General remarks
Some general remarks first. In his study of Owen and Richard Baxter (1615-1691) Tim Cooper says that Owen “wrote in such a cumbersome manner as to frustrate even his most sympathetic admirers”. Having ploughed through these volumes I can reluctantly confirm the statement. He is still worth reading, however. My only advice is twofold.
First, the outlines provided in the Goold edition are quite intricate and so usually not very helpful. They serve as guides only if you are completely lost. When it comes to The death of death in the death of Christ if you get hold of the Banner of Truth edition there is a very good analysis, much better than Goold's (Volume 10), presumably prepared by Jim Packer.
Secondly, I would recommend at least skim reading the various introductions, prefaces and dedications that precede the works themselves as they help to get you back to the time and place in question, which can be very useful. Take care, however. For example, you do not really want to spend much time on Owen's almost interminable observations on the Epistles of Ignatius found in the preface to his work on The Perseverance of the saints (Volume 11).
Volume 9 Posthumous sermons, etc
Volume 9, like Volume 8, is a collection of sermons and discourses, some 63 in all. The Banner edition says that this is Owen at his “readable best”. The volume would make an excellent entry point for someone wondering where to begin to read Owen.
Quotation 1 (Volume 9)
It is important in this conference that Owen be allowed to speak for himself so let me begin with a quotation from Volume 9. We are spoiled for choice. In Ryan McGraw's little devotional book The foundation of communion with God he highlights several quotations from Volume 9, including one from the first of two sermons on The Nature and beauty of gospel worship
Go to, now, you by whom the spiritual worship of the gospel is despised; you who - unless it be adorned, as you say (or rather defiled), with the rites and ceremonies of your own invention - think there is no order, comeliness, or beauty in it - set yourselves to find out whatever pleaseth your imaginations; borrow this of the Jews, that of the Pagans, all of the Papists that you think conducing to that end and purpose; lavish gold out of the bag for the beautifying of it; - will it compare with this glory of the worship of the gospel, that is all carried on under the conduct and administration of this glorious High Priest? It may be they will say that they have that too, and that ornaments do not hinder but that they have also their worship attended with that glory relating to the holy Priest. But do they think so indeed? ... Surely it is impossible that men, thoroughly convinced of its spiritual excellency, should fall into that fond conceit of making additions of their own unto it. Nor do they seem rightly to weigh that the holy God doth, all along, oppose this spiritual excellency of gospel worship to the outward splendour of rites and ordinances, instituted by himself for a time; so that, what men seek to make up in these things doth but absolutely derogate from the other; and all will one day know, whether it be for want of excellency in the spiritual administration of the gospel worship, under and by the glorious High Priest, or for want of minds enlightened to discern it and hearts quickened to experience it, that some do lay all the weight of the beauty of gospel worship on matters that they either find out themselves, or borrow from others who were confessedly blind as to all spiritual communion with God in Christ. … I am sure this is, and may well be, an unspeakable encouragement and comfort in the duty of drawing nigh unto God, to all the saints, whether in their persons, families, or assemblies - that Jesus Christ is the great high priest that admits them to the presence of God; who is the minister of that heavenly tabernacle where God is worshipped by them. If we are but able, as the apostle speaks, to look to the things that are not seen (2 Cor iv. 18) - that is, with eyes of faith - we shall find that glory that will give us rest and satisfaction; and for others, we may pray, as Elisha for his servant, that the Lord would open their eyes, and they would quickly see the naked, poor places of the saints' assemblies not only attended with horses and chariots of fire, but also Christ walking in the midst of them, in the glory wherewith he is described, Rev i. 13-16; which surely their painted or carved images will be found to come short of. ….
The sermons and discourses in Volume 9 were published posthumously and are in five sections.
1. A single sermon preached on the day of a fast, on December 22, 1681, published in 1690. Seasonable words for English Protestants is on Jeremiah 51:5. A polished piece for a distinguished audience and ready for publication it is quite different to other items in this volume composed merely of collated notes from Owen auditors.
2. Thirty sermons mostly on New Testament texts published in 1721. Some are single sermons, some pairs, some series of three, four, even five sermons on one text.
3. Next comes a collection in a different genre - 14 discourses headed Several practical cases of conscience resolved. Casuistry in its good sense is the application of general ethical principles to particular cases of conscience or conduct. The seventeenth century was the Age of the conscience and it was a common Puritan practice to seek to resolve cases of conscience both in private and in public. These items are of interest both because they are clearly spoken ex tempore revealing something of how Owen's mind worked and because they deal with interesting and important questions, such as - How may we recover from a decay of the principle of grace? When may any one sin, lust, or corruption, be esteemed habitually prevalent? What shall a person do who finds himself under the power of a prevailing corruption, sin, or temptation?
4. Another set of sermons, mostly on Old Testament texts, 13 in all, published in 1756.
5. Finally, some 25 sacramental discourses, delivered 1669-1682, spoken at the communion table, published in 1760. In 2004 an edition of these discourses was published with an accompanying study by Jon Payne.
There are many interesting sermons in this volume including A Christian God's Temple, Of walking humbly with God, The duty of a pastor and The excellency of Christ.
The polemical context to Volumes 10-12
Before we come to Volumes 10-12, it is worth summarising what Carl Trueman (The claims of truth) calls Owen's polemical context. Trueman identifies three categories of opponent – Papist, Arminian and Socinian. (One could add Quakers who he opposed directly and indirectly at various points). Trueman suggests the Papists were his least concern, although we will hear later what he had to say against them in Volume 14.
The reason for prioritising Arminianism and Socinianism was that in the Civil War period and after, radical Protestant theology rather than Roman theology appeared to be the greatest immediate threat to England's theological and political stability.
Arminianism, named for Dutchman Jacobus Arminius (1560–1609) is a modification of Reformed teaching originally articulated in the Remonstrance of 1610, signed by 45 ministers and submitted to the States General of the Netherlands, who called The Synod of Dort (1618, 19) to consider the Remonstrants' five articles, asserting salvation by faith, universal atonement conditional on belief, the need of the Spirit to respond to God's will, the importance of grace and the ability to resist the Spirit and the possibility of losing one's salvation.
Socinianism, named for the Italian Fausto Sozzini (1539-1604), who spent the last 25 years of his life in Poland, is a system of doctrine developed in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Its leading feature is a Non-trinitarian Christology though it includes a number of other unorthodox beliefs. By 1676 there were at least three Socinian meeting houses in London.
Owen hardly mentions the wilder sects of the time, probably because they were in many ways less of a threat, being so obviously unorthodox in outlook. Arminianism and Socinianism, on the other hand, presented a real and present danger Owen was keen to oppose.
For Owen, the Socinian denial of the Trinity and the modifications to Reformed soteriology proposed by Arminians were closely linked as both denied Reformation truths. Trueman suggests that in reacting to these movements Owen and others were employing “greater levels of precision in their explication of Reformed doctrine in order to defend the tradition”.
The other element here was the existence of specific emphases within Reformed orthodoxy against which Owen reacted. His chief opponent here was Baxter, with whom he clashed on the extent of the atonement and on justification. Trueman says that after the Restoration there was something of a rapprochement between them “but their relationship never appears to have been particularly warm”. Tim Cooper wrote a book length work on their fraught relationship and their dislike for each other. He likens the relationship to a sibling rivalry.
This brief summary should be borne in mind as we consider Volumes 10-12.
We might say that Volume 9 contains five shorter works and the other three volumes three major works and five minor ones. Having looked at the minor works in Volume 9, let's proceed to the major works in Volumes 10-12.
Volume 10 The Death of death in the death of Christ
Quotation 2 (Volume 10)
Volume 10 includes the standout work The Death of death in the death of Christ. Let me give you a quotation from it, here answering objections to limited atonement.
But you do not extend it unto all; you tie it up to a few ... Is the extending of the love and favour of God in our power? Hath he not mercy on whom he will have mercy, and doth he not harden whom he will? Yet, do not we affirm that it is extended to the universality of the saved ones? Should we throw the children’s bread to dogs? Friends, we believe that the grace of God in Christ worketh faith in everyone to whom it is extended; that the conditions of that covenant which is ratified in his blood are all effectually wrought in the heart of every covenantee; that there is no love of God that is not effectual; that the blood of Christ was not shed in vain; that of ourselves we are dead in trespasses and sins, and can do nothing but what the free grace of God worketh in us: and, therefore, we cannot conceive that it can be extended to all. [As] for you, who affirm that millions of those that are taken into a new covenant of grace do perish eternally, that it is left to men to believe that the will of God may be frustrate and his love ineffectual, that we distinguish ourselves one from another, - you may extend it whither you please, for it is indifferent to you whether the objects of it go to heaven or to hell.
But in the meanwhile, I beseech you, friends, give me leave to question whether this you talk of be God’s free grace, or your fond figment? His love, or your wills? For truly, for the present, it seems to me the latter only. But yet our prayers shall be that God would give you infinitely more of his love than is contained in that ineffectual universal grace wherewith you so flourish. Only, we shall labour that poor souls be not seduced by you with the specious pretences of free grace to all, - not knowing that this your free grace is a mere painted cloth, that will give them no assistance at all to deliver them from that condition wherein they are, but only give them leave to be saved if they can; whereas they are ready, by the name you have given to the brat of your own brain, to suppose you intend an effectual, almighty, saving grace, that will certainly bring all to God to whom it is extended, of which they have heard in the Scripture; whilst you laugh in your sleeves, to think how simply these poor souls are deluded with that empty show, the substance whereof is … Go your ways; be saved if you can, in the way revealed; God will not hinder you.
The Death of death
The Death of Death in the Death of Christ is the classic text on the Calvinistic doctrine of Limited, Particular or Definite Atonement. A master-piece according to Packer and Owen's most significant book to that date, according to Gribben, Brian Kay (Trinitarian Spirituality) has called it “the most extensive and thoroughly biblical defence of the High Calvinist doctrine of Limited atonement”. It has also been called “perhaps the most devastating critique of universal redemption” and “the most comprehensive defence of particular redemption” (Steve Jeffery, Mike Ovey, Andrew Sach Pierced for our transgressions).
On the other hand, Cooper says it is not Owen's best work, claiming it is “weak and unconvincing”. Unsurprisingly, Arminians and Amyraldians, such as Alan C Clifford, are not happy with it. You must read it for yourself.
Background to The death of death
The book is in part a response to a weaver turned theological writer called Thomas Moore who wrote three books in favour of universal atonement in 1646. His first opponents were Thomas Whitfield of Great Yarmouth (to whose Refutation Moore replied), Essex minister John Stalham (d c 1681) and Obadiah Howe (1616?-1683), uncle to the more famous John Howe. Owen wanted to do something more systematic, however. Packer calls his work “a systematic expository treatise not a mere episodic wrangle”.
Summary of The Death of death
The work is not negatively framed but argues that God's purpose is to glorify himself and save sinners. In the death of Christ, the salvation of sinners was actually accomplished. It does not make salvation possible but actually saves God's people.
The work is in four books. The first sets forth his thesis that Christ's work on the cross was made for the full and complete salvation of those God intended to save. Salvation is the work of the Triune God. The Father is the author of salvation, the one who sends Christ. He is the one who from before creation chose some to be saved. Christ is the sent one who became incarnate and offered himself up to die, rose again and intercedes in heaven for his own. The Spirit was Christ's helper in his earthly ministry and the one who applies salvation.
The second book argues that the supreme purpose of Christ's death was to bring glory to the Godhead. Its subordinate purpose was to bring salvation to elect sinners. Scripture shows that in Christ's death God intended to save elect sinners and the effect of his death is to actually secure their salvation. The impetration or securing work of salvation cannot be separated from the application of salvation. Although of infinite worth, Christ's death was intended only for the elect. His death brought about their salvation and the Spirit then applies that salvation to their account.
Book 3 contains 16 arguments against the theory of a general ransom. The arguments primarily oppose Arminianism and Amyraldianism and the claim that God only makes salvation possible or hypothetical for the whole world. Owen debunks the view that the cross work of Christ only made salvation possible and sets forth positively the view that on the cross Christ made salvation effectual and actual. He shows the logic of such a view in the light of the doctrine of election. If God chooses sinners from before the creation of the world then it is only those chosen sinners whom Christ has died for and to whom the Spirit applies salvation.
The final book examines the various exegetical arguments apparently in favour of a universal atonement. He expounds several texts at length that seem to suggest that Christ's death was ineffective or that seem to declare a general offer of salvation. He also provides careful exegesis of texts that use the words world or all and texts that appear to speak of people for whom Christ died perishing. He closes by dealing with Thomas More's The Universality of God’s Free Grace in Christ to Mankind of 1646, one of the works that had prompted the book and refuting various theological arguments from the universal redemption viewpoint.
One curious footnote on the Death of death. When the Banner of Truth republished it as a single volume in 1959 they included an Introductory Essay by Jim Packer. The essay itself has been called a masterpiece in miniature and has been published separately. I remember being given a copy as a young man enquiring into the Reformed faith. Do read both.
Volume 11
Volume 11 contains just one title, The Doctrine of the Saints' Perseverance Explained and Confirmed described by as “a massive assault on the claims in John Goodwin's Redemption redeemed of 1651”. Andrew Thomson (1814-1901) claimed that the treatise
would be almost as complete were every part of it that refers to Goodwin expunged, and undeniably forms the most masterly vindication of the perseverance of the saints in the English tongue. Even Goodwin, with all his luxuriant eloquence, is sadly shattered when grasped by the mailed hand of the great Puritan.
More recently Henry Knapp (WTJ 62:1) has called this “massive work … a systematic rebuttal of Goodwin’s rejection of the doctrine”. Sinclair Ferguson calls it a “somewhat unformed mass” and claims it is “a source of wonder in the present century, in every respect, that what amounts to an extended book review should digress to more than six hundred closely printed pages in the Goold edition, and still make its way into print.” Joel Beeke writes that
for sheer profundity of thought, thoroughness of exposition, and consistent rigour of application, none in the Reformed camp writing on perseverance and assurance have surpassed Owen’s magisterial pen.
Quotation 3 (Volume 11)
Let me give you a flavour of it by quoting from Chapter 10 where Owen speaks about mortification in relation to perseverance.
It says that the great and principal means of mortification of the flesh is not fear of hell and punishment, but the Spirit of Christ, as the apostle tells us, Romans 8:13, If ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live. It is the Spirit of Christ alone that is able to do this great work. We know what bondage and religious drudgery some have put themselves unto upon this account, and yet could never in their lives attain to the mortification of any one sin. It is the Spirit of Christ alone that hath sovereign power in our souls of killing and making alive. As no man quickeneth his own soul, so no man upon any consideration whatsoever, or by the power of any threatenings of the law, can kill his own sin. There was never any one sin truly mortified by the law or the threatening of it. All that the law can do of itself is but to entangle sin, and thereby to irritate and provoke it, like a bull in a net, or a beast led to the slaughter. It is the Spirit of Christ in the gospel that cuts its throat and destroys it. …
It tells you that the great means whereby the Spirit of Christ worketh the mortification of the flesh and the lusts thereof is the application of the cross of Christ, and his death and love therein, unto the soul, and says that those vain endeavours which some promote and encourage for the mortification of sin, consisting, for the most part, in slavish, bodily exercises, are to be bewailed with tears of blood as abominations that seduce poor souls from the cross of Christ; for it says this work is only truly and in an acceptable manner performed when we are planted into the likeness of the death of Christ, having our old man crucified with him, and the body of sin destroyed, Romans 6:5, 6, and thereupon by faith reckoning ourselves dead unto sin, but alive unto God, verse 11. It is done only by knowing the fellowship of the sufferings of Christ, and being made conformable to his death, Philippians 3:10. By the cross of Christ is the world crucified unto us, and we unto the world, Galatians 6:14. The Spirit brings home the power of the cross of Christ to the soul for the accomplishing of this work, and without it it will not be done. Moreover, it says that, by the way of motive to this duty, there is nothing comes with that efficacy upon the soul as the love of Christ in his death ….
Background Perseverance of the saints
The book first appeared in 1654, during the period when Owen was based at Oxford University. The period was his most productive one for publications. Gribben says there is evidence he was working on the subject as early as the beginning of 1652. In his dedication to Oxford dons he says that they
know full well in what straits, under what diversions, employments, business of sundry natures, incumbent on me from the relations wherein I stand in the university, and on sundry other accounts, this work hath been carried on. The truth is, no small portion of it owes its rise to journeys, and such like avocations from my ordinary course of studies and employments, with some spare hours, for the most part in time of absence from all books and assistances of that nature whatever.
The doctrine of the perseverance of the saints goes back at least as far as Augustine and was a major component in the Reformed understanding of the faith. Calvin, for example, says (Institutes 2.5.3)
Therefore, while we all labour naturally under the same disease, those only recover health to whom the Lord is pleased to put forth his healing hand. The others whom, in just judgement, he passes over, pine and rot away till they are consumed. And this is the only reason why some persevere to the end, and others, after beginning their course, fall away. Perseverance is the gift of God, which he does not lavish promiscuously on all, but imparts to whom he pleases.
All was well until Remonstrants in Holland vocally rejected the doctrine, asserting that “true believers can fall from true faith and can fall into such sins as cannot be consistent with true and justifying faith; not only is it possible for this to happen, but it even happens frequently.” (Sententiae Remonstrantium, J. N. Bakhuizen Vanden Brink, De Nederlandsche Belijenisgeschriften, Amsterdam, 1940, V.iii, 287)
The cry was taken up in England by devout Puritans, fearful that the doctrine of perseverance would lead to carnal security and undermine piety and holiness. One such Puritan was John Goodwin (1593–1665) called by Knapp “one of the foremost of the sectarian Arminians - those who separated from the Church of England, retaining much of its Laudian Arminianism, yet sharing the Puritan notions of piety, spirituality and ecclesiastical reform” and by William Orme (1787-1830) “one of the most extraordinary men of the age. He was an Arminian and a republican; a man of violence both in politics and religion and whose controversial powers were of the highest order.” He lived his life “estranged, by singular idiosyncrasy of opinions, from all the leading parties of his time” and placed himself “against every man, and had almost every man against him.”
Redemption Redeemed, his major work, discussed both universal redemption and perseverance. Goodwin's objection was to the inconsistency between the promises of perseverance and the exhortations used in the Bible and the way Reformed writers assured people of perseverance. He was also concerned with the moral consequences of the Calvinist view. He feared a false confidence leading to moral declension. “That doctrine” he wrote
which asserteth a possibility even of a final defection from faith, in true believers, well understood, riseth up in the cause of godliness with a far higher hand, than the common opinion about their perseverance.
Thus in the middle third of his book he has a lengthy critique of the Reformed doctrine, which he opposes with the idea of “the possibility of the saints’ declining even to destruction.”
Two authors in four works replied to Goodwin. In the same year (1651) Richard Resbury of Oundle (1607-1674) produced Some Stop to the Gangrene of Arminianism Lately Promoted by M. John Goodwin followed by (1652) with The Lightless-Starre, or, Mr. John Goodwin Discovered a PelagioSocinian. In 1653 George Kendall from Devon wrote Theokratia, or, A Vindication of the Doctrine Commonly Received in the Reformed Churches Concerning Gods Intentions of Special Grace and Favour to His Elect in the Death of Christ. His follow up (1654) - Sancti Sanciti, or, The Common Doctrine of the Perseverance of the Saints. Owen's work is the most thorough; “by far the most prolific and extensive” according to Knapp.
Summary Perseverance of the saints
Having already dealt with the notion of universal redemption in The Death of Death in the Death of Christ, in this work Owen moves on to the fifth of the so called five points.
After a history of the doctrine, Owen refutes both the individual arguments contained within Redemption Redeemed and the overall assumptions of the author. He quickly concedes the presence of backsliders and apostates within the visible church. However, he asserts that the Arminian classification of all professors of religion as true, genuine believers is both unscriptural and inaccurate; he demonstrates that the scriptural references to those who fall away refer to those who were never truly elect in the first place.
In a positive direction, he grounds the doctrine of perseverance in the immutability of the nature of God and his purposes, the covenant of grace, the promises and the mediatorial work of Christ. The salvation of God’s elect is sure because it is linked ultimately to the unchangeable nature of God himself.
What most inflamed Owen was not his opponent’s opposition to the saints’ perseverance, but his distortion of the Reformed doctrine that gave the idea that the believer’s security would undermine the Christian’s desire to strive for holiness and godliness. In fact God's perseverance with his saints far from hindering it positively promotes holiness. Justification and sanctification are infallibly lined, stimulating love and obedience to God. It is a perversion of the truth to suggest that the Reformed believe in preservation without perseverance.
“For Owen” says Knapp, “the promise of eternal security went hand in hand with the call to persevere in faithfulness.”
The work is dedicated to Oliver Cromwell, ruler at the time. Perhaps realising that the Protector would have little time to plough through such a large tome, Owen provides a succinct summary in his dedication.
That you and all the saints of God may yet enjoy that peace and consolation which is in believing that the eternal love of God is immutable, that he is faithful in his promises, that his covenant, ratified in the death of his Son, is unchangeable, that the fruits of the purchase of Christ shall be certainly bestowed on all them for whom he died, and that every one who is really interested in these things shall be kept unto salvation, is the aim of my present plea and contest.
The two other places where Owen deals with this vital subject are in his comments on Hebrews 6:4-6 in Exposition of the Epistle to the Hebrews and in his treatise on apostasy The Nature of Apostasy from the Profession of the Gospel. The first chapter of this work is a more or less word for word rendition of his work in his commentary. The doctrine should affect the Christian's character in this life so that he walks with God in humility and faith and love, worshipping God all the way. He also spends time describing the future glory of believers in Christ.
There can be no fuller work on the perseverance of the saints than this.
Volume 12 Vindiciae Evangelicae
Almost the whole of Volume 12 is taken up with The Vindiciae evangelicae or The mystery of the gospel vindicated and Socinianism examined.
Quotation 4 (Volume 12)
When I read Volume 12 I marked few places but I did mark what Owen says early on, on page 52. When I turned again to Ferguson's John Owen on the Christian Life I was pleasantly surprised to see that he had also spotted it.
What am I the better if I can dispute that Christ is God, but have no sense or sweetness in my heart from hence that he is a God in covenant with my soul? What will it avail me to evince, by testimonies and arguments, that he hath made satisfaction for sin, if, through my unbelief, the wrath of God abideth on me, and I have no experience of my own being made the righteousness of God in him, - if I find not, in my standing before God, the excellency of having my sins imputed to him and his righteousness imputed to me? Will it be any advantage to me, in the issue, to profess and dispute that God works the conversion of a sinner by the irresistible grace of his Spirit, if I was never acquainted experimentally with the deadness and utter impotency to good, that opposition to the law of God, which is in my own soul by nature, with the efficacy of the exceeding greatness of the power of God in quickening, enlightening, and bringing forth the fruits of obedience in me? It is the power of truth in the heart alone that will make us cleave unto it indeed in an hour of temptation. Let us, then, not think that we are any thing the better for our conviction of the truths of the great doctrines of the gospel, for which we contend with these men, unless we find the power of the truths abiding in our own hearts, and have a continual experience of their necessity and excellency in our standing before God and our communion with him.
Background Vindiciae
In 1647, from prison in Gloucester, John Biddle (1615-1662), often dubbed “The father of English unitarianism”, published his Twelve arguments drawn out of Scripture. The following year he also produced A Confession of Faith, concerning the Holy Trinity. After a short period of freedom, Parliament had him re-arrested and he remained in Newgate until 1652. In 1654 he was again in trouble with Parliament. They ordered his Two-fold Catechism to be seized and copies of his Twelve arguments to be burned. Cromwell had him exiled out of harm's way in the Scilly Isles.
Owen was appointed to answer Biddle, and in hours snatched between committees and on journeys between Oxford and London, he composed another massive work, this time refuting the Socinian heresy. It appeared in 1655, the year after The saints perseverance.
Previous orthodox answers to Biddle had been produced by Nicholas Estwick (c 1584-1658) of Northamptonshire, the later Bible commentator Matthew Poole (1624-1679) Plea for the Godhead of the Holy Ghost and Westminster Divine Francis Cheynell (1608-1655) Divine Trinity of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.
Summary Vindiciae
After various prefaces, including a history of the Socinian movement, the work examines Biddle's Preface at length, concluding that “having briefly washed the paint from the porch of Mr Biddle's fabric; and shown it to be a composition of rotten posts and dead men's bones, whose plaster being removed, their abomination lies naked to all; I shall enter the building itself … ”.
The study also considers the Racovian Catechism (1603), a joint work by Valentinus Smalcius (1572-1622) and others. The body of the work is divided into 35 chapters. These treat the subject meticulously and at great length. Apparently no answer to the work was ever given.
The minor works in Volumes 10 and 12
That just leaves the five minor works in Volumes 10 and 12.
There are three in Volume 10, A display of Arminianism, On the death of Christ and A dissertation on divine justice.
A display of Arminianism published March, 1643 has the distinction of being Owen's first extant work. Crawford Gribben suggests he was taking advantage of a window that appeared following the relaxing of the censorship laws in 1641. The work is one of 2000 to appear in London that year, an almost tenfold increase on previous years. Gribben complains of its “self-conscious learning, awkwardness in expression, and rigidly structured style and format”. Trueman says (The claims of truth, 23) the case “is somewhat overstated and overgeneralised”. Packer, more kindly, likens it to a thesis or a piece of “prentice work”. It is only 137 pages long and its 15 chapters are not too demanding. It is among the less important of Owen's works.
Of the death of Christ is only about 50 pages, though Goold prints it in a reduced font size. The year after the publication of The Death of death Baxter criticised it in an appendix to his first book Aphorismes of Justification. That same year, 1649, Owen was in Dublin with Cromwell, seeking to re-organise Trinity College. He found time, nevertheless, to respond with these 13 short chapters. They form what is basically an appendix to the larger work. Gribben says that Owen also had in view John Davenant (1572-1641) Bishop of Salisbury, “a magisterial figure” and a more worthy opponent. Gribben says Owen shows himself to be prickly in the way he writes. He was certainly surprised and hurt by the attack from his then much less well known contemporary. The work has not received the scholarly attention it deserves as a key text in the development of Owen's understanding of the atonement.
A dissertation on divine justice is the other shorter work in Volume 10. It is around 145 pages. The Diatriba de Justitia Divine to use its original title is unusual in that it was originally published in Latin but appears here in a corrected English translation, originally made in 1794. Published in 1653, it opposes the view that God can merely pardon sin without his justice being satisfied. That is to say, the incarnation is necessary. Goold, dissenting from Owen's first nineteenth century editor, William Orme, who thought this scholastic work no longer worth reading, calls it a conclusive settlement of a vital question, and
one of the most vigorous productions of Owen’s intellect, a specimen of controversy conducted in the best spirit, and displaying powers of thought which remind us of the massive theology of Edwards, while rich in the stores of a learning to which the great American could not lay claim.
The first of two parts seeks to prove that “sin-punishing justice is natural, and its exercise necessary to God”. It argues from Scripture, the consent of mankind, the course of Providence and God's attributes revealed at the cross. Subsidiary arguments follow. Part two refutes in succession the opposing arguments not only of the Socinians but also fellow Puritans William Twisse (1578-1646) and Samuel Rutherford (1600-1661).
Carl Trueman (John Owen Reformed Catholic, Renaissance Man, 42) points out that the Diatriba takes up a position Owen had dismissed six years before in The Death of Death saying the position for which he would argue for in 1653 “was an unwritten tradition with no scriptural warrant”. Trueman comments
It would seem that this significant change in his thinking was probably precipitated by his perception of the rising threat of Socinianism in England of the early 1650s; and the reason for pursuing Twisse and Rutherford on this point was not, of course, that he regarded them as crypto-Socinians. Rather, he seems to have considered their essentially Scotist grounding of the necessity of incarnation and atonement purely on the will of God as providing an inadequate basis for maintaining an orthodox Christology and soteriology in the face of Socinian critiques. To attenuate or even break the connection between God's attributes, incarnation, and atonement, and thus to make the atonement unnecessary, even when considered logically subsequent to a divine decision to save sinful humanity, was half-way to making it unnecessary in any objective sense and to leave the door open for merely moral or exemplary understandings of incarnation and atonement.
Clearly Owen did change his mind on some things as here and we should bear that in mind.
*
That just leaves the two very small works in Volume 12 - Of the death of Christ and justification and A review of the annotations of Hugo Grotius. The first is a further reply to Baxter, brief but “pointed and heated” according to Cooper. The latter work is a response to the Second defence of Hugo Grotius (1583-1645) the Dutch statesman and theologian by Henry Hammond (1605-1660).
This lecture was given at a special conference on reading Owen in The evangelical Library
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