and a forerunner of Socinianism and Rationalism, was received by Calvin into his house at Strasburg (1540), and called by him to the head of the college at Geneva (Sept., 1541), but was refused admission to the clergy on account of his 'profane view' of the Canticles, which he regarded as a sensual love-song. These and other theological differences caused his resignation or dismissal from the school, though with an honorable letter of recommendation from Calvin (Feb. 17, 1545). He removed with his family to Basle, and spent there the remainder of his life-for eight years in great poverty, supporting himself by literary and manual labor, then as professor of Greek in the University (since 1553). His principal work is a Latin transla tion of the Bible (1551), which was much praised and censured for its pedantic Ciceronian elegance. He attacked Calvin and the Church of Geneva very bitterly in anonymous and pseudonymous books, to which Calvin and Beza replied with equal bitterness. In his 'Dialogue on Predestination,' he charges Calvin with making God the author of sin, and dividing the will of God into two contradictory wills. His own view is that all men are alike created in God's image and for salvation, and are by nature the sons and heirs of God; but that final salvation depends upon faith and perseverance. God loves even his enemies, else he could not command us to love them, and would be worse than the wild beast, which loves its own offspring. God's foreknowledge involves no necessity of human actions: things happen, not because God foreknew them, but God foreknew them because they were to happen. God wills a thing because it is right, and not vice versa. He reasons as if there were an established moral order outside and independent of God. He compares God to a musician who unites two tunes because they harmonize. Christ came as a physician to heal all the sick, and if some remain sick it is because they refuse the medicine. The famous passage about Jacob and Esau (Rom. ix.) does not refer to these individuals (for Jacob never served Esau), but to the nations which proceeded from them; and 'to hate' means only 'to love less ;' moreover, Esau was not foreordained to sell his birthright, but he did this by his own guilt. Paul himself says

1 'Carmen lascivum et obscœnum, quo Salomo impudicos suos amores descripserit.' Castellio doubted the verbal inspiration, and called the Greek of the New Testament impure.

that God will have all men to be saved, and that 'he concluded all in unbelief, that he might have mercy upon all.' Castellio died a few months before Calvin, without leaving a school behind him; but his ideas were afterwards more fully developed by the Socinians and Arminians.'

Notwithstanding these difficulties, the doctrine of predestination made headway in the Reformed Church. It was strongly advo cated in Zurich by Peter Martyr. His opponent, Theodor Bibliander (Buchmann), a distinguished Orientalist, the father of exegetical theology in Switzerland,' and a forerunner of Arminianism, was removed from his professorship of Hebrew on account of his advocacy of free-will (1560), though his salary was continued to his death (1564).2 The dogma of predestination consolidated the Calvinistic creed, as the dogma of consubstantiation consolidated the Lutheran creed. Both these distinctive dogmas maintained their hold on the two Churches until the theological revolution towards the close of the eighteenth century began to undermine the whole fabric of Protestant orthodoxy and to clear the way for new creations.

61. THE HELVETIC CONSENSUS FORMULA. A.D. 1675.

Literature.

I. FORMULA CONSENSUS ECCLESIARUM HELVETICARUM REFORMATARUM, circa Doctrinam de Gratia universali et connexa, aliaque nonnulla capita (Einhellige Formul der reform, eidg. Kirchen, betreffend die Lehre von der allgemeinen Gnad und was derselben anhanget, sodann auch etliche andere Religionspunkten). Composed A.D. 1675; first printed at Zurich, 1714, as an appendix to the Second Helvetic Coufession; then 1718, 1722, etc., in Latin and German. The official copy, in both languages, is in the archives of Zurich. The Latin text has a place in Niemeyer's Collectio, pp. 729-739; the German text in Böckel, pp. 348–360. The writings of AMYRAUT, CAPPEL, and LA PLACE; their friends, PAUL TESTARD, JEAN Daillé, and DAVID BLONDEL; their opponents, Pierre du Moulin, FR. SPANHEIM, and ANDRE RIVET; and the decisions of the Synods of ALENÇON, CHARENTON, and LOUDON (1637-1659). See below.

II. J. JAC. HOTTINGER (d. 1735): Succincta et solida ac genuina Formulæ Consensus... historia, Latin and German, 1723. By the same: Helvetische Kirchengeschichte, Zurich, Theil III. pp. 1086 sqq.; IV, pp. 258, 268 sqq.

BAYLE: Dict. art. Amyraut.

CH. M. PFAFF: Dissertatio histor, theologica de Formula Consensus Helv. Tübingen, 1723.

J. RUD. SALCHLI: Stricturæ et observationes in Pfaffii dissertationem de F. C. Bern, 1723.

(BARNAUD): Mémoires pour servir à l'histoire des troubles arrivées en Suisse à l'occasion du Consensus. Amsterd. 1726.

WALCH: Religionsstreitigkeiten ausserhalb der luth. Kirche, Jena, 1733, Vol. I. pp. 454 sqq.; III. pp. 736

HAGENBACH: Kritische Gesch. der ersten Basler Confession. Basle, 1827, pp. 173 8qq.

ALEX SCHWEIZER: Die Protest. Centraldogmen in ihrer Entwicklung innerhalb der Reformirten Kirche. Zweite Hälfte (Zurich, 1856), pp. 439-563. By the same: Die Enstehung der helvetischen Consensus-Formel,

1On Castellio, see Schweizer, Centraldogmen, Vol. I. pp. 310-373, and his essay, S. Castellio als Bestreiter der calvinischen Prädestinationslehre, in the Theol. Jahrbücher of Baur and Zeller, 1851.

'See Schweizer, pp. 276 sqq.

aus Zürich's Specialgeschichte näher beleuchtet, in Niedner's Zeitschrift für histor. Theologie vor 1860, pp. 122-148 (gives an extract from the MS. of J. H. Heidegger's Gründliche und wahrhaftige Historie). Comp. also Schweizer's art. Amyraut, in Herzog's Real-Encykl. 2d ed. Vol. I. pp. 356-361; and on the Life and Writings of Amyraut, in the Tübinger Theol Jahrbücher for 1852.

F. TRECHSEL: Helvetische Consensus-Formel, in Herzog's Real-Encyklop. 2d ed. Vol. V. pp. 755–764 (partly based on MS. sources).

GUST. FRANK: Geschichte der Protestant. Theologie, Leipz. 1865, Vol. II. pp. 35 sqq.

AUG. EBRARD: Kirchen- und Dogmengeschichte, Vol. III. (1866), pp. 538 sqq. and 552 sqq. Also his art. on Amyraldism (against Schweizer), in the Reform, Kirchenzeitung for 1853, No. 27 sqq.

The Helvetic Consensus Formula (Formula Consensus Helvetica) is the last doctrinal Confession of the Reformed Church of Switzerland, and closes the period of Calvinistic creeds. It has been called a 'symbolical after-birth.' It was composed in 1675, one hundred and eleven years after Calvin's death, by Professor JOHN HENRY HEI DEGGER, of Zurich (1633-1698),' at the request and with the co-operation of the Rev. LUCAS GERNLER, of Basle (d. 1675), and Professor FRANCIS TURRETIN, of Geneva (1623-1687). It never extended its authority beyond Switzerland, but it is nevertheless a document of considerable importance and interest in the history of Protestant the ology. It is a defense of the scholastic Calvinism of the Synod of Dort against the theology of Saumur (Salmurium), especially against the universalism of Amyraldus. Hence it may be called a Formula anti-Salmuriensis, or anti-Amyraldensis.

THE SYNOD OF DORT AND THE THEOLOGY OF SAUMUR.

The Twenty-third National Synod of the Reformed Church in France, held at Alais, Oct. 1, 1620, adopted the Canons of Dort (1619), as being in full harmony with the Word of God and the French Confession of 1559, and bound all ministers and elders by a solemn oath to defend them to the last breath. The Twenty-fourth National Synod at Charenton, September, 1623, reaffirmed this adoption.3

But in the theological academy at Saumur, founded by the cele

1 Author of Concilii Tridentini Anatome historico-theologica; Enchiridion Biblicum; Historia sacra patriarcharum; and Histoire du Papisme.

Author of the Institutio theologica elenchthicæ (1679–85), which still keeps its place among the best systems of Calvinistic theology. New edition, Edinburgh and New York, 1847, in four volumes. His son, John Alphonsus (1671-1737), Professor of Church History in Geneva, was inclined to Arminianism, and advocated toleration. See Schweizer, Centraldogmen, Vol. II. pp. 784 8qq.

3

Aymon, Tous les Synodes nationaux des églises réformées de France. A la Haye, 1710, Vol. II. pp. 183, 298; Schweizer, l. c. pp. 229 sqq.

brated Reformed statesman Du Plessis Mornay (1604), there arose a more liberal school, headed by three contemporary professorsJOSUÉ DE LA PLACE (PLACEUS, 1596-1655), LOUIS CAPPEL (CAPELLUS, 1585-1658), and MOYSE AMYRAUT (MOSES AMYRALDUS, 1596-1664)— which, without sympathizing with Arminianism, departed from the rigid orthodoxy then prevailing in the Lutheran and Reformed Churches on three points-the verbal inspiration of the Scriptures, the particular predestination, and the imputation of Adam's sin.

Saumur acquired under these leaders great celebrity, and attracted many students from Switzerland. It became for the Reformed Church of France what Helmstädt, under the lead of Calixtus, was for the Lutheran Church in Germany; and the Helvetic Consensus Formula of Heidegger may be compared to the Consensus repetitus' of Calovius (1664), which was intended to be a still more rigorous symbolical protest against Syncretism, although it failed to receive any public recognition.1

The further development of the Saumur theology was arrested by the political oppression which culminated in the cruel revocation of the Edict of Nantes by Louis XIV. (1685), and aimed at the utter annihilation of the Reformed Church in France. But its ideas have silently made progress, and were independently revived in more recent times.

VERBAL INSPIRATION.

Lonis Cappel, the most distinguished of an eminent Huguenot family, and one of the first Biblical scholars of the seventeenth century, made the history of the text of the Hebrew Scriptures his special study, and arrived at conclusions which differed from the orthodox theory of a literal inspiration. He discovered and proved that the Hebrew system of vocalization did not date from Adam, nor from Moses, nor from Ezra and the Great Synagogue, but from the Jewish grammarians after the completion of the Babylonian Talmud.2 This

1

See p. 351, and Schweizer's comparison of the two documents, Vol. II. pp. 532 sqq. 'Arcanum punctationis revelatum,' added to his Commentarii et notæ critica in Vetus Testamentum, Amst. 1689. Cappel wrote this tract in 1622, and sent the MS. to the elder Buxtorf. of Basle (d. 1629), who returned it with the advice to keep back his view. It was first published anonymously by Erpenius at Leyden, 1624. Twenty years afterwards Buxtorf the younger (d. 1664) attacked it in his Tractatus de punctorum origine, antiquitate et autoritate, Basil. 1648. Against this Cappel wrote his Vindicia Arcani punctat. revel., but

view is confirmed by the absence of vowels on Jewish coins, on the Phoenician and Punic monuments, on the inscription of the Moabite stone (discovered 1868), and by the analogy of the other Semitic languages. Cappel unsettled also the traditional view of the literal integrity and sacredness of the Masoretic text, and showed that the different readings (Keri and Ktib), while they had no bearing on faith and morals, and therefore could not undermine the authority of the Scriptures, are not to be traced to willful corruption, but must be consulted, together with the ancient translations, in ascertaining the true text.'

These views, which are now generally accepted among Biblical scholars, met with violent opposition. Even the Buxtorfs, father and son, at Basle, who immortalized themselves by their rabbinical learning, advocated the divine inspiration of the Hebrew vowels. The Protestant orthodoxy of the seventeenth century, both Calvinistic and Lutheran, was very sensitive on this point, because it substituted an infallible Bible for an infallible papacy; while the Roman orthodoxy cared much more for the divine authority of the Church than for that of the Scriptures.

UNIVERSAL AND PARTICULAR PREDESTINATION.

Moses Amyrant, originally a lawyer, but converted to the study of theology by the reading of Calvin's 'Institutes,' an able divine and voluminous writer, developed the doctrine of hypothetical or conditional universalism, for which his teacher, John Cameron (15801625), a Scotchman, and for two years Professor at Saumur, had prepared the way. His object was not to set aside, but to moderate and liberalize Calvinism by ingrafting this doctrine upon the particularism of election, and thereby to fortify it against the objections of Romanists, by whom the French Protestants were surrounded and threatened. Being employed by the Reformed Synod in important

they were not published till 1689, by his son, Jacques C., in an Appendix to his Commentary. His views on the late origin of the Hebrew vowels were anticipated by rabbinical scholars, Abn-Ezra (d. 1174) and Elias Levita (d. 1549).

1775-86.

Critica sacra, etc., Paris, 1650, folio; another edition, by Vogel, in three volumes, Halle, The work was finished October, 1634, but the printing was delayed by the opposition of the Protestants until his son, Jean Cappel, who seceded to the Roman Church, procured a royal privilege for its publication in Paris.