E. F. Karl Müller on Amyraut and “Hypothetical Universalism”

Amyraut’s doctrine has been called “hypothetical universalism”; but the term is misleading[1], since it might be applied also to the Arminianism which he steadfastly opposed. His main proposition is this: God wills all men to be saved, on condition that they believe—a condition which they could well fulfill in the abstract[2], but which in fact, owing to inherited corruption, they stubbornly reject[3], so that this universal will for salvation actually saves no one. God also wills in particular to save a certain number of persons, and to pass over the others with this grace. The elect will be saved as inevitably the others will be damned.

E. F. Karl Müller, “Amyraut, Moïse,” in The New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge (New York: Funk and Wagnalls Company, 1908), 1:161.

My footnotes:
(1) Even though the term “hypothetical universalist” is misleading, the opponents of Amyraut will continue to use it since the point is to smear the outsiders and to scare the insiders (it’s yet another shibboleth), rather than to accurately describe things in all fairness. There are even some in the blogosphere who desperately want to appear scholarly, so they prefer to use Latin, and therefore speak of a foedus hypotheticum in Amyraut’s theology. It’s the same misleading nonsense.
(2) By “abstract,” he’s probably referencing the natural/moral ability distinction that Amyraut learned from John Cameron.
(3) This stubborn rejection points to their moral inability or willful bondage to sin.