Page:On the Revision of the Confession of Faith.djvu/62

54 with both the memorandum which opened the debate and the formulated section which closed it. Dr. Van Dyke has somewhere in his papers in the Evangelist said (if my memory serves me), that he is aware that this Section 3 was arrived at by a compromise. If he will be so good as to point out the evidence for this, he will confer a favor on scholars. I have searched the "Minutes" in vain for any signs of such a compromise. To show that Westminster divines differed as to whether all or only some of those who die in infancy are saved, is nothing to the purpose. There is no evidence that they had this matter in mind when this section was being debated. The only apposite thing would be to show that they differed as to whether infants that die in infancy are capable of regenerating grace. We know that their intention was to assert that death in infancy did not snatch the soul from the Saviour; we know this is what they did assert. We have no right to infer that this assertion was arrived at by any compromise, or that any debates were held on any other subject in this connection.

What has been said surely vindicates the Confession from the charge that revision is necessary at this point in order to prevent its seeming to teach that there are non-elect infants dying in infancy. Are the amendments offered in themselves acceptable? A thousand times no, I should say. First, to insert a statement that all those that die in infancy are elect, here, would be out of place and order. This is not the place to treat of who are elect and who not, but of how God saves the elect. Secondly, to insert such a statement anywhere would be an unnecessary burdening of the Confession with an explicit statement of what most Presbyterians believe, indeed, but not all feel justified in asserting to be revealed truth. For myself, I believe with all my heart that all dying in infancy are saved, and I