I
HIS KETIREMENT AND LAST DAYS. CIII
nanimous and heavenly-minded Puritan ! In one of his latest writings, when referring to the near approach of the daily expected and ear- nestly desired hour of his discharge from all farther service in this world, he had said, " In the continual prospect hereof do I yet live, and rejoice; which, among other advantages unspeakable, hath already given me an inconcernment in those oppositions which the passions or interests of men engage them in, of a very near alliance unto, and scarce distinguishable from, that which the grave will afford." And all the exercises of his death- bed were the prolonged and brightening experience of what he here describes. In a letter to his beloved friend Charles Fleetwood, on the day before his death, he thus beau- tifully expresses his Christian affection, and his good hope through grace : —
" Dear Sir, — Although I am not able to wi-ite one word myself, yet I am very desirous to speak one word more to you in this world, and do it by the hand of my wife. The continuance of your entire kindness, knowing what it is accompanied withal, is not only greatly valued by me, but will be a refreshment to me, as it is, even in my dying hour. I am going to Him whom my soul has loved, or rather who has loved me with an everlasting love, — which is the whole ground of all my consolation. The passage is very irksome and wearisome, through strong pains of various sorts, which are all issued in an intermitting fever. All things were provided to carry me to London to-day, according to the advice of my physicians ; but we are all disappointed by my utter disability to undertake the journey. I am leaving the ship of the church in a storm ; but whilst the great Pilot is in it, the loss of a poor under-rower will be inconsiderable. Live, and pray, and hope, and wait patiently, and do not despond ; the promise stands invincible, that He will never leave us, nor forsake us. I am greatly afflicted at the distempers of your dear lady ; the good Lord stand by her, and support and deliver her. My affec- tionate respects to her, and the rest of your relations, who are so dear to me in the Lord. Remember your dying friend with all fervency. I rest upon it that you do so, and am yours entirely, J. Owen."
The first sheet of his " Meditations on the Glory of Christ " had passed through the press under the superintendence of the Rev. William Payne, a Dissenting minister at Saffron Waldon, in Essex ; and on that person calling on him to inform him of the circumstance on the morning of the day he died, he exclaimed, with uplifted hands, and eyes looking upward, "I am glad to hear it; but, O brother Payne ! the long wished-for day is come at last, in which I shall see that glory in another manner than I have ever done, or was capable of doing, in this world." ^ Still it was no easy thing for that robust frame to , be broken to pieces, and to let the struggling spirit go free. His physicians, Dr Cox and Sir Edmund King, remarked on the unusual strength of that earthly house which was about to be dissolved ; while his more constant attendants on that consecrated hour were awe-struck by the mastery which his mighty and heaven- supported spirit maintained over his physical agonies. " In respect of ' Middleton, iii. 480.
CIV LIFE OF DE OWEN.
sicknesses, very long, languishing, and often sharp and violent, like the blows of inevitable death, yet was he both calm and submiss under all/'^ At length the struggle ceased ; and with eyes and hands uplifted, as if his last act was devotion, the spirit of Owen passed in silence into the world of glory. It happened on the 24th of August 1683, the anniversary of St Bartholomew's Day ; — a day memorable in the annals of the Church of Christ, as that in which the two thousand Non- conformist confessors had exposed themselves to poverty and perse- cution at the call of conscience, and in which heaven's gates had been opened wide to receive the martyred Protestants of France. Eleven days afterwards, a long and mournful procession, composed of more than sixty noblemen, in carriages drawn by six horses each, and of many others in mourning coaches and on horse-back, silently fol- lowed the mortal remains of Owen along the streets of London, and deposited them in Bunhill-fields, — the Puritan necropolis.^
" We have had a light in this candlestick," said the amiable David Clarkson, on the Sabbath following ; " we have had a light in this candlestick, which did not only enlighten the room, but gave light to others far and near: but it is put out. We did not sufficiently value it. I wish I might not say that our sins have put it out. We had a special honour and ornament, such as other churches would much prize ; but the crown has fallen from our heads, — yea, may I not add, ' Woe unto us, for we have sinned?'"^
Dr Owen had only reached the confines of old age when he died ; but the wonder is, that a life of such continuous action and severe study had not sooner burned out the lamp. It may be remarked of hun, as Andrew Fuller used to say of himself, that " he possessed a large portion of being." He is said to have stooped considerably during the later years of his life ; but when in his full vigour, his per- son was tall and majestic, while there was a singular mixture of gravity and sweetness in the expression of his countenance. His manners were courteous; his familiar conversation, though never deficient in gravity, was pleasantly seasoned with wit; and he was admired by his friends for his remarkable command of temper imder the most annoying provocations, and his tranquil magnani- mity in the midst of all the changes of fortune to which, in com- mon with all his great Puritan contemporaries, he was exposed. " His general frame was serious, cheerful, and discoursive, — his expres- sions savouring nothing of discontent, much of heaven and love to Christ, and saints, and all men ; which came from him so seriously and