Acts of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland

The commission passed at the close of the Assembly of August 1643 names Alexander Henderson, Robert Douglas, Samuel Rutherford, Robert Baillie and George Gillespie, ministers, and three elders, and empowers any three of them to go to England and to treat with the Assembly of Divines on all that may further the union of the island in one form of church government, one confession of faith, one catechism and one directory of worship.

The act of 27 August 1647 says that the Confession agreed at Westminster “with the assistance of Commissioners from the Kirk of Scotland” had been read twice and examined, and was found agreeable to the Word of God and in nothing contrary to the received doctrine of the Scottish church. The Assembly approves it as a common confession for the three kingdoms. It adds two declarations: that the Confession’s silence on church officers and assemblies is no prejudice to what a directory of government shall say, and that part of the second article of chapter 31, on the calling of synods by the magistrate, is understood only of churches not yet settled. These are the church’s own records and are cited in the Westminster Confession.