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The Scots Confession Of 1560
By Alax C. Cheyne

ONE of the first steps taken by the "Reformation Parliament" of Scotland in 1560 was the commissioning of certain prominent ministers-Knox and his colleagues, Winram, Spottiswood, Douglas, Row, and Willock-to produce a detailed statement of the faith which they opposed to Roman doctrine. Within four days they presented the Scots Confession, and on August 17 it was officially adopted as "wholesome and sound doctrine grounded upon the infallible truth of God's Word." For nearly a century this Confession was the official doctrinal statement of the Church of Scotland, and although it was superseded by the new standard of the Westminster Confession in 1647 it has never ceased to hold an honored and influential place in the thought of Scottish Presbyterians. Today, perhaps as much as ever in the past, it speaks to the reader with evangelical relevance and inspiration and power.

I

Before selecting certain aspects of the Confession for special attention it is advisable to view its contents as a whole. These may be grouped as follows:

(1) The Preface.-The writers begin with a benediction finely reminiscent of the Pauline epistles: "The Estates of Scotland with the inhabitants of the same professing Christ Jesus his holy Evangel, to their natural countrymen, and to all other realms and nations, professing the same Lord Jesus with them, wish grace, peace, and mercy from God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, with the spirit of righteous judgment, for salutation." Thereafter, they proceed to indicate their conception of the task before them (and, we might add, before the framers of confessional statements in every age of the Church). It is a task of interpretation. "Long have we thirsted, dear brethren, to have notified to the world the sum of that doctrine which we profess"-and here the sum of doctrine is clearly not so much its totality as its heart: Holy Scripture interpreted in the light

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of its center, Jesus Christ. It is a task of definition. "We could not but set forth this brief and plain confession ... partly for satisfaction of our brethren ... and partly for stopping the mouths of impudent blasphemers." just as the Church in the twentieth century is driven to confessional restatement by the growth of the Ecumenical. Movement on one hand and of militant paganism on the other, so the Scottish Reformers did their work in full consciousness of the friendly interest of Protestants throughout "the most part of Europe,' and of the "despiteful railing" of the Romanists, "who boldly damn that which they have neither heard nor yet understood." It is, above all, a task of worship. "Hereof we are most certainly persuaded, that whosoever denies Christ Jesus, or is ashamed of Him in the presence of men, shall be denied before the Father, and before His holy angels. And therefore by the assistance of the mighty Spirit of the same our Lord Jesus Christ, we firmly purpose to abide to the end in the confession of this our faith."

(2) Doctrine of God (Article I).-Unlike the French and Belgic Confessions, the Scots Confession precedes enumeration of the attributes of God with a declaration of man's duty to him ashie has made Himself known: "We confess and acknowledge one only God, to whom only we must cleave, whom only we must serve, whom only we must worship, and in whom only we must put our trust." On these magnificent words-which of course reflect the attitude of Calvin in the Institutes (I.xiii.21) and virtually reproduce a phrase from the Confession subscribed by students in the Academy at Geneva-two contemporary theologians make interesting comment. "A confession of faith for our time," says Roger Mehl, "when atheism is not afraid frankly to assert itself, must at the very start be rooted in the revelation of God." And Karl Barth observes that "Compared with the French, Dutch, and other confessions the Scots Confession show originality by linking together directly the confession of faith in the God who is hidden in his eternity, infinity, etc., and the confession of faith in the same God as he is known to us as the God who is Three in One, Father, Son and Holy Spirit."

(3) Doctrine of Man (Art. II) and of Sin (Art. III).-Here the creation and fall of Adam and Eve, and the effects of that fall, are treated in language similar to that: of the other Protestant Confessions, though perhaps none of them moves with such heartening rapidity as this from description of man's sin and misery to descrip-

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tion of the Divine remedy for it: "By which transgression, commonly called Original Sin, was the Image of God utterly defaced in man, and he and his posterity of nature became enemies to God, slaves to Satan, and servants unto sin. Insomuch that death everlasting has had, and shall have power and dominion over all that have not been, are not, or shall not be regenerate from above: which regeneration is wrought by the power of the Holy Ghost, working in the hearts of the elect of God an assured faith in the promise of God revealed to us in His Word, by which faith we apprehend Christ Jesus, with the graces and benefits promised in Him."

(4) Doctrine of "The Revelation of the Promise" and of "The Continuance, Increase, and Preservation of the Kirk" (Arts. IV and V).-Despite its brevity, this section is noteworthy as paying considerably greater attention to the Old Testament revelation and the details of Jewish history than such contemporary documents as the Heidelberg Catechism, the French and Belgic Confessions, and the Thirty-Nine Articles. A masterpiece of terse and beautiful prose, it confronts us with "theology as recital" (to use G. Ernest Wright's phrase) before Protestant scholasticism took to substituting abstract propositions about God for the circumstantial narrative of his acts in sacred history. For Knox and his colleagues, clearly, the pages of the Old Testament were irradiated by the light of the Incarnation. "The faithful Fathers under the Law," so they believed, "did see the joyful day of Christ Jesus, and did rejoice"-and so "We most constantly believe that God preserved, instructed, multiplied, honoured, decored, and from death called to life, His Kirk in all ages from Adam till the coming of Christ Jesus in the flesh."

(5)Doctrine of Christ (Arts. VI-XI: "Of the Incarnation of Christ Jesus"; "Why it behooved the Mediator to be Very God and Very Man"; "Of Election"; "Of Christ's Death, Passion and Burial"; "Of the Resurrection"; "Of the Ascension").-These articles, which form the kernel of the whole Confession, fall to be considered in greater detail below.

(6)Doctrine of the Holy Spirit (Arts. XII-XV: "Of faith in the Holy Ghost"; "Of the cause of good works"; "What works are reputed good before God"; "Of the perfection of the Law, and the imperfection of man").-It has occasionally been suggested that the characteristic Reformation doctrine of by faith receives little or no attention in the Scots Confession. Admittedly, the phrase itself

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is not used, and no article is entirely devoted to justification as, for example, in the Augsburg, Second Helvetic, or Westminster Confessions. But if the words do not occur, the doctrine which they expressed most certainly does, and nowhere more than in the section on the Spirit. "This our faith and the assurance of the same," writes Knox, "proceeds not from flesh and blood, that is to say, from no, natural powers within us, but is the inspiration of the Holy Ghost." And then, underlining what he and his friends have already said in Article III on man's total depravity since the Fall, he continues, in one of the finest passages the work contains: "Of nature we are so dead, so blind, and so perverse, that neither can we feel when we are pricked, see the light when it shines, nor assent to the will of God when it is revealed, unless the Spirit of the Lord Jesus quicken that which is dead, remove the darkness from our minds, and bow our stubborn hearts to the obedience of His blessed will. And so as we confess that God the Father created us when we were not, as His Son our Lord Jesus redeemed us when we were enemies to Him, also do we confess that the Holy Ghost doth sanctify and regenerate us, without all respect of any merit procceding from us, be it before or be it after our regeneration. To speak this one thing yet in more plain words: as we willingly spoil ourselves of all honour an glory of our own creation and redemption, so do we also of our regeneration and sanctification, for of ourselves we are not sufficient to think one good thought; but He who has begun the work in us is only He that continues us in the same, to the praise and glory His undeserved grace." One is inclined to say that if this is not the doctrine of justification by faith, it is something even better (because less liable, perhaps, to misinterpretation): it is the doctrine of justification by the Holy Spirit.

After an eloquent and heartening meditation upon that struggle between good and evil within the believer, whose classical description occurs in the seventh chapter of the Epistle to the Romans, confessors proceed to discuss various controversial topics of sixteen century theology. On the place of the Law in Christian life the take, as befits good Calvinists, a much more positive view than Lutherans might adopt. Of "good works," provided they are "do in faith," they are by no means contemptuous, as first-generation reformers were forced to be. Their definition of evil works is less happy, as opening the way to excessive Puritanism: "And evil works

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we affirm not only those that expressly are done against God's commandment, but those also that in matters of religion and worshipping of God have no other assurance but the invention and opinion of man, which God from the beginning has ever rejected." But the section closes finely with a return to the source and center of justification, Jesus Christ. "And therefore it behoves us to apprehend Christ Jesus, with His justice and satisfaction, who is the end and accomplishment of the Law to all that believe, by whom we are set at this liberty, that the curse and malediction of God fall not upon us, albeit that we fulfil not the same in all points. For God the Father, beholding us in the body of His Son Christ Jesus, accepteth our imperfect obedience as it were perfect, and covereth our works, which are defiled with many spots, with the justice of His Son." Such words lead on, very naturally, to the next two central topics of the Confession.

(7) Doctrine of the Church (Arts. XVI-XX: "Of the Kirk"; "Of the Immortality of the Souls"; "Of the Notes by which the true Kirk is discerned from the false, and who shall be judge of the doctrine"; "Of the Authority of the Scriptures"; "Of General Councils, of their power, authority, and cause of their convention").

(8) Doctrine of the Sacraments (Arts. XXI-XXIII: "Of the Sacraments"; "Of the right administration of the Sacraments"; "To whom Sacraments appertain").-Along with the doctrines of Christ and of Scripture, these will receive slightly extended treatment at the close of this outline sketch.

(9) Doctrine of Secular Authority (Art. XXIV: "Of the Civil Magistrate").-For all who know even a little of the subsequent history of Scotland and the Scottish Church there is something distinctly pathetic about this paragraph. "We farther confess and acknowledge, that such persons as are placed in authority are to be loved, honoured, feared, and holden in most reverent estimation": Knox and his successors found it hard to repeat such words in connection with Mary Queen of Scots, her son, or indeed any of the Stewart line. "Moreover, to Kings, Princes, Rulers and Magistrates, we affirm that chiefly and most principally the conservation and purgation of the Religion appertains; so that not only they are appointed for civil policy, but also for maintenance of the true religion and for suppressing of idolatry and superstition whatsoever." The hope behind this affirmation was quickly disappointed. Indeed, we

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may suspect that the ink was hardly dry upon this page of the Confession when zealous Protestants were tempted to seek a loophole in it for rebellion and to concentrate their attention almost exclusively upon one promising phrase: "Such as resist the supreme power, doing that which appertains to his charge, do resist God's ordinance." What, they asked, if the magistrate fall to do "that which appertains to his charge," or impede others seeking to do that which appertains to theirs? Out of their disillusion and questioning there developed a long and bitter struggle between Church and State in Scotland. But that sorrowful struggle should not blind us to the great truth embodied in Article XXIV of the Confession (a truth in no way cancelled out by the equally significant declaration, in Article XIV, that "to repress tyranny" is part of the fulfilment of the commandment, Thou shalt not kill): that the State has a service to render to God. In saying this we think at once of Karl Barth, who has had so many valuable things to say on the relations of Church and State for more than a quarter of a century, and who wrote in his commentary on the Scots Confession that "According to Reformed teaching neither attitude is true-withdrawal from the world or recognition of the independence of the world; these two realms are indeed to be distinguished, but are none the less one, insofar as Jesus Christ is Lord not only of the Church but also of the world." But if we think of Barth, we think also of Calvin, for the doctrine of the Confession is indistinguishable here from the doctrine of the Institutes. And if we think of Calvin we think also of Paul, to whose teaching in Romans 13 the Scots Reformers are undeniably indebted. In its doctrine of "the Magistrate," as in everything else, the Scots Confession is founded on Scripture and stands or falls with it.

(10)Doctrine of the Last Judgment: that is what one might well expect to find at the close of a Confession such as this.-It is what one actually does find in the contemporaneous Belgic Confession. But, although the Judgment is prominent here, the actual title given to Article XXV is, "Of the Gifts freely given to the Church." These gifts-than which there is none greater-are remission of sins in this life and resurrection to "glory, honour and immortality" at the .judgment. They are not, Knox and his colleagues recognize, enjoyed by all, for there is "darnel, cockle and chaff" in the wheat. Yet the final impression left upon the reader by this concluding article is one of joy bordering on ecstasy. As Barth, who entitles

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the chapter "The Gift of Comfort and Hope," has put it: "Our forefathers did not overlook the enigmatic character of the life of the Church and of Christians. In fact in the very face of this enigma they held fast to the gift which has been vouchsafed and promised to the Church by God. And in the divine judgment itself, which is to come and which will solve this enigma finally and forever, they saw the gift of God and not something for fear and trembling. They looked forward with gladness to the judgment. That is the final lesson which we have to learn from them." And so the Confession ends with doxology and confident prayer.

II

Even such a general survey of the Confession as we have just completed may give some idea of its distinctive vigor and charm, but the peculiar excellence of its contribution to theology is properly realized only by consideration of its doctrines of Scripture, of Christ, of the Church, and of the Sacraments. To these we now turn.

Scripture. Here, for Knox andl his collaborators, is the paramount authority, the very Word of God to the Church and to the world. Striking witness to their conviction on this point is borne at the very outset of the work, whose Preface issues a challenge to all adversaries which is notable both for its confidence and its humility: "Protesting, that if any man will note in this our Confession any article or sentence repugning to God's holy word, that it would please him of his gentleness, and for Christian charity's sake, to admonish us of the same in writ; 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." And at the very center of the Confession stands Article XIX, "Of the Authority of the Scriptures," with its unequivocal assertion: "As we believe and confess the Scriptures of God sufficient to instruct and make the man of God perfect, so do we affirm and avow the authority of the same to be of God, and neither to depend on men nor angels. We affirm, therefore, that such as allege the Scripture to have no other authority but that which it has received from the Kirk to be blasphemous against God, and injurious to the true Kirk, which always hears and obeys the voice of her own Spouse and Pastor; but takes not upon her to be mistress over the same." Here, then, is the answer of Reformed Scotland to Tridentine Romanism,

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and it does not differ in any significant way from all the other Protestant Confessions.

Does such a view imply canonization of the caprices of private judgment, with each man interpreting Scripture to suit himself? So it has often been said, and the Catholic Encyclopaedia somewhat sneeringly remarks that the appeal to the Bible was "practically harmless," for the simple reason that "no one ever convinced John Knox that he was in error." But this is to overlook the Reformers' fundamental contention that it is the Holy Spirit, and not any individual or any Church, who interprets Scripture. As the Confession puts it, "The interpretation neither appertains to private nor public person, neither yet to any Kirk ... but appertains to the Spirit of God, by the which also the Scripture was written." To say this does not, of course, answer every question which occurs to the modern mind when the authority of the Bible is under discussion, nor does it altogether close the door, perhaps, upon a literalistic Biblicism. But it does seem to go as far as any definition can towards preserving the sovereign freedom of him who, himself the Living Word, speaks ever and again to his Church through the written Word. And that the view thus expressed could produce a remarkable combination of fidelity to essentials and flexibility in the expression of them in the life of the Church is witnessed to by the history of "prophesyings" (or "exercises") in sixteenth and seventeenth century Scotland"prophesyings" whose origin might be found in these words in Article XVIII of the Confession: 'When controversy happens, for the right understanding of any place or sentence of Scripture, or for the reformation of any abuse within the Kirk of God, we ought not so much to look what men before us have said or done, as unto that which the Holy Ghost uniformly speaks within the body of the Scriptures, and unto that which Jesus Christ Himself did, and commanded to be done. For this is a thing universally granted, that the Spirit of God, which is the Spirit of unity, is in nothing contrarious to Himself. If then the interpretation, determination, or sentence of any Doctor, Kirk, or Council, repugne to the plain Word of God, written in any other place of the Scripture, it is a thing most certain, that there is not the true understanding and meaning of the Holy Ghost.... For we dare not receive or admit any interpretation which repugns to any principal point of our faith, or to any other plain text of Scripture, or yet unto the rule of charity." A

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church so believing is not likely to be fettered by its past in matters of government or worship; it is, therefore, no surprise to read at the close of Article XX these words (which, incidentally, reveal a more adaptable temper than the corresponding Article XXIX of the French Confession): "Not that we think that one policy and one Order in ceremonies can be appointed for all ages, times and places; for as ceremonies (such as man has devised) are but temporal, so may and ought they to be changed, when they rather foster superstition than that they edify the Kirk using the same." In other words, the great question to be asked of any Church is not whether it is governed by presbyters or by bishops but whether it is governed by the Word of God; not whether it worships in a fixed liturgy or in some freer way, but whether it worships in spirit and in truth.

Jesus Christ. Recent theologians have been rediscovering the Christocentric character of early Protestant thought. "The Reformed Church," says Professor T. F. Torrance in the introduction to his The School of Faith, "had to carry through a programme of reform in which all the doctrines inherited from the Medieval Church were subjected to Christological correction.... The conflict arose over the question of an evangelical and faithful understanding of justification and grace, but behind all it was a struggle to give Jesus Christ His central place in the whole life and thought of the Church"; and the Reformation as a movement for theological reform is to be understood as "a thoroughgoing criticism of all the received doctrines in the light of correspondence to the Gospel and coherence with the central doctrine of Christ." Such a verdict is certainly borne out by the temper and the substance of the Scots Confession, where Jesus Christ is central from the first page to the last. In its doctrine of the divine and human natures it is true to the Catholic orthodoxy of the ecumenical creeds: "When the fulness of time came, God sent His Son ... whom we confess and acknowledge Emmanuel, very God and very man, two perfect natures united and joined in one person. By which our Confession we condemn the damnable and pestilent heresies of Arius, Marcion, Eutyches, Nestorius, and such others as either did deny the eternity of His Godhead or the verity of His human nature, or confounded them, or yet divided them." Nor does it deviate in any significant particular from Calvinist orthodoxy. As Professor A. F. Mitchell pointed out over sixty years ago, in certain central chapters its

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actual expressions can be clearly traced to one or other of Calvin's confessions, or to the earliest edition of the Institutes.

But this essential orthodoxy does not preclude much valuable originality of expression and approach. Above all, the doctrine of election, by being dealt with as a part of Christology, is radically transformed and becomes something very different from what it was even in the hands of Calvin. Double predestination is virtually ignored, and attention is focused on Christ, the chosen and the rejected one. As we are learning again today from writers like Pierre Maury and Karl Barth, this is surely a wiser attitude than that of classical Calvinism. In Barth's words, "God's eternal decree and man's election and thus the whole of what is called the doctrine of Predestination cannot but be misunderstood unless it is understood in its connection with the truth of the divine human nature of Jesus Christ.... The true mystery of Predestination is ... the holy and real mystery of Jesus Christ." And so we listen with fresh respect to the Confession as, in what may well be regarded as the most important single article it contains, it treats "Of Election": "For that same eternal God and Father, who of mere grace elected us in Christ Jesus His Son, before the foundation of the world was laid, appointed Him to be our Head, our Brother, our Pastor, and great Bishop of our souls.But because that the enmity betwixt the justice of God and our sinswas such that no flesh by itself could or might have attained unto God, it behoved that the Son of God should descend unto us, and take Himself a body of our body, flesh of our flesh and bone of our bones, and so become the Mediator betwixt God and man, giving power to so many as believe in Him to be the sons of God.... By which most holy fraternity whatsoever we have lost in Adam is restored unto us again.... It behoved further the Messiah and Redeemer to be very God and very Man, because He was to underlie the punishment due for our transgressions, and to present Himself in the presence of His Father's judgment, as in our person, to suffer for our transgression and inobedience, by death to overcome him that was author of death. But because the only Godhead could not suffer death, neither could the only Manhead overcome the same, He joined both together in one person, that the imbecility of the one should suffer and be subject to death (which we had deserved) and the infinite and invincible power of the other, to wit, of the Godhead, should triumph and purchase to us life, liberty

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and perpetual victory. And so we confess, and most undoubtedly believe." In his recently published volume on "Predestination"' Pierre Maury wrote: "The Church, which is nothing else than the convocation, the assembly of the elect, finds in Jesus Christ the place of its own election, and bears witness to it before the world." Four hundred years ago, this same truth was proclaimed by the authors of the Scots Confession.

III

The Church. Knox and his colleagues loved to describe themselves as "The Congregation." The phrase, which occurs also in both the Augsburg Confession of the Lutherans and the Thirty-Nine Articles of the Anglicans, should serve to emphasize the absence of any sectarian individualism from their religious outlook. They are Churchmen just because they are Christians. For them, belief in the Triune God goes hand in hand with belief in his Church-one, holy, catholic, and indispensable to salvation-and in the Scots Confession they affirm that belief in words reminiscent not only of Calvin and Luther but also of Hus and Augustine and Cyprian and Paul. "As we believe," they wrote, "in one God, Father, Son and Holy Ghost, so do we most earnestly believe that from the beginning there has been, now is, and to the end of the world shall be a Church; that is to say, a company and multitude of men chosen of God, who rightly worship and embrace Him by true faith in Christ Jesus, who is the only Head of the same Kirk, which also is the body and spouse of Christ Jesus; which Kirk is Catholic, that is, universal, because it contains the Elect of all ages, all realms, nations and tongues, be they of the Jews or be they of the Gentiles, who have communion and society with God the Father, and with His Son Christ Jesus, through the sanctification of His Holy Spirit; and therefore it is called the communion not of profane persons but of saints, who, as citizens of the heavenly Jerusalem, have the fruition of the most inestimable benefits, to wit, of one God, one Lord Jesus, one faith, and of one baptism; out of the which Kirk there is neither life nor eternal felicity."

Obviously it is of vital importance to be able to identify this Church. (As Knox put it, more than a decade before the upheaval of 1560, "We must discern the immaculate spouse of Jesus Christ from the mother of confusion, spiritual Babylon, lest that imprudently we embrace a harlot instead of the chaste spouse; yea, to

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speak it in plain words, lest that we submit ourselves to Satan, thinking that we submit ourselves to Jesus Christ.") And in the Confession clear guidance is given. The true Church is not to be distinguished by "Antiquity, title usurped, lineal descent, place appointed, nor multitude of men approving an error"; all these were claimed by enemies of truth from Cain to Caiaphas, and availed nothing. The true Church, rather, is-as Roger Mehl vividly declares in his commentary on the French Confession-"less an institution than an event: the event of the assembly of all the faithful around the Pioneer and Perfecter of faith; an assembly which takes place through the power of the Word and the virtue of the Holy Spirit." In the words of Knox and his associates: "The notes therefore of the true Kirk of God we believe, confess and avow to be, first, The true preaching of the Word of God.... Secondly, The right administration of the Sacraments of Christ Jesus.... Last, Ecclesiastical discipline rightly ministered, as God's word prescribes, whereby vice is repressed and virtue nourished."

This is, of course, virtually undiluted Calvinism; and we can detect in the Confession, as in the Institutes, a certain tension between the doctrines of the invisible and the visible Church. In a sense, the Church is known to God only, since it is founded on His secret choice and is, as Calvin wrote, "the total number of the elect, whether angels or men, and whether dead or alive." But in another sense it is seen among men and consists of all who profess to be Christ's followers. The paradox is, of course, to be traced back to Holy Scripture itself, as Calvin noted in a famous passage in his Institutes (IV.i.7), which concluded: "As it is necessary therefore to believe in that Church which is invisible to us and. known to God alone, so we are commanded to honor, and maintain communion with, this Church which is visible to men." Our practical Scots, however, lay most stress upon the visible Church and its "notes," and from this emphasis an exceedingly important consequence followed: the elevation of the local congregation to a central place. As the present Moderator of the General Assembly, Principal J. H. S. Burleigh, has pointed out, "If we look for the Church we must look for it in the particular Kirk or local congregation where people gather round the Word and Sacrament for instruction and worship and submit themselves to Christian moral discipline." And he comments: "In 1560 this emphasis laid on the particular Kirk was a protest against one

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of the glaring defects of the Church of the day which treated the local congregation and its ministry as of little importance by comparison with other more grandiose ecclesiastical institutions. But it was a creative protest, for it claimed for pastoral work among the people the highest priority among the Church's activities, making it the characteristic and essential activity of the Church of God. This emphasis carried with it an enhancement of the office of the pastor or parish minister, and a corresponding raising of the requirements demanded of those who would undertake it."

One further characteristic of the Scots Confession's teaching about the Church merits attention, and that is its praiseworthy disinclination to prescribe forms of worship and government for all future ages. Whereas even the French Confession, whose outlook is basically the same, has laid itself open to criticism for rigidity by the declaration (in Art. XXV) that "the order of the Church, established by His authority, ought to be sacred and inviolable," its Scottish counterpart is unambiguously liberal on this point: "Not that we think that one policy and one order in ceremonies can be appointed for all ages, times and places; for as ceremonies (such as man has devised) are but temporal, so may and ought they to be changed, when they rather foster superstition than that they edify the Kirk using the same." It may well be that Scotland's subsequent history would have been happier had these words been more clearly remembered and their spirit more obviously retained; indeed, they are not without relevance even at the present day.

The Sacraments. Opposition to the Roman Mass was from the very first one of the distinguishing marks of the Reforming attitude in Scotland. It is therefore no surprise to find that the Confession pays special attention to the doctrine of the Sacraments, expressing its views at considerable length and with great vigor. The argument set forth may be briefly summarized. just as there were two chief Sacraments-circumcision and the Passover-in the Old Testament dispensation, so now we have Baptism and the Supper in the New Testament dispensation. These rites, instituted by Christ for all who would be members of his Body, have as their three-fold purpose to differentiate between God's people and those outside his league, to "exercise the faith of his children," and "to seal in their hearts the assurance of his promise, and of that most blessed conjunction, union and society which the elect have with their head

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Christ Jesus." They are by no means mere "naked and bare signs"; in Baptism "we are engrafted in Christ Jesus, to be made partakers of His justice, by which our sins are covered and remitted," and in the Supper "Christ Jesus is so joined it with us, that He becomes very nourishment and food of our souls." This is not transubstantiation. It is wrought by operation of the Holy Spirit, "who by true faith carries us above all things that are visible, carnal and earthly, and makes us to feed upon the body and blood of Christ Jesus, which was once broken and shed for us, which now is in heaven, and appears in the presence of His Father for us." And so the Confession steers a kind of middle way, as Calvin had done before it, between two extremes: "But this liberally and frankly we confess, that we make a distinction betwixt Christ Jesus, in His natural substance, and betwixt the elements in the Sacramental signs; so that we will neither worship the signs in place of that which is signified by them, neither yet do we despise and interpret them as unprofitable and vain; but do use them with all reverence, examining ourselves diligently before that so we do."

To be rightly administered these Sacraments must, according to the Confession, "be ministered by lawful ministers, whom we affirm to be only they that are appointed to the preaching of the Word ... men lawfully chosen thereto by some congregation," and "be ministered in such elements and in such sort as God has appointed." It is also essential that "the end and cause why the Sacraments were instituted be understanded and observed, as well of the minister as of the receivers." These three requirements involve rejection of the Roman Sacraments, for their ministers are no true ministers of the Word, they have adulterated the institutions of Christ with human inventions, and their whole end and purpose is different from the original. No words are too strong for denunciation of such a perversion. "But to what end, and in what opinion, the priests say their Mass, let the words of the same, their own Doctors and writings witness: to wit, that they, as Mediators betwixt Christ and His Kirk, do offer unto God the Father a sacrifice propitiatory for the sins of the quick and the dead. Which doctrine, as blasphemous to Christ Jesus, and making derogation to the sufficiency of His only sacrifice once offered for purgation of all that shall be sanctified, we utterly abhor, detest and renounce."

In this section, a final brief article indicates who may rightly re-

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ceive the two dominical Sacraments. Baptism "appertains as well to the infants of the faithful as unto them that be of age and discretion"-which rules out Anabaptist error. The Supper belongs "to such only as be of the household of faith, and can try and examine themselves, as well in their faith as in their duty towards their neighbours"; and so strict discipline, exercised by the ministers, is essential.

On the high doctrine of the Sacraments contained in the Confession no one, perhaps, has written with greater enthusiasm and discernment than the pathetic gentus, Edward Irving. "It delivered me," he tells us, "from the infidelity of evangelicalism, which denies any gift of God either in the work of Christ, or in the Sacraments, or anywhere, until we experience it to be within ourselves; making God a mere promise until we become receivers-a religion of moods, and not of purposes and facts; having its reality in the creature, its proposal of reality only in God." Otherwise stated, the Scots Confession stands for the truth that it is the Word which makes the Sacrament. Christ's presence does not depend on us, and is unconditioned by either the dignity of the celebrant or the faith of the participants. It is an objective fact, though faith alone can receive the gift offered. This conviction has never left the Scottish Church, and it is interesting to find it cogently stated in modern language in one of the footnotes to that honored work by Wotherspoon and Kirkpatrick, Manual of Church Doctrine, recently re-issued: "We must beware of the looseness of thought which makes 'spiritual' an equivalent for 'imaginary,' 'metaphorical,' or 'figurative.' A 'spiritual gift' is not an imaginary gift; it is a gift of the Holy Spirit. A spiritual person is not an imaginary person, but a person filled with the Holy Ghost. Christ's Body is now spiritual, but it is still His Body. Spiritual presence is not real absence. The spiritual is the real.... The gift (of the Body and Blood of Christ) is by the power of God, and takes place objectively and independently of us-as Christ is given for the life of the world, whether the world receive Him or no. Reception of the gift is by faith. But for its finest expression we may perhaps still go to Knox's own magnificent Exhortation to Communion, as it appears in the Book of Common Order in words which speak with all their original vigor to our very different age. "Let us consider then," runs the invitation. "that this Sacrament is a singular medicine for all poor sick crea-

338 - The Scots Confession Of 1560

tures, a comfortable help to weak souls, and that our Lord requireth no other worthiness on our part but that we unfeignedly acknowledge our naughtiness and imperfection Then ... let us not suffer our minds to wander about the consideration of these earthly and corruptible things (which we see present to our eyes and feel with our hands), to seek Christ bodily present in them, as if He were enclosed in the bread and wine, or as if these elements were turned and changed into the substance of His flesh and blood; for the only way to dispose our souls to receive nourishment, relief, and quickening of His substance is to lift up our minds by faith above all things worldly and sensible, and thereby to enter into heaven, that we may find and receive Christ, where He dwelleth undoubtedly very God and very Man in the incomprehensible glory of the Father, to Whom be all praise, honour, and glory, now and ever. Amen."

This note of doxology is perhaps the distinctive note of the Scots Confession, in which faith ever and again finds expression in worship. It is sounded for the last time at the close of the final section; and then praise blends almost imperceptibly into prayer as the Confessors recall in conclusion the needs of their world, the imperative obligations of their missionary task, and the inexhaustible riches of their God. Verbum Dei manet in aeternum; and so their prayer may still be on the lips of their spiritual descendants after all the vicissitudes of four hundred years: "Arise, OLord, and let Thy enemies be confounded; let them flee from Thy presence that hate Thy godly name. Give Thy servants strength to speak Thy Word in boldness, and let all nations cleave to Thy true knowledge. Amen."