NR #1995-109: For Immediate Release Text of the Adopting Act for the General Association of Reformed Congregationalists An Act Adopting the Cambridge Platform and the Savoy Declaration of Faith as a True Confession of Our Faith In convention assembled this 16th day of August, 1995, at the meetinghouse of New Lebanon Congregational Church in the state of New York, the undersigned ministers of the Word and ruling elders of churches of Jesus Christ walking according to the Congregational Way, seeking to promote, defend, and extend the influence of the Reformed doctrines of sovereign grace and the Congregational system of order as the most faithful expression of those doctrines, do hereby: 1. Confess that we sincerely receive and adopt the Cambridge Platform and Savoy Declaration as containing the system of doctrine taught in the Holy Scriptures, 2. Declare that if at any time we find ourselves out of accord with any article or point of doctrine of these Confessions, we will, on our own initiative, make known to our church and to the association(s) in which we hold membership the change which has taken place in our views since the time of this declaration, 3. Approve of the Congregational form of government and discipline, and 4. Resolve to be zealous and faithful in maintaining the truths of the gospel and the purity and peace of the church, whatever persecution or opposition may arise unto us on that account. Having heard the exceptions pronounced by various men present, we do further declare the following exceptions to these Confessions to be allowed, but not required, of our signatories: 1. That the Savoy Declaration's postmillenial teaching on the future glory of the church, an addition to the Westminster Confession for which the Savoy Synod cited no Scripture references, is, for that reason, not binding on our officers. As in other confessional Reformed bodies, persons of postmillenial, amillenial, and non-dispensational premillenial views may hold their convictions within our fellowship in clear conscience. 2. That the Cambridge Platform's linkage of church and state applies only under conditions in which the civil magistrates are Reformed Christians and the civil government is officially covenanted with Christ under the Reformed Congregational system of faith and order, and is not binding on the conscience of our officers apart from these conditions. 3. That while we advocate the use of psalms, it is a misunderstanding of the Confessions to require exclusive psalmody on the basis of the Confessions. We do, however, respect the convictions of brothers who advocate exclusive psalmody on the basis of certain Scripture texts and simply state that this practice is neither prohibited nor required by the Confessions. 4. That the Savoy Declaration's identification of the Pope of Rome with the Antichrist, "that man of sin, and son of perdition," of II Thessalonians 2:3 (Savoy 26:4) is not binding on our officers, since II Thessalonians 2:7 indicates that this individual will not be revealed until "he who now letteth be taken away," the meaning of which phrase is unclear and open to various possible interpretations, some of which make the removal of this restrainer an event which has yet to occur. We furthermore disallow the following exceptions as violations of the Reformed Congregational system of faith and order: 1. Any exception which would allow women to hold the office of ruling or teaching elder in the church of Jesus Christ, as a violation of I Timothy 2. 2. Any exception which would deny the plurality of the eldership, the existence of the ruling eldership as distinct from the teaching eldership, grant to deacons the teaching and ruling powers of elders, or grant to the non-Biblical office of "trustee" the Biblical powers of the deacons. 3. Any exception which would deny any of the five points of Calvinism. 4. Any exception which would permit the erection of bishops, presbyteries, bureaucracies, or synodocratic assemblies lording it over the local church. 5. Any exception which would mandate: 1) that Christian baptism is valid only if performed by immersing the whole body in water and not by pouring or sprinkling; or 2) that forbids, as a matter of principle, the baptism of a Christian believer's infants, minority-age children, or wards. While we respect the convictions of baptistic brethren and allow local option on whether they can be members of a church, such persons cannot hold ruling office (I Timothy 5:17) in a Reformed Congregational church, because they would by necessity take an unallowable exception to the Confessions. 6. Any exception which would introduce a non-Reformed and non-covenantal hermeneutic, such as the dispensational disruption of the unity of the Old and New Testaments. 7. Any exception which would permit any membership, participation in, or adherence to any oath-bound secret fraternal society (Ex. 20:1-7, John 18:20, II Cor. 4:2). Cross-References to Related Articles: #1995-108: Reformed Congregationalists Convene New Fellowship at Site of Charles Finney's Heresy Trial ------------------------------------------------ file: /pub/resources/text/reformed: nr95-109.txt .