M'Crie

When the Confession of Faith and the Catechisms were agreed to, the Scottish commissioners took leave of the Westminster Assembly, and, after an absence of about four years, returned to Scotland, and gave an account of their proceedings to the General Assembly which met in August, 1647. This Assembly, of which Mr. Robert Douglas was moderator, is memorable in our history for having received the Westminster Confession of Faith as a part of the uniformity of religion to which the three kingdoms had become bound in the Solemn League.

The only reservation which they made in approving of this Confession, was in regard to the authority of the magistrate in calling assemblies, ascribed to him in the 31st chapter, which they understood "only of churches not settled in point of government;" asserting their freedom "to assemble together synodically, as well pro re nata as at the ordinary times, upon delegation from the churches, by the intrinsical power received from Christ, as often as it is necessary for the good of the Church so to assemble." This explanation was necessary, in consequence of the Erastian principles which had now begun to prevail in the English parliament, and to hinder them from settling the discipline of the Church. Whatever construction might be put upon those parts of the Confession by the rulers, the Assembly thus declared the sense in which they "understood" them. This act still remains in force in the Scottish Church, and is prefixed to all our copies of the Confession – a standing memorial of the jealousy with which the Church of Scotland watched over her spiritual independence as a Church of Christ.

We may here state, once for all, that the Larger and Shorter Catechisms, Propositions for Church Government, and the Directory for Public Worship, which had been drawn up by the Westminster Assembly, in conjunction with the commissioners from the Church of Scotland, were also received, approved, and ratified by the General Assembly, in several acts relating to them, as "parts of the covenanted uniformity." These acts of approbation by the Church were afterwards ratified by the estates in parliament; and thus so far as Scotland was concerned, the stipulations of the Solemn League were cordially and honourably fulfilled.

~~Rev. Thomas M‘Crie, D.D., LL.D.