PREFATORY NOTE. 3
racy of the statement as well as the spirit from which it emanated. His enemies,. such as Prynne and Edwards, never in all they wrote against him urged such an accusation. In his own writings he affirms tlie lawfulness of civil magistracy, and of monarchy in particular ; and in some of his tracts condemns the excesses of tlie Fifth-monarcliy Men. The specific statements of Burnet, however, cannot well be met by a general charge against him as an inaccurate historian. Mr Macaulay has thrown over the bishop the shield of his high authority, denouncing such a charge as " altogether unjust." Good- win may have held some milleuarian views akin to the notion of a fifth monarchy, while he blames in severe terms the attempt to forestall and introduce it by violence and bloodshed. In one of the passages from his writings, quoted by Professor Jackson, in his able but somewhat impassioned biography of Goodwin, in order to disprove his connection with the Fifth-monarchy Men, there is a sentence which, discriminating the dogma itself from the excesses of its abettors, sustains our conjecture, and we have seen nothing in tlio other passages inconsistent with it: — " Amongst the persons known by the name of the Fifth-monarchy Men {^not so much from their opinion touching the said laonarchy, as by that fierce and restless spirit which worketh in them to bring it into the world by unhallowed methods), you will learn to speak evil of those that are in dignity," etc. On this supposition, while committed to some premillennial notions, on which the representations of the bishop were founded, Goodwin might be altogether undeserving of the odious imputation which they affix upon his memory.
It was no weak fanatic, therefore, against whom Owen in this instance entered the lists. His worlc, "Redemption Redeemed," is a monument of literary diligence and ability ; and Owen seems almost to envy the copious and powerful diction which enlivens its controversial details. It was his intention to discuss all the points embraced in the Quinquarticular Controversy ; but he overtook only two of them in the work now men- tioned,— universal redemption, and the perseverance of the saints. The latter topic, occupying about a tiiird part of his work, natui-ally arose out of the former, when he sought to prove that Christ died for those who ultimately perish, even though for a season they may have been in a state of grace. Owen, in his reply, confines himself to the subject of the perseverance of the saints; first proving the doctrine by general arguments, and theii considering its practical effects in the obedience and consolation of the saints, a minute refutation of Goodwin's views being interwoven with both parts of his work. On the subject of universal redemption our author had already given his views to the world in his treatise, " The Death of Death," etc. Long as the follow- ing treatise is, however, he intimates his desire to enter still farther on some points in which he was at issue with Goodwin. Though the present work was written while he was burdened with heavy duties as Vice-Chancellor at Oxford, the former part of it is prepared with sufficient care, and relieved with some sprightliness in the composition. The leading fallacy of his opponent, in supposing that the perseverance of the saints implied the continuance of men in gracious privilege though they should become wicked to a degree incompatible witli genuine faith, and evincing that they never possessed it, — a fallacy which begs the whole question in dispute, — he compares to "a sturdy beg- gar," which hath been "often corrected, and sent away grumbling and hungry, and, were it not for pure necessity, would never once be owned any more by its master." The latter part of the work, though able and dexterous in tracking all the sinuosities of the opposing arguments, betrays haste in composition, occasioning unusual difiiculty in eliciting, by amended pimctuation, the real meaning of many paragraphs and sentences ; and the termination is singularly abrupt. He had reserved one of his principal argu- ments, founded on the oath of (iod, for the close, as entitled to the "honour of being the last word in the contest;" but concludes without giving it anyplace in the discus- sion at all. Perhaps this haste and abruptness are to be exjilained by the fact that before he had finished this work, the commands of the Council of State were laid upon him to undertake a reply to the Socinian productions of Biddle; — a task which be executed at gi-eat length in his " Vindicite Evangelicte." On the whole, however, in regard to the jiresent woi'k, there is no treatise in the language so conclusive and so complete in vindication of the doctrine which it is designed to illustrate and defend.
In the preface a historical account is given of the doctrine from the earliest ages of the churcli. The confusion alleged to exist in it is not very perplexing, if attention 1)0 paid to the "catena patrum," — the succession of authors to whom he appeals in proof of wliat the view of the church has been in past ages on the subject of the doc- trine under considei'ation. It is embai-rassed, however, by a discussion of the authen- ticity of the Ignatian Epistles; on which, at the close of the preface, we have appended a note, indicating the present state of the controversy respecting them. The leading