[919] Amyraut's writings on this subject are: Traité de la Prédestination (also in Latin), Saumur, 1634; Echantillon de la doctrine de Calvin sur la Prédestination, 1637; De la justification, 1638; De providentia Dei in malo, 1638; Defensio doctrinæ Calvini de absoluto reprobationis decreto, 1641; Dissertationes theol. quatuor, 1645; Exercitatio de gratia universali, 1646; Disputatio de libero hominis arbitrio, 1647; Sermons sur divers textes de la Ste. Écriture, 1653; Irenicum sive de ratione pacis in religionis negotio inter Evangelicos, 1662. Amyraut wrote besides a system of Christian Ethics (in six volumes), and a number of exegetical and practical works. See a list in Herzog, Vol. I. pp. 296 sq.
[920] 'Ou de permettre tellement les mauvaises, que l'événement soit entièrement undubitable.'
[921] The same distinction was a century later made by New England Calvinists under the lead of Jonathan Edwards, who knew of the Saumur theology through the works of Stapfer.
[922] 'Notre saint éternel depend de cette condition, que nous appellons la foy; cette foy depend de la grace de Dieu et de la puissance de son Esprit; cette grace, cette puissance de l'Esprit depend du conseil de l'election de Dieu, et ce conseil n'ayant autre fondement que sa volonté est constant et irrevocable, l'événement sursuit necessairement. Ce conseil depend de la libre volonté de Dieu.' Schweizer, pp. 296 sq.
[923] Joh. Dallæi: Apologia pro duabus synodis nationalibus, altera Alensone 1637, altera Carentone 1645 habitis adv. Fr. Spanhemii Exercitationes de gratia universali. Amst. 1655 (1227 pages), and Vindiciæ Apologiæ pro duabus synodis. Amst. 1657. See extracts in Schweizer, pp. 390 sqq. Daillé is best known by his work Sur l'usage des Pères (De Usu Patrum).
[924] Actes authentiques touchant la paix et charité fraternelle aves les Protestantes, etc. Amst. 1655. Blondel is best known by his De la primauté en église (1641), and other historical works. He was Secretary of the French Synod, which made him honorary professor, with a salary sufficient to enable him to devote himself without pastoral care to his studies. He had an enormous memory, and when blind in his old age he dictated two folios on difficult points in chronology.
[925] See especially Pierre du Moulin: Examen de la doctrine des Messieurs Amyraut et Têtard touchant la prédestination et les poins, qui en dependent, Amsterd. 1638; and Eclaircissement des controverses Salmuriennes, ou défense de la doctrine des églises réformées sur l'immutabilité des decrets de Dieu, etc. Leyden, 1648. Spanheim (the elder): Disputatio de gratia universali, Lugd. Bat. 1644; and Exercitationes de gratia universali, Lugd. Bat. 1646 (1856 pages). André Rivet: Opera omnia, Lugd. Bat. 1651-60, Vol. III. pp. 828-878.
[926] The orthodox Lutherans, as far as they took notice of this controversy, saw in Amyraldism a concealment of Calvinism, a mockery on the part of God, a bridge to Syncretism, and characterized the gratia Amyraldina as a gratia Calvina, non divina. So Reheboldus, De natura et gratia Mosi Amyraldo opposita, Gissæ, 1651 (quoted by G. Frank, Vol. I. p. 43). Among American divines, Dr. Hodge notices this controversy (Syst. Theology, Vol. II. p. 322), and says that hypothetical redemption is liable to the objections against both Augustinianism and Arminianism. 'It does not remove the peculiar difficulties of Augustinianism, as it asserts the sovereignty of God in election. Besides, it leaves the case of the heathen out of view. They, having no knowledge of Christ, could not avail themselves of this decretum hypotheticum, and must therefore be considered as passed over by a decretum absolutum.' But Amyraut does notice the case of the heathen; see above.
[927] Schweizer, pp. 307 sqq.; Ebrard, p. 555.
[928] Schweizer gives a very full account of the writings on both sides, pp. 320-439. In modern times the great Schleiermacher has revived Amyraldism on German soil, but in a much bolder form, and at the expense of the Scripture doctrine of eternal punishment. He widens Calvinism (which he very acutely defends against Lutheranism and Arminianism) into a real and effective universalism of salvation, and makes the particularism of election and reprobation merely a temporary means to this end. Schweizer, one of his ablest pupils, adopts this solution of the problem in his Christliche Glaubenslehre, Leipzig, 1872, Vol. II. Part II. pp. 78 sqq. and 444 sqq. But this solution is subject to all the objections of what in America is popularly called the system of Universalism: it turns conversion into a process of nature or necessity; it dulls the edge of warning; freedom implies the continued power of resistance; repentance becomes more and more difficult, and at last impossible, especially in hell and in the case of the devil and diabolized men.
[929] Syntagma thesium theologicarum in academia Salmuriensi disputatarum, Ed. II. Salmur. 1664. Placeus: De statu hominis lapsi ante gratiam, 1640; his defense, De imputatione primi peccati Adami, 1655, in his Opera omnia, 1699 and 1702, two vols. Against him, A. Rivet: Decretum Synodi nationalis Ecclesiarum Reformatarum Galliæ, A.D. 1645 de imputatione primi peccati omnibus Adami posteris, cum Ecclesiarum et doctorum protestantium consensu, ex scriptis eorum collecto, in the Opera Theol. of Rivet, Rotterd. 1660, Tom. III. pp. 798-827, translated in part in the Princeton Review for 1839, pp. 553-579. Comp. also Schweizer's art. Placeus, in Herzog, Vol. XI. pp. 755-57, and several American treatises on the imputation controversy by Hodge, Baird, Landis, G. P. Fisher, quoted in my annotations to Lange's Com. on Rom. v. 12 (pp. 191 sqq.), where the exegetical aspects are fully discussed in connection with the classical passage eph' o pantes hemarton
[930] Foedus operum, or foedus naturæ, as distinct from foedus gratiæ. The only Scripture passage which the Federalists alleged in favor of this primal covenant is Hos. vi. 7: ' For they, like Adam [k?dm], have broken the covenant;' but others translate with the Sept.: 'They [are] like men [who] break a covenant' (hos anthropos parabainon diatheken.)
[931] Turretin (Instit. Pars I. pp. 556, Loc. ix. de peccato, Qu. X.) charges De la Place with inventing this distinction to evade the force of the synodical decision of Charenton, 1645. Augustine and the Reformers did not use the terms, and hence are quoted on both sides.
[932] 'Salvum enim utrinque per Dei gratiam stat fundamentum fidei. . . . Salva unitas corporis mystici et Sprititus. . . . Salvum denique apud nos semper tenerrimæ caritatis vinculum,' etc. The original draft of the Formula was even milder and much shorter. Schweizer has, in a purely historical interest, vindicated the memory of Heidegger and the comparatively moderate character of the Consensus Formula. See his extracts from the MS. of Heidegger's Report, in Niedner's Zeitschrift, above quoted, and his art. Heidegger, in Herzog's Real. Encykl.
[933] 'In specie autem Hebraicus Veteris Testamenti Codex, quem ex traditione Ecclesiæ Judaicæ, cui olim Oracula Dei commissa sunt, accepimus hodieque retinemus, tum quoad consonas, tum quoad vocalia, sive puncta ipsa, sive punctorum saltem potestatem, et tum quoad res, tum quoad verba theopneustos, ut fidei et vitæ nostræ, una cum. Codice Novi Testamenti sit canon unicus et illibatus, ad cuius normam, ceu Lydium lapidem, universæ, quæ extant, Versiones, sive orientales, sive occidentales exigendæ, et sicubi deflectunt, revocandæ sunt.' The same theory of plenary inspiration of words and thoughts, which dates from Rabbinical orthodoxy, but was not held by the Reformers, prevailed in the Lutheran Church since John Gerhard, and is even now extensively held, especially in England and America, by those whose faith in the Word of God is not affected by modern criticism. It was most ably defended by the venerable Dr. Louis Gaussen (1790-1863), Professor in the Free Church Theological School of Geneva, in his works on Theopneusty (1840; second edition, 1842), and on the Canon (1862, two vols.). Dissent from him led to the resignation of his colleague, Scherer. Gaussen admitted, however, the individualities of the sacred writers, and compares them to the keys of an immense organ, on which the Holy Spirit played.
[934] Called voluntas conditionata, velleitas, misericordia prima, desiderium inefficax.
[935] Art. X. 'Censemus igitur peccatum Adami omnibus ejus posteris judicio Dei arcano et justo imputari' (Rom. v. 12, 19; 1 Cor. xv. 21, 22). Art. XI. 'Duplici igitur nomine post peccatum homo natura, indeque ab ortu suo, antequam ullum actuale peccatum in se admittat, iræ ac maledictioni divinæ obnoxius est; primum quidem ob paraptoma et inobedientiam, quam in Adami lumbis commisit; deinde ab consequentem in ipso conceptu hereditariam corruptionem insitam, qua tota ejus natura depravata et spiritualiter mortua est, adeo quidem, ut recte peccatum originale statuatur duplex . . . imputatum videlicet, et hereditarium inhærens.'
[936] Art. XIII. 'Pro solis electis ex decretorio Patris consilio propriaque intentione diram mortem oppetiit [Christus], solos illos in sinum paternæ gratiæ restituit, solos Deo Patri offenso reconciliavit et a maledictione legis liberavit.' Art. XVI. 'Haud probare possumus oppositam doctrinam illorum qui statuunt, Christum propria intentione et consilio tum suo tum Patris ipsum mittentis, mortuum esse pro omnibus et singulis, addita conditione impossibili, si videlicet credant.' The ablest modern advocate of this limited atonement theory is Dr. Hodge, Syst. Theol. Vol. II. pp. 544 sqq.
[937] Art. XIX. 'Vocatio externa quæ per præconium Evangelicum fit, etiam vocantis Dei respectu, seria et sincera est. . . . Neque voluntas illa respectu eorum, qui vocationi non parent, inefficax est, quia semper Deus id, quod volens intendit, assequitur,' etc.
[938] Art. XXI. 'Moralis ea impotentia dici possit, quatenus scilicet circa subjectum et objectum morale versatur: naturalis tamen esse simul et dici debet, quatenus homo phusei, natura, adeoque nascendi lege, inde ab ortu est filius iræ' (Eph. ii. 2). Dr. Hodge likewise defends this doctrine against the New School Calvinists, who, with Amyraut, claim for man the natural ability, but admit his moral inability.
II. The Reformed Confessions of France and the Netherlands.