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    This language is adopted as representing his own view by Calvin in his Commentaries, as on 1 John 2:2. The same was done by Archbishop Ussher in Nos 22 and 23 of his letters, published by his chaplain Richard Parr. The early Reformed Confessions for the most part emphasized the general phase of the atonement… But as Federal Theology more and more gained currency in the Reformed Churches the special bearing of Christ’s death upon the elect necessarily was thrown more conspicuously into the foreground. For if he died in pursuance of the terms of an eternal covenant with the Father, He must needs have died in some special sense for the elect, who were given to Him by the Father by the terms of that Covenant.

 

A.A. Hodge, “The Consensus of the Reformed Confessions” The Presbyterian Review 5 (1884) pp., 287-298. I found this article as I was researching my Boston paper.

 

I always wondered what confessions he had in mind. There were the obvious biggie of course: The 39 Articles. I know these don’t count as “Reformed” by many out there. In the last couple of years I have found some more. The Second Helvetic. Well I have seen that dismissed as nothing but a personal confession. I find that claim absurd simply because it is not true. The Berne Theses. These were written originally by Berthold Haller and Francis Kolb, and then later revised by Zwingli. I am sure that folk would say something about this as well. The English Confession of Faith written in Geneva in 1556. Again this one doesn’t special bearing count either, even though it was written right under the eye of Calvin. The Heidelberg Catechism. Now that one has to hurt. Of course, it would be “the” single confessional comment that many today would fight tooth and nail to both maintain as representative of Reformed theology, on the one hand, and yet deny its position on the extent of the atonement on the other.

 

Now here’s what, if anyone else out there can identify another Reformation confession, I will give ‘em 5 bucks. :-)

 

All that aside, it is striking that even AA Hodge could see a transition of theology in Reformation thought. His comment implies that Federalism was a post-Calvin development which changed the theological categories of the previous generation. And he is right in keying into Federalism as the prime cause here. I would add, thought, that Federalism itself was built on Lapsarianism. What I call High Federalism could not have arisen apart from Lapsarian categories. And to be clear, when I say Lapsarianism, I don’t mean just supralapsarianism, but the whole lapsarian endeavour. I mean the whole idea of what I call “Ordered Decretalism.” I would argue that neither, Calvin, Bullinger or Zwingli were “lapsarians”, because simply asserting that election is out of the corrupt mass does not make one a lapsarian. In the 19th C, it was only Dabney who likewise rejected the whole idea of an ordered decretalism. It took a long time for me to finally see the wisdom in his rejection (as Christians we need to get out of the realm of the speculative, virtual and decretive, and back into the actual and the concrete).