The Adopting Act of 1729 - Part 2

The Call for Subscription and the Corresponding Adopting Act

At the general assembly of 1728, John Thomson forced the issue by putting forward an overture to adopt the Westminster Standards as the governing body of the Presbyterian church. He argued that this needed to be done to “maintain and defend the truths of the gospel” against the dangers of heresy, schism, and moral failures that he believed the church was not ready to deal with (13). Thomson was a Scotsman which meant he was concerned with the contemporary heretical issues in Scotland and Ireland (namely, the Arian problems related to the Belfast Society) and believed the ministers that were migrating from Scotland and Ireland needed to be especially vetted. He argued at Synod that “Lest we should be corrupted with the new schemes of doctrine which for some time has prevailed in the north of Ireland, that being the part from whence we expected to be, in great measure, supplied with new hands to fill our vacancies in the ministry” (14).

Bauman argues that he was correct to be concerned as the church was “dependent upon outsiders for ministers and money” (15). As a relatively small denomination, they did not have the manpower or financial resources to self-maintain. One could use the modern example of a church plant to explain their position. They were, at this point, still dependent on the “sending” churches from the Old World and needed more time before they were able to self-support. Once this overture was presented, and Thomson’s corresponding pamphlet circulated throughout the church, the Synod had to make a decision regarding subscription and, if so, decide how to maintain unity.

Since Thomson wrote his overture and corresponding pamphlet around the same time in September of 1728, it was not until April of 1729 that Dickinson was able to circulate his rebuttal and fully espouse his own views against adopting the Westminsters standards and strict subscription. Dickinson argued against Thomson’s position point by point, and it can be boiled down to two main counterpoints and his plan of protecting the church without requiring subscription: First, he posited that subscription does not necessarily equal fidelity. He reminded his readers of old heretical groups that required extrabiblical tenets including the “Eustathians, Macedonians, Anomoioi, Eunomians, Photians, Luciferians, Anthropomorphites, Donatists, Apollinarians, Dimeritae, Massiliani, Antidicomorianitae, Collyridiani, Metangismonitae, Psathyrians, Eutichians, Seluciani, Patriciani, along with a long and almost endless et cetera” (16). And while these “subsctriptionist” sects were unfaithful to truth, the early church prevailed over them without a strict form of subscription (17). For Dickinson “it was more than an obvious historical truth that subscription was not necessary for the well-being of a church” (18). He closed this point of his argument by reminding the reader that the Roman Catholic Church had been corrupted and undone by requiring extrabiblical confession and tenets on both the people and the clergy (19).

His second main argument against subscriptionism was that it undermined Sola Scriptura. He argued that adopting the Westminster Confession and then requiring full subscription would make it “the test of our orthodoxy is to make it the standard of our faith” and “give it the honour only due to the Word of God” (20). This is the main issue that continued to pop up from the anti-subscription camp. By requiring subscription to a man-made document, they believed that placed it above the Word of God. After all, the church already agreed on “one faith, one Lord, one baptism, and one discipline. What more is needful?” (21).

He did not simply disagree with subscription and leave it at that. Instead, he offered pastoral suggestions in place of adopting the Westminster Standards. He believed that the Synod should deeply examine all candidates on every key doctrine, qualifications for eldership, and their “fitness for the work” (22). He wanted to leave the hard work of calling ministers to the faithful ministers of the church and their discernment as guided by the Scriptures.

With the two sides sharing the entirety of their views, the subscriptionists through Gillespie and then Thomson and the anti-subscription camp through Dickinson, the stage was set for a knock-down-drag-out theological debate at the Synod of 1729. The issue, with all the baggage from the history of Presbyterianism and subscription, made it very possible for the new Presbyterian church to split within the first couple of decades of its existence. Both sides were convinced of their position, and tensions were running high. If one side totally “won the day” the other could split and divide the church.

The Adopting Act, Charity, and Unity

By the grace of God the Synod did not turn into a shouting match nor did it destroy the young church. Leading up to the debate, the Synod did what any good Presbyterian denomination would do, they formed a committee. The committee met and debated between the Synod of 1728 and 1729 and reached a compromise that would shape the future of Presbyterianism in the New World. In short, the committee argued that it was good to adopt the standards as the order of the church while allowing for scruples of the secondary issues that did not touch on the essentials of the faith. When considering the contentiousness of the build-up, and the genuine fear the ministers had of schism, the statements of the committee findings show a group of theologians who truly cared for the church. The first piece of adopting the Westminster Standards, the preliminary act (AKA the morning minute) reads:

Although the synod do not claim or pretend to any authority of imposing our faith upon other men’s consciences, but do profess our just dissatisfaction with and abhorrence of such impositions, and do utterly disclaim all legislative power and authority of such impositions, and do utterly disclaim all legislative power and authority in the Church, being willing to receive one another, as Christ has received us to the glory of God, and admit to fellowship in sacred ordinances all such as we have grounds to believe Christ will at last admit to the kingdom of heaven; yet we are undoubtedly obliged to take care that the faith once delivered to the saints be kept pure and uncorrupt among us, and so hand down to our posterity (23).

The committee continued by adopting the confession “And do therefore agree, that all the Ministers of this Synod, or that shall hereafter be admitted into this Synod, shall declare their agreement in and approbation of the Confession of Faith with the Larger and Shorter Catechisms of the assembly of Divines at Westminster, as being in all the essential and necessary articles, good forms of sound words and systems of Christian doctrine; and do also adopt the said Confession and Catechisms as the confession of our faith” (24). The first piece of the compromise was actually accepting the Confession and catechisms as the doctrinal standards. For the compromise to work there had to be an adoption of the standards to satisfy those calling for subscription.

But, on the flip side, the subscription had to be done in such a way as to not violate the conscience of those on the anti-subscription crew. Herein lies the beauty of the morning minute; they decided that anyone who “shall have any scruple with respect to any article or articles of said Confession or Catechisms, he shall at the time of his making said declaration declare his sentiments to the Presbytery or Synod, who shall…. admit him to the exercise of the ministry within our bounds and to ministerial communion if the Synod or Presbytery shall judge his scruple or mistake to be only about articles not essential and necessary in doctrine, worship or government” (25).

This was accepted by the Synod and schism was avoided. It is clear that Dickinson played a key role in the wording of the preliminary act. The statements “essential and necessary” bleed through the statement and shows that the spirit of unity and fidelity was championed by the strongest opponent of subscriptionism in the American church, and what a testimony to God’s grace in the early years of American Presbyterianism that is (26). It is also clear that Thomas Craighead, a subscriptionist member of the committee, had learned from the failure of the Irish Presbyterians to adopt the Westminster Standards by working closely with the opposition and avoiding the binding of their consciences by allowing acceptable scruples and nixing a strict form of subscriptionism (27). It is amazing that these two sides came together and formed a document that was unanimously acceptable by both sides, caution of previous failures and the stakes of the decision for the young church surely tempered hotter heads.

Following a break, the Synod took time to allow men to share their scruples and then voted on the Adopting Act itself (the afternoon minute). The issue that would come out of this was that the morning minute was circulated by itself and, while the afternoon minute expressly mentions the unanimous exceptions taken from chapters twenty and twenty-three “some clauses in the twentieth and twenty-third chapters, concerning which clauses the Synod do unanimously declare” (28). But, there was not a Synod-wide adoption of the scruples taken by ministers (and therefore what would later be deemed acceptable or not). So while there was a great victory in 1729, there were still growing pains in American Presbyterian confessionalism, and they would come back in short order.