Others, recognizing that election has to do specifi- cally with salvation, (that is to say, that it is the logical prius, not of creation or of the providential government of the world, but of the salvation of sin- ful man,) conceive that the principle of particularism, in the sense of discrimination, belongs in the sphere of God's soteriological, not in that of his cosmical operations, and has its place not in creation but in re- creation. They therefore think of “election” as the logical prius not of creation, or of the fall, but of those operations of God which concern salvation. The place they give it in the order of decrees is therefore at the head of those decrees of God which look to sal- vation. This implies that it falls into position, in the order of thought, consequently upon the decrees of creation and the fall, which refer to all men alike, since all men certainly are created and certainly have fallen; and precedently to the decrees of redemption and its application, since just as certainly all men are not redeemed and brought into the enjoyment of sal- vation. They are from this circumstance called Sub- lapsarians or Infralapsarians, that is those who, in the arrangement of the decrees in logical order, conceive the place of the decree of election to be logically after that of the fall.
There are others, however, who, affected by what they deem the Scriptural teaching concerning the
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universal reference of the redemption of Christ, and desirous of grounding the universal offer of salvation in an equally universal provision, conceive that they can safely postpone the introduction of the par- ticularistic principle to a point within the saving operations of God themselves, so only they are care- ful to introduce it at a point sufficiently early to make it determinative of the actual issue of the saving work. They propose therefore to think of the pro- vision of salvation in Christ as universal in its intent; but to represent it as given effect in its application to individuals by the Holy Spirit only particularistically. That is to say, they suppose that some, not all, of the divine operations looking to the salvation of men are universalistic in their reference, whereas salvation is not actually experienced unless not some but all of them are operative. As the particular saving opera- tion to which they ascribe a universalistic reference is the redemption of Christ, their scheme is expressed by saying that it introduces the decree of election, in the order of thought, at a point subsequent to the decree of redemption in Christ. They may therefore be appropriately called Post-redemptionists, that is, those who conceive that the decree of election is logically postponed to the decree of redemption. In their view redemption has equal reference to all men, and it is only in the application of this redemption to men that God discriminates between men, and so acts, in this sense, particularistically.
It is obvious that this is the lowest point in the
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order of decrees at which the decree of election can be introduced and the particularistic principle be re- tained at all. If the application of the redemption of Christ by the Holy Spirit be also made universal- istic, that is to say if the introduction of the par- ticularistic principle be postponed to the actual issue of the saving process, then there is obviously no par- ticularism at all in the divine operations looking to salvation. “Election” drops out of the scheme of the divine decrees altogether, unless we prefer to say, as it has been cynically phrased, that God is careful to elect to salvation only those who, he foresees, will in the use of their own free will elect themselves. All Calvinists must therefore be either Supralap- sarians or Sub- (or Infra-) lapsarians, or, at least, Post-redemptionists which is also to be Ante-applica- tionists.
Nevertheless we do not reach in the Post-redemp- tionists, conceived purely from the point of view of this element of their thought, the lowest possible, or the lowest actual, variety of Calvinists. Post-re- demptionists may differ among themselves, if not in the position in the order of decrees of the decree of election (for still further to depress its position in that order would be to desert the whole principle of par- ticularism and to fall out of the category of Calvinists), yet in their mode of conceiving the nature of the work of the Holy Spirit in applying redemption, under the government of the decree of election; and as to the rôle of the human spirit in receiving redemption. A
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