Page:On the Revision of the Confession of Faith.djvu/65

Rh further than this, declaring with the greatest explicitness (VII., iii.) that the Lord has "freely offered unto sinners life and salvation by Jesus Christ, requiring of them faith in Him that they may be saved." It may be asserted, without fear of successful contradiction, that this Section 3 of the seventh chapter actually contains all that Dr. Van Dyke asks, i. e., a full recognition of the universal, sufficient provision and the free offer of salvation to all, alongside of the statement of its special designation for the elect, and I do not see what need there is for a repetition of it elsewhere. Nay, it may even be maintained that we already have in the third chapter itself all the recognition of this freedom of proclamation which is appropriate in that place, it being not only declared in the opening of it that God's decree does not supersede man's liberty or responsibility, but also commended at the end that the doctrine of predestination be not so preached as to deter man from seeking salvation, but only so as to encourage the seekers with the assurance that though it be they who are working out their own salvation with fear and trembling, yet it is God who is working in them both the willing and the doing according to His own good pleasure. The Confession requires that predestination be so preached "that men attending the will of God revealed in his word [there is the free offer], and yielding obedience thereunto [there is the recognition of personal responsibility], may, from the certainty of their effectual vocation [there is the recognition of God's hand in what is experienced only as their own work], be assured of their eternal election [there is the encouragement to further effort]." No wonder the splendid sentence follows: " So shall this doctrine afford matter of praise, reverence, and admiration of God, and of humility, diligence, and abundant consolation to all that sincerely obey the Gospel." The order here is, (1)