Valdés:

14. That God wrought works that were more fatherly for this Hebrew people, and that the more God did for them, the more they practiced their malevolence and their impiety against God (Ps. 94 [Ps. 95]).

15. That when the time appointed by the divine Majesty arrived, the Word of God, whom the Holy Scripture calls the Son of God, took human flesh in the womb of the Virgin Mary, God having willed to restore all things by his Word, just as he had made them all by his Word (John 1; Mt. L; Phil. 3 [Phil. 2J; Col. 1).

16. That this incarnate Word is the Messiah, promised to the Hebrews in the Law and in the Prophets, whom we call Christ, which is the same as Messiah or Anointed (John 3,4).

17. That upon this Word of God incarnate, upon this Son of God, upon this Christ, God placed all the iniquities, all the rebellions, and all the sins of all men, he being most innocent and free from all sin. God chastised them all in him with the same rigor as if he had committed them all, even to taking from him on the cross his life as a son of Adam and as a passible and mortal man. God afterwards resurrected and glorified him for his obedience, giving him absolute power in heaven and on earth (1 Pet. 2; Mt. 28; Col. 1).

18. That Christ, having ascended into heaven, sent the Holy Spirit upon his disciples, upon those he had elected and taken for his own while he conversed among men (Acts 1).

Juan de Valdés, The Manner which Ought to be Observed in Instructing the Children of Christians from Childhood about Religious Matters,” in Reformed Confessions of the 16^th and 17^th Centuries in English Translation, ed. James T. Dennison, (Grand Rapids Michigan: Reformation Heritage Books, 2008), 1:531. [underlining mine.]

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Letham:

God’s Decree (WCF 3-5; LC 12-20)

Morris comments accurately what these chapters follow naturally from what has gone before, particularly in view of the Arminian controversy that had brought the decrees of God into dispute.¹ God’s plans must have been formed from eternity, he agrees, and must Include all things and events; moreover, his supreme will carries them into effect.² By placing the decree of God close to the beginning of the Confession, the divines signaled that theology is to be a God–centered enterprise. This is in keeping with the great ecumenical creeds, which focus on God the Holy Trinity, the work of Christ, and the church and sacraments.³ ‘This placement was definitely not a principle from which the rest of theology was logically deduced; we discussed the anachronistic nature of this now-discredited argument in chapter 6. The Assembly’s stress on God’s decree was greatly needed at a time of threatening instability, such as England was in during the 1640s. Nothing was certain. The institutions of state were in turmoil, the country was at war with itself, and no legal church existed. The foundations were shaken to their core. Yet in the midst of all this, God was working out his sovereign purposes to his glory and the good of his elect people. In the end, his kingdom would triumph, his church would be preserved, and his elect would be brought home to glory.

The Westminster Confession of Faith refers to the decree of God in the singular, while the Catechisms have the plural. Discussion occurred in the Assembly on this question. There was opposition to the Arminian division into separate decrees. Others raised the question of whether a commitment on such a matter should be put into a confession of faith. Morris thinks of the decrees–as the covenants–as many to our apprehension, while one in the sight of God.⁴ The single nature of the decree, he suggests, fosters the idea that its execution is irresistible; it is balanced by chapter 5 on providence, where God is said to govern ordinarily in accordance with the nature of second causes, which takes account of the introduction and permission of sin.⁵

Debates on chapter 3, including the proof texts, occupied parts of twenty days and were “extremely searching and very comprehensive.”⁶ Robert Baillie referred to “long and tough debates.”⁷ The committee report followed the Irish Articles closely. Debate focused on two main issues. The first and relatively less important was the question of God’s permitting the fall of man. It had to do with whether, as the committee reported, it happened by “the same decree” as that of election, and, if so, whether the phrase should be included in the Confession. Debate occupied two sessions (S520 M 20.10.45 and S521 TU 21.10.45).⁸ Lazarus Seaman urged its inclusion; “great debate” would follow its omission, since the Arminians distinguish the decrees and from this arises all their “odious doctrine.” Rutherford, on the other hand, urged caution. While all agree that God decrees both the end and the means, and while it is probably one decree, it is doubtful whether such a statement should be included in a confession of faith, he urged. Certainly, if a proof was produced to establish the point, he believed the Assembly would be glad to hear it. Whitaker significantly (in view of the debate of the next few days) pointed out that “our conceptions arc very various about the decrees,” yet he did not know why the phrase should be left out, since it is the same decree in reference to time, since they an: all “simull & semel.” Gillespie wanted the freedom of each man to “enjoy his own sense.” Reynolds argued strongly against inclusion: “Let us not put in disputes & scholasticall things into a confession of faith,” Besides, he added, from our perspective they are different decrees. Seaman continued to be adamant for inclusion, again citing the Remonstrants for making two decrees concerning election. While Calamy supported Reynolds (“I desire that nothing be put”), Palmer to the contrary insisted that “it will be worse to leave it out.” Meanwhile Gillespie pointed out that in the order of nature God’s ordaining man to glory preceded his decree to permit the fall. In the end, the phrase was left out. However, the chapter avoids any idea that these decrees are separable by casting its title in the singular–“Of God’s eternal decree”–and reaffirming the point in 3.3 by viewing both predestination to life and foreordination to death as aspects of this one “decree.”⁹ However, LC 12 speaks of God’s decrees in the plural, as eternal acts of God’s will. It could be argued that the: plural signifies the variety of things decreed by God, while the singular refers to the unity of his purpose, but there is no evidence that this is how the Assembly saw it. wisely comments that the Assembly was after a generic Calvinism rather than any particular variety of it.¹⁰

The most significant differences emerged during the debate on the statement, “Neither are any other redeemed by Christ, effectually called, justified, adopted, sanctified, and saved, but the elect only” (WCF 3.6). The most vivid discussion occurred in S522 W 22.10.45 through S524 I; 24. 10.45,¹¹ although debates continued until S3.1 0.45.¹² The leading opponent of the clause was Calamy. His position, as accurately describes it, was hypothetical universalism. In S522 W 22.10.45, he insisted:

I am farre from universall Redemption in the Arminian sence, but that that [sic] I hould is in the sence of our devines in the sinod of Dort; that Christ did pay a price for all, absolute for the elect, conditionall for the reprobate, in case they doe beleive; that all men should be salvabiles, non obstante lapsu Adami; that Jesus Christ did not only dy sufficiently for all, but God did intend in giving of Christ & Christ in giving hin1selfe did intend to put all men in a state of salvation in case they doe beleive.¹³

Reynolds was incredulous that Calamy was not differing from Arminius and the Remonstrants, since his proposal supposed that salvation was conditional on a response they could not perform and which God never intended to give them. However, Calamy proceeded to distinguish his position from Arminianism: Arminians say that Christ paid a price placing all in an equal state of salvation. “They say Christ did not purchase any impetration.” Calamy insisted his views “doth neither intrude upon either [the] doctrine of speciall election or speciall grace.” His point was that Arminianism asserted that Christ simply suffered; all people are in a potentially salvable situation, so that any who believe will be saved. In contrast, he himself believed that Christ’s death saves his elect and grants a conditional possibility of salvation to the rest. Seaman, supporting Calamy, argued that the views of the Remonstrants were irrelevant; what mattered was the truth or falsity of the case. Calamy, he insisted, was talking not of a salvability in relation to man, but to God; he has so far reconciled himself to the world that he would have mercy on whom he would have mercy. Palmer probed closely, wanting to know whether Calamy understood this of all people. Calamy’s rather limp reply was “de adultis” (of adults).

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Muller

The question at issue between Calvin and the later Reformed does not entail any debate over the value or merit of Christ’s death: virtually all were agreed that it was sufficient to pay the price for the sins of the whole world. Neither was the question at issue whether all human beings would actually be saved: all (including Arminius) were agreed that this was not to be the case. To make the point another way, if “atonement” is taken to mean the value or sufficiency of Christ’s death, no one taught limited atonement — and if atonement is taken to mean the actual salvation accomplished in particular persons, then no one taught unlimited atonement (except perhaps the much-reviled Samuel Huber).

Historically, framed in language understandable in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, there were two questions to be answered. First, the question posed by Arminius and answered at Dort: given the sufficiency of Christ’s death to pay the price for all sin, how ought one to understand the limitation of its efficacy to some? In Arminius’ view, the efficacy was limited by the choice of some persons to believe, others not to believe, and predestination was grounded in a divine foreknowledge of the choice. In the view of the Synod of Dort, the efficacy was limited according to the assumption of salvation by grace alone, to God’s elect. Calvin was quite clear on the point: the application or efficacy of Christ’s death was limited to the elect. And in this conclusion there was also accord among the later Reformed theologians.

Second, there was the question implied in variations of formulation among sixteenth-century Reformed writers and explicitly argued in a series of seventeenth century debates following the Synod of Dort, namely, whether the value of Christ’s death was hypothetically universal in efficacy. More simply put, was the value of Christ’s death such that, it would be sufficient for all sin if God had so intended — or was the value of Christ’s death such that if all would believe all would be saved. On this very specific question Calvin is, arguably, silent. He did not often mention the traditional sufficiency-efficiency formula; and he did not address the issue, posed by Amyraut, of a hypothetical or conditional decree of salvation for all who would believe, prior to the absolute decree to save the elect. He did frequently state, without further modification, that Christ expiated the sins of the world and that this “favor” is extended “indiscriminately to the whole human race.” Various of the later Reformed appealed to Calvin on both sides of the debate. (Only a very few writers of the seventeenth and eighteenth century argued that Christ’s death was sufficient payment only for the sins of the elect.) Later Reformed theology, then, is more specific on this particular point than Calvin had been — and arguably, his somewhat vague formulations point (or could be pointed) in several directions, as in fact can the formulae from the Synod of Dort.

Richard A. Muller, Was Calvin a Calvinist? Or, Did Calvin (or Anyone Else in the Early Modern Era) Plant the “TULIP”?, (pp., 9-10); http://www.calvin.edu/meeter/lectures/Richard%20Muller%20-%20Was%20Calvin%20a%20Calvinist.pdf (accessed 6 November 2009).

[Notes: 1) Muller’s point here supports and echoes my earlier comments here, namely: “Dort’s contention is against those who teach that Christ died for all men equally, such that he died for no man effectually or especially. Dort denies that proposition. Nowhere in Dort does one find a denial of an unlimited aspect to the expiation and redemption (as taught by the classic Patristic, Medieval and Reformation fathers). The theology of Luther, Zwingli, Bullinger, Musculus, Calvin, Vermigli and countless others is not precluded by Dort.” 2) We can now supplement that comment by noting Muller’s point that Dort’s dispute was over the efficacy of the expiation. 3) Thus both the Davenantian/Amyraldian and Owenic constructions (with their underlying theologies) of the Sufficiency-Efficiency formula are consistent with Dort. On this, see Muller’s other pertinent comments here.]

Kimedoncius:

Bullinger, Gualther, Musculus and others are cited, and the confessions of one or two Churches in Helvetia, out of whom these and like kinds of sayings are diligently drawn: to wit, that “Christ, as [Bulling. ser. 2. de Nativit Chri.] much as in him is a Saviour to all, and came to save all”: [The same upon 1 John 1.] “that he pleased God by sacrifice for all the sins of all times”: [Catech. minore. Eccl. Tigur.] “that his passion ought to satisfy for the sin of all men, and that the whole world is quickened by the same“: [Musc. in locis de remiss. p.q.2.] that the grace of remission of sins is appointed for all mortal men,” and such like.

Unto these, I answer, that how soever, and in what sense soever those writers uttered these and the like kind of speeches, it is certain that they were not of the adversaries opinion, that effectually and in very deed all, without exception of anyone, and without any difference of believers and unbelievers, are received into grace, and made partakers of remission of sins, righteousness and salvation of Christ.

Iacob Kimedoncius, Of The Redemption of Mankind (London: Imprinted by Felix Kingston for Hvmfrey Lownes, 1598), 141-142. [Some reformatting, some spelling modernized, marginal comments cited inline, underlining mine.]

[Notes: Kimedoncius “adversary” here is Huberus. Huberus was a Universalist advocating that all men will be finally saved. Huberus attempted to cite various orthodox Reformed and Lutheran theologians, and confessions, to sustain his argument. Kimedoncius’ intent is to demonstrate that Huberus has taken these men and documents out of context. What interests us here is the reference to Catech. minore. Eccl. Tigur. This was an early non-extant Swiss catechism.  This early Reformed Helvetian catechism advocated an unlimited expiation of Christ. Kimedoncius associates this catechism, theologically, with Bullinger, Musculus and Gualther, whose positions on the extent of the expiation are explicit.  Further, another early Helvetian confession was Bullinger’s Second Helvetic Confession, and it is it likely that this was the other confession Kimedoncius alludes to when he says “confessions of one or two Churches.”]