Friday, October 06, 2006

The Confessing Church


Here is a helpful observation from Andrew Fuller:

"If a religious community agrees to specify some leading principles which they consider as derived from the Word of God, and judge the belief of them to be necessary in order to any person's becoming or continuing a member with them, it does not follow that those principles should be equally understood, or that all their brethren must have the same degree of knowledge, nor yet that they should understand and believe nothing else.

The powers and capacities of different persons are various; one may comprehend more of the same truth than another, and have his views more enlarged by an exceedingly great variety of kindred ideas; and yet the substance of their belief may still be the same.

The object of articles [of faith] is to keep at a distance, not those who are weak in the faith, but such as are its avowed enemies."

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