PUBLISHEKS' NOTE. 
 
 The following papers are issued in their present form 
 l)y permission of the various writers. It should be stated, 
 however, that they are simply reprints (save the correction 
 of a few typographical errors), and not revisions of the 
 
 original text. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 I. — Letter of Dr. De Witt (New York Evangelist, 
 
 June 6, 1889), .7 
 
 n. — Eesponse of Dr. Van Dyke (New York Evangel- 
 ist, jMne 27, 1889), . . . . . .9 
 
 m. — Dr. De Witt's Response to Dr. Van Dyke (New 
 
 York Evangelist, July 11, 1889), ... 14 
 
 rV. — Dr. Van Dyke's Rejoinder to Dr. DeWitt (New 
 
 York Evangelist, July 18, 1889), ... 19 
 
 V. — Dr. De Witt on Dr. Van Dyke's Rejoinder (New 
 
 York Evangelist, July 25, 1889), ... 25 
 
 VI. — Replication of Dr. Van Dyke to Dr. DeWitt 
 
 (New York Evangelist, August 1, 1889), . . 33 
 
 Vn. — Prof. Warfield's Paper presented to the New 
 
 Brunswick Presbytery, June 25, 1889, . . 39 
 
 Vm, — Dr. Van Dyke on the Action of the New Bruns- 
 wick Presbytery (Herald and Presbyter, July 
 31, 1889), 42 
 
 IX. — Prof. Warfield in reply to Dr. Van Dyke [Her- 
 ald and Presbyter, August 21, 28, September 
 4, 1889), 47 
 
 X. — Dr. Van Dyke's reply to Prof. Warfield {Her- 
 ald and Presbyter, September 11, 18, 25, 1889), 63 
 
 XI. — Letter of Prof W. G. T. Shedd (New York 
 
 Emngehst, September 5, 1889), ... 81 
 
 (5) 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Xn.- Dr. Van Dyee on Prof. Shedd's Letter (New 
 
 York Ernni/rltsf, September 26, 1889), . . 92 
 
 Xin.— FuRTUER Remarks by Prof. Shedd (New York 
 
 Evamjelist, October 10, 1889), . . -100 
 
 XIV.— Dr. V.\y Dyke in reply to Prof. Shedd (New 
 
 York Erawjcli^t, October 17, 1889), . • 107 
 XV.— A Note from Dr. Shedd (New York Evangelist, 
 
 October 24, 1889), 115 
 
 XVT.— God's Infinite Love to Men. Dr. Van Dyke. 
 
 {The Fn'shytcrian, October 5, 1889), . . 116 
 
 XVn.— God's Infinite Love to j\Ien and The West- 
 minster Confession. Prof. Warfield. {The 
 Presbyterian, November 2, 1889), . . .120 
 
 XVin.— The Confession and God's Infinite Love to Men. 
 Dr. Van Dyke. {The Presbyterian, November 
 16, 1889), 126 
 
CONFESSIONAL REVISION. 
 
 LETTER OF DR. DE WITT. 
 
 The subject of tlie Revision of the Confession will now 
 come before the Presbyteries in a form which will enable 
 our ministers seriously to consider it. One does not need 
 to express the hope that they will bring to its study an 
 adequate appreciation of the importance of rightly answer- 
 ing the Assembly's questions, or of the magnitude of the 
 task they will impose on the Church if they shall decide 
 in favor of Revision. This may safely be taken for 
 granted. 
 
 There is, however, a suggestion which any minister may 
 properly take on himself to make at the outset. This 
 is, that if a Presbytery shall express a desire that the 
 statements of the Confession on a particular subject be 
 amended, this desire should be given not only a general 
 and negative form, but a positive and constructive form 
 also. Let us know exactly the words which a Presbytery 
 may wish to substitute for the present words of the Con- 
 fession. 
 
 It is easy enough to criticise the language of the West- 
 minster Divines ; but it is not so easy to write formulas on 
 the same subjects, which will command as general an assent 
 throughout the Church. This is a fair suggestion. I do 
 
 (7) 
 
8 CONFESSIONAL REVISION. 
 
 not kn(>w wlietlier a conninttee was appointed by the Gen- 
 eral AsseiHl)ly lately in session, to receive the Presbyterial 
 replies ; but it is clear to me that such a committee might 
 (piite ])roperly eliminate as valueless, and leave unreported, 
 any reply which does not give a confessional or symbolical 
 form to a Presbytery's proposed amendment. Let us have 
 Siunples of the new or revised statements. If any one wants 
 revision on any subject, let him try his hand at a formula 
 correlated to the formulas which he does not want revised. 
 Why not? If the present confessional declarations are 
 made to stand up for critical inspection in the fierce hght 
 of the open day, why should the proposed future confes- 
 sional declarations be suffered to half conceal themselves in 
 a sort of dim moonshine ? It is possible that some of our 
 ministers have, or suppose they have, formulas in their heads 
 better than those in the Confession. Let us see the formulas. 
 Let them be subjected to the criticism that can be offered 
 only after they sliall have been printed. Let no one be 
 permitted to suppose that he is doing anything for Revis- 
 ion by simply saying, "The sections on Predestination 
 should be amended," but compel him to write out a section 
 which he is jprepared to defend as letter. 
 Respectfully yours, 
 
 John De Witt. 
 
 McCoRinCK TnEOLOGiCAL Seminary, June 7, 1889. 
 
n. 
 
 KESPONSE OF DR. VAN DYKE. 
 
 The revision of our Confession of Faith does not appear 
 to me such a formidable task as Dr. De Witt apprehends. 
 This is due doubtless to onr different understanding of the 
 thing proposed. He says, " It is easy enough to criticise 
 the language of the Westminster Divines ; but it is not so 
 easy to write formulas on the same subjects which will 
 command as general an assent throughout the Church." 
 For one I do not believe that either the science of theology 
 and Scripture exegesis, or the art of expressing divine truth 
 in acceptable words, has so far declined in the Presbyterian 
 Church that it would be impossible to rewrite the whole or 
 any part of the Westminster Confession. If it were so, it 
 would be a sad result of these two hundred years of Bibhcal 
 study and theological training. But it is not necessary to 
 discuss this question. So far as I know, nobody proposes 
 to make a new Confession, nor to rewrite the old one, nor 
 even to make an entire new statement of any doctrine be- 
 longing to the system which it contains. It is not a recon- 
 struction, but a revision, which is proposed. To revise, 
 according to Worcester, is "to look over with a view to 
 correct or amend." After studying the Confession for 
 nearly half a century, and adhering to it to-day with as 
 much loyalty as any man ought to feel toward any un- 
 inspired statement of divine truth, I am in favor of tlie 
 proposed revision. Without admitting the canon that no 
 one ought to criticise a human production unless he is able 
 to make a better one, or that no Presbyterian minister 
 
 (9) 
 
10 CONFESSIONAL REVISION. 
 
 sliould express liis desire to have the Confession revised 
 unless he is able to revise it himself, I am ready at the first 
 call of the trumpet to answer Dr. De Witt's challenge to give 
 to every one in favor of the revision "samples of the new 
 or revised stater.ients," and to " try his hand at a formula 
 correlated to the formulas he does not want revised/' 
 
 Let us begin with Chapter III., Of God's eternal decree. \ 
 The first and second sections contain all that is essential to 
 the doctrine, admirably sums up the teaching of Scripture 
 on the subject, and guards it against the abominable infer- 
 ence that God is the author of sin, or that any violence is 
 offered to the will of the creature. But the third section 
 has a snpralapsarimi bias. It may be construed to mean 
 that men are foreordained, wdiether to life or death, simply i 
 as men, and not as fallen men ; in other words, that God J 
 makes one on purpose to save him, and another on purpose j 
 to damn him. I would like to see that section amended, j 
 and brought into " correlation " with the teaching of the ' 
 most orthodox theologians of our time, by inserting the 
 words y<9^ their si?is, so that it would read, "By the decree 
 of God, for the manifestation of His glory, some men and 
 angels are predestinated unto everlasting life, and others 
 foreordained for their sins to everlasting death." The 
 fourth section I would like to see stricken out. Because 
 it states a mere theological inference not in any way neces- 
 sary to the exposition of the doctrine, and especially be- 
 cause it goes beyond the statements of the Scripture on the 
 subject. There is no appropriate proof -text for it. The 
 two that are quoted are \vide of the mark. The declaration 
 of Paul, "The Lord knoweth them that are His" (2 Tim. 
 ii. 19), and the saying of Christ, " I know whom I have 
 chosen," were not intended to show that the number of 
 those predestinated, whether to life or to death, "cannot be 
 either increased or diminished,'' neither do they prove it ; 
 
CONFESSIONAL REVISION. 11 
 
 nor is it necessary to prove it. The seventh section of the 
 same chapter contains another tlieological inference, wliich, 
 however logical, is not necessary to a positive and complete 
 statement of the Scripture truth. The word preterition, or 
 reprobation^ is not used in our Confession, but the doctrine 
 covered by these terms is taught in this section. Some of 
 our ablest and most orthodox ministers openly reject it, 
 and it is a stumbling-block to many. If any one says their 
 rejection of this section, while they accept the rest of the 
 chapter, proves that they are not strictly orthodox, and 
 that the statement ought to be retained as a test between 
 the Calvinistic and the Calvinist : I have only to say that 
 as a Calvinist I have no sympathy with such intolerance 
 and want of tenderness for others. 
 
 But the striking out of this section would not satisfy me. 
 I would like to see its place supplied with something which 
 would amend what many of our best divines regard as a 
 serious defect in our Confession taken as a whole, namely : 
 that it contains no explicit declaration of the infinite love 
 of God, revealed in the fullness of the Gospel salvation as 
 sufiicient for, adapted to, and freely offered to all men. 
 And here I am willing to " try my hand at a formula cor- 
 related to the formulas which I do not want revised," and 
 to submit it to the criticism of all the orthodox. Let the 
 seventh section read thus : " God's eternal decree hindereth 
 no one from accepting Christ as He is freely offered to 
 us in the Gospel ; nor ought it to be so construed as to 
 contradict the declarations of Scripture, that Christ is the 
 propitiation for the sins of the whole world, and that God 
 is not willing that any should perish, but that all should 
 come to repentance." Will any Presbyterian minister dare 
 to say that such a formula as this would not correlate with 
 the rest of our Confession, or that it would introduce a dis- 
 cordant element into the chapter on the divine decrees? 
 
12 CONFESSIONAL REVISION. 
 
 That is precisely the position of Armiuians and all other 
 opponents t>f the Calvinistic system ; and one who objects 
 to such an amendment plays into their hands. I contend 
 that this amendment, or one expressing the same thoughts 
 in better language, wonld be in perfect harmony with the 
 whole Confession, and that it would add logical force as 
 well as divine beauty to the concluding section of the chap- 
 ter about handling the doctrine of this liigh mystery of 
 predestination witli special prudence and care, so that it 
 may alford matter of praise to God and abundant conso- 
 lation to all who obey the Gospel. 
 
 The tenth chapter of the Confession contains the well- 
 known plirase, " elect infants dying in infancy." I will 
 not enter upon the discussion as to the historic meaning of 
 that much-jaculated phrase, nor review the explanations by 
 which we answer the interpretations of our enemies, nor 
 answer for the thousandth time the old slander that Calvin 
 taught that liell is paved with infants' skulls. We have 
 fenced and fought and played football with the phrase long 
 enough. If the Westminster Assembly adopted it as a 
 compromise, let us no longer perpetuate their ambiguity. 
 If it means that all dying infants are elect, let us say so in 
 the Confession itself, in words tliat will leave no room for 
 controversy. If it means that the whole sul)ject is in doubt, 
 and that for aught we know some dying infants may be 
 lost, let us reject a doctrine which no Presbyterian min- 
 ister holds, or would dare to preacli if he did. I believe 
 with Dr. Hodge, that all infants dying in infancy, baptized 
 and unbaptized, born in Christian or in heathen lands, are 
 elect and saved. (See Hodge's " Theology," vol. i., p. 29.) 
 And therefore I am in favor of amending the Confession 
 at this point by striking out the word elect^ and substituting 
 the word all, f^o that the section would read thus: "All 
 infants dying in infancy are regenerated and saved by 
 
CONFESSIONAL REVISION. 13 
 
 Clirist tlirongli the Spirit, who worketh when and where 
 and how He pleaseth. So also are all other elect persons 
 who are incapable of being outwardly called by the min- 
 istry of the Word." 
 
 These are not all the amendments which I would like to 
 have made, but they may serve for the required samples. 
 They are offered without consultation with any one. They 
 are my personal convictions after many years of study. 
 They do not indicate any defection from our Standards, 
 but a profound love and loyalty which would vindicate 
 them from reproach, and lift them higher in the estimation 
 of men. In this respect I claim to be in the first rank of 
 the orthodox. But the Confession is not the Bible. Its 
 authors were not inspired, nor is their work immaculate. 
 As to the sentiment — for it can hardly be called an opinion 
 without disrespect — that this human and fallible exposition 
 of the Scriptures, after two hundred years of improved 
 Christian scholarship, cannot be amended for the better, 
 nothing but personal regard for those who entertain it re- 
 strains our laughter. 
 
 Heney J. Van Dyke. 
 
 Brooklyn, June 32, 1889. 
 
III. 
 
 DR. DE WITT'S EESPONSE TO DR. VAN DYKE. 
 
 I SAW only yesterday Dr. Yaii Dyke's response to my 
 letter on Confessional Revision. I was delighted to find 
 not only that my letter had attracted the attention of so 
 eminent a minister, but also that the suggestion it contained 
 had received from him the most emphatic endorsement he 
 could give to it, namely, the endorsement involved in its 
 adoption. Some of your readers may remember that I 
 called attention to the ease with which the "Confession can 
 be criticised, and contrasted this ease with the difficulty of 
 formulating confessional statements which will command 
 an assent as general as that now commanded by the Con- 
 fession of Faith. I suggested that those who desire amend- 
 ments, present their amendments in jwsitrve form, corre- 
 lating them to the statements of the Confession which they 
 do not wish amended. 
 
 This Dr. Van Dyke has done. He has formulated two 
 amendments. He has brought to their preparation excep- 
 tionally vigorous and well-trained mental powers, wide and 
 accurate theological knowledge, and, above all, the accunni- 
 lated results of " a study of the Confession for half a cen- 
 tury by one who loyally adheres to it." The proposals of 
 such a man must be read with deep interest by a large 
 number of clergymen ; and the fact that they are put for- 
 ward l)y him, is itself likely to secure for them a favorable 
 consideration. I am happy in the thought that I called 
 him out, and I am especially interested in the proposals he 
 [U) 
 
CONFESSIONAL REVISION. 15 
 
 has made, because tliej finely illustrate the difficulty I men- 
 tioned in my letter — the difficulty, I mean, of preparintr 
 satisfactory confessional formulas. That I may be clearly 
 understood, I undertake to show that one, at least, if not 
 both, of Dr. Yan Dyke's proposed amendments, will, if 
 adopted, make our Confession of Faith a narrower or less 
 liberal symbol than it is at present. 
 
 The third section of the tenth chapter commences with 
 the often-repeated sentence, "Elect infants dying in in- 
 fancy are regenerated and saved by Christ tln-ough the 
 Spirit, who worketh when and where and how He pleas- 
 eth." This, Dr. Yan Dyke projDOses to amend by striking 
 out the word "Elect" and by inserting in its place the 
 word " All." He says that he " will not enter upon the 
 discussion of the historic meaning of the statement," and 
 for that reason I refrain from doing so, although a discus- 
 sion of its history, so far as that can be ascertained, would, 
 in my judgment, bring into clear light the wisdom and the 
 catholicity of the Assembly of Divines. Especially would 
 it show how important in their view is the distinction be- 
 tween a dogma of the faith, on the one hand, and a private 
 opinion on the other, — a distinction which ought never to 
 be lost sight of by any who undertake to frame a statement 
 intended to bind the conscience of a Church. 
 
 But without going into the history of the sentence, it is 
 clear that it permits, as it was intended to permit, a presby- 
 ter to hold and to teach any one of the four following opin- 
 ions : First, all infants dying in infancy are saved ; second, 
 some infants dying in infancy are not saved ; third, though 
 it is impossible to be certain, yet there is a well-grounded 
 hope that all who die in infancy are saved ; fourth, though 
 certainty is impossible, there are considerations that awaken 
 the fear that God has not chosen to regenerate all infants 
 dying in hifancy. Thus the Westminster divines left the 
 
H) CONFESSIONAL KKVISION. 
 
 whole suhject to iiidividiuil opinion, and nuide places under 
 tlie Confesijion — as our fathers, by ado])tin<»; their work, 
 made places Id the Church — for men of widely differiug 
 views. 
 
 Dr. Van Dyke now propoi^es to deline as a doctrine what 
 has hitherto been left to private opinion. He will permit 
 no opinion except tho opinion, '' All infants dying in infancy 
 are saved." Henceforth, should his proposal be adopted, 
 doubt or hesitancy in respect to the future salvation of all 
 infants dying in infancy will have no more legal right in the 
 breast of a Presbyterian minister than doubt in respect either 
 to the existence of a personal God or to the reality of the 
 Atonement of Christ. Should a minister make so cautious 
 and conservative a statement as that made by the late Prof. 
 Henry B. Smith, " As to those who die in infancy, there 
 is a well-grounded hope that they are of the elect " {'' Chris- 
 tian Theology," p. 322), it would be competent for a 
 Presbytery to deal with him just as it would deal with a 
 minister who should say, " As to a personal God, there is a 
 well-grounded hope that He will be found to exist." I say, 
 therefore, that Dr. Van Dyke's i)roposal on this subject is a 
 proposal to narrow the Church — to make it less liberal than 
 it is to-day, by lifting out of the realm of oi)inion, and into 
 the realm of officially defined dogma, a subject concerning 
 which we are now at liberty to reach individual conclu- 
 sions. 
 
 Moreover, if Dr. Van Dyke should get his amendment 
 passed, he would be in no better position as a religious 
 teacher, so far as this subject is concerned, than he is now. 
 He could not announce in the pulpit any more positively 
 than he is now pennitted to do, that '' all who die in in- 
 fancy are saved." The sum total of his gain would be the 
 imposition on the whole Church, as a defined dogma, of 
 >vhat is now a private belief. The only result would be to 
 
CONFESSIONAL REVISION. 17 
 
 make tlie theological platform of the Church less liberal 
 than it now is. 
 
 I have no right to ask for space in order to criticise at 
 length Dr. Yan Dyke's proposed amendments of the chapter 
 on the decree of God. Indeed, writing at a distance from 
 my books, I hesitate to say anytliing. I will say, however, 
 that one of them is open to the same objection that I offer 
 to his proposal eoncerniiig the " infants dying in infancy." 
 He objects to the present form of the third section, because 
 it has "a supralapsarian bias." He will not say that a sub- 
 lapsarian Calvinist cannot accept it. That the sublapsarian 
 can do. But the difficulty is that a sujDralapsarian Calvinist 
 can accept it also. The effect of his amendment would not 
 be to make it easier for sublapsarian Calvinists to subscribe 
 the declaration, for that is perfectly easy now. It w^ould 
 only be, if it had any effect of the kind, to make it more 
 difficult for supralapsarian s to subscribe it. At any rate. 
 Dr. Yan Dyke's avowed object is to get rid of supralapsarian- 
 ism. J^ow I think it one of the glories of this Confession, 
 that its authors were unwilling to drive out of the synagogue 
 those who held either historical form of Calvinisin. And 
 though I am no more a supralapsarian than Dr. Yan Dyke 
 is, Beza, Gomarus, Yan Mastricht, and Twisse, the Prolocu- 
 tor of the Westminster Assembly, were, unless my memory 
 is at fault. And w^hen I read tlie Institutes of Calvin, I am 
 unable to find anything that shows clearly that he was not. 
 Certainly, I shall not vote for an amendment intended or 
 calculated to make the platform of the Church too narrow 
 for these men to stand on. 
 
 I have, I think, maintained the proposition with which I 
 began, namely, that Dr. Yan Dyke's amendments, if adopted, 
 will make the Confession of our Church less liberal than it 
 is. This, I undertake to say, will be the effect of most of 
 the amendments that shall be proposed, unless great care is 
 
IS CONFESSIONAL REVISION. 
 
 taken. Tlie AVestiniiii^ter divines were an exceptionally 
 wise body of men. Tlie wisdom of the Assembly was far 
 greater tlian tlie wisdom of its wisest member. I have not 
 studied tlie Confession for half a century, as Dr. Van Dyke 
 has done. Still I have studied it, and I profoundly admire 
 the learning and the wisdom its authors displayed, not only 
 in what they defined, but also, and I may say especially, in 
 what they might have been expected to define, and yet re- 
 frained from defining. The result of their labors is, that the 
 Confession, when subscribed as we subscril)e it in onr 
 Church, gives to a ministry the largest liberty possible 
 within the limits of the Calvinistic or Reformed theology. 
 My own impression is, that we would better let it stand as 
 it is. I say this, remembering that it is not impossible that 
 an amendment may be proposed wdiich will really improve 
 it. I hazard nothing, how^ever, in asserting that attempts 
 to improve it, while keeping it Calvinistic, are usually 
 attempts to narrow it by imposing passing indi\idual opin- 
 ions on the conscience of the whole Church. 
 
 Of course the Presbyterian Church may some day desire 
 to relegate all that is distinctively Calvinistic in its creed to 
 the realm of private opinion ; and in the interest of Cliurch 
 unity, to stand on some such doctrinal platform as that of 
 the American Tract Society or the Evangelical Alliance. 
 The Congregationalists of some parts of the country have 
 done this substantially, but the result up to this time docs 
 not encourage the hope that such a change of doctrinal 
 platform will promote belief in the distinctive doctrines of 
 Christianity. 
 
 But this is a large subject, and the excision of Calvinism 
 from the Confession is not the subject now before the 
 Church. 
 
 John De Witt. 
 
 The Hill • Danvili^, Pa.. July 3, 1889. 
 
IV. 
 
 ■'. DE. VAN DYKE'S EEJOINDEK TO DE. 
 DE WITT. 
 
 Dr. De Witt's article in the Evangelist of July lltli, is 
 so full of respectful kindness that it seems like ingratitude 
 to make any response beyond my thanks for his courtesy. 
 But the subject under discussion is so far above personal 
 considerations, that I am sure my generous friend will not 
 be offended by my observing that he is too hasty in claim- 
 ing the victory. Let not him that putteth on his armor, 
 boast as he that putteth it off. He has not proved the 
 sweeping assertion " that attempts to improve the Confes- 
 sion, while keeping it Calvinistic, are usually attempts to 
 narrow it by imposing passing individual opinions on the 
 conscience of \\\q whole Church "; nor has he shown that 
 all or any of the amendments I proposed are '' private 
 opinions," which, if adopted, " would make our Confession 
 less liberal than it is." It is not clear to my mind witli 
 what precise meaning Dr. De Witt uses the phrase '-'private 
 opinion." In his article it seems — unintentionally, of course 
 — to " palter in a double sense." When he says, " Of 
 course the Presbyterian Church may desire some day to 
 relegate all that is distinctively Calvinistic in its creed, to 
 the realm of private opinion," the word private appears to 
 be synonymous with unauthorized — not recognized in the 
 Standards. But this cannot be his meaning, when he ap- 
 plies the same epithet to my proposed amendments: for 
 they are confessedly unauthorized, and because they are not 
 in the Confession already, we desire to put them into it. 
 
 (19) 
 
20 CONFESSIONAL KEYISION. 
 
 V>y "private opiniuii '' lie must niraii an opinion held by 
 very few, not generally adopted, or as lie himself explains 
 it, '* a j)a,'<sh)(/ imlividual opinion." In response to his 
 summons, I proposed Jive distinct amendments. lias he 
 ])roved that any one of them is a passing individual opinion '( 
 I think not. Three of them he does not notice at all, viz. : 
 the proposals to strike out the fourth and seventh sections 
 of the third chapter, and especially the new section which 
 I offered iis a substitute for the seventh, in these words : 
 " God's eternal decree hindereth no one from accepting 
 Christ as He is freely offered to us in the Gospel ; nor 
 (^ught it to be so construed as to contradict the declarations 
 of Scripture that Christ is the propitiation for the sins of 
 the whole world, and that God is not willing that any should 
 ])erish, but that all should come to repentance." This is 
 the only instance in which I undertook, in answer to Dr. 
 De Witt's challenge, to formulate a statement ''correlated 
 to the formulas which he does not want revised." But the 
 challenger takes no notice of it whatever. Does he brand 
 this simi)le statement of the fullness and freeness of the 
 Gospel as a passing individual opinion which ought not to 
 be " im])ose<l upon the conscience of the Church " ? Or are 
 we permitted to conclude that his silence gives consent ? 
 
 Of the two remaining amendments, the first has for its 
 avowed ol)ject, as Dr. De AVitt correctly says, to get rid of 
 the sujtralajmirian Has from Section 3, Chapter III., by 
 making it read that God foreordains men to everlasting 
 death, not merely for His own glory, but also fo)' their 
 sins. Dr. De Witt does not deny that as it now stands, it 
 has a supralapsarian bias; but he defends and desires to 
 retain the present form of the statement. He says that it 
 is perfectly easy for the sublapsarian to subscribe to it, and 
 intimates that I will not say to the contrary. But that is 
 just what I <1o say. It is a stumbling-block and an offence. 
 
CONFESSIONAL REVISION. 21 
 
 If it was designed to embrace botli the supralapsarian and 
 tlie sublapsai-iaii form of Calvinism, it failed in its object ; 
 for it leans distinctly toward the theory that God foreor- 
 dains men to eternal death simply as creatures, antecedent 
 to and irrespective of their sins. For one, I do not believe 
 this ; neither do I subscribe to it. I receive and adopt the 
 Confession as a whole, m spite of this statement. Ninety- 
 nine hundredths of our Presbyterian ministers do the 
 same. 
 
 But Dr. De Witt is troubled about the effect of the pro- 
 posed amendment upon the standing of the dead. He tells 
 us that Gomarus, Yan Maestrict, and Twisse, and even 
 Calvin, were supralapsarian s, and he will not " vote for an 
 amendment which would make the platform of the Church 
 too narrow for these men to stand on.'- Admitting, for the 
 sake of the argument (though I deny it in fact, so far as re- 
 gards Calvin), that these men all held the supralapsarian 
 theory, what then ? None of them but Twisse ever adopted 
 our Confession ; and now they are all in heaven, where they 
 are not required to do so. Our fellowship with the saints 
 in glory does not rest upon our Confession of Faith. We 
 propose to amend our Standard with a view to its adapta- 
 tion to the living, not to the dead. How many among the 
 recognized teachers of theology in the American Presby- 
 terian Church have held the supralapsarian theory ? Not 
 me. Woods, Kichards, Henry B. Smith, the Hodges, 
 Thornwell, Shedd— all repudiate it. How maiiy of our 
 living ministry believe or preach it ? Does Dr. De Witt 
 know of any whose conscience w^ould be imposed upon by 
 the adoption of my sublapsarian amendment? If there 
 were space for such discussion, I could easily show that the 
 doctrine of this amendment, so far from being " a passing 
 individual opinion," belongs to the very substance and con- 
 sensus of the Peformed theology ; that the contrary opinion 
 
22 CONFESSIONAL llEVISION. 
 
 hcloni^s nut tu the sixteenth, but to the seventeenth century ; 
 that its seed was sown, not by such as Beza and Calvin, but 
 bv men Hke Twisse ; and that its fruit is seen in tliat hide- 
 ous Eninionsisni from which the New Tlieology of Xew 
 Enghmd is largely the natural and necessary revolt. Dr. 
 A. A. Ilodge, in his " Consensus of the Reformed Confes- 
 sions," says : " It is no part of the Ileformed faith that God 
 created men in order to damn them ; nor that His treatment 
 of the lost is to be referred to His sovereign will. He con- 
 demns men only as a Judge for their sins, to the praise of 
 His glorious justice" {Presbyterian Review^ vol. v., p. 
 295). Even if there were many men in our Church to-day 
 to agree with Twisse, the practical question would be 
 whether they should tolerate us, or w^e tolerate them. I 
 think the exercise of toleration is the privilege of an over- 
 whelming majority. 
 
 The same course of argument applies equally well to the 
 proposed amendment in regard to the salvation of infants. 
 The ])hrase *' elect infants," if it was intended to eml)race 
 all opinions on tlie subject i)rcvalent in the AVestminster 
 Assembly at the time of its adoption, has practically failed 
 in our day to accomi)lish its object. It is quoted and under- 
 stood by thousands within and without the Presbyterian 
 Church, not only as tolerating, but as teaching by implica- 
 tion that some dying infants are lost, in fulfilment of a 
 supralapsarian decree. J>ut where is the man or woman in 
 (Mir Church who believes this^ Dr. Ilodge says, " It is the 
 general belief of Protestants, contrary to the doctrine of 
 Romanists and Romanizers, that all who die in infancy are 
 saved" (see ''Theology,'' vol. i., p. 27). He also de- 
 clares that he never saw a Calvinistic theologian who 
 doubted it. Dr. Thomas Smyth, whose ministry covered 
 the greater part of the first half of this century, in his book 
 on the "Salvation of Infants," jmblished in 1848,- says: 
 
CONFESSIONAL REVISION. 23 
 
 '' At this time it is, I suppose, universally believed by Pres- 
 byterians and those who hold the doctrine of election, that 
 all dying infants are included among the elect. I at least 
 am not acquainted with any who hold an opposite opinion." 
 There is a great cloud of witnesses whose testimony is to the 
 same effect. 
 
 But in face of all their testimony, Dr. De Witt says the 
 belief that all infants dying in infancy are saved, is a mere 
 private opinion — a passing individual opinion — and that 
 its adoption into the Confession would be an imposition upon 
 the conscience of the whole Church. Nay, he thinks the 
 adoption of such an amendment would not only narrow our 
 Confession, but might stir up the tires of bigotry and per- 
 secution. Surely our good brother is tilting at a shadow 
 when he says, " Dr. Yan Dyke will permit no opinion, except 
 the opinion that 'all infants dying in infancy are saved.' 
 Henceforth, should his proposal be adopted, doubt or hesi- 
 tancy in respect to the salvation of all dying infants will 
 have no more legal right in the breast of a Presbyterian 
 minister, than doubt as to the existence of a personal God, 
 or the reality of the atonement of Christ. Should a minis- 
 ter make such a cautious and conservative statement as that 
 made by the late Prof. H. B. Smith — ' As to those who die 
 in infancy, there is a well-grounded hope that they are of 
 the elect' — it would be competent for a Presbytery to deal 
 with him, just as it would deal with a minister who should 
 say, 'As to a personal God, there is a well-grounded hope 
 that He will be found to exist.' " This is a redxictio ad 
 absivrdmn^ but it is not on my side. No one proposes to 
 make the salvation of infants as important a doctrine as the 
 existence of God. I am not so sure as Dr. De Witt seems 
 to be, that a icell-g rounded hope in regard to either, is not 
 quite as good as an assured belief. I do not think any 
 Presbytery would convict a man of heresy for making either 
 
24 CONFESSIONAL REVISION. 
 
 statement. Tlicre is, Iiowcvlt, this difference between thv 
 two subjects : the existence of God is a matter of C(>nsci()U>- 
 ness as well as of testimony, whereas the salvation of infant.- 
 rests only «»n the tcstini(»ny of God's Word. If a man be- 
 lieves that his hope of their salvation is well (jrouiided in 
 that testimony, 1 think his faith is about as stron<i; relatively 
 t(> its subject, as when he says, I believe and know there is 
 a personal (rod. 
 
 If both these amendments were adopted, the supralapsa- 
 rian and the doubter in regard to infant salvation, if such 
 there are, would have no more difficulty in adopting the 
 Confession, than the great mass of our ministers have now. 
 No one would be put out of the synagogue, while many 
 would be encouraged to come in. And above all, the whole 
 Church would have the immense public advantage of con- 
 forming her Confession to her faith. A dead law on the 
 statute-book impairs the authority of all law. A doctrinal 
 stiitement in our Confession, which the mass of our minis- 
 ters and people do not believe, opens the door for unbounded 
 license in subscribing to our Standards. For this very rea- 
 son some are opposed to revision. Ihit Dr. De AVitt is not 
 one of them ; and I am not without hopes that he, with his 
 inherited zeal for the Presbyterian Church, and his broad 
 scliolarly attainments, will yet be found among the advocates 
 of a conservative revision. 
 
 Henky J. Van Dyke. 
 
Y. 
 
 DK. DE WITT ON DK. YAK DYKE'S 
 EEJOIKDEK 
 
 Dr. Yan Dyke's rejoinder contains so much that de- 
 serves observation, that if I did it justice, I should occupy 
 more S23ace than the Evangelist can lend me. Besides, I 
 desire briefly to notice the amazing diversity in the pro- 
 posals for revision already made in your hospitable columns. 
 For these reasons I omit much I should like to say, and 
 before noticing this diversity, confine myself to answering 
 two questions which Dr. Yan Dyke puts to me. 
 
 1. Dr. Yan Dyke says that I did not remark on the new 
 section, which he proposes as a substitute for one of the 
 sections on the decree of God, and very properly asks 
 whether my silence is to be understood as agreement with 
 him in respect to that proposal. In reply I have to say 
 first, that any criticism of this particular proposal, seemed 
 in the circumstances unnecessary. I wished to illustrate 
 the difiiculty which even a trained, able, and learned 
 theologian must find, in the endeavor to formulate confes- 
 sional statements as widely acceptable as those of the Con- 
 fession. I found abundant material for my purpose in his 
 other proposed amendments. Having shown clearly, as I 
 think I did, that these, if adopted, would make our Con- 
 fession of Faith a narrower and less liberal symbol than it 
 now is, I did all that I thought needed. It did not seem 
 necessary to make evident, as I am now obliged to do, tlie 
 infelicity of still another of his amendments. Secondly, 
 
 (25) 
 
26 CONFESSIONAL REVISION. 
 
 writing at a distance from my books, I hesitated to criticise 
 at length this carefully drawn substitute for a section of 
 the (Miapter on the Decree. But thirdly, since Dr. Van 
 Dyke has emphasized, by reprinting, this particular exam- 
 ple of revision, and puts the question, " Does your silence 
 mean consent?" I have great pleasure in stating as shortly 
 as possible my objections to his proposed new section, re- 
 garded as a " Confessional formula." His proposed new 
 section is as follows : 
 
 " God's eternal decree hiudereth no one from accepting Christ as He 
 is freely offered in the Gospel ; nor ought it to be so construed as to 
 contradict the declarations of Scripture that Christ is the propitiation 
 for the sins of the whole world, and that God is not willing that any 
 should perish, but that all should come to repentance." 
 
 My objections are two : 
 
 First. The proposed section quotes, without the slightest 
 attempt to interpret them, two ve^'ses of Scripture, the 
 meaning of one of which has for a long time been, and 
 still is, debated among the ministers of our Church, who 
 yet receive and adopt the Confession as containing the 
 system of doctrine taught in the Holy Scriptures. Dr. Yan 
 Dyke knows very well that a Creed, or Confession of Faith, 
 })ruper]y constructed, is not a response in Scriptural lan- 
 guage to the language of Scripture. Indeed, it is a state- 
 ment in dogmatic propositions, constituted of language 
 other than that of Scripture, of the Church's interpretation 
 of Scripture. The creeds, whether Ecumenical, Greek, 
 Latin, Lutheran, or Tleformcd, are conspicuously not in 
 Scriptural language, for the very good reason that they are 
 intended to be official expositions of Scrii)tural language. 
 Dr. Yan Dyke's proposed amendment, being clothed in the 
 language of Scripture, violates the fundamental, constitu- 
 tive, and historical idea of a creed statement. 
 
 Second. One of the two verses employed by him was 
 
CONFESSIONAL EEVISION. 2/ 
 
 one of the most often quoted and debated verses during 
 that long and unhappy ecclesiastical controversy which be- 
 gan before the Separation of 1838, and ended at the 
 Reunion of 1869. The question of the meaning of the 
 phrase, " for the sins of the whole world," was answered in 
 one way by Old School, in another by New School, Pres- 
 byteries. Finally, the Reunion came, and although the 
 meaning of the verse is still most properly discussed by 
 theological professors in their lecture-rooms, and by all who 
 choose to do so, the entire subject has been taken out of the 
 realm of our ecclesiastical disputes. But Dr. Yan Dyke 
 selects this very verse, and notwithstanding this history, 
 puts it in the Confession. He does nothing to help us 
 toward its interpretation, but (with the most irenic of 
 motives, I am sure) does the one thing of all best calculated 
 to reopen the ecclesiastical debate which the Reunion has 
 closed. He places it in the Confession at the point most 
 likely to make Presbyteries, as Presbyteries, discuss the 
 question. What does it mean ? In view of all this his- 
 tory, I do most earnestly appeal to Dr. Yan Dyke, if he 
 feels bound to propose an amendment on this subject, to 
 formulate another. Of course, if he thinks that this verse 
 in any way modifies the statement of the Catechism, " God 
 having elected some to everlasting life, did enter into a 
 covenant to bring them into a state of salvation by a Re- 
 deemer," all will agree that since the Reunion he is entitled 
 to hold that opinion. Or if he thinks the two statements 
 perfectly concordant, he is entitled to say so. But he is 
 proposing what in my judgment is dangerous, when he 
 moves to insert, without interpretation, in the Confession 
 an expression, which for many years was among us just 
 what the Psalter of Finnian was among the Irish, a war- 
 cry of two opposing clans. 
 
 2. Dr. Yan Dyke is not sure that he understands what I 
 
28 CONFESSIONAL REVISION. 
 
 iiieaii by the phrase '' ])rivate opiiiiou," and the alternative 
 phrase " a passing individual opinion." He is afraid that 
 unintentionally I make the phrase " palter in a double 
 sense." I have no right to complain of this criticism, fur 
 the use of the word " passing " was unfortunate. It may 
 mean evanescent. Probably this is the idea that it would 
 convey to most readers. But this I did not intend to con- 
 vey. By " passing individual opinion," I meant " current 
 individual opinion," and this, whether evanescent or per- 
 manent, whether exceptional or prevalent. 
 
 With this explanation, let me say that I used the phrase 
 "private" or "individual" opinion in its recognized and 
 technical sense, the sense, I mean, in which it is contrasted 
 with another technical phrase, dogma de fide. Both 
 phrases have long been used. Sometimes, most often per- 
 haps, the adjective " pious " is employed by Koman Cath- 
 olic writers instead of the adjective "private" or " indi- 
 vidual." But the meaning is obvious, and is always the 
 same. There is, as there must be, a large and various body 
 of opinion on theological subjects, formed by the devout 
 or "pious," and "private" or "individual" study of 
 learned men. These opinions are allowed by the Church. 
 Never having been erected into " dogmas of the faith," 
 never having been "defined" as doctrines and given a 
 place in the creed, they are still only " private " or " pious " 
 opinions. Some of them are held by only a few theologians. 
 Others are prevalent. Some are likely to prove evanes- 
 cent ; others to be permanent. Usually they are derived, 
 not from explicit statements of Scripture, but from what 
 those holding them believe to be implicated in the teach- 
 ings of the Word of God. 
 
 In this sense of the phrase, the belief that " all who die 
 in infancy are saved" is, with us, a "private" or "pious" 
 opinion. Nor would it be other than a private opinion, if 
 
CONFESSIONAL REVISION. 29 
 
 it could be shown that every individual in the Church be- 
 lieved it. For each individual throughout the Church is 
 at liberty as an individual to hold or reject it. But put it 
 in the Confession of Faith, and it will be a private opinion 
 no longer ; it will be a dogma de fide. Our liberty of 
 opinion on this subject will then be gone. Hope, expecta- 
 tion, supposition, and all other states of mind in respect to 
 dead infants, except assent to their salvation, will be utterly 
 out of place. If I have made my meaning clear, it is evi- 
 dent that whenever a '' private opinion " is made " a dogma 
 of the faith," by being " defined " and placed in the creed, 
 the creed in which it is placed is, so far forth, narrower or 
 less liberal than it was before. 
 
 I am glad that Dr. Yan Dyke has given me the oppor- 
 tunity to explain my meaning in detail. As the Church is 
 bound to discuss this question of revision, there is no dis- 
 tinction more important to be remembered just now than 
 the distinction between a " private opinion " and " a dogma 
 of the faith." The very strongest reasons should be an- 
 nounced and sifted and abide the sifting before the opinion 
 is permitted to be defined as a dogma. The change ought 
 not to be made without the clearest and most explicit war- 
 rant of Scripture. We Presbyterian ministers and elders 
 are doubly fortunate, first, in possessing a creed composed 
 by men who understood thoroughly this distinction ; and 
 secondly, in a form of subscription which places us in 
 '' genial relations " to the creed itself. 
 
 Eorae understands and has carefully observed this dis- 
 tinction. If there is a church, which, on its theory and by 
 its constitution, is in a position to multiply dogmas, it is the 
 Roman Catholic Church. It possesses an inspired " Yicar 
 of Christ," and it possesses also a vast body of " tradition," 
 on which it could draw for this very purpose. One might 
 well have prophesied that its activity in their multiplication 
 
30 CONFESSIONAL REVISION. 
 
 would be greater tluin that of the wliole of Christendom 
 except itself. But the Roman Catholic Church, of which 
 Lord Macaulaj long ago said, "There is not, and there 
 never was, on this earth a work of human policy so well 
 deserving of examination," has been most sagaciously care- 
 ful in its exercise of this tremendous power. Since the 
 Council of Trent was dissolved three centuries ago, oidy 
 two " pious o})inions " have been defined as " dogmas of 
 the faith." The debates between Franciscan and Domini- 
 can, between Scotist and Thomist, often in the thirteenth 
 century raged around the question of the " Innnaculate 
 Conception of the Virgin Mary." From tliat date un- 
 til 1S54 — a period of five centuries of active discussion 
 — when it was "defined" as a dogma of the Catholic 
 faith, the question was left to be answered by private 
 and pious opinion. So was the infallibility of the Pope, 
 until 1870. 
 
 But Eome has not furnished the model for our active 
 and ardent revisers. There is another religious body, how- 
 ever, to which the Roman Catholic Church in this particu- 
 lar presents a striking and instructive contrast. This re- 
 ligious body has a head like the head of the Church of 
 Rome. But, lacking a vast body of tradition, it has been 
 accustomed to supply that deficiency by an almost annual 
 addition to its " dogmas of the faith." I am vividly re- 
 minded, by the lightness and gaiety with which so many 
 of my brethren are entering on the work of Confessional 
 revision, of the abounding activity in the same direction of 
 the Apostles and Chief Revelator of the Church of the 
 Latter-Day Saints, commonly called Mormons. 
 
 3. Having made clear, I trust, why I object to Dr. 
 Yan Dyke's amendment, and what I mean by "private 
 opinion," I wish, before concluding this letter, to call atten- 
 tion to the remarkable diversities of attitude among writers 
 
CONFESSIONAL REVISIOlSf. 31 
 
 favorable to revision as thej appear on the pages of the 
 Evangelist this very week. 
 
 Here, first, is the Rev. Mr. Dulles, who wishes the Con- 
 fession revised in such a way as to make it " a living one "; 
 but who has no confidence in "patching" the present Con- 
 fession — indeed, in nothing short of a new Confession, 
 which shall express " what we now believe." Here, sec- 
 ondly, is a letter wliich endorses the article of Elder Henry 
 Day, who tells us that if he must find a reason for the de- 
 cree of God, he will find it in the foresight of faith. Here, 
 thirdly, is my valued friend Dr. Yan Dyke, who is against 
 all such Arminianism, but who would also remove " the 
 supralapsarian bias " from the Confession, and who 
 would insert the statement, " All infants d^dng in infancy 
 are saved." And here, finally, is my dear and honored 
 Professor, Dr. Duffield, of Princeton College, who will 
 not allow Dr. Van Dyke his dogma concerning all who die 
 in infancy, but who is ready to knock out " the supralap- 
 sarian bias " from our most logical Confession, though he 
 quotes without disapproval Dr. A. A. Hodge's remark that 
 '' supralapsarianism is the most logical scheme." 
 
 Here is a diversity of tongues, indeed. Shall I say that 
 it recalls the story of what once occurred on the plain of 
 Shinar ? In the midst of it I take my stand on the plat- 
 form so finely formulated by Prof. Warfield, of Princeton, 
 and I beg to close my letter by quoting a portion of his 
 most admirable paper : 
 
 "Our free, but safe, formula of the Confession of Faith, by which 
 we * receive and adopt it,' as ' containing the system of doctrine taught 
 in the Holy Scriptures,' relieves us of all necessity for seeking each 
 man to conform the Confession, in all its propositions, to his individual 
 preferences, and enables us to treat the Confession as a public docu- 
 ment, designed, not to bring each of our idiosyncrasies to expression, 
 but to express the general and common faith of the whole body, which 
 it adequately and admirably does. 
 
32 roXFKSSlOXAL llEVIt^IOX. 
 
 " Enjoying this free, yet hearty relation to the Confession, we con- 
 sider that our situation toward our Standards is incapable of improve, 
 ment. However much or little the Confession were altered, we could 
 not, as a body, accept the altered Confession in a closer sense than for 
 system of doctrine ; and the alteration could not better it as a public 
 confession, however much it might be made a closer expression of the 
 faith of some individuals among us. In any case it could not be made, 
 in all its propositions and forms of statement, the exact expression of 
 the personal faith of each one of our thousands of standard-bearers." 
 
 John De Witt. 
 The Hill : Danyille, Pa., July 20, 1889. 
 
/ 
 
 YI. 
 
 iKEPLICATION OF DK. YAJST DYKE TO DE. 
 DE WITT. 
 
 It is wonderful how much our judgment of things de- 
 pends upon the side from which we look at them. I have 
 Ueen greatly impressed with what seemed to me a remark- 
 alljle agreement among the advocates of Revision. With- 
 (but any consultation, they are in substantial accord as to the 
 . things that need amendment ; differing chiefly in the forms 
 fof changes wliich have been offered as mere suggestions. 
 IBut here comes the Evangelist of July 25th, in whicli 
 lL)r. De Witt declares himself equally impressed with "the 
 rjemarkable diversities of attitude among writers favorable 
 tfo Ee vision." He thinks this diversity amounts to a con- 
 fusion of tongues, like that on the plains of Shinar. He 
 detects a likeness between the advocates of Eevision, and 
 the '' abounding activity in the same direction of the Apos- 
 tles and Chief Eevelator of the Church of the Latter-Day 
 Saints, commonly called Mormons." He draws an unfa- 
 vorable contrast between their desire for change and tbo 
 conservatism of the Church of Eome, which in the three 
 centuries since the Council of Trent has " defined only two 
 pious opinions into dogmas of the faith." Let me assure 
 my good brother that I have too much respect for him, and 
 am too tenderly interested in the subject we are discussing, to 
 be ruffled by these invidious, not to say odious, comparisons. 
 I only wonder at them, and at the course of argument 
 to which they belong, which seems to me at variance with 
 
 (33) 
 
34 CONFESSIONAL REVISION. 
 
 the spirit of Protestantism and of the Presbyterian Chnrcl 
 It smells of the Dark Ages, and has the ear-marks of the 
 Schoolmen. Doubtless the difference between Dr. De AViti 
 and myself is due to our different angles of vision. But I 
 know not whether to call his angle acute or obtuse, wher 
 one of the four witnesses he summons to prove the confu 
 sion of tongues among the friends of Revision, is openly 
 opposed to what he calls ''patching up the Old Confes 
 sion," and in favor rather of making a new one ; though it 
 is due to him to say that he claims to be exceptionallj/ 
 orthodox in preaching the doctrines of the Old. Of thj e 
 other three witnesses, one is a layman and a lawyer, ani d 
 uses popular rather than technical language ; but Dr. Dl^ 
 Witt may rest assured that there is no substantial differencol 
 between Mr. Day, Dr. Duffield, and myself ; for we aP 
 hold the Calvinistic as opposed to the Arminian system o^ t 
 doctrine, and are loyal to the Confession of Faith accord 1- 
 ing to our ordination vows. ' 
 
 But suppose the diversity of our views were as great a 9 
 it is represented, is it greater than what existed in tin 3 
 Westminster Assembly ? JSTone knows better than Dr. Dt3 
 Witt how long and earnest were the debates in that Assemi- 
 bly ; how many of their doctrinal statements were compro- 
 mises of conflicting opinions (notably the one about " eledf" 
 infants ") ; and by how small a majority some of the arti- 
 cles were adopted. And yet the result was a Confession 
 which some of the opponents of Revision regard as so per- 
 fect that after two centuries and a half of study it is inca- 
 pable of improvement ; and so they join hands with those 
 who desire, by keeping it unchanged, to break down the 
 restraints of subscription, and practically to make the 
 grand old creed simply a historic monument of the past. 
 ]>ut inasmuch as the Word and Spirit of God are given to 
 us even as to the Westminster divines, is it not reasonable 
 
CONFESSIONAL REVISION. 36 
 
 to hope that the Revision of our Creed will lead to as good 
 results in the nineteenth century as it did in the seven- 
 teenth ? 
 
 How fatal is the force and fallacy of words. We may 
 not adopt the maxim that language is intended to conceal 
 thought ; but certainly it often fails to convey the writer's 
 meaning, even in the hands of such a trained master of 
 sentences as Dr. De Witt. After much reflection and con- 
 sultation of dictionaries, I came to the conclusion that by 
 " private opinions " my courteous opponent meant opinions 
 held by very few and not generally accepted, especially as 
 he used the parallel expression "passing individual opin- 
 ions," and protested against imposing such private opinions 
 upon the conscience of the whole Church. It is true I 
 had ghmpses of another meaning, but was unwilling to at- 
 tribute it to him, because it would utterly destroy the force 
 and relevancy of his argument. But in this I was com- 
 pletely mistaken. By " private opinion '' Dr. De Witt now 
 tells us he means " a pious opinion," however widely held, 
 as distinguished from a dogma de fide (dogma of the faith) 
 recognized and defined by the authority of the Church, and 
 incorporated into its creed, after the manner of the Roman 
 Catholic Church in "defining" the immaculate concep- 
 tion of Mary and the infallibility of the Pope. We think 
 the illustration an unfortunate one, but let that pass. IS'ow 
 we understand each other. Dr. De Witt has a right to 
 amend his pleading, and I accept the amendment. If he 
 had done this at first, it would have saved a great deal of 
 printer's ink. I admit fully that all the amendments to the 
 Confession which have been proposed are "pious opin- 
 ions," not yet " defined " and incorporated into our Creed 
 by the authority of the Presbyterian Church. If they 
 were there already, who would desire to put them there ? 
 But with this understanding, what becomes of Dr. De 
 
36 CONFESSIONAL REVISION. 
 
 Witt's argument against the proposed amendments upon 
 the ground that they are " private opinions " ^ It is a bald 
 he<j(jing of the question under discussion, and amounts to 
 an indi\adual assertion that these amendments ought not to 
 he adopted^ because they ay^e not already in the Confession 
 — only this and nothing more. And the same remark ap- 
 pHes to tlie passage which my learned friend adopts and 
 eulogizes from Dr. Warfield, provided of course he uses 
 the terms " personal opinions," " individual preferences," 
 and "idiosyncrasies," in the sense defined by Dr. De Witt 
 of " pious opinions " not yet authorized by Church author- 
 ity. But if he uses these terms in the common and pop- 
 ular meaning, we deny that any friend of revision desires 
 to put his private opinions or idiosyncrasies into the Con- 
 fession. As to the proposition that our liberal terms of 
 subscription render any revision unnecessary, it is alto- 
 gether aside from the question before us. No friend of re- 
 vision complains that the Church is too strictly bound to 
 her creed ; we have all the liberty in that respect which we 
 desire. But our contention is that the creed does not with 
 sufficient clearness express the faith of the Church in cer- 
 tain specified particulars. 
 
 And this brings us to the most important part of Dr. 
 De Witt's article — to the crucial point in this whole dis- 
 cussion. In response to my friend's challenge, I ventured 
 to formulate a statement to be inserted in the chapter on 
 the Decrees, in these words ; 
 
 " God's eternal decree hindereth no one from accepting Christ as He 
 is freely offered to us in the Gospel ; nor ought it to be so construed 
 as to contradict the declarations of Scripture that Christ is the propitia- 
 tion for the sins of the whole world, and that God is not willing that 
 any should perish, but that all should come to repentance." 
 
 Dr. De Witt rejects and condemns this amendment on 
 two grounds : 
 
CONFESSIONAL REVISION. 87 
 
 1. Because it is expressed chieflj in Scripture languaf^e. 
 He affirms that " being clothed in Scriptui-e hinguage, it 
 violates the fundameutal, constitutive, and historic idea of 
 a creed statement.'' I know not by what authority this 
 canon was enacted, nor where it is recorded ; but I do 
 know that it has been more honored in the breach than in 
 the observance. The Apostles' Creed is a beautiful mosaic 
 of Scripture phrases, without note or comment; and our 
 own Confession contains many creed statements which Dr. 
 De Witt, to be consistent, ought to condemn. I refer him 
 to chap, ii., sec. 1 ; chap, vii., sec. 3 ; chap, xvi., sec. 2 ; 
 chap, xxiii., sec. 1 ; chap, xxxiii., sec. 1. These and many 
 other passages are clothed in Scripture language as thor- 
 oughly as my proposed amendment. 
 
 2. Dr. De Witt condemns and starts back in alarm from 
 my amendment, because it contains " one of the most often 
 quoted and debated verses in the long and unhappy contro- 
 versy " between the Old and J^ew Schools, the entire sub- 
 ject of which verse, he tells us, " has been taken out of the 
 realm of our ecclesiastical disputes." He thinks to put 
 that verse into the Confession would be ^'dangerous"; it 
 would become again, what he says it was before, like " the 
 Psalter of Finnian among the Irish clans." He appeals to 
 me, if I feel bound to propose an amendment, to formulate 
 another, omitting this dangerous text, which he seems to 
 regard as a dynamite bombshell. I feel the force of his 
 appeal, and respect, though I do not sympathize with, his 
 fears. '' Peace, brother ; be not over-exquisite to cast the 
 fashion of uncertain evil." According to my recollections 
 of that old controversy, which are probably more vivid 
 than his own, not only this, but every other verse of Scrip- 
 ture relating to the doctrines of grace, were often quoted 
 and earnestly debated. That controversy, however we 
 may regret the bitterness and division to which it led, was 
 
38 CONFESSIONAL REVISION. 
 
 not altogetlier eWl in its results. Our danger now does 
 not lie in the direction of theological controversy, but in 
 indifference to doctrinal truth, by which "the streaming 
 fountain of God's Word sickens into a muddy pool of con- 
 formity and tradition." I have yet to learn that the Ke- 
 uiiion has relegated any verse in Scripture to the realm of 
 private and pious opinion. The Bible itself is ovlY primary 
 standard of faith and practice ; the Confession is only sec- 
 ondary / and I do not believe that the transference of any 
 text from the first to the second place, would imperil our 
 peace. 
 
 But now I do not insist upon the precise wording of my 
 amendment, as was clearly stated when it was first pro- 
 posed. It is the thing^ and not the form^ that I contend 
 for. It is a sad fact, and a grief to many hearts besides my 
 own, that our Confession does not contain one declaration 
 of the infinite love of God to men, nor one declaration of 
 what every Presbyterian, Old School or New, devoutly be- 
 lieves, that Christ's sacrifice for sin is sufficient for all, 
 adapted to all, and offered to all. We also believe that 
 this fullness of the Gospel and its free offer, is perfectly 
 consistent with all that our Confession and Catechisms 
 teach about election and redemption, the assertions of 
 Arminians to the contrary notwithstanding. If it is only 
 the language of my amendment that offends and alarms 
 my brother, let him find more acceptable words, express- 
 ing the same ideas, and I will adopt them. But if he ob- 
 jects to making this universally received "pious opinion" 
 a dogma of the faith, then indeed we do differ so widely 
 that no creed statement or subscription can bridge over the 
 chasm. 
 
 Henry J. Yan Dyke. 
 
VII. 
 
 THE PKESBYTERY OF NEW BEUNSWICK AND 
 THE WESTMINSTER CONFESSION. 
 
 At the June intermediate meeting of the Preshytery of 
 New Brunswick, held on June 25th at Dutch Neck, the 
 overture of the General Assembly anent the revision of the 
 Cmifession of Faith was answered in the negative, nemine 
 contradicente, as foUows : 
 
 *' The Presbytery of New Brunswick, having carefully 
 considered the overture in relation to the revision of the 
 Confession of Faith, proposed by the General Assembly, 
 respectfully replies as follows : 
 
 "This Presbytery does not desire any revision of the 
 Confession of Faith." 
 
 The reasons to be assigned for this answer, as proposed in 
 a paper presented by Prof. B. B. Warfield, were then taken 
 up ; but, on account of lack of time for full consideration, 
 were laid over until the October meeting of the Presbytery. 
 These reasons have been printed by order of the Presbytery, 
 that all who are interested may have opportunity to consider 
 them before the Fall meeting. They are as follows : 
 
 1. Our free but safe formula of acceptance of the Con- 
 fession of Faith, by which we " receive and adopt it " as 
 "containing the system of doctrine taught in the Holy 
 Scriptures " (Form of Government, XY., xii.), relieves us 
 of all necessity for seeking, each one to conform the Con- 
 fession in all its propositions to his individual preferences, 
 and enables us to treat the Confession as a public document, 
 
 (39) 
 
40 CONFESSIOI^AL REVISION. 
 
 designed, not to bring each of onr idiosyncrasies to expres- 
 yion, but to express the general and common faith of the 
 whole body — whicli it adequately and admirably does. 
 
 2. Enjoying this free yet hearty relation to the Confession, 
 we consider that our situation toward our Standards is inca- 
 pable of improvement. However much or little the Confes- 
 sion were altered, we could not, as a body, accept the altered 
 Confession in a closer sense than for system of doctrine ; 
 and the alterations could not better it as a public Confession, 
 however much it might be made a closer expression of the 
 faith of some individuals among us. In any case, it could 
 not be made, in all its propositions and forms of statement, 
 the exact expression of the personal faith of each one of our 
 thousands of office-bearers. 
 
 3. In these circumstances we are unwilling to mar the 
 integrity of so venerable and admirable a document, in the 
 mere license of change, without prospect of substantially 
 bettering our relation to it or its fitness to serve as an ade- 
 quate statement of the system of doctrine which we all 
 heartily believe. The historical character and the hereditary 
 value of the creed should, in such a case, be preserved. 
 
 4. We have no hope of bettering the Confession, either 
 in the doctrines it states or in tlie manner in which they are 
 stated. When we consider the guardedness, moderation, 
 fullness, lucidity, and catholicity of its statement of the 
 Augiistinian system of truth, and of the several doctrines 
 which enter into it, we are convinced that the Westminster 
 Confession is the best, safest and most acceptable statement 
 of the truths and the system which we most surely believe 
 that has ever been formulated ; and we despair of making 
 any substantial improvements upon its forms of sound words. 
 On this account we not only do not desire changes on our 
 own account, but should look with doubt and apprehension 
 upon any efforts to hnprove upon it by tlie Church. 
 
CONFESSIONAL KEVISION. 41 
 
 5. The moderate, catholic, and irenical character of the 
 Westminster Confession has always made it a unifying doc- 
 ument. Framed as an irenicon, it bound at once the Scotch 
 and English Churches together ; it was adopted and contin- 
 ues to be used by many Congregational and Baptist Churches 
 as the confession of their faith; with its accompanying 
 Catechisms it has lately been made the basis of union be- 
 tween the two great Presbyterian bodies which united to 
 constitute our Church ; and w^e are convinced that if Pres- 
 byterian union is to go further, it nmst be on the basis of 
 the Westminster Standards, pure and simple. In the inter- 
 ests of Church union, therefore, as in the interests of a broad 
 and irenical, moderate and catholic Calvinism, we deprecate 
 any changes in our historical standards, to the system of 
 doctrine contained in which we unabatedly adhere, and with 
 the forms of statement of which we find ourselves in hearty 
 accord. 
 
YIIL 
 
 DK. YA'N DYKE ON THE ACTION OF THE 
 NEW BKUNSWICK PRESBYTERY. 
 
 The action of the Presbytery of New Brunswick, in an- 
 swer to the overture of the General Assembly on revision, 
 viz. : " This Presbytery does not desire any revision of the 
 Confession of Faith," together with a paper presented by 
 Dr. Warfield, giving reasons for that answer, laid over for 
 future action, has been widely circulated among the min- 
 isters of our Church. However complete this document 
 may be, as a summary of what can be said against the re- 
 vision of our Confession, it does not fairly represent the 
 views of those who are on the other side of the question. 
 The following statements are therefore submitted to the 
 candid judgment of all interested in the subject : 
 
 I. The o])ject of the proposed revision is not to change 
 the system of doctrine taught in our Confession, nor to re- 
 pudiate, modify, or dilute any one doctrine of that system, 
 nor to " conform the Confession in all its propositions to 
 individual preferences," nor to "bring each of our idio- 
 syncrasies to expression." We repudiate all such interpre- 
 tations of our purpose. Our simple object is — by the cor- 
 rection of certain ambiguities, omissions, and mistaken in- 
 terpretations of Scripture — to bring our Confession into 
 more perfect harmony with other Reformed Confessions, 
 and to make it more complete as the expression "of the 
 general and common faith of the whole body " of the Pres- 
 byterian Church in the United States of America. ^ 
 
 II. The proposition that such a revision is impracticable 
 
 (42) 
 
CONFESSIONAL EEVISION. 43 
 
 can be maintained only on one of two grounds : (1) That 
 the work of the Westminster Assembly is perfect in itself, 
 and in its adaptation to all time; or (2) that after two 
 centuries and a half of Bible study, and two centuries of 
 tlieological training, the Presbyterian Church is less able 
 now to give adequate expression to her faith than she was 
 in the days of the Westminster Assembly. Both these 
 hypotheses are absurd. 
 
 III. The proposition that revision is unnecessary, in view 
 of '' our free but safe formula of acceptance of the Confes- 
 sion of Faith," is disproved by three patent facts : (1) Fif- 
 teen presbyteries have petitioned tlie Assembly for such a 
 revision, and it is well known that these presbyteries em- 
 brace but a small part of those who favor the movement. 
 
 (2) Some of the arguments opposed to revision are among 
 the strongest proofs of its necessity. We call the attention 
 of our brethren to tlie article on this subject by Dr. Brigge, 
 in the last number of the Presbyterian Remew, and espe- 
 cially to the following sentences : " I agree with Dr. War- 
 field that the true relief for a church that finds itself too 
 strictly bound to a creed, is simply to amend the strictness 
 of the formula of subscription. I am in favor of sncli a 
 movement in preference to revision, or a new creed, or a 
 declaratory act." Dr. Briggs clearly discerns the alterna- 
 tive presented to us, and because we desire to relieve the 
 consciences of those fifteen presbyteries and their sym- 
 pathizers, without such "a comprehension" as he advo- 
 cates, we are heartily in favor of the proposed revision. 
 
 (3) It should be borne in mind that our Confession is not 
 merely the standard and test of ministerial orthodoxy ; it 
 is a public document, the proclamation to the world of 
 what the Presbyterian Church now believes. If it con- 
 tains, or even appears to contain, anything which the whole 
 body repudiates, or if it fails to embrace anything which 
 
44 CONFESSIONAL REVISIOIST. 
 
 Presbyterians, and Cliristians generally, accept as an essen- 
 tial element of the Gospel which we preach, it ought in 
 these respects to be amended, without regard to the terms 
 of clerical subscription. The Church is more than the 
 ministry. 
 
 IV. Ko one is competent to predict, much less to dic- 
 tate, the precise form and extent of the revision, if it shall 
 ])e accomplished. The amendments which have been pro- 
 posed, or may yet be proposed, by individuals, or by pres- 
 byteries, are simph^ suggestions. If among them there 
 shall be found any " individual preferences," or " idiosyn- 
 crasies," the fact that they are private opinions will neces- 
 sarily prevent their adoption. But among the suggestions 
 already made there are three which fully demonstrate the 
 necessity and practicability of revision. 
 
 (1). It is the common faith of the whole Presbyterian 
 Church, as now constituted, and of the Reformers, as ex- 
 pressed in creeds more venerable than the Westminster 
 Confession, that God foreordains men to eternal death 
 simply and solely for their sins. Dr. A. A. Hodge says, 
 in his "Consensus of the Reformed Confessions": "It is 
 no part of the Reformed faith that God created men in 
 order to damn them, nor that His treatment of the lost is 
 to be referred to His sovereign will. He condemns men 
 only as judge, for their siiis, to the praise of His glorious 
 justice" {Presbyterian Review, vol. v., p. 295). In order 
 to make the confession of our faith more explicit on this 
 point, and to take away all pretext for the charge that we 
 hold the contrary doctrine, it is proposed to amend the 
 third section of the tln'rd chapter, by inserting the words 
 for their sins. Will any opponent of revision maintain 
 that the addition of these words would mar the integrity of 
 our Confession, or graft an "idiosyncrasy" upon this pub- 
 lic document? 
 
CONFESSIONAL REVISION. 45 
 
 (2). The whole body of the Presbyterian Church beheve 
 that all infante dying in infancy are elect, and therefore 
 regenerated and saved. Dr. Charles Hodge says this " is 
 the general belief of Protestants, contrary to the doctrine 
 of the Romanists and Eomanizers" (" Theology," vol. i., 
 p. 27). It is proposed to put the expression of this com- 
 mon faith into our Confession. Does any one say that it is 
 there by implication already ? Then we ought to relieve 
 troubled consciences and silence gain say ers by stating it 
 explicitly. Does any one say the salvation of all dying in- 
 fants is only a pious hope, suggested, but not clearly taught, 
 in Scripture? The advocates of revision do not believe 
 this ; but if it is the common faith of the Presbyterian 
 Church, then we insist that our Confession ought to stand 
 clearly neutral on the subject, and no longer sanction the 
 popular impression that we hold the abhorrent doctrine of 
 the damnation of infants by the ambiguous phrase " elect 
 infants dying in infancy." 
 
 (3). It is the common faith of the Presbyterian body, and 
 of the whole visible Church of Christ, that the salvation 
 of the Gospel is sufficient for all men, adapted to all, and 
 freely offered to all, and that the eternal decree of God 
 hinders no one from accepting it. The Scriptures are full 
 of proof-texts to sustain this proposition. It underlies and 
 pervades all our preaching of the Gospel, and is the con- 
 straining motive in all the aggressive work of the Church. 
 And yet there is not, in all our Confession, one declaration 
 which clearly comprehends or alludes to the teaching of Scrip- 
 ture on this point. The advocates of revision desire to 
 amend the Confession in this particular. As to the asser- 
 tion that it is not possil)le to frame a new statement on this 
 subject which will correlate with the Confession as it is, or 
 which will not mar the historic integrity of the venerable 
 document ; this is just what the enemies of our Calvinistic 
 
46 CONFESSIONAL REVISION. 
 
 system have always said, and what Calvinists have always 
 denied. If the writer of this paper believed what has been 
 said on this point by the opponents of revision, he would 
 renounce the Confession as his standard, for the fullness 
 and freeness of the Gospel is more precious to him than 
 any historic monument. But he does not believe it. He 
 has always read into the Confession, as perfectly consistent 
 with the system of doctrine which it contains, the Scripture 
 declarations that Christ is " the propitiation for the sins of 
 the whole world," and that " God is not willing that any 
 should perish, but that all should come to repentance." To 
 relieve troubled consciences, to satisfy candid opposers of 
 our system of doctrine, to promote the ultimate unification 
 of the visible Church, which can never be accomplished 
 upon any other basis, it is proposed to put into our Confession 
 what we all believe concerning the fullness and freeness of 
 the Gospel, in its sufficiency, adaptation, and offers to all 
 men. It would be easy to suggest the form and place of 
 the amendment, but it is enough for the present to insist 
 upon its necessity and practicability. 
 
 Henry J. Yan Dyke. 
 
IX. 
 
 PEOF. WAKFIELD'S EEPLY TO DE. VAN 
 DYKE. 
 
 I HAVE read with great interest the criticisms upon the 
 paper which was presented bj me to the Presbytery of 
 New Brunswick, with which Dr. Yan Dyke has honored 
 me in the Herald and Presbyter of July 31st. If I cor- 
 rectly understand the drift of Dr. Yan Dyke's remarks, he 
 argues that revision of the Confession is necessary ; and he 
 is willing to rest this alleged necessity on three criticisms 
 of the Confession, which he states. It does not seem 
 proper for me to pass these suggestions by without remark, 
 and the less so, that the three points which Dr. Yan Dyke 
 has singled out are those which have been most frequently 
 dwelt upon by those who advocate revision. We may hope, 
 then, that if these do not prove adequate reasons for un- 
 dertaking the task, it may be admitted that there is little 
 serious call for it in the churches. 
 
 Probably, however, before entering into a discussion of 
 these test criticisms, I ought to say a word in general 
 about the New Brunswick paper, which has furnished oc- 
 casion for Dr. Yan Dyke's article. Let this be as brief as 
 possible. That paper was intended to bring together what is, 
 in essence, a threefold argument against the necessity of 
 revision — an argument which, and only, if founded on facts, 
 ought to prevail. It was intended to urge the following 
 points, viz. : (1) Revision is not necessary in order to ease 
 the consciences of our office-bearers in accepting the Con- 
 fession ; (2) it is not needed in order to correct any serious 
 
 (47) 
 
48 CONFESSIONAL REVISION. 
 
 infelicities in expressing the doctrines we profess ; and (3) 
 it will throw difficulties in the waj of the realization of 
 hopes of church union, already being entertained by the 
 Church. In all this there is no claim to perfection and in- 
 fallibility for the Confession ; there is no arraignment of 
 the right or power of the Church to undertake it. The 
 question is a question of expediency. The point is, Does 
 the Confession need revision in order to ease the consciences 
 of our office-bearers in accepting it as a test of soundness, 
 or in order to fit it to be our testimony to the truth of 
 God, as taught in His Word, and our text-book of doctrine ? 
 And the propositions which are defended are, (1) that as 
 we accept it, as office-bearers, only for ^' system of doctrine," 
 and it confessedly brings the system we profess to adequate 
 expression, it does not need revision for the first of these 
 reasons ; and (2) that as its statep^ents of the truths that 
 enter into this system are exact, full, complete, moderate, 
 cathohc, inclusive, and devout, it does not need revision for 
 the second reason. If I properly understand Dr. Yan 
 Dyke, he does not take issue with the first of these prop- 
 ositions. He criticises my mode of stating it, indeed, as if 
 it implied that advocates of revision desired change in the 
 system of doctrine. This, "for himself, and as many as 
 will adhere to him," he repudiates. The object of those 
 for whom he speaks " is not to change the system of doc- 
 trine taught in the Confession, nor to repudiate or modify 
 or dilute any one doctrine of that system." Surely, then, 
 we may say that Dr. Yan Dyke agrees that no change in 
 the system of doctrine which the Confession teaches, or in 
 " any one doctrine of that system," is needed. And that is 
 my first contention. His whole case, then, is directed 
 against my second contention, and is hung in the present 
 paper on three selected instances, which he thinks "fully 
 demonstrate the necessity and practicability of revision." 
 
CONFESSIONAL REYISION. 49 
 
 These three points concern the statement of the doctrine 
 of reprobation ; the clause about " elect infants "; and the 
 alleged absence from the Confession of sufficient recogni- 
 tion of the universal provision and free offer of salvation 
 in Christ. I cannot deny that Dr. Van Dyke has chosen 
 his points well. The issue made by them is distinct ; and 
 it is probably on these three points that the decision of the 
 general question will turn. But if this be true, I cannot 
 but think that as the Church (to use an old rabbinical 
 phrase) " sinks herself down in the book " during the com- 
 ing months, she will, on this issue, feel constrained to vote 
 for no revision. Certainly, speaking for myself, I do not 
 desire revision at these points, and feel bound to affirm 
 that the Confession stands in no need of revision in any 
 one of them — that the opinion that it does, rests on a mis- 
 apprehension of its teaching — and that the alterations that 
 have been proposed would certainly mar it, and leave it a 
 less satisfactory document than it now is. I owe to myself 
 some words in justification of my venturing to differ so 
 materially from so ripe a scholar and so thoughtful a theo- 
 logian as Dr. Van Dyke. 
 
 The third chapter of the Confession, " Of God's Eter- 
 nal Decrees," as it was the occasion of the overture of 
 the Presbytery of Nassau opening the present discussion, 
 so it has borne, thus far, the brunt of objection to the Con- 
 fession. To me it appears, however, a most admirable 
 chapter — the most admirably clear, orderly, careful, and 
 moderate statement of the great mysteries of God's decrees 
 to be found in the whole body of the Keformed Confe&- 
 sions. How, then, shall we account for the offence which 
 has been taken with it of late ? I trust I shall be excused 
 
50 CONFESSIONAL REVISION. 
 
 for saying it frankly : it seems to me to have arisen from 
 a very strange confusion, involving both the doctrine of 
 reprobation on the one side, and the purport of the West- 
 minster Confession on the other. 
 
 In order to explain what I mean, let me begin by re- 
 minding the readers of the Herald and Presbyter that the 
 lieformed doctrine has always distinguished (under various 
 names) between what we may call pretention and condem- 
 nation, and has always taught that pretention is sovereign 
 (as, indeed, it must be, if election is sovereign), while con- 
 demnation, a consequent only of preterition, is " for their 
 sins." The sentence which Dr. Yan Dyke quotes from Dr. 
 A. A. Hodge is perfectly, accurately expressed. " It is no 
 part of the Reformed faith that God's .... treatment of the 
 lost is to be referred to His sovereign wiU. He condemns 
 men only ^ for their sins, to the praise of His glorious jus- 
 tice.' " But it is a part of the Reformed faith that preterition 
 is sovereign, as Dr. Whittaker, in the age before the West- 
 minster Assembly, clearly tells us : " Of predestination and 
 reprobation it is our part to speak advisedly. But that the 
 only will of God is the cause of reprobation, heing taken as 
 it is contrary to predestination^ not only St. Paul and St. 
 Augustine, but the best and learnedest schoolmen, have 
 largely and invincibly proved." I do not know where this 
 necessary distinction between the sovereignty of preterition 
 and the grounding of the consequent condemnation on sin, 
 is better put, in late writing, than in the late Dr. Boyce's 
 (of the Louisville Baptist Seminary) "Abstract of Sys- 
 tematic Theology," which I mention here chiefly to call at- 
 tention to the fact that Dr. Boyce's treatment is precisely 
 that, even in its peculiarities, of the great Westminster 
 divine, Dr. Thomas Goodwin. I prefer, however, to quote 
 here another Westminster divine — Dr. John Arrowsmith — 
 whose statement will serve to illuminate for us, not only 
 
CONFESSIONAL REVISION. 51 
 
 the subject itself, but the treatment of it in the West- 
 minster Confession, and thus supply us with a starting- 
 point for its study. 
 
 In his " Chain of Principles," Arrowsmith explains : 
 " Preterition, or negative reprobation, is an eternal decree 
 of God, purposing within Himself to deny unto the non- 
 elect that peculiar love of His wherewith election is ac- 
 companied, as, also, that special grace which infallibly 
 
 bringeth to glory This description carries with it a 
 
 clear reason why the thing described goeth under the name 
 of negative reprobation, because it standeth mainly on the 
 denial of those free favors which it please th God to bestow 
 on His elect." When speaking later of the " consequents 
 of the forementioned denials," he comes to " 3. Condem- 
 nation for sin," and says : " This last is that which, by di- 
 vines, is usually styled positive reprobation^ and is clearly 
 distinguishable from the negative in that the one is an act 
 of punitive justice respecting sin committed and con- 
 tinued in. But the other is an absolute decree of God's 
 most free and sovereign will, without respect to any dispo- 
 sition in the creature. I call them consequents, not effects, 
 because, though negative reprobation be antecedent to them 
 all, it is not the proper cause of them. This difference be- 
 tween the decrees Aquinas long since took notice of. 
 * Election,' saith he, * is a proper cause, both of that glory 
 which the elect look for hereafter, and of that grace which 
 they here enjoy. Whereas reprobation is not the cause of 
 the present sins of the non-elect^ though it be of God's for- 
 saking them ; but their sin proceeds from the parties them- 
 selves so passed by and forsaken.' " The matter is capable 
 of very copious illustration from the Westminster divines, 
 but the demands of space forbid entering into it further 
 here. Enough has been already quoted to point out that 
 the Westminster divines had in mind, as, indeed, they 
 
52 CONFESSIONAL REVISION. 
 
 could not fail to have, the very obvious and necessary dis- 
 tinction between God's sovereign decree of pretention — 
 " negative reprobation," as Arrowsinith calls it — which must 
 be as free and sovereign as election itself, of which it is, in- 
 deed, but the negative statement, and His dealing with those 
 thus passed by, which depends on their deserts. The fact 
 that men are sinners does not affect the sovereignty of pret- 
 ention : it only affects the treatment they are left to by 
 pretention. If, for instance, out of the holy angels God 
 chose sovereignly a certain number for some high service, 
 involving special gifts of grace to them to fit them for it, 
 the " leaving " of the rest would be just as truly " preten- 
 tion " as in the case of fallen man ; but the consequent 
 treatment being but the "consequent," and not the "ef- 
 fect," of pretention, would be infinitely different, seeing 
 that it is the effect of the deserts, whatever they may be, in 
 which they are found to be left. Consequently sin is not 
 the cause of preterition ; election is the cause of pretention ; 
 i. 6., the choosing of some is the cause that " the rest " are 
 left. Sin is the cause, however, of how the preterited ones 
 are treated. And to guard this the Westminster men were 
 accustomed to use a phrase they borrowed from Wol levins, 
 which affirmed that sin is not the causa reprohationis^ but 
 the causa reprobahilitatis ; that is, sin is not the cause of 
 reprobation (otlierwise the elect, who also are sinners, would 
 be reprobates), but it is the cause of men being in a repro- 
 hatihle state. These are not theological subtleties ; they 
 are broad, outstanding facts of God's dealing with men ; 
 and it is failure to note them that is causing much (not al- 
 ways wholly intelligent) criticism of the Confession in these 
 last days. 
 
 So let us come back to Chapter HI. of the Confession 
 now, and note its structure. It opens with what is the 
 finest and most guarded and most beautiful statement of the 
 
CONFESSIONAL REVISION. 53 
 
 doctrine of God's decrees in general, that has ever been 
 compressed into so small a space (Sections 1 and 2). Then, 
 jH'oceeding to the special decree, dealing with His crea- 
 tures' destiny, it first asserts the fact that this sovereign, 
 particular and unchangeable decree extends also over this 
 sphere of the destiny of the creature (Sections 3 and 4) ; 
 and then proceeds to outline God's consequent dealing with 
 the diverse classes (Sections 5-7) ; closing with a caution 
 against careless handling of such great mysteries (Section 
 8). Were this the proper occasion for it, it w^ould be a pleas- 
 ure to expound this marvellously concise, full, and careful 
 statement of an essential doctrine, in detail. Now, how- 
 ever, we are concerned only to ask what would be the effect 
 of adopting the amendment to it proposed by Dr. Van Dyke, 
 who desires that the words "/br their sins " should be in- 
 serted into Section 3. " Will any opponent of revision," he 
 asks, " maintain that the addition of these words would mar 
 the integrity of our Confession ? " I answer unhesitating- 
 ly, yes : the insertion of these words into Section 3 would 
 be an intolerable confusion of the logical order and exacti- 
 tude of statement of this now beautifully ordered and care- 
 fully phrased chapter. It would prematurely introduce 
 the statement of the grotmd of God's actual dealings with 
 oiie class into the statement of the fact that tioo classes 
 are discriminated; it would confound the treatment of />^'<?^- 
 erition (which is sovereign) with that of condemnation 
 (which is based on sin) ; it would throw the whole chapter 
 into such confusion as to render (as Dr. Monfort in the 
 same number of the Herald and Presbyter sees) Section 
 Y superfluous, while affording us but a sorry substitute for 
 that richer section ; in the effort to prevent careless readers 
 from misapprehending a j^lain and admirably ordered docu- 
 ment, it would compel all careful readers to be offended by 
 a bad arrangement and an insufficient theok)gical discrimi- 
 
54 CONFESSIONAL KEVISION. 
 
 nation. Speaking for myself, then, I do not hesitate to say 
 that tlie j^resent form of Chapter III. suits me precisely, 
 and that the proposed change would be unacceptable and 
 confusing, and appears to me to rest only on an unwilling- 
 ness to take the trouble to follow the Confession in the 
 logical ordering of its matter. 
 
 II. 
 
 If the current misapprehensions of Chapter III. are re- 
 markable, I think we may characterize the interpretation of 
 Chap. X., Sec. 3, which finds a body of non-elect infants 
 dying in infancy, implied in its statement, as one of the 
 most astonishing pieces of misinterpretation in literary his- 
 tory. It is so perfectly gratuitous as almost to reach the 
 level of the sublime. And when Dr. Yan Dyke adduces 
 " the ambiguous phrase, ' elect infants dying in infancy,' " 
 as sanctioning " the popular impression that we hold the 
 abhorrent doctrine of the damnation of infants," and as, 
 therefore, one of the three cases in which the necessity for 
 revision is obvious, he renders it easy for us to reply that 
 the Confession is certainly in no need of revision to guard 
 it from a wholly unreasonable interpretation. 
 
 The assertion that the clause in question necessarily im- 
 plies, as its opposite, a bo^y of non-elect infants dying in 
 infancy, has been so often and so dogmatically reiterated of 
 late years, however, that I shall need to ask the readers of 
 the Herald and Preshyter to go with me to the text of the 
 Confession before I can hope that they will credit my coun- 
 ter assertion that such an implication is a total misunder- 
 standing of it. Let us observe, then, that we are now deal- 
 ing with effectual calling, not with election. All questions 
 of election have been settled seven chapters back ; and this 
 logically arranged Confession— the careful strictness of the 
 logical arrangement of which has been made a reproach 
 
CONFESSIONAL REVISION. 55 
 
 to it — is not a document to rebroacli that question at this 
 late and inappropriate point. Let us observe, next, that in 
 the apprehension of the framers of the Confession, effectual 
 calling is the first step in the application of redemption to 
 God's elect. To them, and them only, is given this grace. 
 But how ? " ^y If is Word and Spirit " — and then a rich 
 statement is made as to how this call works in and on them, 
 60 as that, though effectually drawn to Jesus, they come 
 most freely and wilhngly. God's elect, then, are saved 
 through the external call of the Word and the internal call 
 of the Spirit conjoined. But what if God's elect die before 
 they are capable of receiving this external call of the Word ? 
 Are they then lost ? No, says Section 3 ; God's elect that 
 die in infancy are regenerated and saved through the in- 
 ternal work of the Spirit, without the intermediation of 
 the Word, and so are all others of the elect who are inca- 
 pable of receiving such an outward call. Now, observe : 
 There is no such distinction in the minds of the framers 
 of the Confession at this point as " elect infants dying in 
 infancy," and " non-elect infants dying in infancy." The 
 distinction in their minds is that between "elect infants 
 that reach the adult state," who are saved by the " Word 
 and Spirit," and " elect infants dying in infancy," who are 
 saved by the Spirit apart from«the Word. This is the an- 
 tithesis that was in their minds when they wrote this 
 phrase ; and they expected the reader to understand, as he 
 read the words, " elect infants dying in infancy," that these 
 were the opposites of those who, having reached adulthood, 
 were saved by the intermediation of the Word. In short, 
 "elect infants dying in infancy" is equivalent to "such 
 elect infants as die in infancy," and not at all to " such in- 
 fants dying in infancy as are elect." This is absolutely 
 necessary to the progress of the thought. And this being 
 so, the phrase does not start the question as to whether 
 
66 CONFESSIONAL REVISION. 
 
 there are non-elect infants dying in infancy at all. To 
 raise that question here is perfectly gratuitous ; and as it 
 was not in the minds of the writers as they wrote this 
 phrase, no proof that the majority of the Westminster di- 
 vines believed that there were or might be non-elect infants 
 dying in infancy, has any bearing on the interpretation of 
 this passage. We deal with the Confession that they 
 framed, and with what they teach in it — not with what outside 
 of it they are known to have beheved. And what they 
 teach here is that all of God's elect that reach adult age are 
 called by the " Word and Spirit," but such elect infants as 
 die in infancy, and all others of the elect who are incapable 
 of the outward call, are saved, apart from the outward call, 
 by the Spirit's regeneration. How many there are — 
 whether all or some of such beings — is a question wholly 
 out of mind. The antithesis is that unless these infants die 
 in infancy, or these others are really incapable of receiving 
 the outward call, they cannot be saved without a knowledge 
 of the Gospel — and that the fourth section goes on to assert. 
 To raise any other antithesis here is to raise a false antith- 
 esis, which was not in the minds of the writers ; and to 
 make any inferences from this false antithesis is to read 
 something of our own into the text. If we choose to raise 
 such questions of our own, let us answer them ; the Confes- 
 sion has not raised them, and does not answer them by 
 statement or implication. 
 
 This interpretation of the bare text is powerfully sup- 
 ported by the history of the framing of this phrase in 
 the Assembly. The chapter on effectual calling in the 
 first form lacked Section 3, and therefore it was ordered 
 ("Minutes," p. 134) "that something be expressed in fit 
 place concerning infants' Tegeneration in their infancy?'^ 
 Observe, this is the point in the minds of the Assembly — 
 the regeneration of infants in their i/nfancy. What they 
 
CONFESSIONAL REVISION. 67 
 
 wished to do was to show that Sections 1 and 2 did not ex- 
 clude those who die in infancy from salvation, by the asser- 
 tion that the effectual call came through the Word. It was 
 the possibility and actuality of regeneration in infancy that 
 they wished to assert, and this, and this only, they do assert, — 
 without having in mind anything at all as to how many 
 of infants dvnng in infancy are so regenerated, or implying 
 anything at all about this matter, which they would have 
 adjudged a wholly inappropriate subject to broach at this 
 place. We read in the '' Minutes " of debates about this 
 section, but absolutely nothing of the debate turning on 
 anything else than the memorandum quoted above sug- 
 gests. The phrase that occurs once, '' Proceed in debate 
 about elect of infants" (p. 162), furnishes no ground what- 
 ever for an opposite inference. In the absolute uncertainty 
 of what is meant by the phrase, '' elect of infants," it only 
 tells us that Section 3 was carefully considered before it 
 was finally accepted. All we know is, that it cannot mean 
 anything inconsistent with both the memorandum, which 
 opened the debate and the formulated section which closed 
 it. Dr. Yan Dyke has somewhere in his papers in the 
 Evangelist said (if my memory serves me), that he is aware 
 that this Section 3 was arrived at by a compromise. If he 
 will be eo good as to point out the evidence for this, he wonld 
 confer a favor on scholars. I have searched the " Minutes " in 
 vain for any signs of such a compromise. To show that West- 
 minster divines differed as to whether all or only some of 
 those who die in infancy are saved, is nothing to the purpose. 
 There is no evidence that they had this matter in mind 
 when this section was being debated. We know that they 
 were intending to assert that death in infancy did not snatch 
 the soul from the Saviour ; we know this is what they did 
 assert. We have no right to infer any compronn'se in the 
 matter or any debates here held on any otlier subject. 
 
58 CONFESSIONAL REVISION. 
 
 What has been said surely vindicates the Confession from 
 the charge that revision is necessary at this point in order 
 to prevent its teaching that there are non-elect infants dy- 
 ing in infancy. Are the amendments offered in themselves 
 acceptable ? A thousand times no, I should say. First, to 
 insert a statement that all those that die in infancy are elect 
 here, would be out of place and order. This is not the 
 place to treat of who are elect and who are not, but of how 
 God saves the elect. Secondly, to insert such a statement 
 anywhere would be an unnecessary burdening of the Con- 
 fession with an explicit statement of what most Presbyte- 
 rians believe, indeed, but not all feel justified in asserting 
 to be revealed truth. For myself, I believe with all my 
 heart that all dying in infancy are saved, and I believe that 
 I can prove it from Scripture. But 1 think it far better to 
 leave the Confession asserting, as it does assert, that God 
 saves all the elect, whether reaching adult age or dying in 
 infancy, rather than to force into it a dogmatic definition 
 of a doctrine which many among us still beheve rests on a 
 pious hope rather than on clear Scripture. To do this, as 
 Dr. De Witt has already unanswerably shown, is to move 
 in the direction of narrowing our confessional basis, with- 
 out necessity and without gain. The Confession already 
 provides firm ground for all who believe that all those that 
 die in infancy are elect, and it does this without dogmatism 
 and without sacrificing its moderation and cahn guarded- 
 iiess of statement. Why sacrifice this ? Cui hono ? 
 
 III. 
 
 I have left myself but little space to speak of the third 
 test case adduced to prove the necessity of revision, and re- 
 gard to the long-snffering of the Herald and Presbyter and 
 to the patience of its readers leads me to curtail what I should 
 
CONFESSIONAL KEVISION. 59 
 
 like to say, contenting myself, for the rest, to referring 
 those who may be sufficiently interested to a recent number 
 of tlie Presbyterian Banner^ in which I have treated the 
 general matter which lies at the base of the present question 
 — the Confession's treatment of the love of God to man. 
 Here the following few remarks, additional to what I have 
 there said, nmst suffice. Dr. Yan Dyke complains that 
 " there is not, in all our Confession, one declaration which 
 clearly comprehends or alludes to the teaching of the Scrij)- 
 ture " on the sufficient provision and free proclamation of 
 salvation for all men, and their accountability for rejecting 
 it. I do not understand Dr. Van Dyke to complain that 
 all this is nowhere gathered up in a single statement, nor 
 can he intend to complain that the Confession does teach 
 (as it certainly does) the doctrine of " the limited " (or bet- 
 ter, ^' the definite ") atonement. I understand him to mean 
 that the Confession taken at large nowhere recognizes ade- 
 quately the freedom of the great Gospel offer, and man's 
 consequent responsibility for rejecting it. But certainly 
 this is somewhat rationally charged. It can hardly be said 
 that the Confession nowhere teaches that " the eternal decree 
 of God hinders no one from accepting the Gospel," when 
 everywhere the Confession teaches that God is not the au- 
 thor of sin (would it not be a sin to refuse the Gospel ?), and 
 that by the decree no " violence is offered to the will of the 
 creature " (III. 1), nor is his liberty taken away (III. 1), 
 and when it teaches that God freely proclaims the Gospel to 
 all, as we shall immediately see. For to affirm that the 
 Confession does not teach that the offer to all men is free, and 
 that their acceptance of it would be saving, is to forget some 
 of its most emphatic passages. The Confession indicates 
 the duty of translating the Bible " into the vulgar language 
 of every nation," on the ground that thereby, " the word of 
 (xod dwelling in all plentifully, they may worship him in 
 
60 CONFESSIONAL REVISION. 
 
 an acceptable manner, and, through patience and comfort 
 of the Scriptures, may have hope" (I. 8). Here is clearly 
 asserted the duty of the free proclamation, and the value of 
 the truth as proclaimed to all — that all may through it be 
 brought to " hope." Again (VII. 6) it is declared that the 
 ordinances of the New Covenant differ from those of the 
 Old, in that the Gospel is held forth in them '' in more full- 
 ness, evidence and spiritual efficacy to all nations " — cer- 
 tainly a broad enough basis for any preaching. But the 
 Confession goes further than this, declaring with the great- 
 est explicitness (YII. 3) that the Lord has '^freely offered 
 unto sinners life .and salvation hy Jesus Christy requiring 
 of them faith in him that they may he savedP It may be 
 asserted, without fear of successful contradiction, that this 
 Section 3 of the seventh chapter actually contains all that 
 Dr. Yan Dyke asks, i. e.^ a full recognition of the universal, 
 sufficient provision and the free offer of salvation to all, 
 alongside of the statement of its special designation for the 
 elect, and I do not see what need there is for a repetition of 
 it elsewhere. Nay, it may even be maintained that we al- 
 ready have in the third chapter itself all the recognition of 
 this freedom of proclamation which is appropriate in that 
 place, it being not only declared in the opening of it that 
 God's decree does not supersede man's liberty or responsi- 
 bility, but also commanded at the end that the doctrine of 
 predestination be not so preached as to deter man from 
 seeking salvation, but only so as to encourage the seekers 
 with the assurance that though it be they w^ho are working 
 out their own salvation with fear and trembling, yet it is God 
 who is working in them both the willing and the doing ac- 
 cording to His own good pleasure. The Confession requires 
 that predestination be so preached " that men attending the 
 will of God revealed in his word [there is the free offer], 
 and yielding obedience thereunto [there is the recognition 
 
CONFESSIONAL REVISION. 61 
 
 of personal respousibilitj], may, from the certainty of their 
 effectual vocation [there is the recognition of God's hand in 
 what is experienced only as their own work], be assured of 
 their eternal election [there is the encouragement to further 
 oifort]." No w^onder the splendid sentence follow^s : ^' So 
 sliall this doctrine afford matter of praise, reverence, and ad- 
 miration of God, and of humility, diligence, and abundant 
 consolation to all that sincerely obey the Gospel." The or- 
 der here is, (1) hear the Gospel, (2) obey it, (3) be encour- 
 aged and comforted, because God's hand is certainly in it ; 
 and that is (1) free proclamation of the word ; (2) responsi- 
 bility in accepting it ; (3) praise to and confidence in God 
 for His blessed work in us. I cannot, then, think the Con- 
 fession in need of the third improvement which Dr. Yan 
 Dyke proposes. It has it already spread over its pages and, 
 especially in VI. 3, explicitly stated. 
 
 In closing, then, I reiterate that I cannot but feel that 
 the Confession, if it is to be judged by these three well- 
 chosen examples, must be adjudged to be in no need of re- 
 vision. And I cannot help noting that all of them seem to 
 grow out of misapprehension of wdiat the Confession does 
 teach and how it teaches it. Why not so revise it as to 
 make such misapprehension impossible, then ? I can only 
 reply that no document can be framed which is incapable 
 of being misapprehended by the careless reader, and I am 
 bound to say that, in my judgment, the Confession cannot 
 be misapprehended in these points when carefully read. 
 Most of the presently urged objections have arisen prima- 
 rily in the minds of enemies of Calvinism, whose misappre- 
 hension (or misrepresentation) was a foregone conclusion, and 
 have, by dint of much proclamation, been conveyed from 
 them to us — for the best of us are not proof against outside 
 influences. We have tested assertions of this kind, not as 
 we should, by grounded and consecutive study of the whole 
 
02 CONFESSIONAL REVISION. 
 
 dociiineiit, but by momentary adversion to the passages 
 specially attacked, with our minds full of the attack. And 
 so we have seen the sense in them which we were sent to 
 look for. The remedy is not to revise the Confession in 
 the hope of rendering misapprehension of it imjDossible, but 
 to revise our study of the Confession, in the hope of cor- 
 rectly apprehending it. What the Confession needs is not 
 revision, but study. And the present agitation will have 
 been a boon to the Church, however it eventuates, if it 
 brings the Confession even more into the minds of our 
 membership ; if it applies its forms of sound words to oiu- 
 conceptions of doctrine, and lays its devout spirit alongside 
 of our aspirations heavenward. For the Confession is not 
 only the soundest, sweetest, most exact and moderate state- 
 ment of doctrine ever framed. It is a revival document. 
 It was framed by revivalists, in a revival age. And it bears 
 a revival spirit in its bosom. He who feeds on it will find, 
 not only his thought quickened and his intellectual appre- 
 hension clarified, but his heart warmed and his spirit turned 
 toward God. 
 
 Benjamin B. Warfield. 
 
X. 
 
 DR. VAN DYKE'S EEPLY TO PEOF. WAE- 
 FIELD. 
 
 Dr. Waefielb's answer to my article in the Herald and 
 Presbyter for July 31st, contains nuicli excellent tlieologiz- 
 ing, and is marked by tlie author's eminent ability. It 
 must be confessed, however, that the pleasure which comes 
 to me with everything from his affluent pen, is somewhat 
 spoiled, in this instance, by his bearing toward those he op- 
 poses, and especially by the way in which he accounts for 
 their desire to have the Confession revised. In the follow- 
 ing extracts the italics are mine. " Most of the presently 
 urged objections [to the Confession] have arisen primarily 
 in the minds of e7iemies of Calvinism^ whose misappre- 
 hension or misrepresentation was a foregone conclusion, 
 and have, by dint of much proclamation, been conveyed 
 from them to its — for the best of us are not proof against 
 outside influences. We have tested assertions of this kind, 
 not as we should, by grounded and consecutive study of ihQ 
 whole document, but by momentary adversion to the pas- 
 sages especially attacked, with our minds full of the attach. 
 And so we have seen the sense in them which we were sent 
 to loolcfor. The remedy is not to revise the Confession in 
 the hope of rendering misapprehension of it impossible, 
 but to revise our study of the Confession in the hope of 
 correctly ajjprehending itP By the courteous "we" in 
 this passage the author evidently means the advocates of re- 
 vision. And who are the men and brethren thus repre- 
 
 (63) 
 
64 CONFESSIONAL REVISION. 
 
 sented as taking their cue from the enemies of Calvinism, 
 and ignorantlj railing at the things thej understand not ? 
 They are not only the members of the fifteen presbyteries 
 who have formally asked for the revision, and are not likely 
 to be satisfied with being sent back to their books. To tliese 
 must be added all who have avowed themselves in favor of 
 the movement, or may yet take part in its advancement. 
 Nor can we confine our view to the ministers and members 
 of our own Church. The Presbyterian Church of Eng- 
 land, after having lain at the point of death for more than 
 a century, has felt constrained in the day of her revival, 
 and as an essential condition of her continued hfe, to frame 
 a new and simpler creed, which, in all that constitutes the 
 real excellence of the old Confession, will not suffer by a 
 candid comparison with it. The United Presbyterian 
 Church of Scotland, with great unanimity, has put forth 
 an orthodox and admirable declarative statement, practi- 
 cally amending the Confession in the very points under 
 discussion among us. The Free Church of Scotland is 
 moving in the same direction. I feel sure that when he 
 fully considers these facts, which in the heat of debate he 
 seems to have overlooked. Dr. Warfield will revise his con- 
 clusions in regard to the causes which underlie the move- 
 ment toward Confessional revision. It is too large to be 
 ascribed to weakness or to ignorance. And I am equally 
 sure that when we extend our views beyond the narrow 
 and fading horizon bounded by the memories of the civil 
 war in this country, the proposed revision will harmonize 
 with the desire for Presbyterian unity, if not with some 
 particular effort for organic union. 
 
 In the quiet woods where Dr. Warfield's articles have 
 overtaken me, having no books bearing upon the subject 
 but the Bible and the Confession, I have taken the remedy 
 he prescribes, and read the Confession with the aid of his 
 
CONFESSIONAL REVISION. 65 
 
 expositions ; but if the desire for revision be an evil disease, 
 I liave grown nothing better, but rather worse. It may be 
 assumed, perhaps without presumption, that in sincerity of 
 purpose, loyalty to tlie Calvinistic system of doctrine, and 
 ability to comprehend our Confession, my mind is up to 
 the average of the members, ruling elders, and pastors of 
 our Church. If, after a lifetime familiarity with its teach- 
 ings, I so grievously misapprehend the meaning of the Con- 
 fession as to desire amendments which would narrow its 
 scope, mar its beauty, and throw its whole logical order 
 into confusion, is itj after all, so " admirably clear " upon 
 tlie points under consideration as it is represented ? 
 
 Before coming to the renewed discussion of these points, 
 I must correct two or three mistakes in regard to my views, 
 into which Dr. Warfield has unconsciously fallen. The 
 first is small in itself, but puts me in an attitude which I 
 am not willing to sustain. Dr. Warfield quotes, as from 
 me, the phrase " for himself and as many as will adhere to 
 him?'' I cannot recall, nor find by diligent search, such an 
 expression in any article from my pen. Perhaps the quo- 
 tation-marks are a mistake of the printer. My opponent 
 is further mistaken in supposing that I assent to the propo- 
 sition that " revision is not necessary in order to ease the 
 consciences of our office-bearers in accepting the Confes- 
 sion." If I have not attacked this statement at length, my 
 dissent from it has been often intimated, and is now em- 
 phatically repeated. But the most serious mistake is the 
 broad assertion that the Confession, as it now stands, " con- 
 fessedly brings the system we profess to adequate expres- 
 sion." If this were so, what show of reason would there 
 be for advocating a revision? And what sort of a debate 
 is that in which the main point in controversy is assumed, 
 on one side, as granted ? The advocates of revision, while 
 they admit and insist as strenuously as their opponents. 
 
66 CONFESSIOJSTAL REVISION. 
 
 that the Confession contains the system of doctrine taught 
 in the Holy Scriptures, contend timt it is inadequate ; that 
 is to say, not on the square with the Scriptures in some of 
 its doctrinal statements. Speaking for myself, I am in 
 favor of revision (1) because as an exposition of Scripture 
 the Confession is excessive on some points and deficient on 
 others ; (2) because by its overstatements and omissions it 
 puts the Presbyterian Church in a false light before the 
 Christian world outside of our own bounds, and gives oc- 
 casion for misunderstandings which could easily be re- 
 moved ; (3) because it separates our theologians from our 
 people by obscure passages which a change in phraseology 
 would make plain without impairing the integrity of any 
 essential doctrine ; (4) because it puts an unnecessary strain 
 upon the consciences of some of our office-bearers who are 
 just as sound in the faith, though not as learned, as the 
 opponents of revision ; and especially upon the consciences 
 of those who, by their training and office, are " repi'esent- 
 atives of the people "; (5) because as a dead law upon the 
 statute-book weakens the force of all law, the rejected 
 statements of the Confession impair its authority as a 
 standard of orthodoxy and its strength as a bond of union ; 
 (6) because in persuading our brightest young men to enter 
 the ministry, and our best laymen to accept the eldership, 
 notwithstanding their scruples about adopting the Confes- 
 sion, the freeness of the terms of subscription is insisted 
 upon until our liberty is in danger of degenerating into 
 license ; and finally, (7) because some of the leading oppo- 
 nents of revision advocate, as its alternative, such a loosen- 
 ing of the terms of subscription as w^ill make the old 
 Confession nothing more than a historic monument. 
 
 The advocates of revision have not undertaken to do it. 
 They have suggested amendments simply to show that the 
 Confession can be improved, not in its system of doctrine, 
 
CONFESSIONAL REVISION. 67 
 
 but in its doctrinal statements. They have not insisted 
 upon the precise form of these amendments. Certainly I 
 have not attempted to revise the Confession, nor to show 
 in detail how it should be done. With this understanding, 
 speaking only for myself, I am willing to stake the issue 
 upon the three positions Dr. Warfield attacks. This intro- 
 duction is so long that it will be better to reserve my 
 defense of these three positions for another article. 
 
 II. 
 The careful reader of Dr. Warfield's articles will observe 
 that he begins his attack upon the proposed amendments of 
 the Confession by adopting an amendment of his own. 
 The third chapter, to which so much of this discussion re- 
 lates, is entitled " Of God's Eternal Decreed This title is 
 the key to the interpretation hanging at the door. But 
 Dr. Warfield quotes it thus : " Of God's Eternal Decrees^ 
 This, of course, was not done with the intention of amend- 
 ing it. l^either is it a slip of the pen or a t}^ographical 
 error, for the same mistake crops out repeatedly in his 
 whole article, and may fairly be called an unconscious ad- 
 justment of the subject to the exigencies of the argument. 
 The argument on his side hinges upon the assumption that 
 the decree of God, as defined in this chapter, is not singu^ 
 lar, but plural. He insists upon the distinction between 
 negative reprobation and positive reprobation ; that is, be- 
 tween pretention or the purpose of God to pass by the 
 non-elect, and His purpose to punish them for their sins ; 
 the first being " an absolute decree of God's most free and 
 sovereign will, without respect to any disposition in the 
 creature." He quotes and approves the foregoing sentence 
 from Dr. Arrowsmith, and refers to the writings of other 
 Westminster divines to show that the Assembly " had in 
 mind " this distinction between negative and positive rep- 
 
68 CONFESSIONAL EEVISION. 
 
 robation. But the truth is, the mind of the Assembly 
 was very much divided in regard to this third chapter, and 
 the best evidence of what was in their minds is the fact, 
 strangely overlooked by Dr. AYarfield, that, after a long 
 and tough debate, the title of it was settled in the singular 
 number. This decision is rigidly adhered to. It underlies 
 the whole chapter, and must underlie its interpretation. 
 '' The most wise and holy counsel of his own will " in Sec- 
 tion 1 is changed in Section 3 to " the decree of God," and. 
 in Section 5, to "his eternal and immutable purpose"; but 
 in this interchange of synonymous terms the singular form 
 is carefully preserved. The decree of God by which Sec- 
 tion 3 says "some men and angels are predestinated to 
 everlasting life, and others foreordained to everlasting 
 death," is one and the same with " the most wise and holy 
 counsel of his own will," whereby He has " unchangeably 
 ordained whatsoever comes to pass." This one counsel, 
 decree, or purpose must therefore include not only the pret- 
 ention of the non-elect, but their condemnation and pun- 
 ishment ; for the predestination, both of the elect to life 
 and of the non-elect to death, is the one expression of the 
 one purpose or counsel of God's will whereby He has fore- 
 ordained " whatsoever comes to pass." This is the theory 
 of the third chapter. It recognizes no distinction between 
 negative and positive reprobation. The counsel, pur- 
 pose, or decree by which the elect are chosen, and the non- 
 elect passed by, includes at the same time and upon the 
 same ground the destiny of both classes, and "all the 
 means thereunto." By changing the title of the chapter to 
 " God's eternal decrees," and interpreting it upon that theory, 
 Dr. TVarfield has made liimself liable to the same advice 
 he gives to others — to go back and study his Confession. 
 
 There is a marked difference in the treatment of this 
 subject between the Confession and the Catechisms. In 
 
CONFESSIONAL REVISION. 69 
 
 the latter tlie one decree or purpose is spoken of as the de- 
 crees of God, and as " the wise, free, and holy acts of the 
 counsel of his will." And these acts of the divine will are 
 further represented as embodied in two covenants : the one, 
 the covenant of life, established '* when God had created 
 man," and the other the covenant of grace, entered into in 
 full view of the fact that " all mankind by the fall had 
 lost communion with God, and were under his wrath and 
 curse" (Shorter Catechism, Questions 12, 19, 20; Larger 
 Catechism, Questions 12, 30, 32). We will not discuss now 
 the significance of these differences, except to observe that 
 they clearly indicate a difference of opinion in the West- 
 minster Assembly which these varied statements were in- 
 tended to compromise. There were then, as now, two op- 
 posing theories in regard to the relation of God's eternal 
 decree to the salvation or perdition of men, which, for the 
 sake of unlearned readers, it may be well to explain in sim- 
 ple language. 
 
 The first maintains that God predestinates or foreordains 
 men to life or to death, not as created and fallen, but sim- 
 ply as creatable and fallible, and without regard to their 
 condition or deserts as sinners ; or, in the language of Dr. 
 Arrowsmith, which Dr. Warfield quotes with approbation, 
 by " an absolute decree of liis free and sovereign will, with- 
 out respect to any disposition in the creatures." This theo- 
 ry is called " supralapsarian," which signifies hefore^ or 
 (il)ove^ the fall. There is no doubt that this theory was 
 lield by many in the Westminster Assembly, especially 
 among the Independents, who constituted the majority, 
 and that it reached its legitimate conclusion and climax 
 among their descendants in Xew England, in the old 
 maxim, of which we heard so much in our youth, that "a 
 man must be wiUing to be damned for the glory of Go(] 
 before he can be saved." 
 
70 CONFESSIONAL REVISION. 
 
 The second theory maintains that men are predestinated 
 to hf e or to death as fallen creatures ; that the elect are 
 chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father 
 in Jesus Christ, through sanctilication of the Spirit (Eph. i. 
 4 ; 1 Peter i. 2), and that the non-elect are left to the fore- 
 seen consequences of their own sin, which sin " God was 
 pleased, according to his wise and holy counsel, to permit, 
 having purposed to order it to his own glory " (Confession, 
 Chap. YI., Sec. 1), and which consequences " had no less 
 been certain, unforeseen." This theory is called " sublap- 
 sarian," which signifies afte7\ or under ^ the fall. There 
 can be no doubt that this theory is distinctly recognized 
 and taught in the familiar language of the Shorter Cate- 
 chism, w^hich declares that God "did not leave all mankind 
 to perish in the estate of sin and misery" into which the 
 fall had brought them ; but " having of his mere good 
 pleasure from all eternity elected some to everlasting life, 
 did enter into a covenant of grace to deliver them out of 
 the estate of sin and misery, and to bring them into an 
 estate of salvation by a Redeemer." There can be just as 
 little doubt that this theory has always prevailed in the 
 Presbyterian Church of this country. Dr. A. A. Hodge, 
 in his " Outlines of Theology," admits that the " supralap- 
 sarian " is the most logical theory according to the ordinary 
 rules of human judgment. But he proceeds to show that 
 these rules cannot be applied to the mysteries of revelation ; 
 that the supralapsarian theory is unscriptural ; that the elect 
 are chosen and the non-elect passed by, out of the number 
 of fallen and actually sinful men ; that predestination in- 
 cludes reprobation in both its negative and positive aspects, 
 and that to represent God as reprobating the non-elect by a 
 sovereign act, without respect to the fact that they are sin- 
 ners, is to impeach the righteousness of God. I do not 
 pretend to quote him witli verbal accuracy, but feel sure 
 
CONFESSIONAL REVISION. 71 
 
 that I do not misrepresent his meaning. From his " Consen- 
 sus of the Reformed Creeds," I quoted in the Herald and 
 Presbyter of July 31st, the following sentence: "It is no 
 ]xirt of the reformed faith that God created men in order 
 to damn thein, nor that His treatment of the lost is to be 
 referred to His sovereign will. He condemns men only as 
 a judge for their sins to the pi'aise of His glorious justice " 
 {Presbyterian Beview, vol. v., p. 296). In repeating 
 this passage Dr. Warfield omits the italicised clause. Per- 
 haps the disjunctive '^ nor " warrants his doing so. But 
 the omitted phrase, " that God created men in order to 
 damn them," is the popular and just description of the 
 " supralapsarian " theory, which it was evidently Dr. 
 Hodge's intention to repudiate and condemn as no part of 
 the reformed faith. The use Dr. Warlield makes of the 
 remainder of the passage is a refined subtlety I cannot ac- 
 cept. He tells us that " preteritiou," or the passing by of 
 the non-elect, is no part of their treatment. Now, I will 
 not dispute with my learned opponent about the meaning 
 of a word, but, illustrating divine things by human — which 
 is the only way we can apprehend them — if I see two men 
 drowning, and having the ability to save both, resolve to 
 save one and not the other, by that resolution I have 
 treated the other in a way that cannot be justified by my 
 simple resolution. And tliough we are not able, and are 
 not required, to " justify the ways of God to men " in this 
 particular, wc have no warrant in Scripture or in reason to 
 refer it simply to the sovereignty of His will. 
 
 It may be true, at; Dr. Warlield affirms, that " the fact 
 that men are sinners does not affect the sovereignty of pret- 
 eritiou "; but^ then, sovereignty is not the only attribute 
 of the divine will— which is bu*^ another name for God^s 
 whole nature in action. He is holy, just, and merciful, as 
 well as sovereign, and these attributes belong to every act 
 
72 CONFESSIONAL REVISION. 
 
 of II is will, and every purpose wLicli determines those 
 acts ; in short, they pervade and control every part and 
 phase of that one comprehensive decree which includes 
 '' whatsoever comes to pass." To say that preterition is 
 "an absolute decree of God's most free and sovereign will, 
 without respect to any disposition in the creature,'' is to 
 say, in other words, that God creates men in order to damn 
 them. It is true, and I devoutly believe, that the elect 
 " are chosen in Christ out of God's mere free grace and 
 love, without any foresight of faith, or any other thing in 
 the creature, as conditions, or causes, moving him there- 
 unto " (Chap. III., Sec. 5). But even if we admit the 
 inference that the foreseen sins of the non-elect are not the 
 moving cause of their being passed by, it by no means fol- 
 low^s that preterition is "w^ithout respect to any disposition 
 in the creature." There are necessary conditions which 
 are not moving causes. Aside from its theological bearing, 
 the " supralapsarian " theory is founded on an abuse of 
 human language, and imposes impossible conditions on 
 human thought. To say that God decrees to save some, 
 and not to save others, -without respect to the fact that they 
 are all sinners, lost and ruined in the fall, is about as 
 reasonable as it would be to say that the humane society 
 had resolved to save some, and not to save others, from 
 drowning, without respect to the fact of their being in the 
 w^ater. The Scripture says that " we are chosen in Christ 
 Jesus that ^ve might become holy and without blame." 
 We must, therefore, have been considered as unholy and 
 hlamecMe when we w^ere chosen. 
 
 Now, let us apply these principles to the revision of the 
 third chapter of the Confession. The first and second sec- 
 tions are complete in themselves — "express and admira- 
 ble." Though I do not see in them all the sweetness and 
 revival influences which Dr. Warfield sees, my intellect 
 
CONFESSIONAL REVISION. 73 
 
 submits to, and my heart approves, the majesty of their 
 truth, especially when I read them in the light of the 
 Catechism, and with the aid of the distinction between 
 God's permissive and active decrees (Larger Catechism, Q. 
 19). But the third section, regarded as an independent 
 jiroposition, I utterly reject. It is " supralapsarian." It is 
 out of harmony with the general teaching of onr Stand- 
 ai'ds. It is not believable to most of our ministers and 
 people, except as we read into it what I propose to insert 
 as a permanent amendment, so that its concluding clause 
 will read : " And others foreordained, for their sins, to 
 everlasting death." It is true that this little phrase, so big 
 with meaning, occurs in the seventh section, and if that 
 section is retained the phrase would be repeated. I fail to 
 see, however, that this repetition would mar the beauty of 
 the chapter, or create such a horrible confusion in its log- 
 ical order, as Dr. Warfield apprehends. Clearness of mean- 
 ing is the first quality of a logical order and of a good 
 style. It is ahvays better to repeat than to run the risk of 
 being misunderstood. But I propose to make this amend- 
 ment of the third section in connection with the proposal 
 to omit the fourth and seventh sections entirely. These 
 sections contain inferences from the doctrine of the chapter 
 which, however logical, are not essential parts of the doc- 
 trine itself, and put a stumbling-block in the way of many 
 wlio thoroughly believe that doctrine. There are a multi- 
 tude of such inferences, which, if they were all put into 
 ■'ir Confession, would make every chapter as long as a book 
 of Calvin's " Institutes," and narrow the document in an 
 inverse ratio to its enlargement. I further propose to sup- 
 ply the places of the omitted sections by some such state- 
 ment as the following : '' God's eternal decree hindereth no 
 man from accepting Christ, as He is freely offered to us in 
 the Gospel ; nor ought it to be so construed as to contradict 
 
74 CONFESSIONAL REVISION. 
 
 the declarations of Scripture, tbat Christ is the propitiation 
 for the sins of the whole world, and that God is not willing 
 that any should perish, but that all should come to repent- 
 ance." Now, let any man read this third chapter of the 
 Confession, as thus amended, and if it appears to him that 
 its beauty is marred, its sweetness lessened, its order con- 
 fused, or the integrity of its doctrine impaired by the 
 change, I can only say that both my taste and my ortho 
 doxy differ from his. And so let us agree to differ in the 
 embrace of God's love, and in the exercise of the charity 
 it inspires. I shall be compelled to try the patience of the 
 readers of the Herald and Presbyter by another article. 
 
 III. 
 
 In regard to the phrase, " elect infants dying in infancy " 
 (Chapter X., Section 3), I have taken two positions : that it 
 was adopted as a compromise^ and that it is amliguous. 
 Tlie first is quite unimportant, and would be surrendered, 
 but for Dr. Warfield's saying that the proof of it would 
 " confer a great favor upon scholars." With this challenge 
 he lays down a new and strange law as to the competency 
 of testimony in the case. He tells us that " it is nothing 
 to the purpose to show that the Westminster divines dif- 
 fered as to whether all, or only some, who die in infancy 
 are saved," because " there is no evidence that they Jiad 
 this matter in mind when this section was debated." Does 
 he forget that a little while before, when discussing the 
 third chapter of the Confession, he undertook to demon- 
 strate what " the Westminster divines had in mind," by 
 quoting not only from their works, but from the works of 
 men who lived in the preceding age? But let that pass; 
 we are not discussing the principles of logic, nor the ques- 
 tion of personal consistency. 
 
CONFESSIONAL REVISION. 75 
 
 He says again : " There is an absolute uncertainty as to 
 what is meant by the phrase 'elect of infants.' All we 
 know is, that it cannot mean anything inconsistent with 
 both the memorandum that opened the debate and the 
 formulated section which closed it." I answer this astound- 
 ing deliverance, and at the same time present the proof 
 that the fornmlated conclusion was a compromise, by the 
 following quotation from Dr. Mitchell : " This statement 
 (elect infants dying in infancy), it has been averred, neces- 
 sarily implies that there are non-elect infants dying in 
 infancy who are not regenerated and saved. It does not 
 seem to me, when fairly interpreted, to imply any such 
 thing. It might have heen sii^sceptiUe of such an inter- 
 pretation had it heen allowed to stand in the form which 
 it appeal's to have home in the draft first hrought into the 
 Assemhly — elect of infants, not elect infants" ("The West- 
 minster Assembly," p. 397). The meaning of the phrase 
 " elect of infants " is not uncertain, nor is the formulated 
 conclusion of the debate identical with it. That conclusion 
 was evidently a compromise. The word is not used in 
 any offensive sense, but simply to express the idea that the 
 phrase "elect infants" was substituted for "elect of in- 
 fants," after long debate, to bring together and cover the 
 conflicting opinions that cdl dying infants are saved, and 
 that only some of them are saved. It is, therefore, amhig- 
 iious ; it may be interpreted either way, and was so in- 
 tended to be. Dr. Warfield admits this, and, indeed, it is 
 the very ground upon which he defends the statement of 
 the Confession as it now stands, and says "a thousand times 
 no" to all proposed amendments. For himself, he "be- 
 lieves with all his heart that all dying in infancy are saved, 
 and that he can prove it from Scripture'''' \ but he would 
 not have his own faith, and what Dr. Hodge declares to be 
 the common faith of the Protestant world, put into tlu^ 
 
76 CONFESSIONAL REVISION. 
 
 Confession, lest it should offend some who may not have 
 '' like precious faith." It is devoutly to be wished that he 
 would consent, in the exercise of the same comprehensive 
 charity, to amend out of the Confession some things which 
 the great majority of the Protestant world and of the Pres- 
 byterian Church do not believe. 
 
 Dr. Wariield's labored argument to show that the Con- 
 fession, as it now stands, "does not necessarily imply a 
 body of non-elect infants dying in infancy," has no perti- 
 nence to anything that has been said by the advocates of 
 revision. Certainly no such statement has fallen from my 
 pen. But I do say that the ambiguous phrase "elect 
 infants" sanctmis — that is to say, it gives color, plausi- 
 bility, and force to — the popular impression that Presby- 
 terians believe the abhorrent doctrine of the damnation of 
 infants. This is a simple and patent fact. If it were true 
 that all who stumble at the phrase "elect infants" are 
 ignorant or insincere, that is no reason why we should not 
 remove the stumbling-block, when it can be done so easily 
 and without in anywise impairing our doctrine. While 
 the change of elect into all would be most acceptable 
 to me, I do not insist upon this form of the amendment, 
 and am entirely willing to accept the suggestion of Dr. 
 Monfort and others, and let the section read, ''All elect 
 persons who are incapable of being outwardly called," etc. 
 But Dr. Warfield asks, Ctd bono f — what's the use of any 
 amendment ? Answer : (1) It mil put away a bone of con- 
 tention and a rock of offence. (2) It will silence gainsay- 
 ing and remove reproach. (3) It will bring comfort to 
 tender consciences and sorrowful hearts. (4) It will re- 
 lieve our theologians from the onerous task of repeating to 
 successive generations the same old explanations, which, to 
 the popular mind, do not explain, but leave the problem 
 as dark as it was before. "Elect infants" is not a Bible 
 
CONFESSIOIfl^AL REVISION. 77 
 
 phrase. It belongs to the cloister. Let it be handed over 
 to the ecclesiastical museum. 
 
 We come now to the third, and, in my judgment, the 
 most important amendment suggested to show the necessity 
 for revision. It refers to a radical defect in the Confession, 
 considered as a whole, and in regard to its suitableness to be 
 the banner and symbol of the Church in this pre-eminently 
 missionary age, as distinguished from the age of the West- 
 minster Assembly. Of course, we all believe — if we use 
 words accurately — in a definite atonement. The atonement 
 is limited, in fact, to those who receive it, X$ut Christ did 
 more than make an atonement. He offered a sacrifice and 
 satisfaction to divine justice which is infinite in its own na- 
 ture, and as an expression of God's love for the whole world. 
 From that love no indi\adual of the human race, elect or 
 non-elect, is excluded. I do not believe that God hated 
 Esau (Rom. ix. 13), or that that Christ who is the express 
 image of the Father, hated the reprobate inhabitants of 
 Jerusalem over whom He wept, in any other sense than that 
 in which we are required to "hate father and mother" in 
 order to be His disciples. I^ow, I aflSrm, and challenge proof 
 to the contrary, that our Confession of Faith — excellent and 
 admirable as it is in other respects — does not contain one 
 declaration of the infinite love of God for all men as it is re- 
 vealed in the Gospel, or one declaration of the infinite full- 
 ness of the Gospel salvation as sufficient, suitable, and offered 
 to all sinners, or one declaration which clearly comprehends, 
 or even alludes to, the teaching of Scripture on these points. 
 And if it contains no one declaration which covers all, or any, 
 of these points, then it does not cover them as a whole, for the 
 whole is no greater than the sum of its parts. Dr. Warfield's an- 
 swer to this charge is a remarkable example of ability to draw 
 conclusions which are not in the premises. Let me beg the 
 patience of our readers for a review of liis arguments in detail. 
 
78 CONFESSIONAL REVISION. 
 
 1. In tlie proposed amendment on the subject we are now 
 considering, it is affirmed that " God's eternal decree hinders 
 no one from accepting Christ as He is freely offered to all 
 sinners in the Gospel." Dr. Warfield meets this by quot- 
 ing from Chap. III., Sec. 1, the declaration that " God is 
 not the author of sin," and asks, triumphantly : " Would it 
 not be a sin to refuse the Gospel ? " I reply, that if a man 
 is hindered by a divine decree from accepting the Gospel, 
 he cannot refuse it, and there would be no sin in his not 
 doing what Ahnighty God prevented him from doing. To 
 be hindered 'from accepting, and to reftise to accept, are 
 not synonymous, or even reconcilable, terms. This vicious 
 circle does not touch the question. The statement that 
 " no violence is offered to the will of the creature " comes 
 nearer the point. It implies that God's decree does not 
 hinder any man's acceptance of the Gospel. This has 
 never been denied by me ; but what I contend for is, that 
 a truth so vital ought to be in the Confession, not merely 
 as an inference which a logician can draw out of it, but as 
 a clear and explicit statement which he who runs may read. 
 
 2. Dr. Warfield affirms that the Confession teaches that 
 " God freely proclaims the Gospel to all, as we shall pres- 
 ently see." And then he proceeds to cite passages in which 
 the word " all," or any equivalent of it, does not occur, ex- 
 cept in one, and there its antecedent and equivalent is " na- 
 tions," and not every sinner of the human race. He quotes 
 from Chapter I., Section 8, the declaration that the Scrip- 
 tures " are to be translated into the language of evei'y na- 
 tion into which they come ; that the word of God, dwelling 
 plentifully in all, they may worship him in an acceptable 
 manner, and, through patience and comfort of the Scrip- 
 tures, may have hope." But does this prove that the Con- 
 fession contains " one declaration which clearly comprehends 
 or alludes to the teaching of Scripture on the sufficient pro- 
 
CONFESSIONAL REVISION. 79 
 
 vision and free proclamation of salvation for all men " ? As 
 well might we insist that the Articles of the Methodist 
 Church (if thev teach the duty of translating the Scriptures 
 into all languages, as I believe they do) contain a clear 
 declaration of the Calvinistic system of doctrine which, as 
 w^e believe, is taught in the Holy Scriptures. 
 
 3. He quotes again from Chapter YII., Section G, the 
 declaration that " the ordinances of the new covenant differ 
 from those of the old in that the Gospel is held forth in 
 them in more fullness, evidence, and spiritual efficacy to all 
 nations." On this I will make no connnent. 
 
 4. The last citation which he makes, in his judgment 
 settles the question. He says : " It may be asserted, with- 
 out fear of successful contradiction, that this Section 3 of 
 Chapter YII. contains all that Dr. Yan Dyke asks, i. e.^ a 
 full recognition of the universal sufficient jpro^ision and 
 the free offer of salvation to allP But does it ? Let us 
 quote the whole section : " Mail, by his fall having made 
 himself incapable of life by that covenant [the covenant of 
 works], the Lord was pleased to make a second, commonly 
 called the covenant of grace, wherein he freely offered 
 unto sinners life and salvation by Jesus Christ, requiring 
 of them faith in him that they may be saved, promising 
 to give unto all those that are ordained unto life the Lloly 
 Spirit to make them willing to believe." Now, on the face 
 of it, this section says not one word about, nor makes the 
 least allusion to, the universal ^w^oiQwi provision of salva- 
 tion for all. It does not even affirm that the Gospel is of- 
 fered to all sinners. But let us look a little further and 
 
 see what this covenant is wherein life and salvation are 
 freely offered to sinners. Surely the offers here spoken of 
 cannot go beyond the intent and purpose of the covenant 
 loherein they are made, even as the stream cannot rise 
 higher than its fountain. The second covenant is thus de- 
 
80 CONFESSIONAL REVISION. 
 
 scribed iu the Shorter Catechisra, Q. 20: "God, having 
 out of his mere good pleasure from all eternity, elected 
 some to everlasting life, did enter into a covenant of grace 
 to deliver them out of the estate of sin and misery, and to 
 bring them into an estate of salvation by a Eedeemer." 
 Xow, I submit to Dr. Warfield that he has not made out 
 his case. Neither this nor any other section of the Con- 
 fession which he has quoted contains the declarations in re- 
 gard to which I Lave said the Confession is deficient. 
 
 It is hardly needful for .me to say that I thoroughly be- 
 lieve in the special love of God for some — that is, for the 
 elect — and gladly admit that the Confession contains the 
 best statement of this doctrine ever formulated by unin- 
 spired men. But I believe also, and so does Dr. Warfield, 
 in the infinite love of Qodifor all shiners, including the 
 non-elect, even the love that yearned over Ephraim and 
 wept over Jerusalem, and says to all the impenitent, " How 
 often would I have gathered you, and ye would not." As 
 the banner of a missionary Church, and a professed state- 
 ment of the whole system of doctrine taught in the Holy 
 Scriptures, the Confession "ought to contain some clear, ex- 
 plicit, and luminous declaration of a truth which underlies 
 all true preaching of the Gospel and all Christian activity 
 for the conversion of the world. Its deficiency in this re- 
 gard is real and not imaginary. It is far better to admit 
 and seek to amend this defect than to deny or defend it by 
 far-fctclied arguments and doubtful inferences. Some such 
 amendments as I have proposed to the third chapter, which 
 is the proper place to insert it, would neither mar the Con- 
 fession nor impair our orthodoxy. But it would take away 
 a reproach from the name of Calvinism and bring our 
 Standards nearer to the faith, the love, and the zeal of the 
 Church. 
 
 Henrt J. Yan Dyke. 
 
XI. 
 LETTER BY PEOF. SHEDD. 
 
 The question whether the Westminster Confession shall 
 be revised, has been properly referred to the whole Church 
 represented by the Presbyteries. The common sentiment 
 of the denomination must determine the matter. The ex- 
 pression of opinion during the few months prior to the 
 Presbyterial action is, therefore, of consequence. It is de- 
 sirable that it should be a full expression of all varieties of 
 views, and as a contribution toward it, we purpose to assign 
 some reasons why the revision of the Confession is not ex- 
 pedient. 
 
 1. In the first place it is inexpedient, because in its ex- 
 isting form as drawn up by the Westminster Assembly it 
 has met, and well met, all the needs of the Church for the 
 past -two centuries. The Presbyterian Church in the 
 United States since 1700 has passed through a varied and 
 sometimes difficult experience. The controversies in the 
 beginning between the Old and New Lights, and still more 
 the vehement disputes that resulted in the division of the 
 Church in 183Y, have tried the common symbol as severely 
 as it is ever likely to be. But through them all both theo- 
 logical divisions were content ^vith the Confession and Cate- 
 chisms as they stood, and both alike claimed to be true to 
 them. Neither party demanded a revision on any doctrinal 
 points; and both alike found in them a satisfactory expres- 
 sion of their faith. What is there in the Presbyterian 
 Church of to-day that necessitates any different statement 
 of the doctrine of decrees, of atonement, of regeneration, 
 
 (81) 
 
82 CONFESSIONAL KEVISION. 
 
 or of punishment, from tliat accepted bj the Presbyterian 
 Clmrch of 1837 or 1789 ? Are the statements upon these 
 points any more liable to misconception or misrepresenta- 
 tion by non-Calvinists now than they were fifty or a hun- 
 dred years ago ? Are there any more " weak consciences " 
 requiring softening explanations and relaxing clauses in the 
 Church of to-day than in former periods ? And with ref- 
 erence to the allowable differences of theological opinion 
 within the Presbyterian Church, is not a creed that was 
 adopted and defended by Charles Hodge and Albert Barnes 
 sufficiently broad to include all who are really Calvinistic 
 and Presbyterian in belief ? What is there, we repeat, in 
 the condition of the Presbyterian Church of to-day that 
 makes the old Confession of the past two hundred years 
 inadequate as a doctrinal Standard ? All the past successes 
 and victories of Presbyterianism have been accomplished 
 under it. Success in the past is guaranty for success in the 
 future. Is it not better for the Church to work on the 
 very same old base, in the very same straight line ? 
 
 2. Kevision is inexpedient, because the reunion of the 
 two divisions of the Church was founded upon the Confes- 
 sion as it now stands. A proposition to unite the two 
 branches of Presbyterianism by first revising the West- 
 minster documents would have failed, because in the re- 
 vision individual and party preferences would have shown 
 themselves. But when the Standards, pure and simple, 
 were laid down as the only terms of union, the whole mass 
 of Presbyterians flowed together. It is to be feared that if 
 a revision of the Confession should take place, there will 
 be a dissatisfied portion of the Church who will prefer to 
 remain upon the historic foundation ; that the existing 
 harmony will be disturbed ; and that the proposed meas- 
 ures for union with other Presbyterian bodies will fall 
 through. 
 
CONFESSIONAL REVISION. 83 
 
 3. Revision is inexpedient, because it will introduce 
 new difficulties. The explanations will need to be explained. 
 Tlie revision that is called for is said by its more conserva- 
 tive advocates, not to be an alteration of the doctrine of the 
 Confession, but an exj^lanation only. Now good and 
 sufficient explanations of a creed require more space than 
 can be afforded in a concise symbol intended for use in in- 
 ducting officers and members. Such full and careful ex- 
 planations have been made all along from the beginning, 
 and the Presbyterian Board of Publication has issued a 
 large and valuable library of them. I^o one need be in 
 any doubt respecting the meaning of the Confession who 
 will carefully peruse one or more of them. He who is not 
 satisfied with the Westminster doctrine as so explained, will 
 not be satisfied with it at all. But if brief explanations are 
 inserted into the Confession itself, their brevity will inevi- 
 tably expose them to misunderstanding and misconception. 
 Take an illustration. An able minister and divine, whose 
 Calvinism is unimpeachable, suggests that Confession III. 3 
 shall read, "By the decree of God, for the manifestation of 
 His glory, some men and angels are predestinated unto 
 everlasting life, and others foreordained [for their sins] to 
 everlasting death." If the clause in brackets is inserted 
 without further explanation, the article might fairly and 
 naturally be understood to teach that the reason why God 
 passes by a sinner in the bestowment of regenerating grace 
 is the sinner's sin. But St. Paul expressly says that the 
 sinner's sin is not the cause of his non-election to regener- 
 ation. " The children being not yet born, neither having 
 done any good or evil, it was said, the elder shall serve the 
 younger. Esau have I hated" (Pom. x. 11-13). The rea- 
 son for the difference between the elect and non-elect is not 
 the holiness or the sin of either of them, but God's sover- 
 eig7i good pleasure. "He hath mercy on whom He will 
 
84 CONFESSIONAL REVISION. 
 
 have mercy, and whom He will He hardeneth " (Rom. ix. 
 18). An explanation like this, without further explanation 
 such as the proposer would undoubtedly make, would not 
 only contradict Scripture, but change the Calvinistic doc- 
 trine into the Armiuian. The reason for non-election 
 would no longer be secret and sovereign, but known and 
 conditional. All this liability to misconstruction is avoided 
 by the Confession itself as it now stands. For in Confes- 
 sion III. 7, after saying that the " passing by " in the bestow- 
 ment of regenerating grace is an act of God's sovereign 
 pleasure, " whereby He extendeth or withholdeth mercy as 
 He pleaseth," it then adds that " the ordaining to dishonor 
 and wrath^'' is "for sin." Sin is here represented as the 
 reason for the judicial act of punishment, but not for the 
 sovereign act of not regenerating. The only reason for the 
 latter, our Lord gives in His " Even so. Father, for so it 
 seemed good in Thy sight." 
 
 Other illustrations might be given of the difficulty of 
 avoiding misconception when a systematic creed is sought 
 to be explained, particularly in its difficult points, by the 
 brief interpolation of words and clauses. The method is 
 too short. More space is required than can be spared. It 
 is better, therefore, to let a carefully constructed and con- 
 cisely phrased creed like the Westminster stand exactly as 
 it was drawn up by the sixty-nine commissioners, in the 
 five weekly sessions for nearly nine years, and have it ex- 
 plained, qualified, and defended in published treatises, in 
 sermons, and especially in catechetical lectures. Had the 
 ministry been as faithful as it should in years past in 
 catechetical instruction, there would be little difficulty in 
 understanding the Westminster creed. The remedy need- 
 ed is in this direction, not in that of a revision. 
 
 4. Revision is inexpedient, because there is no end to tlie 
 ]>rocess. It is like the letting out of water. The doctrino 
 
CONFESSIONAL REVISION. 85 
 
 of the divine decrees is the particular one selected by the 
 Presbytery whose request has brought the subject of revis- 
 ion before the General Assembly. But this doctrine runs 
 entirely through the Westminster documents, so that if 
 changes were made merely in Chapter III. of the Confession, 
 this chapter would be wholly out of harmony with the re- 
 mainder. Effectual calling, regeneration, perseverance of 
 the saints, are all linked in with the divine decree. The 
 most cursory perusal will show that a revision of the Con- 
 fession on this one subject would amount to an entire re- 
 casting of the creed. 
 
 5. Revision is inexpedient, because it may abridge the 
 liberty of interpretation now afforded by the Confession. 
 As an example of the variety in explanation admitted by 
 the creed as it now stands, take the statement that " God 
 the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, in the beginning, cre- 
 ated or made from nothing the world, and all things there- 
 in, in the space of six days." He who holds the j^atristic 
 view that the days of Genesis were periods, and he who 
 holds the modern opinion that the days were solar, can 
 subscribe to the Westminster statement. But if revised in 
 the interest of either view, the subscriber is shut up to it 
 alone. Another example is found in the statement respect- 
 ing the guilt of Adam's sin. The advocate of natural 
 union, or of representative union, or of both in combina- 
 tion, can find a foothold, provided only that he holds to the 
 penal nature of the first sin. Another instance is the article 
 concerning " elect infants." As the tenet was formulated 
 by the Assembly, it may mean (a) that all infants dying in 
 infancy are elected as a class, some being saved by cove- 
 nanted mercy, and some by uncovenanted mercy ; (h) that 
 all infants dying in infancy are elected as a class — all alike, 
 those within the Church and those outside of it, being 
 saved by divine mercy, nothing being said of the covenant; 
 
86 CONFESSIONAL KEVISION. 
 
 {c) that some dying infants are elect, and some non-elect. 
 Probably each of these opinions had its representatives in 
 the Assembly, and hence the indefinite form of the state- 
 ment. The writer regards the first-mentioned view as best 
 supported by Scripture and the analogy of faith ; but there 
 are many who advocate the second view, and perhaps there 
 may be some who hold the third. The liberty of opinion 
 now conceded by the Confession on a subject respecting 
 which the Scripture data are few, would be ill exchanged 
 for a stricter statement that would admit of but one mean- 
 ing. 
 
 6. Eevision is inexpedient, because the Westminster Con- 
 fession, as it now reads, is a sufiiciently broad and liberal 
 creed. We do not say that it is sufficiently broad and lib- 
 eral for every man and every denomination ; but it is as 
 broad and liberal for a Calvinist as any Calvinist should 
 desire. For whoever professes Calvinism, professes a pre- 
 cise form of doctrine. He expects to keep within definite 
 metes and bounds ; he is not one of those religionists who 
 start from no premises, and come to no conclusions, and 
 hold no tenets. The Presbyterian Church is a Calvinistic 
 Church. It will be the beginning of its decline, as it 
 already has been of some Calvinistic denominations, when 
 it begins to swerve from this dogmatic position. It must 
 tlierefore be distinguished among the Churches for doc- 
 trinal consistency, comprehensiveness, and firmness. But 
 inside of the metes and bounds estabhshed by divine reve- 
 lation, and to which it has voluntarily confined itself, it has 
 a liberty that is as large as the kingdom of God. It cannot 
 get outside of that kingdom, and should not desire to. But 
 within it, it is as free to career as a ship in the ocean, as an 
 eagle in the air. Yet the ship cannot sail beyond the 
 ocean, nor the eagle fly beyond the sky. Liberty within 
 the immeasurable bounds and limits of God's truth, is the 
 
CONFESSIONAL REVISION. 87 
 
 only true liberty. All else is license. The Westminster 
 Confession, exactly as it now reads, has been the creed of 
 as free and enlarged intellects as ever lived on earth. The 
 substance of it Avas the strong and fertile root of the two 
 freest movements in modern history — that of the Protestant 
 Reformation and that of Republican Government. No 
 Presbyterian should complain that the creed of his Church 
 is narrow and stifling. 
 
 And here we notice an objection urged against the Con- 
 fession relative to the tenet of limited redemption. It is 
 said that it is not sufficiently broad and liberal in announc- 
 ing the boundless compassion of God toward all men hidis- 
 criminately, and in inviting all men without exception to 
 cast themselves upon it. But read and ponder the follow- 
 ing statements : 
 
 " Repentance unto life is an evangelical grace, the doctrine whereof 
 is to be preached in season and out of season by every minister of the 
 Gospel, as well as that of faith in Christ. It is every man's duty to 
 endeavor to repent of his particular sins particularly. Every man is 
 bound to make private confession of his sins to God, praying for the 
 pardon thereof, upon which, and the forsaking of them, he shall find 
 mercy. Prayer with thanksgiving being one special part of religious 
 worship, is by God required of all men. Prayer is to be made for all 
 sorts of men living, or that shall live hereafter, but not for the dead. 
 God is to be worshipped everywhere in spirit and in truth, and in se- 
 cret each one by himself. God in His Word, by a positive moral Com- 
 mandment, binds all men in all ages. The grace of God is manifested 
 in the second covenant, in that He freely provideth and offereth to sin. 
 ners a Mediator, and life and salvation in Him. The ministry of the 
 Gospel testifies that whosoever believes in Christ shall be saved, and 
 excludes none that will come unto Him. God is able to search the 
 heart, hear the requests, pardon the sins, and fulfil the desires of all." 
 
 These declarations, scattered broadcast through the West- 
 minster Confession and Catechisms, teach the universality 
 of the Gospel, except no human creature from the offer of 
 it, and exclude no human creature from its benefits. Their 
 
88 CONFESSIONAL REVISION. 
 
 consistency witli the doctrine of election is assumed, but 
 not explained, in the Confession of Faith. And no revis- 
 ion of this, by the mere interpolation of a few words or 
 clauses, will make the subject any clearer or stop all objec- 
 tions. 
 
 7. Revision is inexpedient, because the Westminster 
 Standards already make full provision for those exceptional 
 cases, on account of which revision is claimed by its advo- 
 cates to be needed. It is said that there are some true be- 
 lievers in the Lord Jesus Christ, who cannot adopt all the 
 Westminster statements, who yet should not be, and actually 
 are not, excluded from the Presbyterian Church ; that there 
 are tender consciences of good men whose scruples are to 
 be respected. But these cases are referred by the Form of 
 Government to the church Session, and power is given to 
 it to receive into membership any person who trusts in the 
 blood of Christ for the remission of sin, although his doc- 
 trinal knowledge and belief may be unsatisfactory on some 
 points. He may stumble at predestination, but if with the 
 publican he cries, " God be merciful to me a sinner," he 
 has the root of the matter in him and is a regenerate child 
 of God. But why should the whole Presbyterian Church 
 revise its entire creed so as to make it fit these exceptional 
 cases? Why should the mountain go to Mohammed? 
 Why should a genuine but deficient evangelical knowledge 
 and experience be set up as the type of doctrine for the 
 wliole denomination? These "babes in Christ" need the 
 education of tlie full and complete system of truth, and 
 should gradually be led up to it, instead of bringing the 
 system down to their level. There is sometimes a miscon- 
 ception at this point. We have seen it stated that the mem- 
 bership of the Presbyterian Church is not required or ex- 
 pected to hold the same doctrine with the officers ; that the 
 pastor, elders, and deacons must accept the Confession of 
 
CONFESSIONAL REVISION. 89 
 
 Faitli '' as containing the system of doctrine taught in the 
 Holy Scriptures,'' but that the congregation need not. But 
 this error arises from confounding the toleration of a defi- 
 ciency with the endorsement of it. Because a church Ses- 
 sion tolerates in a particular person who gives evidence of 
 faith in Christ an error respecting foreordination, or even 
 some abstruse point in the Trinity or the incarnation, it 
 does not thereby endorse the error. It does not sanction 
 his opinion on these subjects, but only endures it, in view 
 of his religious experience on the vital points of faith and 
 repentance, and with the hope that his subsequent growth 
 in knowledge will bring him to the final rejection of it. 
 The Presbyterian Church tolerates theatre-going in some 
 of its members — that is to say, it does not discipline them 
 for it. But it does not formally approve of and sanction 
 theatre-going. A proposition to revise the Confession by 
 inserting a clause to this effect, in order to meet the wishes 
 and practice of theatre-going church members, would be 
 voted down by the Presbyteries. 
 
 The position that the oflScers of a church may have one 
 creed, and the membership another, is untenable. No 
 church could live and thrive upon it. A Trinitarian clergy 
 preaching to an Arian or Socinian membership, would 
 preach to unwilling hearers. And although the difference 
 is not so great and so vital, yet a Calvinistic clergy preach- 
 ing to an Arminian membership, or an Arminian clergy to 
 a Calvinistic membership, would on some points find un- 
 sympathetic auditors. Pastor and people, officers and mem- 
 bers, must be homogeneous in doctrine, in order to a vigor- 
 ous church-life. If, therefore, a certain class of members 
 is received into a church, who do not on all points agree 
 with the Church creed, this is not to be understood as 
 giving the members generally a hberty to depart from the 
 Church creed, or to be a reason for revising it. 
 
90 CONFESSIONAL REVISION. 
 
 The case is different with the officers of the church. 
 There is no exceptional class in this instance. Neither the 
 Session nor the Presbytery have any authority to dispense 
 with the acceptance of any part of tlie Confession of Faith, 
 when a pastor, elder, or deacon is inducted into office. 
 There is no toleration of defective views provided for, when 
 those who are to teach and rule the Church are put into the 
 ministry. And this for the good reason that ministers and 
 elders are expected to be so well indoctrinated, that they 
 ai'e "apt to teach'' and competent to "rule well." Some 
 propose " loose subscription " as a remedy, when candidates 
 of lax or unsettled views present themselves for licensure 
 and ordination. This is demoralizing, and kills all simplic- 
 ity and godly sincerity. Better a thousand times for a 
 denomination to alter its creed, than to allow its ministry 
 to "palter with words in a double meaning"; than to per- 
 mit an Arian subscription to the JSTicene Symbol, an Ar- 
 minian subscription to the A¥estminster Confession, a 
 Calvinistic subscription to the Articles of Wesley, a Ees- 
 torationist subscription to the doctrine of endless punish- 
 ment. 
 
 For these reasons, it seems to us that the proposed re- 
 vision of the Westminster Confession is not wise or ex- 
 pedient. The revision of a denominational creed is a rare 
 occurrence in ecclesiastical history. Commonly a denomi- 
 nation remains from first to last upon the base that was laid 
 for it in the beginning by its fathers and founders. And 
 when revision does occur, it is seldom in the direction of 
 fullness and precision. Usually the alteration is in favor 
 of vague and looser statements. Even slight changes are 
 apt to be followed by greater ones. The disposition to re- 
 vise and alter, needs watching. In an age when the gen- 
 eral drift of the unregenerate world is away from the strong 
 statements of the Hebrew prophets, of Christ and His in- 
 
CONFESSIONAL REVISION. 91 
 
 spired Apostles, it is of the utmost importance that the 
 regenerate Church, in all its denominations, should stand 
 tirm in the old paths, and hold fast to that " Word of God 
 which is sharper than a two-edged sword, piercing even to 
 the dividing asunder of soul and spirit." 
 
 W. G. T. Shedd. 
 
XII. 
 
 DE. ya:^ dyke on peof. shedd's letter 
 
 Whatever Dr. Shedd writes, is lil^e himself : clear and 
 without guile as the cloudless sky. His recent article in 
 tlie Evangelist will be regarded by many as the ablest argu- 
 ment hitherto presented on the negative side of the ques- 
 tion. Keeping constantly in view his admirable example 
 of candor and courtesy, I propose to review his seven rea- 
 sons against the expediency of revising the Confession of 
 Faith. 
 
 1. "In its existing form the Confession has well met all 
 
 the needs of the Church for the past two centuries 
 
 All the past victories and successes of Presbyterianism 
 have been accomplished under it. Success in tlie past, is 
 the guarantee for success in the future." To wliich we 
 answer ; (1) not every sequence is a consequence ; (2) the 
 exclusive connection between the Confession of Faith, es- 
 pecially those portions of the Confession which it is pro- 
 posed to amend, and the past success of the Presbyterian 
 Church, is not very apparent. It is quite possible that the 
 greater part of this success may be due to other causes. 
 The Methodist Church has grown faster than we have. So 
 of late years has the Episcopal Church. Are these results 
 attributable to their rejection of our Confession ? (3). Suc- 
 cess in the past is not the guarantee for success in the 
 future, except so far as the future shall imitate the past in 
 adapting itself to changed conditions. The Presbyterian 
 Chm-ch of Scotland had wonderful success for a century 
 (92; 
 
CONFESSIONAL REVISION. 03 
 
 under her old Confession. She swept Popery out of the 
 land, and set up the Keformed faith. Yet she did not 
 hesitate to lay aside the old, and adopt the Westminster 
 Confession. The Presbyterian Church in this country suc- 
 ceeded well for a hundred years, before she adopted the 
 Westminster Standards, and did not hesitate to revise them, 
 in order to make that adoption possible. The question now 
 before us, is whether another revision has not become 
 necessary, in order to adapt the Confession to the present 
 condition and wants of the Church. To settle this ques- 
 tion upon the principle of letting well enough alone, is not 
 true conservatism, but a blind worshipping of the past, vdth 
 which our fathers seem to have had no sympathy. 
 
 2. " The Peunion of the two divisions of the Church 
 
 was founded on the Confession as it now stands It 
 
 is to be feared that if a revision should take place, there 
 will be a dissatisfied portion of the Church who would pre- 
 fer to remain upon the historic foundation." (1). There 
 is reason to fear that if revision does not take place, there 
 will be a still larger dissatisfied portion of the Church, and 
 thus while we avoid Scylla, we may run into Chary bdis, by 
 keeping the helm down too hard. (2). The revision now 
 proposed is no more radical, and will no more change the 
 foundations, than the revisions already accomplished since 
 the Keunion. The Book of Discipline and the Form of 
 Government are just as historic as the Confession is. (3). 
 Tliere is no indication that the revision now proposed will 
 open the old controversies between the Old and New 
 Schools, which were happily closed by the Reunion. That 
 Reunion was based not on "the Confession as it now 
 stands^'' but upon the Standards as they then vaere, and in- 
 cluded no pledge that these Standards should never be altered. 
 The Standards themselves provide for their own amend- 
 ment; and they have 5^(f?i largely amended since the Reunion. 
 
94 CONFESSIONAL EEVISION. 
 
 3 and 4. Dr. Shedd's third and fourth reasons against re- 
 vision, are but two phases of the same argument. In the 
 tirsthe says it "" will introduce new difficulties : the explana- 
 tions will need to be explained." In the second he says 
 '' Revision is inexpedient, because there is no end to the 
 process; it is like the letting out of water." (1). Yerj 
 well, we admit that there is no end to the process. And so 
 long as the Bible is our supreme standard, to which all hu- 
 man Confessions are subordinate, and so long as men differ 
 in the interpretation of Scripture, there can be no end to the 
 process. It is in that very process that the life of the 
 Church largely consists, under the perpetual guidance of 
 God's providence and Spirit. If it were otherwise, there 
 would be no need of Confessions at all, nor even of theolog- 
 ical seminaries and teachers of divinity. (2). But if Dr. 
 Sliedd means that there is at this time any special risk in 
 revising our creed beyond what existed, for example, in the 
 days of the Westminster Assembly ; if he means that the 
 Presbyterian Church of to-day cannot be trusted to revise 
 her own creed, lest she should break more than she mends, 
 I must beg leave to differ with him entirely. That illustra- 
 tion of the letting out of water, is a good one ; but to my 
 mind, it bears a warning exactly opposite from what it sug- 
 gests to Dr. Shedd. It is better to let the water run in 
 legitimate channels. If we keep the flood-gates screwed 
 down just where the Westminster Assembly left them, the 
 flood-tides of thought, of zeal, and of missionary spirit — in 
 regard to which the Church in our day will suffer nothing 
 by comparison with the Church of two hundred and fifty 
 years ago — may make a way for themselves more sweeping 
 and destructive than any revision under our constitutional 
 restrictions can possibly be. (3). There never has been, 
 and I do not believe there ever will be, a better time for 
 such a revision than the present. The gates of the Ecclesi- 
 
CONFESSIONAL REVISION. 05 
 
 astical Janus are shut. The spirit of peace and the longing 
 for unity are not hindrances, but helps. It would be easy 
 to show that the providential preparation and the divine 
 guidance which have been so largely claimed for the West- 
 minster Assembly, belong as fully and as manifestly to us 
 as to them. 
 
 5. '' Eevision is inexpedient, because it may abridge the 
 liberty of interpretation now afforded by the Confession." 
 In this quotation I have italicised the word may, for that 
 is the point of the whole objection. Dr. Shedd does not 
 affirm that it will abridge the liberty of interpretation, but he 
 gives a timely w^arning when he says that it may. Very well ; 
 let us heed the warning, and see to it that if the revision 
 takes place, it does not restrict the right of private judgment 
 which is now freely exercised by us all. I cannot see any 
 danger of such a result in any of the amendments hitherto 
 proposed. (I). In regard to the six days of creation, some 
 may havq objected to the Confession, under the misappre- 
 hension that it interprets the days to mean periods of twen- 
 ty-four hours ; but when it is understood that the Confession 
 (tlie Catechisms also) simply transfers without expounding 
 the language of Scripture, no advocate of revision will be in 
 favor of amending it at this point. (2). As to "elect in- 
 fants," while for one I would prefer to change the phrase 
 to ''^ all infants," and cannot see that it would narrow the 
 Confession to put into it what the whole Presbyterian 
 Church believes, yet the advocates of revision would be sat- 
 isfied to omit all reference to infants as a special class, and 
 let the section read, " All elect persons who are incapa]:)le of 
 being outwardly called by the ministry of the Word, are 
 saved by Christ through the Spirit, who worketh when, 
 where, and how He pleaseth " (Chap. X., Sec. 3). What 
 restriction of liberty w^ould be involved in this amendment? 
 The advantages gained by getting rid of the strife-produc- 
 
96 CONFESSIONAL REVISION. 
 
 ing ambiguity, " elect infants dying in infancy," are obvious, 
 and need not be repeated. 
 
 6. " The Confession as it now reads is a sufficiently broad 
 and liberal creed ; .... it is as broad and liberal for a 
 Calvinist as any Calvinist should desire." 
 
 Without any discussion of what is meant by hroad and 
 liberal in this connection, I beg leave to say that I am 
 a Calvinist, thoroughly agreeing with Dr. Shedd in all that 
 he says about the importance of a definite creed within the 
 limits of God's truth, and claiming as he does to be as free 
 within those limits as '' a ship on the ocean, or an eagle in 
 the air." But for these very reasons I am in favor of re- 
 vising the Confession, and amending some of its statements. 
 So far as it applies to me, Dr. Shedd is mistaken when he 
 says " an objection is urged against the Confession relative 
 to the tenet of limited Tede7iii])tion^'^ Here again I will 
 not dispute about words. But I believe that redem])tion 
 used as a comprehensive term for the ultimate results of 
 Christ's mediation in behalf of men, is limited in fact to 
 those who, to use Paul's expression, receive the atonement. 
 But I believe also that God's love to men, which prompted 
 the gift of His Son to the world, is unlimited, except by 
 the bounds of the human race, that Christ offered a sacrifice 
 and satisfaction to divine justice for the sins of the whole 
 world ; and that the salvation revealed to us in the Gospel 
 is sufficient for all, adapted to all, and offered to all, so that 
 " no man is lost for the want of an atonement, or because 
 there is any other barrier in the way of his salvation than 
 his own most free and wicked will" (Dr. A. A. Hodge, 
 " Outlines of Theology," p. 420). These statements are 
 abundantly warranted by Scripture. And in regard to 
 them we affirm that our Confession of Faith is sadly de- 
 ficient as a summary of Scripture doctrine. Dr. Shedd has 
 sincerely and ably endeavored to prove the contrary. But 
 
CONFESSIONAL REVISION. 97 
 
 even he has failed ; and what can the man do that conieth 
 after the King? Not one of the fragments he has skilfully 
 woven together out of the Confession, nor all of them com- 
 bined, can be accepted as a declaration of God's infinite 
 love for all men, and of the infinite sufficiency and universal 
 offer of the Gospel. They were not intended, as their con- 
 nection shows, to teach any such doctrine, and they do not 
 teach it. But even if they could be logically construed 
 into such a conclusion, a truth so clearly taught in Scrip- 
 ture, and so vital in its connection w^ith the missionary zeal 
 and preaching of the Church, ought not to be left for theo- 
 logians to deduce out of the Confession ; it ought to be 
 emblazoned on her Standards so clearly that he who runs 
 may read it. 
 
 7. Under his seventh reason. Dr. Shedd inadvertently 
 puts the advocates of revision in a position they are not 
 wilHng to occupy. He says, "Revision is inexpedient, 
 because the Westminster Standards already make full pro- 
 vision for those exceptional cases on account of which re- 
 vision is claimed by its advocates to be needed." No one 
 has asked for revision on account of any exceptional cases. 
 The pleading for exceptional cases is all on the other side — 
 in behalf of some who may hold the supralapsarian theory 
 of God's eternal decree, or the possible damnation of some 
 " infants dying in infancy." Thank God these are excep- 
 tional cases ! When we advocate such an amendment of 
 the third chapter of the Confession as will purge it from 
 all suspicion of teaching that God creates men on purpose 
 to damn them, and such an amendment of the tenth chap- 
 ter as will take away all ])retext for the charge that we be- 
 lieve some dying infants are not elect, and such an addition 
 to the whole Confession as will make it clearly declare 
 God's infinite love and wilHugness f(jr the salvation of all 
 men — w^e are seeking not to provide for exceptional cases, 
 
98 CONFESSIONAL REVISION. 
 
 but to briug our Standards into more perfect harmony with 
 the Scriptures, and with the faith of tlie Presbyterian 
 Church. We are trying to be patient under the charge of 
 seeking to make the Confession more narrow and exclusive ; 
 but we feel its injustice, nevertheless. 
 
 With much that Dr. Shedd says about the danger of our 
 liberty in subscription to the Standards running into license, 
 I am in hearty agreement. Because this danger is clearly 
 perceived, and because some of our opponents advocate a 
 greater liberty of subscription as the practical and necessary 
 alternative of revision, therefore we are the more earnest in 
 advocating the amendment of the Confession. We see the 
 dangers on both sides. But on the one side they are ob- 
 vious and easily avoided, because they are foreseen and 
 provided for by the constitutional process, through which 
 any revision must be accomplished. Every proposed amend- 
 ment must be definitely formulated, openly discussed, and 
 submitted to the vote of the whole Church as represented in 
 the Presbyteries. On the other side, the dangers to which 
 Dr. Shedd refers, are an indefinite force, working m secret, 
 undermining the foundations, and revealing themselves 
 after the mischief has been wrought. How far these dan- 
 gers are real and operative at the present time, it is not 
 competent for me to judge. But it is proj^er to add, that 
 I do not believe there is any wide-spread defection in our 
 Church from the system of doctrine taught in our Con- 
 fession. The Presbyterian Church, as represented in our 
 Assembly, was never more sound in the faith, nor more loyal 
 in adhering to her Standards, than she is to-day. I do not 
 know of a minister or elder whom there is reason to sus- 
 pect of dishonesty in professing sincerely to receive and 
 adopt the Confession. At the same time, and in perfect 
 consistency with this lo^^alty, there is a wide-spread de- 
 mand for the amendment of some of the doctrinal state- 
 
CONFESSIONAL REVISION. 99 
 
 ments of our creed. This demand is spontaneous, and can- 
 not be suppressed. Our missionary zeal, our love for, and 
 sympathy with, tlie holy catholic Church, of which God's 
 Spirit is the everlasting endowment, and all that is best in 
 the spirit of our times, hes back of it, and urges it forward. 
 The revision will come, sooner or later, as sure as the sun- 
 rise. Now, it seems to me, is the time to make it with 
 safety. It is better to lift the constitutional flood-gates and 
 let the water run, than to dam it up, and run the risk of 
 a future inundation. 
 
 Henky J. Yan Dyke. 
 
XIII. 
 FURTHEK REMARKS BY PROF. SIIEDD. 
 
 My article upon revision, to mj surprise, has elicited 
 several elaborate and able replies from well-known and in- 
 fluential Presbyterians, that call for some answer. I do 
 not propose to notice in detail all the arguments of my 
 respected friends. Van Dyke, JSTelson, and Day, who have 
 honored my views with their objections. I should have to 
 write a volume in order to this. My belief is, that a 
 sufficient reply to all of their fault-finding with the Con- 
 fession as it now stands, may be found in any good Calvin- 
 istic treatise in theology. To every one of their objections 
 respecting the Westminster statement of the doctrine of 
 decrees, I would undertake to furnish a conclusive answer 
 from the "Systematic Theology" of my honored prede- 
 cessor. Dr. H. B. Smith (see pp. 114-140). Here is one 
 difficulty in the case. The discussion of the abstruse sub- 
 ject of decrees has to be carried on in an article of a half 
 column, or column, of a newspaper. An objection can be 
 stated in a few lines, but the reply cannot be so given. A 
 misconception can be presented in a paragraph, but the 
 correction of it requires a column or a broadside. Leaving, 
 then, the great bulk of the objections urged by my friends 
 against the Westminster Standards to be answered by their 
 systematic expounders and defenders, I wish to fortify my 
 general position by two additional remarks. 
 
 1. In the first place, my contention is, that the Coufes- 
 (100) 
 
CONFESSIONAL REVISION. 101 
 
 sion does not need revision, because there are no such errors 
 in it as are alleged by my critics. I do not assert that the 
 Confession is either inspired or infalHble, or that the 
 Chiircli has no right to revise it. But I do assert that there 
 is no such error in the statement of the doctrine of decrees 
 as is affirmed by the advocates of revision. 
 
 With much that Dr. Yan Dyke says, I heartily agree. 
 If all the advocates of revision were as sound theologians as 
 he is, there would be less hazard in the attempt to revise. 
 But I utterly disagree with him when he asserts that the 
 Confession needs {a) " such an amendment as will purge it 
 from all suspicion of teaching that God creates men on pur- 
 pose to damn them," and (h) '' sncli an addition as will 
 make it clearly declare God's infinite love and -^dllingness 
 for the salvation of all men." 
 
 Respecting the first assertion, I deny that there is any 
 phrase or clause in the Confession which, when fairly in- 
 terpreted by its context and other parts of the Standards, 
 justifies this suspicion. I cannot, of course, in this short 
 article, cite and examine all the passages in proof. I can 
 only say, without fear of contradiction, that I am supported 
 in this denial by all the expounders and defenders of the 
 Westminster Standards. I do not know of one who as- 
 serts that the phraseology concerning decrees even sug- 
 gests, much less warrants, the sentiment that '' God creates 
 men on purpose to damn them." Will Dr. Van Dyke say 
 that his revered theological instructor, Dr. Charles Ilodge, 
 would have conceded for an instant that there is any ground 
 for this charo:e in tlie Westminster statement concerning 
 rc])robation ? And does he not believe that Charles Ilodge 
 correctly understood the phraseology of the Confession ? 
 
 Respecting the second assertion, that there is no " clear 
 declaration " in the Westminster Standards " of God's in- 
 finite love and willingness that all men should be saved," I 
 
102 CONFESSIONAL REVISION. 
 
 liave already quoted a series of passages from them wliicli 
 Dr. Yan Dyke says " were not intended, as their connection 
 shows, to teach any such doctrine, and do not teach it," but 
 which have been universally regarded, both by systematic 
 theologians and practical preachers, as plain and explicit 
 proof of the doctrine of the infinite sufficiency of Christ's 
 atonement, the infinite compassion of God, and the uni- 
 versal offer of the Gospel. If they do not prove this, 
 what do they prove? They certainly do not teach that 
 God feels compassion for only the elect. 
 
 It seems to me that these two assertions of Dr. Yan 
 Dyke contain implications that would carry him a great 
 deal further than he would be willing to go. It seems to 
 me that in representing the Confession to be positively de- 
 fective and erroneous on two such very important points as 
 these, not to speak of others which he mentions, he is giv- 
 ing aid and comfort to the enemy. He is virtually telling 
 the opponents of Calvinism that they are correct in their 
 aspersions on the Westminster symbol ; in their assertion 
 that it is a hard and repellant system. He is saying to the 
 world, that for two centuries the Presbyterian ministry, in 
 teaching the creed which they have subscribed, have been 
 teaching, by implication at least, that God creates men on 
 purpose to damn them, and have not clearly taught that 
 God feels infinite compassion for the souls of men, and 
 sincerely desires their salvation, and that now it is time 
 to stop such teaching. The Presbyterian creed, he con- 
 tends, has been wrong on these two points, and now it 
 should be set right. Will the Presbyteries take this view 
 of the subject ? Will they put this brand of reproach on 
 their predecessors ? 
 
 I have the same difficulty with the similar allegation of 
 error in the Confession made by my friend Mr. Day. I 
 suppose that I do him no injustice in classing him with the 
 
CONFESSIONAL REVISION. l03 
 
 Liberals, and of this class be says : " Tbe issue in tbeir 
 minds is tbis, viz. : tbe Confession of Faitb in some of its 
 statements is wrong. Tbere is error in it, and tbe error is 
 liHalP He tben cbarges npon tbe Confession an error 
 wbieb, witb all due respect, it does not contain. lie states 
 wbat be understands tbe doctrine of tbe Confession to be, 
 in tbe following words : " According to tbis doctrine, if 
 God's decrees to everlasting deatb were unconditioned and 
 witbout reference to sin, but for His own glory, tben if 
 man bad not fallen, still tbe non-elect would bave existed, 
 and would bave gone to tbeir final doom of everlasting 
 deatb, and tbat witbout sin. If tbis be tbe doctrine of tbe 
 Confession, I feel bound to say tbat I do not believe it, but 
 abbor it." He tben adds : " It seems to me tbat sections 
 2, 3, 4, and 7, of Cbapter III. of tbe Confession lead to 
 tbis enormity and absurdity." 
 
 K'ow I acknowledge tbat if tbis is a correct statement of 
 wbat tbe Westminster Confession teacbes concerning God's 
 decree of reprobation, I sbould be as strongly in favor of 
 its revision as any one. I bave been a professor in Union 
 Seminary twenty-six years, and once in every five years tbe 
 Board of Directors, wbo tbemselves subscribe to tbe Con- 
 fession, and of wbom no one is more respected and influen- 
 tial tban Mr. Day, bave summoned me before tbem, and in 
 accordance witb tbe constitution, bave required me to aflSrm, 
 •' in tbe presence of God and of tbe Directors of tbe Semi- 
 nary," tbat I " solemnly and sincerely receive and adopt 
 tbe Westminster Confession of Faitb as containing tbe 
 system of doctrine taugbt in tbe Holy Scriptures." But 
 bad I supposed at any time during all tbese years, tbat I 
 was required to subscril)e to sucb a creed as Mr. Day repre- 
 sents tbe Westminster to be upon tbe subject of decrees, I 
 >liould bave refused subscription and tendered my resigna- 
 tion. But tbe Confession, instead of teacbing tbat God's 
 
104 CONFESSIONAL REVISION. 
 
 decrees of election and reprobation were made " witliout 
 reference to sin," and that " if man had not fallen, still tlie 
 non-elect would have existed and would have gone down 
 to their final doom of everlasting death, and that without 
 sin," distinctly postulates and supposes the existence of sin ^ 
 as the moral state and condition out of which some men 
 are elected, and in which some men are left and reprobated. 
 " They w^ho are elected, heing fallen in Adam, are re- 
 deemed by Christ. The rest of mankind, God was pleased, 
 according to the unsearchable counsel of His own will, 
 whereby He extendeth or withholdeth mercy as lie 
 jpleaseth, for the glory of His sovereign power over His 
 creatures, to pass by, and ordain them to dishonor and 
 wrath for their sin^ to the praise of His glorious justice " 
 (Confession III. 6, 7). How is it possible, in the face of 
 these statements, to say that the Confession teaches that 
 " if man had not fallen, still the non-elect would have ex- 
 isted, and would have gone down to everlasting death, and 
 that without sin" ? The Westminster Confession, like the 
 Dort Canons, is infralapsarian. In the order of nature, it 
 places the decrees of election and reprobation after the 
 apostasy of Adam and his posterity. It presupposes that 
 all men are guilty and lost sinners by this event, having 
 no claim upon the mercy of God. Then God decides to 
 overcome the sin of the major part of them, by "the 
 washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost," 
 and the minor portion. He decides to leave to their own 
 free will and self-determination in sin. He leaves these 
 sinners severely alone, to do just as they please ; to " eat of 
 the fruit of their own ways, and be filled with their own 
 devices." The former decision is election ; the latter is rep- 
 robation. The Confession takes the ground that God is 
 not under obligation to save any sinner whatever, and that 
 He consequently has the right of a sovereign ruler to de- 
 
CONFESSIONAL REVISION. 105 
 
 terinine how many criminals He will pardon, and how 
 many sinners He will save. If this is not the way in 
 which the Confession teaches the doctrines of election and 
 reprobation, I will submit to correction. 
 
 2. In the second place, my contention is that there has 
 been no such change in the doctrinal views of the great 
 majorit}^ of Presbyterians, as is asserted by some of the ad- 
 vocates of revision, and assigned as the reason for it. Dr. 
 Van Dyke is not one of this class. He says that " the Pres- 
 byterian Church, as represented in our Assembly, was never 
 more sound in the faith, nor more loyal in adhering to her 
 Standards, than she is to-day." This is also my belief. But 
 I draw a different conclusion from this state of things from 
 his. As there has been no alteration in doctrinal views, I 
 see no need of altering the creed. If there really is the 
 very same state of religious opinion in the Church of to- 
 day, that existed in 1870, 1837, and 1789, there will be 
 the same satisfaction with the Confession now as then. No 
 revision was demanded at those epochs, and none will be 
 demanded now. 
 
 But a very common and a very passionate argument that 
 I have seen in some newspapers, both secular and religious, 
 is that the Presbyterian Church is dissatisfied with the 
 Confession ; that its congregations will not endure the 
 preaching of its distinguishing tenets, and that its ministers 
 have ceased to preach them — in brief, that the progress of 
 civilization and physical science has antiquated the doc- 
 trines of the fathers, and that all creeds must be revised, 
 and all churches adjusted to the spirit of the age. This is 
 not the sentiment or the argument of my honored friend, 
 but if revision is entered upon, he will not find everybody 
 so moderate as himself. He thinks that the true way when 
 the flood rises, is to "let the water run in legitimate chan- 
 nels." It seems to me that the l)etter way is to strengthen 
 
106 CONFESSIONAL REVISION. 
 
 the dam, and keep it strong. To cut a hole in the dam, or 
 to let the water cut it, does the mischief. 
 
 A writer in The Interior^ who is quoted in the Evangel- 
 ist^ strangely says that my " argument presupposes that the 
 Church is, or may possibly now be, (sic) dissatisfied with 
 some of the statements of the Confession." My argument 
 presupposes the exact contrary. I oppose revision on the 
 ground that the present generation of Presbyterians has 
 the very same religious experience that their fathers had, 
 and finds a satisfactory expression of it in the very same 
 Confession and Catechisms. If I supposed that the great 
 majority of the Presbyterian Church is dissatisfied with 
 their Standards, believing that they teach or countenance 
 errors of doctrine, I would advise revision ; not because I 
 think that there are errors, and that the revision would be 
 an improvement, but because I would have a church honest 
 and frank in saying what it believes. 
 
 And here the whole matter hinges. If there has been a 
 change in doctrinal sentiment in the majority of the Pres- 
 byterian Church, the Confession will be changed, and ought 
 to be. But if there has not been, it will not be changed, 
 and ought not to be. The majority must rule. As Mr. 
 Day says, " We are trying to find out, by asking for revis- 
 ion, which class is the mountain, and which is Moham- 
 med." For this reason, the coming vote of the Presbyte- 
 ries will prove to be one of the gravest and most far-reach- 
 ing in its consequences, of any that have ever been passed 
 in the history of the Church. It will determine how far, or 
 how httle, the Church has drifted from the old anchorage. 
 
 W. G. T. Shedd. 
 
XIY. 
 
 DE. YAlSr DYKE IN EEPLY TO PROF. SHEDD. 
 
 From the beginning of this discussion there has been, on 
 the part of some who resist revision, an ill-concealed dis- 
 paragement of their opponents. It grieves me to see my 
 venerated friend, Dr. Shedd, falling into their way of speak- 
 ing. It is true, indeed, that no man has a better right than 
 he to speak ex cathedra^ and sweeping judgments come 
 with a better grace from him than from some smaller men. 
 But for this very reason they are the more to be regretted. 
 The following sentence occurs in the introduction to his 
 " Further Remarks upon Revision," published in the Evan- 
 gelist of Oct. 10th : " My belief is that a sufiicient reply to 
 all their fault-finding with the Confession as it now stands, 
 may be found in any good Calvinistic treatise in theology." 
 As I read this sentence, my heart said, That is not like Dr. 
 Shedd ; it is the position, rather than the man, that speaks it. 
 Is it like the broad-minded scholar and courteous gentleman, 
 to characterize all that has been written by the advocates 
 of revision as ''' fauU-finding with the Confession," and 
 to intimate that the writers are either ignorant of any good 
 Calvinistic treatise, or unable to comprehend its contents i 
 There is a fair collection of such treatises in my library. 
 The last addition to it is Dr. Shedd's " Dogmatic Theology," 
 which I have read and pondered from beginning to end. 
 But so far from curing, it has increased my desire for the 
 revision of the Confession. What has failed to cure me of 
 
 (107) 
 
108 CONFESSIONAL REVISION. 
 
 this " fault-finding," is not likely to prove a panacea for the 
 other advocates of revision. Are such men as Dr. Schaff 
 and Dr. McCosh and Dr. Herrick Johnson unacquainted 
 with the contents of Calvinistic treatises, or incapable of 
 understanding their bearing upon the Confession of Faith ? 
 Are the Presbyterian Church of England, and the United 
 Presbyterian Church of Scotland, and the great majority of 
 the Free Church of Scotland, a set of ignorant fault-finders, 
 for whose unrest the best prescription is a saturated solution 
 of some good treatise on Calvinistic theology? The advo- 
 cates of revision might retort upon their judges, by sapng 
 that the best remedy for this iron-clad conservatism of hu- 
 man and uninspired words, would be to lay aside all treatises 
 on theology, all sectarian names and traditional prejudices, 
 and to come back with unbiassed minds to the study of 
 God's "Word. But dogmatism and assumptions of superior- 
 ity on either side, are out of place in such a discussion as 
 this. 
 
 Let us all dismount from the high horse, and meet each 
 other on equal footing. This is said not so much with ref- 
 erence to Dr. Shedd as to some smaller men, who are likely 
 to be confirmed in their assumptions of exclusive orthodoxy 
 by his unguarded words, the full force of which I am per- 
 suaded he did not consider. 
 
 The "two additional remarks" with which Dr. Shedd 
 "fortifies his general position," really cover the whole 
 ground of the discussion. 
 
 I. He aflfirms that " there are no such erro7'S " in the 
 Confession as the advocates of revision allege. We afiSrm 
 that there are such errors ; and so we stand face to face. 
 The issue thus joined is to be tried before the whole Pres- 
 byterian Church, and whatever may be the formal decision 
 on the Assembly's overture, in the wholesome discussion it 
 has awakened, the revision is heing made in the hearts amd 
 
CONFESSIONAL REVISION. 109 
 
 minds of intelligent readei's. Such readers will not forget 
 that the errors we desire to correct are not in the system of 
 doctrine, nor in any doctrine of the system, but simply in 
 statements which can easily be amended without in anywise 
 affecting the integrity of the Confession. My venerated 
 friend quotes me correctly as desiring "such an amend- 
 ment of the Confession as will purge it from all suspicion 
 of teaching that God creates men on purpose to danni them, 
 and such an addition as will make it clearly declare God's 
 inlinite love and willingness for the salvation of all men." 
 We do not differ in this discussion upon any question of 
 theology. It is delightful to observe how entirely we agree 
 as to what the Confession oicght to teach. We differ only 
 on the question of fact as to what the Confession does teach. 
 He defiles, and I affirm, that there is need of amendment 
 upon the two points above recited. If I stood alone in this 
 position, it would be all right to brush me aside, and set me 
 to studying some good Calvinistic treatise. But inasmuch 
 as such mmisters as Dr. JVIcCosh, Dr. Scliaff, Dr. Kelson, 
 and Dr. Johnson, and such elders as Henry Day, and a 
 multitude like him whom I could name — and the whole 
 Presbyterian Church of England, and the great majority of 
 the Presbyterian Churches of Scotland, stand in the same 
 position on this question of fact — would it not be charitable 
 and wise for such a man as Dr. Shedd to say, " Very well, 
 brethren ; I think the Confession ought to teach what you 
 demand, and I believe that it does so teach ; but inasmuch 
 as you cannot see with my eyes, I am willing that these 
 human and fallible words should be so amended as to make 
 their meaning plainer " ? How does Dr. Shedd prove that 
 there is no need to purge the Confession from the suspicion of 
 teaching the supralapsarian dogma that God creates men on 
 purpose to damn them? I submit to his own candid judg- 
 ment that his arirument concedes all that I have asserted. 
 
110 CONFESSIONAL REVISION. 
 
 He says: ''I deny that there is any phrase or clause 
 which, when fairly interpreted hy its context and other 
 'parts of tJie Standards^ justifies this suspicion " — that is 
 to say, he reads into the third section of the third chapter 
 the explanations of its bald statement which are found in 
 other parts of the Standards. The advocates of revision 
 propose to ptot into it, as a permanent addition and ex- 
 planation, just what Dr. Shedd and other theologians read 
 into it ; so that the unlearned reader may not misunder- 
 stand it, and the opponents of our system of doctrine may 
 not quote it to our disadvantage. As it now stands, not 
 merely as a phrase or clause, but as a complete section, it 
 teaches that God foreordains men to eternal death simply 
 for His own glory, without regard to their character or de- 
 serts. This I do not believe. If I understand him, Dr. 
 Shedd does not believe it. It is horrible! If in saying 
 this I give " aid and comfort to the enemy," let it be so. 
 Truth is better than party victory. No man who believes 
 in Christ is my enemy, even though he be an Arminian. 
 He is my friend, and I desire to make my doctrine as plain 
 and as agreeable to him as truth will allow. I agree with 
 all Arminians, and with all Christians, that God foreordains 
 men to eternal death /br their sins ; that it would not be 
 for His glory, but for His dishonor, to do otherwise ; and 
 I want to put that little phrase, /(?r their sins, into the sec- 
 tion referred to, so that there may be no occasion to defend 
 it or even to explain it by other parts of our Standards. 
 
 In reply to the question whether my " revered theologi- 
 cal instructor, Dr. Charles Hodge, would have conceded for 
 an instant that there is any ground for this charge in the 
 "Westmmster statement concerning reprobation," I answer 
 in Dr. Hodge's own words : " The symbols of the West- 
 minster Assembly, while they clearly imply the infralap- 
 sarian view, were yet so framed as to avoid ojfence to those 
 
CONFESSIONAL REVISION. Ill 
 
 xoJio adopted the supralapsarian theoi^y'''' ("Theology," 
 vol. ii., p. 319). The essence of the supralapsarian the- 
 ory^ which Dr. Hodge utterly rejected and condemned, is 
 fairly expressed in the popular phrase that God creates 
 men on purpose to damn them. The third section of the 
 third chapter of the Confession was so framed as not to of- 
 fend those who held the supralapsarian theory. It is one 
 of the sops that were thrown to that Cerberus. Whether 
 Dr. Hodge, if he were now living, would be in favor of 
 amending that section, so as to bring it more into conform- 
 ity with the rest of the Standards and with his own teach- 
 ing, it is not competent for me to say. But if he were 
 here, and opposed to the revision, with all my love and 
 reverence I should be opposed to him, just as I am opposed 
 to Dr. Shedd. This question is not to be settled by the 
 authority of great names. The fact that the Confession 
 has been accepted and defended by so many great and 
 good men, is no proof that it cannot be, nor that it ought 
 not to be, amended. That argument, if it should prevail, 
 would dam up the stream of Scripture interpretation and 
 cause it to " sicken into a muddy pool of conformity and 
 tradition." 
 
 In regard to the other amendment, viz. : " Such an addi- 
 tion to the Confession as will make it clearly declare God's 
 infinite love and willingness for the salvation of all men," 
 Dr. Shedd and I again stand face to face, not on a ques- 
 tion of theology, but of fact. I deny that the Confession 
 contains any such declaration ; he affirms that it does. But 
 I cannot see it, even with the aid of his elaborate demun- 
 strations. If I were alone in this, I would willingly con- 
 clude that the failure to see it is due to my own blindness. 
 But there are multitudes in the same position. Would it 
 not be a charitable and wise concession on the part of Dr. 
 Shedd and those who agree with him to consent to the in- 
 
112 CONFESSIONAL REVISION. 
 
 sertion into the Confession of one, clear, comprehensive, 
 and explicit statement of what he says is already there in 
 broken lights and scattered fragments ? 
 
 II. In the second remark by which Dr. Shedd fortifies 
 his general position, he affirms that " there has been no such 
 change in the doctrinal views of the great majority of Pres- 
 byterians, as is asserted by some of the advocates of revis- 
 ion, and assigned as a reason for it." He adds : " Dr. Yan 
 Dyke does not belong to this class." This was evidently 
 designed to do justice to my position, for which I thank 
 him. But whether the exception thus made in my favor 
 can be accepted, will depend upon the meaning of doc- 
 trinal views. Dr. Shedd doubtless means that there has 
 been no such change in the faith of the Church in all or 
 any of the doctrines which constitute the system taught in 
 our Confession, as to require or warrant a change in any 
 doctrine essential to that system. In this I entirely agree. 
 And I am glad that Dr. Shedd agrees with me in the belief 
 that our Church as a whole was never more loyal to the 
 essential doctrines of our Confession than she is to-day. I 
 do not know of any one who advocates revision upon the 
 ground that its doctrines ought to be changed, though there 
 are some who oppose revision, because they desire to be re- 
 leased entirely from subscription to those doctrines. But 
 " doctrinal views " is a very broad, not to say ambiguous, 
 term. It includes methods of interpreting the Confession, 
 tlieories outside of Confessional limits, and opinions con- 
 cerning the adequacy and correctness of certain doctrinal 
 statements in the Confession itself. In these respects there 
 has been a very great change in the doctrinal views of the 
 great majority of Presbyterians, — such a change as now 
 warrants, and will ultimately compel, a revision of the 
 Confession. 
 
 (1). The supralapsarian theory, whose advocates the West- 
 
CONFESSIONAL REVISION. 1113 
 
 minster Confession was so framed as not to offend, the same 
 theory which went to seed in the Emmonsisni and Ilopkins- 
 ianism of New England — the theory whose essence is that 
 God creates men in order to damn them for His glory, and 
 whose legitimate conclnsion is that we mnst be willing to 
 he damned before we can be saved — has passed away from 
 the Presbyterian Church, where it never had mnch enter- 
 tainment, and, thank God, it is no longer even a ghost to 
 frighten children. As this theory is dead, whatever was 
 put into our Confession to conciliate its advocates, ought to 
 be carried out and buried with it. 
 
 (2). There has been a change amounting to a revolution 
 in the views of Calvinists, and especially of Presbyterians, 
 in regard to the salvation of dying infants- I will not re- 
 peat the history of opinion on this subject, so admirably 
 set forth by Dr. Prentiss in the Presbyterian Review, and 
 by Dr. Briggs in his recent book called ^' Whither "; nor 
 restate the argument of Dr. Hodge and others for the sal- 
 vation of all dying infants ; nor review the explanations by 
 which it is attempted to reconcile the phrase, "elect in- 
 fants," with the present faith of the Church. To illustrate 
 the extent of the change in doctrinal views at this point, I 
 will quote two passages. The first is from Dr. Twisse, the 
 moderator of the Westminster Assembly, in a book entitled 
 " The Kiches of God's Love unto the Vessels of Mercy." 
 He says : " If many thousands, even all the infants of 
 Turks and Saracens, dying in original sin, are tormented 
 by Him (God) in Hell fire, is He to be counted the father 
 of cruelties for that ? " [Quoted by Dr. Briggs in 
 "Whither," p. 125. There is a more horrible passage 
 quoted on page 124, from Samuel Eutherford, one of the 
 Scotch Commissioners in the Westminster Assembly.] The 
 other passage to which we gladly turn is from Dr. A. A. 
 Hodge : " In the history of the world, since Adam, all the 
 
114 CONFESSIONAL REVISION. 
 
 souls of those that have died before birth or between birth 
 and moral agencj have been redeemed in Christ. Through 
 all the ages, — from Japan, from China, from India, from 
 Africa, from the islands of the sea, — multitudes, flocking 
 like birds, have gone to heaven of this great company of 
 redeemed infants of the Church of God." The change in- 
 dicated bj these two extracts is immense. If there were 
 no other, it would warrant and ultimately compel a revision 
 of the Confession. Dr. Shedd and others think there is 
 not going to be much of a shower, but we tell him the 
 windows of heaven are opened. He proposes to " strengthen 
 the dam " by insisting that it is all right, and letting it se- 
 verely alone. We pi-opose to strengthen it, not as he says, 
 " by cutting a hole," but by lifting the constitutional flood- 
 gates to take off the pressure, while we take out some rot- 
 ten planks like " elect infants " and put in some sound Gos- 
 pel timber in the form of a declaration of God's infinite 
 love for all men. If our opponents are afraid that this will 
 not be well done, the best course is for them to join the 
 movement and help us to keep it within conservative 
 limits 
 
 Henet J. Van Dyke. 
 
XV. 
 
 A NOTE FROM DR. SIIEDD. 
 
 To THE Editor of the JSTew York Evangelist: 
 
 Will you grant me the space to disclaim the interpreta- 
 tion which Dr. Yan Dyke puts upon my use of the phrase 
 "fault-finding with the Confession." I employed it in nO 
 discourteous sense, but to express what seems to me the 
 simple fact in the case. Dr. Van Dyke contends that the 
 Confession does not proclaim the love of God towards all 
 men. This, if true, is a fault in it. He contends that it 
 teaches by implication that God creates some men in order 
 to damn them. This, if true, is a fault. 
 
 I do not think that my phraseology warrants his assertion 
 that I " intimate " that " he is ignorant of any good Calvin- 
 istic treatise, or unable to comprehend its contents." My 
 repeated expressions of respect for his theological learning 
 and orthodoxy, should have precluded such a charge as this. 
 x\ll I wish to say, and all that I do say, is that these alleged 
 faults in the Confession are noticed by systematic expounders 
 of it, who deny that they are there, and give their proof. 
 I mentioned this fact, merely to indicate what is the com- 
 mon understanding of the Confession by this class of per- 
 sons, not quoting them at all as having ex cathedra author- 
 ity in the matter. I expressly say that my limits forbid the 
 examination of passages in proof, and hence I adopt this 
 short method of citing the theologians in regard to the 
 meaning of the Confession, as a lawyer would cite the ex- 
 positions of jurists like Kent and Story, as to the meaning 
 uf the Constitution. 
 
 Yours truly, W. G. T. Siiedd. 
 
 (115) 
 
XYI. 
 GOD'S INFIlSriTE LOYE TO MEK 
 
 God's clearest and most permanent revelation of Him- 
 self is in the person and life of Jesus Christ, God of God, 
 Light of Light, very God of very God. The incarnate 
 Word is infinitely above the written Word, which derives 
 its chief value from the fact that it testifies of Him. And 
 therefore the portions of Scripture which record Christ's 
 life and teaching are pre-eminently called the Gospels. 
 
 In the teaching of Christ two truths stand side by side 
 as clear as the sun ; and whether we can demonstrate their 
 consistency or not we are bound to believe, to defend, and 
 to proclaim both of them. 
 
 The first is God's sovereignty in the bestowal of grace 
 upon sinners. He does what He pleases with His own. 
 " I thank Thee, O Father, God of heaven and earth, be- 
 cause Thou hast hid these things from the w^se and prudent 
 and revealed them unto babes. Even so. Father, for so it 
 seemed good in Thy sight." Quotations could easily be 
 multiplied on this point, but this one is enough. 
 
 The second truth, revealed not only in the word of Christ, 
 but in actions speaking louder than words, is Godh love for 
 all men^ and His compassionate regard even for those who 
 perish in their sins. " He that hath seen me hath seen the 
 Father," is one of those sayings of His which penetrate the 
 depths of God's unsearchable judgment, and without ex- 
 plaining them to our comprehension nevertheless leave 
 them luminous forever. What Christ is, God is ; what 
 (116) 
 
CONFESSIONAL REVISION. 117 
 
 Christ does, God does; what Christ says, God says. If 
 there is anything in our theology which contravenes this 
 foundation truth it must be wrong, 
 
 Now see Christ as He laments and weeps over reprobate 
 Jerusalem. They whose house was left unto them desolate, 
 and from whose eyes the things that belonged to their peace 
 were hidden, were certainly non-elect. They were not 
 chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world, nor 
 predestinated to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus 
 Christ. And yet the only Redeemer of God's elect laments 
 and weeps over them. It was not merely the man Jesus, 
 but God manifest in the flesh who did and said these things. 
 We see the Father in Him standing on Mount Olivet and 
 saying, " O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how often would I have 
 gathered you and ye loould not.'''' Examples might be 
 multiplied on this point, but this one will suffice. 
 
 These two truths, God's sovereignty in the bestowal of 
 His grace, and His infinite love for all men^ are the hinges 
 and turning-points of all Christian theology. The anti- 
 Calvinist denies the first. The /i^z/'^r-Calvinist or supra- 
 lapsarian denies the second, holding that God creates some 
 men on purpose to damn them, for His glory. The true 
 Calvinist believes both and insists that they are consistent. 
 It is upon the union of these two truths that the strength 
 and beauty of our theology depends. The ultimate and 
 dominant reason why I advocate the revision of the West- 
 minster Confession is that it does not state these two truths 
 in their relations and harmony. It is full of God's sover- 
 eignty in the choice of the elect, and overflows with the 
 declaration of His special love for them, all of which I 
 devoutly believe. But it contains no summary of those 
 Scriptures, and of those acts and words of God in Christ, 
 which explicitly teach that He is the Saviour of all men, 
 and not willing that any should perish, but that all should 
 
118 CONFESSIONAL REVISION. 
 
 come to repentance. In former articles I have stated tlie 
 proposition thus: Our Confessic/ii does not cwitain one 
 declaration of God^s infinite love to men^ nor one declaror 
 tion that Chrisfs sacrifice for sin is sufficient for all^ 
 ada;pted to all^ and offered to all. This statement was 
 made not rashlj, but advisedly, reverently, and in the fear 
 of God. Will the good brethren who are so much offended 
 by it have the patience to notice the preciseness of its word- 
 ing? It does not say that the Confession denies, or even 
 that it contains no implication of God's infinite love to all 
 men, but that the Confession contains no declaration of 
 this great truth, nor of the sufficiency, adaptation, and uni- 
 versal offer of the Gospel salvation, in which God's infinite 
 love to men is embodied. Some have garbled this state- 
 ment, and held up parts of it to scorn. Let them pass. 
 Others, among our ablest theologians, have fairly met and 
 attempted to disprove it by quotations from the Confession 
 itself. But they have not succeeded. The most they claim 
 to have shown is that there are statements in the Confession 
 which imiily what I maintain it does not declare. 
 
 It is useless to go over the ground again. Let our min- 
 isters and intelligent laymen read the Confession for them- 
 selves and judge between us. For however valuable the 
 testimony of " Experts " may be — and on this point I do 
 not dispute what The Presbyterian has so well said, — the 
 uhimate decision of the question of Revision rests with the 
 whole Church represented in her Presbyteries. The Con- 
 fession is the symbol and standard of the whole Church, a 
 professed statement of wliat Presbyterians believe. 
 
 Even if the doctrine of God's infinite love for all 
 men can be logically deduced from its statements by our 
 theological experts, that is very far from being sufficient 
 A truth so vital to the common faith of Christendom, and 
 so intimately related to the missionary zeal by which the 
 
CONFESSIONAL REVISION. 119 
 
 Church of to-day is eminently distinguished from what she 
 was in the time of the Westminster Assembly, and for two 
 centuries after, ought to stand out upon her banner with 
 the same clearness that it has in the inspired gospels. It is 
 no answer to our objection to observe that our missionary 
 zeal has sprung up and flourished in spite of this alleged 
 defect in our Standards ; for it is quite in accordance with 
 the economy of God's providence and grace that the life 
 and experience of Christians should precede and mould the 
 formuhition of their Creed. This principle is illustrated in 
 the whole history of Christian doctrine. The Presbyte- 
 rian Church in this country may resist, but she cannot ulti- 
 mately prevent the application of this principle. 
 
 For these reasons I have ventured, in response to the call 
 of the General Assembly, to suggest that we amend the 
 third chapter of our Confession by inserting some such 
 statement as the following : " God's eternal decree hinder- 
 eth no one from accepting Christ as He is offered to all men 
 for salvation in the Gospel ; nor ought it to be so con- 
 strued as to contradict the declarations of Scripture that 
 Christ is the propitiation for the sins of the whole world, 
 and that God is not willing that any should perish, but that 
 all should come to repentance." 
 
 If any man objects to the wording of this amendment, 
 let him frame a better one and I will accept it. But if 
 any one says, as the Arminians do, that the truth it is in- 
 tended to embody is inconsistent with our system of doc- 
 trine, or that its adoption would mar the strength and 
 beauty of our Confession, I differ with him absolutely and 
 uncompromisingly, because I am a Calvinist. 
 
 Henry J. Van Dyke. 
 
XYII. 
 
 GOD'S mrmiTE loye to men and the 
 
 WESTMINSTEE CONFESSION. 
 
 By all means the most plausible argument in favor of a 
 revision of the Westminster Confession turns on the al- 
 leged absence from that document of a due declaration 
 of the love of God to mankind. It can surprise no one, 
 therefore, that so able a reasoner as Dr. Van Djke speaks 
 (in TJie Presbyterian for October 5th) of the failure of 
 the Confession, in his view, to state the two truths of the 
 sovereignty of God and His " infinite love for all men," 
 in their relation and harmony, as "the ultimate and domi- 
 nant reason" why he advocates its revision. I believe 
 that this alleged failure cannot be more strongly or more 
 convincingly argued than it has been by Dr. Van Dyke in 
 the paper referred to. No reader of it will fail to feel that 
 if this be the state of the case, so serious a lack in our 
 Confessional statement ought to be remedied. Only, when 
 we go back to the Confession itself we discover that the 
 reading of it does not leave the same impression upon the 
 mind that was left by the reading of Dr. Van Dyke's 
 paper. The Confession begins with a most moving de- 
 scription of God's character as the God of love (ii. 1), and 
 traces His loving dealings with the children of men, on 
 from plan to act, and from act to act, until He brings those 
 whom His love sought out into the fruition of glory ; and 
 the reader feels the document to be suffused from end to 
 (120) 
 
CONFESSIONAL REVISION. 121 
 
 end with the glow of infinite compassion. He cannot rise 
 from reading it without a deep sense that here there is no 
 lack of insistence upon the fundamental Christian doctrine 
 that " God is love." 
 
 Now, how^ are we to account for the different impres- 
 sions made on the mind by Dr. Van Dyke's account of 
 the Confession and by the Confession itself? Possibly the 
 following considerations will help us to understand it : 
 
 1. Dr. Yan Dyke appears to set God's sovereignty and 
 His love unduly over against one another. In the view 
 of the Confession, as of the New Testament, (as, for ex- 
 ample, in Ephesians, i. 5, where predestination is ac- 
 cording to the </^(9<^-pleasure of His will,) God's electing 
 grace is the expression of His infinite love for men. So 
 sharply does Dr. Yan Dyke oppose God's sovereignty and 
 God's love for all men, however, as truths whose consist- 
 ency we may find it hard to demonstrate, that the reader 
 is apt to understand him as thinking of electing grace as 
 a limitation of God's love. Thus the highest exercise of 
 love plays the part, in his paper, of clouding the mani- 
 festation of infinite love. This unfortunate result is 
 partly due to what seems an undue emphasis upon the 
 word "all" in the phrase, "God's infinite love for all 
 men," which is so used as inevitably to suggest the idea of 
 equal and undiscriminating love for each and every man, 
 distributively. The complaint that the Confession does 
 not give its proper place to the "' love of God for all men " 
 thus almost passes into a complaint that in the Confessional 
 scheme God's infinite love for the non-elect is not made a 
 co-hinge with His sovereignty in the bestowal of His grace. 
 
 When we escape from these suggestions, however, and 
 ask seriously what place should be given to the truth of 
 God's infinite love for men indiscriminately, as distin- 
 (jnished from His special love to His chosen ones, among 
 
122 CONFESSIONAL REVISION. 
 
 the architectonic principles of a Confession, it would seem 
 that we are obliged to assign it a position which, though 
 fundamenta], jet would not be prominent in such a sense 
 as implies frequent or pervasive assertion. A Confession 
 which conhned itself to declaring God's indiscriminate 
 " love for all men," and its fruits in blessings equally uni- 
 versally given, would be lacking in all the most precious 
 doctrines of the Scriptures. A Confession which followed 
 with equal minuteness and fullness the dealings of God 
 with the non-elect and the elect, would be overburdened 
 with the darker shadows of man's sin and God's holy 
 justice. Is not the Westminster Confession's way the true 
 one ? — to lay the foundations firm in a full description of 
 God as the God of love (ii. 1), and then give its strength 
 to the exhibition of this love in its highest manifestations 
 from the eternal election '' in the beloved " to the recep- 
 tion into glory, with only such incidental mention here 
 and there of the non-elect as the occasion demanded ? 
 In one word, ought we to demand that a Confession 
 should be framed as if it were a proclamation of God's 
 love to sinners? That is the function of a sermon. A 
 Confession, on the other hand, is the Christians' expression 
 of what God has done for them, and as such it ought not 
 to be expected to contain more than clear recognition of 
 God's love for all men, but should lay the stress rather on 
 the exhibition of that love to His children. 
 
 2. And this leads me to the second criticism I wish to 
 make on Dr. Yan Dyke's paper. And that is, that he 
 appears to me to make an unreasonable demand in the 
 amount and kind of recognition he asks for God's uni- 
 versal love, in the Confession. He is not satisfied with its 
 recognition by clear or frequent '^ implication "/ he demands 
 explicit " declaration.'^^ I understand him to allow that it is 
 " implied," as, indeed, others who agree with hinj in his gen- 
 
CONFESSIONAL REVISION. 123 
 
 eral contention (or, e. (j.^ Dr. Candlish) certainly admit. 
 But he insists that nothing will be satisfactory except an 
 explicit " declaration " of " God's infinite love to men." 
 Now, the unreasonableness of this demand is easily made 
 evident by the simple remark that in it Dr. Van Dyke 
 asks of the Confession more than can easily be found on 
 the surface of the New Testament. The New TestaniLiit 
 does not seem to ^' contain one explicit declaration " of God's 
 infinite " love to all men." I would not like to be misun- 
 derstood here. It is not I who throw doubt on this precious 
 truth being a doctrine — or say rather, the doctrine — of the 
 New Testament. But, as it happens, it is a doctrine 
 taught by clear " implication" in other doctrinal statements 
 rather than by precise " declarations " of itself. The New 
 Testament declares that '' God is love," and so does the 
 Confession say that He is " most loving, gracious, merciful, 
 long-suffering, abundant in goodness and truth, forgiving 
 iniquity, transgression, and sin ; the rewarder of them that 
 diligently seek Hin}." The New Testament, in one unique 
 passage, says that " God so loved the world that lie gave 
 his only begotten Son"; but to say that He loved ''the 
 world " collectively is only " implicatively " to say that He 
 loved '' all men " distributively ; and, besides this one pas- 
 sage, no other brings the words " loved " and " mankind " 
 into immediate conjunction. Well, the gist of what I am 
 urging is that if we can be satisfied with the New Testa- 
 ment when it teaches this fundamental doctrine only by 
 necessary " implication," we need not be so stringent in in- 
 sisting that a like mode of teaching it — by " implication " 
 rather than by explicit " declaration" — is intolerable in the 
 Confession. 
 
 That the Confession does " imply " God's infinite love to 
 man is evident, it seems to me, without a quotation of 
 passages. This is the fundamental idea of the Confession 
 
124 CONFESSIONAL REVISION. 
 
 as well as of the New Testament ; all its doctrine is but 
 an orderly development of God's love to man — election 
 itself and all its consequents being, as I have said, not the 
 limitation, but the expression of His love for men. But 
 it is also capable of being made evident by passages. We 
 have just quoted the rich description of God's loving 
 nature from ii. 1, and that God " is good and doeth good 
 unto all " (xxi. 1) is asserted in detail on every convenient 
 occasion. Kor are there lacking passages which assert the 
 free offer of salvation in Christ and the responsibility of 
 man in accepting or rejecting Him. He is the " mediator 
 between God and man" (viii. 1), and God has ^^ freely 
 offered tmto sinners life and salvation by Jesus Christ, re- 
 quiring of -them faith in Him that they may be saved " 
 (vii. 3) — a passage the universality of which is not taken 
 away, but rather established, by the fact that it proceeds 
 to say that God gives more than this offer to those who 
 are ordained to life. I submit that these clear ^' impli- 
 cations" — if any one chooses to call them so — of the 
 universal side of the Gospel are as much as should be 
 asked for in a Confession, and that any Confession 
 ought, as our Confession does, to give the stress and main 
 portion of its teaching to the great things that God does 
 for man in the actual and complete saving of multitudes 
 from penalty and sin, rather than to the (comparatively) 
 little things He does in proclaiming the Gospel freely to 
 all. All that ought to be asked is that this latter import- 
 ant side of truth should be fully recognized. 
 
 3. Lastly, I am constrained to say that the amending 
 section which Di*. Yan Dyke proposes for insertion into 
 the Confession, in order to supply its assumed defect in 
 this matter, seems to me entirely unnecessary, because all 
 that it asserts is already provided for in the Confession as 
 it stands. This section is divided into two clauses. The 
 
CONFESSIONAL REVISION. 125 
 
 first declares: ''God's eternal decree hindereth no one 
 from accepting Christ as lie is offered to all men for sal- 
 vation in the Gospel." But what possible need can there 
 be for this assertion after the Confession has declared that 
 bj the decree no " violence is ofiered to the will by the 
 creatures, nor is the liberty or contingency of second 
 causes taken away, but rather established " ? All that is 
 proposed finds itself already asserted here. The second 
 clause runs : " Nor ought it to be so construed as to contra- 
 dict the declaration of Scripture that Christ is the pro- 
 pitiation for the sins of the whole world, and that God 
 is not willing that any should perish, but that all should 
 come to repentance." But how can it be so construed 
 when the long-suffering God, who is "the rewarder of 
 them that diligently seek Him," has "freely offered unto 
 sinners life and salvation by Jesus Christ, requiring of 
 them faith in Him that they may be saved " ? The Con- 
 fession is probably long enough already, and it is scarcely 
 necessary to add to it merely in order to say over again, 
 in other words, what it already provides for. 
 
 Benjamin B. Wabfield. 
 
XYIII. 
 
 THE CONFESSION AND GOD'S INFINITE LOYE 
 
 TO MEN. 
 
 I AM reluctant to utter another word on Hevision lest 
 hearers should be wearied by my much speaking, and lest 
 in my honest zeal for the cause I should appear to be hostile 
 to those with whom I am in substantial agreement. May 
 God give us all persevering grace to speak the truth in love, 
 and to demonstrate that the odium iheologicum is a thing 
 of the past. It is not necessary, so far as we are concerned, 
 but it may not be amiss for the sake of others, to say that 
 the personal relations between Dr. Warfield and myself are 
 of the most friendly kind, and that next to Christ and the 
 Holy Catholic Church, Princeton Seminary, by tender 
 memories and still more precious hopes, holds the largest 
 place in my love and loyalty. I honestly think, and use 
 the boldness of a friend to say, that the recent announce- 
 ment in the secular press to the effect that " Princeton 
 stands firm " in opposition to all Revision, is regretted by 
 many of her most devoted friends. For " Princeton " rep- 
 resents something more than the opniions of the honored 
 men who now fill her professorial chairs as worthy suc- 
 cessors of those who have finished their course. She has a 
 future as well as a past to conserve, and nothing can more 
 effectually paralyze her power for good than the public im- 
 pression that her future is to be only a stereotyped repeti- 
 tion of the past. The Eevision against which it is pro- 
 (136) 
 
CONFESSIONAL REVISION. 127 
 
 claimed that she stands firm^ will come ; it has come al- 
 ready ill the Church at large, and iu the hearts of muiiy of 
 her own most cherished alumni. Wise clmrchmansliip 
 teaches that she should seek to guide rather than to arrest 
 the inevitable movement. 
 
 These convictions are greatly confirmed and strength- 
 ened by both the admissions and the denials of Dr. War- 
 field's article in The Presbyterian of November 2d. He 
 admits that the Confession does not contain one explicit 
 declaration of the infinite love of God to men. This is all 
 I have contended for. I have, indeed, intimated, and 
 think it would not be difficult to prove, that the implica- 
 tions for which he contends are "far-fetched and little 
 worth." But it is not necessary to insist upon this. It is 
 enough to justify and urge on the movement for Kevision, 
 that the ablest defenders of the Confession, as it is, admit 
 that it does not contain one explicit declaration of the in- 
 finite love of God for men as men, and that all its positive 
 declarations are confined to the expression of God's love for 
 the elect. My ultimate and dominant reason for advocat- 
 ing Revision is confirmed as a fact by my candid opponent. 
 H(3 denies only the inferences I draw from this fact. Let 
 us look at some of his denials. 
 
 1. He asks " in one word, ought we to demand tliat a 
 Confession should be framed as if it were a proclamation of 
 God's love to sinners ? " IS'ow, no advocate of Revision 
 has contended that a Confession ought to l)e merely a proc- 
 lamation of God's love to sinners, and therefore, if Dr. 
 Warfield's question has any pertinence to this discussion it 
 is intended to affirm that our Confession oufjld not to con- 
 tain any such jyroclamation. In other words, he admits 
 that the Confession contains no such declaration as we think 
 it ought to contain, but insists that, so far from 1)oing a de- 
 fect, this omission is one of its crowning excellences. He 
 
128 CONFESSIONAL EEVISION. 
 
 adds, " thai (the proclamation of God's love to sinners) is 
 tlie function of a sermon." I will not push these premises 
 to their logical conclusion, nor charge upon my brother the 
 inference, from which I am sure he would shrink, that 
 there ought to be one system of doctrine for the minister's 
 study and another for his pulpit. It will be enough to say 
 that this is just the difficulty with which some of our Pres- 
 byterian pastors have labored and groaned in secret, that 
 our Confession does not set forth the Gospel as our loyalty 
 to Christ and our love for the souls of men compel us to 
 preach it, and that too much of our time and strength is 
 consumed in defending our Creed against objections which 
 could easily be removed by such a revision as we advocate. 
 We do not desire a Confession which would " confine itself 
 to declaring God's indiscriminate love to all men." We 
 have never used the word '' indiscriminate " in such a con- 
 nection. And we admit that a creed so " confined " would 
 be " lacking in all the most precious doctrines of Scripture," 
 except the one precious truth of God's infinite love. We do 
 not propose to exclude God's special grace for His own 
 elect. But we propose to add what we preach, that He is 
 "not willing that any should perish, but that all should 
 come to repentance." This would not "set God's sover- 
 eignty and His love unduly over against one another," 
 neither would it "overburden the Confession with the 
 darker shadows of man's sin and God's holy justice." It 
 would bring our Creed more into conformity with God's 
 Word, and illuminate and sweeten it with the very light 
 and sweetness of the Gospel. 
 
 2. Dr. Warfield has one eminent qualification for a 
 teacher of dogmatic theology, the courage of his convic- 
 tions. Being thoroughly convinced that the Confession 
 contains all it ought to contain, as an exposition of Scrip- 
 ture, and that the demand for an explicit declaration of 
 
CONFESSIONAL REYISION. 129 
 
 God's infinite love to men is unreasonable, lie does u(\t 
 hesitate to deny that the New Testament contains any such 
 declaration. This is the crucial point in the whole contro- 
 versy. Dr. AVartield contends that the New Testament 
 teaches God's infinite lov^e to men, not explicitly, hut only 
 by imj.)Ucat(on ; that the Confession teaches the same truth 
 in the same way, and therefore he insists that we ought to 
 be satisfied with the Confession as it is. I do not adniit 
 that the Confession teaches it even by implication. But 
 conceding, for the sake of the argument, that it does, I 
 affirm that in this respect our Creed is not in harmony witli 
 the Scriptures. They teach God's infinite love to men ex- 
 plicitly, in repeated and varied declarations. I have a list 
 of more than fifty familiar texts to sustain this position, not 
 one of which is incorporated in our Confession, and oidy 
 two of them are found among the appended proof-texts. 
 The declarations of the ninth chapter of Romans, " Jacob 
 have I loved and Esau have I hated "; " I v/ill have mercy 
 on whom I will have mercy," are quoted half a dozen times, 
 but we look in vain for the crown and climax of the apostle's 
 argument, "God hath concluded them all in unbelief that 
 lie might lia^e mercy on alV (Rom. xi. 32), for the simple 
 reason that there is no place for it, not even a branch on 
 which it might be tied as an orange on a Christmas tree. 
 
 '" God is love" is quoted, but it is too big for the head 
 it covers. I submit to Dr. Warfield that " 6rV;<rZ ^'^ Zci"^" 
 and "'God is most lovinrj^'' are not co-extensive, and that 
 the latter does not even imply His love for all men. It 
 may easily be construed consistently with the horrible 
 declaration of the Formvla Con sensHs Helvetica : "The 
 Scrij^tures do not extend to all and each God's purpose of 
 gliowing mercy to man, but restrict it to the elect alone, 
 ^\\e reprobate being excluded, even l*v name, as Esau, 
 whom God hated with an eternal hatred" (Con. vi.). 
 
130 CONFESSIONAL KEVISION. 
 
 The text, " God so loved the world," etc., is quoted in 
 connection with the Covenant of Grace to dehver some — i. e.^ 
 the elect — out of the estate of sin and misery. I am glad 
 Dr. Warfield does not adopt '' the common gloss of (some) 
 theologians," that " the world " means only the elect. But 
 he tells us that this text is unique, that is to say, according 
 to "Worcester, " it is without an equal or another of the 
 same kind," or as my brother puts it, " besides this one 
 passage no other brings the words loved and manhind into 
 immediate conjunction." Of course, he does not stickle 
 for the mere words ; he means that the ideas of the two 
 words are nowhere else brought into immediate connection. 
 Plow precious, tl^en, is that one text. Let us put it into 
 our Confession, in all the fullness of its gracious meaning, 
 and inscribe it upon our banner as an ensign for the nations. 
 But is it unique ? Is this the only declaration of God's love 
 for the world ? When Christ stood and wept over apostate 
 Jerusalem and said, " How often would 1 have gathered you 
 and ye would not," did He not exhibit and declare God's love 
 for all men, even the non-elect ? AVhen the apostle says, 
 *' Christ is the propitiation, not for our sins only, but also the 
 sins of the whole world^^ that " God is the Saviour of all 
 men, especially of them that believe," that " He is not will- 
 ing that any should perish, but that all should come to rejjent- 
 ance^'' that " He will have all men to he saved "; is there 
 not in these words an explicit declaration of God's infinite 
 love to men % Even admitting that the infinite love of God 
 for men, and the sufficiency and free offer of the Gospel sal- 
 vation, are only impliedly set forth in the Kew Testament; 
 is it not the function of a Confession to expound and sum- 
 marize the Word of God, and to furnish those whom the 
 Church ordains and sends forth an explicit declaration of the 
 doctrines by which they are to discip; '11 nations, and of the 
 Gospel they are to preach in all the ein ^m to every creature? 
 
 >/e^ 
 
CONFESSIONAL REVISION. 131 
 
 I am persuaded, upon their own showing, that but for 
 two things, (1) an honorable but easily exaggerated senti- 
 ment that all things should continue as they were before 
 the fathers fell asleep, and (2) a vague fear that there is 
 30uiewhere in the Church a sleeping giant whom it is very 
 dangerous to wake up ; all such men as Dr. Warfield would 
 consent to revision and seek to guide it to safe conclusions. 
 With the conservative sentiment I have a large sympathy ; 
 but do not share at all in what seems to me an unfounded 
 and unworthy fear. 
 
 Henry J. Yan Dyke. 
 
r