of September 19th, their preliminary act about adopting the Confession of
There is no inconsistency between this declaration and those of 1729. This is, indeed, in some respects more explicit, but it is not more comprehensive. The synod adopted no more of the Confession in 1736, than they did in 1729. It is to be remarked that they call the overture adopted on the morning of September 19th, their preliminary act about adopting the Confession of Faith, and the minute of the afternoon of that day, their adopting act itself. In the former they determined that all their members shall declare first, their "agreement with the Confession, &c., in all the essential and necessary articles;" and secondly, that they "adopt the said Confession and Catechisms as the confession of their faith." When they came to carry this resolution into effect, they did actually adopt the whole of the Confession and Catechisms, "excepting only" the specified clauses in chapters twentieth and twenty-third. The act of 1736 does the same and no more. The preliminary act merely declared the purpose of the synod to exact the adoption of the Confession in all its essential and necessary articles; the synod not then knowing what exceptions they might choose to make, but subsequently they made no exception beyond what has just been stated. This, however, was not generally known to the churches, and hence the anxiety to ascertain what the synod received and what they rejected. To satisfy this anxiety, the synod tell the churches what they had done; that they had adopted the whole of the Confession, rejecting no part of it, but simply repudiating a certain specified interpretation of a few clauses. As far as our doctrinal standards, therefore, are concerned, this declaration of 1736 is nothing more than an announcement and repetition in full of what the synod had done in 1729, by piecemeal, partly in the morning and partly in the afternoon.
It has been asserted that the ground of the dissatisfaction with the act of 1729, was the exception taken to the clauses respecting the power of the civil magistrate, and that the synod was at last forced to restore those articles, and withdraw their objection. Neither of these assertions is correct. The dissatisfaction arose from the "printed paper" which contained merely
the preliminary act, which says not one word about the clauses in question. The whole difficulty arose from the distinction between essential and unessential articles, which the people did not understand, or did not know how much was rejected as unessential. Accordingly this declaration is directly solely to that point. That the objection to the clauses in chapters twentieth and twenty-third were not withdrawn, is clear from the repetition of the minute which contains those objections, and which is here repeated to remove the dissatisfaction: a very clear proof that the difficulty did not relate to that point, and that the synod had nothing to retract.
As these are official documents, emanating from the same authority as the adopting act itself, and expressly designed to declare its meaning, they must be regarded as decisive, and the question as to the true intention of that act might here be dismissed. Could it even be shown that individuals, or particular judicatories took a different view of the subject, it would prove nothing, in opposition to the unanimous and repeated declarations of the synod. Still as this is a subject of great historical interest to the members of our church, it may not be amiss to gather what additional light we can from the records of the several presbyteries, and the writings of contemporaries. How the presbytery of Newcastle regarded this matter may be inferred from the two following extracts from their minutes. The first is dated September 2, 1730, and is as follows: "Whereas divers persons, belonging to several of our congregations, have been stumbled and offended with a certain minute of the proceedings of our last synod, contained in a printed letter, because of some ambiguous words or expressions contained therein, being willing to remove, as far as in us lies, all causes and occasions of jealousies and offences in relation to that affair, and openly before God and the world to testify that we all with one accord firmly adhere to the same sound doctrine, which we and our fathers were trained up in; we, the ministers of the presbytery of Newcastle, whose names are underwritten, do, by this our act of subscribing our names to these presents, solemnly declare and testify, that we own and acknowledge the Westminster Confession and Catechisms
to be the confession of our faith, being in all things agreeable to the word of God, so far as we are able to judge and discern, taking them in the true, genuine and obvious sense of the words. Signed, Adam Boyd, Joseph Houston, H. Hook, Hugh Stevenson, James Anderson, Wm. Steward, Thomas Creaghead, George Gillespie, John Thompson, Samuel Gelston, Thomas Evans, Alexander Hucheson."
It is objected to these gentlemen, that they here adopt the whole Confession in the obvious sense of the words, without any reference to the clauses about the power of the civil magistrate. This is regarded as conclusive evidence that they were in favour of subjecting the church to the power of the state. They must have been strange men if this were the case. Most of them as members of the synod, in 1729, solemnly declared that they rejected and denied any controlling power in the civil magistrate over the church, and all authority to persecute any one on account of his religion. In 1730, they declare that no new member should be obliged to profess any such doctrine. And in 1736, they repeat their own denial of it. Do they then here, in opposition to all their other professions, assert it? It is hardly to be believed. It is to be remembered that the synod did not reject the clauses specified in chapters twentieth and twenty-third, absolutely, but "in any such sense" as taught the subjection of the church to the power of the state; "a sense, which for my part," says the Rev. Samuel Blair, "I believe the reverend composers [never intended in them." If then the signers of the above declaration were of the same opinion as Mr. Blair on this point, there is no inconsistency between this document and those to which they assented as members of synod.
The second record in the minutes of the presbytery of Newcastle relating to this subject, occurs under the date of December 30, 1730, and is to the following effect: "A representation of some scrupling our way of adopting the Confession of Faith; upon which the presbytery produced both the minutes of the synod and presbytery relating thereto, which seemed to give