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of language. An ordinary birth could not have been so described, nor can the words of the Creed fairly be so understood.

7. Objections to the doctrine of the Virgin Birth, or to the bodily Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ, are not only contrary to the Christian tradition, but have been abundantly dealt with by the best scholarship of the day.

8. It is not the fact of the Virgin Birth that makes us believe in our Lord as God; but our belief in Him as God makes reasonable and natural our acceptance of the fact of the Virgin Birth as declared in the Scriptures and as confessed in the Creed from the earliest times.

9. The Creed witnesses to the deliberate and determined purpose of the Church not to explain but to proclaim the fact that the Jesus of history is none other than God and Saviour, on Whom and on faith in Whom depends the whole world's hope of redemption and salvation.

10. So far from imposing fetters on our thought, the Creeds, with their simple statement of great truths and facts without elaborate philosophical disquisitions, give us a point of departure for free thought and speculation on the meaning and consequences of the facts revealed by God. The Truth is never a barrier to thought. In belief, as in life, it is the Truth that makes us free.

THE CREED OF PRESBYTERIANS 1

Every candidate for the ministry of the Presbyterian Church is required to answer the following question, put to him by the Presbytery when he comes up for licensure: "Do you sincerely receive and adopt the Confession of Faith of this church as containing the system of doctrine taught in the Scriptures?"

1 By Rev. Clarence E. Macartney, Philadelphia. Christian Work. 115: 87-9. July 21, 1923.

There could be no more solemn obligation than that of this vow. If the candidate take it ignorantly, he does injury to the church. If he take it dishonestly, he lies not only to man but to God. There are two general principles by which men interpret vows and confessions of faith. These are, first, the plain historical meaning of the words; and second, the intention of the party imposing the oath or requiring the profession. With these two principles in mind, let us now see what is meant when a man says that he sincerely receives and adopts the Confession of Faith. There are three ways in which the vow has been interpreted:

1. That the candidate assents to every proposition contained in the Confession of Faith. Very few have ever so taken it. I doubt if there is a man in the church today who so receives the Confession of Faith. The Confession deals with a great number of subjects, and some of these subjects, while most important, have little or nothing to do with the system of doctrine taught in the Bible. The framers of the Westminster standards dealt not only with the changeless themes of salvation and grace, but they touched upon problems which arose out of the religious and political conditions of the day. They were men who were determined to save England from prelacy and popery. It is not strange then that we find in the chapter on the church they added to the sufficient confession that "There is no other head of the church but the Lord Jesus Christ," the statement that the "Pope of Rome is not the head of the church, but is that antiChrist, the man of sin, and son of perdition, that exalteth himself in the church against Christ, and all that is called God." The papal system undoubtedly has had in it much that is anti-Christian, but probably few men in the Presbyterian ministry are agreed that the Pope is definitely and exclusively the man of sin, the son of perdition, the anti-Christ of the Bible. The fear of prelacy and of popery is shown again in the clauses dealing with magistrates and civil rulers, which asserted the right of

the civil magistrate to use force in the suppression of heresies and blasphemies and corruptions in worship. But when the Synod of Philadelphia adopted the Confession of Faith it put itself on record as not accepting the clause on the powers of the magistrate. When the General Assembly was constituted in 1788 this clause of the Confession (XXIII, 3) was revised so that, as it now stands, the church declares merely that it is the duty of the civil authorities to protect all churches in the freedom of their worship.

The chapter on Marriage and Divorce deals with questions which are not a part of the system of doctrine taught in the Bible. This chapter recognizes wilful desertion as a ground for divorce and remarriage. But there are many ministers in our church who do not agree to this; they recognize but one cause for divorce-adultery. If this chapter were strictly enforced it would bar a man from marrying his deceased wife's sister, for the chapter declares that there may be no marriage. within the degrees of consanguinity and affinity forbidden in the Word, and the 18th chapter of Leviticus is referred to as a part of the Word's teaching on that subject. These are instances of how the confession deals with subjects which are not vital to the system of doctrine taught in the Bible. The church has never refused ordination to a man because he did not believe that the Pope is anti-Christ, or that there is but one ground for divorce, or that a man may marry his deceased wife's sister, nor has any minister ever been excommunicated for holding such views.

2. That the candidate adopts the Confession of Faith as containing the "substance" of doctrine taught in the Scriptures. This term "substance of doctrine" is that used by Charles Hodge in his book on "Church Polity," and is perhaps as good a term as can be found to describe the latitudinarian interpretation of the Confession of Faith so prevalent today and which threatens the very existence of the Presbyterian church. Another term em

ployed in defending and describing this interpretation of the creed is "essential and necessary articles." This is a phrase borrowed from the so-called Adopting Act of the Synod of Philadelphia in 1729. In this preliminary act the Synod declared that "all the ministers of this Synod or that shall hereafter be admitted to 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."

There are those who have maintained that this adopting act gives to the candidate for the Presbyterian ministry a very wide liberty in taking the ordination vow. But what were those articles which the Synod of Philadelphia considered as non-essential? The discussions of the day on which the confession was finally adopted show that what troubled the Synod was the clauses about the powers of civil magistrates as set forth in chapters 20 and 23. At the afternoon session the Synod formally adopted the Confession of Faith, excepting the articles on magistrates. But, with the exception of those articles, the Confession of Faith was ratified and adopted. This fundamental act has never been abrogated. When the present constitution of the church was adopted in 1788 the Confession of Faith was adopted as a part of that constitution, the only changes being the revision of the articles dealing with the powers of the civil magistrates and synods and councils.

From the beginning there were some who held that the Adopting Act of 1729 gave the candidate the liberty of taking the Confession of Faith in so far as he considered it to state the "articles essential to Christianity," and rejecting all else. This point of view at once produced confusion and controversy, but the Synod has always made it clear in its deliverances on the subject that

by the adoption of the confession something more was meant than a mere subscription to those doctrines which the candidate regarded as "essential to Christianity." The Rev. Mr. Harkness was suspended from the ministry for doctrinal errors in spite of his plea that the Synod required only the adoption of the essential doctrines of Christianity. Repeatedly the Synod put itself on record as repudiating this lax interpretation of the Confession of Faith, declaring that the Synod never intended that the confession should be adopted only in those articles essential to Christianity.

But why has the Presbyterian church never considered it sufficient that its candidates should say they receive the Confession of Faith as containing the "substance" of doctrine taught in the Scriptures, or as containing the doctrines "essential to Christianity"? What more could be desired than the adoption on the part of the candidate of "essential" Christianity? The reason why the Presbyterian church has never permitted this interpretation of the confession is evident when one considers the great variety of Christian beliefs or lack of beliefs, which such an interpretation would sanction. Who is to say what is the "substance" of doctrine taught in the Scriptures and what the essential doctrines of Christianity are? Is this to be left entirely to the man taking the vow? Or is the church which imposes the vow to have something to say on the subject? In some of the presbyteries of the Presbyterian church there is a practical recognition of the principle that the candidate alone is to be the judge of what is essential, and every year the report of the examinations of candidates in these presbyteries shows that "essential" doctrines are becoming fewer and fewer.

Let us see what this latitudinarian interpretation would lead to. Here is a candidate for the ministry who believes that the only essential doctrine of Christianity is the doctrine of God. This doctrine he finds stated in the Confession of Faith. He rejects that part of the

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