§ 112. THE CALVINISTIC SYSTEM. 543
infants and entire nations and generations which never heard of Adam, and which cannot possibly have been in him as selfconscious and responsible beings. ^ They have alike to answer the question how such a doctrine is reconcilable with the justice and mercy of God. They are alike dualistic and particularistic. They are constructed on the ruins of the fallen race, instead of the rock of the redeemed race ; they destroy the foundation of moral responsibility by teaching the slavery of the human will ; they turn the sovereignty of God into an arbitrary power, and his justice into partiality ; they confine the saving grace of God to a particular class. Within that favorite and holy circle all is as bright as sunshine, but outside of it all is as dark as midnight. These systems have served, and still serve, a great purpose, and satisfy the practical wants of serious Christians who are not troubled with theological and philosophical problems ; but they can never satisfy the vast majority of Christendom.
We are, indeed, born into a world of sin and death, and we cannot have too deep a sense of the guilt of sin, especially our own ; and, as members of the human family, we should feel the overwhelming weight of the sin and guilt of the whole race, as our Saviour did when he died on the cross. But we are also born into an economy of righteousness and life, and we cannot have too high a sense of God's saving grace which passeth knowledge. As soon as we enter into the world we are met with the invitation, " Suffer little children to come unto me." The redemption of the race is as much an accomplished fact as the fall of the race, and it alone can answer the question, why God permitted or caused the fall. Where
^ Augustin based his view of a quasi pre-existence of all men in the loins of Adam on a false exegesis of Kom. ^ -.12, iv 4>, by following the Vulgate rendering in quo (in whom), and referring it back to Adam ; while it has the meaning because (evl rovrt^ 6ti = Sl6tC), or on condition that (iiri tovtcj)^ ware, ea ratione tit, inasmuch as). It is neuter, not masculine. On the exegesis of that famous passage, and the doctrinal discussions on it, see my extensive notes in Lange's Comm. on Rotnans, pp. 172 sqq.
544 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.
sin has abounded, grace has abounded not less, but much more.
Calvinism has the advantage of logical compactness, consistency, and completeness. Admitting its premises, it is difficult to escape its conclusions. A system can only be overthrown by a system. It requires a theological genius of the order of Augustin and Calvin, who shall rise above the antagonism of divine sovereignty and human freedom, and shall lead us to a system built upon the rock of the historic Christ, and inspired from beginning to end with the love of God to all mankind.
NOTES ON AMERICAN CALVINISM.
1. Calvinism was imported and naturalized in America, by the Puritans, since 1620, and dominated the theology and church life of New England during the colonial period. It found its ablest defender in Jonathan Edwards, — the great theological metaphysician and revival preacher, — who maybe called the American Calvin. It still controls tlie orthodox Congregational and Baptist churches. But it has provoked Unitarianism in New England (as it did in England), and has undergone various modifications. It is now gradually giving way to a more liberal and catholic type of Calvinism. The new Congregational Creed of 1883 is thoroughly evangelical, but avoids all the sharp angles of Calvinism.
2. The Presbyterian Calvinism is best represented by the theological systems of Charles Hodge, W. G. T. Shedd, and Henry B. Smith. Tiie first is the mildest, the second the severest, tiie third the broadest, champion of modern American Calvinism ; they alike illustrate the compatibility of logical Calvinism with a sweet and lovely Christian temper, but they dissent from Calvin's views by their infralapsarianism, their belief in the salvation of all infants dying in infancy, and of the large number of the saved.
Henry B. Smith, under the influence of modern German theology, took a step in advance, and marks the transition from old Calvinism to Christological divinity, but died before he could elaborate it. "The central idea," he says, in his posthumous Si/stem of Christian Theologi/ (New York, p. 341, 4th ed., 1890), " to which all the parts of theology are to be referred, and by which the system is to be made a system, or to be constructed, is what we have termed the Ciiristological or Mediatorial idea, viz., that God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself. This idea is central, not in the sense that all the other parts of theology are logically deduced from it, but rather that they centre in it. The idea is that of an Incarnation in order to Redemption. This is the central idea of Christianity, as distinguished, or distinguishable, from all other religions, and from all forms of philosophy ; and by this, and this alone, are we able to construct the whole system of the Christian faith on its