Afterthought
Puritan Board Senior
“having in view the uniformity contemplated in the Solemn League and Covenant, she consented to adopt the Confession of Faith, Catechisms, Directory for Public Worship and Form of Church Government agreed upon by the said Assembly of Divines.
These several formularies, as ratified, with certain explanations, by divers Acts of Assembly in the years 1645, 1646, and particularly in 1647, this Church continues till this day to acknowledge as her subordinate standards of doctrine, worship, and government; with this difference, however, as regards the authority ascribed to them, that while the Confession of Faith contains the creed to which, as to a confession of his own faith, every office-bearer in the Church must testify in solemn form his personal adherence;—and while the Catechisms, Larger and Shorter are sanctioned as directories for catechising ;—the Directory for Public Worship, the Form of Church Government, and the Directory for Family Worship, are of the nature of regulations, rather than tests,—to be enforced by the Church like her other laws, but not to be imposed by subscription upon her ministers and elders. These documents, then, together with a practical application of the doctrine of the Confession, in the Sum of Saving Knowledge,§—a valuable treatise, which, though without any express act of Assembly, has for ages had its place among them,—have, ever since the era of the Second Reformation, constituted the authorized and authoritative symbolic books of the Church of Scotland.”
Act and Declaration of the Free Church of Scotland 1851
freechurch.org
These several formularies, as ratified, with certain explanations, by divers Acts of Assembly in the years 1645, 1646, and particularly in 1647, this Church continues till this day to acknowledge as her subordinate standards of doctrine, worship, and government; with this difference, however, as regards the authority ascribed to them, that while the Confession of Faith contains the creed to which, as to a confession of his own faith, every office-bearer in the Church must testify in solemn form his personal adherence;—and while the Catechisms, Larger and Shorter are sanctioned as directories for catechising ;—the Directory for Public Worship, the Form of Church Government, and the Directory for Family Worship, are of the nature of regulations, rather than tests,—to be enforced by the Church like her other laws, but not to be imposed by subscription upon her ministers and elders. These documents, then, together with a practical application of the doctrine of the Confession, in the Sum of Saving Knowledge,§—a valuable treatise, which, though without any express act of Assembly, has for ages had its place among them,—have, ever since the era of the Second Reformation, constituted the authorized and authoritative symbolic books of the Church of Scotland.”
Act and Declaration of the Free Church of Scotland 1851
Act 9, 1851 (IX) - Act and Declaration anent the Publication of the Subordinate Standards, and other Authoritative Documents of this Church. 31st May 1851. – Free Church of Scotland
The General Assembly, on considering the Report of the Committee to which this matter was referred at a previous diet, unanimously agreed to sanction, as they hereby sanction, the publication of a volume, containing the subordinate standards, and other authoritative documents of this Church. And...
freechurch.org
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