CHAPTER XVIII.
The proofs of Christianity were noticed by Anglican Divines. Embedded in the rich quarry of Jeremy Taylor’s Ductor Dubitantium, may be found an able and eloquent summary of the external and internal evidences; and Hammond, in his Reasonableness of Christian Religion, points out the ground upon which men embrace it “in the gross, all of it together,” after which he descends in detail to the survey and vindication of those particular branches of Christianity which appeared to men at that time to be least supported. And it may be mentioned, as an illustration of the changing fashions of scepticism, that the points here considered by Hammond were—objections to God’s disposition of providence, founded on the prosperity of injustice and the calamities of innocence; and the exceptions taken to Christ’s commands because He enjoins the duty of taking up the cross—points which certainly would not engross the attention of Christian advocates in the present day.
PURITAN WORKS ON EVIDENCES.
The evidences of our holy religion were more largely discussed by writers of the Latitudinarian school, as already described; and they also received pre-eminent attention from Puritan authors. Authors of that class were amongst the first keenly to discern the signs of the times in the direction of scepticism, amongst the first to combat the rising evil. Devoted to the study of the Sacred Volume, they also devoted themselves to the examination of the basis of its Divine claims. One reason why the Cambridge and Puritan Divines paid more attention to this branch of study might be, that they thought so much more of Christianity than of the Church, so much more of the former as a system of truth, than of the latter as a scheme of government; and further, which is only another particular effect of the same general cause, they were under the influence of an individualizing power, which is one of the secrets of Protestantism, and which makes each person feel so strongly his own responsibility for the creed which he adopts. In this respect especially, the Puritan differed from the Anglican, who might be said to receive his Christianity from the Church, rather than his Church from Christianity.
Two distinguished Puritan writers exhibit the proofs of natural religion,—and two others the proofs of revealed religion.
Cudworth’s great work was published in 1678; but nine years before that time, Theophilus Gale presented to the world treatises containing arguments against atheism. The Court of the Gentiles—as the expansion of the title shows—is “a discourse touching the original of human literature, both philology and philosophy, from the Scriptures and Jewish Church, in order to a demonstration of the perfection of God’s Word and Church light, the imperfection of nature’s light, and mischief of vain philosophy, the right use of human learning, and especially, sound philosophy.” The title-page describes and exhibits the whole work as a defence of religion. The author’s idea is that the philosophy of the ancients, so far as it is true, constitutes an outer court, leading to the Holy of Holies in the Word of God. All which is valuable in classic writings, according to Gale, had been derived from the chosen people. Pagan ignorance and folly arose from the obstinacy of the human mind in forsaking Divine oracles. The inventiveness of the human intellect added to the mischief, and the degradation of the heathen, proves the need of the Gospel. In this frame-work of evidence, built up in four parts, Gale inserts one book—the second of the fourth part upon Atheism, and the existence of the Deity, in which,—professedly following Plato, but often adding much to the force of his master’s reasoning,—he demonstrates the being of a God from universal consent—from a subordination of second causes to the first, from a prime Motor; from the order of the universe; from the connate idea of God in the soul; and from moral arguments founded upon conscience and a natural sense of religion. In his reasoning he anticipates Cudworth, and will bear honourable comparison with his great successor.
PURITAN WORKS ON EVIDENCES.
The first part of Howe’s Living Temple appeared in 1676. In it he proves the “existence of God and His conversableness with men.” His first argument is the same as Gale’s,[512] the consent of mankind; but Howe does not appear to be indebted to his predecessor for this mode of treating his subject. Common consent, Howe extends from God’s existence to God’s conversableness,—in other words, to religious worship; he quotes from Plutarch in proof of its universality, it being characteristic of the age to cite an ancient classic in proof of a statement of fact, which we should test by our own experience and observation. Howe anticipates the Demonstration contrived by Samuel Clarke, and engages in a strain of reasoning beyond that of either Gale or Cudworth.[513] He argues that since something exists now, something must always have existed, unless we admit, that at one period or another, something sprung out of nothing. When he proceeds to prove the intelligence of this Eternal and uncaused Being, he enters upon the à posteriori path, which Gale and Cudworth, and indeed the ancients, traversed to some extent, but in which the moderns have gone so far beyond them. It is worthy of remark, that the ingenious reference of Paley to a watch, as illustrating the indication of design in nature is found in Howe; and to him also belongs the credit of including among the proofs of Divine purpose, the constitution of the human mind, as well as the organization of matter,—a department in natural theology the neglect of which by many was lamented by Lord Brougham. I may add, that when Howe demands of the atheist, whether, if he will reject all the preceding evidence for the existence of God, there are any conceivable methods by which the fact of the Divine existence could be certified,—he opens another spring of thought on this subject, as original as it is profound. After establishing the truth of the Divine existence, Howe resumes his argument for the Divine conversableness; and after ingeniously overthrowing the Epicurean theory, he deduces from what he has said, that God is such a Being as can converse with men, and he asserts His omniscience, His omnipotence, His immensity, and His unlimited goodness.
There is another work by John Howe of singular eloquence—The Vanity of Man as Mortal—in which the author suggests arguments for the soul’s immortality, of a kind which only occur to minds of a superior order. The works just noticed relate to natural religion.
John Owen and Richard Baxter wrote upon the evidences of revealed religion.
In 1659, the former published The Divine Original of the Scriptures. He bases his argument chiefly on the light and efficacy of Divine truth,—a branch of reasoning too much neglected in after times, but vigorously renewed in our own day. Light, from its very nature, he says, not only makes other things visible, but itself manifest. So Scripture has a self-evidencing power, a power beyond that of miracles. And as there are innate arguments in the Bible of its Divine original and authority, so also it exerts an influence which confirms those arguments. Owen’s forms of expression suffice to show that, whilst as to the points and bearing of his arguments, he anticipates modern turns of thought, the details of his logic bear an unmistakeably Puritan impress. But he passes out of the range of evidence into the domains of dogmatic theology, when he proceeds to dwell upon the conviction of the Bible being the Word of God as the result of a twofold efficacy of the Spirit—that efficacy consisting in a Divine communication of spiritual light, enabling the mind to discern the majesty and authority of Revelation, and also in the Divine inspiration of a sense or taste for the truths revealed.[514]
PURITAN WORKS ON EVIDENCES.
Owen, in his book upon The Holy Spirit, published at a later period, speaks of the nature of inspiration as not leaving the sacred writers to “the use of their natural faculties, their minds or memories, to understand, and remember the things spoken by Him, and so declare them to others. But He himself acted [upon] their faculties, making use of them to express His words, not their own conceptions.” This Divine reduces the modes of revelation mentioned in Scripture to three heads—voices, dreams, and visions, with the accidental adjuncts of symbolical actions and local imitations.[515]
Owen wrote his defence of revelation in the year 1659, before the end of the Commonwealth;—at a still earlier period in 1655, when Oliver Cromwell was on the throne, before any of the authors now mentioned had published a word upon the subject, Richard Baxter produced his Unreasonableness of Infidelity. It is thrown into the form of the Spirit’s witness to the truth of Christianity, so far reminding us of John Owen’s later work. Baxter, however, assigns a much higher place to the evidential force of miracles than did his contemporary; and, instead of dwelling upon the Spirit’s influence, in and through the Holy Scriptures, he resolves the Spirit’s witness into the miraculous operations of the first age. Baxter proceeds to show that the evangelists did not deceive the world, but that they published undoubted truths,—and that we have received their writings without any considerable corruption. Having gone thus far in a path much trodden since, he strangely turns aside to insist upon the doctrine of everlasting punishment, and to explain the nature of the sin against the Holy Ghost. He then refers to tradition, to the creed, to church ordinances, to the succession of religion, to the preservation of MSS., to the writings of Divines, to the laws of the Roman Empire, and the like, as evidences of the history of the New Testament. He writes, in rather a vague and confused way, upon a subject afterwards elaborated by Lardner and Paley, but to him belongs the distinction of having first entered this new field. He grapples with the objection to miracles, but not as Campbell afterwards did. The ground he takes somewhat resembles that of Bishop Douglas, when the Bishop compares with the miracles of Scripture, those recorded by Augustine and other Fathers.
Baxter’s treatise did not satisfy its author; and, in 1667, he added Reasons for the Christian Religion. In this book, he treats of religion, both natural and supernatural, describing man as “a living wight having an active power, an understanding to guide it, and a will to command it,”—and pointing out the relations in which he stands to the Creator, as his Owner, his Governor, and his Benefactor. The difficulties of religious duty, a future life of retribution, the intrinsical evils and righteous penalties of sin, the present miserable state of the world, and the mercy of God, all come within the scope of Baxter’s observations, and are presented in the light of nature and of reason. In the second part the Author points out the need of Revelation, refers to the several religions existing in the world, illustrates the nature and “congruities” of Christianity, and proves the Divine mission of our Lord, by prophecy, by His character, by His miracles, and by His renovation of men. Confirmatory proofs, and collateral arguments follow, touching the historical grounds on which we believe in miracles, and unfolding certain curious considerations which tend to show that the world is not eternal.
The extrinsical and intrinsical difficulties of the Christian faith, altogether amounting to the number of forty, are resolved seriatim, and the refutation is extended over nearly one hundred pages, concluding with a long and devout address to the Deity—somewhat after the manner of Augustine’s confessions—in which the Puritan Presbyter pours out his soul in strains not less devout and eloquent than those of the patristic Bishop.
PURITAN WORKS ON EVIDENCES.
In 1672 Baxter returned to the subject, and published More Reasons for the Christian Religion and No Reason against it, in which he answers the De Veritate[516] of Lord Herbert, the first of our English deistical writers. The author dedicates his work to Sir Henry Herbert, a relative of the philosopher, and makes a graceful allusion to Sir Henry’s brother,—the “excellently holy, as well as learned and ingenious,” Mr. George Herbert. Baxter also wrote two treatises on the Immortality of man’s soul, the nature of it, and of other spirits. And also a most singular production, entitled, “The certainty of the world of spirits fully evinced by unquestionable histories of apparitions, and witchcraft’s operations, voices, &c.—proving the immortality of souls, the malice and misery of devils, and the damned, and the blessedness of the justified—written for the conviction of Sadducees and Infidels.” This treatise was not printed until the year 1691—a short time before Baxter’s death,—but its illustrations and arguments are akin to those which, forty years earlier, he had introduced into his incomparable Saint’s Everlasting Rest.
Baxter leads the van of the great army of our Christian Apologists as they have been infelicitously termed. The armour which the veteran wore was made after the fashion of the times—the weapons which he wielded, and which he had forged, are some of them not such as would be serviceable now, and all of them, as used by him, are unsuited to our methods of defence; his wisdom also, it must be admitted, was occasionally defective in his modes of attack, yet no small honour is due to the man who was the first to enter the lists in English literature against the infidelity of his day.
PURITAN THEOLOGY.
Turning to the doctrinal views of the Puritan school, I shall first notice certain points of resemblance between them and the opinions of Anglican Divines. The former, as well as the latter, insisted upon the doctrines of the Trinity, the Deity of our Lord, and the Divinity and personality of the Holy Spirit—nor could any disciple of the Nicene faith more firmly hold the eternal generation of the Son of God than did some of them.[517] Also, they firmly held the doctrine of original sin. At the same time, in common with the Low Church or Latitudinarian writers, they eschewed appeals to the Fathers as invested with any special authority, adopting more or less a spirit of free inquiry which gradually led some of them to relax a little their doctrinal strictness; and they went beyond their last-mentioned contemporaries in anti-sacerdotal and anti-sacramental views. They present marked characteristics of their own. They all appeal to the Scriptures, not only as the supreme, but as the exclusively accessible tribunal to which theological controversy could be brought; yet, it should be noticed in passing, that many of them studied patristic literature with great diligence, especially certain portions in harmony with their own opinions and tastes. There is also this peculiarity attaching to them as a class, that they do not, as Thorndike, work out a covenant of grace founded upon baptism,[518]—although they occasionally allude to that sacrament in a way which is surprising to some of their descendants; nor did they, as Jackson, as Heylyn, as Pearson, or as Barrow, follow the creeds of the Church in their theological inquiries. Baxter especially valued the Apostles’ Creed, but Puritan Divines did not adopt that, or any other of the ancient symbols, as a formula for the order of their own thoughts. Not that they broke away altogether from the habit of beginning with God the Great Cause, and descending to man His creature, subject, and fallen child; not that they adopted an à posteriori method, beginning with man as a degenerate and guilty being, and rising up to God whom man has offended, and who alone can be the Author of his salvation,—a method which is adopted by some theological thinkers of our own time. In commencing their systematic ideas of theology with God, and coming down to man, the Puritans followed the traditional order of studious thoughtfulness upon such high themes. Goodwin resolved all Divine knowledge into the knowledge of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost; but still it was not to the Creed as a textual authority, it was not to its clauses, one by one, that he or any of his brethren referred, as direction posts along the sacred way. Their wont was to select some one principle as a centre, and then to cluster round it kindred theological ideas, the various parts being woven into one harmonious whole. In this respect, they differed both from Anglicans and from Latitudinarians, who were not accustomed to the use of such a graduated scale of doctrine, who did not attach to what are termed Evangelical truths, so much relative importance. Certainly, the themes which the Puritans most devoutly cherished, were not those to which either Anglicans or Latitudinarians chiefly turned. Puritan theology, because it is more experimental than Anglican theology,—because it deals more with the spiritual consciousness of Divine relations, with the position and acts of the human soul towards the Divine Lord and Redeemer,—is thought by some to be less dogmatic than Anglican theology; by which is meant, that it deals less with those Divine fundamental facts, which are distinctly recognized in the Creeds, and which, whether men believe them or not, are absolute and unchangeable realities. But this apprehension is a mistake. Puritanism, indeed, does insist much upon what is experimental and practical in theology; it looks at Divine persons, at their attributes and dispensations in reference to man’s wants, and character, and conduct; it treats revelation rather as a light to walk by, than as a light to look at,—which is wise—but it does not throw into a distance, it does not place on the remote horizon of its view the doctrines respecting Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, taught in the Scriptures, and upheld by the early Church.
PURITAN THEOLOGY.
The Puritans broke with the Anglicans—not upon the doctrines of the Creeds, but upon other points. They broke with them as Reformers had broken with Romanists on the question—What are the true means of grace? Clerical orders and sacraments, said the Church of Rome. Apostolical succession and sacraments, said the Anglican Church of England; but the Anglican Church of England controverted the doctrine of the Church of Rome as to the number, the nature, the form and the efficacy of the sacraments. The Puritans went much further than the Anglicans in this direction, and denied the Anglican views of the ministry and the sacraments. The Anglican watchwords were,—orders, sacraments, faith, grace. The Puritan watchwords were—the Bible, grace, truth, faith. Both parties believed that men are saved by grace through faith; but the one connected the salvation chiefly with sacraments, the other with truth.
In considering the theology of the Puritans, we ought carefully to notice differences amongst them, and I shall therefore subdivide them into three classes—the Calvinistic, the Arminian, and the Intermediate. I begin with the Calvinists, and shall select Thomas Goodwin and John Owen.
The influence exerted by Perkins and other Puritan teachers and friends in the University of Cambridge upon the mind of Goodwin when a student, his remarkable conversion, the effect of his residence in Holland, and of his association there, with Dutch Divines, and with “English Dissenting brethren,” are visible in his opinions. Three main stand-points come out sharply in the phases of Goodwin’s theology.
The first is Faith. In his treatise on that subject he discusses (1) the object of faith, including the mercies in God’s nature, the Person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the riches of free grace as declared and proposed in the Gospel covenant; (2) the acts of faith in the understanding, the affections and the will, respecting which he distinguishes between justifying faith in general, and the faith of assurance; and (3) the properties of faith, its excellence and use—good works, he says, so far from being slighted by the exaltation of belief, are really promoted in a pre-eminent degree by the influence of that principle. It is apparent at once, that in this way a complete scheme of theology is arranged with faith for a pivot on which the entire circle of thought is made to move. Accordingly, we find introduced into this elaborate treatise, nearly, if not quite, all the doctrines comprised within the writer’s evangelical creed. There are abundant descriptions of faith, of what it is, and of what it does, but we do not discover any compact definition of it in any part of the volume. Goodwin alludes to it as sealed in the understanding, in the heart, and in the will,—a description which might seem comprehensive enough to take in all which Thorndike or Bull has advanced on the subject; but Goodwin’s way of working out the idea is very different from theirs, and whilst they are chiefly intent upon preserving the interests of Christian morality, he, although not neglectful of them, is principally engaged in exalting the glories of sovereign grace. According to his theology, faith is commanded by God, it influences all the graces—but it is the meanest and lowest of them all, and it is merely and altogether a passive principle. It should be carefully noticed, as amongst the marked features of Goodwin’s teaching:—not, however, peculiar to him, but common to Puritan Divines—that although he enumerates many objects of faith, by far the most prominent one is Christ Himself, as the great propitiation for sin.[519]
GOODWIN.
Another stand-point of Goodwin’s is Election. He argues for the necessity of this—saying, that without it “Christ had died in vain, and not saved a man,” and had been in heaven alone to lament that He had come short in this work. Goodwin dwells upon the order of God’s decrees touching election and reprobation, and upon the end to which the elect are ordained, even a supernatural union with God, and the communication of Himself to their souls. The infinity of God’s electing grace is a special theme of this writer’s meditations, in which, amongst other points most repulsive to moderate Calvinists, he insists upon a vast disproportion between the elect and the rest—rejoicing not, as one would suppose, in the thought, that the saved immensely outnumber the lost, but in the thought, that the paucity of men who enjoy any privilege magnifies it the more. He speaks of the infinite number of those laid aside in a fallen condition, in comparison with the very few elected out of them, as enhancing the grace of election. He contends for the perfect freedom of election, and the absence in it of all reference to merit or worthiness; for its intimate connection with effectual calling, which he unfolds at length; and for the doctrine of final perseverance, which follows from the doctrine he has previously laid down. It is remarkable that he employs a whole book in showing that election in its ordinary course runs from believing parents to their posterity; that the covenant of grace is entailed upon the children of believers, and that God most usually makes them His choice. He is careful practically to apply his views to Christian parents on the one hand, and to their children on the other.[520]
The doctrine of reprobation is connected by Goodwin with the doctrine of election; it is described as being its dark shadow. If Goodwin was not a supralapsarian, he was, next to that, the highest predestinarian a man could be.[521] It is marvellous how, with all his thoughtfulness, he could have overlooked the question of moral government and human responsibility, in connection with some of his speculations; and it is distressing to find that one so zealous for what he deemed the glory of Divine grace, could lay his scheme of theology open to the charge of its robbing God of the attributes of justice and righteousness.
Goodwin does not, in his treatise on election, or in his other writings, give prominence to the dogma of particular redemption; but he distinctly affirms in one place that the elect alone are redeemed;[522] and his whole system of theology proceeds on the principle, that the death of Christ was a ransom for the salvation of the elect. He presses to the utmost extreme the ideas of suretyship, and of debt-paying; and refers to the sinner’s liability as met by the sufferings of the Saviour, and to the sinner’s bonds as for ever cancelled by the Redeemer’s resurrection. To such an extent does the author carry his notion of the identification of the Lord with His people as their surety, that he positively declares Christ by imputation was made the greatest sinner that ever was—for the sins of all God’s chosen met in Him![523]
The last stand-point of Goodwin, which I have space to notice, is Regeneration. In his treatise, entitled The Work of the Holy Ghost in our Salvation, Regeneration is the theme throughout the volume. Its necessity, its nature, and its cause are illustrated in every variety of form and phrase; and it is noteworthy that no allusion is made to the ordinance of baptism in connection with it, nor is any opportunity lost of placing this spiritual change in relation to the Divine decrees and electing love.[524]
JOHN OWEN.
Were it not that my proper business is to present, as succinctly as possible, the doctrinal views of the Puritans, I should most earnestly combat some of Goodwin’s theological positions, and point out the tremendous consequences which they involve—admitting, at the same time, the redeeming elements, which may be found in his ofttimes wearisome method of instruction. I will only say, that when he wandered into what appear to me not only perilous but pernicious regions of thought, he did but stumble in the midst of fields into which Augustine had gone before, and where Jonathan Edwards followed afterwards. Happily, such men are inconsistent, and whilst sacrificing the righteousness of God in one way, they contend for it most zealously in another.
Owen’s works may be appropriately coupled with Goodwin’s. Their literary defects and their religious excellencies are not dissimilar. In each the reader is wearied with refinements and perplexed by multiplied divisions; in neither can be found any graces of style, any delectable flow of words, any rhythm of diction, any wealth of expression; in both are presented signs of profound reflection, of patient inquiry, of logical acumen, and also, beyond all these, proofs of intense evangelical piety.
Owen goes over very much of the ground which is occupied by Goodwin, and he is scarcely less rigid in his predestinarianism. It is instructive to compare with the point of view selected by Goodwin that which is chosen by Owen. Owen’s treatise on the Doctrine of Justification (1677) should be examined by the side of Goodwin’s work on the Objects and Acts of Justifying Faith. Owen describes justifying faith “as the heart’s approbation of the way of justification and salvation of sinners by Jesus Christ;” he omits, and vindicates the omission of any definition of this spiritual act: but he is singularly full in his account of the Divine side of justification, dwelling at great length upon its forensic nature, and its basis in the imputed righteousness of the Redeemer. The last point is wrought out with pre-eminent distinctness. It occurs at the beginning—it is resumed in the middle—it is enforced at the end of the book. The idea of Christ’s imputed righteousness is considered by many evangelical Divines as at the best a theoretical key to explain the fact of justification, rather than as an essential element of the doctrine. Some hold the fact without accepting the explanation, not finding it to be a key at all. But the state of opinion was widely different in Owen’s day, the whole atmosphere of controversy was different; he and others identified imputation with justification, and fought for it as for the hearth of truth, as for the altar of God. They deemed the interests of Protestantism, the security of the doctrines of grace, and the welfare of Christ’s Church at stake in this one doctrinal dispute.
JOHN OWEN.
Owen agrees substantially with Goodwin, but he is more cautious; and he more frequently qualifies his statements. He says men may really be saved by that grace which doctrinally they question, and they may be justified by the imputation of that righteousness, which, in opinion, they deny to be imputed. He shrinks from affirming what Goodwin affirms as to the identification of Christ with the sinner.[525] It may again be observed, that throughout, Owen looks more intently at the Divine act of the sinner’s justification than at the human act by which the justification is secured. His views on the whole are coincident with Goodwin’s as to the Divine decrees; but he exhibits them less prominently in reference to the doctrine of election than in reference to the doctrine of particular redemption. The Atonement is a central point in his thoughts; and it is in a treatise respecting the death and satisfaction of Christ, that his clearest statements on the tenet of election can be found.[526]
It was usual with most of the Puritan Divines, in harmony with the order of thought pursued in the Westminster formularies, to start with the doctrine of the Divine decrees; to regard, as the foundation of all theology, the idea of God having resolved to save a certain number of human beings; and to view all the processes of redeeming love, as simply designed to accomplish that resolution. They did not deny the responsibility of all men in a certain sense, and they were ready to maintain the righteousness of God, as they understood it, against any who dared to impugn that righteousness. But generally they did not look at the moral government of God as dealing with mankind in general, on common grounds of justice, love, and mercy; they did not regard the Gospel as a gracious law for a fallen race; they did not consider it as alike the duty and the privilege of every sinful child of Adam, to accept the offer of eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. There is a deeper theological difference between ancient and modern Calvinists than some suppose—a difference appearing even more in the order, the relations, and the turns of thought touching salvation, than in any scientific mode of expressing it. But there remains a strong religious resemblance between the two classes. What most of the old doctrinal Puritans put first as the premises leading to certain conclusions, many of what may be called the new doctrinal Puritans put last, as a conclusion drawn from certain premises. In a careful study of the whole Bible, as a revelation of God’s government of the whole world, they find passages which relate to mysterious operations of grace upon human minds; and after a careful analysis of all human and secondary causes, at work in the world’s history, or at work in private experience, they discover rightly, in my opinion, a residuum which points to what is not human, but Divine and absolute; and in this they recognize the mysterious sovereign grace of God. Further, in those passages of Scripture which speak of an election, a predestination, and a purpose before the world began, they see a statement of the fact, that what God does in time He from eternity meant to do; that the knowledge and mercy, that the wisdom and the will of the Infinite and Eternal One, must have been ever the same as they are now. And also, the present disciples of this Puritan faith, like the former, delight to dwell upon the cause and character of salvation, more even than upon its consequences in their own experience and hopes; and they are not weary, and I hope never will be, of adoring the Divine love, righteousness, and power in which their redemption originated, and on which it must for ever rest.
JOHN OWEN.
Owen enters fully into the nature of the death of Christ, and insists upon its having been a price or ransom, a sacrifice and a satisfaction. He contends that it was a punishment for sin properly so called; and that the covenant between the Father and the Son was the ground and foundation of the penal sufferings from which redemption flows. Nor does he confine himself to the citation and enforcement of Scripture texts in support of these opinions. He supplies a dissertation on Divine justice—in which, from the consent of mankind, as appears in the testimony of the heathen, and the power of conscience, from the prevalence of sacrifices, and from the works of providence,—he concludes that Divine justice is a vindicating justice, and that the non-punishment of sin would be contrary to the glory of that justice. He examines and answers the objections of Socinus, and the main drift of the whole treatise is to establish the indispensable necessity of the satisfaction of Christ for the salvation of sinners.
In his Salus Electorum Sanguis Jesu, a work published so early as 1648, Owen connects the Atonement with the Divine decrees. He points out what he conceives to be the false and supposed ends of the death of Christ, and unfolds his reasons for a belief in the doctrine of particular redemption.[527] He admits that the sacrifice of Christ was of infinite worth and dignity, sufficient in itself for the redeeming of all and every man, if it had pleased the Lord to employ it to that purpose; but the main drift of the Essay is to prove that it did not please the Lord so to employ it.[528] Whatever may be thought of the logical consequences of Owen’s positions in reference to election and particular redemption, it would be extreme injustice—and the same remark may be applied to Goodwin and others—to charge him or them with any connivance at Antinomianism, an error which they regarded with the utmost abhorrence, and opposed with not a whit less of zeal than burns intensely in their writings, when they are subjecting Arminianism to a process of destructive criticism.