engaged in considering its relations to that document; in the course of which consideration it has framed for itself a brief compendium of fundamental doctrines, designed, "not of necessity to supersede the Westminster Confession as the standard of orthodox teaching from the pulpit, yet for sundry other practical uses," "as, for example, the clear presentation to the public of the Church's exact doctrinal teaching, or for the indoctrination of catechumens, or even for an intelligent profession of their faith by ruling elders and deacons."[1] Accordingly, it was proposed to the Synod at its last meeting to adopt these new "Articles of Faith," "as a sufficiently full statement of this Church's belief on fundamental doctrines to serve for a testimony to those beyond her communion, and for a summary of her creed to be recited upon special occasions of public worship "—in a word, to take some such place as its Summary of Principles does in the United Presbyterian Church. At the other end of the world, again, the Synod of the Presbyterian Church of Otago and Southland in Southern New Zealand appointed a committee at their meeting in the autumn of 1888, to consider the whole subject of the relation of the Church to its subordinate Standards, and report to the Synod of 1889.[2] In Scotland, the Established Church has
- ↑ Dr. J. Oswald Dykes, in The Catholic Presbyterian, ix. 469, June, 1883.
- ↑ A somewhat similar overture to that sent up to the Synod of Otago and Southland by the Presbytery of Dunedin, on the basis of which the action mentioned above was taken, was sent up by the Presbytery of Auckland to the last General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church of New Zealand, but was set aside on the ground that the modified formula of subscription in use in that church secures all that is necessary. That formula reserves liberty of opinion "on the teaching of the said Confession in regard to the duty of the civil magistrate, marriage with a deceased wife's sister, and the forms of expression in which the several doctrines are stated."
