CoGGEsiiALL, Ajjril 23, IG 13.
OF
THE DEATH OF CHRIST,
THE PRICE HE PAID, AND THE PURCHASE HE MADE;
THE SATISFACTION AKD MERIT OF THE DEATH OF CHRIST CLEARED; THE UNIVERSxlLITY OF REDEMrTION THEREBY OrrUGNED;
THE DOCTKINB CONCERNING TIIKSE THINGS, FOEMEELY DELIVERED IN A TREATISE AGAINST
UNIVERSAL REDEMPTION, VINDICATED FROM THE EXCEPTIONS
AND OBJECTIONS OF MR R[ICHARD] B[AXTEE.]
PREFATORY NOTE.
Tins reply to the animadversions of Baxter on the preceding treatise was prepared by Owen while he was busily occupied in Dublin with arranging the affairs of Trinity Col- lege,— the work for which he had been taken to Ireland by Cromwell. It may be viewed simply as an appendix to the important treatise which it vindicates; and it discusses several points, such as the nature of the payment made by Christ, the penalty under- gone by him, the condition of believers antecedent to the death of Christ and to their own faith in Christ, etc., — questions on which momentous issues hang, if treated in relation to Socinianism, or even to certain equivocal views of Grotius, but which savour much of a logomachy, as the subject of dispute between Owen and Baxter.
The animadversions of Baxter, to which the following treatise is an answer, appeared at the close of his " Aphorisms on Justification ; " to which some interest attaches, as the first of the voluminous publications of Baxter, which have been computed to amount to more than double all the manifold and lengthened productions of his antagonist, Owen! Baxter's second appearance in this controversy was in his "Confession of Faith," 1G55. In this work he accuses our author most unjustly of Antinomianism ; and it is remarkable that while he persists in condemning Owen's work against univer- sal redemption, he declares, nevertheless, " In the article of the extent of redemption, wherein I am most suspected and accused, I do subscribe to the Synod of Dort, Avithout any exception, limitation, or exposition of any word as doubtful and obscure." It may seem difficult to reconcile this statement with his opposition to the sentiments of Owen. The latter replied in an appendix to his " Vindiciae Evangclicoe ; " and the dispute closed with a final reply from Baxter, appended to a work which he published against Mr Blacke, entitled, " Certain Disputations of Right to the Sacraments, and the True Nature of Visible Christianity," 1G56.
There is a feeling of pain in perusing the record of such disputes between men who held so much of precious truth in common, — who had both higher work on hand against common enemies, — men at one, doubtless, in all the sympathies of genuine faith and spiritual brotherhood, and now for ever at one in the songs and services of heaven. Good will spring from all the evil of these keen debates, if we can hold with a firmer grasp the ti-uth which they may have been overruled to elicit and establish ; and though a spirit of pugnacity appears in the conduct of Baxter, how few share his candour and modesty in the subsequent acknowledgment which he made, that he had been impru- dent and incautious in meddling on tliis occasion with Owen ! — Ed.
TO THE READER.
Of all the controversies wherewith the disciples of Christ, through the craft of Satan, and their o^vn knowing but in part, have in several ages been exercised, there have been none of so great weight and importance, upon all considerations whatever, as those which immediately concern the person and grace of Him by whose name they are called. As his person was almost the sole subject of contest (of any moment) for the space of many ages succeeding his converse in the flesh with the sons of men ; so in these latter days, through the darkness of their own spirits and the seducements of the spirit of darkness, many in an especial manner do draw forth a variety of uncouth thoughts concerning his grace, and the dispen- sation of the love of God towards mankind in him. Yet have not these things been so distinctly managed, but that as they of old, with their oppositions to his person, did also labour to decry and disannul the work of his grace ; so many of those who, of latter days, have been led away into dangerous misapprehensions of his grace, both as to the foundation ami efficacy of it, have also wi'ested the things concerning his person to their own destruction.
Of those that have entangled the spirits of the men of this generation, turning aside many from the simplicity of the gospel and the truth as it is in Jesus, none have been obtruded upon the saints of God with greater confidence, nor carried out to a more unhappy issue, than such as, assisting corrupted nature to unbend itself from under the sovereignty of God, and loosening the thoughts of men's hearts from their captivity to the obedience of the gospel, do suit the mystery of God in Christ reconciling sinners unto himself to the fleshly wisdom and reason- ings of a man. It was in our hopes and expectations, not many years ago, that the Lord would graciously have turned back all those bitter streams which, issuing from the pride, unthankfulness, and wisdom of the carnal mind, had many ways attempted to overflow the doctrine of the grace of God, that bringeth salvation ; but finding now, l^y experience, that the day of the church's rest from persecution is the day of Satan's main work for seducing and temptation, and that not a few are attempting once more to renew the contest of sinful, guilty, defiled nature, against the sovereign distinguishing love and effectual grace of God, it cannot but be convenient, yea necessary, that the faith once delivered to the saints be con- tended for and asserted from the word of truth in the Hke public way wherein it is opjjosed.