巴刻：欧文《基督之死吞灭死亡》 前言J. I. Packer’s Introductory Essay  to John Owen’s TheDeath of Death in the Death of Christ  

作者: 巴刻  翻译: 骆鸿铭

http://www.all-of-grace.org/pub/others/deathofdeath.html

http://peddrluo.blog.163.com/blog/static/19480131220083130290213/

欧文（John Owen）的这部著作，《基督之死吞灭死亡》（The Death of Death in the Death of Christ），是很有争议的作品。这部作品的主题是要指出普遍救赎（universal redemption）的教义是不合乎圣经的，且对福音是有害的。The Death of Death in the Death of Christ is a polemical work, designed to show, among other things, that the doctrine of universal redemption is unscriptural and destructive of the gospel.

许多人对这个题目没兴趣。那些认为教义的精确性不重要的人，不愿花时间在这种神学争论上，他们认为这些争论只会带来所谓“福音派”间的分裂。因此，这本书的出现，对他们来说不算是什么好消息。有些人会感到欧文这个非常扎实的命题很令人震惊，因此，他们根本拒绝阅读这本书。偏见是一件多么赋有热情的事，以致于我们对我们的神学用词习惯如此地骄傲。There are many, therefore, to whom it is not likely to be of interest. Those who see no need for doctrinal exactness and have no time for theological debates which show up divisions between so-called Evangelicals may well regret its reappearance. Some may find the very sound of Owen’s thesis so shocking that they will refuse to read his book at all; so passionate a thing is prejudice, and so proud are we of our theological shibboleths

但是，我希望这部经典之作会找到拥有不同心灵的读者。今日我们看到一些迹象，是对圣经的神学有兴趣的人正在增加：他们已准备好要检验传统，仔细研究圣经，靠着信心去思想。因此，这部论文是为那些已经准备好的人所写的，我相信这本书会帮助我们面对今日基督教福音派所面对的一个最重要的问题之一──重新发现福音。. But it is hoped that this reprint will find itself readers of a different spirit. There are signs today of a new upsurge of interest in the theology of the Bible: a new readiness to test traditions, to search the Scriptures and to think through the faith. It is to those who share this readiness that Owen’s treatise is offered, in the belief that it will help us in one of the most urgent tasks facing Evangelical Christendom today—the recovery of the gospel.

最后的这句话也许会引来一些质疑，但事实上这是有正当理由的。This last remark may cause some raising of eyebrows, but it seems to be warranted by the facts.

毫无疑问地，今天的福音运动正处于困惑与混乱中。有一些议题，如布道的实践，圣洁的教导，地区教会的建造，牧师对灵魂的处理以及管教的施行等等，很明显地存在广泛的失望，他们对问题本身及其出路都有很多的困惑。There is no doubt that Evangelicalism today is in a state of perplexity and unsettlement. In such matters as the practice of evangelism, the teaching of holiness, the building up of local church life, the pastor’s dealing with souls and the exercise of discipline, there is evidence of widespread dissatisfaction with things as they are and of equally widespread uncertainty as to the road ahead.

这是个很复杂的现象，牵涉到很多的因素。但是，如果我们回到问题的根源，我们会发现，这些困惑都是因为我们失去了对圣经中的福音的掌握。在不明了此根源的情形下，过去的一个世纪，我们已经用一个替代品取代了福音，虽然在很多点上看起来很类似，却是彻头彻尾不同的一件事。这正是麻烦的所在。真正的福音在过去的岁月中已经证明她的大能，替代品并没有达到同样的功能。为什么会如此呢﹖This is a complex phenomenon, to which many factors have contributed; but, if we go to the root of the matter, we shall find that these perplexities are all ultimately due to our having lost our grip on the biblical gospel. Without realising it, we have during the past century bartered that gospel for a substitute product which, though it looks similar enough in points of detail, is as a whole a decidedly different thing. Hence our troubles; for the substitute product does not answer the ends for which the authentic gospel has in past days proved itself so mighty. The new gospel conspicuously fails to produce deep reverence, deep repentance, deep humility, a spirit of worship, a concern for the church. Why?

我们认为，原因在于这个替代品本身的性质和内容。它无法使人的思想成为以上帝为中心的思想，也无法使他们有敬畏上帝的心，因为这本来就不是这个替代品最主要的作用。一个陈述这个替代品和古旧福音的方式是说，它太专注于给人帮助（to be ‘helpful’ to man）──会给人带来平安，舒适，快乐，满足──而太少关心要荣耀上帝。古旧福音也能帮助人，其实比这个替代品更能帮助人──但只是（所谓）凑巧地，因为它主要关心的永远是归荣耀给上帝。它一直是、且在本质上是对上帝怜悯与审判主权的宣告，呼召人来匍匐敬拜这位大能的上帝，祂是人的一切益处──包括在自然界以及在恩典中，所依靠的。它的参照中心无可置疑地是上帝。We would suggest that the reason lies in its own character and content. It fails to make men God-centred in their thoughts and God-fearing in their hearts because this is not primarily what it is trying to do. One way of stating the difference between it and the old gospel is to say that it is too exclusively concerned to be “helpful” to man—to bring peace, comfort, happiness, satisfaction—and too little concerned to glorify God. The old gospel was “helpful,” too—more so, indeed, than is the new—but (so to speak) incidentally, for its first concern was always to give glory to God. It was always and essentially a proclamation of Divine sovereignty in mercy and judgment, a summons to bow down and worship the mighty Lord on whom man depends for all good, both in nature and in grace. Its centre of reference was unambiguously God.

但是，新的福音，其参照中心却是人。也可以说，从某一方面说，古旧福音才是敬虔的（religious），而新福音却非如此。古旧福音最主要的目的是教导人敬拜上帝，新福音所关心的则是让人感觉好些；古旧福音的主角是上帝，和祂如何对待人类；新福音的主题则是人，以及上帝如何帮助他。这是天差地别的不同。福音宣讲的整个面向和强调重点已经改变了。But in the new gospel the centre of reference is man. This is just to say that the old gospel was religious in a way that the new gospel is not. Whereas the chief aim of the old was to teach men to worship God, the concern of the new seems limited to making them feel better. The subject of the old gospel was God and His ways with men; the subject of the new is man and the help God gives him. There is a world of difference. The whole perspective and emphasis of gospel preaching has changed.

从这个关心对象的改变，引伸出内容的改变。因为实际上，新福音已经把圣经的信息重新改造，它关心的是能给人多少帮助。因此，福音的主题，例如人没有天然能力去信上帝，上帝无条件的拣选是救恩最终极的原因，以及基督只为祂的羊而死的信息，不再被传讲。这些教义，人们会说，没有什么“帮助”。它们只会使罪人绝望，因为这告诉他们，他们不能靠自己被基督拯救。（这个绝望所可能带来的好处却不被考虑；这被视为是理所当然的，是不可能会带来任何好处的，因为它粉碎了我们的自尊心[self-esteem]）。From this change of interest has sprung a change of content, for the new gospel has in effect reformulated the biblical message in the supposed interests of “helpfulness.” Accordingly, the themes of man’s natural inability to believe, of God’s free election being the ultimate cause of salvation, and of Christ dying specifically for His sheep, are not preached. These doctrines, it would be said, are not “helpful”; they would drive sinners to despair, by suggesting to them that it is not in their own power to be saved through Christ. (The possibility that such despair might be salutary is not considered; it is taken for granted that it cannot be, because it is so shattering to our self-esteem.)

无论如何（我们等一下还会多说一些），这些省略的结果是：今天所宣讲的只是部份的福音，却被当成福音的全部；而一半真理伪装成的完整福音，成了完全的谎言。因此，我们向人恳求，好像他们完全有能力在任何时候来接受基督；我们谈及祂的救赎工作时，好像祂除了借着死﹐好让我们可以靠着信来救自己之外﹐再无其他；我们说到上帝的爱时，好像它只不过是个普通的意愿，去接纳任何一个愿意转向和信靠的人；我们把天父和圣子描绘成不再是主权地吸引罪人来归向祂们，而是说祂们相当无能地，只能在“我们的心门前”等待，等待我们让祂们进来。However this may be (and we shall say more about it later), the result of these omissions is that part of the biblical gospel is now preached as if it were the whole of that gospel; and a half-truth masquerading as the whole truth becomes a complete untruth. Thus, we appeal to men as if they all had the ability to receive Christ at any time; we speak of His redeeming work as if He had done no more by dying than make it possible for us to save ourselves by believing; we speak of God’s love as if it were no more than a general willingness to receive any who will turn and trust; and we depict the Father and the Son, not as sovereignly active in drawing sinners to themselves, but as waiting in quiet impotence “at the door of our hearts” for us to let them in.

无可否认地，这正是我们所宣讲的，也许这也是我们真正相信的。但我们必须强调，这个已经被扭曲的一半真理不是圣经中的福音。我们这样宣讲，圣经必要控告我们；这样的宣讲几乎已经成为我们的标准模式，而这个事实正显示我们应该如何紧迫地回顾这件事，去找回那古旧的、真实的、圣经的福音，也让我们的传讲和实践依此而行。这恐怕是我们现在最急迫的需要。这正是欧文的这部讨论救赎的论文，在这个当儿所能给我们的帮助。It is undeniable that this is how we preach; perhaps this is what we really believe. But it needs to be said with emphasis that this set of twisted half-truths is something other than the biblical gospel. The Bible is against us when we preach in this way; and the fact that such preaching has become almost standard practice among us only shows how urgent it is that we should review this matter. To recover the old, authentic, biblical gospel, and to bring our preaching and practice back into line with it, is perhaps our most pressing present need. And it is at this point that Owen’s treatise on redemption can give us help.

 “且慢！”有人说，“这样来说福音当然是无可非议的。但是欧文所作的，难道不过是在为有限救赎（limited atonement）──加尔文主义中的一点，来辩护吗？当你说要找回福音，你的意思不就是要我们都变成加尔文主义者吗？“But wait a minute,” says someone, “it’s all very well to talk like this about the gospel; but surely what Owen is doing is defending limited atonement—one of the five points of Calvinism? When you speak of recovering the gospel, don’t you mean that you just want us all to become Calvinists?”

这是个值得考虑的问题，因为无疑地，这是很多人会问的问题。与此同时，这些问题其实反应了一个很大的偏见和无知。“为有限拣选辩护”──似乎这就是一个改革宗神学家阐述福音的中心所可能想作的全部！“你只是要我们都变成加尔文主义者！”──好像改革宗神学家除了为他们的团体加添新血外，对其他事情都没有兴趣；也好像变成一个加尔文主义者，是神学堕落的最后一个阶段，与福音是毫不相干的。在我们直接回答这些问题前，我们要讲清楚什么是真正的加尔文主义，以便尝试移去他们内心的偏见。因此，我们要求读者写下以下的（历史和神学上的）事实，是有关加尔文主义的整体，及特殊的“五要点”。These questions are worth considering, for they will no doubt occur to many. At the same time, however, they are questions that reflect a great deal of prejudice and ignorance. “Defending limited atonement”—as if this was all that a Reformed theologian expounding the heart of the gospel could ever really want to do! “You just want us all to become Calvinists”—as if Reformed theologians had no interest beyond recruiting for their party, and as if becoming a Calvinist was the last stage of theological depravity, and had nothing to do with the gospel at all. Before we answer these questions directly, we must try to remove the prejudices which underlie them by making clear what Calvinism really is; and therefore we would ask the reader to take note of the following facts, historical and theological, about Calvinism in general and the “five points” in particular.

首先要注意的是，所谓的“加尔文五要点”，只是加尔文主义者对《抗辩文》（the Remonstrance）五点宣告的回答。《抗辩文》是十七世纪早期“比利时半伯拉纠主义者”所提出的。他们的神学（历史上称之为“阿米念主义”）所包含的是从两个哲学原则所延伸出来的：第一、神的主权与人的自由是无法相容的，因此，与人的责任也是无法并存的（如果神有至高主权，人就没有自由，也就没有责任，二者无法同时成立）；第二、能力限定了义务（太强调神的能力，相对地，会使人的义务减至最低）──半伯拉纠主义者的指控，就这样被全然合理化了。First, it should be observed that the “five points of Calvinism,” so-called, are simply the Calvinistic answer to a five-point manifesto (the Remonstrance) put out by certain “Belgic semi-Pelagians” in the early seventeenth century. The theology which it contained (known to history as Arminianism) stemmed from two philosophical principles: first, that divine sovereignty is not compatible with human freedom, nor therefore with human responsibility; second, that ability limits obligation. (The charge of semi-Pelagianism was thus fully justified.)

从这些原则，阿米念者提出了两个推论：第一、既然圣经视信心是自由且须负责的人类行为（free and responsible human act），就不能由上帝引发，而是人独立行使的；第二、既然圣经视信心为所有听到福音的人之义务（obligatory on the part of all who hear the gospel），相信的能力就应该是普世性的。因此，他们主张，圣经应该被解释为教导以下的立场：From these principles, the Arminians drew two deductions: first that since the Bible regards faith as a free and responsible human act, it cannot be caused by God, but is exercised independently of Him; second, that since the Bible regards faith as obligatory on the part of all who hear the gospel, ability to believe must be universal. Hence, they maintained, Scripture must be interpreted as teaching the following positions:

1. 人从来没有因为罪而完全堕落到一個地步，当福音摆在他面前时，他不能有得救的信心，

2. 也不会完全被上帝所掌管，以致于他无法拒绝福音。

3. 上帝所拣选的那些得救的人，是因为祂预知他们会作出他们自己“信”的回应。

4. 基督的死并没有保证任何人的救恩，因为它没有保证要把信心的礼物给如何人（没有这种礼物）；毋宁来说，基督的死只是创造了救恩的可能性，是给所有人的，只要他们相信，就可以得到。

5. 留在恩典中要靠信徒保持他们的信心；如果失去信心，他们就会失落。

(1.) Man is never so completely corrupted by sin that he cannot savingly believe the gospel when it is put before him, nor (2.) is he ever so completely controlled by God that he cannot reject it. (3.) God’s election of those who shall be saved is prompted by His foreseeing that they will of their own accord believe. (4.) Christ’s death did not ensure the salvation of anyone, for it did not secure the gift of faith to anyone (there is no such gift); what it did was rather to create a possibility of salvation for everyone if they believe. (5.)

如此，阿米念主义者使救恩要完全靠人自己，得救的信心被视为是透过人自己的工作，因为是他自己，所以不是上帝在他里面的工作。It rests with believers to keep themselves in a state of grace by keeping up their faith; those who fail here fall away and are lost. Thus, Arminianism made man’s salvation depend ultimately on man himself, saving faith being viewed throughout as man’s own work and, because his own, not God’s in him.

多特会议在1618年召集，是为了对此神学做出评断，而“五点加尔文主义”代表了反面的论证。它们来自一个非常不同的原则──圣经的原则，即“救恩出于耶和华”（salvation is of the Lord），可以总结如下：The Synod of Dort was convened in 1618 to pronounce on this theology, and the “five points of Calvinism” represent its counter-affirmations. They stem from a very different principle—the biblical principle that “salvation is of the Lord”; and they may be summarized thus:

1. 堕落的人在他天然的状态，缺乏相信福音的所有能力，正如他缺乏相信律法所有的能力，即使拥有所有可能临到他的外在激励。

2. 上帝的拣选是对罪人白白的、主权的、无条件的选择，是把他当作罪人，被基督所救赎，赐给他信心，被带入荣耀。

3. 基督的救赎工作的目的和目标是那些被拣选者的救恩。

4. 圣灵把人带入信心的工作，绝对不会失败，必达到目标。

5. 信徒会被上帝无可征服的大能保守在信心与恩典中，直到他们进入荣耀。

 (1.) Fallen man in his natural state lacks all power to believe the gospel, just as he lacks all power to believe the law, despite all external inducements that may be extended to him. (2.) God’s election is a free, sovereign, unconditional choice of sinners, as sinners, to be redeemed by Christ, given faith and brought to glory. (3.) The redeeming work of Christ had as its end and goal the salvation of the elect. (4.) The work of the Holy Spirit in bringing men to faith never fails to achieve its object. (5.)

这五点可以方便地用一个词表达：TULIP，即全然堕落（Total Depravity），无条件的拣选（Unconditional Election），有限的救赎（Limited Atonement），不可抗拒的恩典（Irresistible Grace），圣徒的保守（Preservation of the Saints）。Believers are kept in faith and grace by the unconquerable power of God till they come to glory. These five points are conveniently denoted by the mnemonic TULIP: Total depravity, Unconditional election, Limited atonement, Irresistible grace, Preservation of the saints.

那么，这里就有两种前后一贯的对圣经福音的诠释，明显地是对立的。他们之间不只是强调上的不同，而是内容上的不同。一个是宣讲施行拯救的上帝，另一个所提到的上帝，是使人拯救自己。一个观点呈现圣三位一体的三个伟大作为──圣父拣选，圣子救赎，圣灵呼召──是针对同一群人，保证他们的救恩永不失落；另一个观点则把每个作为给了不同的对象（救赎的对象是全人类，被呼召的是听到福音的，被拣选的是有回应的），且否认这些都不能保证人的救恩。Now, here are two coherent interpretations of the biblical gospel, which stand in evident opposition to each other. The difference between them is not primarily one of emphasis, but of content. One proclaims a God who saves; the other speaks of a God Who enables man to save himself. One view presents the three great acts of the Holy Trinity for the recovering of lost mankind—election by the Father, redemption by the Son, calling by the Spirit—as directed towards the same persons, and as securing their salvation infallibly. The other view gives each act a different reference (the objects of redemption being all mankind, of calling, those who hear the gospel, and of election, those hearers who respond), and denies that any man’s salvation is secured by any of them.

这两位神学家的救恩计划因此是使用了相当不同的条件。一个使救恩依靠上帝的工作，另一个是人的工作；一个视信心为上帝救恩的礼物的一部分，一个是人自己对救恩的贡献；一个将拯救信徒的所有荣耀归给上帝，一个把颂赞分割，给上帝和人：这样说吧，上帝建造了一个救恩的机器，而人靠着信心来操作。坦白说，这些差异是重要的，加尔文主义者所总结的“五要点”的永久价值，是澄清了这两个不同概念，在哪些领域和在哪些内容上的差异。The two theologies thus conceive the plan of salvation in quite different terms. One makes salvation depend on the work of God, the other on a work of man; one regards faith as part of God’s gift of salvation, the other as man’s own contribution to salvation; one gives all the glory of saving believers to God, the other divides the praise between God, Who, so to speak, built the machinery of salvation, and man, who by believing operated it. Plainly, these differences are important, and the permanent value of the “five points,” as a summary of Calvinism, is that they make clear the points at which, and the extent to which, these two conceptions are at variance.

然而，把加尔文主义单纯地等同于“五要点”是错误的。我们提出自己的五要点来说明清楚。However. it would not be correct simply to equate Calvinism with the “five points.” Five points of our own will make this clear.

首先，加尔文主义比“五要点”所指的来得广泛。加尔文主义是一个整全的世界观，是从把上帝视为全世界的创造者和王，这样一个清楚的异象所延伸出来的。加尔文前后一致地努力承认造物者是主，按照祂的旨意行作万事。加尔文主义是一个以上帝为中心的思想方式，把所有的生活放在上帝的话的指引和控制下。换句话说，加尔文主义是从圣经的视角所得的圣经的神学──以上帝为中心的展望，把造物主视为在自然界和在恩典中所有事物的来源、意义，和目的。In the first place, Calvinism is something much broader than the “five points” indicate. Calvinism is a whole world-view, stemming from a clear vision of God as the whole world’s Maker and King. Calvinism is the consistent endeavour to acknowledge the Creator as the Lord, working all things after the counsel of His will. Calvinism is a theocentric way of thinking about all life under the direction and control of God’s own Word. Calvinism, in other words, is the theology of the Bible viewed from the perspective of the Bible—the God-centred outlook which sees the Creator as the source, and means, and end, of everything that is, both in nature and in grace.

因此，加尔文主义是有神论（把上帝视为所有事物基础的信仰）、宗教（把上帝视为所有事物的给予者而依靠祂），和福音工作（相信上帝要透过基督赐下所有的事物），最完美和最完善的形式。而且，加尔文主义是一个统一的历史哲学，把所有不同的过程和事件视为发生在上帝的世界中，恰如其分地展现祂为祂的造物和教会的伟大旨意。五要点不外乎肯定上帝在拯救人上的主权，但是加尔文主义则关心更重大的主张，即上帝所有的主权。Calvinism is thus theism (belief in God as the ground of all things), religion (dependence on God as the giver of all things), and evangelicalism (trust in God through Christ for all things), all in their purest and most highly developed form. And Calvinism is a unified philosophy of history which sees the whole diversity of processes and events that take place in God’s world as no more, and no less, than the outworking of His great preordained plan for His creatures and His church. The five points assert no more than that God is sovereign in saving the individual, but Calvinism, as such, is concerned with the much broader assertion that He is sovereign everywhere.

接着，第二点，“五要点”将加尔文的救赎论用一种负面而极端的形式呈现，但加尔文主义本身实质上是一种解经式、教牧式，和建设性的。它可以用圣经来定义它的立场，不需要牵扯到阿米念主义，也不需要靠与真实的、或虚构的阿米念者争斗而活。加尔文主义对这些负面的论述并没有兴趣，他们是为积极传福音的价值而奋战。对“五要点”的负面指控最误导人的是第三点（有限救赎，或特殊救赎）。这一点通常被人以一种强调其形容词的方式来阅读，被用来指加尔文主义者老喜欢把神的怜悯加以限制。然而实际上，这个词语，我们下面会展开说，是为了护卫福音最重要的主张──基督是救主，真的作了救赎。Then, in the second place, the “five points” present Calvinistic soteriology in a negative and polemical form, whereas Calvinism in itself is essentially expository, pastoral and constructive. It can define its position in terms of Scripture without any reference to Arminianism, and it does not need to be forever fighting real or imaginary Arminians in order to keep itself alive. Calvinism has no interest in negatives, as such; when Calvinists fight, they fight for positive Evangelical values. The negative cast of the “five points” is misleading chiefly with regard to the third (limited atonement, or particular redemption), which is often read with stress on the adjective and taken as indicating that Calvinists have a special interest in confining the limits of divine mercy.

同样地，否定有条件的拣选、恩典是可抗拒的，是要护卫“救人的是上帝”这个积极的真理。真正负面的是阿米念主义者，他们否定拣选、救赎，与呼召是上帝救赎的作为。加尔文主义否定这些负面的次序，为的是要肯定福音积极的内容，是为了坚固信心与建造教会这一个积极的目的。But in fact the purpose of this phraseology, as we shall see, is to safeguard the central affirmation of the gospel—that Christ is a Redeemer who really does redeem. Similarly, the denials of an election that is conditional and of grace that is resistible, are intended to safeguard the positive truth that it is God Who saves. The real negations are those of Arminianism, which denies that election, redemption and calling are saving acts of God. Calvinism negates these negations in order to assert the positive content of the gospel, for the positive purpose of strengthening faith and building up the church.

第三、把加尔文主义者的救赎论铺陈为五个不同点（正如我们所见的，有些点只是因为有五点阿米念，需要多特会议来回答）的动作，容易模糊加尔文思想在这个主题上有机（有生命）的特色。因为这五点，虽然是被分别陈述，但实际上是分不开的。他们紧密相连，你不能只排除一点而不排除全部，至少从多特会议所指的内容来看。Thirdly, the very act of setting out Calvinistic soteriology in the form of five distinct points (a number due, as we saw, merely to the fact that there were five Arminian points for the Synod of Dort to answer) tends to obscure the organic character of Calvinistic thought on this subject. For the five points, though separately stated, are really inseparable. They hang together; you cannot reject one without rejecting them all, at least in the sense in which the Synod meant them.

对加尔文主义来说，有关救赎论其实只有一点：上帝拯救罪人。上帝──三位一体的耶和华，圣父、圣子、圣灵；三个位格以其主权的智慧、能力和爱一起工作，使选民得到救恩。圣父拣选；圣子借着买赎完成上帝的旨意；圣灵借着更新，执行圣父和圣子的目的。拯救──作所有的事，从起初到末了，包括把人从罪中之死亡带入荣耀之生命；计划、完成和施行救赎，呼召与保守，使成为义，使之成圣，加以荣耀。罪人──当上帝找到他们时，是有罪孽的，恶毒的，无助的，没有能力的，瞎眼的，连抬起一根指头行上帝的旨意或改善属灵田地都办不到。上帝拯救罪人──这个信条的力量，不能借着打断三位一体合一的工作而被弱化；或借着分割神与人之间对救赎的成就，使决定性的部份属于自己；或轻描淡写地忽略罪人的无能，以致于让他与他的救主分享他的救恩的颂赞。这是“五要点”所汲伋营营要建立的“一点加尔文主义”的救赎论，也是阿米念主义之所有形式要否认的：即罪人从任何一个观点来看，并没有拯救自己，而救恩，从头到尾，完完全全，过去、现在、将来，是属于主，所有的荣耀归给祂，阿们！For to Calvinism there is really only one point to be made in the field of soteriology: the point that God saves sinners. God—the Triune Jehovah, Father, Son and Spirit; three Persons working together in sovereign wisdom, power and love to achieve the salvation of a chosen people, the Father electing, the Son fulfilling the Father’s will by redeeming, the Spirit executing the purpose of Father and Son by renewing. Saves—does everything, first to last, that is involved in bringing man from death in sin to life in glory: plans, achieves and communicates redemption, calls and keeps, justifies, sanctifies, glorifies. Sinners—men as God finds them, guilty, vile, helpless, powerless, unable to lift a finger to do God’s will or better their spiritual lot. God saves sinners—and the force of this confession may not be weakened by disrupting the unity of the work of the Trinity, or by dividing the achievement of salvation between God and man and making the decisive part man’s own, or by soft-pedaling the sinner’s inability so as to allow him to share the praise of his salvation with his Saviour. This is the one point of Calvinistic soteriology which the “five points” are concerned to establish and Arminianism in all its forms to deny: namely, that sinners do not save themselves in any sense at all, but that salvation, first and last, whole and entire, past, present and future, is of the Lord, to whom be glory for ever; amen.

这可归结到第四点，即：五要点公式模糊了加尔文主义者和阿米念者救赎论之间差异的深度。无可置疑地，在这里它严重地误导了许多人，以为这个公式强调的是形容词。这很自然地给人一种印象，亦即关于上帝三个伟大的救赎作为，此争辩所关心的只是形容词──两边在什么是拣选、救赎和内在恩典的恩赐（gift）是什么，是同意的；不同的只是人的立场与它们的关系：拣选是否有条件是根据预知其信心；救赎是否要将救恩扩及每一个人；以及恩赐是否是可抗拒的。This leads to our fourth remark, which is this: the five-point formula obscures the depth of the difference between Calvinistic and Arminian soteriology. There seems no doubt that it seriously misleads many here. In the formula, the stress falls on the adjectives, and this naturally gives the impression that in regard to the three great saving acts of God the debate concerns the adjectives merely—that both sides agree as to what election, redemption, and the gift of internal grace are, and differ only as to the position of man in relation to them: whether the first is conditional upon faith being foreseen or not; whether the second intends the salvation of every man or not; whether the third always proves invincible or not.

但这是完全错误的观念。在每一点上改变其形容词，就牵涉到名词的涵义。拣选是有条件的，救赎是普遍的，内在恩典是可抗拒的，与加尔文主义所主张的拣选、救赎、内在恩典不是同一回事。真正要紧的，不是形容词是否恰当，而是名词的定义。两边的人在歧义开始时都看明白了，这很重要，我们也应该看明，否则我们就无法参与加尔文─阿米念的争论，也达不到目的。把定义上的差异来排比是值得的。But this is a complete misconception. The change of adjective in each case involves changing the meaning of the noun. An election that is conditional, a redemption that is universal, an internal grace that is resistible, is not the same kind of election, redemption, internal grace, as Calvinism asserts. The real issue concerns, not the appropriateness of adjectives, but the definition of nouns. Both sides saw this clearly when the controversy first began, and it is important that we should see it too, for otherwise we cannot discuss the Calvinist-Arminian debate to any purpose at all. It is worth setting out the different definitions side by side.

1. 阿米念者对上帝拣选作为的定义是为报答一群相当合格的人──相信基督的人，让他们能接受儿子的地位和荣耀（注3）。这作为一个解决办法来接纳个别的人，只是因上帝的预见这个偶发的事实，即他们会使用他们内在相信的意志（they will of their own accord believe）。在拣选的旨意中，不能保证这一层级的信徒会有任何会员；上帝并没有定意要让任何人相信。但加尔文主义者把拣选定义为选择特定的一群不配的人，从罪中救拔他们，带他们进入荣耀，最终被基督的死所救赎，借着圣灵的有效呼召赐给他们信心。在这点上，阿米念者说：“我被拣选是靠我的信心”（I owe my election to my faith）；加尔文主义者说：“我的信心是靠我被拣选”（I owe my faith to my election）。很清楚地，这两种拣选观的差距是很大的。(i.) God’s act of election was defined by the Arminians as a resolve to receive sonship and glory a duly qualified class of people: believers in Christ. This becomes a resolve to receive individual persons only in virtue of God’s foreseeing the contingent fact that they will of their own accord believe. There is nothing in the decree of election to ensure that the class of believers will ever have any members; God does not determine to make any man believe. But Calvinists define election as a choice of particular undeserving persons to be saved from sin and brought to glory, and to that end to be redeemed by the death of Christ and given faith by the Spirit’s effectual calling. Where the Arminian says: “I owe my election to my faith,” the Calvinist says: “I owe my faith to my election.” Clearly, these two concepts of election are very far apart.

2. 阿米念者所定义的基督的救赎工作是：移去障碍（未满足的公义的宣称）。此障碍横亘在上帝提供赦罪给罪人的这条道路上，在他们相信的条件下，祂喜悦移去这个障碍。根据阿米念主义，救赎是捍卫上帝有权提出这个邀请，它本身不确保任何人会接受。信心，既然是人自己的工作，就不是从各各他而来、临到他的礼物。基督的死创造了一个可以行使得救信心的机会，到此为止。(ii.) Christ’s work of redemption was defined by the Arminians as the removing of an obstacle (the unsatisfied claims of justice) which stood in the way of God’s offering pardon to sinners, as He desired to do, on condition that they believe. Redemption, according to Arminianism, secured for God a right to make this offer, but did not of itself ensure that anyone would ever accept it; for faith, being a work of man’s own, is not a gift that comes to him from Calvary. Christ’s death created an opportunity for the exercise of saving faith, but that is all it did.

然而，加尔文主义者把救赎定义为基督在一群特定罪人的位子上，代替性地忍受罪的刑罚，透过这个，上帝得以与他们和好；他们对刑罚所要负的责任，永远被摧毁了，而且永生的头衔也被确保要给他们。因为这个缘故，他们如今有上帝的眼光，获得信心的礼物的权利，作为进入享受他们产业的喜乐的方法。换句话说，各各他不仅使那些基督为他们所死的一群人的救恩成为可能，它也确保他们会被带入信心中，他们的救恩也成为实际。十字架拯救人。在这点上，阿米念者会说：“没有各各他，我不会获得救恩”（I could not have gain my salvation without Calvary）；加尔文主义者会说：“基督在各各他为我获得了救恩”（Christ gained my salvation for me at Calvary）。前者把十字架视为救恩的必要条件，后者把十字架视为救恩实际的前导因素，并追溯每样属灵福份的源头（包括信心），到上帝与他儿子在各各他的山顶所完成的伟大交易。很清楚地，这两个救赎的观点有很大的差别。Calvinists, however, define redemption as Christ’s actual substitutionary endurance of the penalty of sin in the place of certain specified sinners, through which God was reconciled to them, their liability to punishment was for ever destroyed, and a title to eternal life was secured for them. In consequence of this, they now have in God’s sight a right to the gift of faith, as the means of entry into the enjoyment of their inheritance. Calvary, in other words, not merely made possible the salvation of those for whom Christ died; it ensured that they would be brought to faith and their salvation made actual. The Cross saves. Where the Arminian will only say: “I could not have gained my salvation without Calvary,” the Calvinist will say: “Christ gained my salvation for me at Calvary.” The former makes the Cross the sine qua non of salvation, the latter sees it as the actual procuring cause of salvation, and traces the source of every spiritual blessing, faith included, back to the great transaction between God and His Son carried through on Calvary’s hill. Clearly, these two concepts of redemption are quite at variance.

3. 阿米念主义者定义属灵内在恩典的恩赐是“道德的劝说”（moral suasion），对上帝真理的理解仅有的授予。这点，他们承认（实际上是坚持），它本身并不确保任何人可能会作出信心的回应。但加尔文主义者定义这个恩赐不只是光照，而是上帝在人里面重生的工作，“挪去他们的石心，给他们一个肉心，更新他们的意愿，借着祂的大能导引他们到良善；并有效的吸引他们到耶稣基督那里；即便如此，虽然借着祂的恩典而有此意愿，他们来却是最自由的”。恩典是不可抗拒的，是因为它摧毁了抵抗的态式。因此，在这点上，阿米念主义者会很满足地说：“我决定要基督”（I decided for Christ），“我下定决心要成为基督徒”（I made up my mind to be a Christian）；而加尔文主义者会希望用一个更神学的方式来述说他的归正，以便清楚说明这到底是谁的工作：(iii.) The Spirit’s gift of internal grace was defined by the Arminians as “moral suasion,” the bare bestowal of an understanding of God’s truth. This, they granted—indeed, insisted—does not of itself ensure that anyone will ever make the response of faith. But Calvinists define this gift as not merely an enlightening, but also a regenerating work of God in men, “taking away their heart of stone, and giving unto them a heart of flesh; renewing their wills, and by His almighty power determining them to that which is good; and effectually drawing them to Jesus Christ; yet so as they come most freely, being made willing by his grace.” Grace proves irresistible just because it destroys the disposition to resist. Where the Arminian, therefore, will be content to say: “I decided for Christ,” “I made up my mind to be a Christian,” the Calvinist will wish to speak of his conversion in more theological fashion, to make plain whose work it really was:

Long my imprisoned spirit lay

Fast bound in sin and nature's night:

Thine eye diffused a quickening ray;

I woke; the dungeon flamed with light;

My chains fell off : my heart was free:

I rose, went forth, and followed thee.5

我灵受困，多年在牢狱中，被罪包围，黑暗重重；

主眼发出复活荣光，我灵苏醒，满室光明！

枷锁脱落，心灵获释，我就起来跟随主行（注5）。

注： And Can It Be That I Should Gain? （http://www.cyberhymnal.org/htm/a/c/acanitbe.htm）By Charles Wesley

很清楚地，这两个对内在恩典的观念是壁垒分明的。Clearly, these two notions of internal grace are sharply opposed to each other.

如此，加尔文主义者争辩到，阿米念者的观念中，对拣选、救赎和呼召，这些上帝的作为，并没有拯救人，正戳破他们对圣经的理解的中心错误。用阿米念者的观念来说，上帝拣选信徒，基督为所有人而死，圣灵复苏那些接受神的话的人，实际上用圣经的观点来说，就是上帝没有救任何人，基督也没有为任何人死，圣灵也没有救活任何人。因此，这个分歧的主要议题，是要给这些圣经的用语下定义，包括其他在救赎论上也很重要的词，例如上帝的爱，恩典之约，以及“拯救”这个动词的本身，和它的同义词。阿米念者用这些原则来包装这些辞汇，即救恩不是直接靠上帝的预旨或作为，而是人自主相信的行动。加尔文主义者主张这个原则本身是不合乎圣经的、不敬虔的，这种虚饰背离了圣经的观点，也在实践上的每一点贬低了福音。这点，正是阿米念争议的问题所在。Now, the Calvinist contends that the Arminian idea of election, redemption and calling as acts of God which do not save cuts at the very heart of their biblical meaning; that to say in the Arminian sense that God elects believers, and Christ died for all men, and the Spirit quickens those who receive the word, is really to say that in the biblical sense God elects nobody, and Christ died for nobody, and the Spirit quickens nobody. The matter at issue in this controversy, therefore, is the meaning to be given to these biblical terms, and to some others which are also soteriologically significant, such as the love of God, the covenant of grace, and the verb “save” itself, with its synonyms. Arminians gloss them all in terms of the principle that salvation does not directly depend on any decree or act of God, but on man’s independent activity in believing. Calvinists maintain that this principle is itself unscriptural and irreligious, and that such glossing demonstrably perverts the sense of Scripture and undermines the gospel at every point where it is practised. This, and nothing less than this, is what the Arminian controversy is about.

还有第五点，是五要点缺乏的。它的形式（一连串对阿米念主张的否定）给人一种印象，以为加尔文主义是阿米念主义的修正；以为阿米念主义在自然的次序上有一种优越性，而其后发展出来的加尔文主义只是其旁支。即使我们说，从历史的角度来看这是错误的，在很多人心中仍留有怀疑，这到底是不是对这两个观点本身真实的描述。因为许多人以为阿米念主义（我们所看见的，相当接近于我们今日的新福音）是用一种“天然的”、没有偏见的、不圆滑的读经方法的结果，而加尔文主义则是一个不自然的成长，不是经文本身的产品，而是对经文亵渎的逻辑运作的结果，歪曲其简单的意义，借着硬把它塞入一个系统性的架构而打破了其平衡，而这个架构并非经文所提供的。There is a fifth way in which the five-point formula is deficient. Its very form (a series of denials of Arminian assertions) lends colour to the impression that Calvinism is a modification of Arminianism; that Arminianism has a certain primacy in order of nature, and developed Calvinism is an offshoot from it. Even when one shows this to be false as a matter of history, the suspicion remains in many minds that it is a true account of the relation of the two views themselves. For it is widely supposed that Arminianism (which, as we now see, corresponds pretty closely to the new gospel of our own day) is the result of reading the Scriptures in a “natural,” unbiased, unsophisticated way, and that Calvinism is an unnatural growth, the product less of the texts themselves than of unhallowed logic working on the texts, wresting their plain sense and upsetting their balance by forcing them into a systematic framework which they do not themselves provide.

对个别的加尔文主义者也许为真，但对加尔文主义的整体性而言，这就完全偏离了事实。当然，阿米念主义在一个方面来说是“天然”的，因为它代表了人堕落的心志，是典型的对圣经教导的偏离，即使在救赎之中，仍然无法废去这个幻想，以为自己还是命运的主人，是自己灵魂的船长。这个背离的出现早于伯拉纠主义和半伯拉纠主义的早期教父时期（patristic period），以及后来的经院主义时期，而17世纪后，重新出现在罗马天主教的神学，以及新教中不同类别的理性自由主义和现代福音派的教导中，而且无疑地这将永远与我们伴随。只要堕落的人的心志维持其原样，阿米念者的思想方式就仍会是一种天然形式的错误。但是在任何其他的意义下，这不是天然的。Whatever may have been true of individual Calvinists, as a generalisation about Calvinism nothing could be further from the truth than this. Certainly, Arminianism is “natural” in one sense, in that it represents a characteristic perversion of biblical teaching by the fallen mind of man, who even in salvation cannot bear to renounce the delusion of being master of his fate and captain of his soul. This perversion appeared before in the Pelagianism and semi-Pelagianism of the Patristic period and the later Scholasticism, and has recurred since the seventeenth century both in Roman theology and, among Protestants, in various types of rationalistic liberalism and modern Evangelical teaching; and no doubt it will always be with us. As long as the fallen human mind is what it is, the Arminian way of thinking will continue to be a natural type of mistake.

实际上，加尔文主义才理解圣经的天然（人不可避免应该会想到的）意义；加尔文主义是忠于圣经所说的；加尔文主义坚持严肃地认定圣经的主张，即上帝拯救人，祂拯救的是祂已经选择要救的，而且祂拯救他们是凭恩典，不是靠行为，所以人无法自夸；且基督是作为一个完美的救主被赐给他们的，他们整个的救恩是从十字架上流向他们，且救赎他们的工作已经在十架上完成了。只有加尔文主义才是把当得的荣耀归给了十架。当加尔文主义者唱到：But it is not natural in any other sense. In fact, it is Calvinism that understands the Scriptures in their natural, one would have thought, inescapable meaning; Calvinism that keeps to what they actually say; Calvinism that insists on taking seriously the biblical assertions that God saves, and that He saves those whom He has chosen to save, and that He saves them by grace without works, so that no man may boast, and that Christ is given to them as a perfect Saviour, and that their whole salvation flows to them from the Cross, and that the work of redeeming them was finished on the Cross. It is Calvinism that gives due honour to the Cross. When the Calvinist sings:

There is a green hill far away,

Without a city wall,

Where the dear Lord was crucified,

Who died to save us all;

He died that we might be forgiven,

He died to make us good;

That we might go at last to Heaven,

Saved by His precious blood…

遥远地方古城之外，有一青翠山麓，

在那山上救主被钉，为救我们受苦。

救主舍命，我罪得赦，使我得称为义，

藉主宝血我蒙救赎，终享天庭福祉。

（注：There is a green hill far away）

他是真心的。他不会虚饰这些重要陈述，说：上帝（在祂儿子的死）的拯救目的只是一个无效的愿望，要靠愿意去相信才能完成，以致于上帝所能做的、基督为其死的，却没有人能被拯救。他坚持圣经所见的十架是启示上帝拯救的大能，不是祂的无能。基督所赢来的，不是为理论上的信徒的一个理论上的救赎，为任何可能相信的人的一个救赎的可能性，而是为祂自己所拣选的子民的一个真实的救恩。祂的宝血真的“全然救了我们”；祂自我献祭所要达成的果效的确实现了，只因为十架本是如此。它拯救的大能不是靠加在其上的信心；它拯救的大能使得信心能从此流出。耶稣为他们而死，十架就确保他们完整的救赎。因此，“上帝禁止”（God forbid），“我当荣耀在十架上的我主耶稣基督以外的”（注6）。—he means it. He will not gloss the italicised statements by saying that God’s saving purpose in the death of His Son was a mere ineffectual wish, depending for its fulfilment on man’s willingness to believe, so that for all God could do Christ might have died and none been saved at all. He insists that the Bible sees the Cross as revealing God’s power to save, not His impotence. Christ did not win a hypothetical salvation for hypothetical believers, a mere possibility of salvation for any who might possibly believe, but a real salvation for His own chosen people. His precious blood really does “save us all”; the intended effects of His self-offering do in fact follow, just because the Cross was what it was. Its saving power does not depend on faith being added to it; its saving power is such that faith flows from it. The Cross secured the full salvation of all for whom Christ died. “God forbid,” therefore, “that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

那么，加尔文主义者的救恩论其真正的本质就清楚了，它不是人为的异类，也不是一个过份的逻辑产物。它中心的信条，上帝拯救罪人，基督以祂的宝血救赎了我们，是十架的见证，也是信徒心中的见证。加尔文主义者是这样的基督徒：他在神学上对人的告白，正是他在上帝面前祷告时心里所相信的。在任何时候，他的所思所言是上帝主权的恩典，每个基督徒为其他灵魂祈求时也是如此，或当他遵从敬拜的冲动，从他内心自愿浮起的，迫使他拒绝把赞美归给自己，也把他的救恩所有的荣耀归给他的救主。Now the real nature of Calvinistic soteriology becomes plain. It is no artificial oddity, nor a product of over-bold logic. Its central confession, that God saves sinners, that Christ redeemed us by His blood, is the witness both of the Bible and of the believing heart. The Calvinist is the Christian who confesses before men in his theology just what he believes in his heart before God when he prays. He thinks and speaks at all times of the sovereign grace of God in the way that every Christian does when he pleads for the souls of others, or when he obeys the impulse of worship which rises unbidden within him, prompting him to deny himself all praise and to give all the glory of his salvation to his Saviour.

加尔文主义是写在每个在基督里的新人心版上的自然神学，而阿米念是一个理性上（意志）薄弱的罪，是因为所有这种罪是自然的，所以它才显得自然，即使对重生者而言，也是如此。加尔文主义者的想法是基督徒在理性层面上的自己（the Christian being himself），阿米念主义者的想法是基督徒因为肉体的软弱，没能成为他自己。加尔文主义是基督教会所一向持守与教导的，是当他的心思尚未被有争议和错误的传统所分散注意，仍然持守圣经实际所说的；这就是对“五要点”教导的见证的重要性，可以十分丰富地被摘引（欧文在救赎上这点上，附加了一些；在吉尔 [John Gill] 的《上帝与真理的原因》 [ The Cause of God and Truth] 这本书中，可以找到更多）。所以，这真的是十分误导人的，竟把这个救恩论称为“加尔文主义”，因为这不是约翰加尔文和多特会议的圣徒所专有的，而是上帝启示的真理的一部分，也是大公的基督徒信心。“加尔文主义”是一个“臭名”，几个世纪以来对它已经产生太多的偏见。但它本身只是圣经中的福音（注7）。Calvinism is the natural theology written on the heart of the new man in Christ, whereas Arminianism is an intellectual sin of infirmity, natural only in the sense in which all such sins are natural, even to the regenerate. Calvinistic thinking is the Christian being himself on the intellectual level; Arminian thinking is the Christian failing to be himself through the weakness of the flesh. Calvinism is what the Christian church has always held and taught when its mind has not been distracted by controversy and false traditions from attending to what Scripture actually says; that is the significance of the Patristic testimonies to the teaching of the “five points,” which can be quoted in abundance. (Owen appends a few on redemption; a much larger collection may be seen in John Gill’s The Cause of God and Truth.) So that really it is most misleading to call this soteriology “Calvinism” at all, for it is not a peculiarity of John Calvin and the divines of Dort, but a part of the revealed truth of God and the catholic Christian faith. “Calvinism” is one of the “odious names” by which down the centuries prejudice has been raised against it. But the thing itself is just the biblical gospel.

在这些事实的光照下，我们可以直接回答一开始我们所提的问题。In the light of these facts, we can now give a direct answer to the questions with which we began.

 “很确定地，欧文所做的一切，只是为有限救赎而辩护吗？”并非如此。他所做的，远过于此。严格来说，欧文的书的主要目的不是辩护性的，而是建设性的。它是对圣经和神学的钻研；它的目的只是要把圣经实际教导的说清楚，也就是福音的中心主题──救主所成就的。如同它的书名所宣称的，它是“在基督宝血里，救赎与和好的专著；因之而产生的功劳和所带来的满足。”欧文要问的问题，正如在他之前的多特会议的圣者，真正关心要回答的乃是：什么是福音？大家都会同意，是宣讲基督是救主，但对于祂的救赎工作的本质和范围，却有争论。圣经说的是什么？圣经所赋予的基督的工作的目的和成就是什么？这是欧文所想要澄清的。“Surely all that Owen is doing is defending limited atonement?” Not really. He is doing much more than that. Strictly speaking, the aim of Owen’s book is not defensive at all, but constructive. It is a biblical and theological enquiry; its purpose is simply to make clear what Scripture actually teaches about the central subject of the gospel—the achievement of the Saviour. As its title proclaims, it is “a treatise of the redemption and reconciliation that is in the blood of Christ: with the merit thereof, and the satisfaction wrought thereby.” The question which Owen, like the Dort divines before him, is really concerned to answer is just this: what is the gospel? All agree that it is a proclamation of Christ as Redeemer, but there is a dispute as to the nature and extent of His redeeming work: well, what saith the Scripture? what aim and accomplishment does the Bible assign to the work of Christ? This is what Owen is concerned to elucidate.

的确，他用一个有争议的方式来解决这个主题，也用一个辩论的方式来塑造他这本书，以对抗那“正开始散布的……普遍赎价的……劝导，基督是为所有的人而偿付；祂是为救赎所有的、每一个人而死的”（注8）。但是他的作品是一部系统的解经，不只是插曲式、不连贯的争辩。欧文把这个争议视为一个机会，用圣经自己正确的次序和关联，来完全展现相关的圣经教导。如同胡克尔（Hooker）的《教会政制法规》（Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity），论证法本身是偶发的，是次要的；它们主要的价值是在作者使用的方式，铺陈出他自己的设计和论证。It is true that he tackles the subject in a directly controversial way, and shapes his book as a polemic against the “spreading persuasion...of a general ransom, to be paid by Christ for all; that he dies to redeem all and every one.” But his work is a systematic expository treatise, not a mere episodic wrangle. Owen treats the controversy as providing the occasion for a full display of the relevant biblical teaching in its own proper order and connection. As in Hooker’s Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity, the polemics themselves are incidental and of secondary interest; their chief value lies in the way that the author uses them to further his own design and carry forward his own argument.

论证其实很简单。欧文视其著作中所提出的问题──救赎的范围──是关乎救赎的本质，因为如果救赎是提供给那些将来要灭亡的人，那么，它就不能是一种交换（transaction），可以确保它原本设计要给的所有的人得到真实的拯救；然而，欧文说，这恰恰是圣经所说的那种交换。他著作的前两卷大量地展示了一个事实，就是根据圣经，救赎主的死实际地拯救了祂的子民，正如其本意所要成就的。第三卷包含了一个16个论证的系列，反驳普遍救赎的假说，都是为了显示：一、实际所说到基督的救赎工作是有效的，这就排除了它是为了那些会灭亡的人；二、如果它原本的范围是普遍的人，那么，要不是所有的人都会得救（这是圣经否认的，提倡“普遍赎价”的人也未肯定之），要不圣父和圣子在他们所想做的事上失败了──“那就是说”，欧文说，“对我们来说似乎是对上帝的智慧、权能、完美的一种亵渎式的伤害，也是对基督的死的价值的一种贬损”（注9）。That argument is essentially very simple. Owen sees that the question which has occasioned his writing—the extent of the atonement—involves the further question of its nature, since if it was offered to save some who will finally perish, then it cannot have been a transaction securing the actual salvation of all for whom it was designed. But, says Owen, this is precisely the kind of transaction that the Bible says it was. The first two books of his treatise are a massive demonstration of the fact that according to Scripture the Redeemer’s death actually saves His people, as it was meant to do. The third book consists of a series of sixteen arguments against the hypothesis of universal redemption, all aimed to show, on the one hand, that Scripture speaks of Christ’s redeeming work as effective, which precludes its having been intended for any who perish, and, on the other, that if its intended extent had been universal, then either all will be saved (which Scripture denies, and the advocates of the “general ransom” do not affirm), or else the Father and the Son have failed to do what they set out to do—“which to assert,” says Owen, “seems to us blasphemously injurious to the wisdom, power and perfection of God, as likewise derogatory to the worth and value of the death of Christ.”

欧文的论证对这个困境扬起一系列的改变。最后，在第四卷书中，欧文十分中肯地指出，三类经文号称可证明基督为那些不会得拯救的人而死了（那些说祂是为“世人”──the world；为“所有人”── all，和那些假想祂为他们而死的人是灭亡的），在合理的解经原则下，不能作如此教导。此外，普遍救赎要建立的神学推论，其实是相当错谬的。对此宣称──基督是为所有人（甚至为那些灭亡的人）而死──的真正福音派的评估，透过一个又一个的论点，从欧文的书中倾泻而出。这样的宣称与上帝的爱与恩典是如此遥远，也羞辱了基督的工作和祂自己，因为这个宣称把上帝的爱贬低为一个无能的愿望，把整个所谓“拯救”（在这个观点中，“拯救”是一个错误的用词）的恩典的计划（economy），变成一个具有指标意义的上帝的失败。同时，在远远不能彰显基督的死的功劳和价值下，它使之廉价化，因为它让基督的死成为无效。最后，在远远不能提供信心和鼓励外，这个宣称整个摧毁了得救确据的圣经基础，因为它否认基督为我（或基督曾为我、或现在为我做的）死了，是表明我永恒救恩足够的基础；以这个观点看，我的救恩不是靠基督所为我做的，而是靠之后我为我自己做的。Owen’s arguments ring a series of changes on this dilemma. Finally, in the fourth book, Owen shows with great cogency that the three classes of texts alleged to prove that Christ died for persons who will not be saved (those saying that He died for “the world,” for “all,” and those thought to envisage the perishing of those for whom He died), cannot on sound principles of exegesis be held to teach any such thing; and, further, that the theological inferences by which universal redemption is supposed to be established are really quite fallacious. The true evangelical evaluation of the claim that Christ died for every man, even those who perish, comes through at point after point in Owen’s book. So far from magnifying the love and grace of God, this claim dishonours both it and Him, for it reduces God’s love to an impotent wish and turns the whole economy of “saving” grace, so-called (“saving” is really a misnomer on this view), into a monumental divine failure. Also, so far from magnifying the merit and worth of Christ’s death, it cheapens it, for it makes Christ die in vain. Lastly, so far from affording faith additional encouragement, it destroys the Scriptural ground of assurance altogether, for it denies that the knowledge that Christ died for me (or did or does anything else for me) is a sufficient ground for inferring my eternal salvation; my salvation, on this view, depends not on what Christ did for me, but on what I subsequently do for myself.

因此，这个观点夺去了圣经所给予的上帝的爱和基督救赎的荣耀，而把违背圣经的自救的原则导入圣经所明确说的这一点上：“不是出于行为，免得有人自夸”（注10）。鱼与熊掌不能得兼：一个普遍范围的救赎是一个贬值了的救赎；它失去了它救赎的能力；它使得我们必须自救。因此，普遍赎价的教义必须被排拒，正如欧文排拒它一样，要视其为一极严重的错误。相对地，欧文所提出的教义，正如他自己所展示的，是合乎圣经的，也是荣耀神的。它高举基督，因为它教导的是基督徒要唯独荣耀祂的十架，也从祂的救主的代求上得到他们的盼望和确据。换句话说，它才是真福音派的，是真正的上帝的福音，也是大公的信仰。Thus this view takes from God’s love and Christ’s redemption the glory that Scripture gives them, and introduces the anti-scriptural principle of self-salvation at the point where the Bible explicitly says: “not of works, lest any man should boast.” You cannot have it both ways: an atonement of universal extent is a depreciated atonement. It has lost its saving power; it leaves us to save ourselves. The doctrine of the general ransom must accordingly be rejected, as Owen rejects it, as a grievous mistake. By contrast, however, the doctrine which Owen sets out, as he himself shows, is both biblical and God-honouring. It exalts Christ, for it teaches Christians to glory in His Cross alone, and to draw their hope and assurance only from the death and intercession of their Saviour. It is, in other words, genuinely Evangelical. It is, indeed, the gospel of God and the catholic faith.

这样说是很安全的：自欧文出版他的书以来，对三位一体上帝所计划和施行的救赎，没有比得上的解说。再没有必要了。在讨论这部作品时，汤姆森（Andrew Thomson）注意到欧文“让你觉得当他说完他的主题时，他再也无话可说了”（注11）。的确是如此。他对针对这个主题的经文的解说是有把握的；他的神学建构力是一流的；需要讨论的没有一样被省略；据我所知，自他的时代以来，没有任何（无论赞成或反对他的立场的）论据曾被使用过；而这些论据是他未曾注意到，也处理过的。如果有人要在他的书中找逻辑的跳跃或飞跃，必是徒劳无功的。这些逻辑是改革宗神学家用来树立其立场的；人所能找到的，是坚实的、煞费苦心的解经，以及仔细遵循圣经的思维。欧文的作品是有建设性的，是对福音的中心所作的有广泛基础的圣经分析，我们必须据此认真地对待。它不是一部为传统的标语所作的特殊诉求，因为没有人有这个权利抛弃有限、或特殊救赎的教义，把它当成加尔文式逻辑的怪物，除非他能反驳欧文所证明的，是圣经一贯所呈现的救赎观，也是经文所一再清楚教导的。至今尚未有人做到。It is safe to say that no comparable exposition of the work of redemption as planned and executed by the Triune Jehovah has ever been done since Owen published his. None has been needed. Discussing this work, Andrew Thomson notes how Owen “makes you feel when he has reached the end of his subject, that he has also exhausted it.” That is demonstrably the case here. His interpretation of the texts is sure; his power of theological construction is superb; nothing that needs discussing is omitted, and (so far as the writer can discover) no arguments for or against his position have been used since his day which he has not himself noted and dealt with. One searches his book in vain for the leaps and flights of logic by which Reformed theologians are supposed to establish their positions; all that one finds is solid, painstaking exegesis and a careful following through of biblical ways of thinking. Owen’s work is a constructive, broad-based biblical analysis of the heart of the gospel, and must be taken seriously as such. It may not be written off as a piece of special pleading for a traditional shibboleth, for nobody has a right to dismiss the doctrine of the limitedness of atonement as a monstrosity of Calvinistic logic until he has refuted Owen’s proof that it is part of the uniform biblical presentation of redemption, clearly taught in plain text after plain text. And nobody has done that yet.

 “你谈到要恢复福音”，我们的质问者问道，“难道你不是只想把我们都变成加尔文主义者吗？” “You talked about recovering the gospel,” said our questioner; “don’t you mean that you just want us all to become Calvinists?”

这个问题所关心的，大概不是这些话，而是这件事。我们是否称自己为加尔文主义者并不重要；重要的是我们应该根据圣经来理解福音。除了这个，我们认为，的确要照历史上的加尔文主义所理解的来理解，另一种选择则是误解和扭曲。我们先前说过，近代的布道运动，总的来说，已经不再用旧的方式来宣讲福音，我们也坦白承认，这个新的福音，是如此偏离了旧的福音，对我们来说是对圣经信息的扭曲。我们现在可以看到是哪里出错了。我们的神学货币贬值了。我们的心志已被调校去如此思想：十字架的救赎所作的不再能救赎；基督作为救主，不再能拯救；上帝的爱只是一个软弱的情感，缺少帮助，不能使人远离地狱；上帝需要人的信心的帮助，来达成救赎的目的。结果，是我们不再能自由地相信、也不能传扬圣经的福音。我们不能相信祂，因为我们的思想陷在神人合作（synergism）的网罗中。我们被阿米念的观念所困，如果信心和不信是人要负责的行为，它们必须是独立的行为；因此，我们不能自由地相信我们得救完全是靠上帝的恩典，信心本身也是上帝的礼物，是从加利利流向我们的。我们反而让自己卷入一个糊涂的关于救恩的矛盾想法，一边告诉我们，都要依靠上帝，另一边却说都依靠我们自己。结果就造成了混论的思维，把上帝的荣耀给剥夺了。这荣耀本当归给上帝，因为祂是救恩的创始成终者，也剥夺了我们的安慰，知道上帝永远是为了我们。This question presumably concerns, not the word, but the thing. Whether we call ourselves Calvinists hardly matters; what matters is that we should understand the gospel biblically. But that, we think, does in fact mean understanding it as historic Calvinism does. The alternative is to misunderstand and distort it. We said earlier that modern Evangelicalism, by and large, has ceased to preach the gospel in the old way, and we frankly admit that the new gospel, insofar as it deviates from the old, seems to us a distortion of the biblical message. And we can now see what has gone wrong. Our theological currency has been debased. Our minds have been conditioned to think of the Cross as a redemption which does less than redeem, and of Christ as a Saviour who does less than save, and of God’s love as a weak affection which cannot keep anyone from hell without help, and of faith as the human help which God needs for this purpose. As a result, we are no longer free either to believe the biblical gospel or to preach it. We cannot believe it, because our thoughts are caught in the toils of synergism. We are haunted by the Arminian idea that if faith and unbelief are to be responsible acts, they must be independent acts; hence we are not free to believe that we are saved entirely by divine grace through a faith which is itself God’s gift and flows to us from Calvary. Instead, we involve ourselves in a bewildering kind of double-think about salvation, telling ourselves one moment that it all depends on God and next moment that it all depends on us. The resultant mental muddle deprives God of much of the glory that we should give Him as author and finisher of salvation, and ourselves of much of the comfort we might draw from knowing that God is for us.

而当我们宣讲福音时，我们的错误先设使我们说出我们所不想说的。我们（正确地）想要宣讲基督是救主，但是我们却说，基督是使救恩成为可能，而让我们成为自己的救主。是这样变成的。我们想要赞美上帝拯救的恩典和基督拯救的能力，但是我们宣告上帝救赎的爱要靠每一个人，基督的死是要拯救所有的人，我们宣称上帝怜悯的荣耀要靠这些事实来衡量。然后，为了要避免普救论（universalism），我们必须反对我们先前所称赞的，然后解释说，毕竟，如果不是我们的贡献，上帝和基督所作的，并不能救我们。真正救我们的决定性因素，是我们自己的相信。我们所说的变成如此：基督透过我们的帮助来救我们；当我们把这个想通了，我们的意思就是说：我们透过基督的帮助来拯救自己。这是一个空洞的、令人扫兴的结尾。但是如果我们从肯定上帝对所有人有一个救赎的爱（God has a saving love for all）开始，基督是为所有人的救赎而死（Christ dies a saving death），但是却在成为普救论前畏缩，我们也没有什么可说的了。And when we come to preach the gospel, our false preconceptions make us say just the opposite of what we intend. We want (rightly) to proclaim Christ as Saviour; yet we end up saying that Christ, having made salvation possible, has left us to become our own saviours. It comes about in this way. We want to magnify the saving grace of God and the saving power of Christ. So we declare that God’s redeeming love extends to every man, and that Christ has died to save every man, and we proclaim that the glory of divine mercy is to be measured by these facts. And then, in order to avoid universalism, we have to depreciate all that we were previously extolling, and to explain that, after all, nothing that God and Christ have done can save us unless we add something to it; the decisive factor which actually saves us is our own believing. What we say comes to this—that Christ saves us with our help; and what that means, when one thinks it out, is this—that we save ourselves with Christ’s help. This is a hollow anticlimax. But if we start by affirming that God has a saving love for all, and Christ died a saving death for all, and yet balk at becoming universalists, there is nothing else that we can say.

让我们这样说，来澄清我们的说法：我们没有高举恩典和十架；我们比加尔文主义者更彻底地限制了救赎，因为加尔文主义主张基督的死，拯救了它意图要救的人（Christ’s death saves all whom it was meant to save）；我们如此就否认了基督的死，足以拯救他们其中的任何人（注12）。我们谄媚了迷顽的罪人，向他们保证，他们有能力悔改和相信，虽然上帝不能使他们这样作。或许我们也把信心看得过于平凡，让这个保证看似容易（“它非常简单──只要向上帝打开你的心门”）。当然，我们有效地否认了上帝的主权，损坏了真正宗教的基本认信──人永远在上帝的手中。在真理中，我们已经一败涂地。这或许是，难怪我们的宣讲引来如此少的敬畏和谦卑，而我们自称的皈依者是如此自信，却对圣经所认为的真悔改的果子所带来的好行为，如此缺乏自我认知的原因。And let us be clear on what we have done when we have put the matter in this fashion. We have not exalted grace and the Cross; we have cheapened them. We have limited the atonement far more drastically than Calvinism does, for whereas Calvinism asserts that Christ’s death, as such, saves all whom it was meant to save, we have denied that Christ’s death, as such, is sufficient to save any of them. We have flattered impenitent sinners by assuring them that it is in their power to repent and believe, though God cannot make them do it. Perhaps we have also trivialised faith and repentance in order to make this assurance plausible (“it’s very simple—just open your heart to the Lord...”). Certainly, we have effectively denied God’s sovereignty, and undermined the basic conviction of religion—that man is always in God’s hands. In truth, we have lost a great deal. And it is, perhaps, no wonder that our preaching begets so little reverence and humility, and that our professed converts are so self-confident and so deficient in self-knowledge, and in the good works which Scripture regards as the fruit of true repentance.

欧文的书能使我们从这种堕落的信心和宣讲中得到自由。如果我们听从他所说的，他会教导我们如何相信圣经的福音，也教导我们如何去宣讲。其一、他会领我们俯伏于那位真正救赎我们的、主权的救主之前，为救赎之死（Redeeming death）而赞美祂，此救赎的死是确定的，所有祂为之而死的人，必会进入荣耀。我们要再三强调，如果没有像多特的神学家们这样看，我们就没有看到十字架的全部意义──作为福音的中心，一侧被全然无能（Total inability）和无条件拣选（Unconditional election），另一侧被不可抗拒的恩典（Irresistible grace）和最终的保守（Final preservation）所掩护。因为只有当救赎是被这四个真理所定义，十字架全部的意义才会显现。基督的死，是为了救赎一群上帝把祂无条件的爱放在他们身上的毫无能力的罪人。基督的死确保这个呼召，也保守那些祂担负了他们的罪的那些人，现在和最终的救恩。这是加利利的意义，也是加利利的方法。十字架在过去拯救了，现在仍然继续拯救。这是真福音信心的中心。正如考柏（Cowper）唱的：It is from degenerate faith and preaching of this kind that Owen’s book could set us free. If we listen to him, he will teach us both how to believe the Scripture gospel and how to preach it. For the first: he will lead us to bow down before a sovereign Saviour Who really saves, and to praise Him for a redeeming death which made it certain that all for whom He died will come to glory. It cannot be over-emphasised that we have not seen the full meaning of the Cross till we have seen it as the divines of Dort display it—as the centre of the gospel, flanked on the one hand by total inability and unconditional election, and on the other by irresistible grace and final preservation. For the full meaning of the Cross only appears when the atonement is defined in terms of these four truths. Christ died to save a certain company of helpless sinners upon whom God had set His free saving love. Christ’s death ensured the calling and keeping—the present and final salvation—of all whose sins He bore. That is what Calvary meant, and means. The Cross saved; the Cross saves. This is the heart of true Evangelical faith; as Cowper sang—

Dear dying Lamb,Thy precious blood

Shall never lose its power,

Till all the ransomed church of God

Be saved to sin no more.

珍贵的垂死羔羊，你的宝血

永不失去功能

足能救赎全体教会

保守不再犯罪

（注：There’s a Fountain Filled with Flood，第三节）

这是个铺垫在老旧福音之下胜利的信念，是整本新约所持定的，也是欧文毫不含糊要教导我们相信的。This is the triumphant conviction which underlay the old gospel, as it does the whole New Testament. And this is what Owen will teach us unequivocally to believe.

接着，第二、欧文可以使我们获得自由的（如果我们愿意听他），是宣讲圣经的福音。这个主张听起来似乎是自相矛盾的，因为很多人以为，那些不愿意宣讲基督是为所有人而死的人，是没有什么福音可讲的。然而，正好相反，他们所能宣讲的，正好是新约的福音。宣讲“上帝恩典的福音”的意思是什么？欧文在这点上，只点到为止（注13），但是他的评论却充满亮光。他告诉我们，宣讲福音，不是对所有的会众说，上帝会把祂的爱给他们其中每一个人，且基督是为救他们每一个人而死。因为，这些主张，如果按照圣经的理解，是暗示他们所有的人都确定会得到拯救。知道自己是上帝永恒的爱和基督救赎之死的对象，就落在个人自己的把握（注14）中了──但这件事本质上不可能发生于信心的救赎行动之前。根据圣经，传福音完全是对人宣告来自上帝的真理，人必须相信，也要对下面的四件事实作出回应：Then, secondly, Owen could set us free, if we would hear him, to preach the biblical gospel. This assertion may sound paradoxical, for it is often imagined that those who will not preach that Christ died to save every man are left with no gospel at all. On the contrary, however, what they are left with is just the gospel of the New Testament. What does it mean to preach “the gospel of the grace of God”? Owen only touches on this briefly and incidentally, but his comments are full of light. Preaching the gospel, he tells us, is not a matter of telling the congregation that God has set His love on each of them and Christ has died to save each of them, for these assertions, biblically understood, would imply that they will all infallibly be saved, and this cannot be known to be true. The knowledge of being the object of God’s eternal love and Christ’s redeeming death belongs to the individual’s assurance, which in the nature of the case cannot precede faith’s saving exercise; it is to be inferred from the fact that one has believed, not proposed as a reason why one should believe. According to Scripture, preaching the gospel is entirely a matter of proclaiming to men, as truth from God which all are bound to believe and act on, the following four facts:

1. 人人都是罪人，作任何事都无法救他们自己；

2. 耶稣基督，上帝的儿子，是罪人（即使是最坏的罪人）完美的救主；

3. 圣父和圣子已经答应，知道自己是罪人的，也把信心交托给基督做他们救主的人，会得到神恩惠的接纳，没有人会被撇弃──这个应许是确定的、绝无错谬的真理，是奠基于基督自己作为祭物最丰富的充足性上──只要是为他们而设的人（无论多少）（注15）。

4.上帝规定悔改和信心是一个责任，需要每一个听到福音的人，做出“在福音的应许下，一个灵魂严肃、完全的对基督的信靠与依从；基督作为一个全然充份的救主，能终极地救赎和拯救藉着基督来到上帝面前的人，能够且愿意，透过祂的血的宝贵，和祂的赎价的充份，拯救每一个愿意无条件放弃他们自己，为了那个目的，把自己交给基督的人。”（注16）(1.) that all men are sinners, and cannot do anything to save themselves;

(2.) that Jesus Christ, God’s Son, is a perfect Saviour for sinners, even the worst;

(3.) that the Father and the Son have promised that all who know themselves to be sinners and put faith in Christ as Saviour shall be received into favour, and none cast out (which promise is “a certain infallible truth, grounded upon the superabundant sufficiency of the oblation of Christ in itself, for whomsoever [few or more] it be intended”);

(4.) that God has made repentance and faith a duty, requiring of every man who hears the gospel “a serious full recumbency and rolling of the soul upon Christ in the promise of the gospel, as an all-sufficient Saviour, able to deliver and save to the utmost them that come to God by him; ready, able and willing, through the preciousness of his blood and sufficiency of his ransom, to save every soul that shall freely give up themselves unto him for that end.”

换句话说，传福音者的工作，便是展示基督（display Christ,），向人解释他需要基督，祂足能使人得到拯救；所有真心转向祂的人，祂为他献上自己，应许成为救主。也要尽己所能，充份而简明地向他陈明，这些真理怎么适用于教会。他的责任不是说出，听者也不必问，基督到底是为哪些特定的人而死。“没有一个被福音所呼召的人，是要来询问上帝使他成为基督之死的对象，其目的和意图。但会得到全然的确信，只要信靠祂和遵守祂的诫命，祂的死就会给他们带来富足。“倘若他在他里面发现了基督之死的果子，而且是向着他的，信徒就该向他的灵魂保证，这是上帝良善的旨意和永恒的爱，特地赐下祂的爱子，是为他而死的。”（注17），这不会在之前发生。福音呼召他所要作的，只是运用信心，是他必须、也有义务要作的，是上帝的命令和应许。The preacher’s task, in other words, is to display Christ: to explain man’s need of Him, His sufficiency to save, and His offer of Himself in the promises as Saviour to all who truly turn to Him; and to show as fully and plainly as he can how these truths apply to the congregation before him. It is not for him to say, nor for his hearers to ask, for whom Christ died in particular. “There is none called on by the gospel once to enquire after the purpose and intention of God concerning the particular object of the death of Christ, every one being fully assured that his death shall be profitable to them that believe in him and obey him.” After saving faith has been exercised, “it lies on a believer to assure his soul, according as he find the fruit of the death of Christ in him and towards him, of the good-will and eternal love of God to him in sending his Son to die for him in particular”; but not before. The task to which the gospel calls him is simply to exercise faith, which he is both warranted and obliged to do by God’s command and promise.

接下来，我们对什么是传福音这个观念，提出一些意见。Some comments on this conception of what preaching the gospel means are in order.

第一、 我们应该注意到，欧文的古旧福音所包含的，对救恩的完整与无条件的提供（offer），并不亚于现代版本。它提供信心丰富的基础（基督的充足性，上帝的应许），和令人信服的信心的动机（罪人的需要，创造主的命令，同时也是救赎者的邀请）。新的福音因为主张普遍救赎，在此并没有添加什么。当然，古旧福音没有留什么空间给廉价的感伤，它只把上帝对罪人无条件的怜悯，变为上帝本质上的好心肠，将之视为理所当然；它也不会鼓励把基督的礼物降级成一个受挫的救主，畏怯于人的不信，而不敢作祂想作的；它也不会沉迷于伤感中，而诉诸于不信者，求他们让在失望中的耶稣把他们从可怜中救出来。这个现代讲坛上可怜的救主和可怜兮兮的上帝，是古旧福音所不知道的。古旧福音告诉人们，他们需要上帝，但宣布说基督已经怜恤他们，虽然怜悯是他们完全不配的。它从不忽略它所宣称的上帝的尊荣和基督无上的主权，而是断然地拒绝所有会使祂无条件的全能变得含糊的陈述。First, we should observe that the old gospel of Owen contains no less full and free an offer of salvation than its modern counterpart. It presents ample grounds of faith (the sufficiency of Christ, and the promise of God), and cogent motives to faith (the sinner’s need, and the Creator’s command, which is also the Redeemer’s invitation). The new gospel gains nothing here by asserting universal redemption. The old gospel, certainly, has no room for the cheap sentimentalising which turns God’s free mercy to sinners into a constitutional soft-heartedness on His part which we can take for granted; nor will it countenance the degrading presentation of Christ as the baffled Saviour, balked in what He hoped to do by human unbelief; nor will it indulge in maudlin appeals to the unconverted to let Christ save them out of pity for His disappointment. The pitiable Saviour and the pathetic God of modern pulpits are unknown to the old gospel. The old gospel tells men that they need God, but not that God needs them (a modern falsehood); it does not exhort them to pity Christ, but announces that Christ has pitied them, though pity was the last thing they deserved. It never loses sight of the Divine majesty and sovereign power of the Christ whom it proclaims, but rejects flatly all representations of Him which would obscure His free omnipotence.

第二、 然而，这代表古旧福音的宣讲者被禁止或受限制，将基督给予人，并邀请他们接受祂吗？完全不是。事实上，正因为他认定神的怜悯是主权的，是白白的，使他在他的宣讲中，比起新福音的解说者，更可以让人理解基督的献祭。因为在他的原则上，献祭的本身，是比它（在那些把对罪人的爱视为上帝本质之必然的人的眼中）所可能的，是更为美妙的事。想想这位圣洁的造物主，从不需要人而获得快乐，大可以不需怜悯地永远消灭我们这堕落的族类，实际上却选择救赎了他们其中的一些人！而且祂的儿子愿意忍受死亡，降到阴间去拯救他们！现在从祂的宝座上，竟然用福音中的话语对不虔敬的人说话，以一个热情的邀请催促他们，吩咐他们悔改和相信，怜悯自己、选择永生！这些思想是古旧福音的宣讲所围绕的焦点。它是全然美好的，只因为它们不可被视为理所当然。Does this mean, however, that the preacher of the old gospel is inhibited or confined in offering Christ to men and inviting them to receive Him? Not at all. In actual fact, just because he recognises that Divine mercy is sovereign and free, he is in a position to make far more of the offer of Christ in his preaching than is the expositor of the new gospel; for this offer is itself a far more wonderful thing on his principles than it can ever be in the eyes of those who regard love to all sinners as a necessity of God’s nature, and therefore a matter of course. To think that the holy Creator, who never needed man for His happiness and might justly have banished our fallen race for ever without mercy, should actually have chosen to redeem some of them! and that His own Son was willing to undergo death and descend into hell to save them! and that now from His throne He should speak to ungodly men as He does in the words of the gospel, urging upon them the command to repent and believe in the form of a compassionate invitation to pity themselves and choose life! These thoughts are the focal points round which the preaching of the old gospel revolves. It is all wonderful, just because none of it can be taken for granted.

但是或许最好的事情──这个福音真理神圣的基础中最神圣的焦点──是无条件的邀请，是“主基督”（欧文喜欢这样称呼祂）一再向有罪咎的罪人所发出的，邀请他们到祂这里来为他们的灵魂寻找安歇。这个荣耀，因为这些邀请是一个全能的王所给的，正如这是为王的基督的荣耀最主要的部份，是祂屈尊来邀请人。而这是福音事工的荣耀，传达者作为基督的使者走向人，被委任以将王的邀请亲自递送到每一个罪人那里，呼召他们回转而存活。欧文自己在一个段落中将此点扩大，向未归正者提出。But perhaps the most wonderful thing of all—the holiest spot in all the holy ground of gospel truth—is the free invitation which “the Lord Christ” (as Owen loves to call Him) issues repeatedly to guilty sinners to come to Him and find rest for their souls. It is the glory of these invitations that it is an omnipotent King who gives them, just as it is a chief part of the glory of the enthroned Christ that He condescends still to utter them. And it is the glory of the gospel ministry that the preacher goes to men as Christ’s ambassador, charged to deliver the King’s invitation personally to every sinner present and to summon them all to turn and live. Owen himself enlarges on this in a passage addressed to the unconverted.

 “请考虑基督无限的屈尊和爱，在祂对你的邀请和呼召下来到祂这里，得到生命、拯救、怜悯、恩典、平安，和永恒的救赎。这些邀请和呼召有很多被记载在圣经中，他们都充满着有福的激励，是神的智慧知道适合失丧、被说服的罪人……在宣告和传讲当中，耶稣基督仍站在罪人之前，呼召、邀请、激励他们来到祂面前” “Consider the infinite condescension and love of Christ, in his invitations and calls of you to come unto him for life, deliverance, mercy, grace, peace and eternal salvation. Multitudes of these invitations and calls are recorded in the Scripture, and they are all of them filled up with those blessed encouragements which divine wisdom knows to be suited unto lost, convinced sinners.... In the declaration and preaching of them, Jesus Christ yet stands before sinners, calling, inviting, encouraging them to come unto him.

 “这相等于他现在对你说的：为何要灭亡呢？你为什么要毁灭呢？为什么你不同情自己的灵魂呢？在那迫近的震怒的日子，是你的心能坚忍，还是你的手很强壮……仰望我，得拯救吧﹗来我这里，我会洗去你所有的罪、忧伤、恐惧、负担，使你的灵魂得安歇。来，我恳求你，停下所有的因循与耽搁，不要再拖延了；永恒正在门口……不要如此恨我，好像你宁可灭亡，也不接受我的拯救。” “This is somewhat of the word which he now speaks unto you: Why will ye die? why will ye perish? why will ye not have compassion on your own souls? Can your hearts endure, or can your hands be strong, in the day of wrath that is approaching?... Look unto me, and be saved; come unto me, and I will ease you of all sins, sorrows, fears, burdens, and give rest unto your souls. Come, I entreat you; lay aside all procrastinations, all delays; put me off no more; eternity lies at the door...do not so hate me as that you will rather perish than accept of deliverance by me.

 “这些和类似的事是主基督一再向罪人的灵魂所宣告、宣称、请求、催促的……他乃是藉着传讲祂的话，有如祂正与你同在，站在你们当中，亲自向你们每个人说……祂且指定了福音的使者，出现在你面前，代表祂来和你相处，如同祂自己宣称是祂亲自的邀请，是以祂自己的名发给你的（林后1：19-20）”（注18）“These and the like things doth the Lord Christ continually declare, proclaim, plead and urge upon the souls of sinners.... He doth it in the preaching of the word, as if he were present with you, stood amongst you, and spake personally to every one of you.... He hath appointed the ministers of the gospel to appear before you, and to deal with you in his stead, avowing as his own the invitations which are given you in his name, 2 Cor. v. 19, 20.”

“这些和类似的事是主基督一再向罪人的灵魂所宣告、宣称、请求、催促的……他乃是藉着传讲祂的话，有如祂正与你同在，站在你们当中，亲自向你们每个人说……祂且指定了福音的使者，出现在你面前，代表祂来和你相处，如同祂自己宣称是祂亲自的邀请，是以祂自己的名发给你的（林后1：19-20）”（注18）“These and the like things doth the Lord Christ continually declare, proclaim, plead and urge upon the souls of sinners.... He doth it in the preaching of the word, as if he were present with you, stood amongst you, and spake personally to every one of you.... He hath appointed the ministers of the gospel to appear before you, and to deal with you in his stead, avowing as his own the invitations which are given you in his name, 2 Cor. v. 19, 20.”

这些邀请是对所有人的，是基督对罪人提出的，所有的人，当他相信上帝是真的，必须要把它们当作是上帝对他说的话，并且接受这个伴随着的普遍的保证，即所有来到基督面前的，都会被接纳。再说一次，这些邀请是真实的。基督为了所有听到福音的人，真心地把自己献上；对所有信祂的人而言，在真理中祂是完美的救主。救赎范围的问题，在传福音的过程中，并没有出现；所要传达的信息，很简单，只是──耶稣基督，主权的上帝，为罪人而死，现在无条件地邀请罪人来到祂这里；上帝吩咐所有的人来悔改和相信。基督应许生命和平安给所有如此行的人。并且，这些邀请是令人不可思议地恩慈的；人们唾弃和拒绝它们，却是他们绝对不配的，但是基督仍然发出这些邀请。祂没有非得如此不可，然而祂的确如此作了。“到我这里来，我就使你们得安息”永远是祂给世界的话语，绝不会取消，永远要被传扬。祂（作为一个完美的救主）的死，确保了祂所有子民的救恩，必须要在所有的地方被宣告，所有得到邀请的人，被要求来相信祂，无论他们是谁，他们过去怎样。古旧福音的传扬就是根基于这三个洞见。These invitations are universal; Christ addresses them to sinners, as such, and every man, as he believes God to be true, is bound to treat them as God’s words to him personally and to accept the universal assurance which accompanies them, that all who come to Christ will be received. Again, these invitations are real; Christ genuinely offers Himself to all who hear the gospel, and is in truth a perfect Saviour to all who trust Him. The question of the extent of the atonement does not arise in evangelistic preaching; the message to be delivered is simply this—that Christ Jesus, the sovereign Lord, who died for sinners, now invites sinners freely to Himself. God commands all to repent and believe; Christ promises life and peace to all who do so. Furthermore, these invitations are marvellously gracious; men despise and reject them, and are never in any case worthy of them, and yet Christ still issues them. He need not, but He does. “Come unto me...and I will give you rest” remains His word to the world, never cancelled, always to be preached. He whose death has ensured the salvation of all His people is to be proclaimed everywhere as a perfect Saviour, and all men invited and urged to believe on Him, whoever they are, whatever they have been. Upon these three insights the evangelism of the old gospel is based.

这是个孤陋寡闻的见解，说根据这些原则所进行的传福音的工作，与阿米念者所能做的比起来，一定是非常苍白、不认真的。研读古旧福音杰出的阐释者──如班扬（欧文本人十分仰慕他的讲道）、怀腓特，和司布真──他们被印制成的（在抗议宗讲坛文献上是无可比拟的）讲章的人会发现，实际上他们是滔滔不绝地讲论救主，以一个丰富、热情、强而有力的动力呼召罪人来到祂面前。如果进一步分析，你会发现，他们的讲道之所以有一种独特的能力，能征服他们的听众，在上帝丰富的恩典上，给人一种心碎的喜悦──即使向现代的读者传讲，仍可赋予其能力──最重要的一件事，便是他们坚持恩典是白白的。他们知道，神的爱的长阔高深，连一半都无法被人了解，除非一个人了解上帝没有必要拣选拯救人，也没有必要赐下祂的儿子，为人而死；基督也没有必要背起替代的咒诅来买赎人类；祂也没有必要没有分别地邀请罪人，到祂这里来，正如祂所作的；上帝对人的恩典，完全来自祂自己没有条件的目的（free purpose）。他们强调要知道这个，也正是这个强调，使他们的布道讲道独树一帜。It is a very ill-informed supposition that evangelistic preaching which proceeds on these principles must be anaemic and half-hearted by comparison with what Arminians can do. Those who study the printed sermons of worthy expositors of the old gospel, such as Bunyan (whose preaching Owen himself much admired), or Whitefield, or Spurgeon, will find that in fact they hold forth the Saviour and summon sinners to Him with a fulness, warmth, intensity and moving force unmatched in Protestant pulpit literature. And it will be found on analysis that the very thing which gave their preaching its unique power to overwhelm their audiences with broken-hearted joy at the riches of God’s grace-and still gives it that power, let it be said, even with hard-boiled modern readers—was their insistence on the fact that grace is free. They knew that the dimensions of Divine love are not half understood till one realises that God need not have chosen to save nor given his Son to die; nor need Christ have taken upon him vicarious damnation to redeem men, nor need He invite sinners indiscriminately to Himself as He does; but that all God’s gracious dealings spring entirely from His own free purpose. Knowing this, they stressed it, and it is this stress that sets their evangelistic preaching in a class by itself.

其他福音派信徒，被一个更肤浅和不适当的恩典神学所迷惑，强调福音的传讲，是针对罪人得赦免的需要，或平安与能力，以及在他们“决定要基督”（deciding for Christ）的路途中得到他们。这不是要否认他们的讲道有果效（上帝会使用这个真理，即使没有正确地被领受，也搀杂了错误），虽然这类的布道常常被人批评为太以人为中心和佯装为敬虔（pietistic）；然而，它就要留给（必要地）加尔文主义者，以及像卫斯理主义那样的人（当他们向未归正者开始布道时，就转变成加尔文式的思想），来宣讲此福音，即高举主耶稣基督无条件的爱，心甘情愿的俯就，耐心长久的受苦，和无限的良善。而，无可置疑地，这是最符合圣经，最有益的传扬它的方法，因为没有比福音对罪人的邀请，更能荣耀神和高举基督；也没有比全力宣讲从耶稣基督身上所流出的白白的、全能的怜悯，更能有力地使人苏醒和坚定信心。似乎是，实际也是，古旧福音的传讲者，他们的立场是唯一能使他们在耶稣基督对罪人无条件的邀约（free offer）中，正确对待神启示祂的美善的一群人。Other Evangelicals, possessed of a more superficial and less adequate theology of grace, have laid the main emphasis in their gospel preaching on the sinner’s need of forgiveness, or peace, or power, and of the way to get them by “deciding for Christ.” It is not to be denied that their preaching has done good (for God will use His truth, even when imperfectly held and mixed with error), although this type of evangelism is always open to the criticism of being too man-centred and pietistic; but it has been left (necessarily) to Calvinists and those who, like the Wesleys, fall into Calvinistic ways of thought as soon as they begin a sermon to the unconverted, to preach the gospel in a way which highlights above everything else the free love, willing condescension, patient long-suffering and infinite kindness of the Lord Jesus Christ. And, without doubt, this is the most Scriptural and edifying way to preach it; for gospel invitations to sinners never honour God and exalt Christ more, nor are more powerful to awaken and confirm faith, than when full weight is laid on the free omnipotence of the mercy from which they flow. It looks, indeed, as if the preachers of the old gospel are the only people whose position allows them to do justice to the revelation of Divine goodness in the free offer of Christ to sinners.

因此，第二点，古旧福音护卫了新福音所丢失的价值。我们在前面看到，新福音以主张普遍救赎和神普遍的救赎目的，借着否认天父和圣子在救恩中的主权，迫使它将恩典和十字架廉价化；因为它向我们保证，在神和基督已经作了祂们所可能做的、或他们要做的之后，最后要靠每个人自己的选择，来决定上帝要救他的目的是否实现了。Then, in the second place, the old gospel safeguards values which the new gospel loses. We saw before that the new gospel, by asserting universal redemption and a universal Divine saving purpose, compels itself to cheapen grace and the Cross by denying that the Father and the Son are sovereign in salvation; for it assures us that, after God and Christ have done all that they can, or will, it depends finally on each man’s own choice whether God’s purpose to save him is realised or not. This position has two unhappy results.

这个立场会带来两个不幸的后果。第一、它迫使我们误解基督在（我们一直所传讲的）福音中恩典的邀请的重要性。因为现在只能把它们读成，不是一个全能的上帝温柔的耐心的表达，而是个无能的渴望、可怜兮兮的哀求。因此，一个为王的主突然变形成一个软弱、无能的人物，可怜地敲着人的心门，而这是祂无力打开的。这是对新约的耶稣一个可耻的污辱。第二个后果同样严重。因为这个观点实际上否认我们在重要的决定上对神的依赖，使我们脱离祂的手，告诉我们，我们终究是罪所教的，我们是怎样的人──我们自己命运的主宰，我们灵魂的船长──因此侵蚀了人与他的创造者间宗教（敬虔）关系的基础。这就不该使我们感到惊讶，为何归正于新福音的人，常常是如此地不敬和不敬虔，因为这正是这个教导自然的倾向。The first is that it compels us to misunderstand the significance of the gracious invitations of Christ in the gospel of which we have been speaking; for we now have to read them, not as expressions of the tender patience of a mighty sovereign, but as the pathetic pleadings of impotent desire; and so the enthroned Lord is suddenly metamorphosed into a weak, futile figure tapping forlornly at the door of the human heart, which He is powerless to open. This is a shameful dishonour to the Christ of the New Testament. The second implication is equally serious: for this view in effect denies our dependence on God when it comes to vital decisions, takes us out of His hand, tells us that we are, after all, what sin taught us to think we were—masters of our fate, captain of our souls—and so undermines the very foundation of man’s religious relationship with his Maker. It can hardly be wondered at that the converts of the new gospel are so often both irreverent and irreligious, for such is the natural tendency of this teaching.

然而，老旧福音所说的完全不同，也有很不同的倾向。一方面，在详细解说人对基督的需要中，它强调新福音所实际上忽略的──如果不是心灵的更新，罪人无法遵守福音，正如他们无法遵守律法。另一方面，在宣布基督拯救的能力之同时，它宣告祂是归正（conversion）的作者，也是主要的媒介。此归正是当福音发出时，圣灵更新人心，也吸引他们归向祂自己。据此，在施行此信息时，古旧福音（仍强调信心是人的责任），强调信心不在人的能力，而是当上帝发出命令时祂必须要给的。它宣布，人不仅必须来到基督那里得到拯救，人也无法来到那里，除非基督亲自吸引他。因此，他努力打倒自我的信心，说服罪人，救恩完全不在他们的掌握中，使他们住口，带他们到一个自我绝望的境地，不仅为了他们的义，也为他们的信心，需要依靠主权救主荣耀的恩典。

The old gospel, however, speaks very differently and has a very different tendency. On the one hand, in expounding man’s need of Christ, it stresses something which the new gospel effectively ignores—that sinners cannot obey the gospel, any more than the law, without renewal of heart. On the other hand, in declaring Christ’s power to save, it proclaims Him as the author and chief agent of conversion, coming by His Spirit as the gospel goes forth to renew men’s hearts and draw them to Himself. Accordingly, in applying the message, the old gospel, while stressing that faith is man’s duty, stresses also that faith is not in man’s power, but that God must give what He commands. It announces, not merely that men must come to Christ for salvation, but also that they cannot come unless Christ Himself draws them. Thus it labours to overthrow self-confidence, to convince sinners that their salvation is altogether out of their hands, and to shut them up to a self-despairing dependence on the glorious grace of a sovereign Saviour, not only for their righteousness but for their faith too.

因此，一个古旧福音的宣讲者，不太可能会喜欢用一种现在用的“决定要基督”（decide for Christ）的命令方式，来陈述福音的实施。因为，在另一方面，这个片语承载了错误的关联。它暗示用选票把一个人送上其职位──这个举动表示候选人除了等待自己被选上外，没有其他作用，所有的事情都要靠选举人自主的选择来决定。但是我们并没有投票让神的儿子进入这个职份，作我们的救主；他也不是保持被动地，让宣道者代表他来竞选，激起支持他的原因。我们不该把传福音当成一种选举活动。然后，在另一方面，这个片语模糊了悔改和信心中最基本的事情──在个人归向基督时，是否定自己。很明显地，决定要基督（deciding for Christ）与到祂那里（coming to him），依靠祂（rest on Him）和从罪和自我努力中转离，是不相同的。It is not likely, therefore, that a preacher of the old gospel will be happy to express the application of it in the form of a demand to “decide for Christ,” as the current phrase is. For, on the one hand, this phrase carries the wrong associations. It suggests voting a person into office—an act in which the candidate plays no part beyond offering himself for election, and everything then being settled by the voter’s independent choice. But we do not vote God’s Son into office as our Saviour, nor does He remain passive while preachers campaign on His behalf, whipping up support for His cause. We ought not to think of evangelism as a kind of electioneering. And then, on the other hand, this phrase obscures the very thing that is essential in repentance and faith—the denying of self in a personal approach to Christ. It is not at all obvious that deciding for Christ is the same as coming to Him and resting on Him and turning from sin and self-effort; it sounds like something much less, and is accordingly calculated to instil defective notions of what the gospel really requires of sinners. It is not a very apt phrase from any point of view.

对这个问题：“我该做什么才能得救呢？”古旧福音回答说：“相信主耶稣基督”。对下一个问题：“相信主耶稣基督是什么意思？”它的回答是：“知道自己是罪人，基督为罪人而死；放弃自义和自信，为得赦免和平安，把自己全然投向祂；把自己天然对神的敌意和反叛，透过圣灵更新一个人的心，换成一个对基督旨意感恩降服的心灵。” To the question: what must I do to be saved? the old gospel replies: believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. To the further question: what does it mean to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ? its reply is: it means knowing oneself to be a sinner, and Christ to have died for sinners; abandoning all self-righteousness and self-confidence, and casting oneself wholly upon Him for pardon and peace; and exchanging one’s natural enmity and rebellion against God for a spirit of grateful submission to the will of Christ through the renewing of one’s heart by the Holy Ghost.

对更进一步的问题：“如果我没有天然的能力，我怎么相信基督和悔改？”它的回答是：以你的本相仰望基督，对基督说话，向基督哭求；承认你的罪，你的无悔意，你的不信，然后把自己投向祂的怜悯；要求祂给你一个新心，在你里面做一个真的悔改和坚定的信心；要求祂把你邪恶和不信的心挪走，在你的心版上写上祂的律法，以致于从今以后你可以不再偏离祂。尽你的全力转向祂、信任祂，为更彻底的转回和信靠求恩典，有盼望地使用恩具，仰望基督，当你寻求被祂吸引时，祂会来吸引你；查看、祷告、阅读、听上帝的话，赞美和与神的子民交通，继续这样作，直到你自己心里确定，不再有疑惑，你的生命真的改变了，是一个悔改的信徒，你渴望的那个新心已经被放在你的里面。这个建议所强调的是直接向基督呼求的必要性，作为最开始的一步。And to the further question still: how am I to go about believing on Christ and repenting, if I have no natural ability to do these things? it answers: look to Christ, speak to Christ, cry to Christ, just as you are; confess your sin, your impenitence, your unbelief, and cast yourself on His mercy; ask Him to give you a new heart, working in you true repentance and firm faith; ask Him to take away your evil heart of unbelief and to write His law within you, that you may never henceforth stray from Him. Turn to Him and trust Him as best you can, and pray for grace to turn and trust more thoroughly; use the means of grace expectantly, looking to Christ to draw near to you as you seek to draw near to Him; watch, pray, read and hear God’s Word, worship and commune with God’s people, and so continue till you know in yourself beyond doubt that you are indeed a changed being, a penitent believer, and the new heart which you desired has been put within you. The emphasis in this advice is on the need to call upon Christ directly, as the very first step.

Let not conscience make you linger,

Nor of fitness fondly dream;

All the fitness He requireth

Is to feel your need of Him –

勿让良心耽搁牵绊，

康健美梦作阻拦。

祂所要求人之康健

只是对祂的需求。

（注：Come, Ye Sinners, Poor and Needy，第三节）

所以，不要拖到你认为你变得比较好了才行动，而是真心地承认你的恶行，此时此地把自己交给基督，唯独祂可以使你变好；等候祂，直到祂的光在你的灵魂中升起，这是圣经应许的。任何说你不必直接向基督求的，都是不顺服福音。这是古旧福音呼召它的听众，圣灵向他们运行的方式。“我信！但我信不足，求主帮助”，必须成为他们的呼求。—so do not postpone action till you think you are better, but honestly confess your badness and give yourself up here and now to the Christ who alone can make you better; and wait on Him till His light rises in your soul, as Scripture promises that it shall do. Anything less than this direct dealing with Christ is disobedience of the gospel. Such is the exercise of spirit to which the old evangel summons its hearers. “I believe—help thou mine unbelief”: this must become their cry.

古旧福音很有把握所宣讲的是它所见证的基督，当符合圣经、要人来信靠祂的邀请，被阐述和遵行时，基督是那位真正的说话者；祂不是当话语被传出去时，被动地等待人作决定；而是大能地作为，透过祂的话，也借着祂的话，把祂的子民带入到对祂的信心之中。新福音的传讲常被形容为“把人带到基督面前”的工作──好像只有人在行动，而基督是静止的。但传扬古旧福音的工作，更正确的描述是把基督引到人面前，因为传扬此福音的人知道当他们做好他们的工作，把基督带到人的眼前，他们所传扬的这位大能的救主会忙着透过他们的话，作祂的工作，以救恩来访问罪人，唤醒他们，来到信心之中，在怜悯中吸引他们来归向祂。And the old gospel is proclaimed in the sure confidence that the Christ of whom it testifies, the Christ who is the real speaker when the Scriptural invitations to trust Him are expounded and applied, is not passively waiting for man’s decision as the word goes forth, but is omnipotently active, working with and through the word to bring His people to faith in Himself. The preaching of the new gospel is often described as the task of “bringing men to Christ” if only men move, while Christ stands still. But the task of preaching the old gospel could more properly be described as bringing Christ to men, for those who preach it know that as they do their work of setting Christ before men’s eyes, the mighty Saviour whom they proclaim is busy doing His work through their words, visiting sinners with salvation, awakening them to faith, drawing them in mercy to Himself.

这是欧文会教导我们要传扬的古旧福音：上帝在基督里主权恩典的福音，基督是信心和救恩的创始成终者。这是我们根据欧文的原则所可传扬的唯一福音，而那些曾经尝过它的滋味的人，不可能去寻找另外一个。在相信和传扬福音这件事上，正如其他的事，耶利米的话仍然适用： 耶和华如此说：你们当站在路上察看，访问古道，哪是善道，便行在其间；这样，你们心里必得安息。（耶6：16）无论对我们或对教会来说，发现我们自己被排除（如欧文会将我们排除）在使用流行的现代版福音之外，也许并不是件坏事。It is this older gospel which Owen will teach us to preach: the gospel of the sovereign grace of God in Christ as the author and finisher of faith and salvation. It is the only gospel which can be preached on Owen’s principles, but those who have tasted its sweetness will not in any case be found looking for another. In the matter of believing and preaching the gospel, as in other things, Jeremiah’s words still have their application: “Thus saith the Lord, Stand ye in the ways, and see, and ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your souls.” To find ourselves debarred, as Owen would debar us, from taking up with the fashionable modern substitute gospel may not, after all, be a bad thing, either for us, or for the Church.

我们还可以再多说一些。但是再多说就超过了介绍的范围。前面谈到的是简要地说在目前，这有多么重要，我们必须非常仔细倾听欧文的分析，看到底圣经怎么说到有关基督的救赎工作。More might be said, but to go further would be to exceed the limits of an introductory essay. The foregoing remarks are made simply to show how important it is at the present time that we should attend most carefully to Owen’s analysis of what the Bible says about the saving work of Christ.

最后，关于这本专著，我们还要加上几点。这是欧文的第二部主要作品，以及他第一部的杰作（它的前导，《阿米念主义的展示》，在1642年出版，时值欧文26岁，是一部称职的学徒之作，而不作为一部研究论文）。It only remains to add a few remarks about this treatise itself. It was Owen’s second major work, and his first masterpiece. (Its predecessor, A Display of Arminianism, published in 1642, when Owen was twenty-six, was a competent piece of prentice-work, rather of the nature of a research thesis.)

《吞灭死亡》是一部扎实的书，由详细的解经和完整的论证所组成，需要勤奋地研读，如欧文亲自领略到的。粗略的浏览不会有太多所得。（读者……如这个佯装的时代的许多人，只看符号和标题的人，进入一本书如凯托进入戏院，再度出来──已经得到他们的娱乐，再会吧！）然而欧文觉得，他有权利要求人认真地阅读，因为他的书是一部辛苦工作的成果（“一本超过七年”严肃的探索……在这些事上对上帝的心意，严肃地研究我所能获得的，在早年或后来的岁月中出版的反对这个真理的著作中的人类智慧），他心里很肯定，他所写的具有一些决定性。（总之，我对成功没有绝望，但我确定在我有生之年，在这本作品外不会有更严谨的回答。）时间证明了他的乐观。The Death of Death is a solid book, made up of detailed exposition and close argument, and requires hard study, as Owen fully realised; a cursory glance will not yield much. (“READER.... If thou art, as many in this pretending age, a sign or title gazer, and comest into books as Cato into the theatre, to go out again—thou has had thy entertainment; farewell!”) Owen felt, however, that he had a right to ask for hard study, for his book was a product of hard work (“a more than seven-years’ serious inquiry...into the mind of God about these things, with a serious perusal of all which I could attain that the wit of man, in former or latter days, hath published in opposition to the truth”), and he was sure in his own mind that a certain finality attached to what he had written. (“Altogether hopeless of success I am not; but fully resolved that I shall not live to see a solid answer given unto it.”) Time has justified his optimism.

也应该说些反对他的人。他所写的是要反对普遍救赎的三种变异：典型的阿米念主义，如前所述的；撒穆尔神学职员（这个立场被称为“后救赎主义”- Amyraldism，是根据其倡导者的名字所命名）；以及摩尔（Thomas More），一位东英格兰的神学家。第二种观点是源自在撒穆尔的一位苏格兰教授，卡梅隆（John Cameron）。他的观点被两个学生所发展，这里可以引用顾德对撒穆尔立场的摘要。“如果承认，借着上帝的计划，透过基督的死，被拣选者必然被救恩的乐趣所保全，他们为是否有一个先行的旨意而争辩，是上帝透过基督无条件地把救恩给所有的人，在他们相信祂的前提下。因此，他们的系统被称为理论上的普救论。它和严格阿米念主义的重要区别在前者主张被拣选者的灵性复苏，故有绝对的稳妥。然而，他们同意，把某一类的普救论赋予救赎，在某些情况也继续保持，在所有人能履行的范围内……所有的人都等得到基督之死的恩惠。”根据这点，顾德继续说：“欧文的读者会理解……为何他有特别的敏锐，和对有条件的系统反复的陈述……它貌似有理，它拥有许多有学问的人支持；它在外国教会获得传播；它也似乎被摩尔所赞成。”（注25）Goold’s summary of the Saumur position may be quoted. “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 termedhypothetic[al] 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...all men have access to the benefits of Christ’s death.” From this, Goold continues, “the readers of Owen will understand...why he dwells with peculiar keenness and reiteration of statement upon a refutation of the conditional system.... 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.”