whose confessions do not perfectly harmonize, how it is applicable to those who are organized under one and the same confession? This is the case of several churches on both sides of the Atlantick, which yet have no inter-communion. They can surely make no use of it against each other.

Before we quit the subject of "confessions of faith," it may be proper to notice a mistake, which is growing more and more prevalent, concerning their intention and use: I mean in their present amplitude. They are supposed, and in some instances, are declared, to contain the terms of church-communion; i. e. the terms upon which, and upon which alone, an individual can be admitted into church-fellowship. There are good reasons for doubting whether such an opinion is correct, and such a declaration discreet.

To prevent misconceptions, the authour would observe, once for all, that no man is more thoroughly convinced than himself of the propriety, utility, and necessity of publick confessions of faith; nor is less moved by the argumentations of their adversaries. But whether, like other good things, they are not liable to abuse-whether they have not actually been abused—and whether the application professed to be made of them, at this

moment, in some churches, is not an abuse, may be worth considering.

As the "fixed testimony" of a church, "by which her principles are to be tried;" or as her

judicial expression of the sense in which she understands the Holy Scriptures in their relation to the Doctrine, Government, and Worship of the Christian church," when these things are matters of controversy, it is difficult to conceive how a confession of her faith can be dispensed with. She must proclaim what she believes, and means to teach. This is her confession of faith; and is put into the hands of her officers to be by them inculcated and supported. Nothing can be more absurd than to employ as preachers and guardians of her religion, men who, for aught she knows, may labour to subvert the whole system which she is endeavouring to build up. She has, therefore, a right, and it is her duty, on the ground of self-preservation, as well as of fidelity to her king, to exact from them an explicit avowal of their belief on all those topics which more nearly or remotely affect the main interests of truth and a positive, unequivocating engagement to maintain them. For this purpose she must bring them to a test; which can be done so effectually in no form as that of requiring an approbation of her confession. The security is not

indeed perfect: as some men will make any profession whatever for lucre, for distinction, or for convenience: and as the convictions of others may really alter. But it is the best which can be adopted. It keeps the recreant always within her grasp; and it is her own fault if, with such a control, she allows him to poison the "wells of salvation," or to pollute their streams. In her confession of faith, then, are strictly and indispensably, her terms of official union.

But are these same terms to regulate private communion? When they go beyond the elementary doctrines of the gospel-when they are expanded into a comprehensive system of Theology, as in the Westminster Confession, ought they to be proposed for approbation, in all their latitude, to every one who desires baptism for his children, or a seat at the table of the Lord?

The reader is entreated not to be stumbled at an answer which may thwart his prepossessions; but to listen and reflect before he pronounces. The answer is, No.

1. Because such was not the original design of the Protestant confessions.

They were intended to raise and to display a banner for the truth of Christ which had been foully depraved, as by others, so especially by the man of sin. And while they contained all those

cardinal points which are essential to Christian faith and fellowship; they contained others, which though not thus essential, are nevertheless important; and worthy to be maintained with zeal and constancy.

2. Because, being thus constructed, they were not in fact terms of communion for private Christians; nor even for the reciprocation of ministerial fellowship; as is plain

From their absolute silence about such a requisition

From the communion which subsisted among the members of the Reformed churches notwithstanding the slighter diversities in their creedsand

From the endeavours of the best of them to effect, in addition to this communion, a complete union of the Protestant interests.

The Westminster Confession gives not the most distant hint of such a use. The church of Scotland, herself, as has been proved, never imposed it upon strangers; no, nor upon her own private members. "In so far," says one of her professors of divinity, in a work expressly defending confessions of faith, "In so far as is known to us, there is no act of Assembly, nor even of any inferiour church-judicature, establishing the Confession of Faith a term of Christian

communion, and requiring an assent thereto from Christian parents in order to their being admitted to all the privileges of church-communion, and particularly the baptism of their children." And again;

"As there is no established rule, nor any act of Assembly, confining the benefits of baptism to the belief of the several articles of our Confession, and excluding from a participation of this ordinance all persons who may in some things differ from us; so there was no ground in fact ever given to a person to complain of an arbitrary imposition upon him in this respect: Nor can any man, so far as we know, allege, that he acquainted a minister that he had scruples as to some articles of our Confession, or was of a contrary opinion to them; and, therefore, that he could neither profess his own belief of them, nor engage to educate his child in them, and thereupon was denied access to this sacrament. On the other hand, there have been several instances of persons who, upon their desire, were gratified in this particular; while none had ever reason to complain of a refusal."* Such were the views

* DUNLOP'S Full account of the several ends and uses of confessions of faith, &c. Edin. 1775. 12mo. p. 240, 1. This work was first published at Edinburgh, in 1719; thirteen years before Ebenezer Erskine's famous sermon which occasioned the Secession.