But the combined duties of his two onerous offices at Oxford did ■ Asty, pp. xi. xii. ^ Lifg and Times of Philip Henry, p. 60.
HIS VICE-CHA5S'CELL6ESHIP. ltit
not absorb all the energies of Owen. His mind appears to have expanded with his position, and to have shown resources that were literally inexhaustible. The few years which saw him the chief agent in raising the university from the brink of ruin, were those in which he was most frequently summoned by Cromwell to his councils, and in which he gave to the world theological works which would have been sufficient of themselves, in the case of most men, to occupy and to recompense the energies of a lifetime. We now turn with him, then, for a little to the platform of public life, and to the toils of authorship.
On the 25th of August 1653 we again find him preaching, by com- mand, before Parliament, on occasion of that celebrated victory over the Dutch fleet which established the reputation of the arms of the Commonwealth by sea, and paved the way for an honourable and advantageous peace with Holland. In October of the same year he was invited by Cromwell to London, to take part, along with some other ministers, in a conference on Christian union. The matter is stated in such interesting terms in one of the newspapers of the day, and, besides, affords such a valuable incidental glimpse of Cromwell's administration, that we prefer giving it in the words of that docu- ment : — " Several ministers were treated with by his Excellency the Lord-General Cromwell, to persuade them that hold Christ, the head, and so are the same in fundamentals, to agree in love, — that there be no such divisions among people professing godliness as hath been, nor railing or reviling each other for difference only in forms. There were Mr Owen, Mr Marshall (Presbyterian), Mr Nye (Independent), Mr Jessey (Baptist), Mr Harrison, and others ; to whom the advice and counsel of his Excellency were so sweet and precious, and managed with such judgment and graciousness, that it is hoped it will much tend to persuade those that fear the Lord in spirit and truth to labour for the union of all God's people."^
It does not appear that any immediate practical measures resulted from this conference. The mistake, by which many such laudable attempts were defeated, was that of attempting too much. Incorpo- ration was sought, when they should have been satisfied with mutual Christian recognition and co-operation up to the point of agreement ; and sometimes a constrained silence on matters of difference, where there should rather have been a generous forbearance. But it is wrong to speak of such conferences and communings, when they failed of their immediate object, as either useless or fruitless. To the good men who mingled in them, it must have deepened the feeling of unity even where it did not increase its manifestation, and even uncon- sciously to themselves must have lowered the walls of division. Nor is it without interest and instruction to remark, that the best men of • Cromwelliana, Orrae, p. 109.
LIV LIFE OF DR OWEN.
that age and of the next were ever the readiest to give themselves to movements that had this aim. Owen, by the reproaches which he brought upon himself on this account from weaker brethren, showed himself to be before his age. The pure spirit of Howe, which dwelt in a region so far above the petty passions of earth, has expressed its longings to see the church made " more awful and more amiable " by union, in his essay " On Union among Protestants," and " On the Car- nality of Religious Contentions." Baxter, with all his passion for dia- lectics, felt and owned the power of these holy attractions, and longed the more for the everlasting rest, that he would there at length see the perfect realization of union.^ And the saintly Usher, prompted in part by the sublime reasonings of Howe, actually proposed a scheme of comprehension, of which, though defective in some of its provi- sions, and not permitted to be realized, God doubtless said, " It was good that it was in thine heart to do it." The Puritans did more than make unsuccessful experiments of union: they expounded in their writings many of the principles on which alone it can be accomplished ; and it seems now only to need a revival of religion from on high in order to accomplish what they so eagerly desired. They were the Davids who prepared the materials of the temple, — shall the Chris- tians of this age be the sons of peace who shall be honoured to build?
It was in all likelihood while Owen was attending in London on the meetings of this conference, that the senate embraced the opportu- nity of diplomating him Doctor of Divinity. For we find it recorded by Wood in his " Fasti Oxoniensis," that, " On Dec. 23, John Owen, M.A., dean of Ch. Ch., and vice-chancellor of the university, was then (he being at Lend.) diplomated doct. of div." He is said in his diploma to be " in palestra theologica exercitatissimus, in concionando assiduus et potens, in disputando sfcrenuus et acutus."^ Owen's friend, Thomas Goodwin, president of Magdalen College, was diplomated on the same occasion; and the honoured associates are sneeringiy de- scribed by Wood, after his manner, as " the two Atlases and patri- archs of Independency."^