in that sense for me either. On that account we shall be in a position to listen to what it has to say all the more impartially. The Confession of a church, if it was once a good confession, cannot lose its message just because it has lost its significance as a standard of the church. He that has ears to hear, hears it even then. And the confession of John Knox is a good confession—and, moreover, in many respects a very original and interesting confession. And besides, even if it had significance as a standard of the church, it could not even then be understood as a code of doctrine binding us by its letters and sentences. Reformation teaching knows of no law set over it except the spiritual law of the Scripture, which must be heeded ever anew. Reformation teaching neither can nor will insinuate itself between us and Scripture. The Confessio Scotica itself declares in Article 18: “The interpretation [of Scripture] we confesse, neither appertaines to private nor publick persone, nether zit to ony Kirk for ony preheminence or prerogative personallie or locallie, quhilk ane hes above ane uther, bot apperteines to the Spirite of God, be the quhilk also the Scripture was written.” And it applies this to itself in the words of the preface, “Protestand that gif onie man will note in this our confessioun onie artickle or sentence repugnand to Gods Halie word, that it wald pleis him of his gentleness and for Christian charities sake to admonish us of the same in writing; and we upon our honoures and fidelitie, be Gods grace do promise unto him satisfactioun fra the mouth of God, that is fra his haly scriptures, or else reformation of that quhilk he sal prove to be amisse.” That means manifestly that when we associate ourselves with this document, we must at the same time remain free in relation to it—free to give heed to the Scripture itself. The Confessio Scotica wishes to be read and understood as a signpost pointing to Scripture. To understand it in any other sense would be to fail to understand it in its true and historical significance. Therefore the theological paraphrase and elucidation of the Confessio Scotica, that I would like to offer here, is to be a repetition, exposition and presentation of its text in the way in which according to its own purport it desires to be read and understood to-day—as a witness to Scripture and therefore in the light of Scripture, which authenticates but also criticises it. It goes without saying that my treatment of the text of the Confession is subjected to the same standard and ultimately to this standard only.
(Art. 1a)
OF GOD
We confesse and acknawledge ane onelie God, to whom only we must cleave, whom onelie we must serve, whom onelie we must worship, and in whom onelie we must put our trust.
I
“We confesse and acknawledge God.…” So begins the Scottish Confession. Who or what lies hidden behind this word “God”—a word with which indeed we are only too familiar? All confessions of all churches and religions purport to treat of “God.” What is conceived by all other “believers,” past, present and future, whatever the manner, place and date of their belief, is certainly not what the Scottish Confession means by the object of its profession. The Confession does not conceive its object at all, it acknowledges it: “We confesse and acknawledge.” And before we have time to ask it how and where it acknowledges God, it has already singled out a part of this knowledge of God,—or should we not rather say the whole of it?—and placed it before us in the words “We confesse and acknawledge ane onelie God.” It thus puts to us, so to speak, the counter question whether we ourselves do not acknowledge this same one and only God, and whether we have not long known how and where He, the one and only God, was to be acknowledged. But a Confession cannot wait for the assent of its hearers. This, it says, this is God, the one and only God, “to whom only we must cleave, whom onelie we must serve, whom onelie we must worship, and in whom onelie we must put our trust.” The note struck here is characteristic of all confessions of the Reformed church; the French and Dutch confessions for instance begin in an exactly similar way. Yet this note is struck with special emphasis in the Scottish Confession, and we shall meet it time and again in our text.
It will repay us to halt here for a moment and to consider this phrase “ane onelie God” carefully. It is not an innovation or a discovery of the sixteenth century which is put forward here, but it is certainly a renewal, a rediscovery and a restoration of knowledge long forgotten and denied. The voice of the Old Testament becomes articulate here once more, “Hear, O Israel, Jahweh our God is Jahweh the one and only God” (Deut. 6:4). The voice of the New Testament becomes audible too, “We know that there is none other God but one” (1 Cor. 8:4). So, too, the voice of the early church: “Deus si non unus est, non est” (Tert. adv. Marc. 1, 3). Therefore to speak of God is to speak of the one and only God. To know God means to know the one and only God. To serve God means to serve the one and only God. This is what Reformed teaching brings to light again. In and along with everything else which it says, it says this also.
In saying this what does Reformed teaching mean? It does not mean that God alone exists. It does not deny the world. It denies neither its variety nor its unity in itself, neither its splendour nor its fearful secrets, neither the profundity of nature nor the profundity of spirit. The world exists, but the world does not exist alone. And if the world does not exist alone, because it exists through God and therefore as having God behind, above and before it, as Him without whom it would not exist, so God does not exist alone, because the world exists through Him. It exists through Him, Who, without the world, would yet be in Himself no less what He is. The difference in the relation between them is this—God exists along with the world as its free creator, whereas the world exists along with God as the creation founded on His freedom. By recognising this difference we recognise God as the one and only God. At the conclusion of our confession we find the invocation, “Arise, O Lord, and let thy enimies be confounded …” Knowledge of the one and only God becomes possible and real, because this does happen, because God does “arise” and makes Himself visible in the world and distinguishes Himself from the world as its creator, thereby making the world visible and distinguishing it as His creation. Whatever the world may be as a whole and whatever separate entity may exist within the world—be it its final grounds and principles—this is not creative in the way in which God is creative, nor free as God is free, nor Lord as He is Lord. For it exists through God and, unlike God, does not possess its specific existence in itself. “We acknawledge ane onelie God”—that is the description of how we know the One Who becomes knowable in this distinction, consummated by Him Himself. Our knowledge will only be able to follow the drawing of this distinction. “Arise, O Lord.” Our thought in so far as it follows this “arising” attains to this knowledge of God, and can attain to this knowledge alone. “We acknawledge ane onelie God”—this is no mere part of the knowledge of God, but rightly understood is itself the sum of all true knowledge of God and for that reason this sentence may legitimately stand at the head of the confession.
II
Let us, in the first place, make clear to ourselves the far-reaching importance of this sentence. I repeat, it does not mean the negation, the denial or the depreciation of that which is not God. But it does mean that this latter factor is criticised, limited and made relative. It says precisely that this factor is not God. Whatever else it may be, only illegitimately can it conduct itself as God, and only illegitimately can it be regarded and treated as God. Whatever else it may be, we are free to abandon it; we are not compelled to serve it or worship it and we cannot in any sense or on any account put our hope of salvation in it. The greatness, beauty and importance which it may have in itself and also for us within the world is indisputable. That is expressly acknowledged in the New Testament passage previously cited, “There are (in heaven and on earth) gods many and lords many” (1 Cor. 8:5). But these are gods so-called
