§ 113. PREDESTINATION. 547
righteous legalism, the doctrine of a double predestination which decides the eternal destiny of all men.^ Nor does it seem possible, logically, to evade this conclusion if we admit the two premises of Roman Catholic and Evangelical orthodoxy — namely, the wholesale condemnation of all men in Adam, and the limitation of saving grace to the present life. All orthodox Confessions reject Universalism, and teach that some men are saved, and some are lost, and that there is no possibility of salvation beyond the grave. The predestinarians maintain that this double result is the outcome of a double decree, that history must harmonize with the divine will and cannot defeat it. They reason from the effect to the cause, from the end to the beginning.
Yet there were some characteristic differences in the views of the leading Reformers on this subject. Luther, like Augustin, started from total moral inability or the servum arhitrium ; Zwingli, from the idea of an all-ruling providentia ; Calvin, from the eternal decretum absolutum.
The Augustinian and Lutheran predestinarianism is moderated by the churchly and sacramental principle of baptismal regeneration. The Calvinistic predestinarianism confines the sacramental efficacy to the elect, and turns the baptism of the non-elect into an empty form ; but, on the other hand, it opens a door for an extension of electing grace beyond the limits of the visible Church. Zwingli's position was peculiar : on the one hand, he went so far in his supralapsarianism as to make God the sinless author of sin (as the magistrate in inflicting capital punishment, or the soldier in the battle,
1 The essential agreement of the Eeformers on the doctrine of free-will and predestination has been proven by scholars of different schools, as Jul. -Miiller (Littheri doctrina de pnedestiitatione et libera arhitrio, and in his Dogmatfsche AbJiandlungen, pp. 169-179), Hundeshagen {Confllcte des Zivinr/liatiisimts, Lutherthums, und Calvinismus in der Bernischen Landeshirche von 1532-1558), Baur {Der Gegensatz des Katholicismus und Frolesfantismus, and in his Dogmengeschichte), Schweizer (Centraldogmeti), Gieseler, Hagenbach, Dorner, Luthardt, Loofs, and others.
548 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.
are innocently gnilty of murder) ; but, on the other hand, he undermined the very foundation of the Augustinian system — namely, the wholesale condemnation of the race for the sino-le transgression of one ; he admitted hereditary sin, but denied hereditary guilt ; and he included all infants and pious heathen in the kingdom of heaven. Such a view was then universally abhorred, as dangerous and heretical.^
Melanchthon, on further study and reflection, retreated in the Semi-Pelagian direction, and prepared the way for Arminianism, which arose, independently, in the heart of Calvinism at the beginning of the seventeenth century. He abandoned his earlier view, which he characterized as Stoic fatalism, and proposed the Synergistic scheme, which is a compromise between Augustinianism and Semi-Pelagianism, and makes the human will co-operate with preceding divine grace, bat disowns human merit.^
The Formula of Concord (1577) rejected both Calvinism
and Synergism, yet taught, by a logical inconsistency, total
disability and unconditional election, as well as universal
vocation.
Calvin's Theory.
Calvin elaborated the doctrine of predestination with greater care and precision than his predecessors, and avoided their " paradoxes," as he called some extravagant and unguarded expressions of Luther and Zwingli. On the other
1 Calvin expressed to Bullinger, in a confidential letter, Jannary, 1552, his dissatisfaction with the paradoxical expressions of Zvvingli's tract De Providentia. " Zwinglii libellus," he writes, " ut familiar iter inter nos ioqiiamtir, tarn du7-is paradoxis refertus est, ut longissime ab ea quam adhihui moderatione distet." Bullinger, however, never contradicted the liberal sentiments of his teacher and friend, and believed in extraordinary modes of salvation, "sine externa ministerio, quo et quando velit (^Deus) : et quod ejus potentia: est." Second Helv. Conf. I. 7.
2 For a fuller exposition of Melanchthon's Synergism see Herrlinger's monograph; Frank, Theologie der Concordienformel ; Dorner, Geschichte der protest. Theologie, pp. 361-374, and his Si/stem der christl. Glauhenslehre, II. 706 sq. and 716 sq. ; Schweizer, Central dogmen, I. 380 sqq. ; Schaff, Creeds of Christendom, I. 262 sq. ; Loofs, Dogmengeschichte, pp. 403 sq. (2d ed.).