HIS STUDENT-LIFE. XXIX
which he tempers and fashions his most chosen instruments. But " there is no man that hath left house, or parents, or brethren, or wife, or children, for the kingdom of God's sake, who shall not receive manifold more in this present time, and in the world to come life everlasting." Ten years afterwards the banished student, who had thus nobly followed the light of conscience, lead where it might, was to be seen returning through those very gates to receive its highest honours, — to have intrusted to him the administration of its laws, and almost to occupy the very seat of power from which Laud had, in the interval, been ignominiously hurled.
Owen had " commenced master of arts" in his nineteenth year, and not long before leaving Oxford, had been admitted to orders by Bishop Bancroft. He now found a home unexpectedly opened to him in the house of Sir Philip Dormer of Ascot, who invited him to become chaplain to his fa.mily, and tutor to his eldest son ; " in both which resj)ects," says one of the oldest notices of Owen, " he ac- quitted himselif with great satisfaction to Sir Robert and his family."^ After some time, he accepted the situation of chaplain in the family of Lord Lovelace of Hurly, in Berkshire, where he appears to have enjoyed much kindness, and to have been duly appreciated.^ But meanwhile the rent between Charles and his Parliament was widening apace. His frequent invasion of the constitutional rights of the other estates of the realm, his attempts to rule without a Parliament and to raise money by illegal means, his systematic violation of his most solemn pledges, his connivance at the innovating superstitions of Laud, and wanton violation of religious liberty, at length roused a,n impatient kingdom to resistance, drove the Parliament to the last resort of arms, and shook the land with the discord of civil war.* At such a crisis it is imjDossible for any man to remain neutral, and it found Owen and his patron of opposite sentiments. Lord Lovelace took up arms on the side of Charles, and of royal prerogative ; all the convictions and sympathies of Owen were naturally with the army of the Parliament, and the cause of public hberty. Two consequences immediately followed from this to Owen, — his leaving the family of Lord Lovelace, and the complete estrangement of his Boyalist uncle in Wales, who now finally disinherited him, and bestowed his estates and wealth upon another.
Leaving Berkshire, Owen now removed to London, and took up his residence in Charter-House Yard. Here he continued to suffer from that mental depression which had begun with his earliest religious anxieties at Oxford ; and which, though partially relieved at intervals; had never yet been completely removed. Some influence is no doubt
1 Anon. ^lem., p. ix. ^ Wood's Allien. Oxon., p. 97.
3 VaUj^liau's Jileinoriuls of the Stuart Dynasty, I., ch. vii.-xi.
XXX LIFE OF DR OWEN.
to be ascribed to the discouraging outward circumstances in which his uncle's conduct had placed him, in deepening the gloom of those shadows which now cast themselves across his spirit ; but the chief spring of his distress lay deeper, — in his perplexities and anxieties about his state with God. For years he had been under -the power of religious principle, but he had not yet been borne into the region of settled peace ; and at times the terrors of the Lord seemed still to compass him about. We have no means of ascertaining with cer- tainty what were the causes of these dreadful conflicts in Owen's mind ; whether an overwhelming sense of the holiness and rectitude of God ; or perverse speculations about the secret purposes of God, when he should have been reposing in his revealed truths and all- embracing calls ; or a self-righteous introversion of his thoughts upon himself, when he should have been standing in the full sun-light of the cross ; or more mysterious deeps of anguish than any of these ; — but we are disposed to think that his noble treatise on the " Forgiveness of Sin," written many years afterwards, is in a gieat degree the effect as well as the record of what he suffered now. Notliing is more certain than that some of the most precious treasures in our religious literature have thus come forth from the seven-times-heated furnace of mental suffering. The wondrous colloquies of Luther, in his " Li- troduction to the Galatians," reflect the conflicts of his own mighty spirit with unbelief; the " Pilgrim's Progress" is in no small degree the mental autobiography of Bunyan ; and there is strong internal evidence that Owen's "Exposition of the 130th Psalm " — which is as full of Christian experience as of rich theology, and contains some of the noblest passages that Owen ever penned — is to a great extent the unconscious transcript of his present wanderings, and perplexities, and final deliverances.
But the time had come when the burden was to fall from Owen's shoulders ; and few things in his life are more truly interesting than the means by which it was unloosed. Dr Edmund Calamy was at this time minister in Aldermanbury Chapel, and attracted multitudes by his manly eloquence. Owen had gone one Sabbath morning to hear the celebrated Presbyterian preacher, and was much disap- pointed when he saw an unknown stranger from the country enter the pulpit. His companion suggested, that they should leave the chapel, and hasten to the place of worship of another celebrated preacher; but Owen's strength being already exhausted, he deter- mined to remain. After a prayer of simple earnestness, the text was announced in these words of Matt. viii. 26, " Why are ye fearful, 0 ye of little faith ? " Immediately it arrested the thoughts of Owen as appropriate to his present state of mind, and he breathed an inward prayer that God would be pleased by that minister to speak to his