BX 9183 .H687 
 
 1890 
 
 C.2 
 
 
 How shall we 
 
 revise 
 
 the 
 
 
 Westminster 
 
 confession 
 
 of 
 
HOW SHALL WE REVISE 
 
 THE WESTMINSTER CONFESSION 
 
 OF FAITH? 
 
HOW SHALL WE REVISE 
 
 THE WESTMINSTER CONFESSION 
 
 OF FAITH? 
 
 A BUNDLE OF PAPERS 
 
 BY 
 
 LLEWELLYN J. EVANS ERSKINE N. WHITE 
 
 MARVIN R. VINCENT CHARLES H. PARKHURST 
 
 SAMUEL M. HAMILTON CHARLES L. THOMPSON 
 
 CHARLES A. BRIGGS 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
 
 1890 
 
COPYRIGHT, 1890, 
 BY CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 There seems to be an increasing interest in the ques- 
 tion of the Revision of the Westminster Confession of 
 Faith. Many papers and numerous pamphlets have been 
 published relating to this subject. The first question to 
 be determined is whether there is to be a revision at all. 
 This question seems to have been decided already by the 
 Christian public, and by the votes of the presbyteries of 
 the Presbyterian Church, in favor of Revision. It mat- 
 ters little how great the majority for Revision may be, the 
 Revision movement has already succeeded. The next 
 question that arises is, How shall we revise the West- 
 minster Confession ? There is little agreement at this 
 point among revisionists. It is important that this ques- 
 tion should now receive some attention. This question is 
 the theme of the Bundle of Papers that is now presented 
 to the public in this volume. These papers were prepared 
 by men of kindred spirit. Some of them have been pub- 
 lished in other forms in the periodical literature of the 
 day. Others were delivered in debate on the floors of 
 presbyteries. These have been revised by their authors 
 for this volume. But at least one-half of the material was 
 prepared expressly for this book, and now appears for the 
 
 (V) 
 
VI PREFACE. 
 
 first time. The papers have been carefully selected, and 
 arranged in an organic method. At the same time, each 
 author speaks his own mind freely, and is solely respon- 
 sible for the views presented in his paper. The editor is 
 responsible for the choice of papers, their grouping, and 
 the propriety of their publication. 
 
 C. A. BRIGGS. 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I. The Advance towards Revision i 
 
 By Prof. Charles A. Briggs, D.D. 
 
 II. Dogmatic Confessionalism versus Revision ... 34 
 By Prof. Llewellyn J. Evans, D.D. 
 
 III. Sovereignty and Freedom, both Essential to the 
 
 System 53 
 
 By the Rev. Erskine N. White, D.D. 
 
 IV. Paul's Argument in Rom. ix.-xi 62 
 
 By Prof. Marvin R. Vincent, D.D. 
 
 V. Divine Mercy morally Obligatory 88 
 
 By the Rev. Charles H. Parkhurst, D.D. 
 
 VI. That Tenth Chapter 98 
 
 By Prof. Charles A. Briggs, D.D. 
 
 VII. A Non-Growing Creed 131 
 
 By the Rev. Samuel M. Hamilton, D.D. 
 
 VIII. The Confession tested by Scripture 137 
 
 By Prof. Charles A. Briggs, D.D. 
 
 IX. A New Creed 183 
 
 By the Rev. Charles L. Thompson, D.D. 
 
 X. Appendix, Proof-Texts of the Confession .... 193 
 
I. 
 
 THE ADVANCE TOWARDS REVISION.* 
 
 BY PROF. CHARLES A. BRIGGS, D.D. 
 
 The revision of the Westminster Confession is a theme 
 that is now absorbing the attention and stirring the hearts 
 of Presbyterian churches throughout the world. For re- 
 vision is no local or temporary movement. It is a product 
 of the evolution of Christian life and thought in our cen- 
 tury. It is the swell on the wave of the advancing tide of 
 Christianity that is sweeping on not only the Presbyterian 
 Church, but all denominations of Christians, towards the 
 realization of the grand ideals of Christian truth, unity, 
 and perfection. 
 
 The revision movement started in this country without 
 leadership, and it has puzzled the leaders of the church to 
 keep abreast of it. It has been accompanied by changes 
 of attitude and surprises. It was at first a child's cry for 
 relief that excited sympathy all over our land. It was but 
 a spark last April. In May, the General Assembly started 
 the flame that has spread like fire upon a prairie, and now 
 the whole church is ablaze. It is one of those movements 
 that are long in preparing, and that suddenly burst forth 
 
 * This article was delivered as an address before the Presbyterian Union of 
 New York, December 2, 1889. It was enlarged, many notes were added, and it was 
 then published in the Andover Review, January, 1890. It has been revised again 
 for this volume, and some important additions have been made. 
 
2 HOW SHALL WE REVISE.'' 
 
 with irresistible might and omnipotent energy. We are 
 in the beginnings of a theological reformation that can no 
 more be resisted than the flow of a great river. 
 
 L REVISION AND THE SCRIPTURES. • 
 
 A venerable divine has recently said that the fundamen- 
 tal question in the revision movement is whether the Con- 
 fession is in accord with the Scriptures. This is the 
 question that Parliament asked the Westminster divines 
 when they sent up the Confession of Faith, December 4, 
 1646, after five months' labor. They demanded proof-texts 
 for every statement before they would take it into consid- 
 eration.* Accordingly the divines went to work on the 
 proofs, and labored until April 26, 1647, upon them. The 
 Westminster divines set a bad example to their successors, 
 which they followed too well ; for it has been the habit of 
 divines to construct their dogmas by logical deductions, 
 and then seek support for them in the Scriptures. If the 
 Westminster divines had put the Scriptures first, their 
 definitions might have been more Scriptural. 
 
 One of the greatest improvements in modern theology 
 has been the development of the discipline of Biblical 
 theology. The theology of the Confession was made, not 
 from teachings of Scripture alone, but also by deductions 
 from Biblical statements that cannot be admitted into a 
 system of Biblical theology. The theology of the Con- 
 fession is a system of speculative theology based on the 
 Scriptures. If one could change it into a system of Bibli- 
 cal theology, it would be as great a transformation as one 
 sees when he removes from America to Europe. 
 
 * Baillie writes : " Our Assemblie, with much adoe, at last have wrestled 
 through the whole Confession and all is now printed. The House of Commons 
 requires us to put scripture to it before they take it into consideration ; and what 
 time that will take up, who knows ? " — Letters and Journals, ii. 415. 
 
THE ADVANCE TOWARDS REVISION. 3 
 
 We assume that the Westminster system is based on 
 the Scriptures, and that its essential and necessary articles 
 are in harmony with the Scriptures. But there are many 
 unessential and unnecessary articles that are not in accord 
 with the Scriptures. There are other important doctrines 
 that are in the Scriptures and are not in the Confession. 
 An advance in the study of the Bible is the nerve of the 
 revision movement. 
 
 II. THE CHURCH HAS CHANGED ITS ATTITUDE. 
 
 The issue between the friends and foes of revision is 
 fairly and squarely stated when it is said that it depends 
 altogether upon the question whether the Presbyterian 
 Church has changed its attitude toward the Confession or 
 not. I shall endeavor to convince you that the church 
 has changed its attitude, and that this change has been 
 thorough. It is all the more startling that this change 
 has taken place silently, gradually, and unconsciously, so 
 that it was not recognized until it was forced upon our 
 attention. You will not be surprised that the dogmatic 
 divines have unconsciously led the church away from the 
 Standards when I call your attention to the fact that there 
 are more than eight hundred titles of books and tracts 
 written by the Westminster divines, the authors of the 
 Standards, and, so far as one can tell from the copious 
 indexes of the systems of theology taught in our theologi- 
 cal seminaries, the authors have not used a single one of 
 them. The great divines who composed the Confession of 
 Faith, and who are the best guides to its interpretation, 
 have not been considered worthy of mention. It is very 
 remarkable that all their other writings should be laid 
 aside as worthless, and this one product of their brains 
 should be exalted above all other human compositions. 
 
 The Westminster Confession was composed by the 
 
4 HOW SHALL WE REVISE ? 
 
 Westminster Assembly two hundred and forty-three 
 years ago. This Assembly was called by the Parliament 
 of England. It was designed to embrace moderate men 
 of all parties, selected from all the counties of England 
 and Wales. Ireland was represented by its Archbishop 
 and the Professor of Divinity at Dublin. Scotland was 
 represented by its ablest divines. The Episcopal party 
 was represented by one archbishop, two bishops, several 
 masters of colleges, and a number of choice scholars. 
 The Independents were represented by seven of the strong- 
 est men of their party. No such fairly representative body 
 of divines was ever before or since convened in Great 
 Britain. It was a splendid plan to unite all parties in the 
 three national churches of Great Britain about common 
 symbols.* But, unfortunately, the king would not allow 
 the Episcopal divines to attend, and the Assembly, with the 
 Long Parliament, soon expelled the Episcopal party. The 
 Presbyterian majority were intolerant toward the Congre- 
 gational majority, so that, while the dissenting brethren 
 struggled heroically for their views in the Assembly, the 
 hostility of the Presbyterian party became so great that 
 John Goodwin and Henry Burton, the only two pastors of 
 London churches who were Independents, were deprived 
 of their charges.f And so the Westminster Symbols be- 
 came the banners of the Presbyterian party. What, then, 
 do we see at the present time } The Westminster Con- 
 
 * Each one solemnly swore that he would " endeavor to bring the churches of 
 God in the three kingdoms to the nearest conjunction and uniformity in religion, 
 confession of faith, form of Church Government, directory for worship, and 
 catechising, that we, and our posterity after us, may as brethren live in faith and 
 love, and the Lord may delight to dwell in the midst of us." 
 
 t Baillie writes, July 8, 1645 : " Blessed be God, all the ministers of London are 
 for us. Burton and Goodwin, the only two that were Independent, are by the 
 Parliament removed from their places. Seven or eight preachers that are against 
 our way are only lecturers in the city, but not ministers," — Letters and Journals, 
 ii. 299. 
 
THE ADVANCE TOWARDS REVISION. 5 
 
 fession has been rejected by all of the historical churches 
 of England. It is held only by the Presbyterian Church 
 of England, a small church, composed chiefly of Scottish 
 and Irish families residing in England. In Ireland, it is 
 the symbol only of the Presbyterians of the North. It is 
 a national creed in Scotland alone. It is used only by 
 Presbyterians in America and the colonies. Nine-tenths 
 of the Protestants of Great Britain and America do not 
 adhere to the Westminster Confession. It has failed in 
 its design of displacing the Thirty-nine Articles. It has 
 not become the one creed of Great Britain. This is the 
 verdict of history on the Westminster Confession. 
 
 The Westminster Confession was completed December 
 4, 1646. Two hundred and forty-three years have passed, 
 years fraught with change and great movements in phi- 
 losophy, in science, in art, in commerce, in industry, and in 
 society. Everything has changed since the seventeenth 
 century. And yet there are some who think that theology 
 has not changed.* Our Saviour promised his disciples the 
 gift of the divine Spirit to guide them into all truth. 
 Christian history shows that the reigning Christ has ful- 
 filled his promise. The church advanced through the 
 Christian centuries in religion, in doctrine, and in morals, 
 down to the year 1646. The Reformation was a wonderful 
 revival and advance in Christianity. The second Refor- 
 mation was a still further advance. The Westminster 
 
 * These should listen to the warning of Samuel Bolton, one of the Westminster 
 divines: " Take heed of rejecting any doctrine meerly under the notion of new: 
 you may so reject truth as well as errour. It may be the doctrine is not new in 
 itself, though new to you. Against this rock many have split themselves, wilfully 
 shutting their eyes against the discoveries of their times, under the pretence of 
 novelty. The most precious truths that are have been in their generations looked 
 upon as new: there is nothing which you hold different from Poperie ; but in these 
 generations, when first they were revealed and manifested, they have been looked 
 upon and rejected for novelties." — The Arraignment of Errour, 1646, p. 155. 
 
6 HOW SHALL WE REVISE ? 
 
 Confession gives us the high-water mark of progress up to 
 the year 1646. Did our Saviour fulfil his promise up to 
 that date and then forget it ? Has the Holy Spirit been 
 withdrawn from the world since the seventeenth century ? 
 God forbid ! I have sometimes thought that our ultracon- 
 servative friends do not believe in the Holy Ghost. They 
 doubtless believe that He is the third person of the Trinity, 
 but they have no practical faith in his presence and power 
 in the church of the day. They doubt his power to assure 
 men of the divine authority of the Scriptures, They have 
 no confidence in his guidance in the evolutions of Chris- 
 tian theology in our century. These brethren are mis- 
 taken. The divine Spirit has been more active in the past 
 three centuries than ever before. There never has been 
 a period in which the church has made such rapid strides 
 forward as in the past one hundred years. We are on the 
 march to-day. Swiftly the columns advance. It is the 
 quickness of the movement, the suddenness of the tran- 
 sition, that is making it clear that we have all departed 
 from the line of battle of 1646; and that our detachments 
 are in movement in different stages of evolution to take up 
 their position in the new line of battle that our Saviour 
 King has assigned for the twentieth Christian century. 
 
 The Westminster Assembly prepared six different doc- 
 uments, and fortified them all with proof-texts. What 
 have we done with them .'* The Synod of New York and 
 Philadelphia, in 1788, swept these proof-texts all away. 
 A committee appointed at a later date added proofs to the 
 doctrinal standards, but in such a slovenly way that their 
 work is not entitled to the slightest consideration or re- 
 spect.* These texts are no part of the Constitution as it 
 was adopted, and published by authority of the Synod. 
 
 See Historical Note, by S. T, Lowrie, Presbyieria7i Review, July, 1888. 
 
THE ADVANCE TOWARDS REVISION. 7 
 
 The Form of Government, Directory of Worship, and 
 Directory of Ordination were all discarded. New docu- 
 ments were composed and adopted in their stead. The 
 American Synod did not venture to add proof-texts to 
 them, for they definitely abandoned the jure divino theory 
 of church government and worship, and established them- 
 selves on the ground of Christian expediency. 
 
 The Confession was revised in three chapters,* and the 
 American doctrine of church and state was substituted for 
 the Westminster doctrine. Such a revision of the West- 
 minster standards was revolutionary. But our Presby- 
 terian fathers had passed through a political revolution, 
 and they did not hesitate to make an ecclesiastical revolu- 
 tion. The only reason that they did not make a doctrinal 
 revolution was because they were not theologians, and 
 doctrines were not in debate. 
 
 It is necessary for us to put ourselves in the circum- 
 stances of the seventeenth century in order to realize the 
 marvellous change that has taken place in the Presbyterian 
 churches since that time. It would have seemed very 
 strange to Westminster divines that their children in the 
 nineteenth century should think doctrine so much more 
 important than practice. It would have surprised them 
 that later Presbyterians could throw away all their work 
 in church government and worship, and then stand back 
 in horror at the thought of touching the articles of faith. 
 Baillie, a member of the Assembly, tells us : "The hearts 
 of the divines here who are wise, both of the Assemblie 
 and city and elsewhere, are set only on the point of gov- 
 ernment. We are going on in the Assemblie with the 
 Confession, and could if need were shortly end it. We are 
 
 * These chapters are : xx. 4, which was amended by omission of a clause : 
 and xxiii. 3, xxxi. i, which were entirely remodelled. 
 
8 MOW SHALL WE REVISE ? 
 
 preparing for the catechise ; but we think all is for little 
 purpose till the government be set up." * This was the 
 opinion of the Westminster divines. And in this they 
 followed the old Puritans in their contest with Whitgift 
 and Hooker. f But in these times it is thought that gov- 
 ernment and worship are for little purpose till our doc- 
 trines are set up ; and modern Presbyterians have definitely 
 abandoned the Puritan position of the Westminster divines 
 and have gone over to Whitgift and Hooker. 
 
 Baillie describes some of the work of Presbyterians in 
 1644, as follows : ''Paul's and Westminster are purged of 
 their images and organs, and all which gave offence. My 
 Lord Manchester made two fair bonfires of such trinkets 
 at Cambridge." f He describes a procession of lords and 
 commons, mayor, aldermen, and Westminster Assembly 
 passing along Cheapside in London, where a great bonfire 
 " of many fine pictures of Christ and the saints, of relicts, 
 beads and such trinkets " were blazing at a place " where 
 Christ's rich cross used to stand." § He depicts a Fast 
 service, with three prayers two hours each, two sermons an 
 hour each, besides two short prayers at the beginning and 
 the end, a short address and two psalms, consuming, in all, 
 
 * " Letters and Journals," ii. 336. January 15, 1646. 
 
 t As Cartwright says in reply to Whitgift, " And it is no small injuria which you 
 do unto the word of God, to pinne it in so narrow roome, as that it should be able 
 to direct us, but in the principal pointes of our religion : or as though the sub- 
 stance of religion, or some rude and unfashioned matter of building of the church 
 were uttered in them, and those things were left out, that should pertain to the form 
 and fashion of it ; or as if there were in the Scriptures only to cover the churches 
 nakedness, and not also chaines and bracelets and rings and other jewels to adorn 
 her and set her out, or that to conclude these were sufficient to quench her thirst, 
 and kill her hunger, but not to minister unto her a more liberal and (as it were) a 
 more delicious and daintie diet. These things you seem to say when you say, that 
 matters necessary to salvation and of Faith, are contained in Scripture ; espe- 
 cially when you oppose these things to ceremonies, order, discipline, and govern- 
 ment." — T. C. Answer to Whitgift, i. 26. 
 
 X Ibid., ii. 130. February 18, 1644. ^ Ibid., ii. 134. 
 
THE ADVANCE TOWARDS REVISION. 9 
 
 more than eight hours.* December 2, 1645, ^^ writes : 
 '' The Independents here plead for a toleration both for 
 themselves and other sects. . . . We hope God will assist 
 us to remonstrate against the wickedness of such a toler- 
 ation." f 
 
 This was Presbyterianism two hundred and forty-four 
 years ago. The burning of organs and pictures of Jesus 
 Christ, the refusal of toleration to Episcopalians, Congre- 
 gationalists, and Baptists, fasts frequent and severe, ser- 
 mons and prayers of intolerable length, psalm-singing the 
 only sacred song, — all these things are an abomination to 
 us. We thank God we do not live in such times, and in 
 the society of such Presbyterians. 
 
 III. THE SYSTEMS COMPARED. 
 
 I shall present to you evidence to show that the Presby- 
 terian churches have changed in doctrine likewise, and that 
 the proportions of the Westminster system are not held 
 by our divines. The dogmatic divines are excessive in 
 their elaboration of the first eleven chapters of the Con- 
 fession. They neglect the middle group of eleven chap- 
 ters ; they depart from the chapters on the church and 
 the sacraments, and they are in great perplexity as regards 
 the two closing chapters on Eschatology. f 
 
 * " So we spent nine to five very graciouslie. After Dr. Twisse had begun with 
 a briefe prayer, Mr. Marshall prayed large two houres, most divinelie, confessing 
 the sins of the members of the Assemblie, in a wonderfullie pathetick, and prudent 
 way. After, Mr. Arrowsmith preached one houre, then a psalme ; thereafter Mr. 
 Vines prayed near two houres, and Mr. Palmer preached one houre, and Mr. Sea- 
 man prayed near two houres, then a psalme. After, Mr. Hendersone brought them 
 to a short sweet conference of the heart confessed in the AssembUe, and other 
 seen faults, to be remedied, and the conveniencie to preach against all sects, espe- 
 ciallie Anabaptists and Antinomanians. Dr. Twisse closed with a short prayer and 
 blessing." — /did., ii. 184, 185. 
 
 t /i>id,, ii. 328. 
 
 t See Briggs's " Whither," chap. viii. Charles Scribner's Sons. 
 
lO 
 
 HOW SHALL WE REVISE 
 
 Table of Comparisons. 
 
 Westminster Confession. 
 
 7- 
 8. 
 
 9- 
 
 10. 
 
 II. 
 
 12. 
 
 13- 
 
 14. 
 
 16. 
 
 17- 
 18. 
 19. 
 20. 
 21. 
 22. 
 
 23- 
 24. 
 25. 
 
 26. 
 27. 
 28. 
 29. 
 30- 
 31- 
 32. 
 
 33- 
 
 Holy Scripture . . . .142 
 
 a. God 37 
 
 /^. The Holy Trinity . . 8 
 
 God's Eternal Decree . . 64 
 
 Creation 22 
 
 Providence 65 
 
 Fall of Man, Sin, and Pun- 
 ishment thereof • • • 35 
 God's Covenant with Man 56 
 Christ the Mediator . . 92 
 
 Freewill 28 
 
 Effectual Calling ... 40 
 
 Justification 49 
 
 Adoption 14 
 
 Sanctification .... 25 
 
 Saving Faith .... 27 
 
 Repentance unto Life . . 38 
 
 Good Works .... 70 
 
 Perseverance . . -« . . 29 
 
 Assurance 56 
 
 Law of God 71 
 
 Christian Liberty ... 60 
 
 Worship and the Sabbath 82 
 
 Oaths and Vows ... 60 
 
 Civil Magistrate ... 60 
 
 Marriage and Divorce . 45 
 
 Church 41 
 
 Communion of Saints . . 28 
 
 Sacraments ^^^^ 
 
 Baptism 43 
 
 Lord's Supper .... 82 
 
 Church Censures ... 30 
 
 Synods and Councils . . 38 
 
 a. State of Man after 
 Death 15 
 
 b. Resurrection of the 
 Dead 11 
 
 Last Judgment .... 34 
 
 1630 
 
 Articles 
 
 Presbyterian 
 
 Ch. Eng. 
 
 82 1 
 
 55 
 
 *64 
 
 82 
 
 64=^ 
 
 211 3 
 
 46 
 
 46 
 
 46 
 92 
 
 Dr. Hodge. 
 
 128 
 92 
 18 
 
 37 
 138 
 
 163: 
 
 128 
 
 183 
 
 68 
 
 41 
 112 
 
 45 
 
 115 
 
 22 
 191 
 
 24 
 96 
 72 
 
 34 
 53 
 
 30 
 62 
 58 
 
 42 
 
 14 
 
 65 
 
 1621 
 
 Dr. Shedd. 
 
 1 These articles place the Scripture between the Church and the Sacraments 
 as Article XIX. 
 
THE ADVANCE TOWARDS REVISION. I I 
 
 The above table presents a careful comparison of the 
 Westminster Confession, the new Articles of the Presby- 
 terian Church of England, and the systems of Dr. Charles 
 Hodge and Dr. Shedd. These have been reduced to com- 
 mon factors, and the proportions of treatment of all the 
 topics of the Confession are clearly seen. 
 
 It is evident from this table that the proportions, of 
 the faith in the Westminster Confession have entirely 
 changed. New doctrines have come into the field, old 
 doctrines have been discarded ; some doctrines have been 
 depressed, other doctrines have been exalted. The sys- 
 tems are different in their structure, in their order of 
 material, in the material itself, in its proportions, and in 
 the structural principles. The essential and necessary 
 
 2 These articles substitute an article on Saving Grace for the Westminster 
 doctrine of the Covenants. 
 
 3 These articles greatly enlarge and improve Christolog)', by giving three arti- 
 cles on the Lord Jesus Christ, the Work of Christ, and the Exaltation of Christ. 
 
 4 These articles improve the doctrine of Effectual Calling by substituting for 
 the Westminster chapter three articles, on the Gospel, the Holy Spirit, and Re- 
 generation. Dr. Hodge discusses the subject under the heads of Vocation and 
 Regeneration. Dr. Shedd treats it under the head of Regeneration. 
 
 5 This chapte, in Dr. Hodge covers the whole subject of Faith, and is devoted 
 chiefly to justifying faith rather than the matter in the Confession included under 
 Saving Faith. Dr. Shedd treats of Faith under the head of Conversion, but does 
 not go into the specific features of the Westminster definition. 
 
 6 This article endeavors to sum up Christian life under this head, and embraces 
 material corresponding with several previous and subsequent chapters of the Con- 
 fession. Drs. Hodge and Shedd treat of Perseverance in connection with other 
 doctrines. 
 
 7 Dr. Hodge, under this head, expounds the ten commandments somewhat 
 after the manner of the Larger Catechism. 
 
 8 These figures are not absolutely correct, for fractions have not been considered. 
 Furthermore, the different terms used, and the arrangement of the material in the 
 systems, make it difficult to be exact in the estimation of subordinate matters. It 
 can be relied on for purposes of general survey and comparative estimation. The 
 pages of Drs. Hodge and Shedd and the lines of the Articles of the Presbyte- 
 rian Church of England have been brought to the measurement of the Westmin- 
 ster Confession, 
 
12 HOW SHALL WE REVISE/ 
 
 articles of about one-half of the Westminster system are 
 in these systems, but the other half, with its essential arti- 
 cles, is not there. 
 
 IV. DECLINE FROM THE WESTMINSTER CONFESSION. 
 
 Two of the grandest chapters in the Confession of Faith 
 are ''the Scriptures," chapter i., and ''Justification," chapter 
 xi. These express the two great principles of Protestantism, 
 after a long conflict between Romanism and Puritanism 
 from 1 5 17 to 1646. They are the finest statements of the 
 Protestant faith. After the English revolution the con- 
 flict with Rome ceased, and the principles of Protestantism 
 sank in relative importance. In the eighteenth century 
 Biblical studies died away in Great Britain,* and the doc- 
 trine of Justification was supplanted by the doctrine of 
 Regeneration, f The current theology is not in accord 
 with the Westminster doctrine of the Scriptures, because 
 it lays stress on extra-confessional doctrines, such as verbal 
 inspiration and inerrancy. J It substitutes the authority 
 of tradition and human authors for the authority of the 
 Holy Spirit speaking in the Scriptures to the believers. I 
 agree to every sentence and word of the Westminster 
 doctrine of the Scriptures, but I denounce the current 
 doctrines as contra-confessional, and as changing the base 
 of the Reformation. § 
 
 Furthermore, the current theology is not in accord with 
 the Westminster doctrine of Justification, for it pushes 
 aside the forgiveness of sins, || makes acceptance with God 
 
 * See Briggs's " Biblical Study," p. 209. 
 
 t Briggs's " American Presbyterianism," p. 260. 
 
 X Drs. A. A. Hodge and Warfield go so far as to say that *' a proved error in 
 Scripture contradicts not only our doctrine, but the Scripture claims, and therefore 
 its inspiration in making these claims." — Pr^sdyf^rian Review, ii. 245. 
 
 \ See Briggs's " Whither," pp. 73 seq. 
 
 II See Simon's " Redemption of Man," pp. 280, 281. 
 
THE ADVANCE TOWARDS REVISION. 1 3 
 
 a mere judicial affair, and recognizes that the majority of 
 the redeemed are saved without personal faith. How 
 can the Westminster doctrine of Justification stand when 
 dogmatic divines leave the doctrine of forgiveness of sin 
 in such obscurity in their systems that they themselves 
 think it unnecessary to put the term Forgiveness of Sin in 
 their indexes,* and when they teach that only a small por- 
 tion of the saved are really justified by faith .^ f Here is 
 one of the difficulties of the Revision movement. The 
 statements of the Westminster Confession on the princi- 
 ples of the Reformation are a thousandfold better than 
 anything we could get from the dogmatic divines of our 
 day. 
 
 The Puritan Reformation was a grand movement in 
 Great Britain, which carried British life and thought be- 
 yond the highest point reached by the churches of the 
 continent. The principles of Puritanism are set forth in 
 
 * Forgiveness of Sin and Pardon of Sin are not found in the indexes of the sys- 
 tems of Dr. Shedd, Dr. Charles Hodge, and Dr. A. A. Hodge. 
 
 The Remission of Sins is found in Dr. Shedd's index referring to a single passage 
 ii. 392. Here the author takes the position that " forgiveness is the non-infiictlon of 
 suffering upon the transgressor." " The release or non-infliction of penalty is for- 
 giveness in the Biblical representation. . . ." Dr. A. A. Hodge says: "God 
 cannot forgive sin in any case ; the sinner may be forgiven, but the sin must be 
 punished, either in the person of the sinner or his substitute.'' — Presbyterian Doc- 
 trine, pp. 15, 16. Dr. Charles Hodge says : " But pardon does not produce peace. 
 It leaves the conscience unsatisfied. A pardoned criminal is not only just as much 
 a criminal as he was before, but his sense of guilt and remorse of conscience are in 
 no degree lessened. Pardon can remove only the outward and arbitrary penalty. 
 The sting of sin remains. There can be no satisfaction to the mind until there is 
 satisfaction of justice." — System of Theology, iii. 128. And thus these dogmati- 
 cians destroy the Biblical doctrine, which is expressed also in the Apostles' Creed 
 and in all the symbols of the Reformation, by reducing forgiveness of sins to the 
 removal of the penalty. The forgiveness of sins is the Biblical and Confessional 
 doctrine. The conception that forgiveness of sin is simply the removal of the 
 penalty has no warrant in Holy Scripture. 
 
 t Dr. A. A. Hodge says : *' In the justification, therefore, of that majority of the 
 elect which die in infancy, personal faith does not mediate." — Princeton Review, 
 1878, p. 315. 
 
14 HOW SHALL WE REVISE ? 
 
 the middle group of chapters of the Westminster Confes- 
 sion, treating of Adoption, Sanctification, Saving Faith, 
 Repentance unto Life, Good Works, Perseverance of the 
 Saints, Assurance of Grace, Law of God, Liberty of Con- 
 science, Religious Worship, Lawful Oaths and Vows.* 
 These were doctrines of vast importance to our Puritan 
 Fathers. But theology and life in the eighteenth century 
 receded from them, and the church of the nineteenth cen- 
 tury has little sympathy with them. This is not only the 
 fault of our dogmatic divines, but it is the common fault of 
 our age. This is clear from the new articles of the 
 English Presbyterian Church. There are but three articles 
 to represent these eleven chapters of the Confession, and 
 these three articles are weak as water when compared with 
 the choice wine of our Confession. We would not consent 
 to abandon these grand chapters of Puritanism, for we are 
 convinced that the church of the twentieth century will 
 rise to them and build upon them in the next great revival 
 and reformation of Christianity. 
 
 The Puritan doctrine of the Church and the Sacraments, 
 as contained in five chapters of the Confession, is excel- 
 lent. The Presbyterian churches in our day have receded 
 from them. The doctrines of the real presence and sac- 
 ramental grace are commonly denied. We regard these 
 as essential and necessary articles. They are bonds of 
 union with the old historic churches of the world. The 
 doctrine of the Church and the Communion of Saints is in 
 accord with the Apostles' Creed. It recognizes the unity, 
 catholicity, and sanctity of the Christian church, doctrines 
 which are much beyond the scope of the average Pres- 
 byterian in our day. 
 
 The two chapters on Eschatology are better than any- 
 
 * See Briggs's " Whither," chap. vi. 
 
THE ADVANCE TOWARDS REVISION. 1 5 
 
 thing we could get at the present time. The whole church 
 is in perplexity here. The conflict with premillenarianism 
 has resulted in an undue stress on the millennium, and a 
 neglect of the doctrine of the Second Advent of Christ. 
 The conflict with Universalism resulted in an undue stress 
 upon the so-called private judgment at death and ever- 
 lasting punishment, to the neglect of the middle state and 
 the ultimate judgment. The relative amount of space 
 given to Eschatology by Dr. Hodge is twice that of the 
 Confession, by the new English articles three times, and 
 by Dr. Shedd four times. There has been a singular neg- 
 lect of the descent of our Lord into hell for the purpose 
 of redemption. But there has been an amazing dogmatic 
 elaboration of the descent of mankind into hell for eternal 
 punishment, far beyond any warrant in Holy Scripture.* 
 This elaboration is a fall from the height of the West- 
 minster theology. The Confession keeps our minds fixed 
 on the second advent of Jesus Christ, the resurrection, the 
 judgment of the Messiah, and the bliss of heaven and 
 communion with God. Here are vast reaches for Chris- 
 tian theology, into which it will be for edification to enter. 
 But at present our theologians think more of hell than of 
 
 * Dr. Shedd, in his " Dogmatic Theology," represents that the clause of the 
 Apostles' Creed, "He descended into hell," is a "spurious clause," and makes a 
 polemic against the doctrine (ii. 603, 607). He goes against the consensus of 
 modern Biblical scholarship in saying that Sheol in the Old Testament " denotes 
 the grave," whenever the righteous are connected with it (ii, 633). His doctrine of 
 the Intermediate State is virtually confined to this polemic. He then devotes six 
 pages to the Second Advent, twelve to the Resurrection, four to the final Judgment, 
 four to Heaven, and eighty-six pages to Hell. This disproportionate treatment has 
 recently been defended on the ground that the doctrine of Hell is most in debate at 
 present. This is not true, for the doctrine of the Second Advent is more in debate. 
 But if it were true, a system of dogmatic theology should give all doctrines their 
 due proportion and adequate place and importance in the system. If it neglects 
 to do this, and gives disproportionate treatment to certain doctrines in which the 
 author is interested, as an advocate, it ceases to be a system of theology, and 
 becomes a treatise of polemical theology. 
 
l6 HOW SHALL WE REVISE ? 
 
 heaven ; more of the private judgment at death than the 
 ultimate judgment ; more of death than the advent of 
 Christ ; more of a magical transformation in the dying 
 hour than the discipline of our Saviour in the middle state. 
 It is clear that there are twenty chapters of the Con- 
 fession that are in advance of the present faith of the 
 church. True progress will be in rising up to them. So- 
 called conservatives have quietly laid these twenty chap- 
 ters on the shelf, or have changed their doctrines, and 
 now are groaning at the heterodoxy of those who desire 
 a few changes in three or four chapters. This is the real 
 situation. No truly progressive man will ever consent to 
 abandon these twenty chapters of the Confession, and 
 descend from them to the miserable malarial swamp of 
 the current dogmatic theology on these subjects. These 
 chapters are the pledges of liberty to the Biblical scholar ; 
 the charter of progress to the sons of the Reformation ; 
 the banner of hope to the children of the Puritans. It is 
 our determination to take them down from the shelf. 
 
 V. THE ADVANCE IN DOCTRINE. 
 
 There are several doctrines in which the modern church 
 has advanced beyond the Confession. 
 
 The chapter on God and the Holy Trinity is sadly 
 defective. It is a decline from the doctrine of the ancient 
 church ; it is a retreat from the Thirty-nine Articles of the 
 Church of England. The reason of this fall was that 
 these doctrines were not in dispute at the time. Such 
 faults always arise in polemic creeds. Such creeds are 
 constructed for the time. They fail in those proportions 
 of faith that are appropriate for all time. Accordingly the 
 doctrine of the Trinity was tacked on as a third section of 
 the chapter on the doctrine of God. It had been received 
 as an inheritance. It was adhered to as an orthodox 
 
THE ADVANCE TOWARDS REVISION. 1/ 
 
 dogma. But there was no special interest in it. It was 
 not a livng question. The doctrine of the Trinity needed 
 unfolding to adapt it to the new faith of the Reformation 
 in the doctrine of Redemption. But the Westminster 
 divines did not attempt it. The Confession was no sooner 
 published than the doctrine of the Trinity became a living 
 issue. John Biddle began his series of assaults on the 
 doctrine of the Trinity. The famous book of Acontius on 
 the Stratagems of Satan was translated into English and 
 attacked by that erratic Westminster divine, Cheynell.* 
 This was but a prelude to the Arian controversy in the 
 eighteenth century. It was introduced by a discussion 
 between Wallis,t a clerk of the Westminster Assembly, 
 and SherlockjJ an Anglican divine. The one lays undue 
 stress on the unity, the other on the tripersonality of the 
 Godhead. Semi-Arianism began in 1702 with Thomas 
 Emlyn, a Presbyterian pastor of Dublin, who said that he 
 had been unsettled by reading Sherlock. Then Samuel 
 Clark and Whiston came into the field, and these influ- 
 enced James Pierce, of Exeter, in 171 7. § And thus the 
 Presbyterian Church in England was involved in the Arian 
 controversy. The same conflict in Scotland centred 
 about the trial of Professor Simson, of Glasgow. The 
 result of this struggle was that the Irish Presbyterian 
 Church was divided ; the Presbyterian Church in England 
 became entirely Unitarian, the Church of Scotland became 
 saturated with semi-Arianism, and New England Congre- 
 
 * John Biddle's "XII Arguments drawn out of the Scripture : whereon the com- 
 monly-received opinion touching the Deity of the Holy Spirit is clearly and fully 
 refuted," 1647 ; " Confession of Truth touching the Holy Trinity," 1648 ; " A Two- 
 fold Catechism," 1654 ; Acontius's " De Strategematibus," 1565 ; " Satan's Strata- 
 gems," 1648 ; Francis Cheynell's " The Divine Trinity," 1650. 
 
 t John Wallis's "The Doctrine of the Blessed Trinity, briefly explained," 1690. 
 
 X William Sherlock's " The Doctrine of the Trinitv," 1690. 
 
 § Briggs's " American Presbyterianism," pp. 194 seq. 
 
1 8 HOW SHALL WE REVISE? 
 
 gationalism gave birth to American Unitarianism. The 
 battle with Arianism and Unitarianism taught Presbyte- 
 rians many sad lessons. The Westminster divines left 
 their children a ♦:roublesome legacy in these controversies, 
 due largely to their neglect of the doctrine of the Trinity. 
 
 The Westminster statement of the Being and Attributes 
 of God is also defective. The church has passed through 
 a long contest with deism, atheism, patheism, and agnosti- 
 cism, in which the doctrine of the Being and Attributes of 
 God has been greatly advanced. The Personality of God, 
 the Immanence of God, the doctrine of the Living God, a 
 God of holiness and love, — these doctrines are a power in 
 recent theology. The Presbyterians of this century are 
 dem.anding that there shall be some better confessional 
 statement than the Westminster Confession gives us of 
 our adoration of the living God and Saviour ; our experi- 
 ence of the matchless treasures of his grace and love for 
 all mankind ; and our worship of the Holy Trinity. 
 
 The doctrine of Creation in the Confession was con- 
 structed before the development of modern science began. 
 Wallis, one of the scribes of the Assembly, united with 
 Robert Boyle in founding the Philosophical College in 
 London in 1645. The Royal Society was organized in 
 1663. Then began that series of discoveries that has 
 made modern science such a wonder of our age, and 
 changed the complexion of the globe. Science was a 
 babe in swaddling clothes in 1646. It is a giant, conquer- 
 ing and to conquer, in 1890. The Westminster doctrine 
 of Creation is mere child's play. It is not in accord with 
 the Scriptures. Science and the Scripture are in much 
 better accord. Let any one read Henry B. Smith's chap- 
 ter on Christian Cosmology,* and he will see that the 
 
 * Henry B. Smith's " System of Christian Theology," pp. 92 seq. 
 
THE ADVANCE TOWARDS REVISION. 1 9 
 
 Westminster divines were only on the threshold of the 
 subject. The scientific spirit of our age demands a better 
 recognition of the order and development of nature and of 
 the relation of the Creator to his Kosmos than we can find 
 in any creed of the sixteenth or seventeenth century. 
 
 The anthropology of the Confession preceded the rich 
 development of modern philosophy. Bacon was behind the 
 Westminster divines, but one can trace little, if any, of 
 his influence upon them. They were too much under the 
 influence of Aristotle and the scholastic methods. There 
 were Platonists among them, but these were feeling their 
 way cautiously. Hobbes and Descartes were just coming 
 on the stage. The psychology, ethics, and metaphysics of 
 the Westminster divines were sufficiently crude. Soon 
 after the Assembly adjourned, the Cambridge Platonists 
 came into power. Then came the long development that 
 has resulted in our present schools of philosophy. The 
 whole doctrine of God and man has changed in these evolu- 
 tions of modern philosophy. No one can understand the 
 Westminster standards who does not take this into account. 
 The doctrines of Original Sin and the Freedom of the 
 Will have been the battle-grounds of modern British and 
 American theology, while ethical questions had the field in 
 Germany. The discussions are deeper, broader, richer, 
 and more far-reaching than the Westminster divines could 
 imagine. The student who knows Julius Miiller's doctrine 
 of Sin, and Dr. Shedd's massive contributions to anthro- 
 pology,* sees that the Westminster divines were sopho- 
 mores when compared with the theologians of our day. 
 
 The Christology of the Confession is also defective. 
 The greatest advance in modern theology has been in its 
 
 * Julius Mailer's " Die Christliche Lehre von der Siinde," 1858, translated in 
 Clark's Theological Library ; Shedd's " Dogmatic Theology," ii. 1-168. 
 
20 HOW SHALL WE REVISE ? 
 
 doctrine of the Person and Work of Christ. The doctrine 
 of the Person of Christ has been the great contribution of 
 modern German theology. Its results summed up in the 
 splendid work of Dorner * are worth all the writings of the 
 Westminster divines combined. British and American 
 theology has unfolded the doctrine of the Atonement, so 
 that that doctrine has about the same relative position of 
 prominence in American Presbyterian theology as the 
 doctrine of the Decree had to the Westminster divines. 
 But the recent advance in Christology has been only par- 
 tially appropriated by our American divines. In some 
 features, the Westminster divines are in advance of our 
 dogmaticians. In the stress laid upon the humiliation of 
 Christ, they have neglected the exaltation ; in the stress 
 laid upon the crucifixion, they have neglected the incarna- 
 tion, the holy life, the resurrection, the ascension, the reign, 
 and the second advent. In the stress laid upon compensa- 
 tion and substitution in the doctrine of the Atonement, 
 and the shedding of the blood on the cross, they have 
 neglected the significance of the Redeemer's blood as 
 applied to the heavenly throne and the believer's heart, 
 and the redemptive influence that issues from his person 
 and his heart of love. The church of our day is rising to 
 the adoration of the risen and reigning Christ, and is 
 beginning to look again for his second advent. We are 
 opening our minds to see that the Redeemer's work upon 
 the cross was the beginning of a larger work in the realm 
 of the dead, and from his heavenly throne whence the ex- 
 alted Saviour is drawing all men unto himself. 
 
 In these great doctrines of our religion, — the Being and 
 Attributes of God, the Holy Trinity, Creation, the Nature 
 
 * L A. Dorner's " Entwicklungsgeschichte der Lehre von der Person Christi," 
 1851, translated in Clark's Library. 
 
THE ADVANCE TOWARDS REVISION. 21 
 
 of Man, the Origin and Development of Sin, the Person 
 and Work of Jesus Christ, — the church of our century 
 has advanced far beyond the Westminster Confession. 
 The definitions of these chapters are weak and insuffi- 
 cient. Better statements of the public faith of the church 
 are needed. In some way or other it is necessary that we 
 should testify to the wonderful love of a living God and 
 Saviour to the world ; our adoration of the Holy Trinity ; 
 our enlarged conceptions of nature and its place in the 
 realm of God ; our experience of the riches of divine 
 grace and its ample provision for all mankind ; and above 
 all we need a confession in which Jesus Christ, our Sav- 
 iour^ shall reign supreme from centre to circumference, 
 and where every section, sentence, and word shall pulsate 
 with the heart-beats of our Redeemer, not willing that 
 any should perish, but all should come to repentance and 
 salvation. 
 
 Such a revision can be made only in the form of a new 
 creed, that will be born of the life, experience, and worship 
 of our age. 
 
 VI. THE CHIEF DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 We shall now consider the chapters where we find the 
 greatest difficulties at present. 
 
 The third chapter of the Confession, on the Divine 
 Decree, is a splendid chapter. It gives us the result of 
 the long contest of Puritanism with Arminianism. The 
 English Puritan, Perkins, by his extreme statements is 
 largely responsible for the Arminian controversy that 
 broke out in Holland, and spread over the Reformed 
 world. The English Puritans in general stood by Per- 
 kins. The battle was complicated by the adoption of 
 Arminianism by the Anglo-Catholic party. The divine 
 decree was the one great doctrinal issue between Arch- 
 
22 HOW SHALL WE REVLSE ? 
 
 bishop Laud and the Puritans. That is the reason for the 
 strong, burning, piercing sentences of the third chapter. 
 At the same time, Bishop Davenant led an intermediate 
 party, which was represented in the Westminster Assem- 
 bly by some of the most influential divines. The doctrine 
 of the Decree was framed in view of all these interests. 
 A real consistent Calvinist does not stumble at them. 
 But there are not as many consistent Calvinists as there 
 used to be. Even the most conservative divines have 
 appropriated features of Arminianism. And it is plain 
 that the doctrine of the Decree is excessive in the West- 
 minster Confession. It not only dominates the third 
 chapter, but it controls the doctrine of Providence in the 
 fifth chapter, and reappears wherever it has a chance 
 throughout the Confession. It forces itself upon us, as 
 one determined to have the last word in a controversy. 
 This was a hobby of the Westminster divines, and they 
 rode a high horse with it. The two chapters on the De- 
 cree and Providence have nearly twice the space to that 
 given to the Being and Attributes of God, the Trinity, and 
 Creation. No . modern theologian gives such excessive 
 treatment to the divine Decree. Dr. Charles Hodge gives 
 one-fourth of the space to the Decree and Providence that 
 he gives to the other parts of the doctrine of God. Dr. 
 Shedd gives but one-fifth the space. If the Decree were 
 in the same proportions of the doctrine of God in the 
 Westminster Confession that it is in these divines, seven 
 sections would be stricken out, and it would be reduced to 
 the first section. And then it would have equal space to 
 that given to the Ploly Trinity. Is the Divine Decree 
 a more important doctrine than the Trinity ? The West- 
 minster divines seemed to think so. But modern Presby- 
 terians have advanced to a better conception in that they 
 have exalted the Trinity and depressed the Decree. 
 
THE ADVANCE TOWARDS REVISION. 23 
 
 The chapter on Effectual Calling is the one that gives 
 the greatest difficulty at the present time, because it 
 teaches the damnation of non-elect infants and of the 
 entire heathen world. 
 
 Dogmaticians have endeavored to avoid the plain mean- 
 ing of the passage by teaching that ''elect infants " means 
 all infants, or that infants are elect as a class, going over 
 to the Arminian doctrine of election for babes, while they 
 cling to Calvinism for adults. 
 
 The Westminster divines did not know what they were 
 about when they framed these definitions. They made 
 logical deductions from other doctrines without Scripture 
 warrant. Logical deductions are of value in theological 
 speculation if indulged in to a moderate extent. They are 
 much easier than the inductive study of the Scriptures 
 and Christian history. There are few dogmaticians who 
 are not tempted to push these deductions until they lodge 
 in absurdities. They forget that they are not dealing with 
 axiomatic truth, but with premises that are only partially 
 and relatively true, and that are ever changing with the 
 progress of human knowledge. The Westminster divines 
 did not escape these faults in their construction of our 
 standards. They committed the fault to which Samuel 
 Bolton, one of their number, called attention : 
 
 "We have handled much of this divinity in our times, first we have 
 drawn platforms out of the word, then built upon them, and drawn 
 deductions and consequences from them, and then consequence from 
 those consequences, till at last they be nothing agreeable to the origi- 
 nall the word of God. Now God suffers errours to arise, most of which 
 will be found to be bottomed upon false deductions and consequences 
 drawne out of the word, many opinions built and fastened on them. 
 And God suffers this, to bring us back to the original the word of God, 
 that there we might rectifie all."' — Arraignment of Erroicr, 1646, p. 16. 
 
 We should bear in mind that in the seventeenth century 
 the entire population was in communion with the national 
 
24 HOW SHALL WE REVISE .'' 
 
 churches, and that all children were baptized. The West- 
 minster divines, many of them at least, believed with their 
 assessor. Dr. Burgess, in the baptismal regeneration of 
 elect infants.* They did not believe that baptism worked 
 ex ope7'e operato, and therefore they held that some of the 
 baptized were not regenerated, and that some were regen- 
 erated without baptism. In this respect, they made an 
 advance beyond the common doctrine at that time, that 
 only the baptized infants could be saved. Unbaptized and 
 non-elect infants, to them, simply meant the children of 
 the heathen and a few revolutionary Anabaptists. They 
 did not think that it was any worse to damn heathen babes 
 than to damn their fathers and mothers, and sisters and 
 brothers. In this respect, we confess that many of us 
 agree with them. The modern revolution of opinion that 
 has brought in the new doctrine of the universal salvation 
 of infants is due to the historic change in the dissenting 
 churches. Large numbers of Baptists and Friends in the 
 eighteenth century refused to baptize their children. The 
 Presbyterian and Congregational churches declined to bap- 
 tize the children of those who were not communicants, and 
 these they limited to those who would subscribe to their 
 covenants and submit to their examinations and discipline. 
 Accordingly, these strict rules for church membership 
 made an entire change in the Protestant world. In the 
 eighteenth century, a large proportion of the people were 
 excluded from communion with the churches, and mil- 
 lions of babes in Christian lands were unbaptized. Were 
 these children to be damned because their parents declined 
 the obligations of church membership in these sectarian 
 churches, and because these churches refused them bap- 
 tism } So soon as the church squarely faced the problem. 
 
 ♦Burgess's " Baptismal Regeneration of Elect Infants," Oxford, 1629. 
 
THE ADVANCE TOWARDS REVISION. 2$ 
 
 it answered it. Infant baptism sank in importance, and 
 infant salvation rose superior to all rites and ceremonies. 
 The church changed its doctrine, and the Westminster 
 statements became repulsive. 
 
 But what can we do about it .'' We have a new doc- 
 trine ; but we cannot prove it from Scripture ; we have not 
 brought it into harmony with other Christian doctrines. 
 We cannot put the new doctrine into the Confession with- 
 out changing other doctrines of greater importance. The 
 problem is, how are these infants saved ? Dr. Hodge 
 saves them without faith, and so undermines the doctrine 
 of Justification by Faith. Dr. Strong thinks that they are 
 regenerated so soon as they see Christ, and believe on 
 Him after death, and thus extends regeneration into the 
 middle state.* Many divines, German, English, and Amer- 
 ican, think they have a probation in the middle state. 
 There are some serious questions to be settled before this 
 new doctrine can go into a public confession of faith. 
 
 It is very much the same with the doctrine of the dam- 
 nation of the heathen. The Westminster divines knew 
 but little of heathenism. The heathen were to them the 
 Turks, the enemies of Christ and his church, and a few 
 negroes on the coast of Africa, and Indians in America 
 whom they were inclined to identify with the lost tribes of 
 Israel. They knew nothing of the countless millions of 
 Asia, Africa, America, and the islands of the sea, as these 
 have been revealed to us by modern travellers and modern 
 commerce. They were not straitened by this doctrine as 
 we are. What man or woman can for a moment contem- 
 
 * " Since there is no evidence that children dying in infancy are regenerated 
 prior to death, either with or without the use of external means, it seems most 
 probable that the work of regeneration may be performed by the Spirit in connec- 
 tion with the infant soul's first view of Christ in the other world." — A. H. Strong's 
 Systematic Theology, p. 357. Rochester, 1886. 
 
2.6 HOW SHALL WE REVISE ? 
 
 plate the eternal damnation of these countless millions of 
 heathen, now living, far exceeding the number of Chris- 
 tians, men and women who have never heard the Gospel, 
 without crying from the bottom of his soul, God forbid! 
 Our God and Saviour could not do such a thing. Modern 
 divines are seeking earnestly for some way in which to 
 save the heathen. Some would save them by faith in the 
 implicit Christ, that is, in God so far as He reveals himself 
 unto them. This is a new doctrine. Where is the Scrip- 
 ture for any salvation apart from faith in Jesus Christ.-* 
 A recent speculator gave them a chance for a saving vision 
 of Christ between breath and death. German divines look 
 for relief to a probation in the middle state. There are 
 important problems to be solved before this doctrine of 
 the salvation of the heathen can be put into a public con- 
 fession of faith. 
 
 If we cannot tolerate in the Confession these doctrines 
 of the damnation of the heathen and non-elect infants, now 
 that none of us believe in them, there is no other way than 
 to blot out these sections altogether. We cannot intro- 
 duce new doctrines where we lack warrant from Scripture, 
 and we are unable to harmonize them with other confes- 
 sional doctrines. 
 
 But even if these awkward doctrines were removed, this 
 chapter would not be satisfactory. The doctrine of effect- 
 ual calling has passed out of the field of modern theology, 
 and regeneration has taken its place. Regeneration was 
 a term irsed by the older theologians in connection with 
 infants and baptism. The great movement called Meth- 
 odism, that arose in the eighteenth century, brought the 
 doctrine of regeneration into prominence, and the whole 
 attitude of the church to this question has changed. The 
 great question of salvation is no longer justification and 
 effectual calling, but regeneration and the experience of 
 faith. 
 
THE ADVANCE TOWARDS REVISION. 2/ 
 
 The Westminster Confession is defective in that it has 
 no chapter on the work of the Holy Spirit. The work of 
 the Holy Spirit is taught in several chapters of the Con- 
 fession under the heads of other doctrines, but this has 
 been overlooked by the dogmaticians and the ministry who 
 follow them. It is one of the features of modern progres- 
 sive theology that it lays great stress on the work of the 
 Holy Spirit. The new articles of the Presbyterian Church 
 of England have made an improvement by treating the 
 material of the tenth chapter in three chapters, one on the 
 Gospel, another on the Holy Spirit, and a third on Regen- 
 eration. This is more in accord with the faith of progres- 
 sive theologians in our day, and shows how far modern 
 Presbyterianism is in advance of the Westminster divines. 
 
 The chapter on Marriage and Divorce is not in accord with 
 present views in the church. It has recently been amended 
 by striking out the prohibition of marriage with a deceased 
 wife's sister. But the whole reference to Levitical laws of 
 marriage is wrong. The Levitical law is no longer binding 
 on Christians. The statement that " such as profess the 
 true reformed religion should not marry with infidels, 
 papists, or other idolaters " is not justified by the Word of 
 God, is a slander upon Roman Catholic Christians, and is 
 unworthy of a place in a Christian creed. No one thinks 
 of such limitations of marriage in our times. The mar- 
 riage law has no rightful place in a confession. Its place 
 there was due to the conflict with John Milton in 1645. 
 
 VII. HOW SHALL WE REVISE ? 
 
 There are several chapters that give real difficulty to the 
 Presbyterian Church, and there is a strong and widespread 
 cry for relief from them. It is not easy to remove the diffi- 
 culties from these chapters. We have to consider amend- 
 ment by omission, insertion, and reconstruction. There- 
 
28 HOW SHALL WE REVISE ? 
 
 fore many have come to the conclusion that the wisest 
 method is to make the revision in the form of a new and 
 simple creed. Who can get up any enthusiasm over patch- 
 ing up an old creed ? When the knife is in hand, one 
 thrusts it in here, another there, until the Confession is as 
 full of knives as St. Sebastian with arrows. But a new 
 creed, a simple devotional statement of our faith, — we all 
 need it for the education of our children, for the training 
 of young converts, for the concert of public worship. A 
 creed that will express the faith, life, and devotion of the 
 present time, born of our experience and needs, is a grand 
 ideal, worthy of the effort and enthusiasm of a great church ; 
 a plan of campaign about which it is practicable to rally the 
 Presbyterian and Reformed world. 
 
 This new creed should not displace the Westminster Con- 
 fession, but be a supplementary and congregational symbol. 
 As we already have a Confession of Faith and two cate- 
 chisms, there is no sufficient reason why we should not 
 have a popular congregational creed that will drive into 
 everlasting perdition the thousand and more crude, ill- 
 digested things that are now in use in our congregations. 
 
 If we keep the new creed strictly in line with the Con- 
 fession, insisting that all the essential and necessary arti- 
 cles of the Confession shall have a place therein, we shall 
 avoid those serious omissions that spoil the new articles of 
 the English Presbyterian Church, and at the same time 
 we may insert those new doctrines that constitute such an 
 excellent feature of these new articles. We shall then 
 have several grades of doctrine for all classes of our peo- 
 ple, — a maximum and minimum of doctrine. We may 
 then advance into the conflicts of the twentieth century 
 with a new banner expressing the living issues of our 
 times streaming in the midst of the old battle-flags that 
 have come down to us from the seventeenth century. 
 
THE ADVANCE TOWARDS REVISION. 29 
 
 The revision movement in the American Presbyterian 
 Church began with a call for changes in a few sections. 
 It has already reached a second stage, in which the ques- 
 tion of a new creed has become prominent. It is forced 
 by the circumstances of the case to advance to a third 
 stage. The terms of subscription are the real difficulty in 
 the situation. If we are to have a new creed, are we to 
 subscribe to the old or to the new, or to both ? This 
 question must be faced before many conservative men will 
 be ready to advocate the new creed. We venture to say 
 that the terms of subscription are the key to the history of 
 the American Presbyterian Church, and in some respects 
 of the history of British Christianity since the Reforma- 
 tion. Party lines are ever drawn here, whatever may be 
 the ostensible lines of division. The battle in the Presby- 
 terian Church since 1729 has been a battle between loose 
 subscription and strict subscription. We cannot solve 
 this great problem of the revision of our standards and 
 ignore this fundamental question. At the root of all our 
 difficulties at the present time lies our indefinite and vari- 
 ously interpreted term of subscription. We are between 
 the advocates of loose subscription and the promoters of 
 rigid subscription. There is a middle way that is safe and 
 honest, — the way of definite subscription. 
 
 The present term of subscription is a torture to tender 
 consciences. It is a bar of iron to rigid Calvinists to ex- 
 clude those who do not agree with them from the church. 
 It is a rope of sand to loose thinkers who are determined 
 to think and do as they please in the church. The term 
 of subscription means one thing in western Pennsylvania, 
 another thing in central New York. It is one thing in 
 Baltimore, another thing in our metropolis. Presbyterian- 
 ism changes its complexion as we pass from State to State 
 and from city to city. The real test of orthodoxy in the 
 
 ^// 
 
30 HOW SHALL WE REVISE ? 
 
 Presbyteries is not the Westminster Confession in its his- 
 toric sense, — is not the term of subscription in its histori- 
 cal meaning. It is the system of doctrine held by the 
 majority of the ministers, and the term of subscription as 
 interpreted by them. It is in general the systems of 
 doctrine of American dogmaticians, with such measure of 
 departure therefrom as the majority of a Presbytery may 
 deem it wise to allow. 
 
 The Westminster Confession was framed by divines who 
 had no thought of requiring subscription to it. Antony 
 Tuckney, one of the most influential Westminster divines, 
 tells us : *' In the Assemblie I gave my vote with others 
 that the Confession of Faith put out by Authoritie should 
 not be either required to be sworn or subscribed to ; we 
 having been burnt in the hand in that kind before, but so 
 as not to be publickly preached or written against." * 
 
 The Westminster Directory of ordination does not 
 require subscription to the Confession. The dissenting 
 brethren representing Congregationalism delayed the 
 organization of the Presbyterian Church of England so 
 long that it became impossible to construct it. If those 
 who dissented from the doctrinal articles had prolonged 
 the debates, the Confession would never have been com- 
 posed. The Assembly would have been forced to a 
 shorter and simpler creed, or they would have gone to 
 their homes without agreement. Subscription was never 
 used in the Presbyterian Church in England. Subscrip- 
 tion was not used in the Presbyterian Church of Ireland 
 at the time when Francis Makemie came to assist New 
 England divines in laying the foundations of the Ameri- 
 can Presbyterian Church. Subscription was imposed on 
 
 * " Eight Letters of Dr. Antony Tuckney and Dr. Benjamin Whichcote," p. 76, 
 ndon. ivCQ. 
 
 London, 1753 
 
THE ADVANCE TOWARDS REVISION. 3 1 
 
 the Presbyterian Church of Scotland in 1693, by Parlia- 
 ment, in the interest of breadth and toleration. The 
 revolution of 1688 transformed the Episcopal Church of 
 Scotland into a Presbyterian Church of Scotland. The 
 term of subscription was designed to protect those of the 
 Episcopal minority who were willing to conform, and to 
 protect them from the intolerance of the Presbyterian 
 majority. Terms of subscription devised in the interest 
 of comprehension and liberty were afterwards used as 
 means of bondage, torture, and exclusion. The American 
 Presbyterian Church in 1729 adopted the Westminster 
 standards in a catholic spirit.* They adopted, not the 
 whole doctrine, but the system of doctrine ; not all the 
 articles, but the essential and necessary articles. At 
 the time of the adoption of the Confession, they allowed 
 exceptions to the doctrine of two different chapters,! 
 showing in concrete cases that they used articles in a 
 broad sense, and that we are justified in rejecting not 
 only clauses, but sections of chapters, so far as these are 
 not essential to the Westminster system. This historical 
 interpretation of the terms of subscription is the law of 
 the American Presbyterian Church, and gives the rule for 
 the action of its Presbyteries. 
 
 The term adopted in 1788 is as follows : '' Do you sin- 
 cerely receive and adopt the Confession of Faith of this 
 church as containing the system of doctrine taught in the 
 Holy Scriptures V This is not so clear as it ought to be. 
 It might be made more definite by inserting its historic in- 
 terpretation into it. By using the phrases of the Adopting 
 Act, the implicit meaning may be made explicit in some 
 such way as this : '' Do you sincerely receive and adopt 
 the system of doctrine contained in the Westminster Con- 
 
 * Briggs's " American Presbyterianism," pp. 216 seq. f Chaps, xx. and xxiii. 
 
32 HOW SHALL WE REVLSE ? 
 
 fession, as being in its essential and necessary articles the 
 doctrine taught in the Holy Scriptures ? " If the term 
 could be thus amended, young men and elders would know 
 what they were subscribing to. They would know that 
 it was not the system of Turretin, or Charles Hodge, or 
 H. B. Smith, or W. G. T. Shedd, but the Westminster Sys- 
 tem, and that the essential and necessary articles of that 
 system are the only ones to which they are bound. The 
 terms of subscription and Presbyterial examinations have 
 been too often used as bars of authority to exclude from 
 the church, when they ought to be pledges of liberty to 
 invite men into the church and make them feel at home 
 therein, within the Hmits of the essential and necessary 
 articles of the Westminster system. 
 I The first step in revision, therefore, should be to revise 
 
 the terms of subscription, and make them definite, so that 
 the subscriber would know that he was subscribing to the 
 essential and necessary articles of the Westminster system. 
 The second step should then be to define what these 
 essential and necessary articles are. This may be done in 
 the new creed. The new creed should (i) set forth the 
 essential and necessary articles of the Confession, and 
 omit all unessential and unnecessary articles ; (2) give 
 adequate expression to those doctrines that have risen into 
 prominence since the Westminster Confession was com- 
 posed. The new creed would thus be of the nature of a 
 declaratory act in the form of a devotional and a congre- 
 gational creed. It would give relief not only at two or 
 three points, as does the Declaratory Act of the United 
 Presbyterian Church of Scotland, but it would give relief 
 at all points, for it would be as full and explicit as the Pres- 
 byterian Church of our day deems it wise to express its faith. 
 In our opinion it would be best not to touch the West- 
 ", minster Confession, but to give our strength to the con- 
 
 Hr' 
 
THE ADVANCE TOWARDS REVISION. 33 
 
 struction of a new creed. It is evident, however, that 
 there are statements in the Confession that are so offen- 
 sive to many of our best ministers, elders, and people, that 
 there is serious danger of losing them from the church. 
 It is the duty of a Christian Church to take stumbling- 
 blocks out of the way. Our Saviour calls those children 
 of Gehenna who strove to put barriers in the way of en- 
 tering his kingdom. There are other synagogues of 
 Satan than the Church of Rome, there are other Anti- 
 christs than the Pope, there are other idolaters than 
 Romanists. There are those who make an idol of the 
 Westminster Confession. There are those in the Presby- 
 terian Church who have the antichristian spirit of intoler- 
 ance and persecution. Even a Presbyterian church may 
 become a synagogue of Satan by excluding those who be- 
 long to Jesus Christ. The Presbyterian Church was not 
 organized for the sake of conserving the Confession. The 
 Confession was made by the church and for the church. 
 It has been revised in the past. It will be revised again 
 and again, if necessary, to relieve tender consciences. God 
 forbid that it should ever be a yoke of bondage and a staff 
 for oppression ; therefore remove the offensive statements. 
 This may be done for the most part by excision. Some of 
 us shrink from the work of insertion and reconstruction. 
 But in Christ's name let us go forward and give our young 
 men and elders the relief they demand. We believe that 
 the revision movement is born of God. It will be guided 
 by the Holy Spirit. It is a great step toward a better 
 future. It is a preparation for a new reformation of the 
 church. It is in the direction of Christian harmony, catho- 
 licity, and unity. Jesus Christ is at the head of this move- 
 ment ; we shall do well if with open minds and hearts we 
 look for His word and follow faithfully His call. 
 
II. 
 
 DOGMATIC CONFESSIONALISM VERSUS 
 REVISION. 
 
 BY PROF. LLEWELLYN J. EVANS, D.D. 
 
 The case against Revision of the Westminster Confes- 
 sion has been stated and argued by three of the leading 
 theologians of the Presbyterian Church, — by Dr. Shedd, 
 in an article published some time ago in the New York 
 Evangelist ; * by Dr. DeWitt, of Chicago, in the Presby- 
 terian Review, who, however, it should be noted, has since 
 pronounced in favor of a supplementary declaration ; and 
 by Dr. Patton, in the paper read by him before the Presby- 
 terian Social Union of New York, and published in The 
 Independent of December 5th. What has been left unsaid 
 against Revision by this distinguished combination is pre- 
 sumably not worth saying. What they have said is pre- 
 sumably the strongest and the best that can be said in favor 
 of leaving our noble confessional monument untouched. 
 Speaking generically, and with some individual qualifica- 
 tions, their protest may be viewed as the protest of dogma ; 
 hence at once its strength and its weakness. A compara- 
 tive analysis of this protest may have its uses for the 
 discussion. 
 
 Such an analysis thoroughly carried out would disclose 
 
 * This has been republished in a pamphlet entitled The Proposed Revision of 
 the Westminster Standards, New York, Charles Scribner's Sons. 
 34 
 
DOGMATIC CONFESSION ALISM VERSUS REVISION. 35 
 
 a set of psychological phenomena in the region of dog- 
 matic confessionalism, which, did space allow, would be 
 a highly interesting and instructive study. A few of 
 these phenomena we shall have occasion to notice as they 
 cross our path ; many more we must regretfully pass by. 
 
 It is noticeable that the three lines of confessional apol- 
 ogetics under consideration start from a common centre. 
 Each of our champions is a worshipper of the centuries, 
 and well-nigh the first utterance of each is a pathetic ex- 
 pression of centuriolatry. Standing under the shadow, 
 not indeed of the Pyramid of Cheops, with ''forty centu- 
 ries looking down " from its summit, but of the Towers of 
 Westminster, v/ith its two and a half centuries looking 
 down upon us, they are transfixed into petrifactions of 
 wonder, love, and praise. "Revision is inexpedient," says 
 Dr. Shedd, " because in its existing form, as drawn up by 
 the Westminster Assembly, the Confession has met, and 
 well met, all the needs of the church for the past two cen- 
 turies. What is there in the condition of the Presbyterian 
 Church to-day that makes the old Confession of the past 
 two hundred years inadequate as a doctrinal standard t " 
 " Its antiquity^' says Dr. DeWitt, " and its .survival united, 
 entitle it to remain unamended, except in the face of the 
 clearest necessity for revision." " It is not denied," says 
 Dr. Patton, '* that there are men among us who by making 
 free use of the materials already existing in the Confes- 
 sion, are abundantly equal to the task of preparing a more 
 compact, a more logical, and in some respects a more satis- 
 factory confession. But they cannot write two hundred 
 years of history into it." This attitude of mind is charac- 
 teristic and noteworthy. For anything at all parallel to it 
 we must go back to Ancient Egypt. There it reached its 
 highest and perpetual symbol in the mummy. 
 
 The worship of fixity, the cult of immobility, the ^^ As- 
 
36- 
 
 it-was-in-the-beginnmg-is-now-and-ever-shall-be " of the dox- 
 ology metamorphosed into the '' As-it-was-in-the-beginning- 
 is-now-and-ever-shall-be " of dogmatism — what is this but 
 the Egyptian type of mind under Western skies ? It is the 
 mental condition which originates mummies. Under its 
 touch the Westminster Confession would soon become a 
 mummy of the first class. The Temple of History is to 
 its vision a vast Museum of Mummies, the "survivals" of 
 the centuries, inviolable because old. The old definition 
 of history as " philosophy teaching by example " — teach- 
 ing that is how to advance, to make improvements, to 
 amend our formulas of thought, our rules and methods of 
 action, is quite at fault. The great lesson of history is 
 rather that improvements are needless. The very fact 
 that things are as they are, is sufficient demonstration that 
 things are as they should be. What has survived the past 
 is entitled ipso facto to be let alone by the present. What 
 has met the wants of two hundred years should be pre- 
 sumed adequate to the wants of two thousand years. The 
 more centuries and millenniums you can " write into " 
 your mummy, the more admirable will it be as a mummy, 
 and the less need that it should ever be anything but a 
 mummy. 
 
 The logic of all this is self-evident. It puts the West- 
 minster Confession beyond the possibility of amendment 
 for all time to come. We have our mummy for good and 
 for all, and there seems to be no way of getting anything 
 else in its place. But why try for anything else .? Why 
 change our mummy .^ Why not be satisfied? It has met 
 all our needs for the past two centuries. True, we have 
 had very little use for it of late, except as ''a witness." 
 We have not hawked it about our streets, or carted it 
 through our market-places ; we have not exposed its beau- 
 ties from our forums, nor urged its claims in our gates ; 
 
DOGMATIC CONFESSIONALISM VERSUS REVISION. 3/ 
 
 we have kept it safe and snug in its sarcophagus ; we have 
 had our young hierophants make its acquaintance in the 
 secret places of our theological catacombs ; on solemn 
 state occasions we have made our salaams to it and blown 
 a trump or two in honor of it ; and — in short, it has been 
 a Grand Old Mummy, and what more do we want ? 
 
 But here we note a curious anomaly, which, it is to be 
 feared, betrays another peculiarity of a dogmatic confes- 
 sionalism. While history is so desperately invoked in 
 guarding the sacredness of our confessional mummy, it is 
 by no means to be invoked, it seems, in deciphering its 
 mysteries. For thus speaks Dr. Patton : *'Our interpreta- 
 tion of it [the Confession] must conform to the funda- 
 mental legal principle that requires us to find our materials 
 for the construction of a document within the four corners 
 of the document. A great deal of most valuable histori- 
 cal research becomes useless so far as the question of con- 
 fessional interpretation is concerned in the light of this 
 principle." Verily, here is a marvel ! Leaving to the 
 smiles of the legal fraternity the naive and sweeping 
 application here made of a "fundamental legal principle," 
 we need not travel beyond the use here made of it. The 
 only use of history, it seems, in respect to a great historic 
 monument is to supply the dates, to give us the number of 
 centuries written into it, or over it ! Our mummy is, after 
 all, a mummy only on the outside ! It is to be taken as 
 one of ourselves. This contemporary of the Pharaohs 
 must be handled as a contemporary — say of Barnum, or 
 Buffalo Bill. He must be arrayed in modern toggery, 
 made "to wag the tongue of him " in our own to-day ver- 
 nacular ; and what he says must be parsed and analyzed 
 as though it were an Act of Congress from the home of 
 the setting sun. We must find the secret of our mummy 
 within the four corners of the relic itself, forsooth ! And 
 
38 HOW SHALL WE REVISE ? 
 
 SO we are brought to this interesting point. We cannot 
 frame a new creed — so we are oracularly informed — be- 
 cause we cannot write two centuries of history into it ; 
 but in reading what the seventeenth century Sphinx had 
 to say, we must drop two centuries of history out, and set 
 aside our ''most valuable historical research" into the 
 same, as so much rubbish, so far as the question of confes- 
 sional interpretation is concerned. This, sad to say, is to 
 resolve our venerable bicentenarian Sphinx into — say a 
 bachelor of Vassar or Wellesley. You cannot write two 
 hundred years into a new creed, and so your new creed, 
 although "more compact, more logical, and in some re- 
 spects more satisfactory," is not to be thought of ; but 
 when it comes to the interpretation of your bicentenarian 
 you must read the seventeenth and the eighteenth cen- 
 turies out of it, and read — of course! how can you help it? 
 — the nineteenth century into it ! 
 
 And yet — will it be believed ? — the sense in which we 
 take the Confession is, after all, "the historic sense"! 
 Stress is laid by all our Confessionalists on the fact that 
 at the Reunion, the Confession was accepted in its " his- 
 torical, i.e. to say, its Augustinian or Calvinistic sense." 
 Thus it is that dogmatic confessionalism writes history 
 into the Confession, then reads history out of it, and ends 
 by finding history in it ! 
 
 But we are not through with the mysteries of anti-revis- 
 ional interpretation. The citadel of the polemic against 
 revision is the dependence of the integrity of our system 
 of doctrine on the integrity of the Confession. On the 
 one side much is made of the logical unity and symmetry 
 of the Confession. We are reminded by the eulogies be- 
 stowed upon it of the Deacon's 
 
 " wonderful one-hoss shay 
 That was built in such a logical way 
 It ran a hundred years to a day.'' 
 
DOGMATIC CONFESSIONALISM VERSUS REVISION. 39 
 
 The ''logical" excellence of the Deacon's masterpiece, 
 it will be remembered, lay in the fact that whereas in 
 chaises generally "there is always somewhere a weakest 
 spot " at which " a chaise breaks down, but doesn't wear 
 out," in this "one-hoss shay" there w^as no weakest spot. 
 This, I need not say, is the logical excellence of the West- 
 minster "masterpiece." It "doesn't wear out," as the 
 centuries attest, and it won't break down. 
 
 " There are traces of age in the one-hoss shay, 
 A general flavor of mild decay ; 
 But nothing local, as one may say.'' 
 
 Hence local restorations are to be avoided as endangering 
 the integrity of the venerable vehicle that has run so long 
 and so well. "There is no end to the process," argues 
 Dr. Shedd. " It is like the letting out of water. The 
 most cursory perusal will show that a revision of the Con- 
 fession on the one subject of the decrees would amount to 
 an entire recasting of the creeds." 
 
 This is one side of the argument. The other side is — 
 not like unto it. According to this side the substance of 
 the Confession is quite independent of its form. Its par- 
 ticular statements, the ipsissima verba, are altogether sec- 
 ondary ; the system of doctrine is the thing ! Its peculiar 
 glory, after all, would seem to be that it holds all the " vari- 
 eties" and "types" of "historic," or "generic" Calvinism 
 in solution, and every Calvinist is at liberty to find "within 
 the four corners of the document " his own favorite sam- 
 ple. Dr. Patton, e.g. takes pains to enumerate and to de- 
 scribe a number of "varieties" of the Calvinistic system, 
 each of which may find its poijit d^appiii in the Confession. 
 Dr. Shedd again states three forms of the doctrine of 
 " elect infants " ; and, reading a little hypothetical history 
 of the Westminster Assembly into the "four-corner" in- 
 
40 HOW SHALL WE REVISE ? 
 
 terpretation of the ''document" adds: ''Probably \sic\ 
 each of these opinions had its representatives in the As- 
 sembly, and hence the indefinite \sic\ form of the state- 
 ment " (!) And again: ''The liberty of opinion now 
 conceded by the Confession would be ill exchanged for a 
 stricter statement that would admit of but one meaning" (!) 
 From which it would appear that the special beauty of the 
 unrevised Confession is that its statements are so loose as 
 to admit of several meanings — three at least in one impor- 
 tant instance. According to Dr. DeWitt " to change the 
 word * elect ' [before ' infants '] to ' all ' would be to nar- 
 row the confessional basis by leaving room but for one 
 opinion instead of the four opijiions \sic /] ivhich it now 
 permits " (!). Dr. DeWitt is to be congratulated on being 
 so far one ahead of Dr. Shedd. What an interesting and 
 extraordinary document this logical definition of our faith 
 is coming to be in the hands of a confessionalism which 
 according to the dogmatic exigency now sacrifices every- 
 thing to history, and anon puts history out of court alto- 
 gether; which on the one side pushes out the horizon of 
 history into the region of probabilities, on the other pinches 
 it down within the four corners of a dehistorized historic 
 document — a Hamlet with the Hamlet left out. 
 
 Now it is certainly interesting to note the unison with 
 which our confessional champions chant their solicitude 
 for "liberty of interpretation." It is most encouraging to 
 find that not one of them favors a retrogression to the rigid 
 ipsissima vej'ba theory of subscription. Quite the reverse. 
 They are sincerely, almost painfully, anxious lest Revision 
 should, as Dr. Shedd puts it, " abridge the liberty of inter- 
 pretation now afforded by the Confession." This is surely 
 a great point gained ; and with such assurances as we now 
 have from the dogmatic side of the house the question of 
 "freedom of belief wdthin the limits of the Calvinistic 
 
DOGMATIC CONFESSIONALISM VERSUS REVISION. 4I 
 
 system," and a recognized "area of tolerated divergence 
 from the Confession of Faith," may be regarded as settled. 
 The apparent incongruity between this new-born zeal for 
 liberty and doctrinal divergence, and zeal for logical unity 
 and rigor and chronological persistence and immobility, 
 however much it may puzzle us, does not distress us. It 
 is indeed a curious anomaly that whereas on the one side 
 the generic type is so independent of the ipsissima verba 
 that Dr. Patton is able to boil down the whole system of 
 doctrine into half a paragraph of concentrated Calvinism ; 
 on the other side, any attempt on the part of the whole 
 church to [recast the phraseology where it has been found 
 misleading or objectionable, or to omit that about which 
 Scripture is silent, is an experiment fraught with disastrous 
 possibilities. We have a secret suspicion down in our 
 inmost souls that the Nemesis of the logical dilemma in 
 which our dogmatic brethren are putting themselves will 
 one day overtake them and scourge them with Erinnyan 
 fury ; but that is their concern, not ours. Meantime we 
 welcome their aid and influence on the side of liberal inter- 
 pretation and a comprehensive Calvinism. 
 
 As for the Jeremiads in which our anti-Revisionists 
 indulge as they contemplate the disastrous possibilities 
 connected with Revision, not much needs to be said. 
 This is not argument, although our brethren sometimes 
 seem to think that it is. It is simply a state of mind, 
 venting itself in prophecy. Now the fear of bogies is not 
 to be reasoned out of anybody ; nor is a prophecy to be 
 overthrown by a syllogism. The only available answer 
 to prophecy for the time being is another prophecy. I 
 venture, therefore, to predict that within three years after 
 Revision is an accomplished fact, happier or more con- 
 tented Calvinists will nowhere be found than our confes- 
 sionalist brethren whose horoscope is just now so full of 
 
42 HOW SHALL WE REVISE ? 
 
 dark omens. Their timidity is not constitutional or per- 
 sonal. It is the accident of their position. Dogmatism 
 is ever sounding the alarm. It lives in a house of cards, 
 and is ever fearful that to shake one will tumble the whole 
 pack. Not seldom the fear is well grounded ; but when 
 the tumble takes place, nobody is seriously hurt. Dog- 
 matism crawls out of the ruin and doggedly takes up its 
 old programme as outlined by Dr. Shedd, '' working on the 
 very same old bases, in the very same straight line." 
 
 So far perhaps we need not take this temper of mind 
 too seriously. There is something so characteristic and so 
 naive about it as to be almost amusing. Professor Stowe 
 has somewhere wittily compared the use of a liturgy to the 
 use of a go-cart, which may help the child when he is 
 learning to walk, but which would be an odd appendage 
 to a full-grown man walking the streets ; and he goes 
 on to poke a little sly fun at those who may be heard con- 
 stantly and complacently prating about ''our excellent 
 go-cart." A confession, to be sure, is not necessarily a go- 
 cart ; but the temper of mind which clings to the Con- 
 fession as it is, simply because it has been a useful accom- 
 paniment to the early steps of Presbyterianism, and because 
 our progress thus far has been helped by it, is in all essen- 
 tial respects the temper of mind which for a similar reason 
 is always harping on "our excellent go-cart." 
 
 But there is a more serious side to the case. Let me 
 emphasize the fact that the opposition to Revision is con- 
 fessedly the expression of a serene and solid (shall I write 
 it stolid?) satisfaction with the present status quo of Pres- 
 byterianism and Calvinism. Why agitate for anything 
 better than we have ? Why strive for any higher or larger 
 success than we have been all along achieving } " All the 
 past successes and victories of Presbyterianism have been 
 accomplished under the old Confession. ... Is it not 
 
DOGMATIC CONFESSIONALISM VERSUS REVISION. 43 
 
 better for the church to work on the very same old bases, 
 in the very same straight Une ? " Is this, I ask, the spirit 
 which should rule the church of to-day ? Is this the view 
 we should take of its achievements and equipments for 
 work and conquest? Glorious as may be the record of 
 Westminster Presbyterianism for two and a half centuries, 
 of "the theological learning and pulpit eloquence, the 
 spiritual life and practical zeal, the heroic endeavor and 
 consecrated service of that body of Christians in Great 
 Britain and America who have believed in the theology of 
 the Westminster divines," shall we allow it to foster that 
 spiritual complacency, v/hich is the bane alike of Christians 
 and of the church ? Shall we be content that our future 
 should be simply the rehearsal of our past ? Was this the 
 spirit of Paul, whom we are so much given to vaunt as our 
 spiritual father ? Is this forgetting the things which are 
 behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are 
 before ? Is this becoming all things unto all men ? Is 
 this going in at every open door? Is this watching for 
 great doors and effectual ? Is this redeeming the oppor- 
 tunity, fighting as not beating the air, striking so that 
 every blow will leave a black eye behind it ? Is this building 
 up the church as the temple of God, as the body of Christ, 
 as the fulness of Him that filleth all in all ? Is this exult- 
 ing in God, who always leadeth us in triumph in Christ ? 
 If this be Calvinism, then what is Paulinism ? Nay, is not 
 this rather that nightmare of Calvinism, that dogmatic 
 fatalism, the effort to get rid of which has probably as 
 much to do with the Revision movement as any one cause ? 
 Let us glance a moment at another phase of this same 
 phlegmatic temper, in which, sad to say, the champions of 
 our confessional go-cart show to less advantage even than 
 the champions of the liturgical go-cart. The latter have 
 at least the enthusiasm of their convictions. They are 
 
44 HOW SHALL WE REVISE ? 
 
 benevolently anxious that the merits of their go-cart should 
 be appreciated, and they look forward with confidence to 
 the day when everybody will use it. Not so with the 
 champions of the confessional go-cart. The unpopularity 
 of their perambulator does not seem to distress them par- 
 ticularly. Apparently they expect nothing else. They 
 see no good reason why, if Mohammed declines to come 
 to the mountain, the mountain should go to Mohammed 
 {sic Dr. Shedd). They have little or no hope that it will 
 ever be found practicable to make a statement of Calvinism 
 that will commend it even to evangelical Christians who 
 thus far have not accepted it {sic Dr. DeWitt). They 
 contemplate without discomposure the alternative of 
 joining other communions for those who do not like our 
 doctrines {sic Dr. Patton). But are we reduced to this "^ 
 Is this the outcome of two and a half centuries of West- 
 minster Confessionalism } Is it strange that some of us 
 are getting out of patience with this dogmatic phlegm ; 
 that we are somewhat tired of a Confessionalism which in 
 the third century of its existence is content to be still on 
 the defensive, to be still explaining and re-explaining, ever 
 at the end finding its explanations useless, and beginning 
 all over again ; which despairs of making any impression 
 on the evangelical Christianity outside of its own bounds ; 
 and with face to the past, and back to the future, drones 
 monotonous paeans of self-glorification .? In all this we 
 find nothing whereof to be proud, nothing to stir the blood, 
 nothing to inspire enthusiasm. We would fain see a Con- 
 fessionalism of another type; one that dared trust itself; 
 that put other creeds, if need be, on the defensive ; that 
 carried in its own bosom the prophecy of victory ; that 
 bore within itself the promise and the potency of develop- 
 ment ; that could adapt itself more intelligently to the new 
 conditions of scientific, critical and religious thinking — 
 
DOGMATIC CONFESSIONALISM VERSUS REVISION. 45 
 
 a Confessionalism so distinctively and ringingly Scriptural 
 that all Christians who accept and honor the Bible as the 
 Word of God, would hear the echo of its ring in their own 
 inmost convictions — a Confessionalism that would en- 
 courage its adherents to go forward with a faith born of 
 the assurance that the future is its own. Is such a 
 Cor fessionalism possible? Why not ? Calvinism.^ W/iy 
 not ? 
 
 Why Not ? I ask. Is Calvinism to be forever on the 
 defensive? forever pleading with a half-apologetic, half- 
 defiant snarl, that we know that our system ''is a hard 
 system," that it has "its hard side," "its hard features," 
 but there are the proof-texts I and after all, -' Why should 
 our doctrines keep men out of the church ? They are not 
 asked to accept them " {sic Dr. Patton). So ! And what, 
 then, is the raison d'etre of our Presbyterianism ? " To 
 be a witness-bearing church" {sic Dr. Patton). But to 
 bear witness to what ? Why, to that same body of doc- 
 trines which, if we are to accept the dogmatic confession 
 respecting them, are irremediably, hopelessly hard ; which 
 must nevertheless be unflinchingly and unalterably re- 
 tained in all their hardness ; but which, notwithstanding 
 all this, only a small percentage of the witness-bearers of 
 the church are asked or bound to accept ! What an ex- 
 traordinary position for a great witness-bearing church to 
 occupy, to be sure ! Dr. Shedd, indeed, is conscious of 
 the illogical infelicity of the situation, and seeks relief in 
 the theory that toleration within the church of that against 
 which the church, as a church, bears witness, is not 
 indorsement. But Dr. Shedd's theory does not change 
 Dr. Patton's facts. 
 
 The question which underlies the whole situation, and 
 on which the whole philosophy of Revision hinges, is sim- 
 ply this : Shall we as a church retain, as part of our Con- 
 
46 HOW SHALL WE REVISE ? 
 
 fession, statements which are admitted to be non-essential 
 to our system of doctrine ; which are not supported by 
 the express declarations of Scripture ; which, if not abso- 
 lutely rejected by the large majority of our ministers, are 
 never preached or urged on others ; which are at the best 
 misunderstood by other evangelical believers ; and which, 
 as long as they are retained, present our Calvinism to the 
 world as something hard, unsympathetic, unlovely, unat- 
 tractive, and so far powerless for good ? The friends of 
 Revision are satisfied that the Calvinism which three- 
 fourths of our evangelical brethren of other denominations 
 reject is not the Calvinism which we ourselves hold. John 
 Calvin's verdict on the doctrine of the Divine Decree — 
 ^^ Decretmn horribile fateor'' — must be restricted to his 
 own version of that doctrine. The '' hard side " of Cal- 
 vinism, of which we hear so much, is for the most part 
 extra-scriptural, if not unscriptural. Its gloomy, repellent 
 features are largely the excrescences of a presumptuous 
 logic, and of a one-sided dogmatic exegesis. The ''Rep- 
 robation " of the Westminster Confession is nowhere 
 affirmed in Scripture. The proof-texts for our "■ hard doc- 
 trines," to be sure, are taken from the Bible ; the mis- 
 fortune is that they prove nothing of what they are cited 
 to prove. The "ninth of Romans" is no doubt a mag- 
 nificent, ironclad argument ; but a false confessional exe- 
 gesis has wrested it to uses — misuses, let me say — of 
 which Paul never dreamed. . Paul never cries out, " Decre- 
 tiivt Jiorribile fateor ! '' Our system of doctrine, in so far 
 as it lies in his exposition of it, however ** rigid, militant, 
 and menacing" it may be here or there, is in its grand 
 climactic sweep unspeakably gracious, melting, and win- 
 ning, strong indeed with the strength of the purpose of 
 the eternities ; sweet also and tender, with the pathos of 
 the tears of Olivet ; radiant with the brightness of the 
 
DOGMATIC CONFESSIONALISM VERSUS REVISION. 4/ 
 
 Great White Throne, and melodious with the interludes 
 of Heaven-born doxologies. 
 
 Are the tone, the atmosphere, the lights and shades, the 
 arrangements, the groupings, the focusing of our system, 
 of no significance ? Dr. Patton would have us think so. 
 "The fundamental doctrines of Calvinism," he assures us, 
 *'are not determined as to their meaning by the way in 
 which they are systematized. Separate dogmas must be 
 separately supported by Scripture. How the doctrinal 
 units are manipulated may change the look of the system, 
 but it does not change the doctrines. We may begin with 
 sin, or with predestination, or with the person of Christ. 
 We cannot change the doctrines by adopting one rather 
 than another style of theological architecture. It is im- 
 portant to say this, because some seem to think that they 
 can keep their Calvinism and at the same time get rid of 
 its hard features by adopting a Christocentric method in 
 theologizing. They are mistaken." This is sufficiently 
 dogmatic, but is it true ? Surely the setting of a doctrine 
 has as much to do with the interpretation of it as its 
 phraseology. The context is often the larger half of the 
 text. The proposition, " God is All in All," has a very 
 different meaning in Spinoza from what it has in Paul. 
 Probably nineteen-twentieths of our systematic variations 
 are the outcome of doctrinal manipulations. The units 
 are very nearly the same : the difference lies in the way 
 they are put together, — in the centres, the adjustments, 
 the architecture, and the architectonics. The unit tones 
 of a waltz of Strauss may be the same with those of 
 Handel's Messiah : the method of using them marks the 
 interval between waltzing and v/orshipping. Change the 
 tem/?o of Yankee Doodle, and you have a stately psalm- 
 tune. The right adjustment of foreground and back- 
 ground makes all the difference between the artist and 
 
48 HOW SHALL WE REVISE? 
 
 the bungler. The difference between the Ptolemaic and 
 Copernican astronomies is not in the planetary units, but 
 in the centre. One architectonic principle gives you a 
 Chinese pagoda ; another gives you St. Peter's of Rome. 
 The Calvinism which with "The Institutes" puts the 
 Divine Decree in the foreground yields a different picture 
 from that which with the Epistle to the Romans puts it 
 in the background. The Calvinism which seeks its archi- 
 tectonic principle in the Absolutism of the Divine Will 
 does not appeal to a lost world like the Paulinism which 
 finds its constructive principle in the transcendence of 
 Divine Grace. Dr. Patton himself admits that a little 
 manipulation of the doctrinal units, while it does not 
 change the doctrines, may change the look of the system. 
 Well, that is what we of the Revision want. Our objec- 
 tion is not to the system, nor, generally speaking, to the 
 doctrinal units, but to the look of the system. 
 
 Let me illustrate what I mean. Alongside with Dr. 
 Patton's representation of the unmitigable hardness of 
 Calvinism, let me present another portraiture of it by a 
 master-hand, whom our brethren of the dogmatic confes- 
 sional school will all agree to honor, the late Dr. Henry B. 
 Smith. He is describing (Introduction to '' Christian The- 
 ology," pp. 46 seq.) the theology which it is his own pur- 
 pose to teach, and to which, as one of the great systems 
 of dogmatic theology produced within the Presbyterian 
 Church during the last quarter of a century. Dr. Patton 
 has meted such high praise. Look back a moment at 
 Dr. Patton's picture ; then look at this of Dr. Smith's : — 
 
 ** The theology which is pre-eminently needed in our times is that 
 whose substance and marrow have met the needs of men in all times. 
 This in its essential principles is the old, time-honored theology of the 
 Christian Church, with its two foci of sin and of redemption, all viewed 
 as dependent on God. It is based upon the solid granite rock (the 
 
DOGMATIC CONFESSIONALISM VERSUS REVISION. 49 
 
 only ir\i& petra), and built up of living stones, in massive proportions, 
 rising ever upward, until its aspiring lines fade away in the bosom of 
 the infinite, whither it leads us, that there we may rest. That old the- 
 ology, — older than our schools, older than the earth and the stars, — 
 coeval with the godhead ; always yet never old, never yet ever new, — 
 it is dateless and deathless as the divine decree, yet fresh as the 
 dawning light of a new day in every new-born soul ; it has been known 
 from the beginning to all penitent and believing souls ; it is uttered in 
 every humble prayer ; it has been sung in such melodious and raptur- 
 ous strains as have nowhere else found voice. 
 
 " That old theology, the living essence of our sacred Scriptures, 
 abiding substance of our Creed, the sense of our confessions and the 
 consensus of our schools ; it has been held and taught by the most 
 piercing and soaring intellects of our Christian times — Athanasius and 
 Augustine, Anselm and Aquinas, Luther, Melancthon and Calvin, Tur- 
 retine and Edwards ; and through them it has taught and fashioned the 
 most vigorous and advancing churches and nations of modern times. 
 
 "And above all, when that old theology is seen in its most consum- 
 mate and radiant form — Christologized ; when here all the lines and 
 problems of thought and being are seen to meet in the Incarnate Son 
 of God, our only Saviour ; when once this, its perfect fruit and full idea, 
 is revealed to any human soul, then that soul knows itself also ; for it 
 has found the master light of all its seeing and knows that here is wis- 
 dom, here is life.'' 
 
 Will any one say after this that a Christocentric Calvin- 
 ism is impossible .? That to Christologize is not to im- 
 prove it } Will it be no gain if it catches a little more of 
 this ring, of this *' look," of this consummate and radiant 
 Christological form, and with it a little more of the match- 
 less winsomeness of the Christ of whom '' all our little 
 systems," Calvinism included, ''are but broken lights"; 
 and who is " more than they " all .-* 
 
 I appeal to the utterances of Dr. Patton himself, when he 
 leaves for a moment his dogmatism behind and comes up 
 to the ''shining table-lands" of Christian experience. I 
 appeal from Dr. Patton, the doctrinaire, who says : " Calvin- 
 ism may be a hard system, but it is Scriptural. ... It has 
 
50 HOW SHALL WE REVISE ? 
 
 its hard features, I allow " ; to Dr. Patton, the devotional- 
 ist, who goes on to say : " But the Christian does not find 
 it hard to say that his faith is the gift of God ; that he is 
 kept by the power of God ; and that nothing shall separate 
 him from the love of God. He sings with Faber, * Oh, gift 
 of gifts; oh, grace of faith,' " etc. He sits at the commu- 
 nion table and sings with Watts, " Why was I made to 
 hear His voice } " etc. It does not occur to him, perhaps, 
 that while he says this he is by implication accepting 
 the Calvinistic doctrine of election [and reprobation .?]. 
 Precisely so ! By Dr. Patton's own admission, Calvinism 
 can be put in a form which the Christian ** does not find it 
 hard to accept," " does not find it hard to say," or to con- 
 fess, "does not find it hard even to sing." Why, in the 
 face of all this, should we insist on perpetuating it in a 
 form in which millions of Christians just as evangelical, 
 just as sincere, just as thoroughly devoted to Scriptural 
 truth and even to Pauline Christianity as we are, refuse to 
 have anything to do with it ? 
 
 The question which the friends of Revision are asking is 
 this : Why should we not conform the Calvinism of our 
 Confession less to the dogmas of the schools, and more to 
 the prayers of our closets ? Can we not make it less of a 
 theorem and more of a hymn, as were the earliest confes- 
 sions of the Christian church, as was indeed the one re- 
 corded " Confession " of the Author {archegos) of our faith } 
 (See Matt. xi. 25.) Can we not put into it less of our syl- 
 logisms and enthymemes, and more of what we sing and 
 pray.? Will this hurt it.? Will this weaken it.? Will 
 this impair its essential Calvinism .? Keep in the doctrine 
 of an election of grace, by all means. That is Scripture. 
 That is Paul. That is Peter, James, and John. That is 
 the Master. That is Watts and Wesley. That is Faber 
 and Toplady. That you can sing at your communion 
 
DOGMATIC CONFESSIONALISM VERSUS REVISION. 5 1 
 
 tables. Keep out the Reprobation of Chapter III. That 
 is not Scripture. That is not Paul. That you cannot, 
 you do not sing — no ! not *'by implication" — Dr. Patton 
 to the contrary notwithstanding. 
 
 Let our brethren dogmatize to their hearts' content in 
 their studies and schools, their lectures and books ; why 
 dogmatize so aggressively, so exhaustively, so one-sidedly 
 in our confessions ? If one has a turn, like Dr. Patton, 
 for *' taking hold of the big end of the question," and 
 thinks that the better way to handle the matter, he is, of 
 course, welcome to hold that as a pious opinion ; but why 
 shape the Confession that way .'* '' The big end of the 
 question " too often proves, like Mark Twain's " business 
 end of a wasp," a dangerous end to handle. Those whose 
 theological cuticle has been thickened by rubbing against 
 "the hard side of Calvinism," may have nothing to fear 
 from the encounter ; but why should the rest of us be 
 made to suffer } 
 
 The time seems to have come for the Presbyterian 
 Church to take some steps toward a Confession more vis- 
 ibly Christocentric ; more vividly suffused with the solar 
 splendors of the truth that God is love ; more palpably 
 pulsant with the heart-throbs of the Divine Fatherhood ; 
 more eloquent of the world-redemptive outreachings of 
 the Cross ; more instinct with the missionary impulses of 
 a Pauline Christianity ; more responsive to the claims and 
 affiliations of a Christian brotherhood ; more in touch 
 with the hymns and prayers, the experiences and activi- 
 ties of the Holy Church Universal ; showing less of con- 
 fidence in the deductions of a finite logic respecting the 
 mysteries of God, and more reverence toward the re- 
 serves and silences of the Inspired Word ; a Confession 
 that can be accepted lovingly as well as sincerely ; that 
 can be urged on others without apology that fails to con- 
 
52 HOW SHALL WE REVISE ? 
 
 ciliate, or explanations that fail to explain ; that will in- 
 spire enthusiasm as well as require loyalty ; that will 
 attract, not repel : a Confession like that of our Elder 
 Brother [Luke x. 21 : "In that same hour He rejoiced in 
 the Holy Spirit, and said: I thank Thee (praise — make 
 joyous confession to ; same verb in Rom. xiv. 11; xv. 9 ; 
 Phil. ii. 11), Oh Father, Lord of Heaven and earth, that 
 thou didst hide these things from the wise and under- 
 standing, and didst reveal them unto babes ; yea, Father, 
 for so it was well pleasing in thy sight "] in which the sov- 
 ereign good will of the Father so far from being a spectre 
 of terror will shine forth as a Vision of Joy. 
 
III. 
 
 SOVEREIGNTY AND FREEDOM, BOTH ESSEN- 
 TIAL TO THE SYSTEM. 
 
 BY THE REV. ERSKINE N. WHITE, D.D. 
 
 When a minister or an elder subscribes to the Confes- 
 sion of Faith " as containing the system of doctrine taught 
 in the Holy Scriptures," what does he mean ? 
 
 Does he mean only that he believes there is nothing in 
 that Confession which is not in the system of doctrine ? 
 Or does he also mean that he believes that whatever is 
 essential to the system of doctrine zs included ? If, as 
 seems to be self-evident, both these statements are included 
 in his subscription, then manifestly in opposing the revision 
 of the standards, it is not enough to prove, even were it sus- 
 ceptible of proof, that every statement of the Confession 
 "is either expressly taught in Scripture or by good and 
 necessary consequence may be deduced from Scripture." 
 
 If there is any doctrine essential to the system which 
 is either entirely omitted in the Confession or so obscured 
 that it is practically untaught, then in order that the re- 
 quired subscription may be truthfully made, there is need 
 of revision, no matter how successfully the statements that 
 are included in the Confession may be defended. 
 
 What, then, are the facts ? 
 
 There are two doctrines that are universally admitted 
 to be essential, if not to our Christian faith, at least to that 
 
 S3 
 
54 HOW SHALL WE REVISE? 
 
 form of it which is termed the Calvinistic system. Of this 
 latter, indeed, they may be said to be the cardinal doctrines 
 which give it its distinctive position. 
 
 These doctrines are (i) the absohite sovereignty of God 
 and (2) \\iQ, freedom and resp07isibility of man. If the latter 
 without the former means Arminianism, the former with- 
 out the latter vi\^2sv^ fatalism. 
 
 That the latter is just as essential as the former to Cal- 
 vinism was emphasized again and again (most noticeably 
 by Dr. W. M. Paxton of Princeton) during the late debate 
 in the Presbytery of New York. Moreover, it has been 
 always assumed not only that both doctrines are essential 
 to the completeness of the system, but also that from the 
 antithesis they present, it has drawn its grand power upon 
 the hearts of men. One of the prominent journals of our 
 church opposing revision emphatically says, " By exalting 
 God's sovereignty, and at the same time equally insisting 
 upon man's free agency, there has been a combination 
 of the divine and the human in aggressive movement, 
 and the presentation of the purest and warmest gospel 
 messages along with the fullest theological teaching and 
 exposition." 
 
 It has been often affirmed, and it is generally admitted, 
 that these two doctrines are to human logic irreconcilable, 
 and yet despite such affirmation or admission they are 
 none the less accepted. God is sovereign and '* from all 
 eternity did by the most wise and holy counsel of His own 
 will freely and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to 
 pass," yet so as thereby no "violence is offered to the will 
 of the creatures." The mystery seems insoluble ; yet in 
 some way, uncomprehended by us, these two subHme 
 truths do not conflict : the one enfolds and upholds the 
 other. 
 
 I. It is certainly then pertinent to ask: In what relative 
 
SOVEREIGNTY AND FREEDOM. 55 
 
 proportion should these two fundamental doctrines appear 
 in a Confession of Faith ? 
 
 1. To say the least, both must be in some measure 
 included and unmistakably affirmed. 
 
 2. Logical inferences must not be drawn from the one 
 to the disparagement and minimizing of the other. 
 
 As Prof. Henry B. Smith, who knew so well how ''to 
 handle with special prudence and care" "the doctrine of 
 the high mystery of predestination," was accustomed to 
 say, " Neither doctrine must be held so as to cut the nerve 
 of the other." 
 
 3. They must be set forth in such proportion as befits 
 their practical importance in the great scheme of grace 
 and in its presentation to the consciences of dying men. 
 
 4. They must be exhibited in the relation to one another 
 in which they are manifested in the Word of God. 
 
 II. To form a just idea of the result, were these funda- 
 mental truths manifested in such just proportion, we must 
 consider what is their relative importance in the system of 
 doctrine which we accept. 
 
 There is a sense in which it should be affirmed most 
 emphatically that they are of equal importance. Both are 
 fundamental, and the omission of either opens the way to 
 doubt and misunderstanding, if not to fatal error. But 
 there is another sense in which it may be truly said that 
 the doctrine of man's freedom involving, as it does, his 
 moral responsibility, his acceptance or rejection of the 
 gracious offer of salvation and his own accountability if 
 his soul shall be lost, is practically of far greater impor- 
 tance than his acceptance of any philosophy, however sub- 
 lime, in regard to the eternal decree of God. The latter 
 concerns God and His hidden counsels for which man is 
 in no degree responsible : the former involves his eternal 
 destiny., 
 
56 HOW SHALL WE REVISE ? 
 
 In proof of this relative importance of these doctrines, 
 consider the following facts : — 
 
 I. How do we treat the parallel facts in our daily lives ? 
 
 In the late debate in the Presbytery of New York, Dr. 
 W. M. Paxton was at much pains to show that the doctrine 
 of election and pretention ran through all the events of 
 life and was plainly taught in the Scriptures. He cited 
 as clear illustrations the statements : " Many widows were 
 in Israel in the days of Elias, but unto none of them was 
 Elias sent save unto Sarepta, a city of Sidon, unto a woman 
 that was a widow." "Many lepers were in Israel in the 
 time of Eliseus the prophet ; and none of them was 
 cleansed saving Naaman the Syrian." 
 
 Here, he said, election and pretention were plainly 
 taught. Dr. Paxton was undoubtedly right. Many mis- 
 understandings would vanish if it were realized that these 
 same mysteries encompass our daily lives, and yet give us 
 no corresponding distress. 
 
 Sovereign election bears just the same relation to our 
 spiritual destiny — no more, no less — that God's deter- 
 mination of every act of our temporal lives bears to our 
 daily choices and acts. Yet we consider it essential to 
 successful activity and even to morality that we never for 
 a moment allow the thought of God's overruling provi- 
 dence, precious as it is, to diminish our sense of personal 
 responsibility. 
 
 For example, it has been very aptly said that the num- 
 ber of Presbyteries that will vote for Revision is already 
 ** particularly and unchangeably designed ; and their num- 
 ber is so certain and definite that it cannot be either in- 
 creased or diminished." Yet in the many debates upon 
 this question, has any one thought it of importance to 
 emphasize that fact ? On the contrary, ministers and 
 elders are well aware of their own freedom and responsi- 
 
SOVEREIGNTY AND FREEDOM. 5/ 
 
 bility in the decision, and are expending much time and 
 wisdom in their efforts to effect a result that in the purpose 
 of God is already absolutely determined. 
 
 In like manner in the spiritual realm, the doctrine of 
 man's freedom and responsibility is practically of far more 
 importance than his convictions of the implications involved 
 in the doctrine of God's sovereignty. 
 
 2. Our Methodist brethren have very decided convic- 
 tions in regard to the freedom and responsibility of man, 
 and, as we think, very inadequate views of the scope of 
 God's sovereignty, and yet God has blessed their work 
 beyond that of almost any other branch of His church. 
 Does this carry no lesson in regard to the proportion that 
 the statements of these doctrines should assume ? 
 
 3. In what proportions do we find these two cardinal 
 doctrines of the Calvinistic system stated in the Holy 
 Scriptures ? 
 
 Plainly as God's good sovereignty is there taught, does 
 any one doubt that far more frequently we find the expres- 
 sion of God's loving offer of salvation to all men ; of man's 
 opportunity of life as depending upon his own choice, and 
 of man's sole responsibility if at last he is found among 
 the lost ? 
 
 Thus it is evident that in order that these two doctrines 
 of the Word of God and of the Calvinistic system be pre- 
 sented in their due proportion in the Confession, the state- 
 ment of the freedom and the responsibility of man should 
 have at least equal prominence and emphasis with the state- 
 ment of the divine sovereignty. 
 
 III. We turn now to the symbol to see if this is a fact, 
 not assuming that if it be so, revision is uncalled for, — for 
 many other grave considerations may be urged, — but forced 
 to admit that if it be not so, the need of revision is mani- 
 fest and the reasons decisive. 
 
58 HOW SHALL WE REVISE ? 
 
 What are the confessional statements in regard to these 
 fundamental truths ? 
 
 I. In regard to the grand truth of the sovereignty of 
 God and its necessary sequence, sovereign election, there 
 can be no doubt. It is plainly and unmistakably set forth. 
 Indeed, it is pressed home upon the reader upon almost every 
 page, and colors the statement of every cognate doctrine. 
 
 As a matter of fact it can hardly be denied that under 
 the pressure of human logic it has been carried out to ex- 
 treme inferences that "cut the nerve" of the equally 
 important truth that presents the other half of the Calvin- 
 istic system. However plainly and unmistakably the doc- 
 trine of man's freedom were elsewhere presented, it would 
 still be a just ground of criticism, if, in dealing with mys- 
 teries that confessedly transcend our comprehension, lan- 
 guage were used without express Scripture warrant, that 
 intensified the already existing mystery and emphasized 
 the apparent contradiction. 
 
 For example, it may be true, and from human logic it 
 would seem to follow, that the angels and men " foreor- 
 dained to everlasting death" are ''particularly and un- 
 changeably designed and their number so certain and 
 definite that it cannot be either increased or diminished," 
 but the statement in that bald form certainly " cuts the 
 nerve " of man's responsibility, and it would be very diffi- 
 cult to find any text that in terms makes such assertion. 
 
 Dr. McCosh well says : — 
 
 ** To carry up human theories into high heavenly truths is like con- 
 structing walls and planning railways in the Empyrean above the clouds. 
 I believe most devoutly in the good sovereignty of God, but I refuse to 
 let human logic draw conclusions which would strip man of his freedom 
 and thereby free him from responsibility." 
 
 But this is not all. Not only is the doctrine of the 
 divine sovereignty so presented as to seem " to cut the 
 
SOVEREIGNTY AND FREEDOM. 59 
 
 nerve" of the doctrine of man's freedom, but we are forced 
 to admit, 
 
 2. The latter fundamental truth is so obscured that it 
 is doubtful whether it is expressed at all. Aside from the 
 one brief and vague reservation in the first section of the 
 third chapter (** nor is violence offered to the will of the 
 creatures "), there cannot be found from beginning to end 
 a single sentence that impresses upon the soul the truth 
 that it may be saved if it will, and that if it is lost, the 
 responsibility is its own and not God's. 
 
 On the contrary, the chain of logic that leads to the 
 opposite conclusion is irresistible and appalling. 
 
 Its affirmations are clear and distinct : — 
 
 " By the decree of God for the manifestation of his glory some men 
 and angels are predestinated unto everlasting life, and othe?'s foreordained 
 to everlasting death.'''' " These angels and men thus predestinated and 
 foreordained are particularly and unchangeably designed, and their 
 number is so certain and definite that it ca?mot be increased or 
 diminished'''' (iii. 3, 4). 
 
 ' ' Wherefore they who are elected are redeemed by Christ." ' ' Neither 
 are any other redeemed by Christ, effectually called, justified, adopted, 
 sanctified and saved, but the elect only" (iii. 6). 
 
 '* They (our first parents) being the root of all mankind, the guilt of 
 this sin was imputed, and the same death in sin and corrupted nature 
 conveyed to all their posterity descending from them by ordinary 
 generation" (vi. 3). 
 
 By this original corruption " we are iitterly indisposed, 
 disabled, and made opposite to all good." 
 
 " Man, by his fall into a state of sin, hath wholly lost all ability of 
 will to any spiritual good accompanying salvation, so as a natural man 
 being altogether averse from that good, and dead in sin, is not able by 
 his own strength to convert himself or to prepare himself ' thereunto.' " 
 *' All those whom God hath predestinated unto life ajid those only he is 
 pleased effectually to call." "This effectual call is of God's free and 
 special grace alone, not from anything foreseen in man, who is al- 
 together passive therein" (ix. 3; x. r). 
 
6o HOW SHALL WE REVISE ? 
 
 •• The grace of faith whereby the elect are enabled to believe is the 
 work of the Spirit of Christ" (xiv. i). 
 
 " Works done by unregenerate men, although for the matter of them 
 they may be things which God commands, yet because they proceed not 
 from a heart purified by faith are therefore sinful and cannot please God " 
 (xvi. 7). 
 
 Such are the statements, and they are not here quoted 
 for the purpose of criticism. There is a high philosophical 
 sense in which they may be admitted to be true, and in 
 regard to the most of them there are passages of Scripture 
 that may be quoted in their support. 
 
 But where is there any statement of the freedom of 
 every man to accept or reject Christ freely offered in the 
 Gospel ? Where is set forth that fundamental truth of the 
 Calvinistic system, that man, and man alone, is to be 
 blamed if he is lost ? 
 
 Thus it appears that so far from the two fundamental 
 truths of the distinctively Calvinistic system being pre- 
 sented in our Confession in due proportion, the one that 
 is clearly of the greater practical importance, if expressed 
 at all, is so obscured and minimized that it no longer 
 serves to preserve the true balance of the system of which 
 it forms a part. 
 
 As has been already said, the doctrine of the absolute 
 sovereignty of God divorced from that of the freedom and 
 responsibility of man logically leads to fatalism ; and it is 
 not strange in view of this obscuration, that the charge of 
 fatalism, however unjust, has at times been brought against 
 our venerable Confession by its enemies ; while, in the 
 judgment of the present writer, it is this want of balance 
 resulting from so noticeable an omission, more than its 
 positive statements, that causes among its friends the 
 present unrest and dissatisfaction. 
 
 That this cardinal defect in tlie Confession has been a 
 
SOVEREIGNTY AND FREEDOM. 6l 
 
 source of deep distress to many a troubled soul who has 
 accepted its teachings as those of the Word of God cannot 
 be denied ; and it may well be questioned whether it would 
 not have gravely hindered the progress of the church had 
 the Confession been as prominently presented and as 
 universally studied as the Shorter Catechism. In view of 
 the prominence into which the Confession has now been 
 brought such immunity can hardly be expected in the 
 future. 
 
 Thus even those who like the present writer are not 
 prepared to contradict the confessional statements, nor to 
 deny their logical coherence, may still insist that if in 
 accepting the symbol *'as containing the system of doc- 
 trine," we necessarily mean that we beheve that nothing 
 essential to that system is omitted, then even though it 
 can be proved that its present statements '' by good and 
 necessary consequence may be deduced from Scripture," 
 it is still necessary, in view of the required subscription, 
 that revision shall be undertaken. 
 
IV, 
 
 PAUL'S ARGUMENT IN ROMANS IX., X., 
 AND XI. 
 
 BY PROF. MARVIN R. VINCENT, D.D. 
 
 These chapters, as they are the most difficult of Paul's 
 writings, have been most misunderstood and misapplied. 
 Their most dangerous perversion is that w^hich draws from 
 them the doctrine of God's arbitrary predestination of 
 individuals to eternal life or eternal perdition. 
 
 It can be shown that such is not the intent of these 
 chapters. They do not discuss the -doctrine of individual 
 election and reprobation with reference to eternal destiny. 
 The treatment of this question is subordinate to a differ- 
 ent purpose, and is not, as it is not intended to be, ex- 
 haustive. 
 
 At the time when the epistle was written this question 
 was not agitating the church at large nor the Roman 
 Church in particular. Had this been the case, we may be 
 sure, from the analogy of other epistles of Paul, that he 
 would have treated it specifically, as he does the doctrine 
 of justification by faith in this epistle, and the questions of 
 idol-meats and the resurrection in first Corinthians. 
 
 Such a discussion would not have been germane to the 
 design of this epistle, which was to unfold the Christian 
 doctrine of justification by faith, as against the Jewish 
 doctrine of justification by works. 
 63 
 
Paul's argument. 63 
 
 The great question which was then agitating the church 
 was the relation of Judaism to Christianity. Paul declared 
 that Christianity had superseded Judaism. The Jew main- 
 tained, either, that the Messiah had not come in the per- 
 son of Jesus Christ, and that Christianity was therefore 
 an imposture ; or that, admitting Jesus to be the Messiah, 
 He had come to maintain the law and the institutions 
 of Judaism : that, therefore, entrance into the Messianic 
 kingdom was possible only through the gate of Judaism ; 
 and that the true Christian must remain constant to all 
 the ordinances and commandments of the law of Moses. 
 
 According to the Jewish idea, all Gentiles were ex- 
 cluded from the kingdom of God unless they should enter 
 it as Jewish proselytes. Paul himself, before his convers- 
 ion, had undertaken to stamp out Christianity as heresy, 
 verily thinking that he "ought to do many things con- 
 trary to the name of Jesus of Nazareth " (Acts xxvi. 9). 
 Hence the Jew ''compassed sea and land to make one 
 proselyte" (Matt, xxiii. 15). Every Gentile who should 
 resist the conquest of the world by Israel would be de- 
 stroyed by Messiah. The Jew had no doubts as to the 
 absoluteness of the divine sovereignty, since its fancied 
 application flattered his self-complacency and national 
 pride. All Jews were elect, and all others were reprobate. 
 Paul's proclamation of Messianic privilege to the Gentiles 
 did, perhaps, quite as much to evoke Jewish hatred against 
 himself, as his allegiance to the Jesus whom the Jews had 
 crucified as a malefactor. 
 
 The discussion in these three chapters fits perfectly 
 into this question. It is aimed at the Jews' national and 
 religious conceit. It is designed ^o show them that, not- 
 withstanding their claim to be God's elect people, the 
 great mass of their nation has been justly rejected by 
 God ; and further, that God's elective purpose includes the 
 
64 HOW SHALL WE REVISE ? 
 
 Gentiles. Hence, while maintaining the truth of divine 
 sovereignty in the strongest and most positive manner, it 
 treats it on a grander scale, and brings it to bear against 
 the very elect themselves. 
 
 WHAT IS THE PLACE OF THESE CHAPTERS IN THE ORDER 
 OF THE ARGUMENT? 
 
 Early in the discussion, Paul had asserted that the Mes- 
 sianic salvation had been decreed to the Jew first i^. 16; 
 ii. 10: comp. John i. 11). In the face of this stood the 
 fact that the Jewish people generally had rejected the 
 offer of God in Christ. Paul himself, after offering the 
 Gospe> to the Jews at Antioch in Pisidia, had said : '* It 
 was necessary that the word of God should fij^st have been 
 spoken to you ; but seeing ye put it from you, and judge 
 yourselves unworthy of everlasting life, lo, we turn to the 
 Gentiles " (Acts xiii. 46 : comp. Acts xviii. 6). The Jew 
 had fallen under the judgment of God (Rom. ii. i, 2). 
 Resting in the law, making his boast of God, claiming to 
 be a guide of the blind, a light of them which are in dark- 
 ness, an instructor of the foolish, and having the form of 
 knowledge and of the truth in the law, he had made him- 
 self a scandal in the eyes of the Gentiles by his notorious 
 depravity, and had proved himself to be not a Jew, since 
 his circumcision was not of the heart (Rom. ii. 17-29). 
 
 Notwithstanding these facts, the Jew claimed that be- 
 cause lie was a Jew God could not reject him consistently 
 with His own election and covenant promise. If the Gos- 
 pel were true, and Jesus really the Messiah, the promises 
 made to the Jewish people, who reject the Messiah, were 
 nullified. Or, if the election of God held, Israel was and 
 forever remained the people of God, in which case the 
 Gospel was false, and Jesus an impostor. "Thus the 
 dilemma seemed to be : either to affirm God's faithfulness 
 
Paul's argument. 65 
 
 to His own election and deny the Gospel, or to affirm the 
 Gospel, but give the lie to the divine election and faithful- 
 ness." — Godet. 
 
 Paul must face this problem. It lies in the straight 
 line of his argument. Hints of it have already appeared 
 in chs. iii. i seq. ; iv. i. The discussion necessarily in- 
 volves the truth of the divine sovereignty and election. 
 
 In studying Paul's treatment of this question, mistake 
 and misconstruction are easy, because the truths of divine 
 sovereignty and elective freedom require to be presented 
 in their most absolute aspect as against man's right to 
 dictate to God. The parallel facts of man's free agency 
 and consequent responsibility, which are equally patent in 
 these chapters, are, at certain points, thrown into the 
 shade ; so that, if the attention is fastened upon particular 
 passages or groups of passages, the result will be a one- 
 sided and untruthful conception of the divine economy, 
 which may easily run into a challenge of God's justice and 
 benevolence. The assertion God must act according to my 
 constriictioit of His promise and decree^ can be met only by 
 the bare, hard, crushing counter-statement God is siip7'eme 
 and does as He will, and has the right to do as He zuill. 
 This assertion, we repeat, does not exclude the element of 
 individual freedom ; it does not imply that God will do vio- 
 lence to it ; it is consistent with the assumption of the 
 most impartial justice, the most expansive benevolence, 
 the tenderest mercy, the purest love on God's part. The 
 argument merely sets these elements aside for the time 
 being and for a purpose, only to emphasize them at a later 
 stage. As Meyer aptly says : — 
 
 "As often as we treat only 07ie of the two truths : ' God is absolutely 
 free and all-efficient,' and ' Man has moral freedom, and is, in virtue of 
 his proper self-determination and responsibility as a free agent, the 
 author of his salvation or perdition,' and carry it out in a consistent 
 
66 HOW SHALL WE REVISE ? 
 
 theory, and therefore in a one-sided method, we are compelled to 
 speak in such a manner ///«/ f/ie other truth appears to be annulled. 
 Only appears, however ; for, in fact, all that takes place in this case is 
 a temporary and conscious withdrawi7ig of attention from the other. 
 In the present instance Paul found himself in this case, and he expresses 
 himself according to this mode of view, not merely in a passing refer- 
 ence, but in the whole reasoning of ix. 6-29. In opposition to the 
 Jewish conceit of descent and works, he desired to establish the free 
 and absolute sovereign power of the divine will and action, and that the 
 more decisively and exclusively, the less he would leave any ground 
 for the arrogant illusion of the Jews that God must be gracious to 
 them. The apostle has here wholly taken his position on the absolute 
 standpoint of the theory of pure dependence upon God, and that with 
 all the boldness of clear consistency ; but only until he has done justice 
 to the polemical object which he has in view. He then returns (vv. 30 
 seqq.) from that abstraction to the human moral standpoint of practice, 
 so that he allows the claims of both modes of consideration to stand 
 side by side, just as they exist side by side within the limits of human 
 thought. The contemplation — which lies beyond these limits — of the 
 metaphysical relation of essential interdependence between the two — 
 namely, objectively divine and subjectively human, freedom and activity 
 of will — necessarily remained outside and beyond his sphere of view ; 
 as he would have had no occasion at all in this place to enter upon 
 this problem, seeing that it was incumbent upon him to crush the 
 Jewish pretensions with the one side only of it — the absoluteness of 
 God." 
 
 That the factor of human freedom has full scope in the 
 divine economy is too obvious to require proof. It appears 
 in numerous utterances of Paul himself, and in the entire 
 drift of Scripture, where man's power of moral choice is 
 both asserted, assumed, and appealed to ; where the punish- 
 ment of unbelief and disobedience is clearly shown to be 
 due to man's own obstinacy and perverseness. Were this 
 not the case, if human destiny were absolutely and un- 
 changeably fixed by an arbitrary decree, the exhortations 
 to carry out our own salvation, to obedience and persever- 
 ance in right-doing, the cautions against moral lapse, the 
 plain suggestions of the possibility of forfeiting divine 
 
Paul's argument. 67 
 
 blessings, the use of the divine promises themselves as 
 appeals to repentance and holiness, the recognitions of the 
 possibility of moral transformation, would assert them- 
 selves as a stupendous farce, a colossal and cruel satire. 
 
 It must suffice for us that these two factors of divine 
 sovereignty and human freedom are both alike distinctly 
 recognized in Scripture. Their interplay and mutual ad- 
 justment in the divine administration carry us out of our 
 depth. That matter must be left with God, and faced by 
 man With, faith, not with knowledge. That there is a divine 
 election — the act of God's holy will in selecting His own 
 methods, instruments, and times for carrying out His own 
 purposes — is a fact of history and of daily observation. It 
 appears in the different natural endowments of men ; in 
 the distribution of those natural advantages which minister 
 to the strength or weakness of nations ; in the inferiority 
 of the Ethiopian to the Caucasian ; in the intellectual 
 superiority of a Kant or a Descartes to a Chinese coolie. 
 
 "It is true, and no argument can gainsay it, that men are placed in 
 the world unequally favored, both in inward disposition and outward 
 circumstances. Some children are born with temperaments which 
 make a life of innocence and purity natural and easy to them ; others 
 are born with violent passions, or even with distinct tendencies to evil, 
 inherited from their ancestors and seemingly unconquerable ; some 
 are constitutionally brave, others are constitutionally cowards ; some 
 are born in religious families and are carefully educated and watched 
 over ; others draw their first breath in an atmosphere of crime, and 
 cease to inhale it only when they pass into their graves. Only a fourth 
 part of mankind are born Christians. The remainder never hear the 
 name of Christ except as a reproach." — Froude, Calvifiism. 
 
 Such election must needs be arbitrary ; not as not hav- 
 ing good and sufficient reasons behind it, but as impelled 
 by such reasons as are either beyond human apprehension 
 or are withheld from it in God's good pleasure. All that 
 we can say in our ignorance of these reasons is : God did 
 
6S HOW SHALL WE REVISE ? 
 
 t/izis because it pleased Him. Certain it is that, could we 
 penetrate to these reasons, we should come, in every case, 
 at last, upon perfect wisdom and perfect love working out 
 along hidden lines to such results as will fill heaven with 
 adoring joy and wonder. 
 
 THE COURSE OF THE ARGUMENT. 
 
 This we shall follow in detail through ch. ix., and in 
 general outlines through chs. x. and xi. 
 
 (vv. 1-3.) I have great sorrow of heart for my Jewish 
 kinsmen because of their spiritual condition arising from 
 their rejection of Jesus, and their consequent exclusion 
 from the blessings of Messiah's Kingdom. 
 
 (4, 5.) This condition is the more lamentable because 
 of their original privileges involved in God's election of 
 them to be His chosen people- — adoption, visible mani- 
 festations of God, covenants, a divine legislation, a divinely 
 arranged order of worship, Messianic promises, descent 
 from the revered fathers, selection as the race from whom 
 the Christ was to spring (comp. Isa. xlv. 3, 4). 
 
 (6.) There is, however, no inconsistency between their 
 possession of these original privileges and their present 
 exclusion. The case does not stand so as that God's word 
 has failed of fulfilment. Those who make this charge, 
 assuming that they are entitled to acceptance with God on 
 the mere ground of descent, are to remember the general 
 principle that Messianic blessing is not conditioned by 
 mere descent ; that not all who are physically descended 
 from Israel are the true, ideal Israel of God (comp. Rom. 
 iii. 28). 
 
 ( 7-9. ) This appears from the history of the patriarchal 
 lineage. Though Abraham had two sons, Ishmael and 
 Isaac, Isaac was selected as the channel of the Messianic 
 seed of Abraham, according to the promise, '* In Isaac shall 
 
Paul's argument. 69 
 
 thy seed be called" (comp. Gal. iv. 23), and not Ishmael, 
 who was the child of Abraham in a physical sense merely, 
 and not the child of the promise which is recorded in 
 Gen. xviii. 10. 
 
 ( 10-13. ) Not only have we an example of divine select- 
 ion in the case of children of different mothers, but we 
 have an example in the case of the children of the same 
 mother. Between Jacob and Esau, representatives of the 
 two nations of Israel and Edom ( Gen. xxv. 23 ), a divine 
 choice was made, and it was declared by God that the 
 elder should serve the younger. This choice was not 
 based upon purity of descent, since both children were by 
 the same father and lawful mother. Nor was it based 
 upon moral superiority, since it was made before they had 
 done either good or evil. The choice was made according 
 to God's sovereign will, so that His Messianic purpose 
 might remain intact ; the characteristic of which purpose 
 was that it was according to election ; that is, not determ- 
 ined by merit or descent, but by the sovereign pleasure 
 of God. 
 
 ( 14. ) If it be asked, therefore, " Is there unrighteous- 
 ness with God } Does God contradict Himself in His 
 rejection of unbelieving Israel.?" — it must be answered, 
 **No ! " If there was no unrighteousness in the exclusion 
 of Ishmael and Edom from the temporal privileges of the 
 chosen people, there is none in the exclusion of the per- 
 sistently rebellious Israelites from the higher privileges of 
 the kingdom of heaven. If not all the physical descend- 
 ants of Abraham and Isaac can claim their father's name 
 and rights, it follows that God's promise is not violated in 
 excluding from His kingdom a portion of the descendants 
 of Jacob. Descent 'cannot be pleaded against God's right 
 to exclude, since He has already excluded from the Messi- 
 anic line without regard to descent. This choice Israel 
 
JO HOW SHALL WE REVISE ? 
 
 approved, and cannot, therefore, repudiate it when the 
 same choice and exclusion are applied to unbelieving 
 Israel. God is not restricted to the Hebrew race, nor 
 bound by the claims of descent. As He chose between 
 the children of the flesh and the children of the promise, 
 so He may choose between mere descendants and true 
 believers, whether Jew or Gentile. 
 
 It is to be remarked on this passage that the matter of 
 eternal, individual salvation or pretention is not contem- 
 plated in the argument, as it is not in Mai. i. 2, 3, from 
 which the words ''Jacob have I loved," etc., are quoted. 
 The matter in question is the part played by the two 
 nations regarded from the theocratic standpoint. 
 
 (15.) God cannot be unrighteous. This is apparent 
 from your own Scriptures, which, as you admit, glorify 
 God's righteousness, and which give you God's own state- 
 ments concerning Himself in the cases of Moses and 
 Pharaoh. There can, therefore, be no discrepancy between 
 God's righteousness and the principle for which I am con- 
 tending, since God represents Himself as acting on this 
 very principle : Divine choice is not fotmded up07i human 
 desert. Man has 7io right to God' s favors. For when 
 Moses asked God to show him His glory, God, in com- 
 plying, assured him that He did not grant the request 
 on the ground of Moses' merit or services, but solely of 
 His own free mercy. He would have mercy and compas- 
 sion upon whom He would. Moses had no claim upon 
 that revelation. 
 
 (16.) Thus it appears that the divine bestowment pro- 
 ceeds from sovereign grace, and not from the will or the 
 effort of the recipient. Hence the Jew cannot claim it on 
 the ground of race or of moral striving. 
 
 It is right to wish and right to rnn. Paul elsewhere 
 says, "So run that ye may obtain " (i Cor. ix. 24). But 
 
PAULS ARGUMENT. 7I 
 
 that is not now the point in view. The point is to emphas- 
 ize the fact of God's sovereign right to dispense His favors 
 as He will, in opposition to the Jew's claim that God must 
 dispense His favors to him on the ground of his descent. 
 Hence the argument bears also on the divine dealing with 
 the Gentiles. The Jew says, "The Jews alone are subjects 
 of the divine mercy; the Gentiles are excluded." Paul re- 
 plies, " Your own Scriptures show you that God has the 
 right to show mercy to whom He will. The fact that He 
 originally did not choose the Gentile but chose the Jew, 
 does not exclude Him from extending His salvation to the 
 Gentile if He so will. The fact that He did so choose 
 the Jew, does not save the Jew from the peril of exclusion 
 and rejection." 
 
 (17.) Again, God is vindicated against the charge of 
 injustice by His declaration of the same principle applied 
 to the matter of witJiholding mercy in the case of Pharaoh. 
 The one statement implies the other. The right to bestow 
 at will implies the right to withhold at will. Thus He says 
 to Pharaoh that He has raised him up in order to show His 
 power through his defeat and destruction. 
 
 (18.) Hence the conclusion. God has the absolute right 
 to dispense or to withhold mercy at pleasure. '' He hath 
 mercy upon whom He will have mercy, and whom He will 
 He hardeneth." 
 
 This last statement, on its face, appears to be the asser- 
 tion of a rigid, inexorable predeterminism. But let it be 
 at once said that Paul commits himself to no such theory. 
 For to interpret this passage as meaning that God takes 
 deliberate measures to harden any man against holy and 
 gracious influences, so as to encourage him to sin in order 
 that He may show His power in destroying him, is : 
 
 I. To ascribe to God the most monstrous cruelty and 
 injustice, according to the standard of His own re- 
 vealed character and law. 
 
^2 HOW SHALL WE REVISE ? 
 
 2. To make God the author and promoter of sin. 
 
 3. To contradict other declarations of Scripture, as 
 
 I Tim. ii. 4 ; Jas. i. 13 ; 2 Pet. iii. 9. 
 
 4. To contradict the facts in Pharaoh's own case, since 
 
 God gave Pharaoh abundant warning, instruction, 
 and call and inducement to repentance. 
 
 The key-note of the discussion must be kept clearly in 
 mind as shaping this particular form of statement. To 
 repeat : Paul is striking sharply at the assumption of the 
 Jew that God must dispense Messianic blessing to him, 
 and must not exclude him, because he is a Jew. Paul 
 meets this with the bare statement of God's sovereign 
 right to dispose of men as He will. He does not ignore 
 the efforts which God makes to save men from blindness 
 and hardness of heart, but the attitude of the Jew does 
 not call for the assertion of these : only for the assertion 
 of God's absolute sovereignty against an insolent and pre- 
 sumptuous claim. 
 
 Bearing this in mind, we are here confronted with a class 
 of facts which we cannot explain — certain arrangements 
 the reasons for which lie back in the sovereign will of God. 
 Moses was placed under circumstances which promoted his 
 becoming the leader and lawgiver of God's people. Pharaoh 
 was born to an inheritance of despotic power and inhaled 
 from his birth the traditions of Oriental tyranny. These 
 influences went to harden him against God's command. 
 Apparently the circumstances favored Pharaoh's becoming 
 a cruel tyrant. Why the difference t We cannot tell. 
 These causes operated according to their natural law. 
 There was also the operation of a psychological and moral 
 law, according to which the indulgence of any evil passion 
 or impulse confirms it and fosters its growth. Pride begets 
 pride ; resistance intensifies obstinacy, encourages presump- 
 tion, blunts susceptibility to better influences. Again, the 
 
PAUL S ARGUMENT. 73 
 
 penal element entered into the case. Persistent disobedi- 
 ence and resistance, working their natural result of inflated 
 pride and presumptuous foolhardiness, wrought out a condi- 
 tion of heart which invited and ensured judgment. A par- 
 allel is found in the first chapter of this epistle, where it 
 is said that the heathen, having a certain revelation of God, 
 refused to improve it ; wherefore, as they did not like to 
 retain God in their knowledge, God gave them itp to un- 
 cleanness, vile passions, and a reprobate mind (i. 24, 26, 28). 
 
 •'It is psychologically impossible that such determined impenitence 
 could be cherished by the monarch, and yet produce no effects in the 
 sensibilities of his heart. In such necessary working the hand of God 
 must needs be immanent. When we impersonally say 'must' and 
 speak impersonally of ' necessity ' in reference to the conditions of the 
 human sensibility, we either expressly or implicitly point to the opera- 
 tion of God. God did harden of old, and still He hardens when sin is 
 cherished." — Morison. 
 
 And yet the operation of these forces did not exclude 
 moral agency or moral freedom. No irresistible con- 
 straint compelled Pharaoh to yield to this pressure towards 
 evil. His power of choice was recognized, assumed, and 
 appealed to. He could not plead ignorance, for God in- 
 structed him through Moses. He could not plead doubt 
 of God's power, for God wrought before his eyes an un- 
 exampled series of wonders. If any ^'visitings of nature" 
 could have power over him, the misery of his slave popula- 
 tion was before his eyes. Only when all these influences 
 had been repelled, and all opportunities for yielding scorn- 
 fully rejected, did God have recourse to judgment. God 
 raised up Pharaoh in order to show His power ; but two 
 opposite exhibitions of God's power in Pharaoh were 
 possible. If he had yielded, he would have been a co- 
 worker with God in the evolution of the Jewish Common- 
 wealth. God's power would have been displayed in the 
 
74 
 
 HOW SHALL WE REVISE ? 
 
 prosperity of his kingdom, as it was through the presence 
 of Joseph. He resisted, and God's power was terribly 
 manifested in his torment and final destruction. 
 
 "No one," as Miiller observes, "can withdraw himself 
 from the range and influence of God's revelations, without 
 altering his moral status." * Hence, though it is affirmed 
 that God hardened Pharaoh's heart, — the side of the 
 statement which best suits the immediate purpose of Paul's 
 argument, — it is also affirmed that Pharaoh hardened his 
 own heart (comp. Exod. iv. 21 ; vii. 3; ix. 12; x. 20, 27; 
 xi. 10; and viii. 15, 32; ix. 34). f The divine and the 
 human agencies work freely side by side. 
 
 The cases of both Moses and Pharaoh make against the 
 charge of God's injustice towards the unbelieving Jews, 
 since they show that He acts consistently on the principle 
 of exercising His divine sovereignty according to His 
 supreme will ; but they also furnish another argument to 
 the same effect, by showing that He exercises His sover- 
 eignty with long-suffering and mercy. The God who acts 
 with mercy and forbearance cannot be unrighteous. God's 
 revelation to Moses was a display of His great mercy. In 
 it He revealed "the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long- 
 suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping 
 mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity, transgression, and 
 sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty " (Exod. 
 xxxiv. 6, 7). God's dealing with Pharaoh was marked by 
 forbearance, opportunities for repentance, instruction and 
 chastisement. 
 
 * " Doctrine of Sin." 
 
 t Cheyne, on Isaiah vi. 9, 10, which should be compared with this passage, says 
 that the phrase " hardening of the heart " is only twice applied to individuals in 
 books of the Old Testament; namely, to Pharaoh, and to Sihon, king of Heshbon. 
 (Deut. ii. 30). Jews never have this phrase applied to them, but only the Jewish 
 nation or sections of it, as Lsa. vi. y. 10 ; xxix. 10. — The Prophecies of Isaiah. 
 Comp. lsa. Ixiii. 17. 
 
PAUL S ARGUMENT. 75 
 
 Verses 19, 20, 21, are not properly part of the proof, but 
 are introduced by way of rebuke to a presumptuous quest- 
 ion or challenge ; so that, in the regular line of the argu- 
 ment, we may proceed directly from the close of ver. 18 to 
 ver. 22. 
 
 (19.) The objector now catches at the words, "whom 
 He will He hardeneth," as an opportunity for shifting the 
 responsibility from himself to God. If God hardens, why 
 blame the hardened ? If God ordains, who can resist 
 His will .? 
 
 The fault of interpretation at this point lies in constru- 
 ing Paul's answer as a counter-argument ; whereas Paul 
 does not entertain the objector's words as an argument 
 at all. He neither admits, denies, nor answers them as an 
 argument. His reply is directed solely at the objector's 
 attitude as a challenger of God. It is a rebuke of the 
 creature for charging his sin upon the Creator. Paul is 
 not dealing with the objector's logic, but with the subUme 
 impudence of the objector himself. He is not vindicating 
 God against the charge, nor exposing the falsity of the 
 charge itself. 
 
 For if this answer of Paul, with the similitude of the 
 potter and the clay, is to be taken as an argument for 
 God's right to harden men at His arbitrary pleasure, then 
 Paul is open to rebuke quite as much as his opponent. 
 For, in the first place, the answer is a tacit admission of 
 the Jew's premiss, and, in the second place, regarded as 
 an answer to an argument, it is a specimen of the most 
 brutal dogmatism, and of the most fallacious and shallow 
 logic, if it can be called logic at all. This is the case, in 
 brief. The Jew. ** God hardens at His arbitrary will and 
 pleasure. If, therefore. He hardened me so that I could 
 not beHeve, He is to blame, not I. Why does He find 
 fault with me for not believing } If He is supreme, who 
 
76 HOW SHALL WE REVISE ? 
 
 can resist His will ? " Paul. " Suppose He did harden 
 you so that you could not believe, what have you to say 
 about it ? Shut your mouth ! God does as He pleases 
 with you. You are simply a lump of clay in the hands of 
 a potter, and must be content to be what the potter makes 
 you." 
 
 From this point of view it must be said that the objector 
 has the best of it, and that Paul's answer is no answer. 
 Regarded as an argument, it is an argument from an anal- 
 ogy which is no analogy. Man, on God's own showing, is 
 not a lump of senseless clay. He is a sentient, reasoning 
 being, endowed by God with the power of self-determina- 
 tion. God Himself cannot and does not treat him as a 
 lump of clay ; and to assert such a relation between God 
 and man made in God's image, is to assert what is contrary 
 to common sense and to God's own declarations and as- 
 sumptions in Scripture. The objector might well turn 
 upon Paul and say, " Well then, if man is only a lump of 
 clay, and therefore without right or power to reply, who, 
 pray, art t/io?i that repliest for God ? Thou art, on thine 
 own showing, a lump of clay like myself. If clay cannot 
 and must not reason nor answer, what is the peculiar 
 quality of l/if clay which entitles thee to speak as God's 
 advocate ?" 
 
 It is quite safe to say that Paul is too good a reasoner, 
 and too well acquainted with the character, the word, and 
 the economy of God as displayed in the history of his own 
 race, to be betrayed into any such logical absurdity as 
 this ; too thoroughly humane, too mindful of his own deep 
 doubts and questionings, too transparently candid to meet 
 even a conceited and presumptuous argument with a coun- 
 ter-argument consisting of a bare dogma and a false anal- 
 ogy. Paul does not admit that God made the Jew sin. 
 He does not admit that God made the Jew incapable of 
 
Paul's argument. JJ 
 
 believing. He does not admit that the responsibiHty for 
 the Jew's rejection lies anywhere but with himself. 
 
 Yet even the figure of the potter and the clay, properly 
 understood, might have suggested to the angry Jew some- 
 thing beside the thought of sovereign power and will 
 arbitrarily moulding helpless matter. 
 
 THE POTTER AND THE CLAY. 
 
 The illustration is a common one in the Old Testament, 
 and it is reasonable that Paul's use of it should be colored 
 by its usage there. 
 
 It occurs in Jeremiah xviii. i-io. Jeremiah, in great 
 despondency over the demoralization of Israel, is bidden 
 to go down to the potter's house. The potter shaped a 
 vessel on the wheel, but owing to some defect in the clay, 
 the vessel was marred. So the potter made, of the same 
 lump, another vessel different from that which he had at 
 first designed. He did not throw away the clay, but his 
 skill prevailed to triumph over the defect, and to make a 
 vessel, perhaps inferior to the first, yet still capable of use. 
 So God had designed Israel for a high destiny, a royal 
 nation, a peculiar people ; but Israel defeated this destiny 
 by its idolatries and rebellions. Hence God made it 
 another and baser vessel. ".The pressure of the potter's 
 hand was to be harder. Shame and suffering and exile — 
 their land left desolate, and they themselves weeping by 
 the waters of Babylon — this was the process to which 
 they were now called on to submit." The potter exer- 
 cised his power by making the vessel unto dishonor which 
 he originally designed unto honor. Side by side with the 
 potter's power over the clay, there goes, figuratively speak- 
 ing, in the prophet's representation, the power of change 
 and choice in the lump. "Ye are in my hand as this clay 
 in the hand of the potter. If, when I am about to degrade 
 
yS HOW SHALL WE REVISE ? 
 
 the nation, they turn from their evil, I will repent of the 
 evil. On the contrary, when I am planning for an honor- 
 able and powerful kingdom, if the people turn to evil, then 
 I will repent of the good wherewith I said that I would 
 benefit them." Israel has a power of choice. If it is 
 made into a vessel unto dishonor, the fault is its own, but 
 repentance and submission may change the issue. 
 
 Look again at Isaiah xxix. i6. This passage occurs in the 
 prophecy concerning Jerusalem under the name of Ariel. 
 The prophet predicts siege, thunder, and earthquake. He 
 says that the Lord hath poured on the people the spirit 
 of deep sleep, and hath closed their eyes and covered their 
 heads, so that the prophetic vision appeals to them as a 
 sealed letter to a man who can read, or as a writing to one 
 who cannot read. 
 
 This is on the same line with the hardening of Pharaoh's 
 heart. It is ascribed to the direct agency of God. But 
 immediately there follows the statement of their own 
 responsibility for their sin. The people have removed 
 their heart from the Lord and worship Him with the lips 
 only. Therefore, God will proceed to do marvellous and 
 terrible works among them. O your perverseness ! Think 
 you you can hide your counsel from God .? '* Surely your 
 turning of things upside down shall be esteemed as the pot- 
 ter's clay ; for shall the work say of him that made it, ' He 
 made me not ' } or shall the thing framed say of him that 
 framed it, 'He hath no understanding'.-*" In other words, 
 why do men think that they can escape God by hiding 
 their purposes from Him .? Shall God (the potter) be 
 accounted as clay (the man) } Shall man ignore the fact 
 that he was made by God, and act as if God had no under- 
 standing } The parallel between this utterance and that in 
 Romans ix. will be evident at a glance. 
 
 Isa. xlv. 9. The prophecy concerning Cyrus. God calls 
 
PAUL S ARGUMENT. 79 
 
 him, though a heathen, for the sake of Jacob His servant, 
 and Israel His elect. In this call God asserts His sov- 
 ereignty : *' I am Jehovah, and there is none else. I 
 girded thee when thou knewest me not." This idea is 
 further carried out by the figure of the potter and the 
 clay. ''Woe to him that striveth with his maker. Let 
 the potsherd strive with the potsherds of the earth. Shall 
 the clay say to him that fashioned it, ' What makest thou ? ' 
 or thy work, ' He hath no hands '} " The same thought 
 appears in ver. lo. Shall a child remonstrate with its 
 parents because they have brought into the world a being 
 weak, ugly, or deformed ? And again, in ver. 1 1 : " Con- 
 cerning the things to come will ye question me ? Concern- 
 ing my children and the work of my hands, will ye lay 
 commands upon me ? It was I that made the earth and 
 created the men upon it," etc. 
 
 Along with these declarations of absolute sovereignty, 
 which silence the lips of men, stand exhortations which 
 assume the power of free choice. " I said not unto the 
 seed of Jacob 'seek ye me in vain.'" "Assemble your- 
 selves and come." "Let them take counsel together." 
 "Turn ye unto me and be ye saved." 
 
 Isa. Ixiv. 8. "And now Jehovah, thou art our Father. 
 We are the clay, and thou art our fashioner, and the work 
 of thy hands are we all." But ver. 5, "Behold thou wast 
 wroth, and we sinned, and zve we7it astray : our iniquities as 
 the wind have carried us away. Thou hast delivered us 
 into the hand of onr iniquities^ "Since thou art our 
 fashioner, and we the clay, look upon us : remember not 
 iniquity forever." 
 
 By all these Old Testament passages the idea of God 
 dealing with men as hfeless clay, shaping them to eternal 
 life or death according to His arbitrary will, is contra- 
 dicted. The illustration points away from God's causing 
 
So HOW SHALL WE REVISE ? 
 
 unbelief, to God's bearing with man's voluntary and per- 
 sistent disobedience, and to His making of him the best 
 that can be made consistently with divine justice and 
 holiness. So far from accentuating rigid narrowness of 
 purpose, arbitrary and inexorable destination of individuals 
 to honor or dishonor, the illustration opens a vast range 
 and free play of divine purpose to turn evil to good, and 
 to shape men into obedient and faithful servants through 
 divine chastisements. The potter does not make vessels 
 in order to shiver them. God does not make men in order 
 to destroy them. God ordains no man to eternal death. 
 He desires to honor humanity, not to dishonor it ; and the 
 fact that men do become vessels unto dishonor, merely 
 proves the power which God has lodged in the human will 
 of modifying, and in a sense defeating, His sovereign pur- 
 pose of love. He " will have all men to be saved and 
 come to a knowledge of the truth " ; yet Christ comes to 
 Hzs own, and His own receive Him not, and He weeps 
 as He exclaims, "Ye will not come unto me that ye might 
 have life." 
 
 (22.) The argument now proceeds in regular course 
 from ver. 18, showing that the exercise of God's sovereign 
 right is marked by mercy even towards those who deserve 
 His wrath. Are you disposed to construe the words 
 "whom He will He hardeneth " into an assertion of the 
 arbitrary, relentless, and unjust severity of God } Suppose 
 it can be shown that God, though the spontaneous recoil 
 of His holy nature from sin moved Him to display His 
 wrath and make known His power against men who were 
 fit for destruction, — endured these with much long-suf- 
 fering. 
 
 This could easily be shown from the case of the Israel- 
 ites themselves and of Pharaoh. 
 
 Did not this endurance imply opportunity to repent, and 
 
Paul's argUxMent. 8i 
 
 assume that destruction was not God's arbitrary choice, but 
 theirs ? 
 
 Still further, what if God, through this same endurance, 
 was working not only to save the Jewish people if possible, 
 but also to work out a larger purpose towards a people 
 which, in His eternal counsels, He had destined for the 
 glory of the Messianic Kingdom ? 
 
 Here He introduces the subject of the inclusion of the 
 Gentiles in the Messianic Kingdom. God is merciful in 
 carrying out His will, but in His mercy He none the less 
 carries out His will. Both His sovereignty and IJis mercy 
 will be vindicated in His making a people for Himself 
 from the Gentiles and from the believing Jews. What 
 has Israel to say ? The word of God has not been brought 
 to nought by his rejection. The principle of divine select- 
 ion which operated in Abraham and Jacob is carried out 
 in the selection of believing Israel from the unbelieving 
 mass, and in the call of the Gentiles. The elective pur- 
 pose of God was broader than Israel thought. In choos- 
 ing Israel God was contemplating the salvation of the 
 world, and did not abdicate His liberty to reject unbe- 
 lievers, or to call others not Jews. 
 
 With this should be compared the discourse of Jesus in 
 John vi. After having given a sign of His divine power 
 and commission by the feeding of the multitudes, His 
 announcement of Himself as the bread from heaven, the 
 true and only life of the world, is met with a stupid, materi- 
 alistic construction of His words, and with obstinate incred- 
 ulity ; whereupon He says, '' Ye also have seen me and 
 believe not " (ver. 36). At this point He seems to pause 
 and contemplate His failure to reach the Jews, and to ask 
 Himself if His mission is indeed for nought. It is the 
 answer to this inward question which explains the appar- 
 ent disconnection of ver. '2>7 with what precedes. Though 
 
82 HOW SHALL WE REVISE ? 
 
 the Jews reject, yet God will have a people for Himself. 
 "All that the Father giveth me shall come to me," There 
 is a clear foreshadowing here of the call of the Gentiles. 
 
 (25, 26.) But not only is God's word not annulled ; it is 
 fulfilled. For He says by the prophet Hosea that He will 
 call by the name viy people those who are not His people, 
 and that nation beloved which was not beloved ; and in the 
 Gentile lands, where God, by the punishment of exile, said 
 to Israel, ''ye are not my people," there God would visit 
 them and recall them along with the Gentiles. 
 
 Here the apostle applies to the Gentiles what Hosea 
 said of the Jews only. The tribes, by their lapse into 
 idolatry, had placed themselves on the same footing with 
 the Gentiles (not His people), so that the general truth 
 could be applied to both. In Isaiah xlix. 22, the Gentiles 
 are represented as restored to grace along with the Jews. 
 
 (27-29.) But this people shall not consist of Gentiles 
 only ; for God says by Isaiah that a remnant shall be pre- 
 served out of Israel, a small number out of the great un- 
 believing mass, which shall attain to the salvation and 
 privileges of the Messianic Kingdom, a re^nnajit : for God 
 in His righteous judgment will make a summary reckon- 
 ing with the Jewish nation, and the great body of it shall 
 be cut off ; but a remnant shall be left as a seed by which 
 the true people of God shall be perpetuated. This preser- 
 vation of a remnant is a mark of divine mercy. But for 
 this, the whole nation would have been destroyed like 
 Sodom. 
 
 (30.) Paul now turns to the facts of human agency, 
 moral freedom, and consequent responsibility, which, up to 
 this point, have been kept in the shadow of the truth of 
 divine sovereignty. There is a correspondence between 
 God's freedom in His government and the freedom of 
 men in their faith and unbelief. He summarily states the 
 
Paul's argument. 83 
 
 truth which he develops in ch. x. ; namely, that Israel was 
 the cause of its own rejectio7ty alluding at the same time 
 incidentally to the cause of the Gentiles' reception. 
 
 The reason why the Jews were rejected was because they 
 did not seek after the righteousness which is by faith, but 
 clung to the law, and sought to be justified by its works. 
 The Gentiles, who had no revelation, and who therefore 
 did not seek after righteousness in the New Testament 
 sense, nevertheless attained it, accepting it when it was 
 offered,* and not being hindered by the legal bigotry and 
 pretension of the Jew ; but Israel, following after the law, 
 which, in itself, is holy and just and good, and which was 
 intended to lead to Christ, pursued it only as an external 
 standard of righteousness, and on the side of legal observ- 
 ance, and so found a stumbling-block in the very Messiah 
 to whom it led them. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 The general statement in ix. 30-33 is developed. 
 
 (1-3.) Israel was zealous for God, but without discern- 
 ment of the true meaning and tendency of the law. Hence, 
 in the endeavor to establish its own legal righteousness, it 
 missed the righteousness of faith, the nature of which is 
 expounded in this epistle. 
 
 (4-1 1.) They did not perceive that Christ brings the legal 
 dispensation to an end in introducing Himself as the object 
 of faith and the source of justifying righteousness. They 
 accepted only the declaration of Moses concerning right- 
 eousness, that the man who keeps the law shall live by it, 
 and did not see that the law, properly understood, implied 
 also the work of grace and dependence on God. They 
 regarded righteousness as something remote and to be at- 
 
 * Godet compares the parable of the man finding treasure hid in the field. 
 
§4 HOW SHALL WE REVISE ? 
 
 tained only by laborious effort ; whereas even Moses would 
 have told them that Jehovah's help was near at hand to 
 assist them in the daily understanding and keeping of the 
 law. No one need be sent to heaven nor beyond the sea 
 to bring back the explanation of its commandments, or to 
 enable them to fulfil them. Still more plainly, to the same 
 effect, spoke the righteousness of faith in Christ. No need 
 to ascend to heaven to bring Him down. He has already 
 descended to earth. No need to dive into the depths of 
 the earth to bring Him up. He has already risen from 
 the dead. They have only to accept by faith His death 
 and His resurrection, and to confess Him who has accomp- 
 lished in Himself the two great things which needed to 
 be done. Such faith shall not put them to shame. They 
 shall be saved as if they had fulfilled all the necessary 
 conditions themselves. 
 
 (i2, 13.) Not only is this salvation Z;'^^. It is also uni- 
 versal, to whosoever shall believe. Thus it appeals to the 
 Gentile no less than to the Jew. It strikes at the notion 
 that the Jew alone is the subject of Messianic salvation ; 
 that the Gentile must enter the kingdom through the 
 gate of Judaism. Both Jew and Gentile enter through 
 faith only. There is no difference between the Jew and 
 the Gentile. The Lord, who is Lord of both alike, dis- 
 penses His riches to all of both nations who call upon 
 Him. 
 
 (14-21.) The Jew cannot plead in excuse for rejecting 
 this salvation, either that he has not heard it announced, 
 or that its universality is inconsistent with Old Testament 
 teaching. Both excuses are shattered upon Old Testament 
 declarations. It was prophesied by Isaiah that Israel would 
 not all submit themselves to the Gospel. The good tidings 
 has been proclaimed, but they have not believed the report. 
 Faith comes by hearing, and they have heard the Gospel 
 
Paul's argument. 85 
 
 in their cities and synagogues.* Had Israel any reason to 
 be surprised at the universality of the Gospel — its proclam- 
 ation to the Gentiles ? On the contrary, did not Israel 
 know ? Had not Moses and Isaiah prophesied that God 
 would manifest His grace to the Gentiles, and that the 
 Gentiles would receive it — yea, that through the Gentiles 
 Israel should be brought back to God } Did not Isaiah 
 prophesy that, notwithstanding God's long-suffering and 
 entreaty, Israel would prove a disobedient and gainsaying 
 nation ? 
 
 Thus the argument is, Israel is responsible for its own 
 rejection. In blind reliance on its original election, it has 
 claimed a monopoly of divine favor, has made a stand for 
 legal righteousness, and has rejected the Gospel message 
 of salvation by faith. It has thus repelled the offer of a 
 free and universal salvation. For this it is without excuse. 
 It was warned by its own Scriptures of the danger of being 
 superseded by the Gentiles, and the salvation of Christ 
 was offered to it along with the Gentiles by Christ's 
 ministers. 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 In ch. ix. it is shown that when God elected Israel 
 He did not abjure the right to reject them for good 
 reason. 
 
 In ch. X. this reason is shown to be their unbelief. 
 
 The question now arises : Is this rejection complete mid 
 forever f Paul proceeds to show that the rejection is not 
 total, but partial ; not eternal, but temporary ; and that 
 it shall subserve the salvation of mankind and of the Israel- 
 itish nation itself. 
 
 (2-6.) From the history of Elijahr he shows how, in the 
 midst of general moral defection and decline, God preserved 
 
 Comp. John vi. 44. 
 
S6 HOW SHALL WE REVISE ? 
 
 a remnant of faithful ones ; and declares that the same is 
 true at the present time. 
 
 In virtue of His free grace displayed in His original 
 election, God has not left the nation without a believing 
 remnant. The elective purpose holds, though operating 
 in a way different from Israel's vain and narrow conception 
 of its nature and extent. The preservation of this remnant 
 is a matter of God's free grace, not of Israel's merit. 
 
 (7-10.) The case then stands that Israel has not attained 
 the righteousness which it sought (in the wrong way), but 
 the chosen remnant kas attained it, while the great mass 
 of the nation was blinded according to the prophecy in 
 Isaiah xxix. and Psalm Ixix. 
 
 It is to be observed that, in those very chapters, the full 
 responsibility of those who are punished is asserted ; and 
 that, in citing the psalm, Paul renders the HehvQw for those 
 who are iit security by the words for a reconipensey thus 
 indicating a just retribution. 
 
 (i I, 12.) The rejection of the Jews, however, is not total 
 nor final, and it works for two ulterior ends : first, the 
 conversion of the Gentile ; second, the restoration of the 
 Jews by means of the converted Gentiles. 
 
 (i3~i5-) Hence Paul labors the more earnestly for the 
 Gentiles, with a view to promote the salvation of his own 
 race. 
 
 (16-24.) The Gentiles, however, are warned against 
 entertaining contempt for the Jews on account of their 
 own position in the Messianic Kingdom. However lapsed, 
 Israel still retains the character of God's holy nation 
 impressed in its original call; and this original call, rep- 
 resented in the fathers, implies its future restoration. So 
 far from despising them, the Gentiles are to remember 
 that they themselves are not the original stock, but only 
 a graft ; and to take warning by the history of Israel, that 
 
Paul's argument. d>j 
 
 the called may be rejected, and that they, by unbelief, dis- 
 obedience, and rebellion, may, like Israel, forfeit their high 
 privilege. " If God spared not the natural branches, take 
 heed lest He also spare not thee." '' Behold, therefore, the 
 goodness and severity of God : on them which fell, severity, 
 but toward thee goodness, if tJion conti?iue in His goodness ; 
 otherwise thoii also shalt be cut off!' Israel, too, shall be 
 restored to its place in God's kingdom, graffed in again, 
 if they co7itinne 7iot in imbelief ; much more, since they are 
 natural branches, and the tree is their own native stock. 
 
 (25-32.) Thus, then, the plan of God shall work itself 
 out : the purpose, so much of which was enshrouded in 
 mystery, shall at last reveal its full, grand proportions. 
 Through the Gentile, Israel shall attain the righteousness 
 of faith in the Deliverer out of Zion. God has made no 
 mistake. He does not repent His original call, nor the 
 displays of His divine grace to Israel, nor the special apti- 
 tudes with which He endowed it, in order to make it the 
 special vehicle of His salvation. Jew and Gentile have 
 alike been unbelievers and disobedient, but the unbelief of 
 both has been overruled to the inclusion of both in God's 
 Messianic Kingdom. Thus the argument which opened at 
 the beginning of the epistle with the condemnation of all, 
 closes with mercy upon all. 
 
V. 
 
 DIVINE MERCY MORALLY OBLIGATORY. 
 
 BY THE REV. CHARLES H. PARKHURST, D.D. 
 
 It is one of the peculiarities of Scripture that it brings 
 into easy, harmonious relation elements of divine charac- 
 ter that to uninspired view seem discrepant and antithetic. 
 An interesting instance of this occurs in the comprehen- 
 sive and conciliatory view of God's justice and mercy as 
 expressed by St. John when he says : '' If we confess our 
 sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins." Just 
 to forgive us, which is to say that God's mercy is not the 
 rival of His justice, but involved in His justice ; that mercy 
 is one of the aspects under which justice shows itself; 
 that divine justice is not imperilled by being merciful, but 
 abrogated by not being merciful ; that mercy is not a qual- 
 ity that by its presence adds to God's glory, but a quality 
 that by its absence would leave God without any glory. 
 
 One of the impressive features of the controversy that 
 is now being waged within the Presbyterian Church is that 
 it is not a Presbyterian controversy at all, but the local 
 manifestation of a struggle that virtually ranges among 
 the combatants every man in or out of the Presbyterian 
 Church or any other church who has an interest in the 
 character of God and in the relation of God to the beings 
 that He has created in His own image. Every man is es- 
 sentially a little theologian with ideas of his own in regard 
 
DIVINE MERCY MORALLY OBLIGATORY. 89 
 
 to God ; and however restricted and sectional the present 
 controversy may appear to be, it is after all his own con- 
 troversy, and his own doctrinal views that are being advo- 
 cated or impugned. This is what dignifies the occasion. 
 All of Christendom is somehow involved in it. 
 
 At the first look of it, it seems exceedingly unfortunate 
 that so many precious weeks of a year, that is only too 
 short, should be devoted to a discussion which apparently 
 connects so indirectly with the essential interests of 
 Christ's cause and the extension of His kingdom. No 
 doubt the net results in the Presbyterian Church wrought 
 by the preaching of the Gospel will be less this winter 
 than last, so far as results are to be calculated by the 
 number of men and women that are converted to Christ. 
 Neither pulpit nor pew can convey or receive so much 
 in the way of Gospel effect when interest is divided 
 between Christianity considered as a mode of divine life 
 and Christianity considered as a form of human opinion. 
 It is on this account that with a considerable show of rea- 
 son this expenditure of time and monopolizing of interest 
 has been numerously deplored. 
 
 At the same time, as soon as we begin to discover the 
 long ranges of effect and to remember that the largest 
 efforts have always to be arranged for, and that the finest 
 flowers blossom only in prepared ground, there is started 
 the surmise that getting the soil in order may have as 
 direct a bearing upon the matter of a harvest as does 
 dropping the corn in the furrows. Gathering out the 
 stones, plucking up the hard-hack and clearing out the 
 sluiceways are as much a part of husbandry as sowing 
 wheat in May or threshing wheat in October. And while 
 we may be disposed to consider that human opinion does 
 not come very close to the core of the Christian matter, 
 still whatever growths we may hope to promote in the way 
 
90 HOW SHALL WR REVISE ? 
 
 of holiness of heart and beauty of demeanor must have 
 their roots in the soil of a true conception of God and of 
 His character. What we think about God will largely de- 
 cide what God can do for us and make of us ; and the 
 character under which God is presented by a church or 
 communion through its accepted creed or through its 
 clergy, recognized as the mouthpiece of the church, will 
 determine for the most part how much divine effect will 
 admit of being wrought even by God's own spirit. To 
 grow in the knowledge of God is to grow in likeness to 
 Him. Christ converted the Samaritan woman not by en- 
 larging upon her sin, but by making to her a new revela- 
 tion of God. St. John looks forward to the time when we 
 shall be like Him because we shall see Him as He is. So 
 far then as the great debate shall issue in a more defined 
 and juster conception of God, so that His ministers shall 
 preach Him with more of completeness and truthfulness, 
 the expenditure of time will show itself amply warranted, 
 and present loss will be a good deal more than compen- 
 sated by future and permanent gain. 
 
 It might also seem at first that such issues could be 
 secured by methods of a more pacific type. While the 
 lan2:uao:e used on either side has been almost without 
 exception of a courteous and even kindly character, yet 
 there is no disguising the fact that the average blood- 
 temperature of those standing in the ranks has been con- 
 siderably above the normal. In other words, it has been 
 a square theological fight. And such is the method by 
 which generally in the history of human opinion truth has 
 come to its development and manifestation. The growth 
 of idea is regularly along frictional lines. Nothing good 
 or true is gained but that has in some way to be fought 
 for. The wheels of progress, whether in matters of sci- 
 ence, politics, ethics, or religion, do not roll over a macada- 
 
DIVINE MERCY MORALLY OBLIGATORY. 9I 
 
 mized highway. Truth is set free under strokes of 
 contradiction as sparks issue from clashing flint, and as 
 the precious metal is released under the blows of the 
 quartz-crusher. Our minds are not keen and quick enough 
 to feel profoundly a truth except as it is set over against 
 its correlative. The powder that has been burned the last 
 few months has made clearer and more distinguishable the 
 very battle-ground on which the cartridges have been dis- 
 charged. Contrasting ideas have been put with a definite- 
 ness that has been a novelty and a surprise. Something 
 has been done that is going to stay done. There has been 
 a good deal of fog scattered both out of the air and out of 
 our own minds. We have had shown on the one hand a 
 God whose love is so great a part of His infinitude that 
 there is enough of it for every creature made in the image 
 of God to have a share ; and over against that have had 
 portrayed to us a God in whom love is so an accident and 
 afterthought of His being, that it ill suffices to enfold all 
 His children, compelling Him to an arbitrary selection of 
 the particular few to whom His mercy shall be allowed to 
 extend and to whose salvation and eternal weal it shall be 
 permitted to redound. Now that, stripped of all evasive 
 periphrasis and rhetorical attenuation, is the just statement 
 of the two positions. The putting of these two antitheses 
 over against each other is wondrously educating ; and the 
 very sharpness of the contest has only resulted in evincing 
 more and more fully their glaring incompatibility. Matters 
 have in this way gotten out very fully into the light. The 
 bird had been living very comfortably in its shell, but hav- 
 ing once pecked through into the air, the shell will never 
 again be large enough to hold it. God does His utmost to 
 save everybody; that is our position. God does His utmost 
 to save a part and passes by the rest ; that is the other 
 position. That last, according to what seems to us the 
 
92 HOW SHALL WE REVISE ? 
 
 only fair mode of interpretation, is the doctrine of our 
 Confession of Faith. And it amounts to nothing for the 
 advocates of the latter to say that we mistake their views 
 so long as they refuse to alter by so much as a syllable 
 those expressions in the Confession that make it necessary 
 for us to suppose that such are their views. We have no 
 disposition to say that they are obstinate. We have no 
 disposition to say that they hold opinions that are more 
 brutal than they have the courage possibly to confess. 
 We only say that the revisionists represent the doctrine 
 of an unlimited atonement, and that the anti-revisionists 
 represent the doctrine of a limited atonement, and claim to 
 believe in a God who ordains some men to perdition before 
 they are born, and consistently therewith withholds from 
 them the influences of regenerating power ; and that just 
 this sharp enunciation of sharply contrasted opinions has 
 brought about, in a way that nothing else could, the clear- 
 ing of men's minds, and has so exhibited the two concep- 
 tions of God, each in its own individuality, that the one 
 of the two that is truest will henceforth have a better op- 
 portunity than ever to win its way in the regards of God's 
 people. 
 
 As already said, there is nothing in the range of relig- 
 ious knowledge that we need so much to know as the 
 divine character. To show us this is the object of revela- 
 tion. The verse quoted at the beginning of this article is 
 of value because it gives us an insight into God's character. 
 God is the world's proper study. If we knew Him as He 
 is, we should be like Him. Clearly there is no end to the 
 study. The finite mind would have to contemplate God 
 till eternity's sundown before the ground would all be 
 traversed. A creed is a statement first of all of what its 
 authors have learned to know about God. It is a report of 
 progress. It is vahd for the date that it is written. It is 
 
DIVINE MERCY MORALLY OBLIGATORY. 93 
 
 not valid for the day after unless the students of God have 
 in the mean time been taking a recess. A creed is bound 
 to be a theological terminus a quo, not a terminus ad qiiein. 
 The Holy Spirit, too, is in the world not to review us in old 
 truth, but to guide us into new truth. A live Christian 
 swayed by the illuminating influence of the Holy Spirit is 
 appointed to be a sort of Columbus continually on the 
 edge of a new continent. In matters of secular enterprise 
 we widen our outlook by standing on the shoulders of our 
 fathers. In matters of religious emprise we are bidden to 
 behave ourselves and stand in the old shoes of our fathers. 
 Two hundred and fifty years ago a company of English- 
 men of varying ability and piety gathered together and 
 wrote down what they knew or thought they knew of God, 
 and therein produced what we call the Westminster Confes- 
 sion of Faith. Anti-revisionists have been telling us these 
 months past that that statement to the dotting of an "i " 
 and the crossing of a '' t " is a just statement of what ive 
 know about God. Now, if that is true, it is true for one 
 of three reasons : either that the Westminster divines had 
 gotten clear out to the end of the knowledge of God ; or 
 the Holy Spirit had gotten tired of leading men into new 
 and wider apprehensions ; or the students of God through- 
 out Christendom have been on a two hundred and fifty 
 years' vacation. The first two would be to blaspheme God, 
 and the third would be to insult the church. 
 
 But the reply comes back, ** We have had no new Bible 
 the mean time ; how, then, can we make fresh acquisition 
 of religious knowledge } " The farmer has no new land 
 from year to year, but because the soil has not been ex- 
 hausted, and the sun has not got tired of shining or the 
 clouds of raining, he has no trouble in raising a new crop 
 of fruit and grain every year. Physical science has no new 
 universe to work on ; but the geological creed of fifty years 
 
94 HOW SHALL WE REVISE f 
 
 ago, or the chemical, or the astronomical, will not stand as 
 a symbol of to-day's knowledge in these ranges of discov- 
 ery. Only a dead science never outgrows its creed ; only 
 a dead man is fitted with garments that need never to be 
 replaced by a fresh suit ; and a creed as detailed as ours, 
 that will for two hundred and fifty years suffice in its every 
 expression to utter the religious knowledge of a great 
 communion of believers, is far less to be considered the 
 habiliments of a living church than it is the cerements of 
 an ecclesiastical mummy ; and for such a waxed and sheeted 
 body to fidget in its coffin, strain at its grave-clothes, and 
 open its eyes and ask to have a little modification made in 
 its apparel is not a symptom of dissolution ; it is not a 
 signal to the mourners to beat their breasts and tear their 
 hair, but a token of life, a summons to laughter rather 
 than wailing, meet occasion for prophecy more than for 
 obituary. 
 
 We have put the quotation from John's epistle at the 
 beginning of our discussion for the reason that there are 
 passages in our Confession, as there have been repeated 
 statements in the course of the Revision controversy, that 
 appear to indicate not only that men have been ordained 
 of God to eternal perdition, but that they have been or- 
 dained for the simple reason that He chose to ordain them. 
 ''Extendeth or withholdeth mercy as He pleaseth " is the 
 phrase in the Confession ; admitting some to the benefits 
 of Christ's atonement because He chose to admit them ; re- 
 jecting others from the benefits of the same atonement 
 because He chose to reject them, in the same manner as 
 the potter has power over the clay to make an honorable 
 utensil out of one portion of the clay and a base utensil 
 out of another portion, not because there is any difference 
 in the clay, but because he happens to do so. 
 
 We use this illustration because it is the portion of 
 
DIVINE MERCY MORALLY OBLIGATORY. 95 
 
 Scripture used as proof-text for the doctrine under con- 
 sideration. It is another way of asserting the pure arbi- 
 trariness of the principle or unprinciple upon which He 
 proceeds. Now if a man acted on that principle, there is 
 not one among us but would pronounce it intolerable and 
 vicious. For a despot to say to each of two criminals, in- 
 dependently of their respective characters, to one, '' I re- 
 prieve you," and to the other, "■ I am going to hang you," 
 would be tyranny at its worst ; and no man educated un- 
 der civilized government would be able to conceive of it 
 otherwise. The tyrant's power to do as he pleases has 
 nothing to do with his right to do as he pleases. Power 
 does not begin to be righteousness even though expanded 
 to the limits of infinitude. There is an ineradicable some- 
 thing in each man's own bosom that insists upon this. 
 There are within us certain moral instincts that are as 
 valuable as anything that the Bible can teach us ; in fact, 
 instincts of such a character that without them no teach- 
 ings of the Bible would be of any value. The Bible was 
 made for man, not man for the Bible. These instincts are 
 older than the Bible. These instincts are as divine as the 
 Bible ; as much God's own workmanship as the Bible, and 
 the meaning of the Bible, when there is any possible ques- 
 tion of interpretation, is to be tested by them. If the 
 general consciousness of men with a conscience says that 
 it is tyranny for people in power to treat their subjects 
 just as they please, then they have got to feel that it 
 would be tyranny for God to treat His subjects just as He 
 pleases. If you try to make the same conscience talk two 
 ways and glorify God for the same quality of act that you 
 would reprobate if done humanly, is to outrage conscience 
 and make it eventually incapable either of religion or of 
 ethics. As is well and frankly stated by Dr. Hamilton, 
 any doctrine that shocks the religious consciousness is 
 
96 HOW SHALL WE REVISE ? 
 
 doomed.* It does not touch nor even approach to the 
 point to say that we ought to beUeve what God tells us. 
 If it is a thing that lacerates our moral sense, we are not 
 going to believe that it was God that told us. We believe 
 that God does right, and no proofs will be equal to the 
 task of convincing us that that is right for God to do 
 which we would reprobate as criminal if seen in each 
 other. To persuade a man that his conscience is no cri- 
 terion of what is right for God to do, is a long step towards 
 convincing him that it is of no great account as an index 
 of what he ought to do himself. If divine righteousness 
 and human propriety are circles described from distinct 
 centres, so that there is no reading backward and forward 
 from one to the other, there is an instant end of all reve- 
 lation. If the mere fact that God is not accountable to 
 any one makes it right for Him to do what it is wrong for 
 us to do, then irreligion is the mode of religion most worthy 
 of us, and blasphemy our most commendable cultus. 
 
 In view of what is implied in our Confession of Faith as 
 to the arbitrary character of God's dealing, electing some 
 simply because He chooses to elect them, rejecting others 
 simply because He chooses to reject them — in view of all 
 that, we appreciate easily the remarkable contribution of 
 the truth of the matter made by our selection from John : 
 '*If we confess our sins. He is faithful and just to forgive 
 us our sins,"y//x/ to forgive us. Arbitrariness is ruled out. 
 He is no more free to act independently of consider- 
 ations than we are. He does not forgive because there 
 are some that He takes a fancy to forgive ; He forgives 
 them not only because He loves to do so, but because 
 there would be an injustice in His not doing so. God's 
 justice seems in some quarters to be so thought of, as 
 
 *Seep. 134. 
 
DIVINE MERCY MORALLY OBLIGATORY. 9/ 
 
 though it were of that quality according to which God 
 would be warranted in treating every man exactly as he 
 deserves. It is not always just to treat a man as he de- 
 serves. Justice, in order to be just, has sometimes to be 
 forgiving as well as to be retributive. Our text declares 
 that. Error and misunderstanding have crept in by con- 
 ceiving of justice and mercy, as set over against each 
 other, and working at cross-purposes. It has not been 
 conceived that both attributes can be present in congeni- 
 ality and plentitude in the same person ; and that is one 
 reason why the personalities of the first and second mem- 
 bers of the Trinity have been forced sufficiently widely 
 apart to allow separate embodiment to each of the two at- 
 tributes. Instigated by the demon of analysis, we sacrifice 
 God to the interests of our theological inquisition, like the 
 botanist who ruins his flower by pulling it to pieces to see 
 to what species it belongs. The charm of this verse is 
 that it conceives and represents the justice and mercy of 
 God as so inseparable and so contained in each other, that 
 the only way in which God can be perfectly just, is by 
 being merciful. He is not merciful on occasion, simply 
 because he chooses to be so, but merciful because mercy 
 alone can comport with the requirements of His own Holy 
 Being. He is just to forgive. His compassion is holy, 
 and His holiness is compassionate, being in this like the 
 sun which shines with no capricious or one-sided reful- 
 gence, but out of the abundance of its luminous life makes 
 known everywhere the power of its splendid presence ; 
 and wherever it puts its touch of brightness, also leaves 
 enfolded within it a genial token of its own mellowness 
 and warmth. 
 
VI. 
 
 THAT TENTH CHAPTER. 
 
 BY PROF. CHARLES A. BRIGGS, D.D. 
 
 There are two sections of the tenth chapter of the 
 Westminster Confession of Faith that are the centre of 
 contest in the Revision movement that is now agitating 
 the church. These sections read as follows : — 
 
 III. " Elect infants, dying in infancy, are regenerated and saved by 
 Christ through 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 ministry of the word." 
 
 IV. " Others, not elected, although they may be called by the min- 
 istry of the word, and may have some common operations of the Spirit, 
 yet they never truly come to Christ, and therefore cannot be saved : 
 much less can men, not professing the Christian religion, be saved in 
 any other way whatsoever, be they never so diligent to frame their 
 lives according to the light of nature, and the law of that religion they 
 do profess ; and to assert and maintain that they may is very pernicious, 
 and to be detested." 
 
 Some find in these sections the doctrine that all the 
 heathen and their babes are doomed to everlasting punish- 
 ment. Others think that they may believe in the salvation 
 of some of the heathen who have never heard the Gospel, 
 and in the universal salvation of infants dying in infancy, 
 without doing violence to the statements of the Confession. 
 
 It is important, therefore, to determine what the authors 
 of these sections of the Confession designed to teach when 
 98 
 
THAT TENTH CHAPTER. 99 
 
 they framed them ; and what has been the history of 
 opinion in the Presbyterian churches on the subject. 
 
 In the seventeenth century, orthodox theologians, so far 
 as I have been able to determine, were unanimous in the 
 opinion that the heathen and their infants were doomed to 
 everlasting fire. The Baptists pressed the doctrine of the 
 salvation of their unbaptized children as the children of 
 believers ; but they did not teach the salvation of the 
 heathen and their babes. It was first the Unitarians, then 
 the Latitudinarians of the Church of England, and finally 
 the so-called Quakers, or Friends, as they called them- 
 selves, who are entitled to the credit of opening up the 
 doctrine of the universal salvation of children and the 
 partial salvation of the heathen. This was made possible 
 by the great stress they laid upon the light of nature, and 
 '' the light which lighteth every man that cometh into the 
 world " (John i. 9). 
 
 I. CULVERWELL AND TUCKNEY. 
 
 Nathaniel Culverwell published his book entitled ''Light 
 of Nature " in 1652, in which he advocated the salvation of 
 some of the heathen. He was immediately attacked by 
 Anthony Tuckney, the chairman of the Committee that 
 framed the Westminster Shorter Catechism, in a sermon 
 at Cambridge, July 4, 1652. This was published in 1654, 
 under the title *' None but Christ," with an appendix dis- 
 cussing the salvation of ''(i) Heathen; (2) Those of the 
 Old World ; the Jews and others before Christ, and (3) 
 Such as die infants and idiots, etc., now under the Gospel." 
 
 This is Culverwell's statement : — 
 
 "Yet notwithstanding their censure is too harsh and rigid, who as if 
 they were judges of eternal life and death, damne Plato and Aristotle 
 without any question, without any delay at all ; and do as confidently 
 pronounce that they are in hell, as if they saw them flaming there. 
 
lOO HOW SHALL WE REVISE? 
 
 Whereas the infinite goodnesse and wisdome of God might for ought 
 we know finde out several wayes of saving such by the Pleonasmes of 
 his love in Jesus Christ ; he inight make a Socrates a branch of the true 
 vine, and might graflfe Plato and Aristotle into the fruitful olive ; for 
 it was in his power, if he pleased, to reveal Christ unto them, and to 
 infuse faith into them after an extraordinary manner ; Though indeed 
 the Scripture does not afford our charity any sufficient ground to believe 
 that he did ; nor doth it warrant us peremptorily to conclude the con- 
 trary. Secreta Deo, it does not much concerne us to know what be- 
 came of them ; let us then forbear our censure, and leave them to their 
 competent Judge. . . . Yet I am farre from the minde of those Pat- 
 rons of Universal Grace, that make all men in an equal propinquity 
 to salvation, whether Jews, or Pagans, or Christians ; which is nothing 
 but dight and guilded Pelagiamsme, whilest it makes grace as extensive 
 and Catholick, a principle of as full latitude as nature is, and resolves 
 all the difference into created powers and faculties. This makes the 
 barren places of the world in as good a condition as the Garden of God, 
 as the inclosure of the Church : It puts a Philosopher in as good an 
 estate as an Apostle ; For if the remediimi salutiferum be equally ap- 
 plied to all by God himself, and happinesse depends only upon mens 
 regulating and composing of their faculties ; how then comes a Chris- 
 tian to be neerer to the Kingdom of Heaven than an Indian? is there no 
 advantage by the light of the Gospel shining among men with healing 
 under its wings ? Surely, though the free grace of God may possibly 
 pick and choose an Heathen sometimes, yet certainly he does there 
 more frequently pour his goodnesse into the soul where he lets it 
 streame out more clearly and conspicuously in external manifestations. 
 'Tis an evident signe that God intends more salvation there, where he 
 affords more means of salvation ; if then God do choose and call an 
 Heathen, His not by universal, but by distinguishing grace." — Light of 
 Nature^ by Nathanael Culverwell, London, 1652, pp. 208-210. 
 
 The essential points of the reply of Tuckney are given 
 in the following extracts : — 
 
 "I. It cannot rationally be said, that there was an equall invin- 
 cibility of ignorance in those Heathens, to that which is in Infants and 
 distracted persojis, which want the use of reason, which they had ; and 
 therefore might have made more use of it then they did ; and therefore 
 their sin was more wilful, and so made them more obnoxious to Gods 
 wrath, which therefore these Infants, etc., as less guilty, may in reason 
 better escape. 
 
THAT TENTH CHAPTER. lOI 
 
 "2. How God worketh in, or dealeth with elect Infants which dye 
 in their infancy (for any thing tliat I have found) the Scripture speaks 
 not so much, or so evidently, as for me (or it may be for any) to make 
 any clear or firm determination of it. But yet so much as that we have 
 thence ground to believe, that they being in the Covenant, they have 
 the benefit of it. Acts iii. 25 ; Gen. xvii. 7. 
 
 "Whether God may not work and act faith in them then, (as he 
 made JoJm Baptist leap in the womb) which Beza, and others of our 
 Divines deny, and others are not unwilling to grant, I dare not peremp- 
 torily determine. Yet this I may say, that he acteth in the souls of 
 Behevers in articulo mortis, when some of them are as little able to 
 put forth an act of reason, as they were in articulo nativitatis. But 
 the Scripture (for any thing that I know) speaks not of this and there- 
 fore I forbear to speak any thing of it. 
 
 " Only (as I said) it giveth us ground to believe, that they being in 
 the Covenant may be so wrapt up in it, as also to be wrapt up in the 
 bundle of life, and did it give us but as good hopes of the Heathens 
 (of whom it rather speaks very sadly) as it doth of such Infants, I 
 should be as forward as any to perswade my self and others, that they 
 were in a hopeful condition. 
 
 *' For such infants, suppose they have not actual faith, so as to exert 
 it, yet they may have it infused in the habit, they are born in the Church, 
 and in the Covenant, and what the faith of the Church, and of their 
 believi7ig parents may avail them, I do not now particularly inquire 
 into ! . . . And whereas mention was made of an anticipatitig and 
 preventing grace of God, by which withoiit faith he might be saved ; 
 I conceive and believe that it is abundant anticipating aftd preventing 
 grace, when either in hifn or in any, God beginneth and worketh faith 
 to lay hold on Christ. But such a preventing grace as to accept us for 
 Christ sake without faith in Christ, the Scripture mentioneth not, is a 
 new notion oi 3. young Divine, which without better proof must not com- 
 mand our belief, or impose upon our credulity." — None but Christ, by 
 Anthony Tuckney, 1654, pp. 134-37. 
 
 Tuckney represents the unanimous opinion of the divines 
 that constituted the Westminster Assembly in this rejec- 
 tion of the heathen and their infants from the benefits of 
 redemption. The children of believers were the children 
 of the Covenant, and were therefore entitled to baptism as 
 the heirs of the orrace of God. But the children of the 
 
I02 HOW SHALL WE REVISE ? 
 
 heathen were with their parents outside the bonds of the 
 Covenant and altogether beyond the realm of grace. Even 
 within the bonds of the Covenant the election of grace must 
 prevail, and therefore it was not certain how many of the 
 infants of believers belonged to the elect. Dr. Krauth has 
 shown by a large number of citations that this was the 
 opinion of the Calvinistic divines of the continent of Europe 
 with Calvin at their head.* 
 
 It will suffice to cite his extracts from the Geneva pastors, 
 Calvin, and Rivetus. 
 
 " The whole body of Genevan pastors, fifteen in number, with Calvin 
 heading the list, charge upon Servetus, as one of his errors — the errors 
 which cost him his life — that he asserts that ' he dare condemn none 
 of the (infant) offspring of Ninevites or Barbarians to hell {futurum 
 gehennavi) because, in his opinion, a merciful Lord, who hath freely 
 taken away the sins of the godless, would never so severely condemn 
 those by whom no godless act has been committed, and who are most 
 innocent images of God,' and further he infers that ' all who are taken 
 from life as infants and children are exempt from eternal death, though 
 they be elsewhere called accursed.' " -^ Refiitatio Errorum Michaelis 
 Serveti, Opera, Brunsvigae, viii. 619, 642.! 
 
 " Calvin wrote with great bitterness against Castalio, who had been 
 his friend, but who speedily showed the working of the tendencies which 
 matured at a later period into Arminianism. 
 
 " ' You deny that it is lawful for God, except for misdeed, to condemn 
 any human being. Nevertheless numberless infants are removed from 
 life. Put forth now your virulence against God, who precipitates into 
 
 * " Infant Baptism and Infant Salvation in the Calvinistic System." 1874. 
 See also Van Dyke's " God and Little Children," New York, 1890. 
 
 t Krauth's " Infant Baptism and Infant Salvation," p. 52. In this connection it 
 is interesting to note that the Westminster divines make no citation whatever from the 
 book of Jonah in the proof-texts of the Confession of Faith. If they and the Re- 
 formed divines of the continent had reflected upon the passage in Jonah refeiTcd 
 to in this charge, they might have attained a higher apprehension of the grace of 
 God in the salvation of the heathen and their babes. When God said to Jonah, 
 " Should not I have pity on Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than six 
 score thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left 
 hand; and also much cattle" (iv. 11), he spake a word that annihilates the state- 
 ments of the Westminster divines in Sections III. and IW of that Tenth Chapter. 
 
THAT TENTH CHAPTER. IO3 
 
 eternal death harmless new-born children (Jniioxios foetus') torn from 
 their mothers' bosoms. . . . Your masters, Servetus, Pighius, and such 
 like dogs {^similes canes), say at least that before the world was created 
 some were condemned whom God foreknew worthy of destruction. But 
 you will not concede that he devotes to eternal death any except those 
 who for perpetrated evil deeds would be exposed to penalty under earthly 
 judges. . . . You do not hesitate to overturn the whole order of divine 
 justice.'" — De Occulta Dei Providetitia, Opera, Brunsvigae, ix. 312.* 
 
 Rivet, one of the most eminent Reformed divines of his 
 day, says : — 
 
 " Calvin says thatof those who have rested on the breasts of the same 
 Christian mother some are borne to heaven, others thrust down to hell, 
 without respect to their having or failing to have Baptism : to wit, by 
 virtue of that decree, by which God hath decreed, not by permitting 
 only, but also by walling, that Adam should necessarily fall, and that so 
 many nations, with their infant children, should through that fall be 
 brought to eternal death without remedy. When Calvin himself calls 
 this decree ' fearful ' {hornbile), he gives it too soft a name (jnhms qua?/i 
 res est dLrit)^ — Apologet. Discuss., Opera, iv. 684.! 
 
 I have recently given extracts from leading Westminster 
 divines, showing that they held the same views,$ and I 
 have repeatedly challenged any one to produce a West- 
 minster divine who held the contrary opinion. I am quite 
 sure that none such can be found. I shall give a few brief 
 extracts, referring to my book for fuller information on this 
 subject. 
 
 William Twisse, the prolocutor, or moderator of the 
 Westminster Assembly, says, " If many thousands, even 
 all the infants of Turkes and Sarazens dying in originall 
 sinne, are tormented by him in hell fire, is he to be ac- 
 counted the father of cruelties for this .'^ " § Cornelius Bur- 
 
 * Krauth, I.e. p. 52. I give Krauth's translations, but I have verified them, and 
 they are sufficiently accurate. I have also changed the references to the Brunswick 
 edition of Calvin's works. f Krauth, I.e. p. 69. 
 
 + " Whither," Charles Scribner's Sons, pp. 121 seq. 
 
 \ " Riches of God's Love," 1653, p. 135. 
 
I04 HOW SHALL WE REVISE ? 
 
 gess, the assessor, or vice-moderator, wrote a book in 1629 
 entitled, '' Baptismal Regeneration of Elect Infants y The 
 Westminster Confession passed through his hands in its 
 final transcription. There can be no doubt what he meant 
 by " elect infants." The title of his book makes that evident 
 without citation from his book itself. Stephen Marshall, 
 the most influential preacher in the Assembly, says : — 
 
 " That God hath made a promise to be the God of Believers, and of 
 their Seed, we all know ; but where the promise is to be found, that he 
 will be the God of the seed of such parents as live and die his enemies, 
 and their seed, not so much as called by the preaching of the Gospel, 
 I know not. 
 
 " These men say the Covenant of Grace made to the Jews differs 
 from the Covenant made with jis ; but I desire to know whether in the 
 one, or in the ot/ier, they find any promise of Salvation by Christ to any 
 Infants dying in their Infancy, whose parents no way belonged to the 
 Family of God, or Covenant of Grace," — Sermon of the Baptizing of 
 Infants, by Stephen Marshall, 1645, P- 7- 
 
 Robert Baylie and Samuel Rutherford, the Scottish com- 
 missioners to the Westminster Assembly, Antony Burgess 
 and William Carter, among others, expressly taught the 
 damnation of the heathen and their babes. No one has 
 ever been able to point to a single Westminster divine 
 who did not teach that doctrine. 
 
 I shall conclude this section of the history by a citation 
 from Baxter, the most generous-minded Presbyterian of 
 his age. Baxter tells us of his discussions respecting in- 
 fant baptism, and reviewing them, says : — 
 
 " But after these writings I was greatly in doubt [whether it be not 
 certain that all the infants of true believers are justified and saved if 
 they dye before actual sin]. My reason was, because, it is the same 
 justifying saving covenant of grace which their parents and they are 
 in. And as x^iS. faith and repentance is that condition on the parents 
 part which giveth them their right to actual remission, and adoption : 
 so to be the children of such, is all the condition which is required in 
 infants in order to the same benefits: And without asserting this 
 
THAT TENTH CHAPTER. IO5 
 
 the advantage of the Anabaptists is greater than every one doth imagine. 
 But I never thought with Dr. Ward that all baptized children had this 
 benefit, and qualitative sanctification also ; nor with Dr. Burgess and 
 Mr. Bedford, that all converted at age, had inherent seminal grace in 
 Baptism certainly given them ; nor with Bishop Davenant, that all justly 
 baptized had relative grace ^/justification and adoption. But only that 
 all the infants of true believers who have right to the covenant and 
 baptism in foro cceli as well as /;/ foro ecclesicE, have also thereby right 
 to the pardon of original sin, and to Adoption, and to Heaven ; which 
 right is by Baptism to be sealed and deUvered to them. This I wrote 
 of to Mr. Gataker who returned me a kind and candid answer, but 
 such as did not remove my scruple ; and this occasioned him to print 
 Bishop Davenanf s Disputations with his answer. My opinion (which 
 I most incline to) is the same which the Synod of Dort expresseth, and 
 that which I conjecture Mr. Davenant meant, or I am sure came next 
 to it." — ReliquicB Baxteriaticz, London, 1696, p. 109. 
 
 This correspondence between Baxter and Gataker I pub- 
 lished in the Presbyterian Review^ in 1884.* 
 
 From Gataker' s letter I shall only cite his reply to an 
 objection of Baxter that gives his views in the matter be- 
 fore us. Baxter raises the objection, "But a parent then 
 can have no more comfort from anie promise of God con- 
 cerning his child dying than an infidel." To this Gataker 
 responds : '' It followeth not. God hath made in Scripture 
 manie promises of blessing the seed of the faithful for 
 their parents sake, and of his loving affection to them 
 for their godlie progenitors, which yet how far forth and 
 in what manner he may please and shall see good to ex- 
 press and make good unto the issue of such, we must, for 
 ought I see, leave to his gracious pleasure without per- 
 emptory determination of ought therein." 
 
 These extracts ought to make it clear that the West- 
 minster divines meant to teach that there were elect in- 
 fants and elect idiots from among the children of beUevers, 
 
 * Presbyterian Review, v. pp. 700 seq. 
 
I06 HOW SHALL WE REVISE? 
 
 but that there was no salvation for the heathen and their 
 babes. They could not go so far as to say that all the 
 children of believers, dying in infancy or living as idiots, 
 would be saved even if they had received the sacrament 
 of baptism. 
 
 n. GEORGE KEITH AND THE BOSTON MINISTERS. 
 
 The Quakers had a great deal to do with the spreading 
 of the doctrine of the salvation of the heathen and their 
 babes. Thus William Penn says : — 
 
 "That though God was more beneficent to the Jew (especially to 
 the Christian) than the Gentile, and consequently that as the Jew had 
 those assistances the Gentile had not, so the Christian Dispensation is 
 the Perfection of the Divine Light, Life, and Immortality, more weakly 
 seen by Jew and Gentile ; yet also, that God did communicate to the 
 Gentiles such a measure of his divine Light and Spirit, as diligently 
 adhered to, and faithfully followed, was sufficient to their salvation, from 
 sin here, and consequently from wrath to come : And that they them- 
 selves did so believe, teach, live, and dye, in perfect hope and full 
 assurance of eternal recompence, in a state of Immortality." — The 
 Christian Quaker, 1674, I. p. 85. 
 
 The views of the Quakers as to the redemption of the 
 heathen and their babes came into conflict with the Pres- 
 byterian and Congregational orthodoxy in a controversy 
 between George Keith and the Boston ministers in 1689 
 and 1690. Ge(5rge Keith was first brought up for the Pres- 
 byterian ministry in Scotland, then, about 1664, adopted 
 the views of the Friends and was imprisoned for his faith. 
 He labored in America as a Friend from 168 5-1 690. He 
 was the father of schism of the Friends, called Keithites, 
 or Christian Quakers, He afterwards united with the 
 Church of England, and became one of the chief instru- 
 ments in founding the Episcopal Church in America. 
 While still a Friend he entered into controversy with the 
 Presbyterians of Maryland and Virginia and with the Con- 
 
THAT TENTH CHAPTER. 10/ 
 
 gregationalists of New England. His chief controversial 
 work was published at Philadelphia, in 1689, entitled "The 
 Presbyterian and Independent Visible Churches in New 
 England and Elsewhere brought to the Test." This was 
 answered by the Boston ministers in a book entitled " The 
 Principles of the Protestant Religion maintained, and 
 Churches of New England in the Profession and Exercise 
 thereof defended, against the Calumnies of one George 
 Keith, a Quaker, in a Book lately published at Pensylvania, 
 to undermine them both," Boston, 1690. 
 
 This book was signed by James Allen, Joshua Moody, 
 Samuel Willard, and Cotton Mather.* This controversy 
 brings into prominence several questions now in hot debate 
 in the Presbyterian and Congregational churches. It is 
 a mirror that will reveal to the disputants on which side 
 they now stand, whether with the Quakers of 1689, or the 
 orthodox Presbyterian and Congregational platform as 
 stated by the Boston members in 1690. 
 
 I . The salvation of i7ifants. 
 
 Keith, addressing the Presbyterian and Congregational 
 churches, says : — 
 
 '^ Where now shall these men find any place in Scripture to prove 
 that there are any reprobate infants ? or that any infants dying in in- 
 fancy go to Hell and perish eternally, only for Adam's sin, although 
 that sin was forgiven to Adam, and thousands more equally guilty, by 
 their own confession ? " — p. 84. 
 
 The Boston ministers reply : — 
 
 *' Here we are challenged to prove that there are reprobate infants, 
 or such as go to hell for Adam's sin only, to which we reply : i . He 
 
 * These were all men of fame, the most eminent American ministers of their 
 time. Samuel Willard was pastor of the South Church, Boston, and vice-principal 
 of Harvard College, the author of the most important American work on Dogmatic 
 Theology up to his date. His " Body of Divinity " was published in 1726. 
 
I08 HOW SHALL WE REVISE? 
 
 himself grants (p. 88) that men generally (and why not universally?) 
 are children of wrath by nature ; and he will not deny but that by 
 nature is intended that natural condition they were born into the world 
 in (and then it must needs concern infants as well as others), and this 
 too is by Adam's sin transferred upon them, and his corrupt image 
 communicated to them. 2. That hence children in their natural birth 
 are under a sentence of condemnation to dye, is a necessary conse- 
 quence. 3. That God hath nowhere revealed to us that he hath 
 accepted of the satisfaction of Christ for all that dy in their infancy; 
 and where there is no revelation, there is no ground for faith. 4. That 
 there is merit enough for damnation in them, else it would be unjust 
 that they should be under condemnation. 5. That this sentence hath 
 been actually executed upon some infants (Rom. v. 14), they never 
 sinned actually, and yet they died, and it was the same death spoken 
 of ver. 12. If therefore the text which some of ours use, i Cor. vii. 
 14, should not prove it, it follows not that no other can : and yet 
 we suppose there is thus much in that too, viz., that till parents do 
 openly profess the gospel and submit to it, as long as they abide in 
 their gentilism, their children were also unclean, and so apparently 
 lying under guilt and lyable to eternal death. And then he chargeth 
 some of our church covenant, for glorying that none of their children 
 were reprobates while infants ; we declare it to be a slander : we never 
 affixed election to a visible relation to the Church of Christ.'' — pp. 78 seq. 
 
 These four representative ministers, the most eminent 
 in America at this time, endeavor to prove that the chil- 
 dren of unbelievers that die in infancy are sent to hell. 
 They accept the challenge of the Quaker to produce 
 Scriptural evidence, and they strive to present such evi- 
 dence. It is still more significant that they are unwilling 
 to take the position that all children of believers who die 
 in infancy are saved. They charge Keith with slandering 
 them in his statement that they gloried that none of their 
 children were reprobates. They assert that they never 
 affixed election to a visible relation to the church of 
 Christ. They held that God elects some of the children 
 of believers as He elects some of the hearers of the Gospel ; 
 they held to elect infants of believers, as Burgess taught 
 
THAT TENTH CHAPTER. IO9 
 
 the baptismal regeneration of elect infants, and held that 
 the non-elect were not regenerated even if they had been 
 baptized ; they held with the Westminster Confession that 
 " elect infants, dying in infancy, are regenerated and saved 
 by Christ through the Spirit, who worketh when, and 
 where, and how he pleaseth " (x. 3).* The Boston minis- 
 ters in this argument represented the unanimous opinion 
 of the Congregational and Presbyterian churches of their 
 time. No one has ever produced a Congregational or 
 Presbyterian minister of that period who did not believe 
 in the damnation of infants. 
 
 The significance of this discussion is, that Keith chal- 
 lenges the Presbyterian and Congregational churches on 
 this point, and that the Boston ministers here reply in the 
 name of orthodox Protestantism, and claim that only the 
 elect infants of believers who are in the Covenant are 
 saved, and that all others, dying in infancy, are lost in 
 hell. Keith stood well-nigh alonC in 1689. The Boston 
 ministers would find themselves alone if they could come 
 forth into our times. 
 
 2. The salvation of the heathen. 
 
 Keith also endeavors to prove the salvation of some of 
 the heathen : — 
 
 " But if these men who own that said Confession of Faith [the 
 Westminster Confession] enquire, whether all those honest Gentiles 
 that lived in the world, or do now live in the world, who have not had 
 Christ crucified outwardly preached unto them, but were diligent to 
 frame their lives according to the light that was in them, died in a state 
 of salvation ? I say, yea, they did ; and this I may the rather say, 
 according to their own doctrine. For what if they had not the perfect 
 knowledge and faith of Christ crucified, when they lived? Yet they 
 might have it at their death ; to wit, in the passing through the valley 
 of the shadow of death, according to Ps. xxiii. 21." — p. 114. 
 
 * See pp. 98, 104. 
 
no HOW SHALL WE REVISE/ 
 
 The Boston ministers reply : — 
 
 " That there are any elect among pagans, who never had the gospel 
 offered them, is not only without Scripture warrant, but against its 
 testimony as hath been agen and agen made evident." — p. 92. 
 
 Keith stands over against the Presbyterian and Congre- 
 gational churches in maintaining that God had His elect 
 among the heathen. The Boston members claim that it 
 has been shown again and again that there are no elect 
 among pagans. Modern Presbyterians have gone over to 
 Keith's position. The Boston ministers further say: — 
 
 "What he saith (p. 86) that all have an opportunity or possibility 
 to be converted and become the children of -God is ambiguous. If the 
 word 'possibility' be exegetical of the former; viz., opportunity, it is 
 nonsense, for these two are Dispartes : if he intends them disjunctively, 
 we deny not a possibility, for all men are salvable ; but for an opportu- 
 nity we renounce that, for where the means of salvation are not, there 
 is no opportunity. But what is all this to the purpose ? or what doth it 
 make against the reprobation of infants.'' — p. 80. 
 
 Here the Boston ministers clearly teach that the heathen 
 and their infants are all reprobates. They have had no 
 opportunity of salvation, and therefore cannot be saved. 
 The modern church goes with Keith against the church 
 of the seventeenth century. 
 
 3. The extent of the atonement, 
 Keith says : — 
 
 " Now this is plainly revealed and declared in the Scriptures, that 
 the condemnation is not simply that Adam sinned, or his posterity in, 
 and with him, but that light is come into the world, and men love dark- 
 ness more than this light : And as by the offence of one, to wit, the 
 first Adam, judgment is come upon all to condemnation ; even so by 
 the righteousness of one, to wit, Christ, the second Adam, the free gift 
 is come upon all to justification of life. And though men, generally 
 are by nature, children of wrath (if it should be granted or allowed, 
 that by nature, signifieth their natural condition as they are born into 
 
THAT TENTH CHAPTER. Ill 
 
 the world) yet by the great mercy, grace and favour of God ; they all 
 have an opportunity or possibility to be converted and become the chil- 
 dren of God.'' — p. 85. , 
 
 "And therefore none shall finally perish, or be lost, for that first 
 sin, according to Scripture, but for their actual disobedience here in 
 this world, and their final unbelief and impenitency. For as concerning 
 the judgment and punishment of the first sin, it was immediately in- 
 flicted after the fall, to wit, the death of all in Adam. But Christ, the 
 second Adam, by his death, for all that died in Adam, doth freely give 
 unto all his free gift, that cometh upon all unto justification of Life ; 
 and thus the plaster is as broad as the sore, and the medicine as uni- 
 versal as the disease ; and it is not simply the sin or disease, but the 
 refusing and rejecting the medicine and physic that is the cause of mans 
 final destruction." — p. 89. 
 
 Such language was rare in the seventeenth century, but 
 it is familiar to us in these days. 
 
 To this the Boston members reply : — 
 
 *' The case stands plainly thus. In the first covenant we stand con- 
 demned for the breach of the law, either as Adams sin is ours by im- 
 putation, or as we have actually broken the law. Where the gospel 
 comes, Christ is offered, a way is discovered to life by Him. Now this 
 is the proper gospel condemnation that men despise him and will not 
 follow this light ; and this is added to the former : they were before 
 condemned by the law, and now the gospel condemns them to." — p. 80. 
 
 " But the knack is, they died in Adam, and Christ by his death for 
 all that died in Adam hath discharged all of that imputation, which is 
 a perfectly Arminian principle, and hath bin enough confuted by all 
 that have written against them. That therefore he concludes that none 
 do suffer final destriictio7i but for rejecting the physicia7i, makes the 
 condition of pagans better than that of Christians, for these are certain 
 to escape destruction, being incapable of rejecting the physician who 
 is never offered to them, whereas millions of those reject him and 
 perish for it. The gospel then opens a door to mans undoing, which 
 else he had been out of danger of, if Christ had but died for us and 
 never told us of it." — p. 82. 
 
 It is interesting to observe that the Boston ministers 
 not only reject the view of Keith, which is a favorite view 
 at present, as a perfectly Arminian principle, but they also 
 
112 HOW SHALL WE REVISE? 
 
 show that it makes the condition of the heathen safer than 
 the condition of men living in Christian lands ; an argu- 
 ment which is equally valid against the universal salvation 
 of dying infants, for that makes the condition of infants 
 dying in infancy safer than that of infants who grow up 
 to childhood and manhood. 
 
 in. PROFESSOR SIMSON AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 The controversy between Keith and the Boston minis- 
 ters shows us what was the state of the question and what 
 was the orthodox Presbyterian and Congregational doc- 
 trine at the close of the seventeenth century. In the eigh- 
 teenth century there was a great change in the theological 
 world. After the Revolution had given liberty to the Non- 
 conformists in England, had established the Presbyterian 
 Church of Scotland, and had secured religious liberty in the 
 American Colonies, it soon became manifest that there 
 were Latitudinarian elements in Presbyterian and Congre- 
 gational circles as well as among Episcopalians and Quak- 
 ers. The debate over the Light of Nature, and the office 
 of the human reason in the Christian Religion, the extent 
 of the Atonement, the right of the subscription to creeds, 
 and other like questions, went on in Presbyterian and 
 Congregational circles, and it was not long before great 
 changes took place. It would be interesting to trace these 
 changes, but we have not the space at present. It will be 
 sufficient for our purpose if we use the case of Professor 
 Simson of Glasgow as a landmark. Professor Simson was 
 a leading representative of the Broadchurchmen of Scot- 
 land. He was charged with heresy, and his case was before 
 the ecclesiastical courts for many years. In 1 717 he was 
 warned by the General Assembly. In 1725-26 he was 
 again under trial and was partially sacrificed for the peace 
 
THAT TENTH CHAPTER. II3 
 
 of the church. Some of the charges against him were his 
 views as to the heathen and infants, as follows : — 
 
 *' That by the light of nature, and works of creation and Providence, 
 including Tradition, God hath given an obscure, objective revelation 
 unto all men, of his being reconcilable to sinners, and that the heathen 
 may know there is a remedy for sin provided, which may be called an 
 implicit or obscure revelation of the Gospel : that it is probable ; that 
 none are excluded from the benefits of the remedy for sin, provided by 
 God, and published twice to the world, except those, who by their 
 actual sin, exclude themselves, and slight or reject, either the clearer 
 light of the Gospel, revealed to the church, or that obscure discovery 
 and offer of grace made to all without the church. That if the heathen, 
 in the use of the means they have, would seek the knowledge of the 
 way of reconciliation, God would discover it to them. That there are 
 means appointed by God for obtaining saving grace, which means, when 
 dilligently used with seriousness, sincerity and faith of being heard, 
 God hath promised to bless with success ; and that the going about 
 these means in the foresaid manner, is not above the reach of our nat- 
 ural ability and power. . . . That it is more than probable that all 
 unbaptized infants dying in infancy are saved ; and that it is manifest, 
 if God should deny his grace to all, or any of the children of infidels, 
 he would deal more severely with them than he did with fallen angels." 
 — Continuation of the Secofid Edition of the Case of Mr. John Sims on ^ 
 Professor of Divinity iji the University of Glasgow. Edinburgh, 1728. 
 See Briggs's "American Presbyterianism." Appendix xxv.] 
 
 Thomas Ridgley in his " Body of Divinity," consisting of 
 lectures on the Westminster Larger Catechism, pubUshed 
 in 1731-33, taught the damnation of infants and the heathen. 
 He was unwilling to go so far as to teach the certainty 
 of the salvation of the infants of believers that died in 
 infancy. He tries, however, to mitigate the sufferings of 
 lost infants. 
 
 "The condemnation of infants, who have no other guilt but that 
 of original sin, will be more tolerable than that of the heathen, inasmuch 
 as they had no natural capacities of doing good or evil.''' — Philadelphia 
 edition, 1815, p. 141. 
 
114 HOW SHALL WE REVISE? 
 
 Isaac Watts, in 1740, in his ''Ruin .and Recovery of 
 Mankind," argued against the universal salvation of in- 
 fants, and taught that the infants of the wicked are 
 annihilated.* 
 
 Dr. Toplady, a Calvinistic divine of the Church of Eng- 
 land, later in the century makes a very decided advance : 
 
 " If Christ died only for them that believe, or in whom faith is 
 wrought, it follows that faith is an exceeding great and precious gift.''^ 
 
 In a note he adds : — 
 
 "No objection can hence arise against the salvation of such as die 
 in infancy (all of whom are undoubtedly saved) ; nor yet against the 
 salvation of God's elect among the heathens, Mahomedans, and others. 
 The Holy Spirit is able to inspire the grace of virtual faith into those 
 hearts (especially at the moment of dissolution) which are incapable of 
 exerting the explicit act of faith." — Works, London, 1794, i. p. 298. 
 
 But the prevailing view in Presbyterian circles through- 
 out the century was that the children of the wicked, dying 
 in infancy, were lost. This is the testimony of Dr. Ander- 
 son of Glasgow in his essay introductory to Logan's "Words 
 of Comfort for Parents bereaved of Little Children." He 
 testifies that in the first decade of the nineteenth century 
 " it was with hesitancy and bated breath, and amid suspi- 
 cions of their soundness in the faith, that a few voices 
 were heard, suggesting the possibility that all who die in 
 infancy are saved." In the second decade of the centur\' 
 '' there were found a few, lifting up their voices in protest 
 and advocacy that it was not only possible h\xt probable that 
 all who died in infancy, having been guilty of no actual 
 sin, no rejection of Him who was appointed the world's 
 Redeemer, were saved."! He then goes on to speak of 
 
 * Works, London, 1753, PP- 309 st^q- 
 
 t pp. xx.-xxiv. See Dr. Prentiss in Presbyterian Review, iv. 560, 561. 
 
THAT TENTH CHAPTER. II5 
 
 a later date when some proclaimed the certainty of the 
 salvation of all dying in infancy, and were met by the 
 censure that they were wise above what is written. 
 
 IV. DICKINSON AND HIS LARGER HOPE. 
 
 In the American colonies Presbyterians and Congrega- 
 tionalists were divided into the old side and the new side. 
 These divisions, however, were more on practical questions 
 than on doctrinal issues. The question of subscription to 
 creeds, regeneration, and religious experience were, how- 
 ever, in hot dispute ; and churches were divided by the 
 controversies. The leader of the new side in the Presby- 
 terian Church was Jonathan Dickinson, pastor of the 
 Presbyterian Church at Elizabethtown, N.J., and the first 
 president of the College of New Jersey. In 1741 he 
 published his '* True Scripture Doctrine concerning Some 
 Important Points of Christian Faith," discussing the five 
 points of Calvinism, according to the Synod of Dort, in 
 five discourses. 
 
 In these discourses there are some important modifica- 
 tions of the Calvinism of Dort and Westminster. They 
 give us another landmark by which to test Presbyterian 
 doctrine. Dickinson open^ up the doctrine of infant 
 salvation : — 
 
 " It may be further urged against this proposition, ' That it dooms 
 multitudes of poor infants to hell, who never committed any actual sin, 
 and is therefore a doctrine so cruel and ummerciful as to be unworthy 
 of God.' To this I answer, That greatest modesty becomes us in 
 drawing any conclusions on this subject. We have indeed the highest 
 encouragement to dedicate our children to Christ, since he has told us, 
 of such is the kingdom of heaven ; and the strongest reason for hope 
 as to the happiness of those deceased infants, who have been thus 
 dedicated to him. But God has not been pleased to reveal to us, how far 
 he will extend his uncovenanted mercy, to others that die in infancy. — 
 As, on the one hand, I do not know that the scripture anywhere assures 
 
I l6 HOW SHALL WE REVISE ? 
 
 US, that they shall all be saved ; So, on the other hand, we have not 
 (that I know of), any evidence, from scripture or the nature of things, 
 that any of these will eternally perish. — All those that die in infancy, 
 may (for ought we know), belong to the election of Grace, and be pre- 
 destinated to the adoption of children. They may, in methods to us 
 unknown, have the benefits of Christ's redemption applied to them ; and 
 thereby be made heirs of eternal glory. They are (it is true), naturally 
 under the guilt and pollution of original sin : But they may, notwith- 
 standing this, for anything that appears to the contrary, be renewed by 
 the gracious influences of the Spirit of God ; and thereby be made meet 
 for eternal life. It therefore concerns us, without any bold and pre- 
 sumptuous conclusions, to leave them in the hands of that God, whose 
 tender mercies are over all his works.'''' — Origi?ial Sin, by Jonathan 
 Dickinson, A.M., Boston, 1741, pp. 205, 206. 
 
 In this passage Jonathan Dickinson departs from the 
 older Calvinism by teaching that God has His elect even 
 beyond the circle of the children of believers. He is not 
 able to assert that all infants dying in infancy will be 
 saved. But he is unwilling to say, on the other hand, that 
 any of those dying in infancy are lost. He claims that the 
 Scriptures do not decide, and he leaves them in the hands 
 of that God " whose tender mercies are over all his works.'' 
 
 The theory by which Dickinson is able to look for the 
 salvation of infants is a very singular one. It finds ex- 
 pression in another passage of his works. 
 
 In 1748 a posthumous work appeared, entitled the 
 '' Second Vindication of God's Sovereign Free Grace." 
 Herein Dickinson, in replying to his adversary, Mr. Beach, 
 says : — 
 
 "Yet it is certainly true if God never designed and will therefore 
 never permit any but what are of the elect to die in infancy. If so (and 
 it may be so for aught I know) then all that die in infancy will un- 
 doubtedly be saved, without any prejudice to the doctrine of per- 
 severance." — p. 41. 
 
 In the former passage he said : "■ All those that die in 
 infancy, may (for ought we know) belong to the election of 
 
THAT TENTH CHAPTER. II/ 
 
 grace." Here he puts it in another form, and thinks that 
 it may be, for aught he knows, that God will not permit 
 any but what are of the elect to die in infancy. Dickinson 
 could hold this theory because of the emphasis that he laid 
 upon the doctrine of Regeneration. Regeneration to him 
 takes the place of the Effectual Calling of the Westminster 
 divines. And this he separates from Baptism in a way that 
 would have shocked Burgess and many other Westminster 
 divines, who believed in the baptismal regeneration of 
 elect infants. 
 
 He even goes so far as to separate regeneration from 
 the Word of God in a way that the Westminster divines 
 would have regarded as dangerous. It is this stress upon 
 the doctrine of Regeneration, as an act of divine efficiency, 
 that enabled him to conceive of the regeneration of infants 
 apart from the means of grace and the covenant of grace. 
 
 It is clear from these passages that Dickinson does not 
 go so far as Simson. He thinks that the salvation of 
 infants beyond the bounds of Christian privileges is pos- 
 sible ; there are no arguments against it, but he is not 
 ready to assert it as a fact. He does not go so far as this 
 in his view of the heathen world. He says in reply to 
 Mr. Beach : — 
 
 " And therefore you must produce some other evidence than such 
 reasoning as this, to make it credible, that all the Hottentots in the Bay 
 oi Soldoma (who know nothing of either doctrinal or practical religion, 
 nor so much as believe the Being of a God), with more such like bar- 
 barous savages, have all of th^va grace sufficient for their eternal sal- 
 vation.'' — Second Vindication^ p. 8i. 
 
 He argues in the strongest terms that the race had its 
 one probation in Adam. 
 
 " It has been universally received by the Protestant churches, that 
 Adam was appointed by God in the great instance of his probation, to 
 stand or fall for his Posterity, as well as himself: That had he stood, 
 
Il8 HOW SHALL WE REVISE? 
 
 they had stood in him : But he having fallen, they have fallen in him, 
 and his guilt and corruption descend to all his natural posterity. There 
 is a Harmony of their Confessions on this Head, as I think might be 
 easily made to appear, nor is there one Exception that I know of." — 
 Second Vmdicatioji^ p. 69. 
 
 Jonathan Dickinson represents the broader Calvinism of 
 the American Presbyterian Church. It would be difificult 
 to find many others at that time who were so generous in 
 their Calvinism as he. 
 
 Jonathan Edwards is much narrower. In 1758 his 
 treatise on *' Original Sin " was published, in which he 
 takes ground for the damnation of infants, in very plain 
 language.* Nathanael Emmons also held to the theory 
 of the damnation of non-elect infants. He says : 
 
 " From all the light we can find in Scripture on this subject, it seems 
 to be the most probable opinion that He renews only some of those 
 who die soon after they become morally depraved and guilty." — Works, 
 vol. iv., 1842, pp. 510, 511. 
 
 He seems to think that if any died before that time, they 
 were annihilated. The younger f Edwards would not admit 
 that there were any elect among the heathen. 
 
 These theologians represent the theology of the Pres- 
 byterian and Congregational churches of the eighteenth 
 century in America. I have never seen an extract from 
 an American Calvinistic divine of that century who believed 
 in the salvation of any of the heathen, or would go any 
 further than Jonathan Dickinson in the doctrine of the 
 salvation of infants. 
 
 V. THE NEW DOCTRINES. 
 
 With the beginning of the nineteenth century, theology 
 in America began to move rapidly forwards, and great 
 
 ♦ Works, vol. ii., pp. 494, 495. f Works, vol. ii., 1842, p. 465. 
 
THAT TENTH CHAPTER. I I9 
 
 conflicts were the result during the first half of the cen- 
 tury between the Old School, so called, and the New 
 School. But beneath these discussions still greater move- 
 ments were taking place that are now showing themselves. 
 The intercourse and debates between the several denomi- 
 nations had great influence in modifying the Calvinism of 
 the Congregational and Presbyterian churches. 
 
 The divines of the early decades of the century were 
 cautious in their statements, but in the third decade the 
 ministry took bolder positions. One of the earliest state- 
 ments relating to the salvation of the heathen and infants 
 was by Dr. James P. Wilson of Philadelphia, in 1827. He 
 takes the following position with reference to infants dying 
 in infancy : — 
 
 •' Since indisposition to holiness is a universal character of our 
 nature ; and infants inherit disease and death, the wages of sin; there 
 must exist some connection between us and our first parent, whereby 
 we are justly introduced, into the world, in his image and lapsed state, 
 without our choice. This doctrine is plainly asserted in the fifth chap- 
 ter of the Epistle to the Romans and elsewhere ; nevertheless it does 
 not follow that any dying in infancy are lost ; since their salvation by 
 Christ is more than possible." — An Essay on the Probatio7i of Fallen 
 Men, Philadelphia, 1827, p. 14. 
 
 Dr. Wilson also says with reference to the salvation of 
 the heathen : — 
 
 '' How far therefore the abominations of the heathen 
 can be excused in their dark and hopeless alienation, God 
 alone must decide ; nor does it become us, without divine 
 warrant, to say they can have no mercy in Christ." — p. 74. 
 In a note on this statement he says : — 
 
 " When a presbytery are of opinion that the Scriptures have not 
 asserted the doctrine of the unceremonious damnation of the heathen ; 
 they ought to allow this exception when required, either at licensure 
 or ordination. The difficulty lies in the answer to question 60 of the 
 Larger Catechism. The correct answer to be presented to it, must be 
 
120 HOW SHALL WE REVISE? 
 
 in the negative, for it is certainly true, that no obedience of ours to any 
 law can save us. The assembly's answer in denying salvation to be 
 in any other, but Christ, is also true. But so far as it does, though 
 indirectly, affirm, that faith is required of those who never have heard 
 the evidence, it is neither supported by the Scriptures, nor by reason." 
 — pp. lOI, 102. 
 
 "The greater portion of mankind have not yet had the offer of 
 Christ, but they pass through their state of trial, and are to be judged. 
 Must they be all swept off to perdition, for not believing that, which, it 
 has been impossible for them to believe ? Neither revelation nor reason, 
 unless we are greatly mistaken, affirms this." — p. io6. 
 
 Here Dr. Wilson takes exception to the statement of 
 the Larger Catechism, in terms that anticipate the discus- 
 sions of recent times. 
 
 Dr. Lyman Beecher, in 1828, in the '^Spirit of the Pil- 
 grims," wrote a series of articles, to show that the future 
 punishment of infants was not a doctrine of Calvinism. 
 He evidently did not know of the writings of his pred- 
 ecessors in Boston in 1690, or of the writings of the 
 Westminster divines on this subject. His article is simply 
 a landmark, showing that it had now become the well-nigh 
 universal belief that all infants dying in infancy were saved. 
 
 Dr. Archibald Alexander also seems to have held this 
 same opinion at about the same time. But the earliest 
 published testimony of it, so far as we know, is in his letter 
 to Bishop Mead, in which he says : — 
 
 " As infants, according to the creed of all reformed churches, are 
 infected with original sin, they cannot, without regeneration, be quali- 
 fied for the happiness of heaven. Children dying in infancy, must 
 therefore be regenerated without the instrumentality of the Word ; and 
 as the Holy Scriptures have not informed us that any of the human 
 family departing in infancy will be lost, we are permitted to hope that 
 all such will be saved." — Life of Archibald Alexander (1854), p. 584. 
 
 Dr. Alexander here advances beyond Dickinson and 
 Wilson, and teaches new doctrine that reverses the posi- 
 
THAT TENTH CHAPTER. 121 
 
 tion of the Boston ministers of 1690. Dickinson thought 
 that the Scriptures left the question undetermined whether 
 God would regenerate all dying in infancy or not. It 
 might be that he would not permit any but the elect to 
 die in infancy. Alexander hopes that infants are saved 
 because " the Holy Scriptures have not informed us that 
 any of the human family dying in infancy will be lost." 
 The Boston ministers, on the other hand, held " that God 
 hath nowhere revealed to us that he hath accepted the 
 satisfaction of Christ for all that die in infancy, and where 
 there is no revelation there is no ground for faith." The 
 old Puritans demanded Scriptural authority for an article 
 of faith, but Dr. Alexander follows his hopes and his rea- 
 son where the Scriptures are not in his way. This shows 
 a total change of attitude. 
 
 Dr. Charles Hodge takes a longer step in advance. He 
 says : — 
 
 " If without personal participation in the sin of Adam, all men are 
 subject to death, may we not hope that, without personal acceptance of 
 the righteousness of Christ, all who die in infancy are saved?" — Corn- 
 vie Jitary on Romans (1864), p. 298. 
 
 This again reverses the argument of the Boston minis- 
 ters, who say that infants '' in their natural birth are under 
 a sentence of condemnation to dye," because of Adam's 
 sin transferred upon them and his corruption communicated 
 to them, and that, "till their parents do openly profess 
 the gospel and submit to it, as long as they abide in their 
 gentilism, their children were also unclean, and so appar- 
 ently lying under guilt and liable to eternal death." It is 
 just their participation in Adam's sin that involves them 
 in eternal punishment. And it is only by their personal 
 participation in the righteousness of Christ, through their 
 believing parents, that they can be saved. This was the 
 older Calvinism. It is a new Calvinism that teaches that 
 
122 HOW SHALL WE REVISE? 
 
 there is either subjection to death without personal par- 
 ticipation in Adam's sin, or salvation without personal par- 
 ticipation in the righteousness of Christ. Dr. Hodge's 
 new Calvinism as set forth in this and in other kindred 
 statements, as Dr. Landis has clearly shown, subverts the 
 Reformed doctrine of Original Sin and the Protestant 
 doctrine of Justification by Faith.* 
 
 Dr. Charles Hodge in another passage expressly exempts 
 infants from the exercise of faith. 
 
 " Faith is the condition of justification. That is, so far as adults are 
 concerned, God does not impute the righteousness of Christ to the sin- 
 ner, until and unless, he (through grace) receives and rests on Christ 
 alone for salvation.'' — Systematic Theology, iii. p. ii8. 
 
 This new doctrine reaches its climax in Dr. A. A. Hodge, 
 who teaches that ''in the justification, therefore, of that 
 majority of the elect which die in infancy, personal faith 
 does not mediate."! And thus we have the doctrine of 
 the universal salvation of infants elaborated at the expense 
 of the vital principle of justification by faith only, and the 
 Augustinian doctrine of original sin. 
 
 VL EXPLAINING AWAY THE CONFESSION. 
 
 It is interesting to note the various ways in which recent 
 divines endeavor to explain away the historical meaning of 
 the Tenth Chapter. 
 
 I. Dr. Shedd says : — 
 
 " The declaration in Confession X. 4, and Larger Catechism, 60, 
 does not refer at all to the heathen as such, but only to a certain class 
 of persons to be found both in Christendom and heathendom, and 
 probably more frequently in the latter than in the former. . . . 
 
 " That this is the correct understanding of the Westminster Stand- 
 
 * Landis, " Doctrine of Original Sin " (1884), pp. 12 seq., 254 seq. 
 t Princeton Review (1878), p. 315. 
 
THAT TENTH CHAPTER. 123 
 
 ards is corroborated by the fact that the Calvinism of the time held that 
 God has His elect among the heathen. The second Helvetic Confes- 
 sion (I. 7) teaches it. Zanchius, whose treatise on 'Predestination' 
 is of the strictest type, asserts it. Witsius and others suggest that the 
 grace of God in election is wide and far-reaching. The elder Calvin- 
 ists held with the strictest rigor that no man is saved outside of the 
 circle of election and regeneration, but they did not make that circle 
 to be the small, narrow, insignificant circumference which their oppo- 
 nents charge upon them. And there is no reason to believe that the 
 Westminster Assembly differed from the Calvinism of the time." — 
 The Proposed Revision, Charles Scribner's Sons, pp. 64, 65. 
 
 This statement contains two incorrect premises, and 
 therefore a false conclusion. The Second Helvetic Con- 
 fession teaches the common Calvinistic doctrine that the 
 grace of God is free and is not confined to external means. 
 Dr. Shedd infers from this statement that this Confession 
 teaches that there are elect heathen. But this inference 
 is not justified by the language of this Confession or the 
 history of opinion at the time the Confession was composed. 
 Dr. Shedd makes an inference from the Confession that is 
 invalid, and then argues from his invalid inference as if it 
 were the statement of the Confession. Dr. Shedd does 
 not give us the statement from Zanchius, and we may be 
 permitted to conjecture that in this case also Dr. Shedd 
 has made an inference from Zanchius' statements that is 
 contrary to his real views. So far as our reading of the 
 reformed divines goes, we have not found the slightest 
 evidence for Dr. Shedd's assertion. The second assump- 
 tion of Dr. Shedd in this extract is, that ''there is no reason 
 to believe that the Westminster Assembly differed from 
 the Calvinism of the time." This may seem plausible to 
 those who have not studied the Westminster divines. But 
 in fact, the Calvinism of Great Britain had its own native 
 type and development. It was a misfortune when British 
 and American Calvinists turned away from their own an- 
 
124 HOW SHALL WE REVISE? 
 
 cestral theology to build upon Swiss and Dutch scholasti- 
 cism. We have given extracts from British and American 
 Presbyterians to show what they meant by the statements 
 of the Confession, and these show that Dr. Shedd's specu- 
 lations as to their meaning are even more unjustifiable than 
 his inference from the Second Helvetic Confession. There 
 is not the slightest evidence that the continental divines or 
 the British divines of the Reformed churches in the seven- 
 teenth century had any room in their theology for elect 
 heathen. 
 
 2. Dr. Shedd presents the following interpretation of 
 the Westminster statement : — 
 
 " We contend that the Confession so understands the Scriptures, in 
 its declaration that there are some ' elect persons [other than infants] 
 who are incapable of being outwardly called by the ministry of the 
 Word.' To refer the ' incapacity ' here spoken of to that of idiots and 
 insane persons, is an example of the unnatural exegesis of the standards 
 to which we have alluded. The hypotheses that the Confession 
 teaches that there are elect and non-elect idiots, and elect and non- 
 elect maniacs, is remarkable. It is incredible for two reasons. First, 
 idiots and maniacs are not moral agents, and therefore as such are 
 neither damnable nor salvable. They would be required to be made 
 rational and sane, before they could be classed with the rest of mankind. 
 It is utterly improbable that the Assembly took into account this very 
 small number of individuals, respecting whose destiny so little is known. 
 It would be like taking into account abortions and untimely births. 
 Secondly, these ' elect persons who are incapable of being outwardly 
 called by the ministry of the Word,' are contrasted in the immediate 
 context with ' others not elected, who although they may be called by 
 the ministry of the Word, never truly come to Christ ' ; that is to say, 
 they are contrasted with rational and sane adults in evangelized regions. 
 But idiots and maniacs could not be put into such a contrast. The 
 ' incapacity ' therefore must be that of circumstances, not of mental 
 faculty. A man in the heart of unevangelized Africa is incapable of 
 hearing the written Word, in the sense that a man in New York is 
 incapable of hearing the roar of London." — The Proposed Revision of 
 the Westmitister Standards, p. 26. 
 
THAT TENTH CHAPTER. 125 
 
 It is very strange doctrine that *' idiots and maniacs are 
 not moral agents, and therefore as such neither damnable 
 nor salvable." It is sufficient to refer to the extract from 
 Tuckney,* given above, where he speaks of infants and 
 distracted persons which want the use of reason, and con- 
 trasts such elect ones with the heathen. These few words 
 of Tuckney, who had so much to do with the construction 
 of the Confession, are worth a thousand pages of the- 
 orizing and speculation as to what the Westminster 
 divines must have thought and must have designed to say. 
 The Westminster divines did not agree with Dr. Shedd 
 that abortions and untimely births should not be taken 
 into account in the work of redemption. No system of 
 theology is worth a straw that does not take into account 
 such babes, who are born into the world not to perish for- 
 ever in hell fire, but to be redeemed by Jesus Christ, and 
 to have an inheritance in an eternal life with Christ and 
 God. 
 
 3. Dr. Shedd endeavors to prove that the Westminster 
 divines meant that infants dying in infancy were elected 
 as a class : — 
 
 " We have already seen that iht proposed omission of preterition, so 
 as to leave only election in the case of adults, would make their election 
 universal, and save the whole class without exception. The actual 
 omission of it by the Assembly in the case of dying infants has the 
 same effect. It is morally certain that if the Assembly had intended to 
 descriminate between elect and non-elect infants, as they do between 
 elect and non-elect adults, they would have taken pains to do so, and 
 would have inserted a corresponding clause concerning infant preter- 
 ition to indicate it." — The Proposed Revision of the IVest/ninster 
 Standards, p. 67. 
 
 Here again the major premise is at fault. Dr. Shedd 
 has not shown that "the proposed omission of preterition 
 
 * See pp. 100, loi. 
 
126 HOW SHALL WE REVISE? 
 
 SO as to leave only election in the case of adults, would 
 make their election universal, and save the whole class 
 without exception." He admits that the XXXIX. Articles, 
 the First Helvetic Confession, and the Heidleberg Cate- 
 chism do not specify preterition, but only imply it in their 
 specification of election. The omission of preterition in 
 these creeds does not make election universal, and if it 
 does not in these creeds, the omission will not make elec- 
 tion universal in the Westminster Confession. Election 
 is, and must be, particular and individual. Classical elec- 
 tion is now, and ever has been, an Arminian doctrine, 
 whether we think of classes of babes or classes of adults. 
 It is true there is no specification of the preterition of 
 infants dying in infancy. But this no more implies their 
 election as a class, than the omission of the preterition 
 of adults in the XXXIX. Articles implies the election 
 of adults as a class. The divine election is an election of 
 individuals in both cases, according to the conception of 
 the old Calvinists and the Westminster divines. And it 
 is just this elaboration of the election of individuals, and 
 preterition of individuals, that makes some of the state- 
 ments of the third chapter of the Westminster Con- 
 fession so distasteful to men of our times. It is a hard 
 doctrine, and it is roughly expressed in the words, '' Their 
 number is so certain and definite that it cannot be either 
 increased or diminished" (iii. 4). Such language is not 
 suited to the classical election of infants dying in infancy, 
 making up a very large portion of the human race. 
 4. Dr. Shedd further says : — 
 
 " All men are blessed with common grace." * " Special grace supposes 
 the failure of common grace." f " There is not a transgressor on earth, 
 in Christendom, or Heathendom, who is not treated by his Maker 
 better thati he deserves ; who does not experience some degree of 
 
 *"The Proposed Revision," p. 43. t /.^., p. 45. 
 
THAT TENTH CHAPTER. 12/ 
 
 the divine love and compassion."* "It is divine mercy and love for 
 human souls, notwithstanding its ill success." f "Millions of men in 
 all ages are continually beating back God^s mercy in the outward call 
 and nullifying it." | " Scripture denies that God is under obligation to 
 follow up his defeated common grace with his irresistible special 
 
 These are doctrines that are pleasing to Calvinists in our 
 times, but they are not the doctrines of the Westminster 
 Confession. They are not the doctrines of the West- 
 minster divines or of the dogmatic divines of the Pres- 
 byterian churches in the seventeenth and eighteenth 
 centuries. They are more like the doctrines of Culverwell, 
 Keith, and Simson given above, than the doctrines of their 
 opponents. " Defeated common grace," " Beating back 
 God's mercy," '' Failure of common grace," may be sound 
 doctrine, more in accordance with the Scripture than that 
 taught by the Westminster divines, but it is not the lan- 
 guage of the orthodoxy of the seventeenth or eighteenth 
 centuries. Jonathan Dickinson was the leader of liberal 
 Presbyterians in his times, and yet he says : — 
 
 "The question here between you and me is this: Whether God 
 has universally and indifferently given to all men grace sufficient for 
 their eternal salvation ; or whether we can obtain eternal life by virtue 
 of our improvement of those acts of divine grace which are given to 
 mankind in general, at least under the Gospel, without special and dis- 
 tinguishing influences of the Spirit of God ? This you hold in the 
 affirmative ; I in the fiegative.^'' — Second Vindication, 1748, p. 71. 
 
 Dr. Shedd seems to side with Beach, over against Dick- 
 inson, when he says "■ Common grace is great and unde- 
 served mercy to a sinner, and would save him, if he did 
 not resist and frustrate it." || It is interesting to observe 
 that the passages of Scripture chiefly relied on by Dr. 
 
 I.e., p. 47. t I.C., p. 48. t ^•<^-. p- so- § ^-^M P- 49- 
 
 " The Proposed Revision," p. 48. 
 
128 HOW SHALL WE REVISE? 
 
 Shedd to prove his doctrine were not used at all among 
 the proof-texts of the Westminster Confession. These 
 are — 
 
 "Despises! thou the riches of his goodness, and forbearance, and 
 long suftering, not knowing that the goodness of God leads thee to 
 repentance" (Rom. ii. 4). 
 
 " And yet he left not himself without witness in that he did good, 
 and gave you from heaven rains and fruitful seasons, filling your hearts 
 with food and gladness" (Acts xiv. 17). "That they should seek 
 God, if happy they might feel after him, and find him, though he is 
 not far from each one of us " (Acts xvii. 27). 
 
 Dr. Shedd touchingly refers to the repentance of the 
 prodigal, all unconscious of the fact that the Westminster 
 divines make no citation from the Parable of the Prodigal 
 in the proof-texts of our Confession, or, indeed, from any 
 of the similar parables, such as the Lost Sheep, the Lost 
 Coin, the Pharisee and the Publican, the Good Samaritan, 
 the Importunate Widow. All this class of passages was 
 overlooked by the Westminster divines. In so far as Dr. 
 Shedd uses them, his system is a more Scriptural system 
 of theology than that contained in the Westminster Con- 
 fession. 
 
 5. President Patton tells us that — 
 
 " The Confession teaches that only the elect will be saved ; that those 
 of the elect who are capable of faith are saved by faith ; that those of 
 the elect, such as elect infants dying in infancy, who are incapable 
 of faith, are saved without faith. The antithesis is not between elect 
 and non-elect infants, but between elect infants that die in infancy and 
 elect infants that do not die in infancy." — Revision of the Confession 
 of Faith, p. 7. 
 
 This is remarking exegesis. The Confession nowhere 
 teaches that there is salvation without faith to those inca- 
 pable of faith. No sound Calvinist ever taught such doc- 
 trine. It subverts the doctrine of Justification by Faith 
 
THAT TENTH CHAPTER. 1 29 
 
 only. It is the doctrine of the Antinomians of the seven- 
 teenth century that was expressly repudiated again and 
 again by the Westminster divines in many passages of 
 their works and in the Confession itself, which says, 
 ** Nevertheless they are not justified until the Holy Spirit 
 doth, in due time, actually apply Christ unto them" (xi. 4). 
 
 There is nothing in the context of the Tenth Chapter to 
 suggest that there is an antithesis between elect infants 
 dying in infancy and elect infants that do not die in 
 infancy. All this is pure speculation without any basis 
 in the argument of the Confession itself. But even if there 
 were such an antithesis, the implication would still be 
 that as there are elect infants who do not die in infancy, 
 and non-elect infants who do not die in infancy, so the 
 same two classes of elect and non-elect are found among 
 those infants who die in infancy. 
 
 The so-called legal principle that requires us to find our 
 material for the construction of a document within the 
 four corners of the document is not a sound principle of 
 exegesis for historical documents, and is not recognized as 
 valid by historical critics. Those who remind historians 
 that "a great deal of most valuable historical research 
 becomes useless, so far as the question of confessional 
 interpretation is concerned," should bear in mind that a 
 great deal of valuable dogmatic speculation becomes use- 
 less in the interpretation of historical documents that use 
 such plain language as "elect infants dying in infancy." 
 
 6. Dr. Warfield has recently said : — 
 
 " 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 misrepresentations 
 in literary history." — Ought the Confession of Faith to be revised, p. 54. 
 
 The only explanation of this intemperate language that 
 we can think of is, that the author of it is fresh in his 
 
130 HOW SHALL WE REVISE? 
 
 Study of the Westminster divines and in the history of 
 doctrine, and therefore makes up for lack of evidence by 
 boldness of utterance. 
 
 The reader of this article, unless we greatly mistake, 
 will conclude that if there are any astonishing pieces of 
 misrepresentations, they are on the side of those who strive 
 so earnestly to stem the stream of history in order to put 
 new doctrines into venerable historical documents. Such 
 methods of dealing with the Confession make it a nose of 
 wax, and change its face so that its parents would not 
 recognize their own offspring. Loose subscription makes 
 subscription worse than useless. But falsification of his- 
 torical documents in the interest of any theories, however 
 excellent they may be in themselves, is demoralizing to the 
 highest degree. The ingenious attempts that are made to 
 avoid the plain grammatical, logical, rhetorical, and his- 
 torical meaning of the Tenth Chapter of the Confession of 
 Faith are doing more injury to the Confession than if it 
 were revised in a hundred places, or were placed upon the 
 shelf as a venerable historical document, and a new creed 
 were substituted for it in the practical use of the church. 
 
 The Presbyterian Church no longer believes in the doc- 
 trines explicitly set forth in the Tenth Chapter, sec. 3, 4. 
 It is simple honesty to make this confession and to revise 
 them, in some way, out of the Confession. They cannot 
 be explained away by speculative dogmatics. They may be 
 cut away, or new statements may be substituted for them. 
 Something must be done for their revision. There can be 
 no peace until the doctrine of the universal damnation of 
 the heathen and their babes is removed from the creed 
 of the Presbyterian Church. 
 
VII. 
 A NON-GROWING CREED. 
 
 BY THE REV. SAMUEL M. HAMILTON, D.D. 
 
 I AM heartily in favor of a moderate revision of our Con- 
 fession of Faith. I am so because I am a Calvinist, and 
 I want to see Calvinism set before the world in its proper 
 light. I am so because I love and honor the Westminster 
 Confession, and I want that Confession made as perfect 
 as it can be made. 
 
 Those who desire Revision have no intention of mangling 
 one of the venerable standards of our church. No, indeed ; 
 they hold the Westminster system just as strongly, as 
 honestly, and as intelligently as those opposed to any 
 change. But they do not make the Confession into a sort 
 of fetich, and bow down to it and worship it. They know 
 it to be what it really is, — a merely human document, 
 with many imperfections in it, like everything human, and 
 therefore capable of changes which will make it a better, 
 a more scriptural, and a more useful document than ever 
 yet it has been. That is the position of the Revisionist. 
 Is there anything in it to frighten anybody.? Is there 
 anything in it radical or revolutionary ? 
 
 But some very conservative brethren say : " Don't touch 
 the Confession. Revision is a dangerous process. One 
 never knows where the changes will stop." Dangerous! 
 To me the only dangerous thing is a forever unchanging 
 
 131 
 
132 HOW SHALL WE REVISE ? 
 
 creed. To me a non-growing creed is a God-dishonoring 
 thing. A non-growing creed is not a fit creed for a church 
 that beHeves in the presence of the Holy Ghost, to guide 
 it into all truth. Was His work in guiding the Presbyterian 
 Church into a fuller understanding of revealed truth fin- 
 ished when the Westminster Assembly closed its sessions ? 
 We have learned something in the last two hundred years. 
 Theology, alone of the sciences, has not remained sta- 
 tionary. While holding firmly to the type of truth re- 
 ceived from the fathers, we recognize ''the development 
 of Christian doctrine." Some of the old truths we look at 
 from new points of view, and others of them we express 
 in new ways. The Spirit is leading the church all the 
 time into profounder interpretations of the great mysteries 
 of Christianity. Shall we give no place to this new knowl- 
 edge, this clearer understanding of the truth, in our Pres- 
 byterian creed ? Then the best and most earnest minds 
 in our church must find themselves out of harmony with 
 that creed in some particulars. 
 
 I favor a Revision which shall introduce into our Con- 
 fession some adequate expression of the Gospel of Jesus 
 Christ. There is no such adequate expression in it now. 
 The Westminster divines were not competent to put it there. 
 I do not blame them for that. They had not the proper 
 view-points. Two terms are necessary to describe the God 
 revealed in Jesus Christ. He is a Sovereign, and he is a 
 Father. These two are not mutually exclusive. They 
 must coalesce if God is to be a God for men. Now, as 
 Principal Fairbairn well points out, there is a vast differ- 
 ence between a mere sovereign and a mere father and a 
 paternal sovereign and a regal father. '* The first thought 
 of the bare legal sovereign is law, and in enforcing law he 
 has no end but vindicating his own authority ; the first 
 thought of the regal parent is child, — wrong, lost, guilty, 
 
A NON-GROWING CREED. 1 33 
 
 and to be saved, not by the law being lowered, not by 
 order being violated, but by the Son that comes through 
 mercy, and the life that comes through redemption." Un- 
 fortunately the Westminster divines over-emphasized the 
 sovereignty of God, and overlooked the fatherhood. They 
 separated what ought to be blended, and their position 
 resulted in the absence from the Confession, in any fulness 
 or emphasis, of these vital doctrines — *' the love of God 
 to all mankind ; the gift of His Son, to be the propitiation 
 for the sins of the whole world ; and the offer of salvation 
 to all men, without distinction, on the ground of Christ's 
 perfect sacrifice." Let us for a moment put all prejudice 
 out of our minds, and think calmly of a Confession of 
 Faith whose purpose is to set before the world what Pres- 
 byterians conceive to be the teaching of Scripture, which 
 yet gives no place, certainly no conspicuous place, to these 
 glorious truths that fill the New Testament from cover to 
 cover — these truths that are distinctly the message of the 
 Gospel. Can we be satisfied to leave it so ? We may pile 
 together all the phrases we can cull from the Confession 
 about the love and kindness and forgiving mercy of God, 
 — still the heart of the Gospel is not there. I want to 
 put the heart of the Gospel there. I want to make promi- 
 nent, as it should be, the great, glad truth that the religion 
 of Jesus Christ is a religion of joy and hope for everybody 
 on the face of the globe. Therefore I believe that the 
 advocates of Revision are simply following the plain leading 
 of Holy Scripture. 
 
 Again, I favor a Revision which shall recast, or strike 
 out of the Confession, certain statements that horrify men's 
 ordinary sense of justice. Christian consciousness is often 
 spoken of with ridicule. Well, it is a phrase that easily 
 lends itself to the ridicule of a certain class of mind. But 
 I draw no argument from Christian consciousness. My 
 
134 HOW SHALL WE REVISE? 
 
 point IS a much simpler one, and it is unimpeachable. 
 Any dogma which shocks the moral sense of man — a 
 God-given sense — will find it hard to maintain itself. 
 Most thoroughly do I agree with the statement of Canon 
 Aubrey Moore : '' The conscience of to-day — and it is a 
 real gain that it should be so — refuses to believe that the 
 imprimatur of religion can be given to that which is not 
 good, or that God would put us to moral confusion. It 
 would rather give up religion altogether than accept one 
 which will not endorse and advance our highest moral 
 ideas." Now the statements in the Confession about elect 
 infants, and the damnation of the heathen, and uncondi- 
 tional pretention, shock men, in spite of all efforts to 
 explain them. They are in conflict with ''our highest 
 moral ideas." Take the last-mentioned item, uncondi- 
 tional pretention. If that were essential to the Calvinistic 
 system, as some assert, I am free to confess that I could 
 not stay in the Presbyterian Church, and I am a Presby- 
 terian born and bred. But pretention is no necessary part 
 of Calvinism. It is a mere excrescence, a mere human 
 inference, a mere attempt of men to confine the ways of 
 the Almighty within the limits of their own petty syllo- 
 gizing. That God has chosen a people for Himself is a 
 glorious truth ; for, when interpreted, it simply means that 
 I, as a believer, am what I am through the grace of God, 
 dependent absolutely on Him for my salvation, and there- 
 fore sure of it. But to infer from this that God passes 
 some men by, arbitrarily leaving them to their fate, never 
 giving them a chance, is impossible to any one who has 
 caught the dimmest vision of Him who is the God and 
 Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. All I know about God 
 Christ has taught me ; and He has taught me to know and 
 love and worship, not a God who passes any man by, but 
 a God who, while He abhors their sin, thinks first of His 
 
A NON-GROWING CREED. 1 35 
 
 guilty children, a God who must seek and save the lost 
 everywhere. He can no more help it than an Eastern 
 shepherd can help going after the one in his flock that has 
 wandered. It is the joy, it is the necessity of His being. 
 That is my God, and the dogma of preterition would rob 
 me of Him. I know that some try to explain the state- 
 ments of the third chapter of the Confession in a way that 
 will enable them to hold the dogma of preterition, and still 
 preach the God of Jesus Christ. They say that the chap- 
 ter does not teach unconditional foreordi nation to eternal 
 death. Well, it certainly seems to teach it. Hundreds of 
 able and honorable men who have read the chapter believe 
 that this is its teaching. I ask the brethren who are 
 spending so much labor in trying to explain its obviously 
 harsh statements, why not change them, so as to make 
 them say precisely what you mean } Is a Confession which 
 requires you to be continually explaining to people in what 
 sense you understand some of its articles, one with which, 
 as intelligent men, you ought to be satisfied } Surely the 
 advocates of Revision are simply following the dictates of 
 common sense. 
 
 And, finally, I favor a Revision which shall make the 
 Confession express the real, living faith of our church 
 to-day. Does it do that now } I do not believe that, after 
 the discussion of the past few months, any one would 
 venture to assert that a majority of our ministers accept 
 all the statements of the third and tenth chapters. This, 
 however, I am sure of : were an utter stranger to Presby- 
 terianism to come to New York City, and attend any of 
 our churches for a year, and listen to the preaching in 
 them, and then were to set himself to study the West- 
 minster Confession, he would be forced to the conclusion 
 that there was a wide chasm between our preaching and 
 our creed. Why should we allow this to be so ? What 
 
136 HOW SHALL WE REVISE? 
 
 is the use of our Confession, if it does not set forth in plain 
 language, intelligible to all, what as Presbyterians we actu- 
 ally believe and teach ? Surely the advocates of Revision 
 are simply following the dictates of common honesty. 
 
 These are my reasons for the position I occupy. I 
 beheve in a Revision that will be moderate and sensible, 
 that will leave the Calvinistic system absolutely intact, 
 and that will introduce only such changes as will help to 
 make our Confession of Faith more Scriptural than it is, 
 and take away all grounds for imputing to our church 
 beliefs that horrify men's ordinary sense of justice. 
 
VIII. 
 
 THE CONFESSION TESTED BY SCRIPTURE. 
 
 BY PROF. CHARLES A. BRIGGS, D.D. 
 
 The seventeenth century was devoted to the construc- 
 tion of elaborate systems of doctrine, in which the faith 
 of the Reformation was expressed over against the scholas- 
 tic theology of the Middle Ages and the decrees of the 
 Council of Trent. The creeds of the sixteenth century 
 were simple expressions of the great principles of the 
 Reformation and of the essential doctrines of the Christian 
 system of faith, viewed in relation to these principles. But 
 in the seventeenth century divines went further, and com- 
 posed systems of doctrine as they organized systems of 
 church government, to be the fortresses of orthodoxy in 
 the different national churches of Europe. The Lutheran 
 churches laid more stress upon sound doctrine, but the 
 Reformed churches gave more attention to sound disci- 
 pline and a godly life. The battle of Puritanism with 
 Anglo-Catholicism in the Church of England was chiefly 
 a battle for the holy discipline in accordance with God's 
 word. Doctrines of faith were not in dispute between 
 Whitgift and Cartwright. The doctrinal contention first 
 became prominent in the battle with Archbishop Laud 
 and his school of British Arminians. The Westminster 
 Confession accordingly embraces religion, doctrines of 
 faith, morals, the holy discipline, as well as sound doc- 
 
 137 
 
138 HOW SHALL WE REVISE? 
 
 trine ; and it thereby became the most elaborate creed of 
 Christendom. 
 
 The Westminster divines pm'sued the method of first 
 constructing their system, and then searching for texts 
 from the Scriptures to prove it. This has been the favor- 
 ite method of dogmatic divines until the present day. A 
 recent General Assembly unhappily endorsed this method 
 when they appointed a committee to revise the proof-texts 
 of the Westminster Confession. We do not blame the 
 Westminster divines for this method. It was the method 
 of their age, and they made a fuller and better use of 
 Scripture than any of their predecessors. But in recent 
 times the theological discipline of Biblical theology has 
 sprung into the field, in which the method is to study the 
 theology of the entire Bible, and to build up the Biblical 
 system of doctrine by an induction of all the passages of 
 the Bible. Those divines who undertake any other method 
 at present in the construction of a system of Christian 
 doctrine are guilty of a mutilation of the Scriptures that 
 should not be winked at. 
 
 There have been so many loose sayings in recent times 
 with reference to the proof-texts of the Westminster Con- 
 fession that it has seemed best to make a careful induction 
 of the facts. This shows what passages the Westminster 
 divines used, how they used them, and also what passages 
 they neglected to use. Little attention is given to the 
 proof-texts of the American edition of the Confession, 
 because these are without authority and valueless. We 
 desire to know what proof-texts were used by the West- 
 minster divines themselves to prove their statements. 
 These are given from the original document. The New 
 Testament and the Psalter are used as specimens of their 
 work in order to exhibit their methods. The tables, given 
 in the Appendix, will guide others to pursue the study 
 further. 
 
THE CONFESSION TESTED BY SCRIPTURE. 1 39 
 
 We shall begin with the epistles of Paul because these 
 are used 583 times, more than all the rest of the New 
 Testament. The epistle to the Hebrews is cited 84 times. 
 This belongs to the Pauline type of theology. Thus the 
 school of Paul is cited 66^ times. There are 248 citations 
 from the four Gospels, 92 from Acts, 21 from the epistle of 
 James, 49 from the epistles of Peter, 9 from Jude, and j6 
 from the epistles and apocalypse of John, making 155 
 from the other apostles than Paul. This gives us 66y from 
 the Pauline epistles over against 495 citations from Jesus 
 and the other New Testament writers. Thus the Confes- 
 sion is built on the words of Paul rather than the words of 
 the Lord Jesus. It is Pauline rather than comprehensively 
 Christian. This will appear more clearly in the course of 
 our investigation. 
 
 THE CONFESSION AND PAUL. 
 
 A. The Earlier Panlmism. 
 
 I. The epistle to the Romans is cited 185 times. 
 
 This epistle was the favorite epistle of the Westminster 
 divines. Nearly half of the verses are used, and some of 
 them are used as many as four, five, and six times. Atten- 
 tion is called to the following specimens of the use of this 
 epistle by the Westminster divines. 
 
 {a) The faults in the use of the section, chap. ii. 1-16, 
 are : — 
 
 (i) The neglect of the doctrine of the goodness of God 
 leading men to repentance in ver. 4. 
 
 " Or despisest thou the riches of his goodness and forbearance and 
 long suffering ; not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to 
 repentance ? " 
 
 (2) The neglect of the doctrine of the rewards of the 
 well-doing in vers. 7, 10. 
 
I40 HOW SHALL WE REVISE ? 
 
 '* To them who by patient continuance in well-doing seek for glory 
 and honour and immortality, — eternal life (7 ) ; but glory, honour, and 
 peace, to every man that worketh good, to the Jew first, and also to the 
 Gentile "(10). 
 
 (3) The misuse of ver. 5, referring it to the damnation of 
 the reprobate (xxxiii. 2), when it really teaches the wrath of 
 God in the day of judgment against the hard-hearted and 
 impenite7it. 
 
 "But after thy hardness and impenitent heart treasurest up unto 
 thyself wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous 
 judgment of God." 
 
 (4) The disproportionate use of vers. 14 and 15. 
 
 " For when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the 
 things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto 
 themselves" (14), " which shew the work of the law written in their 
 hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the 
 mean while accusing or else excusing one another " (15). 
 
 Ver. 14 is used thrice (i. i, iv. 2, xix. i) and ver. 15 four 
 times (i. i, iv. 2, vi. 6, xix. i). 
 
 ib) Chap. via. 18-39 is one of the grandest sections in 
 the epistle. 
 
 " For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy 
 to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us (18). For 
 the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of 
 the sons of God (19). For the creature was made subject to vanity, not 
 willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope 
 (20), because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bond- 
 age of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God (21). 
 For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain 
 together until now (22). And not only they, but ourselves also, which 
 have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within our- 
 selves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body (23). 
 For we are saved by hope : but hope that is seen is not hope : for what 
 a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for? (24). But if we hope for that 
 we see not, then do we with patience wait for it (25). Likewise the 
 
THE CONFESSION TESTED BY SCRIPTURE. I4I 
 
 Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should 
 pra}- for as we ought : but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us 
 with groanings which cannot be uttered (26). And he that searcheth 
 the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit, because he maketh 
 intercession for the saints according to the will of God (27). And we 
 know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to 
 them who are the called according to his purpose (28). For whom he 
 did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of 
 his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren (29). 
 Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called : and whom 
 he called, them he also justified : and whom he justified, them he also 
 glorified (30). What shall we then say to these things? If God be for 
 us. who can be against us? (31). He that spared not his own Son, but 
 delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give 
 us all things? (32). Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? 
 It is God that justifieth (^2) : who is he that condemneth? It is Christ 
 that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand 
 of God, who also maketh intercession for us (34) . Who shall separate 
 us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, 
 or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? (35) — as it is written, For 
 thy sake we are killed all the day long ; we are accounted as sheep for 
 the slaughter (Ps. iv. 22) (36). Nay, in all these things we are more 
 than conquerors through him that loved us (37). For I am persuaded, 
 that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, 
 nor things present, nor things to come (3S), nor height, nor depth, nor 
 any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, 
 which is in Christ Jesus our Lord " (39). 
 
 (i) Ver. 18 is misused to teach "that we cannot, by 
 our best works, merit pardon of sin, or eternal Hfe at the 
 hand of God, by reason of the great disproportion that is 
 between them and the glory to come " (xvi. 5), a doctrine 
 which may be true, but is certainly not taught in this 
 passage. 
 
 (2) Ver. 20 is misused to teach that the sinner is made 
 subject to all temporal miseries (vi. 6), a doctrine which is 
 not taught in the passage. This citation is omitted from 
 the American list of proof-texts. 
 
 (3) The magnificent thought of vers. 18-22, that the 
 
142 HOW SHALL WE REVISE? 
 
 whole creation is travailing for the Messianic redemption 
 which it is to share, is altogether ignored. 
 
 (4) Vers. 23-25 are used to prove that, "as Christ 
 would have us to be certainly persuaded that there shall 
 be a day of judgment, — for the greater consolation of the 
 godly in their adversity " (xxxiii. 3). But these proof -texts 
 are omitted from the American list. 
 
 (5) The following verses are used correctly : ver. 26 
 (xxi. 3), ver. 28 (v. 7 and xx. i), ver. 30 (iii. 5, x. i, and 
 xi. i), ver. 32 (xi. 3), ver. 33 (iii. 8), ver. 34 (viii. 4, 8). 
 
 (6) Ver. 30 is used to prove the chain of redemption. 
 "Wherefore they who are elected, — are effectually called 
 unto faith in Christ by his Spirit working in due season ; 
 are justified, adopted, sanctified " (iii. 6). But the American 
 list reduces the citation to " them he also called," missing 
 the point of the citation altogether. Ver. 28 is here cited 
 to prove that " Neither are any other redeemed by Christ, 
 effectually called, justified, adopted, sanctified, and saved, 
 but the elect only " (iii. 6). And it is added, " Refer the 
 reader to the end of the chapter." This passage certainly 
 never was designed by the apostle to set forth any such 
 doctrine ; but the reverse, to make it certain that the en- 
 tire work of redemption would be accomplished by the love 
 of God for all the elect. The non-elect are not mentioned. 
 
 (7) Vers. 33-39 are cited to prove the efficacy of the 
 merit and intercession of Jesus Christ, and " the free and 
 unchangeable love of God the Father" (xvii. 2). 
 
 (8) Christ as the ethical aim and image to which the 
 elect are to be conformed — as the end of the order of 
 salvation, in ver. 29 seq. is altogether neglected. 
 
 {c) Romajis ix. 1 1-24. (i) It is significant that the 
 Westminster divines neglect vers. 2-3. 
 
 *'I have great heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart. For I 
 could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my 
 kinsmen according to the flesh/'' 
 
THE CONFESSION TESTED BY SCRIPTURE. 1 43 
 
 (2) Ver. 16 is cited incorrectly in xvi. 7, but is omitted 
 from the American list. 
 
 (3) Vers. 22-23 ^^6 cited with questionable propriety 
 in xxxiii. 2. They are also used in iii. 3 to prove *' others 
 foreordained to everlasting death " ; but they do not furnish 
 proof of this proposition. 
 
 {d) Three of the most important verses of ckap. x. are 
 not used : — 
 
 " For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that 
 believeth " (4). "The word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth, and in 
 thy heart: that is, the word of faith, which we preach" (8). "For 
 whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved " (13). 
 
 {e) Chap. xii. is the finest chapter in the epistle, and 
 yet only ver. 2 is used, and that only in the last clause, to 
 prove that '* good works are only such as God hath com- 
 manded in his Holy Word " (xvi. i). 
 
 (/) Chap. xiii. i-io is cited in its separate verses ten 
 times (xix. 2, 5 ; xx. 4; xxiii. i, 2, 4), especially to prove 
 duties to rulers. 
 
 {g) Chaps, xiv. and xv. are little used, and the great doc- 
 trines of Christian expediency and self-sacrifice in these 
 chapters are neglected in the most important verses. 
 
 2. I Corinthians. 
 
 This epistle is used eighty-eight times. 
 
 {a) There is no use of chap. i. j-%, 
 
 " So that ye come behind in no gift ; waiting for the coming of our 
 Lord Jesus Christ : who shall also confirm you unto the end, that ye 
 may be blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ." 
 
 The doctrine of the blamelessness of Christians in the 
 day of judgment is neglected here and elsewhere in the 
 Scriptures by the Westminster divines, and is also neglected 
 in the Confession. The following important verses are also 
 passed by : — 
 
144 HOW SHALL WE REVISE? 
 
 " But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumbling block, 
 and unto the Greeks foolishness ; but unto them which are called, both 
 Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God " 
 (23-24). 
 
 {b) The famous passage, chap. Hi. 10-15, is not used at 
 all. This is one of the chief proof-texts used for the Ro- 
 man CathoUc doctrine of Purgatory. It really sets forth 
 the fiery test of the Messianic judgment, and it is one of 
 the most important passages in the New Testament for 
 Eschatology. 
 
 {c) Chap. vi. 12-20 with its law of Christian expediency 
 and its doctrine that the body is the temple of the Holy 
 Spirit is overlooked. The same is true also in chaps, viii. 
 and.;r. 23-33. 
 
 {d) Only four verses of chap, xii. are used and these not 
 the most important. The following are omitted : — 
 
 " Now there are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit. And there 
 are differences of administrations, but the same Lord. And- there are 
 diversities of operations, but it is the same God which worketh all in 
 all" (4-6). " Now ye are the body of Christ, and members in partic- 
 ular" (27). 
 
 {e) In that magnificent chapter xiii., treating of Christian 
 Love, only vers. 3 and 12 are used : the former merely to 
 prove that works done by unregenerate men cannot please 
 God because they are not done in a right manner (xvi. 7) ; 
 the latter merely to prove that '^ the purest churches under 
 heaven are subject both to mixture and error " (xxv. 5), 
 both of which citations are perversions of the meaning of 
 the passages. 
 
 (/) Only seventeen of the fifty-eight verses of chap. xv. 
 are cited, and some of the most important are neglected, 
 such as : — 
 
 " But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits 
 of them that slept" (20). " Then cometh the end, when he shall have 
 
THE CONFESSION TESTED BY SCRIPTURE. I45 
 
 delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father ; when he shall have 
 put down all rule and all authority and power'' (24). " And when all 
 things shall be subdued unto him, then shall the Son also himself be 
 subject unto him that put all things under him, that God may be all in 
 all" (28). 
 
 3. 2 Corinthians. 
 
 This epistle is used thirty-eight times. 
 
 {a) There are many omissions in chaps, i.-iv., such as : : — 
 
 '* Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the 
 Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort'' (i. 3). "For God, 
 who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our 
 hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the 
 face of Jesus Christ" (iv. 6). 
 
 The splendid passage iv. 14-18 is entirely neglected. 
 
 ib) Chap. V. i-ii is the most important passage with re- 
 crard to the condition of Christians in the middle state, be- 
 tween death and the advent day. Vers, i, 6, 8 are used to 
 prove that the souls of the righteous immediately return to 
 God who gave them (xxxii. i), and vers. 10 and 1 1 are cited 
 to prove that all will appear before the tribunal of Christ to 
 receive according to what they have done in the body ; and 
 to set forth the certainty of the day of judgment, in order 
 to deter men from sin (xxxiii. i and 3). But the doctrine 
 of the middle state, as set forth in this passage especially 
 in vers. 4 and 9, is overlooked. 
 
 " For we that are in this tabernacle do groan, being burdened : not 
 for that we would be unclothed, but clothed upon, that mortality might 
 be swallowed up of life" (4). "Wherefore we labour, that, whether 
 present or absent, we may be accepted of him" (9). 
 
 if) The important passage v. 14-18 is entirely neglected 
 with its doctrine of the constraining love of Christ, the 
 new creature in Christ, with the new life which is lived 
 unto him who died for them and rose again. 
 
146 HOW SHALL WE REVISE? 
 
 "For the love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, 
 that if one died for all, then were all dead (14) : and that he died for 
 all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, 
 but unto him which died for them, and rose again (15). Wherefore 
 henceforth know we no man after the flesh : yea, though we have known 
 Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we him no more (16). 
 Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature : old things are 
 passed away; behold, all things are become new (17). And all things 
 are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath 
 given to us the ministry of reconciliation " (18). 
 
 4. The Epistle to the Galatians. 
 
 There are fifty-three citations from this epistle. Gala- 
 tians is more frequently cited than the two epistles of Peter. 
 Paul got the better of the argument with Peter in this 
 epistle, and this epistle influenced the Westminster divines 
 more than the two epistles of Peter. It is to be feared 
 that they did not take sufificient heed of the caution as to 
 the "things hard to be understood" in the epistles of 
 Paul (2 Peter iii. 16). 
 
 {a) Chap. iii. 17-29 brings out the relation of the old 
 covenant to the new, and of the law to Christ, (i) Ver. 21 
 is misused in the contrast between the covenant of works 
 and the covenant of grace (vii. 3, xix. 7), and also to show 
 that the '' uses of law sweetly comply with the grace of 
 the gospel " (xix. 7), neither of which were contemplated 
 by the apostle when he wrote these words. (2) Ver. 24 
 is used to prove the clause that the law as a rule of life 
 gives " a clearer sight of the need they have of Christ, and 
 the perfection of his obedience" (xix. 6); but the Chris- 
 tology of the passage is overlooked. (3) Ver. 27 is mis- 
 used in the American list (xxvii. i), but not in the West- 
 minster list. (4) Ver. 27 is used by the Westminster 
 divines in the chai:)ter on Baptism (xxviii. i, 6), to show 
 that baptism is a sign and seal ''of his ingrafting into 
 
THE CONFESSION TESTED BY SCRIPTURE. 1 4/ 
 
 Christ" and that ''the grace promised is not only offered, 
 but really exhibited and conferred." This is all true, 
 although the figure of speech is different ; but it is certain 
 that the aim of Paul in this verse was not to teach the 
 doctrine of baptism, but the doctrine of the putting on of 
 Christ by faith, and this doctrine the Westminster divines 
 ignored in their use of these verses. Accordingly we are 
 not surprised that they should neglect to use : — 
 
 " For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus" (26). 
 " There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there 
 is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus" (28). 
 " And if ye be Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according 
 to the promise" (29). 
 
 {b) Chap. iiK teaches the freedom of the Christian and 
 contrasts Sinai and Jerusalem. Vers. 8-31 are not used 
 at all. It is noteworthy that the important warning " Ye 
 observe days, and months, and times, and years " (10), 
 and the sublime thought, '' But Jerusalem which is above 
 is free, which is the mother of us all " (26), are both over- 
 looked. 
 
 ic) In chap. vi. only ver. 10 is used, and such splendid 
 verses as the following are passed by : — 
 
 *' Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which arc spiritual, 
 restore such an one in the spirit of meekness ; considering thyself, lest 
 thou also be tempted" (i). . . . "Be not deceived; God is not 
 mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap" (7). 
 ..." But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord 
 Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the 
 world" (14). "For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth any 
 thing, nor uncircumcision, but a new creature" (15). 
 
 5. I Thessalonians. 
 
 This epistle is cited eleven times. 
 
 This little epistle is important for its Eschatology. 
 
 {a) Chap. i. 10. ** And to wait for his Son from heaven, 
 
148 HOW SHALL WE REVLSE ? 
 
 whom he raised from the dead, even Jesus, which dehvered 
 us from the wrath to come," is cited to prove that be- 
 Hevers are free from the condemning wrath of God (xx. i) ; 
 but its more important doctrine of the resurrection of 
 Jesus and our waiting for his advent from heaven are not 
 used. Furthermore, this passage is stricken out from the 
 American list. 
 
 (b) Chap. it. 1 3 is cited in i. 4 and xiv. 2 ; but ver. 1 2, 
 " That ye would walk worthy of God, who hath called you 
 unto his kingdom and glory," is overlooked. 
 
 {c) There is no citation from chap. Hi. The important 
 ver. 13, ''To the end he may stablish your hearts un- 
 blameable in holiness before God, even our Father, at the 
 coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all his saints," 
 ought not to have been omitted. 
 
 (d) In chap. iv. ver. 17 is used to prove that such as are 
 found alive at the advent shall not die, but be changed 
 (xxxii. 2). But the important verses 14-17 are neglected. 
 
 " For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also 
 which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him (14). For this we say 
 unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain 
 unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep 
 (15). For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, 
 with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God : and the 
 dead in Christ shall rise first (16) : then we which are alive and remain 
 shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord 
 in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord" (17). 
 
 {e) If any one will compare chap. v. with the table of 
 Westminster citations, he will find a use of some of the 
 least important verses, and a neglect of many important 
 ones. The use of ver. 23 is noteworthy. "And the very 
 God of peace sanctify you wholly ; and I pray God your 
 whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless 
 unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ." This is used 
 
THE CONFESSION TESTED BY SCRIPTURE. 1 49 
 
 to prove ''this sanctification is throughout in the whole 
 man " (xiii. 2) ; but the doctrine that this sanctification 
 must be complete at the second advent is ignored. 
 
 6. 2 Thessalonia7ts. 
 
 This epistle is cited fifteen times. 
 
 {a) The doctrine of the judgment at the second advent, 
 in chap. i. 5-9, is used in several citations (xxxiii. 2, 3, and 
 vi. 6); but vers. 10, 11, which present the brighter side, 
 are neglected. 
 
 ♦'When he shall come to be glorified in his saints, and to be ad- 
 mired in all them that believe (because our testimony among you was 
 believed) in that day (10). Wherefore also we pray always for you, 
 that our God would count you worthy of this calling, and fulfil all the 
 good pleasure of his goodness, and the work of faith with power" (11). 
 
 {b) Chap. a. treats more fully of the advent of the Mes- 
 siah. The Westminster divines make an improper use of 
 vers. 3, 4, 8, 9, in order to prove that " the pope of Rome 
 is that Anti-christ, that man of sin and son of perdition, 
 that exalteth himself in the Church against Christ, and all 
 that is called God " (xxv. 6). Here they venture to inter- 
 pret the apostle's prediction, and apply it to the pope, — a 
 very questionable proceeding in any case, and one not at 
 all becoming in a public Confession of Faith. But they 
 pass by the important lessons of the passage. 
 
 From this earlier group of the epistles of Paul the West- 
 minster Confession makes 390 citations, over against 248 
 citations from the four Gospels. 
 
 B. The Epistles of the Imprisonment. 
 
 These epistles present the more mature theology of 
 Paul. Ephesians is the one most used in this group, 
 Colossians next, Philippians but little, and Philemon not 
 
156 HOW SHALL WE REVLSE ? 
 
 at all. There are 130 citations from this group, over 
 against 128 from the epistles of Peter, James, John, and 
 Jude. 
 
 I. The Epistle to the Ephesia7is. 
 
 There are eighty-one citations from this epistle. 
 
 {a) (i) Chap. i. 4-7, 9, 1 1, treating of predestination and 
 election, is cited eight times (iii. i, 5, 6, 8). But the aim 
 of the divine election, ''that we should be holy and without 
 blame before him in love (4)," is lost sight of. (2) The doc- 
 trine of Christ as the head of the church, his body in chap. 
 i. 22, 23, is used (xxv. I and 6) ; but the doctrine of the 
 resurrection and enthronement of Christ, to reign over all 
 things, in vers. 20, 21, is neglected. 
 
 ib) (i) The doctrine of sin in cJiap. ii. 2, 3, and quicken- 
 ing of divine grace in chap. ii. 4, 5, 8-10 are used in nine 
 citations ; but vers. 6, 7 are used only in xxvi. i and xi. i 
 and 3. Two of these citations are omitted from the Ameri- 
 can list, and the other (xi. 3) might as well have been 
 omitted, for ver. 7 has nothing to do with the rich grace of 
 God "in the justification of sinners," but rather with that 
 vital union with Christ, and participating with him in his 
 entire experience of blessedness, " the exceeding riches of 
 his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus." 
 
 (2) Vers. 21-22 present the holy temple of the church, 
 the habitation of the Spirit. 
 
 " In whom all the building fidy framed together groweth unto an 
 holy temple in the Lord (21); in whom ye also are builded together 
 for an habitation of God through the Spirit " (22). 
 
 These are overlooked by the Confession. 
 
 {c) Chap. iii. 16-19 ^^ ^ splendid passage : — 
 
 " That he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to 
 be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man (16) ; that 
 Christ may dwell 4n your hearts by faith ; that ye, being rooted and 
 
THE CONFESSION TESTED BY SCRIPTURE. I5I 
 
 grounded in love (17), may be able to comprehend with all saints what 
 is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height (18) ; and to know 
 the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled 
 with all the fulness of God" (19)- 
 
 (i) Vers. 16-19 are cited to prove ''strengthened in all 
 saving graces" (xiii. i). The American Ust reduces the 
 citation to ver. i6, which alone refers to the point. 
 
 (2) Vers. 16-19 ^^^ cited to prove that ''all saints that 
 are united to Jesus Christ their head, by his Spirit, and by 
 faith, and have fellowship with him in his graces" (xxvi. i). 
 The American list reduces the citation to vers. 16—17. 
 (3) Vers. 17-19 are cited to prove "being enabled by the 
 Spirit to know the things which are freely given him of 
 God " (xviii. 3). (4) In their uses of these passages there 
 is not a hint of the knowledge-surpassing love of Christ ; 
 or of the indwelling Christ. 
 
 {d) Chap. iv. is cited fourteen times, (i) But the sec- 
 tion vers, i-io is entirely neglected. 
 
 " I therrfore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you that ye walk 
 worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called (i), with all holiness 
 and meekness, with long suffering, forbearing one another in love (2) ; 
 endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace (3). 
 There is one body and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of 
 your calling (4) ; one Lord, one faith, one baptism (5), one God and 
 Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all (6). 
 But unto every one of us is given grace according to the measure of 
 the gift of Christ (7). Wherefore he saith, When he ascended up on 
 high, he led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men (Ps. Ixviii. 18) 
 (8). Now that he ascended, what is it but that he also descended first 
 into the lower parts of the earth? (9). He that descended is the same 
 also that ascended up far above all heavens, that he might fill all 
 things) '' (10). 
 
 Ver. 10 is improperly used by the Westminster divines 
 (xxxii. i), but it is omitted in the American list. These 
 are among the most important verses of the epistle, not 
 
1 52 HOW SHALL WE REVISE? 
 
 only for the doctrines of the unity of the church, the 
 Fatherhood and immanence of God, and the working of 
 the Holy Spirit, but also for the descent of Christ into the 
 abode of the dead and the captives of the ascension. 
 
 (2) Vers. 1 1 and 12 are used by the Westminster divines 
 (xxiii. 3), but these are cast out of the American list. 
 Vers. 11-13 are cited to prove the ministry (xxv. 3). 
 (3) Ver. 1 3 is very appropriately cited to prove that *' the 
 will of man is made perfectly and immutably free to good 
 alone, in tJie state of glory only'' (ix. 5). 
 
 {e) Chap. V. is cited seven times. 
 
 (i) But there are very striking omissions, such as : — 
 
 "Be ye therefore followers of God, as dear children" (i). "For 
 the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness and righteousness and truth " 
 (9). " Be filled with the Spirit" (18). 
 
 (2) The section, vers. 23-33, is used four times to prove 
 that Christ is the head and Saviour of the church (viii. i), 
 sanctification by the word and spirit (xiii. i), that Christ is 
 the head and spouse of the church (xxv. i), and the efficacy 
 of baptism (xxviii. 6) ; but the purity and holiness of the 
 glorified church, which is the crown of the passage, is 
 overlooked. 
 
 (/) There are but five citations from chap, vi., and these 
 have been selected capriciously. The doctrine of the 
 devil, and of evil spirits in high places, of vers. 11-16, is 
 passed by. 
 
 2. The Epistle to the Philippians. 
 
 This epistle is used eighteen times. 
 
 {a) Chap. ii. 5-1 1 is the most important section in this 
 epistle, as follows : — 
 
 " Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus (5) : Who, 
 being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with 
 
THE CONFESSION TESTED BY SCRIPTURE. 
 
 153 
 
 God (6) ; But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the 
 form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men (7) ; And 
 being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became 
 obedient unto death, even the death of the cross (8). Wherefore God 
 also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above 
 every name (9) : That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of 
 things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth (10) ; 
 And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the 
 glory of God the Father" (11). 
 
 The Westminster divines use only vers. 6 and 8 to prove 
 that the Son of God was "equal with the Father" (viii. 2), 
 and that he " was crucified and died " (viii. 4). The doc- 
 trine of the humiliation of Christ in the incarnation, of 
 ver. 7, and his exaltation and enthronement, of vers. 9-11, 
 were altogether neglected. 
 
 {b) Chap. in. 20-21 is an important eschatological pas- 
 sage, as follows : — 
 
 " For our conversation is in heaven ; from whence also we look for 
 the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ (20) : who shall change our vile 
 body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according 
 to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto him- 
 self" (21). 
 
 The doctrines of the heavenly citizenship, and of looking 
 for the second advent, of ver. 20, are neglected. Ver. 21 
 is used merely to prove that the "bodies of the just" shall 
 "be made conformable to his (Christ's) glorious body" 
 (xxxii. 3). 
 
 {c) Chap. iv. y-S is overlooked. 
 
 "And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep 
 your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus (7). Finally, brethren, 
 whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever 
 things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, 
 whatsoever things are of good report, if there be any virtue, and if there 
 be any praise, think on these things" (8). 
 
154 HOW SHALL WE REVISE? 
 
 3. Epistle to the Colossians. 
 
 This epistle is used thirty-one times. 
 {a) Chap. i. 12-17 is one of the most valuable sections of 
 the epistle. 
 
 " Giving thanks unto the Father, which hath made us meet to be 
 partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light (12) ; who hath de- 
 livered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the 
 kingdom of his dear Son (13) : in whom we have redemption through 
 his blood, even the forgiveness of sins (14) : who is the image of the 
 invisible God, the firstborn of every creature (15); for by him were 
 all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and 
 invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or 
 powers, all things were created by him, and for him (16) : And he is 
 before all things, and by him all things consist" (17). 
 
 (i) Ver. 13 is used to prove that God frees the sinner 
 "from his natural bondage under sin " (ix. 4) ; and delivers 
 from "bondage to Satan and dominion of sin" (xx. i). 
 But this latter citation is omitted from the American list. 
 The doctrine of the translation into the kingdom of the 
 Son of God's love is overlooked as well as the inheritance 
 of the saints in light. 
 
 {2) The Christology of vers. 15-17 is not grasped. The 
 doctrine of the pre-existent Christ, the special feature of 
 vers. 15 and 17, is entirely neglected ; the doctrine of Christ 
 as creator of the world in ver. 16 is used (iv. i) ; but the 
 doctrine that he was creator of the heavenly intelligences 
 and that he was the aim of the creation are not used. 
 
 ib) Chap. in. i-io is also overlooked. 
 
 " If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, 
 where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God (i). Set your affections 
 on things above, not on things on the earth (2). For ye are dead, and 
 your life is hid with Christ in God (3). When Christ, who is our life, 
 shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory (4). Mortify 
 therefore your members which are upon the earth ; fornication, unclean- 
 ness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which 
 
THE CONFESSION TESTED BY SCRIPTURE. 1 55 
 
 is idolatry (5); for which things' sake the wrath of God cometh on 
 the children of disobedience (6) : in the which ye also walked some 
 time, when ye lived in them (7). But now ye also put off all these; 
 anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy communication out of your 
 mouth (8). Lie not one to another, seeing that ye have put off the 
 old man with his deeds (9) ; and have put on the new man, which is 
 renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him " (10). 
 
 The only verse used by the Confession is ver. lo (iv. 2). 
 This passage points to the enthroned Christ as the supreme 
 object of affection and regard ; and looks to his second 
 advent for the glorification of those whose life is in him. 
 It also teaches the doctrine of mortification as a part of 
 repentance, and of vivification and transformation into the 
 image of Christ. All of these doctrines of this epistle are 
 overlooked, and are neglected by the Confession in other 
 passages of Scripture. 
 
 C. T/ie Pastoral Epistles. 
 
 The last group of epistles of Paul is called the pastoral 
 epistles, embracing the two epistles to Timothy and the 
 epistle to Titus. There are sixty-three citations from this 
 group. 
 
 1. The first epistle to Timothy is used thirty times. We 
 note the significant omissions : — 
 
 "Who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowl- 
 edge of the truth'' (ii. 4). "For every creature of God is good, and 
 nothing to be refused, if it be received with thanksgiving ; for it is 
 sanctified by the word of God and prayer" (iv. 4, 5). 
 
 2. The second epistle of Timothy is used thirteen times. 
 We note the omissions of the following : — 
 
 "For I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is 
 able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day" 
 (i. 12). " Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, 
 which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day ; and not 
 to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing" (iv, 8). 
 
156 HOW SHALL WE REVLSE ? 
 
 3. The epistle to Titus is used twenty times. 
 {a) CJiap. a. 9-14 contains important doctrine. We shall 
 use it in the Revised Version. 
 
 "Exhort servants to be in subjection to their own masters, and to 
 be well-pleasing to them in all things ; not gainsaying (9) ; not purloin- 
 ing, but shewing all good fidelity ; that they may adorn the doctrine of 
 God our Saviour in all things (10). For the grace of God hath ap- 
 peared, bringing salvation to all men (11), instructing us, to the intent 
 that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly and 
 righteously and godly in this present world (12) ; looking for the blessed 
 hope and appearing of the glory of our great God and Saviour Jesus 
 Christ (13); who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from 
 all iniquity, and purify unto himself a people for his own possession, 
 zealous of good works" (14). 
 
 Vers. 9-12 are used to prove that by good works believ- 
 ers "adorn the profession of the Gospel" (xvi. 2). Vers. 
 II, 12, 14, are used to prove that assurance of grace does 
 not incline men to looseness (xviii. 3). Ver. 14 is cited to 
 prove that the elect are redeemed by Christ (iii. 6). Ver. 
 14 is cited to prove that Christ has given believers free- 
 dom from the guilt of sin (xx. i.). The important Chris- 
 tological doctrines of the passage have been neglected, and 
 "the grace of God bringing salvation to all men" has 
 escaped attention. 
 
 D. TJie Later Patilinism. 
 
 A disciple of Paul gives the latest Biblical phase of 
 Paulinism in the Epistle to the Hebrezvs. This epistle is 
 used eighty-four times in the Confession, against seventy- 
 six citations from the epistles and apocalypse of John. 
 
 {a) We have first to notice the use of i. 1-3. Ver. i is 
 used to prove that " it pleased the Lord, at sundry times, 
 and in divers manners, to reveal himself, and to declare 
 that his will unto his Church" (i. i). Vers. 1-2 arc used 
 
THE CONFESSION TESTED BY SCRIPTURE. 1 5/ 
 
 to prove that "those former ways of God's reveaUng his 
 will unto his people being now ceased" (i. i). Ver. 2 is 
 used to prove that the Son took part in the creation of the 
 world (iv. i), and that the Son is the head of all things 
 (viii. i). Ver. 3 is used to prove that '* God doth uphold 
 all creatures, actions, and things " (v. i). But the great 
 Christological doctrine of vers. 2-3, as wrought out more 
 distinctly in the Revised Version : " through whom also 
 he made the worlds (ages) ; who being the effulgence of 
 his glory, and the very image of his substance, and uphold- 
 ing all things by the word of his power," are overlooked 
 here, as in Colossians i. 15-16 and elsewhere. 
 
 {b) Chap. it. is sadly neglected. There is but one cita- 
 tion from it, and that of vers. 14, 16, 17, to prove that ''the 
 Son of God did take upon him man's nature, with all the 
 essential properties and common infirmities thereof" (viii. 
 2) ; but this citation is reduced in the American list to 
 ver. 17 alone. We quote vers. 9-11 and 14-18 in order 
 to show what important Christological and soteriological 
 doctrines are overlooked. 
 
 " But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for 
 the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honour ; that he by the 
 grace of God should taste death for every man (9). For it became 
 him, for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing 
 many sons into glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect 
 through sufferings (10). For both he that sanctifieth and they who 
 are sanctified are all of one : for which cause he is not ashamed to call 
 them brethren" (11). 
 
 " For as much then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, 
 he also himself likewise took part of the same ; that through death he 
 might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil (14) ; 
 and deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject 
 to bondage (15). For verily he took not on him the nature of angels ; 
 but he took on him the seed of Abraham (16). Wherefore in all 
 things it behoved him to be made like unto his brethren, that he 
 might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to 
 
158 HOW SHALL WE REVISE? 
 
 God, to make reconciliation lor the sins of the people (17). For in 
 that he himself hath suffered being tempted, he is able to succour them 
 that are tempted " (18). 
 
 {c) Chap. iv. 14-16 is also an important Christological 
 passage. 
 
 " Seeing then that we have a great high priest, that is passed into 
 the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our profession (14). 
 For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the 
 feeling of our infirmities ; but was in all points tempted like as we are, 
 yet without sin (15). Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of 
 grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of 
 need." (16). 
 
 Vers. 14 and 16 are cited to prove that Christians have 
 " greater boldness of access to the throne of grace " (xx. i) ; 
 and ver. 15 is cited to prove that Christ took upon him 
 man's nature ''with all the essential properties and com- 
 mon infirmities thereof, yet without sin " (viii. 2). But 
 no use whatever is made of the doctrine of the heavenly 
 mediation of our high priest and of his sympathy and help 
 for the needy and the tempted. 
 
 {d) The important doctrine contained in chap, v, 7-9 is 
 passed by. 
 
 "Who in the days of his flesh, when he had offered up prayers and 
 supplications with strong crying and tears unto him that was able to 
 save him from death, and was heard in that he feared (7) ; though he 
 were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered 
 (8) ; and being made perfect, he became the author of eternal salva- 
 tion unto all them that obey him (9) ; called of God an high priest 
 after the order of Melchisedec " (10). 
 
 ie) Chap. xi. is one of the most important in the epistle. 
 The definition of faith in the opening verse, and the doc- 
 trine of the future life in the closing verses, are both 
 passed by. 
 
 " Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of 
 things not seen (i). And these all, having obtained a good report 
 
THE CONFESSION TESTED BY SCRIPTURE. 1 59 
 
 through faith, received not the promise (39) : God having provided 
 some better thing for us, that they without us should not be made 
 perfect'' (40). 
 
 (/) The doctrine of the church in the middle state is 
 grandly set forth in xii. 22-24. 
 
 "But ye are come unto mount Sion, and unto the city of the liv- 
 ing God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of 
 angels (22), to the general assembly and church of the firstborn, which 
 are written in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits 
 of just men made perfect (23), and to Jesus the mediator of the new 
 covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things 
 than that of Abel" (24). 
 
 Vers. 22-28 are cited to prove the superiority of the 
 new covenant to the old (vii. 6). Ver. 24 is cited to prove 
 that Christ was ''thoroughly furnished to execute the 
 ofifice of a mediator and surety" (viii. 3). Ver. 23 is cited 
 to prove that " the will of man is made perfectly and im- 
 mutably free to good alone, in the state of glory only" 
 (ix. 5). But this is omitted from the American list. Ver. 
 23 is also cited to prove "the souls of the righteous being 
 then made perfect in holiness" (xxxii. i). But there is no 
 further use made of this passage in the doctrine of the 
 middle state or in the doctrine of the church. 
 
 11. The Confession and Peter. 
 
 We shall consider under this head the two epistles of 
 Peter, and the epistle of Jude, which is kindred to Peter. 
 
 I. I Peter, There are thirty-one citations from this 
 epistle. 
 
 ia) Chap. i. 2-5 is used in the Confession, but in a 
 very unsatisfactory manner. 
 
 " Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through 
 sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the biood 
 
l6o HOW SHALL WE REVISE? 
 
 of Jesus Christ : Grace unto you, and peace, be multiplied (2 ), Blessed 
 be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to 
 his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the 
 resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead (3), to an inheritance incor- 
 ruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven 
 for you (4), who are kept by the power of God through faith unto 
 salvation ready to be revealed in the last time " (5). 
 
 Ver. 2 is used to prove that *' as God hath appointed 
 the elect unto glory, so hath he, by the eternal and most 
 free purpose of his will, foreordained all the means there- 
 unto " (iii. 6). 
 
 Ver. 2 is used to prove that '' God did, from all eternity, 
 decree to justify all the elect " (xi. 4). Vers. 3-4 are cited 
 to prove that believers are "heirs of everlasting salvation" 
 (xii. i). This citation is reduced in the American text to 
 ver. 4. Ver. 5 is used to prove the perseverance of the 
 saints (xvii. 1). These verses are used, but the important 
 clauses — ''sanctifi cation of the spirit," **unto obedience," 
 "sprinkling of the blood of Christ," "abundant mercy," 
 "begotten us," "lively hope," and "salvation ready to be 
 revealed in the last time " — are all neglected. 
 
 (b) Chap. i. 18-20 is also used inadequately. 
 
 '* Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible 
 things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by 
 tradition from your fathers (18) ; but with the precious blood of Christ, 
 as of a lamb without blemish and without spot (19) : who verily was 
 foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in 
 these last times for you " (20) . 
 
 Vers. 19-20 are cited to prove that "God did, from all 
 eternity, decree to justify all the elect " (xi. 4). Vers. 
 19-20 are also cited to prove "the mediator between God 
 and man" (viii. i). Ver. 18 is used to prove that good 
 works are " not such as are devised by men out of blind 
 zeal, or upon any pretence of good intention " (xvi. i). No 
 further use is made of this wonderful passage, which is like 
 a breath from 'heaven. 
 
THE CONFESSION TESTED BY SCRIPTURE. l6l 
 
 (c) We are not surprised, therefore, that i. 13-17, 21-23, 
 are passed over. 
 
 ♦' Wherefore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and hope to 
 the end for the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation 
 of Jesus Christ (13) ; as obedient children, not fashioning yourselves 
 according to the former lusts in your ignorance (14) : but as he which 
 hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation 
 (15); because it is written. Be ye holy; for I am holy (16). And 
 if ye call on the Father, who without respect of persons judgeth 
 according to every man's work, pass the time of your sojourning here 
 in fear" (17). . . . " Seeing ye have purified your souls in obeying the 
 truth through the Spirit unto unfeigned love of the brethren, see that 
 ye love one another with a pure heart fervently (22) : being born again, 
 not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which 
 liveth and abideth forever" (23). 
 
 2. T/ie second epistle of Peter is cited eighteen times. 
 
 The apocalypse of Peter in chap. Hi. 1-14 is cited but 
 once, to prove that " Christ would have us to be certainly 
 persuaded that there shall be a day of judgment, both to 
 deter all men from sin, and for the greater consolation of 
 the godly in their adversity " (xxxiii. 3). But no other use 
 is made of these important verses. 
 
 " The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count 
 slackness ; but is long-suffering to us-ward, not willing that any should 
 perish, but that all should come to repentance (9). But the day of the 
 Lord will come as a thief in the night ; in the which the heavens shall 
 pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent 
 heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned 
 up (10). Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what 
 manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godli- 
 ness (11), looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God, 
 wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements 
 shall melt with fervent heat? (12) Nevertheless we, according to his 
 promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth 
 righteousness (13). Wherefore, beloved, seeing that ye look for such 
 things, be diligent that ye may be found of him in peace, without spot, 
 and blameless" (14). 
 
l62 HOW SHALL WE REVISE ? 
 
 3. The epistle of yude is cited nine times. 
 The finest passage is vers. 20-25. 
 
 " But ye, beloved, building up yourselves on your most holy faith, 
 praying in the Holy Ghost (20), keep yourselves in the love of God, 
 looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life (21). 
 And of some have compassion, making a difference (22) : and others 
 save with fear, pulling them out of the fire ; hating even the garment 
 spotted by the flesh (23). Now unto him that is able to keep you from 
 falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory 
 with exceeding joy (24), to the only wise God our Saviour, be glory 
 and majesty, dominion and power, both now and ever. Amen " (25). 
 
 Vers. 20-21 are used to prove that Christians "ought to 
 be diligent in stirring up the grace of God that is in 
 them " (xvi. 3), which is true, but is hardly equal to the 
 teaching of the passage. Ver. 23 is used to prove "■ divers 
 instructions of moral duties " (xix. 3) ; but it is thrown out 
 of the American list. Ver. 23 is also used to prove the 
 necessity of church censures (xxx. 3). Ver. 24 is used to 
 prove that " the will of man is made perfectly and immuta- 
 bly free to good alone, in the state of glory only " (ix. 5). 
 In other respects the doctrines of the passage are over- 
 looked. 
 
 III. TJie Confession and James. 
 
 The epistle of James is cited twenty-one times. 
 {a) The following verses among others are neglected in 
 chap. i. : — 
 
 " If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all 
 men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him" (5). 
 "Blessed is the man that endureth temptation: for when he is tried, 
 he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord hath promised to them 
 that love him" (12). " Of his own will begat he us with the word of 
 truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures" (18). 
 "Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this. To 
 visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself 
 unspotted from the world" (27). 
 
THE CONFESSION TESTED BY SCRIPTURE. 1 63 
 
 {b) Chap. it. 14-26 is the most important passage in 
 James. Vers. 17, 22, 26, are cited to prove that "Faith 
 is not alone in the person justified, but is ever accompanied 
 with all other saving graces, and is no dead faith, but work- 
 eth by love" (xi. i). Vers. 18, 22, are cited to prove 
 that " good works are the fruits and evidences of a true 
 and lively faith " (xvi, 2). But this does not adequately 
 present the apostolic doctrine of the passage, and the feat- 
 ures in which the doctrine of James differs from the doc- 
 trine of Paul. 
 
 {c) There are but six citations of the grand religious and 
 ethical precepts of Chaps, iii.-v. 
 
 IV. The Confession and John, 
 
 We have here to consider the Apocalypse, the three 
 epistles and the Prologue of the Gospel. 
 
 I. The Apocalypse is cited twenty-seven times. 
 
 {a) Chap. i. 5-8 is one of the most important in the 
 book. 
 
 "And from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, and the first 
 begotten of the dead, and the prince of the kings of the earth. Unto 
 him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood (5), 
 and hath made us kings and priests unto God and his Father ; to him be 
 glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen (6) . Behold, he cometh 
 with clouds ; and every eye shall see him, and they also which pierced 
 him : and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him. Even so, 
 Amen (7). I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, 
 saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the 
 Almighty'' (8). 
 
 This passage gives the text of the apocalypse and sets 
 forth the doctrine of the person of the Messiah and of his 
 second advent. It is very strange that it should be neg- 
 lected. The following verses are also overlooked with 
 their invaluable Christology : — 
 
164 HOW SHALL WE REVISE ? 
 
 "And when I saw him, I fell at his feet as dead. And he laid his 
 right hand upon me, saying unto me, Fear not ; I am the first and the 
 last (17) : I am he that liveth, and was dead ; and, behold, I am alive 
 for ever more, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death" (18). 
 
 {b) Chap. V. 9-10 gives the new song of the redeemed, 
 which is overlooked by the Confession. 
 
 "And they sung a new song, saying. Thou art worthy to take the 
 book, and to open the seals thereof: For thou wast slain, and hast 
 redeemed us to God by thy blood, out of every kindred, and tongue, 
 and people, and nation (9) ; and hast made us unto our God kings and 
 priests : and we shall reign on the earth" (10). 
 
 if) Chap. vi. 9-1 1 with its doctrines of the martyrs and 
 of the middle state is neglected. 
 
 {d) Chap. vii. 1 1-17, one of the most precious passages, 
 was passed by. 
 
 {e) Chap. xii. 6, 14 is used to prove that the Catholic 
 Church hath been sometimes more, sometimes less visible 
 (xxv. 4) ; but this is the only use made of the chapter that 
 describes the ascension of the Messiah, the overthrow of 
 the devil and evil angels, and the joy of the martyrs. 
 
 (/) The only use made of xiv. 13 is to prove that 
 prayers are not to be made for the dead (xxi. 4). This is 
 a misinterpretation of the passage : — 
 
 " And I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me, Write, Blessed 
 are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth : Yea, saith the 
 Spirit, that they may rest from their labours ; and their works do follow 
 them" (13). 
 
 This verse has important instruction for the doctrine of 
 the middle state that is not used in the Confession. 
 
 {g) No use is made of the splendid description of the 
 advent of the King of Kings, the Word of God of chap, xix., 
 with its important Christological features. 
 
 {H) No use is made of chap, xx., with its doctrine of the 
 
THE CONFESSION TESTED BY SCRIPTURE. I65 
 
 millennium, binding of Satan, resurrection of the martyrs, 
 and final judgment. 
 
 {i) No use is made of the new heaven, new earth, and 
 New Jerusalem of chaps, xxi.-xxii. The only citations of 
 these closing chapters are as follows : (i) Vers. 18-19 ^^^ 
 cited to prove that all the Biblical books of the Canon 
 " are given by inspiration of God, to be the rule of faith 
 and life " (i. 2), which is certainly more than the passage 
 means. 
 
 (2) Ver. 20 is cited to prove that we should be '* ever 
 prepared to say, Come, Lord Jesus, come quickly" 
 (xxxiii. 3). 
 
 (3) But there is no use whatever of these precious 
 verses 12-17 • — 
 
 "And, behold, I come quickly; and my reward is with me, to give 
 every man according as his work shall be (12). I am Alpha and 
 Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last (13). Blessed 
 are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the 
 tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city (14). For 
 without are dogs, and sorcerers, and whoremongers, and murderers, 
 and idolaters, and whosoever loveth and maketh a lie (15). I Jesus 
 have sent mine angel to testify unto you these things in the churches. 
 I am the root and the offspring of David, and the bright and morning 
 star (16). And the Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him that 
 heareth say. Come. And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever 
 will, let him take the water of life freely" (17). 
 
 2. The first epistle of John is cited forty-six times, but 
 there are many omissions and misconceptions. 
 
 a. Chap. i. 6-9 presents several points of doctrine. 
 
 " If we say that we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, 
 we lie, and do not the truth (6) : but if we walk in the light, as he is in 
 the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus 
 Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin (7). If we say that we have 
 no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us (8). If we con- 
 fess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse 
 us from all unrighteousness" (9). 
 
l66 HOW SHALL WE REVISE ? 
 
 Vers. 6 and 7 are cited to prove that assurance of grace 
 does not incline men to looseness (xviii. 3). But this is 
 omitted from the American list. Vers. 7, 9, are cited to 
 prove that God doth continue to forgive the sins of those 
 that are justified (xi. 5), but this is reduced to ver. 9 in the 
 American list. Ver. 8 is cited to prove that this corrup- 
 tion of nature during this life doth remain in those that are 
 regenerated (vi. 5), but this is omitted from the American 
 list. Ver. 9 is cited to prove that the man forsaking sin 
 will find mercy (xv. 6). But the walking in the light, fel- 
 lowship one with another, the cleansing blood of Christ, 
 and cleansing from all unrighteousness, are all neglected. 
 
 {b) Chap, in, 1-3 is very precious. 
 
 •' Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, 
 that we should be called the sons of God : therefore the world knoweth 
 , us not, because it knew him not (i). Beloved, now are we the sons of 
 God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be : but we know that, 
 when he shall appear, we shall be like him ; for we shall see him as he 
 is (2). And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, 
 even as he is pure " (3). 
 
 Ver. 2 is cited to prove that ''the will of man is made 
 perfectly and immutably free to good alone, in the state of 
 glory only " (ix. 5). Vers. 2-3 are cited to prove that as- 
 surance of grace does not incline men to looseness (xviii. 
 3). Thus the Westminster divines neglect this splendid 
 passage, and even their citations have been stricken out of 
 the American edition of the Confession. 
 
 {c) Chap. iv. is a wonderful chapter of Love. The heart 
 of it is : — 
 
 "He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love (8). In 
 this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent 
 his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through 
 him (9). Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, 
 and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins (10). Beloved, if 
 God so loved us, we ought also to love one another (11). No man 
 
THE CONFESSION TESTED BY SCRIPTURE. 167 
 
 hath seen God at any time. If we love one another, God dwelleth in 
 us, and his love is perfected in us (12). Hereby know we that we 
 dwell in him, and he in us, because he hath given us of his Spirit (13). 
 And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be 
 the Saviour of the world (14). Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is 
 the Son of God, God dwelleth in him, and he in God (15). And we 
 have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love ; 
 and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him (16). 
 Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day 
 of judgment : because as he is, so are we in this world (17). There is 
 no fear in love ; but perfect love casteth out fear : because fear hath 
 torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love (18). We love 
 him, because he first loved us " (19). 
 
 Vers. 8 and i6 are cited to prove that God is ''most lov- 
 ing" (ii. i); but in the American list ver. i6 is omitted. 
 Ver. 13 is cited to prove that the Christian, ''enabled by 
 the Spirit, knows the things which are freely given him of 
 God" (xviii. 3). Ver. 18 is used to prove that Christians 
 "yield obedience unto God, not out of slavish fear'* (xx. i). 
 No further use is made of these divine verses. 
 
 3. In the second epistle of yohn, vers. 9-1 1 arq used to 
 prove that " to assert salvation for any of the heathen is 
 very pernicious, and to be detested" (x. 4). Vers. lo-ii 
 are cited twice to prove the lawfulness of both ecclesiasti- 
 cal and civil discipline (xx. 4) ; but these are omitted from 
 the American list. These citations are all perversions of 
 Scripture. 
 
 4. There is no citation from the third epistle of yohn. 
 
 5. In the Prologue of John s Gospel we notice the neg- 
 lect of the following passage : — 
 
 '• In him was life ; and the life was the light of men (4). And the 
 light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not (5). 
 There was a man sent from God, whose name was John (6). The 
 same came for a witness, to bear witness of the Light, that all men 
 through him might believe (7). He was not that Light, but was sent 
 to bear witness of that Light (8). That was the true Light, which 
 lighteth every man that cometh into the world" (9). 
 
l68 HOW SHALL WE REVISE ? 
 
 Upon this passage the Quakers built their doctrine of 
 the Light of Redemption shining in all parts of the earth, 
 a doctrine that the Westminster divines could not find 
 here or elsewhere. 
 
 V. The Co7ifessio7i a?id the Book of Acts. 
 
 The book of Acts contains material from the several 
 different types of apostolic doctrine. We shall not at- 
 tempt to distinguish them. There are many citations 
 from the book, but there are many striking omissions and 
 misapplications. We can only mention a few of them. 
 
 (a) There is no reference in the Confession to the 
 advent of the Divine Spirit on the day of Pentecost, or 
 to any of the Christophanies granted to Peter, Stephen, 
 or Paul. 
 
 (d) Chap. V. 31 is one of the most important verses in 
 the book. 
 
 " Him hath God exalted with his right hand to be a Prince and a 
 Saviour, for to give repentance to Israel, and forgiveness of sins." 
 
 It is very strange that it was not cited. 
 
 {c) It is noteworthy that Chap ;r. 35 was overlooked. 
 
 '•But in every nation he that feareth him, and worketh righteous- 
 ness, is accepted with him." 
 
 {d) One of the grandest sections of Paul's discourse at 
 Athens is the following {xvii. 26-29) • ~~ 
 
 "And hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on 
 all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before ap- 
 pointed, and the bounds of their habitation (26) ; that they should 
 seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him, though 
 he be not far from every one of us (27) : for in him we live, and move, 
 and have our being ; as certain also of your own poets have said, For 
 we are also his offspring (28). For as much then as we are the off- 
 spring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto 
 gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man's device" (29). 
 
THE CONFESSION TESTED BY SCRIPTURE. 169 
 
 Vers. 26, 28 are cited to prove that God doth "direct, 
 dispose, and govern all creatures, actions, and things " 
 (v. i). Ver. 26 is cited to prove that our first parents 
 "being the root of all mankind, the guilt of this sin is 
 imputed to all their posterity" (vi. 3). This is all that 
 the Westminster divines could find in this sublime con- 
 ception of the apostle. He sees that all men are of one 
 blood, the offspring of God, their life and being all in God, 
 who is not far from every one of them, and who may be 
 found by any who will feel after him. It is just this 
 thought of the apostle that the Westminster divines ig- 
 nored, and that modern Presbyterians desire to put into 
 their Confession of Faith. 
 
 VI. The Confession and Jesus. 
 
 The theology of the Westminster Confession is Pauline 
 in type. The types of Peter, James, and John are neg- 
 lected. The fundamental type of Christ himself is less 
 used than the epistles to the Romans and i Corinthians. 
 We shall call attention to some specimens of the use of 
 proof-texts from the Gospels. 
 
 I . The Gospel of Matthew. 
 
 This gospel is cited 109 times. 
 
 {a) The Se7'mon on the Moimt, the marrow of the Gospel, 
 is very much neglected by the Confession. 
 
 (i) Only one of the Beatitudes is used, and that not for 
 the grace of meekness, but for the blessedness of inherit- 
 ing the earth which is then given to all the obedient. 
 (xix. 6). 
 
 (2) Vers. 13-15 are not used, but ver. 16 is used once. 
 Ver. 17 is used four times; ver. 18, thrice; and ver. 19, 
 once, — all emphasizing the obligation of the law. Thus 
 in this exposition of the relation of law and Gospel the 
 
1 70 HOW SHALL WE REVISE ? 
 
 Westminster divines neglect the Gospel, and emphasize 
 the law. {3) The Saviour's exposition of murder and its 
 deep spiritual application is passed over, and also the law 
 of adultery, except so far as divorce is concerned, in vers. 
 31-32. The law of the oath is used in vers. 34, 37. The 
 exposition of the Lex talionis is used, in part, in vers. 38- 
 39. (4) The grand conclusion of this chapter, vers. 43-48, 
 is entirely neglected. 
 
 " Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, 
 and hate thine enemy (43). But I say unto you, Love your enemies, 
 bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for 
 them which despitefully use you, and persecute you (44) ; that ye may 
 be the children of your Father which is in heaven : for he maketh his 
 sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just 
 and on the unjust (45). For if ye love them which love you, what 
 reward have ye? do not even the publicans the same? (46). And if ye 
 salute your brethren only, what do ye more than others? do not even 
 the publicans so ? (47) . Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father 
 which is in heaven is perfect" (48). 
 
 This section is one of the most sublime in the Bible as 
 to the law of love and Godlike perfection. No system of 
 theology can be complete that omits such doctrines as these. 
 
 (5) The laws of almsgiving, prayer, and fasting are used, 
 in part, in chap. vi. 2, 5-6, 11-12, 14-16. But the exhor- 
 tations of vers. 19-24, beginning with, "Lay not up for 
 yourselves treasures upon earth," and closing with, " Ye 
 cannot serve God and mammon," are omitted. The doc- 
 trine of Providence in vers. 25-32 is used, in part, in ver. 
 30 twice, and ver. 32 once. 
 
 (6) The last chapter is not used on its Gospel side, but 
 only on its legal side. The only verses used in this chap- 
 ter are ver. 6 (twice), ver. 22 (twice), and ver. 23 (once). 
 The law against judgment is given in vers. 1-5. 
 
 "Judge not, that ye be not judged (i). For with what judgment ye 
 judge, ye shall be judged : and with what measure ye mete, it shall be 
 
THE CONFESSION TESTED BY SCRIPTURE. I/I 
 
 measured to you again (2). And why beholdest thou the mote that is 
 in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own 
 eye? (3). Or wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out 
 of thine eye ; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye? (4). Thou hypo- 
 crite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye ; and then shalt thou 
 see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye" (5). 
 
 This law Tolstoi regards as one of the greatest revela- 
 tions of Jesus Christ, and he rightly charges the Christian 
 world with neglecting it. The Westminster divines share 
 in this guilt in their Confession, and yet they use the 
 following precept twice : — 
 
 " Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your 
 pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn 
 again and rend you " (6) . 
 
 The next section, the joy of the Christian world (vers. 
 7-12), is not used at all. 
 
 "Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, 
 and it shall be opened unto you (7) : for every one that asketh receiveth ; 
 and he that seeketh findeth ; and to him that knocketh it shall be 
 opened (8). Or what man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, 
 will he give him a stone? (9). Or if he ask a fish, will he give him a 
 serpent? ( 10). If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto 
 your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven 
 give good gifts to them that ask him? (u). * Therefore all things what- 
 soever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them : for 
 this is the law and the prophets " (12). 
 
 Vers. 13-20 are not used, with their exhortation to enter 
 the strait gate, and to fruitfulness in well-doing. In the 
 section, vers. 21-29, only the verses setting forth the re- 
 jection of the workers of iniquity are used, but those setting 
 forth the rewards of the pious are not used. 
 
 (7) It is well known that these passages of the Sermon 
 on the Mount are for the most part scattered in various 
 places in Luke. It is worthy of note that the passages 
 neglected in Matthew are also neglected in Luke. There 
 
1/2 HOW SHALL WE REVISE ? 
 
 is not a single citation from Luke vi., which gives his ver- 
 sion of the Sermon on the Mount. 
 
 {b) The second great discourse of Jesus given in Mat- 
 thew is the commission of the apostles, chap. x. Of this, 
 only vers. 28-3 1 are used. 
 
 {c) Chap. xi. 27-30 are wonderful verses. 
 
 "Alt things are delivered unto me of my Father: and no man 
 knoweth the Son, but the Father ; neither knoweth any man the Father, 
 save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him (27). 
 Come unto me all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give 
 you rest (28). Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me ; for I am 
 meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls (29). 
 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light " (30) . 
 
 They are not used in the Confession. 
 
 {d) The parables of the kingdom are given in Matthew 
 xiii. Orly vers. 12, 19-21, 24-30, 40-42, 47, are used; 
 and this selection shows a preference for the dark side of 
 the kingdom. The good and fruitful seed is ignored. 
 The tares are dwelt upon. The burning of the tares in 
 the fire is twice referred to. No use is made of the doc- 
 trine of the kingdom in its planting, and marvellous 
 growth, or that it is the most precious of all things, or of 
 the beatitudes of the righteous. It is quite characteristic 
 that, of the three following verses, they use only vers. 41 
 and 42. 
 
 " The Son of man shall send forth his angels, and they shall gather 
 out of his kingdom all things that offend, and them which do in- 
 iquity (41) ; and shall cast them into a furnace of fire : there shall be 
 wailing and gnashing of teeth (42). Then shall the righteous shine 
 forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Who hath ears to 
 hear, let him hear" (43). 
 
 {e) In chap. xvi. only vers. 18-19 are used. Ver. 19 is 
 used to prove that civil magistrates may not assume the 
 power of the keys of the kingdom of heaven (xxiii. 3), and 
 
THE CONFESSION TESTED BY SCRIPTURE. 1 73 
 
 to prove that those keys are committed to the church 
 officers appointed by Christ (xxx. 2). Ver. 18 is used to 
 prove that there shall always be a church on earth (xxv. 5). 
 But the Roman Catholic, or indeed any careful exegete, 
 may well question the use of Peter's commission, either as 
 against the civil magistrates, or in favor of ruling elders ; 
 and whatever our interpretation of ver. 18 may be, there 
 is something more in it than the Westminster divines 
 found. Moreover, we have a right to complain that they 
 paid no attention to Peter's confession, ''Thou art the 
 Christ, the son of the living God" (16), or to the law of 
 cross-bearing in the following verses : — 
 
 " If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up 
 his cross, and follow me (24) . For whosoever will save his life shall 
 lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it (25). 
 For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose 
 his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul? (26). 
 For the Son of man shall come in the glory of his Father with his 
 angels ; and then he shall reward every man according to his works " 
 (27). 
 
 (/) A similar fault may be found with their use of 
 chap, xviii. The only portion cited is vers. 1 5-20. Vers. 
 15-17 are used to prove the lawfulness of the censures 
 of the church (xx. 4) ; but this passage is omitted from 
 the American list. Ver. 17 is used to prove that the 
 civil magistrate may not assume the power of the keys 
 (xxiii. 3). This is also omitted from the American list. 
 Vers. 17-18 are used to prove the power of the keys in 
 the hands of church officers (xxx. 2). Ver. 17 is cited to 
 prove the right of excommunication (xxx. 4). Vers. 17-20 
 are cited to prove the authority of synods and councils 
 (xxxi. 3). This also is omitted in the American list. 
 
 It will strike most readers that this is a very strange 
 use of one of the most wonderful chapters in the Bible. 
 
1/4 HOW SHALL WE REVISE ? 
 
 How could the Westminster divines neglect such verses 
 as the following ? — 
 
 '* Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not 
 enter into the kingdom of heaven" (3). "For the Son of man is 
 come to save that which was lost (11). How think ye? if a man have 
 an hundred sheep, and one of them be gone astray, doth he not leave 
 the ninety and nine, and goeth into the mountains, and seeketh that 
 which is gone astray? (12). And if so be that he find it, verily I say 
 unto you, he rejoiceth more of that sheep, than of the ninety and nine 
 which went not astray (13). Even so it is not the will of your Father 
 which is in heaven, that one of these little ones should perish" (14). 
 
 " Then came Peter to him, and said. Lord, how oft shall my brother 
 sin against me, and I forgive him? till seven times? (21). Jesus saith 
 unto him, I say not unto thee, Until seven times : but, Until seventy 
 times seven" (22). 
 
 Place over against this neglect of these wonderful words 
 of Jesus the citation, no less than five times, of ver. 17, 
 " Let him be unto thee as an heathen man and a publican." 
 Surely this verse needed to be guarded by ver. 14 that 
 precedes it and ver. 22 that follows it, as well as by the 
 parable of the unmerciful servant that closes the chapter. 
 For often Presbyteries have neglected the precepts of 
 mercy in their exercise of discipline. 
 
 2. The Gospel of Mark. 
 
 This gospel is used but eighteen times in the Confession. 
 
 It is well known that the greater portion of Mark is 
 found in Matthew and Luke. But some things are given 
 only by him ; as, for instance, {a) the parable of the seed 
 growing secretly, iv. 26-29. 
 
 "And he said. So is the kingdom of God, as if a man should cast 
 seed into the ground (26) ; and should sleep, and rise night and day, 
 and the seed should spring and grow up, he knoweth no.t how (27). 
 For the earth bringeth forth fruit of herself; first the blade, then tTie 
 ear, after that the full corn in the ear (28). But when the fruit is 
 brought forth, immediately he putteth in the sickle, because the harvest 
 is come" (29). 
 
THE CONFESSION TESTED BY SCRIPTURE. 1 75 
 
 This was overlooked by the Westminster divines. 
 
 (b) The doctrine of the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit as 
 an eternal sin, in Mark iii. 29, with its parallel, in Luke xii. 
 10 and Matthew xii. 31-32, "neither in this world, neither 
 in the world to come," is omitted. This is one of the most 
 important passages for the doctrine of the sin against the 
 Holy Spirit and the doctrine of forgiveness. It has an im- 
 portant bearing on the question of forgiveness of sins after 
 death. But it was overlooked in making the Confession. 
 
 3. The Gospel of Luke. 
 
 In the section chaps, i.-iv. Luke is used nine times. In 
 the section v.-ix. 50 there is but one citation. In the section 
 ix. 51-xviii. 14, giving the Perean ministry, the most char- 
 acteristic section of Luke, there are only thirteen citations. 
 In xviii. 1 5-xxiv. there are eighteen citations. 
 
 {a) One of the most characteristic omissions is the story 
 of the woman that was a sinner, Ltike vii. 36-50, with its 
 lesson of love. The Roman Catholics make much of this 
 passage, and it has always been difficult for Protestants to 
 reconcile it with justification by faith only. But the les- 
 son contained in the following verse must be mastered 
 before the Gospel can be understood in its completeness. 
 ''Wherefore I say unto thee, Her sins which are many are 
 forgiven ; for she loved much : but to whom little is for- 
 given, the same loveth little " (47). 
 
 We shall now call attention to the great central section 
 of Luke. 
 
 {b) The story of t\v^ good Samaritan, in x. 30-37, and of 
 Martha and Mary, x. 38-42, are both ignored. 
 
 {c) The parable of the friend at midnight, xi. 5-13, is 
 neglected, with its wonderful lesson : " How much more 
 shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them 
 that ask him " (13). 
 
176 HOW SHALL WE REVISE? 
 
 {d) The parable of the rich fool, in xii. 15-21, is omitted. 
 
 {e) The parable of the great supper, in xiv. 1 5-24, is 
 neglected. 
 
 (/) The Westminster Confession is altogether uncon- 
 scious of the stories of the lost sheep, the lost piece of silver, 
 and the prodigal son, of chap. xv. 
 
 {g) The story of Dives and Lazarus alone is used in 
 chap. xvi. Vers. 29 and 31 are used to prove the inspira- 
 tion of the Scriptures (i. 2). But these are left out of 
 the American list. Vers. 25-26 are used to prove that 
 "prayer is not to be made for the dead" (xxi. 4). But 
 these verses do not prove that doctrine, and are improp- 
 erly cited. Vers. 23-24 are used to prove that the wicked 
 are cast into hell at death (xxxii. i). No other use is 
 made of this passage for the doctrine of the middle state. 
 
 {Ji) One of the most important passages of the Gospels 
 for the doctrine of the kingdom is xvii. 20-37, and yet 
 there is not a citation from it. 
 
 (/) The story of the unjust judge and of the Pharisee 
 and the Publica7i {chap, xviii.) are passed by. 
 
 It is thus manifest that the greater part of the most 
 evangelical passages in Luke and the most wonderful 
 words of Jesus have nothing to correspond with them in 
 our Confession of Faith. 
 
 4. The Gospel of John. 
 
 This gospel is cited eighty times. 
 
 {a) It is quite remarkable that the Westminster divines 
 should neglect the words of the Baptist as given in i. 29 
 and 36, " Behold the Lamb of God, that taketh away the 
 sins of the world." 
 
 {b) But little of chap. Hi. is used. Vers. 3, 5, 8, are cited 
 to prove that "elect infants are regenerated by the Spirit, 
 who worketh when, and where, and how he pleaseth " 
 
THE CONFESSION TESTED BY SCRIPTURE. I // 
 
 (x. 3), but certainly there is no hint of elect infants in the 
 words of Jesus. The American list omits vers. 3 and 5, 
 which the Westminster divines used to prove the necessity 
 of regeneration. But these verses connect water with the 
 Spirit, and nothing is said of water in x. 3. Vers. 5 and 8 
 are used to prove that " the efficacy of baptism is not tied 
 to that moment of time wherein it is administered" (xxviii. 
 6). How these texts prove that, it is difficult to see. It is 
 well known that a large portion of Christians think that 
 they prove the reverse of that proposition. Thus not one 
 of these citations is legitimate. No proper use is made of 
 the doctrine of the kingdom or the doctrine of regeneration 
 as here set forth by Jesus. The wonderful passage from 
 vers. 13-21 is ignored. 
 
 " And no man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down 
 from heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven (13). And as 
 Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of 
 man be lifted up (14) : that whosoever belie veth on him should not 
 perish, but have eternal life (15). For God so loved the world, that 
 he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should 
 not perish, but have everlasting life (16). For God sent not his Son 
 into the world to condemn the world ; but that the world through him 
 might be saved (17). He that believeth on him is not condemned: 
 but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not 
 believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God (18). And this 
 is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved 
 darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil (19). For 
 every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, 
 lest his deeds should be reproved (20). But he that doeth truth cometh 
 to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought 
 in God" (21). 
 
 It is true that ver. 16 is used to prove that God ''freely 
 offered unto sinners life and salvation by Jesus Christ, re- 
 quiring of them faith in him that they might be saved" 
 (vii. 3). But here the breadth of the doctrine is diminished 
 by the substitution of simiers for world, and then still fur- 
 
178 HOW SHALL WE REVISE? 
 
 ther by the qualifying clause, **and promising to give unto 
 all those that are ordained unto life his Holy Spirit, to 
 make them willing and able to beUeve." This verse is 
 also cited to prove that the " only begotten Son is mediator 
 between God and man " (viii. i). These are the only uses 
 that are made of this verse and of this section. These 
 verses set forth the wonders of God's love in the redemp- 
 tion of the world, by faith in his only begotten Son ; but 
 the Westminster divines did not grasp it. 
 
 (c) Chap. V. 1-29 sets forth the doctrine of the life of 
 God as welling up through the Son for the purpose of be- 
 stowing eternal life on men. The only verses cited from 
 this section are vers. 22, 23, 25-29. Vers. 22 and 27 are 
 used to prove that the Father hath put all power and judg- 
 ment into the hand of the Son (viii. 3) and (xxxiii. i). Ver. 
 23 is cited to teach that religious worship should be given 
 to God the Son (xxi. 2). Ver. 25 is cited to prove the 
 quickening of the Holy Spirit in effectual calling (x. 2), 
 which is certainly a misuse of the passage. Ver. 26 is 
 used to prove that God hath all life in himself (ii. 2). Vers. 
 28-29 are used to prove the universal resurrection (xxxii. 
 3). But the great doctrines of the chapter, that '' the Son 
 quickeneth whom he will" (21), and "he that heareth my 
 word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting 
 life, and shall not come into condemnation ; but is passed 
 from death unto life " (24), are overlooked. 
 
 id) Chap. vi. is in some respects the most important in 
 the Gospel, setting forth Jesus as the bread of life from 
 heaven, as the living water to satisfy the thirst of men, 
 and as the sacrificial victim, whose flesh and blood are for 
 the life and nourishment of men, and that the words of 
 Jesus are spirit and life. All these vastly important doc- 
 trines are ignored, and the only citations from the chapter 
 are the following: : — 
 
THE CONFESSION TESTED BY SCRIPTURE. 1 79 
 
 " All that the Father giveth me shall come to me ; and him that 
 Cometh to me I will in no wise cast out" {2)7 used thrice). "And 
 this is the Father's will which hath sent me, that of all which he hath 
 given me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the last 
 day" (39). 
 
 " No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me 
 draw him : and I will raise him up at the last day " (44 used thrice). 
 
 "It is written in the prophets, And they shall be all taught of 
 God. Every man therefore that hath heard, and hath learned of the 
 Father, cometh unto me " (45 used three times). 
 
 " But there are some of you that believe not. For Jesus knew from 
 the beginning who they were that believed not, and who should betray 
 him" (64 used twice). 
 
 "And he said. Therefore said I unto you, that no man can come 
 unto me, except it were given unto him of my Father" (65 used thrice). 
 
 "From that time many of his disciples went back, and walked no 
 more with him" (66). 
 
 It is amazing that the Westminster divines should use 
 in a pubHc Confession these hard passages nine times, and 
 the loving passages not at all. 
 
 (e) There is no use of the story of t/ie 7nan born blind in 
 cJiap. ix. 
 
 (/) There is no use of the story of tJie resurrection of 
 Lazarus in cJiap. xi. 
 
 {g) There is no use of chap. xii. It is very remarkable 
 that the following section should have been ignored : — 
 
 " Now is my soul troubled; and what shall I say? Father, save me 
 from this hour : but for this cause came I unto this hour (27). Father, 
 glorify thy name. Then came there a voice from heaven, saying, I have 
 both glorified it, and will glorify it again (28). The people therefore, 
 that stood by, and heard it, said that it thundered : others said, an 
 angel spake to him (29). Jesus answered and said. This voice came 
 not because of me, but for your sakes (30). Now is the judgment of 
 this world : Now shall the prince of this world be cast out (31). And 
 I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me (32). 
 This he said, signifying what death he should die (33). The people 
 answered him. We have heard out of the law that Christ abideth for- 
 ever : and how sayest thou, The Son of man must be lifted up ? who 
 
l80 HOW SHALL WE REVISE? 
 
 is this Son of man? (34). Then Jesus said unto them, Yet a little 
 while is the light with you. Walk while ye have the light, lest dark- 
 ness come upon you : for he that walketh in darkness knoweth not 
 whither he goeth (35). While ye have light, believe in the light, that 
 ye may be the children of light " (36). 
 
 (//) The neglect, the misuse, and the abuse of the last 
 discourse of Jesus, chaps, xiii.-xvii., in the Confession of 
 Faith, are so great that we have not the time or patience 
 to discuss them. 
 
 The most characteristic features of the Gospel of John 
 are overlooked in the Westminster Confession of Faith. 
 
 VI I. The Confession and the Psalter. 
 
 A study of the proof-texts from the Old Testament re- 
 veals a worse state of affairs. I shall briefly refer to the 
 citations from the Psalter. There are 102 citations from 
 the Pentateuch, 64 from the other historical books, 98 from 
 the Psalter, 55 from the other poetical books, and 112 from 
 the Prophets, making 431 from the entire Old Testament 
 against 66'/ from the Pauline epistles, and 495 from the 
 rest of the New Testament. Judges, Jonah, Obadaiah, 
 Habakkuk, and Zephaniah are not used at all ; Ruth, 
 Nahum, and Haggai but once each ; Numbers, Esther, 
 Lamentations, Joel, and Zechariah but twice each ; and 
 many of the most important passages for the Being and 
 Attributes of God, the doctrine of Creation, the doctrine 
 of Redemption, and the Middle State, are overlooked and 
 neglected. 
 
 I. The Psalter is cited many times, but without any 
 comprehensive study of its theology. 
 
 {a) It seems almost incredible that the doctrine of the 
 Being and Attributes of God should be neglected in 
 Pss. xxxvi. 5-9, Ixxxv., Ixxxix. 1-18, ciii. (used only in 
 ver. 13), cxxxix. 
 
THE CONFESSION TESTED BY SCRIPTURE. IS I 
 
 {b) We are not surprised that the doctrine of the Crea- 
 tion is so inadequate in the Confession, when we see that 
 there has been no use made of Pss. viii. and civ. (used only 
 in ver. 24). 
 
 {c) The following choice Psalms, familiar in the devo- 
 tions of Christendom, are not used at all : Pss. i., iii., xi., 
 XX., xxi., xxiii., xxv., xxvii., xlii., xliii., xlvi., xlviii., Ixiii., 
 Ixvii., Ixviii., Ixix., Ixxx., Ixxxiv., Ixxxvii., xci., xcv.-xcix., 
 cxviii., cxxxvi., cxlviii. 
 
 {d) The doctrine of the Future Life is overlooked in Pss. 
 xvi., xvii., xlix. 
 
 {e) The only portions of the fifteen Pilgrim Psalms that 
 are used are : cxxii. 9, cxxx. 3-4, cxxxii. 2-5. 
 
 The comparison makes it clear that the doctrine of the 
 Psalter is not in the Confession. 
 
 Our study of the proof-texts of the Westminster Con- 
 fession makes it evident that the Confession and the Scrip- 
 tures are not in agreement. The principal fault of the 
 Confession is its omissions. The faults that have been 
 made in the misuse and abuse of the proof-texts may be 
 overcome by removing those texts and substituting others 
 in their place. If such cannot be found to prove the state- 
 ments of the Confession, then let the statements that can- 
 not be sustained by Scripture be blotted out. Revision 
 is practicable at all these points. But it will be clear to 
 any one who has followed this study that there are so 
 many omissions of important doctrines of Holy Scripture, 
 that there is such a disproportionate use of the darker and 
 gloomier side of the Bible, and such a neglect of the 
 brighter and more gracious side, and that there is such a 
 difference between the Confession and the preaching of 
 the pulpit and the reading of the Bible in our homes, that 
 something more than revision will be required to meet the 
 
1 82 HOW SHALL WE REVISE? 
 
 necessities of the case, and that we must set our faces 
 towards a new creed as the only adequate solution of the 
 difficulties of the situation. 
 
 My beloved teacher in Systematic Theology, the late 
 Henry B. Smith, gave the key-note to the Revision move- 
 ment when he said : " What Reformed Theology has got 
 to do is to Christologize predestination and decrees ; re- 
 generation and sanctification ; the doctrine of the church ; 
 and the whole of eschatology." * The reader of this paper 
 sees that Henry B. Smith is right. It is just in the field 
 of Christology that the Westminster Confession is sadly 
 defective. The Presbyterian Church — yes, the Christian 
 world — demands a creed that shall give expression to the 
 words of Jesus, and the teachings of Peter, James, and John. 
 The great apostle to the Gentiles will not be ignored ; but 
 Presbyterianism has advanced from the earlier Paulinism 
 to the later, and is no longer content to sacrifice the richer 
 doctrine of his later epistles for the less mature doctrine 
 of his earlier writings. 
 
 * Presbyterian Review, 1884, p. 562. 
 
IX. 
 
 A NEW CREED. 
 
 BY THE REV. CHARLES L. THOMPSON, D.D. 
 
 The Presbyterian Church is asserting again the right 
 which Presbyterians have always been swift to maintain ; 
 viz. the right to sit in judgment on any human declaration 
 and bring it to the bar of ''the law and the testimony." It 
 will be a sad day when that right is seriously resisted. In 
 defence of it, Presbyterians have been willing to die. There 
 is only one sacred book. All councils and assemblies have 
 erred. It is of the very genius of our church to hold them 
 to account. The right of the examination of our standards 
 for purposes of revision or restatement is not a new claim. 
 It belongs to us by right of all our history. 
 
 Let it be granted there should be no examination of 
 standards without good reason. It is believed by very 
 many that such a reason does exist. That reason may be 
 broadly expressed thus : The Confession of Faith no longer 
 adequately expresses the faith of our church. There is no 
 other explanation of the broad debate in the midst of which 
 we find ourselves. It is the same conviction that for the 
 past ten years, and more, has been agitating the mind and 
 directing the action of the United Presbyterian Church of 
 Scotland, the Free Church of Scotland, the Established 
 Church of Scotland, and the Presbyterian Church of Eng- 
 land. This conviction is partly due to a change of position. 
 
 183 
 
1^4 HOW SHALL WE REVISE? 
 
 Every creed gets some color from its atmosphere. Every 
 intellectual atmosphere has refracting power. We look 
 back to the discussions of the Westminster Assembly, and 
 while we see the general outlines of truth as they saw 
 them, the refraction of the centuries has thrown those 
 truths somewhat out of line and position. The battle 
 front of that day is not the battle front of this day. They 
 were called upon to enthrone and defend the sovereignty 
 of God against the sovereignty of the Pope and the divine 
 right of kings. The points for stress and emphasis now 
 are, first, the existence of God as against an infidelity that 
 denies Him, and secondly, the goodness and love of God as 
 against a science that admits into its estimate of nature 
 only an implacable law, whether that law be personal in 
 God or impersonal in nature. We need not try to say the 
 sovereignty of God. We cannot say it louder than nature 
 says it. We need to say that sovereignty is wise, good, 
 and loving. 
 
 Again, it is not only a change of emphasis that is 
 needed. The debate is not due entirely to a change of 
 position. Refraction breaking the line of vision does not 
 account for the whole of it. There are some theological 
 changes. Many are not satisfied with some expressions of 
 the Confession of Faith ; not because they are obscure or 
 doubtful ; not because their grammar or rhetoric could be 
 improved ; not because changes of time have wrought 
 changes in the meaning or force of language. There is a 
 good deal of disbelief of the plain and historic meaning of 
 some of the passages. For example, there is no quarrel 
 about divine sovereignty, general or in election. But when 
 that sovereignty is pushed into the philosophic inferences 
 of the third chapter in which the Confession goes on to 
 give the reasons in God's mind for His sovereignty in elec- 
 tion, then there is a pretty wide dissent. So also *' elect 
 
A NEW CREED. 1 85 
 
 infants." The best that can be said about that phrase is 
 that it needs a commentary wherever it goes. The worst 
 that can be said about it is that, historically considered, it 
 states clearly enough the minds of many, perhaps a major- 
 ity, of the Westminster Assembly ; that they used the phrase 
 intelligently, that they were not playing Delphic oracle with 
 posterity, — they said "elect infants " because they believed 
 some infants dying in infancy were not elect and were not 
 saved. 
 
 Again, the church no longer believes with the Westmin- 
 ster divines in regard to the salvability of the heathen. 
 We have very little divine light given us regarding the 
 future of the heathen. For that reason we are no longer 
 willing to speak dogmatically on the subject. 
 
 There are very many other points in which some minis- 
 ters and laymen would like to see some modifications of 
 our standards. It is true, the strongest objection is to a 
 few points. But in a small committee, examining a few 
 weeks ago the Confession of Faith with reference to revis- 
 ion, there were over thirty points, affecting nearly every 
 chapter, which were pointed out for revision. This number 
 is likely to increase. 
 
 Another desire for revision or new statement arises from 
 what may be called the negative defects of the Confession. 
 It is said the love of God, the free offer of salvation, and 
 the duty of the church to preach the Gospel to every crea- 
 ture are present in the Confession rather by inference than 
 by direct and emphatic expression. These ideas, it is 
 claimed, should be inserted somewhere. Those who have 
 looked for places where these various expressions could be 
 logically inserted have found some difficulty. The Confes- 
 sion is tremendously compact. It is not easy at any point 
 to break the connection and insert other or kindred ideas 
 without the break becoming apparent and interrupting the 
 continuity and force of the statements. 
 
l86 HOW SHALL WE REVISE? 
 
 It is manifest revision does present some difficulties. 
 They are not, however, those which anti-revisionists usually 
 find. Thus it is said, our Confession was formed at a great 
 heat, by men of great ability, and is so welded that it can- 
 not be improved. We are told the temper of the times is 
 not right for readjusting doctrinal statements, and what- 
 ever the Westminster divines may have failed in, there is 
 no hope that divines of to-day can succeed in. The West- 
 minster divines were undoubtedly justly eminent for schol- 
 arship and devotion ; but the world is not going backward 
 in the matter of Biblical learning. On the score of schol- 
 arship, we are quite as competent to put our faith into 
 clear and intelligent expression as have been the divines of 
 any past age. And then, the fires of fierce debate in which 
 our Confession was welded, though excellent for giving 
 logical form to a symbol, may not be the most conducive 
 to that calm, broad view which best discloses the true pro- 
 portions of faith. 
 
 The difficulties of revision are not then those that belong 
 to our theological position. We know what we believe, 
 and are quite competent to say it. 
 
 The real difficulties in the case are just tvv^o. First, the 
 difficulty of revising our standards till they shall exactly 
 express the present faith of the church, and at the same 
 time keeping those standards in their integrity. By this 
 it is not affirmed that the present demand for revision 
 necessarily implies any radical changes of doctrine. But 
 even those changes already proposed, and on which there 
 is most general agreement, would so change the Confession 
 that it would cease to be the precise historic symbol of our 
 faith, revered on account of the share it had in shaping the 
 theological thinking of the past two centuries. Thus the 
 third chapter if recast, as demanded by some of our Pres- 
 byteries, would no longer be the chapter framed by the 
 
A NEW CREED. 1 8/ 
 
 Westminster divines, and that underlies the theology of 
 Edwards and others. As revised, it doubtless would better 
 express the faith of the church now, but we would by so 
 much cut loose historically from the past. It would be 
 like phonetic spelling in its effect on our literature. We 
 would be sundered from the roots of theological thinking. 
 Why should we lose those roots any more than those that 
 are in the other historic creeds all the way back to the 
 apostles .-* 
 
 The second difficulty connected with revision is in the 
 prolonged theological ferment in which it would be likely 
 to keep us. A few changes in a few chapters could easily 
 and promptly be made. But as I have intimated, the de- 
 mand for revision is one that steadily increases in area. 
 There is scarce a chapter that has escaped criticism and 
 suggestion for revision. If revision were for the present 
 confined to the third and tenth chapters, since that very 
 effort to revise those chapters assumes that we are trying 
 to bring our Confession into exact line with our present 
 thinking, it would let loose upon the church an increasing 
 debate and keep us in indefinite agitation. For notice the 
 assumption of revision is that the Confession must square 
 to our thought. That canon of criticism admitted will 
 tend to make us intolerant of many expressions which we 
 have heretofore quietly carried on account of their historic 
 truth, but which under the idea underlying revision we 
 would be willing to carry no longer. The result would be 
 a perpetual tinkering process. How many years would it 
 take under that process to destroy the historic identity of 
 the standards ? 
 
 For the reasons now given it seems wise to a good many 
 who are anxious that something should be done, that that 
 something should take the form of a new statement, the 
 relation of which to our standards should not be supplant- 
 
1 88 HOW SHALL WE REVISE/ 
 
 ing, but supplemental and explanatory. Those who are 
 opposed to revision are, for the most part, opposed also to 
 a new creed. Dr. Warfield, in a recent article, declares the 
 demand for a new statement to be revolutionary. Revision 
 in his mind means a doctrinal revolution. A new creed 
 means an ecclesiastical revolution. He finds in it, by a 
 logic one cannot follow, an attack upon our denominational 
 existence. It can be a revolutionary attack on our denomi- 
 national integrity only on two assumptions, which are 
 utterly groundless, and have again and again been repudi- 
 ated by those who favor a consensus creed. The first is, 
 that the new creed shall wholly take the place of standards ; 
 that neither the Confession of Faith nor the Larger or 
 Shorter Catechism shall have any authoritative standing in 
 our church ; that they shall all be relegated to the garret 
 of theological lumber. The Presbytery of New York has 
 guarded itself against the imputation of any such design as 
 strenuously as language can do it. But Dr. Warfield ob- 
 jects that such must logically be the result. No matter 
 what the avowed purpose of the new creed, its effect will 
 be to take the place of the standards. This argument is a 
 boomerang. It argues strongly against the vitality and 
 power of our standards. We do not think so poorly of 
 them as to believe that, if a compendium of their doctrine 
 is put before the church for practical use, they will at once 
 sink out of sight. They will not have less vitality because 
 we have accompanied them with a brief statement of the 
 sense in which we hold them, — but more : I believe they 
 will spring into new life and power. 
 
 The second assumption underlying the absurd idea that 
 a new creed is revolutionary and threatens our denomina- 
 tional existence, is the utterly baseless one, that no distinc- 
 tive Calvinistic doctrine can or will be put into the brief 
 creed. Those who think our denominational existence 
 
A NEW CREED. 1 89 
 
 depends on our doctrines being extended to all the philo- 
 sophical ramifications of extreme Calvinism may find some 
 ground for their fears in the necessary limitations of a 
 briefer creed. It is to be hoped their number is small, that 
 there are not many who believe that our denominational 
 integrity depends on the logical or illogical inferences of 
 the various sections of the third chapter. It is to be hoped 
 the doctrine of reprobation, for example, is not an integral 
 and essential part of our system, and that we can be sound 
 Calvinists without pronouncing dogmatically, not only on 
 the divine decrees, but also on the motives which moved 
 God to do as He has done. 
 
 There is, if I mistake not, some danger to the harmony 
 of our church in pressing unduly the view Dr. Warfield 
 takes of the revolutionary character of a new creed. If 
 representative theologians among us take the position that 
 we cannot keep our denominational life without carrying 
 with us all the deductions of our Confession ; if, in a word, 
 to be a Calvinistic body we must be a hyper-Calvinistic 
 body, — there will be a strong disposition to say, This is a 
 yoke we are not able to bear. Our existence as a denomi- 
 nation never has depended on the Supra-Lapsarian impli- 
 cations of the Confession, and does not now so depend. 
 We would be sound Calvinists, historic and actual, if we 
 asserted God's sovereignty in election and struck out every 
 other section of the third chapter of the Confession. 
 
 Others are opposed to the new creed, or are in doubt as 
 to its utility, on grounds less radical. They fear that in 
 some way it will militate against the Confession, and will 
 ultimately displace it. The friends of a new creed have 
 been careful to disavow any purpose to have it interfere 
 with the integrity or vitality of our standards. 
 
 They have no wish to supplant the standards — only to 
 supplement and explain. Indeed, some who favor a new 
 
IQO HOW SHALL WE REVISE? 
 
 statement of doctrine are moved rather by their love ot 
 the Confession, and their unwilhngness to see it mutilated 
 by revision. 
 
 It may still be said, however, — no matter what the pur- 
 poses or desires of the advocates of a new creed may be, — 
 this purpose or desire cannot avert the inevitable tendency, 
 and that the adoption of a new creed will necessarily tend 
 to retire the old one. In reply, it is to be said : If the 
 new statement were a new system of doctrine, this would 
 follow. For the theological change which created the 
 new system would necessarily push aside the old one. But 
 such a result is not to be apprehended, if, as is proposed, 
 the new creed simply reaffirms in briefer forms the doctrines 
 of our standards. Such reaffirmation, after thorough 
 and fearless discussion of the cardinal doctrines of our 
 system, would give them additional vitality and power. 
 People now may say we are living on an inherited system 
 that has been put into no recent crucible of criticism. 
 They would not be able to say it, if, after the keenest fire 
 of the theological criticism of to-day, our standards, as to 
 all essential characteristics, were again affirmed. Nor 
 would this happy result be in the slightest jeopardized, if 
 the new creed should lay less emphasis on the secret 
 counsels of the Divine Will, and more emphasis on the 
 declared love of God for all mankind. The compendium 
 of a constitution never retires it. If justly drawn, it in- 
 creases its power. The fact is, that underneath all these 
 expressed fears that a new statement would operate disas- 
 trously on our present standards, is the implication that 
 friends of the new creed are trying to bring the Trojan 
 horse within our walls ; that, however their language may 
 be guarded, they favor a creed without distinctive doctrinal 
 character. This has been so often disavowed, that the 
 disavowal need not be repeated. The character of some 
 
A NEW CREED. I9I 
 
 of these men, however, as sound theologians and upright 
 Christians, should make the disavowal unnecessary. 
 
 A few words on the advantages of such a creed may 
 properly close this paper. 
 
 1st, It is an irenic measure. Something is going to be 
 done. It may be taken as settled that the church will 
 require some sort of change ; that change will be either 
 by revision, slight or more thorough, by a supplementary 
 declaration, or by a new creed. I have alluded to the diffi- 
 culties that beset revision. If slight revision of a few 
 phrases be agreed upon, there will still be a demand for a 
 compact statement of our doctrine that can be used in our 
 churches, and readily comprehended by those who may 
 desire to know the principal points of our doctrine. Those 
 who are opposed to revision can accept a new creed because 
 the Confession will be left intact. Those who are in favor 
 of revision may find in the new creed the relief they seek. 
 If they feel that the Confession is deficient in its declara- 
 tion of the love of God, the needed emphasis can be given 
 in the new creed, an emphasis to which the most strenuous 
 opponent of revision would find it hard to object. 
 
 2d, Such a creed will be in line with the theological 
 tendencies of the day, and will put us distinctly in har- 
 mony with other Reformed churches. We will be in touch 
 with the apostolic age, whose sharp, short creed carried 
 the Gospel to Europe, and in three centuries established 
 it on the throne of the Caesars. We will be in line with 
 evangelical Christianity the world around, which more and 
 more is finding its way back to the simplicity of apostolic 
 ideas for the conversion of the world. We will keep our 
 theological armory and treasures ; but when we go into 
 the field, we will go in light, marching order, with a creed 
 that can be easily handled, and can flash everywhither for 
 the defence and victory of the truth. We will keep our 
 
192 HOW SHALL WE REVISE? 
 
 "impedimenta " in our theological camps. We do not want 
 them around our feet when we march. 
 
 A creed thus framed, if possible by co-operation with all 
 branches of the Presbyterian Church, a creed not of new 
 doctrines, but of '' the old doctrines, made in the light and 
 in the spirit of our present Christian activities, of our high 
 privileges, and our large obligations," — a creed somewhat 
 after the pattern of the excellent creed of our English 
 brethren, — would infuse new vitality into our theology, 
 would promote closer fellowship among our churches, and 
 by the blessing of God would help us on to greater victo- 
 ries than we have ever known. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 Table of Proof-texts of the Westminster Con- 
 fession OF Faith. 
 
 This table of proof-texts has been prepared from the 
 original edition of the Westminster Confession with proof- 
 texts published by order of Parliament, April 29, 1647, a 
 copy of which is in the McAlpin collection of the library of 
 the Union Theological Seminary, New York. This edition 
 has been compared with the second edition published, 
 London, 1658, with a recommendation of the London min- 
 isters. The few printer's mistakes in the one have been 
 corrected from the other. The proof-texts in the Ameri- 
 can edition are based upon the original edition, but with 
 many omissions and fewer additions. These changes have 
 not been noted in these tables, because our aim is to show 
 the use made of the Scripture by the authors of the Confes- 
 sion. The chapters and sections of the Confession where 
 the citations are made are in parentheses. The other 
 numbers are those of the chapters and verses of the Bible. 
 Where no verses are given, the entire chapter was cited. 
 
 With this table in hand, the reader may open the Bible 
 and see for himself what passages have been used by the 
 Westminster divines and what passages have been neg- 
 lected. Unless we greatly mistake, he will find that his 
 favorite passages have not been cited in the Confession. 
 The texts that are familiar to him in sermons and prayer- 
 meetings and in the devotions of the family, are in the 
 Bible, but are not in the Confession. He may also turn to 
 the chapters and sections of the Confession given in the 
 tables, and in a moment learn exactly what use was made 
 of any passage of Scripture by the Westminster divines. 
 
194 APPENDIX. 
 
 THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
 GENESIS, 
 
 (48 Citations.) 
 Chapter 
 
 I. (iv. i); 2 (iv. i); 26 (iv. 2, ix. 2); 26, 27 (xix. i); 
 26, 28 (iv. 2); 27 (iv. 2); 27, 28 (vi. 3). 
 II. 2, 3 (xxi. 7); 7 (iv. 2); 16, 17 (vi. 3, ix. 2); 17 (iv. 
 2, vi. 2, vii. 2, xix. i); 18 (xxiv. 2); 24 (xxiv. i). 
 
 III. 6 (iv. 2, ix. 2); 6-8 (vi. 2); 8-1 1, 23 (iv. 2); 13 
 
 (vi. i); 15 (vii. 3, viii. 6, xxv. 2); 19 (xxxii. i). 
 
 IV. 5 (xvi. 7); 4 (xvi. 6). Chap. V. 3 (vi. 3). 
 
 VI. 5 (vi. 2, vi. 4). Chap. VIII. 21 (vi. 4); 22 (v. 2). 
 XVII. I (ii. i); 7 (xxv. 2); 7, 9 (xxviii. 4); 7, 10 (xxvii. 
 
 i); 10 (xxvii. 2). 
 XVIII. 27 (xxi. 3). 
 
 XXIV. 2, 3, 5, 6, 8, 9 (xxii. 3); 57, 58 (xxiv. 3). 
 XXVIII. 20-22 (xxii. 6). 
 XXXIV. 14 (xxiv. 3, xxvii. i). 
 
 XLV. 7 (v. i). Chap. XLIX. 10 (xix. 4). 
 L. 20 (v. 4). 
 
 EXODUS. 
 
 (24 Citations.) 
 
 III. 14 (ii. i). Chap. IV. 24-26 (xxviii. 5). 
 
 VII. 3 (v. 6). Chap. VIII. 15, 32 (v. 6). 
 
 XII. 48 (xxvii. i). 
 
 XVI. 23, 25, 26, 29, 30 (xxi. 8). 
 
 XX. 4-6 (xxi. I) ; 7 (xxii. i, 2, 3) ; 8 (xxi. 8) ; 8, 10 
 
 (xxi. 7) ; 8, 10, II (xxi. 7) ; ^5 (xxvi. 3). 
 
 XXI. (xix. 4); 13 (v. 2). 
 
 XXII. 1-29 (xix. 4) ; 7-1 1 Cxxii. 3). 
 
 XXVIII. 38 (xvi. 6). Chap. XXXI. 15-17 (xxi. 8). 
 
 XXXIV. I (xix. 2) ; 6, 7 (ii. i) ; 7 (ii. i) ; 16 (xxiv. 3). 
 
APPENDIX. 195 
 
 LEVITICUS, 
 
 (6 Citations.) 
 Chapter 
 
 XVIII. (xxiv. 4) ; 24-28 (xxiv. 4). 
 
 XIX. 12 (xxii. i). Chap. XX. 19-21 (xxiv. 4). 
 XXIV. 16 (xxiii. 3). Chap. XXVI. i, 10, 14 (xix 6.). 
 
 NUMBERS. 
 V. 19, 21 (xxii. 3). Chap. XXX. 5, 8, 12, 13 (xxii. 7). 
 
 DEUTERONOMY. 
 
 [2.1 Citations.) 
 
 II. 30 (v. 6). Chap. IV. 15-20 (xxi. i) ; 15, 16 (ii. i). 
 V. 32 (xix. 2). 
 VI. 4 (ii. i) ; 6, 7 (xxi. 6) ; 13 (xxi. 5, xxii. 2). 
 VII. 3, 4 (xxiv. 3). Chap. X. 4 (xix. 2) ; 20 (xxii. i). 
 XII. 32 (xxi. i). 
 
 XIII. 5, 6, 12 (xxiii. 3) ; 6-12 (xx. 4). 
 XIX. 5 (v. 2). Chap. XXIII. 21-23 (xxii. 6). 
 XXIV. 1-4 (xxiv. 6). 
 
 XXIX. 4 (v. 6) ; 19 (xviii. i) ; 29 (iii. 8). 
 XXX. 6 (x. I) ; 19 (ix. i). 
 
 JOSHUA. 
 VII. 19 (xv. 6). Chap. IX. 18, 19 (xxii. 4). 
 XXIV. 14 (xxi. i). 
 
 RUTH. 
 IV. 12 (xxi. 4). 
 
 /. SAMUEL, 
 
 (15 Citations from the Books of Samuel.) 
 
 I. II (xxii. 6). Chap. II. 25 (vii. i). 
 XV. 21-23 (xvi. i). Chap. XXIII. 11, 12 (iii. 2). 
 XXV. 22, 32-34 (xxii. 4). 
 
 //. SAMUEL. 
 
 VI. 18, 20 (xxi. 6). Chap. VII. 29 (xxi. 4). 
 XI. 27 (xvii. 3). 
 
 XII. 14 (xvii. 3) ; 21-23 (xxi. 4). 
 XVI. 10 (v. 4). Chap. XXI. I (xxii. 4). 
 XXIII. 3 (xxiii. 2). Chap. XXIV. i (v. 4, 5). 
 
196 APPENDIX. 
 
 /. KINGS. 
 
 (15 Citations from the Books of Kings.) 
 Chapter 
 
 II. 35 (xxiii. 4). Chap. VIII. 27 (ii. i) ; 31 (xxii. 2). 
 XI. 4 (xxiv. 3). Chap. XXI. 27, 29 (xvi. 7). 
 XXII. 22, 23 (v. 4) ; 28, 34 (v. 2). 
 
 //. KINGS. 
 
 VI. 6 (v. 3). Chap. VIII. 12, 13 (v. 6). 
 
 X. 30, 31 (xvi. 7). Chap. XVIII. 4 (xxiii. 3). 
 
 XIX. 28 (v. 4). 
 
 XXIII. 1-26 (xxiii. 3) ; 5, 6, 9, 20, 21 (xx. 4) ; 25 (xv. 2). 
 
 /. CHRONICLES, 
 
 (There are 28 Citations from Chronicles, Ezra, and Nehemiah.) 
 
 X. 4, 13, 14 (v. 4). Chap. XIII. 1-9 (xxiii. 3). 
 XXI. I (v. 4). 
 
 //. CHRONICLES. 
 
 VI. 22, 23 (xxii. i). 
 
 XV. 12, 13 (xxiii. 3) ; 12, 13, 16 (xx. 4). 
 XIX. 8-1 1 (xxiii. 3, xxxi. 2). 
 XXVI. 18 (xxiii. 3). 
 
 XXIX. (xxiii. 3, xxxi. 2). Chap. XXX. (xxiii. 3, xxxi. 2). 
 XXXII. 25, 26, 31 (V. 5). 
 XXXIV. :iz (xx. 4^ xxiii. 3). 
 
 VII. 23-28 (xx. 4, xxiii. 3). 
 IX. 13, 14 (xix. 6). Chap. X. 5 (xxii. 2). 
 
 NEHEMIAH. 
 
 V. 12 (xxii. 3). Chap. IX. 32, ^t, (ii. i). 
 X. 29 (xxi. 5). 
 XIII. 15, 17, 21, 22, 25, 30 (xx. 4) ; 15-22 (xxi. 8) ; 22 
 (x\d. 4) ; 25 (xxii. 2) ; 25-27 (xxiv. 3). 
 
APPENDIX. 197 
 
 ESTHER. 
 
 Chapter 
 
 IV. i6 (xxi. 5). Chap. IX. 22 (xxi. 5). 
 
 JOB. 
 
 (25 Citations.) 
 
 I. 5 (xxi. 6). Chap. VIII. 13, 14 (xviii. i). 
 IX. 2, 3 (xvi. 4) ; 20 (xvi. 6) ; 32, 33 (vii. 1). 
 XI. 7, 8, 9 (ii. i). Chap. XIII. 15 (xviii. 4). 
 XIV. 4 (vi. 3). Chap. XV. 14 (vi. 3). 
 XIX. 26, 27 (xxxii. 2). Chap. XXI. 14, 15, (xvi. 7). 
 XXII. 2, 3 (ii. 2, vii. I, xvi. 5). 
 XXVI. 13 (iv. 2) ; 14 (ii. i). 
 XXVIII. 28 (xix. I). Chap. XXXIII. 4 (iv. 2). 
 XXXIV. 10 (v. 3). Chap. XXXV. 7, 8 (vii. i, xvi. 5). 
 XXXVIII. (v. I). Chap. XXXIX. (v. i). 
 XL. (v. i). Chap. XLI. (v. i). 
 
 PSALMS. 
 
 (98 Citations.) 
 Psalms 
 
 II. 6 (viii. i) ; 8 (xxv. 2) ; 10-12 (xxiii. 2). 
 
 IV. 6, 7 (xviii. 3). Ps. V. 5, 6 (ii. i). 
 
 XIV. 4 (xvi. 7). Ps. XV. 4 (xxii. 4). 
 
 XVI. 2 (xvi. 5). Ps. XVIII. 3 (xxi. i). 
 
 XIX. 1-3 (i. i) ; II (xix. 6) ; 13 (xv. 5). 
 
 XXII. I (xviii. 4) ; 30 (viii. i). Ps. XXIV. 4 (xxii. 4). 
 
 XXXI. 22 (xviii. 4) ; 23 (xxi. i). 
 
 XXXII. I (vii. 6) ; 3, 4 (xvii. 3) ; 5 (xi. 5) ; 5, 6 (xv. 6). 
 
 XXXIII. 5,6 (iv. i); 10, II (v. I). 
 
 XXXIV. 12-16 (xix. 6). Ps. XXXVI. 3 (xvi. 7). 
 XXXVII. II (xix. 6). Ps. XL. 7, 8 (viii. 4). 
 
 XLV. 7 (viii. 3, xxvi. 3). Ps. XLVII. 7 (xxi. 3). 
 L. 14 (xxii. 6) ; 21 (v. 4). 
 
 LI. Title (xvii. 3) ; 4 (xv. 2) ; 4, 5, 7, 9, 14 (xv. 
 6) ; 5 (vi- 3) ; 7-12 (xi. 5) ; 8 (xvii. 3) ; 8, 10, 
 12 (xvii. 3) ; 8, 12 (xviii. 4) ; 8, 12, 14 (xviii. 
 4) ; 14 (xvii. 3) ; the whole Psalm (xv. 6). 
 LXI. 8 (xxii. 5). Ps. LXII. 8 (xxi. i). 
 
198 APPENDIX. 
 
 Psalms 
 
 LXV. 2 (xxi. 3). Ps. LXVI. 13, 14 (xxii. 5, 6). 
 LXXII. 17 (XXV. 5). 
 
 LXXIII. 15 (xviii. 4) ; the whole Psalm (v. 5). 
 LXXVI. 10 (v. 4); II (xxii. 6). 
 LXXVII. i-io (xviii. 4) ; 1-12 (v. 5, xviii. 3). 
 LXXXI. II, 12 (v. 6). Ps. LXXXII. 3, 4 (xxiii. 2). 
 LXXXVIII. The whole Psalm (xviii. 3, 4 [twice]). 
 LXXXIX. 30-34 (xix. 6) ; 31, 32 (xvii. 3) ; 31-33 (xi. 5), 
 XC. 2 (ii. i). Ps. XCIV. 8-1 1 (v. I). 
 C. 2, 3 (vii. I). Ps. CII. 28 (xxv. 5). 
 cm. 13 (xii. I). Ps. CIV. 24 (iv. I, V. i). 
 CVII. The whole Psalm (xxi. 5). 
 
 ex. I (viii. 8) ; 3 (x. i). Ps. CXIII. 5, 6 (vii. i). 
 CXV. 3 (ii. i). Ps. CXVI. 12, 13 (xvi. 2). 
 CXIX. 4-6 (xix. 6) ; 6, 59, 106 (xv. 2) ; 32 (xviii. 3) ; 
 68 (ii. 2, xxi. i) ; 71 (xx. i) ; loi, 104, 128 
 (xix. 6) ; 105, 130 (i. 7) ; 128 (xv. 2). 
 CXXII. 9 (xxiii. 3). 
 CXXX. 3 (xvi. 5) ; 4 (xviii. 3). 
 CXXXII. 2-5 (xxii. 6). Ps. CXXXV. 6 (v. i). 
 CXLIII. 2 (xvi. 5, 6). 
 CXLV. 3 (ii. I) ; 7 (V. I) ; 17 (ii. 2, v. i). 
 CXLVIL 5 (ii. 2). 
 
 PROVERBS, 
 
 (13 Citations.) 
 Chapter 
 
 I. 20, 21, 24 (xxi. 6). Chap. II. 17 (xxiv. i). 
 VIII. 15, 16 (xxiii. 2) ; 34 (xxi. 6). 
 XI. 14 (xxxi. 2). Chap. XIV. 26 (xii. i). 
 XV. 3 (v. I). Chap. XVI. 4 (ii. I, iii. 3) ; 33 (iii. i.) 
 XX. 9 (vi. 5) ; Chap. XXII. 19-21 (i. i). 
 XXVIII. 13 (xv. 6). 
 
 ECCLESIASTES, 
 
 (12 Citations.) 
 
 V. I, 2 (xxi. 3) ; 4, 5 (xxi. 5) ; 4-6 (xxii. 5). 
 VII. 20 (vi. 5) ; 29 (iv. 2 [twice], vi. 2, ix. 2j xix. i). 
 XII. 7 (iv. 2, xxxii. i) ; 14 (xxxiii. i). 
 
APPENDIX. 199 
 
 SONG OF SONGS. 
 
 Chapter 
 
 I. 4 (x. i). Chap. V. 2, 3, 4, 6 (xvii. 3) ; 2, 3, 6 
 (xviii. 4). 
 
 L AMENTA TIONS. 
 
 III. 31 (xii. i) ; 39(vi. 6). 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 (48 Citations.) 
 
 I. 12 (xvi. 7) ; 16, 18 (xv. 4). 
 II. 3 (xxvi. 2). Chap. VI. 3 (ii. i) ; 9, 10 (v. 6). 
 VIII. 14 (v. 6) ; 19, 20 (i. i) ; 20 (i. 8, xx. 2). 
 IX. 6, 7 (xxx. i) ; 7 (xxv. 2). 
 X. 6, 7 (v. 2) ; 6, 7, 12 (v. 4). 
 XIX. 21 (xxi. 5, xxii. 5). Chap. XXIX. 13 (xvi. i). 
 XXX. 22 (xv. 2). Chap. XL. 13-17 (vii. i). 
 XLII. I (viii. i) ; 6 (vii. 3) ; 8 (xxvi. 3). 
 XLIII. 3-5, 14 (v. 7). 
 XLIX. 23 (xx. 4, xxiii. 3, xxxi. 2). 
 L. 10 (xviii. 3, 4, [twice]). 
 LIII. 4-6, 10-12 (xi. 3) ; 10 (viii. i). 
 LIV. 7-10 (xviii. 4). 
 
 LV. 4, 5 (viii. i) ; 7 (xv. 4) ; 10. ^ (v- 3)- 
 LVI. 2, 4, 6, 7 (xxi. 7) ; 7 (xxi. 6). 
 LVIII. 13 (xxi. 8 [twice]). Chap. LIX. 21 (i. 5, xxv. 3). 
 LXIII. 14 (v. i) ; 17 (xvii. 3). 
 LXIV. 5, 7r 9 (xvii. 3) ; 6 (xvi. 5) ; 7 (xvi. 3). 
 LXV. 16 (xxii. 2). Chap. LXVI. 2 (xiv. 2, xxi. 5). 
 
 JEREMIAH. 
 
 (20 Citations.) 
 
 IV. 2 (xxii. 3, 4). Chap. V. 7 (xxii. 2). 
 VIII. 9 (xx. 2). 
 
 X. 7 (xxi. i) ; 10 (ii. i) ; 12 (iv. i) ; 25 (xxi. 6). 
 
 XIV. 9 (xii. i). Chap. XVII. 9 (vi. 2). 
 
 XXIII. 6 (xi. i) ; 23, 24 (ii, i). 
 
 XXXI. 3 (xvii. 2) ; 18, 19 (xv. 2) ; 33 (xix. 7) ; 33, 34 
 
 (vii. 6) ; 35 (v. 2). 
 
 XXXII. 40 (xvii. 2, xviii. 4). 
 
 XLIV. 25, 26 (xxii. 6). 
 
200 APPENDIX. 
 
 EZEKIEL. 
 
 (14 Citations.) 
 Chapter 
 
 XI. 5 (ii. 2) ; 19 (x. i). 
 XVI. 20, 21 (xxv. 2) ; 61-63 (xv. 3). 
 XVII. 16, 18, 19 (xxii. 4). Chap. XVIII. 30, 31 (xv. 2). 
 XXXVI. 26 (x. i) ; 26, 27 (vii. 3, xvi. 3) ; 27 (x. i, 2, xix. 
 7); 31 (XV. 2); 31,32 (xv. 3). 
 
 DANIEL, 
 
 (7 Citations.) 
 
 III. 27 (v. 3) ; 29 (xx. 4). 
 
 IV. 25, 35 (ii. 2) ; 34, 35 (v. i). 
 
 IX. 24, 26 (viii. 5, xi. 3) ; 27 (xix. 3). 
 
 HOSEA, 
 
 (23 Citations from the Minor Prophets.) 
 
 I. 4 (xvi. 7) ; 7 (v. 3). Chap. II. 21, 22 (v. 3). 
 V. II (xx. 2). Chap. XIV. 2, 4 (xv. 3). 
 
 II. 12 (xxi. 5) ; 12, 13 (xv. 2). 
 
 AMOS. 
 II. 7 (xxiv. 4). Chap. V. 15 (xv. 2) ; 21, 22 (xvi. 7). 
 IX. 8, 9 (v. 7). 
 
 MICAH. 
 
 III. II (xviii. i). Chap. VI. 8 (xvi. i). 
 VII. 7-9 (xviii. 4). 
 
 NAHUM. 
 I. 2, 3 (ii. i). 
 
 HAG GAL 
 II. 14 (xvi. 7). 
 
 ZECHARIAH. 
 XII. 10 (xv. i). Chap. XIII. 2, 3 (xx. 4). 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 201 
 
 Chapter 
 
 MALA CHI. 
 
 I. II (xxi. 6). Chap. II. n, 12 (xxiv. 3) ; 15 (xxiv. 2] 
 III. 6 (ii. i). Chap. IV. 2, 3 (viii. 8). 
 
 Summary of Citations from the Old Testament. 
 
 I. Pentateuch. 
 
 II. Histories 
 
 III. Poetical Books . 
 
 IV. Prophecies, 
 
 .Genesis 48 
 
 Exodus 24 
 
 Leviticus 6 
 
 Numbers 2 
 
 Deuteronomy 22 
 
 .Joshua 3 
 
 Judges o 
 
 Ruth I 
 
 I and 2 Samuel. ... 15 
 
 I and 2 Kings 15 
 
 I and 2 Chronicles. 16 
 
 Ezra 4 
 
 Nehemiah 8 
 
 Esther 2 
 
 • Job 25' 
 
 Psahns 98 
 
 Proverbs 13 
 
 Ecclesiastes 12 
 
 Song of Songs 3 | 
 
 Lamentations 2 J 
 
 Isaiah 48 
 
 Jeremiah 20 
 
 Ezekiel 14 
 
 Daniel 7 
 
 Hosea 5 
 
 Joel 2 
 
 Amos 4 
 
 Obadiah o 
 
 Jonah o 
 
 Micah 3 
 
 Nahum. i 
 
 Habakkuk o 
 
 Zephaniah o 
 
 Haggai i 
 
 Zechariah 2 
 
 Malachi 5 
 
 \ 102 
 
 64 
 
 1-431 
 
 h53 
 
202 APPENDIX. 
 
 THE NEW TESTAMENT. 
 MATTHEW. 
 
 (109 Citations.) 
 Chapter 
 
 I. 18-20 (xxiv. 5). Chap. II. 4, 5 (xxiii. 3, xxxi. 2). 
 
 III. II (xxvii. 3, xxviii. 2) ; 15 (viii. 4) ; 16, 17 (ii. 3); 
 
 17 (xi. 3). 
 
 IV. 4 (v. 3) ; 4, 7, 10 (i. i) ; 9, 10 (xxi. i) ; 10 (xxi. 
 
 2). 
 V. 5 (xix. 6) ; 16 (xvi. 2) ; 17 (viii. 4) ; 17, 18 (xxi. 
 7); 17-19 (xix. 5); 17, 38, 39 (xix. 4); 18 (i. 
 8) ; 3ij 32 (xxiv. 5) ; 34, 37 (xxii. 2). 
 VI. 2, 5, 16 (xvi. 7) ; 6, II (xxi. 6) ; 12 (xi. 5) ; 12, 
 14, 15 (xxi. 3) ; 30 (xiv. 3) ; 30, 32 (xii. i). 
 VII. 6 (xxix. 8, XXX. 3) ; 22 (x. 4) ; 22, 23 (xviii. i). 
 VIII. 9, 10 (xxiii. 2) ; 10 (xiv. 3). 
 
 IX. 15 (xxi. 5). Chap. X. 28 (iv. 2) ; 29-31 (v. i). 
 XI. 21, 23 (iii. 2) ; 25, 26 (iii. 7). 
 XII. 1-13 (xxi. 8) ; 25 (xx. 4) ; 36 (xv. 4) ; 36, 37 
 
 (xxxiii. i). 
 XIII. 12 (v. 6) ; 19 (xxi. 5) ;,20, 21 (x. 4) ; 24-30, 47 
 (xxv. 5) ; 40-42 (viii. 4) ; 47 (xxv. 2). 
 XV. 9 (xvi. I, XX. 2, xxi. I, xxix. 4) ; 19 (vi. 4). 
 XVI. 18 (xxv. 5) ; 19 (xxiii. 3, xxx. 2). 
 XVII. 12 (iii. I, ix. i). 
 
 XVIIL 15-17 (xx. 4) ; 17 (xxiii. 3, xxx. 4) ; 17, 18 (xxx. 
 2) ; 17-20 (xxxi. 3). 
 XIX. 5, 6 (xxiv. i) ; 6, 8, 9 (xxiv. 6) ; 9 (xxiv. 5) ; 11, 
 
 12 (xxii. 7). 
 XXII. 14 (x. 4) ; 29, 31 (i. 10) ; 37-40 (xix. 2). 
 
 XXIII. 8-10 (xx. 2, xxv. 6) ; 23 (xvi. 7). 
 
 XXIV. 36, 42-44 (xxxiii. 3). 
 
 XXV. 21 (xxxiii. 2) ; 21, 23 (xvi, 6) ; 29 (v. 6) ; 31 to 
 end (xxxiii, 2) ; 41 (iii. 3, vi. 6) ; 41-45 (xvi. 7). 
 XXVI. 26, 27 (xxix. 2) ; 26-28 (xxix. 3, 5) ; 27, 28 (xxvii. 
 2, 3) ; 29 (xxix. 5) ; 37, 38 (viii. 4) ; 69-72 
 (xviii. 4) ; 70, 72, 74 (xvii. 3) ; 75 (xi. 5) ; the 
 whole chapter (viii. 4). 
 
APPENDIX. 203 
 
 Chapter 
 
 XXVII. 46 (viii. 4) ; the whole chapter (viii. 4). 
 XXVIIl. 18 (viii. 3) ; 18-20 (XXX. i) ; 19 (ii- 3» vii. 6, xix. 
 5,xxvii. I, 4, xxviii. i, 4) ; 19, 20 (vii. 6, xxv. 
 3, 5, xxvii. 3, xxviii. i, 2). 
 
 MARK. 
 
 (i8 Citations ) 
 
 I. 4 (xxviii.i) ; 15 (xv. i). Chap. IV. 23 (xxix. 4). 
 VI. 18 (xxiv. 4) ; 26 (xxii. 7) ; 52 (xvii. 3). 
 VII. 4 (xxviii. 3). Chap. IX. 24 (xviii. 3). 
 
 X. 13-16 (xxviii. 4). Chap. XI. 24 (xxi. 3). 
 XII. 33 (xxi. i). Chap. XIII. 35-37 (xxxiii. 3). 
 XIV. 22-24 (xxix. 3) ; 66 to end (v. 5). 
 
 XVI. 14 (xvii. 3) ; 15, 16 (vii. 3, xxviii. 4) ; 19 (viii. 4). 
 
 LUKE. 
 
 (41 Citations.) 
 
 I. 3, 4 (i- ; 6 (XV. 2) ; 20 (xi. 5) ; 27, 31, 35 (viii. 
 2) ; 33 (viii. i) ; 35 (viii. 2) ; 74, 75 (xx. 3)- 
 III. 14 (xxiii. 2). Chap. IV. 16 (xxi. 6). 
 VII. 30 (xxviii. 5). Chap. X. 20 (iii. 8). 
 XII. 13, 14 (xxxi. 5) ; 35, 36 (xxxiii. 3). 
 XIII. 3, 5 (XV. 3)- 
 XVI. 23, 24 (xxxii. i) ; 25, 26 (xxi. 4) ; 29, 31 (i. 2). 
 
 XVII. 3, 4 (xv. 6) ; 5 (xiv. i) ; 10 (vii. i, xvi. 4, 5, xix. 6). 
 XVIII. 15 (xxviii. 4) ; 15, 16 (x. 3). Chap. XIX. 8 (xv. 5). 
 
 XXI. 27, 28 (xxxiii. 3). 
 XXII. 19, 20 (xxix. 3) ; 20 (vii. 4, 6) ; 31, 32 (xiv. 3) ; 
 32 (xi. 5, xvii. 2, xviii. 4) ; 44 (viii. 4). 
 
 XXIII. 43 (iv. 2, xxxii. i). 
 
 XXIV. 6, 39 (xxix. 6) ; 27, 44 (i- 3) ; 39 (ii- J 47 (xv. i) 
 
 JOHN. 
 
 (80 Citations.) 
 
 I. I, 14 (viii. 2) ; 2, 3 (iv. i) ; 12 (xi. 2, xii. i, xiv. 
 2) ; 14 (viii. 3) ; I4> 18 (ii. 3) ; 16 (xxvi. i) ; 33 
 (xxviii. 2). 
 in. 3, 5 (x. 3) ; 5, 8, (xxviii. 6) ; 8 (x. 3) ; 13 (viii. 7) ; 
 16 (vii. 3, viii. l) ; 34 (viii. 3). 
 
204 APPENDIX. 
 
 Chapter 
 
 IV. 21 (xxi. 6) ; 22 (x. 4, xx. 2) ; 23, 24 (xxi. 6) ; 24 
 
 (ii. I [twice]) ; 42 (xiv. 2). 
 V. 22, 27 (viii. 3, xxxiii. i) ; 23 (xxi. 2) ; 25 (x. 2) ; 26 
 (ii. 2) ; 28, 29 (xxxii. 3) ; 39 (i. 8) ; 39, 46 (i. 8). 
 VI. yj (x. I, 2) ; 37, 39 (viii. 8) ; 44, 45 (vii. 3, x. i) ; 
 44, 65 (ix. 3) ; 45 (i. 6) ; 64, 65 (iii. 6) ; 64-66 
 (x. 4). Chap. VII. 38, 39 (XX. I). 
 VIII. 24 (x. 4) ; 34 (xx. 3) ; 34, 36 (ix. 4) ; 41 (xviii. i) 
 47 (iii. 6) ; 56 (vii. 5). 
 
 X. 15, 16 (viii. 8) ; 18 (viii. 4) ; 26 (iii. 6) ; 28 (xi. 5 
 
 xvii. 2) ; 28, 29 (xvii. i). Chap. XIII. 18 (iii. 4) 
 XIV. 6 (x. 4, xxi. 2) ; 13, 14 (xxi. 3) ; 16 (viii. 8) ; 16 
 
 17 (xvii. 2). 
 XV. 4-6 (xvi. 3) ; 5 (ix. 3) ; 8 (xvi. 2) ; 13, 15 (viii. 8) 
 26 (ii. 3). Chap. XVI. 2 (xvi. l) ; 13, 14 (i. 5). 
 XVII. 2 (viii. 5) ; 3 (x. 4) ; 6 (viii. i, 8) ; 9 (iii. 6) ; 11, 
 
 24 (xvii. 2) ; 17 (viii. 8, xiii. i) ; 20 (xxi. 4). 
 XVIII. 36 (xxxi. 5). Chap. XIX. 11 (iii. i). 
 XX. 21-23 (xxx. 2) ; 25, 27 (viii. 4). 
 XXI. 15-17 (v. 5). 
 
 ACTS. 
 
 (92 Citations.) 
 
 I. II (viii. 4) ; 25 (xxxii. i). 
 II. 23 (iii. I, v. 2, 4) ; 23, 24, 27 (viii. 4) ; 36 (viii. 
 
 3) ; 38, 39 (x- 3» xxviii. 4) ; 38, 41 (xxviii. 6) ; 
 39 (xxv. 2) ; 41 (xxviii. 3) ; 42 (xxi. 5, xxi. 6) ; 
 42, 46 (xxvi. 2) ; 44, 45 (xxvi. 2) ; 47 (xxv. 2). 
 
 III. 19 (xxxiii. 2) ; 21 (xxix. 6, xxxii. i) ; 22 (viii. i). 
 
 IV. 12 (x. 3, 4) ; 19 (xx. 2) ; 27, 28 (iii. i, v. 4). 
 V. 4 (xxvi. 3) ; 29 (xx. 2). Chap. VII. 2 (ii. 2). . 
 
 VIII. 13, 23 (xxviii. 5) ; 37, 38 (xxviii. 4). 
 
 X. I, 2 (xxiii. 2) ; 2 (xxi. 6) ; 2, 4, 22, 31, 45, 47 
 (xxviii. 5) ; 33 (xxi. 5) ; 38 (viii. 3) ; 42 (viii. 
 
 4) ; 44 (xi. i). 
 
 XI. 18 (xv. i) ; 29, 30 (xxvi. 2). 
 
 XIII. 36 (xxxii. i) ; 37 (viii. 4) ; 38, 39 (xi. i) ; 39 (xix. 
 6) ; 42 (xxi. 6). 
 
APPENDIX. 205 
 
 Chapter 
 
 XIV. II, 15 (ii. i); 16 (v. 4). 
 
 XV. 2, 4, 6 (xxxi. i) ; 2, 4, 22, 23, 25 (xxxi. 2) ; 10, 11 
 (xx. i) ; II (vii. 6, xiv. 2) ; 15 (i. 8, 9) ; 15-16 
 (i. 9) ; 15. 19. 24, 27-31 (xxxi. 3) ; 18 (ii. 2, iii. 
 2, V. i) ; 21 (xxi. 5). 
 XVI. 4 (xxxi. 3) ; 31 (xiv. 2) ; 33 (xxviii. 3). 
 XVII. II (xx. 2, xxxi. 4) ; 24 (iv. i, xxi. i) ; 24, 25 (ii. 
 2, vii. I) ; 25 (xxi. i) ; 25, 26, 28 (v. i) 26 ; 
 (vi. 3) ; 30, 31 (xv. 3) ; 31 (viii- h xxxiii. i). 
 XX. 7 (xxi. 7, xxix. 3) ; 17, 28 (xxx. i) ; 21 (xv. i) ; 28 
 (viii. 7) ; 32 (xiii. i, xiv. i). 
 
 XXIII. 12, 14 (xxii. 7). 
 
 XXIV. 14 (xiv. 2) ; 15 (xxxii. 3). 
 XXV. 9, 10, II (xxiii. 4). 
 
 XXVI. 6, 7 (xvi. 3) ; 18 (x. i, xx. i). 
 XXVII. 31. 44 (v. 3). 
 XXVIII. 25 (i. 10); 26, 27 (v. 6). 
 
 J^OMANS. 
 
 (185 Citations.) 
 
 I. 3, 4 (viii. 2); II, 12, 14 (xxvi. i) ; 16, 17 (xiv. 
 
 i) ; 19, 20 (i. i) ; 20 (iv. i, xxi. i) ; 24, 26, 28 
 
 (v. 6) ; 25 (xxi. 2) ; 32 (i. i, xx. 4). 
 
 II. I (i. i) ; 5, 6 (xxxiii. 2) ; 14, 15 (i. i, iv. 2, xix. 
 
 i) ; 15 (vi. 6) ; 16 (xxxiii. i) ; 28, 29 (xxvii. 3). 
 
 III. 2 (i. 3) ; 9, 19 (vi. 6); 10-12 (vi. 4) ; io-r9 (vi. 
 
 2) ; 10, 12 (ix. 3) ; 20 (xvi. 5, xix. 6) ; 20, 21 
 (vii. 3) ; 21-23, 30 (vii. 6) ; 22, 24, 25, 27, 28 
 (xi. i) ; 23 (vi. 2) ; 24 (xi. i, 3, xv. 3) ; 25, 26 
 (viii. 5) ; 26 (xi. 3) ; 28 (xi. 2) ; 31 (xix. 5). 
 
 IV. 2, 4, 6 (xvi. 5) ; 3, 6, 16, 17, 23, 24 (vii. 6) ; 5-8 
 
 (xi. i) ; II (vii. 5, xiv. i, xxvii. i, xxviii. 1,5); 
 
 11, 12 (xxviii. 4) ; 19, 20 (xiv. 3) ; 19-21 (v.3) ; 
 22-24 (xi. 6) ; 25 (xi. 4). 
 
 V. I (xi. 2) ; I, 2 (xx. i); i, 2, 5 (xviii. 3) ; 2 (xii. 
 i) ; 2,5 (xviii. i) ; 6 (vi. 4, ix. 3) ; 8-10, 19 (xi. 
 
 3) ; 12 (xv. 4) ; 12-20 (vii. 2) ; 12, 15-19 (vi. 3) ; 
 
 12, 19 (xix. l) ; 17-19 (xi. I) ; 19 (viii. 5). 
 
20G APPENDIX. 
 
 Chapter 
 
 VI. I, 2 (xviii. 3) ; 3, 4 (xxvii. I, xxviii. i) ; 5 (xxviii. i) ; 
 5, 6 (xiii. I, xxvi. i) ; 6, 14 (xiii. i) ; 9 (viii. 4) ; 
 
 12, 14 (xix. 6) ; 14 (xiii. 3, xix. 6, xx. i) ; 16-18 
 (x. i) ; 18, 22 (ix. 4) ; 22 (xvi. 2) ; 23 (vi. 6, xv. 4). 
 
 VII. 2, 3 (xxiv. 5) ; 5, 7, 8, 25 (vi. 5) ; 7 (xix. 6) ; 9, 14, 
 
 24 (xix. 6) ; 12 (ii. 2) ; 12, 22, 25 (xix. 6) ; 14, 17, 
 18, 23 (vi. 5) ; 15, 18 (xvi. 5) ; 15, 18, 19, 21, 23 
 (ix. 4) ; 18 (vi. 4) ; 18, 23 (xiii. 2) ; 23 (xiii. 3) ; 24, 
 
 25 (xix. 6). 
 
 VIII. 1 (xv. 4, xix. 6, XX. i) ; i, 12 (xviii. 3) ; 2 (x. l) ; 3 
 (vii. 3) ; 3; 4 (xix. 6) ; 7 (vi. 4, ix. 3, x. 2) ; 9 (x. 
 3) ; 9, 14 (viii. 8) ; 13 (xiii. i) ; 14, 15 (xx. 1) ; 15 
 (xii. i) ; 15, 16 (xviii. 2) ; 17 (xii. i) ; 18 (xvi. 5) ; 20 
 (vi. 6) ; 23-25 (xxxiii. 3) ; 26 (xxi. 3) ; 28 (v. 7, xx. 
 1) ; 28-39 (iii- 6) ; 30 (iii- 5> 6, x. i , xi. i , 4) ; 32 (xi. 
 3) ; 33 (iii- 8) ; 33-39 (xvii. 2) ; 34 (viii. 4, 8). 
 IX. 5 (ii. 2, viii. 2) ; 11 (x. 2) ; 11, 13, 16 (iii. 5) ; 11, 
 
 13, 16, 18 (iii. 2) ; 15, 18 (iii. i) ; 16 (xvi. 7) ; 17 
 (v. i) ; 17, 18, 21, 22 (iii. 7); 20 (iii. 8) ; 22, 23 
 (iii. 3, xxxiii. 2). 
 
 X. 2 (xvi. i) ; 5 (vii. 2, xix. i) ; 6, 9 (vii. 3) ; 12 (xxi. 
 i); 14, 17 (xiv. i); 15 (xxiii. 3) ; 17 (xx. 2). 
 XI. 3, 4 (xxv. 4) ; 5, 6, 20 (iii. 8) ; 7, 8 (v. 6) ; 7 (x. l) ; 
 16 (xxv. 2) ; 18-22 (xxv. 5) ; 32 (vi. i) ; 32-34 (v. 
 4); 33 (iii. I, 8 [twice] ) ; 33, 34 (ii. 2) ; 36 (ii. 
 I, 2). Chap. XII. 2 (xvi. i). 
 
 XIII. I (xxiii. 4) ; I, 2, 4 (xxiii. 2) ; 1-4 (xxiii. i) ; 1-8 
 
 (xx. 4) ; 3,4 (xx. 4) ; 4 (xxiii. 2) ; 5 (xxiii. 4) ; 6, 
 7 (xxiii. 4) ; 8, 9 (xix. 2) ; 8-10 (xix. 5). 
 
 XIV. 4 (xx. 2) ; 9, 10 (viii. 4) ; 10, 12 (xxxiii. i) ; 17 (xviii. 
 
 3) ; 23 (xx. 2). 
 XV. 4 (i. I, 8) ; 8 (xxvii. l) ; 9-12 (xxv. 2) ; 13 (xviii. 3) ; 
 18, 19 (viii. 8). 
 XVI. 26 (xiv. 2) ; 27 (ii. i). 
 
 /. CORINTHIANS. 
 
 (88 Citations.) 
 
 I. 2 (xxv. 2) ; 21 (i. i) ; 30 (viii. l) ; 30, 31 (xi. i). 
 II. 5 (xxxi. 4) ; 9, 10, 12 (i. 6) ; 10-12 (i. 5) ; lo, 12 (x. 
 i) ; 12 (xviii. 3) ; 13, 14 (i. i) ; 14 (ix. 3, x. 2). 
 
APPENDIX. 207 
 
 Chapter 
 
 III. 21, 22, 23 (xxvi. l). 
 
 IV. I (xxvii. 4) ; i, 2 (xxiii. 3). 
 
 V. I (xxiv. 4) ; I, 5, II, 13 (xx. 4) ; 4, 5, 13 (xxx. 4) ; 
 6, 7 (xxv. 4) ; 6, 7, 13 (xxix. 8) ; 7 (vii. 5, xix. 3) ; 
 the whole chapter (xxx. 3). 
 VI. 3 (xxxiii. i) ; II (xiii. i). 
 
 VII. 2, 9 (xxii. 7, xxiv. 2) ; 5 (xxi. 5) ; 14 (xxv. 2, xxviii. 
 4); 15 (xxiv. 6); 19 (xix. 6); 23 (xx. 2, xxii. 7); 
 36-38 (xxiv. 3) ; 39 (xxiv. 3). 
 VIII. 4, 6 (ii. i) ; 6 (xxvi. 3). Chap. IX. 8, 9, 10 (xix. 4). 
 X. 1-4 (vii. 5, xxvii. 5); 6 (xxix. 4) ; 16 (xxvii. i, xxix. 
 7) ; 16, 17, 21 (xxix. i) ; 16, 21 (xxvii. i). 
 XI. 13, 14 (i. 6) ; 20 (xxvi. 2, xxix. 3) ; 20, 23 (xxvii. 4) ; 
 23 (xxvii. i) ; 23-25 (vii. 6) ; 23-26 (xxix. i, 3) ; 
 23-29 (xxi. 5) ; 24-26 (xxix. 2, 6) ; 25 (vii. 4) ; 
 25, 26 (xxvii. i) ; 25-29 (xxix. 4) ; 26-28 (xxix. 
 5) ; 27-29 (xxix. 8) ; 27 seq. (xxx. 3) ; 28 (xxix. 
 7) ; 30, 32 (xi. 5) ; 32 (xvii. 3). 
 XII. 7 (xxvi. i) ; 13 (xxv. 2) ; 13 (xxvii. 3, xxviii. i, xxix. 
 i) ; 28 (xxv. 3, xxx. i) ; 28, 29 (xxiii. 3). 
 
 XIII. 3 (xvi. 7) ; 12 (xxv. 5). 
 
 XIV. 6, 9, II, 12, 24, 27, 28 (i. 8) ; 14 (xxi. 3) ; 26, 40 (i. 6). 
 XV. 3, 4 (viii. 4) ; 21, 22, 45, 49 (vi. 3); 25, 26 (viii. 8) ; 
 
 42 (xxxii. 3) ; 42-44 (xxxii. 2) ; 51, 52 (xxxii. 2) ; 
 54-57 (xx. i). Chap. XVI. I, 2 (xxi. 7) ; 22 (x. 4). 
 
 //. CORINTHIANS. 
 
 (38 Citations ) 
 
 I. 12 (xviii. 2) ; 21, 22 (xviii. 2) ; 23 (xxii. I, 2) ; 24 
 
 (xx. 2, xxxi. 4). 
 II. 6, 7, 8 (xxx. 2) ; 8 (xv. 6) ; 15, 16 (v. 6). 
 III. 3, 6 (x. I) ; 5 (xvi. 3) ; 6-9 (vii. 5) ; 13, 17, 18 (xx. 
 
 i) ; 18 (xiii. 3). Chap. IV. 13 (viii. 8, xiv. i). 
 V. I, 6, 8 (xxxii. i) ; 10 (xxxiii. i) ; 10, 11 (xxxiii. 3) ; 
 
 19, 21 (xi. i) ; 21 (xi. 3). 
 VI, 14 (xxiv. 3) ; 14-16 (xxix. 8) ; 16 (xix. 6) ; 17 (xix. 
 3) ; 18 (xii. i). 
 VII. I (xiii. I, 3, xviii. 3) ; u (xv. 2). 
 
208 APPENDIX. 
 
 Chapter 
 
 VIII. 12 (xvi. 6) ; the chapter (xxvi. 2). 
 
 IX. 2 (xvi. 2) ; the chapter (xxvi. 2). 
 
 XI. 3 (vi. i). Chap. XII. 7-9 (v. 5). 
 XIII. 14 (ii. 3, xxi. 2). 
 
 GALATIANS. 
 
 (53 Citations.) 
 
 I. 4 (xx. i) ; 6-8 (x. 4) ; 8, 9 (i. 6) ; 10 (xx. 2). 
 II. 4, 5 (xx. 2) ; 16 (xi. I, 4, xix. 6 [twice]) ; 20 (xiv. 2). 
 
 III. 7-9, 14 (vii. 5) ; 8 (xi. 4) ; 9, 13, 14 (xi. 6) ; 9, 14 (xx. 
 
 I, xxviii. 4) ; 10 (vi. 6, vii. 2) ; 10, 12 (xix. i) ; 11 
 (vii. 3) ; 12 (vii. 2) ; 13 (xix. 6, xx. i) ; 14, 16 (vii. 
 6) ; 17 (xxvii. i) ; 21 (vii, 3, xix. 7) ; 24 (xix. 6) ; 
 27 (xxviii. I, 6). 
 
 IV. I, 2, 3 (xix. 3) ; I, 2, 3, 6,-] (xx. i) ; 4 (viii. 2 [twice], 
 
 4, xi. 4) ; 4, 5 (viii. 6, xii. i, xix. 6) ; 6 (ii. 3, xii. i). 
 V. I (xx. 1,2); 6 (xi. 2) ; 13 (xx. 3) ; 14, 16, 18-23 (xix. 
 6) ; 17 (vi. 5, ix. 4, xiii. 2, xvi. 4, 5) ; 22, 23 (xvL 
 5) ; 24 (xiii. i). Chap. VI. 10 (xxvi. ij. 
 
 EPHESIANS. 
 
 (81 Citations.) 
 
 I. 3, 4 (xviii. 3) ; 4, 5 (iii- 6) ; 4, 9 (iii- 5) ; 4, 9> n ("i- 
 5) ; 5 (iii. 6, xii. i) ; 5, 6 (iii. 3) ; 6 (iii. 8, xvi. 6) ; 
 6, 12 (iii. 5) ; 7 (xi. i, 3, xv. 3) ; 7-9 (viii. 8) ; 10, 
 II (x. i) ; 10, 22, 23 (xxv. i) ; II (ii. i, iii. i, v. i) ; 
 II, 14 (viii. 5) ; 17, 18 (x. i) ; 17-19 (xiv. i) ; 19 
 (x. i) ; 22 (xxv. 6). 
 
 II. I (vi. 2) ; 1-5 (x. I) ; 1,5 (ix. 3) ; 2, 3 (vi. 4) ; 2-5 
 (ix. 3) ; 3 (vi. 6) ; 4, 5, 8, 9 (x. 2) ; 5 (x. 2) ; 5, 6 
 (xxvi. I) ; 7 (xi. 3) ; 7, 8 (xi. i) ; 8 (xiv. i) ; 8, 9 
 (xvi. 5) ; 10 (iii. 6, xvi. 2) ; 12 (x. 4) ; 13, 14 (xviii. 
 2); 15 (xix. 3); 15-19 (vii. 6); 16 (xix. 3); 18 
 (xxi. 2) ; 19 (xxv. 2) ; 20 (i. 2, 10, xxxi. 4). 
 
 III. 10 (v. i) ; 12 (xii. i) ; 15 (xxv. 2); 16-19 (xiii. i, 
 xxvi. i) ; 17-19 (xviii. 3). 
 
APPENDIX. 209 
 
 Chapter 
 
 IV. lo (xxxii. i) ; ii, 12 (xxiii. 3) ; 11-13 (xxv. 3) ; 13 (ix. 
 
 $) ; 15, 16 (xiii. 3, xxvi. i) ; 18 (vi. 6) ; 24 (iv. 2) ; 
 
 28 (xxii. 7, xxvi. 3) ; 30 (xii. i, xvii. 3, xviii. 2) ; 30, 
 
 31 (xviii. 4). 
 V. 2 (viii. 5, xi. 3) ; 19 (xxi. 5) ; 23 (viii. i) ; 23, 27, 32 
 
 (xxv. i) ; 25, 26 (xxviii. 6) ; 26 (xiii. i). 
 VI. 2 (xix. 5) ; 2, 3 (xix. 6) ; 16 (xiv. 3) ; 18 (xxi. 3, 6). 
 
 PHILIPPIANS. 
 
 (18 Citations.) 
 
 I. 6 (xvii. i) ; II (xvi. 2) ; 15, 16, 18 (xvi. 7) ; 23 (xxxii. i). 
 II. 6 (viii. 2) ; 8 (viii. 4 [twice]) ; 12 (xvi. 3) ; 13 (ix. 4, x. 
 I, xvi. 3). 
 
 III. 9 (xi. i) ; 10 (xiii. i, xxvi. i) ; 12 (xiii. 2) ; 21 (xxxii. 3). 
 
 IV. 6 (xxi. 3) ; 13 (xvi. 3). 
 
 COLOSSIANS, 
 
 (31 Citations.) 
 
 I. II (xiii. i) ; 13 (ix. 4, xx. i) ; 16 (iv. i) ; 18 (xxv. i, 
 6) ; 18, 19 (xxvi. 3) ; 19 (viii. 3) ; 19, 20 (viii. 5) ; 21 
 (vi. 4) ; 21,22 (xi. 4). 
 II. 2 (xiv. 3) ; 3 (viii. 3) ; 9 (viii. 2) ; 11, 12 (vii. 5, xxviii. 
 1,4); 13 (ix. 3) ; 14, 16, 17 (xix. 3) ; 15 (viii. 8) ; 17 
 (vii. 6, xix. 3) ; 18 (xxi. 2) ; 19 (xxvi. i) ; 20-23 (xx. 
 2) ; 23 (xxi. i). 
 
 III. 10 (iv. 2) ; 16 (i. 8, xxi. 5) ; 17 (xxi. 2). 
 
 IV. 2 (xxi. 3). 
 
 /. THESSALONIANS. 
 
 (11 Citations.) 
 
 I. 9 (ii. i) ; 10 (xx. i). Chap. II. 13 (i. 4, xiv. 2). 
 IV. 17 (xxxii. 2). 
 
 V. 9 (iii. 5) ; 9, 10 (iii. 6) ; 11, 14 (xxvi. i) ; 12 (xxx. i, 
 4) ; 23 (xiii. 2). 
 14 
 
210 APPENDIX. 
 
 //. THESSALONIANS, 
 
 (15 Citations.) 
 Chapter 
 
 ^- 5-7 (xxxiii. 3) ; 7-10 (xxxiii. 2) ; 9 (vi. 6). 
 II. 2 (i. 6) ; 3, 4, 8, 9 (xxv. 6) ; 4 (xxiii. 4) ; 10-12 (v. 6) ; 
 
 13 (iii. 6 [twice], xiii. i) ; 13, 14 (x. i). 
 III. 3 (xvii. 2) ; 6, 14, 15 (xxix. 8, xxx. 4) ; 14 (xx. 4). 
 
 / TIMOTHY. 
 
 (30 Citations.) 
 
 I. 13, 15 (xv. 5) ; 17 (ii. I [twice]) ; 19, 20 (xx. 4) ; 20 
 (xxx. 3). 
 II. 1,2 (xxi. 4, xxiii. 4, xxxi. 2) ; 2 (xx. 4, xxiii. 2) ; 5 (viii. 
 I, 2, xxi. 2) ; 5,6 (xi. 3) ; 6 (viii. i, xi. 4) ; 8 (xxi. 6). 
 
 III. 15 (i. 5) ; 16 (viii. 2). 
 
 IV. 3 (xxiv. 3) ; 8 (xiv. 2) ; 10 (v. 7). 
 V. 17 (xxx. 1) ; 20 (xxx. 3) ; 21 (iii. 3). 
 
 VI. I (xvi. 2) ; 3-5 (xx. 4) ; 15 (ii. 2 [twice]) ; 15, 16 (xxvi. 3). 
 
 //. TIMOTHY, 
 
 (13 Citations.) 
 
 I. 6 (xvi. 3) ; 9 (iii. 5, x. 2) ; 9, 10 (x. 1). 
 
 II. 12 (xxvi. i) ; 18, 19 (xvii. 2) ; 19 (iii. 4) ; 19, 20 (iii. 
 
 7). 
 
 III. 15 (i. I); 15-17 (i- 6); i6(i. 2, 4). 
 
 IV. 2 (xxi. 5). 
 
 TITUS. 
 
 (20 Citations.) 
 
 I. 3 (xxiii. 4) ; 10, 11, 13 (xx. 4) ; 15 (vi. 2, xvi. 7). 
 II. 5, 9-12 (xvi. 2) ; II, 12, 14 (xviii. 3) ; 14 (iii- 6, xx. i). 
 
 III. 3-5 (ix. 3) ; 4, 5 (x. 2) ; 4-7 (xi- 4) ; 5 (xvi. 7, xxvii. 
 
 2, xxviii. I, 6, 7) ; 5, 7 (xi. i) ; 5-7 (xvi. 5) ; 10 (^x- 
 4, xxx. 4). 
 
APPENDIX. 211 
 
 HEBREWS. 
 
 (84 Citations.) 
 Chapter 
 
 I. I (i. I) ; 1,2 (i. i) ; 2 (iv. i, viii. i) ; 3 (v. i) ; 8, 9, 
 (xxvi. 3) ; 14 (xii. i). 
 
 II. 14, 16, 17 (viii. 2). 
 
 IV. 2 (xxi. 5) ; 13 (ii. 2) ; 14, 16 (xx. i) ; 15 (viii. 2). 
 
 V. 4 (xxiii. 3, xxvii. 4) 5 4, 5 (viii- 3) ; 5» 6 (viii. i) ; 13, 
 
 14 (xiv. 3). 
 
 VI. 4, 5 (x. 4) ; 10 (xvi. 6) ; 11, 12 (xiv. 3, xvi. 3, xviii. 
 
 3) ; II, 19 (xviii. 2) ; 12 (xii. i) ; 16 (xxii. 2) ; 17 
 (iii. i) ; 17, 18 (xviii. 2). 
 VII. 22 (vii. 4, viii. 3) ; 23, 24, 27 (xxix. 2) ; 25 (viii. 4, 
 
 xvii. 2) ; 26 (viii. 3). 
 VIII. 10 (xix. 7) ; the whole chapter (vii. 5). 
 IX. 10, 19-22 (xxviii. 3) ; 12-15 (xvii. 2) ; 12, 15 (viii. 5) ; 
 14 (viii. 7) ; 14, 16 (viii. 5) ; 15-17 (vii. 4) ; 22, 25, 
 26, 28 (xxix. 2) ; 24 (viii. 4) ; the whole chapter 
 (vii. 5, xix. 3). 
 X. I (xix. 3) ; 5-10 (viii. 4) ; 10, 14 (xi. 3, xvii. 2) ; 11, 
 12, 14, 18 (xxix. 2) ; 14 (viii. 5, xi. 5) ; 19-22 (xx. 
 I) ; 22 (xiv. 3) ; 24, 25 (xxvi. 3) ; 25 (xxi. 6) ; 39 
 (xiv. i) ; the whole chapter (vii. 5). 
 XI. 3 (iv. i) ; 4 (xvi. 6) ; 4, 6 (xvi. 7) ; 6 (ii. i) ; 13 (vii. 
 
 5, xiv. 2). 
 XII. 2 (viii. 8, xiv. 3) ; 6 (xii. i) ; 14 (xiii. i) ; 22-28 (vii. 
 6) ; 23 (ix. 5, xxxii. i) ; 24 (viii. 3) ; 28 (xxi. 3,5); 
 28, 29 (xix. 6). 
 XIII. 4 (xxiv. 3) ; 7, 17, 24 (xxx. i) ; 8 (vii. 6, viii. 6, xi. 
 6} ; 17 (xx. 4) ; 20, 21 (xvi. 6, xvii. 2) ; 21 (xvi. i). 
 
 JAMES, 
 
 (21 Citations.) 
 
 I. 6, 7 (xxi. 3) ; 13, 17 (iii. i) ; 13, 14, 17 (v. 4) ; 14 (ix. 
 i); 14, I5(vi. 4); 17 (ii. i); 22 (xxi. 5); 23-25 
 (xix. 6) ; 25 (xix. 2). 
 II. 8 (xix. 5); 8, 10-12 (xix. 2); 10, II (xix. 5); 11 
 (xix. 6) ; 17, 22, 26 (xi. 2) ; 18, 22 (xvi. 2). 
 
 III. 2 (vi. 5). Chap. IV. 12 (xx. 2). 
 
 V. 12 (xxii. 2) ; 13 (xxi. 5) ; 16 (xv. 6, xxi. 3). 
 
212 APPENDIX. 
 
 /. PETER, 
 
 (31 Citations.) 
 Chapter 
 
 I. 2 (iii. 6) ; 2, 19, 20 (xi. 4) ; 3> 4 (xii. i) ; 5 (iii- 6) ; 5> 
 
 9 (xvii. i); 18 (xvi. i) ; 19, 20 (viii. i). 
 II. 2 (xiv, i) ; 5 (xvi. 6, xxi. 3) ; 7, 8 (v. 6) ; 8 (iii. 7) ; 9 
 (xvi. 2) ; II (xiii. 2) ; 12 (xvi. 2) ; 13 (xxiii. 2) ; 13, 
 14 (xix. 4, xxiii. i) ; 13, 14, 16 (xx. 4, xxiii. 4) ; 15 
 (xvi. 2) ; 16 (xx. 3) ; 17 (xxiii. 4). 
 
 III. 7 (xxi. 6) ; 8-12 (xix. 6) ; 18 (viii. 2, 7) ; 19 (xxxii. ij ; 
 
 21 (xxvii. 3). 
 
 IV. 2 (xxii. 7). Chap. V. 7 (xii. i). 
 
 //. PETER, 
 
 (18 Citations.) 
 
 I. 3, 5, 10, II (xvi. 3) ; 4, 5, 10, II (xviii. 2) ; 5-10 (xvi. 
 2) ; 10 (iii. 8 [twice], xvii. i, xviii. 3) ; 19 (i. i) ; 19, 
 21 (i. 4) ; 20, 21 (i. 9); 21 (i. 3). 
 II. I, 10, II (xxiii. 4) ; 4 (viii. 4, xxxiii. i) ; 19 (xx. 3). 
 III. II, 14 (xxxiii. 3) ; 16 (i. 7) ; 18 (xiii. 3). 
 
 /. JOHN, 
 
 (46 Citations.) 
 
 I. 3 (xxvi. i) ; 5 (iii, i) ; 6,^ (xviii. 3) ; 7, 9 (xi- S) ; 8, 
 
 10 (vi. 5) ; 9 (xv. 6) ; 10 (xiii. 2). 
 II. 1,2 (viii. 8, xi. 5, xviii. 3) ; 3 (xviii. i, 2) ; 3, 4, 7, 8 
 (xix. 5) ; 3, 5 (xvi. 2) ; 16 (v. 4) ; 19 (iii. 6, xvii. 2) ; 
 20, 27 (i. 5) ; 27 (xvii. 2). 
 
 III. 2 (ix. 5) ; 2, 3 (xviii. 3) ; 4 (vi. 6) ; 9 (xvii. 1,2, xviii. 
 
 4); 14 (xviii. 2); 14, 18, 19, 21, 24 (xviii. i); 16 
 (viii. 7) ; 16-18 (xxvi. i) ; 17 (xxvi. 2). 
 
 IV. 8, 16 (ii. i); 13 (xviii. 3) ; 18 (xx. i). 
 
 V. 4 (xiii. 3) ; 4, 5 (xiv. 3) ; 7 (ii- 3) ; 9 (i- 4) ; 10 (xiv. 2) ; 
 12 (x. 3 [twice]) ; 13 (xviii. i, 3) ; 14 (xxi. 3, 4) ; 16 
 (xxi. 4) ; 20 (viii. 2). 
 
APPENDIX. 213 
 
 //. JOHN. 
 Verses 
 
 9-1 1 (x. 4) ; 10, II (xx. 4 [twice]). 
 JUDE. 
 
 (9 Citations.) 
 
 4 (iii. 7) ; 6 (viii. 4, xxxiii. i) ; 6, 7 (xxxii. i) ; 8-1 1 
 (xxiii. 4) ; 20-21 (xvi. 3) ; 23 (xix. 3, xxx. 3) ; 24 
 (ix. 5). 
 
 REVELATION, 
 
 (27 Citations.) 
 Chapter 
 
 I. 3 (xxi. 5) ; 10 (xxi. 7). 
 
 II. 2, 14, 15, 20 (xx. 4) ; 4 (xvii. 3) ; the whole chapter 
 
 (xxv. 4, 5). 
 
 III. 9(xx. 4) ; 12 (xii. 1) ; the whole chapter (xxv. 4, 5). 
 
 IV. 8 (ii. I [twice]) ; 11 (ii. 2). Chap. V. 12-14 (ii* 2). 
 VII. 9 (xxv. 2). Chap. XII. 6, 14 (xxv. 4). 
 
 XIII. 6 (xxv. 6) ; 8 (viii. 6) ; 12, 16, 17 (xx. 2) ; 15-17 
 
 (xxiii. 4). 
 
 XIV. 13 (xxi. 4). 
 
 XVII. 12, 16, 17 (xx. 4) ; 14, 16 (xviii. 2). 
 XVIII. 2 (xxv. 5). Chap. XIX. 10 (xxi. 2). 
 XXII. 18, 19 (i. 2) ; 20 (xxxiii. 3). 
 
 Summary of Citations from the New Testament. 
 
 I. The Gospels Matthew 109 ] 
 
 f^}^ ^8'^ 
 
 Luke 41 I 
 
 John 80 J 
 
 II. Acts 92 
 
 III. General Epistles James 21 
 
 1 Peter 31 \ .^ 
 
 2 Peter 18 [^9 
 
 1 John 46 j I- 128 
 
 2 John 3 M9 
 
 3 John o ) I 
 
 Jude 9 J 
 
 IV. Revelation 27 
 
 495 
 
I30 
 
 ■66; 
 
 214 APPENDIX. 
 
 V. Pauline Epistles : 
 
 A. Earliest Group. . . Romans 185 
 
 1 Corinthians ... 88 
 
 2 Corinthians ... 38 1 ^ 
 Galatians S3 \ 
 
 1 Thessalonians. 1 1 
 
 2 Thessalonians. 15 J 
 
 B. Epistles of Im- 
 
 prisonment. . .Ephesians 81 1 
 
 PhiHppians 18 1 
 
 Colossians 311 
 
 Philemon oj 
 
 C. Pastoral Epistles . . i Timothy 30 ) 
 
 2 Timothy 13 v 63 
 
 Titus 20 ) 
 
 D. Hebrews 84 
 
 Summary of Citations from the Bible. 
 
 I. The Old Testament 
 
 II. I. The Gospels 248 ) 
 
 2. Other apostolic writings 247 \ 
 
 III. Pauline writings 667 
 
 431 
 495 
 
 Total citations Ij593 
 
Date Due 
 
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