Confessional Subscription: Indigenisation without Assimilation

A personal reflection by D. D. Gebbie

We declare the Westminster Confession of Faith and Catechisms to be founded upon and agreeable to the Word of God in setting forth the system of truth taught in Holy Scripture.

The Presbyterian Reformed Church (PRC) is rooted in a confessional tradition which expresses itself in terms of the formula of subscription adopted by the Free Church of Scotland in 1846. This came from the previously Free Church congregations in South-Western Ontario which joined with the Seceder orientated Chesley church to become a congregation of the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland in 1909 and with the strong Free Presbyterian connections of the Bloor Street congregation.[1] The vow with which the uniting congregations would have been familiar prior to the 1965 Basis of Union is framed in these terms:

Do you sincerely own and believe the whole doctrine contained in the Confession of Faith, approven by former General Assemblies of this Church, to be founded upon the Word of God; and do you acknowledge the same as the confession of your faith; and will you firmly and constantly adhere thereto, and to the utmost of your power assert, maintain, and defend the same, and the purity of worship presently practiced in this Church?[2]

The vow in the PRC Basis of Union, now, asks is:

Do you receive and adopt, as subordinate standards, the Westminster Confession of Faith and Catechisms, believing them to be founded upon and agreeable to the Word of God in setting forth the system of truth taught in Holy Scripture?

This change, on the one hand, shows a move toward indigenisation in that it reflects the language of the vow which is used in many Presbyterian denominations in the United States:

Do you sincerely receive and adopt the confession of faith and catechisms of this church, as containing the system of doctrine taught in the Holy Scriptures?[3]

And that of the Presbyterian Church in Canada (PCC) in its 1875 Basis of Union:

Do you believe the Westminster Confession of Faith, as adopted by this Church in the Basis of Union, to be founded on and agreeable to the Word of God, and in your teaching do you promise faithfully to adhere thereto?[4]

Yet, on the other hand, the PRC vow has fundamental differences which create a barrier to assimilation. Finding out what confessional subscription means in the PRC involves comparing the PRC vow with the Scottish vow which went before it and the American and Canadian vows which influence its form.

The Scottish vow of 1846 was based on those coming out of the Revolution Settlement. Walter Steuart of Pardovan, writing in 1709, says that the minister officiating at an ordination is to ask the “intrant” “if he doth own, and will adhere unto the Confession of Faith, and Catechisms of this Church, and the Doctrine therein contained, as being founded on and consonant to the Holy Scriptures”.[5] Two years later, the question was changed. To be eligible for a Call, a prospective Probationer had to answer the questions:

Do you sincerely own and believe the whole doctrine of the Confession of Faith, approven by the General Assemblies of this National Church, and ratified by law in 1690, and frequently confirmed by Acts of Parliament since that time, to be the truths of God contained in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments? And do you own the whole doctrine contained therein as the confession of your faith? (Emphasis in the original)[6]

And at his ordination, the questions were:

Do you sincerely own and believe the whole doctrine contained in the Confession of Faith, approven by the General Assemblies of this Church, and ratified by law in 1690, to be founded on the Word of God; and do you acknowledge the same as the confession of your faith; and will you firmly and constantly adhere thereto, and, to the utmost of your power, assert, maintain, and defend the same, and the purity of worship, as presently practiced in this National Church, and asserted in the 15th Act of the General Assembly, 1707, intituled, Act against Innovations in the Worship of God?

Do you disown all Popish, Arian, Socinian, Arminian, Bourignian, and other doctrines, tenets, and opinions whatsoever, contrary to and inconsistent with the foresaid Confession of Faith? (Emphasis in the original)[7]

The equivalent questions in the Free Church’s 1846 Act of Assembly are:

Do you sincerely own and believe the whole doctrine of the Confession of Faith, approven by the General Assemblies of this Church, to be the truths of God, contained in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments; and do you own the whole doctrine contained therein as the confession of your faith?

Do you sincerely own and believe the whole doctrine contained in the Confession of Faith, approven by former General Assemblies of this Church, to be founded upon the Word of God; and do you acknowledge the same as the confession of your faith; and will you firmly and constantly adhere thereto, and to the utmost of your power assert, maintain, and defend the same, and the purity of worship presently practiced in this Church?

Do you disown all Popish, Arian, Socinian, Arminian, Erastian, and other doctrines, tenets, and opinions whatsoever, contrary to, and inconsistent with, the foresaid Confession of Faith?[8]

The most noticeable change in the 1846 vows is the removal of any reference to laws passed at the time of the Glorious Revolution. This is because the Free Church fathers wished to tie their approval of the Westminster Confession of Faith (WCF) to the original 1647 Act of Assembly.[9] The Acts of both General Assembly approving and the Scottish Parliament ratifying the Westminster Standards had been swept away when Charles II returned to the throne in 1660. So, when William of Orange came to the throne in 1689, the WCF had to be approved and ratified all over again. But the anti-Erastian details contained in the 1647 Act were missing. The Free Church wished to reclaim them.

The 1690 law explains the disappearance of the Catechisms. In 1711, they were removed from the questions so that the questions conformed to the Acts of Parliament. They remained out of the 1846 vows because of the different purposes ascribed to them in the 1640s. The WCF “contains the creed to which, as a confession of his own faith, every office-bearer in the Church must testify in solemn form his personal adherence”, while the Larger and Shorter Catechisms are “sanctioned as directories for catechising”.[10]

This, in turn, explains what is meant by “approven by former General Assemblies of this Church”. Robert Baillie brought a copy of Edition 2[11] of the WCF to Edinburgh in the January of 1647 and presented it to the Commission of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland.[12] Edition 2, printed in London and dated the 7th of December 1646, contains the full text of the WCF before the Scripture proofs were added. When the General Assembly met in the August of 1647[13], in its third session, it heard reports from Baillie and George Gillespie on the progress of the Westminster Assembly in furthering the desired covenanted uniformity. It also decided to erect a committee to examine the WCF. The text of the WCF was read twice publicly in the General Assembly and on three occasions (sessions 4, 15, and 19) commissioners were invited to bring any doubts about or objections to it before the committee. To aid in this work, the Assembly ordered 300 copies of the WCF to be printed (session 5). Evan Tyler printed 300 copies of Edition 3 which had the Scripture proofs and which was presumably brought to Scotland by Gillespie who came home later than Baillie. (This printing is known as Edition 4.) The WCF was adopted by the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland on the 27th of August, in session 23, when it passed the Act Approving. The Free Church restored that Act and defined its adherence to the WCF by it.

In adopting or approving the WCF, the General Assembly of 1647 carefully weighed the advice of the Westminster Divines and did not take all of it without qualification. In doing so, the Church of Scotland took the WCF from its English Puritan matrix and made it its own. Practically speaking, the opinions of the Westminster Divines do not interpret the WCF, but the explanations of the Church’s General Assembly do and do so definitively.[14]

The Act tells us the confession of faith which was adopted: Edition 2 of the WCF which was placed into the hands of the Commission of Assembly in the January of 1647. Though helpful, the Scripture proofs are not authoritative.

The Act was in part a book review. It disappointedly points out that the WCF did not address the several sorts of ecclesiastical officers and assemblies.

The Act of Assembly approving the Confession ends with an explanation of how the Church understands parts of section two of chapter thirty-one. The section reads:

As magistrates may lawfully call a synod of ministers, and other fit persons, to consult and advise with, about matters of religion; so, if magistrates be open enemies to the Church, the ministers of Christ, of themselves, by virtue of their office; or they, with other fit persons, upon delegation from their Churches, may meet together in such assemblies.

The explanation is as follows:

It is further declared, That the Assembly understandeth some parts of the second article of the thirty-one chapter only of kirks not settled, or constituted in point of government: And that although, in such kirks, a synod of Ministers, and other fit persons, may be called by the Magistrate's authority and nomination, without any other call, to consult and advise with about matters of religion; and although, likewise, the Ministers of Christ, without delegation from their churches, may of themselves, and by virtue of their office, meet together synodically in such kirks not yet constituted, yet neither of these ought to be done in kirks constituted and settled; it being always free to the Magistrate to advise with synods of Ministers and Ruling Elders, meeting upon delegation from their churches, either ordinarily, or, being indicted by his authority, occasionally, and pro re nata; it being also free to assemble together synodically, as well pro re nata as at the ordinary times, upon delegation from the churches, by the intrinsical power received from Christ, as often as it is necessary for the good of the Church so to assemble, in case the Magistrate, to the detriment of the Church, withhold or deny his consent; the necessity of occasional assemblies being first remonstrate unto him by humble supplication.[15]

The first part of the section is understood to deal only with churches not yet constituted (this covers such situations as that in England with the calling of the Westminster Assembly); and the second part of the section is understood to cover any magistrate reluctant to call ecclesiastical assemblies, not only those who might be described as open enemies (here the General Assembly has in mind the situation which confronted the Church of Scotland during the reigns of James VI & I and Charles I). It is the General Assembly’s understanding of the passage, not the passage itself which is authoritative.

In 1846, the General Assembly of the Free Church of Scotland added a further explanation of the Church’s position regarding the relationship of the Church to the Civil Magistrate:

And the General Assembly, in passing this Act, think it right to declare, that, while the Church firmly maintains the same scriptural principles as to the duties of nations and their rulers in reference to true religion and the Church of Christ, for which she has hitherto contended, she disclaims intolerant or persecuting principles, and does not regard her Confession of Faith, or any portion thereof, when fairly interpreted, as favouring intolerance or persecution, or consider that her office-bearers, by subscribing it, profess any principles inconsistent with liberty of conscience and the right of private judgment.[16]

This declarative statement is not without its difficulties. That the Free Church of Scotland holds to the establishment principle, is not in doubt. As Thomas Chalmers said, "Though we quit the Establishment, we go out on the Establishment principle; we quit a vitiated Establishment but would rejoice in returning to a pure one. We are advocates for a national recognition of religion – and we are not voluntaries." The problem is that Samuel Rutherford, one of the Scottish commissioners to the Westminster Assembly, wrote a book called A Free Disputation against Pretended Liberty of Conscience two years after the adoption of the WCF which takes a view different from that expressed in the 1846 Act. Clearly, the WCF can be fairly interpreted in more than one way. What the Free Church wanted to do was to cut off some interpretations from the spectrum of acceptable opinions. But that is not exactly what it said.

Ever since the Church of Scotland’s adoption of the Second Helvetic Confession in 1566,[17] a declarative statement has been used to make known in what manner and to what extent a document is being approved or adopted. Rather than approve an edited document, the practice is to adopt the document in full with an explanation. The Second Helvetic Confession was adopted with an explanation stating that the Church rejected the observance of Holy Days; and the WCF was adopted in accordance with the Act Approving. There was nothing wrong with the method.

There was a problem, however, with the wording. In taking such a high tone, the Assembly obscured the historical and linguistic reality of the issue. Having been less than plain in this case, the Assembly may have opened the way to the outright denial of Westminster doctrines which happened in the 1892 Declaratory Act.[18]

Because the 1892 Act did not declare how the Church interpreted its confession of faith but contradicted WCF, the resulting constitutional crisis caused some to leave the Free Church in 1893 to constitute themselves as the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland[19] and others to remain as the remnant Free Church of Scotland when the majority entered the union with the United Presbyterian Church to form the United Free Church of Scotland in 1900.[20]

As far as the WCF is concerned, the Scottish practice has been to limit the number of possible interpretations of the passages, by declaring some to be unacceptable. Some passages are open to an Erastian interpretation. That interpretation is not acceptable. These passages are also capable of being understood to teach intolerance and persecution. They are not to be understood in that way. It is, then, the “whole doctrine” of the WCF, thus defined by former General Assemblies, which is to be owned and believed.

It is clear from the vows, both of 1711 and 1846, that there is no distinction to be made between “the whole doctrine of the confession of faith” and “the whole doctrine contained in the confession of faith”. The same way of speaking is found regarding the Word of God when WCF 1:2 and Larger Catechism Answer 3 are compared.

It is also clear from the vows that there is a strong connection between the WCF and the Scriptures, between the “whole doctrine of the confession of faith” and the truths of God contained in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments. The “whole doctrine of the confession of faith” is “founded upon the Word of God”. On the subjects addressed in the WCF and to the extent that they are addressed, the WCF expresses the intrant’s understanding of the scriptural doctrine.

Perhaps, the most striking thing about the Scottish vows is their demand for a personal commitment. The question ‘Do you believe ….?” does fit the circumstances of owning so long a confession of faith. However, an affirmative answer to the question is of no less force than the “I believe” of a more succinct creed.

Thus far on the Scottish background to the PRC form of subscription. The wording of the PRC vow is drawn from North American sources. When John Murray helped facilitate the formation of the PRC, he used the Presbyterian Church in Canada’s 1875 Basis of Union as a template when drafting one for the new denomination. As he marked up his copy[21] of its Book of Forms, he rejected the substance of their vow of subscription. All that remains of it are the words “to be founded on and agreeable to the Word of God”. From the vow used in the United States, the PRC vow takes the words “receive and adopt”, “system”, and, with slight alteration, “taught in the Holy Scriptures”. The result is:

Do you receive and adopt, as subordinate standards, the Westminster Confession of Faith and Catechisms, believing them to be founded upon and agreeable to the Word of God in setting forth the system of truth taught in Holy Scripture?

At first glance, the Scottish vows demand a greater personal commitment than does the PRC vow. While the Scottish vows are certainly more direct with "own and believe", if the PRC vow is amplified, using the relevant definitions of "receive and adopt", to read "Do you accept the Westminster Confession of Faith and Catechisms to be true and take them to be your own, ….", any substantial difference in meaning disappears. The PRC vow does not ask for nor expects a lesser commitment than the Free Church vow which it replaced.

That the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments are the Word of God written and thus the only infallible rule of faith and life is the confession of the church and the belief of every office-bearer. The words “as subordinate standards” reinforce that message in the subscription vow.

By reintroducing the Catechisms and replacing the phrase “system of doctrine” with “system of truth”, the intrant is reminded that Scripture teaches both what we are to believe and what we are to do. “Truth” covers doctrine and ethics, faith and practice.

By reintroducing the Catechisms and adding them to the WCF, a Westminster system is created. It is the language of the WCF complemented by that of the Catechisms to bring out the meaning of the documents. Sometimes the Catechisms supplement what is said in the WCF, particularly in the area of ethics. Other times, the Catechisms further define the Confession’s meaning by stating the doctrine in other words.

The Westminster system does not contain the system of truth taught in the Scriptures. It sets it forth. This system is not to be thought of as representing some generic expression of the Reformed faith. It is the Westminster system. Even though the word system is used in the vow, the subscription demanded is strict.

The Scots and Scots-Irish Presbyterians in Canada who came together under the PRC Basis of Union did not have to contend with the confusion over what was done in the morning and afternoon of the 19th of September 1729, when the General Synod of the Presbyterian Church in the British colonies in North America adopted the WCF and Catechisms. It was not in their background. There was no talk of exceptions or scruples. Yet, a body requiring subscription to a document which positively addresses liberty of conscience and the right of private judgment cannot demand implicit obedience. One point in response is that there is no coercion to take the vow. While strict, it is voluntary. A second is that many reservations over words or phrases might be the result of pride rather than conscience; the Westminster system might accurately state the doctrine even if it is not expressed in the exact words which the prospective intrant would prefer.

The PRC Basis of Union contains no declaratory statements. The Scottish text of the WCF, without the 1788 American revisions, was the one known to, and in the hands of, the uniting congregations. Similarly, the 17th and 19th-century qualifications are not repeated because no one involved in the 1965 union would have understood the Standards in any other way. The statement of the Voluntary Principle expressed by the PCC in 1875 is rejected by Murray[22]; and as William Young’s articles on the WCF and the civil magistrate[23] show, the interpretation of the Standards given by McCrie, Cunningham, and Bannerman is, broadly speaking, that which has been the understanding assumed in the PRC.

The lack of an explanatory statement might legitimately be described as short-sighted, especially as growth outside of the PRC’s Scots-Canadian background should have been considered. However, subscription in the PRC is easily understood when it is remembered that the denomination keeps to the old paths in the New World: indigenisation without assimilation:

[1] D. D. Gebbie. Streams of Water in the North. [2] The Practice of the Free Church of Scotland. 1995. Edinburgh: Knox Press. 152. [3] David W. Hall. 1995. The Practice of Confessional Subscription. Lanham MD: University Press of America. 126. [4] The Book of Forms. 1933. Toronto: Presbyterian Publications. 100. [5] Walter Steuart. 1709. Collections. Edinburgh: Andrew Anderson. 10. [6] James Cooper. 1907. Confessions of Faith and Formulas of Subscription. Glasgow: James MacLehose and Sons. 64. [7] James Cooper. 1907. Confessions of Faith and Formulas of Subscription. Glasgow: James MacLehose and Sons. 64-5. [8] The Practice of the Free Church of Scotland. 1995. Edinburgh: Knox Press. 151-2. [9] The Subordinate Standards and Other Authoritative Documents of the Free Church of Scotland. 1933. Edinburgh. vii. [10] The Subordinate Standards and Other Authoritative Documents of the Free Church of Scotland. 1933. Edinburgh. vii. [11] John R. Bower. 2020. The Confession of Faith. Grand Rapids: RHB. 159-182. [12] David Laing, ed. 1842. The Letters and Journals of Robert Baillie. Volume Three. Edinburgh: Robert Ogle. 2. Church of Scotland. General Assembly., Christie, J., Mitchell, A. Ferrier. 1892. The records of the commissions of the General Assemblies of the Church of Scotland holden in Edinburgh in the years 1646 and 1647. Edinburgh: Printed at the University Press by T. and A. Constable for the Scottish History Society. 181. [13] Church of Scotland. 1843. Records of the Kirk of Scotland: containing the acts and proceedings of the General Assemblies, from the year 1638 downwards, as authenticated by the Clerks of Assembly: with notes and historical illustrations. Alexander Peterkin, ed. Edinburgh: P. Brown. 480-83. [14] D. D. Gebbie. Review of John R. Bower. 2020. The Confession of Faith. Grand Rapids: RHB [15] Westminster Confession of Faith. 1994. Glasgow: Free Presbyterian Publications. 16-7. [16] The Practice of the Free Church of Scotland. 1995. Edinburgh: Knox Press. 150. [17] James Cooper. 1907. Confessions of Faith and Formulas of Subscription. Glasgow: James MacLehose and Sons. 28. [18] Ian Hamilton. 2010. The Erosion of Calvinistic Orthodoxy. Fearn: Christian Focus Publications. 165-198. [19] James Lachlan MacLeod. 2000. The Second Disruption. East Linton: Tuckwell Press. [20] Alexander Stewart and J. Kennedy Cameron. The Free Church of Scotland 1843-1910. Edinburgh and Glasgow: William Hodge and Company. [21] John Murray’s copy of the 1933 Book of Forms is in the possession of the writer. [22] So, also, was the relaxation which would allow for marriage to a deceased wife’s sister. [23] William Young. 2011. Reformed Thought. Grand Rapids: Reformation Heritage Books. 194-219.