Calvinism: pure and mixed, a defence of the Westminster standards

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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

Preface

The object of this work is to define and defend the tenets of Calvinism in their original purity and self-consistence, as distinguished from proposed modifications of them for the purpose of an alleged improvement. It has grown out of the proposal introduced into the Northern Presbyterian Church, to revise the Westminster Standards. It contains the substance of a pamphlet which the author published in opposition to this proposal when it was first made, together with discussions of several important subjects that have subsequently come up for examination during the controversy in the Church. Of these, pretention, common and special grace, original sin, infant salvation, the " larger hope," and the inerrancy of Scripture, are the most prominent. The controversy has disclosed the fact, that some Presbyterians deny that God may justly pass by any of mankind in the bestowment of saving grace ; and assert that common grace may become saving grace by the sinner's co-operation, that original sin is not deserving of eternal death and therefore that infants are not liable to it, that the Westminster Standards teach that all the heathen are lost, and that the autographs of the inspired writers contained more or less of error. The writer endeavors to show that the first opinion is fatal to the doctrine of Divine sovereignty in election ; that the second is Arminian syniv

PllEFACE ergism, not Calvinistic monergism ; that the third destroys the doctrine of infant salvation, by making it only a quasi-salvation and a matter of obligation on the part of God ; and that the fourth and fifth are misstatements of the contents of the Confession.

When the revision of the Standards was first suggested by a few presbyteries, the great majority of the denomination had expressed no desire for it, and the measure seemed to be the scheme of only a dissatisfied few. But it soon appeared that such dissatisfaction with the denominational creed was considerably widespread. The presbyteries voted to revise their creed by a decisive majority. This majority soon showed itself to be composed of a conservative and a radical wing. The former have endeavored to revise in conformity with the vote of the General Assembly, that no changes shall be made that impair the integrity of the Calvinistic system. The latter have proposed alterations, relating principally to the doctrines of election and pretention, which, the writer endeavors to prove, seriously impair it.

The history of the revision movement, thus far, confirms the author in his opinion, expressed at the very first, that the revision of a creed is latitudinarian in its nature and influence. The proposal to revise a creed is commonly made, not for the purpose of preserving its strictness, and still less to make it stricter, but in order to make it looser or more " liberal," as the phrase is. This explains the fact, that there has never been a revision of any of the great creeds of Christendom. When latitudinarian parties have arisen in the Church, and have attempted to change the received symbols, the result has been that new creeds were formed for the new parties, and the old remained unaltered. The Semi-Arians and Arians could not induce the Ancient Church to revise the Apostles',

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Tsicene, and Constantinopolitan creeds, in accordance with their views of an improved Trinitarianism. The Middle Ages witnessed no attempts to revise the great oecumenical symbols. None of the creeds of the Reformation, Lutheran or Calvmistic, have been revised. The only examples that border on revision are the Augsburg Yariata and the Formula Concordise. The first was only the individual work of Melanchthon, who wished to introduce synergism into the Lutheran monergism, and not that of a church demanding it ; and the last claimed to be, and actually was, a closely reasoned and logical development of the Augsburg Confession — the only instance that we recall in which revision resulted in a stricter orthodoxy. The reduction of the Forty-two Articles of Edward the Sixth to the Thirty-nine Articles of Elizabeth, cannot be called a revision. The attempt of the Remonstrants to Arminianize the Heidelberg and Belgic Confessions was a failure, and resulted in the Five Articles of the new creed.

These facts go to show that revision, speaking generally, means the alteration of doctrinal statements by injecting into them more or less of foreign elements not properly belonging to them, in order to meet a change of views in a larger or smaller part of the denomination. By this method, Calvinism, or Arminianism, or Socinianism, or any creed whatever, becomes mixed instead of pure; a combination of dissimilar materials, instead of a simple uncompounded unity. This is the destruction of that self-consistence which is the necessary constituent of true science, and indispensable to permanent power and influence. The purest and most unmixed Socinianism, Arminianism, Lutheranism, or Calvinism, is the strongest in the long run.

While the author contends that such is the nature and tendency of creed -revision, he believes that many of those vi

PKEFACE who are advocating a revision of the Westminster Standards have no desire to weaken their statements or their influence. The distinction between doctrines and persons, projects and their advocates, is a valid one. One may have no confidence in a doctrine or project, and yet may have confidence in a particular advocate of it, because a person may be different in his spirit and intention from the nature and tendency of his doctrine or project, while this is a fixed quantity. Coleridge, in a conversation with a Unitarian friend, said : " I make the greatest difference between ans and isms. I should deal insincerely with you, if I said that I thought Unitarianism is Christianity ; but God forbid that I should doubt that you and many other Unitarians are in a practical sense very good Christians." ("Table Talk," April 4, 1832.) When the opponent of revision asserts that revision is anti-Calvinistic in its logic and tendency, he does not assert that all of its advocates are anti-Calvinists. The writer believes that the natural effect of the proposed changes in the Confession, especially those of the radical wing, will be to weaken and break down the Calvinistic system contained in it, and endeavors to prove it ; but he does not believe or say that this is the desire and intention of all who urge them.

The spirit of revision, it is said, is " in the air," and this is assigned as a reason why it should be stimulated and strengthened. This would also be a reason for the increase of malaria. It is undoubtedly true that the desire to revise the Calvinistic creed is pervading Pan- Presbyterianism to a degree not imagined at first. If it continues to increase, there can be little doubt that the historical Calvinism will be considerably modified; and doctrinal modification is an inclined plane. In an age of materialism in philosophy, and universalism in religion, when the Calvinistic type of doctrine is more violently

PREFACE

Vll opposed than any other of the evangelical creeds, because of its firm and uncompromising nature, the Presbyterian Church should not revise the creed from which it has derived its past solidarity and power, but should reaffirm it ; and non-revision is reaffirmation.

The aim of the author is twofold : first, to explain some of the more difficult points in Calvinism, and thereby promote the reaffirmation of the Westminster Standards pure and simple, precisely as they were adopted by both schools in the reunion of 1870, instead of the revision of them as now proposed, which had it been urged at that time would have been fatal to the cause of reunion ; and secondly, to justify and defend before the human understanding, that intellectual and powerful system of theology which had its origin in the Biblical studies and personal experience of the two most comprehensive and scientific theologians of Christendom, Aurelius Augustine and John Calvin.

New York, February, 1893.

Contents

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Inexpediency op the Revision of the Westminster Confession, . . . 1

Objections to the Revision of the Westminster, Confession, . . . 13

II. Objections To The Revision Of The Westminster Confession. 1

The first question sent down to the presbyteries is the most important of the two; namely, Whether a revision of the Confession is desired. If this is answered in the negative, it will mean that the Presbyterian Church of the present day is satisfied with its ancestral faith, as formulated in its Standards, and accords with the Church of the past in this respect. It will be a formal and positive reaffirmation .of the historic Calvinism, at a time when this system of doctrine is charged with being unscriptural, erroneous, and antiquated by modern theological progress. If it be answered in the affirmative, it will mean that the Church of the present day is more or less dissatisfied with the doctrines of the Westminster Assembly, and is no longer willing to endorse and preach them as that body of divines defined and stated them. Revision is alteration, more or less. The object is not merely to make sure that the creed just as it stands is understood ; but to modify it either in its structural plan, its component parts, its emphasis, or its general perspective. The second question, How much revision is desired ? is comparatively of less consequence, because it is the first question alone that decides the vital point, whether the Presbyterian Church

1 New York Presbytery, November 20, 1889 ; Northwestern Presbyterian, November 23, 1889.

has drifted at all from the old anchorage. For this reason," we present in a brief form the following objections to the revision of the Westminster Confession :

1. Revision is objectionable, because the project originated in too small a fraction of the Church. Only fifteen presbyteries out of two hundred and two united in overturing the Assembly in its favor. The remaining one hundred and eighty-seven will have to be argued and persuaded into it. But so important a step as the revision of the doctrinal basis of a denomination should begin in a general uprising of the whole body, and be the spontaneous and strongly expressed desire of the great majority of its members. The revision of secondary matters, like the form of government and discipline, does not require this in the same degree. As the case now stands, fifteen presbyteries have asked one hundred and eighty-seven presbyteries if they do not want to amend the Confession. There should have been a far wider dissatisfaction w T ith the Standards than this indicates, to initiate revision.

2. Revision is objectionable, because the Confession is a correct statement of " the system of doctrine contained in the Scriptures." The system meant in this phrase is universally known as the Calvinistic ; not as resting upon the authority of Calvin, but as a convenient designation of that interpretation of Scripture which is common to Augustine, Calvin, the Reformed theologians, and the "Westminster divines. The term "evangelical" does not define it, because there are several evangelical systems, but only one Calvinistic. The systems of Arminius, of Wesley, and of the Later-Lutherans, as well as that of Calvin, are alike evangelical, in distinction from anti-evangelical systems like Socinianism and Deism. They are all alike derived from the Bible, and contain the doctrines of the trinity, tho incarnation, the apostasy, and the redemption. But the Calvinistic interpretation of Scripture, which is the one formulated in the Westminster Standards, differs from these other "evangelical" systems, in teaching unconditional election and pretention, instead of conditional ; limited redemption (not atonement) instead of unlimited; regeneration wholly by the Holy Spirit instead of partly ; the total inability of the sinner instead of partial. The Calvinistic system, as thus discriminated from the other " evangelical " systems, has been adopted by American Presbyterians for two centuries. Neither Old Lights, nor New Lights ; neither Old School, nor New School ; have demanded that these tenets which distinguish Calvinism from Arminianism should be eliminated from the creed. They were accepted with equal sincerity by both branches of the Church in the reunion of 1870, and there is no reason for altering the formulas that were satisfactory then, unless the belief of the Church has altered in regard to these distinctive points of Calvinism.

3. The revision of the Confession is objectionable, because the principal amendments proposed by its advocates will introduce error into it, so that it will no longer be " the system of doctrine contained in the Scriptures." The four following alterations are urged upon the Church : (a) To strike out the doctrine of the sovereignty of God in pretention, leaving the doctrine of election unlimited and universal, (b) To retain pretention, but assign as the reason for it the sin of the non-elect, (c) To strike out the statement that the number of the elect and non-elect is "so certain and definite, that it cannot be increased or diminished" by "angels and men." (d) To strike out the statement that no man who rejects the " Christian religion," or the evangelical method of salvation, can be saved by the legal method of living " according to the light of nature," or some system of morality which he " professes." If these changes are made, the Westminster Standards will no longer contain a class of truths that are plainly taught in Scripture, and will cease to be that "system of doctrine " which their authors had in mind, and to which the present generation of ministers and elders have subscribed like their fathers before them.

4. Revision is objectionable, because it will be a concession to the enemies of the Standards that their aspersions of them are true. The charges that have been made by the opponents of them from time immemorial are, that Calvinism represents God as a tyrannical sovereign who is destitute of love and mercy for any but an elect few, that it attributes to man the depravity of devils, deprives him of moral freedom, and subjects him to the arbitrary cruelty of a Being who creates some men in order to damn them. A few ministers and elders within the Presbyterian Church endorse these allegations ; and many assert that the Confession contains no universal offer of salvation, teaches that none of the heathen are saved, and that some infants are non-elect and lost. The great reason assigned by such Presbyterians for revising the Standards is, that they inculcate unscriptural and offensive doctrines that cannot be believed or preached. But this is to concede that all preceding Presbyterians have been grossly mistaken in denying that the Confession contains such doctrines, either directly or by implication. It is an acknowledgment that one of the most carefully drawn and important of all the Reformed symbols, inculcates in a latent form some of the most repulsive tenets conceivable by the human mind. Presbyterians of all schools have hitherto met this calumny on their creed by contradicting it, and trying the issue by close reasoning and debate. Revision proposes, in the legal phrase, to give a cognovit, admit the charge, and alter the standards to suit the enemy who made it.

5. Revision is objectionable, because it will reopen the old discussions and controversies upon the difficult doctrines, without resulting in any better definitions of them than they already have in the Church. On the contrary, the great variety of changes that will be urged, from the very conservative to the very radical, will introduce a period of speculative dispute and disagreement that will seriously impair the existing harmony of the denomination, and divert its attention from the great practical interests of Christ's kingdom in which it is now engaged.

These five objections, it seems to us, are conclusive reasons why the Presbyterian Church should not alter, but reaffirm the doctrines of the Westminster Standards, and continue to teach and defend them as they have been by all the past generations of Presbyterians. 2