Rev Donald Beaton
A further extract from The Reformed Faith, continued from the November issue, p 336. The final part of this section will appear in next month’s magazine, DV.
PASSAGES in Scripture which speak of the possibility of those perishing for whom Christ died are hypothetical, and as Dr A A Hodge says: “They truly indicate the nature and tendency of the action against which they warn us, and are the means which God uses under the administration of His Spirit to fulfil His purposes. . . . In the case of Paul’s shipwreck, it was certain that none should perish, and yet all would perish except they abide in the ship (Acts 27:24-31)” (Outlines of Theology, p 421).
(b) Amyraldianism, or Hypothetical or Conditional Universalism. This view was first promulgated by the theologians of Saumur. It had its origin in the teaching of John Cameron, Professor of Theology at the above-named college in France. Cameron declared that Christ died for no man simply, but on condition that we who are of the world should be delivered from the world and engrafted into Christ by true faith (Smeaton, The Apostles’ Doctrine of the Atonement, p. 540). The doctrine was shaped into a system by his distinguished pupil, Amyraud, whose Latin name, Amyraldus, was given to the doctrine. Amyraldus in his Treatise on Predestination (1634) systematised the teaching of his master. In this treatise Amyraldus says: “The sacrifice which Jesus Christ offered was equally for all; and the salvation which He received from His Father, in the sanctification of the spirit and the glorification of the body, was destined equally for all, provided the necessary disposition for receiving it were equal”. This teaching met with strong opposition, especially from Rivetus and Spanheim1. Amyraldus expressed admiration for Calvin and maintained that the system which he advocated was but a logical outcome and historical development of ideas found in the Institutes. He had also the idea that this view of the extent of redemption would appeal to the Lutherans who, since the Synod of Dort, had become more opposed to the Reformed teaching on this doctrine. Amyraldus tried to show that there might be a general reference to all men in redemption, a doctrine which the Lutherans insisted on maintaining, while he also retained the Reformed doctrine of limited, or definite, redemption.
The French National Synod of 1637 summoned Amyraldus and his
1The great work, however, on this subject is Frederick Spanheim’s excercitations on Universal Grace, 1646. Here every point is calmly and lucidly reviewed, with little of the acrimony of controversy (Smeaton, op cit, p 471).
friend, Paul Testard, pastor at Blois, before it. They stated: “That Jesus Christ died for all men sufficiently but for the elect only effectually; and that consequently His intention was to die for all men in respect of the sufficiency of His satisfaction, but for the elect only in respect of its quickening and saving virtue and efficacy” (Quick, Synodicon, vol 2, p 354). After being cautioned, they were given the right hand of fellowship by the Moderator. Further complaints were made at the National Synod of 1644-45, when the following decision was come to: “This Assembly, being very well satisfied with his [Amyraldus’] explications and sense given of his doctrine agreeable to that of the Synod of Alençon [1637]; and judging it best to bury in the grave of oblivion all those reciprocal complaints brought in from all parties, hath, as formerly, dismissed the said Sieur Amyraud with honour to the exercise of his professorship, wherein he is exhorted to employ himself with courage and cheerfulness” (Quick, op cit, vol 2, p 455).
It would thus appear from these decisions that the French Protestant Church did not see anything seriously wrong in the Amyraldian teaching. That we are not doing them injustice the following words from Principal Cunningham will show: “The Synod of 1637 manifested a considerable amount of unfaithfulness to God in connection with the doctrines, and the unfaithfulness did not fail to appear in the Synod of 1645 — the one only 17 and the other 25 years after the solemn adoption by the National Synod of the canons of the Synod of Dort. The National Synods and purity of doctrine seem very much to have gone down together, as it is remarkable that the one became more impure as the other grew rarer. In point of fact, so far had the Synods come short of faithful testimony to the truth of God, that the most elaborate book in defence of the universality of the atonement, in a Calvinistic point of view, by Daillé, is literally entitled as ‘an apology for the two Synods’. This impurity of doctrine must be viewed, I think, in connection with the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes” (Speech in the General Assembly of the Free Church of 1859 on the occasion of the Tercentenary of the French Synod).
The Amyraldian system has been summarised by Dr Charles Hodge under the following heads: “(a) The motive impelling God to redeem men was benevolence, or love to men in general. (b) From this motive He sent His Son to make the salvation of all men possible. (c) God in virtue of a universal hypothetical decree, offers salvation to all men if they believe in Christ. (d) All men have a natural ability to repent and believe. (e) But as this natural ability was counteracted by a moral inability, God determined to give His efficacious grace to a certain number of the human race, and
thus to secure their salvation” (Systematic Theology, vol 2, p 322). At present it is not necessary to expose the unscripturalness of this view, except to say that Dr Smeaton has in a few sentences laid his finger on its weak spot. “The whole Amyraldist theory was without a foundation,” he says, “and its absurdity was increased by the fact that these divines formed a new arrangement of the divine decrees, making the atonement universal, and the election special” (op cit, p 470).
Amyraldianism was introduced into England by the works of Polhill and into Scotland by a posthumous work2 by the Rev James Fraser, of Brea. It was prepared for the press by the Rev Thomas Mair, minister of the Associate congregation at Orwell (Milnathort), and published in 1749. It produced a great commotion in the Associate Synod and in the Reformed Presbyterian Presbytery. Mr Mair described Adam Gib’s condemnation of Fraser and the book as “truly shocking”. Mair pleaded that he did not subscribe to Fraser’s scheme of doctrine in its entirety. In April 1737 he was deposed from the ministry (Small, History of the Congregations of the United Presbyterian Church, vol 1, p 375). In 1753 the book caused a disruption in the Reformed Presbyterian Presbytery3. What was the teaching in this book which caused so much disturbance? Dr. James Walker in his Theology and Theologians of Scotland summarises it as follows: “He [Fraser of Brea] asserts that Christ obeyed and died in the room of all as the head and representative of fallen man’; that men are all fundamentally justified in Him and through Him’; that Christ died for all’. But, then, are all men saved? No; God did not mean to save any but His chosen. What, then, was the effect of that one indivisible sacrifice for all which God’s Son offered on the cross? Well, first of all, to lay a real foundation for the gospel offer. For every man satisfaction was rendered, and every man might appropriate it as something subjectively real. It comes to this, in short, Fraser plainly states it, that Christ dies for reprobates that they may come under a more tremendous doom; as, on the other hand, He dies for the elect that theirs may be an all-transcendent blessedness.” We have been at pains to enter more minutely into these discussions than we otherwise would owing to the fact that we wish to clear our way to deal with the views held by Ussher, Davenent, Baxter, and the Marrowmen.
Let not our readers go away with the idea that the subjects discussed in
2Doubts have been expressed as to its authorship, but it is generally accepted as the work of the Rev James Fraser of Brea, and minister of Culross. Fraser belonged to the Frasers of Lovat and was held in high esteem by the evangelical party in the Scottish Church.
3The story of this controversy will be found in M Hutchison, The Reformed Presbyterian Church in Scotland, pp 194-203.
these controversies are trivial, and that, after all, the discussions are merely fine hair-splitting by ecclesiastics with a penchant for controversy. It is scarcely correct to say that Amyraldianism was taught by Baxter and Calamy, as we shall see later on is affirmed by the late Principal Lindsay. He is nearer the mark, however, when he says it is part of “much modern evangelical theology” (Hastings, Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics, vol 1, p 406).
John Welsh6. Condemned
Continued from the November issue, page 341
(To be continued)