' Vindication of Owen by a fiiendly Scrutiny, etc., p. 38.
' Stoiighton's Spiritual Heroes.
' " Funeral Sermon on the most lamented death of the late reverend and learned •lohn Owen, D.D., preached the next Lord's day after his interment." By David Clarkson, B.D.
I
HIS RETIREMENT AND LAST DAYS. CV
spontaneously, as if grace and nature were in him reconciled, and but one thing/' ^ Such is the portrait of Owen that has descended to us from those who best "knew his manner of life;" and our regret is all the greater, that we are constrained to receive the description in this general form, and that biography has opened to us so few of those glimpses of his domestic and social life which would have enabled us to " catch the living manners as they rose," and to fill up for our- selves the less strongly defined outlines of his character.
Our business, however, is more with Dr Owen in his various pubUe relations, and it seems to be a fit conclusion of this Memoir, that we should now attempt, in a few closing paragraphs, to express the esti- mate which a review of his conduct in these relations warrants us to form of his character. One of the most natural errors into which a biographer is in danger of being betrayed, is that of asserting the supe- riority of the individual who has been the subject of his memoir to all his contemporaries ; and it would probably require no great stretch of ingenuity or eloquent advocacy to bring out Dr Owen as at least " primus inter pares." In finding our way, however, to such con- clusions, almost every thing depends on the particular excellence on Avhicli we fix as our standard of judgment; and we are persuaded that were we allowed to select a separate excellence in each case as our standard, we could bring out each of the three great Puri- tans as, in his turn, the greatest. Let impressive eloquence in the pulpit and ubiquitous activity out of it be the standard, and all this crowned with successes tiTily apostolical, and must not every preacher of his age yield the palm to Richard Baxter ? Or let our task be to search for the man in that age of intellectual giants who was most at home in the philosophy of Christianity, whose imagina- tion could bear every subject he touched upward into the sun-light, and cover it with the splendours of the firmament, and would we not lay the crown at the feet of the gi'eatly good John Howe ? But let the question be. Who among all the Puritans was the most remark- able for his intimate and profound acquaintance with the truths of revelation? who could shed the greatest amount of light upon a selected portion of the Word of God, discovering its hidden riches, unfolding its connections and harmonies, and bringing the most ab- stnise doctrines of revelation to bear upon the conduct and the life ? who was the " interpreter, one amongst a thousand?" or let other excellencies that we are about to specify be chosen as the standard, and will not the name of Dr Owen, in this case, obtain an unhesitat- ing and unanimous suffrage ? Such a mode, therefore, of expressing our estimate is not only invidious, but almost certain to fail, after all, in conveying a distinct and accurate conception of the character we ' Vindication of Owen by a friendly Scrutiny, etc., p. 38.
CVI LIFE OF Dll OWEN.
commend. We prefer, therefore, to contemplate Dr Owen in his principal relations and most prominent mental features, and to paint a portrait without fashioning an idol.
The first excellence we have to name is one in regard to which, we are persuaded, the modem popular estimate has fallen considerably below the truth. We refer to the qualities of Owen as a preacher. No one who is familiar with his printed sermons, and has marked the rich ore of theology with which they abound, will refuse to him the praise of a great seraion-maker ; but this gift is not always found united in the same person with that other excellence which is equally necessary to constitute the preacher, — the power, namely, of express- ing all the sentiment and feeling contained in the words by means of the living voice. And the general impression seems to be, that Dr Owen was deficient in this quality, and that his involved sentences, though easily overlooked in a composition read in secret, must, without the accompaniments of a most perfect delivery, have been fatal to their effect upon a public audience. It is even supposed that his intellectual habits must have been unfavourable to his readiness as an orator, and that while, hke Addison, he had abundance of gold in the bank, he was frequently at a loss for ready money. But Owen's contemporaries report far differently ; and the admiring judg- ment of some of them is the more to be relied on, that, as in the case of Anthony Wood, it was given with a grudge. Their descriptions, indeed, would lead us to conclude that his eloquence was of the per- suasive and insinuating, rather than, like Baxter s, of the impassioned kind, — the dew, and not the tempest ; but in this form of eloquence he appears to have reached great success. His amiable colleague, Mr Clarkson, speaking of " the admirable facility with which he could discourse on any subject," desciibes him as " never at a loss for lan- guage, and better expressing himself extempore than others with premeditation ;" and retaining this felicity of diction and mastery of his thoughts " in the presence even of the highest persons in the nation." We have already had occasion to quote Wood's represen- tation of Owen's oratory, as " moving and winding the affections of his auditory almost as he pleased ; "^ and a \mter of great judgment and discrimination, who had often heard Owen preach, speaks of him as "so great an ornament to the pulpit, that, for matter, manner, and efficacy on the hearers, he represented indeed an ambassador of the Most High, a teacher of the oracles of God. His person and deportment were so genteel and graceful, that rendered him when present as affecting, or more than his works and fame when absent. This advanced the lustre of his internal excellencies, by shining through so bright a lantern." * The words seem to be Dodwell's, but they are quoted Ity Wood with approval.