notes that the gospel calls men to believe in Christ, and the sense of deity in the heart of men may “Excite and Influence Men” to believe.6 But when Puritans like Barker developed their own natural theology, they always did so in the broader context of their system of supernatural theology. Thus, knowledge of God, according to John Owen, is partly natural and partly supernatural;7 it is innate and acquired. As Barker further argued, though the Scripture is self-authenticating (autopistos), and the