"us, who are Calvinists, and that, too, of the rigid view ... those Calvinists who, though now decidedly in the minority, would appeal to Dr Owen as a sound expositor of their creed. In that minority I rank myself."

"Owen's works will never be laid aside, in spite of their uncouth style, unless, indeed, the son of perdition should again take possession of all the earth."

W. Kelly wrote in his, ‘The Righteousness of God: what is it?’ “Look, again, at John Owen. He was Richard Baxter's antagonist. The one was a moderate Presbyterian, the other a Congregationalist. They were both good and able men, but they differed materially — the one being decidedly Calvinistic, the other Arminianly disposed. Still, in both there was, perhaps, equal lack of light as to the righteousness of God. Is this to disparage either? Be it far from us; but must we therefore accept their mutual attacks and their clashing thoughts on this very head of justifying righteousness? The fact is, their stamp remains and is plain enough: not a heavenly, but an earthly tone; little sense of the liberty of grace; no joy of resurrection, but contrariwise, a strong assimilation to the position and experience of godly Jews.

I suppose that the differences between the Gomarian and Arminian theological views still rage on—maybe “indurate with bigotry,” still, Mr Beverley suggests—but if honest with self and the true gospel of Jesus Christ, he encourages all to cast away their biases for the cause of the many still lost in sin—

“Let us, who are Calvinists, and that, too, of the rigid school, cast away our Gomarian telescope, when we would look at the world that lieth in wickedness, and, instead of viewing one or two favoured spots of our little creed, behold, with expanded view, all the kingdoms of the earth from the rising to the setting sun, oppressed with the powers of darkness, and condemned to hopeless bondage of sin and death, unless the armies of the church shall go forth to their rescue. With this view, unless our hearts be indurate with bigotry, we must bid God speed to Methodism; for we see what it has already done, and we know full well, that much of the plentiful harvest would be lost, for want of efficient hands, if the Wesleyan labourers should retire from the field. Let us remember that, owing to Methodism, justification by faith, with the other fundamental doctrines of the gospel, are preached in many villages and towns of this kingdom, and in various portions of the old and new continents, which, without these preachers, would never hear a sound of the gospel.”