(Thomson, Life of Dr. Owen. part 4)
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 pound to be paid to him out of the public treasury.
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 "Vindiciae Evangelicae," a work of seven hundred quarts
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.
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. 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 byways, and turn the
eyes of men to them by scrambling over hedge and ditch, when the sober
traveller is not at all regarded." 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."
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.8:13. 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
right 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." We have no means of knowing
what were the treatises to which Owen here refers; but it is well known
that Baxter 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 he was like the lecturer on the
materia medica; but here he is the skilful physician, applying the
medicine to the cure of soul-sickness. And it is interesting to find the
ample evidence which this work affords, that, amid the din of theological
controversy, the engrossing and perplexing activities of a high public
station, and the chilling damps of a university, he was yet living near
God, and, like Jacob amid the stones of the wilderness, maintaining
secret intercourse with the eternal and invisible.
To the affairs of Oxford we must now return for a little. In the midst
of his multifarious public engagements, and the toils of a most ponderous
authorship, Owen's thoughts had never been turned from the university,
and his efforts for its improvement, encouraged by the Protector and his
council, as well as by the cooperation of the heads of colleges, had been
rewarded by a surprising prosperity. Few things, indeed, are more
interesting than to look into the records of Oxford at this period, as
they have been preserved by Anthony Wood and others, and to mark the
constellation of great names among its fellows and students; some of whom
were already in the height of their renown, and others, with a strangely
varied destiny awaiting them, were brightening into a fame which was to
shed its lustre on the coming age. The presiding mind at this period was
Owen himself, who, from the combined influence of station and character,
obtained from all around him willing deference; while associated with him
in close friendship, in frequent conference, and learned research, which
was gradually embodied in many folios, was Thomas Goodwin, the president
of Magdalene College. Stephen Charnock had already carried many honours,
and given token of that Saxon vigour of intellect and ripe devotion which
were afterwards to take shape in his noble treatise on the "Divine
Attributes." Dr Pocock sat in the chair of Arabic, unrivalled as an
Orientalist; and Dr Seth Ward taught mathematics, already noted as an
astronomer, and hereafter to be less honorably noted as so supple a
timeserver, that, "amid all the changes of the times he never broke his
bones." Robert Boyle had fled hither, seeking in its tranquil shades
opportunity for undisturbed philosophic studies, and finding in all
nature food for prayer; and one more tall and stately than the rest might
be seen now amid the shady walks of Magdalene College, musing on the
"Blessedness of the Righteous," and now in the recesses of its libraries,
"ensphering the spirit of Plato," and amassing that learning and
excogitating that divine philosophy which were soon to be transfigured
and immortalized in his "Living Temple." Daniel Whitby, the acute
annotator on the New Testament, and the ablest champion of Arminisnism,
now adored the roll of Oxford,--Christopher Wren, whose architectural
genius has reared its own monument in the greatest of England's
cathedrals,--William Penn, the founder of Pennsylvania, and the father of
the gentlest and most benignant of all our Christian sects,--John Locke,
the founder of the greatest school of English metaphysics, to whom was to
belong the high honour of basing toleration on the principles of
philosophy,--William South, the pulpit satirist, whom we alternately
admire for his brawny intellect and matchless style, and despise for
their prostration to the lowest purposes of party,--Thomas Ken, the
future bishop of Bath and Wells, whose holiness drew forth the willing
homage of the Puritans, and whose conscientiousness as a nonjuror was
long after to be proved by his sufferings in the Tower,--Philip Henry,
now passing to the little conference of praying students, and now
receiving from Dr Owen praises which only make him humbler, already
delighting in those happy alliterations and fine conceits which were to
be gathered from his lips by his admiring son, and embalmed in the
transparent amber of that son's immortal Commentary,--and Joseph Alleine,
who, in his "Alarm to the Unconverted," was to produce a work which the
church of God will not willingly let die, and was to display the spirit
of a martyr amid the approaching cruelties of the Restoration, and the
deserted hearths and silent churches of St. Bartholomew's Day.
But events were beginning to transpire in the political world which
were to bring 0wen's tenure of the vice-chancellorship to a speedy close.
He had hitherto befriended Cromwell in all his great measures, with the
strong conviction that the liberties and general interests of the nation
were bound up with his supremacy. He had even, on occasion of the risings
of the Royalists under colonel Penruddock in the west, busied himself in
securing the attachment of the university, and in raising a troop of
horse for the defense of the county, until one of his Royalist revilers,
enraged at his infectious zeal, described him as "riding up and down like
a spiritual Abaddon, with white powder in his hair and black in his
pocket." But when a majority of the Parliament proposed to bestow upon
Cromwell the crown and title of king, and when the Protector was
evidently not averse to the entreaties of his Parliament, Owen began to
suspect the workings of an ambition which, if not checked, would
introduce a new tyranny, and place in jeopardy those liberties which so
much had been done and suffered to secure. He therefore joined with
Colonel Desborough, Fleetwood, and the majority of the army, in opposing
these movements, and even drew up the petition which is known to have
defeated the measure, and constrained Cromwell to decline the perilous
honour.
Many circumstances soon made it evident, that by this bold step Dr Owen
had so far estranged from himself the affection of Cromwell. Up to this
time he had continued to be, of all the ministers of his times, the most
frequently invited to preach on those great occasions of public state
which it was usual in those days to grace with a religious service. But
when, soon after this occurrence, Cromwell was inaugurated into his
office as Protector, at Westminster Hall, with all the pomp and splendour
of a coronation, those who were accustomed to watch how the winds of
political favour blew, observed that Lockyer and Dr Manton were the
divines who officiated at the august ceremonial; and that Owen was not
even there as an invited guest. This was significant, and the decisive
step soon followed. On the 3rd of July Cromwell resigned the office of
chancellor of the university; on the 18th day of the same month, his son
Richard was appointed his successor; and six weeks afterwards Dr Owen was
displaced from the vice-chancellorship, and Dr Conant, a Presbyterian,
and rector of Exeter College, nominated in his stead.
Few things in Owen's public life more became him than the manner in
which he resigned the presidency of Oxford, and yielded up the academic
fasces into the hands of another. He "knew both how to abound, and how to
be abased." There is no undignified insinuation of ungracious usage; no
loud assertion of indifference, to cover the bitterness of chagrin; no
mock humility; but a manly reference to the service which he was
conscious of having rendered to the university, with a generous
appreciation of the excellencies of the friend to whom the government was
now to be transferred. In his parting address to the university, after
stating the number of persons that had been matriculated and graduated
during his administration, he continues: "Professors' salaries, lost for
many years, have been recovered and paid; some offices of respectability
have been maintained; the rights and privileges of the university have
been defended against all the efforts of its enemies; the treasury is
tenfold increased; many of every rank in the university have been
promoted to various honours and benefices; new exercises have been
introduced and established; old ones have been duly performed;
reformation of manners has been diligently studied, in spite of the
grumbling of certain profligate brawlers; labours have been numberless;
besides submitting to the most enormous expense, often when brought to
the brink of death on your account, I have hated these limbs, and this
feeble body, which was ready to desert my mind; the reproaches of the
vulgar have been disregarded, the envy of others has been overcome: in
these circumstances I wish you all prosperity, and bid you farewell. I
congratulate myself on a successor who can relieve me of this burden; and
you on one who is able completely to repair any injury which your affairs
may have suffered through our inattention..... But as I know not whither
the thread of my discourse might lead me, I here cut it short. I seek
again my old labours, my usual watchings, my interrupted studies. As for
you, gentlemen of the university, may you be happy, and fare you well."
4 His Retirement and Last Days
A wish has sometimes been expressed, that men who, like Owen, have
contributed so largely to the enriching of our theological literature,
could have been spared the endless avocations of public life, and allowed
to devote themselves almost entirely to authorship. But the wisdom of
this sentiment is very questionable. Experience seems to testify that a
certain amount of contact with the business of practical life is
necessary to the highest style of thought and authorship; and that minds,
when left to undisturbed literary leisure, are apt to degenerate into
habits of diseased speculation and sickly fastidiousness. Most certainly
the works that have come from men of monastic habits have done little for
the world, compared with the writings of those who leave ever been ready
to obey the voice which summoned them away from tranquil studies to
breast the storms and guide the movements of great social conflicts. The
men who have lived the most earnestly for their own age, have also lived
the most usefully for posterity. Owen's retirement from the
vice-chancellorship may indeed be regarded as a most seasonable relief
from the excess of public engagement; but it may be confidently
questioned whether he would have written so much or so well, had his
intellect and heart been, in any great degree, cut off from the stimulus
which the struggles and stern realities of life gave to them. This is,
accordingly, the course through which we are now rapidly to follow him,--
to the end of his days continuing to display an almost miraculous
fertility of authorship, that is only equalled by that of his illustrious
compeer, Richard Baxter; and, at the same time, taking no second part in
the great ecclesiastical movements of that most eventful age.
The next great public transaction in which we find Dr Owen engaged, was
the celebrated meeting of ministers and delegates from the Independent
Churches, for the purpose of preparing a confession of their faith and
order, commonly known by the name of the Savoy Assembly or Synod. The
Independents had greatly flourished during the Protectorate; and many
circumstances rendered such a meeting desirable. The Presbyterian members
of the Westminster Assembly had often pressed on them the importance of
such a public and formal exposition of their sentiments. Their
Independent brethren in New England had set them the example ten years
before; and the frequent misrepresentations to which they were exposed,
especially through their being confounded with extravagant sectaries who
sheltered themselves beneath the common name of Independents, as well as
the religious benefits that were likely to accrue from mutual conference
and comparison of views, appeared strongly to recommend such a measure.
"We confess," say they, "that from the very first, all, or at least the
generality of our churches, have been in a manner like so many ships,
though holding forth the same general colours, launched singly, and
sailing apart and alone on the vast ocean of these tumultuous times, and
exposed to every wind of doctrine, under no other conduct than that of
the Word and Spirit, and their particular elders and principal brethren,
without association among themselves, or so much as holding out common
lights to others, whereby to know where they were."
It was with considerable reluctance, however, that Cromwell yielded his
sanction to the calling of such a meeting. He remembered the anxious
jealousy with which the proceedings of the Westminster Assembly had been
watched, and probably had his own fears that what now began in
theological discussion might end in the perilous canvassing of public
measures. But his scruples were at length overcome,--circulars were
issued, inviting the churches to send up their pastors and delegates, and
more than two hundred brethren appeared in answer to the summons. They
met in a building in the Strand, which was now commonly devoted to the
accommodation of the officers of Cromwell's court, but which had formerly
been a convent and a hospital, and originally the palace of the Duke of
Savoy, from whom it took its name. A committee, in which Owen and Goodwin
evidently bore the burden of the duties, prepared a statement of doctrine
each morning, which was laid before the Assembly, discussed, and
approved. They found, to their delight, that "though they had been
launched singly, they had all been steering their coup by the same chart,
and been bound for one and the same port; and that upon the general
search now made, the same holy and blessed truths of all sorts which are
current and warrantable among the other churches of Christ in the world,
had been their lading." It is an interesting fact, that, with the
exception of its statements on church order, the articles of the Savoy
Confession bear a close resemblance to those of the famous Confession of
the Westminster divines,--in most places retaining its very words. This
was a high and graceful tribute to the excellence of that noble commend.
And though Baxter, irritated by the form of some of its statements, wrote
severely against the Savoy Assembly, yet a spirit of extraordinary
devotion appears to have animated and sustained its conferences. "There
was the most eminent presence of the Lord," says an eyewitness, "with
those who were then assembled, that ever I knew since I had a being."
And, as the natural consequence of this piety, there was an enlarged
charity towards other churches "holding the Head." In the preface to the
Confession, which Owen is understood to have written, and from which we
have already made some beautiful extracts, this blessed temper shines
forth in language that seems to have anticipated the standing-point to
which the living churches of our own times are so hopefully pointing. We
are reminded in one place that "the differences between Presbyterians and
Independents are differences between fellow-servants;" and in another
place, the principle is avowed, that "churches consisting of persons
sound in the faith and of good conversation, ought not to refuse
communion with each other, though they walk not in all things according
to the same rule of church order." It is well known that the Savoy
Confession has never come into general use among the Independents; but
there is reason to think that its first publication had the best effects;
and in all likelihood the happy state of things which Philip Henry
describes as distinguishing this period is referable, in part at least,
to the assurance of essential unity which the Savoy Confession afforded.
"There was a great change," says he, "in the tempers of good people
throughout the nation, and a mighty tendency to peace and unity, as if
they were by consent weary of their long clashings."
What would have been the effects of these proceedings upon the policy
of the Protector, had his life been prolonged, we can now only surmise.
Ere the Savoy Assembly had commenced its deliberations, Oliver Cromwell
was struggling with a mortal distemper in the palace of Whitewall. The
death of his favourite daughter, Lady Claypole, as well as the cares of
his government, had told at length upon his iron frame; and on September
3, 1658, the night of the most awful storm that had ever shaken the
island, and the anniversary of some of his greatest battles, Oliver
Cromwell passed into the eternal world. It is no duty of ours to describe
the character of this wonderful man; but our references to Owen have
necessarily brought us into frequent contact with his history; and we
have not sought to conceal our conviction of his religious sincerity and
our admiration of his greatness. Exaggerate his faults as men may, the
hypocritical theory of his character, so long the stereotyped
representation of history, cannot be maintained. Those who refuse him all
credit for religion must explain to us how his hypocrisy escaped the
detection of the most religious men of his times, who, like Owens, had
the best opportunities of observing him. Those who accuse him of
despotism must tell us how it was that England, under his sway, enjoyed
more liberty than it had ever done before. Those who see in his character
no qualities of generous patriotism, and few even of enlarged
statesmanship, must reconcile this with the fact of his developing the
internal resources of England to an extent which had never been
approached by any previous ruler,--raising his country to the rank of a
first power in Europe, until his very name became a terror to despots,
and a shield to those who, like the bleeding Vaudois in the valleys of
Piedmont, appealed to his compassion.
Owen, and other leading men among the Puritans, have been represented,
by writers such as Burnet, as offering up the most fanatical prayers for
the Protector's recovery; and after his death, on occasion of a fast, in
the presence of Richard and the other members of his family, as almost
irreverently reproaching God for his removal. It would be too much to
affirm, that clothing extravagant or extreme was spoken, even by
eminently good men, at a crisis so exciting; but there is every reason to
think that Owen was not present at the deathbed of the Protector at all;
and Burnet's statement, when traced to its source, is found to have
originated in an impression of Tillotson's, who was as probably mistaken
as otherwise. Vague gossip must not be received as the material of
biography. At the same time, it cannot be doubted that the death of
Cromwell filled Owen and his friends with profound regret and serious
apprehension. His life and power had been the greed security for their
religious liberties; and now by his death that security was dissolved.
Cromwell during his lifetime had often predicted, "They will bring all to
confusion again;" and now that his presiding hand was removed, the lapse
of a little time was sufficient to show that he had too justly forecast
the future. Ere we glance, however, at the rapid changes of those coming
years, we must once more turn to Owen's labours as an author.
In 1657 he published one of his best devotional treatises,--"Of
Communion with God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, each Person
distinctly, in Love, Grace, consolation, etc." It forms the substance of
a series of sermons preached by him at Oxford during his
vice-chancellorship, and is another evidence of his "close walk with Gad"
during the excitements and engagements of that high official position.
There is, no doubt, some truth in the remark, that he carries out the
idea of distinct communion between the believer and each of the persons
of the Godhead to an extent for which there is no scriptural precedent;
and this arises from another habit, observable in some degree even in
this devotional composition,--that of making the particular subject on
which he treats the centre around which he gathers all the great truths
of the Gospel; but, when these deductions have been made, what a rich
treasure is this work of Owen's! He leads us by green pastures and still
waters, and lays open the exhaustless springs of the Christian's hidden
life with Christ in God. It is easy to understand how some parts of it
should have been unintelligible, and should even have appeared incoherent
to persons whose creed was nothing more than an outward badge; and
therefore we are not surprised that it should have provoked the scoffing
remarks of a Rational ecclesiastic twenty years afterwards; but to one
who possesses even a faint measure of spiritual life, we know few
exercises more congenial or salutary than its perusal. It is like passing
from the dusty and beaten path into a garden full of the most fragrant
flowers, from which you return still bearing about your person some parts
of its odours, that reveal where you have been. And those who read the
book with somewhat of this spiritual susceptibility, will sympathize with
the glowing words of Daniel Burgess regarding it: "Alphonsus, king of
Spain, is said to have found food and physic in reading Livy; and
Ferdinand, king of Sicily, in reading Quintus Curtius;--but you have here
nobler entertainment, vastly richer dainties, incomparably more sovereign
medicines: I had almost said, the very highest of angel's food is here
set before you; and, as Pliny speaks, 'Permista deliciis auxilia,'--
things that minister unto grace and comfort, to holy life and liveliness"
In the same year Owen was engaged in an important and protracted
controversy on the subject of schism, which drew forth from him a
succession of publications, and exposed him to the assaults of many
adversaries. Foster has sarcastically remarked on the great convenience
of having a number of words that will answer the purposes of ridicule or
reprobation, without having any precise meaning attached to them; and the
use that has commonly been made of the obnoxious term, "Schism," is an
illustration in point. Dominant religious parties have ever been ready to
hurl this hideous weapon at those who have separated from them, from
whatever cause; and the phrase has derived its chief power to injure from
its vagueness. The Church of Rome has flung it at the Churches of the
Reformation, and the Reformed Churches that stand at different degrees of
distance from Rome, have been too ready to cast it at each other. Owen
and his friends, now began to feel the injurious effects of this, in the
frequent application of the term to themselves; and he was induced, in
consequence, to write on the subject, with the view especially of
distinguishing between the scriptural and the ecclesiastical use of the
term, and, by simply defining it, to deprive it of its mischievous power.
This led to his treatise, "Of Schism; the true nature of it discovered,
and considered with reference to the present differences in region:" in
which he shows that schism, as described in Scripture, consists in
"causeless differences and contentions amongst the members of a
particular church, contrary to that love, prudence, and forbearance,
which are required of them to be exercised among themselves, and towards
one another." From this two consequences followed;-- that separation from
any church was not in its own nature schism; and that those churches
which, by their corruption or tyranny, rendered separation necessary,
were the true schismatics: so that, as Vincent Alsop wittily remarked,
"He that undertakes to play this great gun, had need to be very careful
and spunge it well, lest it fire at home." It is one of Dr Owen's best
controversial treatises, being exhaustive, and yet not marked by that
discursiveness which is the fault of some of his writings, and bringing
into play some of his greatest excellencies as a writer,--his remarkable
exegetical talent, his intimate knowledge of Scripture, and mastery of
the stores of ecclesiastical history. Dr Hammond replied to him from
among the Episcopalians, and Cawdrey from among the Presbyterians,--a
stormy petrel, with whose spirit, Owen remarks, the Presbyterians in
general had no sympathy; but Owen remained unquestionable master of the
field.
It was not thus with the controversy which we have next to describe.
Owen had prepared a valuable little essay,--"Of the Divine Original,
Authority, Self-evidencing Light and Power of the Scriptures; with an
answer to that inquiry, How we know the Scriptures to be the word of God"
the principal design of which, as its title so far indicates, was to
prove that, independently altogether of its external evidence, the Bible
contains, in the nature of its truths and in their efficacy on the mind,
satisfactory evidence of the divine source from which it has emanated;--
an argument which was afterwards nobly handled by Halyburton, and which
has recently been illustrated and illuminated by Dr Chalmers with his
characteristic eloquence, in one of the chapters of his "Theological
Institutes" In this essay he had laid down the position, that "as the
Scriptures of the Old and New Testament were immediately and entirely
given out by God himself,--his mind being in them represented to us
without the least interveniency of such mediums and ways as were capable
of giving change or alteration to the least iota or syllable,--so, by his
good and merciful providential dispensation, in his love to his Word and
church, his Word as first given out by him is preserved unto us entire in
the original languages." It happened that while this essay was in the
press, the Prolegomella and Appendix of Walton's invaluable and immortal
work, the "London Polyglott," came into Owen's hands. But when he glanced
at the formidable array of various readings, which was presented by
Walton and his coadjutors as the result of their collation of manuscripts
and versions, he became alarmed for his principles, imagined the
authority of the Scriptures to be placed in imminent jeopardy, and, in an
essay which he entitled, "A Vindication of the Purity and Integrity of
the Hebrew and Greek Texts of the Old and New Testaments, in some
considerations on the Prolegomena and Appendix to the late Biblia
Polyglotta," rashly endeavoured to prove that Walton had greatly
exaggerated the number of various readings, and insinuated his
apprehension, that if Walton's principles were admitted, they would lead,
by a very direct course, to Popery or Infidelity. It is needless to say
how undeniable is the fact of various readings; how utterly groundless
were the fears which Dr Owen expressed because of them; and how much the
labours of learned biblicists, in the region which was so nobly
cultivated by Walton and his associates, have confirmed, instead of
disturbing our confidence in the inspired canon. And yet it is not
difficult to understand how the same individual, who was unsurpassed,
perhaps unequalled, in his own age in his knowledge of the subject-matter
of revelation, should have been comparatively uninformed on questions
which related to the integrity of the sacred text itself. The error of
Owen consisted in making broad assertions on a subject on which he
acknowledged himself to be, after all, but imperfectly informed; and,
from a mere a priori ground, challenging facts that were sustained by
very abundant evidence, and charging those facts with the most revolting
consequences. Let those theologians be warned by it, who, on the ground
of preconceived notions and incorrect interpretations of Scripture, have
called in question some of the plainest discoveries of science; and be
assured that truth, come from what quarter it may, can never place the
Word of God in jeopardy.
Walton saw that he had the advantage of Owen, and in "The Considerator
considered, and the Biblia Polyglotta Vindicated," successfully defended
his position, and did what he could to hold Owen up to the ridicule of
the learned world. Though he was Owen's victor in this controversy, yet
the arrogance of his bearing excites the suspicion that something more
than learned zeal bore him into the contest, and that the exasperated
feelings of the ecclesiastic made him not unwilling to humble this leader
and champion of the Puritans in the dust. The respective merits of the
two combatants in this contest, which excited so much commotion in the
age in which it occurred, are admirably remarked on by Dr Chalmers: "The
most interesting collision upon this question that I know of, between
unlike men of unlike minds, was that between the most learned of our
Churchmen on the one hand, Brian Walton, author, or rather editor of the
'London Polyglots,' and the most talented and zealous of our sectarians
on the other, Dr John Owen. The latter adventured himself most rashly
into a combat, and under a false alarm for the results of the erudition
of the former; and the former retorted contemptuously upon his
antagonist, as he would upon a mystic or enthusiastic devotee. The
amalgamation of the two properties thus arrayed in hostile conflict,
would have just made up a perfect theologian. It would have been the
wisdom of the letter in alliance with the wisdom of the spirit; instead
of which I know not what was most revolting,-- the lordly insolence of
the prelate, or the outrageous violence of the Puritan. In the first
place, it was illiterate in Owen, to apprehend that the integrity of the
Scripture would be unsettled by the exposure, in all their magnitude and
multitude, of its various readings; but in the second place, we stand in
doubt of Walton's spirit and his seriousness, when he groups and
characterizes as the new-light men and ranting enthusiasts of these days,
those sectaries, many of whom, though far behind him in the lore of
theology as consisting in the knowledge of its vocables, were as far
before him in acquaintance with the subject-matter of theology, as
consisting of its doctrines, and of their application to the wants and
the principles of our moral nature."
About the time of his emerging from this unfortunate controversy, Owen
gave to the world his work on Temptation,--another of those masterly
treatises in which he "brings the doctrines of theology to bear on the
wants and principles of our moral nature," and from which whole
paragraphs flash upon the mind of the reader with an influence that makes
him feel as if they had been written for himself alone.
In his preface to that work, Owen (no doubt reflecting his impressions
of public events) speaks of "providential dispensations, in reference to
the public concernments of these nations, as perplexed and entangled,--
the footsteps of God lying in the deep, where his paths are not known."
And certainly the rapid and turbulent succession of changes that took
place soon after the removal of Cromwell's presiding genius from the
helm, might well fill him with deepening anxiety and alarm. These changes
(continued in part 5...)
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