AN APPENDIX
UPON OCCASION OP
A LATE J300K PUBLISHED BY M JOSHUA SPEIGGE/
CONTAINING ERRONEOUS DOCTUINE.
Readeu, I DO earnestly entreat thy serious perusal of this short appendix. The total finish- ing and printing, not only of the body of the discourse, but also the preface, before occasion was gi\ en to those thoughts which I now desire to communicate, is the rise of this ataxy. This, being irrecoverable, will admit of no farther apology. In the third division of this treatise there are sundry chaj)ters, namely, vii.-ix., etc., about the satisfaction of Christ, in which the doctrine is cleared and vindicated fi'om the objections of some. The first aim I had therein was, to show the incon- sistency of that with the general ransom, principally now opposed. In handling of it my eye was chiefly on the Socinians, the noted known opposers of the person, grace, and merit of Christ, the most wretched prevaricators in Christian religion which any age ever yet produced. In the manner of asserting it, I looked not beside the scriptural proposal of it, nor turned to any controversials, but only for the remarking some -prapofu,f^a.ra, and (I fear wilful) failings and mistakes of Grotius,' in stating this business. His wretched apostasy into the very dregs of the error by himseh" (in the judgment of some) strongly opposed, sufficiently au- thorizeth any to lay open his treacherous dealing in his first undertaking. If any doubt of this, let him but compare the exposition of sundry texts of Scripture in that book against Socinus with those which the same person hath since given in his so much admired (indeed, in vei'y many things, so much to be abhorred) Anno- tations on the Bible: and, by their inconsistency he will qviickly perceive the stead- fastness of that man to his first principles. Great as he was, he was not big enough to contend with truth. Moreover, I had it in my thoughts to endeavour the re- moval of (as I then thought) a scruple from the minds of some well-meaning persons, who weakly apprehend that the eternal love of God to his elect was in- consistent with the satisfaction of Christ, and therefore began to apprehend, and instantly to divulge abroad (for that is the manner of our days, for every one to cast upon others the crudities of their own stomach, and scatter abroad undigested conceptions, waiting for some to lick their deformed issues, and to see what other
' Mr Spvigge, after having been educated at Oxfoi-d, took the degree of M.A. at Edinburgh. He became a preaclier at St Mary, Aldermaubury, and subsequently at St Pancras, London. After the Re- storation he purchased an estate, Crayford, in Kent, and lived there in rttirement. He m irried in 1673, Frances, the daughter of Lord Wimbledon, and widow of Lord Say. He returned to London aiid died at llii-'hgate. lie was the author of some political works, "AnJlia Rediviva," a folio volume, containing the history of the army under Fairfax, and jjublislied in 1647; and " Certain Considerations tendere.l to the Consideration of the High Court of Justice for Trial of the King," 164^. His tlii'olo- gical works are chiefly sermons. It is rather stran.e that Owen never indicates the title of tlie work by Sprigge on which he is animadverting; and Mr Orme mentions that he had not ascertained to which of Sprigge's works our author refers. It was, however, a collection of five sermons which Sprigge had delivered at St I'ancras, and which were published under the title of, " A Testimony to Approaching Glory." Anthony Wood affirms tliat they contained "several blasphemies;" and they drew forth some pimphlets, besides this Appendix of Owen, in exposure of their errors. Two of these pamphlets, pub- lished in 1652, bore the titles, " The Beacons Quenched," and " The Beacons Flaming."— Ld.
2 Lib. de Satisfac. Christi. Vos. Def. Grot. alii.
426 AN APPENDIX TOUCHING ERRORS
capricious brains can make of that which themselves know not how to improve) that Christ came only to declare the love of the Father, and to make it manifest to us, that we, in the apprehension thereof, might he drawn to him; so that as for satisfaction and merit, they are but empty names, obscuring the gospel, which holds out no such things. Now, concerning this I know, —
1. That this new-named^ree grace, this glorious height and attainment, this var- nished duity, was at fii'st in its original " truncus ficulnus," — an old, rotten, over- worn, Arminian objection, raised out of the obs. and sols, of the old schoolmen, to oppose the doctrine of effectual redemption by Christ, or else to overthrow the doctrine of eternal election ; for they framed it to look both ways (either we are not so cliosen, or not so redeemed), not caring which part of their work it did, so it were in any measure useful. This was the birth and rise of this glorious dis- covery.
2. That of its own accord it tends to the very bottom of Socinian folly,- yea, indeed, is the very same opinion, for substance, with that whereby they have so long vexed the churches of God, and are themselves deservedly by them all esteemed accursed, for preaching another gospel. Doth not the sum of this discovery come hither, that there is no vindicative justice in God, no wrath or anger against sin, nothing requiring satisfaction for it; that Christ came to declare this, and to make known the way of going to the Father ? And is not this that very Helena for which the Socinians have, with so much fraud and subtlety, with so many Sino- nian arts, so long contended ?