§ 113. PREDESTINATION. 545
proper grounds. This idea is the proper centre of unity to the whole Christian system, as the soul is the centre of unity to the body, as the North Pole is to all the magnetic needles. It is so really the centre of unity that when we analyze and grasp and apply it, we find that the whole of Christian theology is in it." To this remarkable passage should be added a note which Dr. George L. Prentiss, his most intimate friend, found among the last papers of Dr. Smith, which may be called his theological will and testament. " What Reformed theology has got to do is to christolofjize predestination and decrees, regeneration and sanctification, the doctrine of the Church, and the whole of eschatolog y ."
3. The movement for the revision of the Westminster Confession of Faith has seized, by an irresistible force within the last few years, the Presbyterian Churches of England, Scotland, and North America, and is inspired by the cardinal truth of God's love to all mankind (John 3: 16), and the consequent duty of the Church to preach the gospel to every creature, in obedience to Christ's command (Mark 16 : 15; Matt. 28 : 19, 20). The United Presbyterian Church (1879; and the Free Church (1891) of Scotland express their dissent from the Westminster Standards in an explanatory statement, setting forth their belief in the general love of God, in the moral responsibility of man, and in religious liberty, — all of which are irreconcilable with a strict construction of those standards. The English Presbyterian Church has adopted a new creed, together with a declaratory statement (1890). The General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the United States ordered, in 1889,. a revision of the Westminster Confession, which is now going on ; and, at the same time, the preparation of a new, short, and popular creed that will give expression to the living faith of the present Church, and serve, not as a sign of division and promoter of sectarian strife, but as a bond of harmony with other evangelical churches, and help rather than hinder the ultimate reunion of Christendom. See SchafE, Creed Revision in the Presbyterian Churches, 1890.
§ 113. Predestination.
1. Inst. Bk. III. chs. XXI.-XXIV. Arliculi de Prccdestinatione, first published
from an autograph of Calvin by the Strassburg editors, in Opera, IX. 713. The Consensus Genevensis (1552), Opera, VIII. 2i9-366. Calvin's polemical writings against Pighius (1543), vol. VI. 224-404; Bolsec (1551), vol. VIII. 85-140 ; and Castellio (1557-58), vol. IX. 253-318. He treats the subject also in several of his sermons, e.r/. on First and Second Timothy.
2. Alex. Schweizer: Die Protestantischen Centraldogmen (Ziirich, 1854),
vol. I. 150-179. — Stahelin, I. 271 sqq. — Doener : Geschichte der protest. TheoL, 386-395. — Philip Schaff : Creeds of Christendom, I. 451-455.
Luther and Calvin.
The dogma of a double predestination is the corner-stone of the Calvinistic system, and demands special consideration.
546 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.
Calvin made the eternal election of God, Luther made the temporal justification by faith, the article of the standing or fallino- Church, and the source of strength and peace in the battle of life. They agreed in teaching salvation by free grace, and personal assurance of salvation by a living faith in Christ and his gospel. But the former went back to the ultimate root in a pre-mundane unchangeable decree of God ; the latter looked at the practical effect of saving grace upon the individual conscience. Both gave undue prominence to their favorite dogma, in opposition to Romanism, which weakened the power of divine grace, magnified human merit, and denied the personal certainty of salvation. They wished to destroy all basis for human pride and boasting, to pluck up Phariseeism by the root, and to lay a firm foundation for humility, gratitude, and comfort. This was a great progress over the mediaeval soteriology.
But there is a higher position, which modern evangelical theology has reached. The predestinarian scheme of Calvin and the solifidian scheme of Luther must give way or be subordinated to the Christocentric scheme. We must go back to Peter's confession, which has only one article, but it is the most important article, and the oldest in Christendom. The central place in the Christian system belongs to the divinehuman person and work of Christ : this is the immovable rock of the Church, against which the gates of Hades shall never prevail, and on which the creeds of Christendom will have to unite (Matt. 16 : 16-18 ; comp. 1 Cor. 2:2; 3 : 11 ; Rom. 4 : 25 ; 1 John 4 : 2, 3). The Apostles' Creed and the Nicene Creed are Christocentric and Trinitarian.
The Reformers All Predestixarians.
All the Reformers of the sixteenth century, following the lead of Augustin and of the Apostle Paul, — as they understood him, — adopted, under a controlling sense of human depravity and saving grace, and in antagonism to self-