We are not anticredobaptists. Within this year, this members church received a woman who was raised in a non-Christian home. Upon public profession of Christ, she was sprinkled with water as the sign of her initiation into the covenant. And the head organist in this same church is a convert from Judaism. We rejoice in the credobaptisms of all our members not baptized as infants.
Nor are we opposed to debate. Before our Brethren friend, folk_rocker_42, went berserk and got his own thread deleted, Seedy sparred with us on reformed eschatology (recall our "Gospel Age Millennium and the Great Commission" post). BUT NOTEthat was on a general debate forum.
One point should put beyond dispute that the Canons of Dort alone do not define reformed faith. The Canons make not one reference to "justification by faith" or "justified by faith." It is mentioned in the French Confession (Article 20), Belgic Confession (Art 22) and the 2nd Helvetic Confession (Arts 12, 15). It is also the battle cry of the reformation. The Canons of Dort mention it not once. So if the "five points" define reformed theology, then "justification by faith" must stand with other doctrines that some consider debatableas infant baptism, so-called a-millennial eschatology and reformed ecclesiology. How is a board "reformed" if justification by faith is not a given?
If a Roman Catholic member who adheres to St. Augustine doctrine of grace posts that we are severed from Christ because we break fellowship from his Vicar and the Church of Romedo we let that stand? If (as some say) reformed theology has no church doctrine (read the confessions, people), on what basis can we hinder that? So long as one holds St. Augustine doctrine of grace, they must be allowed to post on our own board that we are severed from Christs church. Yet we are to believe that the Canons of Dort are THE definitive reformed confession??? That wont do!
If premises that our reformed confessions declare to be marks of a false church are held as open questions, then the most knowledgeable, consistent and contentiously reformed CF members are denied a home exactly because they subscribe to the confessions of the magisterial reformers. That wont work; and people who cant grasp that really need to ponder what this says about the depth and accuracy of their perception of classical reformed dogmatics. For whether considered in a confessional, historical or theological light, reformed faith necessarily entails far more than the famed "five points" set down in this late-comer to the reformed confessional family.
The Huguenots published the French Confession (prepared under Calvins eye) in 1559a full 60 years before synod met to consider the Arminian remonstrance! By 1563, the Belgic and 2nd Helvetic Confessions and the Heidelberg Catechism had all been published. Had Arminius followers not prepared their 1610 remonstrance, the Canons would not have been written to this day! Does that mean there would be no reformed theology? Reformed churches across Europe were using these confessions for nearly six decades before anyone heard of the "five points."
Calvin himself never heard of the "five points!" He died 55 years before the Canons were written! Yet we are to believe that this one latecomer to the reformed confessional family, the Canons of Dort are THE criterion by which reformed theology is to be defined??? Was Calvin not reformed? Those who cant see the problem here may not be the ones that we want to define our theology.
"Particular-Baptist" theology changes very significantly the way that the "five points" are held. Dr. John Gill illustrates this problem. He surely claimed the five points! He even intensified the third point saying not merely that satisfaction was efficient for the elect only, it was also sufficient for the sins of the elect only. This radical sense of election let Gill see the entire order of salvation as taking place in eternity. Justification and adoption were now external acts of God. All that took place in time was the enactment of the decree. So now, no temporal order of grace was needed. As a result, the sacraments could be seen as mere ordinances. Baptism was administered only to adults and then merely to show than that Gods external decree had been executed in them.
The logic of such theology is to see Gods electing grace an unmediated bolt from the blue. No one knows where it may strike. On Gills terms, grace and salvation can occur just as easily on a desert island. This view of election offers precious little consolation that one is elect whether by sharing in the covenanting community (including the voluntarily gathered church) or on the basis of belief or conduct. Always one may ask if one has sufficiently repented with sufficient sincerity.
Very different is the unconditional election and irresistible grace of the five points of the Canons of Dort. Reformed theology not only identifies Gods grace as unmerited, it also locates the primary working of that grace specifically in the covenanting community. Addressing the untimely death of infants sired by believing parents, the Canons of Dort in Head 1, Article 17 say:
"...the will of God from His Word...testifies that the children of believers are holy...in virtue of the covenant of grace, in which they together with the parents are comprehended. Godly parents ought not to doubt the election and salvation of their children...(Gen. 17:7; Acts 2:39; I Cor. 7:14)."
The issue of infant salvation turns not on "age of accountability" theory (which Calvin rejectedRo 5:14) but on their unconditional inclusion in the covenant of grace by election with their parents.
We read that the marks of the church have no relevance to the five points. How odd! As they discuss our irresistible conversion to God, the Canons of Dort in Heads 3/4, Article 17 say:
"...the...operation of God by which we are regenerated
[is mediated] by the holy admonitions of the gospel, under the influence of the Word, the sacraments, and ecclesiastical discipline."
What earlier reformed confessions declare to be marks of the churchthe Word, the sacraments and church disciplinethe Canons of Dort identify as the means by which Gods grace irresistibly works in the manner of our conversion. So clearly, synod saw that the marks of the church ARE relevant to reformed soteriology. Anyone who has actually read the Canons of Dort knows that.
Spurning the marks of the church as early confessions define them, we can hardly embrace them where the Canons of Dort apply them as the manner by which God irresistibly converts the elect. "Particularistic-Baptists" do have A doctrine of irresistible grace. But it most assuredly is not THE irresistible grace of the five points of the Canons or of the confessions that the reformers gave us.
Moreover, the Canons of Dort also present the grace that works irresistible for our perseverance specifically in the marks of the churchthe word, sacrament and church discipline. The reformed doctrine of perseverance is declared this way in Head 5 Article 14 of the Canons of Dort:
"As it has pleased God...to begin this work of grace in us, so He preserves, continues, and perfects it by the hearing and reading of His Word, by meditation thereon, and by the exhortations, threatenings, and promises thereof, and by the use of the sacraments."
How then does God preserve and perfect his saints? It is by his work of grace by his Word, by its exhortations, threatenings and promises (those being the content of ecclesiastical disciplineAct 20:31; 1Co 4:14; 2Co 2:1-8; 13:2; 2Th 3:15; 1Ti 5:20; 2Ti 2:14; Ti 2:10; etc.) and the sacraments.
So the unconditional election, irresistible grace and perseverance of the Canons are ministered in the covenanting community that is defined by the marks of the church (including infant baptism), and they are ministered by those marks. Denying the administration of grace as so defined by the Canons of Dort is not upholding reformed theology. One may do this and still have A doctrine of unconditional election, A doctrine of irresistible grace and A doctrine of perseverance. But these most assuredly are not the unconditional election, the irresistible grace and the perseverance of the five points of the Canons of Dort as they expound the theology of our reformed confessions.
We read that the essence of reformed faith is defined not by the earlier confessions but solely by the doctrines of the Canons of Dort. How odd! In the concluding remarks to the Canons we read:
"...this synod of Dort in the name of the Lord pleads with all who devoutly call on the name of our Savior Jesus Christ to form their judgment about the faith of the Reformed churches...on the basis of the churches own official confessions and of the present explanation...which has been endorsed by the unanimous consent of the members of the whole synod, one and all."
Again, anyone who cares enough actually to bother reading the Canons knows that they define "the" faith of the Reformed churches in reference to earlier "official confessions" and the Canons together. Thatso says the synod and Canons of Dortis "the faith of the Reformed churches."
Members open to participation apart from subscription to the reformed confessions already are rejecting parts of the Canons which (as they show) alters significantly how we hold our faith. If the Canons are not accepted in totality, it then becomes necessary to rule which parts are critical to reformed faith. The Canons are 22 pages long and have four Heads (Heads 3 & 4 are combined) each of which has articles and a "Rejection of Errors" section. There are in all 59 articles and 34 "Rejection of Errors" paragraphs. Have non-subscription advocates any plan for deciding which articles and paragraphs are essential to reformed faith and which should be ruled inoperative? Does their plan also say who will decide this and on what basis said decisions are to be made?
That isnt about to happen! Even if it did, we would still have something very different than Dort. If we reject the Dort doctrine of the manner in which Gods grace works to convert and preserve the elect irresistibly, the churchly covenant in which that grace works, and the official confessions that the Canons clarify and by which they define reformed faiththen just exactly how "reformed" are we? To what extent are we in actually agreement with the theology of Dort? And not having read the Canons, how would we know whether or to what extent we do agree with that theology?
Our earlier post listed representative areas of dispute with those who in their own sense embrace the Canons of DortGods work among his people, hermeneutics, philosophy of ministry, practice of spirituality, eschatology, etc. Unless participation is based on subscription to the theological system of the magisterial reformers, this board will only recreate and rehash those same, core, philosophical debates in context of these and other unnamed issues. In the process, the board itself will degenerate inexorably into a general forum where no doctrine is safe. Even the Canons of Dort will be open for debate. Indeed those who resist subscription show already that they do not hold the Canons of Dort to the same meaning or effect as synod that wrote them.
The direction in which non-subscription takes us is this: The one standard for forum participation will be the acronym "TULIP" when "TULIP" is defined by second rate (at the very best) writers who (like some here) show that they have never actually read the Canons. And if "TULIP" on their definition has some similarity reformed faith, it will be a version of "Calvinism" that no reformer, no reformed confession or denomination, and no competent reformed historian or dogmatician or professor of theology has ever held. Indeed this brand of "Calvinism" would have seen our CF members ejected from Geneva had they arrived there anytime in the mid 16th or 17th century.
We are not discussing "two ways" to be reformed. This is like comparing gold to fools gold. These two theological systems bear some similarities. But analyzed for the core truths of the churchly marks that give the five points their import and only one is found to be genuine. Now more than ever, the church needs a stable and cogent theological system in which the great doctrines of God stand forth with beauty and glory. Reformed theology does this. In contrast is an eclectic collage of beliefs in which some semblance to the Canons of Dort exists as a mere soteriological eccentricity. Why would anyone committed to reformed faith receive that?
Will there be a reformed board? In a word"not without our confessions."
On other CF boards not for general debate, theological affinity is requisite for full participation. Do the same here. All the reformers and the confessions that address the issue make the sacrament, including infant baptism, an essential marks of the church. All the reformers and our confessions agree that God lays infant baptism upon us and that the neglect of it is a serious sin. Challenges to this and other doctrines as summed in the confessions of the magisterial reformers belong on open boards or on the board reflecting the theological affinity of the post. They do not belong on a board that is designated for reformed faith.
Antipadeobaptist posts belong on the Baptist forum or on an open board. Soteriological posts belong on the soteriological board or the board of member affinity. So also, full participation on a reformed board expects subscription to the classical reformed dogmatic systems as they are set forth in the confessions of the magisterial reformers. Without this, the CF structure means naught.
We are glad to wait patiently for a ruling that participation on the reformed board requires subscription to reformed theology as defined by the confessions of the magisterial reformers.
As we wait, we suggest that CF members ponder this final question:
Who is more qualified to define reformed faiththe synodical delegates who wrote the Canons of Dort, or CF members who list exceptions to the Canons without so much as having read them?
Blessings!
Covenant Heart
