for the elect. J enkyn claims that Bishop Davenant has sag triumphantly proved that the great Augustine himself, “the masterly champion of Pein against Pela- gius,” was an advocate of an indefinite Aiaaecent But Wiggers, one of the most capable and impartial witnesses that even Germany has produced in this century, in his Historical Presentation of Augustinianism and Pela- gianism,* says: “As, by the predestination theory, only a definite number of elect would obtain salvation, Christ’s redemption could extend only to those whom x0d had destined to salvation...... According to Augustine, therefore, redemption was not universal. God sent his Son into the world, not to redeem the whole sinful race of men, but only the elect. Augustine says: ‘By this Mediator God showed that those whom he redeemed by his blood he makes from being evil to be eternally good.’ ‘Every one that has been redeemed by the blood of Christ is a man, though not every one that is a man has been redeemed by the blood of Christ. { ‘No one perishes of those for whom Christ died.’” § Sometimes Augustine uses indefinite language, after the familiar example of Scripture, but no inference, drawn from that fact, can for one moment withstand the force of such clear and precise statements of his opinion as those given above by Wiggers.
Those of the schoolmen who followed Augustine were in the habit of saying that Christ died for all men, but in a sense very different from that in which he died for his elect. Their formula was, ‘“ Christus passus est suffi- cienter pro omnibus, efficienter pro electis.” This we regard as a statement inaccurate in terms, and more likely to confuse than to clear the question, yet as very near the truth, and very different from the positively
* Pages 254 and 255. t Book on Adulterous Marriages, ¢. 15. {~eDe Cor: et,Gr. 11. gorda Lao. ¢.. 1
CHAPTER Iy.
Attempts to ingraft the notion of general redemp- tion on the Cal- vinistic system.
346 THE DESIGN OF THE ATONEMENT.
false position of those who hold that Christ died in- . differently for each and every man.
At the time of the Reformation the attention of the great reformers was absorbed by questions fundamental to the very life of the Church, and they were thence precluded from the deliberate consideration of secondary matters involved rather in the symmetry and perfection than in the integrity of the evangelical system. Zwingle and Calvin, the founders of the Reformed Churches, while they never made the question as to the design of the Atonement a subject of special study, nevertheless habitually taught, through the spirit and form of their entire system, that redemption was subordinate, as a means to an end, to the eternal decree of election, and therefore, of course, had the same objects and the same end. The same characteristics mark also the earlier Reformed Confessions—redemption is habitually subordi- nated to election; but no explicit deliverance is given as to the design of the Atonement. All the later Reformed Confessions, however—viz., the Gallic (A.D. 1576) and Belgic (A.D. 1571) Confessions, the Canons of the Synod of Dort (A.D. 1618, 1619), the Canons of the French Synods of Alez (A.D. 1620) and of Charen- ton (A.D. 1623), the Westminster Confession (A.D. 1648), the Formula Consensus Helvetica (A.D. 1675), the Savoy Confession (A.D. 1658), and the Boston Confession (A.D. 1680)—all explicitly taught the definite and personal design of the vicarious work of Christ.
During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries there appeared two prominent attempts to ingraft the notion of a general redemption upon the Calvinistic system by those who retained nevertheless orthodox views as to the nature of the Atonement.
1. The first of these was the product of the specula- tions of Cameron and of his pupils Amyraldus and
OPINION OF CALVINISTS. 347