There is hardly a more disputed action in the heavily contested history of American Presbyterianism than the 1729 Adopting Act. After all, the Adopting Act itself did not initially settle the problem of confessional subscription or the larger challenges facing the Synod of Philadelphia. And ever since the synod declared its “agreement in and approbation of the [Westminster] Confession of Faith…as being all the essential and necessary articles, good forms of sound words and systems of Christian doctrine,” Presbyterians have had questions.
What are “the essential and necessary articles” of Christian doctrine which the Standards present and to which ministers subscribe? What does it mean to have “scruples” about “articles not essential and necessary”? Did the synod intend for ministers to be allowed many different possible scruples or only one?
These questions have bedeviled American Presbyterians from 1729 to our own present day. While there have been attempts to define “the essential and necessary articles” through declaratory statements (whether in 1892 or 1910 in the northern Presbyterian Church in the USA or 1939 in the southern Presbyterian Church in the US), the reality on the ground has been messier with judicial precedents serving as the only sure method of clarifying what is essential and what is not.
In the PCA, debates over strict and system subscription that ultimately produced “good faith subscription” in 2004 sprang from the same questions of what subscription means and what the “fundamentals” of the doctrinal system are. And Presbyterians continue to debate these issues over 20 years after the codification of good faith subscription, demonstrating that the nearly 300-year-old questions which the Adopting Act tried to settle are still with us today.
One challenge is a historical one: What was the Adopting Act, and what did our Presbyterian forefathers intend when it was adopted? Almost immediately, there was discomfort with some aspects of the action’s language. There were attempts to reinterpret what the agreement was. And then, in the later 19th-century debates that divided the church between the Old School and New School, a developing stricter subscription position re-read the 1729 events to suggest that the only “scruples” that were allowed were some fine points on civil magistrates and their relationship to American denominations.
Those historical questions need consensus before Presbyterians can move toward the practical outworking for our denomination today — especially the need to balance our Presbyterian commitments to both doctrinal purity and liberty of conscience.
Ensuring Doctrinal Fidelity
To move toward the historical question, it is useful to start with the basic problem that nascent American Presbyterianism faced in the early 1720s: How should presbyteries and synod ensure doctrinal fidelity in a rapidly expanding church?
In 1706, the ministers who formed Philadelphia Presbytery all knew each other, or at least all knew Francis Makemie, whom we now call “the father of American Presbyterianism.” Either through Makemie’s own personal recruitment, Scots-Irish ties, or the friendship of others, the seven other ministers who formed the first presbytery could vouch for one another’s doctrinal orthodoxy as well as their common purpose “to consult the most proper measures, for advancing religion, and propagating Christianity in our various stations.”
Almost immediately, the presbytery began to exercise ecclesiastical power through ministerial examinations and ordinations along with oversight of local congregations. And yet the preponderance of the men who entered the presbytery in its early days were known to the others. Most came from the Old World of northern Ireland and Scotland. There was a relational basis that ensured the doctrinal fidelity of these colonial Presbyterians.
Presbyterianism grew rapidly in its first decade. By 1716, the Synod of Philadelphia was formed with three presbyteries: Philadelphia, Long Island, and New Castle. When the Great Migration from Scotland and Ireland began a few years later, Presbyterians were prepared to welcome these Scots and Scots-Irish into their new churches and presbyteries. But with all this growth, a problem arose. With all these new ministers and churches, some as far south as Virginia, how should the presbytery maintain doctrinal fidelity? When the men were not personally known, when one could not rely on personal relationships, what was the best way forward?
Faith and Practice
These questions found focus in 1720 with accusations of a minister’s moral failing. A young Scots-Irish minister, Robert Cross, was credibly accused of fornication. The matter came before the Synod of Philadelphia. Cross answered the charge “with great seriousness, humility, and signs of true repentance.” The synod was moved by Cross’ reply, deeming it to be “universally satisfactory.” It acted to remove him from his pulpit in New Castle for four Sundays, provided pulpit supply for the church during that time, and then left the way open for Cross to return to his ministry if the congregation desired.
Not everyone was pleased with the synod’s decision. Cross continued as the minister of the New Castle church, and the following year at synod, George Gillespie protested the decision to allow Cross to continue. He moved that the actions regarding Cross be either “altered or annulled.” He also wrote a paper objecting to the synod’s procedure in the matter. In both instances — the motion to annul and the motion to adopt his paper — the synod voted Gillespie down. However, the synod agreed to establish processes to improve “the matters of our government and discipline.” This was the first step toward establishing consistent processes in matters of polity or doctrine.
The following year, in response to a protest against the establishment of these Presbyterian processes, the synod received a paper from Jonathan Dickinson, minister of the Presbyterian church in Elizabeth, New Jersey, and three others. In the paper, Dickinson agreed with synod that church courts through their officers could exercise “the keys of church discipline” and that lower courts had the right of appeal to higher ones. He also granted that synods “may compose directories, and recommend them to all their members respecting all the parts of discipline.”
Where he differed, and synod appeared to agree, is that “subordinate judicatories may decline from such directories when they conscientiously think they have just reason so to do.” In other words, lower courts needed to be able to follow their consciences and the leading of God’s Spirit, even if the process dictates differently.
While the tension between orderly process and liberty of conscience appeared to focus on polity and discipline, lurking behind this was the issue of confessional subscription. Dickinson was convinced such was the real issue behind Gillespie’s desire for lower courts to be able to overture higher ones. And as the events unfolded, Dickinson appeared to be right.
Starting in 1724, New Castle Presbytery began to require subscription to the Westminster Confession of Faith, with the language “I do own the Westminster Confession as the Confession of my faith.” This new subscription vow was allowed by the agreement that the various church courts could exercise the keys of church discipline — and so, as an appropriate way of protecting the flock, the presbytery began to require such subscription.
Three years later, John Thomson from New Castle Presbytery overtured the synod to adopt his presbytery’s practice: to “publicly and authoritatively adopt the Westminster Confession of Faith, Catechisms, etc., for the public confession of our faith.” Should the synod do this, Thomson further wanted to require “every candidate for the ministry to subscribe or otherwise acknowledge” the Standards. It is not clear from the minutes what happened when Thomson read this overture; he submitted it again the following year with the support of his presbytery and, because of its importance, the synod docketed action for its 1729 meeting.
In the meantime, Thomson produced a pamphlet in which he argued that it was the duty of every church “to maintain and defend the truths of the Gospel against all opposers” as well as “to perpetuate and propagate” those truths to the next generation. Yet because the Presbyterian church in the colonies had not adopted any system of doctrine, it was in “a careless defenseless condition, as a city without walls.” There was no barrier to prevent men from entering the ministry of the church who were “corrupt in doctrinals.”
Thomson was willing to provide for some differences with the Westminster Confession; as historian Byron Le Beau summarizes, “Thomson suggested that if some could point to particulars in the Westminster Confession that they believed to be unsound, they would be heard. If they could adequately defend their objections, they would be allowed to maintain them.” Yet even if the Standards were “short of that perfection” of Scripture itself, that should not prevent using the document as a confessional standard.
Dickinson responded to Thomson with his own pamphlet in the days before the 1729 synod meeting. While Dickinson agreed that the Presbyterian church needed to maintain and defend the truth of the gospel, he did not believe that confessional subscription would accomplish that goal. Rather, such a requirement would “procure rents and divisions” in the church and create spiritual confusion at the congregational level.
If one wanted to defend the purity of the church, Dickinson believed that the way to do this was through a thorough and strict examination of the life and morals of ministerial candidates. Hypocrites can certainly subscribe to a doctrinal standard and so gain entrance into the church, leading it to error; but pious men who love Christ and the Scriptures will inevitably lead the church well. Above all, it was incumbent upon church courts not to usurp lordship over the consciences of believers. After all, the Confession itself declared that “God alone is Lord of the conscience” (WCF 20:2). It would be a “glaring contradiction,” Dickinson observed, to bind and lord over a man’s conscience with a man-made document that itself declared that God alone was such a ruler.
Old World Precedent for the New World
Behind all these New World Presbyterian developments were Old World precedents. The pattern of Ulster Presbyterianism, from which Makemie and others came to the colonies, helped to shape the way these Mid-Atlantic Presbyterians negotiated the problem of subscription.
In 1690, the Synod of Ulster declared its loyalty to the doctrines of the Westminster Confession of Faith. Eight years later, they recommended that ministerial candidates be required to subscribe to the standard. However, this move toward subscription created great consternation in the synod, so much so that in 1720 the Scots-Irish synod adopted what came to be known as the “Irish Pacific Acts.” Among the synod actions, the concession was made that “if any person call’d upon to subscribe shall scruple any phrase or phrases in the Confession, he shall have leave to use his own expressions.” Beyond this, the presbytery would “judge such a person sound in the faith.”
That document likely proved to be an important source text for the 1729 Adopting Act. When the Philadelphia Synod met, they put together a committee that not only had Thomson and Dickinson, but two recent transfers from northern Ireland, Thomas Craighead and Hugh Conn. When the committee reported with their recommendation to synod—one likely authored by Dickinson—it was a compromise that relied upon the prior Ulster act.
The first part of what became known as the Adopting Act reflected Dickinson’s concerns. The synod was not attempting to impose “our faith upon other men’s consciences, but do profess our just dissatisfaction with and abhorrence of such impositions.” Further, the synod decried “all legislative power and authority in the church.” Membership in Christ’s body was open to all those whom “Christ will at last admit to the Kingdom of heaven.” These lines reflect Dickinson’s concern for local oversight and God’s lordship over the conscience.
Yet in line with John Thomson and others, the Adopting Act recognized the need to “take care that the faith once delivered to the saints be kept pure and uncorrupt among us, and so handed down to our posterity.” As a result, the synod would agree that all the present ministers as well as all candidates for ministry “shall declare their agreement in and approbation of the Confession of Faith with the larger and shorter Catechisms…as being in all the essential and necessary articles, good forms of sound words and systems of Christian doctrine.”
This last point was then reemphasized: every candidate for ministry shall declare “his agreement in opinion with all the essential and necessary articles of said Confession.” This could happen either by subscribing in writing or by a verbal declaration of assent.
After this was the part of the act that mirrored the Old World precedent of the Irish Pacific Acts. If any minister or candidate “shall have any scruple with respect to any article or articles of said confession or catechisms,” he should declare that to the presbytery or synod. If the presbytery or synod judges “his scruple or mistake to be only about articles not essential and necessary in doctrine, worship or government,” the minister would be admitted into the presbytery. If the difference be deemed “erroneous in essential and necessary articles of faith,” then the minister should be declared incapable of communion with the body. These scruples were not to be used against those who took them: “none of us will traduce or use any opprobrious terms of those that differ from us in these extra-essential and not-necessary points of doctrine.” Rather, such were to be treated with “the same friendship, kindness, and brotherly love, as if they had not different from us” at all.
After receiving this overture and engaging in debate, the synod took an adjournment. Once it returned, the ministers present stated “all the Scruples that any of them had to make against any articles and expressions” in the Standards. The synod “unanimously agreed in the solution of those Scruples.” The synod further declared its understanding concerning some clauses in Westminster Confession chapters 20 and 23 regarding the civil magistrate’s relationship to Presbyterian synods and its power to prosecute any for their religion. With these clarifications, the ministers declared the Standards to be “the confession of their faith.”
Tests, Trials, and Tribulations
In the moment, there was great rejoicing that it appeared the Adopting Act had brought about unanimity, peace, and unity. But almost immediately, it became clear that this compromise was not acceptable to everyone connected to the colonial Presbyterian body.
In 1730, David Evans came to be examined for ordination. Evans had withdrawn from the synod a few years prior, but now petitioned to return to Philadelphia Synod. Since he was being received after the Adopting Act, he “proposed all the scruples he had to make about any articles” of the Standards. Once he had satisfied the synod, he “declared his adopting the Westminster Confession of Faith and Catechisms agreeable to the last year’s Adopting Act” and was received as a member again.
At that point, the synod adjourned. When the court reconvened the following year, there was this note in the synod’s minutes: “Some persons have been dissatisfied at the manner of wording our last year’s agreement about the Confession etc.: supposing some expressions not sufficiently obligatory upon entrants.”
For clarity’s sake, the motion was made that the synod declare they understood “those clauses” in such a way “to obligate them to receive and adopt” the Standards in “the same manner and as fully” as the synod’s members then present. Synod unanimously agreed that this was the case; but the very dissatisfaction signaled that there were already questions about the previous year’s compromise. Too, the minutes were unclear which “clauses” and “expressions” from the Adopting Act were creating dissatisfaction.
The 1735 trial of Samuel Hemphill further demonstrated some of the dissatisfaction with the Adopting Act within the synod. The year prior to his trial and excommunication, Hemphill had been received by the synod from an Ulster presbytery. He “declared for and adopted the Westminster Confession, Catechisms, and Directory commonly annexed, the former as the Confession of [his] faith.” It does not appear from the minutes that any scruples were mentioned or dealt with by the synod.
Shortly afterward, Hemphill began preaching as Jedidiah Andrews’s assistant at the First Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia. Though Hemphill was initially a popular preacher, it was soon discovered that he was plagiarizing sermons by Samuel Clarke, a noted English Deist and anti-Trinitarian. Andrews himself brought the issue to Synod’s commission, which acted in between the annual meetings of the court. The body charged, tried, and convicted him for teaching anti-Trinitarian views that contradicted the Westminster Standards. The whole process became propagandized in various articles and pamphlets by Benjamin Franklin, who was supportive of Hemphill’s preaching and views.
As the synod dealt with all this, the subscription issue came to the forefront: how did someone who held views that clearly contradicted the Standards come into Philadelphia Synod? The Synod’s commission appointed Jonathan Dickinson to write a “vindication” of their actions in the Hemphill trial. Dickinson reviewed the 1729 Adopting Act and how it was supposed to function. While Hemphill had “solemnly declared his assent to every article” of the Westminster Standards “without one exception,” the Adopting Act did provide for an opportunity to state “any scruple with respect to any article or articles.” Yet Hemphill did not offer any objection: “Accordingly at the time of his adopting the Confession and Catechisms, he was called upon to propose his objections, if he had any; but he replied, he had none to make.”
Thus, while Hemphill now claimed that “all he declared to at his admission into the Synod were the fundamental articles of the faith,” the fact was that he had claimed much more when he arrived the previous year. He had stated no differences and had subscribed to the entire Westminster Standards. Further, Hemphill or his supporters could not fall back on any confusion about the subscription process, rooted in the complaint that “the synod have not defined how many fundamental articles there are in the Confession.” That is a liberty that synod had reserved for itself “to judge on each occasion, what are, and what are not fundamental.”
Dickinson here balanced the liberty of the individual’s conscience to state scruples or differences with the Standards with the liberty of synod to determine whether such scruples strike at a fundamental of doctrine. In the end, confessional subscription only works when a man is pious enough to be honest about his views. Samuel Hemphill had been judged to be a dishonest man.
Yet Hemphill’s evident dishonesty did not assure those who were concerned that perhaps the Adopting Act itself was at fault. At the 1736 meeting of synod, an overture was brought from the people of Paxton and Derry complaining that “many persons of our persuasion both more lately and formerly have been offended with some expressions or distinctions in the first or preliminary act of our synod…relating to our receiving or adopting” the Westminster Standards.
In response, the synod reiterated the process from the time when the Adopting Act was approved: all the ministers of the synod “after proposing all the Scruples any of them had to make against any articles and expressions” of the Standards “have unanimously agreed in the solution of these scruples.” The ministers then “declared the said Confession and Catechism to be the Confession of their Faith,” except for the clauses from Westminster Confession chapters 20 and 23. The synod forcefully restated the process laid out in the entire Adopting Act: the statement of scruples; the satisfaction of those scruples; and then subscription to the Standards. Synod implicitly stated that the problem was not with the Adopting Act’s process, but with Hemphill himself.
What Does It All Mean?
Of course, issues with confessional subscription did not come to an end in 1736. From that day to this, ensuring doctrinal fidelity for the protection of Christ’s church and the propagation of the Reformed faith to the next generation continues to be a major task of Presbyterian church courts. With this, the concern to protect a man’s conscience, which belongs to the Lord alone and is subject to Holy Scripture, also comes into play.
And the process to bring those two things together — doctrinal fidelity and liberty of conscience — has been the sometimes-confusing process of confessional subscription laid out in the Adopting Act. Those processes involved stating scruples or differences and then satisfying the court about the nature of those scruples, which protects a minister’s conscience; and then owning the Standards as one’s own confession, which protects the doctrinal fidelity of the church.
So far, we are on solid historical ground, I believe. But applying this Presbyterian way of confessional subscription in real life is sometimes messy. One difficulty comes in what Dickinson observed in his vindication of the commission’s actions in the Hemphill trial. Because there is no agreed upon list of “fundamentals” or “essential and necessary articles” — because church courts reserve the right to determine those fundamentals and because ministers may state scruples or differences with the Standards themselves — there will be doctrinal propositions that are “extra-essential” or “not necessary.” That requires presbyteries and presbyters to do theological triage, determining what is fundamental and what is not as essential to the system of doctrine represented by our Standards.
Errors must not be tolerated, according to the Adopting Act; but not every doctrine stated in the Standards is essential or requires agreement. Courts must determine this, either in the moment those differences are stated or through judicial process.
But another challenge is the other matter that Dickinson observed. Confessional subscription — indeed, Presbyterian polity itself — only works if men are willing to be honest. And honesty — especially honesty about views where one might disagree with the Standards and perhaps even experience some measure of “opprobrium” — only comes from a heart made new by the power of the Spirit through faith in Christ.
In other words, genuine Christian piety is vital for preserving the faith once delivered to the saints and for propagating it to the next generation. No matter how many safeguards a Presbyterian church puts in place, dishonest men will find their way into the church. And that means presbyters from that day to this must look to the Lord of the church to guard and protect us even as presbyters examine, consider, test, subscribe, and ultimately extend friendship, kindness, and brotherly love to each other.
Sean Michael Lucas serves as senior pastor of Independent Presbyterian Church in Memphis, Tennessee, and the Chancellor’s Professor of Church History at Reformed Theological Seminary.
For Further Reading
Donald Fortson, III, ed., “Colonial Presbyterianism: Old Faith in a New Land” (Pickwick, 2006), especially the essays by Fortson (Adopting Act) and William S. Barker (the trial of Samuel Hemphill).
G. Hart and John Muether, “Seeking a Better Country: 300 Years of American Presbyterianism” (P&R, 2007).
Bryan Le Beau, “Jonathan Dickinson and the Formative Years of American Presbyterianism” (University Press of Kentucky, 1997).
Sean Michael Lucas, “Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century Presbyterianism in North America,” in “Oxford Handbook on Presbyterianism,” ed. P. C. Kemeny and Gary Scott Smith (Oxford University Press, 2019).