Monergism Books

Description: This was Owen's first publication (1642) and immediately brought him into notice. It contains numerous useful charts contrasting Arminian doctrines, from some of their major teachers, with those of Scripture (Calvinism) in a side-by-side format. Owen leaves no room for compromise with Arminianism. Of the seventeenth-century Puritans, John Owen was by far the most influential. His defense of the Reformed faith was so articulate and precise that they stand un-refuted even to this day. In this volume, Owen meticulously exposes from the Scriptures the heresy of Arminianism, or Semi-Pelagianism, and shows that its doctrine of free will stands opposed to the biblical doctrine of the sovereignty of God.

This position is simply in keeping with Luther, as C.H. Spurgeon points out, "... and I will go as far as Martin Luther, in that strong assertion of his, where he says, 'If any man doth ascribe of salvation, even the very least, to the free will of man, he knoweth nothing of grace, and he hath not learnt Jesus Christ aright.' It may seem a harsh sentiment; but he who in his soul believes that man does, of his own free will turn to God, cannot have been taught of God, for that is one of the first principles taught us when God begins with us, that we have neither will nor power, but that He gives both; that he is 'Alpha and Omega' in the salvation of men." ( from the sermon 'Free Will A Slave,' 1855, also see Luther's Reformation classic, The Bondage of the Will).