Since not only the complete finishing of this treatise under my hand, which is now about five months ago, but also the printing of some part of it, the two dissertations of Dr Davenant, of the Death of Christ, and of Predestination and Reprobation, were set forth; in both which, especially the former, there are sundry assertions, positions, and theses, differing from what is delivered in the ensuing treatise, and, as I suppose, repugnant unto truth itself. The whole of those persuasions, I confess, which he endeavoureth in them to maintain, is suited to the expressions of sundry learned men, as Austin, Hilary, Fulgentius, Prosper, who in their generations deserved exceeding well of the church of God; but that it is free from opposition to the Scripture, or indeed self-contradiction, is not so apparent. Yea, through the patience and goodness of God, I undertake to demonstrate that the main foundation of his whole dissertation about the death of Christ, with many inferences from thence, are neither found in, nor founded on the word; but that the several parts thereof are mutually conflicting and destructive of each other, to the great prejudice of the truth therein contained.
It is a thing of the saddest consideration possible, that wise and learned men should once suppose, by tempering the truths of God so that they may be suited to the self-indulgency of unsubdued carnal affections, to give any lustre to them, or in the least to remove that scandal and offence which the fleshly-minded doth take continually at those ways of God which are far above out of his sight. That this is the grand design of such undertakings as that of the learned bishop now mentioned, even to force the mysteries of the gospel to a condescension and suitableness unto the unpurged relics of the wisdom of nature, when all other thoughts ought to be captivated to the obedience thereof, is to me most apparent. Whence else should it proceed that so many unscriptural distinctions of the various intentions of God in the business of redemption, with the holding out, for the confirmation of one part of their opinion,—namely, “That Christ died for all and every one in such a sense,”—those very arguments which the most that own the truth of their inferences do employ merely against the latter part of their opinion,—namely, “In some sense he died only for the elect,”—with sundry inextricable entanglements, should fill up both the pages of their discourses?
It is no way clear to me what glory redoundeth to the grace of God, what exaltation is given to the death of Christ, what encouragement to sinners in the things of God, by maintaining that our Saviour, in the intention and the designment of his Father, died for the redemption of millions for whom he purchased not one dram of saving grace, and concerning whom it was the purpose of God from eternity not to make out unto them effectually any of those means for a participation in the fruits of his death, without which it is impossible but it should be useless and unprofitable unto them; and yet this is the main design of that Dissertation concerning the Death of Christ. What in that and the ensuing discourse is argued and contended for according to the mind of God we thankfully accept; and had it not been condited with the unsavoury salt of human wisdom, it had been exceeding acceptable, especially at this time: for that there are some more than ordinary endeavours for the supportment and re-enforcing of the almost conclamated cause of Arminianism ready to be handed unto public view is commonly reported and believed; concerning which, also, many swelling words (of which there lies great abundance on every side) are daily vented, as of some unparalleled product of truth and industry, as though “Nil oriturum alias, nil ortum tale,” [nothing like it has arisen, nothing like it will arise again] for the most part by such as are utterly ignorant how far these controversies have been sifted, and to what issue they have been driven long ago.
John Owen, The Works of John Owen, ed. William H. Goold, vol. 10 (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, n.d.), 432–33. Emphasis added. NB: the translation of the Latin is supplied by the HB. It is a quotation from book 2, epistle 1, line 16 of the Epistles of Horace.
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