IN the opening article of this issue reference is made to Calvin’s view on this subject. His opponents making use of his well-known and often expressed view on the free offer of the Gospel, challenged him with holding the doctrine of a universal atonement. Dr Cunningham, while admitting Calvin had not been led to examine this precise question in the form which it afterwards assumed in controversial discussion and give explicit deliverance upon it, shows that his opponents had no warrant for their charge. “Calvin,” says Dr Cunningham, “was in no way sensitive or cautious about using language, concerning the universality of the offers and invitations, or, in the phraseology which then generally prevailed, the promises of the Gospel, and concerning the provisions and arrangements of the scheme of redemption, which might have the appearance of being inconsistent with any limitation in the objects or destination of the atonement. And it is chiefly because the great body of those who have been called after his name, even those of them who have held the doctrine of a definite* or limited atonement, have followed his example in this respect, believing it to have the full sanction of Scripture, that Daillee and others have got up such a mass of testimonies from their writings, in which they seem to give countenance to the tenet of universal redemption, even at the expense of consistency. But this is no reason why Calvinists should hesitate to follow the course, which Scripture so plainly sanctions and requires, of proclaiming the glad tidings of salvation to all men indiscriminately, without any
* Dr Cunningham has here made use of a better adjective than “limited” in referring to this doctrine. The Princeton School of Theologians noting its fitness, have used it in preference to “limited.”—Editor.
distinction or exception, setting forth, without hesitation or qualification, the fulness and freeness of the Gospel offers and invitations, of inviting, encouraging, and requiring every descendant of Adam with whom they come into contact, to come to Christ and lay hold of Him, with the assurance that those who come to Him He will in no wise reject. The doctrine of particular redemption, or of an atonement limited, not as to its sufficiency, but as to its object, purpose, or destination, does not, either in reality or appearance, throw any greater obstacle in the way of preaching the gospel to every creature, than the doctrines which all Calvinists hold, of the absolute unconditional election of some men to eternal life, and of the indispensable necessity and determining influence of the special agency of the Holy Spirit in producing faith and conversion. The difficulty of this whole subject lies in a department which belongs to God’s province, and not to ours. He has imposed upon us the duty of making Christ known to our fellow-men, not only as able, but as willing and ready, to save unto the uttermost all that come unto God by Him; and this duty we are bound by the most solemn obligations to discharge, without let or hindrance, without doubt or hesitation; assured that God, while exercising His own sovereignty in dealing with His creatures, will, in His own time and way, fully vindicate the consistency and the honour of all that He has done Himself, and of all that He has required us to do in His name.”—(Reformers and Theology of the Reformation, pp. 401, 402).