If Mr. Baxter go on with his intentions about a tract concerning universal redemption, perhaps we may have these things cleared; and yet, we must tell him beforehand, that if he draw forth nothing on that subject but what is done by Amyraldus, and like things to them, he will give little satisfaction to learned and stable men upon the issue of his undertaking. I shall not presume to take another man’s task out of his hand, especially one’s who is so every way able to go through with it; else I durst undertake to demonstrate that treatise of Amyraldus, mentioned by Mr. Baxter, to be full of weak and sophistical argumentations, absurd contradictions, vain strife of words, and, in sum, to be as birthless a tympanous endeavour as ever so learned a man was engaged in.
—John Owen, The Works of John Owen, ed. William H. Goold, vol. 10 (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, n.d.), 478–79.
R. Scott Clark
R.Scott Clark is the President of the Heidelberg Reformation Association, the author and editor of, and contributor to several books and the author of many articles. He has taught church history and historical theology since 1997 at Westminster Seminary California. He has also taught at Wheaton College, Reformed Theological Seminary, and Concordia University. He has hosted the Heidelblog since 2007.
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Gotta like that phrase: “…as birthless a tympanous endeavor…” Who does Owen think he is? Luther? LOL
I just glanced at this and seeing it was John Owen paragraph, I figured it’d probably be only two sentences; and it was.