John Owen, Puritan, born at Stadhampton Vicarage, Oxfordshire, in 1616, took his B.A. in 1631 from Queen’s College, Oxford, and in 1637 was driven from Oxford by dislike to Laud’s statues. Some years he spent as private chaplain; then in 1642 he removed to London, and published “The Display of Arminianism,” a work for which he was rewarded with the living of Fordham in Essex. In 1646 he removed to Coggeshall, and showed his preference for Independency over Presbyterianism. Cromwell carried him in 1649 as his chaplain to Ireland, where be regulated the affairs of Trinity College. Next year (1650) he went with Cromwell to Scotland. In 1651–52 he became dean of Christ Church and vice-chancellor of Oxford University. Here he wrote his “Diatriba de Divina Justita,” his “Doctrine of the Saints’ Perseverance,” his “Vindiciæ Evangelicæ,” and his “Mortification of Sin in Believers.” He was one of the Friars appointed to purge the church of scandalous ministers. He opposed the giving the crown to the Protector, and the year after Cromwell’s death he was ejected from his deanery. He purchased an estate at Stadham, and formed a congregation. The writings of this period are “Communion with God,” “On the Divine Original of the Scriptures,” “Theologoumena,” and a diatribe against Walton’s “Polyglot.” These were followed by works on “Indwelling Sin,” on the 130th Psalm, and on the Epistle to the Hebrews, the last his greatest work. In 1673 he became pastor in Leadenhall Street. Late publications were “Concerning the Holy Spirit” (1674), “Justification by Faith” (1677), and “Christologia.” He wrote replies to a Franciscan and to Bishop Parker, sustained controversies with Sherlock and Stillingfleet, and to the end preached and wrote incessantly. He died 24th August 1683. See Orme’s “Memoirs” (1820), and “Life” by Thomson, prefixed to Goold’s edition of Owen’s works (1850–55).
Personal
Was a person well skill’d in the tongues, rabinical learning, Jewish rites and customs; that he had a great command of his English pen, and was one of the most genteel and fairest writers, who have appeared against the Church of England, as handling his adversaries with far more civil, decent and temperate language than many of his fiery brethren, and by confining himself wholly to the cause without the unbecoming mixture of personal slanders and reflection.
On the 4th September a vast funeral procession, including the carriages of sixty-seven noblemen and gentlemen, with long trains of mourning coaches and horsemen, took the road to Finsbury; and there in a new burying-ground, within a few paces of Goodwin’s grave, and near the spot where, five years later, John Bunyan was interred, they laid the dust of Dr. Owen.
General
This book [“Exposition”] bears the same rank, and has the same relation to the study of divinity, which the “Principia” of Sir Isaac Newton bears to the true system of the world in the study of natural philosophy; and it is of equal importance to all young divines which that great man’s work is to young philosophers…. I am ashamed of my countrymen for their ignorance of this incomparable work,—perhaps the very greatest of the kind that ever was written by a British divine; and it now lies buried in dust amidst the lumber of a bookseller’s garret, whilst a thousand volumes of wretched trash in divinity, with their pompous bindings, stand as monuments of human folly in our bookcases and libraries.
If the theological student should part with his coat or his bed to procure the works of Howe, he that would not sell his shirt to procure those of John Owen, and especially his “Exposition,” of which every sentence is precious, shews too much regard to his body, and too little for his immortal mind.
Spiritual life is the vital energy which pervades the morality and the practice recommended by Owen. It is not the abstraction of a mystical devotion, like that of Fenelon or Law; nor is it the enthusiastic raptures of a Zinzendorf; but the evangelical piety of Paul and the heavenly affection of John. For every practice, mortification, and feeling, Owen assigns a satisfactory, because a scriptural, reason. The service which he recommends is uniformly a reasonable service; and to every required exertion he brings an adequate and constraining motive. In examining the practical writings of such men as Hall and Taylor and Tillotson, we miss the rich vein of evangelical sentiment and that constant reference to the living principle of Christianity which are never lost sight of in Owen. They abound in excellent directions, in rich materials for self-examination and self-government; but they do not state with sufficient accuracy the connexion between gracious influence and its practical results, from which all that is excellent in human conduct must proceed. They appear as the anatomists of the skin and the extremities: Owen is the anatomist of the heart. He dissects it with remarkable sagacity, tracing out its course and turnings in every path that leads from integrity, and marking the almost imperceptible steps which conduct to atrocious sins.
His devotional, and practical, and expository works are an invaluable treasure of divinity…. His writings are eminently spiritual, devotional, and edifying. He is full of Biblical learning, sound exposition of doctrine, sentences, and information. His controversial writings against the Socinians and Papists, on the question of Justification, on the Jewish Questions, Sabbath, &c., are valuable and important. There is hardly any modern controversy that he has not well digested and furnished matter for the defence of the truth. He gives expanded and rich views of the fulness of the gospel.
The publication and sale of two complete editions of his works in upwards of twenty volumes, and during one generation, attests the estimate in which his writings are held by general readers. It may be added that theologically Owen is more Calvinistic than Calvin, and that he was one of the first in England to teach the doctrine of a restricted Atonement.
Owen was a man of great learning, and his industry was prodigious. His works fill twenty-four volumes large octavo. The two of most enduring character are the Commentary on the Hebrews, and the work on the Holy Spirit…. Owen did not cultivate the graces of style, but there is always robustness and strength in his argument. He discussed whatever subject he undertook as if he intended to have nothing to be said by those who should come after him. With all the progress made since his time in the science of criticism and exegesis, no prudent commentator, even now, would undertake to expound the Epistle to the Hebrews without a constant reference to the work of Owen. In his writings of a practical character, he had a peculiarity, beyond all the other great writers of his school, of making his pious emotion dependent in all cases upon some solid scriptural basis.
Owen ranks with Baxter and Howe among the most eminent of puritan divines. A trenchant controversialist, he distinguished himself no less by temperateness of tone than by vigour of polemic. His learning was vast, various, and profound, and his mastery of calvinistic theology complete. On the other hand, his style is somewhat tortuous and his method unduly discursive, so that his works are often tedious reading.
