(continue)
12. At what date and under what circumstances did modern Arminianism arise?
James Arminius, professor of theology in the university of Leyden from 1602 until his death in 1609, although a minister of the Calvinistic Church of Holland, at first secretly, and afterwards more openly, advocated that scheme of theological opinion which has ever subsequently been designated by his name. These views were rapidly diffused, and at the same time strongly opposed by the principal men in the church. His disciples, consequently, about a year after his death formed themselves into an organized party. and in that capacity presented a Remonstrance to the States of Holland and West Friesland, praying to be allowed to hold their places in the church without being subjected by the ecclesiastical courts to vexatious examinations as to their orthodoxy. From the fact that the utterance of this Remonstrance was their first combined act as a party, they were afterwards known in history as Remonstrants.
Soon after this the Remonstrants, for the sake of defining their position, presented to the authorities five Articles expressing their belief on the subject of Predestination and Grace. This is the origin of the famous "five Points" in the controversy between Calvinism and Arminianism. Very soon however the controversy took a much wider range, and the Armenians were forced by logical consistency to teach radically erroneous views with respect to the nature of; sin, original sin, imputation, the nature of the Atonement, and Justification by faith. some of their later writers carried the rationalistic spirit inherent in their system to its legitimate results in a hardly qualified Plagiarism, and some were even suspected of Socinianism.
As all other means had failed to silence the innovators, the States General called together a General Synod at Dort in Holland, which held its sessions in the year 1618-1619. It consisted of pastors, elders, and theological professors from the churches of Holland, and deputies from the churches of England Scotland, Hesse, Bremen, the Palatinate and Switzerland:the promised attendance of delegates from the French churches being prevented by an interdict of their king. The foreign delegates present were nineteen Presbyterians from Reformed churches on the Continent, and one from Scotland, and four Episcopalians from the church of England headed by the bishop of Llandaff. This Synod unanimously condemned the doctrines of the Armenians, and in their Articles confirmed the common Calvinistic faith of the Reformed churches. The most distinguished Remonstrant Theologians who succeeded Arminius were Episcopius, Curcellaeus, Limborch, Le Clerc, Wetstein, and the illustrious jurisconsult Grotius.
The denomination of Methodists in Great Britain and America is the only large Protestant body in the world it an avowedly Armenian Creed. Their Arminianism, however as presented by their standard writer, Richard Watson, an incomparably more competent theologian than Wesley, is far less removed from the Calvinism of the Westminster Assembly than the system of the later Remonstrants, and should always be designated by the qualified phrase " Evangelical Arminianism." In the hands of Watson the Anthropology and Soteriology of Arminianism are in a general sense nearly assimilated to the corresponding provinces of Lutheranism, and of the Calvinism of Baxter, and of the French School of the seventeenth century.
13. Give an outline of the main positions of the Socinian System.
THEOLOGY AND CHRISTOLOGY.
1st. Divine Unity.
This unity inconsistent with any personal distinctions in the Godhead.
Christ is a mere man.
The Holy Ghost is an impersonal divine influence.
2d. Divine Attributes.
There is no principle of vindicatory justice in God. Nothing to prevent his acceptance of sinners on the simple ground of repentance.
Future contingent events are essentially unknowable. The foreknowledge of God does not extend to such events.
ANTHROPOLOGY.
Man was created without positive moral character. The " image of God, " in which man was said to be created did not include holiness.
Adam in eating the forbidden fruit committed actual sin, and thereby incurred the divine displeasure, but he retained nevertheless the same moral nature and tendencies with which he was created, and he transmitted these intact to his posterity.
The guilt of Adam's sin is not imputed.
Man is now as able by nature to discharge all his obligations as he ever was. The circumstances under which man's character is now formed are more unfavorable than in Adam's case, and therefore man is weak. But God is infinitely merciful; and obligation is graded by ability. Man was created naturally mortal and would have died had he sinned or not.
SOTERIOLOGY.
The great object of Christ's mission was to teach and to give assurance with respect to those truths concerning which the conclusions of mere human reason are problematical. This he does both by doctrine and example.
Christ did not execute the office of priest upon earth; but only in heaven, and there in a very indefinite sense.
The main office of Christ was prophetical. He taught a new law. Gave an example of a holy life. Taught the personality of God. And illustrated the doctrine of a future life by his own resurrection.
His death was necessary only as a condition unavoidably prerequisite to his resurrection. It was also designed to make a moral impression upon sinners, disposing them to repentance on account of sin, and assuring them of the clemency of God. No propitiation of divine justice was necessary, nor would it be possible by means of vicarious suffering.
ESCHATOLOGY.
In the intermediate period between death and the resurrection the soul remains unconscious.
"For it is evident from the authorities cited, that they (the older Socinians), equally with others' constantly maintain that there will be a resurrection both of the just and of the unjust, and that the latter shall be consigned to everlasting punishment, but the former admitted to everlasting life." - B. Wissowatius.
"The doctrine of the proper eternity of hell torments is rejected by most Unitarians of the present day (1818) as in their opinion wholly irreconcilable with the divine goodness, and unwarranted by the Scriptures. In reference to the future fate of the wicked, some hold that after the resurrection they will be annihilated or consigned to 'everlasting destruction' in the literal sense of the words:but most have received the doctrine of universal restoration, which maintains that all men, however depraved their characters may have been in this life, will, by a corrective discipline, suited in the measure of its severity to the nature of each particular case, be brought ultimately to goodness and consequently to happiness." (--Rees's "Racovian Catechism," pp. 367, 368.)
ECCLESIOLOGY.
The church is simply a voluntary society. Its object mutual improvement. Its common bond similarity of sentiments and pursuits. Its rule is human reason.
The Sacraments are simply commemorative and teaching ordinances.
14. Give an outline of the main features of the Arminian System.
DIVINE ATTRIBUTES.
They admit that vindicatory justice is a divine attribute, but hold that it is relaxable, rather optional than essential, rather belonging to administrative policy than to necessary principle.
They admit that God foreknows all events without exception. They invented the distinction expressed by the term Scientia Media to explain God's certain foreknowledge of future events, the futurition of which remain undetermined by his will or any other antecedent cause.
They deny that God's foreordination extends to the volitions of tree agents and hold that the eternal election of men to salvation is not absolute, but conditioned upon foreseen faith and obedience.
ANTHROPOLOGY.
Moral character can not be created but is determined only by previous self-decision.
Both liberty and responsibility necessarily involve possession of power to the contrary.
They usually deny the imputation of the guilt of Adam's first sin.
The strict Armenians deny total depravity, and admit only the moral enfeeblement of nature. Arminius and Wesley were more orthodox but less self-consistent.
They deny that man has ability to originate holy action or to carry it on in his own unassisted strength--but affirm that every man has power to co-operate with, or to resist "common grace" That which alone distinguishes the saint from the sinner is his own use or abuse of grace.
They regard gracious influence as rather moral and suasory than as a direct and effectual exertion of the new creative energy of God.
They maintain the liability of the saint at every stage of his earthly career to fall from grace.
SOTERIOLOGY.
They admit that Christ made a vicarious offering of himself in place of sinful men, and yet deny that he suffered either the literal penalty of the law, or a full equivalent for it, and maintain that his sufferings were graciously accepted as a substitute for the penalty.
They hold that not only with respect to its sufficiency and adaptation, but also in the intention of the Father in giving the Son, and of the Son in dying, Christ died in the same sense for all men alike.
That the acceptance of Christ's satisfaction in the place of the infliction of the penalty on sinners in person involves a relaxation of the divine law.
That Christ's satisfaction enables God in consistency with his character, and the interests of his general government, to offer salvation on easier terms. The gospel hence is a new law, demanding faith and evangelical obedience instead of the original demand of perfect obedience.
Hence Christ's work does not actually save any, but makes the salvation of all men possible---removes legal obstacles out of the way,does not secure faith but makes salvation available on the condition of faith.
sufficient influences of the Holy Spirit, and sufficient opportunities and means of grace are granted to all men.
It is possible for and obligatory upon all men in this life to attain to evangelical perfection-which is explained as a being perfectly sincere-a being animated by perfect love --and doing all that is required of us under the gospel dispensation.
With respect to the heathen some have held that in some way or other the gospel is virtually, if not in form, preached to all men. Others have held that in the future world there are three conditions corresponding to the three great classes of men as they stand related to the gospel in this world - the Status Credentium ; the Status Incredulorum ; the Status ignorantium.
15. Give a brief outline of the main features of the Calvinistic System.
THEOLOGY.
God is an absolute sovereign, infinitely wise, righteous, benevolent, and powerful, determining from eternity the certain futurition of all events of every class according to the counsel of his own will.
Vindicatory Justice is an essential and immutable perfection of the divine nature demanding the full punishment of all sin, the exercise of which cannot be relaxed or denied by the divine will.
CHRISTOLOGY.
The Mediator is one single, eternal, divine person, at once very God, and very man. In the unity of the Theanthropic person the two natures remain pure and unmixed, and retain each its separate and incommunicable attributes distinct. The personality is that of the eternal and unchangeable Logos. The human nature is impersonal. All mediatorial actions involve the concurrent exercise of the energies of both natures according to their several properties in the unity of the single person.
ANTHROPOLOGY.
God created man by an immediate fiat of omnipotence and in a condition of physical, intellectual, and moral faultlessness, with a positively formed moral character.
The guilt of Adam's public sin is by a judicial act of God immediately charged to the account of each of his descendants from the moment he begins to exist antecedently to any act of his own.
Hence men come into existence in a condition of condemnation deprived of those influences of the Holy Spirit upon which their moral and spiritual life depends.
Hence they come into moral agency deprived of that original righteousness which belonged to human nature as created in Adam, and with an antecedent prevailing tendency in their nature to sin which tendency in them is of the nature of sin, and worthy of punishment.
Man's nature since the fall retains its constitutional faculties of reason, conscience, and free-will, and hence man continues a responsible moral agent, but he is nevertheless spiritually dead, and totally averse to spiritual good, and absolutely unable to change his own heart, or adequately to discharge any of those duties which spring out of his relation to God.
SOTERIOLOGY.
The salvation of man is absolutely of grace. God was free in consistency with the infinite perfections of his nature to save none, few, many, or all, according to his sovereign good pleasure.
Christ acted as Mediator in pursuance of an eternal covenant formed between the Father and the Son, according to which he was put in the law-place of his own elect people as their personal substitute, and as such by his obedience and suffering he discharged all the obligations growing out of their federal relations to law-by his sufferings vicariously enduring their penal debt by his obedience vicariously discharging those covenant demands, upon which their eternal well-being was suspended--thus fulfilling the requirements of the law, satisfying the justice of God, and securing the eternal salvation of those for whom he died.
Hence, by his death he purchased the saving influences of the Holy Spirit for all for whom he died. And the infallibly applies the redemption purchased by Christ to all for whom he intended it, in the precise time and under the precise conditions predetermined in the eternal Covenant of Grace-and he does this by the immediate and intrinsically efficacious exercise of his power, operating directly within them, and in the exercises of their renewed nature bringing them to act faith and repentance and all gracious obedience.
Justification is a Judicial act of God, whereby imputing to us the perfect righteousness of Christ, including his active and passive obedience, he proceeds to regard and treat us accordingly, pronouncing all the penal claims of law. to be satisfied, and us to be graciously entitled to all the immunities and rewards conditioned in the original Adamic covenant upon perfect obedience.
Although absolute moral perfection is unattainable in this life, and assurance is not of the essence of faith, it is nevertheless possible and obligatory upon each believer to seek after and attain to a full assurance of his own personal salvation, and leaving the things that are behind to strive after perfection in all things.
Although if left to himself every believer would fall in an instant, and although most believers do experience temporary seasons of backsliding, yet God by the exercise of his grace in their hearts, in pursuance of the provisions of the eternal Covenant of Grace and of the purpose of Christ in dying, infallibly prevents even the weakest believer from final apostasy.
