The preface also puts more clearly than any similiar document save the First Confession of Basel the reverence felt by the early Reformers for the Word of God and the renunciation of any claim to infallibility of interpretation:
"Protestand that gif onie man will note in this our confessioun onie Artickle repugnand to Gods halie word, that it wald pleis him of his gentleness and for christian charities sake to admonish us of the same in writing; and we upon our honoures and fidelitie, be Gods grace do promise unto him satisfaction fra the mouth of God, that is fra his haly scriptures, or else reformation of that quhilk he sal prove to be amisse."
The Confession itself contains the truths common to the Reformed creeds of the Reformation. It contains all the Oecumenical doctrines, as they have been called--that is, the truths taught in the early Oecumenical Councils, and embodied in the Apostles' and Nicene Creeds; and adds those doctrines of grace, of pardon, and of enlightenment through Word and Spirit which were brought into special prominence by the Reformation revival of religion. The Confession is more remarkable for quaint suggestiveness of titles than for any special peculiarity of doctrine. Thus the doctrine of revelation is defined by itself, apart from the doctrine of Scripture, under the title of "The Revelation of the Promise." Election is treated according to the view of earlier Calvinism as a means of grace, and an evidence of the "invincible power" of the Godhead in salvation. The "notes by which the true Kirk is discerned from the false" are said to be the true preaching of the Word of God, the right administration of the sacraments, and ecclesiastical discipline rightly administered. The authority of Scriptures is said to come from God, and to depend neither "on man nor angels"; and the Church knows them to be true, because "the true kirk always heareth and obeyeth the voice of her own spouse and pastor."
Randolph says in a letter to Cecil (September 7th, 1560) that before the Confession was publicly read it was revised by Lethington and Lord James Stewart, who "dyd mytigate the austeritie of maynie wordes and sentences," and that a certain article which dealt with the "dysobediens that subjects owe unto their magistrates" was advised to be left out.[337] Thus amended it was read over, and then re-read article by article in the Estates, and passed without alteration,[338]--"no man present gainsaying."[339] When it was read before the Estates: