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In entering on an analysis of some of the doctrinal features of the Westminster Confession, we would be both morally and intellectually unfit to touch it, did we not feel the gravity of such an effort. To trample upon the long established theories and prejudices of a deeply religious body-to dispel the illusions of our childhood by showing that after all some of our "idols" are only clay-to show that the Shekinah, which we have been taught to believe hangs around and glorifies the temple of our religious creed, is, perhaps, only a light kindled by the resplendent genius of St. Augustine and Calvin, is, to say the least, an unpleasant duty.

In this discussion, we only propose to look at the questions as presented in The Confession, from the standpoint of common sense; to view them as well educated people of to-day look at them, without regard to any biblical authority for the same. We will here admit that no theory, theological or political, which is repugnant to common sense or our common ideas of human justice, will ever be acceptable to intelligent people.

To make ourselves understood, we assert that all of God's demands upon man are reasonable and just and that the intelligent mind is not rebelling against God's plan of salvation, but against human deductions, as to what that plan is. We now propose to look at some of the propositions embodied in The Westminster Confession from purely a "common sense" point of view-leaving the whole question of its correctness from a biblical point of view to be discussed at some future time.

Chapter III of the Confession starts out with the assertion that "God from all eternity did, by the most wise and holy counsel of his own will, freely and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass." This is a positive assertion that all things that have come to pass are ordained of God and that practically the world is a mere automaton or machine to register the decrees of God. The men of the Westminster, seeing, as they must have seen, that the doctrine of God's "ordination of whatever comes to pass "' would make God responsible for the introduction of sin into the world, and that such a doctrine would necessarily rebound against the whole theory of man's free agency, modified it by these hedging and defensive words, "yet, so as thereby neither is God the author of sin," and then, to explain away the fatalistic position into which God's ordination has placed man, they add, "Nor is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established."

Out of this theory is developed the idea which lies at the basis of the Westminster Confession, that while "God knows what may or can come to pass upon all supposed conditions, yet hath he not decreed anything because he foresaw it as future.

It is well to admit that there are two theories of election: One is, "That God, without foresight of good deeds, or faith, or compliance with the terms offered by the Gospel, but simply to show his supreme sovereignty, and to add to the 'praise of His glorious grace,' selected certain persons to be saved, and 'passed by' certain persons to be lost. Under this decree, the atonement of Christ was a part of the decree and was simply the means by which this decree was to be