Page:On the Revision of the Confession of Faith.djvu/74

66 satisfy. The Established and Free Churches of Scotland, for example, have hitherto required of their ministry "sincerely to own and believe the whole doctrine contained in the Confession of Faith .... to be the truths of God." Dr. Candlish has, indeed, argued that in its historical sense, even this formula asks only acceptance of the Confession as a whole; but, as it seems to us, unsuccessfully, and certainly without effect on the convictions of the churches. We do not wonder, therefore, that the ministry of these churches are earnest in seeking relief. It may savor of exaggeration to say with Mr. Taylor Innis (presuming that he means single propositions), that "there is no honest or sane man who will pretend that any proposition in religious truth constructed by others, exactly expresses his own view of that religious truth"; but this is surely apt to be true of an extended confession, and we must certainly agree with the words which he adds in a note: "Properly speaking, the Confession is not the confession of faith of any one who signs it, but of all. None of them exactly agree with it, but none of them contradict it." In a word, a public confession, by virtue of the very fact that it is public, cannot be, and ought not to be pretended to be, just the expression of his faith which each one who accepts it as representing his faith would have framed had he only himself to consider. The most we can expect, and the most we have right to ask, is that each one may be able to recognize it as an expression of the system of truth which he believes. To go beyond this and seek to make each of a large body of signers accept the Confession in all its propositions as the profession of his personal belief, cannot fail to result in serious evils—not least among which are the twin evils