The Compromise of the School of Saumur. The School of Saumur represents an attempt to tone down the rigorous Calvinism of the Synod of Dort, and to avoid at the same time the error of Arminianism. This is seen especially in the work of Amyraldus, who boldly taught a hypothetical universalism, which was really a species of universal atonement. God willed by an antecedent decree that all men should be saved on condition of repentance and faith in Jesus Christ. He therefore sent Christ into the world to die for all men. But seeing that, left to themselves, none would repent and believe, He by a subsequent decree elected some as the objects of the saving operation of His grace. These and these only are actually saved. The outcome proved this to be an untenable position. Of the followers of this school some emphasized the first decree and the universal offer of salvation based on it, with the result that they landed in the Arminian camp; and others stressed the second decree and the necessity of effectual grace, and thus returned to the Calvinistic position. The views of the School of Saumur were practically shared by Davenant, Calamy, and especially Richard Baxter, in England. Its peculiar opinions gave occasion for the construction of the Formula Consensus Helvetica by Turretin and Heidegger, in which these views are combatted.

Louis Berkhof, The History of Christian Doctrines (William. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1949), 195.

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