Address to the Right Honorable The Lords and Gentlemen of the Committee for Religion 7
Address to the Right Honorable The Lords and Gentlemen of the Committee for Religion 7 The many ample testimonies of zealous reverence for the providence of God, as well as the affectionate care for the privileges of men – which have been given by this honorable assembly of parliament – encourage the adorers of the one, no less than the lovers of the other, to vindicate that [doctrine] also from the encroachments of men. And doubtless it was not without divine disposition that those [parties] would be the primary agents in robbing men of their privileges, who had nefariously attempted to spoil God of his providence. So we hope the same allruling hand which has disposed them to be glorious instruments of readvancing his right and supreme dominion over the hearts of men, has prepared their hearts with courage and constancy to establish men in their inviolate rights, by reducing a sweet harmony between awful sovereignty and a well-moderated liberty. Now, the first of these being relegated8 to your particular care, I come to you with a bill of complaint against no small number in this kingdom. They have wickedly violated our interest in the providence of God, and have attempted to bring in the foreign power of an old idol, to the great prejudice of all the true subjects and servants of the Most High. I make good my accusation by the evidence of the facts, joined with their own confessions. And because, in order to waive the imputation of violent xiii
intrusion into the dominion of another, they lay some claim and pretend some title to it, I shall briefly show how it is contrary to the express terms of the great charter of Heaven to have any such power introduced among men. Your known love for truth and the gospel of Christ makes it altogether needless for me to stir you up by any motives to hearken to this just complaint, and to provide a timely remedy for this growing evil; especially since experience has so clearly taught us here, in England, that not only eternal but temporal happiness also depends on the flourishing of the truth of Christ's gospel.
Justice and religion were always conceived as the main columns and upholders of any state or commonwealth – like two pillars in a building, where one cannot stand without the other, nor the whole fabric without them both. As the philosopher spoke of logic and rhetoric, they are artes anti>strofai, mutually aiding each other; and both aim at the same end, though in different manners. So they, without repugnancy, concur and sweetly fall in one with another, for the regulation9 and direction of every person in a commonwealth, to make the whole happy and blessed. And where they are both united in this way, there and only there is the blessing of assurance in which Hezekiah rejoiced – truth and peace. An agreement without truth is no peace. Rather, it is a covenant with death, a league with hell, a conspiracy against the kingdom of Christ, and a stout rebellion against the God of heaven. And without justice, great commonwealths are but great troops of robbers. Now, the result of the one is civil peace; and the result of the other is ecclesiastical peace. Between the two there is a great sympathy, a strict connection, having a mutual dependence on each other. If there is any disturbance of the state, it is usually attended with schisms and factions in the church; and the divisions of the church are too often the subversions of the commonwealth.
Thus it has been ever since that unhappy difference between Cain and Abel. It did not concern the bounds and limits of their inheritance, nor which of them would be heir to the whole world.
Rather it was about the dictates of religion: the offering of their xiv
sacrifices. This fire, also of dissension, has been more stirred up since the Prince of Peace has, by his gospel, sent the sword among us. For the preaching of it, meeting with the strongholds of Satan and the depraved corruption of human nature, must occasion a great shaking of the earth. But most especially, distracted Christendom has found fearful issues of this discord since the proud Romish prelates10 have sought to establish their hell-broached errors, by inventing and maintaining uncharitable and destructive censures11 against all who oppose them. At first they caused schisms and distractions in the church. And then, being helped forward by the blindness and cruelty of ambitious potentates,12 they raised wars of nation against nation – witness the Spanish invasion of '88 13 – and witness peoples within themselves, as in the late civil wars of France. There, after various horrible massacres, many chose to die as soldiers rather than as martyrs.
And, oh, that this truth might not, at this day, be written with the blood of almost expiring Ireland! Indeed, it has lastly descended to dissension between private parties – witness the horrible murder of Diazius, whose brains were chopped out with an axe by his own brother Alphonsus,14 for forsaking the Romish religion.15 What rents in the State, what grudgings, hatreds, and exasperations of mind among private men, have happened by reason of some inferior differences! We all at this day grieve to behold them. "Tantum religio potuit suadere malorum!" 16 It is most concerning, then, for us to endeavor to obey our Savior's precept of seeking first the kingdom of God, so that we may be partakers of the good things comprised in the promise annexed to it. If there were but this one argument, to seek the peace of the church, it would be sufficient to quicken our utmost industry to attain it, because the peace of the commonwealth depends on this. Now, what peace can there be in the church without truth? All conformity to anything else is but the agreement of Herod and Pilate to destroy Christ and his kingdom. Nor is it this or that particular truth, but the whole counsel of God revealed to us, without adding or detracting; embracing it is required to make our peace firm and stable. xv
There is no halting between Jehovah and Baal, Christ and Antichrist.
It is as good as becoming Philistines, and worshippers of Dagon, as it is to speak partly the language of Ashdod and partly the language of the Jews. From this, this, have arisen all of our miseries, and all of our dissensions. Factious men labored every day to commend themselves to those who sat aloft in the temple of God, by introducing new popishArminian errors, whose patronage they had wickedly undertaken.
Who would ever have thought that our church would entertain these Belgic semi-Pelagians, who have thrown dirt on the faces and raked up the ashes of all those great and pious souls whom God magnified. He used them as his instruments to reform his church, the least of which the whole troop of Arminians shall never make themselves equal, even if they swell till they break. What benefit ever came to this church by attempting to prove that the chief part in the several degrees of our salvation is to be ascribed to ourselves, rather than God? This is the source and sum of all the controversies between them and us. And must not introducing and fomenting a doctrine that is so opposite to the truth which our church has quietly enjoyed ever since the first
Reformation, necessarily bring along with it schisms and dissensions, so long as any remain who love the truth, or who esteem the gospel above preferment? Nor let any deceive your wisdoms, by asserting that these differences are of an inferior nature, which are this day agitated between the Arminians and the orthodox divines of the reformed church. Be pleased but to cast an eye on the following instances, and you will find them hewing at the very root of Christianity.
Consider seriously their denial of that fundamental article of original sin. Is this but a small escape in theology? – Why, what need is there of the gospel, what need is there of Christ himself, if our nature is not guilty, depraved, and corrupted? Nor are many of the rest of less importance. Surely these are not things "in quibus possimus dissentire salvâ pace ac charitate," as Austin17 speaks – "about which we may differ without loss of peace or charity." One church cannot wrap in her communion Austin and Pelagius, Calvin and Arminius. I have here xvi
only given you a taste, whereby you may judge the rest of their fruit – "mors in olla, mors in olla;" 18 their doctrine of the final apostasy of the elect, of true believers, of a wavering hesitancy concerning our present grace and future glory, with various others which I have wholly omitted. Those which I have produced are enough to make their abettors 19 incapable of our church-communion. The sacred bond of peace encompasses only the unity of that Spirit which leads us into all truth. (Joh 16:13) We must not offer the right hand of fellowship, but rather proclaim iJero<n po>lemon,20 "a holy war," to such enemies of God's providence, Christ's merit, and the powerful operation of the Holy Spirit. Nor let anyone object that all the Arminians do not openly profess all these errors which I have recounted. Let ours, then, show in which ways they differ from their masters.21 We see their own confessions; we know their arts, ba>qh kai< meqodei>av tou~
Santana~ – "the depths and crafts of Satan;" we know the several ways they have to introduce and insinuate their heterodoxies into the minds of men. With some, they appear only to dislike our doctrine of reprobation; with others, they appear only to claim an allowable liberty of the will. Yet, for the most part, it is like a serpent – wherever she gets her head in, she wriggles her whole body in, stinger and all. If we give but the least admission, then the whole poison must be swallowed. I do not know what the intention was of those who maintain these strange assertions among us – whether the efficacy of error really prevailed with them or not; or whether it was better to comply with Popery, and thereby draw us back to Egypt. But I have heard that it was affirmed on knowledge, in a former parliament, that the introduction of Arminianism among us was the issue of a Spanish consultation. It is a strange story that learned Zanchius 22 tells us, how upon the death of the Cardinal of Lorraine, there was found in his study a note with the names of various German doctors and ministers who were Lutherans, and to whom an annual pension was paid (by assignment of the cardinal), that they might take pains to oppose the Calvinists. And so, by cherishing dissension, they reduce the people to Popery again. If xvii
there are any such among us who, upon such poor and inconsiderable motives, would be won to betray the gospel of Christ, then God grant them repentance before it is too late! However, upon what grounds, with what intentions, and for whatever ends these tares have been sown among us by envious men, the hope of all the piously learned in the kingdom is that, by your effectual care and diligence, some means may be found to root them out. Now, God Almighty increase and fill your whole honorable society with wisdom, zeal, knowledge, and all other Christian graces necessary for your great calling and employments – which is the daily prayer of your most humble and devoted servant,
JOHN OWEN.
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