Amyraut’s doctrine, although hardly a reprise of Calvin, arguably fell within confessional boundaries set by the Canons of Dort: it was never formally condemned as a heresy.
Richard Muller, “Beyond Hypothetical Universalism: Moïse Amyraut (1596–1664) on Faith, Reason, and Ethics,” in The Theology of the French Reformed Churches: From Henri IV to the Revocations of the Edict of Nantes, ed. Martin I. Klauber (Reformed Historical-Theological Studies, eds. Joel R. Beeke and Jay T. Collier; Grand Rapids, MI: Reformation Heritage Books, 2014), 198.
Nearly all the older scholarship went astray from the actual evidence in its assumptions that hypothetical universalism per se ran counter to the Reformed confessions—notably, the Canons of Dort—and that Amyraut’s form of hypothetical universalism, derived from the theology of his teacher, Cameron, was representative of hypothetical universalism in general.
Ibid., 205. [Note: Warfield is an example of the misguided older scholarship that involves mischaracterization and historical lumping. See B. B. Warfield, The Westminister Assembly and its Work (1959 repr.; Edmonton, AB, Canada: Still Waters Revival Books, 1991), 56, 144n94; The Plan of Salvation (Philadelphia: Presbyterian Board of Publications, 1915), 118.]
Given that Amyraut’s hypothetical universalism did not arise out of a significantly different outlook on theology or rest on a different method from that of his Reformed orthodox contemporaries, his theology ought not to be read out of the context of that orthodoxy and its Scholastic methods—nor, indeed, ought Amyraldian or Salmurian theology to be interpreted as a heresy and set outside of the bounds of the orthodoxy of the era. Certainly, Amyraut’s detractors accused him of heresy, but there is no synodical decision or confessional document that confirmed the accusation. In short, Amyraldianism was a form of Reformed orthodoxy that other orthodox Reformed writers pointedly opposed and censured, but it remained within the confessional boundaries and partook of the same Scholastic method Amyraut’s opponents employed.
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