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CALVINISM: PURE AND MIXED 
 
 A DEFENCE 
 
 OF THE 
 
 WESTMINSTER STANDARDS 
 
 BY 
 
 WILLIAM G. T. SHEDD, D.D. 
 
 w 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
 
 1893 
 

 ov" 
 
 Copyright, 1893, by 
 CHAKLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
 
 PRINTING AND BOOKBINDING COMPANY, 
 NEW YORK. 
 
PREFACE 
 
 The object of this work is to define and defend the 
 tenets of Calvinism in their original purity and self-con- 
 sistence, as distinguished from proposed modifications of 
 them for the purpose of an alleged improvement. It has 
 grown out of the proposal introduced into the Northern 
 Presbyterian Church, to revise the Westminster Stand- 
 ards. It contains the substance of a pamphlet which the 
 author published in opposition to this proposal when it 
 was first made, together with discussions of several im- 
 portant subjects that have subsequently come up for ex- 
 amination during the controversy in the Church. Of 
 these, pretention, common and special grace, original sin, 
 infant salvation, the " larger hope," and the inerrancy of 
 Scripture, are the most prominent. The controversy 
 lias disclosed the fact, that some Presbyterians deny that 
 God may justly pass by any of mankind in the bestow- 
 ment of saving grace ; and assert that common grace may 
 become saving grace by the sinner's co-operation, that 
 original sin is not deserving of eternal deatli and there- 
 fore that infants are not liable to it, that the West- 
 minster Standards teach that all the heathen are lost, 
 and that the autographs of the inspired writers contained 
 more or less of error. The writer endeavors to show 
 that the first opinion is fatal to the doctrine of Divine 
 sovereignty in election ; that the second is Arminian syn- 
 
 371538 
 
IV PREFACE 
 
 ergism, not Calvinistic monergism ; that the third de- 
 stroys the doctrine of infant salvation, by making it only 
 a quasi-salvation and a matter of obligation on the part of 
 God ; and that the fourth and fifth are misstatements of 
 the contents of the Confession. 
 
 When the revision of the Standards was first suggested 
 by a few presbyteries, the great majority of the denomina- 
 tion had expressed no desire for it, and the measure seemed 
 to be the scheme of only a dissatisfied few. But it soon 
 appeared that such dissatisfaction with the denomina- 
 tional creed was considerably widespread. The presby- 
 teries voted to revise their creed by a decisive majority. 
 This majority soon showed itself to be composed of a con- 
 servative and a radical wing. The former have endeav- 
 ored to revise in conformity with the vote of the General 
 Assembly, that no changes shall be made that impair the 
 integrity of the Calvinistic system. The latter have pro- 
 posed alterations, relating principally to the doctrines of 
 election and pretention, which, the writer endeavors to 
 prove, seriously impair it. 
 
 The history of the revision movement, thus far, con- 
 firms the author in his opinion, expressed at the very first, 
 that the revision of a creed is latitadinarian in its nature 
 and influence. The proposal to revise a creed is commonly 
 made, not for the purpose of preserving its strictness, and 
 still less to make it stricter, but in order to make it 
 looser or more " liberal," as the phrase is. This explains 
 the fact, that there has never been a revision of any of 
 the great creeds of Christendom. When latitudinarian 
 parties have arisen in the Church, and have attempted to 
 change the received symbols, the result has been that new 
 creeds were formed for the new parties, and the old re- 
 mained unaltered. The Semi-Arians and Arians could 
 not induce the Ancient Church to revise the Apostles', 
 
PREFACE V 
 
 Nicene, and Constantinopolitan creeds, in accordance with 
 their views of an improved Trinitarianism. The Middle 
 Ages witnessed no attempts to revise the great oecumen- 
 ical symbols. Kone of the creeds of the Reformation, 
 Lutheran or Calvinistie, have been revised. The only 
 examples that border on revision are the Augsburg Yar- 
 iata and the Formula Concordiee. The first was only the 
 individual work of Melanchthon, who wished to introduce 
 synergism into the Lutheran monergism, and not that of a 
 church demanding it ; and the last claimed to be, and ac- 
 tually was, a closely reasoned and logical development of 
 the Augsburg Confession — the onlv instance that we recall 
 in which revision resulted in a stricter orthodoxy. The 
 reduction of the Forty-two Articles of Edward the Sixth 
 to the Thirty-nine Articles of Elizabeth, cannot be called 
 a revision. The attempt of the Remonstrants to Armini- 
 anize the Heidelberg and Belgic Confessions was a fail- 
 ure, and resulted in the Five Articles of the new creed. 
 
 These facts go to show that revision, speaking generally, 
 means the alteration of doctrinal statements by injecting 
 into them more or less of foreign elements not properly 
 belonging to them, in order to meet a change of views in 
 a larger or smaller part of the denomination. By this 
 method, Calvinism, or Arminianism, or Socinianism, or 
 any creed whatever, becomes mixed instead of pure; a 
 combination of dissimilar materials, instead of a simple 
 uncompounded unity. This is the destruction of that self- 
 consistence which is the necessary constituent of true 
 science, and indispensable to permanent power and in- 
 fluence. The purest and most unmixed Socinianism, Ar- 
 minianism, Lutheranism, or Calvinism, is the strongest in 
 the long run. 
 
 While the author contends that such is the nature and 
 tendency of creed -revision, he believes that many of those 
 
Vi PREFACE 
 
 who are advocating a revision of the Westminster Stand- 
 ards have no desire to weaken their statements or their 
 influence. The distinction between doctrines and per- 
 sons, projects and their advocates, is a valid one. One 
 may have no confidence in a doctrine or project, and yet 
 may have confidence in a particular advocate of it, because 
 a person may be different in his spirit and intention from 
 the nature and tendency of his doctrine or project, while 
 this is a fixed quantity. Coleridge, in a conversation with 
 a Unitarian friend, said : " I make the greatest difference 
 between ans and isms. I should deal insincerely with 
 you, if I said that I thought Unitarianism is Christianity ; 
 but God forbid that I should doubt that you and many 
 other Unitarians are in a practical sense very good Chris- 
 tians." ("Table Talk," April 4, 1832.) "When the opponent 
 of revision asserts that revision is anti-Calvinistic in its 
 logic and tendency, he does not assert that all of its advo- 
 cates are anti-Calvinists. The writer believes that the 
 natural effect of the proposed changes in the Confession, 
 especially those of the radical wing, will be to w r eaken and 
 break down the Calvinistic system contained in it, and 
 endeavors to prove it ; but he does not believe or sa} r that 
 this is the desire and intention of all who urge them. 
 
 The spirit of revision, it is said, is " in the air," and 
 this is assigned as a reason why it should be stimulated 
 and strengthened. This would also be a reason for the 
 increase of malaria. It is undoubtedly true that the de- 
 sire to revise the Calvinistic creed is pervading Pan- 
 Presbyterianism to a degree not imagined at first. If it 
 continues to increase, there can be little doubt that the 
 historical Calvinism will be considerably modified ; and 
 doctrinal modification is an inclined plane. In an age of 
 materialism in philosophy, and universalism in religion, 
 when the Calvinistic type of doctrine is more violently 
 
PREFACE Vll 
 
 opposed than any other of the evangelical creeds, because 
 of its firm and uncompromising nature, the Presbyterian 
 Church should not revise the creed from which it has de- 
 rived its past solidarity and power, but should reaffirm it ; 
 and non-revision is reaffirmation. 
 
 The aim of the author is twofold : first, to explain some 
 of the more difficult points in Calvinism, and thereby 
 promote the reaffirmation of the Westminster Standards 
 pure and simple, precisely as they were adopted by both 
 schools in the reunion of 1870, instead of the revision of 
 them as now proposed, which had it been urged at that 
 time would have been fatal to the cause of reunion ; and 
 secondly, to justify and defend before the human under- 
 standing, that intellectual and powerful system of theol- 
 ogy which had its origin in the Biblical studies and per- 
 sonal experience of the two most comprehensive and 
 scientific theologians of Christendom, Aurelius Augus- 
 tine and John Calvin. 
 
 New York, February, 1893. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Inexpediency op the Revision of the Westminster Con- 
 fession, 1 
 
 Objections to the Revision of the Westminster Con- 
 fession, 13 
 
 Are there Doctrinal Errors in the Westminster Con- 
 fession ? . . .18 
 
 The Westminster Standards and the Universal Offer 
 of Mercy, 24 
 
 The Meaning and Value of the Doctrine of Decrees, . 30 
 
 Preterition Necp:ssary to the Sovereignty of God in 
 Election, . . . .72 
 
 Preterition and the Lopsided View of the Divine De- 
 cree, 78 
 
 The Double Predestination to Holiness and Sin, . . 88 
 
 Common and Special Grace, 9G 
 
 The True Proportion in a Creed between the Univer- 
 sal and the Special Love of God, 107 
 
 Infant Salvation as Related to Original Sin, . . .112 
 
 The Westminster Standards and the " Larger Hope," . 121 
 
 The Westminster Affirmation of the Original Inerrancy 
 of the Scriptures, 137 
 
 Calvinism and the Bible, 151 
 
 Denominational Honesty and Honor, 158 
 
CALVINISM: PUKE AND MIXED 
 
 A DEFENCE 
 
 OP THE 
 
 WESTMINSTER STANDARDS. 
 
 i. 
 
 INEXPEDIENCY OF THE REVISION OF THE WESTMINSTER 
 CONFESSION. 1 
 
 The question whether the Westminster Confession 
 shall be revised, has been referred to the whole Church 
 represented by the presbyteries. The common sentiment 
 of the denomination must determine the matter. The 
 expression of opinion during the few months prior to the 
 presbyterial action is, therefore, of consequence. It is 
 desirable that it should be a full expression of all varieties 
 of views, and as a contribution towards it, we purpose 
 to assign some reasons why the revision of the Confession 
 is not expedient. 
 
 1. In the first place it is inexpedient, because in its ex- 
 isting form as drawn up by the Westminster Assembly it 
 has met, and well met, all the needs of the Church for the 
 past two centuries. The Presbyterian Church in the 
 United States since 1700 has passed through a varied and 
 sometimes difficult experience. The controversies in the 
 
 1 New York Evangelist, September 5, 1889. 
 
« » • 
 
 2 v.'i ?•*:.« : cAIivwisM.:../ 
 
 beginning between the Old and New Lights, and still 
 more the vehement disputes that resulted in the division 
 of the Church in 1837, have tried the common symbol as 
 severely as it is ever likely to be. But through them all 
 both theological divisions were content with the Confes- 
 sion and Catechisms as they stood, and both alike claimed 
 to be true to them. Neither party demanded a revision 
 on any doctrinal points ; and both alike found in them a 
 satisfactory expression of their faith. What is there in 
 the Presbyterian Church of to-day that necessitates any 
 different statement of the doctrine of decrees, of atone- 
 ment, of regeneration, or of punishment, from that ac- 
 cepted by the Presbyterian Church of 1837, or 1789 ? Are 
 the statements upon these points any more liable to mis- 
 conception or misrepresentation by non-Calvinists now 
 than they were fifty or a hundred years ago ? Are there 
 any more "weak consciences" requiring softening expla- 
 nations and relaxing clauses in the Church of to-day than 
 in former periods? And with reference to the allowable 
 differences of theological opinion within the Presbyterian 
 Church, is not a creed that was adopted and defended by 
 Charles Hodge and Albert Barnes sufficiently broad to 
 include all who are really Calvinistic and Presbyterian in 
 belief ? What is there, we repeat, in the condition of the 
 Presbyterian Church of to-day that makes the old Con- 
 fession of the past two hundred years inadequate as a doc- 
 trinal Standard ? All the past successes and victories of 
 Presbyterian ism have been accomplished under it. Suc- 
 cess in the past is guaranty for success in the future. Is 
 it not better for the Church to work on the very same old 
 base, in the very same straight line ? 
 
 2. Revision is inexpedient, because the reunion of the 
 two divisions of the Church was founded upon the Con- 
 fession as it now stands. A proposition to unite the two 
 
PURE AXD MIXED 3 
 
 branches of Presbyterianism by first revising the "West- 
 minster documents would have failed, because in the revi- 
 sion individual and party preferences would have shown 
 themselves. But when the Standards pure and simple 
 were laid down as the only terms of union, the whole mass 
 of Presbyterians flowed together. It is to be feared that if 
 a revision of the Confession should take place, there will be 
 a dissatisfied portion of the Church who will prefer to re- 
 main upon the historic foundation ; that the existing har- 
 mony will be disturbed ; and that the proposed measures 
 for union with other Presbyterian bodies will fall through. 
 3. Revision is inexpedient, because it will introduce 
 new difficulties. The explanations will need to be ex- 
 plained. The revision that is called for is said by its 
 more conservative advocates, not to be an alteration of 
 the doctrine of the Confession, but an explanation only. 
 Now good and sufficient explanations of a creed require 
 more space than can be afforded in a concise symbol in- 
 tended for use in inducting officers and members. Such 
 full and careful explanations have been made all along 
 from the beginning, and the Presbvterian Board of Pub- 
 lication has issued a large and valuable library of them. 
 No one need be in any doubt respecting the meaning of 
 the Confession who will carefully peruse one or more of 
 them. He who is not satisfied with the Westminster doc- 
 trine as so explained, will not be satisfied with it at all. 
 But if brief explanations are inserted into the Confession 
 itself, their brevity will inevitably expose them to mis- 
 understanding and misconception. Take an illustration. 
 An able minister and divine, whose Calvinism is unim- 
 peachable, suggests that Confession iii. 3 shall read : 
 " By the decree of God, for the manifestation of his 
 glory, some men and angels are predestinated unto ever- 
 lasting life, and others foreordained [for their sins] to 
 
4 CALVINISM : 
 
 everlasting death." If the clause in brackets is inserted 
 without further explanation, the article might fairly and 
 naturally be understood to teach that the reason why God 
 passes by a sinner in the bestowment of regenerating 
 grace is the sinner's sin. But St. Paul expressly says that 
 the sinner's sin is not the cause of his non-election to re- 
 generation. " The children being not yet born, neither 
 having done any good or evil, it was said, The elder 
 shall serve the younger. Esau have I hated" (Rom. 9: 
 11-13). The reason for the difference between the elect 
 and non-elect is not the holiness or the sin of either of 
 them, but God's sovereign good pleasure. " He hath 
 mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will 
 he hardeneth" (Rom. 9 : 18). An explanation like this, 
 without further explanation such as the proposer would 
 undoubtedly make, would not only contradict Scripture, 
 but change the Calvinistic doctrine into the Arminian. 
 The reason for non-election would no longer be secret and 
 sovereign, but known and conditional. All this liability 
 to misconstruction is avoided by the Confession itself as 
 it now stands. For in Confession iii. 7, after saying that 
 the " passing by " in the bestowment of regenerating 
 grace is an act of God's sovereign pleasure, " whereby he 
 extendeth or withholdeth mercy as he pleaseth," it then 
 adds that " the ordaining to dishonor and wrath " is " for 
 sin." Sin is here represented as the reason for the judi- 
 cial act of punishing, but not for the sovereign act of not 
 regenerating. The only reason for the latter, our Lord 
 gives in his, " Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in 
 thy sight." 
 
 Other illustrations might be given of the difficulty of 
 avoiding misconception when a systematic creed is sought 
 to be explained, particularly in its difficult points, by the 
 brief interpolation of words and clauses. The method is 
 
PURE AND MIXED 
 
 too short. More space is required than can he spared. 
 It is better, therefore, to let a carefully constructed and 
 concisely phrased creed like the Westminster stand ex- 
 actly as it was drawn up by the sixty-nine commissioners, 
 in the five weekly sessions for nearly nine years, and have 
 it explained, qualified, and defended in published trea- 
 tises, in sermons, and especially in catechetical lectures. 
 Had the ministry been as faithful as it should in years 
 past in catechetical instruction, there would be little dif- 
 ficulty in understanding the Westminster creed. The 
 remedy needed is in this direction, not in that of a re- 
 vision. 
 
 4. Revision is inexpedient, because there is no end to 
 the process. It is like the letting out of water. The doc- 
 trine of the divine decrees is the particular one selected 
 by the presbytery whose request has brought the subject 
 of revision before the General Assembly. But this doc- 
 trine runs entirely through the Westminster documents, 
 so that if changes were made merely in the third chapter 
 of the Confession, it would be wholly out of harmony 
 with the remainder. Effectual calling, regeneration, per- 
 severance of the saints, are all linked in with the divine 
 decree. The most cursory perusal will show that a revi- 
 sion of the Confession on this one subject would amount 
 to an entire recasting of the creed. 
 
 5. Revision is inexpedient, because it may abridge the 
 liberty of interpretation now afforded by the Confession. 
 As an example of the variety in explanation admitted by 
 the creed as it now stands, take the statement that " God 
 the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, in the beginning, 
 created or made from nothing the world, and all things 
 therein, in the space of six days." He who holds the 
 patristic view that the days of Genesis were periods, and 
 he who holds the modern opinion that the days were 
 
6 CALVINISM : 
 
 solar, can subscribe to the Westminster statement. But 
 if revised in the interest of either view, the subscriber is 
 shut up to it alone. Another example is found in the 
 statement respecting the guilt of Adam's sin. The advo- 
 cate of natural union, or of representative union, or of 
 both in combination, can find a foothold, provided only 
 that he holds to the penal nature of the first sin. An- 
 other instance is the article concerning " elect infants." 
 As the tenet was formulated by the Assembly, it has 
 been understood to mean, (a) that all infants dying in 
 infancy are elected as a class, some being saved by cov- 
 enanted mercy, and some by uncovenanted mercy ; (b) 
 that all infants dying in infancy are elected as a class — all 
 alike, those within the Church and those outside of it, 
 being saved by divine mercy, nothing being said of the 
 covenant ; (c) that dying infants are elected as individ- 
 uals, some being elect, and some non-elect. Probably 
 each of these opinions had its representatives in the 
 Assembly, and hence the indefinite form of the state- 
 ment. The writer regards the first-mentioned view as 
 best supported by Scripture and the analogy of faith ; 
 but there are many who advocate the second view, and 
 perhaps there may be some who hold the third. The 
 liberty of opinion now conceded by the Confession on a 
 subject respecting which the Scripture data are few, 
 would be ill-exchanged for a statement that would admit 
 of but one interpretation. 
 
 6. Revision is inexpedient, because the Westminster 
 Confession, as it now reads, is a sufficiently broad and 
 liberal creed. We do not say that it is sufficiently broad 
 and liberal for every man and every denomination ; but 
 it is as broad and liberal for a Calvinist as any Calvinist 
 should desire. For whoever professes Calvinism, professes 
 a precise form of doctrine. He expects to keep within 
 
PUKE AND MIXED 7 
 
 definite metes and bounds ; he is not one of those religion- 
 ists who start from no premises, and come to no con- 
 clusions, and hold no tenets. The Presbyterian Church 
 is a Calvinistic Church. It will be the beginning of its 
 decline, as it already lias been of some Calvinistic denom- 
 inations, when it begins to swerve from this dogmatic 
 position. It must therefore be distinguished among the 
 Churches for doctrinal consistency, comprehensiveness, 
 and firmness. But inside of the metes and bounds es- 
 tablished by divine revelation, and to which it has vol- 
 untarily confined itself, it has a liberty that is as large 
 as the kingdom of God. It cannot get outside of that 
 kingdom, and should not desire to. But within it, it is 
 as free to career as a ship in the ocean, as an eagle in the 
 air. Yet the ship cannot sail beyond the ocean, nor the 
 eagle fly beyond the sky. Liberty within the immeasura- 
 ble bounds and limits of God's truth, is the only true 
 liberty. All else is license. The Westminster Con- 
 fession, exactly as it now reads, has been the creed of as 
 free and enlarged intellects as ever lived on earth. The 
 substance of it was the strong and fertile root of the two 
 freest movements in modern history: that of the Protes- 
 tant Reformation and that of Republican Government. 
 No Presbyterian should complain that the creed of his 
 Church is narrow and stifling. 
 
 And here we notice an objection urged against the 
 Confession relative to the tenet of limited redemption. 
 It is said that it is not sufficiently broad and liberal in 
 announcing the boundless compassion of God towards all 
 men indiscriminately, and in inviting all men without 
 exception to cast themselves upon it. But read and 
 ponder the following statements : 
 
 " Repentance unto life is an evangelical grace, the doc- 
 trine whereof is to be preached in season and out of 
 
8 CALVINISM : 
 
 season by every minister of the gospel, as well as that 
 of faith in Christ. It is every man's duty to endeavor to 
 repent of his particular sins, particularly. Every man is 
 bound to make private confession of his sius to God, 
 praying for the pardon thereof, upon which, and the 
 forsaking of them, he shall find mercy. Prayer, with 
 thanksgiving, being one special part of religious worship, 
 is by God required of all men. Prayer is to be made for 
 all sorts of men living, or that shall live hereafter, but not 
 for the dead. God is to be worshipped everywhere in 
 spirit and in truth, and in secret each one by himself. 
 God in his Word, by a positive moral commandment, binds 
 all men in all ages. The grace of God is manifested in the 
 second covenant, in that he freely provideth and offer- 
 eth to sinners a mediator, and life and salvation in him. 
 The ministry of the gospel testifies that whosoever be- 
 lieves in Christ shall be saved, and excludes none that 
 will come unto him. God is able to search the heart, 
 hear the requests, pardon the sins, and fulfil the desires, 
 of all." 
 
 These declarations, scattered broadcast through the 
 Westminster Confession and Catechisms, teach the uni- 
 versality of the Gospel, except no human creature from 
 the offer of it, and exclude no human creature from its 
 benefits. Their consistency with the doctrine of election 
 is assumed, but not explained, in the Confession of Faith. 
 And no revision of this by the mere interpolation of a few 
 words or clauses, will make the subject any clearer, or 
 stop all objections. 
 
 7. Revision is inexpedient, because the Westminster 
 Standards already make full provision for those ex- 
 ceptional cases, on account of which revision is claimed 
 by its advocates to be needed. It is said that there are 
 some true believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, who cannot 
 
PURE AND MIXED 9 
 
 adopt all the Westminster statements, who yet should not 
 be, and actually are not, excluded from the Presbyterian 
 Church ; that there are tender consciences of good men, 
 whose scruples are to be respected. But these cases are 
 referred by the Form of Government to the church 
 session, and power is given to it to receive into member- 
 ship any person who trusts in the blood of Christ for the 
 remission of sin, although his doctrinal knowledge and 
 belief may be unsatisfactory on some points. He may 
 stumble at predestination, but if with the publican he 
 cries " God be merciful to me a sinner," he has the root 
 of the matter in him, and is a regenerate child of God. 
 But why should the whole Presbyterian Church revise its 
 entire creed, so as to make it fit these exceptional cases? 
 Why should the mountain go to Mohammed ? Why 
 should a genuine but deficient evangelical knowledge and 
 experience be set up as the type of doctrine for the whole 
 denomination ? These "babes in Christ" need the educa- 
 tion of the full and complete system of truth, and should 
 gradually be led up to it, instead of bringing the system 
 down to their level. There is sometimes a misconception 
 at this point. We have seen it stated that the member- 
 ship of the Presbyterian Church is not required or ex- 
 pected to hold the same doctrine with the officers ; that 
 the pastor, elders, and deacons must accept the Confession 
 of Faith " as containing the system of doctrine taught in 
 the Holy Scriptures," but that the congregation need not. 
 But this error arises from confounding the toleration of a 
 deficiency with the endorsement of it. Because a church 
 session tolerates in a particular person, who gives evidence 
 of faith in Christ, an error respecting foreordination, or 
 even some abstruse point in the trinity, or the incarna- 
 tion, it does not thereby endorse the error. It does not 
 sanction his opinion on these subjects, but only endures 
 
10 CALVINISM : 
 
 it, in view of his religious experience on the vital points 
 of faith and repentance, and with the hope that his sub- 
 sequent growth in knowledge will bring him to the final 
 rejection of it. The Presbyterian Church tolerates thea- 
 tre-going in some of its members : that is to say, it does 
 not discipline them for it. But it does not formally 
 approve of and sanction theatre-going. A proposition to 
 revise the Confession by inserting a clause to this effect, 
 in order to meet the wishes and practice of theatre-go- 
 ing church-members, would be voted down by the pres- 
 byteries. 
 
 The position that the officers of a church may have one 
 creed, and the membership another, is untenable. No 
 church could live and thrive upon it. A Trinitarian 
 clergy preaching to an Arian or Socinian membership, 
 would preach to unwilling hearers. And although the 
 difference is not so great and so vital, yet a Calvinistie 
 clergy preaching to an Arminian membership, or an 
 Arminian clergy to a Calvinistie membership, would on 
 some points find unsympathetic auditors. Pastor and 
 people, officers and members, must be homogeneous in 
 doctrine, in order to a vigorous church-life. If, there- 
 fore, a certain class of members is received into a church, 
 who do not on all points agree with the Church creed, 
 this is not to be understood* as giving the members gener- 
 ally a liberty to depart from the Church creed, or to be a 
 reason for revising it. 1 
 
 The case is different with the officers of the church. 
 
 1 The question whether there shall be a short creed to be used in the 
 admission of members into the Church, is entirely distinct from that 
 ol revision. Such a creed ought not, of course, to contain anything 
 contradictiyfy to the larger creed which makes a part of the constitution 
 of the Church, and is used in the induction of ministers, elders, and 
 theological professors. 
 
PURE AND MIXED 11 
 
 There is no exceptional class in this instance. Neither 
 the session nor the presbytery have any authority to dis- 
 pense with the acceptance of any part of the Confession 
 of Faith, when a pastor, elder, or deacon is inducted into 
 office. There is no toleration of defective views provided 
 for, when those who are to teach and rule the Church are 
 put into the ministry. And this for the good reason that 
 ministers and elders are expected to be so well indoctrin- 
 ated, that they are " apt to teach " and competent to 
 " rule well." Some propose " loose subscription " as a 
 remedy, when candidates of lax or unsettled views present 
 themselves for licensure and ordination. This is demor- 
 alizing, and kills all simplicity and godly sincerity. Bet- 
 ter a thousand times for a denomination to alter its creed, 
 than to allow its ministry to " palter with words in a 
 double meaning;" than to permit an Arian subscription 
 to the Nicene Symbol, an Arminian subscription to the 
 Westminster Confession, a Calvinistic subscription to 
 the Articles of Wesley, a Restorationist subscription to 
 the doctrine of endless punishment. 
 
 For these reasons, it seems to us that the proposed re- 
 vision of the Westminster Confession is not wise or ex- 
 pedient. The revision of a denominational creed is a rare 
 occurrence in ecclesiastical history. Commonly a denom- 
 ination remains from first to last upon the base that was 
 laid for it in the beginning by its fathers and founders. 
 And when revision does occur, it is seldom in the direc- 
 tion of fulness and precision. Usually the alteration is 
 in favor of vague and looser statements. Even slight 
 changes are apt to be followed by greater ones. The dis- 
 position to revise and alter, needs watching. In an age 
 when the general drift of the unregenerate world is away 
 from the strong statements of the Hebrew prophets, of 
 Christ and his inspired Apostles, it is of the utmost ira- 
 
12 CALVINISM : 
 
 portance that the regenerate Church, in all its denomina- 
 tions, should stand firm in the old paths, and hold fast to 
 that " Word of God which is sharper than a two-edged 
 sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and 
 spirit." 
 
PURE AND MIXED 13 
 
 II. 
 
 OBJECTIONS TO THE REVISION OF THE WESTMINSTER 
 CONFESSION. 1 
 
 The first question sent down to the presbyteries is the 
 most important of the two; namely, "Whether a revision of 
 the Confession is desired. If this is answered in the neg- 
 ative, it will mean that the Presbyterian Church of the 
 present day is satisfied with its ancestral faith, as formu- 
 lated in its Standards, and accords with the Church of the 
 past in this respect. It will be a formal and positive re- 
 affirmation of the historic Calvinism, at a time when this 
 system of doctrine is charged with being unscriptural, er- 
 roneous, and antiquated by modern theological progress. 
 If it be answered in the affirmative, it will mean that the 
 Church of the present day is more or less dissatisfied with 
 the doctrines of the "Westminster Assembly, and is no 
 longer willing to endorse and preach them as that body of 
 divines defined and stated them. Revision is alteration, 
 more or less. The object is not merely to make sure that 
 the creed just as it stands is understood ; but to modify it 
 either in its structural plan, its component parts, its em- 
 phasis, or its general perspective. The second question, 
 How much revision is desired ? is comparatively of less 
 consequence, because it is the first question alone that 
 decides the vital point, whether the Presbyterian Church 
 
 1 New York Presbytery, November 20, 1889 ; Northwestern Presby- 
 terian, November 23, 1889. 
 
14 CALVINISM : 
 
 has drifted at all from the old anchorage. For this rea- 
 son, we present in a brief form the following objections 
 to the revision of the Westminster Confession : 
 
 1. Kevision is objectionable, because the project origin- 
 ated in too small a fraction of the Church. Only fifteen 
 presbyteries out of two hundred and two united in over- 
 turing the Assembly in its favor. The remaining one 
 hundred and eighty-seven will have to be argued and per- 
 suaded into it. But so important a step as the revision of 
 the doctrinal basis of a denomination should begin in a 
 general uprising of the whole body, and be the spontane- 
 ous and strongly expressed desire of the great majority of 
 its members. The revision of secondary matters, like the 
 form of government and discipline, does not require this 
 in the same degree. As the case now stands, fifteen 
 presbyteries have asked one hundred and eighty-seven 
 presbyteries if they do not want to amend the Confes- 
 sion. There should have been a far wider dissatisfac- 
 tion with the Standards than this indicates, to initiate re- 
 vision. 
 
 2. Revision is objectionable, because the Confession is a 
 correct statement of " the system of doctrine contained in 
 the Scriptures." The system meant in this phrase is uni- 
 versally known as the Calvinistic; not as resting upon the 
 authority of Calvin, but as a convenient designation of 
 that interpretation of Scripture which is common to Au- 
 gustine, Calvin, the Reformed theologians, and the West- 
 minster divines. The term "evangelical" does not define 
 it, because there are several evangelical systems, but only 
 one Calvinistic. The systems of Arminius, of Wesley, 
 and of the Later-Lutherans, as well as that of Calvin, are 
 alike evangelical, in distinction from anti-evangelical sys- 
 tems like Socinianism and Deism. They are all alike 
 derived from the Bible, and contain the doctrines of the 
 
PURE AND MIXED 15 
 
 trinity, the incarnation, the apostasy, and the redemption. 
 But the Calvinistic interpretation of Scripture, which is 
 the one formulated in the AVestminster Standards, differs 
 from these other "evangelical" systems, in teaching un- 
 conditional election and pretention, instead of conditional ; 
 limited redemption (not atonement) instead of unlimited ; 
 regeneration wholly by the Holy Spirit instead of partly ; 
 the total inability of the sinner instead of partial. The 
 Calvinistic system, as thus discriminated from the other 
 " evangelical " systems, has been adopted by American 
 Presbyterians for two centuries. Neither Old Lights, nor 
 New Lights ; neither Old School, nor New School ; have 
 demanded that these tenets which distinguish Calvinism 
 from Arminianism should be eliminated from the creed. 
 They were accepted with equal sincerity by both branches 
 of the Church in the reunion of 1870, and there is no rea- 
 son for altering the formulas that were satisfactory then, 
 unless the belief of the Church has altered in regard to 
 these distinctive points of Calvinism. 
 
 3. The revision of the Confession is objectionable, be- 
 cause the principal amendments proposed by its advocates 
 will introduce error into it, so that it will no longer be 
 " the system of doctrine contained in the Scriptures." 
 The four following alterations are urged upon the Church : 
 (a) To strike out the doctrine of the sovereignty of God 
 in pretention, leaving the doctrine of election unlimited 
 and universal, (b) To retain pretention, but assign as 
 the reason for it the sin of the non-elect, (c) To strike 
 out the statement that the number of the elect and non- 
 elect is a so certain and definite, that it cannot be increased 
 or diminished" by "angels and men." (d) To strike out 
 the statement that no man who rejects the " Christian re- 
 ligion," or the evangelical method of salvation, can be 
 saved by the legal method of living " according to the 
 
16 CALVINISM: 
 
 light of nature," or some system of morality which he 
 " professes." If these changes are made, the Westminster 
 Standards will no longer contain a class of truths that are 
 plainly taught in Scripture, and will cease to be that "sys- 
 tem of doctrine" which their authors had in mind, and to 
 which the present generation of ministers and elders have 
 subscribed like their fathers before them. 
 
 4. Revision is objectionable, because it will be a conces- 
 sion to the enemies of the Standards that their aspersions 
 of them are true. The charges that have been made by 
 the opponents of them from time immemorial are, that 
 Calvinism represents God as a tyrannical sovereign who 
 is destitute of love and mercy for any but an elect few, 
 that it attributes to man the depravity of devils, deprives 
 him of moral freedom, and subjects him to the arbitrary 
 cruelty of a Being who creates some men in order to damn 
 them. A few ministers and elders within the Presbyte- 
 rian Church endorse these allegations ; and many assert 
 that the Confession contains no universal offer of salva- 
 tion, teaches that none of the heathen are saved, and that 
 some infants are non-elect and lost. The great reason 
 assigned by such Presbyterians for revising the Standards 
 is, that they inculcate unscriptural and offensive doctrines 
 that cannot be believed or preached. But this is to con- 
 cede that all preceding Presbyterians have been grossly 
 mistaken in denying that the Confession contains such 
 doctrines, either directly or by implication. It is an 
 acknowledgment that one of the most carefully drawn 
 and important of all the Reformed symbols, inculcates in 
 a latent form some of the most repulsive tenets conceiv- 
 able by the human mind. Presbyterians of all schools 
 have hitherto met this calumny on their creed by contra- 
 dicting it, and trying the issue by close reasoning and de- 
 bate. Revision proposes, in the legal phrase, to give a 
 
PURE AND MIXED 17 
 
 cognovit, admit the charge, and alter the standards to suit 
 the enemy who made it. 
 
 5. lievision is objectionable, because it will reopen the 
 old discussions and controversies upon the difficult doc- 
 trines, without resulting in any better definitions of them 
 than they already have in the Church. On the contrary, 
 the great variety of changes that will be urged, from the 
 very conservative to the very radical, will introduce a pe- 
 riod of speculative dispute and disagreement that will 
 seriously impair the existing harmony of the denomina- 
 tion, and divert its attention from the great practical in- 
 terests of Christ's kingdom in which it is now engaged. 
 
 These iive objections, it seems to us, are conclusive 
 reasons why the Presbyterian Church should not alter, 
 but reaffirm the doctrines of the Westminster Standards, 
 and continue to teach and defend them as they have been 
 by all the past generations of Presbyterians. 
 2 
 
18 CALVINISM 
 
 III. 
 
 ARE THERE DOCTRINAL ERRORS IN THE WESTMINSTER 
 CONFESSION ? ■ 
 
 The strongest reason presented for the revision of the 
 Westminster Confession is the allegation that the phrase- 
 ology of some of its sections contains serious error, or is 
 liable to be understood as containing it. Is this true ? 
 In order to answer this question, we shall examine a few 
 of the principal sections which are asserted to be errone- 
 ous either in their direct teaching or in their implication. 
 
 1. Confession iii. 3 asserts that " By the decree of God, 
 for the manifestation of his glory, some men and angels 
 are predestinated unto everlasting life, and others fore- 
 ordained to everlasting death." It is contended that this 
 section teaches, or is liable to be understood as teaching, 
 that the decree of God in election and reprobation has no 
 connection with sin and the fall of man, but that God by 
 an arbitrary decree, wholly irrespective of sin, creates 
 some men in order to save them, and some men in order 
 to damn them. To correct this alleged error, or liability 
 of interpretation, several advocates, of revision propose to 
 insert the clause, " On account of their sins," to qualify 
 the clause, " Foreordained to everlasting death ; " and 
 one advocate of revision proposes to strike out the entire 
 section concerning election and reprobation. 
 
 We maintain that the Confession neither teaches the 
 
 1 Philadelphia Presbyterian, October 19, 1889. 
 
PURE AND MIXED 19 
 
 error aforesaid, nor is fairly liable to be understood to 
 teach it. According to Confession iii. 6, both the elect 
 and non-elect are " fallen in Adam/' and are thereby in a 
 common guilty state of sin. The former are delivered 
 out of sin by regenerating grace, and the latter are left in 
 sin. Why are the latter left in sin ? Because " God so 
 pleased," is the reason given by the Confession. " On 
 account of their sins," is the reason which the reviser 
 would insert into the Confession. But this, surely, can- 
 not be the reason why God leaves a sinner in his sin. I 
 see two suicides who have flung themselves into the 
 water. I rescue one of them, and the other I let drown. 
 They are both alike in the water, and by their own free 
 agency. But his being in the water, is not the reason 
 why I do not rescue the one whom I let drown. I have 
 some other reason. It may be a good one or a bad one. 
 But whatever it be, it certainly is not because the man is 
 in the water. Similarly God does not leave a sinner in his 
 own voluntary and loved sin because he is in sin. He 
 has some other reason why he makes this discrimination 
 between two persons, both of whom are in sin, neither of 
 whom has any claim upon his mercy, and neither of 
 whom is more deserving of election and regeneration than 
 the other. God's reason, in this case, we know must be 
 a good one. But it is a secret with himself. The only 
 answer to the inquiry, "Why didst thou elect and regen- 
 erate Saul of Tarsus, and didst not elect and regenerate 
 Judas Iscariot % " is, " Because it seemed good in my 
 sight." 
 
 The allegation that there is error in this section of the 
 Confession arises from misunderstanding the meaning of 
 the clause, "Foreordained to everlasting death." It is 
 the omission to regenerate, not the punishment of sin, that 
 is intended bv it. When God " foreordains " a sinner 
 
20 CALVINISM : 
 
 " to everlasting death," lie decides to leave him in the sin 
 which deserves everlasting death and results in it. The 
 non-elect sinner has experienced the operation of common 
 grace. It is an error to say that God shows no kind or 
 degree of mercy to the non-elect. But he has resisted 
 and defeated it. God decides to proceed no further with 
 him by the bestowment of that special grace which regen- 
 erates, and " makes willing in the day of God's power." 
 The elect sinner has also experienced, resisted, and de- 
 feated common grace. God decides to proceed further 
 with him, by effectual calling and regeneration. The par- 
 ticular question, therefore, in this paragraph of the Con- 
 fession is, " Why does God leave a sinner to his own wilful 
 free agency ? " and not, " Why does God punish him for 
 it ? " The answer to the first question is, " Becanse of 
 his sovereign good pleasure." The answer to the second 
 is, " Because of the ill-desert of sin." The reason why 
 God omits to take the second step, and exert a yet higher 
 degree of grace after his first step in exerting a lower de- 
 gree has been thwarted by the resistance of the sinner, is 
 entirely different from the reason why he inflicts retribu- 
 tion upon the sinner's sin. This is more fully explained 
 in the seventh section of the third chapter, which should 
 always be read in connection with the third. Here, the 
 reason for God's "passing by," or omitting to regenerate 
 a sinner, is found in " the unsearchable counsel of his own 
 will whereby he extendeth or withholdeth mercy as he 
 pleaseth." This first negative part of reprobation, which 
 is properly called " pretention," is not qualified by the 
 clause, " for their sin," as the correct punctuation in the 
 Board's edition shows. This latter clause qualifies only 
 the sentence, li And to ordain them to dishonor and 
 wrath." Sinners are punished " for their sin," but sin is 
 not the reason why God does not regenerate them. If sin 
 
PURE AND MIXED 21 
 
 were the reason for non-election, holiness, logically, would 
 be the reason for election. If some men are not regen- 
 erated because they are unbelieving, others would be re-" 
 generated because they are believing. This is the Ar- 
 minian doctrine, not the Calvinistic ; and this is the 
 reason why the Westminster Assembly did not qualify the 
 words, " pass by," by the proposed clause, " for their 
 sins," but left " passing by," or " foreordination to ever- 
 lasting death," to be a purely sovereign act according to 
 " the good pleasure " of God. 
 
 2. Confession iii. 4 teaches that " the angels and men 
 thus predestinated and foreordained are particularly and 
 unchangeably designed ; and their number is so certain 
 and definite that it cannot be either increased or dimin- 
 ished." One advocate of revision proposes that this 
 whole section be struck out of the Standards, because it 
 " is not a scriptural form of expression ; it is mislead- 
 ing." 
 
 What is the meaning of this section ? " Increased or 
 diminished " by whom f What is the ellipsis intended to 
 be supplied by the framers of the statement ? Plainly 
 they meant that the number of the elect and non-elect 
 cannot be increased or diminished by the "angels and 
 men " spoken of in the connection : that is, by any finite 
 power. Neither the human will, nor the angelic, can de- 
 termine the number of God's elect and non-elect, because 
 this depends wholly upon " the counsel of his own will." 
 Of course, the Assembly did not mean to say that God 
 could not have made the number of his elect larger or 
 smaller, if " the counsel of his own will " had so deter- 
 mined. Probably no advocate of revision understands 
 the Confession to teach this. But will any advocate of it 
 say that the number of the regenerate and saved can be 
 made greater or less by the decision and action of either 
 
22 CALVINISM : 
 
 the unregenerate world, or the regenerate church ? This 
 would contradict the statement of St. John, that the elect 
 " sons of God are born not of blood, nor of the will of the' 
 flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God." It would also 
 contradict the corresponding statement in the Confession 
 which teaches that "ill effectual calling man is altogether 
 passive, until being quickened and renewed by the Holy 
 Spirit, he is thereby enabled to answer the call, and to 
 embrace the grace offered and conveyed by it " (Confession 
 x. 2). This fourth section of the third chapter is simply 
 another way of teaching the common doctrine, running 
 all through the Standards, that the sinful will is in bond- 
 age to sin, and cannot regenerate itself, and that conse- 
 quently the number of the regenerate depends wholly 
 upon the will and decision of God. 
 
 3. Confession x. 4 asserts that " men not professing the 
 Christian religion cannot be saved in any other way what- 
 soever, be they never so diligent to frame their lives ac- 
 cording to the light of nature, and the law of that relig- 
 ion they clo profess." This is alleged to be erroneous 
 by an advocate of revision, because " every promise and 
 every warning of God is addressed to man as a free agent, 
 and not as one who cannot be saved." 
 
 Who are the persons " not professing the Christian re- 
 ligion ? " They are those who reject it, either formally, 
 or in their spirit and disposition. The class here spoken 
 of are the legalists of every variety, who repudiate salva- 
 tion through Christ's blood and righteousness, and rely 
 upon "diligently framing their lives according to the light 
 of nature, and the law of that religion which they do pro- 
 fess" — which is some other than "the Christian religion," 
 which they do not " profess," but contemn. The Chris- 
 tian religion is evangelical religion, and this they dislike. 
 They expect to be saved by morality and personal virtue, 
 
PUttE AND MIXED 23 
 
 and not by faith in the vicarious atonement of Jesus 
 Christ. 
 
 The doctrine then, in this section is, in brief, that no 
 man can be saved by good works ; by any endeavors how- 
 ever " diligent " to obey the written law of the decalogue, 
 as the Christian legalist does, or the unwritten law of 
 conscience, as the heathen legalist does. Now concern- 
 ing this class of persons St. Paul explicitly says that 
 " they cannot be saved." " By the deeds of the law shall 
 no flesh be justified." St. Peter says the same. "There 
 is no other name under heaven given among men, where- 
 by we must be saved." 
 
 There is nothing in this section that denies the possi- 
 bility of the salvation of any sinner on earth who feels 
 his sin, and trusts in the sacrifice of Christ in case he 
 lias heard of it, or would trust in it if he should hear of 
 it. It does not teach that no heathen is or can be saved. 
 This fourth section, so often misunderstood and misrepre- 
 sented, is aimed at the self-righteous moralist, whether in 
 Christendom or Heathendom, who has no sorrow for sin, 
 feels no need of God's mercy as manifested in Christ, and 
 has no disposition to cast himself upon it, but claims the 
 rewards of eternity on the ground of personal character 
 and obedience to " the light of nature " and the maxims 
 of morality. It is only a bold and strong assertion of 
 the great truth, that no sinner can be saved by his most 
 strenuous endeavors to keep the moral law. It is not 
 strange, therefore, that this section closes with the affir- 
 mation that " to assert and maintain the contrary is very 
 pernicious and to be detested." 
 
 If this is the correct explanation of these three sections 
 of the Confession, it is evident that they neither teach 
 nor imply error, and therefore do not need any revision. 
 
24 CALVINISM : 
 
 IV. 
 
 THE WESTMINSTER STANDARDS AND THE UNIVERSAL 
 OFFER OF MERCY. 1 
 
 The Westminster Standards are now meeting an attack 
 from some who have adopted them as their religions 
 creed. Formerly the onset came from the enemy on the 
 outside, now it comes from within the Church. When so 
 many presbyterians are objecting to the Confession as 
 containing " offensive articles that wound the consciences 
 of tens of thousands of loyal and orthodox presbyterians," 
 it is proper for an ordinary presbyterian to say a good 
 word for the time-honored symbol which has been sub- 
 scribed by the present generation of ministers and elders, 
 and was dear to all the former generations. May it not 
 be that these "offensive articles" are not in the Stand- 
 ards, and that the advocates of revision, in order to find a 
 sufficient reason for their project, are inventing and fight- 
 ing men of straw ? Let ns look at one of these alleged 
 offences. 
 
 It is strenuously contended that the Standards contain 
 no declaration of the love of God towards all men, but 
 limit it to the elect ; that they make no universal offer of 
 salvation, but confine it to a part of mankind. 
 
 The following declaration is found in Confession ii. 1. 
 " There is but one only living and true God, who is most 
 loving, gracious, merciful, long suffering, abundant in 
 
 1 New York Observer, November 14, 1889. 
 
PURE AND MIXED 25 
 
 goodness and truth, forgiving iniquity, transgression and 
 sin, the reward er of them that diligently seek him." Of 
 whom speaketh the Confession this? of the God of the 
 elect only ? or of the God of every man ? Is lie the God 
 of the elect only ? Is he not also of the non-elect ? Is 
 this description of the gracious nature and attributes of 
 God intended to be restricted to a part of mankind ? Is 
 not God as thus delineated the Creator and Father of 
 every man without exception ? Can it be supposed that 
 the authors of this statement meant to be understood to 
 say that God is not such a being for all men, but only for 
 some ? If this section does not teach the unlimited love 
 and compassion of God towards all men as men, as his 
 creatures, it teaches nothing. 
 
 The following declaration is found in Confession xv. 1, 
 Larger Catechism, 159. " Repentance unto life is an 
 evangelical grace, the doctrine whereof is to be preached 
 in season and out of season by every minister of the gos- 
 pel, as well as that of faith in Christ." This certainly 
 teaches that faith and repentance are the duty of all men, 
 not of some only. No one contends that the Confession 
 teaches that God has given a limited command to repent. 
 u God commandeth all men everywhere to repent." But 
 how could he give such a universal command to all sin- 
 ners if he is not willing to pardon all sinners ? if his 
 benevolent love is confined to some sinners in particular? 
 How could our Lord command his ministers to preach the 
 doctrine of faith and repentance to " every creature," if 
 he does not desire that every one of them would believe 
 and repent ? And how can he desire this if he does not 
 feel infinite love for the souls of all ? When the Confes- 
 sion teaches the duty of universal faith and repentance, it 
 teaches by necessary inference the doctrine of God's uni- 
 versal compassion and readiness to forgive. And it also 
 
26 CALVINISM : 
 
 teaches in the same inferential way, that the sacrifice of 
 Christ for sin is ample for the forgiveness of every man. 
 To preach the duty of immediate belief on the Lord Jesus 
 Christ as obligatory upon every man, in connection with 
 the doctrine imputed to the Confession by the reviser, 
 that God feels compassion for only the elect, and that 
 Christ's sacrifice is not sufficient for all, would be self- 
 contradictory. The two things cannot be put together. 
 The reviser misunderstands the Standards, and reads into 
 them a false doctrine that is not there. 
 
 Confession xv. 5, 6, declares that "it is every man's 
 duty to endeavor to repent of his particular sins particu- 
 larly. Every man is bound to make private confession of 
 his sins to God, praying for the pardon thereof, upon 
 which, and the forsaking of them, he shall find mercy." 
 How shall every such man find mercy, if the reviser's 
 understanding of the Confession is correct ? if it teaches 
 that God's love for sinners is limited to the elect, and 
 that Christ's sacrifice is not sufficient for the sins of all ? 
 According to the revised version, the meaning of the 
 Westminster divines in this section is, that some men 
 who "pray for pardon and forsake sin" shall "find 
 mercy," and some shall not. 
 
 Larger Catechism, 160, declares that " it is required of 
 those that hear the word preached, that the} r attend upon 
 it with diligence, preparation and prayer; receive the 
 truth in faith, love, meekness and readiness of mind, as 
 the word of God ; hide it in their hearts, and bring forth 
 the fruit of it in their lives." Would God require all this 
 from every hearer of the word, if he were not kindly 
 disposed towards him '( if he did not love and pity his 
 immortal soul, and desire its salvation ? Does not this 
 declaration mean that God will encourage, assist, and 
 bless every hearer of the word without exception who 
 
PUKE AND MIXED 27 
 
 does the things mentioned ? What shadow of reason 
 is there for alleging that it means that God will help 
 and bless some of these hearers, and some he will not ? 
 But in order to make out that the section does not teach 
 the universal offer of mercy, this must be the allega- 
 tion. 
 
 Larger Catechism, 95, declares that " the moral law is 
 of use to all men, to inform them of the holy nature and 
 will of God ; to convince them of their disability to keep 
 it, and of the sinful pollution of their nature ; to humble 
 them in the sense of sin and misery, and thereby help 
 them to a clearer sight of the need they have of Christ, 
 and of the perfection of his obedience." But what is the 
 use of showing every man his need of Christ, if Christ's 
 sacrifice is not sufficient for every man ? What reason is 
 there for convincing every man of the pollution of his 
 nature, and humbling him for it, unless God is for every 
 man " most loving, gracious, merciful, long-suffering, 
 forgiving iniquity, transgression and sin ? " The doctrine 
 taught in this section, that all men are to be convicted of 
 sin, like the doctrine that all men are to repent and to 
 pray, supposes that God sustains a common benevolent 
 and merciful relation to them all. 
 
 Confession xxi. 3, declares that " prayer with thanks- 
 giving, being one special part of religious worship, is re- 
 quired by God of all men." How could God require 
 prayer from every man, if he were not disposed to hear 
 the prayer of every man ? And does not this imply that 
 he loves the soul of every man ? The duty of prayer sup- 
 poses a corresponding kind and gracious feeling in God 
 that prompts him to answer it ; that " he is the hearer of 
 prayer, and that unto him all flesh should come." In 
 order to make out his "offensive doctrine," the reviser 
 must explain this section by appending to it : " Though 
 
28 CALVINISM : 
 
 God requires prayer from all men, lie is the hearer of 
 prayer for only the elect." 
 
 Confession vii. 3, declares that " man by his fall hav- 
 ing made himself incapable of life by that (legal) cove- 
 nant, the Lord was pleased to make a second, commonly 
 called the covenant of grace : wherein he freely offered to 
 sinners life and salvation by Jesus Christ, requiring of 
 them faith in him, that they may be saved, and promising 
 to give unto all those that are ordained unto life, his Holy 
 Spirit, to make them willing and able to believe." Two 
 distinct and different things are mentioned here: (a) an 
 offer of salvation • (b) a promise of the Holy Spirit to 
 make the unwilling sinner willing to accept it. The num- 
 ber of those to whom the offer of salvation is made is un- 
 limited; of those to whom the promise of the Spirit to 
 "make them willing" is made, is limited by "ordination 
 to life" or election. It is clear that God may desire that 
 to be done by man under the influence of his common 
 grace in the common call, which he may not decide and 
 purpose to make him do by the operation of his special 
 grace in the effectual call. His desire that sinners would 
 hear his universal call to repentance may be, and is un- 
 limited ; but his purpose to overcome their unwillingness 
 and incline them to repentance may be, and is limited. 
 God offers Christ's sacrifice to every man, without excep- 
 tion, and assures him that if he will trust in it he shall be 
 saved, and gives him common grace to help and encour- 
 age him to believe. This is a proof that God loves his soul 
 and desires its salvation. But God does not, in addition 
 to this universal offer of mercy, promise to overcome every 
 man's aversion to believe and repent and his resistance 
 of common grace. Election and pretention have no ref- 
 erence to the offer of salvation or to common grace. They 
 relate only to special grace and the effectual application of 
 
PURE AND MIXED 29 
 
 Christ's sacrifice. The universal offer of mercy taught in 
 this section evinces the universality of God's compassion 
 towards sinners. 
 
 Larger Catechism, 63, declares that " the ministry of the 
 gospel testifies that whosoever believes in Christ shall be 
 saved, and excludes none that will come unto him." The 
 reference here is not to the members of the visible Church, 
 as one reviser contends who denies that the universal offer 
 is in this section, because the persons spoken of are those 
 who have not yet believed in Christ, and have not yet 
 come to him. The motive is held out to such persons, 
 that if they r will believe and come, they shall be saved by 
 the infinite and universal mercy of God which " excludes 
 none that will come unto him." 
 
 With what show of reason can it be said that a symbol 
 containing such declarations as these respecting the nature 
 and attributes of God, his requirement that every man 
 confess sin to him, repent of it, pray for its forgiveness 
 and trust in his mercy, contains no announcement of his 
 infinite love and compassion ? This great and blessed 
 truth is worked and woven all through the Standards, as 
 the doctrines of the Divine existence and the immortality 
 of the soul are through the Bible. The Bible is nonsense 
 without these latter, and the Confession is nonsense with- 
 out the former. 
 
 The Westminster creed is being wounded in the house 
 of its friends. To a spectator it appears amazing that so 
 many who have "received and accepted" it as teaching 
 "the system of doctrine contained in the Scriptures" 
 should charge so many and so great errors upon it. If the 
 Confession and Catechisms really are w T hat they have been 
 alleged to be, during the last six months, by some advo- 
 cates of revision, they ought not to be revised at all, but 
 to be repudiated. 
 
30 CALVINISM : 
 
 Y. 
 
 THE MEANING AND VALUE OF THE DOCTRINE OP DECREES. 1 
 
 The proposal to revise the Westminster Standards has 
 brought the doctrine of the Divine Decrees into the fore- 
 ground. The controversy turns upon this pivot. Other 
 features come in incidentally, but this is capital and con- 
 trolling. This is the stone of stumbling and rock of of- 
 fence. If election and reprobation were not in the Con- 
 fession and Catechism, probably the fifteen presbyteries 
 would not have overtured the Assembly. It is for this 
 reason that we purpose to discuss the Meaning and Value 
 of the Doctrine of Decrees, so plainly inculcated in the 
 Scriptures, and from them introduced into the Westmin- 
 ster symboL We are certain that the Biblical truth of 
 the sovereignty of God in the salvation of sinners, and of 
 his just liberty to determine how many he will save from 
 their sin, and how many he will leave to their self-will in 
 sin, is greatly misunderstood by some who profess the 
 Presbyterian faith, and who describe it in much the same 
 terms with the anti-Calvinist, and inveigh against it with 
 something of the same bitterness. Though differing 
 greatly from one another in personal feeling and attitude 
 towards the Confession, the conservative and the radical 
 reviser nevertheless practically meet together at this point, 
 and while the former has no desire to make any changes 
 
 1 By permission, from the Presbyterian and Reformed Review, Janu- 
 ary, 1890. 
 
PURE AND MIXED 31 
 
 in the doctrine of decrees that will essentially impair the 
 integrity of the Calvinistic system, he yet unintentionally 
 aids the radical in bringing about a revolution in the sen- 
 timent and creed of the Presbyterian Church concerning 
 one of the most distinctive articles of its belief. Because 
 revision, be it conservative or radical, contends that there 
 is more or less that is un- Scriptural in the tenets of elec- 
 tion and reprobation as they are now formulated in the 
 Standards, and that they are bad in their influence. The 
 amount of error in them, and the degree in which they 
 are injurious, is variously stated by advocates of revision. 
 But the general opinion of this class is, that they require 
 more or less amending to get rid of certain elements that 
 are derogatory to the character of God, and are inconsist- 
 ent with the Christian redemption. Anti-revision denies 
 this. The only question of importance, therefore, in this 
 juncture, is: Revision, or Konrevision. And this, as we 
 have said, turns mainly upon the third chapter of the 
 Confession, entitled " Of God's Eternal Decree," together 
 with the kindred declarations growing out of this, in other 
 parts of the Standards. It will therefore be our aim to 
 show that the doctrine of decrees, as it is found in the 
 Westminster Standards, is neither un-Scriptural nor erro- 
 neous ; and that it is a highly useful and edifying doctrine 
 in the formation of the Christian character. We heartily 
 adopt the affirmation of the Thirty -nine Articles, that 
 " the godly consideration of predestination, and our elec- 
 tion in Christ, is full of sweet, pleasant, and unspeakable 
 comfort to godly persons, and such as feel in themselves 
 the workings of the Spirit of Christ, mortifying the works 
 of the flesh and their earthly members, and drawing up 
 their minds to high and heavenly things, as well because 
 it doth greatly establish and confirm their faith, and fer- 
 vently kindle their love towards God." 
 
32 CALVINISM : 
 
 In carrying out our purpose, we shall mention certain 
 characteristics of the Westminster doctrine that are both 
 Scriptural and rational, and of great value both specula- 
 tively in constructing the Christian system, and practically 
 in forming the Christian experience. 
 
 1. The first characteristic of the Confessional statement 
 that we mention is, that it brings sin within the scope, 
 and under the control of the Divine decree. Sin is one 
 of the " whatsoevers" that have "come to pass," all of 
 which are " ordained." Some would have the doctrine 
 that sin is decreed stricken from the Confession, because 
 in their view it makes God the author of sin. The Con- 
 fession denies this in its assertion that by the Divine de- 
 cree " violence is not offered to the will of the creature, 
 nor is the liberty of second causes taken away, but rather 
 established." In so saying, the authors had in mind the 
 common distinction recognized in Calvinistic creeds and 
 systems, between the efficient and the permissive decree, 
 though they do not use the terms here. The latter, like 
 the former, makes an event certain, but by a different 
 mode from that of the former. "When God executes his 
 decree that Saul of Tarsus shall be "a vessel of mercy," 
 he works efficiently within him by his Holy Spirit " to 
 will and to do." When God executes his decree that Ju- 
 das Iscariot shall be " a vessel of wrath fitted for destruc- 
 tion," he does not work efficiently within him " to will 
 and to do," but permissively in the way of allowing him 
 to have his own wicked will. He decides not to restrain 
 him or to regenerate him, but to leave him to his own ob- 
 stinate and rebellious inclination and purpose; and accord- 
 ingly " the Son of man goeth as it was determined, but 
 woe unto that man by whom he is betrayed " (Luke 22 : 
 22; Acts 2: 23). The two Divine methods in the two 
 cases are plainly different, but the perdition of Judas was 
 
PUKE AND MIXED 33 
 
 as much foreordained and free from chance, as the con- 
 version of Saul. Man's inability to explain how God can 
 make sin certain, but not compulsory, by & permissive de- 
 cree, is no reason for denying that he can do it or that he 
 has done it. Appendix, Note 2. 
 
 It is sometimes argued that the Confession excludes the 
 tenet of the permissive decree, by its declaration that the 
 " providence of God extendeth itself even to the first fall, 
 and all other sins of angels and men, and that not by a 
 bare permission " (Conf . v. 4). The " bare permission " 
 which the Assembly rejects here is that of the Tridentine 
 theologians, who asserted that sin arises from the " mere 
 permission " of God. The Reformed theologians under- 
 stood this to mean, that in respect to the fall of angels and 
 men God is an idle and helpless spectator (deo otioso 
 spectante), and that sin came into the universe without 
 any positive decision and purpose on his part. This kind 
 of " permission " implies that God could not have pre- 
 vented sin had lie so decided, and is really no permission 
 at all ; because no one can properly be said to permit what 
 lie cannot prevent. In order to exclude this view of 
 " permission," the Assembly assert " such [a permission] 
 as hath joined with it a most holy, wise, and powerful 
 bounding and otherwise ordering and governing of [the 
 sins of angels and men], in a manifold dispensation, to 
 his own holy ends ; yet so as the sinfulness thereof pro- 
 ceedeth only from the creature, not from God, who neither 
 is nor can be the author of sin.'''' This last clause declares 
 that God's relation to the sin which he decrees, is not that 
 of efficiency, but permission. For if God worked directly 
 and efficiently in angel or man " to will," when lie wills 
 wickedly, the " sinfulness of sin " would " proceed from 
 God," and God would be " the author of sin." The per- 
 missive decree is taught also in Larger Catechism, 19. 
 3 
 
34 CALVINISM : 
 
 " God by his providence permitted some of the angels, 
 wilfully and irrecoverably, to fall into sin and damnation, 
 limiting and ordering that, and all their sins, to his own 
 glory." 
 
 The permissive decree is supported by Scripture, in the 
 statement that God " in times past suffered (etacre) all na- 
 tions to walk in their own ways " (Acts 14 : 16) ; that 
 " the times of this ignorance God overlooked " (v7repiSoov) 
 (Acts 17: 30); that God "gave rebellions Israel their 
 own desire (Psalm 78 : 29) ; that u he gave them their 
 request " (Psalm 106 : 15). This phraseology is never 
 employed when holiness is spoken of. The Bible never 
 says that God permits man to be holy, or to act right- 
 eously. He efficiently inliuences and actuates him to 
 this. Accordingly the other Reformed creeds, like the 
 Westminster, mark the difference between God's relation 
 to holiness aiKl sin. The Second Helvetic, Ch. viii., says : 
 " Quotiescunque Dens aliquid mali ill Scriptura facere 
 dicitur atque videtur, non ideo dicitur, quod homo malum 
 non faciat, sed quod Deus fieri sinat et non prohibeat, 
 justo suo judicio, qui prohibere potuisset, si voluisset." 
 The Belgic Confession, Art. 13, asserts that God's "power 
 and goodness are so great and incomprehensible, that he 
 orders and executes his work in the most excellent and 
 just manner even when the devil and wicked men act un- 
 justly. "We are persuaded that he so restrains the devil 
 and all our enemies that without his will and permission 
 they cannot hurt us." The Dort Canons, i. 15, teach that 
 "God, out of his sovereign, most just, and unchangeable 
 good pleasure hath decreed to leave some men in the com- 
 mon misery into which they have wilfully plunged them- 
 selves, and not to bestow upon them saving faith and the 
 grace of conversion, hut per initting them in his just judg- 
 ment to follow their own way, at last, for the declaration 
 
PUKE AND MIXED 35 
 
 of his justice, to condemn and punish them forever, not 
 only on account of their unbelief, but also for all their 
 other sins." 
 
 And here is the place to notice the error of those who 
 represent supralapsarianism as differing from infralapsa- 
 rianism by referring sin to the efficient decree, thereby 
 making God the author of it. Dr. Schaff, for example, 
 asserts that " Calvin carried the doctrine of the Divine 
 decrees beyond the Augustinian infraiapsarianism, which 
 makes the fall of Adam the object of a permissive or pas- 
 sive decree, to the very verge of snpralapsarianism, which 
 traces even the first sin to an efficient or positive decree" 
 (Creeds, i. 453). But both schemes alike refer sin to the 
 permissive decree, and both alike deny that God is the 
 author of sin. Supralapsarians like Beza and Gomar re- 
 pel this charge, which anti-Calvinists made against both 
 divisions of the Calvinists. Brandt, who was on the Ar- 
 minian side, so understood Gomar. In describing the 
 difference between Arminius and Gomar, he says of the 
 latter : " Gomarus maintained that it was appointed by an 
 eternal decree of God, who among mankind should be 
 saved, and who should be damned. From whence it re- 
 sulted that some men should be drawn to righteousness, 
 and being drawn were preserved from falling ; but that 
 God suffered all the rest to remain in the common corrup- 
 tion of human nature, and in their own iniquities " (Re- 
 formation in the Low Countries, Book xviii.). Calvin, 
 Inst. III. xxii., says that " man falls according to the ap- 
 pointment of Divine providence, but falls by his own 
 fault." * The difference between them relates to an alto- 
 
 1 Shedd : Dogmatic Theology, i. 409 (Note). A remark is in place 
 here, upon the often cited "decretum horribile " of Calvin. The Di- 
 vine sovereignty in the salvation of sinners when properly viewed, in- 
 spires a solemn and religious awe hefore that Infinite Being who, in the 
 
36 CALVINISM : 
 
 gether different point : namely, the order in which the 
 decrees of election and reprobation stand to that of crea- 
 tion. The supralapsarian asserts that in the logical order 
 of nature (not of time, for all the decrees are eternal), the 
 decree to elect and reprobate certain men is before (supra) 
 the decree to create them ; the infralapsarian, that it is 
 after (infra). The former contends that God begins by 
 electing some men and reprobating others, and in order to 
 execute these two decrees creates man and permits (not 
 efficiently causes) the fall. The infralapsarian contends 
 that God begins by creating man and permitting (not 
 causing) the fall, and then out of this fallen and guilty 
 race elects some to life, and leaves others to their volun- 
 tary sin and its just penalty. The supralapsarian order is 
 liable to the charge that " God creates some men in order 
 to damn them," because creation follows from reprobation. 
 The infralapsarian order is not liable to this charge, be- 
 cause creation does not follow from reprobation, but pre- 
 cedes it. 1 The Westminster Assembly, in common with 
 
 language of Elihu, " giveth not account of any of his matters " (Job 
 83 : 13). This is the meaning of Calvin's " decretum quidem horn bile 
 fateor " (Inst. III. xxiii. 7). Those who quote this in disparagement of 
 the doctrine of predestination, suppose that he used "horrible" in the 
 modern vulgar sense of "hateful" and "repulsive," a.s when persons 
 speak of a "horrible stench," or an "awful noise." Of course he 
 could not have intended to pour contempt upon what he believed to le 
 a truth of revelation, by employing the word in this popular and some- 
 what slangy signification. Calvin was a highly educated classical 
 scholar, and his Latin U as accurate and elegant as any since the days 
 of Cicero and Virgil. In the classical writers, " horror " sometimes sig- 
 nifies awe and veneration. Lucretius, for example, describes the wor- 
 ship of the gods' as originating in the " mortalibus insitns Iwrror" (De 
 Natura, v. 1164). The feeling of reverential fear is expressed in 
 Jacob's words, " How dreadful is this place ! " (Gen. 28 :17). In this 
 sense of the word, the doctrine of predestination might be called "a 
 dreadful decree," without disparaging it in the least. 
 
 1 The Arminian Remonstrants stated the difference between the two 
 
PURE AND MIXED 37 
 
 the Calvinistic creeds previously made, adopted the infra- 
 lapsarian order, though some theologians, like the elder 
 Hodge, find a concession to the supralapsarians in some of 
 their phraseology. 
 
 The doctrine of the permissive decree has great value 
 in two respects : {a) In taking sin out of the sphere of 
 chance, (b) In explaining the tenet of pretention, or 
 " foreordination to everlasting death." 
 
 First, by the permissive decree, sin is brought within 
 the Divine plan of the universe, and under the Divine 
 control. Whatever is undecreed must be by hap-liazard 
 and accident. If sin does not occur by the Divine pur- 
 pose and permission, it occurs by chance. And if sin oc- 
 curs by chance, the deity, as in the ancient pagan theolo- 
 gies, is limited and hampered by it. He is not " God 
 over all." Dualism is introduced into the theory of the 
 universe. Evil is an independent and uncontrollable prin- 
 ciple. God governs only in part. Sin with all its effects 
 is beyond his sway. This dualism God condemns as er- 
 ror, in his words to Cyrus by Isaiah, " I make peace and 
 create evil ; " and in the words of Proverbs 16 : 4, " The 
 Lord hath made all things for himself ; yea, even the 
 wicked for the day of evil." " We believe," says the Bel- 
 
 divisions of Calvinists as follows: "Our opponents teach, First, that 
 God, as some [i.e., supralapsarians] assert, has ordained by an eternal 
 and irresistible decree some from among men, whom he does not con- 
 sider as created much less as fallen, to eternal life, and some to ever- 
 lasting perdition, without any regard to their obedience or disobedience, 
 in order to exert both his justice and his mercy. Secondly, that God, 
 as others [i.e., infralapsarians] teach, considers mankind not only as 
 created but fallen in Adam, and consequently as obnoxious to the curse ; 
 from which fall and destruction he has determined to release some, and 
 save them as instances of his mercy, and to leave others under the 
 curse for examples of his justice, without any regard to be'ief or unbe- 
 lief 1 ' (Brandt: Reformation in the Low Countiies, Book xix ). 
 
38 CALVINISM : 
 
 gic Confession, Art. 13, " that God after he had created 
 all things did not forsake them, or give them np to for- 
 tune or chance, hut that he rules and governs them ac- 
 cording to his holy will, so that nothing happens in this 
 world without his appointment ; nevertheless, God neither 
 is the author of, nor can be charged with, the sins which 
 are committed." 
 
 Secondly, by the permissive decree, the pretention of 
 some sinners and thereby their " foreordination to ever- 
 lasting death " is shown to be rational as well as Scriptu- 
 ral, because God, while decreeing the destiny of the non- 
 elect, is not the author of his sin or of his perdition. 
 Pretention is a branch of the permissive decree, and 
 stands or falls with it. Whoever would strike the doc- 
 trine of pretention from the Standards, to be consistent 
 must strike out the general doctrine that sin is decreed. 
 If God could permissively decree the fall of Adam and 
 his posterity without being the cause and author of it, he 
 can also permissively decree the eternal death of an in- 
 dividual sinner without being the cause and author of it. 
 In pretention, God repeats, in respect to an individual, 
 the act which he performed in respect to the race. He 
 permitted the whole human species to fall in Adam in 
 such a manner that they were responsible and guilty for 
 the fall, and he permits an individual of the species to 
 remain a sinner and to be lost by sin, in such a manner 
 that the sinner is responsible and guilty for this. 
 
 The Westminster Standards, in common with the Cal- 
 vinistic creeds generally, begin with affirming the univer- 
 sal sovereignty of God over his entire universe : over 
 heaven, earth, and hell ; and comprehend all beings and 
 all events under his dominion. Nothing comes to pass 
 contrary to his decree. Nothing happens by chance. 
 Even moral evil, which he abhors and forbids, occurs by 
 
PURE AND MIXED 39 
 
 " the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God ; " 
 and jet occurs through the agency of the unforced and 
 self-determining will of man as the efficient. 
 
 Why should such a tenet as this, taught by Scripture 
 and supported by reason, be stricken out of the Confes- 
 sion ; or if not stricken out, so minimized as to declare 
 that God decrees holiness but not sin, elects but does not 
 pass by ? On the contrary, why should it not be pro- 
 claimed boldly and everywhere, that above all the sin, 
 and the misery caused by sin, in this world of mankind, 
 there sits on the throne a wise, benevolent, and omnipo- 
 tent Sovereign who for reasons sufficient in 3 lis view 
 permitted, but did not cause or compel, the fall of angels 
 and men, with the intention of guiding the issue of it all 
 to an ultimate end worthy of himself — namely, the mani- 
 festation of his two great attributes of mercy and justice : 
 of mercy, in the salvation from sin of " a great multitude 
 whom no man can number ; " of justice, in leaving a 
 multitude that can be numbered to the sin which they love 
 and prefer, and its righteous punishment. 
 
 2. The second characteristic of the Westminster doc- 
 trine of decrees is the union of election and pretention. 
 It includes both tenets, and is consistent in doing so. The 
 discontent with the Confession is greater upon this point 
 than upon the first that we have mentioned. Many do 
 not object to what the Standards say upon the abstract 
 subject of the Divine decree, who particularly dislike its 
 concrete teaching upon election and pretention. The dis- 
 crimination which the Confession makes between sinners ; 
 the Divine purpose to save some and not all ; they as- 
 sert to be un-Biblical and unjust. " The foreordination 
 of some men to everlasting life, and of others to everlast- 
 ing death, and pretention of all the non-elect, are equally 
 inconsistent with a proper conception of Divine justice," 
 
40 CALVINISM : 
 
 is the assertion of a strenuous advocate of revision. Some 
 would strike out both election and pretention ; others 
 would strike out pretention and retain election. We shall 
 endeavor to show that one of these proposals is as destruc- 
 tive of the integrity of the system as the other ; that both 
 tenets must stand, or both must go. 
 
 That individual election is taught in the Bible is very 
 generally conceded. But individual pretention is taught 
 with equal plainness. The Lord Jesus Christ, the Saviour 
 of sinners, is as explicit upon this subject as he is upon 
 that of endless punishment. Upon two occasions (Matt. 
 13 : 14, 15 ; John 12 : 38-40), he quotes the words of 
 God to Isaiah, 6 : 9, 10 : " Go and tell this people, Hear 
 ye indeed, but understand not ; and see ye indeed, but 
 perceive not. Make the heart of this people fat, and 
 make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes ; lest they see 
 with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand 
 with their heart, and convert, and be healed." The 
 prophet was instructed to declare the pretention of a part 
 of Israel, and our Lord endorses the doctrine. And he 
 frequently connects the voluntary and guilty rejection of 
 his gracious offer of mercy with the eternal purpose and 
 plan of God. The impenitence of Capernaum and of 
 Chorazin and Bethsaida was guilty, and punishable with 
 a punishment greater than that of Sodom ; yet these sin- 
 ners were " the wise and prudent " from whom the " Lord 
 of heaven and earth" had "hid the things" of salvation 
 (Matt. 11 : 20-26). " Many," he says, " are called, but 
 few are chosen " (Matt. 22 : 14 ; Luke 17 : 34-36). With 
 grief and tears over the hardness of heart and the bitter 
 enmity of the Jerusalem sinners, he at the same time de- 
 clares their reprobation by God. " Upon you shall come 
 all the righteous blood shed upon earth, from the blood of 
 righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias. Behold your 
 
PURE AND MIXED 41 
 
 house is left unto you desolate " (Matt. 23 : 35-38). That 
 the Apostolical Epistles teach pretention, we need not 
 stop to prove. One principal objection made to the Paul- 
 ine Christianity by its opponents is, that it is full of pre- 
 destination both to holiness and sin. The Dort Canons, 
 I. vi., enunciate Paul's doctrine in the following state- 
 ment : " That some receive the gift of faith from God, 
 and others do not receive it, proceeds from God's eternal 
 decree. According to which decree, he graciously softens 
 the hearts of the elect, however obstinate, and inclines 
 them to believe; while he leaves the non-elect in his just 
 judgment to their own wickedness and obduracy." " Unto 
 you," says our Lord, " it is given to know the mysteries 
 of the kingdom of Heaven, but to them it is not given " 
 (Matt. 13 Til). 
 
 .Not only are both individual election and pretention 
 taught in Scripture, but both are necessary in a creed 
 in order to self-consistence. Pretention is the contrary 
 of election, and one of two contraries necessarily implies 
 the other. Right implies wrong ; light implies dark- 
 ness. No one would contend that there is light but 
 not darkness ; right but not wrong. And no one should 
 contend that there is an election of individuals, but not a 
 pretention. 1 It is impossible to think of individual elec- 
 
 1 The qualifying epithet <; individual" is important here; because 
 while individual election implies individual pretention as its contrary, 
 classical election does not. If a whole class (say dying infants) are 
 elected, no individuals of it are passed by. The true contrary to clas- 
 sical election is classical pretention, not individual preterition. In clas- 
 sical election, there cannot be the salvation of a part and perdition of 
 a part, as there can be in individual election. The whole c'ass must 
 either be elected, or else the whole class must be passed by ; the whole 
 of it must be the objects of mercy, or else the whole of it must be the 
 objects of justice. All must be saved, or else all must be lost. No dis- 
 crimination is possible between individuals, as is the case in individual 
 election. 
 
42 CALVINISM : 
 
 tion alone by itself, or to teach it alone by itself. Indi- 
 vidual election implies and suggests individual reprobation. 
 The elect himself (that is, one who hopes he is of the 
 elect) sometimes fears that he is one of the non-elect. St. 
 Paul kept his body under, lest he should be a reprobate 
 " cast away." That Christian who denies the doctrine of 
 pretention, and does not sometimes fear that God may 
 pass him by, is not a model for imperfectly sanctified men. 
 If God does not elect a sinner, he must of course pass him 
 by. If God decides not to convert a sinner into a 
 saint, he must of course decide to let him remain a sinner. 
 If God does not purpose to make Judas Iscariot " a vessel 
 of mercy," he must of course purpose to leave him " a 
 vessel of wrath." Individual election without its anti- 
 thetic pretention is only one-half of the circle of Divine 
 truth. When God operates efficiently in the sinner's 
 heart, to overcome his resistance of common grace, and 
 his enmity to the law of God, this is election. When 
 God does not work efficiently, but permissively leaves the 
 sinner to himself, this is pretention. And he must do 
 one thing or the other, in the instance of every sinner. 
 And he must purpose to do one thing or the other, in 
 every instance. And the purpose is an eternal one. Con- 
 sequently to affirm in a creed the decree of individual 
 election, and deny that of pretention, is the height of ab- 
 surdity. 
 
 Accordingly, the Reformed creeds contain both doc- 
 trines ; sometimes both of them verbally expressed, and 
 sometimes pretention implied from election verbally ex- 
 pressed. Both doctrines are specified in the following 
 symbols : Second Helvetic, Gallican, Belgic, First Scotch, 
 Irish, Lambeth, Dort, Westminster. Election alone is 
 specified in Augsburg, First Helvetic, Heidelberg, and 
 Thirty-nine Articles. That the decree of individual elec- 
 
PURE AND MIXED 43 
 
 tion necessarily involves the antithetic decree of individual 
 pretention, is evinced by the fact that Ursinns, one of the 
 authors, and the principal one, of the Heidelberg Cate- 
 chism, which verbally affirms election but not pretention, 
 presents an elaborate statement and defence of reproba- 
 tion in his Christian Theology (Qn. 54), composed in ex- 
 planation of this creed. 1 
 
 What is pretention ? It is God's passing by a sinner in 
 the bestowment of regenerating, not of common grace. 
 All men are blessed with common grace. There is no 
 
 1 Dr. Schaff, in the Evangelist, for November 14, 1889, asserts that 
 the Gallican, Belgic, Second Helvetic, First Scotch, and Dort symbols, 
 "are silent on the decree of reprobation and pretention. " The follow- 
 ing extracts from his Creeds of Christendom show that this is an error. 
 Gallican, Art. 12 : " God calleth out of corruption and condemnation 
 those whom he hath chosen without consideration of their works, in 
 order to display in them the riches of his mercy ; leaving (laissant) the 
 rest in this same corruption and condemnation, in order to manifest 
 in them his justice." Belgic, Art. 16: "God is merciful, since he 
 delivers from perdition all whom he hath elected in Christ Jesus, 
 without any respect to their works ; just, in leaving (laissant) the others 
 in the fall and perdition wherein they have precipitated themselves." 
 Second Helvetic, Cap. x. 4, 6 : " Though God knows who are his, and 
 sometimes the fewness of the elect is spoken of, yet we are to have hope 
 for all, and no one is rashly to be numbered with the reprobate. We do 
 not approve of the impious words of those who say : 'If I am elected, I 
 shall be saved, however I may act ; if I am one of the reprobate, 
 neither faith nor repentance will be of any use, since the decree of God 
 cannot be altered.' " First Scotch, Art. 8 : ll For this cause we are 
 not afraid to call God our Father, not so much because he has created 
 us, which we have in common with the reprobate, as that he has given 
 to us his only Son to be our brother.'' Dort Canons, i. 15: "Holy 
 Scripture testifieth that not all, but some only, are elected, while others 
 are passed by in the eternal decree ; whom God out of his sovereign 
 good pleasure hath decreed to leave in the misery into which they have 
 wilfully plunged themselves, permitting them to follow their own way. 
 And this is the doctrine of reprobation, which by no means makes God 
 the author of sin (the very thought of which is blasphen'y), but declares 
 him to be a righteous judge and punisher of sin." 
 
44 CALVINISM : 
 
 election or reprobation in this reference. God's mercy in 
 this form and degree of it is universal and indiscriminate. 
 But common grace fails to save the sinner, because of his 
 love of sin, his aversion to holiness, and his unbelief. 
 The martyr Stephen's words are applicable to every man 
 in respect to common grace: "Ye stiff-necked, ye do 
 always resist the Holy Ghost" (Acts 7:51). Conse- 
 quently, in order to save any sinner whatsoever requires a 
 still higher grade of grace which, in the phrase of the 
 Larger Catechism (67), "powerfully determines" his will 
 by regenerating it. Here is where the Divine discrimina- 
 tion comes in. It is with reference to this kind and de- 
 gree of grace that God says : " I will have mercy on whom 
 I will have mercy " (Ex. 33 : 10 ; Kom. 9 : 15). And this 
 is the Scripture truth which is now on trial in the Pres- 
 byterian Church. This is the particular doctrine which 
 excites animosity in some minds, and which it is con- 
 tended must be cut out of the Confession like cancerous 
 matter that is killing the body. Let us consider the ob- 
 jections that are made to it. 
 
 1. It is objected that pretention is inconsistent with 
 the infinite compassion of God for the souls of all men, 
 and cannot be squared with such assertions as, "As I live, 
 saith the Lord, I have no pleasure in the death of the 
 wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live: 
 turn ye, turn ye, for why will ye die? God so loved the 
 world that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whoso- 
 ever believeth in him might not perish but have everlast- 
 ing life." 
 
 The first reply to this is, that these and many similar 
 affirmations of the Divine pity for the sinful soul and 
 desire for its salvation, are written in the same inspired 
 volume that contains such assertions as the following: 
 "Many shall seek to enter in and shall not be able. lie 
 
PURE AND MIXED 45 
 
 hath blinded their eves and hardened their hearts, that 
 they should not see with their eyes, and be converted, 
 and I should heal them. The Son of man goeth as it was 
 determined ; but woe unto that man by whom he is be- 
 trayed. I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, 
 and I will have compassion on whom I will have compas- 
 sion. So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him 
 that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy. The chil- 
 dren being not yet born, neither having done any good or 
 evil, that the purpose of God according to election might 
 stand not of works but of him that calleth, it was said, 
 The elder shall serve the younger. The disobedient stum- 
 ble at the word, whereunto also they were appointed." 
 Since both classes of passages come from God, he must 
 perceive that they are consistent with each other whether 
 man can or not. Both, then, must be accepted as eternal 
 truth by an act of faith, by every one who believes in the 
 inspiration of the Bible. They must be presumed to be 
 self -consistent, whether it can be shown or not. 
 
 But, secondly, there are degrees of mercy. Because 
 God does not show the highest degree of it to a particular 
 sinner, it does not follow that he does not show him any 
 at all. He may grant him the mercy of common grace, 
 and when this is resisted and nullified by his hostile self- 
 will and obstinate love of sin, he may decide not to bestow 
 the mercy of special grace, and yet not be chargeable with 
 destitution of love and compassion towards him. 1 Any 
 degree of love is love ; and any degree of compassion is 
 compassion. To contend that the Divine love must be of 
 exactly the same degree towards all creatures alike or else 
 
 1 Man is compelled to speak of God's decision or decree in this way, 
 though strictly there is no before or after for him. All his decrees are 
 eternal and simultaneous. Yet there is an order of nature. Special 
 grace supposes the failure of common grace. 
 
46 CALVINISM : 
 
 * 
 
 it is not love, is untenable. It is certain that God can 
 feel love and pity towards the souls of all men, as his 
 creatures and as sinners lost by their own fault, and mani- 
 fest it in that measure of grace which " leads to repent- 
 ance " (Rom. 2 : 4), and would result in it if it were not 
 resisted, and yet not actually save them all from the con- 
 sequences of their own action. The Scriptures plainly 
 teach that God so loved the whole world that he gave his 
 only-begotten Son to make expiation for " the sins of the 
 whole world ; " and they just as plainly teach that a part 
 of this world of mankind are sentenced, by God, to eternal 
 death for their sins. The Arminian and the Calvinist 
 both alike deny the doctrine of universal salvation, yet 
 believe that this is compatible with the doctrine of God's 
 universal benevolence. Both deny the inference that if 
 God does not save every human being, he does not love 
 the soul of every human being ; that if he does not do as 
 much for one person as he does for another, he is unmer- 
 ciful towards him. It is a fallacy to maintain, that unless 
 God does all that he possibly can to save a sinner, he does 
 not do anything towards his salvation ; as it would be fal- 
 lacious to maintain, that unless God bestows upon a person 
 all the temporal blessings that are within his power, he 
 does not show him any benevolence at all. This fallacy 
 lies under the argument against pretention. It is asserted 
 that if God "passes by" a sinner in the bestowment of 
 regenerating grace, he has no love for his soul, no desire 
 for its salvation, and does nothing towards its welfare. 
 But if God really felt no compassion for a sinner, and 
 showed him none, he would immediately^m?mA him for 
 his sin, and the matter w T ould end here. The sinner's 
 doom would be fixed. Just retribution would follow 
 transgression instantaneously, and forever. And who can 
 impeach justice? "As all men have sinned in Adam, 
 
PURE AND MIXED 47 
 
 and are obnoxious to eternal death, God would have done 
 no injustice by leaving them all to perish, and delivering 
 them over to condemnation on account of sin, according 
 to the words of the Apostle : ' That every mouth may be 
 stopped, and all the world may become guilty before 
 God ' " (Dort Canons, I. i.). But God does not do this. 
 He suffers long and is forbearing with every sinner with- 
 out exception. There is not a transgressor on earth, in 
 Christendom or Heathendom, who is not treated by his 
 Maker better than he deserves ; who does not experience 
 some degree of the Divine love and compassion. God 
 showers down upon all men the blessings of his provi- 
 dence, and bestows upon them all more or less of the 
 common influences and operation of the Holy Spirit. 
 This is mercy to the souls of men universally, and ought 
 to move them to repent of sin and forsake it. This com- 
 mon grace and universal benevolence of God is often 
 spoken of in Scripture. " Despisest thou, O man, the 
 riches of God's goodness, and forbearance, and long-suffer- 
 ing, not knowing [recognizing] that the- goodness of God 
 leads [tends to lead] thee to repentance; but after thy 
 hardness and impenitent heart treasurest up unto thyself 
 wrath against the day of wrath ? " (Rom. 2 : 4, 5). Here 
 is the common grace of God enjoyed by men universally, 
 and thwarted by their love of sin, and obstinate self-will 
 in sin. But is God unmerciful and destitute of compas- 
 sion towards this man, if he decides to proceed no further 
 with him, but leave him where he is, and as he is ? Is all 
 that God has done for him in the way of long-suffering, 
 forbearance, kindness, and inward monitions in his con- 
 science, to count for nothing ? If this treatment of the 
 sinner is not benevolence and compassion, w T hat is it? It 
 is mercy in God to reveal to every man the law of God, 
 nay even " the wrath of God against all ungodliness and 
 
48 CALVINISM : 
 
 unrighteousness of men who hold the truth in unright- 
 eousness," for by this revelation the man is warned and 
 urged to turn from sin and live. This is one way in 
 which God says to the sinner, "Turn ye, turn ye, for why 
 will ye die? As I live I have no pleasure in the death of 
 him that dieth." It is mercy in God, and is so represented 
 by St. Paul, when he " does not leave himself without 
 witness, in that he does good, sending rain from heaven, 
 and fruitful seasons, filling men's hearts with good and 
 gladness, and makes of one blood all nations of men for 
 to dwell on all the face of the earth, and determines the 
 bounds of their habitation, 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 " (Acts 14 : 17 ; IT : 
 26, 27). That this gracious and fatherly interest in their 
 souls' welfare is repelled and nullified by their preference 
 for sin and love of worldly pleasure, and comes to naught, 
 does not alter the nature of it as it lies in the heart of 
 God. It is Divine mercy and love for human souls, not- 
 withstanding its ill success. 
 
 Common grace is great and undeserved mercy to a sin~ 
 ner, and would save him if he. did not resist and frustrate 
 it. In and by it, " God commandeth all men everywhere 
 to repent," and whoever repents will find mercy. In and 
 by it, God commands every hearer of the written word 
 to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and whoever believes 
 shall be saved. The common grace of God consists of 
 the written, or in the instance of the heathen the unwrit- 
 ten word, together with more or less of the convicting 
 operation of the Holy Spirit. Says Hodge (ii. 667), 
 u The Bible teaches that the Holy Spirit, as the Spirit of 
 truth, of holiness, and of life in all its forms, is present 
 with every human mind, enforcing truth, restraining from 
 evil, exciting to good, and imparting wisdom, or strength, 
 
PURE AND MIXED 49 
 
 when, where, and in what measure seemeth to him good. 
 In this sphere, also, lie ' divideth to every man severally 
 as he will.' " Whoever is in any degree convinced of 
 sin, and is in any degree urged by his conscience to con- 
 fess and forsake it, is a subject of common grace. And 
 whoever stifles conviction, refuses confession, and "holds 
 down the truth in unrighteousness," resists common grace. 
 St. Paul charges this sin upon both the heathen and the 
 evangelized. Common grace, we repeat, is great and un- 
 deserved mercy to a sinner, and by it God evinces his 
 pity for his soul, and his desire for its salvation. But 
 man universally, unevangelized and evangelized, nullifies 
 this form and degree ol the Divine mercy, by his opposi- 
 tion. The opponent of pretention comes in here at this 
 point, and contends that God is bound to go yet further 
 than common grace with sinful man, and subdue his en- 
 mity by creating him anew in the spirit of his mind ; and 
 that if he " passes him by," and leaves him where he is, 
 and as he is, he has no love for his soul. The sovereignty 
 of God in this matter of bestowing regenerating grace is 
 denied. To bestow it upon Jacob but not upon Esau, 
 upon some but not upon all, is said to be injustice and 
 partiality. 
 
 Scripture denies that God is under obligation to follow 
 up his defeated common grace with his irresistible special 
 grace. It asserts his just liberty to do as he pleases in 
 regard to imparting that measure of grace which produces 
 the new birth, and makes the sinner " willing in the day 
 of God's power." The passages have already been cited. 
 And reason teaches the same truth. Mercy from its very 
 nature is free and optional in its exercise. God may mani- 
 fest great and unmerited compassion to all men in com- 
 mon grace and the outward call, and limit his compassion 
 if he please to some men in special grace and the effectual 
 4 
 
50 CALVINISM : 
 
 call. He may call upon all men to repent and believe, 
 and promise salvation to all that do so, and jet not incline 
 all men to do so. No one will say that a man is insin- 
 cere in offering a gift, if he does not along with it produce 
 the disposition to accept it. And neither should one as- 
 sert this of God. God sincerely desires that the sinner 
 would hear his outward call, and that his common grace 
 might succeed with him. He sincerely desires that every- 
 one who hears the message : " Ho, every one that thirst- 
 eth, come ye to the waters ; yea, come buy wine and milk 
 without money," would come just as he is, and of his own 
 free will, " for all things are ready." The fact that God 
 does not go further than this with all men and conquer 
 their aversion, is consistent with this desire. No one con- 
 tends that God is not universally benevolent because he 
 bestows more health, wealth, and intellect upon some than 
 upon others. And no one should contend that he is not 
 universally merciful, because he bestows more grace upon 
 some than upon others. The omnipotence of God is able 
 to save the whole world of mankind, and to our narrow 
 vision it seems singular that he does not ; but be this as 
 it may, it is false to say that if he does not exert the 
 whole of his power, he is an unmerciful being towards 
 those who abuse his common grace. That degree of for- 
 bearance and long-suffering which God shows towards 
 those who resist it, and that measure of effort which he 
 puts forth to convert them, is real mercy towards their 
 souls. It is the sinner who has thwarted this benevolent 
 approach of God to his sinful heart. Millions of men in 
 all ages are continually beating back God's mercy in the 
 outward call and nullifying it. A man who has had 
 common grace, has been the subject of the Divine com- 
 passion to this degree. If he resists it, he cannot charge 
 God with nn mercifulness, because he does not bestow 
 
PURE AND MIXED 51 
 
 upon liim still greater mercy in the form of regenerating 
 grace. A beggar who contemptuously rejects the five 
 dollars offered by a benevolent man, cannot charge stingi- 
 ness upon him because after this rejection of the five dol- 
 lars he does not give him ten. Any sinner who complains 
 of God's " passing him by " in the bestowment of regen- 
 erating grace after his abuse of common grace, virtually 
 says to the High and Holy One who inhabits eternity, 
 " Thou hast tried once to convert me from sin ; now try 
 again, and try harder." 2 
 
 God's desire that a sinner should " turn and live " 
 under common grace, is not incompatible with his pur- 
 pose to leave him to " eat of the fruit of his own ways, 
 and be filled with his own devices " — which is the same 
 thing as u foreordaining him to everlasting death." A 
 decree of God may not be indicative of what he desires 
 and loves. He decrees sin, but abhors and forbids it. 
 He decrees the physical agony of millions of men in 
 earthquake, flood, and conflagration, but he does not 
 take delight in it. His omnipotence could prevent this 
 
 1 An advocate of revision remarks that "the Calvinist is doubtless 
 right in saying that God is under no obligations to save us. Still, 
 even if this be the case, God may be, and I believe is under obliga- 
 tions to afford every man an opportunity to be saved ; that he has no 
 right to 'pass by' anyone." Two criticisms upon this suggest them- 
 selves. First, God in the outward call does afford every man an oppor- 
 tunity to be saved. To every evangelized man he saj-s, "Believe on 
 the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved." This is " an oppor- 
 tunity to be saved." To every unevangelized man he says, " Repent of 
 thy sins, and I will forgive them." This is ''an opportunity to be 
 saved." That in both instances the opportunity is rejected, does not 
 destroy the fact. Secondly, if God is " under obligations to afford the 
 opportunity to be saved," then salvation is an act of justice and the 
 performance of a duty. In affording man the opportunity to be saved, 
 God discharges his obligations. In this case, " grace is no more grace " 
 (Rom. 9 : 6). 
 
52 CALVINISM : 
 
 suffering in which he has no pleasure, but he decides for 
 adequate reasons not to do so. Similarly he could pre- 
 vent the eternal death of every single member of the 
 human family, in which he takes no pleasure, but decides 
 not to do so for reasons that are wise in his sight. The 
 distinction between the revealed will and the secret 
 will of God is a valid one ; J and the latter of these 
 wills may be no index of the former, but the exact 
 contrary of it. This is particularly the case when evil 
 is the thing decreed. 2 
 
 2. Secondly, it is objected to pretention that it is par- 
 tiality. It would be, if sinners had a claim upon God for 
 his regenerating grace. In this case he could make no 
 discrimination, and must regenerate and save all. Par- 
 tiality is impossible within the sphere of mercy, because 
 the conditions requisite to it are wanting. It can exist 
 only within the sphere of justice, where there are rights 
 and duties; claims and obligations. A debtor cannot 
 pay some of his creditors and " pass by " others, without 
 partiality. But in the sphere of mercy, where there is 
 no indebtedness, and no claim, the patron may give to 
 one beggar and not to another, if he so please, because he 
 " may do what he will with his own " — that is, with what 
 
 1 God's revealed will, or will of desire, is expressed in Isa. 55 : 1 ; 
 Ezek. 33 : 11 ; 1 Tim. 2:4; Tit. 2:11. His secret will, or will of de- 
 cision and purpose in particular instances, is expressed in Mat. 13 : 11 ; 
 John 6: 37, 44, 65; Rom. 9 : 16, 18, 19. 
 
 2 The difference between will as general desire and inclination, and 
 will as a particular volition or decision in a special instance, is seen in 
 human action, and is well understood. For sufficient reasons, a man 
 may decide in a particular case to do by a volition something entirely 
 contrary to his uniform and abiding inclination. He is uniformly 
 averse and disinclined to physical pain, but he may decide to have his 
 leg amputated. This decision is his "decree," and is no index of 
 what he is pleased with. 
 
PURE AND MIXED 58 
 
 he does not owe to any one. The parable of the talents 
 was spoken by our Lord to illustrate the doctrine of the 
 Divine sovereignty in the bestowment of unmerited gifts ; 
 and the regeneration of the soul is one of the greatest of 
 them. 
 
 This is a conclusive answer to the charge of partiality 
 and injustice, but some would avoid the charge by striking 
 out the tenet of pretention, and retaining that of election. 
 In this case, election becomes universal. If no men are 
 omitted in the bestowment of regenerating grace, all men 
 are elected. This is universal salvation, because all the 
 elect are infallibly regenerated and saved. And this is 
 the manner in which the Later Lutheranism handles the 
 doctrine. It denies pretention, and strenuously opposes 
 this article of the Reformed creed. If the Presbyterian 
 Church, after having adopted pretention for two centu- 
 ries, shall now declare that it is an un-Scriptural and erro- 
 neous tenet, the meaning of the revision will be, that God 
 has no sovereign liberty to c pass by" any sinners, but 
 must save them all. This is the form in which election 
 is held by Schleiermacher and his school. They contend 
 that there is no reprobation of any sinner whatsoever. 
 All men are elected, because to pass by any is injustice 
 and partiality. " Calling (vocatio)," says Dorner, " is 
 universal, for the Divine purpose of redemption is just 
 as universal as the need and capacity of redemption so that 
 the notion of a Divine decree to pass by a portion of 
 mankind, and to restore freedom of decision only to the 
 rest, is out of the question " (Christian Doctrine, iv. 183). 
 It is this form of Universalism, which postulates the offer 
 of mercy to all men as something due to them, if not in 
 this life then in the next, and denies that the regener- 
 ating work of the Holy Spirit is confined to earth and 
 time, but goes on in the intermediate state, that is per- 
 
54 * CALVINISM : 
 
 colating into the Scotch and American Calvinism from 
 the writings of one class of German divines. Should 
 the presbyteries reject the doctrine of pretention thev 
 will help on this tendency. A creed like the Heidel- 
 berg, or the Thirty-nine Articles, may not have preten- 
 tion verbally stated, and yet imply it by its statement 
 of election and by other parts of the symbol. But if 
 a creed like the Westminster, which has both doctrines 
 verbally stated, is subsequently revised so as to strike out 
 pretention, then this tenet cannot be implied. It is 
 positively branded as error, and rejected by the revising 
 Church. If therefore the presbyteries shall assert that 
 God does not " pass by " any sinner in respect to regener- 
 ating grace, they will commit themselves to universal 
 salvation in the form above mentioned. Election will no 
 longer be balanced and limited by pretention, but will be 
 unlimited and universal. 
 
 And with this will be connected another fatal error : 
 namely, that God is tender obligation to elect and regen- 
 erate every man. If justice forbids him to " pass by " any 
 sinners, and " ordain them to dishonor and wrath for their 
 sin," he is bound to elect all sinners and " predestinate 
 them to everlasting life." He has no liberty or sover- 
 eignty in the case. lie cannot say, " I will have mercy 
 upon whom I will have mercy, and whom I will I harden 
 [do not soften] " (Rom. 9 : 18). This transmutes mercy 
 into justice. Pardon becomes a Divine duty. The offer 
 of Christ's sacrifice, nay even the providing of it, becomes 
 a debt which God owes to every human creature. This is 
 the assumption that lies under all the various modes of 
 Universalism. Sinful men, loving sin, bent on sin, are 
 told that they are entitled to the offer of mercy and re- 
 generating grace ; that they must have a " fair opportu- 
 nity " of salvation, if not here, then hereafter. Sinful men, 
 
PURE AND MIXED 55 
 
 full of self-indulgence, confessing no sin and putting up 
 no prayer for forgiveness, and who have all their lifetime 
 suppressed the monitions of conscience and quenched the 
 Holy Spirit's strivings with them in his exercise of com- 
 mon grace, are taught that if God shall pass them by, and 
 leave them to the sin that they prefer, he is an unmerci- 
 ful despot. 
 
 And here is the point where the practical value of the 
 doctrine of election and pretention is clearly seen. With- 
 out it, some of the indispensable characteristics of a gen- 
 uine Christian experience are impossible. Hence it is 
 that St. Paul continually employs it in producing true re- 
 pentance for sin, deep humility before God, utter self-dis- 
 trust, sole reliance on Christ's sacrifice, and a cheering 
 hope and confidence of salvation, founded not on the sin- 
 ner's ability and what God owes him, but on God's gra- 
 cious and unobliged purpose and covenant. This is the 
 doctrine which elicits from him the rapturous exclama- 
 tion, " O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and 
 knowledge of God. For who hath first given to him, and 
 it shall be recompensed unto him again ? For of him, 
 and through him, and to him are all things : to whom be 
 glory forever. Amen." This is the doctrine which in- 
 structs the believer to ascribe all his holy acts, even the 
 act of faith itself, to the unmerited and sovereign grace of 
 his redeeming God, and with Charles Wesley to sing : 
 
 ' ' Hangs my helpless soul on Thee. " 
 
 It is said that the doctrine of pretention is not and can- 
 not be preached. It does not require technical terms and 
 syllogistical reasoning, in order to preach a doctrine. 
 Who so preaches the doctrine of the trinity, or of regen- 
 eration, or of original sin, or of vicarious atonement, or 
 of endless punishment? The doctrine of pretention is 
 
56 CALVINISM : 
 
 preached whenever the herald proclaims to the transgres- 
 sor of God's law that sin is guilt and not misfortune ; that 
 the criminal has no claim upon the pardoning power for 
 pardon ; that the Supreme Judge might justly inflict 
 upon him the penalty which his sin deserves ; that his 
 soul is helplessly dependent upon the optional nnobliged 
 decision of his Maker and Saviour ; and that it is noth- 
 ing but God's special grace in regeneration that makes 
 him to differ from others who go down to perdition. 
 That these humbling and searching truths are taught 
 more thoroughly at some times than others, is true. That 
 they will empty some pews at all times, is true. It may 
 be that they are less taught now than formerly ; and if 
 so, this is not the time either to revise or construct creeds. 
 But whenever the Divine Spirit is present with his illum- 
 ination, and the Scriptures are plainly preached, they 
 come into the foreground. If they shall be revised out of 
 the Confession, it is certain that they will be taught less 
 and less, and will finally disappear from the religious ex- 
 perience. 
 
 The sinner's acknowledgment that God might justly 
 pass him by, and leave him in his resistance of common 
 grace, is a necessary element in genuine repentance. 
 Whoever denies this, lacks the broken and contrite heart. 
 Such was the sorrow of the penitent thief : " We are in 
 this condemnation justly ; for we receive the due reward 
 of our deeds." Such was the penitence of the prodigal 
 son : " Father, I have sinned against heaven, and am no 
 more worthy to be called thy son ; make me as one of th v 
 hired servants." Such was the temper of the leper: 
 "Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean." No one 
 of these penitents took the ground that God owed him 
 pardon and regeneration, and that to pass him by and or- 
 dain him to the eternal death which sin deserves would 
 
PURE AND MIXED 57 
 
 be an act dishonorable to God. To deny God's sover- 
 eignty in his exercise of mercy, is to set np a claim for 
 salvation, and whoever does this evinces that he has no 
 true view of sin as ill desert, and no true sorrow for it as 
 such. There is need of this doctrine in all ages, owing to 
 the pride of the human heart, and its unwillingness to 
 bend the knee and renounce all merit and confess all de- 
 merit before God. And there is special need of it in our 
 age, w T hen the Christian experience is defective at this 
 point, and redemption is looked upon as something which 
 God owes to mankind, and is bound to provide for them. 
 Unless this important truth is repristinated, and restored 
 to its proper place in the consciousness of the Church, the 
 current of Eestorationism will set stronger and stronger, 
 and the result will be a great apostasy in Christendom. 
 This is no time to eradicate it from the Calvinistic creeds, 
 but on the contrary to reaffirm it with confidence, and 
 defend it out of Scripture. 
 
 Some say that pretention is liable to be understood as 
 "preventing a sinner's salvation, and would have an ex- 
 planation added to the doctrine, to the effect that this is 
 not its meaning or intent. We would respect the opin- 
 ion of any Christian believer who sincerely thinks that 
 the language of the Standards is unguarded, and who 
 does not desire to change their doctrines but only to make 
 sure that they are understood. This is not revision, but 
 explanation ; and a declarative statement similar to that of 
 the United Presbyterians, which leaves the Confession un- 
 touched, is the least objectionable of all the plans before 
 the Presbyterian Churches. But if it be borne in mind 
 that pretention is by the permissive, not efficient decree, 
 what call is there for such a guarding clause ? How 
 does or can God's decision to leave a sinner to do just 
 what he likes, hinder the sinner from faith and repent- 
 
58 CALVINISM : 
 
 ance ? How does or can God's purpose to save another 
 sinner, prevent this sinner from smiting on his breast, 
 saying, u God, be merciful to me, a sinner? " " It is not 
 the fault of the gospel/' say the Dort Canons (I., iii. iv. 
 9), " nor of Christ offered therein, nor of God who calls 
 men by the gospel and confers upon them various gifts, 
 that those who are called by the ministry of the word re- 
 fuse to come and be converted. The fault lies in them- 
 selves." There is nothing causative in the decree of pret- 
 ention. John Bunyan's statement of the matter is plain 
 common sense. " Eternal reprobation makes no man a 
 sinner. The foreknowledge of God that the reprobate 
 will perish, makes no man a sinner. God's infallible de- 
 termining upon the damnation of him that perisheth, 
 makes no man a sinner. God's patience and forbearance 
 until the reprobate fits himself for eternal destruction, 
 makes no man a sinner" (Reprobation Asserted, xi.). 
 Whatever God does by a permissive decree, excludes 
 causation on his part. God is not the author of the sin 
 in which he leaves the sinner ; or of the impenitence to 
 which he gives him over. His action in pretention is in- 
 action, rather than action. lie decides to do nothing to 
 prevent the free will of the sinner from its own action. 
 With what color of reason can it be said that God forces 
 a man into perdition, when this is all he does to him ? 
 that God hinders a man from faith and repentance, when 
 he lets him entirely alone ? To put the proposed expla- 
 nation and caveat into the Confessional doctrine of pret- 
 ention, would be like writing under Landseer's lions, 
 " These are not sheep," or under Paul Potter's bull, 
 " This is not a horse." 
 
 The pretention of a sinner is not his exclusion from 
 salvation. Exclusion is a positive act ; but pretention is 
 a negative one. When God gives special regenerating 
 
PURE AND MIXED 59 
 
 grace to only one of two persons, he does not work upon 
 the other to prevent him from believing and repenting 
 under the operation of the common grace which he has 
 bestowed upon both alike. He merely leaves the other 
 to his own free will to decide the matter ; assuring him 
 that if he repents he will forgive him ; that if he believes 
 he will save him. The bestowment of common grace 
 upon the non-elect shows that non-election does not ex- 
 clude from the kingdom of heaven by Divine efficiency, 
 because common grace is not only an invitation to believe 
 and repent, but an actual help towards it ; and a help that 
 is nullified solely by the resistance of the non-elect, and 
 not by anything in the nature of common grace, or by 
 any preventive action of God. The fault of the failure 
 of common grace to save the sinner, is chargeable to the 
 sinner alone ; and he has no right to plead a fault of his 
 own as the reason why he is entitled to special grace. It 
 is absurd for him to contend that God has no right to re- 
 fuse him regenerating grace, because he has defeated the 
 Divine mercy in common grace. The true way out of the 
 difficulty for the sinner is, not to demand regenerating 
 grace as a debt by denying that God has the right to 
 withhold it, but to confess the sinful abuse and frustra- 
 tion of common grace, and to cry with the leper : " Lord, 
 if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean." 
 
 Having thus demonstrated the Scriptural and self-con- 
 sistent character of the doctrine of decrees as contained in 
 the Westminster Standards, we turn now to consider two 
 erroneous conclusions that are drawn from it, which are 
 urged as reasons for their revision : First, that it shuts 
 out the entire heathen world from Christ's redemption ; 
 and, second, that it implies the damnation of a part of 
 those who die in infancy. 
 
 Some advocates of revision seem, unintentionally prob- 
 
60 CALVINISM : 
 
 ably, to load down the Confession with faults not belong- 
 ing to it. They put the worst interpretation upon its 
 terms and phraseology ; insist that its defenders have no 
 right to its necessary implications and natural inferences 
 in determining what it really means ; and that an analytic 
 and positive affirmation of every particular point must 
 be found in it. Interpreting in this prejudiced manner, 
 they assert that the Standards do not declare the universal 
 love and compassion of God ; that they teach that God 
 creates some men in order to damn them ; ' that their doc- 
 trine of election discourages ministers from making the 
 universal offer of Christ's salvation., and hinders sinners 
 from accepting it ; and that he who adopts them as they 
 read cannot consistently believe that any of the heathen 
 are saved, and that no dying infants are lost. They carry 
 a wrong idea of election and reprobation into their exege- 
 sis of the Standards. They suppose that these necessarily 
 imply that only a very few are elected, and that very many 
 are reprobated. But there is nothing in the nature of 
 either election or pretention, that determines the number 
 of each ; nothing that implies that the elect must be the 
 minority, and the non-elect the majority, or the converse. 
 
 1 A false exegesis of Romans 9 : 20 is sometimes employed to prove 
 that God creates men sinners. " Shall the thing- formed (7r.\aa>ta) say 
 to him that formed (7r\a<raj/rt) it, Why hast thon made me thus ?" does 
 not mean, " Shall the thing created say to him that created it, Why hast 
 thou created, me thus ? " Creation ex aihilo would require kt((tis, not 
 irXafffxa. The latter term denotes only the formative act of a moulder, 
 not the supernatural act of a creator. The whole sinful mass of man- 
 kind whom God created 7ioly, have become sinful by their own act, and 
 lie in his hand like clay in the hands of the potter. Compare Isa. 29 : 
 16 ; 4o : 9. The potter, as such, does not give the clay its properties, 
 but merely shapes the clay into vessels of honor or dishonor as he 
 pleases. Says Hodge, in loco, " It is to be borne in mind, that Paul 
 does not here speak of the right of God over his creatures as creatures^ 
 but as sinful creatures." Compare Shedd : On llomans, 9 : 20. 
 
PURE AXD MIXED 61 
 
 The size of each circle depends upon the will of him who 
 draws it. God, conceivably, might have elected the whole 
 human family without an exception, as Sehleiermacher 
 says he did. Or, conceivably, he might have reprobated 
 the whole human family, because he w r as not in justice 
 obliged to save it. There is nothing in the nature of elec- 
 tion that makes it inapplicable to the heathen, or of pret- 
 ention. God may elect and regenerate a heathen if he 
 please, or he may leave him in the sin which he loves. 
 And the same is true of the ideas of election and preten- 
 tion as related to dying infants. Since everything in this 
 matter depends wholly upon the sovereign will of God, he 
 may regulate his choice as lie pleases. He may choose 
 dying infants as individuals, as he does adults ; or he may 
 choose them as a class. And he might reject dying in- 
 fants as individuals, as he does adults ; or he might reject 
 them as a class. For since infants like adults have a sin- 
 ful nature, and, in the phrase of the Auburn Declaration, 
 " in order to be saved, need redemption by the blood of 
 Christ, and regeneration by the Holy Ghost," they re- 
 quire the exercise of unmerited mercy, which on grounds 
 of justice might be withheld. 
 
 We cannot, therefore, determine from the mere idea of 
 election how many are elected, or from that of preterit ion 
 how many are passed by. This question can be answered 
 only by God himself, and this answer, so far as he has 
 vouchsafed to give it, is contained in his word. That 
 the Scriptures plainly teach that the total result of Christ's 
 redemption will be a triumphant victory over the king- 
 dom of Satan, and that the number of the redeemed will 
 be vastly greater than that of the lost, we shall assume. 
 It is also plainly taught in Scripture, that God's ordinary 
 method is to gather his elect from the evangelized part of 
 mankind. Does Scripture also furnish ground for the 
 
62 CALVINISM : 
 
 belief, that God also gathers some of his elect by an ex- 
 traordinary method from among the unevangelized, and 
 without the written word saves some adult heathen "by 
 the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy 
 Ghost ? " We contend that the Confession so under- 
 stands 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 exe- 
 gesis of the Standards to which we have alluded. The 
 hypothesis 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 conld 
 be classed with the rest of mankind. It is utterly im- 
 probable 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 imme- 
 diate 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 circum- 
 stances, 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. 
 
PURE AND MIXED 63 
 
 Consequently, the Confession, in tins section, intends 
 to teach that there are some unevangelized men who are 
 "regenerated and saved by Christ through the Spirit" 
 without " the ministry of the written word," and who 
 differ in this respect from evangelized men who are re- 
 generated in connection with it. There are these two 
 classes of regenerated persons among God's elect. They 
 are both alike in being born, " not of blood, nor of the 
 will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God." 
 They are both alike in respect to faith and repentance, 
 because these are the natural and necessary effects of re- 
 generation. Both alike feel and confess sin ; and both 
 alike hope in the Divine mercy, though the regenerate 
 heathen lias not yet had Christ presented to him. As 
 this is the extraordinary work of the Holy Spirit, little 
 is said bearing upon it in Scripture. But something is 
 said. God's promise to Abraham was, that in him should 
 "all the families of the earth be blessed " (Gen. 12:3). 
 St. Paul teaches that " they are not all Israel which are 
 of Israel" (Rom. 9:6); and that "they which are of 
 faith, the same are the children of Abraham " (Gal. 3 : 7). 
 Our Lord affirms tlist " many shall come from the east 
 and west, the north and the south, and shall sit down 
 with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, ill the kingdom of 
 heaven" (Matt. 8:11). Christ saw both penitence and 
 faith in the unevangelized centurion, respecting whom he 
 said, " I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel " 
 (Matt. 8: 5-10). The faith of the "woman of Canaan," 
 an alien and stranger to the Jewish people and covenant, 
 was tested more severely than that of any person who 
 came to him in the days < f his flesh, and of it the gra- 
 cious Redeemer exclaimed, " O woman, great is thy faith ! " 
 These two classes of the regenerate have their typical 
 heads in Scripture. Says Kurtz, " Of those who are 
 
64 CALVINISM : 
 
 blessed in the seed of Abraham, Naomi represents the 
 
 people of God who are to proceed from the ancient peo- 
 ple of the covenant, and Ruth represents those proceed- 
 ing from the heathen world." That the Church is not 
 to expect and rely upon this extraordinary work' of the 
 Spirit, it is needless to say. That this work is extensive, 
 and the number of saved unevangelized adults is great, 
 cannot be affirmed. But that all the adult heathen are 
 lost is not the teaching of the Bible or of the Westmin- 
 ster Standards. 
 
 The declaration in Confession x. 4, and Larger Cate- 
 chism, 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 
 numerously in the former than in the latter. The " men 
 not professing the Christian religion " are those who 
 reject it, either in spirit, or formally and actually ; that 
 is to say, legalists of every age and nation, evangelized 
 or unevangelized, who expect future happiness by fol- 
 lowing " the light o£ nature " and reason, and the ethical 
 "religion they do profess," instead of by confessing sin 
 and hoping in the Divine mercy. The Jewish Pharisee, 
 the Roman Julian and Antoninus, the self-satisfied Buddh- 
 ist sage following the " light of Asia," the Mohamme- 
 dan saint despising Christianity, the English Hume and 
 Mill, all of every race and clime who pride themselves 
 on personal character and morality, and lack the humility 
 and penitence that welcome the gospel, are the class 
 spoken of in these declarations. They press no more, 
 and probably less, upon the heathen than upon the 
 Christian world ; because the most hostile and intense 
 rejection of the doctrines of grace is to be found in Chris- 
 tian countries, rather than in Pagan. They do not shut 
 out of the kingdom of heaven any heathen who has the 
 
PURE AND MIXED 65 
 
 spirit of the publican, but do shut out every heathen and 
 every nominal Christian who is destitute of it. The 
 object of this section of the Confession, which is the 
 same as the eighteenth of the Thirty-nine Articles, is 
 to teach that no human creature, evangelized or un- 
 evangelized, can be saved on any but evangelical princi- 
 ples ; namely, by unmerited grace, not by personal merit. 
 It is only another way of proclaiming St. Paul's doc- 
 trine, that " by the deeds of the law no flesh shall be 
 justified." 
 
 That this is the correct understanding of the "West- 
 minster Standards is corroborated by the fact that the 
 Calvinism of the time held that God has his elect among 
 the heathen. The Second Helvetic Confession (i. 7), 
 teaches it. Zanchius, whose treatise on Predestination is 
 of the strictest type, asserts it. Witsius and others sug- 
 gest that the grace of God id election is wide and far 
 reaching. The elder Calvinists 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 
 opponents charge upon them. And there is no reason to 
 believe that the Westminster Assembly differed from the 
 Calvinism of the time. 
 
 And this brings us to the subject of "elect infants." 
 There is no dispute that the Confession teaches that there 
 are " elect dying infants." Does it also teach that there 
 are " non-elect dying infants ? " In other words, does 
 the phrase "elect infants" imply that there are " non- 
 elect infants," as the phrase "elect adults" does that 
 there are " non-elect adults ? " This depends upon 
 whether the cases are alike in all particulars. The argu- 
 ment is from analogy, and analogical reasoning requires 
 a resemblance and similarity upon which to rest. But the 
 
66 CALVINISM : 
 
 Confession directs attention to a great and marked diver- 
 sity between infant and adult regeneration, which sets off 
 the two classes from one another, making some things 
 true of one that are not of the other. The Confession 
 points at and signalizes the striking difference in the 
 manner in which the Holy Ghost operates, in each in- 
 stance. Infants are incapable of the outward call and 
 common grace ; adults are capable of both. Consequent- 
 ly an elect infant dying in infancy is " regenerated by 
 Christ, through the Spirit," without the outward call and 
 common grace ; but an elect adult is " regenerated by 
 Christ through the Sprit," ill connection with the ex- 
 ternal call and common grace, and after both have been 
 frustrated by him. Election and non-election in the case 
 of adults is the selection of some and omission of others 
 who are alike guilty of resisting the ordinary antecedents 
 of regeneration. Election in the case of dying infants 
 is wholly apart from this. There being this great dis- 
 similarity between the two classes, it does not follow 
 that every particular that is true of one must be of the 
 other ; that because election is individual in the instance 
 of adults it must necessarily be so in that of infants ; 
 that because adults are not elected as a class infants can- 
 not be. The state of things in which the regeneration of 
 an adult occurs, namely after conviction of sin and more 
 or less opposition to the truth, is entirely diverse from 
 that in which the regeneration of a dying infant occurs ; 
 namely, in unconsciousness and without conviction of sin. 
 The only form of grace that is possible to the dying 
 infant is regenerating grace, and the only call possible 
 is the effectual call. If therefore God manifests any 
 grace at all to the dying infant, it must be special and 
 saving ; and if he call him at all, he must call him effect- 
 ually. 
 
PURE AND MIXED 67 
 
 Now, since the authors of the Confession have them- 
 selves distinctly specified such a peculiar feature in the 
 regeneration of the dying infant, it is plain that they re- 
 garded it as differing in some respects from that of adults, 
 and intended to disconnect it from that of adults and 
 consider it by itself. For why should they take pains, 
 when speaking of elect infants, to call attention to the fact 
 that the " Holy Ghost worketh when, and where, and how 
 he pleaseth," if they did not mean to signalize the ex- 
 traordinariness of the Divine action in infant regenera- 
 tion ? And if infant regeneration is extraordinary in not 
 having been preceded by the usual antecedents of common 
 grace and the outward call, why may it not be extraordi- 
 nary in being universal and not particular ? that of a class 
 and not of individuals ? Does not the singularity that 
 distinguishes the infant in regard to regeneration without 
 conviction of sin, suggest that of electing the whole class? 
 But what is far more conclusive, does not the fact that 
 the Assembly does not limit infant election by infant pret- 
 ention, as it limits adult election by adult pretention, 
 actually prove that there is this great diversity in the two 
 cases ? Does not the fact that the Assembly, while ex- 
 plicitly, and with a carefulness that is irritating to many 
 persons, balancing and guarding the election of adults by 
 pretention, does not do so with the election of infants, 
 show beyond doubt that they believed their election to be 
 unlimited, and that no dying infants are " passed by " in 
 the bestowment of regenerating grace ? We have already 
 seen that the proposed omission of pretention, so as to 
 leave only election in the case of adults, would make their 
 election universal, and save the whole class without excep- 
 tion. 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 discriminate 
 
68 CALVINISM : 
 
 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 pretention to indicate it. Whoever 
 contends that they believed that pretention applies to in- 
 fants, is bound to explain their silence upon this point, 
 llad infant election been explicitly limited by infant pret- 
 ention in the Confession, it would have been impossible 
 for any candid expounder of it to hold that it permits sub- 
 scribers to it to believe in the salvation of all dying in- 
 fants. But Calvinistic divines for the last century or 
 more have put this interpretation upon this section of the 
 Confession, namely, that infant election is not individual 
 but classical, and we think they are justified in so doing 
 by the remarkable omission in this case. 1 
 
 On the face of it, the thing looks probable. The case 
 of the adult, in which there is both the outward call and 
 the effectual, both common grace and regenerating, may 
 be governed by the principle of individuality ; while that 
 of the infant, in which there is only the effectual call and 
 regenerating grace, may be governed by the principle of 
 community. Of those who have had the outward call 
 and have rejected it, some may be taken and others left ; 
 while of those who have not had the outward call and 
 have not rejected it, all may be taken. It is election in 
 both instances ; that is, the decision of God according to 
 the counsel of his own will. In one case, God sovereignly 
 decides to elect some ; in the other, to elect all. And it 
 
 1 Respecting the necessity of construing the Confession as teaching 
 that there are non elect infants, Dr. Schaff remarks as follows : •* The 
 Confession nowhere speaks of reprobate infants, and the existence of 
 such is not necessarily implied by way of distinction, although it prob- 
 ably was in the minds of the framers, as their private opinion, which 
 they wisely withheld from the Confession " (Creeds of Christendom, i 
 795). 
 
PURE AND MIXED 69 
 
 is unmerited mercy, in both instances ; because God is not 
 bound and obliged by justice to pardon and eradicate the 
 sin of an infant any more than that of an adult. And 
 there is nothing in the fact that an infant has not resisted 
 common grace, that entitles it to the exercise of special 
 grace. In the transaction, God is moved wholly by his 
 spontaneous and infinite mercy. He does an act to which 
 he is not compelled by the sense of duty or of justice, 
 either to himself or to sinners, but which he loves to do, 
 and longs to do, because of his infinite pity and compas- 
 sion. 1 
 
 That many of the elder Calvinists believed that there 
 are some non-elect infants is undeniable ; and that in the 
 long and heated discussions of the seventeenth century 
 between Calvinists and Arminians, and between Calvinists 
 themselves, many hard sayings were uttered by individual 
 theologians which may be construed to prove that man 
 is necessitated to sin, that God is the author of sin, and 
 that the majority of mankind are lost, is equally undeni- 
 able. But the Westminster Confession must be held re- 
 sponsible for only what is declared on its pages. The 
 question is not, whether few or many of the members of 
 the Assembly held that some dying infants are lost, but 
 whether the Confession so asserts ; is not, whether any 
 Calvinists of that day, in endeavoring to show how God 
 decrees sin, may not have come perilously near represent- 
 ing him as doing it by direct efficiency, but whether the 
 Reformed and Westminster creeds do this. 
 
 1 The assumption that God is obliged by justice to offer salvation to 
 all mankind, and to redeem them all, precludes all gratitude and praise 
 for redemption, on their part. Why should they give thanks for a favor 
 that is due to them, and which it is the duty of God to bestow ? Chris- 
 tians adore " the riches of God's grace " because it is utterly unclaim 
 able on their part, and unobligated on his. 
 
70 CALVINISM : 
 
 The rigor of the theology of the elder Calvinists has 
 been exaggerated. They took a wide and large view of 
 the possible extent of election. Owen is as strict as most 
 of them. Bat in arguing against the Arminians, in sup- 
 port of the guilt and condemnability of original sin, he 
 says : " Observe that in this inquiry of the desert of orig- 
 inal sin, the question is not, What shall be the, certain lot 
 of those who depart this life under the guilt of this sin 
 only? but what this hereditary and native corruption 
 doth deserve, in all those in whom it is? For as St. Paul 
 saith, 'We judge not them that are without' (especially 
 infants), 1 Cor. 5 : 13. But for the demerit of it in the 
 justice of God, our Saviour expressly affirmeth that 'un- 
 less a man be born again, he cannot enter into the king- 
 dom of God.' Again, we are assured that no unclean 
 thing shall enter into heaven (Rev. 21). Children are 
 polluted with hell-deserving uncleanness, and therefore 
 unless it be purged with the blood of Christ, they have 
 no interest in everlasting happiness. By this means sin 
 is come upon all to condemnation, and yet w T e do not 
 peremptorily censure to hell all infants departing out of 
 this world without the laver of regeneration [i.e., baptism], 
 the ordinary means of w r aiving the punishment due to 
 this pollution. That is the question de facto, which we 
 before rejected : yea, and two ways there are whereby 
 God saveth such infants, snatching them like brands from 
 the fire. First, by interesting them into the covenant, if 
 their immediate or remote parents have been believers. 
 He is a God of them, and of their seed, extending his 
 mercy unto a thousand generations of them that fear him. 
 Secondly, by his grace of election, which is most free 
 and not tied to any conditions ; by which I make no 
 doubt but God taketh many unto him in Christ whose 
 parents never hneio, or had been despisers of the gosjyel. 
 
PURE AND MIXED 71 
 
 And this is the doctrine of our Church, agreeable to the 
 Scriptures affirming the desert of original sin to be God's 
 wrath and damnation " (Owen : Arminianism, Ch. vii.). 
 This is the salvation of infants by both covenanted and un- 
 covenanted mercy, and Owen maintains that it is a tenet 
 of Calvinism. That he does not assert the classical elec- 
 tion of infants is true ; but he asserts the individual elec- 
 tion of some infants outside of the Church. 
 
 Such, then, is the Westminster doctrine of the Divine 
 Decree. It is the common Augustino-Calvinistic doc- 
 trine. No part of it can be spared, and retain the integ- 
 rity of the system. Whatever may have been the inten- 
 tion of the few first proposers of revision ; or whatever 
 may be the intention of the many various advocates of it 
 who have joined them ; the grave question before all 
 parties now is, Whether the Presbyterian Church shall 
 adhere to the historical Calvinism with which all its past 
 usefulness and honor are inseparably associated, or whether 
 it shall renounce it as an antiquated system which did 
 good service in its day, but can do so no longer. The 
 votes of the presbyteries within the coming six months 
 will answer this question. 
 
72 CALVINISM : 
 
 VL 
 
 PRETERITION NECESSARY TO THE SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD 
 IN ELECTION 1 
 
 It is generally conceded by those who advocate a revi- 
 sion of the Confession, that " the sovereignty of God in 
 election " must be retained as a fundamental truth. Sev- 
 eral presbyteries have voted for revision, with the explicit 
 declaration that this part of the third chapter must stand ; 
 and they have at the same time voted to strike out the 
 doctrine oi pretention. Among them is the large and in- 
 fluential presbytery of New York. With the highest re- 
 spect for our brethren and copresbyters, and with sincere 
 regret to be obliged to differ from the majority, we pro- 
 ceed to raise and answer the question, Whether the doc- 
 trine of " the sovereignty of God in election " can be held 
 unimpaired and in its integrity, if the tenet of preterit ion 
 is omitted from " the system of doctrine contained in the 
 Scriptures." 
 
 The presbytery have declared to the General Assembly : 
 
 1, That " they deprecate most earnestly all such changes 
 as would impair the essential articles of our faith ; " and 
 
 2, That " they desire the third chapter of the Confession, 
 after the first section, to be so recast as to include these 
 things only : The sovereignty of God in election ; the gen- 
 eral love of God for all mankind ; the salvation in Christ 
 Jesus provided for all, and to be preached to every creat- 
 ure." In this recasting, they specify several sections of 
 chapter third which they would strike out, and among 
 
 1 New York Observer, March 6, 1890. 
 
PURE AND MIXED 73 
 
 them is the section which declares that God " passes by " 
 some of mankind, and ;i ordains them to dishonor and 
 wrath for their sin." According to this deliverance, the 
 presbytery of New York supposes that it can hold the 
 doctrine of " the sovereignty of God in election " unim- 
 paired and in all its essential features, while denying and 
 rejecting the doctrine of pretention. An examination of 
 the nature and definition of " sovereignty," we think, will 
 show that this is impossible. 
 
 Sovereignty is a comprehensive term. It contains sev- 
 eral elements. First it denotes supremacy. A sovereign 
 ruler is supreme in his dominions. All other rulers are 
 under him. Secondly, sovereignty denotes independence. 
 Says Woolsey, "In the intercourse of nations certain 
 states have a position of entire independence of others. 
 They have the power of self-government, that is, of inde- 
 pendence of all other states as far as their own territory 
 and citizens are concerned. This power of independent 
 action in external and internal relations constitutes com- 
 plete sovereignty " (Political Science, i. 201:). Thirdly, 
 sovereignty denotes oplio?ial poiver ; that is, the power to 
 act or not in a given instance. It is more particularly 
 with reference to this latter characteristic of free alterna- 
 tive decision, that " the sovereignty of God in election " is 
 spoken of. In his election of a sinner to salvation, God 
 as supreme, independent, and sovereign, acts with entire 
 liberty of decision, and not as obliged and shut up to one 
 course of action. 
 
 This is the common understanding and definition of 
 sovereignty as applied to decisions and acts. Says Black- 
 stone : u By the sovereign power is meant the power of 
 making laws ; for wherever that power resides all other 
 powers must conform to, and be directed by it, whatever 
 appearance the outward form and administration of the 
 
74 CALVINISM : 
 
 government may put on. For it is at any time in the 
 option of the legislature to alter that form and adminis- 
 tration by a new edict or rule, and put the execution of 
 the law into whatever hands it pleases, by constituting 
 one, or a few, or many executive magistrates" (Introduc- 
 tion, 2). Blackstone gives the same definition of sover- 
 eignty, when it is vested in a king (Book II., ch. vii.). 
 The king has no superior to oblige or compel him to one 
 course of action. He has independent and optional 
 power. This is the reason why a monarchy is inferior to 
 a republic, as an ideal of government, and the secret of 
 the steady tendency to the latter form of government, in 
 the earth. Sovereign, supreme, independent, and op- 
 tional power is too great a power to be lodged in the 
 hands of one man. Its safest deposit is in the hands of 
 all the people. 
 
 The pardoning power is a sovereign power, and this 
 implies choice between two alternatives. If the gover- 
 nor of New York has the power to grant a pardon to a 
 criminal, but not the power to refuse it, he is not 
 sovereign in the matter. If of two criminals, he cannot 
 pardon one and leave the other under the sentence of the 
 court, he is not sovereign in the matter. When it is said 
 that in a democracj" the sovereign power is vested in the 
 people, the meaning is that the people have the right 
 to make such a constitution and laws as they please. No 
 one would contend that the people of New York have 
 sovereign power in the case, if they are obliged to put 
 imprisonment for debt, or any other particular statute, 
 into their code. A "sovereignty " that has no alternative 
 is none at all. 
 
 God is a sovereign, and the highest of all. He may 
 create a universe or not, as he pleases. Were he obliged 
 or compelled to create, he would not be sovereign in 
 
PURE ATTD MIXED 75 
 
 creating. He may arrange and order his universe as he 
 pleases. If he were confined to but one order, he would 
 not be sovereign in his providence. But not to waste 
 time on these self-evident generalities, we come to the 
 case in hand : the " sovereignty of God in election" 
 The question is, Whether God is "sovereign" in electing, 
 regenerating, and saving a sinner, if he has no option in 
 the matter ? if he cannot " pass by " the sinner, and 
 leave him unregenerate, unpardoned, and unsaved ? 
 One would think that such a question as this could have 
 but one answer in the negative, had not a majority of the 
 presbytery of New York answered it in the affirmative. 
 The Westminster Confession declares that " the sover- 
 eignty of God in election " means, that he may elect or 
 pass by the sinner as he pleases. The Revised Con- 
 fession declares that it means, that he may elect him but 
 not pass him by. The Old Confession declares that sover- 
 eignty means, that God may bestow regenerating grace 
 upon a sinner who is resisting common grace, or may not 
 bestow it. The New Confession declares that it means, 
 that he may bestow regenerating grace upon him, but 
 may not refuse to bestow it. The Old Confession de- 
 clares that sovereignty means, that God may pardon the 
 sinner or not, as lie pleases. The New Confession de- 
 clares that it means, that he may pardon him but not 
 deny him a pardon. 
 
 Now we ask, What sovereignty has God in the salva- 
 tion of the sinner, if he has no alternative in regard to 
 election, regeneration, and pardon ? if eternal justice re- 
 quires that he elect, and forbids that he pass by ? if 
 eternal justice requires that he regenerate, and forbids 
 him to leave in unregeneracy ? if eternal justice requires 
 that he pardon, and forbids him to refuse to pardon ? 
 To strike out pretention from the Confession, is to de- 
 
76 
 
 CALVINISM 
 
 clare that it is an vmscriptural doctrine, and to brand it 
 as error. And to assert " the sovereignty of God in 
 election " after having done this, is to assert that an act 
 that lias no alternative is a sovereign act. 
 
 Bat God himself has decided the question. He asserts 
 his sovereign right to optional decision in the matter of 
 human salvation. In that wonderful description of his 
 being and attributes which he gave to Moses, among 
 other declarations he says, " I will be gracious to whom I 
 will be gracious, and will shew mercy to whom I will shew 
 mercy" (Ex. 33: 19). In this solemn pronunciamento 
 with which he prefaced the whole work of human salva- 
 tion, he distinctly declares that lie is under no obligation 
 to redeem sinful men, but that whatever he does in the 
 premises is of his own unobliged, free, and sovereign 
 mercy and decision. Still more explicitly, in what is 
 perhaps the most terrible passage in all Scripture, God 
 asserts that he will pass by and leave in their sin some 
 who have refused his common call, and frustrated his 
 common grace. " Because I have called, and ye refused ; 
 I have stretched out my hand, and no man regarded ; but 
 ye have set at nought all my counsel, and would none of 
 my reproof ; I also will laugh at your calamity ; I will 
 mock when your fear cometh. Then shall they call upon 
 me, but I will not answer ; they shall seek me early, but 
 they shall not find me " (Prov. 1 : 24-26, 27). God incar- 
 nate teaches the same truth, that "one shall be taken and 
 the other left" (Luke 17: 34-36). And St. Paul recites 
 the words of God to Moses, " I will have mercy on whom 
 I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I 
 will have compassion," as a conclusive demonstration of 
 the Divine sovereignty in salvation. 
 
 The only instance of the retention of election, and re- 
 jection of pretention, in a creed, is that of the Cumber- 
 
PURE AND MIXED 77 
 
 land Presbyterians. Our Arminian brethren are con- 
 sistent and logical, like the Westminster Standards, in 
 teaching both election and pretention ; only they assert 
 that both are conditional. Men are elected because of 
 faith, and are passed by because of unbelief. There has 
 never been any proposition to revise pretention out of an 
 Arminian creed. Arminius, Episcopius, Limborch, Wes- 
 ley, and Watson understand that election necessarily im- 
 plies the antithetic non-election. 1 A proposition to revise 
 the Confession so that it would teacli conditional election 
 and pretention, would be self-consistent but anti-Calvin- 
 istic ; but the proposition to revise it so as to declare that 
 God elects but does not pass by sinners, is neither con- 
 sistency nor Calvinism. If adopted, the Northern Presby- 
 terian Church will have an illogical and mutilated creed, 
 and will resemble a wounded eagle attempting to fly with 
 but one wino*. 
 
 1 According to Brandt, the Remonstrants defined predestination as 
 follows: "God hath decreed from all eternity to elect those to ever- 
 lasting life, who through his grace believe in Jesus Christ and persevere 
 in faith and obedience ; and on the contrary hath resolved to reject the 
 unconverted and unbelieving to everlasting damnation " (Reformation 
 in the Low Countries, Book xxi. ). 
 
78 CALVINISM : 
 
 VII. 
 
 PRBTERIT10N AND THE LOPSIDED VIEW OF THE DIVINE 
 
 DECREE 
 
 The doctrine of the Divine decree is inseparably con- 
 nected with that of the manifestation of the Divine glory, 
 because the latter is the end and aim of the former. 
 Some Presbyteries recommend a one-sided fractional view 
 of the Divine decree, by striking out reprobation from the 
 Westminster Confession and leaving election as it now 
 stands. In order to determine whether this view of the 
 Divine decree is Scriptural or rational, it is necessary to 
 determine what is meant by the manifestation of the 
 Divine glory, and whether it can be secured by manifest- 
 ing only the mercy of God to the exclusion of his justice. 
 
 The " glory of God'' means either his essential or his 
 manifested glory. It is the manifested glory that is in- 
 tended when the question is asked, whether God does 
 everything for his own glory ; whether in all his works 
 his object is to reveal to angels and men the intrinsic and 
 inherent glory of his being and nature. One would say, 
 on the face of it, that this is no question at all. What 
 else should God do anything for, but to show that he is an 
 infinitely perfect and good being ? but to exhibit in vari- 
 ous ways his natural and moral qualities ? 
 
 1. The essential glory of God means all that is glorious 
 in God. In the Scriptures "glory" is a general term to 
 denote the sum-total of all the qualities that constitute the 
 Divine excellence. The nature and attributes of God are 
 
PURE AND MIXED 79 
 
 the glory of God. They make him a glorious being. In 
 this sense the " glory of God " is only another name for 
 infinite perfection ; only another name for the entire ag- 
 gregate of the Divine attributes. Sometimes the phrase 
 has chief reference to God's natural attributes, as seen in 
 the material universe. " The heavens declare the glory 
 of God." " O Lord, our Lord, how excellent is thy name 
 in all the earth ! who hast set thy glory above [or upon] 
 the heavens." Such texts as these speak of the glory, or 
 glorious excellence, of God as displayed in creation and 
 providence. Sometimes the principal reference is to 
 God's moral attributes, as seen in redemption. " I will 
 send those that escape from them unto the nations, and 
 they shall declare my glory among the Gentiles." " De- 
 clare his glory among the heathen." In Eph. 1 : 14, 
 "The redemption of the purchased possession is unto the 
 praise of God's glory." In Phil. 1 : 11, "The fruits of 
 righteousness which are by Jesus Christ are unto the glory 
 and praise of God." Such Scriptures as these show that 
 the "glory of God" does not mean self-applause but 
 moral excellence ; and that when God is said to do all 
 things for his own glory, the meaning is that he does 
 them for the purpose of revealing in nature and grace his 
 infinite perfections. When therefore the phrase is de- 
 fined in accordance with its use in the Bible, and with the 
 idea of an infinitely perfect being, it has nothing that 
 should excite opposition. There is not the slightest rea- 
 son for confounding it with human vanity, or the selfish 
 love of fame among men. 
 
 The essential glory of God is a fixed quantity. There 
 can be neither increase nor diminution of it. When man 
 is commanded, " whether he eat or drink, or whatever he 
 does, to do all to the glory of God," it is not meant that 
 his action can add anything to the inherent glory of God, 
 
80 CALVINISM : 
 
 and make him more glorious intrinsically than he was 
 before. In respect to the essential glory of God, neither 
 angel nor man can do anything. But the intrinsic and 
 immutable excellence of God is capable of being mani- 
 fested to angels and men, and also, in a secondary manner, 
 by angels and men ; for when angels and men recognize 
 and acknowledge the glory of God by their acts of obedi- 
 ence and adoration, they too declare and set it forth in an 
 inferior degree. 
 
 2. Secondly, the essential glory of God is the founda- 
 tion of all worship. It is because the (Supreme Being 
 has this constellation of attributes, this snm-total of in- 
 finite perfections which is grouped under the name of 
 " glory," that he is worthy of adoration. If a single one 
 of these attributes were wanting, the Divine glory would 
 be defective ; and a defective -Being would not be worthy 
 of the hallelujahs of heaven. Those who deny, either 
 theoretically or practically, the Divine holiness and justice, 
 and affirm only the Divine benevolence and mercy, muti- 
 late the Divine nature and destroy the Divine glory. They 
 metamorphose the Supreme Being, and demolish the 
 completeness, symmetry, and harmony of his nature, and 
 render worship impossible. The grandest of all music, 
 the lofty chorals and anthems of the Christian Church, the 
 " Te Deum Laudamus " and the " Gloria Patri," sup- 
 pose all of the Divine attributes, and are prompted by the 
 full-orbed glory of God. 
 
 3. Thirdly, since all of the Divine attributes go to make 
 up the total glory of God, they must all of them be mani- 
 fested if there is to be a complete manifestation of the 
 Divine perfection. It is at this point that the defective 
 view of the Divine decree which is now sought to be intro- 
 duced into the Westminster Confession takes its start. 
 The reviser of this class concedes that the Divine glory is 
 
PURE AND MIXED 81 
 
 manifested when God in the exercise of his benevolence 
 and mercy elects many sinners to everlasting life, bnt 
 denies that it is also manifested when God in the exercise 
 of his holiness and justice leaves some sinners to their own 
 free will, and permits them to go down voluntarily to 
 eternal death. He declares that election is a true doctrine, 
 and would have it retained in the Presbyterian creed ; but 
 that reprobation is a " horrible " doctrine, and would have 
 it stricken out. When the Confession (iii. 3) asserts that 
 " by the decree of God, for the manifestation of his glory, 
 some men and angels are predestinated unto everlasting 
 life," he says, Amen. But when it also asserts that " by 
 the decree of God, for the manifestation of his glory, 
 some men and angels are foreordained to everlasting 
 death," he rejects the statement as dishonoring to God. 
 That God intends from all eternity to display his mercy 
 in pardoning a sinner, is unobjectionable; but that he 
 also intends from all eternity to display his justice in 
 punishing a sinner, is vehemently opposed. The Divine 
 love for the soul of man he thinks is worthy of God ; bnt 
 not the Divine wrath against the sin of man. The revis- 
 er of this class makes a selection anions; the Divine attri- 
 bntes, and confines the exhibition of the Divine glory in 
 the Divine decree to tliem. 
 
 Now this one-sided and lopsided view of the Divine de- 
 cree, is founded upon an erroneous view of the nature of 
 retributive justice. It virtually implies that retributive 
 justice does not belong to the congeries of attributes which 
 constitutes the total glory of God ; and that to manifest 
 it bv leavins; some sinners to their own free will in sin- 
 ning, and then punishing them according to the just de- 
 sert of their sin, is not a manifestation of glory but a dis- 
 grace. But the manifestation of justice is as truly a 
 manifestation of the glory of God as the manifestation of 
 6 
 
82 CALVINISM : 
 
 mercy, provided botli attributes belong to the Divine 
 nature, and that both are infinitely excellent. The decree 
 to manifest it has nothing to do with the nature of the at- 
 tribute in either instance. If it is proper for God to in- 
 flict retribution at all, it is proper for him to intend to do 
 so from all eternity. And if it is proper for God to show 
 mercy at all, it is proper for him to intend to do so from 
 all eternity. Justice is as morally excellent as mercy ; 
 and holiness as benevolence. All of the divine attributes 
 are perfect. No one is inferior to the others in this re- 
 spect, because infinity characterizes them all. When God 
 punishes impenitent and hardened Satan, and all beings 
 who have his impenitent and hardened spirit, his act is as 
 worthy of praise and adoration as when he pardons penir 
 tent sinners through Jesus Christ. "I heard a great voice 
 of much people in heaven, saying, Alleluia ; Salvation, and 
 glory, and honor, and power, unto the Lord our God ; 
 for true and righteous are his judgments" (Rev. 19: 
 1,2). 
 
 The view of retributive justice which we are criticising 
 has no support either in Scripture or in reason. St. Paul 
 asserts that "the ministration of death written and en- 
 graven in stones was glorious ; " and that " the ministra- 
 tion of condemnation is glory" (2 Cor. 3:7, 9). The 
 ministration of death is the ministration of justice; the 
 infliction of the righteous penalty, "The soul that sin- 
 neth it shall die." And the inspired apostle affirms that 
 it is intrinsically glorious and exhibits the glory of God. 
 It is true that he adds that "the ministration of the 
 Spirit" and "the ministration of [imputed] righteous- 
 ness" "exceed in glory" the ministration of condem- 
 nation; that is, that the gospel shows more of the Di- 
 vine attributes, and so is a fuller manifestation of the 
 Divine plenitude of perfection than the legal and puni- 
 
PUKE AND MIXED 83 
 
 tive dispensation is. But in so saying, he does not retract 
 his proposition, that " the ministration of condemnation is 
 glory." There is no need of quoting the multitude of 
 texts that teach that holiness and justice are as grand and 
 venerable attributes in the Divine nature, as benevolence 
 and mercy. They excite the emotions of praise and 
 adoration in the highest heavens. The wing-veiled sera- 
 phim emphasize these attributes in particular when they 
 worship God in their trisagion, " Holy, holy, holy is the 
 Lord of Hosts." The redeemed " sins: the song of Moses 
 and the Lamb, saying, Great and marvellous are thy 
 works, Lord God Almighty ; just and true are thy ways, 
 thou King of saints. Who shall not fear thee, O Lord, 
 and glorify thy name ? for thou only art holy " (Rev. 
 15: 3,4). 
 
 The argument from reason is equal ly conclusive that 
 holiness and justice constitute an essential part of the Di- 
 vine character, and are august attributes that contribute 
 to the Divine honor and glory, and therefore ought to 
 be manifested. They are the attributes that underlie 
 all government and legislation, human and divine. The 
 science of law, which is next in dignity to that of theol- 
 ogy, and in some respects is as abstruse and logical, and 
 should therefore share in the abuse so frequently showered 
 upon systematic theology, is built out of this quarry ; and 
 in the familiar but ever lofty and noble phrase of Hooker, 
 the seat of law is the bosom of God, and the voice of law 
 is the. harmony of the world. 
 
 It is therefore both unscriptural and irrational to con- 
 fine the manifestation of God's glory to one side of God's 
 decree, and to some selected and favorite attributes. 
 Within the three provinces of creation, providence, and 
 redemption all of the attributes are manifested ; and more 
 of them are manifested in redemption than in creation and 
 
84 Calvinism : 
 
 providence. And this is the best reason that can be sug- 
 gested for the permission of sin. Without sin there could 
 be no redemption from sin, and if there had been no re- 
 demption from sin that marvellous union and combina- 
 tion and harmonizing of mercy with justice in the vicari- 
 ous sacrifice of God incarnate and crucified, could have 
 had no manifestation whatever. All this side of the 
 glory of God would have been kept secret and hidden in 
 the depths of the Godhead, and been utterly unknown to 
 angels and men. 
 
 And here let it be noticed that the question, how many 
 are elected and how many are reprobate, has nothing to 
 do with the question whether God may either elect or 
 reprobate sinners. If it is intrinsically right for him 
 either to elect or not to elect, either to save or not to save 
 free moral agents who by their own fault have plunged 
 themselves into sin and ruin, numbers are of no account 
 in establishing the rightness. And if it is intrinsically 
 wrong, numbers are of no account in establishing the 
 wrongness. Neither is there any necessity that the num- 
 ber of the elect should be small, and that of the non-elect 
 great ; or the converse. The election and the non-election, 
 and also the numbers of the elect and the non-elect, are 
 all alike a matter of sovereignty and optional decision. 
 At the same time it relieves the solemnity and awf illness 
 which overhang the decree of reprobation, to remember 
 that the Scriptures teach that the number of the elect is 
 much greater than that of the non-elect. The kingdom 
 of the Redeemer in this fallen world is always described 
 as far greater and grander than that of Satan. The 
 operation of grace on earth is uniformly represented as 
 mightier than that of sin. "Where sin abounded, grace 
 did much more abound." And the final number of the 
 redeemed is said to be "a multitude which no man can 
 
PURE AND MIXED 85 
 
 number," but that of the lost is not so magnified and em- 
 phasized. 
 
 4. Fourthly, the reason why God should do everything 
 for his own glory in the manifestation of all of his attri- 
 butes, and why all of his rational creatures should do 
 everything for the same purpose, so far as is possible to 
 them, is because he is the first cause and the last end of 
 all things. " Of him, and through him, and to him, are 
 all things," says St. Paul. Every created being and thing 
 must have a final end ; a terminus. The mineral king- 
 dom is made for the vegetable kingdom ; the vegetable 
 kingdom is made for the animal kingdom ; the animal 
 kingdom is made for man ; and all of them together are 
 made for God. Go through all the ranges of creation, 
 from the molecule of matter to the seraphim, and if you 
 ask for the final purpose of its creation, the reply is the 
 glory of the Maker. And this is reasonable. For God is 
 the greatest and most important, if we may use the word 
 in such a connection, of all beings. That which justifies 
 man in putting the dumb animals to his own uses, is the 
 fact that he is a grander creature than they are. That 
 which makes the inanimate world subservient to the ani- 
 mate ; that which subsidizes the elements of earth, air, 
 and water, and makes them tributary to the nourishment 
 and growth of the beast and the bird, is the fact that the 
 beast and the bird are of a higher order of existence than 
 earth, air, and water. It was because man was the 
 noblest, the most important, of all the creatures that God 
 placed upon this planet, that he subordinated them all to 
 him, and said to him in the original patent by which he 
 deeded the globe to him: "Behold, I have given you 
 every herb bearing seed ; have dominion over the fish of 
 the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every liv- 
 ing thing that moveth upon the earth." 
 
86 CALVINISM : 
 
 Now this principle holds good of the relation between 
 the whole creation and its Creator. He is a higher and 
 greater being than the whole created universe. The mass 
 of his being, so to speak, outweighs all other masses. He 
 never has created, he never can create, anything equal to 
 himself in infinity and glory. And therefore it is that he 
 is the final end, the cause of causes, the absolute ter- 
 minus where all the sweep and movement of creation 
 must come to a rest. It is an objection of the sceptic, 
 and sometimes of those who are not sceptics, that this 
 perpetual assertion in the Scriptures that God is the chief 
 end of creation, and this perpetual demand that the creat- 
 ure glorify him, is only a species of infinite egotism ; that 
 in making the whole unlimited universe subservient to 
 him and his purposes, the Deity is only exhibiting selfish- 
 ness upon an immense scale. But this objection overlooks 
 the fact that God is an infinitely greater and higher being 
 than any or all of his creatures ; and that from the very 
 nature of the case the less must be subordinated to the 
 greater. Is it egotism, when man employs in his service 
 his ox or his ass ? Is it selfishness, when the rose or the 
 lily takes up into its own fabric and tissue the inanimate 
 qualities of matter, and converts the dull and colorless 
 elements of the clod into hues and odors, into beauty and 
 bloom? There would be egotism in the procedure, if man 
 were of no higher grade of existence than the ox or the 
 ass. There would be selfishness, if the rose and the lily 
 were upon the same level with the inanimate elements of 
 matter. But the greater dignity in each instance justifies 
 the use and the subordination. And so it is, only in an 
 infinitely greater degree, in the case when the whole crea- 
 tion is subordinated and made to serve and glorify the 
 Creator. The distance between man and his ox, between 
 the lily and the particle of moisture which it imbibes, is 
 
PUKE AND MIXED 87 
 
 measurable. It is not infinite. But the distance between 
 God and the highest of his archangels is beyond computa- 
 tion. He chargeth his angels with folly. And therefore 
 upon the principle that the less must serve the greater, 
 the lower must be subordinate to the higher, it is right 
 and rational that u every creature which is in heaven, and 
 on the earth, and under the earth, and such as are in the 
 sea, and all that are in them, should say : ' Blessing and 
 honor, and glory, and power, be unto him that sitteth 
 upon the throne, and unto the Lamb, forever and ever.' " 
 
CALVINISM : 
 
 VIII. 
 THE DOUBLE PREDESTINATION TO HOLINESS AND SIN 
 
 The question whether there is a double predestination 
 to both holiness and life and sin and death, or only a sin- 
 gle predestination to holiness and life, was raised in the 
 fifth and sixth centuries, during the Semi-Pelagian con- 
 troversy, and afterward in the ninth century, in the con- 
 troversy between Gottschalk and Ratramnus on the one 
 side, and Rabanus Maurus and Hincmar on the other. 
 The stricter Augustinians affirmed the predestinatio du- 
 plex to both holiness and sin ; the milder affirmed only 
 the single predestination to holiness. Both alike, how- 
 ever, opposed the synergistic Semi-Pelagianism. The 
 Calvinistic reformers and the Calvinistic creeds asserted 
 the twofold predestination. The Westminster Confession 
 declares it plainly. It is explicitly taught in Scripture. 
 In Eom. 8 : 29, it is said that " whom God did fore- 
 know, he also did predestinate {irpowpicre) to be conformed 
 to the image of his Son." This is predestination to holi- 
 ness. In Acts 4: 27, 28, it is said that "against thy holy 
 child Jesus, Herod, and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles 
 and all the people of Israel were gathered, for to do what- 
 soever thy hand and thy counsel determined before 
 (TrpowpLcre) to be done." This is predestination to sin. 
 Compare also Acts 2: 23; Luke 22: 22; Jude 4. Pre- 
 cisely the same Greek word is employed in both texts, and 
 should therefore be translated by precisely the same Eng- 
 lish word in both. James's translators render it by " pre- 
 
PURE ATCD MIXED 89 
 
 destinate " in Rom. 8 : 29, and by " determined before " 
 (predetermined) in Acts 4 : 28. There is no material dif- 
 ference between u predestinate " and " predetermine," but 
 it would have been better to have employed either one 
 word or the other in both instances, because a merely 
 English reader might be led to suppose that two different 
 Greek words are employed in the original. The .Revisers 
 consistently render irpowpiae in both texts by the synony- 
 mous term " foreordain." Hetherington (Westminster 
 Assembly, Chap, x.) contends that " predestinate " and 
 " foreordain " are not synonymous and interchangeable, 
 because in Con. iii. 3, the first is used with everlasting 
 life, and the last with everlasting death. His statement 
 is as follows : " By predestination, the Westminster di- 
 vines meant a particular decree determining to confer ever- 
 lasting life. By foreordination, they meant a decree of 
 order or arrangement determining that the guilty should 
 be condemned to everlasting death ; and this they regard- 
 ed as the basis of judicial procedure according to which 
 ' God ordains men to dishonor and wrath for their sin.' 
 Let it furthermore be remarked that while according to 
 this view the term predestination could never be applied 
 to the lost, the term foreordination might be applied to 
 the saved, since they also are subjects in one sense of ju- 
 dicial procedure."- There are the following objections to 
 this denial that predestination and foreordination are 
 equivalent terms, and to this definition of foreordination : 
 1. One and the same word, irpowpicre, is employed in 
 Scripture to denote the divine action in reference to both 
 holiness and sin, life and death, and therefore if two dif- 
 ferent words are employed to translate it, they ought to be 
 synonymous and applicable to both cases alike. 2. Lexi- 
 cographers regard them as synonymous. Stormonth, e.g., 
 defines " foreordain" by "predestinate," and " predesti- 
 
90 CALVINISM : 
 
 nate " by " foreordain." 3. If Trpooopiae, in the instance 
 of sin and death, means only a judicial decision to punish 
 sin, then, in the instance of holiness and life, it would 
 mean only a judicial decision to reward holiness. If it is 
 predestination to penalty in one case, it must be predesti- 
 nation to reward in the other. But when St. Paul declares 
 that " whom God did foreknow he did predestinate to be 
 conformed to the image of his Son," he means that he pre- 
 destinated them to the conformity itself, and not merely 
 to the reward of it. 4. To say, as Hetherington does, that 
 " to foreordain some men to everlasting death " is " a de- 
 cree determining that the guilty shall be condemned to 
 everlasting death " (i.e., to the penalty of sin), is to mis- 
 conceive the nature of a decree. The matter of a decree 
 is always optional. It supposes the possibility of the con- 
 trary. When God decrees the creation of the world, he 
 is at liberty not to decree it and not to create it. But 
 when he condemns the guilty to punishment, this is not an 
 optional matter, but follows necessarily from the nature of 
 the divine justice and the threatening of the divine law. 
 There is, therefore, no more place for a decree u to con- 
 demn the guilty to everlasting death " than for a decree 
 that virtue shall be rewardable, or that two and two shall 
 make four. The same remark applies to Hetherington's 
 definition of "predestination" as "a particular decree de- 
 termining to confer everlasting life." Everlasting life, 
 strictly speaking, is the reward of obedience, which fol- 
 lows necessarily from God's promise, " This do and thou 
 shalt live," and from the nature of remunerative justice. 
 There is nothing optional in it. We cannot conceive of 
 God's decreeing not to reward obedience, and still less to 
 punish it. Unless, therefore, " conferring everlasting 
 life" includes the origination in the elect of the holiness 
 which is rewardable with everlasting life, as was probably 
 
PUKE AND MIXED 91 
 
 the view of Hetherington, it is not the predestination 
 which St. Paul describes as a predestination " to be con- 
 formed to the image " of the Son of God. 
 
 In the Pauline conception, predestination, or foreordi- 
 nation, covers and includes both the holiness that is to be 
 rewarded with life, and the sin that is to be punished with 
 death. The holiness of the elect is predestinated, and the 
 sin of the non-elect likewise. Both alike are represented 
 by the apostle as standing in a certain relation to the divine 
 purpose and the divine action, and this purpose and action 
 are designated by the one word irpowptae. To omit both 
 the holiness and the sin from the predestination, and re- 
 tain only the recompense of each, is to mutilate the Bibli- 
 cal representation, and convert the divine predestination 
 of Con. iii. 3, into the divine adjudication or sentencing of 
 Con. iii. 7. And to omit the sin but retain the holiness, 
 as is done by those who adopt the single predestination 
 and reject the double, though much less defective, is yet 
 defective in omitting that element of revealed truth con- 
 tained in texts like Acts 4 : 27, 28 ; 2 : 23 ; Luke 22 : 22 ; 
 Jude 4 ; Rom. 9 : 21, et alia, whereby sin as well as holi- 
 ness is taken out of the sphere of chance and brought 
 within the divine plan. 
 
 If, then, the Holy Spirit inspired St. Paul to employ 
 the word irpocapiae to denote the nature of God's action 
 both when he predestinates the elect to holiness and the 
 non-elect to a sin like that of crucifying the Lord of 
 glory, it becomes a most important question : What is the 
 nature of this predestinating action of God ? What does 
 it include and what does it exclude ? The answer is, that 
 God's predestinating in election and pretention is his 
 making the origin of holiness in an elect sinner, and the 
 continuance (not origin) of sin in a non-elect sinner, a 
 c dainty in his plan of the universe, in distinction from a 
 
92 CALYINIS3I : 
 
 contingency outside of that plan springing from chance ; 
 and that it includes certainty only, and excludes necessity 
 and compulsion. Opponents of the doctrine of decrees, 
 from the beginning, generally assume that to decree holi- 
 ness or sin is to necessitate them. The defenders of the 
 doctrine uniformly deny this. They contend that when 
 the divine decree relates to the action of the human will, 
 be it holy or sinful action, there is certainty, but not com- 
 pulsion. The Westminster Confession, iii. 1, declares that 
 " God [fore] ordains whatsoever comes to pass ; yet so as 
 thereby neither is God the author of sin ; nor is violence 
 offered to the will of the creature ; nor is the liberty of 
 second causes taken away, but rather established." 
 
 How can these things be % How, in the first place, 
 does God make the origin and everlasting continuance of 
 holiness in an elect sinner a certainty without compelling 
 and necessitating his will ? By the regenerating and 
 sanctifying agency of the Holy Spirit ; by u working in 
 the will, to will and to do of his good pleasure." Phil. 2: 
 13. Scripture teaches that this operation of the Spirit 
 does not destroy the freedom of the will. " If the Son 
 shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed." John 8 : 
 36. And the report of consciousness agrees with this ; 
 for the regenerate man lias no sense of being forced and 
 unwilling in any of his experiences and exercises. 
 
 How, in the second place, does God make the everlast- 
 ing continuance of sin in a non-elect sinner a certainty 
 without compelling and necessitating his will ? By let- 
 ting him alone, or, in the Confessional phrase, by " pass- 
 ing him by," and leaving him wholly to his own self-de- 
 termination in sin ? The sublapsarian pretention, which 
 is that of the Westminster Confession and all the Re- 
 formed creeds, supposes the fall in Adam and the existence 
 of sin to be prior, in the order of nature, to both election 
 
PURE AND MIXED 93 
 
 and pretention. Election and pretention, consequently, 
 have reference to the continuance of sin, not to the origin 
 of it. All men fall in Adam, without exception ; so that 
 there is no election or non-election to the fall itself, but 
 only to deliverance from it. Both election and pretention 
 suppose the fall, and are inexplicable without it as a pre- 
 supposition. Men are elected from out of a state of sin ; 
 and men are passed by and left in a state of sin. " They 
 who are elected [and they who are passed by] being fallen 
 in Adam," etc., Con. iii. 6. Election stops the continu- 
 ance of sin ; pretention permits the continuance of it. 
 The non-elect man, then, like the elect, being already in 
 the state of sin and guilt by the free fall in Adam, noth- 
 ing is requisite in order to make it certain that he will 
 forever remain in this state but the purpose of God not to 
 restrain and change the action of his free will and self- 
 will in sin by regenerating it. To denominate such 
 merely permissive action as this, compulsion, is absurd. 
 And yet this permissive action of God secures the certainty 
 of everlasting sin and death in the case of the non-elect, 
 just as infallibly as the efficient action of God secures the 
 certainty of everlasting holiness and life in the case of the 
 elect. But in the former instance the certainty is secured 
 wholly by the action of the sinner himself, while in the 
 latter instance it is secured by the action of the Holy Spirit 
 within the sinner. This leaving of the sinful will to its 
 own movement makes endless sin an infallible certainty. 
 For the sinner himself will and can never regenerate him- 
 self ; and if God has in his sovereignty decided and pur- 
 posed not to regenerate him, his willing and endless contin- 
 uance in sin and death is certain. Every Christian knows 
 that if, in his unregeneracy, he had been left wholly to his 
 own free will, without any restraint from God, he would 
 infallibly have gone from bad to worse forever and ever. 
 
94 Calvinism : 
 
 In these two ways of efficiency and permission, God 
 " foreordains " and makes certain two things that unques- 
 tionably " come to pass," namely, the everlasting holiness 
 and life of some men, and the everlasting sin and death of 
 some men ; " yet so as thereby God is not the author of sin ; 
 nor is violence done to the will of the creature ; nor is the 
 liberty of second causes taken away, but rather established." 
 When God predetermined from eternity not to restrain and 
 prevent " Herod, and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles, and 
 all the people of Israel," from crucifying his beloved Son, but 
 to leave them to their own wicked inclination and volun- 
 tary action in the case, he made this crucifixion a certainty, 
 but not a necessity, as is evinced by the " woe " pronounced 
 upon them by the Son of God. Luke 22 : 22. Men with 
 hearts and dispositions full of hatred toward the Saviour 
 of the world, if left to themselves are infallibly certain to 
 cry, " Crucify him ; crucify him." John 19 : 12-15. 
 
 The Confession (vi. 1 ; L. C. 19) declares that God 
 "permits" sin, but that it is not a "bare permission." 
 Con. v. 4. The permission that is adopted by the As- 
 sembly is one that occurs by a voluntary decision of God 
 which he need not have made, had he so pleased. He 
 might have decided not to permit sin ; in which case it 
 would not have entered his universe. The " bare per- 
 mission" which is rejected by the Assembly means that 
 God makes no voluntary decision at all in the case ; that 
 he could not have prevented the fall of angels and men, 
 but stands " like an idle spectator," having no control over 
 the event which he witnesses. Augustine makes the fol- 
 lowing statement in his Enchiridion, Ch. 100 : " In a way 
 unspeakably strange and wonderful, even what is done in 
 opposition to God's will [of desire] does not defeat his 
 will [of decree]. For it would not be done did he not 
 permit it, and of course his permission is not unwilling, 
 
PURE AND MIXED 95 
 
 but willing ; nor would a Good Being permit evil to be 
 done except that in his omnipotence he can turn evil into 
 good." Calvin, adopting Augustine's phraseology, con- 
 cisely marks the difference between the two permissions 
 in the remark, that " God's permission of sin is not invol- 
 untary, but voluntary." Inst. I. xviii. 3. Both Augus- 
 tine and Calvin had particular reference, in this connec- 
 tion, to the first origin of sin in angels and men. 1 But 
 their statement holds true of the continuance of sin in 
 angels and men. When God passes by all the fallen and 
 sinful angels, and does not regenerate and save any of 
 them, it is by a positive voluntary decision that might 
 have been different had he so pleased. He could have 
 saved them. And when God passes by some fallen and 
 sinful men and does not regenerate aud save them, this 
 also is a positive voluntary decision that might have been 
 different had he so pleased. He could have saved them. 
 To deny this option of God in either instance is to deiry, 
 1st, the divine sovereignty in the exercise of mercy ; and, 
 2d, the divine omnipotence in the control of creatures. 
 
 1 The permissive decree as related to the origin of sin presents a dif- 
 ficulty that does not exist in reference to the continuance of sin. The 
 certainty of the continuance of sin in fallen man is easily explained, hy 
 merely leaving the fallen will to its self determination. But merely 
 leaving the unfallen will to its self-determination would not make its 
 apostasy certain ; because it was endowed by creation with a power to 
 remain holy as created, and there was no punitive withdrawal of any 
 grace given in creation until after apostasy. How, under these circum- 
 stances, a permissive decree which does not operate by direct efficiency 
 can make the fall of a holy being certain, is an inscrutable mystery. 
 Respecting it, Turretin (VI. vii. 1) makes the following remark: "Two 
 extremes are to be avoided. First, that of defect, when an otiose per- 
 mission of sin is ascribed to God. Second, that of excess, when the 
 causality of sin is ascribed to him. Between these extremes, the or- 
 thodox hold the mean, who contend that the providence of God e.xtends 
 to sin in such way that he does not involuntarily permit it, as the Pela- 
 gians say, nor actively cause it, as the Libertines assert, but voluntarily 
 ordains and controls it." 
 
96 CALVINISM : 
 
 IX. 
 
 COMMON AND SPECIAL GRACE 
 
 The distinction between common and special grace is 
 closely connected witli the Calvinistic doctrine of election 
 and pretention. If it is denied or explained away, it is 
 impossible to hold the Calvinistic view on these latter 
 points. This will appear by considering the distinction as 
 taught in Scripture, and formulated in the Westminster 
 Standards. 
 
 Common grace is a lower degree of grace than special. 
 The latter succeeds in overcoming the enmity of the car- 
 nal mind and the opposition of the sinful will; the former 
 does not succeed. Says John Howe, "When divine grace 
 is working but at the common rate ; then it suffers itself 
 oftentimes to be overcome, and yields the victory to the 
 contending sinner." This was the case with the people of 
 Israel as described by Stephen, " Ye stiff-necked and un- 
 circumcised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the 
 Holy Ghost, as your fathers did, so do ye." Acts 7 : 51. 
 The same complaint was made against resisting Israel by 
 Isaiah, " They rebelled and vexed his Holy Spirit ; there- 
 fore he was turned to be their enemy." Isa. 63 : 10. The 
 same failure of common grace to subdue the sinner is 
 noted in Gen. 6 : 10, "My Spirit shall not always strive 
 with man." Whenever man quenches conviction of sin 
 and plunges into temptation in order to get rid of serious 
 and anxious thoughts, and the Holy Spirit leaves him to 
 his own self-will, this is common grace. The process is 
 
PURE AND MIXED 97 
 
 described in the solemn words of God himself, " Because 
 I have called and ye have refused ; I have stretched out 
 my hand and no man regarded, but ye have set at nought 
 all my counsel and would none of my reproof, I also will 
 laugh at your calamity, I will mock when your fear com- 
 eth." Prov. 1 : 24-26. In common grace, the sinner is too 
 obstinate and self-determined in sin for it to succeed. 
 
 In special grace, on the other hand, the Holy Spirit does 
 not leave the sinner to his own self-determination, but 
 continues to operate upon his resisting will until he sub- 
 dues it. He " makes him willing in the day of his power." 
 Ps. 110 : 3. He " works in him to will and to do of his 
 good pleasure." Phil. 2 : 13. He " makes him perfect in 
 every good work to do his will, working in him that which 
 is well pleasing in his sight." Ileb. 13 : 21. This grade 
 of divine grace is higher than common grace. It is de- 
 nominated " irresistible," not in the sense that no resist- 
 ance is made by the sinner, but in the sense that it con- 
 quers all his resistance. It is also denominated " effectual," 
 because it secures salvation. It is also called " regenerat- 
 ing," because it changes the disposition of the sinful heart 
 and will by " the washing of regeneration and renewing 
 of the Holy Ghost." Tit. 3:5/ 
 
 These two forms and grades of grace, so plainly de- 
 scribed in the Scripture texts above cited, are mentioned 
 in the Westminister Confession, vii. 3, " Man by his fall, 
 having made himself incapable of life by that [legal] 
 covenant, the Lord was pleased to make a second, com- 
 monly called the covenant of grace, wherein he freely 
 offered unto sinners life and salvation by Jesus Christ, 
 requiring of them faith in him, that they may be saved, 
 and promising to give unto all those that are ordained to 
 life his Holy Spirit, to make them willing and able to be- 
 lieve." According to this statement there are two things 
 
98 CALVINISM : 
 
 contained in the covenant of grace : (a) An offer to sinners 
 of life and salvation by Jesns Christ, requiring of them 
 faith in him, that they may be saved ; and (b) a promise 
 to give unto all those that are ordained to life the Holy 
 Spirit, to make them willing and able to believe. The 
 " offer " in the covenant of grace is made to all sinners 
 without exception, but the "promise" in the covenant is 
 made only to "those that are ordained to life," or the 
 elect. The " offer" is common grace ; the " promise " is 
 special grace. The "offer" is taught in such Scriptures 
 as, " Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to 
 every creature. He that believeth shall be saved." Mark 
 16 : 15. " God so loved the world that he gave his only 
 begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not 
 perish, but have everlasting life." John 3 : 16. The 
 " promise " is taught in such Scriptures as, " A new heart 
 also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you, 
 and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and 
 I will give you an heart of flesh." Ezek. 36 : 26, 27. 
 " All that the Father giveth me shall come to me ; and 
 him that cometh to me [because given by the Father] I 
 will in no wise cast out. No man can come to me, except 
 the Father which hath sent me, draw him." John 6 : 
 37, 44. 
 
 The following then, are some of the marks of distinction 
 between common and special grace : (a) In common grace 
 God demands faith in Christ, but does not give it ; in 
 special grace God both demands and gives faith, for " faith 
 is the gift of God." Eph. 2 : 8. When God says to a sin- 
 ner : " Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt 
 be saved," he makes no promise or pledge to originate 
 faith in him. The sinner, in this case, must originate his 
 own faith, and any sinner that originates it will find that 
 God will be true to his word, (h) In common grace man 
 
PURE AND MIXED 99 
 
 must of himself fulfil the condition of salvation, namely, 
 believe and repent ; in special grace God persuades and 
 enables him to fulfil it. (c) In common grace the call to 
 believe and repent is invariably ineffectual, because man is 
 averse to faith and repentance and in bondage to sin ; in 
 special grace the call is invariably effectual, because his 
 aversion and bondage are changed into willingness and 
 true freedom by the operation of the Holy Spirit, (d) 
 Common grace is universal and indiscriminate, having no 
 relation to election and pretention. Xo man is elected to 
 it, and no man is " passed by " in its bestowment. All 
 men who come to years of self-consciousness are more or 
 less convicted of sin (Rom. 1 : 32 ; 2 : 14, 15), are more or 
 less commanded to repent (Acts 17: 30), are more or less 
 urged to repentance (Rom. 2 : 4), and are more or less 
 striven with by the Holy Spirit (Gen. 6:10; Acts 17 : 26, 
 27)— all of which belong to the common operations of 
 divine grace. Special grace, on the contrary, is particular 
 and discriminating, and is connected with election and pre- 
 tention. God does not originate faith and repentance in 
 all men, nor does he promise to do so. He does not per- 
 suade and enable every man without exception to believe 
 and repent. Only those whom he chooses before the 
 foundation of the world are the subjects of that higher 
 degree of the energy of the Holy Ghost by which these 
 wonderful effects are wrought in the sinner. Respecting 
 special grace, God " saith to Moses, I will have mercy on 
 whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on 
 whom I will have compassion." And St. Paul from this 
 draws the inference, " Therefore he hath mercy on whom 
 he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth " 
 [leaves in sin]. Rom. 9 : 15, 18. In accordance with 
 these and similar Scriptures, the Confession (vii. 3) declares 
 that it is only to " those that are ordained to life " that 
 
100 CALVINISM : 
 
 God "promises to give his Holy Spirit to make them 
 willing and able to believe." 
 
 What now is the difference between the Calvinistic and 
 the Arminian view of common grace I This is a question 
 of great importance just now, because the Northern Pres- 
 byterian Church has decided hy a large majority that it 
 will make no alteration of its Standards that will impair 
 their Calvinism. Calvinism asserts that common grace 
 cannot be made successful by the co-ojperation of the un- 
 regenerate sinner with the Holy Spirit, and thereby be 
 converted into special or saving grace : Arininianism as- 
 serts that it can be. The Arminian contends that the or- 
 dinary operations of the Divine Spirit which are experi- 
 enced by all men indiscriminately will succeed, if the un- 
 renewed man will cease to resist them and will yield to 
 them. Ceasing to resist and yielding, he contends, is an 
 agency which the natural man can and must exert of him- 
 self, and this agency co-working with that of the Holy 
 Spirit secures the result — namely, faith and repentance. 
 Faith and repentance are thus the product of a joint 
 agency : that of God and that of the unregenerate sin- 
 ner. Neither party originates faith and repentance alone. 
 Neither party is independent of the other in this transac- 
 tion. If the sinner does not cease resisting and submit, 
 God will fail, and if God does not assist him by common 
 grace, the sinner will fail. Each conditions the other; 
 and consequently the Arminian, from his point of view, is 
 consistent in asserting that the Divine election to faith 
 and repentance is not sovereign and independent of the 
 sinner's action but is conditioned by it. 
 
 The Calvinist, on the contrary, holds that the unregen- 
 erate man never ceases to resist and never yields to God 
 of his own motion, but only as he is acted upon by the 
 Holy Spirit and is thereby " persuaded and enabled " to 
 
PURE AND MIXED 101 
 
 cease resisting and to yield obedience. Ceasing to resist 
 God, lie contends, is holy action, and so is yielding or sub- 
 mitting to God. To refer this kind of action to the sin- 
 ful and un regenerate will as its author, the Calvinist as- 
 serts is contrary to the Scripture declaration, that " the 
 carnal mind is enmity against God, and is not subject to 
 the law of God, neither indeed can be." Rom. 8:7. A 
 will at enmity with God never of itself ceases resisting 
 him, and never of itself yields to him. It must be changed 
 from enmity into love by " the washing of regeneration 
 and renewing of the Holy Ghost " in order to sweet and 
 gentle submission. The sinner, as such, cannot, therefore, 
 assist and co-operate with the Holy Spirit in this work of 
 originating faith and repentance, but the whole of it must 
 be done by that Almighty Agent who can turn the human 
 heart as the rivers of water. Christ, through the Spirit, 
 is the sole " author of faith" (Heb. 12: 2). When the 
 Holy Spirit puts forth a higher degree of his energy than 
 he exerts in his ordinary operation, he overcomes and 
 stops the sinner's resistance instead of the sinner's over- 
 coming and stopping it of himself, and inclines the sinner 
 to yield to the Divine monitions and impulse instead of 
 the sinner's yielding of his own accord. If the sinner's 
 resistance is u overcome," it is overcome by God's action ; 
 but if it "ceases," it ceases by the sinner's action. To say 
 that common grace would succeed if it were not resisted 
 by man, is not the same as saying that common grace 
 would succeed if it were yielded to by the man. Non-re- 
 sistance is different from ceasing resistance. In the former 
 instance there is no opposition by the man ; in the latter 
 there is opposition, which is put a stop to by the man. 
 
 The doctrine of a co-operating and conditioning action 
 of the unrenewed sinner, by which common grace may be- 
 come special or saving grace, so that all mankind stand in 
 
102 CALVINISM : 
 
 the same relation to election, and there is no pretention 
 by God, because the difference between the elect and the 
 non-elect is not made by the Divine decree, but by man's 
 action in yielding or not yielding to common grace, is 
 clearly expressed in the following extract from the 
 Confession of the Arminian Remonstrants: "Although 
 there is the greatest diversity in the degrees in which 
 grace is bestowed in accordance with the Divine will, yet 
 the Holy Spirit confers, or at least is ready to confer, 
 upon all and each to whom the Word is ordinarily 
 preached, as much grace as is sufficient for generating 
 faith and carrying forward their conversion in its succes- 
 sive stages. This sufficient grace for faith and conversion 
 is allotted not only to those who actually believe and are 
 converted, but also to those who do not actually believe, 
 and are not in fact converted. So that there is no decree 
 of absolute reprobation " (Confession, ch. xvii.). This 
 view of grace is synergistic. Every man that hears the 
 gospel receives a degree of grace that is sufficient for 
 generating faith and repentance, provided he yields to it. 
 If, therefore, he does not believe and repent, it must be 
 because of the absence of some human efficiency to co- 
 operate with the Divine ; and therefore the difference be- 
 tween the saved and the lost, the elect and the non-elect, 
 is partly referable to the human will, and not wholly to 
 the Divine decree. So far as the Divine influence is con- 
 cerned, the saved and the lost stand upon the same com- 
 mon position and receive the same common form and de- 
 gree of grace, which is sufficient to save provided it be 
 rightly used and assisted by the sinner. The saved man 
 makes the common grace effectual by an act of his own 
 will, namely, yielding and ceasing resistance ; while the 
 lost man nullifies it by an act of his own will, namely, 
 persisting in enmity and opposition. According to the 
 
PURE AND MIXED 103 
 
 monergistic or Calvinistic view of grace, on the contrary, 
 no man receives a grace that is " sufficient for generating 
 faith " who does not receive such a measure of Divine 
 influence as overcomes his hostile will ; so that he does not 
 stop his own resistance but is stopped by the mercy and 
 power of God ; so that his faith and repentance are not 
 the result in part of his own efficiency, but solely of the 
 Holy Spirit's irresistible and sovereign energy in regen- 
 eration. In a word, the dependence upon Divine grace in 
 the Calvinistic system is total ; in the Arminian is partial. 
 In the former, common grace cannot be made saving 
 grace by the sinner's co-action ; in the latter it can be. 
 
 It is an open question between the two great evangeli- 
 cal divisions of the Christian Church which of these two 
 views of grace is most correct and most conformed to 
 Scripture. But it is not an open question whether one 
 view is the same thing as the other. Yet the discussion 
 respecting the revision of the Westminster Standards 
 shows that some who claim to be Calvinists adopt the 
 doctrine of co-operation, and make election and salvation 
 depend partly upon human action. Consider the follow- 
 ing statement of an advocate of revision: "There is a 
 human and a divine side to regeneration. God determines 
 how many and who will be saved, and every man de- 
 termines for himself whether he will be among that num- 
 ber." Here are two " determiners " who co-operate in 
 regeneration, God and the sinner. And if the sinner 
 " determines for himself whether he will be among the 
 number of the saved," then certainly it is not God who 
 "determines how many and who will be saved." It is the 
 sinner who determines this. This is not Calvinism. 
 
 Common grace is connected with God's legislative will, 
 or will of desire ; special grace with his decretive will, or 
 will of purpose. (See p. 52, note.) These two modes of 
 
104 CALVINISM : 
 
 the Divine will are presented by St. Paul and St. Peter 
 in two passages that are often misapprehended. The texts, 
 " God our Saviour will have all men to be saved, and to 
 come to the knowledge of the truth " (1 Tim. 2 : 3, 4), and 
 " The Lord is long-suffering to us-ward, not willing that 
 any should perish, but that all should come to repent- 
 ance" (2 Pet. 3 : 9), are often quoted as if they were 
 identical in their teaching, and as if both refer to com- 
 mon grace. An examination will show that the first text 
 is universal in its meaning, and refers to the general 
 offer of the gospel ; but the last is particular, and re- 
 lates to the effectual call and actual salvation of the elect 
 alone. 
 
 In 1 Tim. 2 : 4, the Greek is o? irdvra^ avSpanrovs 
 SeXefc acoSrjvai (who desires all men to be saved). In 2 Pet. 
 3 : 9, it is [irf /3ov\6fiev6s tlvcls airoXea&ai, aiXka iravras 
 eh fierdvoiav ^coprjaai (not purposing that some should 
 perish, but that all should go on to [perfect] repentance). 
 The employment of &e\(o in the first passage, and of 
 f3ov\o/jiai in the second, indicates the first point of differ- 
 ence. The former denotes the will of desire, the latter 
 the will of purpose. An examination of the texts in 
 Bruder's Concordance will plainly show that in the Isew 
 Testament this is generally the use of these two words. 
 The Septuagint use is not so strict as that of the New 
 Testament, and the classical is still more loose. The dis- 
 tinction generally given by lexicographers is, that fiov- 
 Xofxai involves deliberation and intention along with de- 
 sire (" deliberato consilio aliquid volo, cupio, decerno"), 
 while SeXco denotes simple desire only (" simpliciter 
 volo "). In 1 Tim. 2 : 4, St. Paul declares that God 
 " desires all men to be saved," but not that he purposes 
 that they all shall be. In 2 Pet. 3 : 9, St. Peter declares 
 that God " does not purpose that some [of ns] should 
 
PURE AND MIXED 105 
 
 perish, but that all [of us] should goon to repentance" 
 (complete sanctification). 
 
 And this brings us to the second point of difference. 
 The action of SiXec in 1 Tim. 2 : 4 terminates on Travras 
 avSpcoTrovs ; that of /3ovX6[A6vo<; in 2 Pet. 3 : 9 termi- 
 nates on Tivas (avSpcoTrovs). All men are the object of the 
 Divine desire ; some are the object of the Divine decree. 
 Who these latter are is shown by the immediately pre- 
 ceding context, "The Lord is long-suffering to us-ward 
 (efc r}fias)y not purposing that any [of us : rjficov] should 
 perish." St. Paul is writing to the children of God, and 
 it is concerning such that he affirms that none of them 
 shall perish, because this is the decretive will of God. 
 
 It is to be regretted that the terms desire or inclination, 
 and purpose, intention, or decree, have not been more care- 
 fully employed in both the Authorized and Revised ver- 
 sions to mark the difference between SeXy/ma and ^ovXrjfia. 
 In Bom. 9 : 22, the meaning of St. Paul would be more 
 clearly expressed if the translation were, u What if God, 
 [though] inclined (&eX<ov) to shew his wrath and make his 
 power known, [yet] endured with much long-suffering the 
 vessels of wrath fitted for destruction." The apostle asks 
 the objector what he would say in reph T if the fact were 
 (as it actually is), that God shows infinite patience and 
 forbearance toward the obstinate and impenitent sinner 
 in putting a restraint upon his holy displeasure against 
 sin, which inclines him to the immediate punishment of 
 it. In lvom. 9:19, the meaning would be free from all 
 ambiguity if the rendering were, " Who hath resisted his 
 decree {^ovXrifxari) ? '' Every human being has resisted 
 God's " will " in the sense of desire, as used in Matt. 5 : 
 10, " Thy will (^eXrjfia) be done." In Heb. 6 : 17, the 
 writer's thought would be more exactly presented if the 
 rendering were, " Wherein God, intending (fiovXofievos) 
 
106 CALVINISM : 
 
 more abundantly to show unto the heirs of promise the 
 immutability of his counsel," etc. The rendering in the 
 Authorized version, " willing to show," might mean will- 
 ing in distinction from unwilling, or willing in the sense 
 of desiring, neither of which expresses the definite pur- 
 pose of God in the case. The Revised version renders, 
 "being minded to show." But "minded " denotes desire 
 and inclination rather than purpose or intention ; as in 
 Rom. 8:6," To be carnally minded is death, but to be 
 spiritually minded is life and peace." In Matt. 1 : 19, 
 both #e\a) and (Sovkofjiai are found, and would be pre- 
 cisely translated in this manner : H Then Joseph her hus- 
 band being a just [law-respecting] man, and [yet] not 
 wishing (Qekcov) to make her a public example, intended 
 (iftovXrj&r}) to put her away privily." 
 
PUKE AND mixed 107 
 
 THE TEUE PROPORTION IN A CREED BETWEEN THE UNI- 
 VERSAL AND THE SPECIAL LOVE OF GOD 
 
 It is objected that insufficient emphasis is laid in the 
 Westminster Confession upon the universal offer of mercy, 
 and the common call to faith and repentance, and some 
 even contend that these are not contained in it. Advo- 
 cates of revision demand that these doctrines shall be 
 more particularly enunciated than they now are, and com- 
 plain that more is said concerning the electing love of 
 God in the effectual call than upon his indiscriminate 
 love in the outward call. In reply to this, we mention 
 the three following reasons why the Westminster Confes- 
 sion, in common with all the Reformed creeds, is more 
 full and emphatic regarding the special love of God 
 toward his church than regarding his general love toward 
 the world. 
 
 1. The Scriptures themselves are more full and em- 
 phatic in the first reference than in the last. A careful 
 examination of the Old and New Testaments will show 
 that while the universal compassion of God toward sinful 
 men is plainly and frequently taught, yet it is the relation 
 of God as the Saviour of his people that constitutes the 
 larger proportion of the teachings of the Prophets, the 
 Psalms, the Gospels, and the Epistles. These parts of 
 Scripture are full of God's dealings with his covenant 
 people, instructing them, expostulating with them, rebuk- 
 ing them, comforting them, helping them— expressing in 
 
108 CALVINISM : 
 
 these and other ways his special love and affection for 
 them, as those whom he has chosen before the foundation 
 of the world. Throughout the Bible men universally are 
 both invited and commanded to believe and repent. No 
 one disputes this. This is God's universal love. But, 
 whenever the love of God is particularly enlarged upon, 
 carefully delineated, and repeatedly emphasized, in the 
 great majority of instances it is his electing love. The 
 Saviour's last discourses with his disciples, and his last 
 prayer, have for their principal theme the " love of his own 
 which were in the world," whom "he loved unto the end." 
 For these he specially supplicates. " I pray for them : 
 I pray not [now] for the world, but for them which thou 
 hast given me, for they are thine." The Epistles of Paul 
 also are like the Redeemer's discourses. So full are they 
 of expanded and glowing descriptions of the electing love 
 of God that the charge of a narrow Jewish conception of 
 the Divine compassion is frequently made against them. 
 The Confession therefore follows the Scriptures in regard 
 to the proportion of doctrine, when it puts the mercy of 
 God toward his people in the foreground. And to object 
 to this proportion is to object to Divine Revelation. 
 
 2. The electing love of God and his special grace natu- 
 rally has the foremost place in the Confession as in Script- 
 ure, because it is the only love and grace that is success- 
 fid with the sinner. The universal love of God in his 
 outward call and common grace is a failure, because it is 
 inadequate to overcome the enmity and resistance with 
 which man meets it. AVhile therefore the sacred writers 
 represent the common call as prompted by the compassion 
 of God toward the sinner, and expressive of his sincere 
 desire that he would hear it, and as aggravating his per- 
 sistence in the sin of which a free pardon is offered, yet 
 inasmuch as it yields no saving and blessed results, they 
 
PURE AND MIXED 109 
 
 see no reason for making it the principal and prominent 
 part of the Divine oracles. But that electing love in the 
 effectual call and irresistible grace, which overcomes the 
 aversion of the sinner and powerfully inclines his hostile 
 will, inasmuch as it is the principal work of God in the 
 human heart, becomes the principal subject of discourse 
 for " the holy men of God who spake as they were moved 
 by the Holy Ghost." They dwell rather on the special 
 grace that triumphs over human depravity, than on the 
 common grace that is defeated by it. 
 
 3. The universal offer of mercy is not emphasized and 
 enlarged upon in the Confession, because this is superflu- 
 ous. That the offer of mercy in Christ is universal goes 
 without saying, because if offered at all it must be offered 
 universally. It is impossible to offer the atonement of 
 Christ only to the elect. Xo man knows who are the 
 elect, and therefore the ambassador of Christ must offer 
 salvation to everybody or else to nobody. Any offer at 
 all must, from the nature of the case, be unlimited. Why, 
 therefore, waste words in a creed to declare with unneces- 
 sary fulness what must be as a matter of course, and what 
 is clearly and sufficiently announced in such Scripture 
 entreaties as "Turn ye, turn ye, for why will ye die," and 
 such Confessional declarations as we have cited on pp. 24-- 
 29? 
 
 If it be objected that God knows who are the elect, and 
 that it is inconsistent in him to make a universal offer of 
 mercy through an ignorant agent like a Christian minis- 
 ter, when he does not purpose to regenerate and save 
 every individual man, this is a difficulty for him, not for 
 man. It is certainly consistent for man to offer mercy in- 
 discriminately because he does not know who are the elect, 
 even if it is not for God because he does know. But is 
 it inconsistent for God ? "What are the facts in relation 
 
110 CALVINISM : 
 
 to God ? He offers mercy to a man in the outward call, 
 and accompanies this call with that degree of grace de- 
 nominated " common." The man despises the call and 
 frustrates the grace, by suppressing conviction of sin and 
 persisting in the worldly life which he loves. Now does 
 the fact that God has decided not to do anything more 
 than this toward the salvation of this resisting man prove 
 that in doing this he has acted inconsistently with mercy ? 
 Is not God's action up to this point kind, forbearing, 
 patient, and merciful? All that he has done to this man 
 in the outward call and common grace has had no ten- 
 dency to injure him by confirming him in sin, but, on the 
 contrary, to benefit him by delivering him from it. There 
 has been nothing hard or unmerciful in this form and 
 grade of divine grace toward this guilty sinner who does 
 not deserve the least degree of grace. It is true that it is 
 not the highest form of grace, yet it is real grace, and far 
 greater than any sinner merits. Is it inconsistent in God 
 to do any kind and degree of good to a sinner, if he has 
 decided not to do the highest kind and degree of good in 
 his power ? Shall God do nothing at all that is kind and 
 gracious to a sinful man, unless he has decided to over- 
 come all the opposition that he may make to his kindness 
 and grace? Must God make no offer of mercy to a sin- 
 ner, unless he has decided to make him accept it ? Shall 
 he extend the common call only in the case in which he 
 intends to follow it with the effectual call ? 
 
 There never was an age of the world when men more 
 needed than now to be reminded that they are resisting 
 the common grace of God, and rejecting his universal offer 
 of mercy, and that in so doing they run the great hazard 
 of God's preterition / of being passed by in the bestow- 
 ment of regenerating grace. Men need to fear, lest, by 
 stifling conviction of sin and turning a deaf ear to the 
 
PUKE AND MIXED 111 
 
 common call, they shall never be the subjects of the effec- 
 tual call in regeneration. For, says the Larger Catechism, 
 68, " others [than the elect] may be, and often are out- 
 wardly called by the ministry of the word, and have some 
 common operations of the Spirit, who, for their wilful 
 neglect and contempt of the grace offered to them, being 
 justly left in their unbelief, do never truly come to Jesus 
 Christ." And this agrees with the solemn declaration of 
 God himself : " Because I have called and ye refused ; I 
 have stretched my hand, and no man regarded ; I also 
 will laugh at your calamity * (Prov. 1 : 24-26). 
 
112 CALVINISM 
 
 XL 
 INFANT SALVATION AS RELATED TO ORIGINAL SIN 
 
 In order to a correct understanding of the Calvinistic 
 doctrine of the salvation of infants, it is necessary to re- 
 member the two theories of original sin which began in 
 the Augustinian and Semi-Pelagian anthropologies, and 
 are continued in the Calvinistic and Arminian. They dif- 
 fer essentially from each other, and result in essentially 
 different views of infant salvation. 
 
 The Augustinian doctrine is that original sin is dam- 
 ning, and that infants deserve eternal death on account of 
 it. Being fallen in Adam, they have a corrupt disposition 
 or inclination, which is both voluntary and responsible. 
 It is the self in its central and inmost self-determination. 
 Though the infant has committed no acts of known and 
 wilful transgression., yet his heart is estranged from God, 
 and his will is at enmity with the holy law of God. When 
 he comes to years of consciousness he feels guilty for this 
 estrangement and this enmity, and this proves that it h 
 guilt. An infant, therefore, needs salvation because he is 
 really culpable and punishable. He requires the whole 
 work of the Redeemer, both as expiating guilt and cleans- 
 ing from pollution. 
 
 The Semi-Pelagian doctrine is, that original sin is not 
 damning; that neither infants nor adults deserve eternal 
 punishment on account of it. Only actual transgression 
 merits hell. Upon this theory original sin is calamitous, 
 not culpable, and therefore the dying infant is not in a 
 
PURE AND MIXED 113 
 
 strictly damnable and lost condition. He has a disordered 
 nature which tempts and prompts to sin, but is not sin it- 
 self. Consequently when lie is said to be " saved," the 
 term does not mean, as it does on the other theory, that 
 he is delivered from the pains of hell as something that 
 might justly be inflicted upon him. 
 
 If the first of these views of original sin is adopted, the 
 salvation of dying infants, whether of some or of all, is 
 an act of unobliged and unmerited grace. It is salvation 
 from deserved eternal death. By reason of original sin 
 the infant is truly culpable before the law and justice of 
 God. He might be punished eternally for it, and no in- 
 justice would be done to him. His salvation, therefore, 
 is as unmerited and optional as that of an adult. God 
 has a just liberty to decide whether he will leave all in- 
 fants in sin and misery, or whether he will regenerate and 
 save all of them or a part of them. These things follow 
 if the premise that original sin is guilt is correct. 
 
 If the second of these views of original sin is adopted, 
 the " salvation" of dying infants is not real but nominal 
 and putative, because it is not grace but debt. If there 
 be no culpability in original sin, there is none resting upon 
 the infant ; for this is all the sin he has. If he does not 
 deserve hell punishment, he does not need to be saved 
 from it, and is not saved from it. His moral condition is 
 one of misfortune, not of guilt. His so-called " salvation," 
 therefore, cannot be regulated like that of an adult by the 
 sovereign, unobliged, and optional decision of God. No 
 infants can justly be sent to perdition for original sin. 
 All must be " saved "from its consequences, whatever 
 these ma} 7 be. These are the necessary inferences from 
 this view of original sin, and they are embodied in the 
 declaration that " it would be unjust and wrong in God to 
 send innocent and harmless infants to perdition." 
 8 
 
114 CALVINISM : 
 
 Now, it is plain that whichever of these two views of 
 original sin be correct, the doctrine of infant salvation 
 cannot be the same upon one that it is upon the other. 
 Neither can there be a blending or mixing of one with 
 the other. It is sometimes said that the extension of elec- 
 tion by the later Calvinism, so as to include all infants as 
 a class instead of a part of them as individuals, is a de- 
 parture from the Calvinistic system, and a considerable 
 modification of it in the direction of Arminianism. But 
 there is nothing of this, provided the Calvinistic view of 
 original sin is retained strictly and fully. So long as the 
 later Calvinist holds with the elder, that "every sin, both 
 original and actual, being a transgression of the righteous 
 law of God, doth in its own nature bring guilt upon the 
 sinner, whereby he is bound over to the wrath of God, 
 and made subject to death, temporal and eternal " (Con- 
 fess, vi. 6), he stands upon the very same theological 
 ground with him. He adopts the same definitions of sin, 
 of guilt, of salvation, of grace, of regeneration, and of 
 election. The only point of difference is the minor one 
 relating to the diameter of the circle of election. The 
 only question between the parties is, How many guilty 
 and lost dying infants does the infinite and unmerited 
 mercy of God regenerate and save from eternal death ? 
 Though the elder Calvinist did not, like the later, say 
 that infant salvation is classical, not individual, he yet 
 prepared the way for it, by distinguishing between infants 
 that are saved by " covenanted " mercy and those that are 
 saved by " uncovenanted." Even Augustine indirectly 
 worked toward this widening of the circle of infant elec- 
 tion in his assertion that the sufferings of lost infants are 
 " mitissima omnium." He held with great positiveness that 
 original sin in an infant is the inclination of the will de- 
 scending and inherited from Adam, and as such is free 
 
PURE AND MIXED 115 
 
 agency and wrong agency, and as such is punishable with 
 the just penalty of sin. It would therefore have been 
 more self-consistent and logical in him, not to have min- 
 imised as he did the punishment due to original sin in an 
 infant, but rather to have magnified the divine mercy in 
 saving all infants from it instead of only a part of them. 
 It would have been more self-consistent and logical, we 
 say, because the verdict of justice is a fixed quantity re- 
 specting the intrinsic demerit of original sin, whether in 
 an infant or an adult, and may be neither increased nor 
 diminished, but mercy may be more or less. Justice can- 
 not give two decisions as to whether original sin deserves 
 eternal death ; but mercy can give two decisions as to 
 whether it will or will not pardon it. Augustine might 
 therefore have affirmed the exact and full retribution due 
 to original sin in the case of infants as in that of adults, 
 and then have affirmed with the later Calvinist that the 
 infinite compassion of God frees all of them from the 
 dreadful guilt and penalty by the blood of atonement. In 
 this instance, where sin abounded grace would super- 
 abound. The greater the penalty to which the infant is 
 exposed, the greater the mercy in remitting it. The sal- 
 vation of an infant in this case means something. Infant 
 salvation is real ; for it is the deliverance of a soul that is 
 really guilty and liable to endless woe. And it is costly ; 
 for it is by the sacrificial death of God incarnate. 
 
 But if the other view of original sin, namely, that it is 
 not properly sin, and does not deserve or bring eternal 
 death, is adopted in connection with the universal salva- 
 tion of dying infants, then indeed there will be a very 
 great departure from the Calvinistic system. Another 
 meaning is given to " sin " and to " salvation." The evil 
 from which the infant is " saved " is very small, and the 
 kindness showed to him is very small also. A "painted 
 
116 CALVINISM : 
 
 sinner," as Luther said, lias only a " painted Saviour." It 
 was this view of original sin as not damning, that made 
 many Calvinists in the seventeenth century afraid to af- 
 firm the salvation of all infants ; because at that time the 
 two views were combined together by the Arminians. 
 Arminian advocates of universal infant salvation rested it 
 upon the ground that it would be unjust to condemn in- 
 fants to perdition solely because of original sin. Their 
 Calvinistic opponents, such as Owen, for example, regarded 
 this as a fatal error, leading logically to conclusions re- 
 specting the nature of sin and salvation, from which prob- 
 ably some of the evangelical Arminians themselves would 
 have shrunk. Had the doctrine of the guilt and damna- 
 bility of original sin in infants been conceded, it is highly 
 probable that Calvinists generally of that century might 
 have been more ready, with Calvinists generally of this, 
 to make the circle of election large enough to include all 
 dying infants, and not a part only. For they had no dis- 
 position to contract and minimize the extent of God's de- 
 cree of election, but every disposition to widen it, provided 
 Scripture gave warrant for it. In the present controversy 
 respecting the revision of the Westminster Standards, this 
 difference between the two views of original sin should be 
 kept distinctly in mind. The Confession is explicit in 
 teaching the culpability of original sin ; and we have seen 
 no proposition to strike this teaching out of it. This tenet, 
 consequently, must go along with that of infant salvation. 
 The mercy of God saves the " little children " from the 
 very same common depravity and guilt that is in their 
 parents, and from the very same dreadful penalty that 
 righteously overhangs "the carnal mind, which is enmity 
 against God, is not subject to the law of God, neither in- 
 deed can be " (Horn. 8 : 7). In this case, the mercy of God 
 is immense, because it pardons and eradicates an immense 
 
PURE AND MIXED 117 
 
 sin ; for the sin of heart and inclination is greater than 
 that of act and outward conduct, because it is the source 
 and poison of the whole of it. On the other theory, the 
 mercy of God is small ; for the only sin that is really for- 
 given, is that of actual transgression. 
 
 The doctrine of the damnation of infants is tempered 
 and mitigated by that of their salvation. This is often 
 overlooked, either ignorantly or designedly, by the oppo- 
 nents of Calvinism. It does not follow that because a 
 human being deserves to go to hell for sin, he actually will 
 go there. His sin may be pardoned and eradicated. The 
 truth, but not the whole truth, is told, when it is merely 
 said that Calvinism teaches the damnation of infants. It 
 teaches their salvation also. This is true even if the sal- 
 vation is only of the infants of believers, as in the elder 
 Calvinism ; and is still more so, if the salvation is of all 
 infants as in the later Calvinism. When, therefore, the 
 enemy of this creed stops with the first statement, lie is 
 like a false witness in court, who after relating one fact, is 
 silent upon another which ought to be mentioned along 
 with it, and which is requisite in order to put the judge 
 and jury in possession of the whole case. A falsehood 
 may be told concerning a theological system, as well by 
 not speaking the whole truth, as by uttering a direct lie. 
 And there is considerable of such falsehood current. Au- 
 gustine and Calvin both held that infants, like adults, are 
 children of Adam, responsibly sinned and fell with him in 
 the first transgression, and are justly involved with him in 
 the same condemnation to eternal death. " In Adam all 
 die," 1 Cor. 15 : 22. But both alike held that the saving 
 grace of God pardons and eradicates original sin in in- 
 fants, upon the same principles, and by the same method 
 of election that it pardons and eradicates any and all sin, 
 namely, through the vicarious satisfaction of Christ and 
 
118 CALVINISM : 
 
 the regenerating operation of the Holy Spirit. It is true 
 that they did not find proof in Scripture that infant elec- 
 tion is classical, and therefore left it individual like that of 
 adults. But had they, like their successors in the Modern 
 church, seen reason in the Word of God for believing that 
 the Divine mercy is extended to all infants as infants, in- 
 stead of to a part, they would have gladly affirmed this. 
 It is only a question of exegesis between them and their 
 successors ; and this turns upon the point whether the 
 Saviour's declaration, " Of such is the kingdom of God," 
 means, " Of all such," or, " Of some of such." 
 
 On page 132 we contend that the first is the most natu- 
 ral understanding of the words of Christ, and we also 
 think that it is the most natural understanding of the 
 Assembly's phraseology respecting " elect infants dying in 
 infancy." There are two interpretations of this Confes- 
 sional phrase. One makes the antithesis to be, " non-elect 
 infants dying in infancy ; " the other makes it to be, 
 "elect infants not dying in infancy." According to the 
 first view, the contrast is between the elect and the non- 
 elect, in which case the election of dying infants is indi- 
 vidual. There are some non-elect dying infants. Ac- 
 cording to the last, it is between two different classes of 
 the elect, in which case the election of dying infants is 
 classical. There are no non-elect dying infants. That 
 the last view is the correct one is evident, for the follow- 
 ing reasons : 
 
 1. Whenever the contrast between the elect and non- 
 elect is intended in the Westminster Standards, both 
 classes are particularly mentioned and particularly de- 
 scribed. See Con. iii. 3, 6, 7 ; L. C. 13, 68. But in 
 Con. x. 3, when dying infants are spoken of, mention is 
 made only of the elect, and a description is given of them 
 alone. In view, therefore, of the fact that the Assembly 
 
PURE AND MIXED 119 
 
 invariably mention and describe the non-elect in connec- 
 tion with the elect, whenever, in their opinion, there are 
 any non-elect, the natural inference from this silence of 
 the Assembly concerning non-elect dying infants is, that 
 they did not mean to teach that there are any. 
 
 2. All of the elect are elected as infants in the womb. 
 Jer. 1:5; Luke 1 : 15 ; Rom. 9 : 10-12 ; Gal. 1 : 15. 
 There is no election of men as adults or in adult years. 
 Consequently, the phrase "elect infants" is the only one 
 that designates the entire body of the elect. As in law, 
 " infants " means all persons under age, so in the Westmin- 
 ster theology, " elect infants " means all persons who are 
 chosen to eternal life " before the foundation of the world." 
 This being so, "elect infants" fall into three classes with 
 reference to the time of their death and their regeneration. 
 (a) "Elect infants "who die in infancy and are regener- 
 ated in infancy, (b) " Elect infants " who do not die in 
 infancy but are regenerated in infancy. (<?) " Elect in- 
 fants" who do not die in infancy but are regenerated in 
 years of discretion. The object of the declaration in Con. 
 x. 3, is to describe the manner in which the regeneration 
 of the first class of "elect infants " (and, incidentally, also 
 of the second) is effected as compared with that of the third 
 class. It declares that such "elect infants" as die in in- 
 fancy "are regenerated and saved by Christ through the 
 Spirit," without the outward call and conviction of sin. 
 This distinguishes them (and also, incidentally, the second 
 class, who also are regenerated in infancy but do not die 
 in infancy) from the third class of "elect infants," who 
 come to years of discretion, and not having been regen- 
 erated in infancy, are then " regenerated and saved by 
 Christ through the Spirit," in connection with the out- 
 ward call and conviction of sin by the law, written or 
 unwritten. The true antithesis, consequently, to " elect 
 
120 CALVINISM : 
 
 infants dying in infancy" is "elect infants not dying in 
 infancy," and not non-elect infants dying in infancy. 
 
 That this is the correct interpretation of the phrase, 
 " elect infants," is corroborated by the fact that the orig- 
 inal draft of the tenth chapter of the Confession did not 
 contain tins third section, being wholly silent concerning 
 dying elect infants and elect heathen ; and the Assembly 
 instructed its committee to insert a section relating (a) to 
 the manner of regeneration when there can be no outward 
 call by the ministry of the Word and no conviction of sin, 
 as in the case of elect infants dying in infancy ; and (b) to 
 the manner of regeneration in the case of " all other elect 
 persons who are incapable of being outwardly called by 
 the ministry of the [written] Word," but who are capable 
 of conviction of sin through the instrumentality of the 
 unwritten. These latter belong to the third class of 
 " elect infants." An adult heathen who was elected in 
 infancy but not regenerated in infancy, is " regenerated 
 by Christ through the Spirit who worketh when, and 
 where, and how he pleaseth." The regeneration in this 
 instance occurs in adult years, and is effected in connec- 
 tion with conviction of sin ; but the instrument employed 
 by the divine Spirit in this conviction is not the written 
 law, but the unwritten, spoken of by St. Paul in Bom. 2 : 
 14, 15. 
 
PUKE AND MIXED 121 
 
 XII. 
 THE WESTMINSTER STANDARDS AND THE "LARGER HOPE" 1 
 
 The doctrines of Calvinism formulated in the Westmin- 
 ster Standards are represented by many persons as destin- 
 ing the vast majority of the human race to an eternity of 
 sin and misery. They are pessimistic, it is said ; envelop- 
 ing this brief human life in gloom and darkness. The 
 elect are very few ; and the non-elect are very many. 
 Practically, the human species is lost forever, like the devil 
 and his angels. Over this theological system they would 
 write the Dantean inscription on the portal of Hell, "All 
 hope abandon, ye who enter here." We shall endeavor 
 to show that this estimate is utterly erroneous, and that 
 " the system of doctrine contained in the Scriptures," and 
 presented in the Confession, teaches that an immense ma- 
 jority of the human family will be saved by the redemp- 
 tion of the dying and risen Son of God and Lord of Glory, 
 and that the "larger hope" has ample scope and verge 
 enough within its limits. 
 
 Calvinism emphasizes the doctrine of regeneration : the 
 doctrine, namely, that God by an instantaneous act im- 
 parts the principle of spiritual life to the sinful soul with- 
 out its co-operation or assistance, so that the new birth is 
 not dependent upon, or conditioned by, man's agency. 
 Men who are "born again" are "born not of blood, nor 
 of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of 
 
 1 In part, from the Methodist Quarterly Review, May, 1889. 
 
122 CALVINISM : 
 
 God " (John 1 : 13). This doctrine runs all through the 
 Westminster Standards. It is closely connected with the 
 tenet of election, for this regulates the bestowment of 
 regenerating grace. Effectual calling includes it, for a 
 prominent factor in this is that work of God whereby he 
 " takes away the heart of stone, and gives the heart of 
 flesh " (Conf. x. 1). In thus magnifying regeneration, 
 the Confession accords with Revelation. For on look- 
 ing into the Scriptures, we find that the salvation of the 
 human soul is made to depend absolutely upon the new 
 birth. Christ said to Nicodemus, " Except a man be born 
 again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." This implies 
 that every man who is born again will see the kingdom of 
 God. Regeneration, consequently, decides human des- 
 tiny. Whoever knows how many of the human family 
 shall have been quickened from spiritual death to spirit- 
 ual life, by the mercy of God the Holy Spirit, knows how 
 many of them shall be saved. Regeneration determines 
 human salvation, because it produces everything requisite 
 to it. The great act of faith in the blood of Christ, by 
 which the sinner is justified, is described as dependent 
 upon it. " Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ, 
 is born of God" (1 John 5: 1). "No man can come to 
 me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him " 
 (John 6 : 44). u Ye believed, even as the Lord gave to 
 every man " (1 Cor. 3 : 5). " As many as were ordained 
 to eternal life, believed " (Acts 13 : 48). " Unto you it is 
 given in the behalf of Christ, to believe on him " (Phil. 
 1 : 29). " By grace are ye saved through faith ; and 
 that not of yourselves : it is the gift of God " (Eph. 2 : 8). 
 " Christ is the author and finisher of faith" (Heb. 12 : 2). 
 Faith, repentance, justification, and sanctification all result 
 naturally and infallibly from that work of the Holy Spirit, 
 whereby he "quickens" the soul "dead in trespasses and 
 
PURE AND MIXED 123 
 
 sins " (Eph. 2:1), and by " enlightening the mind, and 
 renewing the will, persuades and enables man to embrace 
 Jesus Christ, freely offered to him in the gospel " (Shorter 
 Catechism, 31). Kegeneration is thus the root from 
 which the whole process of salvation springs. The regen- 
 erate child, youth, or man, immediately believes, repents, 
 and begins the struggle with remaining sin. The regen- 
 erate infant believes, repents, and begins the struggle with 
 remaining sin the moment his faculties admit of such 
 activities. He has latent or potential faith, repentance, 
 and sanctification. 
 
 How extensive then is regeneration, is the great ques- 
 tion. In Scripture and in the Confession it is represented 
 to be as extensive as election, and no more so. " Whom 
 he did predestinate, them he also called; and whom he 
 called, them he also justified ; and whom he justified, 
 them lie also glorified " (Rom. 8 : 30). " All those whom 
 God hath predestinated unto life, and those only, he is 
 pleased, in his appointed and accepted time, effectually to 
 call, by his word and Spirit, out of the state of sin and 
 death, to grace and salvation by Jesus Christ " (Conf. x. 
 1). In attempting, therefore, to answer approximately 
 that question which our Lord declined to answer definitely, 
 namely, " Are there few that be saved ? " it is necessary, 
 first, to determine the period within which the regenerat- 
 ing operation of the Holy Spirit occurs ; and, secondly, 
 the range of his operation. 
 
 Respecting the first point, revelation teaches that the 
 new birth is confined to earth and time. There is not a 
 passage in Scripture which, either directly or by implica- 
 tion, asserts that the Holy Ghost will exert his regenerat- 
 ing power in the soul of man in any part of that endless 
 duration which succeeds this life. The affirmation, "My 
 Spirit shall not always strive with man " (Gen. 6 : 3), 
 
124 CALVINISM : 
 
 proves that the dispensation of the Spirit will not be ever- 
 lasting ; and the accompanying declaration, "Yet his 
 days shall be a hundred and twenty years,'' implies that 
 it will be coterminous with man's mortal life. Accord- 
 ingly, in the Old Testament, the death of the body is rep- 
 resented as the decisive epoch in man's existence, and this 
 earthly life. the period during which his endless destiny is 
 determined. " The wicked is driven away in his wick- 
 edness [at death] ; but the righteous hath hope in his 
 death " (Prov. 14 : 32). " When a wicked man dieth, his 
 expectation shall perish" (Prov. 11:7). "If thou warn 
 the wicked of his way to turn from it; if he do not turn 
 from his way, he shall die in his iniquity " (Ezek. 33 : 9). 
 " To him that is joined to all the living, there is hope : for 
 the living know that they shall die ; but the dead know 
 not anything, neither have they any more a reward" 
 (Eccl. 9 : 4-6). " In death there is no remembrance of 
 thee ; in the grave, who shall give thee thanks? " (Ps. 6 : 
 5). " Wilt thou show wonders to the dead? Shall the 
 dead arise and praise thee? Shall thy loving-kindness be 
 declared in the grave?" (Ps. 88:10, 11). In the New 
 Testament, the Saviour of man also makes death to be the 
 critical point in man's history. lie says to the Pharisees, 
 " If ye believe not that I am he, ye shall die in your sins " 
 (John 8 : 21, 24). This solemn warning, which he twice 
 repeats, loses all its force, if to die in sin is not to be hope- 
 lessly lost. Christ teaches the same truth in the parable 
 of Dives. The rich man asks that his brethren may be 
 exhorted to faith and repentance before they die, because 
 if impenitent at death as he was, they will go to " hell " 
 as he did, and be " in torments" as he was. And he 
 teaches the same truth in his frequent warning, " Watch, 
 therefore, for ye know not at what hour your Lord Com- 
 eth " (Matt. 24:42). The Apostolical Epistles declare 
 
PURE AND MIXED 125 
 
 the momentous nature of death, in their frequent asser- 
 tion of " an accepted time," and of "the day of salva- 
 tion " (2 Cor. 6:2; Heb. 3:7-19; 4:7). The closing up 
 of the Word of God by St. John, affirms a finality that 
 evidently refers to what man has been and done here on 
 earth. " He that is unjust, let him be unjust still; and 
 he which is filthy, let him be filthy still ; and he that is 
 righteous, let him be righteous still ; and he that is holy, 
 let him be holy still " (llev. 22 : 11, 12). 
 
 Still further proof that death is the deciding point in 
 man's existence, is found in those effects of regeneration 
 which have been spoken of. Faith, repentance, hope, 
 and struggle with remaining sin are never represented in 
 Scripture as occurring in the future life. After death the 
 regenerate walks by sight, not by faith ; has fruition in- 
 stead of hope ; and is completely sanctified. Faith, re- 
 pentance, hope, and progressive sanctification are de- 
 scribed as going on up to a certain point denominated 
 " the end" when they give place to sinless perfection. 
 " He that endureth to the end shall be saved : " the end 
 of this state of existence, not of the intermediate state. 
 " We desire that every one of you do show the same 
 diligence to the full assurance of hope unto the end." 
 " Christ shall confirm you unto the end." " Whose house 
 are we, if we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of 
 the hope unto the end." In all such passages, the end of 
 this mortal life is meant. And to them must be added 
 the important eschatological paragraph, 1 Cor. 15 : 24-28, 
 which teaches that there is an " end " to Christ's work of 
 mediation and salvation, when " there remaineth no more 
 sacrifice for sins " (Heb. 10 : 26). 
 
 The large amount of matter in Scripture which teaches 
 that the operation of the Spirit in the new birth and its 
 effects belongs only to this life, cannot be invalidated by 
 
126 CALVINISM : 
 
 the lonely text concerning Christ's " preaching to the 
 spirits in prison : " a passage which the majority of exe- 
 getes, taking in all ages of the Church, refer to the preach- 
 ing of Noah and other " ambassadors of Christ ; " but 
 which, even if referred to a personal descent of Christ into 
 an under world, would be inadequate to establish such a 
 revolutionizing doctrine as the prolongation of Christ's 
 mediatorial work into the future state, the preaching of 
 the gospel in sheol, and the outpouring of the Holy Ghost 
 there. For the dogma of a future redemption for all 
 the unevangelized part of mankind is radically revolution- 
 izing. It is another gospel, and if adopted would result 
 in another Christendom. For nearly twenty centuries, the 
 Church has gone upon the belief that there is no salvation 
 after death. All of its conquests over evil have come from 
 preaching the solemn truth that " now is the day of salva- 
 tion." It has believed itself to be commanded to proclaim 
 that " after death is the judgment " of sin, not its forgive- 
 ness. But if the Church has been mistaken, and there is 
 a " probation" in the future life for all the unevangelized 
 of all the centuries, and it is announced, as all the truth 
 of God ought to be, then the eternal world will present a 
 totally different aspect from what it has. Heretofore the 
 great Hereafter has been a gulf of darkness for every im- 
 penitent man, heathen or nominal Christian, as he peered 
 into it. Now it will be a darkness through which gleams 
 of light and hope are flashing like an aurora. The line 
 between time and eternity, so sharply drawn by the past 
 Christianity and Christendom, must be erased. A differ- 
 ent preaching must be adopted. Hope must be held out 
 instead of the old hopelessness. Death must no longer be 
 represented as a finality, but as an entrance for all une- 
 vangelized mankind upon another period of regeneration 
 and salvation. Men must be told that the Semiramises 
 
PURE AND MIXED 127 
 
 and Cleopatras, the Tiberiuses and Neros, may possibly 
 have accepted the gospel in hades. Children in the Sab- 
 bath-schools must be taught that the vicious and hardened 
 populations of the ancient world, of Sodom and Gomor- 
 rah, of Babylon and Kineveh, of Antioch and Rome, 
 passed into a world of hope and redemption, not of justice 
 and judgment. 
 
 Such a doctrine takes away all the seriousness of this 
 existence. The " threescore years and ten " are no longer 
 momentous in their consequences. If the future world is 
 a series of cycles, within any one of which the transition 
 from sin to holiness, from death to life, may occur, all the 
 solemnity is removed from earth and time. The " now " 
 is not " the accepted time, and the day of salvation." 
 One " time " is of no more consequence than another, if 
 through all endless time the redemption of sinners is go- 
 ing on. And what is still more important, the moral and 
 practical effects of this theory will be most disastrous. 
 For it is virtually a license to sin. Should God announce 
 that he will regenerate and pardon men in the next world, 
 it would be equivalent to saying to them that they may 
 continue to sin in this w T orld. And, of course, if the 
 Church should believe that all the unevangelized portion 
 of mankind may be saved in the intermediate state, it will 
 make little effort to save them here and now. 
 
 With these representations of Scripture, respecting the 
 period of time within which the regeneration and salva- 
 tion of the soul occur, the Westminster Standards agree. 
 " The souls of believers are at their death made perfect in 
 holiness, and do immediately pass into glory " (S. C. 37). 
 "The souls of the wicked are at their death cast into 
 hell " (L. C. 86). The Confessional doctrine is, that death 
 is a finality for both the saint and sinner. There is no 
 extirpation of sin after " the spirit returns to God who 
 
128 CALVINISM : 
 
 gave it." At death, the unregenerate man is left in sin. 
 At death, the regenerate but imperfectly sanctified man 
 is made perfect in holiness. The gradual process of pro- 
 gressive sanctification from the remainders of original 
 corruption, is confined to this life. So the Scriptures 
 teach. "Blessed are the dead that die in the Lord from 
 henceforth [i.e., from the time of their death] : Yea, 
 saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labors " 
 (Rev. 14: 13). "There remaineth a rest to the people 
 of God. Let us therefore labor to enter into that rest 
 (Heb. 4: 9, 11). This "rest" is total cessation from the 
 temptation, the race, and the fight with sin which charac- 
 terize the present imperfect state. " To be absent from 
 the body, is to be present with the Lord " (2 Cor. 5:8); 
 and to be present with the Lord is to " see him as he is; " 
 and to see him as he is, is to " be like him," sinless and 
 perfect (1 John 3:2). 
 
 The doctrine that gradual sanctification from sin con- 
 tinues to go on after death implies, not rest, but strug- 
 gle, strain, toil, and conflict with remaining corruption. 
 This would be a continuation in the next life of that se- 
 vere experience in this life in which the believer " groans 
 being burdened ; " in which he is often worsted in the 
 contest, though victorious in the main ; in which he cries, 
 "O wretched man, who shall deliver me." To suppose 
 such a wearisome condition of the believer's soul during 
 the long period between death and the resurrection, can- 
 not be harmonized with the descriptions of the restful, 
 joyful consciousness of believers when they are " with the 
 Lord," and with the words of Christ, " This day shalt 
 thou be with me in paradise." 
 
 The notion that indwelling sin is to be purged away 
 gradually after death, instead of instantaneously at death, 
 is the substance of the doctrine of purgatory. The Romish 
 
PURE AND MIXED 129 
 
 purgatory is the progressive sanctification of a member 
 of the Romish Church carried over into the intermediate 
 state. If this theory is introduced into the Protestant 
 Church, it will not stop here. For if regenerate but 
 imperfectly sanctified men are to go on, between death 
 and the resurrection, struggling with corruption, and get- 
 ting rid of remaining sin, as they do here upon earth, it 
 will be an easy and natural step to the kindred theory 
 that the transition from sin to holiness may be made by 
 unregenerate men also daring this same period. Those 
 who adopt this latter error, object to the Confessional 
 tenet of complete sanctification at death by the immediate 
 operation of the Holy Spirit that it is magical, mechanical, 
 and un psychological. It is incompatible, they assert, with 
 the spiritual nature of the soul and its free agency. But 
 it is no more so than the co-ordinate and cognate doctrine 
 of the immediate operation of the Holy Spirit in regener- 
 ation. The Holy Spirit instantaneously implants the new 
 principle of divine life in the soul, when he " creates it 
 anew in Christ Jesus," and "quickens it from its death in 
 trespasses and sins." This lays the foundation, as we 
 have observed for the whole process of salvation. From 
 this instantaneous regeneration, there result conversion in 
 its two acts of faith and repentance, justification, and pro- 
 gressive sanctification up to the moment of death, when 
 the same Divine Agent by the exercise of the same 
 almighty energy by which he instantaneously began the 
 work of salvation, instantaneously completes it. 1 Kow, 
 if the Holy Ghost works magically, mechanically, and 
 contrary to the nature of the human soul in one case, he 
 does in the other. If the completion of the work in the 
 soul by an immediate act is liable to this charge, the be- 
 
 1 For a fuller discussion of the subject, see the Author's Sermons to 
 the Spiritual Man, pp. 317-325. 
 9 
 
130 CALVINISM : 
 
 ginning of it is also. Any one who holds the doctrine of 
 instantaneous regeneration, is estopped from urging such 
 an objection as this to the doctrine of complete sanctifica- 
 tion at death. In all the operations of the third Person of 
 the Trinity, be they instantaneous or be they gradual, he 
 contradicts none of the laws and properties of the human 
 mind, but works in the human will " to will," according 
 to its nature and constitution. There is nothing magical, 
 mechanical, or unpsychological in any of them. 
 
 Another objection urged by the advocates of a future 
 sanctification from sin is, that complete sanctification at 
 death puts all souls, infant and adult, on a dead level, 
 destroying the distinction of grade between them. If at 
 death all regenerate souls are made perfectly sinless and 
 holy, it is said that they must be all alike in the 
 scope and reach of their faculties. This does not follow. 
 Complete sanctification at death frees the soul of a regen- 
 erate infant from all remainders of the corruption in- 
 herited from Adam, but does not convert it into an adult 
 soul, any more than the complete sanctification of an or- 
 dinary regenerate adult makes him equal in mental power 
 to St. Paul or St. Augustine. Complete sanctification at 
 death frees the infant's soul, the child's soul, the youth's 
 soul, the man's soul, from indwelling sin, but leaves each 
 soul in the same class in which it finds it, and starts it on 
 an endless expansion of its faculties and its holiness, and 
 not upon a long, wearing struggle with remaining corrup- 
 tion. In this way, " one star differeth from another star 
 in glory," while all are equally and alike the pure and 
 gleaming stars of heaven, not the " wandering stars " of 
 sin and hell. 
 
 Such, then, is the period of time to which the regener- 
 ating work of the Holy Spirit is confined. It is the life 
 that now is, not the life that is to come; the present 
 
PUKE AND MIXED 131 
 
 limited aeon, not the future unlimited seon. We proceed 
 now to consider the second question, How wide and exten- 
 sive is his agency during this period ? How many of the 
 human family, have we reason from Scripture to hope 
 and believe, he will regenerate here upon earth ? 
 
 Before proceeding to answer this question, a prelimin- 
 ary remark is to be made. It is utterly improbable that 
 such a stupendous miracle as the incarnation, humilia- 
 tion, passion, and crucifixion of one of the Persons of the 
 Godhead, should yield a small and insignificant result; 
 that this amazing mystery of mysteries, " which the angels 
 desire to look into," and which involves such an immense 
 personal sacrifice on the part of the Supreme Being, 
 should have a lame and impotent conclusion. On a priori 
 grounds, therefore, we have reason to conclude that the 
 Gospel of the Cross will be successful, and the Christian 
 religion a triumph on the earth and among the race of 
 creatures for whom it was intended. But this can hardly 
 be the case, if only a small f raction of the human family 
 are saved. The presumption, consequently, is that the 
 great majority of mankind, not the small minority of it, 
 will be the subjects of redeeming grace. What, then, is 
 the teaching of Revelation upon this subject ? 
 
 1. In the first place, we have ground for believing that 
 all of mankind who die in infancy will be regenerated by 
 the Holy Spirit. The proof of this is not so abundant as 
 for some other doctrines, but it is sufficient for faith, (a) 
 Scripture certainly teaches that the children of the regen- 
 erate are " bound up in the bundle of life " with their 
 parents. " The promise [of the Holy Spirit] is unto you 
 and your children " (Acts 2 : 38, 39). " If the root be 
 holy, so are the branches" (Rom. 11 : 16). "The unbe- 
 lieving husband is sanctified by the wife, and the unbe- 
 lieving wife is sanctified by the husband ; else were your 
 
132 CALVINISM : 
 
 children unclean, but now they are holy " (1 Cor. 7 : 14). 
 This is salvation bv covenanted mere v. concerning which 
 there is little dispute, (b) The salvation of infants out- 
 side of the covenant, is plainly supported by the language 
 of Christ respecting u little children " as a special class. 
 " They brought unto him infants that he would touch 
 them. And he said, Suffer little children to come unto 
 me, for of such is the kingdom of God " (Luke 18 : 15, 16). 
 The reason here assigned why infants constitute a part 
 of the kingdom of God is their infancy, not their mor- 
 al character. They belong to it solely because they are 
 " little children," not because they are sinless. Our Lord 
 teaches that they are sinful, in saying, '" Suffer little 
 children to come unto me ; " for no sinless beings need to 
 come to a Saviour. This phraseology respecting infants 
 is as all-inclusive as that respecting the " poor in spirit," 
 and cannot be restricted to a part of them. When Christ 
 says, " Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the king- 
 dom of heaven," he means that this kingdom belongs to 
 them as poor in spirit, and because they are poor in spirit, 
 and consequently belongs to all the poor in spirit. And, 
 similarly, when he says, " Suffer little children to come 
 unto me, for of such is the kingdom of God," he means 
 that this kingdom is composed of such considered as little 
 children, and because they are little children, and conse- 
 quently is composed of all the little children. Had he 
 intended to limit his statement to some infants, he would 
 have said, e/c rwv toigvtcov £gtiv. Infancy is an age 
 that is singled out by the Saviour by which to prove a 
 membership in the kingdom of God from the very age 
 itself, and is the only age. He does not say that youths 
 or adults constitute a part of the kingdom of God solely 
 because of their youth, or their manhood. Other Scripture 
 proofs of the salvation of infants arc, Matt. 18 : 10, 14, 
 
PURE AND MIXED 133 
 
 " Their angels do always behold the face of my Father in 
 heaven. It is not the will of your Father which is in heaven 
 that one of these little ones should perish." In 2 JSam. 
 12:23, David is confident of the salvation of his infant 
 child; but in 2 Sam. 18 : 33, he is not confident of the sal- 
 vation of his adult son. In Jonah 4 : 11, God expresses a 
 special interest in the infant population of Nineveh. 
 
 The Protestant Church understands the Bible to de- 
 clare that all who die in infancy die regenerate. Probably- 
 all evangelical denominations, without committing them- 
 selves to the statements of the Westminster Confession 
 concerning "election," would be willing to sav that all 
 dying infants "are regenerated and saved by Christ 
 through the Spirit, who worketh when, and where, and 
 how he pleaseth " (Conf. x. 3). But this is the regenera- 
 tion and salvation of one-half of the human family. This 
 of itself pours over human existence a mild and cheering 
 light. " Whom the gods love, die young," said the heathen, 
 without any knowledge of God's compassion for man In 
 his "dear Son." Much more, then, may the Christian 
 under the irradiation of the gospel expect that the infinite 
 mercy of God, by " the washing of regeneration and re- 
 newing of the Holy Ghost," will bring all the "little chil- 
 dren " into holiness and heaven. The gloom of Virgil's 
 description, 
 
 "Continuo audita? voces, vagitns et ingens 
 Infantumque animae flentes in limine primo," 
 
 is changed into the brightness of that of the prophet, 
 "The streets of the city shall be full of boys and girls 
 playing in the streets thereof " (Zech. 8 : 10) ; and of the 
 Redeemer's citation from the Psalms, "Out of the mouth 
 of babes and sucklings thou hast perfected praise " (Matt. 
 21 : 16). 
 
134 CALVINISM : 
 
 2. In the second place, the Scriptures and the Confes- 
 sion teach the regeneration of a vast multitude, from 
 Adam down, who come under the operation of the Holy 
 Spirit in connection with the special revelation and the 
 external means of grace, in the antediluvian, patriarchal, 
 Jewish, and Christian Churches. 
 
 3. In the third place, the Scriptures and the Confession 
 teach that the Divine Spirit exerts his regenerating grace, 
 to some extent, within adult heathendom, making use of 
 conscience, or "the law written on the heart," as the 
 means of convicting of sin preparatory to imparting the 
 new divine life ; and that in the last day a part of God's 
 elect "shall come from the east and from the west, and 
 from the north and from the south, and shall sit down in 
 the kingdom of God " (Luke 13 : 29). These are all re- 
 generated in this life. And since regeneration in the in- 
 stance of the adult immediately produces faitli and re- 
 pentance, a regenerate heathen is both a believer and a 
 penitent. He feels sorrow for sin, and the need of mercy. 
 This felt need of mercy and desire for it is potentially 
 and virtually faith in the Redeemer. For although the 
 Redeemer has not been presented to him historically and 
 personally as the object of faitli, yet the Divine Spirit by 
 the new birth has wrought in him the sincere and longing 
 disposition to believe in him. With the penitent and 
 believing man in the Gospel, he says, "Who is he, Lord, 
 that I might believe on hi in ? " (John 9 : 36). Such a man 
 is " regenerated and saved by Christ through the Spirit," 
 and belongs to that class of " elect persons who are in- 
 capable of being outwardly called by the ministry of the 
 word " (Conf. x. 3). 
 
 4. In the fourth place, in addition to all this work of 
 the Holy Spirit in the past and present in applying in 
 these three w r ays the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, 
 
PURE AND MIXED 135 
 
 there is that mightiest and most wonderful manifestation 
 of his power which is still in reserve for the future of 
 Christendom. The Scriptures promise an outpouring in 
 the "last days," that will far exceed in sweeping and irre- 
 sistible energy anything in the past history of the Church. 
 " I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh," says God 
 (Joel 2 : 28). " It shall come to pass in the last days, 
 that the mountain of the Lord's house shall be established 
 in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above 
 the hills, and all nations shall flow unto it " (Isa. 2:2; 
 Micah 4:1). A far more profound and all-reaching in- 
 terest in the concerns of the soul and its eternal destiny 
 than has ever been witnessed on earth, will mark the mil- 
 lennium. The then near and impending advent of the 
 Son of man, " when he shall come in his glory, and all 
 the holy angels with him, and before him shall be gath- 
 ered all nations" (Matt. 25:31, 32), will weigh heavily 
 upon mankind. The end of the world and the approach- 
 ing judgment will be facts of infinite meaning. This hu- 
 man life, now so frivolous, will become serious and awful. 
 
 " The clouds that gather round the setting sun 
 Do take a sober coloring from the eye 
 That doth keep watch o'er man's mortality.' 1 '' 
 
 Yast masses of sinful men will be bowed down in poig- 
 nant conviction, and nations will be born in a day. The 
 Redeemer, " travelling in the greatness of his strength," 
 will take unto him his mighty power, and turn the human 
 heart as the rivers of water. Such is the promise and the 
 prophecy of Almighty God. 
 
 Now this is a great salvation. " Where sin abounded, 
 grace has superabounded " (Rom. 5 : 20). The immense 
 majority of the race that fell in Adam will be saved in 
 Christ, " by the washing of regeneration." Though some 
 
136 CALVINISM : 
 
 men and angels will freely persist in depravity, and be left 
 ill their persistence, yet this minor and mournful note of 
 discord will only enhance the choral harmony of. the uni- 
 verse. The wrath of man shall praise God (Ps. 76 : 10). 
 The duty of the Church is to preach to every creature the 
 law by which men are convicted of sin, and the yosjpel by 
 which it is pardoned and eradicated, praying unceasingly 
 for the outpouring of the Holy Ghost, to make both law 
 and gospel effectual to salvation. Instead of starting a 
 false and delusive hope for the future redemption of a 
 part of the human family, by daring to reconstruct God's 
 plan of redemption and extending the dispensation of his 
 Spirit into the next life, the Church should strengthen the 
 old and true hope by doing with its might what its hands 
 find to do, and crying with the evangelical prophet, 
 "Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of the Lord" 
 (Isa. 51 : 9). 1 
 
 1 It should be observed that the "larger hope " that the Divine Mercy 
 may save a part of the unevangelized millions of mankind does not re- 
 quire the extension of the work of redemption beyond this life. The 
 " washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost" can accom- 
 plish this salvation here in this world, before the spirit leaves the 
 body and " returns to God who gave it," as easily as it can in the mid- 
 dle state. Instead, then, of hoping that there may be a second period 
 of redemption, for which there is no more Scripture foundation than 
 for a second incarnation, let the hope rather be that the merciful Re- 
 deemer, who is "mighty to save," may here, and in this "day of salva- 
 tion," save a part of the heathen world. He himself asserts his own 
 sovereignty in this matter, and declares that some whose outward cir- 
 cumstances were favorable to salvation will be lost, and that some whose 
 outward circumstances were unfavorable will be saved. " There shall 
 be weeping and gnashing of teeth, when ye shall see Abraham, and 
 Isaac, and Jacob, and all the prophets in the kingdom of God, and you 
 yourselves cast out. And they shall come from the east, and from the 
 west, and from the north, and from the south, and shall sit down in 
 the kingdom of God. And behold there are last which shall be first, 
 and there aro first which shall be last" (Luke 13 : 28-30). 
 
PURE AND MIXED 13^ 
 
 XIII. 
 
 THE WESTMINSTER AFFIRMATION OF THE ORIGINAL IN- 
 ERRANCY OF THE SCRIPTURES 
 
 Those who deny the inerrancy of the original auto- 
 graphs of Scripture, and are endeavoring to introduce this 
 view into Biblical Criticism, claim the support of the 
 Westminster Standards. We propose to show that the 
 Westminster Confession teaches that the Scriptures in 
 their first form, as they came from the prophets and 
 apostles, were free from error in all their parts, secondary 
 as well as primary. 
 
 1. In the first place, the Confession (i. 2, 8) declares that 
 " the Word of God as written in Hebrew and Greek was 
 immediately inspired by God." This relates to the auto- 
 graphs of the " holy men of God " while under the Divine 
 afflatus or inbreathing. 2 Pet. 1 : 21. And it relates to 
 them in their entirety, because no exceptions are made. 
 The inspiration was plenary, not partial. It extended not 
 to one subject only, but to all the subjects of which the 
 sacred writers treat, and on which they profess to teach 
 the truth. The history, chronology, topography, and 
 physics, as well as the theology and ethics, that were com- 
 posed under the " immediate inspiration " of God, must 
 from the nature of the case have been free from er- 
 ror. In the original Bible as it came from the inspired 
 prophets and apostles, there was no mythical and fabu- 
 lous history, no exaggerated and fictitious chronology like 
 that of Egypt, India, and some modern physicists, the 
 
138 CALVINISM : 
 
 topography was strikingly accurate as modern explorations 
 show, and the physics, especially in the account of the 
 creative days, contained none of the pantheism and poly- 
 theism of the ancient cosmogonies, and is corroborated 
 by modern science so far as this is well established. In 
 thus declaring that the Bible as a complete whole was 
 written in Hebrew and Greek by persons who were un- 
 der the " immediate inspiration " of God, the Confession 
 teaches that in this first original form it was inerrant. 
 There is no escaping this conclusion, unless it can be 
 shown that immediate inspiration may be more or less 
 erroneous and misleading. 
 
 2. In the second place, the Confession (i. 8) declares 
 that " the Old Testament in Hebrew and the JS T ew Testa- 
 ment in Greek, being immediately inspired by God, is by 
 his singular care and providence kept pure in all ages, and 
 is therefore authentical [i.e. authoritative], so that in all 
 controversies of religion the church is finally to appeal to 
 them." This relates to the cojnes of the original auto- 
 graphs. The Confession does not say that these were 
 made under the "immediate inspiration " of God as the 
 autographs w T ere, but under the " singular care and provi- 
 dence " of God. The copies consequently are liable to 
 the introduction of errors, because the providential care 
 of God, even though it be " singular " and remarkable, 
 is not the same thing as the " immediate inspiration " 
 of God. While, therefore, absolute inerrancy is attribu- 
 ted by the Confession to the original manuscript, it is 
 not to the copies of them. The immediate inspiration 
 of a prophet or apostle, extending as the Confession de- 
 clares to the "Word as written, excludes all error from 
 the written production, but the providential superin- 
 tendence of a copyist does not. God lias permitted some 
 things in the providential transmission and preservation 
 
PUKE AND MIXED 139 
 
 of the several books of Scripture, which he did not per- 
 mit in the direct inspiration of them. He has allowed 
 glosses on the margin to get into the text, numerals 
 represented by letters of the alphabet to be altered by 
 carelessness, a frequent cause of discrepancies in the Old 
 Testament, clauses to be omitted from homceoteleuton, or 
 added by paraphrase or from ancient liturgies, and 
 other variations of this kind. But he did not allow any of 
 these variations and errors to get into the original writing, 
 as it came from the inspired penman who composed it. 
 And there is no reason, in the nature of the case, for as- 
 serting that he did. Does it follow that because the exist- 
 ing copies of 1 Sam. 6 : 19 contain the statement that 
 50,070 men were slain for looking into the ark, that the 
 autograph also did? Because the copies of the autographs 
 of the Kew Testament contain 30,000 variations according 
 to Mill, and 150,000 according to Scrivener, must we as- 
 sume that the autographs themselves had all these, or 
 any of them ? 
 
 But while the Confession ascribes providential superin- 
 tendence, not immediate inspiration, to the copyist, it 
 claims for all copies of the autographs a relative in dis- 
 tinction from an absolute inerrancy. The " singular care 
 and providence of God keeps them pure in all ages so that 
 they are authentical," that is, authoritative, and "in all 
 controversies of religion, the church is finally to appeal 
 to them." Con. i. 8. The minor and unimportant er- 
 rors of the class above mentioned, which have been al- 
 lowed by Divine providence to get into the copies, do not 
 make any radical and essential alterations in the auto- 
 graphs. A student of the copy to-day will obtain from 
 it the same doctrine, the same history, the same chro- 
 nology, the same topography, and the same physics, that 
 he would from the original autograph if he could have 
 
140 CALVINISM : 
 
 access to it. The doctrines of the trinity, the incarnation, 
 the apostasy, and the redemption, are confessedly un- 
 affected by any of these variations in the history or topog- 
 raphy. And the Biblical chronology itself is not es- 
 sentially altered by the numerical errors which the care- 
 lessness of the copyist has introduced. For example, the 
 contradiction between 2 Kings 8 : 26 and 2 Chron. 22 : 
 2, in the existing manuscripts, does not invalidate the 
 chronology of the fifth and the eleventh chapters of 
 Genesis. There is nothing in any of the alleged or the 
 actual chronological mistakes in any of the copies of the 
 Scriptures, that necessitates the rejection of the Biblical 
 chronology which brings the whole of human history be- 
 fore the Advent within a period of four or six thousand 
 years, according as the Hebrew or the Septuagint text is 
 adopted. And this remark applies also to the versions of 
 Scripture which have been and will be made by the 
 Church. These convey to the nations of mankind the 
 same doctrine, history, chronology, topography, and 
 physics that were taught by the prophets and apostles, al- 
 though they contain some errors in translation. 
 
 The question is asked in the way of objection to this 
 declaration of the Confession, Why did not God inspire 
 the copyists as well as the original authors ? Why did he 
 be^in with absolute inerrancy, and end with relative in- 
 errancy ? For the same reason that, generally, he begins 
 with the supernatural and ends with the natural. For 
 illustration, the first founding of his church, in both the 
 Old and New dispensations, was marked by miracles; but 
 the development of it is marked only by his operations in 
 nature, providence, and grace. The miracle was needed 
 in order to begin the kingdom of God in this sinful world, 
 but is not needed in order to its continuance and progress. 
 And the same is true of the revelation of God in his 
 
PURE AND MIXED 141 
 
 written Word. This must begin in a miracle. The truths 
 and facts of revealed religion, as distinguished from nat- 
 ural, must be supernaturally communicated to a few par- 
 ticular persons especially chosen for this purpose. Inspi- 
 ration comes under the category of the miracle. It is 
 as miraculous as raising the dead. To expect, therefore, 
 that God would continue inspiration to copyists after hav- 
 ing given it to prophets and apostles, would be like expect- 
 ing that because in the first century he empowered men 
 to raise the dead, he would continue to do so in all cen- 
 turies. If this had been necessary, if God could not have 
 extended and perpetuated his church without the contin- 
 uance of miracles, doubtless he would have wrought mir- 
 acles perpetually ; for we can not suppose that Omnipo- 
 tence would suffer itself to be defeated in any undertak- 
 ing. But whatever can be accomplished by his ordinary 
 methods in nature, providence, and grace, God so accom- 
 plishes. 
 
 Kow, this applies to divine revelation. The Scriptures 
 could not have been originated and written down in the 
 vernacular of the prophets and apostles without an in- 
 errant and infallible inspiration, and as thus originated 
 and written they were perfect, containing no error. God 
 the Holy Spirit inspires no error, great or small. This 
 is miracle. But these Scriptures can be copied into thou- 
 sands of manuscripts, so that these shall substantially 
 reproduce the autographs in doctrine, history, physics, 
 chronology, geography ; in short, in everything that goes 
 to make up the Scriptures. This latter process is not 
 supernatural and preclusive of all error, but providential 
 and natural and allowing of some error. But this sub- 
 stantial reproduction, this relative " purity " of the origi- 
 nal text as copied, is sufficient for the Divine purposes in 
 carrying forward the work of redemption in the world. 
 
142 CALVINISM : 
 
 But had the employment of this method of special provi- 
 dence involved the radical alteration of the original auto- 
 graphs, so as to introduce essential and fatal error into 
 them, then doubtless it would not have been employed, 
 but the copyists as well as the prophets and apostles 
 would have been supernaturally " moved by the Holy 
 Ghost," and their copies would have been exact facsimiles 
 of the autographs. 
 
 One or the other view of the Scriptures must be 
 adopted ; either that they were originally inerrant and 
 infallible, or that they were originally errant and fallible. 
 The first view is that of the church in all ages : the last 
 is that of the rationalist in all ages. He who adopts the 
 first view, will naturally bend all his efforts to eliminate the 
 errors of copyists and harmonize discrepancies, and there- 
 by bring the existing manuscripts nearer to the original 
 autographs. By this process, the errors and discrepancies 
 gradually diminish, and belief in the infallibility of Script- 
 ure is strengthened. He who adopts the second view, 
 will naturally bend all his efforts to perpetuate the mis- 
 takes of scribes, and exaggerate and establish discrepancies. 
 By this process, the errors and discrepancies gradually in- 
 crease, and disbelief in the infallibility of Scripture is 
 strengthened. That the theory of the original errancy 
 and fallibility of Scripture as it came from the prophets 
 and apostles should be maintained and defended by the 
 rationalistic critic, is comprehensible — his hostility to the 
 supernatural explains it — but that it should be maintained 
 and defended by professedly evangelical critics, is inex- 
 plicable, except on the supposition that they do not per- 
 ceive the logical result of the theory, and its exceedingly 
 destructive influence upon the belief of mankind in Divine 
 Revelation. 
 
 Nearly forty years ago, the author, in criticising the 
 
PURE AND MIXED 143 
 
 theory strongly and eloquently presented by Coleridge in 
 his Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit, that the secondary 
 sections of Scripture contain more or less of error, while 
 the primary section relating to doctrine is inerrant, made 
 the following objections to it, which he has seen no reason 
 to modify. " We are aware that Coleridge believed that 
 the Scriptures are infallible on all fundamental subjects, 
 and that those doctrines which in common with the Chris- 
 tian Church he regarded as vital to human salvation, 
 are all infallibly revealed in them. This separates him 
 heaven-wide from a mere rationalist, and places him in 
 the same general class with the evangelical school of theo- 
 logians in Germany, in respect to the doctrine of inspira- 
 tion. Still, we regard it as an error in him and in them, 
 that the canon is not contemplated as a complete whole, 
 having a common origin in the Divine Mind, in such 
 sense that as a body of information it is infallibly correct 
 on all the subjects upon which it purports to teach truth. 
 There must be truth, in distinction from error, upon even 
 the most unimportant particulars of history, chronology, 
 topography, and physics constituting a part of the subject- 
 matter of the Bible, and it is altogether the most rational 
 to assume that it is to be found in the Biblical statements 
 themselves if they are inspired of God. These secondary 
 subjects are an important, and sometimes a vital part of 
 the total Word of God. The biographic memoirs of the 
 Redeemer are an instance. If these are not inerrant as 
 history and chronology, then the Christian religion itself 
 disappears ; for the Personage in whom it centres becomes 
 mythical, instead of historic. Hence in the contest be- 
 tween rationalism and supernaturalism, the narratives in 
 the four Gospels have been the hottest part of the battle- 
 field. Consider again the long and detailed narratives of 
 the exodus of the Israelites, and their wanderings for 
 
144 CALVINISM : 
 
 forty years. If these were not the inspired product of 
 their leader and law-giver, but the compilation and inven- 
 tion of unknown persons living a thousand years after 
 Moses, and in an environment wholly different from that 
 of Egypt and the Sinaitic peninsula, this fictitious 
 secondary matter will drag the primary along with it. 
 Mankind will not believe that the theology and ethics of 
 the decalogue, the sacrifices, types, and symbols of the 
 Levitical institute, and the religion of the theocracy, came 
 supernaturally from God, if they are imbedded in a 
 mythical history and chronology like that of Egypt and 
 
 i India. The secondary sections of which we are speaking, 
 are so integrated into the solid doctrinal substance of the 
 Bible, that they cannot be taken out of it. any more than 
 the veins can be from the solid marble. Why then is it 
 not probable that they had the same common origin with 
 
 ! the doctrines and fundamental truths themselves which 
 are encrusted and crystallized in them — in other words, 
 
 | that the Divine Spirit, whether as positively revealing, or 
 as inspiring and superintending, is the ultimate Author 
 of the whole? There are but two objections to this posi- 
 tion. The first is, that the inspired writers become there- 
 by mere amanuenses and automata. This objection has 
 no force for one who believes that the Divine can, and 
 does dwell and work in the human in the most real and 
 absolute manner, without in the least mutilating or sup- 
 pressing the human, and ought not to be urged by one 
 Who believes in the actuation of the regenerate soul by 
 the Holy Spirit. As in this instance the human cannot 
 be separated from the Divine, in the individual conscious- 
 ness, and all ' the fruits of the Spirit' seem to be the very 
 spontaneity of the human soul itself, so in the origina- 
 tion of the entire body of Holy Writ, w r hile all, even 
 the minutest parts, have the flexibility, naturalness, and 
 
PURE AND MIXED 145 
 
 freshness of purely human products, there is yet in and 
 through them all the unerring agency of the Supreme 
 Mind. In other words, the Holy Spirit is the organizing 
 power and principle in the outstanding body of knowledge 
 and information which is called the Bible, and, working 
 like every organizing power thoroughly and completely^ 
 produces a whole that is characterized by His own char- 
 acteristic perfection of knowledge, even as the principle 
 of life in the natural world diffuses itself, and produces 
 all the characteristic marks of life, out to the rim of the 
 tiniest leaf. The second objection, and a fatal one if it 
 ean be maintained, is, that there are actual errors in the 
 Scriptures on points respecting which they profess to 
 teach the truth. Let this be proved if it can be; but un- 
 til it has been demonstrated incontrovertibly, the Chris- 
 tian Church is consistent in asserting the infallibility of 
 the written Word in all its elements and parts. We say 
 this with confidence, because out of the large number of 
 alleged errors and contradictions that have been urged 
 against the plenary inspiration of the Scriptures, by scep- 
 tics of all grades from Celsus and Porphyry down to 
 Spinoza and Strauss, none are established as such on 
 grounds that make it absurd for the defender of the doc- 
 trine to deny the allegation, and attempt an explanation 
 and reconciliation of the difficulty. There are many per- 
 plexities remaining, we grant, but while there is not an 
 instance in which the unprejudiced and truly scientific 
 study of the Bible has resulted in demonstrating beyond 
 dispute that an inspired prophet or apostle has taught 
 error of any kind, there are many instances in which it 
 has resulted in favor of plenary inspiration. 'No one ac- 
 quainted with the results of the severe and sceptical 
 criticism to which the canon has been subjected by the 
 English deists of the eighteenth century, and the German 
 10 
 
146 CALVINISM : 
 
 rationalists of the nineteenth, will deny that the number 
 of apparent contradictions and errors is smaller now than 
 at the beginning of the controversy, and that the Divine 
 origin and authority of the Old and New Testaments are 
 resting on broader, deeper, and firmer foundations than 
 ever." Shedd : Literary Essays, 337-340. 
 
 Those who deny the inerrancy of the original auto- 
 graphs of the Scriptures are also chargeable with another 
 misunderstanding of the Confession. They confound " the 
 testimony of any man or church " spoken of in Con. i. 4, 
 with "the testimony of the church" spoken of in Con. i. 
 5. In endeavoring, contrary to all the Christian apolo- 
 getics of the past, to sever entirely the inspiration of the 
 Scriptures from their authorship and authenticity, and to 
 make belief in them depend solely upon the inward wit- 
 ness of the Spirit, thereby abolishing historical faith and 
 retaining only saving faith, they argue that the exclu- 
 sion of " the testimony of any man or church" spoken of 
 in Con. i. 4, excludes "the testimony of the church" 
 spoken of in Con. i. 5, and cite the former to show that 
 the external evidence for the authenticity of Scripture 
 which comes from the tradition of the Jewish and early 
 Christian churches is not needed in order to prove its 
 inspiration, or to strengthen confidence in it. In so doing 
 they confound authority with authenticity, and overlook 
 the two different uses of the term " testimony " in the 
 Confession. In Con. i. 4, the authority of the Scripture is 
 spoken of, and the M testimony " meant is testimony to 
 the truth. In Con. i. 5, the authenticity of Scripture is 
 spoken of, and the " testimony " meant is testimony to 
 the authorship and genuineness of a writing. An exami- 
 nation of the two sections will show this. 
 
 Con. i. 4 declares that " the authority of Scripture de- 
 pendeth not upon the testimony of any man or church, 
 
PURE AND MIXED 147 
 
 but wholly upon God, who is the author of it." " Testi- 
 mony," here, is used in the sense of teaching, declaring 
 and communicating truth. The proof text cited from 1 
 John 5 : 9 evinces this : " If we receive the witness of 
 men, the witness of God is greater." To which may be 
 added, with many another passage, John 5 : 32, 34 : "I 
 receive not testimony from men ; there is another that 
 beareth witness of me, and I know that the witness which 
 he witnesseth of me is true." Truth which God testifies 
 to and so is the author of, has infallible authority ; but 
 truth which" any manor church " testifies to and so is the 
 author of, is fallible. 
 
 Con. i. 5 declares that " we may be induced by the 
 testimony of the church to a high and reverent esteem for 
 the Holy Scriptures." This relates to the authenticity of 
 the Bible ; namely, to the fact of its being the genuine 
 product of those inspired prophets and apostles through 
 whom God " testified" in the sense of Con. i. 4, and made 
 his revelation of truth, in distinction from being the forged 
 product of unknown men outside of the circle of prophets 
 and apostles, writing centuries later. The " testimony " 
 spoken of in this section is not the teaching, declaring, and 
 communicating of divine truth, but merely bearing wit- 
 ness that such and such persons wrote such and such parts 
 of Scripture. The Jewish and early Christian churches, 
 in rendering this important service, whereby the genuine- 
 ness of the sacred writings is established by the same kind 
 of testimony by which that of secular writings is proved, 
 did not claim to be the authors of the Bible, or that it got 
 its authority from them, but only to know that certain 
 men who gave evidence by visible miraculous signs of be- 
 ing called and inspired of God wrote certain books of 
 Scripture. Such external testimony as this to the genuine- 
 ness of Scripture, supported by the infinitely higher testi- 
 
148 CALVINISM : 
 
 mony of Christ to the same effect in regard to the Old 
 Testament, is as necessary in order to faith in it as a 
 divine book as is the external testimony of the early 
 Christian church that Christ and his apostles wrought 
 miracles, in order to believe in miracles. Take away from 
 Christendom the external evidence which the "eye-wit- 
 nesses " (2 Pet. 1 : 16) and contemporaries of our Lord 
 and his apostles gave to miracles, and belief in miracles 
 would soon yield to sceptical attacks. The internal evi- 
 dence alone would not save it. Take away from Christen- 
 dom the testimony which contemporaries have given that 
 the four Gospels were the productions of the four Evan- 
 gelists, and belief in their infallible inspiration would soon 
 die out. The internal evidence alone would not be suf- 
 ficient to keep the faith of the church firm, after the 
 invalidation of their genuineness and canonicity. We 
 already see the mischievous effect of even the defeated 
 attempt to destroy the force of the early ecclesiastical 
 testimony and catholic tradition respecting the authorship 
 of the Gospels, in lessening confidence in them as inspired 
 narratives. 
 
 And the reason is, that inspiration from the nature of 
 the case belongs only to a very small circle, and not to 
 mankind generally, nor to a nation generally. A book, in 
 order to be inspired, must originate wit/tin this very 
 small circle. Hence the question of authorship is insepa- 
 rable from that of inspiration. Whoever could prove in- 
 disputably that Matthew's gospel was not written by or 
 under the superintendence of one of "those men which 
 companied with the Lord Jesus all the time that he went 
 in and out " on earth (Acts 1 : 21), and whom he set apart 
 and endowed with both inspiration and miraculous powers, 
 in order to found his church and prepare an authorita- 
 tive account of his life and teachings for Christendom in 
 
PURE AND MIXED 149 
 
 all time — whoever could indisputably prove that it was 
 written by some unknown person in the second century 
 who never saw Christ on earth and had no personal con- 
 nection with him of any kind, would prove that it was a 
 forgery and destroy human confidence in it. And this 
 confidence would not be restored by merely saying, " The 
 first Gospel was not written by Matthew, but whoever it 
 was that wrote it he was inspired." For this makes the 
 inspiration depend upon the testimony of the modern in- 
 dividual who says so, instead of the testimony of the 
 Primitive church. The only sponsor for the inspiration 
 of an " unknown man " is the unknown man that asserts 
 such an inspiration. 
 
 Both the external and internal evidences for the inspi- 
 ration of the Scriptures are necessary ; and so are both 
 historical and saving faith. A man who is destitute of 
 the former is never the subject of the latter ; the former 
 is a preparative to the latter. Sceptics, remaining such, 
 are never converted. Consequently God provides the ex- 
 ternal evidence which produces historical faith, as well as 
 the inward operation of the Holy Spirit which produces 
 saving faith. There is no need of undervaluing the very 
 great strength of the internal evidence while insisting 
 upon the full value of the external. Inspiration is a 
 supernatural fact, like miracles ; and, as we cannot rely 
 wholly upon the internal evidence for a miracle, upon its 
 intrinsic nature and probability, but must bring in the ex- 
 ternal evidence, namely, the actual seeing of it by an eye- 
 witness, so in the case of inspiration, in addition to the 
 nature of the truths taught and the probability that a 
 benevolent and paternal Being would make some commu- 
 nications to his creatures respecting their origin and eter- 
 nal destiny, we must add that which comes from the testi- 
 mony of those who lived contemporaneously with prophets 
 
150 CALVINISM : 
 
 and apostles respecting their right to be regarded as the 
 authors of the writings attributed to them, and the super- 
 natural evidences which they gave that they were under 
 a divine afflatus, and were the "holy men of God, who 
 spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost." 
 
PUKE AND MIXED 151 
 
 XIY. 
 
 CALVINISM AND THE BIBLE 
 
 The question, What is the system of doctrine contained 
 in the "Westminster Confession, and what is essential to 
 its integrity ? is more important than ever, now that the 
 Presbyteries have voted in favor of revision, and the Gen- 
 eral Assembly has instructed its committee u not to pro- 
 pose any alterations or amendments that will in any way 
 impair the integrity of the Reformed or Calvinistic sys- 
 tem of doctrine taught in the Confession of Faith." The 
 vote of the Church in answer to the overture of the fifteen 
 Presbyteries shows that sixty-eight Presbyteries desire no 
 revision at all of their Standards, and that ninety-two de- 
 sire no revision that would alter the doctrinal system con- 
 tained in them. This vote evinces that at least three- 
 fourths of the Northern Presbyterian Church wish to be 
 known as a Calvinistic denomination, in distinction from 
 a Broad Church, tolerating all varieties of " evangelical " 
 belief; and the general tenor of the discussion in the late 
 Assembly was strongly against the dis-Calvinizing of the 
 Confession. 
 
 Some advocates of revision object to this decision of the 
 Assembly to make Calvinism a test of revision, and de- 
 mand that Scripture be the test. Of course Scripture is 
 the only infallible rule of faith. But this particular way 
 of appealing to Scripture is specious and fallacious. In 
 the first place, it assumes that Calvinism is not Scriptural, 
 an assumption which the Presbyterian Church has never 
 
152 CALVINISM : 
 
 granted. This Church does not accept the alternative — 
 the Bible or Calvinism — presented in this appeal. Its 
 watchword is, The Bible and Calvinism. Secondly, this 
 kind of appeal to Scripture is only an appeal to Scripture 
 as the reviser understands it. " Scripture '' properly means 
 the interpretation of Scripture ; that is, the contents of 
 Scripture as reached by human investigation and exegesis. 
 Creeds, like commentaries, are Scripture studied and ex- 
 plained, and not the mere abstract and unexplained book 
 as it lies on the counter of the Bible House. The infalli- 
 ble Word of God is expounded by the fallible mind of 
 man, and hence the variety of expositions embodied in the 
 denominational creeds. But every interpreter claims to 
 have understood the Scriptures correctly, and, conse- 
 quently, claims that his creed is Scriptural, and if so, that 
 it is the infallible truth of God. The Arminian appeals 
 to the Articles of Wesley as the rule of faith, because he 
 believes them to be the true explanation of the inspired 
 Bible. For him they are the Bible in a nutshell. The 
 Calvin ist appeals to the creeds of Heidelberg, Dort, and 
 Westminster as the rule of faith, because he regards them 
 as the accurate exegesis of the revealed Word of God. 
 By the " Bible " these parties, as well as all others who 
 appeal to the Bible, mean their understanding of the 
 Bible. There is no such thing as that abstract Scripture 
 to which the revisionist of whom we are speaking appeals ; 
 that is, Scripture apart from any and all interpretation of 
 it. When, therefore, the advocate of revision demands 
 that the Westminster Confession be "conformed to Script- 
 ure," he means conformation to Scripture as he and those 
 like him read and explain it. It is impossible to make 
 abstract Scripture the rule of faith for either an individ- 
 ual or a denomination. No Christian body has ever sub- 
 scribed to the Bible merely as a printed book. A person 
 
PUUE AND MIXED 153 
 
 who should write his name on the blank leaf of the Bible 
 and say that his doctrinal belief was between the covers, 
 would convey no definite information as to his creed. He 
 might be a Socinian, or a Calvinist, or anywhere between 
 these extremes. The only question, consequently, before 
 the Presbyterian Church is, Whether the Confession shall 
 be kept conformed to Scripture as the Calvinist under- 
 stands it, or as the non-Calvinist or anti-Calvinist under- 
 stands it ; whether it shall continue to present that inter- 
 pretation of Scripture which goes under the names of 
 Augustine and Calvin, of Heidelberg, Dort, and West- 
 minster, or that which goes under some other name, say 
 that of " modern exegesis," or of " progressive theology." 
 The Presbyterian Church has decided in favor of the first 
 proposition. 
 
 The question, What is Calvinism ? is mainly one of 
 reasoning and discrimination. It relates to a matter of 
 fact. This question will answer itself in the discussion 
 now going on ; for this theological system possesses as 
 distinctive features as the Copernican astronomy, and it 
 will be as impossible to confuse and unsettle the religious 
 world respecting the former, as it would be to confuse and 
 unsettle the scientific world respecting the latter. The 
 essential parts of this system are the well-known five 
 points of Calvinism, namely, total depravity in distinction 
 from partial; unconditional election in distinction from 
 conditional ; irresistible regenerating grace in distinction 
 from resistible ; limited redemption (not atonement) in 
 distinction from universal ; the certain perseverance of the 
 regenerate in distinction from their possible apostasy. No 
 one of these points can be rejected without impairing the 
 integrity of Calvinism, any more than one of the points of 
 the mariners' compass can be omitted and the scheme be 
 complete ; any more than one of the contrary five points 
 
154 CALVINISM : 
 
 of Arminianism can be deleted and the theory remain un- 
 
 \ altered. 
 
 S The "Institutes" of Calvin, after all the development 
 of the Reformed or Calvinistic type of doctrine by later 
 theologians, still remains one of the best statements of this 
 powerful system. The keen and aquiline eye of the most 
 scientific theologian of the Reformation saw the funda- 
 mental truths of revelation with an accuracy and precision 
 that required no correction on his part. The great work 
 of his early manhood remained essentially unchanged by 
 him to the end of his career, and since his day it has laid 
 at the foundation of all subsequent theologizing of this 
 class, as the Principia of Newton has under all the suc- 
 ceeding mathematics of Europe. While, however, a re- 
 vision of the Westminster Standards that shall be true to 
 their structure and system does not require that the 
 peculiarities of individual Calvinists, even of Calvin him- 
 self, or of Calvinistic schools should be followed, it does 
 require that all of those constituent and formative tenets 
 by which Augustinianism differs from Semi-Pelagianism, 
 and Calvinism from Arminianism, shall be reaffirmed and 
 maintained. The revision must be conformed to the his- 
 torical Calvinism as stated in the principal Reformed or 
 Calvinistic creeds, and not to Calvinism as constructed by 
 any particular theologian, however able or popular in his 
 
 \ own day and denomination. 
 
 / The Christian religion contains certain truths that are 
 /so indisputably taught in the Christian Scriptures, that 
 j their acceptance is necessary in order to be a Christian in 
 the sense in which the first disciples were so called at An- 
 tioch. They are the doctrines of the trinity and incarna- 
 tion, of apostasy and redemption, as they are generally and 
 largely enunciated in the Apostles' and Nicene creeds. 
 Respecting these, there lias been little disagreement in 
 
PURE A$D MIXED 155 
 
 ancient, mediaeval, and modern Christendom. The Chris- 
 tian religion also contains certain other truths which, both 
 in the Scriptures and in the doctrinal systems constructed 
 out of them, are implications and deductions from these 
 cardinal doctrines. It is in reference to this class of more 
 strict and precise tenets, that evangelical Christendom has 
 from the first been divided into two great divisions. In 
 respect to them, the ancient theologian was either Augus- 
 tinian or Semi-Pelagian; the modern theologian is either 
 Calvinistic or Arminian. The difference between them 
 relates principally to the more exact definition of original 
 sin, of human freedom and ability, and of the Divine sov- 
 ereignty and decrees. So long as Christian believers see 
 through a glass darkly, there will be a speculative differ- 
 ence between them on these abstruser parts of revelation 
 that will affect more or less the style of the religious ex- 
 perience, and make separate religious organizations desir- 
 able. This difference has for fifteen centuries crystallized 
 into two sharply-edged types of theology, and there are 
 no signs that one will outreason and conquer the other. 
 Calvinism and Calvinistic denominations will probably 
 continue to exist to the end of time ; and so will Armin- 
 ianism and Arminian denominations. In the future, as in 
 the past, all evangelical believers will belong either to one 
 dogmatic division or the other. It is better, in these cir- 
 cumstances, that both shall live and work side by side in 
 frank and respectful recognition of each other, than to de- 
 stroy the self -consistence of each by an attempt to combine 
 both in a single system. Only these two general schemes 
 of Christian doctrine are logically possible ; for schemes 
 that deny the trinity and incarnation, the apostasy and 
 redemption, are Deistic, not Christian. Both scientific 
 theology and dogmatic history evince that there is no ter- 
 tium quid between Calvinism and Arminianism, and that 
 
156 CALVINISM : 
 
 the choice of an individual or a denomination, conse- 
 quently, lies between one or the other. Semi-Pelagian ism 
 was a real mid-point between the tenets of Augustine and 
 those of Pelagius ; but there is no true intermediate be- 
 tween the system of Calvin and that of Arminius. In the 
 history of doctrine there are sometimes semi-quavers, but 
 demi-semi-quavers never. 
 
 Such being the facts, it is of the utmost importance to 
 the Presbyterian Church that it retain the historical Cal- 
 vinism upon which it was founded, and by which it has 
 prospered. But it is of even greater importance to the 
 whole world. It is a common remark of historians and 
 philosophers, that Calvinism lays very deep the founda- 
 tions of religious belief, of moral order, of civil society, 
 and general intelligence and virtue, and that forms of 
 government and social institutions which rest upon it are 
 invincible, and u cannot but by annihilating die." Should 
 this type of doctrine and this form of the religious experi- 
 ence disappear, Christendom would lose its balance-wheel. 
 For it is no disparagement of the energy of evangelical 
 Protestantism of all varieties, in the defence of the com- 
 mon faith, and the war upon the common unbelief, to say 
 that the Genevan theology is always in the front whenever 
 a fearless position has to be taken in behalf of an unpopu- 
 lar but revealed truth; whenever the Christian herald 
 must announce the solemn alternatives of salvation and 
 perdition to a sensuous, a pleasure-loving, and an irritable 
 generation ; whenever, in short, the stern and severe work 
 of the perpetual campaign on earth against moral evil has 
 to be done. The best interests of the Christian religion 
 and Church require the continual existence and influence 
 of that comprehensive and self-consistent creed which 
 Augustine formulated out of Scripture, and Calvin re- 
 affirmed and re-enforced. Evangelical Arminians who do 
 
PURE AND MIXED 157 
 
 not adopt it feel its influence, praying it in their prayers 
 and singing it in their hymns ; and Rationalists of all 
 grades while recoiling from it acknowledge its massiveness 
 and strength. It may, therefore, be confidently expected 
 that whatever be the fortunes of a particular Church, or 
 the tendencies of a particular time, this form of doctrine 
 will perpetually survive in Christendom like the Script- , 
 ures out of which it was derived. 
 
158 CALVINISM : 
 
 XV. 
 
 DENOMINATIONAL HONESTY AND HONOR 
 
 Honesty is as important in theology as in trade and 
 commerce, in a religious denomination as in a political 
 party. Denominational honesty consists, first, in a clear 
 unambiguous statement by a Church of its doctrinal be- 
 lief ; and, second, in an unequivocal and sincere adoption 
 of it by its members. Both are requisite. If a particular 
 denomination makes a loose statement of its belief which 
 is capable of being construed in more than one sense, it 
 is so far dishonest. If the creed of the denomination is 
 well-drawn and plain, but the membership subscribe to it 
 with mental reservation and insincerity, the denomination 
 is dishonest. Honesty and sincerity are founded in clear 
 conviction, and clear conviction is founded in the knowl- 
 edge and acknowledgment of the truth. Heresy is a sin, 
 and is classed by St. Paul among the " works of the 
 flesh," along with "adultery, idolatry, murder, envy, and 
 hatred," which exclude from the kingdom of God (Gal. 
 5 : 19-21). But heresy is not so great a sin as dishonesty. 
 There may be honest heresy, but not honest dishonesty. 
 A heretic who acknowledges that he is such, is a better 
 man than he who pretends to be orthodox while subscrib- 
 ing to a creed which he dislikes, and which he saps under 
 pretence of improving it and adapting it to the times. 
 The honest heretic leaves the Church with which he no 
 longer agrees ; but the insincere subscriber remains within 
 it in order to carry out his plan of demoralization. 
 
PURE AND MIXED 159 
 
 The recent discussions in the Presbyterian Church have 
 disclosed a difference of sentiment respecting the value of 
 denominational honesty. Some of the secular newspapers 
 charge intolerance and persecution upon Presbyterians, 
 when departures from the church creed are made the sub- 
 ject of judicial inquiry, and when individuals are required 
 to conform their teaching from the pulpit or the chair to 
 the denominational standards. In this way a part of the 
 public press is conniving at denominational dishonesty. It 
 would permit chinch officers to subscribe to a creed and 
 derive the benefit of subscription in the form of reputation 
 or emolument, while working against it. The creed of 
 a Church is a solemn contract between church-members ; 
 even more so than the platform of a political party is be- 
 tween politicians. The immorality of violating a contract, 
 a portion of the press does not seem to perceive when a 
 religions denomination is concerned ; but when a political 
 party is the body to be affected by the breach of a pledge, 
 none are sharper to see and none are more vehement to 
 denounce the double-dealing. Should a faction arise 
 within the .Republican party, for example, and endeavor 
 to alter the platform while still retaining the offices and 
 salaries which they had secured by professing entire al- 
 legiance to the party, and promising to adopt the funda- 
 mental principles upon which it was founded and by 
 which it is distinguished from the Democratic and other 
 political parties, the charge of political dishonesty would 
 ring through the whole rank and file of Republicanism. 
 And when in the exercise of party discipline such faction- 
 ists are turned out of office, and perhaps expelled from 
 the political organization, if the cry of political heresy- 
 hunting and persecution should be raised, the only answer 
 vouchsafed by the Republican press would be that of 
 scorn. When political dishonesty would claim toleration 
 
160 Calvinism : 
 
 under cover of more "liberal" politics than the party is 
 favoring, and would keep hold on party emoluments 
 while advocating different sentiments from those of the 
 mass of the party, it is curtly told that no one is com- 
 pelled to join the Republican party or to remain in it, but 
 that if a person does join it or remain in it, he must 
 strictly adopt the party creed and make no attempts, 
 secret or open, to alter it. That a Republican creed is for 
 Republicans and no others, seems to be agreed on all 
 sides ; but that a Calvinistic creed is for Calvinists and 
 no others, seems to be doubted by some. 
 
 The advocates of this view of a church creed and of 
 creed subscription defend it upon the ground that it is 
 proper to introduce improvements into a denominational 
 creed ; that the progress in physics and the spirit of the 
 age require new statements of ethics and religion ; and 
 that this justifies the rise within a denomination of a party 
 to make them, and requires that the denomination quietly 
 look on and see it done. This means, for illustration, that 
 a Church adopting the historical eschatology is bound to 
 allow such of its members as think restorationism is an 
 improvement, to attempt the introduction of it into the 
 articles of faith ; or that a Church adopting the Wesleyan 
 Arminianism is obligated to let any of its members who 
 think unconditional election preferable to conditional, en- 
 deavor to Calvinize it by introducing this tenet. But 
 should a corresponding liberty be demanded in the polit- 
 ical sphere, it would meet with no favor. If in the heart 
 of the Democratic party a school should arise who should 
 claim the right, while still remaining in the party, to con- 
 vert the body to Republican principles and measures, it 
 would be told that the proper place for such a project is 
 outside of Democracy, not within it. The right of the 
 school to its own opinions would not be disputed, but the 
 
PURE AND MIXED 161 
 
 right to maintain and spread them with the funds and in- 
 fluence of the Democratic party would be denied. Demo- 
 crats to a man would employ Luther's illustration in a sim- 
 ilar instance : " We cannot prevent the birds from flying 
 over our heads, but we can prevent them from making 
 their nests in our hair." They would say to the malecon- 
 tents, "We cannot prevent you from having your own 
 peculiar views and do not desire to, but you have no right 
 to ventilate them in our organization." Should the offi- 
 cers of the New York custom-house or post-office insist 
 upon employing the salaries of these large institutions in 
 transforming the politics of the party that placed them 
 there, no cry of " persecution " would deter the party from 
 immediately cashiering the whole set. And yet some of 
 the secular press, and some also of the religious, contend 
 that it is proper for subscribers to the Westminster Con- 
 fession to attempt a radical alteration of the denomination- 
 al theology from within the denomination, and that it is 
 suppressing free inquiry and the right of private judg- 
 ment when seven-eighths of the Presbyterian Church rep- 
 resented in its highest court, put a veto upon such an at- 
 tempt. 
 
 In such ecclesiastical action there is no denial of the 
 right of private judgment, and of free inquiry into any 
 system of doctrine whatever ; only, it is claimed that those 
 who dissent from the accepted creed of the denomination, 
 if they are a minority, must go outside of it if they wish 
 to construct a new scheme. The satisfied majority have 
 the right of free inquiry and private judgment as well as 
 the dissatisfied minority, and in the exercise of it stand by 
 the creed as it is. Consequently, if discontent with the de- 
 nominational standard arises in the minds of some, the 
 proper place for their experiments in theologizing is with- 
 in a new organization, and not in the old one which does 
 11 
 
162 CALVINISM : 
 
 not like their experiments. For this reason, from time 
 immemorial, a religious denomination has always claimed 
 the right to expel persons who are heretics as judged by 
 the denominational creed. Only in this way can a denom- 
 ination live and prosper. To throw down its doctrinal 
 limits and convert itself into an unfenced common for all 
 varieties of belief to ramble over, would not be useful 
 either to society or religion. 
 
 But here the question arises, Who is to interpret the 
 church creed, and say whether a proposed scheme of doc- 
 trine agrees with it, or contradicts it ? Who is to say 
 what is heresy from the stand-point of the denominational 
 system ? Certainly the denomination, and not the indi- 
 vidual or school which is charged with heresy. This is a 
 point of great importance. For those who are charged 
 with heterodoxy commonly define orthodoxy in their own 
 way, and claim not to have departed from what they re- 
 gard as the essentials of the denominational system. The 
 Arminian party in the Dort controversy contended that 
 their modifications of doctrine were moderate and not an- 
 tagonistic to the Reformed creeds. The Semi-Arians in 
 the English Church asserted that their view of the Trin- 
 ity did not differ essentially from that of the Nicene 
 fathers. In each of these instances, the accused party 
 complained that their statements were misapprehended by 
 their opponents, and contended that the Church was mis- 
 taken in supposing that they could not be harmonized 
 with the ancestral faith. The same assertion of being 
 misunderstood and the same claim to be orthodox, marks 
 the existing trial in the Presbyterian Church. 
 
 Now in determining what is the true meaning of the 
 phraseology in a proposed alteration of the denominational 
 creed, and what will be the natural influence of it if it is 
 allowed to be taught, it is plain that it is for the denomi- 
 
PURE AND MIXED 163 
 
 nation to decide. In case of a difference in under- 
 standing and interpreting a written document containing 
 proposed changes in the church creed, the rule of the 
 common law applies, that the accused party cannot be the 
 final judge of the meaning and tendency of his own docu- 
 ment, but that the court must be. And the denomination 
 is the court. There is no hardship or unfairness in this. 
 A denominational judgment is very certain to be equi- 
 table, be it in Church or State. The history of politics 
 shows that the decisions of the great political parties re- 
 specting the real meaning of their platforms, and the 
 conformity of individuals with them, have generally been 
 correct. And the history of religion also shows that the 
 judgments of the great ecclesiastical bodies respecting the 
 teachings of their standards, and the agreement or disagree- 
 ment of particular schools of theology with them, have 
 been accurate. Those individuals and parties who have 
 been declared to be heterodox, politically or theologically, 
 by the deliberate vote of the body to which they belonged, 
 have generally been so. It is rare that the majority has 
 been in error, and the minority in the right. 
 
 Denominational honesty is closely connected with de- 
 nominational honor. Those churches which have been 
 the most frank in announcing their creed, and the most 
 strict in insisting upon an honest interpretation and adop- 
 tion of it by their membership, have been characterized 
 by a scrupulous regard for the rights of other churches. 
 Being satisfied with their own doctrinal position, and con- 
 fident of the truth of their articles of faith, they have not 
 invaded other denominations in order to alter their creed 
 or to obtain their prestige. In this respect, the Calvinists 
 of Christendom compare favorably with some of their op- 
 ponents who charge them with illiberality and bigotry. 
 It is true that in the times when the union of Church and 
 
164 CALVINISM : PURE AND MIXED 
 
 State was universal, and the spread of any other religion 
 but that of the State was regarded as menacing to the 
 political weal, Calvinists like all other religious parties 
 endeavored to suppress all creeds but the established. 
 But they were ever in the van for the separation of 
 Church and State, and for the religious toleration which 
 naturally accompanies this. And ever since religions 
 toleration has become the principle of Christendom, and 
 the Protestant right of private judgment has become 
 dominant, Calvinism has not been intolerant, or disposed 
 to interfere with the creeds, institutions, and emoluments 
 of other churches. It sets a good example in this respect. 
 There is no instance upon record, that we remember, in 
 which Calvinists have secretly tampered with the creed of 
 another ecclesiastical body, and endeavored to seduce its 
 membership from their loyalty to the articles of belief 
 publicly adopted by them. From their own open and de- 
 clared Calvin istic position, they have of course criticised 
 and opposed other creeds, because they believed them to 
 be more or less erroneous, but they have never adopted 
 the plan of creeping into another denomination by sub- 
 scribing to its articles, and then from that position en- 
 deavoring to revolutionize the body which it professed to 
 join in good faith. No part of Christendom has been 
 more free from insincerity and dissimulation than the 
 Calvinistic churches. 
 
« Tlie most learned and searching work in its line that ha* 
 mppeared in this country within the present generation." 
 
 — CHICAGO TRIBUNE. 
 
 DOGMATIC THEOLOGY. 
 
 By WILLIAM G. T. SHEDD, D.D., 
 
 Professor of Systematic Theology in Union Theological Seminary. 
 
 Second Edition, Two Volumes, 8vo, with Portrait, Price $7.00. 
 
 " Dr. Shedd's theology is full of the word of God in its very essence, it is pervaded by 
 the great thoughts of the master-minds of all the ages, and it is presented to us in a style 
 remarkable for its purity and clearness. The student who masters these volumes will be 
 well armed for controversy and well equipped for teaching." — New York Observer. 
 
 "These volumes are, in more senses than one, weighty. They are full of matter. Dr. 
 Shedd is master of a singularly clear, strong, and expressive style, and wastes no words. 
 Ample as are his discussions, there is nothing superfluous. His full, yet choice diction, 
 admirably sets forth his profound and well ordered thought." — Watchman, Boston. 
 
 "The two volumes are the result of eighteen years of special study, and of forty 
 years labor in theological research. The treatment is such as might be expected of Dr. 
 Shedd : scholarly, profound, devout, thorough." — New York Examiner. 
 
 " As a whole, the work is the clearest and most exhaustive statement of dogmatic 
 theology that has yet been made, and for that reason it is likely to attract as much atten- 
 tion from scientists as from theologians." — Philadelphia Times. 
 
 " The style never labors nor becomes obscure. The reader is never in doubt as to 
 the meaning of the author. The work easily takes precedence among the various pres- 
 entations of Puritan Calvinism, and will have a permanent value as an explanation ot 
 that influential system of religious philosophy." — Andover Review. 
 
 " Dr. Shedd's great power is in the clearness and fulness and exactness of his doc- 
 trinal statements, and in their illustration. He is a master of sentences. No one can 
 doubt his meaning. These volumes are therefore eminently readable and many an 
 earnest student will find strength and inspiration in reading them thoroughly from end 
 to end." — Chicago Standard. 
 
 "Into these ample volumes, as into a reservoir, have flowed all the streams of Dr. 
 Shedd's lifelong studies — literary, ethical, philosophical, exegetical, scientific, and theo- 
 logical. It is delightful to think of the usefulness for generations of these volumes to 
 ministers and students. To Dr. Shedd we extend our hearty thanks for this great 
 work." — New York Evangelist. 
 
 "There are two features of the work that specially aid in making it a fine text-book. 
 In the first place, it is didactic rather than polemic. He states, expounds, and defends 
 what he believes to be the true view and spends little time in expounding and opposing 
 heresies. In the second place, the discussions are compact. The style is absolutely 
 clear, and no subject that he undertakes to unfold is at all slighted, but there is no waste 
 of words. We congratulate Dr. Shedd on the completion of this great work. We 
 congratulate the readers of theology on their possession of it." — Rev. John DeWitt, in 
 The Presbyteria?i Review. 
 
 "The students of Dr. Charles Hodge will find it very profitable to put this work 
 beside his. On some of the particulars of the Calvinistic or Augustinian. or Pauline 
 system, the two differ. The contrast in the plan and working out and style of the two 
 works is great. Hut they are the complements, each of the other. It will be an intel- 
 lectual tonic to read the two together. We wish that every minister had them both." 
 
 — Presbyterian Journal. 
 
 "This vigorous, mature, and stately work is likely to become one of the standard 
 authorities of scholarly orthodoxy. Its chief peculiarities are its solidity, scriptural- 
 ness, and massive logical force. Professor SheSd is himself a master in theology, and 
 he has reverence for masters in his own department." — Our Day. 
 
Dr. Shedd's Works. 
 
 " These volumes will take rank as they will naturally be compared with, the ency- 
 clopaedic treatise of Dr. Charles Hodge, and they will stand well this severe test. Less 
 full and exhaustive in the citation of authorities and the discussion of opposing views, its 
 positive and constructive features are equally strong. In one feature Dr. Shedd's 
 treatment of theological questions will he more satisfactory to many minds than Dr. 
 Hodge's, and that is, the wider scope and office he accords to the reason, in the formula- 
 tion and defence of doctrines. He writes from the postulate that while the reason may 
 not independently discover the dogmas of revealed religion, and a revelation is necessary, 
 yet a true dogma, when revealed, will be so accordant with reason, that its aid may and 
 must be invoked for its understanding and confirmation." — Christian Intelligencer. 
 
 DR. SHEDD'S OTHER WORKS 
 
 A, HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN 
 
 DOCTRINE. Two vols., crown 8vo. 
 Seventh edition, cloth, $5.00. 
 
 HOMILETICS AND PASTORAL 
 
 THEOLOGY. One vol., crown 8vo. 
 Seventh edition, cloth, $2.50. 
 
 A CONCISE ANALYTICAL COM- 
 MENTARY ON ST. PAUL'S EPIS- 
 TLE TO THE ROMANS. One vol., 
 crown 8vo, cloth, $2.50. 
 
 SERMONS TO THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 MAN. One vol., crown 8vo., cloth, 
 $2.50. 
 
 SERMONS TO THE NATURAL 
 MAN. One vol., crown 8vo. Third 
 edition, cloth, $2.50. 
 
 THEOLOGICAL ESSAYS. One vol., 
 8vo. Enlarged and carefully revised 
 edition, cloth, $2.50. 
 
 LITERARY ESSAYS. A series that 
 relate principally to ^Esthetics and Lit- 
 erature. With portrait. One vol., 
 crown, 8vo, cloth, $2.50. 
 
 THE DOCTRINE 
 PUNISHMENT. 
 
 8vo., $ 1.50. 
 
 OF ENDLESS 
 
 One vol., crown 
 
 SERMONS TO THE SPIRITUAL MAN, 
 
 " The thought which they express is not only profound and well wrought out, 
 but it has a certain grip on the mind which insures more than a temporary influence 
 however strong that may be." — Congregationalist, Boston. 
 
 "All are nobly written. All contain passages which could have been produced 
 by no one but a master of style. Most of them are truly eloquent, and their eloquence 
 is of the highest type." — Presbyterian, Pa. 
 
 " The last two discourses, entitled " Every Christian a Debtor to the Pagan," 
 and ,l The Certain Success of Evangelistic Labor," place the duty of the world's 
 Christianization upon its broad Scriptural foundations, and set forth the reasons for 
 its progressive and ultimate triumphs with inspiring eloquence." — Christian Intelli« 
 gencer, New York. 
 
 " To all minds awake and in earnest touching spiritual things, we can unre- 
 servedly commend this volume. It will be sure to aid in the struggle against sin, and 
 in victory over it." — New York Evangelist. ■ 
 
 " The sermons are peculiarly adapted for reading, and they are among the most 
 lpiritual and thoughtful discourses trjat have been published in recent years."— < 
 Wesley an Christian Advocate. 
 
Dr. Shedd's W*orks. 
 
 " Dr. Shedd's sermons command respect from the intellectual ability of theit 
 luthor. They are interesting exhibitions of the way in which a modern Calvinist, 
 Who holds with great tenacity to the Augustinian theology, views divine progress in 
 its relation to human character and destiny. The new departure has not yet invaded 
 Dr. Shedd's mind to any extent. Consequently, to a progressive Christian thinker, 
 \he premises of most of his discourses are unacceptable." — Christian Register^ 
 Boston. 
 
 ** They are distinguished by a clear and luminous style, and the boldness and 
 rigor which comes from profound conviction. No better volume of sermons, none 
 more thoughtful, spiritual, or satisfying, has come from the press for a long time."—> 
 Christian at Work, New York. 
 
 " We commend these sermons to our readers ; for though, as a Presbyterian divine, 
 we could not endorse all his views, yet, upon the great essential doctrines and duties 
 of Christianity, we are much at one with him." — Churchman, New York. 
 
 A HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 
 
 |k Dr. Shedd has furnished an important contribution to the study of church his- 
 tory. To have made a readable book — a book which must interest the general scholar 
 as well as the professed theologian — on a topic so difficult and so remote from the 
 ordinary interests and literary currents of the time, is itself a rare and very great 
 merit, demanding graceful recognition from all the scholars of the land." — North 
 A merican Review. 
 
 "It is many years since a more valuable contribution has been made, in this 
 country or England, to theological literature ; one the study of which will yield riper 
 fruits of Christian knowledge. These volumes are marked by a thoroughness of 
 knowledge and clearness of statement, as well as by a certain vital element which 
 
 Eervades them, and which shows the love of the author for his great theme, and that 
 e takes his position, not without but within his subject, and so relates the transfor- 
 mations and developments of religious thought as if he had himself passed through 
 them." — Bibliotheca Sacra. 
 
 " We hold that this is the most important contribution that has been made to our 
 theological literature during the present age." — Presbyterian Standard. 
 
 " In our judgment, no production of greater moment has been given to the public 
 for a long time." — Princeton Review. 
 
 "A body of theological history which is in form as perfect as it is in substance 
 excellent." — N. Y. Evening Post. 
 
 * It well deserves an honorable and permanent place in the standard literature of 
 theology." — New Englander. 
 
 "A rich addition to our theological literature." — American Theological Review. 
 
 " Dr. Shedd's History of Christian Doctrine, on its first appearance, was unani« 
 mously recognized as filling with remarkable success a blank that had existed in our 
 English literature on this important subject, and it still holds the foremost place in 
 works of this class." — Edinburgh Daily Review. 
 
 HOMILETICS AND PASTORAL THEOLOGY. 
 
 "The work will be found to be an admirable guide and stimulus in whatever per. 
 tains to this department of theology. The student finds himself in the hands of a 
 master able to quicken and enlarge his scope and spirit. The homiletical precepts 
 ire well illustrated by the author's own style, which is muscular, while quivering 
 with nervous life. Nowadays one rarely reads such good English writing — elevated 
 and clear, sinewy and flexible, transparent for the thought. Each topic is handled 
 in a true progressive method. Our young ministers may well make a study of this 
 fcook." — American Theol. Review. 
 
Dr. Shedd's Works. 
 
 COMMENTARY ON ROMANS. 
 
 "No better discipline could be suggested to a young minister than a patient and faith- 
 ful study of a volume like this . . . . not only because it is the freshest, but 
 because it is so purely intellectual and spiritual, wasting no time upon side issues, but 
 grappling manfully with the highest and most recondite themes."— Christian Intelli 
 ^encer. 
 
 " We know of no commentary by any living author on this epistle that, in our esti 
 mation, deserves to be esteemed above it." — Hartford Religious Herald. 
 
 "To the thorough learning of an accomplished scholar, it adds a style of special 
 grace, luminous without superficiality, and, sparkling without levity." — Lutheran Mis- 
 sionary. 
 
 "We consider this volume to be indispensable to a theological library." — Richmond 
 Central Presbyterian. 
 
 "We have been instructed, interested, and edified as we have turned over his 
 pages, and while not agreeing with him in all particulars, we have always been com- 
 pelled by him to revise our views, and give a reason for our preference." — Christian at 
 Work. 
 
 "The commentary is brief; there is no verbiage, no amplification, no preaching ; it 
 is as clear as crystal." — Illustrated Christian Weekly. 
 
 " We like thoroughly the keenly critical scholarship of Dr. Shedd's book and the 
 
 vigor of his style We commend the work as an excellent stimulus, and a 
 
 great help in doctrinal study." — Congregationalist. 
 
 " Like the previous writings of Professor Shedd, this learned and scholarly volume 
 is remarkable for the acute insight with which it applies profound philosophical principles 
 to the elucidation of religious doctrine." — N. Y. Tribune. 
 
 LITERARY ESSAYS. 
 
 " His productions are never of an ephemeral character ; though often separated by 
 a wide interval of years, they possess the unity which grows out of thoroughness of 
 examination and earnestness of conviction ; powerful in argument, lucid in exposition, 
 and effective in style, they challenge the interest of many readers who are unable to 
 assent to their conclusions." — N. Y. Tribune. 
 
 " Here is something deserving a permanent place in the realm of reading 
 
 We wish to notice especially, commending it at the same time to the careful study of 
 every one, the essay on ' The Influence and Method of English Studies.' . . . " . We 
 can, without hesitation, say, that it is one of the most profound, and thoughtful, and 
 scholarly productions on this subject that wc have ever read." — The Churchman. 
 
 "The essays, one and all. are worthy of the Professors pen. They reveal extensive 
 reading, culture of a high order, and sympathy with all that is true and beautiful and 
 good in nature, in life, and in art." — N. Y. Scotsman. 
 
 "They bear the marks of the author's scholarship, dignity, and polish of style, and 
 profound and severe convictions of truth and righteousness as the basis of culture as 
 well as character." — Chicago Interior. 
 
 "The severe and chastened beauty of his style is a fit vehicle for the lofty truths among 
 which his mind ranges, and which he here announces and defends."— Presbyterian. 
 
 " Dr. Shedd deals with themes not of passing but of enduring importance, and his 
 productions on these subjects, being those of a wide reader and profound thinker, will 
 always be valuable.' 1 — Christian at Work. 
 
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