The Scots Confession

Chapter 14 - What Works Are Reputed Good Before God

We confess and acknowledge that God has given to man his holy law, in which not only are forbidden all such works which displease and offend his Godly Majesty; but also are commanded all such as please Him, and as He hath promised to reward. And these works be of two sorts; the one are done to the honour of God, the other to the profit of our neighbours; and both have the revealed will of God for their assurance. To have one God, to worship and honour Him; to call upon Him in all our troubles; to reverence his holy name; to hear his word; to believe the same; to communicate with his holy sacraments; - are the Works of the First Table. To honour father, mother, princes, rulers, and superior powers; to love them; to support them, yea, to obey their charges (not repugning to the commandment of God); to save the lives of innocents; to repress tyranny; to defend the oppressed; to keep our bodies clean and holy; to live in sobriety and temperance; to deal justly with all men, both in word and in deed; and, finally, to repress all appetite of our neighbour’s hurt; - are the good works of the Second Table, which are most pleasing and acceptable unto God, as those works that are commanded by Himself. The contrary whereof is sin most odious which always displeases Him, and provokes Him to anger, - as, not to call upon Him alone when we have need; not to hear his word with reverence; to contemn and despise it; to have or to worship idols; to maintain and defend idolatry; lightly to esteem the reverent name of God; to profane, abuse, or contemn the sacraments of Christ Jesus; to disobey or resist any that God has placed in authority (while they pass not over the bounds of their office) ; to murder, or to consent thereto, to bear hatred, or to suffer innocent blood to be shed if we may gainstand it; and, finally, the transgressing of any other commandment in the First or Second Table, we confess and affirm to be sin, by the which God’s hot displeasure is kindled against the proud and unthankful world. So that good works we affirm to be these only that are done in faith, and at God’s commandment, who in his law has expressed what be the things that please Him: And evil works, we affirm, not only those that are expressedly done against God’s commandment, but those also that, in matters of religion and worshipping of God, have no other assurance but the invention and opinion of man, which God from the beginning hasever rejected; as by the prophet Isaiah, and by our master Christ Jesus, we are taught in these words - “In vain do they worship me, teaching the doctrine being precepts of men.”