Reformed Covenanter
Cancelled Commissioner
... But from the recently published Minutes of the Westminster Assembly, it plainly appears that some of the Westminster divines personally held the wider view which had been set forth by the English delegates at the Synod of Dordt. They allowed the stricter view to go into the Confession; and no doubt the mass of its authors, when tabulating this view, would feel that it could not be pressed, as a doctrinal term of office, with the same rigour as if it had been one of the universally-received fundamentals of Catholic Christianity.
But we, inheriting their statement, and not having as churches gone through their previous process of ascertainment, are very apt to forget this, and to think and act as if the statement had been emitted unanimously and without hesitation—a result undesirable, were it only on this account, that in every generation of Calvinists there will be some who have such hesitation about exclusively particular redemption as was experienced by some Westminster divines, and that we ought to regard them with intelligent sympathy. ...
For more, see James MacGregor on the Westminster Confession and Strict Particularism.
N.B. While I agree with Professor MacGregor on the theological correctness of strict particularism, I do not agree with his assessment of the historical question concerning the Westminster Confession and hypothetical universalism.
But we, inheriting their statement, and not having as churches gone through their previous process of ascertainment, are very apt to forget this, and to think and act as if the statement had been emitted unanimously and without hesitation—a result undesirable, were it only on this account, that in every generation of Calvinists there will be some who have such hesitation about exclusively particular redemption as was experienced by some Westminster divines, and that we ought to regard them with intelligent sympathy. ...
For more, see James MacGregor on the Westminster Confession and Strict Particularism.
N.B. While I agree with Professor MacGregor on the theological correctness of strict particularism, I do not agree with his assessment of the historical question concerning the Westminster Confession and hypothetical universalism.
