Prefatory note.

It is not uncommon for Christians, in a desponding mood, to ascribe unusual degeneracy in morals and religion to their own age. The sudden change, however, from the strict decorum of the Commonwealth to the license which marked the reign of Charles II has often been the subject of speculation and inquiry. Mr Macaulay thus confirms our author’s estimate of the rapid decline of morality at this time:— “A change still more important took place in the morals and manners of the community. Those passions and tastes which, under the rule of the Puritans, had been sternly repressed, and, if gratified at all, had been gratified by stealth, broke forth with ungovernable violence as soon as the cheek was withdrawn.” — Hist. of Eng., vol. i. p. 179. The historian, dealing with the surface of affairs rather than with the springs of conduct, may account the vulgar theory of a reaction against enforced strictness sufficient to explain this sudden lowering of the moral tone of a community; and in regard to a portion of society the theory may be admitted to be correct. The causes of the change, however, must have lain deeper; the blighting influence extended even into Puritan circles, where the contamination of courtly vices could hardly reach, and where early training would countervail any cessation of restraint, and beyond Britain, into other countries, where a similar decline can be traced, for which it is impossible to account simply on the principle of a reaction. Puritan decorum might as well be said to have been a mere reaction against such irreligious frivolity as bore the stamp of royal sanction in the “Book of Sports.” Besides, the austerity ascribed to the Puritans is absurdly exaggerated; many a glimpse we possess into their domestic life shows that in reality it was the chosen scene of every genial influence, and household affections never appeared to more advantage than in the families of the Henrys. Owen, with his usual wisdom, avoids the extreme generalization that would resolve the complex apostasy of his age into any one predominant cause, and reviews in succession various influences which conspired to produce the result deplored. His treatise will be found to be a successful treatment of a deeply interesting question; and it closes in a strain of solemn appeal, appropriate to a work written, according to its author, “amid prayers and tears.”

It is in substance an expansion of his commentary on Heb. vi. 4–6; and his Exposition on this passage is accordingly brief and meagre, having been forestalled by the publication of this treatise. Doddridge seems to regard it as most replete with the characteristic excellencies of Owen. “Owen’s style,” he remarks, “resembles St Paul’s. There is great zeal and much knowledge of human life discovered in all his works, especially in his book on Apostasy. The ‘Means of Understanding the Mind of God’ is one of his best.”