Page:On the Revision of the Confession of Faith.djvu/46

38 and hence open to whatever explanation Scripture may receive), or the declaration that the Pope is Antichrist. Let us conclude, then, by observing that to reject the assertion that the Confession is in need of changes in these particulars or in others like them, is not tantamount to claiming that it is infallible or perfect. We are discussing this year a matter of expediency, not a matter of right. No one doubts that it is in the power and right of the Church to revise or rewrite her Confession. But that is not the point. The point is, does the Confession need revision in order to ease the consciences of our office-bearers in signing it, or to fit it to be our Confession, as a Church, of the system of faith taught in God's Word? This is the question which we answer in the negative. And here it is important for us to distinguish between a public and a private Confession. Presumably, few of us can read the Confession through without finding some form of words which, had he himself only to consider, he might conceive it well to improve. For one's own Confession, not moderate, inclusive catholicity, but sharp individual exclusiveness might be desirable. But for a public Confession the virtue of virtues is that it shall be as catholic and inclusive as loyalty to the truth of God, as we conceive it, will permit. The chief virtues of the Westminster Confession may be said to be three: (1) sound Calvinism; (2) moderation and inclusiveness in its statement of Calvinism; and (3) depth of religious atmosphere. By means of these three virtues it is made intrinsically the best Calvinistic Confession for public use ever framed, and any alteration of it runs great risk both of narrowing and worsening it. It may no doubt be amended successfully; it has been amended successfully in America. But as a public Confession it stands now in little need of amendment; and our free and safe relation to it as office-bearers—accepting it only for "system of doctrine"—