by James Bannerman
CREEDS AND CONFESSIONS; OR SUBORDINATE STANDARDS: THEIR LAWFULNESS AND USE
VIEWED generally in reference to those within its pale, the Church is the authorized custodier and teacher of Divine truth; viewed generally in reference to those beyond its pale, the Church is the authorized witness and protest for that truth against unbelief and error. In discharging such offices, it is competent for the Church authoritatively to declare the truth of God, and to testify against falsehood; always under reservation of an appeal by those to whom she ministers to the Word of God as the supreme rule, and to Christ Himself as the Judge of last resort in the matter. Within the boundary of such a limitation the authority of the Church is real and valid in controversies of faith and cases of conscience; and it has, in consequence of its place and character as a servant of Christ, and bearing His commission for that end, a right to be heard both where it declares the truth and where it protests against the falsehood, not only because its judgment is justified by the Word of God, but also because it has received Divine gifts for judging, and Divine warrant so to judge. Ecclesiastical authority in matters of faith as it is given to the Church to administer, and the right of conscience in matters of faith, such as each man must exercise for himself, are opposite, but not irreconcilable forces in the Church system. To me, as an individual member of the Christian society, the authority of my own conscience under God is absolute and supreme to the effect of determining my own belief. But this does not destroy, although it may limit, the authority of the Church in the matter. In virtue of its character as a Divine appointment, set in the Christian society for that very end, the Church has a right to declare the truth; and that not in the shape only of counsel or advice, but in the shape of authoritative declaration as an official teacher; and I am bound to pay a measure of deference to its decisions, and to hear it when it speaks.
No doubt, my own convictions may remain unchanged. I may be unable to acquiesce in the ecclesiastical decision, or to believe as the Church has declared; and asserting the superior right of my own conscience to be obeyed and listened to, I may be constrained to reject its determination in a matter of doctrine, and to abide by my own. I may appeal from the tribunal of the Church without, to the tribunal of conscience within; or I may carry the appeal higher still, and transfer the cause from the bar of the Church on earth, to the bar of its Divine Head in heaven. And in doing so on just and competent grounds, I shall be free from the binding obligation of the authority of the Church, which it would seek to lay upon the conscience. But that authority is not less a real authority, although it be thus inferior and subordinate both to my own conscience and to Christ. The Church has a certain authority in matters of faith, although it is itself under authority also. It is the inferior tribunal; and over it, with the right of appeal open to every man on competent grounds, there is the tribunal of conscience; and over both, with the same right of appeal open, there is the tribunal of Christ. But the authority of conscience is a real authority, although limited by and inferior to the authority of Christ. And the authority of the Church is a real authority also, although limited by and inferior to the authority both of individual conscience and of Christ. These three as ordinances of God, having right to lay an obligation on men's understanding and belief in matters of faith, although different, are not inconsistent with each other. First, as absolute and supreme stands the authority of Christ, as both Head of every man, and also Head of the Church. Second, and next to that, stands the authority of conscience, inferior to Christ's, and yet superior as regards the individual to every other law save Christ's. And third, and inferior to both as respects the understanding and belief of the individual, stands the authority of the Church,—a real authority, but strictly limited, and having an appeal open to the higher tribunals.
There is one form, however, in which the power of the Church is exercised in the province of religious truth, which I had occasion to refer to previously, but to which I would now wish somewhat more in detail to direct attention. I allude to the power of the Church to frame and exhibit a human summary of doctrine in the shape of Creeds, or Confessions of Faith, or Catechisms, or subordinate standards of orthodoxy. The right of the Church through the instrumentality of her ministers and pastors authoritatively to publish the truth and preach the Gospel of Christ, few will be found to deny absolutely, although there may be some who may desire unduly to limit the power. Further still, the right of the Church authoritatively to decide between truth and falsehood in the case of religious opinion, to the effect of determining her own profession and the teaching of her ministers, is one conceded by many also within certain restrictions. But the power of the Church to frame and publish a human exhibition of Divine truth in the form of a Confession of Faith, and to make it a standard of orthodoxy, or a term of communion for office-bearers or members, is regarded by not a few as an exercise of power beyond the limits assigned to the authority of the Church, and lying open to very serious difficulties and objections. To the subject, then, of the exercise of Church power in forming, publishing, and enforcing subordinate standards of faith, we shall now advert at some length. What are the grounds on which the lawfulness and use of subordinate standards in the Christian Church may be maintained? Is it competent, or for edification, for the Church to embody in human language its creed or profession, over and above its creed or profession as exhibited in the Scriptures themselves? Is it right, or is it expedient, to add to the Word of God the words of man, as an exhibition or summary of the Church's belief, and as a directory for the Church's practice?
I. It is to be remarked at the outset, that both in the inspired and uninspired history of the Church, in connection with its holding of Divine truth, we see examples of the necessity arising for a re-statement in a new form of words of the faith professed by the Church, in opposition to new forms of unbelief.
In the history of the Christian Church before the canon of Scripture was closed, such a necessity had arisen; and in the history of the Church subsequently to the apostolic age similar emergencies have occurred, necessitating the re-statement in a new form and in new language of the truth formerly held. Within the age of inspiration, and before the last page of the Bible was written, there are at least three remarkable instances that may be quoted, in which the Church was compelled to re-cast and exhibit in new forms of language the truth formerly held; and compelled to do this because of the perversion to error and heresy of the terms formerly employed to set forth the truth.
1st. We find the Apostle John re-casting and re-stating the doctrine of Christ's manifestation in this world; and adapting the form of words in which he re-announces the doctrine to the purpose of meeting the errors which, under the previous terms in which it had been announced, and in spite of them, had crept into the Church. That "Jesus Christ is the Son of God," and that "He came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give His life a ransom for many," was a doctrine revealed before, and held by the Church as the fundamental article of its faith. But under the shelter of the language in which it had been revealed and professed, there had, even in the apostle's day, "many deceivers entered into the world, who confessed not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh."2 The Docetists did not deny what the entire Scriptures averred: they did not deny that, in one sense of the terms, Christ had been manifested in the world as the Saviour; but in accordance with their own speculative theories, they held that His manifestation was spiritual, and not real—that His coming was not in a real body, but as a spiritual phantasm, thus subverting the essential doctrine of the Incarnation. And John felt and acted on the necessity of re-casting in other language that fundamental article of the Church, and exhibiting it in a new form of words fitted to meet the novel heresy. Both in his Gospel and his Epistles he owned the necessity of re-stating the doctrine in fresh language; and he accordingly declares in the one, that "the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us;" and in the other, "Every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh, is not of God;" "Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh, is of God."
2d. We find the Apostle Paul giving another illustration in his writings of the necessity that may arise within the Church of re-casting revealed truth, and repeating it in new forms of language, to meet and counteract new error. In his second Epistle to Timothy, he speaks of a sect or party "who concerning the truth had erred," while yet holding the words in which the truth had been previously revealed. He mentions the case of Hymenæus and Philetus, who maintained that there was a resurrection according to the terms of Scripture, but that it was an allegorical or figurative resurrection, meaning no more than the elevation of the soul above this life, and its rising into holiness; and that in the case of Christians the resurrection spoken of in Scripture "was past already." And accordingly, in the fifteenth chapter of 1st Corinthians, we find the Apostle re-stating the important article of belief held by the Church as to the resurrection of the body, and laying it down afresh in such terms, and with such elaborate explanations, as directly to meet and repel the error which had arisen regarding it.
3d. We find the whole body of the apostles, in the fifteenth chapter of the Acts, exhibiting another illustration of the necessity that will oftentimes arise in the history of the Church for re-moulding, not the doctrines of Divine truth, but the form in which those doctrines are expressed; and guarding them from misapprehension or error by additional explanations or new statements in regard to them. The doctrine of justification by faith alone, without the works of the law, was one of those doctrines revealed and professed by the Church from the beginning, as "the article of a standing or falling Church." And yet one of the earliest and most widespread divisions in the Church itself was as to the necessity of circumcision, in addition to faith, in the case of its members. It was in opposition to this error that "the apostles and elders came together to consider of the matter" at Jerusalem, and found it necessary to re-assert the ancient doctrine with such additional explanations, and with such a sentence on the controverted point, as were adapted to the new circumstances which had arisen. In respect to this additional explanation of the Church's doctrine and practice, necessitated by the inroad of error, we are told regarding Paul and his companions, that, "as they went through the cities, they delivered them the decrees for to keep that were ordained of the apostles and elders which were at Jerusalem; and so were the Churches established in the faith."
Such, within the age of inspiration itself, are the remarkable examples we have of the necessity, growing out of the circumstances of the Church and its members, that arose at different times for re-casting the doctrines of Scripture in a new mould, and exhibiting or explaining it afresh under forms of language and expression more precisely fitted to meet and counteract the error of the times. No doubt it may be said, in answer to this argument, that it was competent for inspired expounders of the truth to re-state the doctrine of the Church, when the terms in which it was revealed at first were perverted or used for the purposes of error, and to re-state it in language equally authoritative and inspired as the original; but that it is not competent for ordinary or uninspired men to do so in language merely human and fallible. I am not at all sure that this answer to the argument is a sufficient one. The need of the Church, after the days of inspiration ceased, to be guarded against the likelihood and danger of heresy and unbelief, was not less, but greater. Perversions of the language of Scripture, in the way of covering error and concealing it, were not likely to diminish, but rather to increase in number, after the apostles were gathered to their rest. There is nothing in the mere fact of the office-bearers of the Church being inspired in those days, sufficient to account for their adoption of this practice of meeting and counteracting the heresies that assailed the Church by distinct and additional explanations or exhibitions of its doctrines suited to the heresies, had that practice in the case of ordinary and uninspired office-bearers of the Church been unlawful or sinful. On the contrary, the presumption seems rather to be, that the example given and the practice begun by the infallible guides of the Church during the apostolic age, was intended both as a suggestion and warrant for their successors, although not infallible, to follow their example and to adopt their practice. The instances recorded in the Word of God of the re-statement and re-exhibition of the doctrines of Scripture in such a form as to meet and counteract new error, seem to be intended to be to future times patterns for imitation, rather than beacons to be avoided. Did we find these re-statements or re-castings of the doctrine formerly held by the Church to go beyond what was formerly revealed on the point, then indeed the new revelation might have been justified or accounted for by the fact of the inspiration of its authors, but would have been no example for uninspired men. But when we find that the reverse of this is the case, and that such re-statements of the doctrine in new forms suited to the times were strictly declaratory—in the way of explanation, and not in the way of addition to the former revelation—we seem to be justified in saying that this office of the Church in regard to truth was not extraordinary, and peculiar to the age of inspiration, but rather ordinary, and competent to the Church in every age.
That such was the interpretation put upon these examples of the re-statement or re-exhibition of doctrine in new forms of language during apostolic times by the almost unanimous consent of the Church, is made plain by its subsequent history. At almost every crisis in that history, when spreading or predominant error was to be met and counteracted, when unbelief prevailed without, or heresy within, the Church has had recourse to the very expedient adopted by the apostles singly and collectively; and has re-stated its doctrine and re-cast its form of profession, in such language as was suited to meet the evil. When the Arian heresy prevailed so widely towards the beginning of the fourth century, the Council of Nice met and re-asserted those articles of faith respecting the true Godhead of the Son which had been endangered. When, towards the close of the same century, a similar danger threatened the faith of the Church in connection with the Personality and true Godhead of the Spirit, the Council of Constantinople was assembled to renew the testimony of the Church to those vital truths. At the time of the Reformation, when the leading Reformers in Germany found it necessary to separate from the corruptions of Popery, they found it to be no less necessary to embody in a new form, and re-state in fresh terms, the doctrine of the Apostolic Church; and the Confession of Augsburg became the testimony of the Protestant Church of Germany. And to the same feeling of the lawfulness and necessity of re-asserting in fresh terms and a new shape the whole doctrine and testimony of the Church, so as to meet the demands of the times, do we owe the admirable Confession of Christian doctrine which forms the authoritative standard of our own Church.
But passing from those examples furnished, both within and beyond the age of inspiration, of a necessity arising in the Church for re-asserting and verbally re-shaping the ancient doctrines of the Church, the lawfulness and necessity of such Creeds and Confessions may be very distinctly proved from the nature and offices of the Church itself. Both in its office towards those within its pale, and in its office to the world without, it is not difficult to recognise the foundation on which the right and duty of the Church may be argued to frame a declaration of its faith, and exhibit a confession of the truth which it believes to be contained in Scripture. For,
II. I remark that, in its office to those within its pale, it is the duty of the Church, as holding the truth of Scripture as the basis of its union, by some formal and public declaration of its own faith, to give assurance to its members of the soundness of its profession, and to receive assurance of theirs.
What is the principle of union in any Christian Church which holds the truth of God as the very foundation on which it exists? Plainly and undeniably the mutual and common understanding as to the doctrine of God's Word of those associated together to constitute the Church—their union together in one common profession of the truth. To the very existence of such a union, it is necessary that the mind of the Church be brought out and exhibited to the understanding of all, by a declaration from herself of what she believes, so as to exhibit to the view of her members a profession of the truth which she holds, not merely as the truth which God has revealed, but more especially as the truth which she has made her own by embracing and believing it. Without this, there can be no common understanding between the Church and its members of one another's faith, and consequently no mutual agreement or union as to the holding or profession of it. Now for this end it is not sufficient for the Church to hold up the Bible in its hand as the confession of the truth it believes; or even in language carefully and accurately extracted from the Bible to frame its confession of belief. The Bible was framed to be the declaration of God's mind, and the phraseology employed is exactly and perfectly suited to accomplish the object. The language of Scripture is the best language to express God's mind. But it does not follow from this that it is the best language to express my mind, even although I may mean to express to another man, so that there shall be no misunderstanding between us, the very same truths which God has expressed. With the change in the meaning of language which takes place from age to age,—with the different interpretations actually put upon the terms of Scripture by multitudes,—with the various and even opposite senses which reason, or prejudice, or error has made to be associated with its phraseology; the very words of the Bible may not be the best words to declare my mind and belief to another man, so that betwixt him and me there shall be no equivocation, or reservation, or guile.
Take the case of an individual believer, desiring to join himself to a second believer on the basis of what they jointly believe and confess as Christians. It is not on the basis of the objective truth revealed in the Bible, but on the basis of the subjective belief of that truth, that the union of two such Christians is formed. The communion of two saints is a communion on the footing of the faith they equally have in their heart, and which out of the heart they confess with their mouths. It is not the outward letter revealed in the Scripture, but the inward belief, personal and intelligent and spiritual, of the outward letter that forms the foundation of their union; not the truth understood or not understood, as it stands in the page of the Bible, but that truth translated first into the faith of the heart, and again into the confession of the lips, by both jointly and equally. In the case of the union of two Christians, they come to unite truly and without misunderstanding on either side, not when they repeat by rote, and without caring to know whether they understand each other's meaning or not, the same confession copied from the Bible, and embodied in some oft-repeated textual formula; but when they translate their own subjective belief of God's truths into a personal confession from the lips, and embody their own faith and feelings in their own language. And so it is with the collective society of Christians. The unity of the Church as a society of believers requires and justifies human compilations of Divine truth, if it is to be really a unity of faith, and not merely a unity of form or formal words. The true principle of Church union, upon which the Christian society is associated, demands that the Church shall take not the Bible, nor any extracts from the Bible, to declare its confession of faith, but that it shall take the confession first from its own heart, and then translate it into its own language. In no other way can the Church give a right assurance of its own belief to its own members, or receive a right assurance of theirs. The Church may take the Bible into its hand, and hold it up to the view of the world as the one profession of its faith; but in doing so it is merely exhibiting the mind of God, not declaring its own. In order to declare its own faith, for the purpose of being a basis for union among its members, it must take its own understanding and belief of the truths of God as made known in His Word, and translate them into its own meaning, and into its own language. The Creed or Confession of the Church, if it is to be a right foundation for Church fellowship and association, must be expressed in human terms, as the expression of its own belief, and not merely a formal repetition or echo of the belief of God.
There is a not uninstructive lesson to be learned from the history and the principles of Popery, in reference to the bearing of human Creeds and Confessions on the right basis of Church union. The principle of union in the Popish Church is not a voluntary and intelligent and personal conviction on the part of its members of the truth which, as a Church, it holds and professes, but rather an implicit faith, with or without understanding, and a formal submission and passive obedience to a system of outward authority. It is not necessary for the Church of Rome, upon its theory of Church union, either to give or receive assurance of an intelligent belief and an active and understanding faith in any system of doctrine. It is enough if its members yield an implicit faith or blind submission to the authority of an infallible Church, and render an outward conformity to its rites and requirements. And hence it is an instructive fact in the history of Popery, that it took no care to exhibit publicly to its members a confession of its faith or summary of its doctrine, until the Reformation compelled it to do so, and very much against its will extorted from it the standards of the Council of Trent. Any system of Church union except the Popish, or any system which proceeds upon the basis of a mutual faith held by the Church and its members, must, in some shape or other, frame and exhibit a confession of faith as the terms of union. The Bible can be no standard of union, because the Bible can be and has been interpreted in many different ways. Human explanations of the Bible, or human confessions of how the Bible is understood by the Church, seem to be necessary to Church union in some shape or other, even where the principle of the lawfulness of such confessions is theoretically denied. In the case of Independent Churches, which disown the lawfulness of human confessions of faith, the declaration of the pastor from the pulpit, and the profession generally or always required from the member on his admission to membership, really form a confession under a different name.
III. In its office to those within its pale, it is the duty of the Church, as the authoritative teacher of Divine truth, by some formal and public summary of the doctrines it holds, to give assurance that it teaches what is in accordance with the Word of God.
The principles involved in the union of the Church upon the basis of its belief, as holding the Word of God, seem unavoidably to demand that it shall, by a confession, or creed, or summary of Divine truth, declare what it believes, and what it does not. But the principle involved in the office of the Church as an official teacher, having its teaching based upon the Word of God, seems no less unavoidably to demand that it shall, by a public declaration of what it believes, give a pledge that its teaching shall be in accordance with that Word. The same argument, indeed, that infers the lawfulness and necessity of confessions from the principles implied in the office of the Church as holding the truth, and united upon it, will also evince the lawfulness and expediency of confessions from the principles implied in the office of the Church as teaching the truth. Regarded even on the same footing as a voluntary society or a private individual, responsible to none for what it teaches, and with a right to publish what doctrine it pleases, it could not be denied that the Church would have the right, and it might be expedient, to embody for its own use, and for the information of others, in a formal and authentic shape, a declaration of what it professes to teach. But the Church is not only a voluntary or private society; it is a Divine institute: as a teacher of truth it is the servant of another, and His steward to dispense mysteries not its own to His people, and in that character responsible both to Him and to them for what it teaches. And now, seeing that it is not a mere voluntary association or private individual, responsible to none for the doctrine it holds and declares, but rather the delegate of Christ, accountable for that doctrine to Him in the first instance, and to His people in the second,—does that fact, I ask, take away the right which the Church has to frame and exhibit a confession of the truth it teaches, or diminish the expediency of so doing? The answer to that question plainly is, that the circumstance that the Church is of Christ, and responsible both to Him and to its own members as His people, goes incalculably to confirm the right and to augment the expediency. The members of the Church have a right, and that founded on the most sacred grounds, to know how the Church, as the teacher of their souls, is to handle the Word of God, and interpret its truths, and preach its Gospel. No mere general appeal to the Word of God, as the confession of its faith, will satisfy this claim. The question is not whether the Church believes the Bible, but how the Church is to interpret the Bible to its people; in what sense it receives the doctrines of Scripture, and in what sense it is prepared to teach them. It is bound to tell in its own language how, as an interpreter of the Scriptures, it understands their truths; and how, as a preacher of the Gospel, it believes it. Nothing short of this will suffice to satisfy the rights and claims of its own members. And the very same thing may be argued from the responsibility of the Church, as the teacher of His Word, to Christ Himself. From the individual Christian Christ demands not only that "the heart shall believe unto righteousness," but also that "confession shall be made by the lips unto salvation." Upon the private believer Christ lays the duty of confessing Him with his mouth in the presence of men. And nothing less will Christ receive from the Church. The confession of its belief embodied in its own language, is, on the part of the Church, the answer of the lips vowing unto the Lord.
IV. In its office to those that are without its pale, it is the duty of the Church, as the witness and protest for truth against the error or unbelief of the world, to frame and exhibit a public confession of its faith.
It is unnecessary to dwell upon this, as I have already had occasion to remark on the necessity that has arisen for the Church, at various periods in her history, to re-assert the doctrine once delivered to the saints in fresh terms and with new explanations, as the perversions of the truth or the inroads of heresy might demand. And what has so often been a necessity laid upon the Church, is also its duty. It has an office to discharge even to the unbelieving world without, and to those enemies who have separated themselves from her, because they were not of her. She has the office to discharge of being a witness and a protest for the truth against both. And in no other way can this duty be performed, except by adapting her public profession of the truth to the form and fashion of the error, and closing the bulwarks of the Church with an armed defence at every point where the enemy may threaten to enter. Had the adoption of confessions and creeds not been a duty laid upon the Church by a regard to her own members, it would have been a necessity laid upon the Church by a regard to those not her members, but her enemies. Human standards would have been needed, even if for no other reason than to repel the assaults and inroads of heresy and unbelief; when the very language of Scripture is misused to the utterance of falsehood, and the terms of God's own Word perverted so as to assail therewith God's truth. Had there been no other ground for the adoption of human language in expressing the faith of the Church, or for the introduction of human formularies of faith, there would have been ground sufficient in the fact of the existence and prevalence of unscriptural error and heresy couched in Scriptural language. And the very same reason is sufficient to account both for the multiplication of articles not fundamental in human standards, and for the negative and hostile aspect under which truth itself, both fundamental and otherwise, is exhibited. In no other way could the Church discharge her office as a witness and protest against the world, as well as in behalf of Christ, except by making her articles and formulas of belief counterparts to the heresies around her, and drawing out her confession of faith less upon the form and mould of truth, than upon the form and mould of falsehood. As a protest against spiritual evil, they must be fashioned upon the principle of a contradiction of error, rather than the independent assertion of truth. In this way only could the Church discharge her duty towards the world without, confronting the plague, while standing between the living and the dead.
OBJECTIONS TO THE LAWFULNESS AND USE OF SUBORDINATE STANDARDS
THE subject of the exercise of Church power in this particular department is so very important, that it may be well to consider apart, and somewhat in detail, the objections that have been commonly urged against the lawfulness or use of subordinate standards. These objections may be readily reduced to one or other of the two following heads:—First, subordinate standards have been objected against, as setting aside the sole and supreme authority of Scripture as the rule of faith, and as militating against the absolute sufficiency and perfection of the sacred volume. Second, subordinate standards have been objected against, as an assumption of an authority on the part of the Church not belonging to her, and the imposition of an unlawful restriction on the Christian liberty of her members. Most if not all the arguments usually urged against the lawfulness and use of subordinate standards may be classed under one or other of these heads. To the examination of these, therefore, we shall now proceed to direct our attention.
I. The first objection brought against the use and lawfulness of subordinate and human standards of faith is, that they interfere with the sole authority of the Word of God, and proceed upon the principle that that Word is not in itself perfect or sufficient for all the purposes and objects of a Christian Church.
There would be force and justice in this objection, if one or other of these three things were true in regard to subordinate standards of faith: if, in the first place, they denied or superseded the sole supremacy of Scripture as the Church's law both for doctrine and practice; or if, in the second place, they were inconsistent with the sufficiency of Scripture, as complete for all the purposes designed by it; or if, in the third place, they expressly or by implication added to the Word of God. If any or all of these things were true in regard to subordinate standards of faith, then the objection would be unanswerable; but if it can be satisfactorily shown that none of them is true, the lawfulness and expediency of the Church adopting and employing such standards will remain untouched by such an objection.
1st. Do the use and imposition upon its office-bearers or members by the Church of human creeds and confessions deny or set aside the sole supremacy of Scripture as the Church's law both for doctrine and practice?
Now it cannot be denied that it is a possible thing that human articles of faith, and human constitutions for the regulation of the Church's conduct, may be invested with an authority and elevated to a place inconsistent with the sole supremacy of the Word of God. When such articles or constitution are imposed by the authority of the Church as itself irresponsible and supreme in these matters, and when they are enforced as binding apart from the authority of Scripture, and to the exclusion of any appeal to Scripture, then unquestionably they are open to the objection urged, and cannot but be regarded as derogatory to the Scriptures as the ultimate standard of appeal in matters of doctrine and practice. In this light the standards of the Papal Church must be regarded, when they are imposed on the implicit faith and the passive obedience of its members by the authority, supreme and infallible, of that Church, apart from the Word of God; and when in no circumstances is there left open to its members an appeal to the Scriptures as lawful or competent. The Canons and Catechism of the Council of Trent, because of the authority which they claim, and the manner in which they are imposed, are open to the objection now under consideration. But it is not so in regard to the creeds and confessions adopted by Protestant Churches. Such human exhibitions of Scripture doctrine are not put in the place of the Scriptures, as supreme in their authority or infallible in their statements. The very name by which they are known indicates the position that they occupy, and the right to submission which they assert. They are the subordinate standards of the Church, not the supreme. Their authority is inferior, not primary; secondary to the Word of God, and only binding in so far as, and no further than, they are a declaration or exhibition of the meaning of the Word of God. There is an appeal ever open from the subordinate standards to the supreme standard, which is the Word of God; and the authority of creeds and confessions is liable at any time to be tried and judged by their conformity or non-conformity with the Scriptures. With such a reservation of the sole supremacy of the Word of God as the law of the Church's belief and practice, they cannot be justly chargeable with the offence of arrogating that place which is due to Scripture. The Church may fairly and reasonably be entitled to make such human articles of faith the term of communion and the test of orthodoxy, because they embody her own belief of what the Word of God contains, the declaration of its meaning and import according to her understanding of it, and no more. Nor can the members and office-bearers justly complain that they are tried by such a subordinate standard, and acquitted or condemned accordingly, and not rather tried by the Word of God; unless they are prepared to put the Church itself on its trial because of the unsoundness of these standards themselves. Proceeding on the joint and equal assent of the Church itself, and of the members of the Church, to its confession or creed, there can be no injustice, but may be obvious convenience, in testing the opinions of one or other by such a standard; nor, while an appeal in the case of difference of opinion as to the orthodoxy of the confession lies to the Scripture in the last resort, can the adoption of such a procedure fairly involve the charge of denying that the Scriptures are the supreme law of the Church's belief and practice.
Upon such principles as these, there is, I think, good ground for asserting that the adoption of subordinate standards by the Church either as a term of communion or a test of orthodoxy, is not liable to the objection of superseding or denying the sole and supreme authority of the Word of God. The Church, as a society necessarily called upon and required to adopt some terms or other of communion, and some test or other of profession, may adopt, in all cases where a member or office-bearer is put on trial as to his right to communion or to office in the society, one or other of two ways of proceeding. The Church may in all such cases take directly the Word of God itself as the standard to rule its decision, or may take a human confession drawn up in explanation of the Word of God as the standard to rule its decision. In both instances it is ultimately the Church's judgment of what the Word of God says in the matter that guides and determines the decision,—that judgment in the one case being formed directly by an examination of the Word at the moment, and in the other case being formed by the help of its own previous examination of the same Word embodied in its confession. In the one way the Church, for the purpose of deciding each particular case, examines the Scriptures afresh, and according to the examination pronounces judgment; in the other way, the Church has recourse for aid to the result of its former examination of the Scriptures, and according to the record of that examination pronounces judgment. In both instances the judgment rests on the same foundation,—on the footing of what, in the opinion of the Church, is the meaning of the Word of God as bearing on the matter submitted to its decision. The principle involved is the same in the one instance as in the other; the only difference being that, according to the first method, an examination is instituted at the time as to the bearing of Scripture on the point in dispute; whereas, according to the second method, an examination instituted long before as to the bearing of Scripture on the point is held to be conclusive, and to supersede the necessity of repeating it on each recurrence of the dispute again. That the appeal to the Word of God was made before and not at the moment, and embodied in the articles of a confession for future reference and use, can make no fundamental difference in the matter one way or other. And unless, therefore, the Church is to be denied the right to fix its terms of communion, and to decide in accordance with its own judgment as to these, with respect to the title of a member to Church fellowship, or of a minister of Church office, it must have a right to apply its own examination of Scripture, made at the instant, or made no less conscientiously and deliberately long before, and registered in a confession for daily use, to such matters; and neither in the one case nor in the other is the exercise of its right an encroachment upon the authority of Scripture as the supreme law of its faith and practice.
Nor on these principles can it, I think, be denied that the Church may be bound to take into consideration, with a view to their alteration or amendment, the subordinate standards she may have framed or adopted, when an appeal to that effect is made to her from a competent quarter and on sufficient grounds. The man charged with doctrinal error, and brought to the bar to answer for it, whether a private member or a public teacher in the Christian society, is not the competent party to take action in this way, nor does his case afford sufficient occasion for the Church being called upon by him to revise its standards of faith; for his demand in such a case to be tried by Scripture instead of the acknowledged formula of the Church may be, and most frequently is, nothing more than a subterfuge to protect his own error of which he stands accused. A panel answering at the bar to the charge of heresy is not in a position to be entitled to put the Church itself to the bar to answer for its creed. But unquestionably, if the standards of a Church are subordinate and not supreme, they are not to be reckoned infallible, and not to be accounted unalterably fixed or stereotyped for all generations. "All Synods or Councils," says the Confession of Faith, "since the apostles' times, whether general or particular, may err, and many have erred. Therefore they are not to be made the rule of faith or practice, but to be used as an help in both." And if the Church shall come to be convinced that its decisions or standards are in any respect in error, it is bound to amend them according to its better understanding of the Word of God.2 Or if necessity should arise in the history of the Church of adding to its protest against error in consequence of the inroad of new danger to the spiritual interests of its members, it is not only at liberty, but bound, to enlarge its testimony, not in the way of adding to the truth of God, but of adding to the Church explanations of that truth against unbelief. Or even, if there shall be competent reason for such a step, it may become the duty of the Church to alter its standards by simplifying and curtailing them in regard to points not fundamental, when errors formerly prevalent and denounced by the Church shall be prevalent no longer, or circumstances shall have made them less prominent or mischievous. It cannot be denied that nothing but grave and important cause shown is sufficient to warrant a Church to take up her acknowledged or authorized standards with a view to revision or correction; but it were, I think, to give a place and authority to subordinate standards not belonging to them, to deny that such a review is competent, and may in certain circumstances become a duty.
2d. Are the adoption and use of subordinate standards to be regarded as inconsistent with the sufficiency and perfection of Scripture for the ends designed by it?
Now, in answer to this question, it must be remembered that the Scriptures were not designed for the same limited purpose as creeds or confessions of faith are designed for; nor are their sufficiency and perfection to be tried by the same restricted criterion by which we would test a human and subordinate standard of Divine truth. The Bible as a revelation from God was intended, among other objects, to serve as a complete and perfect standard of truth in doctrine and practice to men; and for the attainment of this one end, a language of such clearness, and fulness, and definiteness of announcement, as should exclude the possibility of mistake, if that were possible, might perhaps have been the best. But we know that the Bible had other ends to serve. It was revealed at first step by step; and it was not intended to be any other than a gradual and partial development of truth to the successive ages that received the revelation. To them it was not intended to convey in the clearest and most unmistakeable language the truths made known; but, on the contrary, these truths were purposely darkened by figure, and type, and prophecy, and only partially revealed. And even now, after the canon of Scripture has been completed, it is still intended to serve other purposes beyond that of a complete communication of doctrine and truth to men. It is sufficient for this end; and it is perfect for all its objects, including this among the rest. But there can be no doubt that, in the manner in which the revelation is made to us, and in the revelation itself, there are other objects contemplated; and among these, that the Bible is intended to be a discipline and trial to faith, and for that purpose is intentionally less clear, and full, and explicit than it might have been. There is enough of light in the Bible for those who love the light; but there is enough of darkness for those that love the darkness better. It is a full, sufficient, and perfect rule of faith and conduct for those who will use it aright; but there are "many things in it hard to be understood, which the unlearned and unstable wrest unto their own destruction." It is no disparagement to the Scriptures, as perfect for all the ends designed by them, or as complete and sufficient for the one end of a rule of faith and manners, to assert that human summaries or exhibitions of truth may define the truth in a manner less liable to misinterpretation or perversion than the Scriptures themselves have done. The language of Scripture, and the manner in which it makes known the truth, the degree of light given, and the degree of light withheld, are determined at least partly upon the principle, that to the earnest, honest, and anxious inquirer, "it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God," but to the unbelieving only "in dark sayings and parables." It is not just or reasonable to test the Scriptures by the same test as might be applied to a human explanation or summary of Divine truth. The Scriptures had other ends in view, and other objects were to be attained by them. Had the Bible been intended to answer the one purpose for which confessions, and creeds, and articles of faith are intended, it would have been unlawful and sinful to have added the latter to the former. But human interpretations of Scripture and subordinate standards of faith have not the same end in view as the Bible; and it is no disparagement or dishonour done to the Bible to employ them to serve a purpose, which the Bible was never intended, or at the best only partially intended, to serve.
Upon the general ground, then, that the Scriptures were not limited in their aim to the end which creeds and confessions were intended to accomplish, but had other and more general purposes in view, we argue that it is no disparagement done to the Bible to employ, in addition to it, subordinate standards as a term of communion and a test of orthodoxy. But although we should restrict our argument to the one purpose—which doubtless, along with others, the Scriptures were intended to serve—of supplying a perpetual and infallible rule of faith and practice, we should be led to adopt the very same conclusion. Granting that the Bible was designed to serve as a perfect and infallible rule of belief and conduct, and limiting our attention for the present to this single object, it must still be borne in mind that it was meant to be a rule not local but universal, not temporary but perpetual, accommodated not to one nation or one age, but to all nations and all ages. The very opposite is the end contemplated in human creeds and confessions. They are designed not to serve a universal purpose, but mainly to meet the exigencies of a particular Church. They are constructed not for perpetual use throughout the whole world, but chiefly for the local and temporary benefit of the special Christian society that avails itself of them to be its witness for the present truth, or its protest against the present error. A very different form and phraseology, then, were needed for truth embodied in Scripture, and for truth embodied in creeds and articles of faith employed as the confession of a particular Church. Such creeds and articles, to serve the special and limited purpose designed by them, must vary as to form and expression with the variation of language from age to age,—with the difference of period, and country, and people,—with the state of opinion, more especially with the forms of unbelief and error prevalent,—with the perversions and disguises put upon the phraseology of Scripture by those who turn it unto error,—with the subterfuges in interpretation and misinterpretation of those who would seek to make the Bible speak not the words of truth, but a lie. Ends such as these the Scripture was not intended to accomplish, viewing it even in its limited office of a rule of faith and practice; and it is no dishonour to the Scriptures, nor is it a denial of their sufficiency and perfection for the ends they were meant to serve, to say that what they were not intended they were not fitted to secure. The change in the meaning of language from age to age, were there no other cause, would itself unfit the Bible to act the office or sustain the place of a confession of faith, calculated to witness against error and heresy as they arise in the Church. There are numberless words employed in Scripture which, when used now, convey a very different meaning from what they bore in the first century of our era; and phrases which in the mouth of an apostle or an apostolic father of the primitive Church asserted truth, but in the mouth of one employing them in the present day to declare his faith, would assert or imply error. The word ἐπισκοπος or πρεσβυτερος on the lips of the Apostle Paul, or of the Fathers of the first two centuries, had a very different sense from what it has in the mouth of some fond disciple of the hierarchy at the present day; or again, the term ἱερευς or θυσια in the Epistle to the Hebrews means something very different from what it means now in the creed of some "sacrificing priest" of Rome. The Bible could not, from the very nature of the case, be intended to be a protest against the changes and perversions superinduced upon its own language ages after it was written; and it is not inconsistent with the exclusive deference due to the Bible, as sufficient and perfect for all its own purposes, that we employ human confessions of faith to do what it was never intended and is not calculated to do.
3d. Are human creeds and confessions chargeable with expressly or by implication adding to the words of Scripture?
Could this charge be substantiated, then indeed subordinate standards must be accounted inconsistent with the sufficiency and supreme authority of Scripture. But that this is not the case, the very slightest consideration will suffice to show. That human creeds and confessions may be framed upon the principle of including articles of faith and rules of conduct not contained directly or indirectly in the Bible, it is impossible to deny; for the Church of Rome in her standards has afforded but too plain an exemplification of this. But the creeds of Protestant Churches being simply declaratory of the law of Christ, and nothing more, cannot, in principle at least, lie open to such a charge. In this respect, creeds and subordinate standards must be accounted as standing nearly on the same footing with the ordinance of exposition or interpretation, or preaching the Word of God, exercised by any pastor. The one is no more guilty of adding to the Word of God than the other. They both profess to be a human interpretation by the Church of the mind of God as revealed in His Word. They both claim to be believed because they declare the truth of God, and no further than they declare it. The authoritative declaration of Divine truth delivered from the pulpit is the Church's oral confession of faith. The authoritative declaration of Divine truth embodied in subordinate standards is the Church's written confession of faith. To affirm that the one is inconsistent with the authority of Scripture, because it is virtually the Church adding its own articles of faith to those revealed in Scripture, is an argument that must upon the very same ground apply with equal force to the other. In relation to the Word of God, the ordinance of exposition or preaching on the one hand, and the adoption of human interpretations in the shape of written confessions or creeds on the other, are both declaratory, and no more than declaratory, of the truth revealed in Scripture; and any objection on this score must, in principle, militate as strongly against the one as against the other.
II. So much, then, for the first general objection taken against subordinate standards of faith, as inconsistent with the authority and sole supremacy of the Word of God. The second grand head under which the arguments against subordinate standards may be ranked is, that in one shape or other they are an unlawful imposition upon or restriction of the Christian liberty of the members of the Church. With respect to this objection, taken in its general form, there are two remarks which may be made.
In the first place, if, by the adoption and imposition by its authority of subordinate standards on office-bearers or members, the Church were imposing a new creed and a new rule of conduct not previously obligatory, then indeed the charge of restricting Christian liberty would be well founded. But if the principles already laid down in regard to this matter be correct,—if subordinate standards, in so far as they embody doctrine, are no more than declaratory of the truths of Scripture, and in so far as they contain a directory for practice, are no more than declaratory of the law of Christ,—then it cannot be alleged that they restrict the liberty of Christians any further than the Word of God has already restricted it. So long as subordinate standards keep strictly within the limits of the Word of God, the liberty of the members of the Church cannot be said to be sacrificed to them. It may be a question indeed, and a question not very easily resolved, how far short of the limits of the Word of God it is expedient for subordinate standards to stop in laying down articles of faith, and prescribing regulations as terms of admission to membership or office in the Church, even although these articles and regulations be justified by Scripture. To multiply the number of articles of faith, or of regulations for Church order, and to lay these down minutely and in detail in the creeds and constitutions of the Church, even although all sanctioned by the Word of God, may be an error, as tending not to abridge Christian freedom, but to injure the cause of union among Churches and Church members. The multiplication of Church articles and rules, not fundamental, may on this account be a serious and hurtful error, hostile to the unity of the body of Christ. But if they are acknowledged to be within the limits of the Word of God, they cannot, by any one who so acknowledges them, be accounted without manifest inconsistency as infringements upon his Christian freedom. By his own acknowledgment, an exemption from submission to such doctrines and duties is not part of the freedom which is reserved to him in the Word of God. If indeed the articles of the Church's standards are not justified by Scripture, then on that account, and on that alone, they ought to be expunged from her confession, and are not binding so long as they are retained in it. But if they are sanctioned by the Scriptures, they must be also consistent with Scripture freedom.
But, in the second place, so far from subordinate standards being in the very nature of them inconsistent with Christian liberty, the doctrine that condemns and would forbid them is itself inconsistent with the true liberty of the Church and its members. View the Christian Church in no other or higher light than as a voluntary society, and as a voluntary society it must have the right to fix its own terms of admission whether to membership or to office within it. This right, belonging to the Church in common with any merely voluntary association, is confirmed by the additional consideration, that it is a right guaranteed to it by Christ, in virtue of its being not only or chiefly a voluntary society, but one instituted and governed by Himself. And yet it is this right which is denied to the Christian Church by those who declare that subordinate standards are unlawful and ought to be done away with, whether as a term of communion or a test of orthodoxy. Such a theory virtually denies to the Church of Christ the liberty that is enjoyed by every voluntary society to fix its own terms of fellowship, and to admit to or exclude from membership or office, according as individuals do or do not come up to these terms. Reduce to practice such a theory, and the Church must submit, against its own will and without objection, to receive into its fellowship and among its office-bearers all who claim admission, pretending to hold the Bible as the profession of their faith, but denying, it may be, every one of its fundamental doctrines. Declare subordinate standards to be unlawful, and abolish them in so far as regards their use in defining the Church's membership and testing the character of her office-bearers, and you impose upon the Church the degradation of being compelled to admit all indiscriminately to office and fellowship whose heresies can be contained within a profession of regard to the Scriptures: you rob her of the liberty won for her by Christ, and not denied to the humblest private society, of saying who shall and who shall not have the privilege of enjoying her fellowship and holding her offices. So far from its being true that the use of subordinate standards deprives the Church of her Christian liberty, they are, on the contrary, the shield of her freedom. The theory that proscribes their use and their lawfulness would, if carried fairly out, subject her liberty and rights to the inroad of all who might have it in their hearts to make her their tool or their slave. Such a theory has never been carried out in practice even by Churches which assert theoretically the unlawfulness of confessions. In one shape or other, and under one name or other, such confessions have always been employed as terms of admission for members and ministers. Without them, indeed, either embodied in a written creed or in an oral statement,—either imposed and enforced by office-bearers or by congregations,—there could be no purity of communion, and no freedom of action for the Church. The rights that belong to the humblest voluntary society would be rights of which the Church of Christ could not boast; and its Christian freedom would be put under the foot of every passer-by. The doctrine that forbids the use of subordinate standards in the Church, carried out to its legitimate result, must throw down all the barriers that protect its Christian fellowship, and leave its territory a defenceless prey to the alien and the foe.
The objections taken to creeds and confessions on the ground we are now considering, when viewed more in detail, and with reference more especially to their bearing against the use of such subordinate standards as tests of membership and office in the Church, resolve themselves generally into the following shapes:
1. There are some men who object to all authorized creeds and articles of faith whatsoever, on the ground that they make the name of Christian and the advantages of Christian fellowship dependent on assent to certain positive truths or dogmas, whether more or fewer. There are some writers in the present day who hold the extreme position, that a man may be fully entitled to call himself a Christian, although he does not believe a single fact or doctrine of Christianity, although he denies the historical existence of the Christ of the Gospels, and the Divine origin of the system which He founded. "To declare any one unworthy of the name of Christian," says Blanco White, "because he does not agree with your belief, is to fall into the intolerance of the articled Churches. The moment that the name Christian is made necessarily to contain in its signification belief in certain historical or metaphysical propositions, that moment the name itself becomes a creed: the length of that creed is of little consequence.… No man has a right to reject another from the Christian union on account of any abstract opinion whatever." "A total disbelief of miracles and prophecy," observes Mr. Hennel in his Christian Theism, "no more disqualifies a man for bearing with propriety and consistency the Christian name, than any other deduction from the exuberant belief which places Christ in the Triune Godhead." Upon views such as these it is not needful to dwell.3
2. There are other writers who are very far from going to the extremes now referred to, or from denying that the belief of any truth is necessary to salvation, or is implied in the Christian name; but who maintain that we are not at liberty to embody truth in a creed, and to use this as a test of membership or office in the Church, and that when we do this we sin, or at all events act in a way highly inexpedient and injurious to the best interests of Christianity.
Mr. Isaac Taylor, in an article in the North British Review upon the works of Dr. Chalmers, announces that it is of the greatest importance to "separate between the truth and the creed," and "to present the truth to the mind of the people apart from the creed," in which it is "entombed." If Dr. Chalmers had rightly understood this, Mr. Taylor considers that, "thenceforward leaving 'rampant infidelity' to run out its own reckless course, he would have given his giant energy to the more hopeful task of ridding his country and its Church of the thraldoms imposed on them in a dark and evil age."
Christianity, we are told in other quarters, "is a life, not a dogma;" and we may and ought to have religion without theology, and Churches without creeds. Such opinions and expressions, in the case of some, undoubtedly spring from an underlying feeling of dislike to all positive Divine truth, more especially when pressed upon them in the shape of distinct and definite statements claiming the submission of the understanding and conscience on the ground of the authority of God. But in the case of very many who use the sort of language referred to, it arises, I believe, from sheer confusion of ideas. The fact that I can say "Credo," I believe this or that truth, does not make the truth the worse, but rather the better, as regards myself; nor does it put me in a worse, but in a better, position with respect to other and new truths to which I may yet hope to attain. And the essential nature of the case is not altered in the least when I put my belief into accurate words, and exhibit it to other men, whether orally or in writing.3 And what is lawful and expedient for me as a private member of the ecclesiastical society, is at least equally legitimate and fitting for the Church, or the office-bearers of the Church, to do in their collective capacity.
If, indeed, the statement of belief which I make to my friend, in order to ascertain whether we "two can walk together as those that are agreed" on the essential truths of Christianity,—or the statement of belief which the Church makes and asks her office-bearers to subscribe, in order that she may ascertain their soundness in the faith which she has pledged herself to her members and the world to maintain and expound through them,—be an inaccurate exposition or embodiment of the truth, let that be distinctly alleged and proved. An objection on the ground of discrepancy between the Divine truth and this or that human expression of it, is a competent and, if established, an unanswerable objection. An objection founded on a vague allegation of discrepancy between Divine truth and all positive human expressions of it, is neither a competent nor a sound objection.
3. There is another class of the objectors to confessions of faith as tests of membership and office in the Christian society, whose opposition to them arises not so much from dislike to positive Divine truth, or to distinct and definite statements of it by the Church in general, as from dislike to some particular set of doctrines embodied in the standards of some particular Church. The Arians of the fourth century often opposed the definitions of the Trinity put forth by the Church at Nice and Constantinople, on the general ground of the unlawfulness of imposing any such test of orthodoxy in other than Scriptural words. But the real source of their objection to the term ὁμοουσιος was dislike to the doctrine it so unequivocally conveyed. And in like manner, in our own day, much of the opposition to confessions of faith which takes the form of general objections to all human summaries of Divine truth when employed as terms of private or ministerial communion, really has its root in a distaste for the theology of the Reformation, which is embodied in the authorized standards of all the Reformed Churches of Christendom.
Upon objections which ultimately resolve themselves into a feeling of this nature, it is, of course, needless to dwell here. When manifested in their true shape, they must be dealt with on a different field of discussion, and removed by other arguments than those which are relevant and sufficient to establish the lawfulness and expediency of using confessions of faith as tests of membership and office in the Church.
4. Creeds and confessions are objected to by not a few as hindrances to the progress and development of theological science, and as based upon the assumption that all revealed truth can be fully comprehended by any body of uninspired men, and stereotyped for all time in a merely human summary. Now, such objections as these proceed upon a total misapprehension of the true state of the case. We do not say that the statements of the Westminster Confession, for example, comprise the whole truth of God: what we do say is that we believe them to be true—to be a true expression of the revealed mind and will of God, so far as they go. Let any part of them be proved from Scripture to be false, and we give it up; for we hold them only because, and in so far as, they are true. We invite every man to go beyond them if he can. We encourage and call upon every student of God's holy Word to press forward to fresh discoveries of truth, and to open up new views of the meaning of Scripture. "There remaineth yet much land to be possessed." Those who have studied their Bibles longest and most prayerfully are most convinced of that. But here, we believe, in this form of ancient and sound words, is so much of the good land and large already so far explored and taken possession of. Here is so much of truth made good, and rescued from the tumult of error and ignorance, and fenced round with enduring bulwarks which have many a time already turned the battle from our gates. As well might you ask the men of Holland to throw down the dykes that guard their shores from the assault and inroad of the sea, and that were reared at such cost and pains by those that went before them, as call upon us, unless with far more weighty arguments than have ever yet been offered, to yield up the territory won for us by the sanctified learning, the insight, and the prayers of our forefathers.
In bringing to a close our discussion of this important subject, there is one point of considerable practical importance to which I would very briefly advert. The distinction, to which I have already referred, between a confession of faith regarded as a declaration of or testimony to Divine truth, and a confession of faith regarded as a test of membership and office, has not always been sufficiently kept in view in the Reformed Churches. Owing to this especially, the multiplication of articles, true in themselves, but non-fundamental, and of comparatively subordinate importance, has been in some cases unquestionably a practical evil.
It is perfectly clear, for example, that the Westminster Confession is not fitted to be a test of Church membership. Accordingly we do not use it as such, and our Church has never appointed it to be so used. Even as regards some of the office-bearers of the Church, it may fairly be questioned whether it is altogether adapted to be employed as a test of their fitness for office. The general principle to be laid down with respect to this matter seems to be this: Whatever truths it is necessary for a man to believe in order that he may rightly discharge his duty in the Church, these it is lawful for the Church to embody in a confession and require his subscription to as a condition of office; and vice versâ, Whatever truths it is not necessary for a man to hold in order to the right discharge of the duties of his office, these it is not lawful to demand his subscription to as a term of office. What those precise truths may be to which we are warranted in requiring an express personal adhesion in the case of the different ranks of office-bearers, is another, and, it may be, a more difficult question; but of the soundness of the general principle now enunciated, there can, I think, be little doubt. Take the case of deacons, for example. They have not, generally speaking, the theological training necessary to enable them fully to understand the Confession of Faith in all its parts; and if they had, they do not need to understand it all in order to perform efficiently the work of their office in the Church. And so even in the higher office of ruling elder. The amount of truth which an elder requires intelligently to hold in order rightly to do the duty of ruling in the Church, to which he is specially set apart at his ordination, is much less than that which is needed by the minister, who is publicly to teach as well as to exercise government and discipline in the Christian society.
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James Bannerman, The Church of Christ