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Swimming with the Reformed Tide: John Forbes of Corse (1593–1648) on Double Predestination and Particular Redemption

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 January 2015

AARON CLAY DENLINGER
AARON CLAY DENLINGER*
Affiliation:
Reformation Bible College, Sanford, FL 32771, USA; e-mail: aaron.denlinger@gmail.com
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Abstract

The 1640 General Assembly of the Kirk, dominated by Covenanters, was keen to discover something amiss in the doctrine of the Episcopalian John Forbes of Corse. Ultimately they were forced to admit his orthodoxy, even while deposing him for his refusal to subscribe the National Covenant. Modern scholars have succeeded where Forbes's contemporary antagonists failed, representing Forbes as the champion of a party that was, to one degree or another, out of step with the Calvinist orthodoxy of the day. This article examines Forbes's theology at points where his disagreement with contemporary reformed thought has been claimed, and draws implications from its findings for our knowledge and understanding of seventeenth-century Scottish theology more broadly.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Ecclesiastical History , Volume 66 , Issue 1 , January 2015 , pp. 67 - 89
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2015 

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References

1 Gordon, James, History of Scots affairs, from 1637 to 1641, Aberdeen 1841, iii. 232Google Scholar.

2 On the Aberdeen Doctors in general see Henderson, G. D., The burning bush: studies in Scottish church history, Edinburgh 1957, 75–93Google Scholar; Macmillan, Donald, The Aberdeen Doctors, London 1909Google Scholar; and Stevenson, David, King's College, Aberdeen, 1560–1641, Aberdeen 1990, 94–123Google Scholar. On the Doctors' opposition to the National Covenant see Stewart, David, ‘The “Aberdeen Doctors” and the Covenanters’, Records of the Scottish Church History Society xxii (1986), 35–44Google Scholar.

3 Gordon, History, iii. 226–31. See also Spalding, J., History of the troubles and memorable transactions in Scotland, from the year 1624 to 1645, Aberdeen 1792, i. 244fGoogle Scholar.

4 Spalding, History, 1:245.

5 Stevenson, King's College, 108.

6 Gordon, History, iii. 233.

7 Forbes diary, Aberdeen University, ms 635, fo. 381.

8 Ibid. fos 382f.

9 Ibid. fo. 464.

10 Ibid. fo. 474.

11 See entries in Forbes's diary from April 1644 onwards, and David George Mullan, ‘Forbes, John, of Corse (1593–1648)’, ODNB [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/9836], accessed 1 Aug 2012.

12 MacMillan, Aberdeen Doctors, 93–122 at pp. 95f, 98.

13 Ibid. 58, 109.

14 Ibid. 115. MacMillan cites George Garden's Joh. Forbesii a Corse vita, in Forbes, John, Opera omnia, ed. Garden, George, Amsterdam 1702–3, ii. 27Google Scholar.

15 Michiel Kitshoff, ‘Aspects of Arminianism in Scotland’, unpublished ThM thesis, St Andrews 1967, 124–8, 140ff.

16 Torrance, Thomas F., Scottish theology: from John Knox to John Macleod Campbell, Edinburgh 1996, 80CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

17 Ibid. 88. Torrance cites Forbes, John, Instructiones historico-theologicae de doctrina Christiana, Amsterdam 1645, xi.13.7Google Scholar; viii.15–16.

18 Torrance, Scottish theology, 96. Torrance does not directly contrast Forbes's doctrine with the canons of Dort, but the contrast is implied by subsequent comments on Dort in relation to Rutherford's thought.

19 Kornahrens, Douglas, ‘Praying for the Christian departed: a brief view of the doctrine and practice in Scottish Episcopacy’, Theology in Scotland xvii/2 (2011), 47–79Google Scholar at pp. 48f.

20 Ibid. 48f. Kornahrens examines John Forbes's views on prayers for the dead and, in the light of Forbes's clear renunciation of the practice, is forced to admit (p. 54) that on this issue Forbes constitutes ‘the one dissenting voice …. in Scottish Episcopacy from the seventeenth-century onwards' (p. 54). It should be noted that – with the clear exception of the admittedly heterodox William Forbes who is wrongly identified as one of the ‘Aberdeen Doctors’ – Kornahrens has hardly succeeded in discovering many Scottish Episcopalian voices affirming the practice of praying for the dead in the seventeenth century. Kornahrens deduces support for William Forbes's position from Aberdeen Doctors Robert Baron and James Sibbald from the insubstantial fact that each man possessed a manuscript copy of Forbes's Considerationes modestae et pacificae, hardly proof of adherence to Forbes's views on prayers for the dead or any other doctrine (p. 49 nn. 8, 9).

21 Mullan, David George, ‘Theology in the Church of Scotland, 1618–1640: a Calvinist consensus?’, Sixteenth Century Journal xxvi (1995), 607Google Scholar.

22 Ibid. 613–17 at p. 615.

23 Ibid. 615f.

24 MacMillan cites an early eighteenth-century summary of Forbes's doctrine by the Scottish Episcopalian George Garden (see n. 14 above). Kitshoff cites MacMillan. Kornahrens's claims about Forbes and company's doctrine remain too vague to require supporting evidence. Only Torrance provides citations to Forbes's Instructiones. However, the passages that he cites actually serve to discredit his claims regarding Forbes's doctrine.

25 Torrance, Scottish theology, 79; Sefton, H. R., ‘Scotland's greatest theologian’, Aberdeen University Review xlv (1974), 348Google Scholar.

26 These chapters comprise pp. 396–410 of the 1580 Geneva version of Forbes's Instructiones from which I am working. References below will be to book, chapter and paragraph of the text.

27 See comments on the Instructiones in Henderson, Burning bush, 81f.

28 Forbes, Instructiones, viii. 3–40. Chapters 1 and 2 of book viii deal with proper Pelagianism.

29 Ibid. viii.3.4.

30 Ibid. viii.3.4–20.

31 See ibid. viii.7–10; viii.23–4; viii.27 respectively.

32 Ibid. viii.12–13.

33 Ibid. viii.12.2.

34 Ibid. viii.13.1–3, citing Augustine, Liber de praedestinatione sanctorum, ch. 19 [38].

35 Forbes, Instructiones, viii.12.3.

36 Ibid. viii.13.4–9, citing Prosper of Aquitaine, Epistola ad Ruffinum, de gratia et libero arbitrio.

37 Forbes, Instructiones, viii.12.3.

38 Ibid. viii.13.10–12, citing Hincmar, Epistola ad Nicolaum, Papam Romanum.

39 Forbes, Instructiones, viii.12.3.

40 Ibid. viii.13.13, citing Augustine, Enchiridion, ch. 100 [26].

41 Forbes, Instructiones, viii.13.16, citing Gottschalk, Ecclesia Lugdunensis libro de tribus epistolis.

42 Forbes, Instructiones, viii.12.4.

43 Ibid. viii.13.17.

44 Ibid. viii.13.18–21.

45 Ibid. viii.12.5.

46 Ibid. viii.13.24; Faustus' comment is in relation to Romans ix.13: ‘As it is written, “Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated”.’

47 Forbes, Instructiones, viii.13.26–34.

48 Ibid. viii.13.37, citing Augustine, Enchiridion, ch. 99 [25].

49 Forbes, Instructiones, viii.13.43. Forbes quotes chs 14–16 [34–9] of Liber de bono perseverantiae.

50 Forbes, Instructiones, viii.13.35, 42.

51 Ibid. viii.12.7.

52 Ibid. viii.13.54.

53 Ibid. viii.12.7.

54 Ibid. viii.13.55–6, citing Augustine, Liber de bono perseverantiae, chs 16 [40], 20 [51] and 22 [57, 63].

55 Ibid. viii.13.55, citing Augustine, Liber de bono perseverantiae, ch. 16 [40].

56 Ibid. viii.14.1–7. Forbes references Liber de tribus epistolis.

57 Ibid. viii.14.1–2.

58 Ibid. viii.14.3.

59 Ibid. viii.14.4.

60 Ibid. viii.14.5, 7.

61 Ibid. viii.27–8.

62 Ibid. viii.27.3.

63 Ibid. viii.28.1–20. A final, brief chapter in the book (viii.30.1–4), noticeably void of polemic and comprising far more biblical citations than references to the Fathers, argues that the predestination of believers to eternal life is election with Christ and in Christ. God calls Christ himself, Forbes notes, ‘his chosen one in whom he delights', and ‘God has chosen us in Christ before the foundation of the world’ (viii.30.1, citing Isaiah xlii.1 and Ephesians i.4). Hence ‘Christ is predestined to be the bridegroom of the co-predestined Church, the head of the co-predestined body, the foundation of the co-predestined house, the Shepherd of the co-predestined sheep, the Redeemer of the co-predestined redeemed, the Saviour of the co-predestined saved’ (viii.30.2).

64 Ibid. viii.15–16.

65 Ibid. viii.15.2, citing Faustus, Liber uno de libero arbitrio, ch. 4.

66 Forbes, Instructiones, viii.15.3, citing Flodoardum, iii.14.

67 Forbes, Instructiones, viii.15.4, citing Eusebius, HE iv.15.

68 Forbes, Instructiones, viii.15.5–7; citing Jerome's commentary on Matt. xxi.

69 Forbes, Instructiones, viii.15.8, citing Prosper, Pro Augustino responsiones ad capitula objectionum Vincentianum, art. 1.

70 Forbes, Instructiones, viii.15.9, citing Prosper, De vocatione omnium gentium 1.9, in Prosper of Aquitaine, The call of all nations, trans. P. de Letter sj, London 1952, 46.

71 Forbes, Instructiones, viii.15.10–11.

72 Ibid. viii.16.1–5.

73 Ibid. viii.16.6–7.

74 Ibid. viii.16.8.

75 Ibid. viii.9–10.

76 Ibid. viii.16.11–12.

77 Ibid. viii.16.13.

78 Ibid.

79 Ibid. viii.13.13.

80 See Canons of Dort, i.15.

81 See especially Moore, Jonathan D., ‘The extent of the atonement: English hypothetical universalism versus particular redemption’, in Haykin, M. and Jones, M. (eds), Drawn into controversie: Reformed theological diversity debates within seventeenth-century British Puritanism, Göttingen 2011, 124–61Google Scholar at pp. 144–8.

82 See the endorsements of the Instructiones in the Geneva 1680 edition, n.p. (immediately following the praefatio ad lectorem).

83 Baillie, Robert, The letters and journals of Robert Baillie, 1637–1662, Edinburgh 1841, ii.313Google Scholar.

84 See Prosper, Answer to the Vincentian Articles, art. 1.

85 Muller, Richard, After Calvin: studies in the development of a theological tradition, Oxford 2003, 53Google Scholar.