Page:On the Revision of the Confession of Faith.djvu/70

62

last few years have been marked, throughout the Presbyterian world, by a widespread agitation regarding the relation of the churches to the Westminster Standards, which has seemed to culminate during the ecclesiastical year that has just closed. Its formal beginnings may be assigned to the movement which issued in the adoption by the Scottish United Presbyterian Church, in 1879, of a Declaratory Act, giving forth an authorized explanation in regard to certain subjects in the Standards, respecting which it was found desirable to set forth more fully and clearly the view which the Synod took of the teaching of Holy Scripture. The subjects treated in this document are especially the love of God for all mankind, and His provision, by the gift of His Son, of a salvation sufficient for all, adapted to all, and offered freely to all; man's responsibility; infant salvation and the salvability of the heathen; Church and State; and such minor matters as creation in six days, and the like. This was followed in 1882 by the passage of a somewhat similar act by the Presbyterian Church of Victoria. Since 1883 the Presbyterian Church of England, while "unabatedly adhering to the doctrine contained in the Westminster Confession," has been busily