" Preached as though he ne'er should preach again ; And like a dying man to dying men."
There was no possibility of silencing these preachers at such a mo- ment. And the fall of Clarendon and the disorace of Sheldon soon afterwards helped to prolong and enlarge their precarious liberty.
Many tracts, for the most part published anonymously, and with- out even the printer's name, had issued from Owen's pen during these distracting years, having for their object to represent the impolicy and injustice of persecution for conscience' sake.^ He had also published
' Of these Mr Orme enumerates the following: — 1. "An Account of the Groirnds and Reasons on wliicli the Protestant Dissenters Deiire their Libert}'." 2. " A Letter concerning the Present Excommunications." 3. " Tlie Present Distresses on Nonconformists Examined." 4. " Indulgence and Toleration Considered, in a Letter to a Person of Honour." 5. " A Peace-offering, in an Apology and humble Plea for Liberty of Couscience." — P. 234.
LXXXIV" LIEE OF DR OWEN.
" A Brief Instruction in tlie Worship of God and Discipline of the Churches of the New Testament, by way of question and answer," — a title which sufficiently describes the book;^ and some years earlier, a well compacted and admirably reasoned "Discourse concerning Liturgies and their Imposition," which illustrates the principle on which, when a student at Oxford, he had resisted the impositions of Laud, — a principle which reaches to the very foundation of the argu- ment between the High Churchman and the Puritan. And his pub- lications during the following year show with what untiring assiduity, in the midst of all those outward storms, he had been plying the work of authorship, and laying up rich stores for posterity. Three of Owen's best works bear the date of 1668.
First, there is his treatise " On the Nature, Power, Deceit, and Prevalence of Indwelling Sin in Believers ; " on which Dr Chalmers has well remarked, that " there is no treatise of its learned and pious author more fitted to be useful to the Christian disciple ; and that it is most important to be instructed on this subject by one who had reached such lofty attainments in holiness, and whose profound and experimental acquaintance with the spiritual life so well fitted him for expounding its nature and operations."^ Next came his " Exposition of the loOth Psalm," — a work which, as we have already hinted, stood intimately connected with the histoiy of Owen's own inner life; and which, conducting the reader through the turnings and wind- ings along many of which he himself had wandered in the season of his spiritual distresses, shows him the way in which he at length found peace. When Owen sat down to the exposition of this psalm, it was not with the mere literary implements of study scattered around him, or in the spirit with which the mere scholar may be supposed to sit down to the explanation of an ancient classic; but, when he laid open the book of God, he laid open at the same time the book of his own heart and of his own history, and produced a book which, with all its acknowledged prolixity, and even its occasional obscurity, is rich in golden thoughts, and instinct with the living experience of " one who spake what he knew, and testified what he had seen."
Then appeared the first volume of Owen's greatest work, his " Ex- position of the Epistle to the Hebrews," — a work which it would be alike superfluous to describe or to praise.' For more than twenty
' The publication of this Catechism gave occasion to proposals for union among the Presbyterians and Independents, addressed by the sanguine Baxter to Dr Owen, and led to lengthened correspondence and negotiation. For reasons for- merly adverted to, the scheme proved abortive. One of Owen's letters on this subject has been preserved, and appears in the Appendix. AVe are not sure that in every part of it we could vindicate the Doctor's consistency.
2 Introductory Essay to Owen on Indwelling Sin, pp. xviii., xix.
* The second volume was published in 1674 ; the third in 1680; the fourth was posthumous, but was left fit for the press, and appeared in 1684.
HIS EETIREMENT AND LAST DAYS. LXXXV
years his thoughts had been turned to the preparing of this colossal commentary on the most difficult of all the Pauline epistles ; and at length he had given himself to it with ripened powers, — with the gathered treasures of an almost universal reading, and with the richer treasures still of a deep Christian experience. Not disdainful of the labours of those who had gone before him, he yet found that the mine had been opened, rather than exhausted ; and, as he himself strongly expressed it, that " sufficient ground for renewed investigation had been left, not only for the present generation, but for all them that should succeed, to the consummation of all things." The spirit and manner in which he pursued his work is described by himself, and forms one of the most valuable portions of autobiography in all Owen's writings : —
" For the exposition of the epistle itself, I confess, as was said before, that I have had thoughts of it for many years, and have not been without regard to it in the whole course of my studies. But yet I must now say, that, after all my searching and reading, prayer and assiduous meditation have been my only resort, and by far the most useful means of light and assistance. By these have my thoughts been freed from many an entanglement, into which the writings of others had cast me, or from which they could not deliver me. Care- ful I have been, as of my life and soul, to bring no prejudicate sense to the words, — to impose no meaning of my own or other men's upon them, nor to be imposed on by the reasonings, pretences, or curi- osities of any; but always went nakedly to the Word itself, to learn humbly the mind of God in it, and to express it as he should enable me. To this end, I always considered, in the first place, the sense, meaning, and unport of the words of the text, — their original deriva- tion, use in other authors, especially m the LXX. of the Old Testa- ment, in the books of the New, and particularly the writings of the same author. Ofttimes the words expressed out of the Hebrew, or the things alluded to among that people, I found to give much liglit to the words of the apostle. To the general rule of attending to the design and scope of the place, the subject treated of, mediums fixed on for arguments, and methods of reasoning, I still kept in my eye the time and season of writing this epistle ; the state and condition of those to whom it was written; their persuasions, prejudices, customs, light, and traditions. I kept also in my view the covenant and wor- ship of the church of old ; the translation of covenant privileges and worship to the Gentiles upon a new account ; the course of providen- tial dispensations that the Jews were under; the near expiration of their church and state ; the speedy approach of their utter abolition and destruction, with the temptations that befell them on all these various accounts; — without which it is impossible for any one justly