Chief References Made in Baillie's "Letters
345, note 2.) It was debated in the House of Commons, March 10, 1648 ("Journals," v. p. 491).
Chapter XXXIII. - On February 23, 1646, it was "Ordered - . . . To the Third Committee, . . . the Last Judgment, Life Eternal." The topic was debated in the Grand Committee during the interval in the meetings of the Assembly, August 21-31, 1646, and was debated in the Assembly September 4, and again on review
November 26, when it was ordered. The Scriptural proofs were reported March 5, 1647, and voted April 5 (p. 345, note
2). It was debated in the House of Commons, March 10, 1648 ("Journals," v. p. 491).
N. B. - In the third distribution of the "heads," made February 23, 1646, the topic "Lies and Equivocations" was assigned to the Second Committee. This topic does not emerge again by report to the Assembly, and there is no such chapter in the completed Confession. Possibly it was found that the material to be dealt with in it was sufficiently covered in chapter xxii.,
"Of Lawful Oaths and Vows" (see above, chapter xxii., note 73).79
To this statement we append the chief references to the work of the Assembly on the Confession made in Baillie's "Letters":
Under date of August 18, 1644 (ii. 1841, p. 220), Baillie recounts the coming of Warriston and the efforts for expedition (see the text above, note 19, p. 82), and under date of August 28 (p. 224) he recounts the progress thus far made in the work of "the Covenanted Uniformitie." Direct mention of the Confession begins in the Publick Letter of October, 1644: "The Confession of Faith is referred to a committee to be put in severall the best hands that are here" (p. 232). Under date of November 21 he writes: "What remains of the Directorie . . . will
soon be dispatched. The Catechise is drawn up, and, I think, shall not take up much tyme. I feare the Confession of Faith may stick longer" (p. 242).
Under date of December 26: "If the Directorie and Government were once out of our hands, as a few days will put them, then we will fall on our great question of Excommunication, the Catechise, and Confession. There is here matter to hold us long enough, if the wrangling humour which long predomined in many here did continue; but, thanks be to God, that is much abated, and all inclines toward a conclusion. . . . I think we must either passe the Confession to another season, or, if God will help us, the heads of it being distribute among many able hands, it may in a short time be so drawn up, as the debates of it may cost little time" (p. 248). Under date of April 25, 1645: "The Catechise and Confession of Faith are put in the hands of severall committees, and some reports are made to the Assemblie concerning both. We expect not so much debate upon these, as we have had in the Directorie and Government" (p. 266).
Under date of May 4, 1645: "Our next work will be the Confession and Catechisme, upon both which we have allreadie made some entrance" (p. 272).
In an undated letter printed immediately after the one just quoted from: "We are at a point with the Government; and beginning to take the Confession of Faith and Catechise to our consideration" (p.
275). Under date of July 8, 1645: "Mr. Henderson .
. . and Mr. Rutherfoord are gone this day to Epsom waters: so long as anything is to doe here, he cannot be away. I hope the rest of us may ere long be well spared, if once we had through the Catechise and a part of the Confession" (p. 296).
Under date of July 8: "Since my last, with our
former post, July 1st, we have, thanks be to God, at last finished the whole body of Government. . . .
Since, we have entered on the Confession of Faith; as yet I cannot pronounce of the length or shortness of our proceedings therein" (p. 300). In an undated public letter belonging doubtless to August, 1645: "In the Assemblie we have gone through a part of the Catechisme, and a part of the Confession of Faith; but . . . many [hindrances,] when least we expect them, comes in our way . . ."
(p. 306). Under date of September 5: "In the Assemblie we are goeing on languidlie with the Confession of Faith and Catechisme" (p. 315).
Under date of November 25: "In the Assemblie, we are goeing on with the Confession of Faith. We had long and tough debates about the Decrees of election; yet thanks to God all is gone right according to our mind" (p. 325). "We go on daily in some proposition of the Confession of Faith: till this be ended we will not take in any more of the Catechise" (p. 326). In an undated letter belonging to January 15, 1646: "We are going on in the Assemblie with the Confession, and could, if need were, shortly end it" (p. 336). In an undated letter ascribed by Dr. Laing to about January 20, 1646, he says: "We goe on in the Assemblie with prettie speed now in our Confession of Faith. We have past the heads of Scripture, God, Trinity, Decrees,
Providence, Redemption, Covenant, Justification, Sanctification, Free-will, Sacraments in generall, a part of Perseverance, and of the Lord's Supper" (p.
344). Under date of January 31, 1646: "We proceed but slowlie in the Confession of Faith" (p. 348). In February, 1646: "However we wait daylie on the Assemblie, yet our progresse in the Confession of Faith is but slow . . . yet we hope, by God's grace,
ere long to end the Confession" (p. 349). Cf. March 17, 1646 (p. 360). Under date of June 26, 1646:
"The Parliament's questions have retarded us much: without them we had ended the Confession of Faith" (p. 377). Under date of July 14, 1646: "I have put some of my good friends, leading men in the House of Commons, to move the Assemblie to lay aside our questions" ["some very captious questions of the Parliament, about the clear scripturall warrant for all the punctilioes of the Government," sent in, as Baillie thinks, just "to keep all things from any conclusion" (p. 378)] "for a time, and labour that which is most necessar, and all are crying for, the perfecting of the Confession of Faith and Catechise. If this motion take, I hope we shall end shortly our Confession, for there is but a few articles now to goe through: it will be a very gracious and satisfactorie Confession when yow see it" (p. 379). Under date of August 13,
1646: "In the Assemblie we were like to have stucken many moneths on the questions; and the Independents were in a way to gett all their differences debated over againe. I dealt so with Mr.
Rous and Mr. Tate, that they brought us ane order from the House to lay aside the questions till the Confession and Catechise were ended. Many took it for a trick of the Independents and Erastians for our hurt; but I knew it wes nothing less. We are now near an end of our Confession: we stick in the article of Synods, upon the proposition of their coercive power, or their power to excommunicat. If this were over, we apprehend no more long debates on the Confession" (p. 388). Under the date of August 18, 1646: "In the Assemblie we are returned to the Confession of Faith, and are drawing towards the end of it" (p. 390). Under
date of September 22, 1646: "We have ended the Confession of Faith for the matter, and have perfyted the most half of it, nyneteen chapters; the other seventeen, I hope, in ten or twelve days will be perfyted, and so all be sent up to the Houses. It will be, I hope, a very sweet and orthodoxe peice, much better than any Confession yet extant, if the House of Commons mangle it not to us" (p. 397).
Under date of October 2, 1646: "The Assemblie obleidged themselves by promise to sitt before and after noon for some tyme; but now, thinking they have satisfied the Houses, by sending up the half of the Confession, the first nineteen heads, they are relapsed into their former negligence. So we will be able few days in a week to make ane Assemblie; for if there be ane fewer than forty, it is no meeting; and though the rest of the heads be also past, yet, in the review, the alteration of words, and the methodizeing, takes up so much time, that we know not when we shall end. Besides that we have some additionalls, especially one proposition, about libertie of conscience, wherein the Independents offer to keep us long and tough debates; for long agoe they have laid downe in this their maske, and pleads for a libertie weell near universall" (pp. 400, 401). Under date of October
13, 1646: "Our Assemblie for one twenty dayes posted hard; bot since hes gotten into its old pace.
The first halfe, and more, of the Confession we sent up to the House; the end of these who called for it, wes the shuffling out the Ordinance against Errors; yet our friends hes carried to goe on with that; but others hes carried the putting of Scriptures to the margin of the Confession, which may prove a very long business, if not dexterouslie managed. It will yet be a fortnight before the other
halfe of it be ready; for sundry necessar but scabrous propositions were added in the review"
(p. 403). Under date of October 27, 1646: " . . . before the Assemblie end the Confession; for that long I purpose to stay, though my permission to goe were come" (p. 406). Under date of December
1, 1646: "With much adoe we have gone through, at last, the rest of our Confession: the first part I sent, to yow three only, in Mr. David's letter, long agoe; the whole will goe up to the House one of these dayes, and so to the presse. It's generally taken here for a very gracious and brave peece of worke" (p. 411). About Christmas, 1646: "Our
Assemblie, with much adoe, at last have wrestled through the whole Confession, and all is now printed. The House of Commons requires to put
Scripture to it before they take it to consideration; and what time that will take up, who knows?" (p.
415). Under date of January 26, 1647: "The third point [of Uniformity], the Confession of Faith, I brought it with me [to Scotland], now in print, as it wes offered to the Houses by the Assemblie, without considerable dissent of any. It's much cryed up by all, even many of our greatest opposites, as the best Confession yet extant; it's expected the Houses shall pass it, as they did the Directorie, without much debate. Howbeit the retarding partie hes put the Assemblie to add
Scriptures to it, which they omitted only to eschew the offence of the House, whose practice hitherto hes been, to enact nothing of religion on divine right or scripturall grounds, but upon their owne authoritie alone. This innovation of our opposites may weell cost the Assemblie some time, who cannot doe the most easie things with any expedition; but it will be for the advantage and
strength of the work" (iii. p. 2). Cf. June 2, 1647 (pp. 5, 6). Speech in the General Assembly at Edinburgh, August 6, 1647: "Right Honourable and Reverend, yow remember, that all your ecclesiastick desyres from your brethren of England, that all the commissions and instructions laid upon us your servants, were only for the obtaining of Uniformitie in four particulars, - in the Worship of God, in the Government of the Church, in a Confession of Faith, and Catechisme. .
. . In your third desyre, the Lord made our successe no less prosperous; a large Confession of Faith is perfyted with farr greater unanimitie than any living could have hoped for, among so many learned divines, in so distempered a place and distracted a season. I am confident, if the judgment of many my wiser do not deceave, this piece of work is so fine and excellent, that whenever yow shall be pleased to look upon it, the sight of it shall draw from the most censorius eye, a good acceptation" (p. 11; cf. p. 12). Under date of September 1, 1647, giving account of the Scotch
General Assembly: "We agreed . . . after much debate in the Committee, to the Confession of Faith" (p. 20).
A word in conclusion as to the title of the volume thus prepared is perhaps not out of place. The Assembly of Divines quite constantly speak of it in their Minutes, from the beginning, as "a Confession of Faith," or, after it was begun, "the Confession of Faith." The term was doubtless derived from the Solemn League and Covenant, which enumerates, among the items in which uniformity should be sought between the two nations, "Confession of Faith." Meanwhile, however, the work of its preparation was prosecuted without formally setting upon a title for the completed book. On the 3d of September, 1646, as it was approaching completion, it was "Ordered - The Committee for