• Anon. Mem., p. xxix.
' It is remarkable that in this treatise, p. 72-100, is to be found an explication of the last clause of the 6th verse of the 6th chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews, ■which is strangely omitted in all editions of the " Exposition." The author has had
XCIV LIFE OF DR OWEN.
tudes who had merely played a part in religion in Cromwell's days had long since thrown off the mask, and taken amends for their re- straints in the most shameless excesses ; when to be sternly moral was almost to incur the suspicion of disloyalty ; when to be called a Puritan was, with many, more discreditable than to be called a debauchee ; and when the noon-day licentiousness of Charles' court, descending through the inferior ranks of life, carried every thing before it but what was rooted and grounded in a living piety/
But the greatest work of Owen at this period Vv^as one which we leave its elaborate title to describe, — " A Discourse concerning the Holy Spirit ; in which an account is given of his name, nature, per- sonality, dispensation, operations, and effects. His whole work in the Old and New Creation is explained; the doctrine concerning it vin- dicated from opposition and reproaches. The nature and necessity also of Gospel holiness, the difference between grace and morality, or a spiritual life to God in evangelical obedience and a course of moral virtues, is stated and explained." The better part of two cen- turies have elapsed since this work of Owen's was given to the world, and yet no English work on the same vital subject has approached it in exhaustive fulness.^ Wilberforce owns his obligations to it as one of his great theological text-books ; and Cecil declares that it had been to him " a treasure-house" of divinity.^ It was not merely the two common extremes of error that Owen grappled with in this masterly treatise, — that of the enthusiasts who talked of the inward light and of secret revelations, and that of the Socinians who did not believe that there was any Holy Ghost, and of whose scanty creed it has been severely said, that it is not likely often to become the faith of men of genius. There was a third class of writers at that time, from whom Owen apprehended more danger than either, — men who, in their preaching, dwelt much upon the credentials of the Bible, but little upon its truths, — who would have defended even the doctrine of the Holy Spirit as an article of their creed, and at the same time would have derided all reference to the actual work of divine grace upon a human heart as the "weak imagination of distempered minds." Much of Owen's treatise has reference to these accommodating and courtly divines, and is, in fact, a vindication of the reality of the spiritual life. He is not always able to repress his satire against these writers. Some of them had complained that they were reproached as " rational
this fact pointed out to liim by his learned and venerated colleague, Dr Brown of Edinburgh.
' Burnet's Own Times, i. 262-2CA.
* An excellent posthumous work on the Holy Spirit, by the late Dr Jamieson of Edinburgh, edited with memoir by the Rev. Andrew Sommerville, deserves to be better known. It displays more than one of the best qualities of Owen.
' Cecil's Work?, ii. 514 — Remains.
i
HIS EETIREMENT AND LAST DAYS. XCV
divines;" to which he replied, that if they were so reproached, it was, so far as he could discern, as Jerome was beaten by an angel for being a Ciceronian (in the judgment of some), very undeservedly/
Few glimpses are given us of Owen's domestic history ; but it ap- pears that, in January 1676, he was bereaved of his first wife. One of his early biographers says that she " was an excellent and comely person, very affectionate towards him, and met with suitable returns."^ He remained a widower for about eighteen months, when he married a lady of the name of Michel, the daughter of a family of rank in Dorsetshire, and the widow of Thomas D'Oyley, Esq. of Chiselhamp- ton, near Stadham. This lady brought Dr Owen a considerable for- tune ; which, with his own property, and a legacy that was left him about the same time by his cousin, Martyn Owen, made his condition easy, and even affluent, so that he was able to keep a carriage dur- ing his remaining years. On all which Anthony Wood remarks, with monkish spite, that " Owen took all occasions to enjoy the comfort- able importances of this life."^
Many sjrmptoms were now beginning to make it evident that Owen's public career was drawing to a close. The excitements and anxieties of a most eventful Hfe, and the fatigues of severe study, were making themselves visible in more than one disease. Asthma afflicted him with such severity as often to unfit him for preaching; and stone, the frequent and agonizing disease of studious men in those times, gave no uncertain signs of its presence. In these circum- stances it became necessary to obtain assistants, both in the pastorate of the church in Leadenhall street, and also to act as his amanuenses
' Address to the readers, p. xH. The whole of Owen's comprehensive plan, however, was not completed in this central treatise. New treatises continued to appear at intervals, giving to some important branch of his subject a more full discussion. In 1677 appear(;d "The Reason of Faitli; or, an answer to the inquiry, Wherefore we believe the Scriptures to be the Word of God ?" In 1678, " The Causes, Ways and Means of Understanding the Mind of God as Revealed in his Word; and a declaration of the perspicuity of tlie Scriptures, with the exter- nal means of the interpretation of them." In 1682, "Tiie Work of the Holy Spirit in Prayer; with a brief inquiry into the nature and use of mental prayers and forms." At length, in 1693, two posthumous discourses, "On the Work of the Spirit as a Comforter, and as he is the Author of Spiritual Gifts," filled up Owen's elaborate outlines. — Orme, p. 293.