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.
CHAPTER XIX.
We have noticed a change in the Church of England, from prevalent Calvinism, during the reign of Elizabeth, for prevalent Arminianism, during the latter part of the reign of James I. A corresponding change occurred in the history of several eminent Divines of the seventeenth century: Bishop Andrewes, Dean Jackson, Bishop Davenant, Archbishop Ussher, John Hales, of Eton, and Dr. Sanderson, are conspicuous examples. Another instance, more remarkable in some respects, is found in the life of John Goodwin—now less known to fame than the celebrated Churchmen just mentioned, and yet a man who, in his own day, attracted not less attention than did they; and whose works for vigour, ingenuity, argument, and eloquence deserve to rank high amongst theological productions, in an age when theology bore its richest fruit. The names now grouped together belong to men who, from first to last, retained more or less of Anglican predilections, and after the commencement of the Stuart period, Anglicanism and anti-Calvinism appear in close alliance; but John Goodwin, unlike the other converts, began his career under the influence of that description of religious feeling which forms so important an element in Puritanism, and he retained that feeling to the end of life. Although he became an Arminian, and renounced opinions identified with doctrinal Puritanism, his Arminianism did not destroy the unction and ardour which were characteristic of his earlier creed. His Arminianism presents some striking differences from that of both the Anglican and Latitudinarian schools; it is animated by an evangelical spirit, and it is wrought out, in connection with evangelical principles, akin to those which appear prominently in the Arminianism of our Wesleyan brethren. Like them, this eminent predecessor of theirs maintained strenuously the doctrine of human depravity, of justification by faith, of the work of the Holy Spirit, of the new birth, and of sanctification.