' Asty, p. X.
2 His preacliing before Parli.inieiit, about tbe period of tbese ai)i)ointnients, ap- pears to have been frequent. On October 24, 1651, being the day of thanksgiving for the victory of Worcester, we find him preaching his sermon entitled, " Tiie Advantage of the Kingdom of Christ in tlie Sliaking of the Kingdoms of the World," Ezek. xvii. 24. Next, February 6, 1652, in the Abbey Church of West- minster, on occasion of the funeral of Henry Ireton, Lord-Deputy of Ireland, and Cromwell's son-in-law, he preached his sermon on Dan. xii. 13, — " The Labouring Saint's Dismission to Rest." Once more, October 13, 1652, on " Christ's Kingdom and the Magistrate's Power," from Dan. vii. 15, 16.
HIS VICE- CHANCELLORSHIP. XLVII
except the name. It is quite true that the eInoh^ments of the deanery were still drawn from the same sources as at an earlier period ; but Owen, in common with many of the Independents and all the Presbyterians of his times, was not in principle opposed to the support of the teachers of religion by national funds.^
His scruples in accepting office in Oxford, and especially in consent- ing to be raised to the high position of vice-chancellor, arose from other causes ; and it needed all the authority of Cromwell, and all the influ- ence of the senate, completely to overcome them. It required him to do violence to some of his best affections and strongest predilec- tions to tear himself away from the studious days and the happy pas- torate of Coggeshall ; and perhaps it demanded a higher pitch of resolution still to undertake the government of a university which had been brought to the very brink of ruin by the civil wars, and from which, during the intervening years, it had very partially recovered. During those years of commotion, learning had almost been forgot- ten for arms; and Oxford, throwing itself with a more than chival- rous loyalty into the cause of Charles, had drained its treasury, and even melted its plate, in order to retrieve his waning fortunes. The consequence had been, that at the end of the civil war, when the cause of the Parliament triumphed, many of its halls and colleges were closed ; others of them had been converted into magazines for stores and baiTacks for soldiers; the studious habits of its youth had been completely disturbed, and the university burdened with a debt of almost hopeless magnitude. Some of the Avorst of these evils still remained, — others of them were only partially diminished; and when we add to this the spirit of destructive Vandalism with which a noisy party began to regard those ancient seats of learning, the licen- tiousness and insubordination which the students had borrowed from the armies of the Royalists, as Avell as the jealousy with which Owen was regarded by the secret friends of Episcopacy, and by Presbyterians who had been displaced by CromAvell from high positions in order to give place to Independents, it is easy to see that it required no com- mon courage to seize the helm at such a moment, to grapple with such varied and formidable difficulties, and to reduce such discordant ele- ments to peace.^ Such was the work to which Owen now betook himself
It is only too evident that even at the present day it requires, in the case of many, something like a mental effort against early prejudice, to conceive of this Puritan pastor occupying the lofty eminence to which he was now raised with a suitable amount of dignity and grace. Not only
' Discourse of Toleration, Owen's Sermons, foL ed. p. 308.
2 Neal, iii. 360, 361. Walker's Sufferings of the Clergy, pp.122, 123,128. Owen's Oratio quinta ad Acadeiiiicos, anno 1657. "Per priniuni biennium vulgi fiiinnis et vulgaris fabulu."
XLVIII LIFE OF DR OWEN.
the author of " Hudibras," but even Clarendon and Hume, have writ- ten of the Puritans in the style of caricature, and cleverly confounding them imder a common name with ignorant and extravagant sectaries whom the Puritans all along condemned and disowned, have too long succeeded in representing the popular t}'pe of the Puritan as that of men of affected sanctity, pedantic and piebald dialect, sour temper, and unpolished manner. Those who indulge these ignorant mistakes forget that if the Puritan preachers were thus utterly deficient in matters of taste and refinement, they had received their training at Oxford and Cambridge, and that the reflection must, therefore, in all fairness, be extended to those seminaries. They forget, moreover, as has been well remarked, that " it is more reasonable, and certainly much more gene- rous, to fonn our judgment with regard to religious parties from the men among them who make their bequests to posterity, than from such as constitute the weakness of a body rather than its strength, and who die, as a matter of course, in the obscurity in which they have lived." ^ But it is remarkable, that all the leading men among the Puritan clergy were such as, even in the matter of external grace and polish, might have stood before kings. The native majesty of John Howe, refined by intercourse with families of noble birth, and his radiant countenance, as if fonned meliore Into, linger even in his portraits. Philip Henry, the playmate of princes, bore with him into his country parish that ^'unbought grace of life," which, in spite of his sterner qualities, attracted towards him the most polished families of his neighbourhood. Richard Baxter was the chosen associate of Sir Matthew Hale ; and, contrary even to the popular notions of those whose sympathies are all on the side of Puritanism, Owen bore with him into public life none of the uncouth and lumbering pedantry of the recluse, but associated with his more solid qualities all the lighter graces of courtesy and taste. He is described by one contemporary as "of universal affability, ready presence and discourse, liberal, grace- ful, and courteous demeanour, that speak him certainly (whatso- ever he be else) one that was more a gentleman than most of the clergy."^ And Dodwell says, " His personage was proper and comely, and he had a very graceful behaviour in the pulpit, an eloquent elo- cution, a winning and insinuating deportment, and could, by the per- suasion of his oratory, in conjunction with some other outward ad- vantages, move and wind the affections of his auditory almost as he pleased."^ It is with such a manner that we can conceive him to have