Apostasy from the Gospel (Volume 14) E-Book

John Owen

• Herausgeber: Crossway
• Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
• Serie: The Complete Works of John Owen
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Beschreibung

Volume 14 of The Complete Works of John Owen Warns Christians about the Dangers of Apostasy Regarded as one of the greatest theologians in history, 17th-century pastor John Owen remains influential among those interested in Puritan and Reformed theology. The Complete Works of John Owen brings together all of Owen's original theological writing, including never-before-published work, reformatted for modern readers in 40 user-friendly volumes. Volume 14, Apostasy from the Gospel, features Owen's book-length treatise on the threat of heresy, the need for repentance, and the importance of preserving biblical purity of doctrine, holiness, and worship. With extensive introductions by editor Joel R. Beeke, this volume also includes outlines, footnotes, and other supporting resources. Released over a number of years, The Complete Works of John Owen will inspire a new generation of Bible readers and scholars to deeper faith. - Edited and Formatted for Modern Readers: Presents Owen's original work, newly typeset with outlines, text breaks, headings, and footnotes - Informative New Introductions: Provide historical, theological, and personal context - Supporting Resources Enhance Reading: Include extensive annotations with sources, definitions, and translations of ancient languages - Part of the Complete Works of John Owen Collection: Will release 40 hardcover volumes over a number of years - Perfect for Churches and Schools: Ideal for students, pastors, theologians, and those interested in the Holy Spirit and the Puritans

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The Complete Works of John Owen

The Complete Works of John Owen

The Trinity

Vol. 1  Communion with God

Vol. 2  The Trinity Defended: Part 1

Vol. 3  The Trinity Defended: Part 2

Vol. 4  The Person of Christ

Vol. 5  The Holy Spirit—His Person and Work: Part 1

Vol. 6  The Holy Spirit—His Person and Work: Part 2

Vol. 7  The Holy Spirit—The Helper

Vol. 8  The Holy Spirit—The Comforter

The Gospel

Vol. 9  The Death of Christ

Vol. 10 Sovereign Grace and Justice

Vol. 11 Justification by Faith Alone

Vol. 12 The Saints’ Perseverance: Part 1

Vol. 13 The Saints’ Perseverance: Part 2

Vol. 14 Apostasy from the Gospel

The Christian Life

Vol. 15 Sin and Temptation

Vol. 16 An Exposition of Psalm 130

Vol. 17 Heavenly-Mindedness

Vol. 18 Sermons and Tracts from the Civil Wars (1646–1649)

Vol. 19 Sermons from the Commonwealth and Protectorate (1650–1659)

Vol. 20 Sermons from the Early Restoration Years (1669–1675)

Vol. 21 Sermons from the Later Restoration Years (1676–1682)

Vol. 22 Miscellaneous Sermons and Lectures

The Church

Vol. 23 The Nature of the Church: Part 1

Vol. 24 The Nature of the Church: Part 2

Vol. 25 The Church Defended: Part 1

Vol. 26 The Church Defended: Part 2

Vol. 27 The Church’s Worship

Vol. 28 The Church, the Scriptures, and the Sacraments

Hebrews

Vol. 29 An Exposition of Hebrews: Part 1, Introduction to Hebrews

Vol. 30 An Exposition of Hebrews: Part 2, Christ’s Priesthood and the Sabbath

Vol. 31 An Exposition of Hebrews: Part 3, Jesus the Messiah

Vol. 32 An Exposition of Hebrews: Part 4, Hebrews 1–2

Vol. 33 An Exposition of Hebrews: Part 5, Hebrews 3–4

Vol. 34 An Exposition of Hebrews: Part 6, Hebrews 5–6

Vol. 35 An Exposition of Hebrews: Part 7, Hebrews 7–8

Vol. 36 An Exposition of Hebrews: Part 8, Hebrews 9–10

Vol. 37 An Exposition of Hebrews: Part 9, Hebrews 11–13

Latin Works

Vol. 38 The Study of True Theology

Shorter Works

Vol. 39 The Shorter Works of John Owen

Indexes

Vol. 40 Indexes

The Complete Works of John Owen

The Gospel

Volume 14

Apostasy from the Gospel

John Owen

Introduced and Edited by

Joel R. Beeke

General Editors

Lee Gatiss and Shawn D. Wright

Apostasy from the Gospel

Copyright © 2023 by Crossway

Published by Crossway1300 Crescent StreetWheaton, Illinois 60187

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher, except as provided for by USA copyright law. Crossway® is a registered trademark in the United States of America.

Cover design: Jordan Singer

Cover image: Marble Paper Artist: Vanessa Reynoso, Marble Paper Studio

First printing 2023

Printed in China

Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-4335-6029-3 ePub ISBN: 978-1-4335-8597-5 PDF ISBN: 978-1-4335-8595-1 Mobipocket ISBN: 978-1-4335-8596-8

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Owen, John, 1616–1683, author. | Beeke, Joel R., 1952–editor.

Title: Apostasy from the gospel / John Owen ; introduced and edited by Joel R. Beeke.

Other titles: Nature of apostasy

Description: Wheaton, Illinois : Crossway, 2022. | Series: The complete works of John Owen ; volume 14 | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2022011802 (print) | LCCN 2022011803 (ebook) | ISBN 9781433560293 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781433585951 (pdf) | ISBN

9781433585968 (mobipocket) | ISBN 9781433585975 (epub)

Subjects: LCSH: Apostasy–Biblical teaching. | Bible. Hebrews, VI, 4–6–Criticism, interpretation, etc.

Classification: LCC BS2775.6.A66 O94 2022 (print) | LCC BS2775.6.A66

(ebook) | DDC 227/.8706–dc23/eng/20220826

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022011802

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022011803

Crossway is a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.

Volume 14

Contents

Works Preface

Editor’s Introduction

Outline

Apostasy from the Gospel

General Index

Scripture Index

Works Preface

John Owen (1616–1683) is one of the most significant, influential, and prolific theologians that England has ever produced. His work is of such a high caliber that it is no surprise to find it still in demand more than four centuries after his birth. As a son of the Church of England, a Puritan preacher, a statesman, a Reformed theologian and Bible commentator, and later a prominent Nonconformist and advocate of toleration, he is widely read and appreciated by Christians of different types all over the globe, not only for the profundity of his thinking but also for the depth of his spiritual insight.

Owen was born in the year that William Shakespeare died, and in terms of his public influence, he was a rising star in the 1640s and at the height of his power in the 1650s. As chaplain to Oliver Cromwell, dean of Christ Church, and vice-chancellor of Oxford University, he wielded a substantial degree of power and influence within the short-lived English republic. Yet he eventually found himself on the losing side of the epic struggles of the seventeenth century and was ousted from his position of national preeminence. The Act of Uniformity in 1662 effectively barred him from any role in the established church, yet it was in the wilderness of those turbulent post-Restoration years that he wrote many of his most momentous contributions to the world of theological literature, despite being burdened by opposition, persecution, family tragedies, and illness.

There was an abortive endeavor to publish a uniform edition of Owen’s works in the early eighteenth century, but this progressed no further than a single folio volume in 1721. A century later (1826), Thomas Russell met with much more success when he produced a collection in twenty-one volumes. The appetite for Owen only grew; more than three hundred people had subscribed to the 1721 and 1826 editions of his works, but almost three thousand subscribed to the twenty-four-volume set produced by William H. Goold from 1850 onward. That collection, with Goold’s learned introductions and notes, became the standard edition. It was given a new lease on life when the Banner of Truth Trust reprinted it several times beginning in 1965, though without some of Owen’s Latin works, which had appeared in Goold’s edition, or his massive Hebrews commentary, which Banner did eventually reprint in 1991. Goold corrected various errors in the original seventeenth- and eighteenth-century publications, some of which Owen himself had complained of, as well as certain grammatical errors. He thoroughly revised the punctuation, numeration of points, and Scripture references in Owen and presented him in a way acceptable to nineteenth-century readers without taking liberties with the text.

Since the mid-nineteenth century, and especially since the reprinting of Goold’s edition in the mid-twentieth century, there has been a great flowering of interest in seventeenth-century Puritanism and Reformed theology. The recent profusion of scholarship in this area has resulted in a huge increase of attention given to Owen and his contribution to these movements. The time has therefore come to attempt another presentation of Owen’s body of work for a new century. This new edition is more than a reprint of earlier collections of Owen’s writings. As useful as those have been to us and many others, they fail to meet the needs of modern readers who are often familiar with neither the theological context nor the syntax and rhetorical style of seventeenth-century English divinity.

For that reason, we have returned again to the original editions of Owen’s texts to ensure the accuracy of their presentation here but have conformed the spelling to modern American standards, modernized older verb endings, reduced the use of italics where they do not clarify meaning, updated some hyphenation forms, modernized capitalization both for select terms in the text and for titles of Owen’s works, refreshed the typesetting, set lengthy quotations in block format, and both checked and added Scripture references in a consistent format where necessary. Owen’s quotations of others, however, including the various editions of the Bible he used or translated, are kept as they appear in his original. His marginal notes and footnotes have been clearly marked in footnotes as his (with “—Owen” appearing at the end of his content) to distinguish them from editorial comments. Foreign languages such as Greek, Hebrew, and Latin (which Owen knew and used extensively) have been translated into modern English, with the original languages retained in footnotes for scholarly reference (also followed by “—Owen”). If Goold omitted parts of the original text in his edition, we have restored them to their rightful place. Additionally, we have attempted to regularize the numbering system Owen employed, which was often imprecise and inconsistent; our order is 1, (1), [1], {1}, and 1st. We have also included various features to aid readers’ comprehension of Owen’s writings, including extensive introductions and outlines by established scholars in the field today, new paragraph breaks marked by a pilcrow (¶), chapter titles and appropriate headings (either entirely new or adapted from Goold), and explanatory footnotes that define archaic or obscure words and point out scriptural and other allusions in the text. When a contents page was not included in the original publication, we have provided one. On the rare occasions when we have added words to the text for readability, we have clearly marked them using square brackets. Having a team of experts involved, along with the benefit of modern online database technology, has also enabled us to make the prodigious effort to identify sources and citations in Owen that Russell and Goold deliberately avoided or were unable to locate for their editions.

Owen did not use only one English translation of the Bible. At various times, he employed the Great Bible, the Geneva Bible, or the Authorized Version (KJV), as well as his own paraphrases or translations from the original languages. We have not sought to harmonize his biblical quotations to any single version. Similarly, we have left his Hebrew and Greek quotations exactly as he recorded them, including the unpointed Hebrew text. When it appears that he has misspelled the Hebrew or Greek, we have acknowledged that in a footnote with reference to either Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia or Novum Testamentum Graece.

This new edition presents fresh translations of Owen’s works that were originally published in Latin, such as his Θεολογούμενα Παντοδαπά (1661) and A Dissertation on Divine Justice (which Goold published in an amended eighteenth-century translation). It also includes certain shorter works that have never before been collected in one place, such as Owen’s prefaces to other people’s works and many of his letters, with an extensive index to the whole set.

Our hope and prayer in presenting this new edition of John Owen’s complete works is that it will equip and enable new generations of readers to appreciate the spiritual insights he accumulated over the course of his remarkable life. Those with a merely historical interest will find here a testimony to the exceptional labors of one extraordinary figure from a tumultuous age, in a modern and usable critical edition. Those who seek to learn from Owen about the God he worshiped and served will, we trust, find even greater riches in his doctrine of salvation, his passion for evangelism and missions, his Christ-centered vision of all reality, his realistic pursuit of holiness, his belief that theology matters, his concern for right worship and religious freedom, and his careful exegetical engagement with the text of God’s word. We echo the words of the apostle Paul that Owen inscribed on the title page of his book Χριστολογία (1679), “I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung that I may win Christ” (Phil. 3:8).

Lee Gatiss

Cambridge, England

Shawn D. Wright

Louisville, Kentucky, United States

Editor’s Introduction

Joel R. Beeke

John Owen (1616–1683) wrote The Nature of Apostasy (1676)1 during a time of turmoil when the spiritual influence of Puritanism in England was in retreat, ungodliness and heterodoxy were on the rise, and many of his hopes for the further reformation of Christianity in England lay shattered under an inhospitable political and ecclesiastical reality.2 It is remarkable, then, that instead of capitulating to despair, Owen pressed forward in print to contend for the truth of the gospel, expose error, aid the spiritual health of Christians, promote Christ-saturated godliness, and advocate for biblical purity of worship in England and beyond. Owen’s first publication, A Display of Arminianism (1643), and his continued polemical focus in works against Roman Catholicism, Arminianism, and Socinianism show that his concern for the defense and vitality of Reformed doctrine remained steady throughout his career. However, Owen’s interest in theological error or apostasy was not merely doctrinal or intellectual as he saw an inextricable connection between the doctrine, worship, and holiness of life that Christians maintain and practice. He was concerned not only about the heterodox ideas plaguing the church but also the sensuality, profaneness, disobedience toward God’s commands, and neglect or corruption of the divinely mandated elements of Christian worship to which many Christians were defecting.

Owen published The Nature of Apostasy during the most prolific period of his career when he wrote over half of his works.3 Other Puritans also wrote on apostasy, such as Thomas Goodwin, who devoted part of his Discourse of Election to the topic.4 However, Owen’s work gave this topic “the fullest and best Puritan treatment” in a book-length discussion.5 For Owen, apostasy is not a matter of crossing a boldly etched line in the ground, but a steady, downward slide along a gradation of errors that can lead to destruction if one does not address and repent of it.6 To impress the danger of apostasy upon every Christian’s conscience regardless of how strong one may think one’s spiritual condition is, Owen made a pastorally insightful distinction between partial apostasy and total apostasy (“stumbling” versus “falling”).7 In his treatise, he combined his concern for the church’s purity of doctrine, holiness, and worship with his skill in dealing with the inner struggles of the Christian life—the ever-necessary fight against sin and pursuit of growth in godliness—to leave no Christian reader self-assured that he or she is free from the danger that apostasy constantly presents.

Of course, when Owen complained of the “grand defection from the truth and holiness of the gospel which is so prevalent in the world,”8 he was writing from a historical perspective situated in the political realities, intellectual developments, and spiritual trends of his day. When we become familiar with the realities of Owen’s situation, this work—along with all his sermons, commentaries, and treatises—will more vividly jump off the page, as it were, with greater significance for us. We will therefore now consider some of the political, spiritual, moral, and intellectual currents of the time in which Owen wrote The Nature of Apostasy, summarize the work and its key practical applications, and offer an outline of this unique and insightful treatise.

Owen and the Post-Restoration Decline of Puritanism in England

John Owen wrote The Nature of Apostasy seven years before his death with a deep awareness of “the spiritual decline of post-Restoration days.”9 Two days before he passed, he wrote to a friend that he was “leaving the church in a storm.”10

The External Pressures of the Restoration: Broken Hopes for Reformation

The declension of Puritanism was but one dimension of the multifaceted, society-wide upheaval effected by the restoration of the monarchy in 1660 that followed the English Civil Wars (1642–1651). Externally, by the time Owen was writing The Nature of Apostasy the Puritans were being oppressed by the post-Restoration political settlement, which fostered an atmosphere that was unfavorable to Puritanism. They found themselves in a “dark tunnel of persecution between 1660 (Restoration) and 1689 (Toleration)” when “the men of the Restoration systematically scattered and stamped out the fires of Puritan Christianity, as part of their public rejection of the revolutionary order” imposed during the Commonwealth (1649–1660), in which Owen played a leading part.11

At the inception of these conflicts in 1643, the English parliamentarians and Scottish Covenanters made an alliance to combine forces against the royalist army and its Irish allies, sealing such alliance by subscribing to the Solemn League and Covenant. For Scottish and many English Presbyterians, this covenant was the instrument for achieving their primary goals: to secure the fruits of the Reformation in Scotland, to further the reformation of the church in England, and to extend that reformation into Ireland as well. Thus there would be an established Presbyterian church in all three kingdoms, reformed in doctrine, worship, and church order. For their allies—Cromwell and his New Model Army, a diverse amalgamation of Congregationalists, Baptists, and other sectarians—the Solemn League and Covenant was simply a way of securing Scottish support for the military and political dominance of the parliamentarians over the royalists.12 Cromwell, as “the political leader of the Independents par excellence,” held this fragile unity together, but not for long.13

When the English Parliament executed King Charles I for treason in 1649, the Scottish Parliament crowned his son, Charles II, as king of Scotland. The presence of Charles II in Scotland prompted the English government to launch “a preemptive invasion” of Scotland in 1650, which led to the defeat of a large Scottish force at the battle of Dunbar.14 Soon the Cromwellians began associating Presbyterianism with things “Scottish” and even “Royalist,” causing the “political influence” of Presbyterians to fade even as they continued to “fight as best they could for the reformation to which they had sworn in the Solemn League and Covenant.”15The execution of King Charles I widened the divide between Presbyterians and other Puritans because many Presbyterians regarded it as criminal regicide. Scottish Presbyterians in particular began resisting “the Cromwellian military reign” during the Commonwealth period (1649–1660). Cromwell, for his part, retaliated by thwarting Presbyterian aims in England and showing favor to his non-Presbyterian constituents.

The eve of the Restoration was a time of foreboding and growing tension. Oliver Cromwell’s death in 1658 created chaos and disorder among the factions. The apparently solid Puritan front under Cromwell’s leadership split before Owen’s eyes into a conflicting mass of parties and sects. Less than a year later, as Owen preached before Parliament in February 1659, he sensed a palpable feeling of “national uncertainty”: “trouble” was “brewing,” “Parliament was factious and lacked good leadership,” “the army was restless, the soldiers’ pay was in arrears,” and Owen had to spend “a great deal of energy trying to heal divisions among leading men in London.”16 In the face of the splintering of alliances under the Commonwealth, Owen’s efforts to maintain “reconciliation and unity among the orthodox Protestants” were futile.17

The public rejection of the Commonwealth (also referred to as the Interregnum) coincided with the Church of England’s publication and authorization of a revised Book of Common Prayer in April 1662; Parliament’s Act of Uniformity in May, “which insisted total acceptance of this book by all clergy or forfeiture of their livings”; and the Great Ejection on St. Bartholomew’s Day (August 24), “when almost 2000 Puritan clergy were expelled from their” churches.18 Adding to the chaos was a “series of . . . disasters” that hit the nation in the late 1660s—the Great Plague of 1665 (which was “Britain’s last major outbreak of bubonic plague”), the Great Fire of London in 1666, and England’s “defeat at the hands of the Dutch in 1667.”19

Thus, as Cowan writes, the vision Owen and the Puritans had for the Reformation of “individuals, religion, the university and the magistrate” was “largely unsuccessful”; Owen himself “lost his position of influence at the very heart of the Cromwellian establishment”; and “Interregnum attempts for comprehensive national reformation were a ‘dismal failure.’”20 As a signer or subscriber of the Solemn League and Covenant, therefore, Owen lived through the meteoric rise and subsequent crashing and burning of Puritan hopes for the further reformation of the Church of England. National and political chaos that engulfed hopes of reformation was therefore the primary context for spiritual and moral decline during the Restoration period when Owen wrote The Nature of Apostasy.

The Internal Corrosion of the Churches: Moral Decline and Spiritual Ignorance

As the external political pressures mounted for the Puritans, an internal, spiritual decay also festered in their churches. In the mid-1670s, the last decade of his life, Owen was disturbed by the spiritual condition of the churches, complaining that declension was all he could see in London, that “the churches were in ruins” and increasingly indifferent to key doctrines (such as the imputed righteousness of Christ, divine election, and the sovereign grace of effectual calling), and that even “the dissenting churches were failing.”21 Owen complained that the Reformed churches at this time were racked with “divisions, debates, and animosities multiplied about the principal articles of our religion, whereby those tongues are divided and hands engaged in mutual intestine conflicts.”22Also writing during these dark days, Richard Baxter recalled the revival of religion under the height of Puritan influence during the Commonwealth period: “There was a proportionable increase of truly godly People . . . where the Ministers had excellent parts, holy lives, and thirsted after the good of Souls.” As Baxter looked at his current situation, however, he could only lament: “Never were such fair opportunities to sanctifie a nation, lost and trodden underfoot, as have been in the Land as of late! Woe be to them that were the causes of it.”23 The causes of this undoing of revival, as Owen’s Nature of Apostasy reveals, are complex and diverse.

The nineteenth-century editor of Owen’s works, William H. Goold (1815–1897), observed that the time in which Owen wrote this treatise—sixteen years after the restoration of Charles II (1660–1685)—was indeed one of declining morality. As he considered the possible causes of the moral decline of this era, Goold challenged the idea current among some historians of his day, such as Thomas Macaulay, that the conspicuous moral decline in post-Restoration culture was largely a reaction against the shackles of Puritan moral restraint during the Commonwealth which, when removed, allowed the vices that were repressed under the Puritans to break forth “with ungovernable violence.”24 To Goold, this reading of history was dependent on simplistic exaggeration of Puritan austerity, since “the blighting influence” creeping into England during the Restoration “extended even into Puritan circles.”25 Macaulay’s caricature of Puritanism seemed merely to be an echo of the “anti-Puritan feeling” that “was let loose at the time of the Restoration and has flowed freely ever since.”26 Against Macaulay’s one-dimensional explanation for post-Restoration moral decline, Goold pointed us to Owen’s explanation in The Nature of Apostasy as providing a more complex understanding involving a confluence of multiple causes of apostasy from the gospel—operative both in his day and in all ages.27

In his preface to the reader, Owen demonstrates a nuanced understanding of the nature and causes of apostasy when he poses two related questions: whether it is the corruption of the doctrine of the gospel that gives rise to men’s moral wickedness or it is men’s moral corruption that makes the restoration of truth more difficult. To bring biblical clarity to such questions, and to give counsel that is applicable both within his context and beyond, Owen decides to pursue “a general inquiry [as to] what might be the secret causes and reasons whence it is that all sorts of persons, in all ages, have been so prone to apostatize from the sincere profession of the gospel in faith and obedience.”28 Owen’s goal is to equip readers with a spiritual and theological toolkit to foster the biblical beliefs and practices necessary for escaping from the broad road that leads to apostasy.

Owen minces no words about the spiritual condition of his day, describing it with a vividness that signals urgent concern:

The way, paths, and footsteps of gospel-faith, love, meekness, temperance, self-denial, benignity, humility, zeal, and contempt of the world, in the honors, profits, and pleasures of it, with readiness for the cross, are all overgrown, and almost worn out amongst men, that they can hardly be discerned where they have been. But in their stead the “works of the flesh” have made a broad and open road that the multitude travel in, which, though it may be right for a season in their own eyes, yet is the way to hell, and goes down to the chambers of death; for these works of the flesh are manifest in the world, not only in their nature, what they are, but in their open perpetration and dismal effects.29

Yet the regression from gospel spirituality and the rise of open sensuality were not the only marks of the apostasy as Owen discerned it. Widespread spiritual ignorance was also at work:

The most are so ignorant of the mysteries of the gospel, so negligent or formal in divine worship, so infected with pride, vanity, and love of the world, so regardless of the glory of Christ and honor of the gospel, that it is no easy thing to find Christian religion in the midst of professed Christians, or the power of godliness among them who openly avow the form thereof.30

Owen makes plain that his treatise does not target just one error or sect of Christendom but is all-inclusive in its application since “the state of religion is at this day deplorable in most parts of the Christian world” and even “among the generality of professed Christians, the glory and power of Christianity are faded and almost utterly lost.”31 All Owen could see as he looked around was the growing contagion of apostasy.32 One asks, in passing, what account would Owen give of the state of Christianity in our own day?

In response to this sad state of affairs, Owen says that rather than merely complaining about the total and partial apostasy of his day or venturing to oppose it without knowing its true causes, he sets forth his “thoughts about the nature, causes, and occasions of the present defection from the gospel and decay of holiness, with the means of preservation from its infection, and prevention of its prevalency in private persons.”33 Thus, Owen writes with heaviness of heart and prayerfulness, confessing, “I verily believe neither my prayers nor tears have been proportionable unto the causes of them in this matter.”34

As Owen says in the final chapter of his treatise, “I have no certain ground of assurance that this apostasy shall not grow, until in one instance or other of it, it swallow up all visible profession.” Nevertheless, Owen does “hope for better things, and pray for better things,” and such hope stands on a twofold foundation: first, God’s elect “that truly fear him, and diligently serve him, shall be preserved from perishing eternally, and everything that necessarily leads thereunto,” and second, “God has appointed a time and season, wherein he will not only put a stop unto this defection from the gospel, but an end also.”35 This is the reality that inspires the theologian, against all odds, to write, to pray, and to hope.

Owen’s Polemical Concerns: Roman Catholicism, Arminianism, and Socinianism

By the end of chapter 3 in The Nature of Apostasy, Owen has charged the Reformed churches of his day with regressing into Roman Catholicism, Arminianism, and Socinianism.36 Throughout Owen’s other polemical and pastoral works, he expends a great deal of energy in combating these three challenges to Reformed Christianity—which “were highly significant both theologically and politically”—and “his contributions were perhaps the most significant made by an Englishman to these various controversies.”37 Before defining these theological systems, it is important first to understand the Pelagianism that Owen saw as underlying all three theological systems.

Pelagianism is a key theological backdrop for Owen’s polemics against Roman Catholicism, Arminianism, and Socinianism. Pelagianism grew out of the teaching of Pelagius (ca. 354–418), a British layman whose letters, treatises, and biblical commentaries promoted monastic asceticism and taught that human willpower, as a gift of grace, is all people need to overcome sin and sinfulness. Pelagianism denied the doctrine of original sin, asserting that humans are free from the guilt or transmitted corruption of Adam’s sin and can, by the power of their human nature, live perfect lives of holiness. Augustine (354–430), who wrote voluminously on the primacy of God’s grace in salvation, combated Pelagianism. In its broader usage, the term “Pelagianism” can refer to any teaching that “threatens the primacy of grace, faith and spiritual regeneration over human ability, good works and moral endeavour.” Since the sixteenth century, the term “semi-Pelagianism” has often been used with reference to anti-Augustinian thought that credits unaided human willpower with the ability to engender faith, a view often promoted out of concern to guard against spiritual lethargy.38

Overall, Owen’s theology was “anti-Pelagian . . . both at the level of theology and of practice” and drew plentifully from the work of Augustine, whose “anti-Pelagian treatises” helped Owen articulate “his polemics against the Arminians, the Jesuits and the Socinians.”39 Owen’s fight against these groups, therefore, was in part a struggle against an age-old heresy. To further understand this fight, we will first define Roman Catholicism, Arminianism, and Socinianism in their historical contexts in general and then discuss the impact of these systems in John Owen’s England in particular.

Roman Catholicism

During the first thousand years of the early church, the “the prominence of the see of Rome steadily increased” until its claim to universal authority and commitment to “certain doctrinal emphases became increasingly clear.” The early medieval theology around the sixth century that centered on the monastic patterns of daily-life devotion shifted sharply with the refining of “scholasticism in the eleventh century,” which saw reason as a vehicle to the truths of the faith. Medieval scholasticism was embodied in Thomas Aquinas’s (1225–1274) Summa theologica and was anticipated in questions formulated by Peter Abelard (1079–1142), Anselm (1033–1109), and Augustine.40

Historically, it is only after the Great Schism between Eastern and Western churches (1054) that one can identify a Roman Catholic church.41 In the Church of Rome, political and ecclesiastical power gradually merged and saw the rise of popes such as Gregory VII (1073–1085) who claimed “complete temporal power in Western Christendom.” The bull of Boniface VIII (1294–1303) titled Unam Sanctam (1302) “not only declared that there was no salvation or forgiveness outside the one church, but that this church was to be identified with the Church of Rome under the headship of Peter and his successors.” At the Council of Florence (1438–1445), this headship, embodied in the Papacy, was declared to be superior even to church councils.42

The Protestant Reformation in the sixteenth century, sparked by the theological challenges of Martin Luther (1483–1546) in his Ninety-five Theses (1517), was the culmination of complaints that had been mounting for centuries against the church’s corruption, secularization, and sanctuary rights; the power of canon law over civil affairs; and the benefits and conduct of clergy.43The Catholic Counter-Reformation began with the scholars who debated Luther in the 1520s; climaxed with the Jesuits under Ignatius Loyola (1491–1556), the Inquisition, and the Council of Trent (1545–1563); and concluded with the Thirty Years’ War (1618–1648) and the Treaty of Westphalia (1648).44 Central to the theological disputes between Roman Catholics and Protestants have been the nature of grace (including humanity’s role in salvation), the doctrine of transubstantiation, the relationship between justification and sanctification, the authority of tradition over Scripture, the power of the Papacy, and the proper way to worship.45 With the Council of Trent, the distinctiveness of the Roman Catholic Church became even sharper, since Rome not only condemned Protestantism—famously declaring that “If any one shall say, that by faith alone the impious is justified, . . . let him be anathema”46—but also “anathematized many of the doctrinal positions that had been debated in medieval Catholic theology.”47

The Counter-Reformation was an effective campaign against Protestantism, aiming “to reform the church from within, chiefly by means of education; to preach the gospel to the lost outsider and to the heathen; and to fight against Protestantism in any shape or form, by any means, with any weapon.”48 The Counter-Reformation is estimated to have won back “one-third of the territory that had accepted the Reformation at its widest extent, notably most of southern Germany and all of Poland” by 1600.49

Owen and Roman Catholicism

The conflict between Roman Catholicism and Protestantism in Europe was bitter and bloody, being fought not only with the weapons of philosophy and polemics but also outright warfare. Catholic-Protestant “strife in Germany lasted for thirty years, whilst in Italy, Spain, and most of Northern France, the Reformation was stifled” at the cost of the lives of many martyred Protestants. The Spanish Duke of Alva inflicted suffering on Protestants in the low countries, and “King Phillip II of Spain fitted out his great Invincible Armada in 1588, with the intention of invading England, deposing Queen Elizabeth I, and restoring that nation to the Roman fold by force.”50

In England, the effects of the ebb and flow of the Reformation were felt by everyone from king to commoner. Beginning with “the reign of King Henry VIII (1509–1547),” the Reformation “made great advances in the all-too-short reign of King Edward VI (1547–1553), and suffered a truly bloody and horrendous setback under the reign of Roman Catholic Queen Mary Tudor, known in British history as ‘Bloody Mary’ for the number of Protestants who were martyred during her reign (1553–1558).”51

England was once more claimed for the Protestant faith when Elizabeth I came to the throne. Her long reign (1558–1603) brought stability to church and state, but her policy for the church was to limit the extent of its reformation. During these years the nascent Puritan movement began its long campaign for the further reformation of their national church, a campaign that continued through the reigns of James I (1603–1625) and Charles I (1625–1649), reaching its height during the Commonwealth (1649–1660). Puritanism “was all but eradicated in England from the Restoration of the monarchy with the reign of King Charles II (1660–1685) and the reign of his openly Roman Catholic brother James II (1685–1688).” Ultimately, “King James II was prevented from bringing Britain under Roman Catholicism by the Glorious Revolution in 1688,” which brought England under the Protestant coregency of William III (1650–1702) and Mary II (1662–1694).52

As Owen wrote The Nature of Apostasy during the reign of Charles II, there was a palpable fear that the hard-won Reformation could be entirely overthrown in England. Stephen Westcott notes that Roman Catholic agents made subtle attempts

to exploit the situation of the restoration of the British monarchy after the Puritan ascendancy, and the triumph of the High Anglican party to attempt to push matters even further towards a compromise with Rome. It might have seemed quite feasible that the reaction against Puritanism, the severity of the Clarendon Code of laws in silencing the evangelicals, and the king’s ambiguous religion, all might set up an unstoppable chain-reaction that might sweep the nation back into the Roman fold.53

In this tense post-Restoration environment, Franciscan friar John Vincent Canes wrote Fiat Lux (1661), which argued that England should return to Roman Catholicism. Canes pointed out that “all of the strife about religion sprang from” the Reformation, before which “all was peace and tranquility.” Further, England had been through much upheaval in the religious and political realms, including the Civil Wars, the Commonwealth, military rule, restoration of the monarchy, battles between Puritans and Laudians, “the overthrow of the Bishops, the attempted Presbyterian settlement,” and “the hot-house growth of so many sects under the Commonwealth.” Thus, Canes claimed, the English people were fatigued by all the theological, political, and military strife. Simply surrendering to Roman Catholicism, therefore, would bring to many people’s lives welcome tranquility, building upon the stability of the restored monarchy.54

In 1662, Owen prepared an anonymous response to Fiat Lux titled Animadversions on a Treatise Entitled Fiat Lux (1662). A rejoinder to Canes’s response to Animadversions appeared in 1664 as Vindication of the Animadversions on Fiat Lux. In Animadversions, Owen refutes each section in Fiat Lux, including the claims that only the Roman church can identify Scripture as Scripture and interpret it, that there is no religion superior to popery, and that Roman Catholicism is truly innocent and unblameable. Owen’s reply to these and other points is multifaceted. He argues that Scripture predates Rome (which is a recipient, not an author, of Scripture), that by slighting the Bible’s authority Rome resembles paganism more than Christianity, and that Rome’s claim to superiority is problematic since the gospel emerged first from Jerusalem, not Rome.55 Further, he contends that Rome’s claim of innocence would be easily overturned if one could “ask the Albigensians, the Waldenses, the Lollards and other martyrs where this innocence and unblameableness lies”; that the Roman Mass is a blasphemous “insult to Christ and his redeeming work” because it “makes Christ suffer repeatedly, with a sacrifice that is never finished”; and that the Roman teaching that good works can contribute in part toward redemption because of their meritorious quality contradicts the teaching of Scripture.56

Other anti-Roman Catholic polemics appear in various works of Owen, such as The Duty of Pastors and People Distinguished (1644), Exercitations on the Epistle to the Hebrews (1674), The True Nature of a Gospel Church (1689), and A Brief Instruction in the Worship of God (1667). In these works Owen charges Rome with corrupting corporate worship by changing the nature of the Lord’s Supper,57 corrupting the biblical idea of the priesthood,58 unjustly using physical punishment to enforce its polity and religion,59 violating the second commandment, and not following Scripture in their worship practice.60 With an eye to the practices of (Laudian) Anglicanism and Romanism, Owen contends “that the church has no right or power to institute anything new in the worship of God, and that the attempt to do so is the root of all superstition.”61 Owen thus contends with Rome on the basis of what has been called the “regulative principle” in Reformed Christianity. Expounding the second commandment, the Westminster divines formulated this regulative principle as follows: “The second commandment requireth the receiving, observing, and keeping pure and entire, all such religious worship and ordinances as God hath appointed in his word . . . [and] forbiddeth the worshipping of God by images, or any other way not appointed in his word.”62 Thus, “worship is by divine warrant, command, prescription”; “whatever we do in worship must have biblical warrant”; and worship based on human imagination is idolatry.63Owen discerned that the worship practices of the Roman Catholic Church engender a kind of superstition that “suffocated genuine spirituality.” Being historically Trinitarian, as Owen believed the Roman Catholics were, was not enough because “their devotional practices fostered superstition and self-reliance rather than resting in the finished work of Christ and the transforming power of the Spirit,” which is a subversion of the practical implications of Trinitarianism.64

The argument against the worship practices of the Roman Catholic Church is not merely that it violates the regulative principle; a more deeply rooted error is the fact that the Roman church has no principle of sola Scriptura and makes church tradition a source of equal authority with the Scriptures. Against contemporary Roman Catholic apologists who argued that the authoritative interpreter of the Scriptures was the Roman Catholic Church, Owen insisted that “the only unique, public, authentic, and infallible interpreter of Scripture is none other than the Author of Scripture Himself” who gives guidance through specific passages and the general sense of the wider context. It is therefore the duty of every person to learn, expound, and declare God’s self-disclosed revelation.65

Moreover, Roman Catholicism was not only apostate in terms of “false doctrine and idolatrous worship,”66 but also “has given the most eminent example of apostasy” from the holiness of life that the gospel requires. More than “any church in the world,” says Owen, the Romish Church exhibits this kind of apostasy, not just as a kind of prototype for “whatever of the same nature befalls others,” but even as the source where “this apostasy began, and by which it is principally promoted.”67 Owen therefore argues that Rome’s “distinctive dogmas and practices, its priesthood and hierarchy, its origin, development and track record over time have all been exposed and found wanting,” for Roman Catholicism contradicts “the word, lacks the Spirit, and has no sure promise of salvation.”68

After the Restoration and during a brief time leading up to it, Owen shifted his polemical strategy against Roman Catholicism to frame it as a defense of Protestantism in general, the English monarchy, and the Church of England.69 He praised Charles II as “not only the greatest Protestant but the greatest potentate in Europe.”70 He presented himself as “a defender of the Church of England and its statement of faith,” the Thirty-Nine Articles.71 In his promotion of a generic English Protestantism, he admitted to “the lack of value of confessions of faith,” which “may reflect his despair at being able to gain public acceptance for even the simplest statement of religious ‘fundamentals’ during the 1650s.”72 Yet even as “he was arguing in print that he had accepted the Restoration settlement, he was actively seeking to evade its rigor, and to escape its jurisdiction” in his brief consideration of a move to New England. Even as Θεολογουμενα Παντοδαπα (1661), Animadversions (1662), and A Vindication (1664) went on the offensive against Roman Catholicism, these works “represent[ed] a brief capitulation to some of the central intellectual concerns of early Restoration culture.”73 Despite Owen’s polemics, by the late 1660s Roman Catholicism was again becoming “fashionable at court,” and by the mid-1670s, around the time The Nature of Apostasy was written, “Owen, who had written millions of words to clarify Protestant theology, could not understand the evil days on which he had fallen. . . . Despite his best efforts,” it seemed “his extraordinary project of refining the Reformation had failed.”74

Generally, Owen’s regard for Roman Catholicism “as hopelessly corrupt and idolatrous” was in keeping with the “anti-Roman rhetoric which was staple for Reformed Orthodox theologians.”75 More specifically, in the decade that The Nature of Apostasy was written there was a real feeling of the danger that the Reformation could again be lost in England because of the advance of Roman Catholicism.

Owen and the Scholastic Method

In light of Owen’s denunciation of Roman Catholicism, some readers may be surprised to find him using scholastic terminology and concepts, which are often associated with Roman Catholic doctrine. However, Owen used this method to clarify his own theological points, just as many other Reformed theologians did.76

Scholasticism was a methodology of teaching and inquiry in the medieval university system that used various forms of debate to dispute (i.e., refute or establish) a thesis, similar to a legal court case wherein a “subject was stated, challenged, defined, opposed, and finally adjudicated.”77 As a method of theology and philosophy it began in the ninth century and thrived between the thirteenth and fifteenth centuries. It became known for applying complex and highly nuanced categories, definitions, and distinctions to theological and philosophical issues and using “the fundamental qualities, clearness, conciseness, and richness of technical phrase.”78Thomas Barlow, Owen’s tutor, divided the development of

scholastic theology into three basic historic periods: 1020 to 1220, marked by the development of sophisticated rationales for the Roman Papal Supremacy and doctrines such as transubstantiation; 1220 to 1330, when the church came to terms with the impact of Aristotle’s metaphysical treatises in the realm of theology; and 1330 to 1517, the worst (pessima) age, when theologians became increasingly absorbed in abstract and speculative questions.79

In the period of early Reformed orthodoxy, from 1563 to about 1640, “Reformed theology began to establish itself in the universities, work out and elaborate the basic positions established by the earlier generations, and consequently to develop a methodological sophistication and self-awareness which led to the more obvious appropriation of the traditional language and methods of medieval scholasticism.” This included the simultaneous appropriation of technical vocabulary and metaphysical categories and the rejection of medieval notions such as transubstantiation.80

Therefore, scholasticism influenced the theological method of post-Reformation Protestant theologians like Owen, whose adaptation of scholastic methodology sought to “understand the practical operations of spiritual things through the various levels of causation,” “to develop a logical coherence to their biblical theology,” and “to develop a more defined system of understanding the ways in which God works.”81Owen’s use of “Protestant scholastic theology . . . was more Christ-centered and less argumentative and metaphysical” than “medieval scholasticism.”82

Readers may already be familiar with some key elements of Aristotelian logic as used in scholasticism. Syllogisms, for instance, involve “the combination of premises to produce inferences” where a major premise (e.g., “All human beings are mortal”) is joined to a minor premise (“Socrates is a human being”), leading to a conclusion (“therefore, Socrates is mortal”). If the premises are undisputed, the conclusion is considered valid. Another key element of Aristotelian logic is the “principle of contradiction,” which “demands that an argument contain no internal contradictions” (i.e., one cannot posit a thesis only later to deny it). Also key is the distinction between “essence” and “accident” where a subject (e.g., “Plato”) has certain attributes (being human, being Greek, or being wise), some of which are essential (being human) and some of which are only accidental (being wise) to the existence of the subject. Aristotle subdivided accidental attributes even further into substance, quantity, qualification, relative, where, when, being-in-a-position, having, doing, and being-affected. The scholastic distinction of essence and attributes is used in the Roman Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation to explain how “the bread continues to look like bread, and the wine like wine” when “the bread essentially becomes the body of Christ” and the wine “essentially becomes the blood of Christ.” The explanation is that the accidental attributes “of the taste, color, and form of the bread and wine” have not changed but their essential attributes have.83

There is a potential for confusion over how Owen felt about scholasticism since he can be seen using terms and concepts from scholastic methodology in one place84 while a few pages later criticizing scholasticism and the “schoolmen.”85 One of Owen’s most explicit criticisms of the schoolmen in The Nature of Apostasy is not an attack on scholasticism itself, but on the “pride” that “corrupted” the “endeavors of the schoolmen.” Pride, as the third major cause of apostasy that Owen discusses, found a vehicle in the method of the schoolmen. According to Owen,

Most of their disputes were such as had never had foundation nor occasion in the world, if Aristotle had not invented some odd terms and distinctions, remote from the common understanding and reason of men wiser than himself. . . . But being furnished and puffed up with a conceit of their own sagacity, philosophical ability, and disputing faculty, harnessed with syllogisms, distinctions, solutions, and most preposterous methods of craft, they came with boldness on Christian religion, and forming it to their own imaginations, dressing it up and exposing of it in foolish terms of art, under a semblance of wondrous subtlety, they wholly corrupted it, and drew off the minds of men from the simplicity of the truth as it is in Christ Jesus. Not one article of religion did this proud, self-conceited generation of men leave, that (whether their conclusions were true or false about it) any man could come to the understanding of it, who had not been a better proficient in the school of Aristotle than of Christ. To believe and teach the doctrine of the Scripture, though with sound reason and judgment, and in the way of the Scripture to affect the minds and consciences of men without their philosophical notions, niceties, distinctions, whereby they had carved a corrupt, depraved, monstrous image of all things, and the knowledge of them, was among them to be a heretic or a blockhead. By the pride, confidence, and pretended subtlety of these men, was religion totally corrupted, and the fountains poisoned from whence others sought for the waters of the sanctuary. Even what was left of truth among them was so debased, so divested of its native heavenly glory, beauty, and majesty, was rendered so deformed and unsuited unto that spiritual light wherein alone it can be usefully discerned, as to render it altogether useless and inefficacious unto its proper ends.86

Owen and other Puritans rejected the “rationalistic scholasticism” (as practiced by the schoolmen) that was “gaining strength and influence” because it gave reason and faith equal status in theology, diminished the authority of revelation, and was overly speculative, being engrossed in abstract metaphysical questions.87 Reformed theologians like Owen had to walk carefully as they used

the accepted terminology and logic patterns within the parameters and presuppositions of Scripture, with the ever present danger of the system coming to dominate over revelation, and this degenerating into dry and metaphysical Protestant scholasticism: the very danger that Owen is conscious of and warns against.88

Therefore, while “Owen was deeply read in the classics, in Aristotelian philosophy, in the medieval schoolmen, in Romanist theology, and the writings of heretics and Protestant sects and heretics,” he was able both to use scholastic methodology and attack its use when untethered by biblical presuppositions.89 He used “the language and distinctions of medieval theology for his own particular theological purposes” drawing upon the medieval metaphysical tradition, especially the thought of Thomas Aquinas, and combined it “with biblical authority to create a doctrinal tour de force in countering the claims of his theological enemies.”90

Owen’s criticism of scholasticism rose to its highest pitch in 1661 with the publication of Θεολογουμενα Παντοδαπα, wherein he both sets forth a theology of revelation and challenges scholastically generated “ideas that he anticipated would become the ideological foundations of the new church settlement” and the restored monarchy.91 Owen contended that “out of a mixture of philosophy, traditions, and Scripture, all corrupted and perverted,” the schoolmen “have hammered that faith which was afterward confirmed under so many anathemas at [the Counter-Reformation Council of] Trent.”92 The mention of Trent makes clear that Owen has Roman Catholic scholasticism in mind, but this was not “merely an attack on Catholic scholasticism”; rather, it expressed “the full fruit” of the “niggling doubts about method that had surfaced occasionally in his writing in the later 1650s.” He increasingly believed, and by the Restoration was certain, that the scholastic method should be “abominated wherever it was found,” whether in Reformed or Roman Catholic works.93

Thus, Owen was a Reformed scholastic in a restricted sense, allowing the use of its logical methodology “in explicating, presenting, and defending the faith, laying out the dogmas in a systematic and reasoned way” but never supplanting Scripture as the all-sufficient, self-interpreting arbiter of the truth and always being vigilant of the “danger of logic (philosophy) breaking out of those bonds and becoming supreme.”94

Arminianism

Like Roman Catholicism, the decades-old system of theology known as Arminianism also provoked a response from Owen. Dutch theologian Jacobus Arminius (1560–1609) aroused controversy in the Netherlands by inverting the relationship between election and grace in Reformed theology, arguing that “election was subsequent to grace” and “conditional on man’s response” and that “God does not choose anyone but instead foresees that some will choose him.” These views, rooted in Pelagianism, were advanced by Arminius’s followers in the five points of the Remonstrant Articles (1610), which state that (1) predestination is conditional, such that if God foresees that a person will believe, he chooses that person; (2) Christ died for all people, but only those who believe are actually saved; (3) a person needs God’s grace to believe; (4) but people can resist this grace; and (5) it is not clear as to whether all the regenerate will persevere.95

The Remonstrant Articles were debated by an international delegation at the Synod of Dort (1618–1619). The delegates perceived that the Arminians were advancing a semi-Pelagian view of grace that was detrimental to the Reformed doctrines of atonement, justification, and assurance of salvation. The Synod of Dort therefore condemned Arminianism and issued the Canons of Dort, which were organized to answer each of the five points of the Remonstrant Articles. Arminianism thus took shape as “a modification of the Reformed understanding of grace in a semi-Pelagian direction”96 and, despite its suppression initially in the Netherlands, it “spread pervasively throughout the world.”97

By the sixteenth century, the Church of England could “be seen as broadly Reformed.”98By and large, most Anglicans were Calvinists. However, when twelve-year-old Owen began his studies in 1628 at Queen’s College, Oxford, the atmosphere of the college was becoming more accepting of Arminian theology, and the “predestinarian theology” of Calvinism—held to by Owen, his brother, and their father—was losing the normative status it held at the university a generation earlier. In 1630 William Laud, an antipredestinarian, became archbishop of Canterbury, the chancellor of Oxford, and “the chief promoter of Arminian ideas in the university community.”99At the same time, Christopher Potter, provost of Queen’s College, began criticizing the conclusions of the Synod of Dort (1618–1619).100 Laud’s ceremonial embellishment of public worship thus came to be identified with Arminianism.

In the summer after Owen graduated with an MA, “Laud imposed forms [of worship] on the university that [Owen] could not accept” and repurposed “the institutions of the university . . . to advance the liturgical claims of the Arminian party” and to accommodate “the increasing emphasis on sacramental devotion.” In a sermon in 1647, Owen vividly depicted this Reformation-eroding, Laudian sacramentalism: “In worship, their paintings, crossings, crucifixes, bowings, cringing, altars, tapers, wagers, organs, anthems, litany, rails, images, copes, vestments—what were they but Roman varnish, an Italian dress for our devotion, to draw on conformity with that enemy of the Lord Jesus?”101 These modifications compelled Owen to leave Oxford in 1637.102Owen would still, however, be ordained as a priest in 1638 by an ardent Arminian and supporter of Laud, Bishop John Bancroft (1574–1640). Around 1636, Owen began a seven-year “reading project” to study “the key ideas of the theological system that had hijacked his university,” which led to the publication of A Display of Arminianism (1643) and The Death of Death in the Death of Christ (1647).103

Owen’s Display of Arminianism critiqued the work of Jacob Arminius and his followers. In it he quoted “verbatim from standard Arminian writers, printed in one column, over against plain, unvarnished statements of Scripture in the second column,” framing the contrasting positions as “free will” versus “sacred Scripture.”104Owen also linked Arminianism to the work of Socinians, reflecting “the widespread fear among conservative Calvinists that the Arminian threat to soteriology could descend into a full-blown assault on the doctrine of the Trinity.”105 Further, Owen characterized Arminianism as an erroneous departure from the confessional standards of Anglicanism—the Thirty-Nine Articles—arguing that by their theological innovations, Arminians “apostated from the pure doctrine of the word of God, the consent of orthodox divines, and the confession of the church of England.”106 But the treatise was just as motivated by politics as it was by theology. Publishing this work in the initial months of the First English Civil War (1642–1646), Owen’s dedication of the treatise to the “Lords and Gentlemen of the Committee for Religion” in the English Parliament is worded to justify the parliamentarian war effort. Not long after A Display of Arminianism was published, Owen was offered a coveted position in the parish of Fordham, Essex, by the committee to whom the work was dedicated.107At the close of England’s First Civil War, Owen’s first published sermon, “A Vision of Unchangeable Mercy” (1646), argued that Arminianism was ultimately a threat to the gospel and that the war effort was “a struggle for true religion.”108 In fact, “the tensions provoked by” the advance of Arminianism “played a large part in triggering civil war” in the first place.109

For the Reformed in England, Arminianism seemed to be “somewhat more amenable to Roman Catholicism” since “a semi-Pelagian notion of grace would seem to make faith into a kind of work and therefore to advocate that most offensive of Roman doctrines, justification by works.” Another factor that closely associated Arminianism with Roman Catholicism was the Anglican Laudian party that was considered Arminian and was behind instituting conformity to a “quasi-Roman ceremonialism” in the Church of England.110

By the 1640s Calvinism was already in noticeable decline in England. After the Restoration, attacks against Calvinism grew more strident, impelling some Puritans to abandon Calvinism for Arminianism (as John Goodwin had done earlier), moderate their Calvinism (as had Richard Baxter),111 or else “hold the line” and “defend Calvinism for all it was worth” (something Owen had done from the beginning to the end of his career). By the 1670s, the “demise of Calvinism” was “obvious to all.”112

In The Nature of Apostasy (1676), published thirty-three years after the appearance of his first work against Arminianism, Owen lamented the great “inroad” that Arminianism had made “on our first profession.” In this context he mentioned the work of Dutch theologian Simon Episcopius, alluding to certain “Racovian [i.e., Socinian] additions” made to Arminianism.113 Owen also denied the validity of a statement made by Arnoldus Poelenburg (1628–1666), a successor of Episcopius, that “most of the prelates and learned men in England are of their [Arminian] way and judgment.”114 Further, Owen spent several paragraphs debunking the assertion of John Goodman (d. 1690) that “no one father or writer of the church, Greek or Latin, before St. Austin’s time, agreed with the determinations of the synod of Dort.”115

The gradual changes introduced into the Church of England—which from Owen’s perspective originated with “Laud’s appointment as bishop of London” in 1628—meant not only the beginning of “the political ascendancy of the Arminians” but, as Owen believed in the early 1640s, “a high-level conspiracy to undermine the orthodox foundations” of the English church.116 “For many Puritans,” like Owen, “the rise of the Arminians could mean nothing less than the dismantling of the Reformation.”117 As Owen wrote The Nature of Apostasy toward the end of his career (1676), the doctrinal system that he had been contending with since his earliest work in 1643 was advancing unchecked in England, which seems to suggest that he fought a losing battle to the very last.

Socinianism

Socinianism was another doctrinal system that provoked Owen’s ire and attention. One of the central distinctives of Socinianism is denial of the deity of Christ, which is why it is considered a precursor to modern Unitarianism. If Socinianism has modern tendrils in Unitarianism, it has ancient roots in Arianism.

In fact, Owen considered Socinianism as merely a new instance of Arianism under a different name.118 Arianism rejects the uncreated deity of Christ, denying that he is equal in essence with the Father, and stresses “the creaturely commonality of Christ with those he was to redeem and, hence, Christ’s importance as representative creature and model.”119Arius (ca. 250–ca. 336) was a presbyter in Alexandria, Egypt, who created controversy by contradicting the teachings of his bishop, Alexander (d. 328), on Christ’s relation to the Father. Arius taught that God the Father’s uniqueness made it impossible for him to communicate his essence to another and that Christ, therefore, was only a special being created by God to undertake creation and disclose revelation. By the time Arius was condemned by the Council of Nicaea (325), his followers had spread his teaching well beyond Egypt.120

After the formalization of the doctrine of the incarnation in the Nicene Creed, the Definition of Chalcedon in 451, and the summary of Christology by John of Damascus in the eighth century, the Trinitarian doctrine of Christ was largely left unchallenged until the sixteenth century when Michael Servetus (d. 1553) denied Christ’s deity and was burned at the stake for it. Other anti-Trinitarians fleeing persecution took refuge in Poland and Transylvania and, “under the guidance of Faustus Socinus and others, they spread anti-Trinitarian theology throughout Europe by means of their Racovian Catechism.”121