Of the Church, XXV:6

There is no other head of the Church but the Lord Jesus Christ. Nor can the Pope of Rome, in any sense, be head thereof.

The head of the Body of Christ is Christ himself and no one else. We have previously seen that the historical context of the Westminster Confession drives some of the specific statements in it--the divines sought to counter certain Roman Catholic doctrines that they believed were unbiblical and frankly anti-Christian. The authority of the papacy, and here specifically the pope's claim to be the visible head of the Church, is denied. But behind the language of the first sentence of this paragraph may also lie the Anglican doctrine of the supremacy of the king in matters ecclesiastical. When Henry VIII separated from the church of Rome he arranged for himself to be made the head of the English church. Subsequent monarchs perpetuated this--such remains the relationship between crown and church to this day in the United Kingdom. But as far as the divines were concerned, the king of England is no more the legitimate head of the church than is the pope. Only Christ is head.

Tomorrow: The Church summarized.