English Hypothetical Universalism: John Preston and the Softening of Reformed Theology. By JONATHAN D. MOORE.

Abstract

Jonathan Moore's book is a fine example of the new breed of scholarship on Reformed orthodoxy, offering a more balanced and nuanced account of this theological tradition than earlier, twentieth-century studies. Building on other recent scholarship, Moore breaks apart the simplified dichotomy of Calvinists and Arminians in early Stuart England, by showing the diversity of opinion among Calvinist divines. In particular, he examines the rise of a more ‘moderate’ school of Reformed theology in the shape of the hypothetical universalism of John Preston, James Ussher, and John Davenant. His thesis is that the rather severe Elizabethan style of Reformed theology which he sees as embodied in William Perkins, with its supralapsarianism and doctrine that Christ died only for the elect, caused a counter-reaction in (and outside) the Reformed tradition that led Ussher to the development of hypothetical universalism. Ussher's theology influenced Davenant and Preston, while the hostile scrutiny that Davenant faced at the Synod of Dort led him to develop and refine his views considerably, which further influenced Preston. By espousing a universalist view of the atonement—that Christ died genuinely sufficiently for all individual members of humanity—and by arguing that this redemption was in a real sense hypothetically available to reprobates on condition of their responding to the gospel call, these theologians were able to mitigate some of the harsh particularism of much earlier Calvinist theology.