Schaff - History of the Christian Church Vol. 8 - Media Sabda Org

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rest of mankind in their inherited state of condemnation, and reveals in the
everlasting punishment of the wicked the glory of his awful justice.
The Lutheran system is a compromise between Augustinianism and Semi-
Pelagianism. Luther himself was fully agreed with Augustin on total
depravity and predestination, and stated the doctrine of the slavery of the
human will even more forcibly and paradoxically than Augustin or
Calvin. f814 But the Lutheran Church followed him only half way. The
Formula of Concord (1577) adopted his doctrine of total depravity in the
strongest possible terms, but disclaimed the doctrine of reprobation; it
represents the natural man as spiritually dead like “a stone” or “a block,”
and teaches a particular and unconditional election, but also an universal
vocation. f815
The Augustinian system was unknown in the ante-Nicene age, and was
never accepted in the Eastern Church. This is a strong historical argument
against it. Augustin himself developed it only during the Pelagian
controversy; while in his earlier writings he taught the freedom of the
human will against the fatalism of the Manichaeans. f816 It triumphed in the
Latin Church over Pelagianism and Semi-Pelagianism, which were mildly
condemned by the Synod of Orange (529). But his doctrine of an absolute
predestination, which is only a legitimate inference from his
anthropological premises, was indirectly condemned by the Catholic
Church in the Gottschalk controversy (853), and in the Jansenist
controversy (1653), although the name and authority of the great doctor
and saint were not touched.
The Calvinistic system was adopted by a large portion of the Reformed
Church, and has still able and earnest advocates. Calvin himself is now
better understood, and more highly respected by scholars (French and
German) than ever before; but his predestinarian system has been
effectively opposed by the Arminians, the Quakers, and the Methodists,
and is undergoing a serious revision in the Presbyterian and Calvinistic
Churches of Europe and America.
The Augustinian, Lutheran, and Calvinistic systems rest on the same
anthropology, and must stand or fall together with the doctrine of the
universal damnation of the whole human race on the sole ground of
Adam’s sin, including infants and entire nations and generations which
never heard of Adam, and which cannot possibly have been in him as selfconscious
and responsible beings. f817 They have alike to answer the