Even the Declaration agreed upon between the University of Cambridge and the Archbishop of Canterbury on the 17th Article of the “Anglican Confession,” the so-called Lambeth Article of 1595, which (contrary to the official version) expressly held that there was also predestination to eternal death, was not ratified by the Queen. The Radicals (as in Hanserd Knolly’s Confession) laid special emphasis on the express predestination to death (not only the admission of damnation, as the milder doctrine would have it). ↩
“Westminster Confession,” fifth official edition, London, 1717. Compare the Savoy and the (American) Hanserd Knolly’s Declarations. On predestination and the Huguenots see, among others, Polenz, I, pp. 545 ff. ↩
On Milton’s theology see the essay of Eibach in the Theologische Studien und Kritiken, 1879. Macaulay’s essay on it, on the occasion of Sumner’s translation of the Doctrina Christiana, rediscovered in 1823 (Tauchnitz edition, 185, pp. 1 ff.), is superficial. For more detail see the somewhat too schematic six-volume English work of Masson, and the German biography of Milton by Stern which rests upon it. Milton early began to grow away from the doctrine of predestination in the form of the double decree, and reached a wholly free Christianity in his old age. In his freedom from the tendencies of his own time he may in a certain sense be compared to Sebastian Franck. Only Milton was a practical and positive person, Franck predominantly critical. Milton is a Puritan only in the broader sense of the rational organization of his life in the world in accordance with the divine will, which formed the permanent inheritance of later times from Calvinism. Franck could be called a Puritan in much the same sense. Both, as isolated figures, must remain outside our investigation. ↩
“Hic est fides summus gradus; credere Deum esse clementum, qui tarn paucos salvat, justum, qui sua voluntate nos damnabiles facit,” is the text of the famous passage in De servo arbitrio. ↩
The truth is that both Luther and Calvin believed fundamentally in a double God (see Ritschl’s remarks in Geschichte des Pietismus and Kostlin, “Gott” in Realenzyklopädie für protestantische Theologie und Kirche, third edition), the gracious and kindly Father of the New Testament, who dominates the first books of the Institutio Christiana, and behind him the Deus absconditus as an arbitrary despot. For Luther, the God of the New Testament kept the upper hand, because he avoided reflection on metaphysical questions as useless and dangerous, while for Calvin the idea of a transcendental God won out. In the popular development of Calvinism, it is true, this idea could not be maintained, but what took his place was not the Heavenly Father of the New Testament but the Jehovah of the Old. ↩
Compare on the following: Scheibe, Calvins Prädestinationslehre (Halle, 1897). On Calvinistic theology in general, Heppe, Dogmatik der evangelisch-reformierten Kirche (Elberfeld, 1861). ↩
Corpus Reformatorurm, LXXVII, pp. 186 ff. ↩
The preceding exposition of the Calvinistic doctrine can be found in much the same form as here given, for instance in Hoornbeek’s Theologia practica (Utrecht, 1663), L. II, c. I; “de predestinatione,” the section stands characteristically directly under the heading “De Deo.” The Biblical foundation for it is principally the first chapter of the Epistle to the Ephesians. It is unnecessary for us here to analyse the various inconsistent attempts to combine with the predestination and providence of God the responsibility and free will of the individual. They began as early as in Augustine’s first attempt to develop the doctrine. ↩
“The deepest community (with God) is found not in institutions or corporations or churches, but in the secrets of a solitary heart,” as Dowden puts the essential point in his fine book Puritan and Anglican (p. 234). This deep spiritual loneliness of the individual applied as well to the Jansenists of Port Royal, who were also predestinationists. ↩
“Contra qui huiusmodi ccetum [namely a Church which maintains a pure doctrine, sacraments, and Church discipline] contemnunt … salutis suae certi esse non possunt; et qui in illo contemtu perseverat electus non est.” Olevian, De substantia foederis, p. 222. ↩
“It is said that God sent His Son to save the human race, but that was not His purpose. He only wished to help a few out of their degradation—and I say unto you that God died only for the elect” (sermon held in 1609 at Broek, near Rogge, Wtenbogaert, II, p. 9. Compare Nuyens, Geschiedenis der kerkelijke en politieke geschillen in de republiek der zeven vereenigde provincien (Amsterdam, 1886), II, p. 232). The explanation of the role of Christ is also confused in Hanserd Knolly’s Confession. It is everywhere assumed that God did not need His instrumentality. ↩
Entzauberung der Welt. On this process see the other essays in my Wirtschaftsethik der Weltreligionen. The peculiar position of the old Hebrew ethic, as compared with the closely related ethics of Egypt and Babylon, and its development after the time of the prophets, rested, as is
