The Faith Once Delivered: Natlais Williams. Four. Constrained to Fight

E. O. Davies, Secretary to the Reconstruction Committee expressed his admiration for the Confession of Faith, assuring denominational conservatives that the Confession would not be abolished, but supplemented by a Shorter Declaration on Faith and Doctrine. In his own words:

'My own opinion [...] is that neither the Shorter Declaration nor any other statement which the Connexion may devise will ever replace the Confession of Faith. [...] Any further declaration made in the light of new-found knowledge and under the guidance of the Holy Spirit would only serve to augment and not supplant the present Confession of Faith.'

To Nantlais, such statements indicated that the Confession of Faith was to be downgraded to a mere ceremonial bauble. In a series of articles entitled Torri'r Rhaffau (cutting the ropes) published in the Presbyterian Newspaper Y Goleuad, in 1925 and later re-issued as a pamphlet, he criticised the process. While making it clear he was not opposed to confessional revision per se, if the object was to make the Confession more evangelical and scriptural. However, Nantlis was convinced that the liberals intended to use the process to move the Presbyterians away from Biblical truth towards rationalism. When liberals spoke of freedom, Nantlais responded that there were limits to freedom, the limits of God's revelation.

More, Nantlais understood that a confessional revision would mean that the liberals would cement their control over the denomination prior to an ecumenical process ending in a single united church which included Unitarians and Roman Catholics, possibly even other religions. With the 1823 Confession in place, this would be impossible, for the church's property would belong to the evangelicals if they stood outside. With a revised, latitudinarian confession, the Presbyterian Church of Wales would be dragged into Babylonian captivity. Freedom for the liberals meant slavery for the true people of God.