[As the Savoy Declaration is merely a modification of the Westminster Confession to suit the Congregational polity, it is only necessary to note the principal omissions, additions, and changes, which will be better understood by comparison with the corresponding original and with the more thorough change made by the American Presbyterians in Chap. XXIII. 3.]
Chap. XX. is added to the Westminster Confession (which accounts for the change of numbers of chapters after Chap. XX.), and reads as follows:
Chapter XX
Of the Gospel, and of the Extent of the Grace thereof.
I. The covenant of works being broken by sin, and made unprofitable unto life, God was pleased to give unto the elect the promise of Christ, the seed of the woman, as the means of calling them, and begetting in them faith and repentance. In this promise the gospel, as to the substance of it, was revealed, and was therein effectual for the conversion and salvation of sinners.
II. This promise of Christ, and salvation by him, is revealed only in and by the Word of God; neither do the works of creation or providence, with the light of nature, make discovery of Christ, or of grace by him, so much as in a general or obscure way; much less that men, destitute of the revelation of him by the promise or gospel, should be enabled thereby to attain saving faith or repentance.
III. The revelation of the gospel unto sinners, made in divers times and by sundry parts, with the addition of promises and precepts for the obedience required therein, as to the nations and persons to whom it is granted, is merely of the sovereign will and good pleasure of God, not being annexed by virtue of any promise to the due improvement of men’s natural abilities, by virtue of common light received without it, which none ever did make, or can so do: and therefore in all ages the preaching the gospel hath been granted unto persons and nations, as to the extent or straitening of it, in great variety, according to the counsel of the will of God.
IV. Although the gospel be the only outward means of revealing Christ and saving grace, and is as such abundantly sufficient thereunto; yet that men who are dead in trespasses may be born again, quickened, or regenerated, there is moreover necessary an effectual, irresistible work of the Holy Ghost upon the whole soul, for the producing in them [of] a new spiritual life, without which no other means are sufficient for their conversion unto God.
In the chapter on ‘Christian Liberty and Liberty of Conscience’ slight modifications are made in two sections, as follows:
Savoy Declaration.
Chap. XXI
II. God alone is Lord of the conscience, and hath left it free from the doctrines and commandments of men, which are in any thing contrary to his Word, or not contained in it; so that to believe such doctrines, or to obey such commands out of conscience, is to betray true liberty of conscience; and the requiring of an implicit faith and an absolute and blind obedience is to destroy liberty of conscience, and reason also.
III. They who, upon pretense of Christian liberty, do practice any sin, or cherish any lust, as they do thereby pervert the main design of the grace of the gospel to their own destruction; so they wholly destroy the end of Christian liberty, which is, that being delivered out of the hands of our enemies, we might serve the Lord without fear, in holiness and righteousness before him all the days of our life.
The fourth and last section of Chap. XX. of the Westminster Confession, which gives the civil magistrate the power of punishing heresy, is entirely omitted. The American Revision of the Westminster Confession omits only the last clause (which is really the only objectionable feature), ‘and by the power of the civil magistrate.’
Savoy Declaration.
Chap. XXIV.—Of the Civil Magistrate
III. Although the magistrate is bound to encourage, promote, and protect the professors and profession of the gospel, and to manage and order civil administrations in a due subserviency to the interest of Christ in the world, and to that end to take care that men of corrupt minds and conversations do not licentiously publish and divulge blasphemy and errors, in their own nature subverting the faith and inevitably destroying the souls of them that receive them; yet in such differences about the doctrines of the gospel, or ways of the worship of God, as may befall men exercising a good conscience, manifesting it in their conversation, and holding the foundation, not disturbing others in their ways or worship that differ from them, there is no warrant for the magistrate under the gospel to abridge them of their liberty.
In Chap. XXV., ‘Of Marriage,’ the Savoy Declaration omits sections 5 and 6, and the last clause of section 4, Chap. XXIV., of the Westminster Confession.
Savoy Declaration.