5.4 “What the ordainee is required "sincerely to receive and adopt" is "the Confession of Faith of this Church, as containing the system of doctrine taught in the Holy Scriptures" (Form of Government, xv.). This is not the same as requiring him to receive the Confession of Faith in its ipsissima verba, or in all its forms of statement. That would scarcely be a liberal formula. Nor is it the same as merely requiring the reception of the Confession for substance of doctrine. That would not be a safe formula. What is "nominated in the bond" is "system of doctrine"; and that is historically what has always been understood by it. As such, it is both a liberal and a safe formula. Liberal, because it does not bind to the mere letter; safe, because it strictly holds the ordainee to the system of doctrine and to every doctrine that enters as a constituent part into that system. No one can sign this formula who is not a strict Calvinist; no one who denies any one of the doctrines which enter into the structure of the Calvinistic system as taught in the Confession of Faith.…It is a safe formula, because it binds strictly to the whole doctrinal system of the Confession, and to all and every one of the doctrines entering as essential constituent parts into that system. It is liberal, because it allows for all sorts of variation in preferred ways of stating the system, consistent with preserving the system intact. It, therefore, allows all the liberty consistent with the preservation of the whole truth, and thus evinces itself as the ideal formula.”
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