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           Title: Life of Dr Owen
      Creator(s): Thomson, Andrew
     Print Basis: The Banner of Truth Trust, Edinburgh, 1965.
          Rights: Public Domain
   CCEL Subjects: All; Biotarget=owen; Biography;
      LC Call no: BX5207 .O88
   LC Subjects:

   Christian Denominations

   Protestantism

   Post-Reformation

   Anglican Communion

   Church of England

   Dissent and nonconformity
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   Life of Dr Owen

   by Rev. Andrew Thomson, B.A.,
   Edinburgh

     “Semper quidem operæ pretium fuit illustres sanctorum describere vitas, ut
     sint in speculum et exemplum et quoddam veluti condimentum vitæ hominum
     super terram. Per hoc enim quodammodo apud nos etiam post mortem vivunt,
     multosque ex iis qui vivntes mortui sunt, ad veram vitam provocant et
     revocant.”

   Bernard
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                               His Student-Life

   It is matter of just regret and complaint that no elaborate contemporary
   memoir of this great Puritan was ever written. Twenty years after his death,
   Cotton Mather, in his “Magnalia Americana Christi,” declared “that the
   church of God was wronged, in that the life of the great John Owen was not
   written;” and it was only when twenty years more had elapsed that a life of
   Owen at length appeared, from the pen of Mr Asty, a respectable Independent
   minister in London; which, though written under the eye of Sir John Hartopp,
   a particular friend of Owen, and for many years a member of his church, is
   chargeable with numerous inaccuracies, and so scanty withal, as “not to
   contain so many pages as Owen has written books.” [1] In addition to this,
   an equally brief anonymous memoir has fallen into our hands, professing to
   have been written by one who “had the honour to know this eminent person
   well, and to hear him frequently; though he must confess that he had not
   then years and experience enough to conceive a suitable idea of the
   Doctor’s great worth.” But the student who should wish to search for
   voluminous contemporary records and early reminiscences of Owen, will look
   in vain for such full and accurate memorials as Dr Edmund Calamy has given
   us of Howe; for such an inexhaustible storehouse of incident, and almost
   redundance of mental portraiture, as Richard Baxter has given us of himself.
   The sources from which the modern biographer must draw his notices of Owen,
   besides those already named, are to some extent the representations of
   adversaries, who could not be silent on so great a name, or withhold
   reluctant praise; the not infrequent allusions to Owen in the lives of his
   contemporaries; the statements of general history and biography, — such as
   are to be found in the page of Neal, Calamy, Middleton, Palmer, and others;
   and, perhaps the most valuable and interesting of all, the many unconscious
   touches of autobiography which may be found in his prefaces to his various
   works. Of all of these Mr Orme has made excellent use in his Life of Owen;
   which is a remarkable specimen of untiring research, solid judgment and
   ability in the disposal of his materials, and, making some allowance for
   honest bias, of biographical fidelity: and from all of these, and especially
   from Mr Orme himself, we shall gather the details of our biographical sketch
   and estimate of Owen.

   The genealogy of the subject of our memoir leads us back to a family of high
   rank and reputation in Wales, whose remoter links connect it with the five
   regal tribes. In the reigns of Henry VIII., Edward VI., and Queen Mary, we
   meet with the name of Lewis Owen as Vice-chamberlain and Baron of the
   Exchequer in North Wales, and High Sheriff of the county of Merioneth; as
   honoured by correspondence with those monarchs in reference to the affairs
   of Wales and as going forth on a commission to clear the country of those
   felons and outlaws who had sought refuge in great numbers among its
   mountains, during the turbulence and relaxed authority that had arisen from
   the long wars between the houses of York and Lancaster. At a later period
   this honoured ancestor fell a sacrifice to his fidelity as a magistrate;
   for, on his return from the assizes in Montgomeryshire, he fell into the
   hands of a band of outlaws, who had taken a vow of revenge against him on
   account of the capture of their companions, and, deserted by all but one
   faithful friend, was murdered by them in the woods of Monthrey. [2]

   Humphrey Owen, a branch of this same family, married Susan, a granddaughter
   of Lewis Owen; and to him there were born in succession fifteen sons, the
   youngest of whom was Henry Owen. Henry was dedicated by his parents to
   office in the church, and having received an education, in language,
   philosophy, and divinity, at Oxford, in the course of time became vicar of
   Stadham, in Oxfordshire. Here he proved himself so “painful a labourer in
   the vineyard of the Lord,” and so uncompromising an advocate for reformation
   in the church, as to receive testimony to his fidelity in the jealousy and
   displeasure of the dominant ecclesiastical powers, and to be branded with
   the name of “Puritan.” To this worthy vicar there was born, at Stadham, in
   the year 1616, a second son, John Owen, the subject of this memoir, who was
   destined to shed a new renown on their ancient house, and to eclipse, by the
   more substantial glory of his virtues, learning, and genius, the dim lustre
   of their regal lineage. [3]

   Little is known regarding the childhood of Owen; and no records whatever
   have descended to tell us of the mother to whom was committed the training
   of his most susceptible years, and who was to be the Monnica to this future
   Augustine. There is reason to think that he received the elements of a
   common education from the good vicar himself, under the domestic roof at
   Stadham; while, after a few years of home education, he was transferred to a
   private academy at Oxford, where he entered on his classical studies under
   the superintendence of Edward Sylvester, a tutor of eminence, several of
   whose pupils rose to the highest distinction, and even won for themselves at
   no distant date an undying fame. A comparison of dates makes it unlikely
   that the two were playmates; but it is interesting to notice, that the same
   quiet institution, in the parish of All-Saints, which now received within
   its walls the future great theologian of the Puritans, was also the place in
   which was initiated into the Greek and Roman tongues the immortal
   Chillingworth, — of whose great work, “The Religion of Protestants,” it is
   not too much to say, that it is sufficient to shed honour, not on a
   university merely, but on an age. [4] One fact will suffice to show the
   energy with which the young pupil applied himself to his studies, as well as
   the unusually early development of his faculties, that, at the age of
   twelve, he was found to have outgrown the instructions of Sylvester and to
   be ripe for the university. He was, accordingly, entered a student at
   Queen’s College at this age, which, in the case of most youths, would have
   been most injudiciously premature, and, even at this period, must have
   seemed strangely early; for, in looking into the lives of some of the most
   eminent of his contemporaries, we meet with no instance of similar
   precocity. Bishop Hall, for example, enrolled himself at Cambridge at
   fifteen, [5] while his great Puritan contemporary, John Howe, did not enter
   Oxford until he had reached the riper age of seventeen. [6]

   Few men of great eminence appear to have occupied the chairs of the
   university at this period; but Owen was fortunate enough to have his studies
   in mathematics and philosophy superintended by a tutor of solid attainments
   and subsequent high distinction, — Thomas Barlow, then a fellow of Queen’s
   College, afterwards its provost, and who, in course of time, was elevated to
   the see of Lincoln. [7] The boy-student devoted himself to the various
   branches of learning with an intensity that would have unhinged most minds,
   and broken in pieces any bodily constitution except the most robust. For
   several years of his university curriculum he allowed himself only four
   hours of the night for sleep, though he had the wisdom so far to counteract
   the injurious influence of sedentary habits and excessive mental toil, by
   having recourse to bodily recreation in some of its most robust and even
   violent forms. Leaping, throwing the bar, bell-ringing, and similar
   amusements, occasionally allured him from his books; and it may perhaps
   surprise some, who conceive of the men of that age as unsocial and
   unfriendly to all the lighter graces and accomplishments, to learn that Owen
   received lessons in music from Dr Thomas Wilson, a celebrated performer on
   the flute, and the favourite preceptor in the same elegant and delightful
   art of Charles I. It may perhaps have been from grateful recollections of
   these youthful and fascinating exercises, in which the student had been
   accustomed to unbend from too protracted and severe studies, that Owen at a
   future period, when elevated to the vice-chancellorship of Oxford, appointed
   his early tutor professor of music in the university. [8]

   Still, the hours which are taken from needful rest are not redeemed, but
   borrowed, and must be paid back with double interest in future life; and
   Owen, when he began to feel his iron frame required to pay the penalty of
   his youthful enthusiasm, was accustomed to declare that he would willingly
   part with all the learning he had accumulated by such means, if he might but
   recover the health which he had lost in the gaining of it. And he was wont
   to confess with a far profounder sorrow, not unmixed with shame, that no
   holy oil at this time fed his midnight lamp; but that the great motive which
   had borne him up, during those days and nights of consuming toil, was an
   ambition to rise to distinction and power in the church. We can well believe
   that the severity of this self-condemnation would, by a judge more tender
   than himself, have so far been mitigated by the knowledge of another motive,
   which must have had considerable influence upon his mind, arising from the
   fact that his father had been unable to render him any adequate pecuniary
   assistance, and that he had hitherto been indebted for his support to the
   liberality of an uncle in Wales. But still, when more amiable motives have
   been allowed their full force, a mere earthly ambition must be acknowledged
   to have been the mainspring of all his past efforts; and we cannot doubt
   that, when he returned to the university at a future period, these
   condemnatory reminiscences arose strongly in his mind, and that, like Philip
   Henry in similar circumstances, while thanking God that his course had been
   unstained by vices, he could insert in his book, “A tear dropped over my
   university sins.” [9]

   And here let us pause for a moment, to look at the circumstances of another
   student, who was destined at a future day to shine with Owen in the same
   bright constellation. While Owen was walking amid the majestic structures
   and academic shades of Oxford, or bending over the midnight page, Richard
   Baxter might have been seen amid the enchanting scenery of Ludlow Castle,
   or, later still, in the small village of Wroxeter, with little help or
   guidance from man, but, under the promptings of an indomitable will, and
   with an omnivorous appetite for knowledge, allowing no difficulties or
   discouragements to damp the ardour of his pursuits. Without the advantage of
   the systematic training of a university, or the command of the rich stores
   of its libraries, this was almost compensated to his athletic soul by the
   more discursive and varied range which both his tastes and his necessities
   thus gave to his studies. In the writings of Thomas Aquinas, Anselm, and
   Duns Scotus, which to most minds would have been dry and barren as the sands
   of the desert, his acute intellect found high exercise and real delight, and
   rejoiced in whetting and exercising on them its dialectic powers, until he
   could rival in subtle and shadowy distinctions those ghostly schoolmen. Two
   years the senior of Owen, he was also “in Christ” before him; and while the
   Oxford student was still feeding the fires of an earth-born ambition, Baxter
   had learned from Sibbs’ Bruised Reed, and from his Bible, the art of holy
   meditation; and, even in the later years of his student-life, might have
   been seen at that hour when it was too dark to read and too early to light
   his lamp, devoting its sacred moments to thinking of heaven and
   anticipations of the “saints’ everlasting rest.” [10] But the same grace was
   soon to descend upon the soul of Owen, and, cooperating with providential
   occurrences, to withdraw him forever from the poor daydreams of a mere
   earthly ambition. While he was measuring out for himself a course which, if
   successful, would probably have made him a secular churchman, and even an
   intolerant persecutor, Christ had said of him, “I will show him how great
   things he must suffer for my name’s sake.” Let us now trace the influences
   and events which brought about in the mind and outward circumstances of Owen
   this mighty change.

   We have no minute information regarding the means by which his mind was
   first turned with serious personal interest to the supreme subject of
   religion. Perhaps the dormant seeds of early instruction that had been
   lodged in his mind under the roof of the humble vicarage now began to live;
   perhaps some of those truths which he was storing in his mind as matter of
   mere intellectual furniture and accomplishment had unexpectedly reached his
   heart; or the earnest struggles on religious questions that were beginning
   to agitate the kingdom had, in some measure, arrested the sympathy of the
   young recluse; or thoughts of a more serious kind than he had yet
   entertained had arisen in his mind, he knew not how, like invisible and
   life-awakening spring-breezes; or all these things combined may have been
   employed as influences in bringing him at length to “seek first the kingdom
   of God, and his righteousness.” At all events, we have Owen’s own testimony
   to the fact, that in the later years of his university life, the Divine
   Spirit began to work in his soul a new class of thoughts and emotions; and
   though it was not until a later period that he entered upon the full peace
   and holy liberty of the kingdom of God, he was brought even then to submit
   his life to the supreme control of religious principle, and to ask, “What
   wilt thou have me to do?”

   While his mind was undergoing this great change, events were occurring in
   the government of the university which were fitted to put his religious
   principle to the test, and to try it, as it were, by fire. William Laud
   having, by a succession of rapid advancements, been raised to the
   chancellorship of Oxford, hastened to introduce into it those Romish
   innovations which, as the privy councillor and principal adviser of Charles,
   and the intimate associate of Strafford, he had already done much to infuse
   into the general ecclesiastical policy of the nation. The naturally arrogant
   and domineering spirit of this narrow-minded ecclesiastic, whom even
   Clarendon describes as “rough of temper, impatient of contradiction, and
   arbitrary,” [11] had far more to do with those oppressive measures which
   marked his fatal ecclesiastical supremacy, than those mistaken views of the
   rights of conscience which at this period dragged so many better and more
   amiable men into the ranks of persecutors. Accordingly, we find him
   requiring the adoption, by the university, of many of those rites and
   ceremonials which savoured the most strongly of Popish superstitions, and in
   some instances were identical with them, and which the Reformers of England
   had soonest renounced and most severely condemned; the penalty of resistance
   to this demand being nothing less than expulsion from the university.

   This bold innovation at once dragged Owen from the privacy of his
   student-life into all the stern struggles of a public career. And his mind,
   delivered by the fear of God from every other fear, was not slow in
   resolving on resistance to the bigoted prelate’s intolerant statutes. Many
   of the rites which Laud imposed were such as he in conscience believed to be
   divinely forbidden; and even things which, if left unimposed, might have
   been borne with as matters of indifference, when authoritatively enjoined as
   of equal obligation with divine appointment, he felt ought to be resisted as
   an invasion of the divine prerogative and the rights of conscience, — “a
   teaching for doctrines of the commandments of men.” This was the ground that
   had been occupied by the Puritans from the days of Elizabeth, when Ridley
   and Latimer had “played the man in the fire;” and though we have no record
   of Owen’s mental exercise at this period, yet, with the course that was
   actually taken by him before us, we cannot doubt that he now unconsciously
   felt his way to this first Puritan standing-point, and that the following
   passage, written by him long afterwards, expressed the principles which
   animated his mind and decided his movements:—

     “They [believers] will receive nothing, practise nothing, own nothing in
     His worship, but what is of His appointment. They know that from the
     foundation of the world he never did allow, nor ever will, that in any
     thing the will of the creatures should be the measure of his honour, or
     the principle of His worship, either as to matter or manner. It was a
     witty and true sense that one gave of the Second Commandment, ‘Non imago,
     non simulachrum prohibetur, sed, non facies tibi;’ — it is a making to
     ourselves, an inventing, a finding out ways of worship, or means of
     honouring God, not by him appointed, that is so severely forbidden.
     Believers know what entertainment all will-worship finds with God. ‘Who
     has required this at your hand?’ and, ‘In vain do ye worship me, teaching
     for doctrines the traditions of men,’ is the best it meets with. I shall
     take leave to say what is upon my heart, and what (the Lord assisting) I
     shall willing endeavour to make good against all the world, — namely, that
     that principle, that the church has power to institute and appoint any
     thing or ceremony belonging to the worship of God, either as to matter or
     to manner, beyond the orderly observance of such circumstances as
     necessarily attend such ordinances as Christ himself has instituted, lies
     at the bottom of all the horrible superstition and idolatry, of all the
     confusion, blood, persecution, and wars, that have for so long a season
     spread themselves over the face of the Christian world; and that it is the
     design of a great part of the Book of the Revelation to make a discovery
     of this truth.

     “And I doubt not but that the great controversy which God has had with
     this nation for so many years, and which he has pursued with so much anger
     and indignation, was upon this account, that, contrary to the glorious
     light of the Gospel, which shone among us, the wills and fancies of men,
     under the name of order, decency, and authority of the church (a chimera
     that none knew what it was, not wherein the power did consist, nor in whom
     reside), were imposed on men in the ways and worship of God. Neither was
     all that pretence of glory, beauty, comeliness, and conformity, that then
     was pleaded, any thing more or less than what God does so describe in the
     Church of Israel, Ezek. xvi. 25, and forwards. Hence was the Spirit of God
     in prayer derided, — hence was the powerful preaching of the gospel
     despised, — hence was the Sabbath-day decried, — hence was holiness
     stigmatized and persecuted. To what ends that Jesus Christ might be
     deposed from the sole power of lawmaking in his church, — that the true
     husband might be thrust aside, and adulterers of his spouse embraced, —
     that taskmasters might be appointed in and over his house, which he never
     gave to his church, Eph. iv. 11, — that a ceremonious, pompous, outward
     show-worship, drawn from Pagan, Judaical, and Antichristian observances,
     might be introduced; of all which there is not one word, tittle, or iota
     in the whole book of God. This, then, they who hold communion with Christ
     are careful of, — they will admit nothing, practise nothing, in the
     worship of God, private or public, but what they have his warrant for.
     Unless it comes in his name, with ‘Thus saith the Lord Jesus,’ they will
     not hear an angel from heaven.” [12]

   While the well-informed conscience of Owen thus distinctly forbade
   conformity, every consideration of seeming worldly interest strongly pleaded
   for pliant acquiescence in the statutes of Laud. To abandon Oxford, was to
   dash from him at once all those fair prospects which had hitherto shone
   before him in his career as a student, — to shut against himself the door,
   not only of honourable preferment, but, as it probably at this time appeared
   to his mind, of Christian usefulness, — to incur the inevitable displeasure
   of that prelate, whose keen and sleepless efforts to search out all who were
   opposed to his policy had already subjected every corner of the realm to a
   vigilant and minute inspection, and whose cruel and malignant spirit was
   already finding desolating scope in the unconstitutional measures and
   atrocities of the Star Chamber and the High Commission. And even though
   these latter perils might seem to be remote as yet from his head, yet could
   he not be blind to the fact, that, by such a step, he might incur the
   implacable displeasure of his Royalist uncle in Wales, who had hitherto
   supplied him with the principal means of support at Oxford, and expressed
   his intention, in case of continued satisfaction with his conduct, of making
   him heir to his estates. Yet all these probable consequences of
   non-compliance Owen was willing to incur, rather than violate his sense of
   duty, “esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than all the
   treasures of Egypt;” and, at the age of twenty-one, might have been seen
   leaving behind him all the daydreams and cherished associations of more than
   ten youthful years, and passing through the gates of Oxford self-exiled for
   conscience’ sake. God was now educating him in a higher school than that of
   Oxford, and subjecting him to that fiery discipline by which he tempers and
   fashions his most chosen instruments. But “there is no man that has left
   house, or parents, or brethren, or wife, or children, for the kingdom of
   God’s sake, who shall not receive manifold more in this present time, and in
   the world to come life everlasting.” Ten years afterwards the banished
   student, who had thus nobly followed the light of conscience, lead where it
   might, was to be seen returning through those very gates to receive its
   highest honours, — to have intrusted to him the administration of its laws,
   and almost to occupy the very seat of power from which Laud had, in the
   interval, been ignominiously hurled.

   Owen had “commenced master of arts” in his nineteenth year, and not long
   before leaving Oxford, had been admitted to orders by Bishop Bancroft. He
   now found a home unexpectedly opened to him in the house of Sir Philip
   Dormer of Ascot, who invited him to become chaplain to his family, and tutor
   to his eldest son; “in both which respects,” says one of the oldest notices
   of Owen, “he acquitted himself with great satisfaction to Sir Robert and his
   family.” [13] After some time, he accepted the situation of chaplain in the
   family of Lord Lovelace of Hurly, in Berkshire, where he appears to have
   enjoyed much kindness, and to have been duly appreciated. [14] But meanwhile
   the rent between Charles and his Parliament was widening apace. His frequent
   invasion of the constitutional rights of the other estates of the realm, his
   attempts to rule without a Parliament and to raise money by illegal means,
   his systematic violation of his most solemn pledges, his connivance at the
   innovating superstitions of Laud, and wanton violation of religious liberty,
   at length roused an impatient kingdom to resistance, drove the Parliament to
   the last resort of arms, and shook the land with the discord of civil war.
   [15] At such a crisis it is impossible for any man to remain neutral, and it
   found Owen and his patron of opposite sentiments. Lord Lovelace took up arms
   on the side of Charles, and of royal prerogative; all the convictions and
   sympathies of Owen were naturally with the army of the Parliament, and the
   cause of public liberty. Two consequences immediately followed from this to
   Owen, — his leaving the family of Lord Lovelace, and the complete
   estrangement of his Royalist uncle in Wales, who now finally disinherited
   him, and bestowed his estates and wealth upon another.

   Leaving Berkshire, Owen now removed to London, and took up his residence in
   Charter-House Yard. Here he continued to suffer from that mental depression
   which had begun with his earliest religious anxieties at Oxford; and which,
   though partially relieved at intervals, had never yet been completely
   removed. Some influence is no doubt to be ascribed to the discouraging
   outward circumstances in which his uncle’s conduct had placed him, in
   deepening the gloom of those shadows which now cast themselves across his
   spirit; but the chief spring of his distress lay deeper, — in his
   perplexities and anxieties about his state with God. For years he had been
   under the power of religious principle, but he had not yet been borne into
   the region of settled peace; and at times the terrors of the Lord seemed
   still to compass him about. We have no means of ascertaining with certainty
   what were the causes of these dreadful conflicts in Owen’s mind; whether an
   overwhelming sense of the holiness and rectitude of God; or perverse
   speculations about the secret purposes of God, when he should have been
   reposing in his revealed truths and all embracing calls; or a self-righteous
   introversion of his thoughts upon himself, when he should have been standing
   in the full sun-light of the cross; or more mysterious deeps of anguish than
   any of these; — but we are disposed to think that his noble treatise on the
   “Forgiveness of Sin,” written many years afterwards, is in a great degree
   the effect as well as the record of what he suffered now. Nothing is more
   certain than that some of the most precious treasures in our religious
   literature have thus come forth from the seven-times-heated furnace of
   mental suffering. The wondrous colloquies of Luther, in his “Introduction to
   the Galatians,” reflect the conflicts of his own mighty spirit with
   unbelief; the “Pilgrim’s Progress” is in no small degree the mental
   autobiography of Bunyan; and there is strong internal evidence that Owen’s
   “Exposition of the 130^th Psalm” — which is as full of Christian experience
   as of rich theology, and contains some of the noblest passages that Owen
   ever penned — is to a great extent the unconscious transcript of his present
   wanderings, and perplexities, and final deliverances.

   But the time had come when the burden was to fall from Owen’s shoulders; and
   few things in his life are more truly interesting than the means by which it
   was unloosed. Dr Edmund Calamy was at this time minister in Aldermanbury
   Chapel, and attracted multitudes by his manly eloquence. Owen had gone one
   Sabbath morning to hear the celebrated Presbyterian preacher, and was much
   disappointed when he saw an unknown stranger from the country enter the
   pulpit. His companion suggested that they should leave the chapel, and
   hasten to the peace of worship of another celebrated preacher; but Owen’s
   strength being already exhausted, he determined to remain. After a prayer of
   simple earnestness, the text was announced in these words of Matt. viii. 26,
   “Why are ye fearful, O ye of little faith?” Immediately it arrested the
   thoughts of Owen as appropriate to his present state of mind, and he
   breathed an inward prayer that God would be pleased by that minister to
   speak to his condition. The prayer was heard, for the preacher stated and
   answered the very doubts that had long perplexed Owen’s mind; and by the
   time that the discourse was ended, had succeeded in leading him forth into
   the sunshine of a settled peace. The most diligent efforts were used by Owen
   to discover the name of the preacher who had thus been to him “as an angel
   of God,” but without success. [16]

   There is a marked divine selection visible in the humble instrument that was
   thus employed to bring peace to Owen’s mind. We trace in it the same wisdom
   that sent a humble Ananias to remove the scales from the eyes of Saul, and
   made the poor tent-maker and his wife the instructors of the eloquent
   Apollos. And can we doubt that when the fame of Owen’s learning and
   intellectual power had spread far and wide, so that even foreign divines are
   said to have studied our language in order that they might read his works
   the recollection of the mode of his own spiritual deliverance would repress
   all self-dependence and elation, and make him feel that the highest form of
   success in preaching was in no respect the monopoly of high intellectual
   gifts; but that in every instance it was, “not by might, nor by power, but
   by my Spirit, saith the Lord?”
     _________________________________________________________________

   [1] Orme’s Memoirs of Owen, p. 2.

   [2] Asty’s Memoir, p. ii. Anonymous Memoir, p. v.

   [3] Ibid.

   [4] Wood’s Athenæ Oxoniensis, p. 97. Orme, p. 7.

   [5] Hamilton’s Memoir of Bishop Hall, p. viii.

   [6] Urwick’s Life of Howe, p. vi.

   [7] We have additional authority for many of the above facts in one of the
   larger epitaphs on Owen by his friend the Rev. T. Gilbert of Oxford; some
   lines of which we subjoin:—

   “Literis natus, literis innutritus, totusque deditus;

   Donec animata plane evasit bibliotheca:

   Authoribus classicis, qua Græcis, qua Latinis,

   Sub Edv. Sylvestro, scholæ privitæ Oxonii moderatore

   Operam navavit satis felicem:

   Feliciorem adhuc studiis philosophicis,

   Magno sub Barlovi, coll. reginalis, id tempus, socio.”

   [8] Asty, p. iii. Orme, p. 9.

   [9] Bogue and Bennet’s History of Dissenters, ii. 211, 226.

   [10] Jenkyn’s Essay on the Life of Baxter, pp. iii.–v.

   [11] Heylin’s Life of Laud, p. 252.

   [12] Owen on Communion with God, pp. 309, 310, fol. ed.

   [13] Anon. Mem., p. ix.

   [14] Wood’s Athen. Oxen., p. 97.

   [15] Vaughen’s Memorials of the Stuart Dynasty, I., ch. vii.–xi.

   [16] Asty, p. v. Anon. Mem., p. x.
     _________________________________________________________________

                                 His Pastorate

   The mind of Owen, now effectually relieved from the burden of spiritual
   distress, soon recovered its elasticity and vigour; and in March 1642 he
   gave to the world his first literary production, — “The Display of
   Arminianism.” In all likelihood he had been silently labouring at this work
   while in the families of Sir Philip Dormer and Lord Lovelace; more
   especially as his mental distress may have had some connection with a
   misunderstanding of certain of those points of which the Arminian
   controversy touches, and have led to their more full examination. But we may
   discover the principal occasion of the work in the ecclesiastical policy of
   the period, and in the strain of doctrinal sentiment which that policy had
   long aimed to foster and to propagate. Laud and his party had shown
   themselves as zealous for the peculiar dogmas of Arminianism, as for Romish
   rites and vestment and for passive obedience; and the dogmas had been
   received into royal favour because of their association with the advocacy of
   superstitious ceremonies and the defence of despotic rule. Arminianism
   having thus been constituted the exclusive way to preferment, had become the
   fashionable creed; and a current of doctrine had flowed into the church
   which was rapidly changing the character of its ministration, and bearing it
   away from those safe moorings at which its own articles and its Reformers
   had fixed it.

   A remark by Owen, in his address to the reader, correctly describes the
   Laudean policy: “Had a poor Puritan offended against half so many canons as
   they opposed articles, he had forfeited his livelihood, if not endangered
   his life.” And in another passage he explains the progress of Arminianism in
   England: “The chief cause I take to be that which Æneas Sylvius gave, why
   more maintained the pope to be above the council than the council above the
   pope; — because the popes gave archbishoprics and bishoprics, &c, but the
   councils sued ‘in forma pauperis,’ and therefore could scarce get an
   advocate to plead their cause. The fates of our church having of late
   devolved the government of it on men tainted with this poison, Arminianism
   became backed with the powerful arguments of praise and preferment, and
   quickly beat poor naked Truth into a corner.”

   Owen’s “Display” is a barrier raised against prevailing opinions. Each
   chapter contains a statement of the Arminian doctrine on the point
   discussed, with Owen’s answer; while at the end of each chapter the Arminian
   doctrine is more briefly stated, in the language of some Arminian writer,
   and confronted in opposite columns by passages of Scripture. Undoubtedly
   there are some things charged upon the Arminianism of those times which
   belong rather to the family of Pelagian errors, and which the pious Arminian
   of our own day would at all events repudiate. Nor is it to be denied that
   the work is not free, in some parts, of the fault which clings to so much
   theological controversy, — that of making individuals responsible, not only
   for the opinions they avow, but for all the consequences that you may deduce
   from them; yet, withal, it is rich in matter which must have staggered the
   courtly theologians of the age, — is hung all round with massive Calvinistic
   armour; and, though written in a more scholastic form than most of Owen’s
   subsequent works, gives indication of that spirit which was so
   characteristic of the Puritans, and pre-eminently of Owen, and which gave
   such a depth to their piety, — the spirit which connected all events with
   God, and bent with lowly and awe-struck feeling before the divine
   sovereignty.

   Owen dedicated his work to “The Lords and Gentlemen of the committee for
   Religion;” who appointed it to be printed by the Committee of the House of
   Commons for regulating the printing and publishing of books. Its publication
   is interesting on another account, — as having been the means of introducing
   him to his first pastoral charge. The incumbent of Fordham in Essex having
   been ejected from his living by the committee for purging the church of
   scandalous ministers, Owen was invited by the same committee to occupy the
   vacant parish. Not long after his removal to Fordham, he was married to a
   lady of the name of Rooke. But nearly all the information that here
   descended to us regarding this union, from the earlier biographies, amounts
   to this, — that the lady bore to him eleven children, all of whom, except
   one daughter, died in early youth. This only daughter became the wife of a
   Welsh gentleman; but the union proving unhappy, she “returned to her kindred
   and to her father’s house,” and soon after died of consumption.

   This period of Owen’s early pastorate appears to have been one of the
   happiest of his life. Fordham is a secluded village, overhanging the fertile
   and pleasing valley of the Stour, which divides Suffolk from Essex. Its
   inhabitants, at the present day, number about seven hundred; but in the days
   of Owen they could not have been by any means so numerous. In this retreat,
   and surrounded by a not very dense rural population, [17] he was allowed to
   pursue in peace the quiet duties of a country parish, and knew nothing as
   yet of those more public and distracting responsibilities which he ever
   undertook with reluctance, and which he appears to have usually renounced
   with satisfaction. The spiritual interests of the parish having been
   neglected by his predecessor, he set himself with earnest system to break up
   the fallow ground, and to preach those truths which had still to his mind
   all the freshness of first love. The good Puritan practice of visiting and
   catechising from house to house gave him a large place in the affections of
   his people, as well as revealed to him the measure of their Christian
   intelligence; while his solid preaching soon gathered around him the
   inhabitants of his own parish, and even allured multitudes across the
   borders of the neighbouring parishes to listen to his weighty words. Like
   Baxter at Kidderminster, he was ere long cheered by witnessing one of those
   widespread and enduring reformations which have never followed on any agency
   save the earnest preaching of “Christ crucified.”

   The productions of his pen at this period indicate the current of his
   thoughts, and the liveliness of his evangelic zeal. The first of these is
   entitled, “The Duty of Pastors and People Distinguished,” and was published
   in 1643. Its main design is to “describe the means to be used by the people
   of God, distinct from church officers, for the increasing of divine
   knowledge in themselves and others,” and to show how “the sacred calling may
   retain its ancient dignity, though the people of God be not deprived of
   their Christian liberty.” [18] It bears internal evidence of having been
   drawn from him by the unscriptural assumptions of those ecclesiastics who
   thought to place their interdict on every thing like the agency of private
   members in the church, though there are particular passages aimed at those
   fiery persons who sought to introduce into the church the spirit of a wild
   democracy, and whose mode of making “all the Lord’s people prophets,” was to
   dispense with the inestimable benefits of a stated ministry. As it is the
   earliest, so it is one of the most useful of Owen’s smaller treatises, and
   is remarkable for its skilful harmonizing of authority with liberty. How
   much of his axiomatic sagacity there is in the following sentence: “Truth
   revealed to any, carries with it an immovable persuasion of conscience that
   it ought to be published and spoken to others!” [19] And how much of wise
   restraint and rebuke in this: “Let not them who despise a faithful, painful
   minister in public, flatter themselves with hope of a blessing in private.
   Let them pretend what they will, they have not equal respect unto all God’s
   ordinances!” [20] If Burnet’s “Pastoral Care” and Baxter’s “Reformed
   Pastor” may be named as the guides and counsellors of the ministers of that
   age, this, tractate might well have been placed beside them as the handbook
   of the people. [21]

   We still trace the signs of the busy pastor in his next publication, which
   is entitled, “The Principles of the Doctrine of Christ Unfolded, in Two
   Short Catechisms;” the first being intended for young persons, the second
   for adults, and as an aid to parents in domestic instruction. We are
   reminded, as we look on the stalworth Puritan, who is soon to mingle in the
   great theological discussions of the day, thus preparing “milk for babes,”
   of Johnson’s admiring sentence on Isaac Watts: “Providing instruction for
   all ages, from those who were lisping their first lessons, to the
   enlightened readers of Malebranche and Locke.” [22]

   During these years of his laborious and unostentatious pastorate, the solid
   reputation of Owen was extending, and on April 29, 1646, he was appointed to
   preach before Parliament, on occasion of its monthly fast. The discourse is
   founded on Acts xvi. 9, “ A vision appeared to Paul in the night: there
   stood a man of Macedonia, and prayed him, saying, Come over into Macedonia,
   and help us;” and is written in a style of popular eloquence by no means
   characteristic of the usual strain of Owen’s writings. The thanks of the
   House were conveyed to Owen by Mr Fenner and Sir Philip Wentworth, and the
   discourse commanded to be printed. The evangelic zeal of the pastor of
   Fordham breaks forth, towards the close, in behalf of those parts of the
   empire which were destitute of religious instruction, and especially in
   behalf of his ancestral country, Wales: “When manna fell in the wilderness
   from the hand of the Lord, every one had an equal share. I would there were
   not now too great an inequality when secondarily in the hand of man, whereby
   some have all, and others none; some sheep daily picking the choice flowers
   of every pasture, — others wandering upon the barren mountains, without
   guide or food.” [23] The glowing terms in which he dedicates his sermon to
   the Long Parliament, as “most deservedly celebrated through the whole world,
   and to be held in everlasting remembrance by all the inhabitants of this
   island,” have drawn forth the disapprobation of some. But what contemporary
   opinion has been more justified by the calm judgment of later history? What
   English Parliament ever bore upon its roll such a list of patriots, or
   surrounded the immunities of the people with such constitutional guards?
   Even the grudging concession of Hume goes so far as to say that their
   conduct, with one exception, was such as “to entitle them to praise from all
   lovers of liberty.” [24]

   Not long after this, Owen’s pastoral connection with Fordham was brought to
   a close. The “sequestered incumbent” whose place he had occupied died, and
   the right of presenting to the living having in this way reverted to the
   patron, it was given to another. The event became the occasion of
   introducing him to a wider sphere. The people of Coggeshall, an important
   market-town of Essex, about five miles distant, no sooner received the
   tidings of his deprivation than they sent a pressing invitation to him to
   become their minister, — an invitation which the patron, the Earl of
   Warwick, immediately confirmed. Unlike Fordham, this new charge had
   previously been diligently cultivated by a succession of faithful ministers;
   so that his work was not so much to lay the foundation as to build. He soon
   beheld himself surrounded by a congregation of nearly two thousand people,
   whose general religious consistency and Christian intelligence were a
   delight to his heart, and whose strong attachment to him subsequent events
   gave them abundant opportunities of testifying. [25]

   Contemporaneously with these outward changes in Owen’s position,
   considerable changes also took place in his opinions on church government.
   His removal to Coggeshall is named as the period at which he renounced
   Presbytery; and the order of his church there is said to have been brought
   into a closer conformity with the Independent or Congregational model.

   There were principles, however, retained by Owen, both on the subject of the
   ruling elder and of synods, — as we shall have occasion to show in noticing
   some of his later writings, — which prove that his Congregationalism was of
   a somewhat modified character, and which a moderate Presbyterian of our own
   times, though not vaunting as identical with his views, would yet hail as
   evidence that the gulf between himself and the Congregationalist is not
   impassable. But the Presbyterians of Owen’s early days in general went much
   farther than those of the present age; and we deem it not the least of his
   honours that he refused to follow in their course. Not that we have any
   sympathy with those terms of unqualified censure with which the
   Presbyterians of that age have too often been characterized. During the
   period of their brief supremacy, they accomplished much for England. In
   proportion as we value those noble statements of doctrine, the Westminster
   Confession and Catechisms, must we be grateful to the Presbyterians, who
   took so prominent and cordial a part in those deliberations which produced
   them. Well-informed and candid men of other religious parties have not been
   slow to admit that those districts of England which were brought under a
   Presbyterian pastorate and polity, made visible progress in Christian
   intelligence and piety; and many of those measures which were adopted by
   them in opposition to Cromwell, and which have often been ascribed to
   hostility to liberty, were, in fact, honest endeavours on their part to
   restore a constitutional government. But the intolerant spirit which
   animated them at this particular juncture is neither to be extenuated nor
   denied.

   Having recently risen to power, they had become dazzled by the dream of an
   impracticable uniformity, and, as Baxter, himself a Presbyterian, complains,
   had shown too great a readiness to invoke to their aid in realizing this
   ambitious dream the arm of secular power. The endless diversity of opinion
   which the growing liberty and the general ferment at the public mind had
   occasioned was regarded by them as evidence of the dangers of unlimited
   toleration, and they imagined that amid such discordant sounds truth must be
   indistinguishable, and even perish from the earth. Owen’s mind had,
   meanwhile, far advanced beyond these narrow views, and risen above these
   imaginary fears. He had boundless confidence in the vitality of truth, —
   strong convictions of the power of its own spiritual weapons, and of the
   utter impotence of every other: and while so many of those with whom he
   hitherto been associated saw only, in the mingled light and darkness, the
   approach of night, he hailed in them the hopeful twilight which was to grow
   into perfect day. In a “Country essay for the practice of church
   government,” prefixed to his sermon before Parliament, he repeatedly
   condemns all enforced conformity and punishment of heretical opinions by the
   sword. “Heresy,” says he, “is a canker, but it is a spiritual one; let it be
   prevented by spiritual means: cutting off men’s heads is no proper remedy
   for it.” [26] That Owen should have renounced Presbytery, in the intolerant
   and repulsive form in which it was at this time presented to him, is not to
   be wondered at; but that he recoiled equally far at every point from all the
   essential and distinctive principles of that form of church government is a
   statement which many have found it more difficult to believe. At the same
   time, no reasonable doubt can be entertained that the government of Owen’s
   church at Coggeshall was decidedly Congregational; and if that church in any
   degree corresponded with the counsels which Owen addressed to it in his next
   publication, it must have been pre-eminently one of those to which Baxter
   alludes in that honourable testimony, “I saw a commendable care of serious
   holiness and discipline in most of the Independent churches.” The
   publication to which we refer is “Eshcol; or, Rules of Direction for the
   Walking of the Saints in Fellowship according to the order of the Gospel,
   1647.” The rules are arranged into two parts, — those which relate to the
   duty of members to their pastors, and those which specify the duties of
   members to each other. They are designed to recall men from debates about
   church order to the serious, humble performance of those duties which grow
   out of their common fellowship in the gospels. Amid its maxims of holy
   wisdom it would he impossible to discover whether Owen was a
   Congregationalist or a Presbyterian.

   “Eshcol” was the work of Owen as a pastor; in the following year he was once
   more to appear as a theologian and Christian polemic, in a work on which he
   had long been secretly engaged, — “Salus Electorum, Sanguis Iesu; or, the
   Death of Death in the Death of Christ.” The great subject of this treatise
   is the nature and extent of the death of Christ, with especial reference to
   the Arminian sentiments on the latter subject. It is dedicated to the Earl
   of Warwick, the good patron who had introduced Owen to Coggeshall, and
   warmly recommended by two Presbyterian ministers as “pulling down the rotten
   house of Arminianism upon the head of those Philistines who would uphold
   it.” [27] Owen himself makes no secret of having devoted to it immense
   research and protracted meditations. He had given it to the world after a
   more than seven-years serious inquiry, with a serious perusal of all that
   the wit of man, in former or latter days, had published in opposition to the
   truth. [28] It is not without good reason therefore, that he claims a
   serious perusal in return: “Reader, if thou art as many in this pretending
   age, a sign or title gazer, and comest into books as Cato into the theatre,
   to go out again, — thou hast had thy entertainment: farewell.” The
   characteristic excellencies of Owen’s mind shine out in this work with great
   lustre, — comprehension and elevation of view, which make him look at his
   subject in its various relations and dependencies, united with the most
   patiently minute examination of its individual parts, — intellectual
   strength, that delights to clear its way through impeding sophistries and
   snares, — soundness of judgment, often manifesting, even in his polemical
   writings, the presence and power of a heavenly spirit, and “expressing
   itself in such pithy and pregnant words of wisdom, that you both delight in
   the reading, and praise God for the writer.” [29] Owen does not merely touch
   his subject, but travels through it with the elephant’s grave and solid
   step, if sometimes also with his ungainly motion; and more than any other
   writer makes you feel, when he has reached the end of his subject, that he
   has also exhausted it.

   In those parts of the present treatise in which he exhibits the glorious
   union and co-operation of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, in the work of
   redemption, and represents the death of Christ as part of the divine plan
   which infallibly secures the bringing of many sons unto glory, he has shown
   a mastery of argument and a familiarity with the subject-matter of
   revelation, that leave even the kindred treatise of Witsius far behind. Many
   modern Calvinists have, indeed, expressed a doubt whether, in thus
   establishing the truth, he has yet established the whole truth; and whether
   his masterly treatise would not have more completely exhibited the teaching
   of Scripture on the relations of the death of Christ, had it shown that, in
   addition to its more special designs, and in harmony with them, it gave such
   satisfaction to the divine justice as to lay a broad and ample foundation
   for the universal calls of the Gospel. It is quite true that the great
   object of the book is to prove that Christ died for the elect only; and yet
   there are paragraphs in which Owen, in common with all Calvinists worthy of
   the name who hold the same view, argues for the true internal perfection and
   sufficiency of the sacrifice of Christ, as affording a ground for the
   indiscriminate invitations of the Gospel, in terms as strong and explicit as
   the most liberal Calvinist would care to use. [30] This great work was the
   occasion of much controversy; and it is worthy of especial notice that it
   was the first production that turned towards Owen the keen eye of Richard
   Baxter, and brought the two great Puritans at length to measure arms. [31]

   Eventful and anxious years were now passing over the land, in which the long
   struggle between prerogative and popular right continued to be waged with
   various success; and at length Owen beheld war brought almost to his door.
   The friends of Charles, having suddenly risen in Essex, had seized on
   Colchester, and imprisoned a committee of Parliament that had been sent into
   Essex to look after their affairs. Lord Fairfax, the leader of the
   Parliament’s forces, had in consequence been sent to recover Colchester and
   deliver the committee, and for nearly ten weeks maintained a strict siege
   before its walls. Coggeshall, being not far distant, was chosen as the head
   quarters of the general; and intercourse having been begun between him and
   Owen, it became the foundation of a lasting friendship, which, we shall soon
   find, was not without important fruits. At the close of the ten weeks’
   siege, of which Owen describes himself as having been an “endangered
   spectator,” he preached two sermons; the one to the army at Colchester on a
   day of thanksgiving for its surrender, and the other at Rumford to the
   Parliamentary committee on occasion of their deliverance. These were
   afterwards published as one discourse on Hab. i. 1–9. [32]

   But in the course of a few months, Owen was called to officiate in
   circumstances unspeakably more critical. Charles I. had been brought to
   trial before the High Court of Justice, on the charge of being a traitor,
   tyrant, and murderer; and, in execution of its daring judgment, beheaded
   before the gates of Whitehall. On the day following this awful transaction,
   Owen preached by command before Parliament; and the manner in which he
   discharged this unsought and perilous duty, it has been not unusual to
   represent as one of the most vulnerable points in his public life. His
   sermon, which is entitled, “Righteous Zeal Encouraged by Divine
   Protection,” is founded on Jer. xv. 19, 20, “I will make thee unto this
   people a fenced brasen wall; and they shall fight against thee, but they
   shall not prevail against thee: for I am with thee to save thee, and to
   deliver thee, saith the Lord,” — a passage which obviously gave him ample
   opportunity for commenting on recent events. It is remarkable, however, that
   there is throughout a systematic and careful confining of himself to general
   statements, the most explicit allusion to the event of which, doubtless,
   every mind at the moment was full, being in that two edged sentence, “To
   those that cry, give me a king, God can give him in his anger; and from
   those that cry, Take him away, he can take him away in his wrath;” and the
   charge founded on this constrained silence, from the days of Owen to our
   own, is that of selfish and cowardly temporizing. Even one eminent Scottish
   historian, dazzled, we presume, by the picture of his own Knox, with Bible
   in hand, addressing Mary, and of other stern presbyters rebuking kings,
   imagines one of these to have occupied the place of Owen, and with what
   fearless fidelity he would have addressed those august commoners, “even
   though every hair of their heads had been a spear pointed at his breast.”
   [33]

   But is there not a considerable amount of undue severity in all this? In all
   likelihood those who had demanded this service of Owen blamed him for an
   opposite reason, and hoped that this theologian of high renown and untainted
   reputation would, in the hour of their extremity, have surrounded their
   daring act with something more than the dubious sanction of his ominous
   silence. But to ascribe his silence to cowardice, is to assume that he
   secretly regarded the destruction of Charles as an indefensible act of
   crime. And was this necessarily Owen’s judgment? It was surely possible
   that, while believing that the party which had brought Charles to the
   scaffold had violated the letter of the constitution, he may also have
   believed that it was in righteous punishment of one whose whole career as a
   monarch had been one long conspiracy against it, and who had aimed, by
   fourteen years of force and perfidy, to establish despotism upon the ruins
   of popular liberty. He may have thought that treason was as possible against
   the constitution as against the crown, and to the full as criminal; and that
   where a king rejected all government by law, he could no longer be entitled
   to the shelter of irresponsibility. He may have looked upon the death of
   Charles as the last resource of a long-tried patience, — the decision of the
   question, Who shall perish? the one, or the million? We do not say that
   these were actually Owen’s sentiments, but it is well known that they were
   the thoughts of some of the purest and loftiest minds of that earnest age;
   and if Owen even hesitated on these points, on which it is well known Milton
   believed, [34] then silence was demanded, not only by prudence, but by
   honesty, especially in a composition which he himself describes as, “like
   Jonah’s gourd, the production of a night.”

   Whatever opinion may be formed of Owen’s conduct in the matter of the
   sermon, there are few, we imagine, that will not look on the publication of
   his “Discourse on Toleration,” annexed to the sermon, and presented to the
   Parliament along with it, as one of the most honourable facts in the public
   life of this great Puritan. The leading design of this essay is to vindicate
   the principle, that errors in religion are not punishable by the civil
   magistrate, with the exception of such as in their own nature, not in some
   men’s apprehensions, disturb the order of society. [35] To assert that this
   great principle, which is the foundation-stone of religious liberty, was in
   any sense the discovery of Owen, or of that great party to which he
   belonged, is to display a strange oblivion of the history of opinions. Even
   in the writings of some of the earliest Reformers, such as Zwingle, the
   principle may be found stated and vindicated with all the clearness and
   force with which Owen has announced it; [36] and Principal Robertson has
   satisfactorily proved, that the Presbyterian church of Holland was the first
   among the churches of the Reformation formally to avow the doctrine, and to
   embody and defend it in its authoritative documents. [37] Nor is it matter
   of mere conjecture, that it was on the hospitable shores of Holland, and in
   the bosom of her church, that English fugitives first learned the true
   principles of religious liberty, and bore them back as a precious leaven to
   their own land. [38] It is enough to say of Owen and his party, that in
   their attachment to these principles they were greatly in advance of their
   contemporaries; and that the singular praise was theirs, of having been
   equally zealous for toleration when their party had risen to power, as when
   they were a weak and persecuted sect. And when we consider the auspicious
   juncture at which Owen gave forth his sentiments on this momentous subject,
   his influence over that great religious party of which he was long the chief
   ornament and ruling spirit, as well as the deference shown to him by the
   political leaders and patriots of the age, it is not too much to say, that
   when the names of Jeremy Taylor and Milton, and Vane and Locke are
   mentioned, that of John Owen must not be forgotten, as one of the most
   signal of those who helped to fan and quicken, if not to kindle, in England,
   that flame which, “by God’s help, shall never go out;” who, casting abroad
   their thoughts on the public mind when it was in a state of fusion and
   impressibility, became its preceptors on the rights of conscience, and have
   contributed to make the principles of religious freedom in England familiar,
   omnipresent, and beneficent, as the light or the air.

   On the 19^th of April we find Owen once more summoned to preach before
   Parliament, the chiefs of the army being also present; on which occasion he
   preached his celebrated sermon, “On the Shaking of Heaven and Earth,” Heb.
   xii. 27. Oliver Cromwell was present, and probably for the first time heard
   Owen preach. Ere the sermon was completed, Cromwell had formed a resolution
   which the following day gave him an opportunity of executing. Owen having
   called at the house of General Fairfax, to pay his respects to him in
   remembrance of their recent intercourse at Colchester, was informed by the
   servants that the general was so indisposed that he had already declined to
   receive the visits of several persons of quality. The pastor of Coggeshall,
   however, sent in his name; and while waiting, Cromwell and many other
   officers entered the room. Owen’s tall and stately figure soon caught the
   eye of Cromwell as the person whom he had heard preach with so much delight
   yesterday; and going up to him, he laid his hands upon his shoulders, and
   said to him familiarly, “Sir, you are the person I must be acquainted
   with.” Owen modestly replied, “That will be much more to my advantage than
   yours.” To which Cromwell returned, “We shall soon see that;” and taking
   Owen by the hand, led him into the garden, and made known to him his
   intention to depart for Ireland, and his wish that Owen should accompany him
   as chaplain, and also to aid him in investigating and setting in order the
   affairs of the University of Dublin. To this unexpected proposal Owen
   naturally objected the claims of his church at Coggeshall; but Cromwell
   reminding him that he was about to take his younger brother, whom he dearly
   loved, as standard-bearer in the same army, would not listen to a refusal.
   He even wrote to the church at Coggeshall urging their consent; and when
   they showed themselves even more averse to the separation than their pastor,
   Cromwell rose from entreaties to commands; and Owen, with the advice of
   certain ministers whom he consulted, was at length induced to make slow
   preparations for the voyage. [39]

   In the interval between these arrangements and his departure for Ireland, we
   discover Owen once more preaching before the officers of state and the House
   of Commons, on occasion of the destruction of the Levellers; [40] and about
   the middle of August we find the army ready to embark for Ireland. On the
   day before the embarkation it presented one of those characteristic pictures
   which are almost without a parallel in the history of nations. The entire
   day was devoted to fasting and prayer; — three ministers in succession,
   among whom we cannot doubt was Owen, solemnly invoked the divine protection
   and blessing; after which Colonels Gough and Harrison, with Cromwell
   himself, expounded certain pertinent passages of Scripture. No oath was
   heard throughout the whole camp, the twelve thousand soldiers spending their
   leisure hours in reading their Bibles, in the singing of psalms, and in
   religious conferences. Thus was trained that amazing armament, to whom
   victory seemed entailed, — whose soldiers combined the courage of the
   ancient Roman with the virtues of the private citizen, and have been well
   described as “uniting the most rigid discipline with the fiercest
   enthusiasm, and moving to victory with the precision of machines, while
   burning with the wildest fanaticism of crusaders.” [41] There were elements
   at work here that have seldom gone to the composition of armies. “Does the
   reader look upon it all as madness? Madness lies close by, as madness does
   to the highest wisdom in man’s life always; but this is not mad! This dark
   element, it is the mother of the lightnings and the splendours; it is very
   sure this?” [42]

   It is no task of ours to follow the course of Cromwell in his rapid and
   terrible campaign, in which he descended upon Ireland “like the hammer of
   Thor,” and by a few tremendous and almost exterminating strokes, as before
   the walls of Drogheda, spread universal terror throughout the garrisons of
   Ireland, saving more blood than if he had adopted a more feeble and
   hesitating course. His policy in Ireland finds its explanation in two
   circumstances, — the impression that he had come as the instrument of a just
   God to avenge the innocent blood of more than a hundred thousand
   Protestants, — and the conviction that, in repressing a rebellion which
   threatened the existence of the infant Commonwealth, the “iron hand,” though
   the least amiable, was the most merciful, and would save the necessity of a
   wider though more prolonged vengeance. [43] But our business is with Owen,
   whom we find meanwhile employed within the friendly walls of Dublin in
   preaching to “a numerous multitude of as thirsting people after the gospel
   as ever he conversed with,” investigating the condition of the university,
   and devising measures for its extension and efficiency. His preaching was
   “not in vain,” while his representations to Parliament led to measures which
   raised the university from its half-ruinous condition, and obtained for it
   some of its most valuable immunities. [44] In the course of nine months,
   Cromwell, whose career in Ireland had been that of the lightning followed by
   the shower, terrific yet beneficent, returned to England to receive the
   thanks of the Parliament and the people, and to be appointed
   General-in-chief of the armies of the Commonwealth; and Owen, mourning over
   the fact “that there was not one gospel preacher for every walled town in
   Ireland,” [45] was restored to his rejoicing flock at Coggeshall.

   But the release which he was to enjoy was short. Cromwell had scarcely
   returned from Ireland, when the state of Scotland demanded his presence.
   That nation, which had begun the resistance to the tyranny of the Stuarts,
   and to the worse tyranny of Rome, had almost unanimously disapproved of the
   death of Charles, and now looked with jealousy and hostility upon the
   government of the Commonwealth. They had actually invited Charles from the
   midst of his debaucheries of Breda to become their king; and, deceived by
   his signing of the Covenant, were now meditating an attempt to restore him
   to his father’s throne. In all this Cromwell saw, on the part of the best of
   the Scottish people, an honest and misguided zeal, which was aiming
   substantially at the same ends as himself; but he saw in it not the less the
   most imminent danger to the liberty, religion, and morality of England, and
   hastened to assert and establish in Scotland the authority of the
   Commonwealth. Simultaneously with this, an order passed the Commons
   requiring Joseph Caryl and John Owen to attend on the Commander-general as
   ministers; [46] and Owen was thus a second time torn away from his pastoral
   plans and studious toils to the society of camps, and the din and carnage of
   sieges and battlefields. Cromwell’s motives for thus surrounding himself
   with the great preachers of his age have been variously represented,
   according to the general theory that has been formed of his character.
   Believing as we do in his religious sincerity, we cannot doubt that he felt,
   like other religious men, the powerful attraction of their intercourse.
   There was sound policy, besides, in seeking by this means to convince an age
   remarkable for its religious earnestness that he enjoyed the confidence and
   friendship of the chiefs of the religious world; and hence we find him at a
   later period securing the presence of John Howe at Whitehall, and aiming by
   repeated efforts to subdue the jealous penetration of Baxter. This latter
   motive, we cannot doubt, had its own influence in inducing him to take Caryl
   and Owen with him to Scotland; and it is very probable, moreover, that, with
   all his passion for theological polemics, he foresaw that, in his
   anticipated discussions with the Scottish clergy, he would be all the better
   of these Puritan chiefs to help him at times in untying the Gordian knots
   which they were sure to present to him.

   We are able to trace but a few of the steps of Owen in Scotland. He appears
   to have joined Cromwell at Berwick, where he preached from the text, Isa.
   lvi. 7, “For mine house shall be called an hour of prayer for all people;”
   and, as we conclude from a letter of Cromwell’s, [47] assisted, with “some
   other godly ministers,” in drawing up a reply to the Declaration of the
   General Assembly, which had already been sent to Cromwell ere he could cross
   the borders. We next find him writing from Musselburgh to Lisle, one of the
   commissioners of the Great Seal, describing a skirmish between some of
   Cromwell’s troops and those of “cautious” Leslie. Next, the battle of Dunbar
   has been fought. Cromwell is in possession of Edinburgh, but the castle
   still holds out against him, and the ministers of the city have sought
   protection within its walls. The pulpits of Edinburgh are consequently in
   the hands of Cromwell’s preachers. Owen preached repeatedly in old St.
   Giles’, and is listened to at first with wonder and jealousy, which
   gradually melt into kindlier feelings, as the multitude trace in his words a
   sweet savour of Christ. [48] It is the opinion of many that Owen’s hand is
   visible in the letters which passed between Cromwell and the governor of
   Edinburgh castle, on the offer of the Lord-General to allow the ministers to
   come out and occupy their pulpits on the Sabbath-day; when, on their
   somewhat suspicious and sulky refusal, Cromwell addressed them in that
   celebrated letter of which Carlyle says, that “the Scotch clergy never got
   such a reprimand since they first took ordination.” [49] Undoubtedly there
   are striking resemblances to Owen’s turn of thoughts especially in the paper
   of “Queries,” which abounds in “lumbering sentences with noble meanings.” We
   next follow him with Cromwell to Glasgow, where Zachary Boyd thunders
   against the Lord-General in the old cathedral, and Cromwell listens with
   calm forbearance, and where a discussion takes place between Owen and the
   Scottish ministers, of which the following anecdote is told:— A young
   Scottish minister, named Hugh Binning, not yet twenty-six years of age, so
   managed the dispute as to confound Owen and the other English divines.
   Oliver, surprised and half-pleased, inquired, after the meeting was over,
   who this bold young man was; and being told that his name was Binning, — “He
   has bound, well indeed,” said he; “but,” laying his hand on his sword, “this
   will loose all again.” The discussion, with Binning’s victory, is not
   improbable; but the bad pun and the braggart threat are not like Oliver, and
   may safely be consigned to those other “anecdotes of Cromwell at Glasgow,”
   of which Carlyle says, that “they are not to be repeated anywhere except in
   the nursery.” [50]

   But long ere Cromwell’s campaign in Scotland was over, and that last battle,
   in which he gained “Worcester’s laureate wreath,” had been fought, which
   drove Charles back to Breda, and reduced Scotland under the generous sway of
   the Commonwealth, Owen had been permitted to return to his books and to his
   quiet pastorate in Essex. It was only a short breathing-time, however,
   before his connection with Coggeshall was loosed for ever. One morning he
   read, to his surprise, in the newspapers of the day, the following order:—
   “On the 18^th March 1651, the House, taking into consideration the worth and
   usefulness of John Owen, M.A., of Queen’s College, ordered that he be
   settled in the deanery of Christ Church, in room of Dr Reynolds.” [51] A
   letter soon after followed this from the principal students of Christ
   Church, expressing their great satisfaction at the appointment. Cromwell
   before this had been chosen Chancellor of Oxford. And on the 9^th of
   September of the following year, letters from Cromwell nominated Owen
   vice-chancellor of the university, and thus placed him at the head of that
   great and ancient seat of learning from which we have seen him, ten years
   before, walk forth an exile for conscience’ sake. [52]
     _________________________________________________________________

   [17] We are indebted for this information regarding the first scene of
   Owen’s ministry to the Rev. Alexander Anderson, pastor of a Baptist Church,
   Colchester; who also informs us that the signature of Owen is still to be
   seen in the parochial parish register at Fordham (four miles distant), and
   that it has this peculiarity attached to it, that whilst all preceding it,
   and also succeeding, so far as he continued his examination, sign themselves
   “Parson,” the usual designation of the time, his signature has the word
   “Pastor” invariably attached to it; showing that he deliberately, and from
   the first, “preferred the more scriptural term of ‘pastor,’ to the presuming
   designation of parson, more especially if we accept its common derivation,
   ‘Persona ecclesiæ.’ ”

   [18] Preface, p. 10, ed. 1644.

   [19] P. 38.

   [20] P. 49.

   [21] Owen quotes with approbation (p. 54) the judgment and practice of the
   Church of Scotland, as expressed in their Act of Assembly at Edinburgh, anno
   1641. “Our Assembly also commandeth godly conference at all occasional
   meetings, or as God’s providence shall dispose, as the Word of God
   commandeth, providing none invade the pastor’s office, to preach the Word,
   who are not called thereunto by God and his church.”

   [22] Lives of the Poets, iv. 164.

   [23] Owen’s Sermons, fol. ed., p. 214.

   [24] Hume’s History of England, vi. ch. li. Vaughn’s Stuart Dynasty, ii. 74.

   [25] Wood’s Athen. Oxon., iv. 100.

   [26] Owen’s Sermons, fol. ed., p. 229.

   [27] The names of these ministers are, Stanley Gower and Richard Byfield.

   [28] Address to the Reader.

   [29] Gower’s Attestation.

   [30] Book iv. ch. i. sect. 1.

   [31] The controversy was protracted through many treatises, particularly on
   the side of Baxter, in the appendix to his “Aphorisms on Justification,” in
   his “Confession of Faith,” and in his “Five Disputations of Right to the
   Sacrements;” and, on Owen’s part, in a small treatise, “Of the Death of
   Christ,” &c., and in the close of his “Vindicæ Evangelicæ.” Various
   technical distinctions were introduced in the progress of the discussion,
   — such as, whether the death of Christ was, “solutio ejusdem, or only
   tantundem.” The frequent bandying of this and similar scholastic phrases, in
   the theological controversies of the age, caught the ear of the author of
   “Hudibras,” and served him at times as matter for ridicule:—

   “The question, then, to state it first,

   Is, Which is better, or which is worst, —

   Synod or bears? Bears I avow

   To be the worst, and synods thou;

   But to make good th’ assertion,

   Thou say’st th’ are really all one.

   If so, not worst; for if th’ are idem,

   Why then tantundem dat tantidem.”
   Canto iii.

   [32] Neal, iii. 407. Asty, p. viii.

   [33] M’Crie’s Miscellaneous Works, p. 502.

   [34] Milton’s Tenure of Kings and Magistrates, Defence of the People of
   England.

   [35] Owen’s Sermons, fol. ed., p. 291.

   [36] Hess, Life of Zwingle, pp. 148, 159–161. M’Crie’s Miscellaneous Works,
   p. 473.

   [37] Robertson’s Charles I., iv. 131.

   [38] M’Crie’s Miscellaneous Works, p. 474.

   [39] Asty, pp. ix., x.

   [40] The title of the sermon was, “Human Power Defeated,” Ps. lxxvi. 5.

   [41] Whitelock, p. 434. Neal, iv. 4–6. Macaulay’s History of England, i. p.
   121.

   [42] Carlyle’s Cromwell, i. p. 341.

   [43] D’Aubigné’s Protector, ch. vi.

   [44] Orme, p. 88.

   [45] Sermon on the Steadfastness of Promises, and the Sinfulness of
   Staggering, preached before Parliament after his return from Ireland, on a
   day of humiliation, Rom. iv. 20.

   [46] Wood’s Athen. Oxon., iv. 98.

   [47] Carlyle’s Cromwell, ii. 18.

   [48] His second sermon, on Isa. lvi. 7, was preached at Edinburgh.

   [49] Carlyle’s Cromwell, ii. 59.

   [50] Ibid., ii. 79.

   [51] Asty, p. x.

   [52] His preaching before Parliament, about the period of these
   appointments, appears to have been frequent. On October 24, 1651, being the
   day of thanksgiving of the victory of Worcester, we find him preaching his
   sermon entitled, “The Advantage of the Kingdom of Christ in the Shaking of
   the Kingdoms of the World,” Ezek. xvii. 24. Next, February 6, 1652, in the
   Abbey Church of Westminster, on the occasion of the funeral of Henry Ireton,
   Lord-Deputy of Ireland, and Cromwell’s son-in-law, he preached his sermon on
   Dan. xii. 13, — “The Labouring Saint’s Dismission to Rest.” Once more,
   October 13, 1652, on “Christ’s Kingdom and the Magistrate’s Power,” from
   Dan. vii. 15, 16.
     _________________________________________________________________

                            His Vice-Chancellorship

   The office of dean of Christ Church involved in it the duty of presiding at
   all the meetings of the college, and delivering lectures in divinity; while
   that of vice-chancellor virtually committed to the hands of Owen the general
   government of the university. A charge of inconsistency has sometimes been
   brought against him, as an Independent, for accepting such offices,
   especially that of dean; and even some sentences of Milton have been adduced
   to give sanction to the complaint. But the whole charge proceeds on a
   mistake. It should be remembered that the University of Oxford during the
   Commonwealth shared in those changes which befell so many other
   institutions, and had ceased to be a mere appendage and buttress of
   Episcopacy, and that the office as held by Owen was separated from its
   ecclesiastical functions, and retained nothing, in fact, of Episcopacy
   except the name. It is quite true that the emoluments of the deanery were
   still drawn from the same sources as at an earlier period; but Owen, in
   common with many of the Independents and all the Presbyterians of his times,
   was not in principle opposed to the support of the teachers of religion by
   national funds. [53]

   His scruples in accepting office in Oxford, and especially in consenting to
   be raised to the high position of vice-chancellor, arose from other causes;
   and it needed all the authority of Cromwell, and all the influence of the
   senate, completely to overcome them. It required him to do violence to some
   of his best affections and strongest predilections to tear himself away from
   the studious days and the happy pastorate of Coggeshall; and perhaps it
   demanded a higher pitch of resolution still to undertake the government of a
   university which had been brought to the very brink of ruin by the civil
   wars, and from which, during the intervening years, it had very partially
   recovered. During those years of commotion, learning had almost been
   forgotten for arms; and Oxford, throwing itself with a more than chivalrous
   loyalty into the cause of Charles, had drained its treasury, and even melted
   its plate, in order to retrieve his waning fortunes. The consequence had
   been, that at the end of the civil war, when the cause of the Parliament
   triumphed, many of its halls and colleges were closed; others of them had
   been converted into magazines for stores and barracks for soldiers; the
   studious habits of its youth had been completely disturbed, and the
   university burdened with a debt of almost hopeless magnitude. Some of the
   worst of these evils still remained, — others of them were only partially
   diminished; and when we add to this the spirit of destructive Vandalism with
   which a noisy party began to regard those ancient seats of learning, the
   licentiousness and insubordination which the students had borrowed from the
   armies of the Royalists, as well as the jealousy with which Owen was
   regarded by the secret friends of Episcopacy, and by Presbyterians who had
   been displaced by Cromwell from high positions in order to give place to
   Independents, it is easy to see that it required no common courage to seize
   the helm at such a moment, to grapple with such varied and formidable
   difficulties, and to reduce such discordant elements to peace. [54] Such was
   the work to which Owen now betook himself.

   It is only too evident that even at the present day it requires, in the case
   of many, something like a mental effort against early prejudice, to conceive
   of this Puritan pastor occupying the lofty eminence to which he was now
   raised with a suitable amount of dignity and grace. Not only the author of
   “Hudibras,” but even Clarendon and Hume, have written of the Puritans in the
   style of caricature, and cleverly confounding them under a common name with
   ignorant and extravagant sectaries whom the Puritans all along condemned and
   disowned, have too long succeeded in representing the popular type of the
   Puritans as that of men of affected sanctity, pedantic and piebald dialect,
   sour temper, and unpolished manner. Those who indulge these ignorant mistake
   forget that if the Puritan preachers were thus utterly deficient in matters
   of taste and refinement, they had received their training at Oxford and
   Cambridge, and that the reflection must, therefore, in all fairness, be
   extended to those seminaries. They forget, moreover, as has been well
   remarked, that “it is more reasonable, and certainly much more generous, to
   form our judgment with regard to religious parties from the men among them
   who make their bequests to posterity, than from such as constitute the
   weakness of a body rather than its strength, and who die, as a matter of
   course, in the obscurity in which they have lived.” [55]

   But it is remarkable, that all the leading men among the Puritan clergy were
   such as, even in the matter of external grace and polish, might have stood
   before kings. The native majesty of John Howe, refined by intercourse with
   families of noble birth, and his radiant countenance, as if formed meliore
   luto, linger even in his portraits. Philip Henry, the playmate of princes,
   bore with him into his country parish that “unbought grace of life,” which,
   in spite of his sterner qualities, attracted towards him the most polished
   families of his neighbourhood. Richard Baxter was the chosen associate of
   Sir Matthew Hale; and, contrary even to the popular notions of those whose
   sympathies are all on the side of Puritanism, Owen bore with him into public
   life none of the uncouth and lumbering pedantry of the recluse, but
   associated with his more solid qualities all the lighter graces of courtesy
   and taste. He is described by one contemporary as “of universal affability,
   ready presence and discourse, liberal, graceful, and courteous demeanour,
   that speak him certainly (whatsoever he be else) one that was more a
   gentleman than most of the clergy.” [56] And Dodwell says, “His personage
   was proper and comely, and he had a very graceful behaviour in the pulpit,
   an eloquent elocution, a winning and insinuating deportment, and could, by
   the persuasion of his oratory, in conjunction with some other outward
   advantages, move and wind the affections of his auditory almost as he
   pleased.” [57] It is with such a manner that we can conceive him to have
   addressed the assembled heads of colleges, when he assumed the helm at
   Oxford with tremulous hand, yet with firm determination to do his utmost to
   discharge his high stewardship.

     “I am well aware,” said he, “gentlemen of the university, of the grief you
     must feel that, after so many venerable names, reverend persons,
     depositaries and preceptors of the arts and sciences, the fates of the
     university should have at last placed him as leader of the company who
     almost closes the rear. Neither, indeed, is this state of our affairs, of
     whatever kind it be, very agreeable to myself, since I am compelled to
     regard my return, after a long absence, to my beloved mother as a prelude
     to the duties of a laborious and difficult situation. But complaints are
     not remedies of any misfortune. Whatever their misfortune, groans become
     not grave and honourable men. It is the part of an undaunted mind boldly
     to bear up under a heavy burden. For, as the comic poet says, —


   “ ‘The life of man

   is like a game at tables. If the cast

   Which is most necessary be not thrown,

   That which chance sends, you must correct by art.’ [58]

     “The academic vessel, too long, alas! tossed by storms, being almost
     entirely abandoned by all whose more advanced age, longer experience, and
     well-earned literary titles, excited great and just expectations, I have
     been called upon, by the partiality and too good opinion of him whose
     commands we must not gainsay, and with whom the most earnest entreaties to
     be excused were urged in vain, and also by the consenting suffrage of this
     senate; and, therefore although there is perhaps no one more unfit, I
     approach the helm. In what times, what manners, what diversities of
     opinion (dissensions and calumnies everywhere raging in consequence of
     party spirit), what bitter passions and provocations, what pride and
     malice, our academical authority has occurred, I both know and lament. Nor
     is it only the character of the age that distracts us, but another
     calamity to our literary establishment, which is daily becoming more
     conspicuous, — the contempt, namely, of the sacred authority of law, and
     of the reverence due to our ancestors; the watchful envy of Malignants;
     the despised tears and sobs of our almost dying mother, the university
     (with the eternal loss of the class of gownsmen, and the no small hazard
     of the whole institution); and the detestable audacity and licentiousness,
     manifestly Epicurean beyond all the bounds of modesty and piety, in which,
     alas! too many of the students indulge. Am I, then, able, in this
     tottering state of all things, to apply a remedy to this complication of
     difficulties, in which so many and so great heroes have, in the most
     favourable times, laboured in vain? I am not, gentlemen, so
     self-sufficient. Were I to act the part of one so impertinently disposed
     to flatter himself, nay, were the slightest thought of such a nature to
     enter my mind, I should be quite displeased with myself. I live not so far
     from home, nor am such a stranger to myself, I use not my eyes so much in
     the manner of witches, as not to know well how scantily I am furnished
     with learning, prudence, authority, and wisdom. Antiquity has celebrated
     Lucullus as a prodigy in nature, who, though unacquainted with even the
     duty of a common soldier, became without any difficulty an expert general;
     so that the man whom the city sent out inexperienced in fighting, him the
     army received a complete master of the art of war. Be of good courage,
     gentlemen. I bring no prodigies; from the obscurity of a rural situation,
     from the din of arms, from journeys for the sake of the gospel into the
     most distant parts of the island, and also beyond sea, from the bustle of
     the court, I have retreated unskilful in the government of the university;
     unskilful, also, I am come hither.

     “ ‘What madness is this, then?’ you will say. ‘Why have you undertaken
     that which you are unable to execute, far less to adorn? You have judged
     very ill for yourself, for the university, and for this venerable
     senate.’ Softly, my hearers; neither hope nor courage wholly fails one who
     is swayed by the judgment, the wishes, the commands, the entreaties of the
     highest characters. We are not ourselves the sources of worthy deeds of
     any kind. ‘He who ministereth seed to the sower,’ and who from the mouths
     of infants has ordained strength, is able graciously to supply all
     defects, whether caused from without or felt within. Destitute, therefore,
     of any strength and boldness of my own, and of any adventitious aid
     through influence with the university, so far as I know or have deserved,
     it nevertheless remains to me to commit myself wholly to Him ‘who giveth
     to all men liberally, and upbraideth not.’ He has appointed an eternal
     fountain of supply in Christ, who furnisheth seasonable help to every
     pious endeavour, unless our littleness of faith stand in the way; thence
     must I wait and pray for light, for strength, and for courage. Trusting,
     therefore, in his graciously promised presence, according to the state of
     the times, and the opportunity which, through divine Providence we have
     obtained, — conscious integrity alone supplying the place of arts and of
     all embellishments, — without either a depressed or servile spirit, I
     address myself to this undertaking.” [59]

   The facts that have been preserved by Owen’s biographers sufficiently prove
   that this inaugural address was no mere language of dignified ceremony. By
   infusing that tolerant spirit into his administration which he had often
   commended in his days of suffering, but which so many in those times forgot
   when they rose to power, — by a generous impartiality in the bestowal of
   patronage, — by an eagerness to detect modest merit, and to help struggling
   poverty, — by a firm repression of disorder and licentiousness, and a
   steadfast encouragement of studious habits and good conduct, — he succeeded,
   during the few years of his vice-chancellorship, in curing the worst evils
   of the university, and restoring it to such a condition of prosperity as to
   command at length even the reluctant praise of Clarendon.

   Among other honourable facts, it is recorded that he allowed a society of
   Episcopalians to meet every Lord’s day over against his own door, [60] and
   to celebrate public worship according to the forms of the liturgy, though
   the laws at that period put it in Owen’s power to disperse the assembly; and
   there were not wanting those of a less enlarged and unsectarian spirit to
   urge him to such a course. In the same wise and conciliatory spirit he won
   the confidence of the Presbyterians, by bestowing upon their ablest men some
   of the vacant livings that were at his disposal, and taking counsel of them
   in all difficulties and emergencies. Many a poor and promising student was
   aided by him with sums of money, and with that well-timed encouragement
   which is more gratifying than silver and gold, and which, in more than one
   instance, was found to have given the first impulse on the road to fame.
   Foreign students of hopeful ability were admitted through his influence to
   the use of the libraries and to free commons; and one poor youth, in whose
   Latin epistle, informing Owen of his necessities, he had discovered an
   unusual “sharpness of wit,” was at once received by him as tutor into his
   own family. [61]

   But, amid these generous and conciliatory measures, Owen knew how, by acts
   of wholesome severity, to put a curb upon licentiousness, and to invigorate
   the whole discipline of the university. At a public Act, when one of the
   students of Trinity College was Terræ filius, he stood up before the student
   began, and told him in Latin that he was at liberty to say what he pleased,
   on condition that he abstained from all profane and obscene expressions and
   personal reflections. The student began, but soon violated all the
   conditions that had been laid down to him. Owen repeatedly warned him to
   desist from a course so dishonouring to the university; but the youth
   obstinately persisting in the same strain, he at length commanded the
   beadles to pull him down. This was a signal for the students to interpose;
   on which Owen, determined that the authority of the university should not be
   insolently trampled on, rose from his seat, in the face of the remonstrances
   of his friends, who were concerned for his personal safety, drew the
   offender from his place with his own hand, and committed him to Bocardo, the
   prison of the university, — the students meanwhile standing aloof with
   amazement and fear at his resolution. [62] Was there not something, in this
   scene, of that robust physical energy which had distinguished Owen at Oxford
   in earlier days in bell-ringing and the leaping of bars?

   But the aims of the vice-chancellor rose far above the mere attempt to
   restrain licentiousness within moderate bounds; — his whole arrangements
   were made with the anxious desire of awakening and fostering among the
   students the power of a living piety. His own example, as well as the
   pervading spirit of his administration, would contribute much to this; and
   there are not wanting individual facts to show with what earnestness he
   watched and laboured for the religious well-being of the university. It had
   been customary for the Fellows to preach by turn on the afternoon of the
   Lord’s day in St. Mary’s Church; but, on its being found that the highest
   ends of preaching were often more injured than advanced by this means, he
   determined to undertake this service alternately with Dr Goodwin, the head
   of Magdalen College, and in this way to secure to the youth of Oxford the
   advantage of a sound and serious ministry. It is interesting to open, nearly
   two hundred years afterwards, the reminiscences of one of the students, and
   to read his strong and grateful testimony to the benefits he had derived
   from these arrangements of the Puritan vice-chancellor. We have this
   privilege in the “Memoir of Philip Henry, by his son.” “He would often
   mention, with thankfulness to God,” says the quaint and pious biographer,
   “what great helps and advantages he had then in the university, — not only
   for learning, but for religion and piety. Serious godliness was in
   reputation; and, besides the public opportunities they had, many of the
   scholars used to meet together for prayer and Christian conference, to the
   great confirming of one another’s hearts in the fear and love of God, and
   the preparing of them for the service of the church in their generation. I
   have heard him speak of the prudent method they took then about the
   university sermons on the Lord’s day, in the afternoon, which used to be
   preached by the fellows of colleges in their course; but that being found
   not so much for edification, Dr Owen and Dr Goodwin performed that service
   alternately, and the young masters that were wont to preach it had a lecture
   on Tuesday appointed them.” [63]

   But the combined duties of his two onerous offices at Oxford did not absorb
   all the energies of Owen. His mind appears to have expanded with his
   position, and to have shown resources that were literally inexhaustible. The
   few years which saw him the chief agent in raising the university from the
   brink of ruin, were those in which he was most frequently summoned by
   Cromwell to his councils, and in which he gave to the world theological
   works which would have been sufficient of themselves in the case of most
   men, to occupy and to recompense the energies of a lifetime. We now turn
   with him, then, for a little to the platform of public life, and to the
   toils of authorship.

   On the 25^th of August 1563 we again find him preaching, by command, before
   Parliament, on occasion of that celebrated victory over the Dutch fleet
   which established the reputation of the arms of the Commonwealth by sea, and
   paved the way for an honourable and advantageous peace with Holland. In
   October of the same year he was invited by Cromwell to London, to take part,
   along with some other ministers, in a conference on Christian union. The
   matter is stated in such interesting terms in one of the newspapers of the
   day, and, besides, affords such a valuable incidental glimpse of Cromwell’s
   administration, that we prefer giving it in the words of that document:—
   “Several ministers were treated with by his Excellency the Lord-General
   Cromwell, to persuade them that hold Christ, the head, and so are the same
   fundamentals, to agree in love, — that there be no such divisions among
   people professing godliness as has been, nor railing or reviling each other
   for difference only in forms. There were Mr Owen, Mr Marshall
   (Presbyterian), Mr Nye (Independent), Mr Jessey (Baptist), Mr Harrison, and
   others; to whom the advice and counsel of his Excellency were so sweet and
   precious, and managed with each judgment and graciousness, that it is hoped
   it will much tend to persuade those that fear the Lord in spirit and truth
   to labour for the union of all God’s people.” [64]

   It does not appear that any immediate practical measures resulted from this
   conference. The mistake, by which many such laudable attempts were defeated,
   was that of attempting too much incorporation was sought, when they should
   have been satisfied with mutual Christian recognition and co-operation up to
   the point of agreement; and sometimes a constrained silence on matters of
   difference, where there should rather have been a generous forbearance. But
   it is wrong to speak of such conferences and communing, when they failed of
   their immediate object, as either useless or fruitless. To the good men who
   mingled in them, it must have deepened the feeling of unity even where it
   did not increase its manifestation, and even unconsciously to themselves
   must have lowered the walls of division. Nor is it without interest and
   instruction to remark, that the best men of that age and of the next were
   ever the readiest to give themselves to movements that had this aim. Owen,
   by the reproaches which he brought upon himself on this account from weaker
   brethren, showed himself to be before his age. The pure spirit of Howe,
   which dwelt in a region so far above the petty passions of earth, has
   expressed its longings to see the church made “more awful and more
   amiable” by union, in his essay “On Union among Protestants,” and “On the
   Carnality of Religious Contentions.” Baxter, with all his passion for
   dialectics, felt and owned the power of these holy attractions and longed
   the more for the everlasting rest, that he would there at length see the
   perfect realization of union. [65] And the saintly Usher, prompted in part
   by the sublime seasonings of Howe, actually proposed a scheme of
   comprehension, of which, though defective in some of its provisions, and not
   permitted to be realized, God doubtless said, “It was good that it was in
   thine heart to do it.” The Puritans did more than make unsuccessful
   experiments of union: they expounded in their writings many of the
   principles on which alone it can be accomplished; and it seems now only to
   need a revival of religion from on high in order to accomplish what they so
   eagerly desired. They were the Davids who prepared the materials of the
   temple, — shall the Christian of this age be the sons of peace who shall be
   honoured to build?

   It was in all likelihood while Owen was attending in London on the meetings
   of this conference, that the senate embraced the opportunity of diplomating
   him Doctor of Divinity. For we find it recorded by Wood in his “Fasti
   Oxoniensis,” that, “On Dec 23, John Owen, M.A., dean of Ch. Ch., and
   vice-chancellor of the university, was then (he being at Lond.) diplomated
   doct. of div.” He is said in his diploma to be “in palæstra theologia
   exercitatissimus, in concionando assiduus et potens, in disputando strenuus
   et acutus.” [66] Owen’s fiend, Thomas Goodwin, president of Magdalen
   College, was diplomated on the same occasion; and the honoured associates
   are sneeringly described by Wood, after his manner, as “the two Atlases and
   Patriarchs of Independency.” [67]

   In the midst of these engagements, Dr Owen produced and published, in Latin,
   one of his most abstruse dissertations, — “Diatriba de Divina Justitia,
   etc.; or, the Claims of Vindicatory Justice Asserted.” The principle which
   it is the design of this treatise to explain and establish is, that God,
   considered as a moral governor, could not forgive sin without an atonement,
   or such provision for his justice as that which is made by the sacrifice of
   Christ. It had fallen to his lot some months before, in certain theological
   discussions to which he was called by his office, “to discourse and dispute
   on the vindicatory justice of God, and the necessity of its exercise on the
   supposition of the existence of sin;” and his hurried treatment of the
   subject, in the brief hour which was allowed him, had the rare success of
   bringing many over to his views. Owen was convinced that his principle
   “struck its roots deep through almost the whole of theology.” [68] He saw
   plainly that its effect, if established, was to raze the very foundations of
   Socinian error; — yet he was grieved to find that many excellent divines,
   who held views in common with him on all the great truths of the evangelical
   system, wavered on this, and that some honoured names had lately given a new
   sanction to the opposite opinion; among whom were Dr Twisse of Newbury,
   prolocutor of the Westminster Assembly, in his “Vindicicæ Gratiæ,
   Potestatis, ac Providentiæ divinæ,” and the venerable Samuel Rutherford of
   St Andrew, in his “Disputatio Scholastica de divina Providentia.” [69] This
   made him the more readily accede to the wishes of those who had received
   benefit and confirmation from his verbal exposition of the subject, that he
   would enter on its more orderly and deliberate investigation. We do not
   wonder that the future expositor of the Epistle to the Hebrews should have
   been strongly prompted to contend for this principle, since it seems wrought
   up with more than one part of that colossal argument of inspired theology.

   In pursuing his argument, he evidently felt himself dazzled at times by the
   lustre of those interior truths to which his thoughts were turned. “Those
   points,” he remarks, “which dwell in more intimate recesses, and approach
   nearer its immense fountain, the Father of light, darting brighter rays by
   their excess of light, present a confounding darkness to the minds of the
   greatest men, and are as darkness to the eyes breaking forth amidst so great
   light. For what we call darkness in divine subjects is nothing else than
   their celestial glory and splendour striking on the weak ball of our eyes,
   the rays of which we are not able in this life, which is but a vapour and
   shineth but a little, to bear.” [70]

   In other places we can trace indications, that when he was rising to the
   height of his great argument, his fertile mind was revolving new treatises,
   which he afterwards gave to the world, and longing for the hour when he
   would descend from his present altitudes to those truths which bear more
   directly and powerfully on the spiritual life: “There are, no doubt, many
   other portions and subjects of our religion, of that blessed trust committed
   to us for our instructions on which we might dwell with greater pleasure and
   satisfaction of mind. Such, I mean, as afford a more free and wider scope of
   ranging through the most pleasant meads of the holy Scripture, and
   contemplating in these the transparent fountains of life and rivers of
   consolation; — subjects which, unencumbered by the thickets of scholastic
   terms and distinctions, unembarrassed by the impediments and sophisms of an
   enslaving philosophy or false knowledge, sweetly and pleasantly lead into a
   pure, unmixed, and delightful fellowship with the Father and with his Son,
   shedding abroad in the heart the inmost loves of our Beloved, with the odour
   of his sweet ointment poured forth.” [71]

   The usual number of replies followed the appearance of this treatise, in
   which Baxter once more stood forth equipped in his ready armour.

   In the following year Dr Owen gave to the world another work, of much
   greater magnitude, extending over nearly five hundred folio pages. He has
   himself supplied its best description and analysis in its ample title-page,
   — “The Doctrine of the Saints’ Perseverance Explained and Confirmed; or, the
   certain permanency of their acceptation with God and sanctification from God
   manifested and proved, from the eternal principles, the effectual causes,
   and the external means thereof; in the immutability of the nature, decrees,
   covenant, and promises of God; the oblation and intercession of Jesus
   Christ; the promises, exhortations, and threats of the Gospel: improved in
   its genuine tendency to obedience and consolation.” The work was immediately
   called forth by the “Redemption Redeemed” of John Goodwin, an Arminian
   writer, to whom Owen allows nearly all the most brilliant qualities of a
   controversialist, except a good cause. He describes him as not only clothing
   every conception of his mind with language of a full and choice
   significance, but also trimming and adorning it with all manner of signal
   improvements that may render it keen or pleasant, according to his
   intendment and desire, and happily applies to him the words of the Roman
   poet:—


   “Monte decurrens velut amnis, imbres

   Quem super notas aluêre ripas,

   Fervet, immensusque ruit profundo

   Pindarus ore.”

   The treatise, however, would be almost as complete were every part of it
   that refers to Goodwin expunged, and undeniably forms the most masterly
   vindication of the perseverance of the saints in the English tongue. Even
   Goodwin, with all his luxuriant eloquence, is sadly shattered when grasped
   by the mailed hand of the great Puritan.


   “Luxuriant artus, effusaque sanguine laxo

   Membra natant.”

   The style of argument is much more popular than that of the former treatise;
   partly because of the insinuating rhetoric of his adversary, and also
   because Owen knew that Arminian sentiments had found their way into many of
   the churches, and that if he was to convince the people, he must write for
   the people. The following weighty sentence refers to his avoidance of
   philosophical terms and scholastic forms of argument, and is worthy of
   Owen’s sanctified wisdom: “That which we account our wisdom and learning
   may, if too rigorously attended, be our folly: when we think to sharpen the
   reason of the Scripture, we may straiten the efficacy of the spirit of it.
   It is oftentimes more effectual in its own liberty, than when restrained to
   our methods of arguing; and the weapons of it keener in their own soft
   breathing, than when sharpened in the forge of Aristotle.” [72]

   No part of this elaborate work is more characteristic of Dr Owen than his
   preface to the reader, which extends over forty folio pages, until you begin
   to fear that “the gate shall become wider than the city.” It contains an
   account of the treatment which the doctrine had received from the first
   Christian century to his own; and in its pages, which are literally
   variegated with Greek and Latin citations, displays an immense research. But
   what most surprises the reader, is to find the Doctor, when about the middle
   of his way, deliberately turning aside to discuss with Dr Hammond the
   genuineness of the Epistles of Ignatius, and to weigh the evidence which
   they would afford, on the supposition of their genuineness, for a primitive
   Episcopacy. One is tempted to trace a resemblance between the theological
   writing of those times and their modes of journeying. There was no moving in
   those days with all possible directness and celerity to the goal. The
   traveller stopped when he pleased, diverged where he pleased, and as often
   as he pleased, whenever he wished to salute a friend or to settle a
   controversy. — The work is dedicated to Cromwell. The strong language in
   which Owen speaks of his religious sincerity is interesting, as showing the
   estimate which was formed of the Protector’s character by those who had the
   best opportunities of judging regarding it. [73]

   The mention of Cromwell’s name naturally brings us back to public events,
   and to an occurrence which, more than almost any other in Owen’s life, laid
   him open to the reproaches of his enemies. Cromwell having dissolved the
   Long Parliament in the end of 1653, had a few months after issued writs for
   a new election. The university of Oxford was empowered to return one member
   to this Parliament, and Dr Owen was elected. That he did not evince any
   decided unwillingness to accept this new office may be presumed for the fact
   that he at once took his seat in the House, and continued to sit until the
   committee of privileges, on account of his being a minister of religion,
   declared his election annulled. His systematic detractors have fastened on
   this part of his conduct with all the instinct of vultures, and even his
   friends have only ventured, for the most part, on a timid and hesitating
   defence. Cawdrey and Anthony Wood, not satisfied with commenting on the fact
   of his seeming eagerness to grasp at civil power, accuse him, on the
   authority of public rumour, of refusing to say whether he was a minister or
   not, — a charge which he left at first to be answered by its own absurdity,
   but which, on finding some actually crediting it, he repelled with a
   pardonable amount of vehement indignation, declaring it to be “so remote
   from any thing to give a pretence or colour to it, that I question whether
   Satan have impudence enough to own himself its author.” [74]

   But there have been others, who, while disowning all sympathy with these
   birds of evil omen that haunted the path of the noble Puritan, have
   questioned the propriety and consistency of one in Owen’s circumstances, and
   with all his strongly-professed longings for the duties of a tranquil
   pastorate, so readily “entangling himself with the affairs of this life;”
   and this is certainly a more tenable ground of objection. And yet, to judge
   Owen rightly, we must take into view all the special elements of the case.
   All except those who see in ordination a mysterious and indissoluble spell,
   and hold the Romish figment of “once a priest, always a priest,” will admit
   that emergencies may arise in a commonwealth when even the Christian
   minister may, for the sake of accomplishing the highest amount of good,
   place in abeyance the peculiar duties of his office, and merge the pastor in
   the legislator. Persons had sat with this conviction in the immediately
   previous Parliament; and in the last century, Dr Witherspoon, one of the
   purest and most conscientious of Scottish ecclesiastics, after emigrating to
   America, united the duties of pastor and president of Jersey College with
   those of a member of Congress, and was only second to Washington and
   Franklin in laying the foundations of the infant republic. [75] Dr Owen, in
   all likelihood, acted on principles similar to those which swayed the
   Scottish divine; and when we consider the avowed and fanatical animosity
   with which Oxford was regarded by a turbulent party in the state, as well as
   the active interest which Cromwell and his, Parliament took in the religious
   condition of the nation, it is easy to conceive how Owen felt that he was
   only placing himself in a better position for watching over the well-being
   of the university, and for promoting the interests of religion and of
   religious liberty, by being there to bear his part in the deliberations
   regarding it. At the same time, with all these facts before us to qualify
   our censure, we cannot help thinking that when Owen saw the validity of his
   election so vehemently questioned, he would have consulted his dignity more
   had he declined to sit.

   In the “Instrument of Government” presented by Cromwell to this Parliament,
   it was proposed that all who professed faith in God by Jesus Christ should
   be protected in their religion. In the debates which took place on this part
   of the instrument, its language was interpreted as recommending toleration
   to those only who were agreed on the fundamentals of Christian doctrine, —
   an interpretation which, there is reason to think, injuriously restricted
   the Protector’s meaning. But the question immediately arose, what were
   fundamentals? and a committee of fourteen was appointed to prepare a
   statement for the House on this subject; who, in their turn, committed the
   work to fourteen divines of eminence. Owen was on this committee; and,
   according to Baxter, had the principal share in “wording the articles.” He
   has been blamed for seeking to limit the blessings of toleration, on the now
   generally-admitted principle, that a man’s religious belief ought not to be
   made the condition of his civil privileges. But the censure is misplaced.
   Owen was responsible for the correctness of his answers, — not for the use
   which the Parliament might make of them; but the abrupt dissolution of the
   Parliament which, disappointed Cromwell’s expectations, prevented their
   being embodied in any legislative measure. [76]

   About the same period Dr Owen was invited by the Protector and his Council
   to form part of a committee, from whose labours the cause of religion in
   England reaped great and permanent advantage. We refer to the commission
   appointed to examine candidates for ordination; whose powers soon after
   included the ejection of ministers and schoolmasters of heretical doctrine
   and scandalous life. Cromwell has been condemned for thus invading the
   proper functions of the church; and undoubtedly he did in this measure
   boldly overstep the province of the legislator; at the same time, he was
   right in thinking that the true greatness of his kingdom, and the stability
   of his government, depended on the pervading influence of religion among the
   people; and that it was better that the church should in this irregular
   manner be purged of its hirelings and moneychangers, than left to sink into
   inefficiency and corruption.

   About forty ministers, “the acknowledged flower of Puritanism,” were united
   with a few Puritan laymen, and appointed to this most delicate office.
   Undoubtedly, the power committed to them was tremendous, and, in the hands
   of unscrupulous men, might have been turned to purposes the most
   inquisitorial and vile. But seldom has power been less abused, or the rare
   and incidental mischief arising from its exercise, more immeasurably
   outweighed by its substantial benefits. It afforded, indeed, a tempting
   theme for the profane genius of Hudibras, to represent the triers, in their
   inquiries regarding the spiritual life of candidates, as endeavouring —


   “To find, in lines of beard and face,

   The physiognomy of grace;

   And, by the sound of twang and nose,

   If all be sound within disclose;”

   and high Royalists and partisans like Bishop Kennet, who had probably
   smarted under their investigations, in their eagerness to find matter of
   accusation against them, might blunder out unconscious praise. But the
   strong assertion of the historian of the Puritans has never been disproved,
   — that not a single instance can be produced of any who were rejected for
   insufficiency without being first convicted either of immorality, of
   obnoxious sentiments in the Socinian or Pelagian controversy, or of
   disaffection to the present government. Cromwell could, before his second
   Parliament, refer to the labours of the commissioners in such strong terms
   as these: “There has not been such a service to England since the Christian
   religion was perfect in England! I dare be bold to say it.” And the
   well-balanced testimony of Baxter, given with all his quaint felicity, may
   be held, when we consider that he had looked on the appointment of the
   triers with no friendly eye, as introducing all the shadings necessary to
   truth: “Because this assembly of triers is most heavily accused and
   reproached by some men, I shall speak the truth of them; and suppose my word
   will be taken, because most of them took me for one of their boldest
   adversaries. The truth is, though some few over-rigid and over-busy
   Independents among them were too severe against all that were Arminians, and
   too particular in inquiring after evidences of sanctification in those whom
   they examined, and somewhat too lax in admitting of unlearned and erroneous
   men that favoured Antinomianism or Anabaptism; yet, to give them their due,
   they did abundance of good in the church. They saved many a congregation
   from ignorant, ungodly, drunken teachers, — that sort of men who intend no
   more in the ministry then to read a sermon on Sunday, and all the rest of
   the week go with the people to the alehouse and harden them in sin; and that
   sort of ministers who either preached against a holy life, or preached as
   men who were never acquainted with it. These they usually rejected, and in
   their stead admitted of any that were able, serious preachers, and lived a
   godly life, of what tolerable opinion soever they were; so that, though many
   of them were a little partial for the Independents, Separatists,
   Fifth-monarchy Men, and Anabaptists, and against the Prelatists and
   Arminians, yet so great was the benefit above the hurt which they brought to
   the church, that many thousands of souls blessed God for the faithful
   ministers whom they let in, and grieved when the Prelatists afterwards cast
   them out again.” [77]

   Every student of the Puritan history is familiar with the magnanimous act of
   Howe, in recommending Fuller the historian for ordination, though a
   Royalist, because he “made conscience of his thoughts;” [78] and an equally
   high-minded and generous act of impartiality is recorded of Owen. Dr Pocock,
   professor of Arabic in Oxford, and one of the greatest scholars in Europe,
   held a living in Berks, and was about to have hard measure dealt to him by
   the commissioners for that county. No sooner did Owen hear of this than he
   wrote to Thurloe, Cromwell’s secretary, imploring him to stay such rash and
   disgraceful procedure. Not satisfied with this, he hastened into Berkshire
   in person, warmly remonstrated with the commissioners on the course which
   they seemed bent on pursuing, and only ceased when he had obtained the
   honourable discharge of the menaced scholar from farther attendance. [79]

   Owen’s wisdom in council involved the natural penalty of frequent
   consultation; and, accordingly, we find him in the following year again
   invited to confer with Cromwell on a subject which, in addition to its own
   intrinsic interest, acquires a new interest from recent agitation. Manasseh
   Ben Israel, a learned Jew from Amsterdam, had asked of Cromwell and his
   government permission for the Jews to settle and trade in England, from
   which they had been excluded since the thirteenth century. Cromwell,
   favourable to the proposal himself, submitted the question to a conference
   of lawyers, merchants, and divines, whom he assembled, and whom he wished to
   consider it in relation to the interests which they might be held
   respectively to represent. The lawyers saw nothing in the admission of the
   Jews contrary to the laws of England, some of the merchants were friendly,
   and some opposed; and though a living historian has described the
   theologians as unanimous in their opposition, they were, in fact, divided in
   their opinion too; some, like Mr Dury, being fierce in their opposition,
   even to fanaticism; and others, of whom there is reason to think Dr Owen was
   one, being prepared to admit them under certain restrictions. Cromwell,
   however, was on this subject in advance of all his counsellors, and indeed
   of his age, “from his shoulders and upward he was higher than any of the
   people,” and displayed a faith in the power of truth, and an ingenuity in
   turning the timid objections of his advisers arguments by which they might
   at once have been instructed and rebuked. “Since there is a promise in holy
   Scripture of the conversion of the Jews,” he said, “I do not know but the
   preaching of the gospel, as it is now in England, without idolatry or
   superstition, may conduce to it.” “I never heard a man speak so well,” was
   the future testimony of Sir Paul Ricaut, who had pressed into the crowd. The
   good intentions of the Protector were defeated; but, as an expression of his
   respect for the rabbi he ordered £200 to be paid to him out of the public
   treasury. [80]

   In the midst of these public events, Owen’s pen had once more been turned to
   authorship by the immediate command of the Council of State. The catechisms
   of Biddle, the father of English Socinianism, had given vogue to the errors
   of that school; and though various writers of ability, such as Poole and
   Cheynel in England, and Cloppenburg, Arnold, and Maretz on the continent,
   had already remarked on them, it was deemed advisable that they should
   obtain a more complete and sifting exposure; and Owen was selected, by the
   high authority we have named, to undertake the task. His “Vindiciæ
   Evangelicæ,” a work of seven hundred quarto pages, embracing all the great
   points of controversy between the Socinian and the Calvinist, was the fruit
   of this command; and was certainly a far more suitable and efficient way of
   extinguishing the poor heresiarch, than the repeated imprisonments to which
   he was subjected. Dr Owen, however, does not confine himself to the writings
   of Biddle, but includes in his review the Racovian catechism, which was the
   confession of the foreign Socinians of that age; and the Annotations of
   Grotius, — which, though nowhere directly teaching Socinian opinions, are
   justly charged by him with explaining away those passages on which the
   peculiar doctrines of the Gospel lean for their support, and thus, by
   extinguishing one light after another, leaving you at length in midnight
   darkness. An accomplished modern writer has pointed out a mortifying
   identity between the dogmas of our modern Pantheists and those of the
   Buddhists of India. [81] It would be easy to show that the discoveries of
   our modern Neologists and Rationalists are in truth the resurrection of the
   errors of Biddle, Smalcius, and Moscorovius. [82] Again and again, in those
   writings, which have slumbered beneath the dust of two centuries, the
   student meets with the same speculations, supported by the same reasonings
   and interpretations, that have startled him in the modern German treatise,
   by their impious hardihood.

   You pass into the body of this elaborate work through one of those learned
   porticoes in which our author delights, and in which the history of
   Socinianism is traced through its many forms and phases, from the days of
   Simon Magus to his own. No part of this history in of more permanent value
   than his remarks on the controversial tactics of Socinians; among which he
   especially notices their objection to the use of terms not to be found in
   Scripture; and to which he replies, that “though such terms may not be of
   absolute necessity to express the things themselves to the minds of
   believers, they may yet be necessary to defend the truth from the opposition
   and craft of seducers;” their cavilling against evangelical doctrines rather
   than stating any positive opinions of their own, and, when finding it
   inconvenient to oppose, or impossible to refute a doctrine, insisting on its
   not being fundamental. How much of the secret of error in religion is
   detected in the following advice: “Take heed of the snare of Satan in
   affecting eminency by singularity. It is good to strive to excel, and to go
   before one another in knowledge and in light, as in holiness and obedience.
   To do this in the road is difficult. Many, finding it impossible to emerge
   into any consideration by walking in the beaten path of truth, and yet not
   able to conquer the itch of being accounted tines megaloi, turn aside into
   by-ways, and turn the eyes of men to them by scrambling over hedge and
   ditch, when the sober traveller is not at all regarded.” [83] And the grand
   secret of continuing in the faith grounded and settled, is expressed in the
   following wise sentences: “That direction in this kind which with me is
   instar omnium, is for a diligent endeavour to have the power of the truths
   professed and contended for abiding upon our hearts; — that we may not
   contend for notions, but what we have a practical acquaintance with in our
   own souls. When the heart is cast indeed into the mould of the doctrine that
   the mind embraceth, — when the evidence and necessity of the truth abides in
   us, — when not the sense of the words only is in our heads, but the sense of
   the things abides in our hearts, when we have communion with God in the
   doctrine we contend for, — then shall we be garrisoned by the grace of God
   against all the assaults of men.” [84]

   This secret communion with God in the doctrines contended for was the true
   key to Owen’s own steadfastness amid all those winds of doctrine which
   unsettled every thing but what was rooted in the soil. We have an
   illustration of this in the next treatise, which he soon after gave to the
   world, and in which he passes from the lists of controversy to the practical
   exhibition of the Gospel as a life-power. It was entitled, “On the
   Mortification of Sin in Believers;” and contains the substance of some
   sermons which he had preached on Rom. viii. 13. He informs us that his chief
   motives for this publication were, a wish to escape from the region of
   public debate, and to produce something of more general use, that might seem
   a fruit “of choice, not of necessity;” and also, “to provide an antidote for
   the dangerous mistakes of some that of late years had taken upon them to
   give directions for the mortification of sin, who, being unacquainted with
   the mystery of the gospel and the efficacy of the death of Christ, have anew
   imposed the yoke of a self-wrought-out mortification on the necks of their
   disciples, which neither they nor their forefathers were ever able to
   bear.” [85] We have no means of knowing what were the treatises to which
   Owen here refers; but it is well known that Baxter’s mind at an early period
   received an injurious legal bias from a work of this kind; nor is even
   Jeremy Taylor’s “Holy Living” free from the fault of minute prescription of
   external rules and “bodily exercise, which profiteth little,” instead of
   bringing the mind into immediate contact with those great truths which
   inspire and transform whatever they touch. Nor have there been wanting
   teachers, in any age of the church, who


   “— do but skin and film the ulcerous place,

   While rank corruption, mining all within,

   Infects unseen.”

   Owen’s work is a noble illustration of the Gospel method of sanctification,
   as we believe it to be a living reflection of his own experience. In his
   polemical works