Page:On the Revision of the Confession of Faith.djvu/67

Rh all" (XXI., i.), of His condescension to covenant with man as man for his salvation (VII, i.), and of his unwearying determination that His gracious offers, freely made to all, should not wholly fail (VII., iii.). As a matter of mere fact the whole essence and drift of the entire Confession is praise of the unspeakable and inexplicable love of God to man. As such it opens with God's compassion in giving man a saving revelation of Himself (I., i.); places the God of Love, so grandly described, at the root of all its doctrinal statements (II., i.); bases His whole saving purpose on His "mere grace and love" (III., v.), and creation itself on His goodness (IV., i.)—a goodness which fails not in any dealing with His creatures (VII., i.), even in His dealings with sin (V., iv.). The Confession, in a word, accurately fulfills the demand which Dr. Schaff makes, for a Confession "that is inspired and controlled, not by the idea of divine justice, which is a consuming fire, but by the idea of divine love, which is life and peace"—"a Confession which is as broad and deep as God's love, and as strict and severe as God's justice." This, this Confession is. And no Confession could be this which did not make, as this Confession does, its formative idea, not God's general and indiscriminate love for His creatures, but His ineffable and peculiar love for His people—His saving love, as distinguished from His mere benevolence. God's electing love is the highest manifestation of His love for man, not (as some seem to think) a limitation of it: it does not make His general love without effect—it gives it effect. That the Confession lays most stress on it, is to preserve the right proportion of faith and to glorify God's general love, not to derogate from it. Doing so it makes everything of love, bases its whole fabric on it, and all the more glorifies it that it does not forget God's justice. After the Bible, it is the most perfect charter of the divine love