Owen goes over very much of the ground which is occupied by Goodwin, and he is scarcely less rigid in his predestinarianism. It is instructive to compare with the point of view selected by Goodwin that which is chosen by Owen. Owen’s treatise on the _Doctrine of Justification_ (1677) should be examined by the side of Goodwin’s work on the _Objects and Acts of Justifying Faith_. Owen describes justifying faith “as the heart’s approbation of the way of justification and salvation of sinners by Jesus Christ;” he omits, and vindicates the omission of any definition of this spiritual act: but he is singularly full in his account of the Divine side of justification, dwelling at great length upon its forensic nature, and its basis in the imputed righteousness of the Redeemer. The last point is wrought out with pre-eminent distinctness. It occurs at the beginning--it is resumed in the middle--it is enforced at the end of the book. The idea of Christ’s imputed righteousness is considered by many evangelical Divines as at the best a theoretical key to explain the fact of justification, rather than as an essential element of the doctrine. Some hold the fact without accepting the explanation, not finding it to be a key at all. But the state of opinion was widely different in Owen’s day, the whole atmosphere of controversy was different; he and others identified imputation with justification, and fought for it as for the hearth of truth, as for the altar of God. They deemed the interests of Protestantism, the security of the doctrines of grace, and the welfare of Christ’s Church at stake in this one doctrinal dispute. [Sidenote: JOHN OWEN.] Owen agrees substantially with Goodwin, but he is more cautious; and he more frequently qualifies his statements. He says men may really be saved by that grace which doctrinally they question, and they may be justified by the imputation of that righteousness, which, in opinion, they deny to be imputed. He shrinks from affirming what Goodwin affirms as to the identification of Christ with the sinner.[525] It may again be observed, that throughout, Owen looks more intently at the Divine act of the sinner’s justification than at the human act by which the justification is secured. His views on the whole are coincident with Goodwin’s as to the Divine decrees; but he exhibits them less prominently in reference to the doctrine of election than in reference to the doctrine of particular redemption. The Atonement is a central point in his thoughts; and it is in a treatise respecting the death and satisfaction of Christ, that his clearest statements on the tenet of election can be found.[526]