John Owen on Virtual Pardon: Textual Dependance On Thomas Gilbert

Thomas Gilbert's Learned and Accurate Discourse Concerning the Guilt of Sin was published in 1695, a year after his death. In the work, Gilbert distinguishes between legal and gospel guilt, arguing that all legal guilt of past sins is formally remitted upon believing and that all future sins have their legal guilt virtually remitted inasmuch as justification places one in a state where one is unable to contract new legal guilt. When we pray for the forgiveness of our sins, Gilbert argues, we are praying for the removal of gospel guilt expressed through fatherly chastisements as well as "God’s continuance indeed (or non-Revocation) of such his gracious pardon" relating to the remission of legal guilt.

The postscript to Benjamin Keach's Short Confession of Faith (https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eebo/A47606.0001.001/1:6?rgn=div1;view=fulltext) cites Gilbert's work to explicate Keach's 13th article about the remission of future sins. Keach says that he met with Thomas Gilbert, presumably to discuss this matter, and also notes that he sees Gilbert's position on virtual pardon as in agreement with Ames as well as others. Here is Keach's postscript in full:

THere is something contained in the 13th Article that may seem to want some Explication, in these words (speaking of a Man actu∣ally and personally justified) that his Sins past, present, and to come, are all forgiven: We believing that if any Sins of a justified Person were after∣wards charged upon him, it must of necessity make a breach in his unal∣terable and everlasting Justification, which is but one Act in God; hence there is no Condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus: yet I find an able and worthy Writer distinguisheth Par∣don of Sin thus, viz.

1. Fundamentally in Christ, as a common Person of all the Elect before Faith, which lieth in Christ making full Satisfaction for all their Sins, me∣riting Faith for them, &c.

2. Actual, of all the Elect in Christ on believing; this actual Pardon being nothing else but the actual Possession in their own Persons of their funda∣mental Pardon in the Person of Christ: And Dr. Tho. Goodwin speaks to the same purpose, to which I agree. And that description this actual Pardon of the legal Guilt is twofold.

1. Formal, of all their Sins past, re∣moving their legal Guilt.

2. Virtual, of all their Sins to come, preventing their legal Guilt.

Dr. Ames speaks to the same purpose, and many others. I cannot see how a Believer should be for ever formally justified from all Sins past, present, and to come, and yet not formally pardoned. This Author which I have lately met with, distinguisheth well between Legal Guilt and Gospel Guilt; the first obliging to Divine Wrath, or eternal Punishment; the latter, i. e. Gospel Guilt, obliging to Gospel, or Fatherly Chastisement for Gospel-Sins. Now I see not but that as soon as a Believer is personally justified, all his Sins, tho not yet commit∣ted, as to legal Guilt, or vindictive Wrath, i. e. that Guilt that obliges to eter∣nal Condemnation, are par∣doned, for the reason be∣fore.

Saith he, Virtual Pardon keeps off Legal Guilt where it would be. To which I reply, if it be kept off, so description that it never comes upon Believers, then it follows they were actually par∣don'd before in that respect: yet he says, Sins cannot be said to be formally pardon'd before formally committed; but says, no Guilt can come upon them to Condemnation, tho new Guilt; yet no new legal Guilt, because always justi∣fied. We see no hurt if his Terms be admitted.

Object. What do Believers then pray for, when they pray for the Pardon of Sin?

Answ. 1. That God would not chas∣tise them sorely, or afflict them as a Father, according to the greatness of their Offences.

2. That if his chastning Hand is upon us, he would be pleased graci∣ously to remove it.

3. That he would be pleased to clear up to our Consciences, or give us the evidence of our Pardon through Christ's Merits, and that we may know we are compleat in Christ, or without spot before the Throne in our free Justification.

4. Nay, Believers are to pray to God to remove that Sin from them (saith this worthy Author) whose de∣sert of Punishment cannot be removed from it; and to spread their Sins before the Lord in the highest sense of the description deepest demerit of all legal Punish∣ment, so that they may put the higher accent upon the free Grace of God, and estimate upon the full Satisfaction of Christ, whereby their Persons are so fully freed from all actual Obliga∣tion to any Legal Punishment, the whole and utmost whereof their Sins deserve.

5. Moreover, that God would con∣tinue, and never revoke his most gracious Pardon, till he pronounceth the final Sentence of it at the day of Judgment, (as well this Author notes) for a renewed sense and assu∣rance of its grant and continuance: and thus to pray, saith he, there are both Precepts and Promises. FINIS.

The relevant section of Ames's Marrow is as follows (https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eebo/A25291.0001.001/1:5.27?rgn=div2;subview=detail;type=simple;view=fulltext;q1=virtually):

23. But not only the sins of justified persons that are past are remitted, but also in some sort those to come. Numb. 23. 25. He seeth no iniquity in Iacob, nor pervers∣nesse in Israel, because justification hath left no place to condemnation, Iohn 5. 24. He that believeth hath eter∣nall life, and shall not come into condemnation: and it doth certainly and immediatly adjudge one to eternall life. It also maketh all that remission, which was in Christ obtained for us, to be actually ours: neither can sins past and present be altogether and fully remitted, unlesse sins to come be in some sort remitted also.

24. But there is this difference, that sins past are remitted by a formall application, by sins to come onely virtually : sins past are remitted in themselves, sins to come in the subject or person sinning.

Back to Gilbert. We know that his work was written sometime prior to 1678 (https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Dictionary_of_National_Biography,_1885-1900/Gilbert,_Thomas_(1613-1694). Virtually all of our information about Thomas Gilbert comes from Edmund Calamy, who described him as “an ancient Divine; an excellent Scholar, of extraordinary Acuteness, and Conciseness of Style, and a most Scholastical Head. He had all the School-men at his Finger-ends” and that he “had a nice metaphysical head, and was the completest schoolman I ever was acquainted with.” Gilbert appears to have been recommended to the Westminster Assembly (see sessions 559 and 581). Calamy's fullest comments on Gilbert can be read here: https://archive.org/details/historicalaccoun01cala/page/268/mode/2up?view=theater Gilbert wrote a short work responding to John Owen's Dissertation on Divine Justice (I have translated this work here: https://brandoncorleyschoo.wixsite.com/brandoncorley/post/thomas-gilbert-a-defense-of-the-supreme-dominion-of-god), which he discussed with Calamy for only a short time as, in Calamy's words, "he [Gilbert] could not apprehend that any thing he could add to it, would be able to satisfy. He desired, therefore, that he and I might have no farther discourse upon that subject; nor had we; though we had frequent altercations about another notion of his, of which he was very fond, and upon which also he had somewhat in print: viz. that all sins, past, present, and to come, were pardoned at once, which I must own I never could tell how to digest." As Gilbert's national biography entry states, "Calamy speaks as if it had been first printed in Gilbert's lifetime." Richard Baxter (who, according to Samuel Young, was Gilbert’s cousin: https://books.google.com/books/about/Vindiciae_Anti_Baxterianae.html?id=nfhLO6b0qT0C&printsec=frontcover&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&source=gb_mobile_entity&hl=en&gl=US&ovdme=1#v=onepage&q=Gilbert&f=false ) wrote some animadverions on Gilbert's paper (or what would become Gilbert's paper) in a letter to a friend, dated by the Dr. Williams Library as having been written between 1665-1670 (https://archiveshub.jisc.ac.uk/search/archives/dd1499d1-654a-300d-9668-ee6405a72273?component=00a1b1dc-a3ae-38f2-9be3-ad5ee8ddc095). Thus we know that some manuscript from Gilbert on the topic existed (hereafter called "Q") and was being read by 1670 at the latest. This timeline fits with what we are told in the preface to Gilbert's published work, namely, that:

THE Light held out in these Papers is accounted so clear and so useful, that it hath been thought great Pity it hath not been set up upon a Candlestick. They have pas∣sed up and down in Manuscript about Thirty Years, being much valued by those who were Possessors of them. It is Credibly reported that a very great and Learned Man (whom for some Reasons I will not name, though his Commendation would have great weight with Persons of different perswasions) did upon the perusal of them, speak to the Learned Author to this purpose, That it was worth a Mans Living a great while, though he did nothing else but bring forth such a Composure.

I would like to further suggest that we can narrow down the existence of Q to sometime either in or sometime slightly prior to 1668. The reason for this is because of the very close parallels between page 208 of Robert Ferguson's Justification Onely Upon A Satisfaction (https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eebo2/B22921.0001.001/1:3.9?rgn=div2;subview=detail;type=simple;view=fulltext;q1=legal+guilt) published 1668 with pages 6 and 20 of Gilbert's published work:

Ferguson, pg. 208	Gilbert, pg. 6
1. Sin shall never be charged upon us in the legal guilt of it, Rom. 8. 1, 33, 34. The legal guilt of all sins past is removed formally, and the legal guilt of all sins to come is removed virtually: That is thus, justification takes of legal guilt where once it was, and keeps it of where else it would be.	This Actual Pardon of the Legal Guilt of Believers Sins is twofold. 1. Formal, of all their Sins past, removing their Legal Guilt. 2. Virtual, of all their Sins to come, preventing their Legal Guilt. Formal Pardon takes off Legal Guilt, where once it was. Virtual Pardon keeps it off, where else it would be.

Ferguson, pg. 208

Gilbert, pg. 20

And (1.) It is no more harsh that sins should be legally disim∣puted to us before committed, than that they should be legally imputed to Christ before com∣mitted, which all the sins of the elect, who have lived, and are yet to live, since the death of Christ, were. (2.) Because the guilt of sin may be as well disimputed to be∣lievers before committed by them, as the satisfaction of Christ was imputed to believers before made by him, which it was to all the Old Testament Saints.

The Legal Guilt of their Sins may (at least) as well be Virtually dis∣imputed to Believers,* 1.3 before com∣mitted by them, as the Satisfaction of Christ, Formally Imputed to Be∣lievers, before wrought by Him. This, before wrought by Him, was Formally Imputed to all Believers before Christ. Ergo, &c. Reason of the Major: For if the Acts of Moral Causes may be Morally put forth before such Causes are them∣selves Actually in Being (as it was in that Case of Christs Satisfaction not then wrought, when putting forth its Moral Act, in its Formal Imputation to the Formal Pardon of the Legal-Guilt of Sins past, to Believers before Christ) much more may such Moral Impediments be laid in before such Causes are in Be∣ing, as shall effectually hinder theputting forth of such their Acts, when such Causes come Actually to be (as it is in this Case of Christs Satisfaction now wrought, Formally Imputed to the Virtual Pardon of Believers Sins to come, effectually hindering the putting forth of their Moral Act, the deriving of any Legal Guilt upon such Persons, when such Sins are come) Or with any who conceive the Satisfaction of Christ, not yet Formally wrought by Him, could not be Formally, but only Virtually imputed to Belie∣vers, before Christ Incarnate, Let the Argument run thus.That which, but Virtually Im∣puted, was efficacious to the Formal Pardon of the Legal Guilt of their Sins past, who believed in Christ yet to come, cannot, being Formally Imputed, be inefficacious to the Virtual Pardon of the Legal Guilt of their Sins to come, who believe in Christ already come. But the Satisfaction of Christ, &c. Ergo, &c. And then let the Reason in the Form of Argument before used, be accordingly applyed.

1668 fits right in the ballpark of when we know that Q must have existed. Furthermore, it seems less likely that Gilbert would have drawn from Ferguson rather than the other way around since Gilbert's entire discourse is dedicated to the issue, whereas Ferguson only brings this up as a side-issue in a much larger work against Socinianism. Furthermore, Ferguson's 208 reads like a summary of Gilbert's 20. It seems likely then that Ferguson had access to Q, as we know Baxter did by, at the earliest, 1665. Therefore, we can say with a high degree of confidence that Q was being passed around at least by 1668.

Now, how does all of this relate to John Owen? The relevant section of his Doctrine of Justification (1677) is as follows:

In the first justification of believing sinners, all future sins are remitted as unto any actual obligation unto the curse of the law, unless they should fall into such sins as should, ipso facto, forfeit their justified estate, and transfer them from the covenant of grace into the covenant of works; which we believe that God, in his faithfulness, will preserve them from. And although sin cannot be actually pardoned before it be actually committed, yet may the obligation unto the curse of the law be virtually taken away from such sins in justified persons as are consistent with a justified estate, or the terms of the covenant of grace, antecedently unto their actual commission. God at once in this sense “forgiveth all their iniquities, and healeth all their diseases, redeemeth their life from destruction, and crowneth them with loving-kindness and tender mercies,” Ps. ciii. 3, 4. Future sins are not so pardoned as that, when they are committed, they should be no sins; which cannot be, unless the commanding power of the law be abrogated: but their respect unto the curse of the law, or their power to oblige the justified person thereunto, is taken away. (Doctrine of Justification, pg. 202-203).

I have placed the phrases I did above in bold as they seem to me to be very clearly articulating Gilbert's position that virtual remission of sins has to do with the disobligation to the cure of the law such that persons justified cannot ever contract actual (legal) guilt from their sins and thus be actually obliged to undergo the curse of the law. It is not merely that the legal guilt of future sins will infallibly be formally remitted, but it is that all capacity to contract legal guilt has been taken away because the power of of the cure of the law to oblige the justified has been taken away.

Besides having directly responded to Owen on the necessity of the satisfaction, Gilbert was "the common epitaph-maker for dissenters," having composed epitaphs for Thomas Goodwin, Ichabod Chauncy, and, most importantly, for John Owen himself. Owen met with Gilbert around 1673 when Gilbert was performing an errand for Lord Thomas Wharton (see The Correspondence of John Owen, pg. 155).

Besides this, Owen's familiarity with Gilbert may be established indirectly through their possible mutual connection to bishop Thomas Barlow. I have found that there was a Thomas Gilbert who served as Barlow's secretary, but I cannot confirm that this was him. Both Barlow and Gilbert wrote disputations on the validity of a marriage without parental consent, perhaps being occasioned by the same event, although I cannot access Gilbert's work. Furthermore, Gilbert's extensive learning would make good sense were Barlow his teacher as he was Owen's. We know that during the late 1660s Owen was closely connected with a network that included bishop Barlow (see Gribben, Experiences of Defeat, 243) and thus it is natural to assume that he was likewise familiar with Gilbert.

It is not at all improbable that Owen would have been in possession of Q at the time he wrote his Doctrine of Justification and thus the passage of Owen quoted above very well might be directly influenced by Gilbert. Perhaps it was Owen himself who was the learned man who said of Gilbert's work "That it was worth a Mans Living a great while, though he did nothing else but bring forth such a Composure" (nobody, of course, has any way of proving this, but I like to imagine this is the case in my own mind because it would be cool).

Most decisively, however, Robert Ferguson himself became Owen's assistant in 1674 and continued as Owen's assistant until around 1679 (Gribben, 250)! This, of course, places Ferguson as Owen's assistant very likely exactly when Owen was writing his Doctrine of Justification, and therefore Owen was almost certainly drawing from Gilbert should my argument regarding Ferguson above hold good.

If I am correct about the above, this sheds light on the following passage of Owen:

Still there abideth the true nature of sin in every inconformity unto, or transgression of the Law in justified persons, which stands in need of daily actual pardon. For there is no man that liveth and sinneth not, and if we say that we have no sin, we do but deceive our selves. None are more sensible of the Guilt of sin, none are more troubled for it, none are more earnest in supplications for the pardon of it, than justified persons. For this is the effect of the Sacrifice of Christ applyed unto the Souls of Believers, as the Apostle declares, Heb. 10.1, 2, 3, 4, 10, 14. that it doth take away Conscience, condemning the Sinner for sin, with respect unto the Curse of the Law; But it doth not take away Conscience, condemning sin in the Sinner, which on all considerations of God and themselves, of the Law and the Gospel, requires Repentance on the part of the sinner, and actual pardon on the part of God (Doctrine of Justification, 203).

Owen's "daily actual pardon," is, according to Gilbert, properly said only of gospel remission. For Gilbert, all that it means for particular sins to be remitted after justification (other than that this refers to the remission of gospel guilt) is that no new guilt is contracted since virtual pardon made it impossible for new actual guilt to be contracted. This is why he never speaks of formal/actual pardon of legal guilt committed after justification. Only potential guilt remains in our sins since virtual pardon has taken away the capacity to contract actual guilt (a point Owen also makes above). New sins are not actually/formally remitted at all because virtual pardon has already removed the capacity to contract actual guilt itself. The distinction Owen makes between “conscience condemning the sinner for sin” and “conscience condemning sin in the sinner” appears to be making this exact distinction. All condemnation with respect to the curse of the law has been. taken away so as not to be able to bring the sinner under it any longer. A legal and judicial justification has already occurred, taking off all capacity of contracting actual legal guilt. Yet actual (gospel) pardon is necessary to remove fatherly displeasure & restore peace of conscience; and for this actual (gospel) pardon, repentance is necessary. The same thought in substance can be found in Witsius's Animadversions, XIII.XVIII:

Neither indeed is it true, that the justified have no need of grief, repentance, confession, and prayers, in order to obtain the pardon of sins, which are of daily infrmity, as Tertullian speaks; or also, of atrocious crimes, if they are committed. For though I asserted above, that all sins are pardoned at once, in the first justification; yet that general pardon contains its more special periods and degrees. Hence it is, that that universal sentence is applied to particular cases by the Spirit of God himself, without which the mind, conscious of recent guilt, is in a storm: hence it also is, that the heavenly Father sometimes removes the heavy rod of correction; and laying aside his indignation, readmits the confessing sinner into familiar fellowship. These things are every where in scripture called the remission of sins; which all scripture, together with the perpetual experience of believers, teach not to be attainable, except in the way of repentance, confession, and frequent prayer.

Finally, I thought it also worthwhile to show that Owen's comments on virtual remission very closely parallel John Brown of Wamphray in chapter XX of his The Life of Justification Opened, which Melichor Leydekker had published in 1695. Brown himself died in 1679, which would seem to indicate that Wamphray wrote the following in the last 2 years of his life, unless he somehow had access to Owen's Justification prior to its publication. Wamphray mentions Owen’s Doctrine of Justification in chapter XIV of his work.

Owen, pg. 202

Wamphray, pg. 274

In the first justification of believing sinners, all future sins are remitted as unto any actual obligation unto the curse of the law, unless they should fall into such sins as should, ipso facto, forfeit their justified estate, and transfer them from the covenant of grace into the covenant of works; which we believe that God, in his faithfulness, will preserve them from.

2. As for such sins, as we may suppose, if committed, would ipso facto, as they say, forfeit the transgressour of the state of Justification, & destroy all interest in Christ, in the Covenant of grace, & so transferre them into their former state of Nature, while they were under the Curse; as being sins, inconsistent with a state of Grace & Reconciliation with God; such as be sin against the Holy Ghost, or of full & final Apostasie: as for such sins, I say, the faithfulness of God, Mediation of Christ, & the Operation of the Spirit of Grace, are, as it were, engadged, to keep the Justified from falling into them; as all the Arguments, proving the perseverance of the Saints, do abundantly evince.

Owen, pg. 202

Wamphray, pg. 274

And although sin cannot be actually pardoned before it be actually committed, yet may the obligation unto the curse of the law be virtually taken away from such sins in justified persons as are consistent with a justified estate, or the terms of the covenant of grace, antecedently unto their actual commission. God at once in this sense “forgiveth all their iniquities, and healeth all their diseases, redeemeth their life from destruction, and crowneth them with loving-kindness and tender mercies,” Ps. ciii. 3, 4. Future sins are not so pardoned as that, when they are committed, they should be no sins; which cannot be, unless the commanding power of the law be abrogated: but their respect unto the curse of the law, or their power to oblige the justified person thereunto, is taken away.

Though every sin, being a transgression of the Law of God, which still remaineth in force to oblige the beleever, as all others, unto obedience in all points, doth, in its own nature, deserve God's wrath & curse, according to the threatning & penalty of the Law: yet these sins do not annul the state of justification, nor interupt it (1) because notwithstanding thereof, all their former sins, of which they were pardoned, remaine pardoned, & do not bring them againe under the curse, & their Right to the Inheritance remaineth finne, through Jesus Christ. (2) Because all these after sins were virtually pardoned, & their obligation to the suffering of the penalty upon the account of these, virtually removed, in their Justification; for therein was there a legal security laid down & given, that all future sins should not actually bring them under the curse, or into the state of condemnation.

Interestingly, Wamphray's "such as sin against the Holy Ghost, or of full & final Apostasie" very neatly explicates what Owen means by "such sins as should ipso facto, forfeit their justified state and transfer them from the covenant of grace into the covenant of works." The textual history of Brown's Life of Justification (which, by the way, is apparently incomplete in its published form, as elipses throughout the work show) needs more research.

A very similar position to that of Thomas Gilbert's is further elucidated in Brown's chapter XXXVI in that Brown does not see repentance as absolutely necessary to legal remission (as faith is; and which remission I assume he speaks of), but is rather a consequent of faith.