תמונות בעמוד
PDF
ePub

least of it, in every mental and moral excellency, to the greatest of the great, and the noblest of the noble who have ever lived.

Such is our Saviour. And seeing he is such, may we not be excused for glorying in him? The Jews of old gloried in Moses. Some in the primitive churches gloried in Paul: some in Apollos: and others in Cephas. Many round about us glory in Shakespeare, or in Milton, or in Bacon, or in Newton, or in Raphael, or in Michael Angelo. Many more glory in Luther, or in Calvin, or in Knox. May not then we be excused if we glory in Christ Jesus, and shout aloud, in the enthusiasm of our joy, "none but Christ Jesus," "none but Christ Jesus"? Is it not well to carry our homage to the highest? Is not the aspiration all the loftier? and will not the uplifting and exalting influence on the soul be all the sublimer? Must it not be beneficial to us, must it not be blissful, to have communion in spirit with the highest and the best? Must it not be beneficial and blissful to have communion in spirit with Jesus? And with him we can have real communion. We cannot have it, we fear, with Moses. Most probably He does not know us. For the same reason we On our part

cannot have real communion, we fear, with Paul. we approach him, and think of him, and think with him; but we fear that he, on his part, does not know us. He is perhaps too near the throne, too near the most glorified around the throne, and too much occupied with them, to get to know us, and all those, both in heaven and on earth, who may love and admire him. It is not that he is haughty. The reason is this, he is limited. For the same reason we cannot have two-handed communion with Apollos the eloquent, or Cephas the impetuous, or John the lovely and the loving. Though we stretch out our hand to them, they may not know to stretch out their hand to us. And so too with Shakespeare and Milton and Newton and Raphael and Luther, and the other Leaders of the thoughts, and Magnets of the hearts, of men. It is becoming in us to admire and reverence and love them. But they do not know us. There cannot be between us and them reciprocation of thought and feeling With Christ Jesus, however, it is different. Not only is he greater and loftier than Moses, and Paul, and Apollos, and John, and Cephas; not only is he more poetical by far than Milton and Shakspeare, and more sagacious by far than Newton and Bacon, and a greater master of art than Raphael and Michael Angelo, and greater by far in theology, in divinity, than Luther, and Calvin, and Melancthon; he also stoops toward us all. He takes notice of us all. He knows us all. He is interested in us all. At this moment he looks on us all. His heart moves toward us all. He fulfils his own gracious promises to his dis

ciples "Lo, I am with you alway, even to the end of the world." There is thus scope for reciprocation. It is possible to hold real communion with Jesus.

He has opened up his heart to us-he is still keeping it open. We know what he thinks of us, and how he feels toward us. And, O blessed reality, we can open up our hearts to him and keep them open to him, and he knows every thought that we entertain concerning him; and every feeling of admiration, and adoration, and love, that we cherish. How sweet! How delightful! How joyful! How glorious! How sublime!

THE WESTMINSTER CONFESSION OF FAITH.

A HISTORICAL CRITIQUE.

THE Westminster Confession of Faith must be held, from its very position and claims, to be amenable alike to the theological, ecclesiastical, literary, and historical critic. Each, too, has a perfect right to judge it by a standard much higher than is applied to ordinary books. Its position as the permanent and binding creed of a large section of the British Protestant Church, its claims as a correct and exhaustive exhibition of divine truth, raise it above the rank of common literary productions, and challenge the application of the highest critical canons. Should it, therefore, be subjected to a much severer and more searching criticism than any other book of the same date, no one has a right to complain. Nay, complaint would be much more justifiable were it treated otherwise, because to measure a book with the pretensions and position of the Westminster Confession by the ordinary critical standards, would be a virtual denial of its claims. It would be as humiliating to an extraordinary giant to be reckoned an ordinary mortal, as it would be exalting to an ordinary mortal to be reckoned an extraordinary giant.

The Westminster Confession, as an authoritative exposition of Christian doctrine, invites the judgement of the theological critic, and his work is to bring its doctrinal positions and exhibitions to the double test of reason and scripture. As embodying a system of Church government, it is open to the criticism of the ecclesiastical politician, and his work is to judge its governmental principles and form by the light of scripture, nature, and history. As a book of human composition, holding a place in the world of letters, it comes within the sphere of the literary critic, and his work is to examine its method and style, and judge whether the

one be logical, and the other classical. As a creed compiled at a given period, and holding a certain relation to circumstances and opinions then existing, it is amenable to the historical critic, and his work is to inquire whether the time was favourable for the compilation of such a creed, or those who compiled it the best qualified for such a work; whether it was the product of the most auspicious events and the most comprehensive intellects, and whether the influence it has exercised on subsequent religious thought has been pernicious or beneficial. The present paper will be confined to the inquiries involved in this last department, and will be an attempt to criticise, historically, the rise, formation, and influence of the Westminster Confession of Faith.

The subject being thus limited, three questions arise:- -What were the conditions and circumstances in which the Confession arose? Who were its authors, and how were they qualified for their work? And what kind of influence has it exercised on subsequent theological thought and ecclesiastical action?

The answers to these questions, if correct and exhaustive, will determine the value of the Confession as a creed, its true position, and the quantity and quality of its claims. For should it be found to have arisen out of the circumstances and confusions of the time, then these, determining to a great extent both its manner and matter, will, to that extent, abstract from it a universal and permanent character, and assign to it one that is local and temporary. And should its authors be discovered to be men great, but not the greatest of their time, prejudiced and partyspirited, working for private and sectional ends, then their work will neither command our unqualified admiration as an intellectual performance, nor our reverence as an exhibition of that religion whose heart is charity, and whose adaptations are universal. And should its influence turn out to have been pernicious, repressive of independent thought, and productive of intolerant action, then a case will be made out against it, on purely historical grounds, such as should draw from the most impartial judge emphatic condemnation. Let us then consider each question successively.

1. What were the circumstances and conditions in which the Westminster Confession arose? The Parliamentary Ordinance calling the Assembly of Divines, is dated June 12th, 1643, and the first meeting of the Assembly was held July 1st, same year. Let us briefly sketch the then political, ecclesiastical, and theological state of Britain.

1. The Political. The strife between the King and the Parliament was then raging, and had ripened into civil war. The royalists had rallied round the King; the Puritans round the Parliament. The protracted quarrel was at length left to the arbitration of the

sword, and both parties were resolved that no milder measure should settle it. The King had outlawed the adherents of the Parliament; the Parliament had outlawed the adherents of the King. Royal proclainations were issued, declaring the Acts of the Parliament treason against the King's person and prerogative; Parliamentary proclamations were issued, declaring the King's acts treason against the State and Constitution. The land from end to end was in a state of political anarchy, civil war was raging, and civil ruin seemed impending, when the Divines assembled at Westminster.

2. The Ecclesiastical. There were two great ecclesiastical parties then existing-the High Churchmen and the Puritanscorresponding to the two great political parties, Royalists and Parliamentarians. But under each division there were many sub-divisions. There were extreme Episcopalians, disciples of the Laudian School, who held the divine right of Bishops, the spiritual efficacy of ceremonies, and conformity to the Episcopal Church as an indispensable condition of salvation. There were moderate Episcopalians, like Archbishop Usher, willing to modify Episcopalian forms and claims so as to effect a compromise with the Puritans, and, like all middle men, standing well with neither party. There were Episcopalian-Presbyterians, like Richard Baxter, who thought that a sort of amalgam of the two ecclesiastical systems, each so modified as to dove-tail into the other, was the true Scriptural model of church government. There were Presbyterians, pure and simple, like Stephen Marshall and the Scottish Commissioners to the Assembly, who held the divine right of Presbytery quite as strongly as the bishops held the divine right of Episcopacy, who asserted the legislative and administrative supremacy of the church in its own sphere, and would brook no interference by the civil magistrate in spiritual affairs. There were Erastians, like John Selden and Oliver St. John, who thought the form of church government a mere question of expediency which the civil power had the authority to arrange, settle, and administer. There were Independents, like Thomas Goodwin and Philip Nye, Oliver Cromwell and John Milton, who thought that the administrative and legislative power should be lodged in the individual church, that there should be neither superior courts nor national establishments, and that there should be the most perfect toleration on all theological questions. And over And over and above these strongly marked parties, there was a host of minor sects almost as numerous and destructive as the locusts that plagued Egypt,-Levellers, Anabaptists, Ranters, Antinomians, &c., &c., such as could only spring up at a time when religious fancy and fanaticism had run mad. And in such an age, when one scarcely knows whether to

marvel most at the multiplicity or at the intolerance of the various sects, the Assembly of Divines was called to compile, in the midst of almost unparallelled distractions and the most furious rivalries, a Confession of Faith for the whole British Church in all coming time!

3. Theological. In 1643 theological controversy was comparatively asleep. In the earlier stages of the struggle between High Churchmen and Puritans it had figured largely. The Puritans were generally Calvinists of the most rigid type. Laud and the High Churchmen, not because they had strong doctrinal convictions, but because they were determined to render their position as definitely and decisively antagonistic as possible, adopted the Arminian tenets. But the controversy thus occasioned was so evidently a mere blind from the Laudian side, that it was speedily silenced in the fiercer strife as to bishops, ceremonies, robes, candles, altars, and the deeper questions at issue between the rival ecclesiastical systems. There were, however, three distinct theological parties. The strict Calvinists, represented by Dr. Twisse, of Newbury; the pure Arminians, represented by John Hales, of Eton; and the middle-system men, represented by Richard Baxter. But their doctrinal differences slept in the presence of their greater ecclesiastical disputes. England's questions in 1643 were thus not theological, but politico-ecclesiastical, relating, not to doctrines, but to the government of Church and State. And these politico-ecclesiastical questions so interpenetrated as to be inseparable. The ecclesiastical were involved in the political; the settlement of either was the settlement of both. If the Puritans triumphed, the Parliament prevailed; if the High Churchmen, the King. Disjunction was impossible.

Episcopacy and Royalty had formed one alliance; Puritanism and Constitutionalism another. James I. and Charles I. alike believed in the "no Bishop no King" doctrine, while the Bishops believed in the "no King no Bishop" doctrine. Hence they clung tenaciously to each other. The bishops were the king's servile instruments and defenders; he their despotic patron and protector. They invented the doctrines of the divine right of kings and passive obedience by their subjects; he enacted laws against dissent, and in favour of liturgies and ceremonies, altars and robes. But the Puritans, on the other hand, especially those inclined to Presbyterianisin or Independency, maintained the supremacy of the constitution-the subjection of king, parliament, and people, to law, as in Rutherford's famous "Lex Rex" the law is the king. Hence when the Parliament came to an open rupture with the king, it also came into conflict with the bishops. Again and again did the obstinate opposition of the spiritual

« הקודםהמשך »