Dr.
John Owen (1616-1683)
Some of the
greatest works against Arminianism written by the
greatest English Puritan Theologian that ever lived.
Biographical Sketch
Dr. John Owen
(1616-1683),
theologian, was born of Puritan parents at Stadham
in Oxfordshire in 1616. At twelve years of age he
was admitted at Queen's College, Oxford, where he
took his B.A. degree in 1632 and M.A. in 1635.
During these years he worked with such diligence
that he allowed himself but four hours sleep a
night, and damaged his health by this excessive
labour. In 1637 he was driven from Oxford by his
refusal to comply with the requirements of Laud's
new statutes. Having taken orders shortly before, he
became chaplain and tutor in the family of Sir
Robert Dormer of Ascot in Oxfordshire. At the
outbreak of the civil troubles he adopted
Parliamentary principles, and thus lost both his
place and the prospects of succeeding to his uncle's
fortune. For a while he lived in Charterhouse Yard,
in great unsettlement of mind on religious
questions, which was removed at length by a sermon
which he accidently heard at St Michael's in Wood
Street.
His first
publication, in 1642, The Display of Arminianism,
dedicated to the committee of religion gained him
the living of Fordham in Essex, from which a
"scandalous minister" had been ejected. Here he was
married, and by his marriage he had eleven children.
Although he was thus
formally united to Presbyterianism, Owen's views
were originally inclined to those of the
Independents, and, as he acquainted himself more
fully with the controversy, he became more resolved
in that direction, though later he would return to
Presbyterianism (as seen in his writings). He
represented, in fact, that large class of persons
who, falling away from Episcopacy, attached
themselves to the very moderate form of
Presbyterianism which obtained in England as being
that which came first in their way. His views at
this time are shown by his Duty of Pastors and
People Distinguished. At Fordham he remained
until 1646, when, the old incumbent dying, the
presentation lapsed to the patron, who gave it to
some one else. He was now, however, coming into
notice, for on April 29 he preached before the
Parliament. In this sermon, and still more in his
Thoughts on Church Government, which he appended
to it, his tendency to break away from
Presbyterianism is displayed.
The people of
Coggeshall in Essex now invited him to become their
pastor. Here he declared his change by founding a
church on Congregational principles, and, in 1647,
by publishing Eshcol, as well as various
works against Arminianism. He made the friendship of
Fairfax while the latter was besieging Colchester,
and urgently addressed the army there against
religious persecution. He was chosen to preach to
Parliament on the day after the execution of
Charles, and succeeded in fulfilling his task
without mentioning that event, and again on April
19, when he. spake thus:-"The time shall come when
the earth shall disclose her slain, and not the
simplest heretic shall have his blood unrevenged;
neither shall any atonement or expiation be allowed
for this blood, while a toe of the image, or a bone
of the beast, is left unbroken."
He now became
acquainted with Cromwell, who carried him off to
Ireland in 1649 as his chaplain, that he might
regulate the affairs of Trinity College; while there
he began the first of his frequent controversies
with Baxter by writing against the latter's
Aphorisms of Justification. In 1650 he
accompanied Cromwell to Scotland, and returned to
Coggeshall in 1651. In March Cromwell, as
chancellor, gave him the deanery of Christ Church,
and made him vice-chancellor in September 1652. In
1651, October 24, after Worcester, he preached the
thanksgiving sermon before Parliament. In October
1653 he was one of several ministers whom Cromwell,
probably to sound their views, summoned to a
consultation as to church union. In December in the
same year he had the honour of D.D. conferred upon
him by his university. In the Parliament of 1664 he
sat, but only for a short time, as member for Oxford
university, and, with Baxter, was placed on the
committee for settling the "fundamentals" necessary
for the toleration promised in the Instrument of
Government. He was, too, one of the Triers, and
appears to have behaved with kindness and moderation
in that capacity. As vice-chancellor he acted with
readiness and spirit when a general rising in the
west seemed imminent in 1655; his adherence to
Cromwell, however was by no means slavish, for he
drew up, at the request of Desborough and Pride, a
petition against his receiving the kingship (see
Ludlow's Memoirs, ed. 1751, p. 224). During the
years 1654-58 his chief controversial works were
Divina Justitia, The Perseverance of Saints
(against Goodwin) and Vindiciae Evangelicae
(against the Socinians). In 1658 he took a leading
part in the conference which drew up the Savoy
Declaration.
Baxter declares that
at the death of Cromwell Owen joined the Wallingford
House party. This, though supported by the fact that
under the Restoration he had among his congregation
a large number of these officers, Owen himself
utterly denied. He appears, however, to have
assisted in the restoration of the Rump Parliament,
and, when Monk began his march into England, Owen,
in the name of the Independent churches, to whom
Monk was supposed to belong, and who were keenly
anxious as to his intentions, wrote to dissuade him
from the enterprise.
In March 1660, the
Presbyterian party being uppermost, Owen was
deprived of his deanery, which was given back to
Reynolds. He retired to Stadham, where he wrote
various controversial and theological works, in
especial the laborious Theologoumena
Pantodapa, a history of the rise and progress of
theology. In 1661 was published the celebrated
Fiat Lux, a work in which the oneness and
beauty of Roman Catholicism are contrasted with the
confusion and multiplicity of Protestant sects. At
Clarendon's request Owen answered this in 1662 in
his Animadversions; and this led of course to
a prolonged controversy. Glarendon now offered Owen
perferment if he would conform. Owen's condition for
making terms was liberty to all who agree in
doctrine with the Church of England; nothing
therefore came of the negotiation.
In 1663 he was
invited by the Congregational churches in Boston,
New England, to become their minister, but declined.
The Conventicle and Five Mile Acts soon drove him to
London; and in 1666, after the Fire, he, as did
other leading Nonconformist ministers, fitted up a
room for public service and gathered a congregation,
composed chiefly of the old Commonwealth officers.
Meanwhile he was incessantly writing; and in 1667 he
published his Catechism, which led to a
proposal from Baxter for union. Various papers
passed, and after a year the attempt was closed by
the following laconical note from Owen: " I am still
a well-wisher to these mathematics." It was now,
too, that he published the first part of his vast
work upon the Epistle to the Hebrews.
In 1669 Owen wrote a
spirited remonstrance to the Congregationalists in
New England, who, under the influence of
Presbyterianism, had shown themselves persecutors.
At home, too, he was busy in the same cause. In 1670
Parker attacked the Nonconformists in his own style
of clumsy intolerance. Owen answered trim; Parker
repeated his attack; Marvell wrote The Rehearsal
Transprosed; and Parker is remembered by this
alone.
At the revival of the
Conventicle Acts in 1670, Owen was appointed to draw
up a paper of reasons which was submitted to the
House of Lords in protest. In this or the following
year Harvard university invited him to become their
president; he received similar invitations from some
of the Dutch universities.
When Charles issued
his Declaration of Indulgence in 1672, Owen drew up
an address of thanks. This indulgence gave the
dissenters an opportunity for increasing their
churches and services, and Owen was one of the first
preachers at the weekly lectures which the
Independents and Presbyterians jointly held in
Plummer's Hall. He was held in high respect by a
large number of the nobility (one of the many things
which point to the fact that Congregationalism was
by no means the creed of the poor and
insignificant), and during 1674 both Charles and
James held prolonged conversations with him in which
they assured him of their good wishes to the
dissenters. Charles gave him 1000 guineas to relieve
those upon whom the severe laws had chiefly pressed.
In 1674 Owen was attacked by one Dr Sherlock, whom
he easily vanquished, and from this time until 1680
he was engaged upon his ministry and the writing of
religious works. In l680, however, Stillingfleet
having on May 11 preached his sermon on "The
Mischief of Separation," Owen defended the
Nonconformists from the charge of schism in his
Brief Vindication. Baxter and Howe also
answered Stillingfleet, who replied in The
Unreasonableness of Separation.
Owen again answered this, and then left the
controversy to a swarm of eager combatants. From
this time to his death he was occupied with
continual writing, disturbed only by an absurd
charge of being concerned in the Rye House Plot. His
most important work was his Treatise on Evangelical
Churches in which were contained his latest views
regarding church government. During his life he
issued more than eighty separate publications, many
of them of great size. Of these a list may be found
in Orme's Memoirs of Owen. For some years before his
death Owen had suffered greatly from stone and
asthma. He died quietly, though after great pain, at
Ealing, on August 24, 1683, and was buried on
September 4th in Bunhill Fields, being followed to
the grave by a large procession of persons of
distinction. "In younger age a most comely and
majestic form; but in the latter stages of life,
depressed by constant infirmities, emaciated with
frequent diseases, and above all crushed under the
weight of intense and unremitting studies, it became
an incommodious mansion for the vigorous exertions
of the spirit in the service of its God."
Taken in part from
The Encyclopedia Britannica Ninth Edition, (New
York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1885) |
