The Colloquy of Thorn (1645)

1. Common Confession of the Doctrine of the Reformed Church in the Kingdom of Poland, and in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Respective Provinces of the Kingdom, For the Clarification of
Disputed Points at the Colloquy at Thorn, in 1645,

Presented on September 1.

1) From sin and death, there is no salvation or justification by the power of nature or through the righteousness of the law, but only through the grace of God in Christ, who redeemed us from wrath and the curse who were dead in sins through that only sacrifice of His death and through the merit of His perfect obedience in which He worked sufficiently for our, and not only for our, but also for the sins of the entire world. . . .

5) We are falsely accused, however, as if we deny that the death and merit of Christ suffices for all or as if we diminish His power. For we teach much the same as that which the Council of Trent taught in its sixth session, in the third chapter, namely: “although Christ died for all yet not all enjoy the benefit of His death; rather only they to whom the merit of His suffering is imparted:” We profess also that the cause or blame for this, whereby it is not imparted to all, lies in men themselves and in no way in the death and merit of Christ.

6) We are also falsely accused, as if we teach that not all those called through the Word of the gospel are earnestly, sincerely, or sufficiently called to repentance and blessedness by God, but rather that most are only seemingly and deceitfully called, only by signs through the revealed will, whereas the inner will of God’s counsel is lacking and He does not therein wish blessedness for all. We profess that we are far removed from this notion, for which people have charged us, either through false understanding or by the up toward words of a few; and that in God we attribute the highest truth and fidelity to all of His words and works, but in particular to those words which accompany the grace which calls to salvation, we do not attribute to Him a will which stands in constant contradiction to itself.

“The Colloquy of Thorn (1645)” in, Reformed Confessions of the 16th and 17th Centuries in English Translation, ed., James T. Dennison, (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Reformation Heritage Books, 2010), 4:212, 213-214. [Underlining mine.] [Note: one could reasonably conclude from the above that, at that time, the entire body of Reformed churches in both Poland and Lithuania were hypothetical universalists!]

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Sproul:

My point is that there is confusion about what the doctrine of limited atonement actually teaches. However, I think that if a person really understands the other four points and is thinking at all clearly, he must believe in limited atonement because of what Martin Lurher called a resistless logic. Still, there are people who live in a happy inconsistency. I believe it’s possible for a person to believe four points without believing the fifth, although I don’t think it’s possible to do it consistently or logically. However, it is certainly a possibility given our proclivity for inconsistency.

To begin to unravel the misconceptions about this doctrine, let’s look first at the question of the value of the atoning sacrifice ofJesus Christ. Classical Augustinianism teaches that the atonement of Jesus Christ is sufficient for all men. That is, the sacrifice Christ offered to the Father is of infinite value. There is enough merit in the work of Jesus to cover the sins of every human being who has ever lived and ever will live. So there is no limit to the value of the sacrifice He made. There is no debate about this.

Calvinists make a distinction between the sufficiency and the efficiency of the atonement. That distinction leads to this question: was Jesus’ death efficient for everybody? In other words, did the atonement result in everyone being saved automatically? Jesus’ work on the cross was valuable enough to save all men, but did His death actually have the effect of saving the whole world?

This question has been debated for centuries, as noted above. However, if the controversy over limited atonement was only about the value of the atonement, it would be a tempest in a teapot because the distinction between the sufficiency and efficiency of the atonement does not define the difference between historic Reformed theology and non-Reformed views such as Semi-Pelagianism and Arminianism. Rather, it merely differentiates between universalism and particularism. Universalists believe that Jesus’ death on the cross did have the effect of saving the whole world. Calvinism disagrees strongly with this view, but historic Arminianism and dispensationalism also repudiate universalism. Each of these schools of thought agrees that Christ’s atonement is particular and not universal in the sense that it works or effects salvation only for those who believe in Christ, so that the atonement does not automatically save everybody. Therefore, the distinction between the sufficiency and efficiency of Jesus’ work defines particularism, but not necessarily the concept of limited atonement.

R.C. Sproul, The Truth of the Cross (Orlando, Florida: Reformation Trust, 2007), 142-144.

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Leigh:

Christ died for the reprobate in five ways:

1. By way of proclamation, remission of sins is proclaimed to thee if thou will believe, Luke 24:47, Acts 13:38 and 10:43.

2. By way of obligation, you are bound to believe that your sins may be forgiven thee in Christ, Mark 1:15, Rom 7:2.

3. By way of obsignation.

4. By way of general merit, John 3:16.

5. By way of special intention, for all that thou knowest, Acts 8:22, Mr Fenner’s Hidden Manner.

Some say, all men under the dispensation of the New Testament, are reconciled to God through Christ, and have received grace to be converted if they will, and they ground this on Acts 2:17, and such places. The universal term is there used to imply the distinction of nations with the Lord; the Jews only were his before.

Edward Leigh, A Systeme or Body of Divinity (London: Printed by A.M. for William Lee at the Signe of the Turks-head in Fleet-street over against Fetter-lane, 1662), 602. [Some spelling modernized; some reformatting; italics original.]

[Note: 1) Edward Leigh, himself, was not a classic-moderate Calvinist, otherwise known in modern secondary source literature as Hypothetical Universalism; c.f., Body of Divinity, “To The Reader, a4-5 or pages 3-4 (pages manually numbered). 2) Leigh is effectively paraphrasing Fenner’s five ways in which Christ died for all men. But, whereas, Fenner was a moderate-classic Calvinist, Leigh was not.]

Du Moulin:

VIII. We do very much differ from this opinion: We acknowledge that Christ died for all; but we deny, that by his death salvation and forgiveness of sin is obtained for all men: Or that reconciliation is made for Cain, Pharaoh, Saul, Judas, &c. Neither do we think that remission of sins is obtained for any one, whose sins are not remitted; or that salvation was purchased for him, whom God from eternity has decreed to condemn: for this were a vain purchase. We deny that election is after the death of Christ, as for many other causes, for also because Christ in the very agony of death gave a notable proof of election in these, whose heart he affected, and enlightened his mind after an immutable manner; the other these being left and neglected. And seeing that Christ does every where say that he died for his sheep, and for those whom his Father gave him, he does sufficiently declare that he died for the elect.

IX. And when we say that Christ died for all, we take it thus, to wit, that the death of Christ is sufficient to save whosoever do believe, yea, and that it is sufficient to save all men, if all men in the whole world did believe in him: And that the cause why all men are not saved, is not in the insufficiency of the death of Christ, but in the wickedness and incredulity of men. Finally Christ may be said to reconcile all men to God by his death, after the same manner, that we say that the Sun does enlighten the eyes of all men, although many are blind, many sleep, and many are hid in darkness: Because if all and several men had their eyes, and were awake, and were inn the midst of the light, the light of the Sun were sufficient to enlighten them. Neither is it any doubt but that it may be said, not only that Christ died for all men, but also that all men are saved by Christ, because among men, there is none saved but by Christ: After the same manner, that the Apostle says, 1 Cor. 15.20, that, “all men are made alive by Christ,” because no man is made alive but by him.

Peter Du Moulin, The Anatomy of Arminianism (London: Printed for Nathanael Nevvbery, at the signs of the star in the Popes-Head-Alley, 1635), 198-199. [Some spelling modernized and underlining mine.]

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