other minds. Of all his brethren few were | reader needs must follow where all the road so "fit for action." To the same cause to is so radiant. But Owen has no adventitious which he owed this practical ascendency, we attractions. His books lack the extempore are disposed to ascribe his popularity as a felicities and the reflected fellow-feeling which preacher; for we agree with Dr. Thompson, lent a charm to his spoken sermons; and on (Life of Owen, p. cvi.,) in thinking that Owen's the table-land of his controversial treatises, power in the pulpit must have been greater sentence follows sentence like a file of ironthan is usually surmised by his modern read- sides, in buff and rusty steel, a sturdy proces ers. Those who knew him describe him as sion, but a dingy uniform; and it is only here a singularly fluent and persuasive speaker; and there where a son of Anak has burst his and they also represent his social intercourse rags, that you glimpse a thought of uncommon as peculiarly vivacious and cheerful. From stature or wonderful proportions. Like canall which our inference is, that Owen was one didates for the modern ministry, in his youth of those happy people who, whether for busi- Owen had learned to write Latin, Greek, and ness or study, whether for conversation or Hebrew; but then, as now, English had no public speaking, can concentrate all their place in the academic curriculum. And had faculties on the immediate occasion, and who he been urged in maturer life to study the art do justice to themselves and the world, by of composition, most likely he would have doing justice to each matter as it successively frowned on his adviser. He would have comes to their hand. urged the "haste" which "the King's business" requires, and might have reminded us that viands are as wholesome on a wooden trencher as on a plate of gold. He would have told us that truth needs no tinsel, and that the road over a bare heath may be more direct than the pretty windings of the valley. Or, rather, he would have said, as he has written-" Know that you have to do with a person who, provided his words but clearly express the sentiments of his mind, entertains a fixed and absolute disregard of all elegance and ornaments of speech."

A well-informed and earnest speaker will always be popular, if he be tolerably fluent, and if he "shew himself friendly;" but no reputation and no talent will secure an audience to the automaton who is unconscious of his hearers, or to the misanthrope, who despises or dislikes them. And if, as Anthony à Wood informs us, "the persuasion of his oratory could move and wind the affections of his admiring auditory almost as he pleased," we can well believe that he possessed the "proper and comely personage, the graceful behavior in the pulpit, the eloquent elocution, and the winning and insinuating deportment," which this reluctant witness ascribes to him. With such advantages, we can understand how, dissolved into a stream of continuous discourse, the doctrines which we only know in their crystallized form of heads and particulars, became a gladsome river; and how the man who spoke them with sparkling eye and shining face was not shunned as a buckram pedant, but run after as a popular preacher. And yet, to his written style Owen is less indebted for his fame than almost any of the Puritans. Not to mention that his works have never been condensed into fresh pith and modern portableness by any congenial Fawcett, they never did exhibit the pathetic importunity and Demosthenic fervor of Baxter. In his Platonic loftiness Howe always dwelt apart; and there have been no glorious dreams since Bunyan woke amidst the beatific vision. Like a soft valley, where every turn reveals a cascade or a castle, or at least a picturesque cottage, Flavel lures us along by the vivid succession of his curious analogies and interesting stories; whilst all the way the path is green with kind humanity, and bright with Gospel blessedness. And like some sheltered cove, where the shells are all so brilliant, and the sea-plants all so curious, that the young naturalist can never leave off collecting, so profuse are the quaint sayings and the nice little anecdotes which Thomas Brooks showers from his "Golden Treasury," from his "Box," and his "Cabinet," that the

True: gold is welcome even in a purse of the coarsest canvas; and, although it is not in such caskets that people look for gems, no man would despise a diamond because he found it in an earthen porringer. In the treatises of Owen there is many a sentence which, set in a sermon, would shine like a brilliant; and there are ingots enough to make the fortune of a theological faculty. For instance, we open the first treatise in this new collec|tion of his works, and we read :-"It carrieth in it a great condecency unto Divine wisdom, that man should be restored unto the image of God, by Him who was the essential image of the Father; and that He was made like unto us, that we might be made like unto Him, and unto God through him;" and we are immediately reminded of a recent treatise on the Incarnation, and all its beautiful speculation regarding the "Pattern-Man." We read again till we come to the following remark:-"It is the nature of sincere goodness to give a delight and complacency unto the mind in the exercise of itself, and communication of its effects. A good man doth both delight in doing good, and hath an abundant reward for the doing it, in the doing of it ;” and how can we help recalling a memorable sermon "On the Immediate Reward of Obedience," and a no less memorable chapter in a Bridgewater treatise, "On the Inherent Pleasure of the Virtuous Affections?" And we read the chapter on "The Person of Christ the great Representative of God," and are startled by its foreshadowings of the sermons

tents; and we have frequently known valiant students who addressed themselves to the "Perseverance of the Saints," or the "Justification," but like settlers put ashore in a cane-brake, or in a jungle of prickly pears, after struggling for hours through the Preface or the General Considerations, they were glad to regain the water's edge, and take to their boat once more.

and the spiritual history of a remarkably honest and vigorous thinker, who, from doubting the doctrine of the Trinity, was led to recognize in the person of Jesus Christ the Alpha and Omega of his theology. It is possible that Archdeacon Wilberforce, and Chalmers, and Arnold, may never have perused the treatise in question; and it is equally possible that under the soporific influence of a heavy style, they may never have noticed passages It was their own loss, however, that they for which their own minds possessed such a did not reach the interior; for there they powerful affinity. But by the legitimate ex- would have found themselves in the presence pedient of appropriate language-perhaps by of one of the greatest of Theological intellects. means of some ornament or elegance"- Black and Cavendish were born ready-made Jeremy Taylor or Barrow would have arrest-chemists, and Linnæus and Cuvier were naed attention to such important thoughts; and turalists, in spite of themselves; and so, the cause of truth would have gained, had the there is a mental conformation which almost better divine been at least an equal orator. necessitated Augustine and Athanasius, CalHowever, there are "masters in Israel," | vin and Arminius, to be dogmatists and syswhose style has been remarkably meagre; tematic divines. With the opposite aptitudes and perhaps "Edwards on the Will" and for large generalization and subtile distinc"Butler's Analogy," would not have num- tion, as soon as some master-principle had bered many more readers, although they had gained possession of their devout understandbeen composed in the language of Addison. ings, they had no greater joy than to develop We must, therefore, notice another obstacle its all-embracing applications, and they which has hindered our author's popularity, sought to subjugate Christendom to its imand it is a fault of which the world is daily perial ascendency. By itself, the habit of becoming more and more intolerant. That lofty contemplation would have made them fault is prolixity. Dr. Owen did not take pietists or Christian psalmists, and a mere time to be brief; and in his polemical writ- turn for definition would have made them ings, he was so anxious to leave no cavil un- quibblers or schoolmen; but the two united, answered, that he spent, in closing loop-holes, and together animated by a strenuous faith, the strength which would have crushed the made them theologians. In such intellects foe in open battle. No misgiving as to the the seventeenth century abounded, but we champion's powers will ever cross the mind question if in dialectic skill, guided by sober of the spectators; but movements more rap-judgment, and in extensive acquirements, id would render the conflict more interesting, and the victory not less conclusive.* In the same way, that the effectiveness of Although there is only one door to the his controversial works is injured by this ex- kingdom of heaven, there is many an encursive tendency, so the practical impression trance to scientific divinity. There is the of his other works is too often suspended by gate of Free Inquiry as well as the gate of inopportune digressions; whilst every trea- Spiritual Wistfulness. And although there tise would have commanded a wider circula- are exceptional instances, on the whole we tion if divested of its irrelevant incum- can predict what school the new-comer will brances. Within the entire range of British join, by knowing the door through which he authorship there exists no grander contribu- entered. If from the wide fields of speculations toward a systematic Christology than tion he has sauntered inside the sacred inthe Exposition of the Hebrews, with its dis- closure; if he is an historian who has been sertations on the Saviour's priesthood; but carried captive by the documentary demonwhilst there are few theologians who have stration or a poet who has been arrested by not occasionally consulted it, those are still the spiritual sentiment or a philosopher fewer who have mastered its ponderous con- who has been won over by the Christian theIn his delightful reminiscences of Dr. Chalmers, Mr. Ory, and who has thus made a hale-hearted J. J. Gurney says, "I often think that particular men entrance within the precincts of the faith,bear about with them an analogy to particular animals; he is apt to patronize that gospel to which Chalmers is like a good-tempered lion; Wilberforce is like a bee." Dr. Owen often reminds us of an elephant; he has given his accession, and like Clemens the same ponderous movements-the same gentle saga-Alexandrinus, or Hugo Grotius, or Alphonse city-the same vast but unobtrusive powers. logical proboscis able to handle the heavy guns of Hugo de Lamartine, he will join that school where Grotius, and to untwist withal the tangled threads of Taste and Reason alternate with Revelation, Richard Baxter, in his encounters with John Goodwin he and where ancient classics and modern sages resembles his prototype in a leopard-hunt, where sheer strength is on the one side, and brisk agility on the other. are scarcely subordinate to the "men who And, to push our conceit no further, they say that this spake as they were moved by the Holy wary animal will never venture over a bridge till he Ghost." On the other hand, if "fleeing from has tried its strength, and is assured that it can bear him; and if we except the solitary break-down in the Waltonian the wrath to come," through the crevice controversy, our disputant was as cautious in choosing of some "faithful saying," he has struggled his ground as he was formidable when once he took up into enough of knowledge to calm his con

his position.

With a

mellowed by a deep spirituality, it yielded an equivalent to Dr. Owen.

In

that in his latter days, besides the Bible, he read nothing but "Owen on Spiritual-Mindedness," and the "Olney Hymns;" and we shall never despair of the Christianity of a country which finds numerous readers for his "Meditations on the Glory of Christ," and his "Exposition of the hundred and thirtieth Psalm."

science and give him peace with Heaven, the and instruction in righteousness. Many wrioracle which assured his spirit will be to him ters have done more for the details of Chrisunique in its nature and supreme in its tian conduct; but for purposes of heart-disciauthority, and, a debtor to that scheme to pline and for the nurture of devout affections, which he owes his very self, like Augustine, there is little uninspired authorship equal to and Cowper, and Chalmers, he will join that the more practical publications of Owen. school where Revelation is absolute, and the Life of that noble-hearted Christian phiwhere "Thus saith the Lord" makes an endlosopher, the late Dr. Welsh, it is mentioned of every matter. And without alleging that a long process of personal solicitude is the only right commencement of the Christian life, it is worthy of remark that the converts whose Christianity has thus commenced have usually joined that theological school which, in "salvation-work," makes least account of man and most account of God. Jeremy Taylor, and Hammond, and Barrow, were men who made religion their business; but still they were men who regarded religion as a life for God rather than a life from God, and in whose writings recognitions of Divine mercy and atonement and strengthening grace are comparatively faint and rare. But Bolton, and Bunyan, and Thomas Goodwin, were men who from a region of carelessness or ignorance were conducted through a long and darkling labyrinth of self-reproach and inward misery, and by a way which they knew not were brought out at last on a bright landing-place of assurance and praise; and, like Luther in the previous century, and like Halyburton, and Whitefield, and Jonathan Edwards, in the age succeeding, the strong sense of their own demerit led them to ascribe the happy change from first to last to the sovereign grace and good Spirit of God. It was in deep contrition and much anguish of soul that Owen's career began; and that creed, which is pre-eminently the religion of "broken hearts," became his system of theology.

"Children, live like Christians; I leave you the covenant to feed upon." Such was the dying exhortation of him who protected so well England and the Albigenses; and "the convenant" was the food with which the devout heroic lives of that godly time were nourished. This covenant was the sublime staple of Owen's theology. It suggested topics for his parliamentary sermons ;-"A Vision of Unchangeable Mercy," and "The Steadfastness of Promises." It attracted him to that book of the Bible in which the federal economy is especially unfolded. And, whether discoursing on the eternal purposes, or the extent of redemption—whether expounding the Mediatorial office, or the work of the sanctifying Spirit-branches of this tree of life re-appear in every treatise. In such discussions some may imagine that there can be nothing but barren speculation, or, at the best, an arduous and transcendental theosophy. However, when they come to examine for themselves they will be astonished at the mass of Scriptural authority on which they are based; and, unless we greatly err, they will find them peculiarly subservient to correction

And here we may notice a peculiarity of Owen's treatises, which is at once an excellence and a main cause of their redundancies. So systematic was his mind that he could only discuss a special topic with reference to the entire scheme of truth; and so constructive was his mind, that, not content with the confutation of his adversary, he loved to state and establish positively the truth impugned: to which we may add, so devout was his disposition, that, instead of leaving his thesis a dry demonstration, he was anxious to suffuse its doctrine with those spiritual charms which it wore to his own contemplation. All this adds to the bulk of his polemical writings. At the same time it adds to their value. Dr. Owen makes his reader feel that the point in debate is not an isolated dogma, but a part of the "whole counsel of God;" and by the positive as well as practical form in which he presents it, he does all which a disputant can to counteract the skeptical and pragmatical tendencies of religious controversy. Hence, too, it comes to pass that, with one of the commonplaces of Protestantism or Calvinism for a nucleus, his works are most of them virtual systems of doctrino-practical divinity.

The alluvial surface of a country takes its complexion from the prevailing rock-formation. The Essays of Foster, and the Sermons of Chalmers excepted, the evangelical theology of the last hundred years has been chiefly alluvial; and in its miscellaneous composition the element which we chiefly recognize is a detritus from Mount Owen. To be sure, a good deal of it is the decomposition of a more recent conglomerate, but a conglomerate in which larger boulders of the original formation are still discernible. The sermon-makers of the present day may read Cecil and Romaine and Andrew Fuller; and in doing this they are studying the men who studied Owen. But why not study the original? It does good to an ordinary understanding to hold fellowship with a master mind; and it would greatly freshen the ministrations of our pulpits, if, with the electric eye of modern culture, and with minds alive to our modern exigency, preachers held converse direct with the prime sources of British theology. We could imagine the reader of Boston producing

and ranging their horses one on each side of him, they entered in a conversation something like the following:-First Lawyer. I believe you are a preacher, sir? Lee. Yes; I generally pass for one. First Lawyer. You preach very often, I suppose Lee. Generally every day, frequently twice, or more. Second Lawyer. How do you find time to study, when you preach so often? Lee. I study when riding, and read when resting. First Lawyer. But do not write your sermons? Lee. No; not very often. Second Lawyer. Do you not often make mistakes in preaching extemporaneously? Lee. I do, sometimes. Second Lawyer. How do you do then? Do you correct them? Lee. That depends upon the character of the mistake. I was preaching the other day, and I went to quote the text: "All liars shall have their part in the lake that burneth with fire and brimstone;" and, by mistake, I said, “All lawyers shall have their part-" Second Lawyer (interrupting him). What did you do with that? Did you correct it? Lee. Oh, no, indeed! It was so nearly true, I didn't think it worth while to correct it. Humph!" said one of them, with a hasty and impatient glance at the other; "I don't know whether you are the more knave or fool !" Neither," he quietly replied, turning at the same time his mischievous eyes from one to the other; "I believe I am just between the two!"

Finding they were measuring wit with a master, and mortified at their discomfiture, the knights of the green bag drove on, leaving the victor to solitude and his own reflections.