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

805
the term “passing by,” which is equivalent to preterition or omission;
the Gallican Conf. (ch. XII.) and the Belgic Conf. (ch. XVI.) use the
milder term laisser, relinquere, to leave, namely, in the natural state of
condemnation and ruin. Shedd (Syst. Theol. I. 433) says: “Reprobation
comprises preterition and condemnation or damnation,” and he makes
these distinctions: 1) Preterition is a sovereign act; condemnation is a
judicial act. 2) The reason of preterition is unknown; the reason of
damnation is sin. 3) In preterition God’s action is permissive (inaction
rather than action); in condemnation, God’s action is efficient and
positive. His proof text is Luke 17:34: “The one shall be taken, and the
other shall be left.”
ft828 This is the order given in the Formula Consensus Helvetica, canon IV.
(in Niemeyer, p. 731): “Ita Deus gloriam suam illustrare constituit, ut
decreverit, primo quidem hominem integrum CREARE, tum ejusdem
lapsum PERMITTERE, ac demum ex lapsis quorundam misereri,
adeoque eosdem ELIGERE, alios vero in corrupta massa RELINQUERE,
aeternoque tandem exitio devovere.” This does not go beyond the
limits of Augustinianism. Van Oosterzee errs when he says (Christian
Dogmatics, vol. I. p. 452) that the Form. Cons. Helv. asserts the
supralapsarian view.
ft829 On the distinction, see Beza, Summa totius Christianismi (Opera, I.
170); Limborch, Theol. Christ. IV. 2; Heppe, Dogmatik der evang.
reform. Kirche, pp. 108 sqq., and the curious order of Beza there
printed, as if the order of the divine counsels were a mathematical
problem. The infralapsarian view is milder and passed into most of the
Calvinistic Confessions. The Westminster Confession is a compromise
between the two schools, and puts the fall of Adam under a permissive
decree (ch. V. 4), and yet not under a bare permission, but including it
in the purpose of God, who ordered it for his own glory (VI. 1).
ft830 Inst. III. XXIII. 7 and 8. The passage quoted from Augustin is De
Gen. ad lit., l. VI. c. 15. In Inst. III. ch. XXIV. 12, Calvin uses strong
supralapsarian language: “Those whom God has created to a life of
shame and death (quos in vitae contumeliam et mortis exitium creavit),
that they might be instruments of his wrath, and examples of his
severity, he causes to reach their appointed end; sometimes depriving
them of the opportunity of hearing the Word, sometimes by the
preaching of it increasing their blindness and stupidity.” Then he
illustrates this by examples, especially that of Pharaoh, and the aim of