PREFATORY NOTE.
TnE complete title of the earlier editions of tlie following^ sermon indicates tlie design of tlie author, — "Concerning the Kingdom of Christ, and the Power of tiie Civil Magistrate ahout the thinps of the ^V'o)•ship of God." It was preached to the Parliament on October 13, l(J5-2, "a day of solemn humiliation." It was the time of the naval Avar witli the Dntcii. The bill for a New Representative, or, in other words, the question whether tlie Long Parliament should now be dissolved, was keenly agitated. The weightier question, as to the settlement of the Constitution, burdened and perplexed the nation. During the month in which the sermon was preached, numerous private confei-ences on the former point took place between the leaders of the Parliament and the officers of the Army. These circumstances may account for the appointment of a day of hnmiliation. What determined Owen to inalvc choice of the delicate and important subject of which he treats in this sermon, might be the prevalence of a desire in many quarters for a proper adjustment of ecclesiastical affairs. A petition from the Army (see " White- loeke's Memorials," p. 516) had been presented to the Parliament on the 13th of August lG,i2, " reciting that they had often sought tlie Lord, and desire these particulars to 1)0 considered." Then follows a list of twelve "particulars;" the first of which is, " That speedy and effectual means be used for promoting the gospel, profane and scandalous ministers bo outed, good preachers encouraged, maintenance for them provided, and tithes taken away."
The sermon breathes a spirit weary of the lengthened confusion which had dis- tracted the land. The principles contained in it raise (juestions as important in themselves, and as fresh in interest now, as in the days when Owen lived and preached. Whatever may be thought of his views on the relation of the magi- strate to the church, this sermon, in which his judgment is declared on this topic of paramount and engrossing moment, has evidently been prepared with unusual care — Ed.
SEEMON IX.
CHRIST'S KINGDOM AND THE JVIAGISTRATE'S POWER.
" I Daniel was grieved in my spirit in the midst of my body, and the visions of my head troubled me. I came near unto one of them that stood by, and asked liim the truth of all this. So he told me, and made me know the interpreta- tion of the things." — Dan. vii. 15, 16.
What there is of concernment for the right understanding of these words in that part of the chapter which goes before, may be consi- dered in the opening of the words themselves ; and therefore I shall immediately attend thereunto.
There are in them four things considerable :■ — I. The state and con- dition which Daniel, the penman of this prophecy, expresseth himself to be in, — wherein he hath companions in the days wherein we live : " He was grieved in his spirit in the midst of his body." II. The cause and means whereby he was brought into this perplexed frame of spirit: " The visions of his head troubled him." III. The remedy he used for his delivery from that entangled condition of spirit where- in he was : " He went nigh to one of them that stood by, and asked him the truth of all this." IV. The issue of that application lie made to that one that stood by for redress : " He told him, and made him know the interpretation of the things." — All these I shall briefly open unto you, that I may lay a fovmdation for the truth which the Lord hath furnished me with to hold out unto you this day.
I. In the first, the person spoken of is Daniel himself: " I Daniel." He bears this testimony concerning himself, and his condition was, — " He was grieved in his spirit."
The person himself was a man highly favoured of God above all in his generation ; so richly furnished with gifts and graces that he is once and again brought forth as an example, and instanced in by God himself upon the account of eminence in wisdom and piety. Yet all this preserves him not from falling into this perplexed condi- tion, Dan. i. 17-20; Ezek. xiv. 14, xx\iii. 3. Now, as the principal vrork of all the holy prophets, which have been since the world began,
368 Christ's kingdom and
Luke i. 70; 1 Pet. i. 10-12, was to preach, set forth, and declare the Lord Jesus Christ, the Messiah who was for to come; so some especial concernments of his person, righteousness, and kingdom, were in especial manner committed vmto them respectively; — his passion and righteousness to Isaiah; the covenant of grace in him to Jere- miah ; and to this Daniel, most eminently, the great works of the pro- vidence of God in the shaking and overturning of kingdoms and nations in a subserviency to his kingdom. With the revelation hereof, for the consolation of the church in all ages, did the Lord honour him of whom we speak.
For the present he describes himself in a somewhat perplexed con- dition. His spirit (mind and soul) was giieved, sick, troubled, or disquieted in the midst of his body ; that is, deeply, nearly, closely : — it sets out the greatness of his trouble, the anxiety of his thoughts within him. Like David, when he expostulated with his soul about it, — " Why art thou so sad, my soul ? and why art thou so disquieted within me?" Ps. xliii. 5, — he knew not what to say, what to do, nor wherewith to relieve himself He was filled with sad thoughts, sad apprehensions of what was to come to pass, and what might be the issue of the things that had been discovered unto him. This, I say, is the frame and temper he describes himself to be in, — a man under sad apprehensions of the issues and events of things and the dispen- sations of God (as many are at this day) ; and upon that account closely and nearly perplexed.