Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from Systematic Theology, Vol. 3 of 3: A Compendium and Commonplace-Book Designed for the Use of Theological Students
(a) In this Section we treat of Election and Calling; Section Second being devoted to the Application of Christ's Redemption in its Actual Beginning, - namely, in Union with Christ, Regeneration, Conversion, and Justification; while Section Third has for its subject the Application of Christ's Redemption in its Continuation, - namely, in Sanctification and Perseverance.
The arrangement of topics, in the treatment of the reconciliation of man to God, is taken from Julius Muller, Proof-texts, 35. "Revelation to us aims to bring about revelation in us. In any being absolutely perfect, God's intercourse with us by faculty, and by direct teaching, would absolutely coalesce, and the former be just as much God's voice as the latter" (Hutton, Essays).
(b) In treating Election and Calling as applications of Christ's redemption, we imply that they are, in God's decree, logically subsequent to that redemption. In this we hold the Sublapsarian view, as distinguished from the Supralapsarianism of Beza and other hyper-Calvinists, which regarded the decree of individual salvation as preceding, in the order of thought, the decree to permit the Fall. In this latter scheme, the order of decrees is as follows: 1. the decree to save certain, and to reprobate others; 2. the decree to create both those who are to be saved and those who are to be reprobated; 3. the decree to permit both the former and the latter to fall; 4. the decree to provide salvation only for the former, that is, for the elect.
Richards, Theology, 302-307, shows that Calvin, while in his early work, the Institutes, he avoided definite statements of his position with regard to the extent of the atonement, yet in his latter works, the Commentaries, acceded to the theory of universal atonement. Supralapsarianism is therefore hyper-Calvinistic, rather than Calvinistic. Sublapsarianism was adopted by the Synod of Dort (1618, 1619). By Supralapsarian is meant that form of doctrine which holds the decree of individual salvation as preceding the decree to permit the Fall; Sublapsarian designates that form of doctrine which holds that the decree of individual salvation is subsequent to the decree to permit the Fall.
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