The many passages of Providence, evidently working for your pre- servation, which I have received from some of yourselves, I willingly pass over. W^hat I have already said is sufficient to declare that to reason's eye you were as dead bones upon the earth. For our parts, who were endangered spectators at the best, we were but in the pro- phet's frame ; and to any question about your enlargement, could an- swer only, The Lord alone knows. And now, behold, the Lord hath
' " Idem huic urbi dominandi finis erit, qui parendi fiierit.'' — Senec. de Rom.
12G A MEMORIAL OF THE DELIVERANCE, ETC.
chosen you out to be examples of bis loving-kindness, in fetching mercy for you from beyond tlie ken of reason ; yea, fi-om above the reach of much precious faith. He hath brought water for you out of tlie flint. Reckon your deliverance under this head of operations, and I hope you will not be unthankful.
Use 2. You that have received so great mercy, we that have seen it, and all who have heard the doctrine confirmed, let us learn to live by faith. Live above all things that are seen ; subject them to the cross of Christ. Measure your condition by your interest in God's aU- sufficiency. Do not in distress calculate what such and such things can effect; but what God hath promised. Reckon upon that, for it shall come to pass. If you could get but this one thing by all your suf- ferings and dangers, to tiaist the Lord to the utmost extent of his pro- mises, it would prove a blessed captivity. All carnal fears would then be conquered, all sinful compliances with wicked men removed, &c.
Use 3. Be exhorted to great thankfulness, '^ you that have been made partakers of great deliverances. In great distresses very nature prompts the sons of men to great promises. You have heard the ridi- culous story of him who in a storm at sea promised to dedicate a wax candle to the blessed Virgin as big as the mast of his ship, which he was resolved when he came on shore to pay with one of twelve in the pound ! Let not the moral of that fable be found in any of you. Come not short of any of your engagements. No greater discovery of a hypocritical frame, than to flatter the Lord in ti'ouble, and to de- cline upon deliverance, in cold blood. The Lord of heaven give you strength to make good all your resolutions : — as private jJersons, in all godliness and honesty, following hard after God in every known way of his; — as magistrates, in justice, equity, and faithful serv'iug the kingdom of Christ. Especially, let them never beg in vain for help at your hands, who did not beg help in vain for you at the hands of God.
Use 4. Consider, if there be so much^ sweetness in a temporal deli- verance, oh ! what excellency is there in that eternal redemption which we have in the blood of Jesus ! If we rejoice for being delivered from them who could have killed the body, what unsi^eakable rejoicing ia there in that mercy whereby we are freed from the ■\\Tath to come'. Let this possess your thoughts, let this fill yoiu- souls, — let this be your haven from all former stonns. And here strike I sail, in this to abide with you and all the saints of God for ever.
' "Eruntlioiniciil.f , tjranni, fures, adultcii, raptorcs, sacrilogi, protlitorcs; infra ista omnia, infriatus est." — Senec. Ik-ncf., lib. i. " Gratianmi cessat dccuiijiis, \\h'\ recursus non fuorit."— Bern. Serm. 50.
2 " Si tanti vitrum, quanti Margaritum ?" — Tertul.
SERMON III.
RIGHTEOUS ZEAL ENCOURAGED
BT
DIVINE PROTECTION:
A DISCOURSE ABOUT TOLERATION, AND THE DUTY OF THE CIVIL MAGISTRATE ABOUT RELIGIOX, THEREUNTO ANNEXED.
PREFATORY NOTE.
The following sermon was preached before the House of Commons on January 31, 1648, which had been ajjpoiuted as a day of solemn liumiiiation in connection with the event of tlie preceding day, — tlie decapitation of Charles I. Accordin;;ly, no sermon of Owen has excited keener discussion. Because he consented to preach in these circumstances, he is held to have connived at a great crime, and actu- ally invested it with the sanctions of religion. In the opinion of Dr M'Ci ie (see " ^liscellaneous Writings," p. 501), liis conduct in this instance was " the greatest blot on his public life," and both his text and the title of his sermon could not fail to be interpreted as encouragement to those who had been accessory to the destruction of the unhappy monarch. On the other hand, some, like Mr Orme, urge that Owen preached by command ; that no sentiment of the seimon can be construed as approval of the regicide; and that the very passages (see jiaiagrapU at the foot of p. 1.34 and on p. 136) adduced in proof that Owen concurred in it, indicate his desire to keep free and aloof from the expression of any positive opinion on the subject. A bolder line of defence has been instituted, according to which Owen, like Milton, might have regarded the death of Charles as only the appropriate penalty for a long career of violence and duplicity, during which he had made the blood of the best subjects in the realm to How like water; and tliat our author, in preaching on this occasion, might have acted under a sense of duty, while discharging a task solemn and painful certainly, but still a task to whicli he might feel himself bouiul by higher considerations than meie regard to the authority which enjoined it. The argument to this effect is stated with great point and ability in his " Life," etc., vol. i. p. 40. This much is clear, that after the Restoration he was never called to account for his public appearance on this occasion by a government whr.se measures of vindictive retaliation against the Puritans are notorious. Asty's explanation of the fact has obvious weight : — " Ills discourse was so modest and inoffensive, that his friends could make no just exception, nor his enemies take an advantage of his words another day." — Me- moirs, p. 8. The only public expression of displeasure at this sermon was given in 1683, about a month before the grave closed over its author. In the school quadrangle of the University, — not too rich in honours to repudiate without serious loss the lustre shed upon it from the name of its great Puritan Vice-Chancellor, — a document containing some positions, extracted from the sermon and denounced as pernicious and damnable, was publicly burned. He suffered in good company; for propositions from the worlcs of Knox, Buchanan, Baxter, and others, wei'e condemned in the same decree, and committed to the same Hames. Some repara- tion for the insult offered in tiiis mean revenge was made, too late to soothe his feelings, had he needed solace under the affront, but tending so far to rescue his memory from unjust reproach, when, in 1710, by an order from the House of Lords, the Oxford decree was burned by the hands of the common hangman.