For the present, being by God's providence removed for a season from my native soil, attended with more than ordinary weaknesses and infirmities, separated from my library, burdened with manifold employments, with constant preaching to a numerous multitude of as thirsting a people after the gospel as ever yet 1 conversed withal, it sufBceth me that I have obtained this mercy, briefly and plainly to vin- dicate the truth from mistakes, and something farther to unfold the mystery of our redemption in Christ, all with so facile and placid an endeavour as is usually upon the spirits of men in the familiar writings of one friend to another. That it hath been my aim to seek after truth, and to keep close to the form of wholesome words deUvered to us, will, I hope, appear to them that love truth and peace.
Tm Qia apurrofiiyiffTifi o'o^a. DcBLiN Castle, December 20, 1619.
DISSERTATION ON DIVINE JUSTICE:
THE CLAIMS OF VIKDICATOEY JUSTICE VINDICATED;
WHEREm THAT ESSENTIAL PROPERTY OF THE DIYINE NATURE IS DEMONSTRATED
FROM THE SACRED WRITINGS, AND DEFENDED AGAINST SOCINIANS,
PARTICULARLY THE AUTHORS OF THE RACOVIAN CATECHISM,
JOHN CRELLIUS, AND F. SOCINUS HIMSELF;
LIKEWISE TUB NECESSARY EXERCISE THEREOF ;
TOGETHER VTITH THE INDISPENSABLE NECESSITY OF THE SATISFACTION OF CHRIST FOR THE
SALVATION OF SINNERS IS ESTABLISHED AGAINST THE OBJECTIONS OF CERTAIN VERT
LEARNED MEN, G. TWISSE, G. VOSSIUS, SAMUEL RUTHERFORD, AND OTHERS.
BY JOHN OWEN,
DEAN OF CHRIST CHORCH COLLEGE, OXFORD.
"Is God unrighteous who taketh vengeance ? God forbid : for then how shall God judge the world ? "— Kom. iii. 5, 6.
OXFORD: THOMAS ROBINSON. 1653.
VOL. X 31
PREFATORY NOTE.
Tms work is devoted to a refutation of the doctrine that sin could be pardoned by a mere volition on the part of God, without any satisfaction to his justice; or, to state the question in the absti'act form which it chiefly assumes in the reasonings of Owen, that justice is not a natural attribute of tlie divine natui'e, but so much an act of the divine will, that God is free to punish or to refrain from punishin.;^ sin. Owen clearly saw that if such a doctrine were entertained, there could be no evidence^ for the necessity of the atonement, and a stronghold would be surrendered to the ISocinian heresy. He was the more induced to engage in the refutation of it, as it was maintained by some divines of eminent worth and ability. Calvin has been cited in its favour; and Owen, without naming him, refers to the only passage in his writings which, so far as we are aware, conveys the obnoxious sentiment, when in the second chapter he speaks of the learned men who, along with Augustine, and amongst orthodox divines, held the view in ques- tion. The passage occurs in his commentary on John xv. 13 : — " Poterat nos Deus verbo aut nutu redimere, nisi aliter nostra causa visum esset, ut pvoprio et unigenito Filio non parcens, testatum faceret in ejus persona quantam habeat salutis nostriB curam." An isolated phrase, however, when the question was not specially under his review, is scarcely sufBcient basis from which to infer that Calvin held the possibility of sin being forgiven without an atonement; and other parts of his works might be quoted, in which he speaks of the death of Christ as a satisfaction to divine justice, iu such terms as almost to preclude the theory for which the sanction of his name has been pleaded. Dr William Twisse, the learned prolocutor of the Westminster Assembly, published in 16.32 a large work, now almost fallen into oblivion, but which passed through several editions, and was justly held in high esteem, " Vindioise Gratiae, Potestati-s, ac Provi- dentioi Divinse." In the midst of his discussions he inserts several digi-essions on special topics; and the eighth digression contains an argument to prove that God punishes siu, not by any necessity of nature, or under the promptings of justice, as essential to the perfection of his character, but simply in vii'tue of a decree, originating in a free act of his will, and regulating, in this subordinate sense, all his procedure towards our race. He was followed by Ilutherford in his " Disputatio Scholastica de Divina Providentia," 1649 ; and in his work on " Christ Dying, and Drawing Sinners," etc. One extract fro:u the latter gives a plausible and condensed statement of the whole theory: — " H' we speak of God's absolute power without respect to his free decree, he could have pai'doned sin without a ransom, and gifted all mankind and fallen angels witli heaven without any satisfaction of either the sinner or his surety ; for he neither punisheth sin, nor tenders heaven to men or angel.s, by necessity of nature, — as the lire casteth out heat, and the sun light, — but freely."
Owen, in one of the public disputations at Oxford, had asserted that the exercise of divine justice was necessary and absolute in the punishment of sin. Though his argu- ments were directed against Sociniius, some divines in the university, it was lound, lielu a different opinion from our author on this particular point, and, in full explanation of his views, in 1653 he published his Diatriba. " It is almost entirely," says Mr Orme, "of a scholastic nature, discovering, indeed, much acuteness, and a profound acquaintance v/ith the subject, but not likely now to be read with much interest. " We concur in this criti- cism, but must take exception to the last remark. The work, in our judgment, at least deserves to be read with interest, as the conclusive settlement of a question of vital mo- }uent, one of the most vigorous productions of Owen's intellect, a specimen of controversy conducted in the best spirit, and displaying powei-s of thought which remind us of the massive tlieology of Edwards, while rich in the stores of a learning to which the great Amei-ican could not lay claim. In the first part of it, Owen proves that " sin-punishing justice is natural, and its exercise necessary to God," by four leading arguments, — 1. The statements of Holy Writ ; 2. The consent of mankind ; 3. The couise of Provi- dence ; and, lastly, The attributes of God as revealed in tlie cross of Christ. Various subsidiai-y arguments of considerable importance follow. The second part I'efutes iu succession the opposing arguments of the Socinians, Twisse, and Rutherford.