The PCA report on the Federal Vision twice quotes the concluding statement of Chapter III, Section VI of the Westminster Confession of Faith:
 
Neither are any other redeemed by Christ, effectually called, justified, adopted, sanctified, and saved, but the elect only.
 
The second of the nine declarations in this PCA position paper also uses similar language:
 
The view that an individual is ‘elect’ by virtue of his membership in the visible church; and that this ‘election’ includes justification, adoption and sanctification; but that this individual could lose his ‘election’ if he forsakes the visible church, is contrary to the Westminster Standards.

 
Some have criticized the use of this language as a critique of the Federal Vision because this language lists salvific benefits without specifying whether they refer to individual or corporate salvation. Yet an examination of the Westminster Assembly’s usage of this language as a critique of Amyraldianism suggests the appropriateness of using this language in a critique of the Federal Vision.
 
On pages 138-144 of his book The Westminster Assembly and Its Work, B.B. Warfield discusses the history behind the inclusion of this very sentence, the last sentence in Chapter III, Section VI, in the Confession of Faith. Warfield says,
 
This debate, begun Wednesday morning, October 22, [1645,] and continued at least to October 31, constitutes one of the most notable debates reported in the Minutes, and certifies for us that the closing sentence of the sixth section is one of the most deliberate findings of the Assembly.
 
The debate reveals that there was a small group at the Assembly whose views on the extent of the atonement had been influenced by Cameron and Amyraut. The confessional statement that “neither are any other redeemed by Christ … but the elect only” was a reference to the redemption accomplished at the cross, an affirmation of the doctrine of limited atonement and a denial of the hypothetical universal atonement affirmed by the Amyraldians.
 
According to the original Amyraldianism, God decreed for Christ to die for everyone without exception with a universal, hypothetical atonement conditioned on faith, and God decreed for the Holy Spirit to work faith only in the hearts of the elect. This is basically an effort to combine an Arminian view of the accomplishment of the atonement through the work of Christ with a Calvinistic view of the application of the atonement through the work of the Spirit.
 
There are a number of problems with this approach. The Arminian view of the atonement contradicts those Scriptures which teach a definite substitutionary atonement that infallibly saves all those whom God intended it to save. This view also denies that the cross pays the price to redeem the elect from unbelief and purchases for them the gift of faith, and thus cuts the direct link between the objective accomplishment of the atonement and its effectual subjective application. The Amyraldian perspective disrupts the economic unity of the Trinity with the Father first sending Christ to accomplish the atonement for all without exception and then together with the Son sending the Holy Spirit to apply that atonement only to the elect.
 
According to Warfield, the Amyraldian view represented at the Assembly was a modified version in which Christ died for the elect with an effectual, saving atonement and for the non-elect with a hypothetical atonement conditioned on faith. This modified view results in Christ’s dying in different senses for different people: in a definite saving atonement for the elect and in an indefinite hypothetical and conditional sense for the non-elect. Their position that Christ died in a hypothetical sense for the non-elect conditioned on faith together with their acceptance of the Calvinistic doctrine of total depravity and their teaching that the Holy Spirit regenerates and thus works faith in the hearts of only the elect has the same practical outcome as the regular Calvinistic teaching that God passes by the non-elect and has ordained them to dishonor and wrath for their sin (WCF 3.7).
 
The only apparent motivation for this confusing doctrinal complexity is the notion that one must have an atonement that is not only infinite in value but also in some sense decretively intended for all without exception in order to justify the free offer of the gospel. What this effort is really doing is improperly mixing the decretive and the preceptive aspects of God’s will. In His decrees, God has unconditionally foreordained for His own glory whatsoever comes to pass. In His revealed will, God offers promises which He will fulfill when specified conditions are met. When one views the atonement from the perspective of God’s decrees, one sees a definite atonement which will save everyone whom God has decreed for it to save. When one views the atonement from the perspective of God’s revealed will, one sees an atonement of infinite saving value which God freely, genuinely and sincerely offers indiscriminately through the gospel message. These two views of the atonement are complimentary and not contradictory. God sincerely desires obedience to His revealed will and is sincerely grieved by disobedience to His revealed will, including the gospel command and offer. Yet God’s greatest obligation is to the greatest good, which is His own glory, and this is what He has consistently decreed.
 
Again, a few Westminster Divines held to this modified Amyraldianism, and this resulted in an extended debate when the Westminster Assembly was working on the confession of faith. Warfield says the following regarding the debate on the concluding statement of Chapter III, Section VI of the Westminster Confession of Faith:
 
The result of the debate was a refusal to modify the Calvinistic statement in this direction — or perhaps we should say the definitive rejection of the Amyraldian views and the adoption of language which was precisely framed to exclude them.
 
So according to Warfield, the following confessional statement “was precisely framed to exclude” the modified Amyraldianism:
 
Neither are any other redeemed by Christ, effectually called, justified, adopted, sanctified, and saved, but the elect only.
 
If the language of this statement was appropriate for excluding the view that Christ provided for all the non-elect a hypothetical salvation conditioned on a faith which they will never exercise, then this language is also appropriate for excluding the view that Christ provided for some non-elect a corporate salvation conditioned on a perseverance which they will never exercise. The criticism that this confessional language is not relevant to any Federal Vision teaching because it does not use the appropriate qualifiers would also make this language irrelevant to modified Amyraldianism, the very doctrine which, according to Warfield, it was framed to exclude. Such criticism must be misguided because it proves too much.
 
In the earlier days of the Federal Vision, some proponents made statements which seemed to define the corporate salvation experienced by everyone in the visible church as the common product of an undifferentiated, homogeneous grace in which the elect persevere and the non-elect do not. This is analogous to the original Amyraldian position. In one, there is a hypothetical redemption for all without exception conditioned on faith; in the other, there is a corporate salvation for all in the visible church head for head conditioned on perseverance.
 
Later some Federal Vision proponents made clear that the differing outcomes (perseverance for the elect and non-perseverance for the non-elect) must indicate differences in the corporate salvation experienced by the elect and the non-elect in the visible church. This more refined view is analogous to the modified Amyraldianism discussed above.
 
One teaches a definite atonement for the elect; the other teaches a corporate salvation with the seeds of perseverance in it for the elect in the visible church. One teaches a hypothetical atonement for the non-elect conditioned on a faith which the non-elect will never exercise; the other teaches a corporate salvation without the seeds of perseverance for the non-elect in the visible church conditioned on a perseverance which the non-elect will never exercise.
 
In contrast to these Federal Vision and Amyraldian views, the confession teaches that “neither are any other redeemed by Christ, effectually called, justified, adopted, sanctified, and saved, but the elect only.” According to the confession, both the elect and the non-elect in the visible church may experience the outward privileges of the church and the common operations of the Spirit.
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Grover E. Gunn is pastor of Grace Presbyterian Church in Jackson, Tenn. You can read his blog here.