WILLIAM BUCANUS

Served as professor of theology at Lausanne from 1591 to 1603. He was called to teach at the new academy at Samur in 1603 but died before he could accept the post. His major dogmatic work is the Institutiones theologicae su locorum communium christianae religionis (1602):- Source, Richard Muller, Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatcs (first edition).

[Note: Some marginal references from the copy I have cannot be read. I have included the references I can read.]

Love to mankind:

1) “What is Christ?”

He is the only begotten Son of God (Joh. 1:14), who of his mere love towards mankind ((Tit. 3:4-5), did create unto himself of the seed (Heb. 2:16) of the Virgin Mary (Luk. 1:31), being sanctified by the Holy Ghost (Luk. 1:35), and by creating did assume (Heb. 2;16), and did personally and inseparably for ever unite a true human body (Heb. 2:14), endued with a reasonable (Matt. 26:38), soul. And so being true God, became true man like to us in all things (heb. 1:17&c), sin only accepted. William Bucanus, Institutions of Christian Religion, Framed Our of God’s Word, and the Writings of the Best Divines, Methodically Handled by Questions and Answers, Fit For All Such as Desirous to Know, or Practice the Will of God, trans., by Robert Hill (Printed in London by George Snowden, 1606), 14.

2) 2. The infinite mercy of God who would rather have his son to die a most shameful death, then destroy mankind created by himself.

3.. The exceeding humility of the eternal son of God, the Lord of all things who was debased and cast down lower than all creatures, by which humiliation he testified his love toward mankind, in suffering so great things for the redemption thereof. William Bucanus, Institutions of Christian Religion, Framed Our of God’s Word, and the Writings of the Best Divines, Methodically Handled by Questions and Answers, Fit For All Such as Desirous to Know, or Practice the Will of God, trans., by Robert Hill (Printed in London by George Snowden, 1606), 237.

Unlimited Redemption:

1) Whether was neither the Father nor the Holy Ghost incarnate, but the Son?

1.Because it was meet that the world should be redeemed, and all things restored by him, by whom all things were created, or that man should be redeemed from death by him, by whom he was first created, and should have been brought unto life eternal if he had not sinned.

2. It would have been inconvenient, that there should be two sons, one in the divine nature, another in the human nature.

3. It was the eternal decree of the Father, whereby he purposed to save mankind by the Son (Heb. 2:10).

William Bucanus, Institutions of Christian Religion, Framed Our of God’s Word, and the Writings of the Best Divines, Methodically Handled by Questions and Answers, Fit For All Such as Desirous to Know, or Practice the Will of God, trans., by Robert Hill (Printed in London by George Snowden, 1606), 18.

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Pictet:

With regard to the beginning of sin, God is concerned with it in various ways, first, by permitting it. This. the scripture teaches us–I gave them up unto their own hearts’ lust, and they walked in their awn counsels,” (Psalm lxxxi. 12.)” Who in times past suffered all nations to walk in their own ways,” (Acts xiv. 16.) But here we must carefully observe, that permission does not imply approbation; far be it from us to say this of God. Again, we must not imagine that it is a mere cessation of the divine will, as though God either ignorantly, or unwillingly, or even indifferently, permitted what he does permit; for this is contrary both to his wisdom and to his power, since there is nothing more unworthy of God, than to suffer any thing to take place, and at the same time to wink at it, or to behold any thing taking place, while he himself (if we may so speak) remains an inactive spectator of it. Further, to permit is not simply not-to-prevent, as is evident from this one argument-If God permits sin by not preventing it, he either wills not-to-prevent it, or he put forth no act of volition at all; if the latter, then the event takes place, either against God’s will, and without any regard on his part, which it were impious to assert; if the former, then that permission will not be a simple non-prevention, but an effectual volition on the part of God, whereby he suffers man to use his own liberty, and puts no hindrance in the way of sin. This permission also includes the preservation of man’s life and faculties, which God could take away, if he wished to prevent sin, as he took away life from Pharaoh, Sennacherib, and Ahaz’s soldiers (Exod. xiv; 2 Kings xix. 37; i.10,12); and as he took away strength and power from the Sodomite~, from Balaam, from Jeroboam, from the Syrian hosts (Gen. six. 10; Numb. xxiii.12, 26; xxiv.13; 1 Kings xiii. 4; 2 Kings vi.18,19.) It implies also the not opposing a superior strength and power by way of hindrance. This then is the jr6t act of God in reference to sin. Do not ask why God hath permitted it; for it is not for us to pry into these secrets: we are sure he has permitted, the reason why is unknown; this only we know, that God brings forth out of the darkness of sin the light of his own glory.

The second act, by which God is concerned with sin, is that by which he forsakes the sinner, giving him up to himself, taking away from him the light which he has abused, and the Spirit which restrained him, so that, all barriers being removed, he rushes headlong, the reins being as it were thrown loosely on his neck. Thus God is said to have ” given up the Gentiles to vile affections, to their own lusts, and to a reprobate mind,” (Rom. i. 24, 26, 28); and so Zachariah the son of Jehoiada, said to the people,  “Because ye have forsaken the Lord, he hath also forsaken you,” (2 Chron. xxiv. 20.) Thus we read of God’s smiting men with mudne68, blindness, and hardness of heart, making heavy or stopping their ears, &c.

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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.]