LXXXVI LIFE OF DR OWEN.
to follow the apostle, so as to keep close to his design or fully to under- staud his meaning."^ The result has been, a work unequalled in ex- cellence, except, perhaps, by Vitringa's noble Commentary on Isaiah. It is quite true, that in the department of verbal criticism, and even in the exposition of some occasional passages, future expositors may have found Owen at fault, — it is even true that the Rabbinical lore with which the work abounds does far more to cumber than to illus- trate the text ; but when all this has been conceded, how amazing is the power with which Owen has unfolded the proportions, and brought out the meaning and spirit, of this massive epistle ! It is like some vast minster filled with solemn light, on whose minuter details it might be easy to suggest improvement; but whose stable walls and noble columns astonish you at the skill and strength of the builder the longer you gaze ; and there is true sublimity in the exclamation with which Owen laid down his pen when he had finished it: "Now, my work is done ; it is time for me to die." Perhaps no minister in Great Britain or America for the last hundred and fifty years has sat down to the exposition of this portion of inspired truth without consulting Owen's commentary. The appalling magnitude of the work is the most formidable obstacle to its usefulness ; and this the author himself seems to have anticipated even in his own age of ponderous and portly folios; for we find him modestly suggesting the possibiHty of treating it as if it were three separate works, and of reading the philological, or the exegetical, or the practical portion alone.^ We are quite aware that one man of great eminence has spoken in terms of disparage- ment almost bordering on contempt of one part of this great work, — " The Preliminary Exercitations;"^ but we must remember Hall's love of literary paradoxes, in common with the great lexicographer whom he imitated ; and those who are familiar with the writings of Owen — which Hall acknowledges he was not, — will be more disposed to sub- scribe to the glowing terms in which his great rival in eloquence has spoken of Owen's Exposition : " Let me again recommend your studious and sustained attention," says Dr Chalmers to his students, "to the Epistle to the Hebrews; and I should rejoice if any of you felt emboldened on my advice to grapple with a work so pon- derous as Owen's commentary on that epistle, — a lengthened and laborious enterprise, certainly, but now is your season for abundant labour. And the only thing to be attended to is, that, in virtue of being well directed, it shall not be wasted on a bulky, though at the same time profitless erudition. I promise you a hundred-fold more advantage from the perusal of this greatest work of John Owen, than
' Preface. ^ Address to Christian Reader, vol. ii.
' Miscellaneous Gleanings from Hall's Conversational Remarks, by the late Dr Buhner of Bervvick-on-Tweed. Hall's Works, vi. 147.
HIS RETlflEMENT AND LAST DAYS. LXXXVII
from the perusal of all that has been written on the subject of the heathen sacrifices. It is a work of gigantic strength as well as gigan- tic size; and he who hath mastered it is very little short, both in re- spect to the doctrinal and the practical of Christianity, of being an erudite and accomplished theologian."^
It has been remarked, that there is no lesson so difficult to learn as that of true religious toleration, for almost every sect in turn, when tempted by the power, has resorted to the practice of persecu- tion; and this remark has seldom obtained more striking confirma- tion than in what was occurring at this time in another part of the world. While in England the Independents, and Nonconformists generally, were passing from one degree of persecution to another, at the hands of the restored adherents of Prelacy ; the Independents of New England were perpetrating even greater severities against the Baptists and Quakers in that infant colony. Whipping, fines, impri- sonment, selling into slavery, were punishments inflicted by them on thousands who, after all, did not differ from their persecutors on any point that was fundamental in religion. One of Owen's biographers has taken very unnecessary pains to show that the conduct of these churches had no connection with their principles as Independents; but this only renders their conduct the more inexcusable, and proves how deeply rooted the spirit of intolerance is in human nature. Owen and his friends heard of these events with indignation and shame, and even feared that they might be turned to their disadvan- tage in England ; and, in a letter subscribed along with him by all his brethren in London, faithfully remonstrated with the New England persecutors. " We only make it our hearty request," said they, " that you will trust God with his truth and ways, so far as to suspend all rigorous proceedings in corporeal restraints or punishments on persons that dissent from you, and practise the principles of their dissent without danger or disturbance to the civil peace of the place." Sound advice is here given, but we should have relished a little more of the severity of stern rebuke.^