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Originally Posted by armourbearer  Quote:
Originally Posted by Semper Fidelis Do you have an answer to whether or not the American Presbyterian Church was a Church when it made the Revision in 1788? | I'm not sure what relevance the answer has on this thread, but I would say she was a Church which erred by revising the Confession and opening the door to an unbiblical concept of liberty of conscience. As history shows, pragmatism rather than dogmatism influenced the revision, which is lethal to the very idea of confessionalism. |
It may be the case that she erred. The point is, however, that the Church has the authority to revise a Confession to comport it with Scripture. It would also seem to be in the realm of Church authority to rule by Synod that such an error exists and not merely the dictates of individual ministers.
This issue sort of stabs at the heart of whether or not Synods have any authority. It seems straightforward to merely assert "...well, they erred..." but the same charge can be leveled at the original WCF as some have for a variety of doctrines.
My only point in all of this is that it's not quite as easy as determining, as individuals, the Confession that is perfect. Confessions are corporate documents and not something every man decides for himself within a particular communion. We owe the elders of our particular Church some deference. It is quite easy to simply assert that the Assembly that decided the matter acted upon pragmatism but I think I owe my Elders a bit more deference even as you would want to show deference withing your own visible communion before you blithely accepted a charge that your Church accepts the original WCF because you're Australians.
You can see the same worn tracks used by the FV who simply assert that their Presbyters just don't know the Scriptures or the WCF is just wrong but never pause to consider the gravity of simply assuming that a Church has acted un-Scripturally when it cramps their own understanding of a Scriptural truth.
I guess what I'm stating is that I respect your adherence to the original WCF and even respect the reason why the original framers included those paragraphs. I'm simply not willing to dismiss my own Presbyterian Church so quickly and label it as pragmatism that they chose to re-address those issues. I'd also have little authority within a visible Church to go around throwing rocks at the Church over those areas but would need to labor within to "re-reform" if the issue did indeed need to be reverted.