Sermon: Blessings of The Standards: History and Theology

As I mentioned at the beginning, tonight is a little different for us. Uh, this is not a worship service per se. We are gonna do something a little different tonight where I'm gonna look through and talk through the history of the Westminster Assembly. We have been, those of you that are visiting with us, uh, we take a break going through a book of the Bible. Uh, in January, our elders, uh, identify what we call our faith focus, uh, something

that we just want to see more in the DNA of our church. And so in the mornings we preach through that in the evenings, uh, we try and look at it a little more practically, uh, and think through it together during the month of January. And what our faith focus is this year is what we're calling Rooted Confessionally Connected, and looking at the fact that we are a confessional church and what that means that we are confessional.

And so we've been walking through that biblically uh, in the morning services last week, uh, pastor Kevin looked at the first seven ecumenical creeds, uh, of the church, and we explored that. What we wanted to do this evening was take a look at the Westminster standards. The Westminster standards are what the leadership of your church here at University Reform Church, the elders, the deacons, the pastors. What we, what we say subscribe to that is

that we have to say that we believe that this is the teaching of the scriptures. What we find in the Westminster standards, the Westminster standards, is the Westminster Confession of Faith, and then the Westminster Larger Catechism and the Westminster Shorter Catechism. And next week, what I'll do right before our congregational meeting is just look at the idea of catechesis or catechism catechizing and look at the larger catechism, shorter catechism,

and just think about catechesis together. Uh, but the Westminster standards, uh, were written by the Westminster Assembly, and I wanna look at that together this evening. The Westminster Assembly was made up of what we often refer to as the Westminster Divines. Uh, that's just what they've been called in history. Those are the men that gather together in that assembly and wrote these documents. And, uh, what I wanna do this evening is just look at the

history behind that. Uh, it's helpful. I'm hoping that as a result of going through this over these weeks, that some of you who have not read through the Westminster Confession of Faith or haven't read through the Westminster Larger catechism, or some of you that haven't read through the Westminster Horror Catechism, would begin to explore these documents. You would begin to start to maybe open them up as you are doing your quiet time in the morning, you read

through the scriptures, and then maybe you take a portion of the Westminster Confession of Faith or the Westminster Larger Sho Catechism, and maybe you read through it and then you look up all The scriptural proofs And say, okay, is this an accurate summary of an articulation of what the Scriptures teach? Do, do I see this? What they're stating would encourage you to think about doing that, but it, it's, it's helpful to know

The History that Helped, uh, create These standards and what was behind it. I'm gonna walk through The history Of Scotland and England during this time leading up to it, um, hoping that we can follow together. Uh, for some of you, uh, history may not be your favorite thing. Uh, Leah Said, Oh, this is not talking me into wanting to come tonight when I was telling her I'm going through history tonight. Uh, but as a Christian, I wanna say this

To you. You Should, you and I should All have Some Appreciation For history Because God is working out his purposes in this world For his Glory and for the good of The church. And so every Christian should have an interest in history, Especially the history that affects Our little part of the vineyard, uh, presbyterianism and the fact that we have these Westminster standards that should Grip you a little Bit, even if it's not real exciting

to think about the kings and queens of England, uh, this evening. But I wanna walk through that together. There are a number of things that I want you to think through maybe as I'm going through this tonight, uh, was thinking about on the drive here. One is this. I want you to think about the way that God Uses history And even in these events, even the political history, how he uses it For the good Of the church. And we're gonna see that in a number of ways tonight.

I want you also to think about the sacrifices that men and women have made through The ages So that you and I have what We have And can con confess what we confess. We take an awful lot for granted. The third that I want you to notice as I'm going through this history this evening is how important and how much we take for granted how important your freedom of worship Is. And the fact that we can have our polity. That is that we believe that

There could be a Presbyterian system and that this is a good Way for the Church to operate. I want you to think about how important those things have been in the history of the church and how men and women been willing to give their lives In a real way to death. And some have been given, been willing to give their lives pouring and out for the sake of freedom of worship and freedom of governance within the church. As we walk through this this evening, let we start, uh,

what I wanna do tonight, walk through the history. Then what I wanna do is give you a number of things theologically, principally that I want you to think about in relation to the Westminster standards. And then, Lord willing, what I want to do is look through, uh, Westminster Confession of Faith chapter 18. What I challenged you in one of the applications last Sunday morning to go through, I want to look through chapter 18 together

and just look at it pastorally together and think about it together. Okay? If we go back to the Reformation, so let's start with the Reformation. If we go back to the Reformation and Martin Luther Nails Thoses 95 thesis to the Wittenberg Church door, he didn't know what was getting ready to launch. This was not his plan. His plan was rather to see the Catholic church reformed to some degree and he wanted to see some of its abuses corrected.

What will happen though is as his students begin to, uh, take these 95 thesis to a new invention, the printing press, and as those copies are made and they're distributed, then throughout Germany is what happens is is the Protestant reformation is launched and there are two streams that come outta the Protestant Reformation. You will have in Germany, Lutheranism, where there is a centering upon Luther and Mal lengthen and their teaching.

There'll be a second stream that comes outta the reformation that really finds its genesis in Switzerland with Ley. And that's what we will call the Reformed Stream. So you'll have Lutheranism and you will have the reformed stream. There will be a famous meeting between Luther and Z Swingley at Marburg where they will meet together. And as history tells us, and there's maybe a little apocryphal history here, but they will meet together

and I can't remember the number of things, but they'll meet together to see if they can keep the reformation together. And as they meet together, they will go through, and I don't remember the number again, but something like 30 different doctrines and they will agree on every single one of them, but they can't agree on the Lord's table. And so what will happen is you will have two distinct streams that come outta the Reformation,

Protestant Reformation, Lutheranism, and Reformed theology, or the reformed camp. There will be a young man by the name of Patrick Hamilton and Patrick Hamilton will have been on the continent. And he will be influenced by many of the early reformers, including Luther and including Maleen and Patrick Hamilton as Scottish. And Patrick Hamilton will go back to Scotland having it been influenced by Luther, and he will begin to preach Protestant theology.

He'll begin to preach the distinction between, uh, the law and gospel that Luther was so famous for. He will be declared a heretic. And Patrick Hamilton at uh, um, St. Andrews, you can go to St. Andrews in Scotland today and you will find a, I've been there this, this on the pavement outside the college there, there is a p and an H in the cement there, and it's on that spot that Patrick Hamilton will be burned at the stake

for being a heretic by the Roman Catholic Church. It will take six hours for him to burn. He will burn from noon to 6:00 PM The fire will go out multiple times and they will reignite the fire multiple times. He's a 24-year-old man, 24, and he comes back with the zeal of the Protestant faith in his willing to give his life for it. There's a moment where he is burning and they will yell out to him, convert, heretic, uh, and then there will be a friar by the name

of Alexandra Campbell that will say, call upon our lady, meaning Mary, say Sal, Regina, that is hail the Queen. And someone else will shout, if you still believe in the doctrines for which you are dying, then give us a sign. Hamilton at this point is burnt. Half of his body is burnt and he only has three fingers left on one hand. And he will raise those three fingers into the air and with his final breaths, he will say

these words, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit. How long shall darkness overwhelm this realm? How long will thou suffer this tyranny of men and he dies? What happens from that moment? It's one of those moments in Christian history where they lit a man on fire thinking that they were stamping out the Protestant faith or the beginnings of it in Scotland. What it did though was it ignited a true flame, a flame that spread throughout Scotland, where people began asking,

why would a young man like this be willing to die? Why would he be willing to be burned like this for six hours? And people will be begin asking for documents that Luther has written and it will begin to spread throughout Scotland. Of course, the great influence upon the land of Scotland is John Knox. John Knox will study under Calvin in Geneva and he will go back to his homeland. He's a fascinating figure in history.

Don't have time to go through a lot of details, but John Knox will become the great purveyor of Protestantism and especially Presbyterianism in the land of Scotland. Scotland is in the north in the British Isles, England is underneath it. And so let's go to England for a second and then we'll return back to Scotland because they're tied together in the history of the assembly in England. Uh, you have as many of you know, king Henry viii

and King Henry VIII is having problems having a son and he thinks it's his wife's problems. What's fascinating, as we know now from, uh, from medicine as it's actually was his fault, not the women's faults right, as the men that contributes to this. And so King Henry VIII though is wanting to divorce, uh, his wives and he's now wanting to marry Anne Belin and the Pope and Rome will not grant this exception to Henry viii.

And the Protestant Reformation is raging throughout Europe. Uh, Henry VIII is a committed Roman Catholic, but because he cannot divorce his wife, he will establish the Church of England and he will break away from the Roman Catholic Church. He does so, so that he can divorce and so that he can remarry and he establishes what's called the act of supremacy in 1534 where he makes himself the head of the Anglican church. It's still a very Roman church.

It's still practices everything that Rome did, but now it has cut itself off from Rome with Henry himself as the head of the church. It's a kind of what we would call Anglo Catholicism. It's an Anglo or Anglican church with him as the head, kind of an Episcopal form of government where you have a top down just like the Roman Church, but instead of the Pope at the top, it's King Henry VIII that is at the top. King Henry will die

and his son Edward, I vi, will become King Edward, I vi is only nine years old when he becomes king. And Edwards the sixth is a committed Protestant at nine. Uh, he will have a couple of, uh, different men, especially the Duke of Somerset that will oversee him and his education and will be a protector of him and he will be a committed Protestant and he will lead some moderate reforms to happen in the the Church of England

where they move a little bit away from Roman Catholicism and embrace some of the Protestant faith during his reign. You will have different reformers from the continent that will move to England. And this is incredibly significant because they will begin to teach the Protestant faith in places like Cambridge and Oxford and it will begin to disseminate some of the Protestant faith in England meant such as Martin Buser, who is a major reformer.

At the same time, you have an archbishop by the name of Thomas Cramer, the Archbishop of the Church of England, and he will write what are called the 42 articles. And the 42 articles are a confession of faith and the 42 articles. They rule out some things in Roman Catholicism and rule out some things of Arminianism that have begun to sprout in England, and they will become the basis for what is called the 39 articles.

And this is very important for the Westminster Confession, the 39 articles. He writes, the 42 articles. Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately depending on how you look at church history, Edward will die. He begins, like I said, his reign at the age of nine. He will then die at the age of 15. And when he dies at the age of 15, his sister becomes queen and his sister is Mary the first, as she has been called in the history

of Protestantism Bloody Mary. And she's called Bloody Mary because she is a committed Roman Catholic. So King Henry VIII establishes the Church of England, it's Anglo Catholic. His son will come to the throne. He is a committed Protestant Queen. Mary now comes to the throne and she wants to swing it all the way back to Catholicism. And as she seeks to do so, she will have over 300 Protestants and pastors burned at the stake during her reign.

And so she's called Bloody Mary. Maybe though most importantly what happens during her reign is that many Protestants are driven from England. So they leave and where do they go? They go to the continent and they go and they study under Calvin and they go and they study under male lengthen, be a fascinating kind of, I don't know, alternate history to think about, you know, where you can do this with history. My daughter likes to do this, dad,

what would've happened if this hadn't happened or if this had happened? Be interesting if Queen Mary hadn't become Queen of England and if all of these Protestants hadn't gone to the continent and studied, but they did it. It reminds me of the dispersion like in the New Testament where you had the persecution and the fall of Jerusalem in AD 70 and you have all of these Christians that spread all out and it's the way that the Lord used the, the evil

that men are seeking to do, and he uses it for the spread of the faith. And in many ways the reverse is happening. Here you have Queen Mary that comes, she persecutes Protestants. So they flee, they go to the continent, they get more training because they're going to return. Queen Mary dies and when she dies, her half sister comes to the throne and her half-sister is Elizabeth the first. Now Elizabeth is interesting when she reigns, all

of these Protestants come back from the continent that have studied under Calvin, that have studied under Malee fun and studied under other kind of second, uh, generation reformers. And she is interesting because she is a committed Protestant. She's a committed Protestant theologically. But one of the things that happened in history, and most reformed historians would say this, is that she was set against reformed theology

because of John Knox. John Knox was a firebrand up in Scotland. And when Mary, the first Elizabeth's sister, when bloody Mary was on the throne in England, and Mary Stewart was on the throne in Scotland as he is kind of giving her a side word or Mary Queen of Sconce was on the throne in Scotland. He's kind of giving her a side word glance and he writes this treaties. And the name of the treaties is this first blast of the trumpet against the monstrous regiment of women.

Knox makes the argument that women should not be in charge of nations

and Queen Elizabeth doesn't have a lot of tolerance for John Knox. Uh, it's interesting history. Calvin will encourage NOx not to write this, uh, and knocks will, and in many ways it sets Queen Elizabeth against the reformed tradition. She is Protestant and doctrine, but she holds on to a lot of the trappings of Rome. She establishes an act whereby she has the right to institute anything in the church that she believes is good for the church.

And so she will do so. She will argue that all the Church of England must use the prayer book and the prayer book, the book of Common Prayer had these, and it's still, it's used in the Church of England today in the Anglican Episcopal churches today it has a set liturgy and it says that you have to preach this on this day and here are the prayers that you pray. And here is the subject of the homily maybe that the pastor would preach on this day.

And this is what a service is to look like. And so you will have, during Elizabeth the first reign, you will have a growing kind of movement called the Puritan movement, where the puritans will argue that no one, no one is allowed to bind the conscience of men. And it's the very first principle of presbyterianism. The Lord is Lord of the conscience and he alone. And we must only do that which we believe the Lord has told us to do.

And how do we know what the Lord has told us to do? What he has told us in his word explicitly or what? By good and necessary consequence, we can deduce from the scriptures and no man, no woman has a right to bind our conscience otherwise in worship and in how the church practices what it practices.

There will be a lot of puritans that leave under Elizabeth as well. She will, during her reign, she will suspend at least a third of all of the preachers in England from being able to be in the pulpit. And many of these men and their families will truly be destitute because they have no income, they have no way of living, but they're going to stand on their principles that nobody can bind our conscience in the church.

Elizabeth will die in James the sixth of Scotland becomes James the first of England. So James the sixth has been reigning in Scotland and when Elizabeth dies, he becomes the king of both Scotland and England. And now you have for the very first time in history, you have Scotland and England. They are joined together as one commonwealth with one king that is over them. And James I six is the beginning of the Stewart Dynasty.

He was brought up as a Presbyterian under Presbyterian tutelage in Scotland, but he will be enamored with finding a Catholic queen for his son to marry. He wants there to be an alliance, uh, with the, uh, Catholics. He is concerned that Scotland and England will somehow be dashed to pieces if they are not united with Catholics. And so he's trying to win over Spain or France and the kings there to provide a wife or his son Charles.

And so he will be a kind of moderate Protestant. He will flirt with Roman Catholicism because he wants that kind of security from France or Spain while he tries to find a wife for his son, Charles the first, uh, and he will just kind of be a moderate Protestant. But this is what's key about him, James. The first is that he believed in the divine right of kings and he will exercise that with utter control. And why that's so important is

because his son Charles, the first will inherit that idea from him where what the king says is it that's final. No one else has a right to rule, but the king, because God has set the king in his place, he has made him king over the land. And so when James the first dies and a son, Charles the first rises to the throne, Charles the first we'll take this view on steroids. He's married to a Catholic wife and so he will swing this back

to a Anglo Catholicism heading towards Rome. He's watching as the hugins that as the French Protestants are being defeated by Catholics in France, he's watching as Lutherans of Denmark are being defeated by the Catholics in Denmark. And he doesn't wanna see that happen to his own country, England and Scotland. And so he begins to crack down and begins to implement Roman Catholicism. For all intents and purposes under the Church of England,

throughout England and Scotland. He believed in the divine right of Episcopal, that is that it was an Episcopal form of government. He will move from a sacramental table to requiring that churches have antar like they do in the Roman Catholic Church. He will require that churches that when you are in worship, that you genuflect, that means that you bow before the cross and that you bow before the sacraments and that you bow

before the bishop or the priest as he comes in. And as he walks down the aisle, he will begin to implement and his, his, uh, archbishop will begin to implement that. You need to call out to the saints and even pray to the saints. The Scottish, we turn back to Scotland. They are Presbyterian by this point and they are reformed and they will have none of this. And yet Charles wants to see all of this enforced in Scotland.

So in Scotland you will begin to have the seeds of a rebellion. So Charles, the first will send an army up to Scotland and the Scots will defeat the English army. Charles, when he became King, will suspend parliament because he believed in the divine right of kings. What he says goes, no one else rules with me, but now he needs money because he needs to raise a new army to go defeat the Scots. So he calls parliament back into session

because only parliament can raise taxes. He calls them back into session and they begin to complain against the king, against King Charles. So he abolishes them again and it's called the Short Parliament disappear. The problem is, is that the Scots have fielded quite an army and they've invaded Northern England. And so Charles has a problem on his hands. And so what he does is he calls parliament back into session so that he can raise taxes so that he can raise an army

to go defeat those Scottish Presbyterians. When the parliament comes back into session, the very first act that it does is it passes a law that no king can abolish it,

and it becomes what is called the Long Parliament. This launches what is called the English Civil War. So Charles calls out the army, the parliament calls out an army, and you have the English Civil War, you have the Scots that have invaded the North. Charles and his Anglo-Catholic army are fighting the Scots, and now they're having to fight Parliament's army Under Cromwell. Cromwell will be a military genius that defeats all kinds

of generals that have been waging war on the continent in 30 years war. He, he's a mastermind on the battlefield.

It's interesting in Scotland, if we think back to there, when Charles the first tries to enforce things upon them, it all erupts at, uh, St. Giles Cathedral. If you go down to my study, I have a big painting of St. Giles on my wall. Uh, it is where Knox preached. Um, it is, uh, beautiful cathedral there in Edinburgh and it's there that they first tried to require the Book of Common Prayer in Scotland. And uh, that was in, uh, 1637.

And as the, the deacon gets up to require them to start using the Book of Common Prayer, there is a old lady that is sitting in that congregation, uh, Jean Geddes, who is sitting on a stool and as he begins to read from the book of Common Prayer, she picks up her stool and she yells at this man villain does thou say, mass at my lug and lug means ears, thus thou say mass at my ears. And she took the stool and she hurled it at his head.

As soon as she does that, he takes off his frock and he literally starts running out of the church. And so the bishop there in Edinburgh will get up and he'll try and calm the crowd and begin to do the book of Common Prayer and everybody starts throwing stones and dirt at him and he will run out of the Church of St. Giles. And this is what kind of launches the Scottish Church and the Scottish Rebellion as well against England.

They will sign a national covenant in 1638 that the, they will sign there in Edinburgh where a bunch of pastors will gather together and this national covenant, they commit themselves to death rather than give up the reformed faith that they will resist any innovations and any regulations that have been declared by the state upon them. And they will commit themselves to seeing Episcopal. That is this kind of top-down approach

to church government abolished in their land. And they will take up these arms and they will fight for Presbyterian principles. So you have Charles fighting them in the north, you have them fighting the parliament in the south. The parliament will decide that in 1643 it will decide to call together what is called the Westminster Assembly. And it does so for this reason. Two primary reasons is that one, you have the Scots in the north

who are reformed Presbyterian and it needed, and this is the political things behind it, it needed and alliance with the Scots as they're also fighting against King Charles. They also wanted to establish a confession that showed that they in fact believed in England what the Dutch believed and what the French Huguenots believed and what others believed on the continent so that they could show that they were part of something bigger

and maybe even get support from the continent for the war that they were waging. And so in 1643 on July 1st, the Westminster Assembly will be called and will be called together to first to take those 39 articles that I referenced 20 minutes ago, those 39 articles, and just rework them so that there could be a confession of faith that they could say, look, we're in agreement with you. Look at these things. Scotts look at these

things in the Netherlands, you Dutch people, right? We agree. And so they began reworking the 39 articles and they were to put together a form of worship and a form of government for the church and even a souler at the time. The Westminster Assembly was about 120 men that gathered together. Each was a minister in the Church of England and then there were different members of parliament that were appointed as well to, to attend these assembly gatherings.

And then you will have the Scots will send down five different men that are advisors to the Westminster Assembly and they will meet from 1643 until 1652. They will meet 1,330 times every morning. They would be begin Monday through fire Friday at 6:00 AM in the morning and they would end at 5:00 PM in the evening. They will debate all of the different doctrines and they will put together the confession of faith and then the larger catechism

and the shorter catechism, they will put together a directory of worship and they will examine over 2000 pastors, uh, to decide whether they should be ordained and whether they could be ministers of the gospel.

Most of the men that were there were Presbyterians. You had some Episcopalians that were there in the beginning. But once the Solemn League and Covenant, which I won't discuss this evening, once that was signed in Scotland, uh, and it was, it was recognized in England, uh, you will have all the Episcopalians because Episcopalians, they belonged to the Church of England and Charles said you can no longer participate in

this as soon as that was signed. So they will all leave. So you have mostly Presbyterians and then you will have some that are Ians. That is that they held that Christian pastors were not men that had authority, they did not rule in the church. They were just teachers and they believed that all ecclesiastical as well as all civil power rested exclusively with the civil government. So you had Ians that believed the civil government was over both the church

and the state and it had all power. You had mostly Presbyterians and then you had a handful of independence that that had a loud voice in the assembly. These were men that were not Presbyterian, did not believe in Presbyterian form of government, believed in a kind of congregationalism and believed in independent churches. They will establish three different committees, they will be equal committees and they will begin revising the 39 articles.

But as soon, soon as that Solemn league and Covenant was signed, they will decide not to revise the 39 articles anymore. What the parliament will then say to them is, we want a confession of faith. And so they will begin writing what we call the Westminster Confession of Faith. They will hash it out in debates in committee, and then those committees will report to the floor and then they would hash these things out in debate on the floor.

And it is fascinating. You can read the minutes. Uh, a friend, um, uh, that has studied these minutes, he has collated all those minutes and they stand about this tall, uh, they cost about a thousand dollars to get all of the minutes. Um, so Pastor Appreciation day, you think about it, uh, his wife has a great sense of humor. When he had finally done that as his PhD, he had gone through all the minutes, all these handwritten minutes

and he had collated them and he had type set them and put them all in order. His wife has this YouTube video where she says, what are these good for? And she has this video of her standing on them to reach up into the cabinets and has him up against the door as a doorstop. And, um, but he has done a wonderful service to the church. Uh, in doing that they will, uh, debate all of these things in the assembly and they will eventually produce a West me confession

of faith and they will send it to the Parliament. What's interesting is when the confession goes to the Parliament, there were no proof texts

much because of what I spoke about this morning is that the Divines, the men who wrote the Westminster Confession of Faith, they were concerned about just liberalism, just kind of proof texting things. They say, we have to take the whole council of God into consideration when we're considering something. We don't just want a text that argues this one point. We want the whole council of God to come to bear on why we believe this thing.

But the Parliament didn't like that and said, we want texts. And so the Westminster, the Westminster Assembly will go back to work and they will begin to put together proof texts and they will then send a amended confession of faith with proof texts to the parliament. They will submit that on April 29th, 1647. They'll present the shorter catechism on November 5th, 1647 and then the larger catechism they will present on

April 14th, 1648. What is interesting is that the Church of England will never adopt the Westminster confession of faith or the larger order catechisms, the Scots will. And so it will become the, the standard for the Scottish Presbyterian Church and they only had five just advisors there at the assembly. Charles the first will be defeated in battle. Lord Cromwell will uh, take over and he will become Lord protector of England.

And uh, there is I think, uh, a great error that was made in the midst of all of this, uh, by Scottish Presbyterians. The Scottish Presbyterians as they are in war, are really fearful of the independence. Cromwell was an independent and they were fearful of him taking over, uh, England. And so they will actually, they will turn and they will align themselves with Charles the first and they will fight against Cromwell and Cromwell will defeat all of them.

So it's a fascinating, another fascinating thing to think about. If the Scottish Presbyterians hadn't done that with, would there have been a kind of accepted presbyterianism in England? What would that have meant for the world, Charles? They will rest, they will try, they will be head and then the commonwealth will be established and Cromwell will ra reign as Lord protector from 1653 to 1658. He will die. Charles II will come back.

His son, uh, will come to reign. Charles the first son, Charles II will come and he will reign and he, uh, will launch into outright uh, kind of killing of Presbyterians, especially in Scotland. It is what is called the killing times in Scotland where you will have 18,000 Presbyterians that will be put to death, uh, in Scotland during the reign, um, of Charles ii. Uh, there are, it's a fascinating place in the the grass

market right outside of Edinburgh where there is this, people walk on it all day. It pains me as I watch it. They're just walking on it. It's this spot where all of these Scottish Presbyterians were martyred, uh, for the faith. Um, they will be held in uh, gray Friar's Churchyard in these open kind of holding cells with gates on them and concrete walls that went up and but no roof and men and women and children will be held there for four months

with four ounces of bread given to them, uh, to eat in a week. And many of them will starve to death and they will freeze to death and then thousands of them will be put to death. And it's all because they were committed to not seeing their conscience burdened by the state telling them, you must worship like this

and you must be governed like this. They're willing to get their lives for it. Of course, you and I are the recipients of it here because of the, especially the Scotch Irish, those that were in Northern Ireland, Scots that came from Northern Ireland, but Scotland itself as well that came here to America and settled here and established the Presbyterian form of government and the reformed faith here in the Americas during the colonization times.

Lemme just give you a few lessons learned. One, maintaining sound doctrine and right practice are worth our time and the worth. Even our lives if we're called to it, it's easy to say, but it has to be something that you and I, that we prepare ourselves as much as we can for that, that we steal ourselves to this idea. Men and women and children, they're doing that. You think about Patrick Hamilton, 24 years old and steal this way would give his life so

that the faith would go forward

so Lord could be Lord of his conscience. Second compromise on what we can for greater unity is not weakness, but strength. The Westminster documents contrary to what many people think that their their compromise compromised documents. There was great diversity in the Westminster Assembly

and they came together and they established very clearly both what was exclusive and what was inclusive. That is they clearly denote the boundaries of sound reformed orthodoxy. They rule out romanism, they rule out arminianism their different distinctives with Lutheranism that are for example, that are made untenable if one adopts a Westminster standards, but they're also inclusive. There's a broad range of beliefs on many topics from church governance to modes

of baptism to the relationship between church and state. That you could have and you could subscribe to the Westminster standards.

The assembly received the following communication from the parliament by which it sought to abide. It was this take into consideration the differences and opinion of the members of the assembly in point of church government and to endeavor the finding out some way how tender conscience is who cannot. And all things submit to the common rule, which shall be established, may be born with according to the word and as may stand with the public peace.

And they sought to abide by this. Going to try and make this that, ah, you don't agree with everything here, okay, you can still practice the faith. Third, the greater church matters. I touched on this this morning quite a bit, but the, the assembly will cite according to JV Fesco more than 600 theologians in its minutes. And when one surveys the list, it is truly world and time encompassing. Augustine cited 25 times Theo Theodore Bays at 29 times

Calvin, 25 times Chris Isum 16 times Cian, 12 times Martin Luther, 12 times Tertullian temp times and on week ago men of the day and theologians throughout the history of the church, they were seeking to align themselves with the churches in Netherlands, the churches in France, the church in Switzerland, the church even in Ireland and Scotland. This was an assembly that understood that they belonged to the greater church both past and present.

They understood that the greater church matters for we declare what the Bible teaches. This is what the Westminster standards do. Some of you like the Heidelberg catechism better because it feels more personal. Uh, that's fine. You're wrong, but it's fine. Uh, this will be my slight correction Westminster. It's not impersonal. It declares authoritatively what the Bible teaches with clarity. And we then declare that this is what we believe

and when we do, it becomes very personal.

The men who gave their lives to this. So this as very personal, I hope children that are being catechized along these lines find it very personal. I as a pastor who has subscribed to it, find it very personal. I hope our elders do, I hope our deacons do. It's very personal.

Five, this is a tool to be used. It's to be used for your personal growth. It's to be used for your education and faith. It's to be used as you seek to teach others. It's to be used as you train your children. It's to be used as you counsel. It's to be used sixth and finally, confessionalism is only as good as those who confess it. Do so with integrity and discipline is enacted otherwise to all that that I said this morning about your leadership being

confessional according to the standards. It only matters if the men actually are honest as they subscribe to it. And it only matters if the church is willing to discipline when men are not honest about it.

And so it's not enough just simply to say, we have this and let it sit on the shelf. It's not enough for me just to say with my mouth, oh, I believe this and give it a wink and a nod.

It has to be something that I honestly, truly believe. This is what the scriptures teach. And if I do anything contrary to this, it is incumbent upon you as a congregation. It's incumbent upon the elders here. It's incumbent upon the pastors and elders that I'm united with in my presbytery and in the denomination to discipline me, to call me out on it and say, Jason, you confessed to this. How are you preaching and teaching that?

And if I don't confess and repent, then you should get rid of me.

Confessionalism is only as good as men are honest and subscribing to it. And the church disciplines those who are not incredibly important. And I don't have time to walk through chapter 18, but I got that history down as much as this historian possibly could. Uh, love it so much. Alright. All right. I'm gonna pray for us and then we are going to sing a quick hymn and go eat together.

Our Father, we are thankful.

We are thankful for this faith once delivered to the saints. And we are thankful for men and women and children that have understood the importance of holding fast and faithfully to the truth of your word, even to the point of death.

Help us not to take for granted that we get to worship here freely according to our conscience. Help us not to take for for granted that we get to be ruled as we think the scriptures teach. Help us to not take for granted that there will be a day, an eternity in which we meet so many of these men and women and children that gave their lives that we might hold onto this faith and might propagate it and might teach it to the generation that follows.

Help us to stick close and fast to your word and we pray all this in the strong name of Christ. Amen.