Confessional Liberty

Something to ponder over from W.G.T. Shedd's Calvinism: Pure & Mixed (p. 6-7). Speaking about the confessional stance of the Presbyterian Church he says:

...inside of the metes and bounds established by divine revelation, and to which it has voluntarily confined itself, it has a liberty that is as large as the kingdom of God. It cannot get outside of that kingdom, and should not desire to.

But within it, as free to career as a ship in the ocean, as an eagle in the air. Yet the ship cannot sail beyond the ocean, nor the eagle fly beyond the sky.

Liberty within the immeasurable bounds and limits of God's truth, is the only true liberty. All else is license. The Westminster Confession, exactly as it now reads, has been the creed of as free and enlarged intellects as ever lived on earth.

A rather different perspective don't you think from that which regards detailed confessions as a prison and an impediment to true freedom.