Muller:

1) The printing of a second edition to this volume has not involved as many alterations and additions as the second edition of the study of theological prolegomena. Still, there are a series of changes that ought to be noted beyond the addition of a subtitle, "The Rise and Development of Reformed Orthodoxy, ca. 1520 to ca. 1725," to all volumes in the project. In the first place, I have refined the argument of this volume in a few places and have eliminated various typographical errors that were found in the first printing of the book. I have also rearranged materials in several places and entirely recast some of the sections, particularly by the addition of collateral referencing in the apparatus–in part in order to demonstrate two of the sub-themes of the entire project, namely, the placement of the Salmurian theology within the boundaries of confessional orthodoxy and the congruence of English Reformed and Puritan theology in its dialogue with the continental Reformed. Richard A Muller, Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Academic, 2002), preface to the second edition, 2:15.

2) On the one hand, the hypothetical universalism of the prior decree is juxtaposed with the particularity of the absolute covenant with the elect, emphasizing the full sufficiency of Christ’s satisfaction but adumbrating its limited efficacy; on the other hand, the hypothetical universalism of the covenant is juxtaposed with the particularity of the subsequent decree, emphasizing the universality of the call of the gospel but also indicating the divine purpose underlying limited human response.

This pattern has major implications for understanding the Salmurian soteriology. It indicates a covenantal or federal continuity with Reformed predestinarianism that has been left unexamined in discussions of hypothetical universalism. Against Moltmann’s assessment, it offers an element of the Salmurian theology that presses it away from rather than toward Arminianism; and against Armstrong’s thesis, it demonstrates the point, recognized even by seventeenth-century opponents of Amyraldianism like Francis Turretin, namely, that views of Cameron and his Salmurian successors were not heresy and, like it or not, were consciously framed to stand within the confessionalism of Dort. In the specific case of Cameron’s covenantal thought, it ought to be understood not as a protest against various developments in Reformed theology but rather as an integral part of the rather fluid and variegated history of early Reformed covenantal thought. Richard Muller, “Divine Covenanters, Absolute and Conditional: John Cameron and the Early Orthodox Development of Reformed Covenant Theology,” Mid-America Journal of Theology 17 (2006), 36-37.

3) “There were also bitter battles among the Reformed – over Cocceian theology, over the espousal of Cartesian principles, and over the various teachings of the Academy of Saumur, over the soteriology of Richard Baxter, and over various responses to the Socinian denial of an essential or ad intra divine attribute of punitive justice. On none of these issues, however, did the Reformed churches rupture into separate confessional bodies or identify a particular theologically defined group as beyond the bounds of the confessions, as had been the case at the Synod of Dort. Amyraut was, after all, exonerated by several national synods in France, and the debate over his “hypothetical universalism” did not lead to the charge of heterodoxy against others, like Davenant, Martinius, and Alsted, who had, both at Dort and afterward, maintained similar lines of argument concerning the extent of Christ’s satisfaction.¹⁰⁴ The Westminster Confession was in fact written with this diversity in view, encompassing confessionally the variant Reformed views on the nature of the limitation of Christ’s satisfaction to the elect, just as it was written to be inclusive of the infra- and the supralapsarian views on predestination.¹⁰⁵ Amyraut, moreover, arguably stood in agreement with the intraconfessional adversaries like Turretin on such issues as the fundamental articles of faith.¹⁰⁶

Even when it was censured in the Formula Consensus Helvetica, the Salmurian theology was not identified as a heresy but as a problematic teaching that troubled the confessional orthodoxy of the church: the preface to the Formula specifically indentifies the faculty of Saumur as “respected foreign brethren,” who stand on the same “foundation of faith” but whose recent teachings have become a matter of grave dispute. The Formula consciously refrained from any reference to Cocceian theology, despite the desire of a few theologians to censure this variety of Reformed thought as well.¹⁰⁷ Nor, indeed, did the adoption of a modified Cartesian philosophy by thinkers like Heidanus, Burman, or Tronchin take them beyond the pale of orthodoxy. This is not to diminish the controversies or to claim that Cocceian federalism, the Salmurian theology, and the rise of Cartesian tendencies among the Reformed did not place enormous strains on orthodoxy – nor does it ignore the fact that the critical techniques of Cappel and the adoption of Cartesian principles by various Reformed thinkers pointed toward the beginning of a new era in which confessional orthodoxy would fade.” [Source: Richard A. Muller, Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2003), 1:76-77.]

4) 1″Whereas, therefore, some distinction can be made between various lines of development within Reformed orthodoxy, such as between the Swiss orthodoxy of the line of Turretin and Heidegger and the Academy of Saumur, between the northern German Reformed of Bremen or the Herborn Academy and the rather different approach of Franecker theologians in the tradition of Ames, between the Cocceian or federalist line and the Voetian approach, between the British Reformed theology of Owen and that of Baxter, or between the British variety of Reformed theology in general and the several types of Reformed teaching found on the continent, there is no justification for identifying any one of these strains of Reformed thought as outside the bounds of Reformed orthodoxy or as not evidencing the characteristics of Reformed scholasticism. Voetius and Cocceius obliged the same confessions–and Voetius could identify several lines of Reformed thought on, for example, the work of Christ, including that of Crocius and the Saumur theologians. He disagreed with these thinkers but did not set them outside of the Reformed Confessions.¹¹⁴ Turretin, similarly, indicates his disagreement with the Saumur theologians on various issues, but consistently identifies them as Reformed and as “our ministers.”¹¹⁵ Owen and Baxter acknowledged each other’s theologies as belonging to the same confessional tradition. Owen, moreover, thought highly of Cameron and Amyraut on such issues as the divine justice and the doctrine of the Trinity — at the same time that he abhorred elements of the teaching of Twisse and Rutherford, both of whom stood closer to him than to the Salmurians on the issues addressed in the Formula consensus Helvetica. All of these branches of the Reformed tradition stood within the boundaries established by the major national confessions and catechisms of the Reformed churches.” [Source: Richard A. Muller, Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2003), 1: 79-80.]

[Note: See also Muller’s other comments on Amyraut, along with other versions of non-speculative hypothetical universalism.]

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¹⁰⁴Cf., e.g., John Davenant, A Dissertation on the Death of Christ, as to the Extent of its Benefits, trans., Josiah Allport (London: Hamilton, Adams and Co., 1832); also note Davenant’s On the Controversy among the French Divines of the Reformed Church, concerning the Gracious and Saving Will of God toward Men, in ibid., pp. 561-569, where Davenant indicates his differences with Cameron.

¹⁰⁵ See Benjamin B. Warfield, The Westminster Assembly and its Work (New York: Oxford University Press, 1931; repr. Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1981), p. 56.

¹⁰⁶Moyse Amyraut, De mysterio trinitatis, deque vocibus ac Phrasibus quibus tam Scriptura quam apud Patres explicatur, Dissertatio, septem partibus absoluta (Saumur: Isaac Desbordes, 1661), pars I (pp.3-5); see below, 9.1 (A.2; B.2) and see the description of the treatise in PRRD IV, 2.2 (D.2). Also note Amyraut, A Treatise Concerning Religions, in Refutation of the Opinion which accounts all Indifferent. Wherein is also evinc’d the Necessity of a particular Revelation and the Verity and preeminence of the Christian Religion (London: M. Simons, 1660).

¹⁰⁷Formula Consensus Helvetica, praefatio, in Niemeyer, Collectio confessionum, II, p. 730. Also see Martin I. Klauber, “The Helvetic Consensus Formula (1675): An Introduction and Translation,” in Trinity Journal, 11 (Spring 1990), pp. 103-123 (a useful history which, unfortunately omits the preface of the Formula from its translation); and note the remarks of Schaff in Creeds of Christendom, I, p. 486.

¹¹⁴On Voetius’ and Cocceius’ confessionality, see in particular the approbatie of both the Utrecht and Leiden faculties in Zacharias Ursinus Schat-Boeck der Verklarigen over den Nederlandtschen Catechismus, uyt de Latijnshe Lessen van Dr. Zacharias Ursinus, op-gemaecht van Dr. David Paraeus, vertaelt, ende met Tafelen, &c. Verlicht, door Dr. Festus Hommius, nu van nieuws oversein … door Johannes Spiljardus, 2 parts (Amsterdam: Johannes van Revensteyn, 1664), fol. A4, r.-v.; and on Voetius approach to Crocius and Saumur, see his Problematum de merito Christi, pars secunda, in Sel. Disp., II, p. 252.

¹¹⁵Turretin, Inst. theol. elencticae, IV.xvii.4; XII.vi.3; XIV.xiv.6. [That is: Institutes, 1:395-6; 2:206; 2:457-458.]