Page:On the Revision of the Confession of Faith.djvu/98

90 and to every doctrine that enters as a constituent part into that system. No one can sign this formula who is not a strict Calvinist; no one who denies any one of the doctrines which enter into the structure of the Calvinistic system as taught in the Confession of Faith. And if he thinks he can, the Church courts must teach him better, as indeed so may the civil courts. But, on the other hand, no Calvinist who has accepted the Creed in the use of this formula, can possibly be disturbed by what he deems infelicities of the language or of the forms of statement in which the system of doctrine is stated. He has not signed it for "forms of statement," nor for "mode of arrangement," nor for "organizing principle," but specifically for "system of doctrine." It is a safe formula, because it binds strictly to the whole doctrinal system of the Confession, and to all and every one of the doctrines entering as essential constituent parts into that system. It is liberal, because it allows for all sorts of variation in preferred ways of stating the system, consistent with preserving the system intact. It, therefore, allows all the liberty consistent with the preservation of the whole truth, and thus evinces itself as the ideal formula.

5. I am aware that some express themselves sometimes as if they thought "system of doctrine" a rather evanescent thing, not to be identified apart from the words and forms of statement and modes of arrangement by which it is brought to expression. But surely this is not thoughtfully said. We all know what Calvinism is—what Arminianism is—what Pelagianism is—apart from any one statement of any of them. If any one asked me to give him a work teaching "the Calvinistic system," my only embarrassment would be to determine which work to give him. I might take Dr. Charles Hodge's Systematic Theology in one hand, Dr. Shedd's Dogmatic Theology in the other. Dr. Dabney's Syllabus under one arm, and Dr. Henry B. Smith's System