But is there not a considerable amount of undue severity in all this? In ail likelihood those who had demanded this service of Owen blamed him for an opposite reason, and hoped that this theo- logian of high renown and untainted reputation would, in the hour of their extremity, have surrounded their daring act with something more than the dubious sanction of his ominous silence. But to as- cribe his silence to cowardice, is to assume that he secretly regarded the destruction of Charles as an indefensible act of crime. And was this necessarily Owen's judgment? It was surely possible that, while believing that the party which had brought Charles to the scaffold had violated the letter of the constitution, he may also have believed that it was in righteous punishment of one whose whole career as a monarch had been one long conspiracy against it, and who had aimed, by fourteen years of force and perfidy, to establish despotism upon the ruins of popular liberty. He maj)- have thought that treason was as possible against the constitution as against the crown, and to the full as criminal; and that where a king rejected all government by law, he could no longer be entitled to the shelter of irresponsibility. He may have looked upon the death of Charles as the last resource of a long-tried patience, — the decision of the question. Who shall perish ? the one, or the million? We do not say that these were actually Owen's sentiments, but it is well known that they were the thoughts of some of the purest and loftiest minds of that eai-nest age; and if Owen even hesitated on these points, on which it is well known Mil- ton believed,^ then silence was demanded, not only by prudence, but
' M'Crie's Miscellaneous Works, p .502
2 Milton's Tenure of Kings and Magistrates, Defence of the People of Eng- land,
HIS PASTORATE. XLI
by honesty, especially in a composition which he himself describes as, " like Jonah's gourd, the production of a night."
Whatever opinion may be formed of Owen's conduct in the matter of the sermon, there are few, we imagine, that will not look on the pub- lication of his " Discourse on Toleration," annexed to the sermon, and presented to the Parliament along with it, as one of the most honour- able facts in the public life of this great Puritan. The leading desigTi of this essay is to vindicate the principle, that errors in religion are not punishable by the civil magistrate, with the exception of such as in their OAvn nature, not in some men's apprehensions, disturb the order of society.^ To assert that this great principle, which is the foundation- stone of religious hberty, was in any sense the discovery of Owen, or of that great party to which he belouged, is to display a strange oblivion of the history of opinions. Even in the writings of some of the earliest Reformers, such as Z-wingle, the principle may be found stated and vindicated Avith all the clearness and force with which Owen has announced it;^ and Principal Robertson has satisfactorily proved, that the Presbyterian Church of Holland was the first among the churches of the Reformation formally to avow the doctrine, and to embody and defend it in its authoritative documents.^ Nor is it matter of mere conjecture, that it was on the hospitable shores of Holland, and in the bosom of her church, that English fugitives first learned the true principles of rehgious liberty, and bore them back as a precious leaven to their own land.* It is enough to say of Owen and his party, that in their attachment to these principles they were greatly in advance of their contemporaries ; and that the singxdar praise was theirs, of hav- ing been equally zealous for toleration when their party had risen to power, as when they were a weak and persecuted sect. And when we consider the auspicious juncture at which Owen gave forth his sentiments on this momentous subject, his influence over that great religious party of which he was long the chief ornament and ruling spirit, as well as the deference shown to him by the political leaders and patriots of the age, it is not too much to say, that when the names of Jeremy Taylor and Milton, and Vane and Locke are men- tioned, that of John Owen must not be forgotten, as one of the most signal of those who helped to fan and quicken, if not to kindle, in England, that flame which, " by God's help, shall never go out;" who, casting abroad their thoughts on the public mind when it was in a state of fusion and impressibility, became its preceptors on the rights of conscience, and have contributed to make the principles of
' Owen's Sermons, fol. ed., p. 291
2 Hess, Life of Zwingle. pp. 148, 150-161. M'Crie's JMiscellaneous Works,p. 473.
3 Robertson's Charles I., iv. 131.
* M'Crie's Miscellaneous Works, p. 474.
XLII LIFE OF DR OWEN.
religious freedom in England familiar, omnipresent, and beneficent, as the light or the air.
On the 19th of April we find Owen once more summoned to preach before Parliament, the chiefs of the army being also present ; on which occasion he preached his celebrated sermon, " On the Shaking of Hea- ven and Earth," Heb. xii.27. Oliver Cromwell was present, and pro- bably for the first time heard Owen preach. Ere the sermon was completed, Cromwell had formed a resolution which the following day gave him an opportunity of executing, Owen having called at the house of General Fairfax, to pay his respects to him in remembrance of their recent intercourse at Colchester, was informed by the servants that the general was so indisposed that he had already declined to receive the visits of several persons of quality. The pastor of Cogges- hall, however, sent in his name; and while waiting, Cromwell and many other officers entered the room. Owen's tall and stately figure soon caught the eye of Cromwell as the person whom he had heard preach with so much delight yesterday ; and going up to him, he laid his hands upon his shoulders, and said to him familiarly, " Sir, you are the person I must be acquainted with." Owen modestly replied, " That will be much more to my advantage than yours." To which Cromwell returned, " We shall soon see that;" and taking Owen by the hand, led him into the garden, and made known to him his in- tention to depart for Ireland, and his wish that Owen should accom- pany him as chaplain, and also to aid him in investigating and setting in order the affairs of the University of Dublin. To this un- expected proposal Owen naturally objected the claims of his church at Coggeshall ; but Cromwell reminding him that he was about to take his younger brother, whom he dearly loved, as standard-bearer in the same army, would not listen to a refusal. He even wrote to the church at Coggeshall urging their consent; and when they showed themselves even more averse to the separation than their pastor, Cromwell rose from entreaties to commands ; and Owen, with the ad- vice of certain ministers whom he consulted, was at length induced to make slow preparations for the voyage.^