HIS PASTOKATE. XXXI
condition. The prayer was lieard, for the preacher stated and an- swered the very doubts that had long perplexed Owen's mind ; and by the time that the discourse was ended, had succeeded in leading him forth into the sunshine of a settled peace. The most diligent efforts were used by Owen to discover the name of the preacher who had thus been to him "as an angel of God," but without success.^
There is a marked divine selection visible in the humble instrument that was thus employed to bring peace to Owen's mind. We trace in it the same wisdom that sent an humble Ananias to remove the scales from the eyes of Saul, and made the poor teut-rnaker and his wife the instructors of the eloquent ApoUos. And can we doubt that when the fame of Owen's learning and intellectual power had spread far and wide, so that even foreign divines are said to have studied our language in order that they might read his works, the recollection of the mode of his own spiritual deliverance would repress all self- dependence and elation, and make him feel that the highest form of success in preaching was in no respect the monopoly of high intel- lectual gifts; but that in every instance it was, " not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord?"
CHAP. II.
HIS PASTORATE.
The mind of Owen, now effectually relieved from the burden of spiri- tual distress, soon recovered its elasticity and vigour; and in March 1642 he gave to the world his first literary production, — " The Dis- play of Arminianism." In all likelihood he had been silently labour- ing at this work while in the families of Sir Philip Dormer and Lord Lovelace ; more especially as his mental distress may have had some connection "with a misunderstanding of certain of those points on which the Arminian controversy touches, and have led to their more full examination. But we may discover the principal occasion of the work in the ecclesiastical policy of the period, and in the strain of doctrinal sentiment which that policy had long aimed to foster and to propa- gate. Laud and his party had shown themselves as zealous for the peculiar dogmas of Arminianism, as for Romish rites and vestments and for passive obedience; and the dogmas had been received into royal favour because of their association with the advocacy of supersti- tious ceremonies and the defence of despotic rule. Arminianism having thus been constituted the exclusive way to preferment, had become ' Asty, p. V. Anon. j\Iem., p. x.
XXXII LIFE OF DR OWEN.
the fashionable creed; and a current of doctrine had flowed into the church which was rapidly changing the character of its ministra- tions, and bearing it away from those safe moorings at which its own Articles and its Reformers had fixed it.
A remark by Owen, in his address to the reader, correctly describes the Laudean policy : " Had a poor Puritan offended against half so many canoiis ?^ they opposed a7-ticles, he had forfeited his livelihood, if not endangered his life." And in another passage he explains the progress of Arminianism in England : " The chief cause I take to be that which ^neas Sylvius gave, why more maintained the pope to be above the council than the council above the poj)e ; — because the popes gave archbishoprics and bishoprics, &c., but the councils sued ' in forma pauperis/ and therefore could scarce get an advocate to plead their cause. The fates of our church having of late devolved the government of it on men tainted with this poison, Arminianism became backed with the powerful arguments of praise and preferment, and quickly beat poor nalced Truth into a comer."
Owen's " Display" is a barrier raised against prevailing opinions. Each chapter contains a statement of the Arminian doctrine on the point discussed, with Owen's answer; while at the end of each chapter the Arminian doctrine is more briefly stated, in the language of some Arminian writer, and confronted in opposite columns by passages of Scripture. Undoubtedly there are some things charged upon the Ar- minianism of those times which belong rather to the family of Pela- gian errors, and which the pious Arminian of our own day would at all events repudiate. Nor is it to be denied that tbe work is not free, in some parts, of the fault which clings to so much theological con- troversy,—that of making individuals responsible, not only for the opinions they avow, but for all the consec|uences that you may deduce from them; yet, withal, it is rich in matter which must have stag- gered the courtly theologians of the age, — is hung all round with mas- sive Calvinistic armour; and, though written in a more scholastic form than most of Owen's subsequent works, gives indication of that spirit which was so characteristic of the Puritans, and pre-eminently of Owen, and which gave such a depth to their piety,— tlie spirit which ■connected all events with God, and bent with lowly and aAve-struck feeling before the divine sovereignty.
Owen dedicated his work to " The Lords and Gentlemen of the Committee for Religion ; " who appointed it to be printed by the Com- mittee of the House of Commons for regulating the printing and pub- lishing of books. Its publication is interesting on another account, — as having been the means of introducing him to his first pastoral charge. The incumbent of Fordham in Essex having been ejected from his living by tlie committee for purging the church of scanda-