Page:On the Revision of the Confession of Faith.djvu/80

72 if it is purifying to the intellect, it is very often chilling to the faith; whereas such a document as I have referred to is bright and warming like a living fire, and you cannot wonder, for it was born at a time when men were instinct with life." There is not apparent here any objection to the doctrines of the Confession, but only to its forms of statement. It is no doubt a very pleasing picture that Mr. Garden paints for us of the model Confession; but wherein does the Westminster Confession not fully satisfy it? We very much fear that in most cases when this general position finds expression, it is founded on an erroneous idea of what a Confession like ours is and the purposes which it is intended to serve, if not also upon an insufficient appreciation of the true character of the Westminster Confession itself. "Fancy attempting to recite the Westminster Confession as part of the worship of God," cries Mr. Robert Macintosh, and many more appear to share his idea that a creed must be in its essence "an immediate utterance of faith," couched in "religious form," and intended as a vehicle through which the people at large periodically bring their belief to verbal expression. It could be wished that so good a treatise as Dunlop's A Full Account of the Several Ends and Uses of Confessions of Faith, should not be permitted to grow obsolescent until in some way men attained a somewhat rounded view of the functions of Confessions. It ought to require very little consideration, however, to discover that they are not intended to take the place either of the sermon, applying the truth of God to the heart, or of the professional element of prayer, in which we acknowledge God's truth to Him. Their three chief ends are rather to serve as testimonies, tests, and text-books. As