Page:On the Revision of the Confession of Faith.djvu/45

Rh Confession, and make it treat a question of election, when it is treating of God's dealing with His elect. And (2) it is proposed to narrow the basis of the Confession, so as that it will exclude all, not only who believe that some that die in infancy are non-elect (happily, a very small number nowadays, even if any exist outside of sacramentarian churches), but also those who are doubtful as to whether we have any decisive Scripture teaching on the subject—of whom there are many. As the Confession stands, however, it asserts, what all Calvinists must admit to be true, viz.: that "elect infants, dying in infancy, are regenerated and saved by Christ through the Spirit." It is because Calvinists believe that this is strictly true and Scriptural that they lay away their little ones in grief mingled with chastened joy and praise God that He has suspended their salvation on no "means of grace." On the other hand, it asserts and implies nothing that any Calvinist doubts. Those who say that it implies that some infants that die in infancy are non-elect, are not only bad exegetes, but have forgotten their English grammar. "Elect infants, dying in infancy" can mean nothing but "such elect infants as die in infancy," and this does not imply that there are some infants dying in infancy that are not elect, but that there are some elect infants who do not die in infancy.

Let these instances of objections—probably the most serious that are now being urged against the Confession—serve as examples of what may be called the insufficiency of the plea on which we are asked to embark upon a revision of it. It will be impossible to pass in review here the whole body of more or less unimportant objections which have been added to them, such as those that concern the six days of creation (the language of which is Scriptural