In the midst of these engagements, Dr Owen produced and pub- lished, in Latin, one of his most abstruse dissertations, — " Diatriba de Divina Justitia, etc."; or, the Claims of Vindicatory Justice Asserted." The principle which it is the design of this treatise to explain and establish is, that God, considered as a moral governor, could not for- give sin without an atonement, or such provision for his justice as that which is made by the sacrifice of Christ. It had fallen to his lot
' His spirit is expressed in the following tender words, with which he closed one of his debates : " While we wrangle here in the dark, we are dying, and passing to the world that will decide all our controversies; and the safest passage thitlier is by a peaceable holiness."
3 Wood^s Fasti, ii. 179. ' Wood's Athen. Oxon., iv. 98.
HIS VICE-CHANCELLORSHIP. LV
some months before, in certain theological discussions to which he was called by his office, " to discourse and dispute on the vindicatory- justice of God, and the necessity of its exercise on the supposition of the existence of sin;" and his hurried treatment of the subject, in the brief hour which was allowed him, had the rare success of bringing many over to his views. Owen was convinced that his principle " struck its roots deep through almost the Avhole of theology."^ He saw plainly that its effect, if established, was to raze the veiy foun- dations of Socinian error ; — yet he was grieved to find that many ex- cellent divines, who held views in common with him on all the gTeat truths of the evangelical system, wavered on this, and that some honoured names had lately given a new sanction to the opposite opi- nion; among whom wei'e Dr Twisse of Newbury, prolocutor of the Westminster Assembly, in his " Vindicise Gratise, Potestatis, ac Pro- videntiaB divinte," and the venerable Samuel Rutherford of St An- drews, in his "Disputatio Scholastica de divina Providentia."^ This made him the more readily accede to the wishes of those who had leceived benefit and confirmation from his verbal exposition of the subject, that he would enter on its more orderly and deliberate inves- tigation. We do not wonder that the future expositor of the Epistle to the Hebrews should have been strongly prompted to contend for this principle, since it seems wrought up with more than one part of that colossal argument of inspired theology.
In pursuing his argument, he evidently felt himself dazzled at times by the lustre of those interior truths to which his thoughts were turned. " Those points," he remarks, " which dwell in more intimate recesses, and approach nearer its immense fountain, the Father of light, dartmg brighter rays by their excess of light, present a confounding darkness to the minds of the greatest men, and are as darkness to the eyes breaking forth amidst so great light. For what we call darkness in divine subjects is nothing else than their celestial glory and splendour striking on the weak ball of our eyes, the rays of which we are not able in this life, Avliich is but a vapour and shineth but a little, to bear."^
In other places we can trace indications, that when he was rising
■ Preface, p. viii. 2 Orme, p. 153.
^ Many readers will be struck by the resemblance between this noble passage and that of Owen's greatest contemporary : —
" Thee, Author of all being, Fountain of lipht, thyself invisible Amidst the glorious brightness where thou sittest Throned inaccessible ; but when thou shadest The full blaze of thy beams, and through a duuj, Drawn round ab<iut thee like a radiant shrine, l">ark with excessive bright thy skirts appear; Vet dazzle heaven, that brightest seraphim Approach not, but with both wings veil their eves."
Tar. Lost., book iii. 374-382.
LVI LIFE OF DR OWEN.
to the height of his great argument, his fertile mind was revolving new treatises, which he afterwards gave to the world, and longing for the hour when he would descend from his present altitudes to those truths which bear more directly and powerfully on the spiritual life : " There are, no doubt, many other portions and subjects of our reli- gion, of that blessed trust committed to us for our instruction, on which we might dwell with greater pleasure and satisfaction of mind. Such, I mean, as afford a more free and wider scope of ranging through the most pleasant meads of the holy Scripture, and contem- plating in these the transparent fountains of life and rivers of conso- lation;— subjects which, unencumbered by the thickets of scholastic terms and distinctions, unembarrassed by the impediments and sophisms of an enslaving philosophy or false knowledge, sweetly and pleasantly lead into a pure, unmixed, and delightful fellowship with the Father and with his Son, shedding abroad in the heart the in- most loves of our Beloved, with the odour of his SAveet ointment poured forth." ^
The usual number of replies followed the appearance of this trea- tise, in which Baxter once more stood forth equipped in his ready armour.
In the following year Dr Owen gave to the world another work, of much greater magnitude, extending over nearly five hundred folio pages. He has himself supplied its best desciiption and analysis in its ample title-page, — " The Doctrine of the Saints' Perseverance Ex- plained and Confirmed ; or, the certain permanency of their accepta- tion with God and sanctification from God manifested and proved, from the eternal principles, the effectual causes, and the external means thereof; in the immutability of the nature, decrees, covenant, and promises of God ; the oblation and intercession of Jesus Christ ; the promises, exhortations, and threats of the Gospel : improved in its genuine tendency to obedience and consolation." The work was imme- diately called forth by the "Redemption Redeemed" of John Good- vdn, an Arminian writer, to whom Owen allows nearly all the most brilliant qualities of a controversialist, except a good cause. He de- scribes him as not only clothing every conception of his mind with language of a fuU and choice significancy, but also trimming and adorning it with all manner of signal improvements that may render it keen or pleasant, according to his intendment and desire, and hap- pily applies to him the words of the Roman poet : —