Salus electorum, sanguis Jesu;
or,
the death of death in the death of Christ:
a treatise of the redemption and reconciliation that is in the blood of Christ;
with
the merit thereof, and the satisfaction wrought thereby:
wherein
the proper end of the death of Christ is asserted; the immediate effects and fruits thereof assigned, with their extent in respect of its object;
and the
whole controversy about universal redemption fully discussed.
In four parts.
1. Declaring the eternal counsel and distinct actual concurrence of the holy Trinity unto the work of redemption in the blood of Christ; with the covenanted intendment and accomplished end of God therein.
2. Removing false and supposed ends of the death of Christ, with the distinctions invented to solve the manifold contradictions of the pretended universal atonement; rightly stating the controversy.
3. Containing arguments against universal redemption from the word of God; with an assertion of the satisfaction and merit of Christ.
4. Answering all considerable objections as yet brought to light, either by the Arminians or others (their late followers as to this point), in the behalf of universal redemption; with a large unfolding of all the texts of scripture by any produced and wrested to that purpose.
The Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many. — Matt. xx. 28.
In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace. — Eph. i. 7.
Imprimatur, John Cranford.
Jan. 22, 1647.
In the testimonies from the ancient fathers, which Owen appends to the following treatise, he quotes Augustine and Prosper as authorities in support of his own view of a definite and effectual atonement. Though these fathers, in opposition to the Pelagians and semi-Pelagians of their day, held this view, the point did not emerge into commanding prominence in the controversy with which their names are chiefly and honourably associated. It was by no means a subject of special controversy, or the key of their position in the field on which their polemical laurels were won. It was otherwise in the dispute which prevailed between Hincmar and Gottschalc, exactly four centuries later. The discussion on the extent of the atonement then assumed a distinct and positive shape. The decisions of the different councils which sat in judgment upon their conflicting principles will be found in the appendix to this treatise. The same controversy was renewed in Holland between the Gomarists and the Arminians, when the Synod of Dort, in one of its articles, condemned the Remonstrant doctrine of a universal atonement. Cameron, the accomplished professor of divinity at Saumur, originated the last important discussion on this point before Owen wrote his treatise on it. The views of Cameron were adopted and urged with great ability by two of his scholars, Amyraut and Testard; and in the year 1634 a controversy arose, which agitated the French Church for many years. Amyraut had the support of Daillé and Blondell. He was ably opposed by Rivet, Spanheim, and Des Marets.
In the last two instances in which discussion on the extent of the atonement revived in the Reformed Churches, there was an essential distinction, very commonly overlooked, between the special points upon which the controversies respectively turned. The object of the article on the death of Christ, emitted by the Synod of Dort, was to counteract the tenet that Christ by the atonement only acquired for the Father a plenary right and freedom to institute a new procedure with all men, by which, on condition of their own obedience, they might be saved. The divines of Saumur would not have accepted this tenet as a correct representation of their sentiments. Admitting that, by the purpose of God, and through the death of Christ, the elect are infallibly secured in the enjoyment of salvation, they contended for an antecedent decree, by which God is free to give salvation to all men through Christ, on the condition that they believe on him. Hence their system was termed hypothetic universalism. The vital difference between it and the strict Arminian theory lies in the absolute security asserted in the former for the spiritual recovery of the elect. They agree, however, in attributing some kind of universality to the atonement, and in maintaining that, on a certain condition, within the reach of fulfilment by all men, — obedience generally, according to the Arminians, and faith, according to the divines of Saumur, — all men have access to the benefits of Christ’s death. To impart consistency to the theory of Amyraut, faith must, in some sense, be competent to all men; and he held, accordingly, the doctrine of universal grace: in which respect his theory differs essentially from the doctrine of universal atonement, as embraced by eminent Calvinistic divines, who held the necessity of the special operation of grace in order to the exercise of faith. The readers of Owen will understand, from this cursory explanation, why he dwells with peculiar keenness and reiteration of statement upon a refutation of the conditional system, or the system of universal grace, according to the name it bore in subsequent discussions. It was plausible; it had many learned men for its advocates; it had obtained currency in the foreign churches; and it seems to have been embraced by More, or Moore, to whose work on “The Universality of God’s Free Grace,” our author replies at great length.
Thomas Moore is described by Edwards, in his “Gangræna,” part ii. p. 86, as “a great sectary, that did much hurt in Lincolnshire, Norfolk, and Cambridgeshire; who was famous also in Boston, Lynn, and even in Holland, and was followed from place to place by many.” His work, in a quarto volume, was published in 1643; and in the same year a reply to it appeared from the pen of Thomas Whitefield, “Minister of the Gospel at Great Yarmouth.” Mr Orme remarks, “He takes care to inform us on the title-page that ‘Thomas Moore was late a weaver at Wills, near Wisbitch.’ ” And he adds, in regard to Moore’s production, “Without approving of the argument of the work, I have no hesitation in saying that it is creditable to the talents of the weaver, and not discreditable to his piety.” The weaver, it should be added, was the author of some other works: “Discovery of Seducers that Creep into Houses,” “On Baptism,” “A Discourse about the Precious Blood and Sacrifice of Christ,” etc.