A host of opponents sprung up in reply to Baxter and Bull; but they were not left without help in maintaining their position. In support of Baxter, Sir Charles Wolsley, a baronet of some reputation, who had been a member of Cromwell's Council of State, and wlio sat in several parliaments after the Restoration, pub- lished, in 1667, his " Justification Evangelical." In a letter to Mr Humfrey, author of the " Peaceable Disquisition,'' pnblislied subsequently to Owen's work, and partly in refutation of it, Sir Charles, referring to Dr Owen, remarks, " I suppose you know his book of Justification was written particularly against mine." There is reason to believe that Owen had a wider object in view than the refutation of any particular treatise. In the preface to his great work, which appeared in 1677, he assures the reader that, whatever contests pievailed on the subject of justifi- cation, it was his design to mingle in no personal controversy with any author of the day. Not that his reasonings had no bearing on the pending disputes, for, from the brief review Ave have submitted of the history of this discussion, it is clear that, with all its other excellencies, the work was eminently season- able and much needed; but he seems to have been under a conviction, that in refuting specially Socinus and Bellarmine, he was in effect disposing of the most formidable objections ever urged against the doctrine of justification by grace, while lie avoided the unpleasantness of personal collision with the Christian men of his own times whose views might seem to him deeply erroneous on the point; and the very coincidence of these views, both in principle and tendency, with Sociuian and Popish heresies, would suggest to his readers, if not a conclusive argument against tiiem, at least a good reason why they should be carefully examined before they were embraced. His work, therefore, is not a meagre and ephemeral contribution to the controversy as it prevailed in his day, and under an aspect in which it may never again be revived. It is a formal review of the whole amount of truth revealed to us in regard to the justification of the sinner before God ; and, if the scope of the treatise is considered, the author cannot be blamed for prolixity in the treatment of a theme so wide. On his own side of the question, it is still the most complete discussion in our language of the important doctrine to which it relates. Exception has been taken to the abstruse defini- tions and distinctions which he introduces. He had obviously no intention to offend in this way; for, at the close of chap, xiv., he makes a quaint protest against the admission of " exotic learning," "philosophical notions," and "arbi- trary distinctions," into the exposition of spiritual truth. In the refutation of complicated error, there is sometimes a necessity to track it through various sinuosities ; but, in the main, the treatise is written in a spirit which proves how directly the author was resting on divine truth as the basis of his own faith and hope, and how warily he strove and watched that his mind might not " be cor- rupted from the simplicity that is in Christ."
VOL. V. 1
4* PREFATORY NOTE.
" A curious fact," says Mr Or me, "respecting this book, is mentioned in the Life of Mr Joseph Williams, of Kidderminster : — 'At last, the time of his (Mr Grimshawe's, an active clergyman of the Church of England) deUverance came. At the house of one of his friends he lays his hand on a book, and opens it, with his face towards a pewter shelf. Instantly his face is saluted with an uncommon flash of heat. He turns to the title-page, and finds it to be Dr Owen on Justifica- tion. Immediately he is surprised with such another flash. He borrows the book, studies it, is led into God's method of justifying the ungodly, hath a new heart given unto him ; and now, behold, he prayeth ! ' Whether these flashes were electri- cal or galvanic, as Southey in his Life of Wesley supposes, it deserves to be noticed, that it was not the fiash but the book which converted Grimshawe. The occurrence which turned his attention to it, is of importance merely as the second cause, which, under the mysterious direction of Providence, led to a blessed result."
Analysis. — The causes, object, nature, and use of faith are successively considered, CHAP. I. -III. The nature of justification is next discussed ; — first, under an inquiry into the meaning of the different terms commonly employed regarding it ; and, secondly, by a statement of the juridical and forensic aspect under which it is represented in Scripture, iv. The theory of a twofold justification, as asserted by the Church of Rome, and another error which ascribes the initial justification of the sinner to faith, but the continuance of his state as justified to his own per- sonal righteousness, are examined, and proved untenable, v. Several arguments are urged in disproof of a third erroneous theory, broached and supported by Socinians, that justification depends upon evangelical righteousness as the condi- tion on which the righteousness of Christ is imputed, vi. A general statement follows of the nature of imputation, and of the grounds on which imputation pro- ceeds, VII. A full discussion ensues of the doctrine that sin is imputed to Christ, grounded upon the mystical union between Christ and the church, the suretiship of the former in behalf of the church, and the provisions of the new covenant, viii. The chief controversies in regard to justification are arranged and classi- fied, and the author fixes on the point relating to the formal cause of justification as the main theme of the subsequent reasonings, ix.