Notes have been supplied, in the course of the treatise, explanatory of some allusions to various writers, whose names are now almost unknown, and in one or two instances, we hava briefly indicated to what extent passages quoted by Owen have been affected by the results and discoveries of modern criticism. For the special object which he had in view, he adopts the course which has since been generally approved of and pursued, as obviously the wisest and safest in defending and expounding the doctrine of the Trinity, lie appeals to the broad mass of Scrijjture evidence in favour of the doctrine, and after proving the divine unity, together with the divinity of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost respectively, is careful not to enter on any discussion in regard to the unrevealed mysteries involved in the relations of the Trinity, beyond what was necessaiy for tiie refutation of those who argue, that whatever in this high doctrine is incomprehensible by reason, must be incomjiatible with rerelatioii. This little work is farther remarkable for the almost totiil absence of the tedious digressions, which abound in the other works of Owen. Such logical unity and concentration of thought is the more remark- able, when we find that the treatise was written, as he tells us, " in a few hours." But it was a subject on which his mind was fully stored, and his whole heart was interested. The treatise which follows, therefore, was not the spark struck in some moment of collision, and serving only a temporary purpose, but a steady flame nourished from the beaten oil of the sanctuary. — Ed.
TO THE READER.
Christian Reader, This small treatise hath no other design hut thy good, and estahlishment in the truth. "And therefore, as laying aside that consideration alone, I could desirously have been excused from the labour of those hours which were spent in its com- posure; so in the work itself I admitted no one thought, but how the things treated of in it might and ought to be managed iinto thy spiritual benefit and advantage. Other designs most men have in writing -s^diat is to be exposed to pviblic view, and lawfully may have so ; in this I have nothing but merely thy gQod. I have neither been particularly provoked nor opposed by the adversaries of the truth here pleaded for, nor have any need, from any self-respect, to publish such a small, plain discourse as this. Love alone to the truth, and the welfare of thy soul, has given efficacy to their importunity who pressed me to this small service.
The matters here treated of are on all hands confessed to be of the greatest moment, such as the eternal welfare of the souls of men is immediately and directly concerned in. This all those who believe the sacred truths here proposed and explained do unanimously profess and contend for ; nor is it denied by those by whom they are opposed. There is no need, therefore, to give thee any especial reasons to evince thy concernment in these things, nor the greatness of that con- cernment, thereby to induce thee unto their serious consideration. It were welJ, indeed, that these' great, sacred, and mysterious truths might, without contention or controversies about them, be left unto the fjiith of believ'ers, as proposed in the Scripture, with that explanation of them which, in the oi'dinary ministry and dis- pensation of the gospel, is necessary and required.
Certainly, these tremendous mysteries are not by us willingly to be exposed, or prostituted to the cavils of every perverse querist and disputer ; — those trv^riTvra] toZ alZfio; TovTiv, whose pretended wisdom (indeed ignorance, darkness, and folly) God hath designed to confound and destroy in them and by them. For my part, I can assure thee, reader, I have no mind to contend and dispute about these things, which I humbly adore and believe as they are revealed. It is the importunity of adversaries, in their attempts to draw and seduce the souls of men from the truth and simplicity of the gospel in these great fundamentals of it, that alone can justify any to debate upon, or eristically [in the form of controversy] to handle these awful mysteries. This renders it our duty, and that indispensaljly, inasmuch as A^e are required to " contend earnestly for the faith once delivered unto the saints." But yet, also, when this necessity is imposed on us, we are by no means discharged from that humble reverence of mind wherewith we ought always to be conversant about them ; nor from that regard unto the way and manner of their revelation in the Scripture which may preserve us from all unnecessary intermixture of litigious or exotic phrases and expressions in their assertion and declaration. I know our adversaries could, upon the matter, decry any thing peculiarly mysterious in these things, although they are frequently and emphatically in the Scriptures affii-med 60 to be. But, whilst they deny the mysteries of the things themselves, — which are
368 TO THE READER.
such as every way become the glorious hcing and wisdom of God, — they are forced to assign such an enigmatical sense unto the words, expressions, and propositions wherein they are revealed and declared in the Scripture, as to turn almost the whole gospel into an allegory, wherein nothing is properly expressed but in some kind of allusion unto what is so elsewhere: which irrational way of proceeding, leaving nothing certain in what is or may be expressed by word or writing, is covered over Mith a pretence oC ritjht reason; which utterly rofuseth to be so em- ployed. These things the reader will find afterward made manifest, so far as the nature of this brief discourse will bear. And I shall only desire these few things of him that intends its perusal : — First, That he would not look on the subject here treated of as the matter of an ordinary controversy in rehgion, —