THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
marvelous consistency throughout its entire history. It may be possible to [distinguish among the Reformed confessions, between those which bear more and those which bear less strongly the stamp of Calvin's personal influence; ancfthey part into two broad classes, according as they were composed before or after the Arminian defection (c. 161S) demanded sharper definitions on the points of controversy raised by that movement (see Arminius, Jacobus, and Arminianism; Remonstrants). A few of them written on German soil also bear traces of . the influence of Lutheran conceptions. And, of course, no more among the Reformed than elsewhere have all the professed expounders of the system of doctrine been true to the faith they professed to expound. Nevertheless, it is precisely the same system of truth which is embodied in all the great historic Reformed confessions; it matters not whether the document emanates from Zurich or Bern or Basel or Geneva, whether it sums up the Swiss development as in the Second Helvetic Confession, or publishes the faith of the National Reformed Churches of France, or Scotland, or Holland, or the Palatinate, or Hungary, Poland, Bohemia, or England; or republishes the established Reformed doctrine in opposition to new contradictions, as in the Canons of Dort (in which the entire Reformed world concurred), or the Westminster Confession (to which the whole of Puritan Britain gave its assent), or the Swiss Form -of Consent (which represents the mature judgment of Switzerland upon the recently proposed novelties of doctrine). And despite the inevitable variety • of individual points of view, as well as the unavoidable differences in ability, learning, grasp, in the multitude of writers who have sought to expound -Hie Reformed faith through these four centuries — and the grave departures from that faith made here and there among them — the great stream of Reformed dogmatics has flowed essentially unsullied, straight from its origin in Zwingli and Calvin to its debouchure, say, in Chalmers and Cunningham and Crawford, in Hodge and Thornwell and Shedd. It is true an attempt has been made to distinguish two types of Reformed teaching from the beginning; a more radical type developed under the influence of the peculiar teachings of Calvin, and a (so-called) more moderate type, chiefly propagating itself in Germany, whksh exhibits rather the influence, as was at first sai(l (Hofstede de Groot, Ebrard, Heppe)i.qf Melancrrthon, or, in its more recent statement (Gooszen), of Bullinger.l In all that concerns the essence of Calvinism, however, there was no difference between Bullinger and Calvin, German and Swiss: the Heidelberg Catechism is no doubt a catechism and not a confession, but in its presuppositions and inculcations it is as purely Calvinistic as the Genevan Catechism
or the catechisms of the Westminster
7. Varieties Assembly. Nor was the substance of
of Cal- doctrine touched by the peculiarities
vinism. of method which marked such schools
as the so-called Scholastics (showing themselves already in Zanchius, d. 1590, and culminating in theologians like Alsted, d. 1638, and
Voetius, d. 1676); or by the special modes of statement which were developed by such schools as the so-called Federalists (e.g., Cocceius, d. 1669, Burman, d. 1679, Wittsius, d. 1708; cf. Diestel, Studien zur Federaltheologie, in Jahrbiicher fur deutsche Theologie, 1862, ii.; G. Vos, De Verbonds- Icer in de Gcreformeerde Theologie, Grand Rapids, 1891; W Hastie, The Theology of the Reformed Church, Edinburgh, 1904, pp. 189-210). 'jjie first serious defection from the fundamental conceptions of the Reformed system came with the rise of Arminianism in the early years of the seventeenth century (Arminius, Uytenbogaert, Episcopius, Limborch, Curcellseus) ; and the Arminian party was quickly sloughed off under the condemnation of the whole Reformed world. The five points of its " Remonstrance " against the Calvinistic system (see Remonstrants) were met by the reassertion of the fundamental doctrines of absolute predestination, particular redemption, total depravity, irresistible grace, and the perseverance of the saints (Canons of the Synod of Dort). ■The first^important modification of the Calvinistic system iwhich has retained a position within its limits was" made in the middle of the seventeenth century by the professors of the French school at Saumur, and'isT&ence called Salmurianismj otherwise Amyralcfism, or hypothetical universalism (Cameron, d. 1625, Amyraut, d. 1664, Placseus, d. 1655, Testardus, d. c. 1650; see Amyraut, Moise). rThis modification also received the condemnation of the contemporary Reformed world, which reasserted with emphasis the importance of the doctrine that Christ actually saves by his spirit all for whom he offers the sacrifice of his blood (e.g., Westminster Confession^ Swiss Form of Consent). If " varieties of Calvinism " are to be spoken of with reference to anything more than details, of importance in themselves no doubt, but of little significance for the systematic development of the type of doctrine, there seem not more than three which require mention: supralapsarianism, infralapsarianism, and what may perhaps be called in this reference, Postredemptionism ; all of which (as indeed their very names import) take their start from a fundamental agreements the principles which govern the system. [The difference between these various tendencies of thought within the limits of the system turns on the place given by each to the decree of election, in the logical ordering of the " decrees of God." The 8. Supra- Supralapsarians suppose that election lapsarian- underlies the decree of the fall itself; ism and and conceive the decree of the fall as Infralap- a means for carrying out the decree sarianism. of election. The Infralapsarians, on the other hand, consider that election presupposes the decree of the fall, and hold, therefore, that in electing some to life God has mankind as a massa perditionis in mindj The extent of the difference between these parties is often, indeed usually, grossly exaggerated: and even historians of repute are found representing infralapsarianism as involving, or at least permitting, denial that the fall has a place in the decree of God at all: as if election could be postposited in the ordo decreto-