RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Overton Owen
the Saints' Perseverance Explained and Confirmed (1654). Some of his best shorter treatises of this period were : Of the Mortification of Sin in Believers (1656); Of Communion with God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, each Person distinctly in Love, Grace, and Consolation (1657), a piece of wire-drawn mysticism; Of Schism (1657), an ingenious attempt to exonerate the non-conformists from schism; Temptation (1658); and Of the Divine Original Authority, Self-evidencing Light and Power of the Scriptures (1659). Owen was unfriendly to Cromwell's assumption of the protectorship, and he took no part in his installation in that office. A meeting of the Independents, by Cromwell's permission, was held at the Savoy in 1658, when a declaration of faith was drawn up, for which Owen wrote the preface. While the Savoy meetings were going on, Cromwell died and his death made a great change in Owen's fortunes. The dean preached before the first parliament of the new protector. Owen was mixed up with consultations at Wallingford House, which ended in the fall of Richard, and the recalling of the Long Parliament. Owen preached before the members for the last time in May, 1659; and in Mar., 1660, the House of Commons discharged him from his deanery, and replaced Reynolds.
He now retired to his estate at Stadham and devoted himself to compiling Theologoumena pantodapa (1661), an encyclopedic Latin treatise on the history of religion and theology, from the Creation to the Reformation. While the Bill of Uniformity (see Uniformity, Act of) was pending, he tendered a temperate protest, A Discourse concerning Liturgies and their Imposition (London, 1662); and on the Conventicle Bill (see Conventicle Act) he presented a minute to Parliament in 1671. By the former together with Animadversions (1662) and the Vindication of it (1664) he was thought to have rendered such a service to Protestant religion that Lord Clarendon offered him high preferment if he would conform to the Church of England. After being indicted for holding religious services in his house, and escaping imprisonment in 1664-65, he removed to London. He had powerful friends at court. The duke of York discussed the rights and wrongs of non-conformity with him, and Charles II. gave him private audience and a thousand guineas for the sufferers by the penal laws. Notwithstanding the Conventicle Act he was suffered to preach, and, after dallying with Baxter's project for a union of Presbyterians and Independents, he accepted, in 1673, a pastorate on Leadenhall Street. In his Pneumatologia; or Discourse on the Holy Spirit (1674); Doctrine of Justification by Faith through the Imputation of the Righteousness of Christ (1677); Christologia (1679); Church of Rome no Safe Guide (1679) and Union among Protestants (1680) he bent his whole strength to the task of arresting the movement toward Rome on the one hand and rationalism on the other. He replied to an attack by Stillingfleet on dissenters by Brief Vindication of Nonconformists from the charge of Schism (1681) and an Inquiry into the Original Nature, Institution, Power, Order, and Communion of Evangelical Churches (1681), wherein he endeavored to prove that the
ecclesiastical polity of the first two centuries was congregational. He published Phronema pneumatos; or the Grace of Being Spiritually-Minded (1681), Of the Work of the Holy Spirit in Prayer (1682), and at his death, Meditations and Discourses on the Glory of Christ (1696), a refreshing devotional book.
Owen remonstrated with the Congregationalists of New England for their intolerance and declined the presidency of Harvard College. In appearance he was tall and strong, and in disposition amiable. He was one of the most eminent of Protestant divines. He was a trenchant controversialist, and his learning was vast, varied, and profound; his mastery of Calvinism was complete. Other works should be noted: Ezercitations on the Epistle to the Hebrews (1668-84); A Brief Instruction in the Worship of God and Discipline of the Churches of the New Testament (1669); and also A Complete Collection of Sermons (1721). Works of John Owen have been edited by T. Russell, with best biography by W. Orme (28 vols., London, 1826) ; and by W H. Goold, with Life by A. Thomson (24 vols., London, 1850-55; American edition by C. W. Quick, 17 vols., Philadelphia, 1865-69).
2. Church of England bishop of St. David's; b. at Llanegan (26 m. s.s.w. of Carnarvon), Carnarvonshire, Wales, Aug. 24, 1854. He was educated at Jesus College, Oxford (B.A., 1876; M.A., 1879), and was ordered deacon in 1879 and advanced to the priesthood in 1880. He was tutor, Welsh professor, and classical lecturer in St. David's College, Lampeter, Wales (1879-85); warden and head master of Llandovery College (1885-89); principal of St. David's College, sinecure rector of Llangeler, Carmarthenshire, and canon of Llanfair (first comportation) in St. Alban's Cathedral (1889-97); and in 1897 was consecrated bishop of St. David's. He was also dean of St. Asaph in 1890-92 and prebendary of Johannes Griffith in 1892-96.
Bibliography: On 1 consult, besides the lives in the Works, ut sup.; A. a Wood, Athence Oxonienses, ed. P. Bliss, 4 vols., London, 1813-20; T. Wright, Biographia Britannica literaria, London, 1846; DNB, xlii. 424-428 (where scattering notices are indicated).
OWEN, ROBERT: English socialist and philanthropist; b. at Newtown (8 m. s.w. of Montgomery), Montgomeryshire, North Wales, May 14, 1771; d. there Nov. 19, 1858. The son of poor parents, he procured a situation in London at the age of fourteen, and subsequently had charge of the Chorlton Mills, near Manchester, and a cotton-spinning manufactory at New Lanark, Scotland. His benevolent schemes secured a radical change in the morals of the operatives of New Lanark, and accomplished the education of their children. The reputation of his success spread rapidly, and attracted the attention of many philanthropists and distinguished men. Owen published New View of Society, or Essays on the Formation of Human Character (London, 1813), in which he developed a theory of modified communism. In 1824 he visited the United States, where he purchased a tract of land on the Wabash in Indiana, and founded New Harmony (see Communism, II., 6). This communistic enterprise was a complete failure. Returning to England
Owen Ozanam