The Scots Confession of Faith
It has already been remarked that, in his lifetime, John Knox was credited with being a prophet; and there is nothing which more tends to attract to anyone the curiosity and veneration of other human beings than the impression that he is able to lift a corner of the curtain of futurity. Perhaps he was not himself altogether averse to the interest in his person excited by this vague belief; but, on the whole, his views on the subject were perfectly sane: “My assurances,” he said, “are not the marvels of Merlin nor yet the dark sentences of profane prophecies. But, first, the plain truth of God’s Word, secondly, the invincible justice of the everlasting God, and, thirdly, the ordinary course of His punishments and plagues are my assurance and grounds. God’s Word threateneth destruction to all inobedient; His immutable justice must require the same; the ordinary punishments and plagues show examples. What man, then, can cease to prophesy?” To prophecy of this sort it is evident that anyone may attain in his degree who observes the course of events with a watchful eye and, at the same time, familiarises himself with the principles of Providence, as these are revealed in the Holy Scriptures. But it is in a more modern sense that we now speak of Knox as a prophet, as Carlyle has done in his remarkable estimate of his fellow-countryman in Heroes and Hero- Worship. By a prophet we mean one who has had a vision of what his country might become by advancing along a certain pathway, and who has with eloquence and effect pointed this pathway out. In this sense Knox holds a conspicuous place among modern prophets; for it is certain that he yearned over his native country with an intense affection, saw with unrivalled clearness what were the conditions of its true welfare, and impressed these in memorable words on the mind of Scotland.
When in those days a man of prophetic character thus saw a vision of the future, it was apt to assume the form of a structure of which the foundation was a Confession of Faith, the walls a Book of Discipline, and the roof or pinnacle a Book of Works, iii. 168.
Common Order. These were the products to which, at the epoch of the Reformation, the efforts of the foremost minds were directed; and we have now to see how far Knox succeeded in shaping them for the use of his country.
Confessions of faith were peculiar products of the Reformation era. In the Early Church, indeed, immense labour had been expended on a few brief documents of the same order, the best known of which are the Apostles’ Creed and the Nicene Creed; but the activity of the Church in this direction had ceased for a thousand years when, at the Reformation, it was resumed again; and now the creeds proved to be of much greater extent. Every country in which the work of reformation made any considerable progress had its own; but the most renowned were the German, entitled the Augsburg Confession, the Swiss, called the First Helvetic Confession, and the Articles of the Church of England.
The primary object of them all was to make known the new revelation of the truth of God which had visited men’s souls, the recently discovered art of printing being made available for the purpose of diffusing the message with which the minds of those who issued the confessions were charged. Creeds had originally arisen out of the practice of permitting converts to bear witness at their baptism, in the presence of the onlookers, to the faith they had embraced, the Apostles’ Creed being nothing else than the formula in which this was done. In the earliest times, there is reason to believe, this was regarded as a privilege and an honour by those who thus testified to the world what the Saviour had done for them. Certainly at the Reformation it was a strong religious impulse that inspired the composition of confessions: they were the spontaneous and irresistible expression of strong convictions. And obviously this ought to be a characteristic of such documents always, or they have ceased to deserve their name. If a Church is not proud of its confession, but only endures it, it is manifest that the salt has lost its savour.
Another object aimed at was the contradiction of false doctrine. It may be due to the inherent laziness of the human mind, which never does hard work till it is compelled; but it is an acknowledged fact that the Church has never taken a firm grasp of truth except when forced to do so by the emergence of error. All the creeds bear marks of this, for they abound in refutations of doctrines believed to be false; and against this foil the outline of the truth is made distinct. At the Reformation there was a huge accumulation of error to be got rid of, and the confessions of faith attacked it with energy. In all of them the strongest possible language is applied to the Pope and all his works; and the way of salvation by free grace is illustrated by contrast with the ceremonies and legalism of the old system. We may shrink now from the epithets employed against opponents and, indeed, from the argumentative and truculent tone in which it was customary at that time to write; but it is short-sighted not to perceive that this was to a large extent only a fashion of the age, or to miss the exquisite flower concealed within the hard and prickly sheath of controversy.
The most questionable aspect of creeds is their application as tests. Not only at the time were they used to separate the sheep from the goats, but they have been handed down from age to age, often being made a condition of the holding even of secular positions and always of the holding of sacred offices. This is defended, at least for positions of the latter sort, on the ground that the Scripture itself is not a sufficient test, as its words can be assented to by those holding radically opposite opinions. It is argued that to give a
Church compactness there must be an absolutely definite ground on which all the members stand. Money will not be given for the propagation of a Church’s tenets, unless the donors have a sufficient guarantee for the teaching of what they believe to be the truth. These reasons may be sufficient; but there are certainly serious items on the opposite side of the account. When thus employed, creeds perpetuate the differences between denominations, whereas these ought to learn from one another and thus gradually approximate to one another’s standpoints. If they make truth permanent, they make error permanent also; as may be seen in the case of the Church of Rome, which, provoked by the activity of the Protestants in creed-construction, gave to its own doctrines a confessional form at the Council of Trent which has cut off its return to the simplicity of the Gospel. By all Protestants it is acknowledged that the Bible is the supreme standard, but there is a constant temptation to read the Scriptures by the light of the creed, instead of vice versa. It is allowed that the creed is fallible and that it ought to be changed, if the Spirit of God, by means of the new light of Providence, expands and purifies the Church’s apprehensions of the truth; but, in point of fact, such an acknowledgment is usually a mere formality, no alteration actually taking place, and the creed being virtually accorded the same immutability as the Scriptures. In our own day a new terror has been added to life by the discovery that churches may, through their confessions of faith, be dragged into courts of law, where the most sacred elements of doctrine are handled, as if they were coal and tallow, by judges whose acquaintance with the history and contents of the confession has been extemporised and may be neither accurate nor sympathetic. Actual revision, at intervals not too far apart, alone can justify the use of creeds as tests at all.’
As has been already indicated, it was in 1560 that the First Scots Confession was drawn up, at the request of Parliament, by Knox and five other divines, all of whom, like himself, bore the name of John — Wynram, Spottiswood, Willock, Douglas and Row. The time in which they completed their task — four days — seems miraculously brief when compared with that required in our day to effect the slightest revision of any creed; but it is not to be forgotten that Knox at any rate was a practised l hand. He had co-operated in drawing up the Articles of the Church of England; in Geneva he
* Cf. Rainy, The Delivery and Development of Doctrine, ch. vi.
had made a rapid sketch of a creed for insertion in the Prayer Book of the English congregation; and he was doubtless familiar with the other confessions already adopted by the Protestant Churches of the Continent. But, besides, the composition of such manifestoes was a favourite occupation of the age; and the matter of which they were composed was common property.
Still the work, which bears very manifestly the stamp of the genius of its principal author, is a thoroughly original composition, characterized in a high degree by the spirit of conviction and enthusiasm, which must always be reckoned the principal virtue of such productions. Thus, its opening words are: “Long have we thirsted, dear brethren, to have notified unto the world the sum of that doctrine which we profess, and for the which we have sustained infamy and danger.” This is the true tone of the confessor. And it was received in a similar spirit by the Parliament which adopted it; great joy being expressed at the birth of such a testimony, which, it was confidently believed, would prove a blessing to the nation.
The style is polemical; not only the Papists being dealt with in Knox’s trenchant manner, but Anabaptists and other contemporary troublers of Israel being roughly handled, and even ancient heretics.
like Arius, Marcion and Nestorius, receiving a wipe in the bygoing. But the two outstanding features are the exaltation of the Spirit of God above the authority of Fathers and Councils and the exaltation of Christ above the means of grace. The individual is summoned to hear himself the voice of God in the Word, instead of waiting for the reports of those who allege that they have heard it. This responsibility of private judgment lifted the Protestant nations to a new level of manhood; but its truly religious character is never to be overlooked: it is not that the individual is egged-on to place his own opinions above all authority; but he is encouraged to listen in humility to the promptings of the Spirit of God in the way of His own appointment. In like manner it is assumed that there is for the individual direct access to God through Christ; the notion that this can be mediated only through the priest or the Church or the means of grace being alien to this period of religious intuition. Perhaps, indeed, means are placed too much in the background; but, if so, the Confession errs on virtue’s side; for means of grace had been put in Christ’s place; and they always tend to become obstructions instead of helps.
Knox would not have scrupled to impose the Confession as a test on his own generation; but he does not bear the responsibility of binding it on subsequent ones. On the contrary, he set a flaming example of loyalty to conscience in rejecting the formulas of his predecessors, when these did not agree with the present teachings of the Spirit of God, and, in the Confession itself, occur the following remarkable words, which deserve to be written in letters of gold: “If any man shall note in this our confession any article or sentence repugning to God’s Holy Word, may it please him of his gentleness, and for Christian charity’s sake, to admonish us of the same in writing; and we of our honour and fidelity do promise unto him satisfaction from the mouth of God (that is, from His Holy Scriptures), or else reformation of that which he shall prove to be amiss.”
In point of fact, this First Scots Confession was superseded by the Westminster Confession, after it had existed for less than a hundred years — a period which may be regarded as about the right length of life for such a document. Some, like Edward Irving, have been inclined to consider it superior to that by which it was displaced; but with this I can by no means agree. Knox’s production is, indeed, characterized by a verve and a swing which the Westminster Confession lacks; but 1 History, ii. 96.
the latter is far superior as a learned, comprehensive and well-balanced statement.
If asked, however, to produce a specimen of what the Reformation Age in Scotland could do in the way of doctrinal statement, I should select, not any passage of the Confession of Faith, but the following brief creed, found in the Book of Common Order — the subject of the next chapter — and used in administering the ordinance of baptism; although it must be admitted that it may not be from Knox’s own pen; and, if my instinct is not mistaken, it reads too smoothly to be his in the strictest sense. But at least he sanctioned and used it; and it may stand as a certificate of his theological competency: —
“The Christian faith, whereof now ye have briefly heard the sum, is commonly divided into twelve articles; but, that we may the better understand what is contained in the same, we shall divide it into four principal parts. The first shall concern God the Father, the second Jesus Christ our Lord, the third shall express to us our faith in the Holy Ghost, and the fourth and last shall declare what is our faith concerning the Church, and of the graces of God freely given to the same.
“First, of God we confess three things, to wit, that he is our Father, Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth.
“Our Father we call Him, and so by faith believe Him to be, not so much because He hath created us (for that we have common with the rest of creatures, who yet are not called to that honour to have God to them a favourable Father); but we call Him Father by reason of His free adoption, by the which He hath chosen us to life everlasting in Jesus Christ. And this His most singular mercy we prefer to all things earthly and transitory; for without this there is to mankind no felicity, no comfort nor final joy; and, having this, we are assured that by the same love by the which He once hath freely chosen us He shall conduct the whole course of our life, that in the end we shall possess that immortal kingdom that He hath prepared for His chosen children. For from this fountain of God’s free mercy or adoption springeth our vocation, our justification, our continual sanctification, and finally our glorification, as witness the Apostles.
“The same God our Father we confess Almighty, not only in respect of that He may do, but in consideration that by His power and godly wisdom are all creatures in heaven and earth and under the earth ruled, guided and kept in that order that His eternal will and knowledge hath appointed them.
“And that is it which in the third part we do confess, that He is Creator of heaven and earth: that is to say, that the heaven and the earth, and the contents thereof, are so in His hand that there is nothing done without His knowledge neither yet against His will, but that He ruleth them so that in the end His godly name shall be glorified in them. And so we confess and believe, that neither the devils nor yet the wicked of the world have any power to molest or trouble the chosen children of God but in so far as it pleaseth Him to use them as instruments, either to prove and try our faith and patience or else to stir us to more fervent invocation of His name and to continual meditation of that heavenly rest and joy that abideth us after these transitory troubles. And yet .shall not this excuse the wicked, because they never look in their iniquity to please God nor yet to obey His will.
“In Jesus Christ we confess two distinct and perfect natures — to wit, the eternal Godhead and the perfect Manhood joined together — so that we confess and believe, that that eternal Word, which was from the beginning and by the which all things were created, and yet are conserved and kept in their being, did, at the time appointed in the counsel of His heavenly Father, receive our nature of a Virgin, by operation of the Holy Ghost. So that in His conception we acknowledge and believe that there is nothing but purity and sanctification; yea, even insomuch as He is become our brother. For it behoved Him that should purge others from their sins to be pure and clean from all spot of sin even from His conception. And, as we confess and believe Him conceived by the Holy Ghost, so do we confess and believe Him to be born of a Virgin named Mary, of the tribe of Judah and of the family of David, that the promise of God and the prophecy might be fulfilled, to wit, * That the seed of the woman should break down the Serpent’s head,’ and that * a Virgin should conceive and bear a child, whose name should be Emmanuel, that is, God with us.’ The name Jesus, which signifieth a Saviour, was given unto Him by the Angel, to assure us that it is He alone that saveth His people from their sins. He is called Christ, that is to say. Anointed, by reason of the offices given unto Him by God His Father, to wit, that He alone is appointed King, Priest and Prophet. King, in that all power is given to Him in heaven and earth; so that there is none other but He in heaven nor earth that hath just authority and power to make laws to bind the consciences of men; neither yet is there any other that may defend our souls from the bondage of sin, nor yet our bodies from the tyranny of man. And this He doeth by the power of His Word, by the which he draweth us out of the bondage and slavery of Satan and maketh us to reign over sin; whilst that we live and serve our God in righteousness and holiness of our life. A Priest, and that perpetual and everlasting, we confess Him, by reason that by the sacrifice of His own body, which He once offered up upon the cross, He hath fully satisfied the justice of his Father in our behalf; so that whosoever seeketh any means besides His death and passion, in heaven or in earth, to reconcile unto them God’s favour, they do not only blaspheme but also, so far as in them is, renounce the fruit and efificacy of that His only one sacrifice. We confess Him to be the only Prophet, who hath revealed unto us the whole will of His Father in all things pertaining to our salvation.
“This our Lord Jesus we confess to be the only Son of God, because there is none such by nature but He alone. We confess Him also our Lord, not only by reason we are His creatures but chiefly because He hath redeemed us by His precious blood, and so hath gotten just dominion over us, as over the people whom He hath delivered from bondage of sin, death, hell and the Devil, and hath made us kings and priests to God His Father.
“We further confess and believe, that the same our Lord Jesus was accused before an earthly judge, Pontius Pilate, under whom, albeit oft and divers times He was pronounced to be innocent, He suffered the death of the cross, hanged upon a tree betwixt two thieves; which death, as it was most cruel and vile before the eyes of men, so was it accursed by the mouth of God Himself, saying, * Cursed is everyone that hangeth on a tree.’ And this kind of death sustained He in our person, because He was appointed of God His Father to be our pledge and He that should bear the punishment of our transgressions. And so we acknowledge and believe that He hath taken away that curse and malediction that hanged on us by reason of our sin. He verily died, rendering up His spirit into the hands of His Father, after that He had said, ‘Father, into Thy hands I commend my spirit.’ After His death, we confess. His body was buried, and that He descended into hell. But, because he was the Author of life, yea, the very Life itself, it was impossible that He should be retained under the dolours of death; and, therefore.
the third day He rose again victor and conqueror of death and hell; by the which His resurrection He hath brought life again into the world, which He, by the power of His Holy Spirit, communicateth unto His lively members; so that now unto them corporal death is no death, but an entrance into that blessed life wherein our Head, Jesus Christ, is now entered. For, after that He had sufficiently proved His resurrection to His disciples and unto such as did constantly abide with Him to the death. He visibly ascended to the heavens, and was taken from the eyes of men and placed at the right hand of God the Father Almighty, where presently He remaineth in His glory, only Head, only Mediator, and only Advocate for all the members of His body; of which we have most especial comfort; first, for that by His ascension the heavens are opened unto us and an entrance made unto us, that boldly we may appear before the throne of our Father’s mercy; and, secondarily, that we know that this honour and authority is given unto Jesus Christ, our Head, in our name and for our profit and utility. For, albeit that in body He now be in the heaven, yet by the power of His Spirit He is present here with us, as well to instruct us as to comfort and maintain us in all our troubles and adversities, from the which He shall finally deliver
His whole Church, and every true member of the same, in that day when He shall visibly appear again. Judge of the quick and the dead.
“For this, finally, we confess of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, as He was seen visibly to ascend, and so left the world, as touching that body that suffered and rose again, so do we constantly believe that He shall come from the right hand of His Father, when all eyes shall see Him, yea, even those that have pierced Him; and then shall be gathered as well those that then shall be found alive as those that before have slept. Separation shall be made betwixt the lambs and the goats: that is to say, betwixt the elect and the reprobate. The one shall hear this joyful voice, ‘Come ye, the blessed of My Father, possess the kingdom that is prepared for you before the beginning of the world.’ The other shall hear that fearful and irrevocable sentence, * Depart from Me, ye workers of iniquity, to the fire that never shall be quenched.’ And, for this cause, this day in the Scriptures is called ’ the day of refreshing ’ and ’ of the revelation of ail secrets,’ because that then the just shall be delivered from all miseries and be possessed in the fulness of their glory. Contrariwise, the reprobate shall receive judgment and recompence of all their impiety, be it openly or secretly wrought.
“As we constantly believe in God the Father and in Jesus Christ, as before is said, so do we assuredly believe in the Holy Ghost, whom we confess God, equal with the Father and the Son, by whose working and mighty operation our darkness is removed, our eyes spiritual are illuminated, our souls and consciences sprinkled with the blood of Jesus Christ, and we retained in the truth of God, even to our lives’ end. And, for these causes, we understand that this Eternal Spirit, proceeding from the Father and the Son, hath in the Scriptures divers names. Sometimes is He called water, by reason of His purgation, and giving strength to this our corrupt nature to bring forth good fruit; without whom this our nature should utterly be barren, yea, it should utterly abound in all wickedness. Sometimes the same Spirit is called fire, by reason of the illumination and burning heat of fire that He kindleth in our hearts. The same Spirit also is called oil, or unction, by reason that His working mollifieth the hardness of our hearts and maketh us receive the print of that image of Jesus Christ, by whom only we are sanctified.
“We constantly believe, that there is, was and shall be, even to the coming of the Lord Jesus, a Church, which is holy and universal; to wit, the Communion of Saints, This Church is holy, because it receiveth
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free remission of sins, and that by faith only in the blood of Jesus Christ. Secondly, because, it being regenerate, it receiveth the spirit of sanctification and power to walk in newness of life and in good works, which God hath prepared for His chosen to walk in. Not that we think the justice of this Church, or of any member of the same, ever was, is, or yet shall be, so full and perfect that it needeth not to stoop under mercy; but, because the imperfections are pardoned and the justice of Jesus Christ imputed unto such as by true faith cleave unto Him. Which Church we call universal, because it consisteth and standeth of all tongues and nations; yea, of all estates and conditions of men and women whom of His mercy God calleth from darkness to light and from the bondage and thraldom of sin to His spiritual service and purity of life. Unto whom also He communicateth His Holy Spirit, giving unto them one faith, one head and sovereign Lord, the Lord Jesus, one Baptism and right use of Sacraments; whose hearts also He kindleth together in love and Christian concord.
“To this Church, holy and universal, we acknowledge and believe notable gifts to be granted, to wit, remission of sins, which by true faith must be obtained in this life, resurrection of the flesh, which all shall have, albeit not in equal condition, for the reprobate (as before is said) shall rise but to fearful judgment and condemnation, and the just shall rise to be possessed in glory. And this resurrection shall not be an imagination, or that one body shall rise for another; but every man shall receive in his own body as he hath deserved, be it good or evil. The just shall receive the life everlasting, which is the free gift of God given and purchased to His chosen by Jesus Christ, our only Head and Mediator, to whom with the Father and the Holy Ghost, be all honour and glory, now and
ever.”
Works, vi. 317.