioned from that day to this. How can it then be made a matter of doubt,
whether, according to our system, Synods have a right to make such rules? This
act was passed unanimously, from which two things may be certainly
inferred—the one, that the disclaimer of all legislative power was not
understood by the Scotch members as a denial of the right of Synod to make rules
for the government of the church; the other, that the New England members must
have acknowledged this latter right, or they would not have joined in exercising
it. That the expression “legislative power” was always used in the sense of
a power to make new laws in matters of faith or morals, is further evident from
the fact that all the old-side writers at the time of the schism uniformly
disclaim “all legislative power in the church,” though they insisted so
strenuously
upon the binding character of the acts of Synod.4 The more extended
examination of the opinions of the two parties then in the church, in reference
to this subject, belongs, however, to the next period of our history.
____________________________________________________________
4
This restricted use of the phrase in question has not been retained by
ecclesiastical writers. Dr. Hill, in his Institutes, constantly speaks of
the judicial, executive, and legislative powers of the General Assembly of the
Church of Scotland. And the power to make rules, or binding enactments, is
certainly, in the ordinary sense of the words, a legislative power. The
restriction in the nature of the objects with regard to which it can be
legitimately exercised, is not expressed by the word legislative, because
a rule binding on a community and enforced by certain sanctions is law, whether
it relates to matter of duty or of government. Whatever it may be called, the
power to make rules which members and inferior judicatories were bound to obey,
was not denied by either party, and was exercised without hesitation by the one
as well as by the other.
_____________________________________________________________
What
then is the meaning of this act? Did the Synod intend by the words “essential
and necessary articles,” articles essential to Christianity? Or articles, in
their estimation, essential to the system of doctrines contained in the
Westminster Confession? If the former, they intended that every man, otherwise
qualified, who held the fundamental doctrines of the gospel, might be admitted
to the ministry in our church. If the latter, they intended that no man who was
not a Calvinist should be thus admitted. Apart from the language of the act
itself, there are three sources of proof as to what was the intention of its
authors—the history of the act, the subsequent declarations of the Synod as to
their own meaning, and the testimony of cotemporary writers.
It
must be admitted that the language of the act leaves the intention of its
authors a matter of doubt. When they say that they adopt the Westminster
Confession of Faith and Catechisms as the confession of their faith, their
language admits of but one interpretation. This was the very form in which the
subscription was made in the strict Presbytery of New Castle. To make this mean
that they adopted only so much of the Confession as is essential to the gospel,
would be to suppose a use of language such as never before was made, at least by
honest men. If a man says he adopts the thirty-nine articles of the church
of England as the articles of his faith, is he ever understood to mean that he
adopts those portions of them merely which are essential to the gospel? Or, if
another says he adopts the Decrees of the Council of Trent, can he honestly mean
that he adopts so much as is not inconsistent with the Augsburg Confession? Such
a use of language would be inconsistent with the least confidence in the
intercourse of life. It is not the meaning of the terms, and cannot honestly be
made their meaning. Again, when the Synod say that every candidate must declare
“his agreement in opinion with all the essential and necessary articles of the
said confession,” there is but one meaning that can be fairly put upon their
language. The essential parts of a confession are those parts which are
essential to its peculiar character. No man receives all the essential articles
of a popish creed, who receives no more than is consistent with Protestantism.
All such subscriptions are mockery and falsehood. If the Synod intended by the
essential articles of the Confession, the essential articles of the gospel, why
mention the Confession at all? The Presbyteries, surely, could pick out the
necessary doctrines of the gospel from the Bible, as easily as from the
Confession. The interpretation, therefore, which would make the Synod mean by
the expressions just quoted, that they adopted, and required others to adopt,
those articles merely of the Confession which are essential to the gospel, is
inconsistent with all just and honest use of language. Thus far then this act
admits of but one interpretation consistent with candor and fair dealing on the
part of its authors.
What
follows is more ambiguous. It is said that a candidate, at the time of his
adopting the Confession, may state his scruples with regard to any article or
articles, and that the Presbytery shall, notwithstanding, admit him if they
judge that his scruples relate to “articles not essential and necessary in
doctrine, worship, or government.” Articles not essential in doctrine might
well, in any other context, be understood to mean articles not essential to the
gospel. But as the worship here spoken of is the Presbyterian mode of worship,
and the government intended is Presbyterian government, so the doctrine referred
to is the doctrine of the Presbyterian Church. It was not the intention of the
Synod to exclude those only who denied every form of church government, but
those also who rejected any essential feature of Presbyterianism. In like
manner, they intended to reject all who denied any essential feature of the
system of doctrine which they had adopted. It is not intended that this is the
necessary meaning of the words, taken by themselves. But it is a natural
interpretation, expressing a sense which the words will readily admit. And if it
is the only interpretation which will save the act from the charge of direct
contradiction, it must be assumed to be the true one. In the preceding clauses
the Synod had declared that they adopted the Westminster Confession as the
confession of their faith, and that every new member must, in like manner, adopt
it, in all its essential and necessary articles. Did they then immediately
declare that he might reject these articles, no matter how essential a part of
the Confession they might be, provided they were not absolutely necessary to
Christianity? If the sense of the former clauses is clear, it must determine the
interpretation of the latter.
No
impartial judge could hesitate to decide that this was the real meaning of the
Synod, who took into view the history of the act and the character of the men
who adopted it. It has already been shown that the act was introduced to guard
against Arminianism, as well as Socinianism. This was its design. Its
language, therefore, must be interpreted in reference to this design, especially
as it is known that those who had this object in view were perfectly satisfied
with it. Is it to be believed that Mr. Thompson, who had specified the doctrine
of election as one which he would not venture to call fundamental, yet as one
the denial of which ought not to be allowed, would have been contented with the
act, had it made provision for the admission of ministers who not only denied
that doctrine, but any and all others not absolutely essential to the gospel?
Such an interpretation of the act would place its authors in a most
extraordinary light. It must be remembered that the advocates of Mr.
Thompson’s overture were not thwarted; they were not voted down by their more
liberal brethren, and forced to submit to a measure to which they were opposed.
On the contrary, they had the power in their own hands. Mr. Andrews says he
had no doubt of their ability to carry just what they wished. Yet they were
satisfied with this act, and joined in praising God when it was passed. It
must, therefore, be understood in a manner consistent with the avowed object of
its introduction.
It
is very evident, indeed, that the act was a compromise. Both parties were very
desirous to avoid a schism, yet both were anxious that their own views should
prevail. Their only expedient was to find some common ground on which they could
stand. Mr. Dickinson had avowed his wish to establish the “essential and
necessary
doctrines of Christianity” as the condition of ministerial communion. Mr.
Thompson wished the explicit adoption of the Westminster Confession to be that
condition. The common ground on which they met was the essential and necessary
articles of that Confession. To make this mean exactly what Mr. Dickinson had
proposed, is to present Mr. Thompson in a ridiculous position, and President
Dickinson in one still less to be envied. When the Synod came to explain what
they meant by the necessary articles of the Confession, they made them include
so much that Mr. Thompson had nothing to wish for.
This
is one hypothesis for accounting for the acknowledged ambiguity of this act,
and supposes that both parties understood it in the same way. Another, and
perhaps more probable one, is that in the mutual anxiety to have the act express
their peculiar views, they at last got it into a shape in which each could adopt
it, as being substantially what each desired. However this may be, it is
perfectly clear, from subsequent events, that the Synod as such never intended
the act to fix as the condition of ministerial communion, the acknowledgment
of the necessary doctrines of Christianity, whatever may have been the wishes
of some few of its members.5
5
How far President Dickinson adhered to the views expressed in his objections
to Mr. Thompson’s overture, is a matter of doubt. There is a pamphlet extant,
published in 1735, entitled “Remarks on a Letter to a friend in the country,
containing the substance of a sermon preached in Philadelphia in the
congregation of the Rev. Mr. Hemphill,” ascribed, no doubt correctly, to
President
Dickinson. In this pamphlet he says Christian communion “should extend to all
that we charitably suppose to be real Christians.” “And as to ministerial
communion, we should admit all to the exercise of the ministry among us that we
suppose qualified for the work, according to the instructions which Christ has
given us in the gospel, and capable of doing service in the Church of Christ in
that important character, how different soever in opinion from us.” This
differs materially from what he had said in his remarks on Mr. Thompson’s
overture. There he demanded nothing more than agreement in the essential and
necessary articles of Christianity. Here, this is what in so many words he makes
necessary for Christian communion, saying, “We can’t admit those to
communion in sealing ordinances, whose errors we suppose inconsistent with the
grace and favour of God.” From this he expressly distinguishes ministerial
communion, demanding for that all that was necessary, in our judgment, to
qualify a man for the sacred office. “To admit others,” he says, “were
deliberately to send poison into Christ’s household, instead of the portion of
meat which he has provided.” Mr. Thompson could have said all this, though he
would doubtless have applied it very differently.
On
another page the writer says, “If a man be, in the society’s opinion, qualified
for the work of the ministry, and like to serve the interests of Christ’s
kingdom, they can with a good conscience admit him to the exercise of the
ministry with them, notwithstanding lesser differences of opinion in
extra‑essential points. But then on the other hand, if he embrace such
errors, as in the judgment of the society, unqualify him for a faithful
discharge of that important trust, they cannot admit him to the cure of souls,
without unfaithfulness to God and their own consciences.” Such is the view of
this subject given in this pamphlet, which, in the copy which belonged to the
late Dr. Wilson, is stated to be from the pen of President Dickinson. That the
writer considered his own views, as here given, to be in accordance with those
expressed in the adopting act, is evident from his giving that act as an
appendix, “to convince the reader,” as he says, “that we govern ourselves
according to the principles here asserted and pleaded for.”
_________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________
6
This was the Rev. Mr. Elmer, who subsequently acceded.
______________________________________________________________
This
explanation, explicit as it is, did not put an end to the dissatisfaction.
This, no doubt, arose from the fact that the original act continued to circulate
unaccompanied by either the preceding explanation, or the minute of the
afternoon session of September 19, 1729. New complaints were, therefore, made to
the Synod, and a new demand for a public avowal of their meaning. This led, in
1736, to a declaration which seems, at least for the time, to have produced
general satisfaction. In the minutes for that year it is recorded that “an
overture of the committee, upon the supplication of the people of Paxton and
Derry, was brought in and is as followeth: That the Synod do declare that
inasmuch as we understand that many persons of our persuasion, both more
lately and formerly, have been offended with some expressions or distinctions in
the first or preliminary act of our Synod for adopting the Westminster
Confession and Catechisms, &c.; that in order to remove said offence and all
jealousies that have arisen or may arise in any of our people’s minds on
occasion of said distinctions and expressions, the Synod doth declare that the
Synod have adopted and still do adhere to the Westminster Confession,
Catechisms, and Directory, without the least variation or alteration, and
without any regard to said distinctions. And we do further declare this was our
meaning and true intent in our first adopting of the said Confession, as may
particularly appear by our adopting act, which is as followeth: “All the
ministers of the Synod now present [which were eighteen in number], except one
who declared himself not prepared, after proposing all the scruples that any of
them had to make against any articles and expressions in the Confession of Faith
and Larger and Shorter Catechisms of the Assembly of Divines at Westminster,
have unanimously agreed in the solution of those scruples, and in declaring the
said Confession and Catechisms to be the confession of their faith, except only
some clauses in the twentieth and twenty-third chapters, concerning which
clauses the Synod do unanimously declare that they do not receive those articles
in any such sense as to suppose the civil magistrate hath a controlling power
over Synods with respect to the exercise of their ministerial authority, or
power to persecute any for their religion, or in any sense contrary to the
Protestant succession to the throne of Great Britain. And we do hope and desire,
that this our Synodical declaration and explanation may satisfy all our people
as to our firm attachment to our good old received doctrines contained in the
said Confession, without the least variation or alteration, and that they will
lay aside their jealousies, that have been entertained through occasion of the
above hinted expressions and declarations as groundless. This overture approved nemine
contradicente.”7
7
Minutes, Vol. II, p. 47. The ministers present at this meeting of Synod were
Messrs. Thomas Creaghead, J. Andrews, J. Thompson, J. Anderson, Richard Treat,
J. Houston, Robert Cathcart, A. Boyd, Robert Cross, Robert Jamison, Ebenezer
Gould, H. Stevenson, H. Carlisle, James Martin, William Bertram, Alexander
Creaghead, John Paul, William Tennent, Sen., William Tennent, Jun., and David
Evans. If to these be added those members who, though absent this year, were
present when the explanatory declaration of 1730 was passed, viz.: Messrs. John
Pierson, Samuel Gelston, Gilbert Tennent, Alexander Hucheson, Joseph Morgan,
Daniel Elmer, Thomas Evans, and Ebenezer Pemberton, we shall have a formidable
list of witnesses as to what was the true meaning and intent of the adopting
act. We have the solemn official declaration of all these gentlemen as to the
manner in which they understood their own acts and declarations. A man must have
a good deal of courage who would contradict all these men, when the matter in
debate is what they themselves intended. Of those members of the Synod who were
absent, both in 1730 and 1736, Messrs. Dickinson, Gillespie, Conn, Bradner, and
Wilson had united in adopting all the articles and expressions in the Confession
except the specified clauses. Of the few remaining members, the names of H. Hook
and William Steward are subscribed to the strict and thorough formula of subscription adopted by
the Presbytery of New Castle in 1730. The other absentees were Messrs. Pumry, Webb, Hubbell, Morton, John
Cross, Chalker, Blair, Wales, Glasgow,
and Nutman; the record of
their adoption of the Westminster Confession, &c. as the
confession of their faith is almost in every case found on the minutes of
Synod. That body, therefore, cannot sustain its claims to any extraordinary
liberality as
it regards points of doctrine. It
evidently belonged to the “most straitest sect of our religion.”
_______________________________________________________________
There
is no inconsistency between this declaration and those of 1729. This is, indeed,
in some respects more explicit, but it is not more comprehensive. The Synod
adopted no more of the Confession in 1736 than they did in 1729. It is to be
remarked that they call the overture adopted on the morning of September 19, the
preliminary act about adopting the Confession of Faith, and the minute of the
afternoon of that day, their adopting act itself. In the former they determined
that all their members shall declare first, their “agreement with the
Confession, &c., in all the essential and necessary articles”; and
secondly, that they “adopt the said Confession and Catechisms as the
confession of their faith.” When they came to carry this resolution into
effect, they did actually adopt the whole of the Confession and Catechisms,
“excepting only” the specified clauses in chapters twentieth and
twenty-third. The act of 1736 does the same and no more. The preliminary
act merely declared the purpose of the Synod to exact the adoption of the
Confession in all its essential and necessary articles, the Synod not then
knowing what exceptions they might choose to make; but subsequently they made no
exception beyond what has just been stated. This, however, was not generally
known to the churches, and hence the anxiety to ascertain what the Synod
received and what they rejected. To satisfy this anxiety, the Synod tell the
churches what they had done, that they had adopted the whole of the Confession,
rejecting no part of it, but simply repudiating a certain specified
interpretation of a few clauses. As far as our doctrinal standards, therefore,
are concerned, this declaration of 1736 is nothing more than an announcement and
repetition in full of what the Synod had done in 1729, by piecemeal, partly in
the morning and partly in the afternoon.8
8
Dr. Hill (Great Schism,
No. 4) says, in reference to this declaration, “A more fumbling ex parte statement can hardly any where be met with. They [viz.: the adopting act and this
declaration] are absolutely irreconcilable and contradictory to each other.”
But why ex parte? It was made by the
whole Synod, without one dissenting voice; it contains nothing, as far as the
Confession is concerned, that is not implied in the explanatory declaration of
1730. And as to this minute contradicting the adopting act, it merely
contradicts
Dr. Hill’s interpretation of that act. It is certainly more probable that Dr.
Hill should be mistaken, than that all these gentlemen should be guilty of
direct and intentional falsehood, declaring that they meant one thing, when they
really meant another; especially as they appeal to the records in proof of the
correctness of their assertions.
_____________________________________________________________
It
has been asserted that the ground of the dissatisfaction with the act of 1729
was the exception taken to the clauses respecting the power of the civil
magistrate, and that the Synod was at last forced to restore those articles, and
withdraw their objection. Neither of these assertions is correct. The
dissatisfaction arose from the “printed paper” which contained merely the
preliminary act, which says not one word about the clauses in question. The
whole difficulty arose from the distinction between essential and unessential
articles, which the people did not understand, or did not know how much was
rejected as unessential. Accordingly this declaration is directed solely to that
point. That the objection to the clauses in chapters twentieth and
twenty-third were not withdrawn, is clear from the repetition of the
minute which contains those objections, and which is here repeated to remove the
dissatisfaction—a very clear proof that the difficulty did not relate to
that point, and that the Synod had nothing to retract.
As
these are official documents, emanating from the same authority as the
adopting act itself, and expressly designed to declare its meaning, they must be
regarded as decisive, and the question as to the true intention of that act
might here be dismissed. Could it even be shown that individuals, or particular
judicatories, took a different view of the subject, it would prove nothing, in
opposition to the unanimous and repeated declarations of the Synod. Still as
this is a subject of great historical interest to the members of our Church, it
may not be amiss to gather what additional light we can from the records of the
several Presbyteries, and the writings of contemporaries. How the Presbytery of
New Castle regarded this matter may be inferred from the two following extracts
from their minutes. The first is dated September 2, 1730, and is as follows:
“Whereas divers persons, belonging to several of our congregations, have
been stumbled and offended with a certain minute of the proceedings of our last
Synod, contained in a printed letter, because of some ambiguous words or
expressions contained therein, being willing to remove, as far as in us lies,
all causes and occasions of jealousies and offences in relation to that
affair, and openly before God and the world to testify that we all with one
accord firmly adhere to the same sound doctrine, which we and our fathers were
trained up in; we, the ministers of the Presbytery of New Castle, whose names
are underwritten, do, by this our act of subscribing our names to these
presents, solemnly declare and testify, that we own and acknowledge the
Westminster Confession and Catechisms to be the confession of our faith, being
in all things agreeable to the word of God, so far as we are able to judge and
discern, taking them in the true, genuine, and obvious sense of the words.
Signed, Adam Boyd, Joseph Houston, H. Hook, Hugh Stevenson, James Anderson,
William Steward, Thomas Creaghead, George Gillespie, John Thompson, Samuel
Gelston, Thomas Evans, Alexander Hucheson.”9
9
Dr. Hill, after giving the above document with the names, says, “These were
all foreigners from Scotland or Ireland, who, with their forefathers, had been
trained up in swallowing the whole Confession, without change or diminution,
in all its extent, embracing what is said respecting the power of the civil
magistrate, contained in the twentieth and twenty-third chapters, &c.,
as agreeable in all things to the word of God. Although the Synod has made
exception here, yet they would go the whole.” (Great Schism, No. 4.)
This is one of the many cases in which the venerable Dr.’s zeal has proved too
strong for his discretion. These gentlemen were not “all foreigners from
Scotland or Ireland.” A good many of them were foreigners from New England and
Wales. Of Mr. Boyd, for example, it is said on the minutes, p. 84: “The
testimonials of Mr. Adam Boyd, lately come from New England, were read and
approved,” And of Mr. Houston, on the same page it is said, “Mr. Joseph
Houston, who lately came from New England, his license, together with his other
testimonials, were read and approved.” Of Mr. Thomas Evans it is said,
“Having showed to this Presbytery satisfying credentials from the Presbytery
of Carmarthenshire in South Wales,” &c. p. 24. Mr. Samuel Gelston was
received by the Presbytery of Philadelphia, as early as 1715 or 1716, from Long
Island, where he first settled as pastor of the church at South Hampton. Of Mr.
Thomas Creaghead it is said, in the minutes of the Presbytery of New Castle,
p. 77: “This day several papers were produced by the Rev. Thomas Creaghead,
who lately came from New England,” &c. This form of expression is commonly
used to indicate the origin of the members, as on p. 162, it is said of Mr.
Wilson that he was late from Ireland. Still it is probable from his name, that
Mr. Creaghead was of Irish origin. With regard to Mr. Boyd, there is another
record, showing what kind of Puritans, at times, entered our Church in its early
clays. On p. 128, it is stated that “Mr. Boyd proposed an overture to the
Presbytery
that one of their members should be appointed to compose a short treatise on the
divine right of Presbyterian church government.” This overture was, at the
next meeting, referred to the Synod, where the Scotch and Irish members let it
sleep. Mr. Boyd’s name also appears along with those of Robert Cross and John
Thompson, attached to the protest against the New Brunswick Presbytery in
1741.
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The
second record in the minutes of the Presbytery of New Castle relating to this
subject occurs under the date of December 30, 1730, and is to the following
effect: “A representation of some scrupling our way of adopting the Confession
of Faith; upon which the Presbytery produced both the minutes of the Synod and
Presbytery relating thereto, which seemed to give full satisfaction to the
representers.” There is no record on the minutes of the Synod relating to this
subject, except the adopting act itself, the account of the manner in which the
members then present received the Confession, and the explanatory declaration of
September 1730, interpreting the clauses relating to new members. If, therefore,
“the representers” were fully satisfied with the Synod, they must have been
satisfied with the above declarations, which leave the exceptions taken to the
twentieth and twenty-third chapters in full force. This proves two
things—first, that those exceptions were not the ground of dissatisfaction,
and secondly, that these persons must have understood the Synod’s declarations
in the manner in which they are represented above.
The
minutes of the Presbytery of Philadelphia from 1717 to 1733 are lost. No
information, therefore, relating to this subject can be gathered from the
records still extant, except what may be inferred from the manner in which that
Presbytery admitted new members. For example, it is said, Mr. Samuel Blair,
“having given his assent to the Westminster Confession of Faith and Catechisms
as the confession of his faith, was licensed to preach the gospel.” (p. 2.)
Charles Tennent “adopted the Westminster Confession of Faith and Catechisms,
according to order of Synod.” (p. 19.) David Cowell was ordained “after he
had adopted the Westminster Confession of Faith and Catechisms as the confession
of his faith.”10 (p. 28.) Mr. McHenry was ordained, “adopting the
Confession of Faith, &c., according to the order of Synod.” (p. 35.)
Samuel Evans “adopted the Westminster Confession of Faith, Catechisms, and
Directory, according to the adopting act of Synod.” (p. 97.) All these
different forms are used as equivalent; the candidate adopted the Confession as
the confession of his faith, according to the order of Synod, and according to
the adopting act of Synod. The first is the most common, and the others merely
state that the thing was done in obedience to the order, or the act, of the
superior judicatory.
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10 The ordination of Mr. Cowell, was by a committee
consisting of Messrs. Andrews, D. Evans, Wales, and Treat, with Messrs.
Dickinson, Pierson, and Morgan, correspondents. It is believed that not one of
these gentlemen was either Scotch or Irish, unless it was Mr. Treat, and yet we
find them employing the strict and comprehensive mode of adopting the Confession
stated in the text.
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11
Dr. Hill, after quoting the above formula, adds, “ these are bold strides for
new comers and a new Presbytery, and not very courteous and respectful to the
Synod, the supreme judicatory of that day.” The members of this Presbytery
were Mr. Anderson, received as a member of Synod in 1710; Mr. John Thompson
received in 1711; Mr. Robert Orr received in lilt; Mr. Adam Boyd received in
1724, and Mr. William Bertram received in 1732. So that the last named was the
only “ new comer” in the Presbytery; the first three were among the oldest
members of the Synod; and Mr. Boyd had been a member eight years. The Doctor
proceeds: “the synod had, in their Qualified manner, adopted the Confession of
Faith and Catechisms of the Westminster Assembly, but had said nothing about the
Directory, and Form of Government; and Discipline.” This is a mistake, as the
Synod in 1729 said very nearly the same of the Directory drat this Presbytery
say, of it. “But now these new comers, as Andrews calls them (Mr. Andrews does
not say a word about this Presbytery), and this newly-formed Presbytery,
go the whole length of adopting the form of government and discipline of the kirk of Scotland, in
which they had been trained up in toto. They even surpass what the Near Castle
Presbytery had done. We see from this that bigoted reformers are bold fellows,
they do not stick at trifles, &c.” If the reader agrees with Dr. hill, and
we see not how he can help it, that the above declaration about the Directory
is equivalent to adopting “the form of government and discipline of the kirk
of Scotland in toto,” he must admit that the Synod adopted that form in 1729
if never before; and that it was adopted by the new-side Synod as completely as
by the old-side one. The proof of this will follow within a few pages.
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The
records of the original Presbytery of Long Island have, it is understood,
perished. Those now in existence commence with the reorganization of that
Presbytery in 1747. It is believed also that the early minutes of the Presbytery
of East Jersey are lost; at least the writer has not been able to hear of them
or to gain access to them. All, therefore, that can be known of the views and
practice of those bodies in reference to this subject must be gathered from the
records of the Synod. It has already been stated that Messrs. Dickinson,
Pierson, and Bradner adopted the whole of the Confession, except the
often specified clauses in 1729, and that Messrs. Pierson and Pemberton
were present in 1730, when the Synod enacted that all new members should be
required to adopt the Confession as strictly as they themselves had done. These
Presbyteries, as well as the others, were in the habit of reporting their new
members to the Synod and stating that they had adopted the Confession. Thus, in
1735, it is reported that Isaac Chalker, Simon Morton, and Samuel Blair,
ordained by the Presbytery of East Jersey, had adopted the Westminster
Confession of Faith, Catechisms, &c., according to the adopting act of
Synod. And in 1738, the Presbytery of New York, as the united Presbyteries of
Long Island and East Jersey were then called, reported that Aaron Burr and
Walter Wilmot were ordained, and adopted the Westminster Confession, &c.,
according to the order of this Synod. The form in which these reports are made
is the same in all the Presbyteries; the new members of Donegal and New Castle
and East Jersey are often included in the same minute, and the statement of
their assent to the Confession is made in the same terms. Thus it appears that
as the Synod was unanimous in their declarations in relation to this subject, so
the Presbyteries were in the practical interpretation which they gave to those
declarations. As far as the writer is aware, there is not the slightest evidence
that any of the Presbyteries ever admitted, during the period under review, any
minister who dissented from any of the doctrinal articles of the Confession of
Faith.
Besides
this documentary evidence of an official character, as to the original design
and import of the adopting act, there is the testimony of cotemporary writers
which remains to be considered. This, though of far inferior authority, is still
not without interest and importance. A passage has already been quoted from Mr.
Thompson’s Reflections, in which he expresses his gratitude to God for
the passage of that act in such a manner as shows his entire satisfaction with
it. Yet such were the known opinions of the man, in relation to the subject, and
such his avowed design in proposing the measure, that it is perfectly
incredible that he should have been satisfied with the act in question, unless
it was intended in the way in which the Synod subsequently explained it. The
testimony of the Rev. Samuel Blair, however, is much more full and explicit.
Soon after the schism in 1741, the Rev. Alexander Creaghead, one of the ejected
members, renounced the Presbyterian Church, and published his reasons for so
doing. These reasons were reviewed and answered by Mr. Blair. Mr.
Creaghead’s first reason for his secession was that the Westminster Confession
of Faith had never been adopted “in this province, either presbyterially or
synodically as the confession of our faith in every article thereof, even to
speak of no more at present but of the thirty-three articles therein
contained.” “By every article of the Confession of Faith,” says Mr. Blair,
“he means every chapter of it, and therefore calls the thirty-three
chapters the thirty-three articles; whereas every chapter almost, contains
several articles, all relating to some one general head. Now, whether Mr.
Creaghead could suppose so or not, that neither Synod or Presbytery in this
province did ever receive the Westminster Confession of Faith in every chapter
of it, the thing itself is manifestly false in fact both ways. There never was
any scruple, that ever I heard of, made by any member of the Synod about any
part of the Confession of Faith, but only about some particular clauses in the
twentieth and twentythird chapters, and those clauses were excepted against
in the Synod’s act receiving the Confession of Faith, only in such a sense,
which, for my part, I believe the reverend composers never intended in them, but
which might notwithstanding be readily put upon them. Mr. Creaghead, to prove
what he supposes, dwells much on what is called the Synod’s preliminary act
about the Confession of Faith made in 1729. But let that act be thought as
insufficient as it can possibly admit, and granting that it was not sufficient
for the securing of a sound orthodox ministry; yet that is no argument but the
Confession of Faith has been sufficiently received by other acts. And so in fact
it has been, by the Synod’s act for the purpose, I think in the year 1730
[1729], wherein the Synod declares, “all the ministers of the Synod now
present, &c., &c.” “Here you see,” continues Mr. Blair, “the
Synod have received the whole of the Westminster Confession of Faith and
Catechisms as the confession of their faith, save only some clauses in the
twentieth and twenty-third chapters, which clauses it seems the Synod supposed
might be understood as maintaining that magistrates have a controlling power
over Synods in the exercise of their ministerial authority; a power to persecute
persons for their religion; and that the popish Pretender had a right to the
throne of Great Britain. And, now, if the declaration against receiving those
clauses in such senses as these, be a good objection against the Synod, let any
sober Protestant, especially Presbyterian, judge.” This power of the civil
magistrate, he adds, “is a great part of that unlawful supremacy and headship
over the Church, which the Presbyterian Church has always protested against, and
yet Mr. Creaghead finds fault with the Synod for this.”
Nothing
can be more explicit than this testimony, and nothing can be more
unexceptionable. Mr. Blair is not a witness whose mouth can be stopped with the
charge of heartless orthodoxy. He was one of the most zealous promoters of the
great revival, and one of Mr. Tennent’s most prominent supporters. In further
refutation of Mr. Creaghead’s unreasonable charge, Mr. Blair says,
“Moreover, in the year 1736, the Synod declare that they adopted and do still
adhere to the Westminster Confession, Catechisms, and Directory, without the
least variation or alteration, and without any regard to the distinctions in
the aforementioned preliminary act. It seems some people were jealous from the
first preliminary act (without knowing or considering that the Synod had
afterwards agreed in the solutions of all scruples which any of them had
concerning any articles or expressions in the Confession of Faith, and so
unanimously adopted and received it, in a fixed determinate manner as before
related) that the Synod were about to vary and alter the Confession and
Directory, and to set up new principles of religion and government contrary
thereto. In answer to which jealousies, the Synod declares that they adhere to
the Westminster Confession, Catechisms, and Directory, without the least
variation or alteration, which view of the case takes away all Mr. Creaghead’s
pretense for calling this declaration notoriously false. Mr. Creaghead may
readily remember, that when our two Presbyteries were met together, June 3,
1741, after the separation of the Synod, we declared and recorded that we
adhered to the Westminster Confession of Faith, Catechisms, and Directory, as
closely and as fully as ever the Synod of Philadelphia in any of their public
acts or agreements about them. He may likewise remember, that the first time our
Presbytery met by itself, after the separation, at White Clay Creek, we did
unanimously agree and declare the Westminster Confession of Faith and
Catechisms to be the confession of our faith, without any consideration of, or
relation to any former act of the Synod whatever.”
Another
of Mr. Creaghead’s reasons, says Mr. Blair, is, “‘That neither the
government nor discipline of the Church is rightly administered by us.’ And he
proceeds to give his instances of such mismanagement; and the first is, ‘that
when we were first thrust out by a part of the Synod we did not begin to
consider something of our principles and of some plan that we would adhere to in
the government of the church.’ This is really an odd story too! As if we had
our principles to seek at that time of day; as if we had to begin to consider of
them what they should be. When we were unjustly and arbitrarily thrust out by a
part of the Synod, we had no new set of principles, nor any new plan of
government then to devise. We were settled in these things long before that; we
then declared adherence still to the Westminster Confession of Faith,
Catechisms, and Directory, as before related; we declared it to be our duty in
those circumstances, as ministers and rulers in God’s house, to carry on the
government of the church, according to the rules of Presbyterian government.”
“As to the scheme and pattern laid down in the Westminster Directory for the
worship of God and the government and discipline of the church, we deny no
part of it, as may be seen at large in our late declaration.”
Another
cotemporary expounder of the adopting act is, as is supposed, the Rev. John
Blair. The Rev. Samuel Harker, having been for several years under process by
the New Brunswick Presbytery for certain Arminian opinions, was finally
suspended by the Synod of New York and Philadelphia, whereupon he published an
appeal to the Christian world. One of his grounds of complaint as to the
sentence against him was that it was “in violation of an act of Synod,
a.d.
1729,” which he calls, says the writer, “one of the
great articles of their union, and which he thought sufficiently secured the
rights of private judgment, wherein it is provided that a minister or candidate
shall be admitted, notwithstanding his scruples respecting any article or
articles the Synod shall judge not essential in doctrine, worship, and
government. But in order to improve this to his purpose, he takes the words
‘essential’ and ‘necessary’ in a sense in which it is plain the Synod
never intended they should be taken. He would have them signify what is
essential to communion with Jesus Christ, or to the being of grace in the heart;
and accordingly supposes that no error can be essential which is not of such
malignity as to exclude the advocate or maintainer of it from communion with
Jesus Christ. But the Synod say essential in doctrine, worship, or government,
i.e., essential to the system of doctrine contained in the Westminster
Confession of Faith, considered as a system, and to the mode of worship and plan
of government contained in our Directory. Now what unprejudiced man of sense is
there who will not readily acknowledge that a point may be essential to a
system of doctrine as such, to our mode of worship, and to Presbyterian
government, which is not essential to a state of grace?” “That, therefore,
is an essential error in the Synod’s sense, which is of such malignity as to
subvert or greatly injure the system of doctrine and mode of worship and
government, contained in the Westminster Confession of Faith and Directory.”
All
that has hitherto been said refers to the former of the two questions proposed
for consideration: what was the meaning of the adopting act, as originally
intended? It has been shown that it never was designed to fix the necessary
doctrines of the gospel as the term of ministerial communion. It has been shown
that this is not necessarily, nor even, when the whole document is taken
together, naturally the meaning of the words; that this interpretation is
contradicted by the mode in which the Synod themselves, in obedience to their
own resolution, adopted the Westminster Confession and Catechisms; by the
official and authoritative declaration of 1730, in which the Synod state that
it was their intention, in the aforesaid act, to require every new member to
receive the whole of the Confession, except the clauses relating to the power of
the civil magistrates in matters of religion. This interpretation is still more
explicitly contradicted by the official declaration of 1736, in which the Synod
affirm that they received the Confession, &c. without the least regard to
the distinction between essential and unessential articles, and that this was
their meaning in their own adopting act of 1729. It is contradicted also by the
action of the Presbyteries, who, in obedience to the order of the Synod, adopted
the Confession of Faith. This, in no instance upon record was done by any
Presbytery, or by any new member, in a way to limit the assent to the necessary
doctrines of the gospel. And finally, the interpretation in question is
contradicted by the explicit testimony of cotemporary writers.
