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

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Protestants. Calvin discusses it at length in his Inst. (Bk. I. ch. VII. §
3), and tries to deprive it of its anti-Protestant force, but he admits it in
the sense that “the authority of the Church is an introduction to prepare
us for the faith of the gospel.”
ft814 De Servo Arbitrio, against Erasmus (1526). He never retracted this
book, but declared it many years afterwards to be one of his best. He
was followed by Amsdorf, Flacius, Wigand, and Brenz. See Church
History, vol. VI. 430 sqq.; Koestlin, Luther’s Theologie, I. 773 sqq.;
Luthardt, Dogmatik, p. 120 (6th ed.), and his Lehre vom freien Willen;
Harnack, Dogmengeschichte, III. 714 sq.; and Loofs, Leitfaden zum
Studium der Dogmengeschichte, 2d ed. Halle, 1890, pp. 322-324, and
317-350.
ft815 See Schaff, Creeds of Christendom, I. 313 sqq.; and the works on the
Formula Concordiae.
ft816 Calvin was well aware of Augustin’s change on this point. “Origen,
Ambrose, and Jerome,” he says, “believed that God dispenses his grace
among men, according to his foreknowledge of the good use which
every individual will make of it. Augustin also was once of the same
sentiment, but when he had made a greater proficiency in scriptural
knowledge, he not only retracted, but powerfully confuted it.” Then he
quotes in proof a number of passages. Inst. III. ch. XXII. § 8.
ft817 Augustin based his view of a quasi pre-existence of all men in the loins
of Adam on a false exegesis of Rom. 5:12, ejn w||, by following the
Vulgate rendering in quo (in whom), and referring it back to Adam;
while it has the meaning because (ejpi; tou>tw| o{ti = dio>ti), or on
condition that (ejpi; tou>tw| w{ste, ea ratione ut, inasmuch as). It is
neuter, not masculine. On the exegesis of that famous passage, and the
doctrinal discussions on it, see my extensive notes in Lange’s Comm.
on Romans, pp. 172 sqq.
ft818 The essential agreement of the Reformers on the doctrine of free-will
and predestination has been proven by scholars of different schools, as
Jul. Mueller (Lutheri doctrina de praedestinatione et libero arbitrio,
and in his Dogmatische Abhandlungen, pp. 169-179), Hundeshagen
(Conflicte des Zwinglianismus, Lutherthums, und Calvinismus in der
Bernischen Landeskirche von 1532-1558), Baur (Der Gegensatz des
Katholicismus und Protestantismus, and in hisDogmengeschichte),