Page:On the Revision of the Confession of Faith.djvu/66

58 hear the Gospel, (2) obey it, (3) be encouraged and comforted because God's hand is certainly in it; and that is (1) free proclamation of the word; (2) responsibility in accepting it; (3) praise to and confidence in God for His blessed work in us.

I cannot, then, think the Confession in need of the third improvement which Dr. Van Dyke proposes. It has it already spread over its pages, and, especially in VI. iii., explicitly stated. If the attempt is made to set aside the Confession's clear declaration of God's love for men and His provision of a salvation adequate to all their needs, as insufficiently explicit, I cannot consider this a very reasonable procedure. No one doubts that the New Testament is written all over with the love of God to man; and yet it is the fact that there is but a single unique passage in it which brings the terms "God loved" and "the world" into immediate conjunction. This great doctrine can be not only "implied" but "declared" apart from this exact phraseology, and it is adequately "declared" both in the Scriptures and the Confession, apart from it. It is scarcely fair to apply different modes of estimation to the two documents. If the New Testament declares that "God is love," the Confession equally asserts, at its appropriate place, that He is "most loving, gracious, merciful, long-suffering, abundant in goodness and truth, forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin" (II., i.). If the New Testament declares that "God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life," the Confession traces the working of this mighty love from plan to act and from act to act, until it brings its own into the fruition of glory: and speaks continually of God's goodness which is over all, of His nature which is such that He can be described only as He who "is good and doeth good unto