personal redemption of the elect to the exclusion of a general redemption of all. These parties admit that the Confession may be chargeable with the sin of omission, in respect to the failure to affirm that redemption is general and indefinite; but they deny that it affirms the contrary. It is said that the Confession is very careful to trace out the relation of Christ’s work to the elect, while it leaves the way open to all to indulge what opinions they please as to its relations to the non-elect. This is obviously a mistake. Our Confession explicitly -—and precisely in those forms of statement most signifi- cant and emphatic, when viewed in connection with the state of the controversy on this question at that time— affirms that the redemptive work of Christ was personal and definite, and therefore not impersonal and indefi- mite: “They who are elected being fallen in Adam, are redeemed by Christ; are effectually called unto faith in Christ by his Spirit working in due season ; are justi- fied, adopted, sanctified, and kept by his power through faith unto salvation. Neither are any other redeemed by Christ, effectually called, justified, adopted, sanctified, and saved, but the elect only.” * Here it is explicitly declared that the elect are redeemed, and that only the elect are redeemed by Christ.—‘“ The Lord Jesus, by his perfect obedience and sacrifice of himself, which he through the eternal Spirit once offered up unto God, hath fully satisfied the justice of the Father; and pur- chased not only reconciliation, but an everlasting in- heritance in the kingdom of heaven, for all those whom the Father hath given unto him.”+ Here it is explicitly said that the atoning work of Christ secures for those in whose behalf it was offered reconciliation—not recon- ciliability—and that it purchases for them an everlasting
* Westminster Confession, chap. iii., 2 6. flbid., chap. sail, eo.
STANDARD OF CALVINISM. 365
inheritance in heaven. They, therefore, who never re- ceive the reconciliation nor the inheritance cannot be those for whom they were purchased. ‘TO ALL FOR wHom Christ hath purchased redemption he doth cer- tainly and effectually apply and communicate the same, making intercession for them, and revealing unto them, in andl by the word, the mysteries of save effec- tually persuading them by his Spirit to believe and obey.” * Here it is expressly said that Christ actually saves all those for whom he died, and it follows, of course, that he shed his blood for none whom he does not actually save. ‘‘ This statement contaims, and was intended to contain, the true status queestionis in the controversy about the extent of the Atonement. It is to be explained by a reference to the mode of conducting this controversy between the Calvinists and the Armi- nians about the time of the Synod of Dort, and also to the mode of conducting the controversy excited in France by Cameron, and afterwards carried on by Amyraldus in France and Holland, and by Baxter in England.” +
The Formula Consensus Helvetica was prepared in 1675 by Heidegger and Turretin, for the express purpose of opposing the “Novelties” of the school of Saumur, and it received the suffrages of all the Swiss Churches of that age. ‘‘ Accordingly, in the death of Christ, only the elect, who in time are made new creatures (2 Cor. v. 17), and for whom Christ in his death was substituted as an expiatory sacrifice, are regarded as having died with him and as being justified from sin ; and thus, with the counsel of the Father, who gave to Christ none but the elect to be redeemed, and also with the working of the Holy Spirit, who sanctifies and seals unto a living
* Westminster Confession, chap. viil., ? 8. f Cunningham’s History of Theology, vol. ii., p. 828.
CHAPTER Vv.
366 THE DESIGN OF THE ATONEMENT.
cuarrer hope of eternal life none but the elect, the will of Christ “_ who died so agrees and amicably conspires in perfect harmony, that the sphere of the Father's election, the Son’s redemption, and the Spirit’s sanctification is one
and the same.’*