1. JOHN Do OWEN, D.D.
IT is a remarkable fact that at the time of the Church’s greatest needs God raised up men who were eminently useful not only in their own day and generation but their usefulness survived them, and to all appearances will survive them to the end of time. Of that number was the justly celebrated John Owen, whose name as a theologian is still a house-hold word wherever true and vital religion is to be found.
Born at the village of Stadham, Oxfordshire, in the year 1616, and the second son of Henry Owen, vicar of Stadham, he was educated, first at home by his father, and then sent to a private academy in Oxford. At the age of twelve years he was enrolled as a student of Queen’s College, where he distinguished himself as a brilliant student and a lad of great mental parts. His application to his studies and his power of endurance is brought out in the fact that during several years of the time he was at the University he never allowed himself more than four hours sleep each night. At this time he was a mere worldling having no thirst after anything higher than the learning which belongs to this world, but it was during the later years of his University life that he began to have serious thoughts concerning his condition before God. Holiness and Sin, Heaven and Hell became realities to him. We are not told of the means used in awakening his soul to these realities but that they were realities to him, his writings abundantly testify. It was a gradual process which lasted for years before he came to the knowledge of the truth as it is in Jesus and a full-orbed gospel became meat and drink to his soul. It was during these dark years in the experience of John Owen that the infamous Laud became Chancellor of Oxford University and introduced his Romish ritual which he endeavoured to impose on the consciences of men. As a man who was brought face to face with spiritual and eternal realities Owen found in this ritual the very antithesis of what his soul was seeking, and chose rather to leave the University than submit to any thing so dishonouring to God. After this he became domestic chaplain, first in the house of Sir Philip Dormer of Ascot and afterwards in the house of Lord Lovelace of Hurley.
When the Civil War broke out between the Royalists and the Parliamentarians Owen and Lord Lovelace were in opposite camps with the double result that he left Hurley and was disinherited by his Royalist uncle in Wales, who had before intended making him his heir. Thus we find him with Moses, “Choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season; esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt: for he had respect unto the recompence of the reward.” As we have seen he was for years groping for the light of the gospel and was not attaining to it, but at last God’s time had come and the means by which he was to obtain liberty were at hand. At that time Dr. Edmund Calamy was in the zenith of his power as a preacher, and Owen went one Sabbath morning to hear him. For some reason Dr. Calamy was not able to be present that day and a stranger occupied the pulpit. The text was from Matthew viii, 26. “Why are ye fearful, O ye of little faith.” That sermon was God’s message of peace to the soul of John Owen and he went away with the experience recorded in Isaiah xii., “O Lord, I will praise thee: though thou wast angry with me, thine anger is turned away, and thou comfortedst me.” He was never able to find out who the stranger was who occupied Dr. Calamy’s pulpit that day. As far as can be gathered one result of that conflict and deliverance was his “Exposition of the Hundred and Thirtieth Psalm.”
Shortly after this he was appointed to the incumbency of Fordham in Essex where he married. As one who had passed through a trying experience in his own soul, he was eminently fitted to be an instructor and guide to the souls of others. His congregation was a desert spiritually but he entered upon his duties with real earnestness, visiting each family and catechising them. This work was greatly owned by the Holy Spirit so that the desert blossomed as the rose. As one who drank deep in his own soul of the “pure river of water of life” he could say with the Apostle Paul, “For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.” His fame began to be reported far beyond the bounds of his own congregation so that in 1646 he was appointed to preach before Parliament, for which he received the thanks of the House.
The time had now come when he must needs bid farewell to his attached flock at Fordham. His predecessor, a worthless man who had been ejected for scandalous behaviour, died and the patron gave the living to another; Dr. Owen as a result had to leave. One can imagine the feelings of both pastor and congregation when thus separated, and we can conceive of no creature more miserable than the man who will break the solemn and sacred ties that exist between a pastor and his people, either in a despotic manner as in this case, or by means more secret. We believe it were better for such that they were never born.
It has been often noticed that when one door is closed another opens. The people of Coggeshall, a market town about five miles distant, gladly invited Dr. Owen to be their pastor, which invitation he accepted, and thus a door of usefulness was opened for this servant of Christ when men had endeavoured, as far as they were able, to shut it. His new sphere of labour was pleasant in many ways, and the growing attachment of his flock showed the large place which the gospel he preached, had in their hearts. It was after he began his pastorate at Coggeshall that Owen made the acquaintance of Oliver Cromwell, which acquaintance resulted in his accompanying Cromwell to Ireland as his chaplain, and playing an important part in setting in order the affairs of the University of Dublin. His duties as Cromwell’s chaplain took him afterwards to Scotland where in the course of a discussion between him and the Scottish ministers, in the presence of Cromwell, Hugh Binning, the young minister of Govan, not yet twenty-six years of age, so managed the dispute as to confound Owen and the other English divines who were with him.
On 9th September, 1651, Dr. Owen was appointed Vice-Chancellor of Oxford University from which seat of learning he departed ten years previously for conscience sake. The ways of the Most High are wonderful, revealing that “God is the Judge: He putteth down one, and setteth up another.” Laud and his ritual had been cast out, and the very man who because of that ritual left his place in the University, was now appointed to take charge of affairs and raise that ancient seat of learning from the chaos which had overtaken it. God prospered him in his way so that he not only saved the University from ruin, but he himself was made a power for good to the souls of many who came only to seek earthly knowledge.
Though such a power for good in the University he was not destined to continue there until natural causes would constrain him to seek retirement. Cromwell had been offered the Crown and the title of king by a majority of Parliament and did not seem averse to taking both. Dr. Owen saw good reason to oppose him with the result that Cromwell’s attitude to him changed, and he soon dispensed with his services and put another in his place. This is a sad commentary on the bitterness which man is capable of showing when crossed in his purposes. After his enforced retirement he went to live in his native village of Stadham where he preached to a small congregation till forced to stop by the authorities. Not long after Owen’s retirement Oliver Cromwell had gone the way of all the earth and his son Richard retired from public life. King Charles II. was invited to take the reins of government and ruled as badly, if not worse than his father. All non-Conformists were treated with scant respect and John Owen had his own share of these troubles, though perhaps not to the same extent as others, but because of other influences he was at times enabled to do a great deal to make the lot of some of his brethren easier. During his retirement up to the period of his death we find him actively engaged in furthering the Cause of Christ, and strengthening the Lord’s people, more especially by his writings. One great public matter in which he took part at this time was the framing of the Savoy Confession, which is the Confession of Faith of the Independent Churches. With the exception of statements on Church government it bears a very close resemblance to the Westminster Confession of Faith, and shows many traces of the master-mind of Owen.
In the midst of his great labours John Owen began to show that the “earthly house of this tabernacle” was coming down. He was frequently afflicted with distressing attacks of asthma and the stone, so that often he was not able to preach though he would have an opportunity. The grim messenger of death was doing its work but of Owen it could be said that he was enduring “as seeing Him who is invisible.” With the eye of faith he was seeing “the King in His beauty” and his meditations were on the glory of his Redeemer. The last work that issued from his pen was, “Meditations and Discourses on the Glory of Christ,” and on the morning of the day he died when the Rev. William Payne told him that the first sheets of that work had passed through the press, he lifted up his hands and his eyes towards heaven, saying, “I am glad to hear it; but, O brother Payne! the long wished for day is come at last, in which I shall see that glory in another manner than I have ever done, or was capable of doing, in this world.” With calm submission to the will of God he descended to the river, in the midst of sharp afflictions, and then “with eyes and hands uplifted, as if his last act was devotion, the spirit of Owen passed in silence into the world of glory,” on the 24th of August, 1683. Eleven days afterwards his mortal remains were buried in Bunhill Fields amidst manifestations of sincere sorrow.
He has left behind him a rich treasure for future generations, a legacy of far greater value than all the gold in the universe. While all his productions are master-pieces on the subjects with which he deals, his “Exposition of the Epistle to the Hebrews” seems to stand above them all. It might be considered a worthy labour of a life-time for the greatest theologian that ever lived, but when one considers that his published works number over seventy and that he died at the age of sixty-seven one feels the poverty of language to describe the magnitude of his labours.— J. C.