4. Its Effects on English and Scottish Churches1
Rev Neil M Ross
Hypothetical universalism in England. In England, a form of hypothetical universalism was espoused by some Puritans prior to the publication in 1634 of Amyraut’s form of this doctrine in his Treatise on Predestination – a fact which Jonathan Moore ably demonstrates in his English Hypothetical Universalism: John Preston and the Softening of Reformed Theology. It was held not only by John Preston, but also John Davenant, James Ussher, Edmund Calamy and Richard Baxter. However, their form of hypothetical universalism did not have all the ingredients of Amyraut’s system. Ian Hamilton, in his enlightening paper Amyraldianism – Is it Modified Calvinism? says that those “hypothetical universalists . . . by and large, held to the orthodox understanding of the order of the decrees, something Amyraut vigorously opposed”.2 However, there are certain similarities between their views and those of Amyraut.
In 1650 Davenant published his Dissertation on the Death of Christ, in
1Last month’s article took “a closer look at Amyraut’s teaching”.
2Amyraldianism – Is it Modified Calvinism?, 2003, p 2. At http://www.chelmsfordpres.org.uk/resources/articles/Amyraldianism.pdf.
which he taught a type of universal atonement. Davenant (1572-1641), renowned as a good and gifted man, was in fact highly influential in promoting hypothetical universalism, and was arguably the leading member of the group of English deputies who were members of the Synod of Dort. As Ian Hamilton notes, “Many of the English delegates at the Synod of Dort (1618-19) advocated universal, if hypothetical, redemption. Bishop Davenant taught that ‘Christ died for all on condition that they believe, and He will intercede for all if only they believe’.”3
Later, in the Westminster Assembly (1643-1649), a number of the divines, led by Calamy, were of the Davenant party. With regard to the Assembly debate concerning “the redemption of the elect only”, the minute refers to “a small body of men [in the Assembly] whose convictions lay in the direction of a modified Calvinism which had been lately promulgated by Cameron and Amyraut for the express purpose of finding a place for a universal redemption in the Calvinistic system”.4 They did not succeed in having their views adopted by the Assembly or incorporated in the Assembly’s new Confession of Faith and Catechisms.
Some have argued that they were not altogether unsuccessful, in that chapter 3:6 of the Westminster Confession supposedly gives way to them to some extent. We fail to see how that is so when, as already quoted, that section categorically states that “God hath appointed the elect unto glory”, and, “they who are elected, being fallen in Adam, are redeemed by Christ”, and, “Neither are any other redeemed by Christ, effectually called, justified, adopted, sanctified, and saved, but the elect only” (italics ours). Warfield rightly states, “The result of the debate [in the Westminster Assembly] was a refusal to modify the Calvinistic statement in this direction – or perhaps we should say, the definitive rejection of the Amyraldian views and the adoption of language which was openly framed to exclude them”.5
Rev Donald Beaton wrote, “Whatever efforts may have been made to give an interpretation to chapter 3, section 6, of the Confession favourable to the views held by the followers of Davenant and Ussher, there can be no doubt that the teaching of chapter 8, section 8, leaves no loophole for this teaching. [It states]: ‘To all those for whom Christ hath purchased redemption He doth certainly and effectually communicate the same’.”6 “This sentence”, said Rev Hugh Cartwright at one of our theological conferences, “is emphasising
3 Amyraldianism – Is it Modified Calvinism, footnote, p 1.
4 Quoted in Ian Hamilton, The Erosion of Calvinist Orthodoxy – Seceders and Subscription in Scottish Presbyterianism, p 59.
5 Quoted in Ian Hamilton, The Erosion of Calvinist Orthodoxy, p 60.
6 The Free Presbyterian Magazine, vol 43, p 43.
the unity within the decree, of election, redemption, effectual calling and so on, the same unity which we see in Romans 8:28-30, which David Dickson calls ‘the golden chain which cannot be loosed’. . . . This sentence in the Confession is intended definitely to exclude Hypothetical Universalism and Amyraldianism, which maintained an election which followed upon a universal love and a universal redemption. Westminster Calvinists may be Supralapsarians or Infralapsarians, but they cannot but believe in the particular redemption of those, all those, and only those, embraced in God’s eternal, electing love.”7
Richard Baxter (1615-1691), is justly renowned as the author of The Reformed Pastor and A Call to the Unconverted, but in his theological writings he postulated a form of Amyraldianism. In his paper, Richard Baxter, Rev K D Macleod quotes Baxter saying that Christ “purchased all men from the legal necessity of perishing that they were in, into His own power, as their owner and ruler, that so He might make over reconciliation, remission and salvation to all if they will believe, and might send forth sufficient means and help of grace to draw all men towards Him, resolving to draw His elect infallibly to Him”.8 Mr Macleod comments, “Yet Christ’s work of redemption, according to such teachings, avails nothing for those who never come to faith, even though the claim is made that He actually suffered unto death for them”. Indeed, as Mr Macleod further says, quoting again from Dr Packer, Baxter was “convinced that the Bible makes it as clear as the light that Christ died for all”.9
Baxter’s formula, explains Dr Curt Daniel, an American Baptist theologian, (in an online lecture) “was that Christ died for all but not equally for all or with the same intent, design or purpose. He said there was a double intent for the atonement. The atonement was the same for all people but it was the intent that was different. There was intent in the atonement for the non-elect, that is, to leave them totally without excuse, but there was a special intent for the elect and for the elect alone, and that was to guarantee their salvation.”10
Some have argued that Baxter was not an Amyraldian. Smeaton, for example, says, “The celebrated Baxter has been often unfairly claimed as an Amyraldist”.11 Some colour is given to this view by Baxter’s statement in opposing John Owen for his doctrine of a definite atonement: “In the matter
7The Free Presbyterian Magazine, vol 113, p 112.
8Quoted in The Free Presbyterian Magazine, vol 113, p 73, from J I Packer, The Redemption and Restoration of Man in the Thought of Richard Baxter, Paternoster Press, 2003, p 223.
9The Free Presbyterian Magazine, vol 113, p 73; quotation from J I Packer, The Redemption and Restoration of Man, p 231.
10http://www.monergism.com/thethreshold/articles/onsite/histtheocalvin.html.
11The Apostle’s Doctrine of the Atonement, Edinburgh, 1870, p 542.
of the extent of redemption, wherein I am most suspected and accused, I do subscribe to the Synod of Dort, without any exception, [or] limitation”.12 Nevertheless, says Nicole, “Richard Baxter openly avowed that he espoused Amyraldian views, and he listed other English divines who did so too ([in his] Preface to Disputations of the Right to the Sacraments, 1657)”.13
Forms of Amyraldianism in Scotland. In Scotland, says Rev Donald Beaton, “Amyraldianism was introduced . . . by the posthumous work by the Rev James Fraser of Brea in the Black Isle”.14 In that work, A Treatise on Justifying Faith (published in two volumes, 1722 and 1749), Fraser asserts, says James Walker, “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 by Him.’ and ‘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.”15
Fraser’s book had serious effects, particularly within the Cameronian (Covenanter) and Secession (Burgher and Anti-Burgher) churches. Thomas Mair, an Anti-Burgher minister, was investigated by his Presbytery in 1753, when it was known that he favoured Fraser’s teachings. This resulted eventually, says Ian Hamilton, “in the Act of the Associate Synod (commonly called Anti-Burgher) at Edinburgh, April 18th 1754, containing an assertion of some gospel-truths . . . ‘That our Lord Jesus Christ hath redeemed none others by His death, but the elect only . . .’ and that ‘He died in one and the same respect, for all those for whom He in any respect died’.”16
But the Amyraldian “middle way” was not killed off by this measure. Conflict arose again, this time in the United Secession Church. We refer to the Atonement Controversy (1841-1845), of which Ian Hamilton writes,
12Quoted in The Free Presbyterian Magazine, vol 43, p 45.
13Standing Forth: Collected Writings of Roger Nicole, p 328. Dr Nicole was both an acknowledged authority on Amyraldianism and an able defender of the inerrancy of Scripture, but he is to be consulted with caution as he was awry in interpreting Scripture on the position of women in the Church and also advocated women ministers – as appears from internet links sent to us.
14The Free Presbyterian Magazine, vol 42, p 448.
15Theology and Theologians of Scotland, pp 81,82.
16The Erosion of Calvinist Orthodoxy, p 60.
“The initiator of the Controversy was Andrew Marshall of Kirkintilloch. He charged the Church’s two senior professors, John Brown and Robert Balmer, with departing from the Confession’s teaching on the atonement, arguing that their emphasis upon the general and universal nature of the atonement contradicted the teaching of the Church’s doctrinal standards.”
A committee of Synod pronounced that the Atonement Controversy was mainly a misunderstanding over imprecise wording, and that, in fact, scriptural harmony prevailed in the Church. Marshall was dissatisfied with the Synod’s decision and eventually he “accused Brown of teaching five theological propositions contrary to the Church’s Standards and Scripture”. Mr Hamilton adds, “The most important was the third, ‘that Christ has not died for the elect only, but that He has died for all men, and made atonement or satisfaction for the sins of all men’. The Synod acquitted Brown of every charge. Brown’s ‘double-reference theory’ was accepted as not being contrary to the Church’s Standards.”
“The effect of the Atonement Controversy,” Mr Hamilton continues, “was further to loosen the attachment of Scottish Presbyterianism to the theology of the Westminster Standards. It was not therefore surprising that the United Presbyterian Church in 1879 framed and passed a Declaratory Act which effectively qualified its commitment to the precise Calvinism of the Westminster Standards. It was now accepted, at least in the Secession Churches, that total subscription to the Westminster Confession of Faith was an unreasonable burden to impose on its ministers.”17
Declaratory Act 1892. The United Presbyterian Declaratory Act of 1879 led eventually to the Free Church of Scotland Declaratory Act of 1892, which occasioned the ecclesiastical Protest of Rev Donald Macfarlane, and his consequent departure, with Rev Donald Macdonald, several divinity students and thousands of people from the Free Church in 1893 to form what became known as the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland.
The Amyraldian roots or modified Calvinism of the 1892 Act can be seen in several of its statements, for example: “This Church most earnestly proclaims, as standing in the forefront of the revelation of grace, the love of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit to sinners of mankind, manifested especially in the Father’s gift of the Son to be the Saviour of the world, in the coming of the Son to offer Himself a propitiation for sin”18 – an apparently innocuous but subtle statement, cleverly framed to protect those in the Church who favoured teaching, such as Amyraut’s, about God’s indiscriminate love for all.
The 1892 Act also says that the Westminster Confession of Faith is not to
17Dictionary of Scottish Church History and Theology, T & T Clark, 1993, pp 43,44.
18History of the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland 1893-1970, p 394-6.
be held to teach “that God may not extend His mercy for Christ’s sake, and by His Holy Spirit, to those who are beyond the reach of those means, [the gospel] as it may seem good to Him, according to the riches of His grace.”19 Again we are reminded of the Amyraldian idea that the heathen can be saved without the preaching of the Word.
Since then, the baneful effects of Amyraldianism have been evident in many professedly Calvinistic churches. The real danger of the subtle and plausible system is something we hope to show in the next and final instalment.