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Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: ORC-PAI |
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OWEN, JOHN (1616-1683) , English Nonconformist divine, was born at Stadham in Oxfordshire in 1616, and was 'educated at Queen's College, Oxford (B.A. 1632, M.A. 1635), noted, as Fuller tells us, tor its metaphysicians. A Puritan by training and conviction, in 1637 Owen was driven from Oxford by Laud's new statutes, and became chaplain and tutor in the family of Sir Robert Dormer
During his eight years of official Oxford life Owen showed himself a firm disciplinarian, and infused a new spirit of thoroughness into dons and undergraduates alike, though, as John Locke testifies, the Aristotelian traditions in education sufferedno change. With Philip Nye he unmasked the popular astrologer, William Lilly, and in spite of his share in condemning two Quakeresses to be whipped for disturbing the peace, his rule was not intolerant.' Anglican services were conducted here and there, and at Christ Church itself the Anglican chaplain remained in the college. While little encouragement was given to a spirit of free inquiry,2 it is unhistorical to say that Puritanism at Oxford was simply "an attempt to force education and culture into the leaden moulds of Calvinistic theology." It must be remembered, too, that Owen, unlike many of his contemporaries, found his chief
interest
drawn
followed on popularity and threatened to destroy the early simplicity. Besides all his academic and literary concerns Owen was continually in the midst of affairs of state. In 1651, on October 24 (after Worcester), he preached the thanksgiving sermon before parliament. In 1652 he sat on a council to consider the condition of Protestantism in Ireland. In October 1653 he was one of several ministers whom Cromwell summoned to a consultation as to church union .3 In December the degree of D.D. was conferred upon him by his university. In the parliament of 1654 he sat, but only for a short time, as member for Oxford university, and, with Baxter, was placed on the committee for settling the " fundamentals " necessary for the toleration promised in the Instrument of Government. In the same year he was chairman of a committee on Scottish Church affairs. He was, too, one of the Triers, and appears to have behaved with kindness and moderation in that capacity. As vice-chancellor he acted with readiness and spirit when a Royalist rising in Wiltshire broke out in 1655; his adherence to Cromwell, however, was by no means slavish, for he drew up, at the request of Desborough and Pride
took a leading part in the conference of Independents which drew up the Savoy Declaration. On the death of Cromwell Owen joined the Wallingford House party, and though he denied any share in the deposition of Richard Cromwell, he threw all his weight on the side of a simple republic as against a protectorate. He assisted in the restoration of the Rump parliament, and, when Monk began his march into England, Owen, in the name of the Independent churches, to whom Monk was supposed to belong, and who were keenly anxious as to his intentions, wrote to dissuade him from the enterprise. In March 166o, the Presbyterian party being uppermost, Owen was further deprived of his deanery, which was given back to Reynolds. He retired to Stadham, where he wrote various controversial and theological works, in especial the laborious Theologoumena Pantodapa, a history of the rise and progress of theology. The respect in which many of the authorities held his intellectual eminence won him an immunity denied to other Nonconformists. In 1661 was published the celebrated Fiat Lux, a work by the Franciscan monk John ' H. L. Thompson, Christ Church (" Oxford College Histories ") pp. 70 seq. 2 Owen made a very unhappy attack on Brian Walton's Polyglot Bible. ' Owen probably drew up the scheme for a national church surrounded by bodies of tolerated dissent which was presented to parliament. See D. Masson, Milton, iv. 39o, 566.Vincent Cane, in which the oneness and beauty of Roman Catholicism are contrasted with the confusion and multiplicity of Protestant sects. At Clarendon's request Owen answered this in 1662 in his Animadversions; and so great was its success that he was offered preferment if he would conform. Owen's condition for making terms was liberty to all who agree in doctrine with the Church of England; nothing therefore came of the negotiation. In 1663 he was invited by the Congregational churches in Boston, New England, to become their minister, but declined. The Conventicle and Five Mile Acts drove him to London; and in 1666, after the Fire, he, like other leading Nonconformist ministers, fitted up a room for public service and gathered a congregation, composed chiefly of the old Commonwealth officers. Meanwhile he was incessantly writing; and in 1667 he published his Catechism, which led to a proposal, " more acute than diplomatic," from Baxter for union. Various papers passed, and after a year the attempt was closed by the following laconical note from Owen: " I am still a well-wisher to these mathematics." It was now, too, that he published the first part of his vast work upon the Epistle to the Hebrews, together with his exposition of Psalm 130 and his searching book on Indwelling Sin. In 1669 Owen wrote a spirited remonstrance to the Congregationalists in New England, who, under the influence of Presbyterianism, had shown themselves persecutors. At home, too, he was busy in the same cause. In 167o Samuel Parker's Ecclesiastical Polity attacked the Nonconformists in a style of clumsy intolerance. Owen answered him (Truth and Innocence Vindicated); Parker replied with personalities as to Owen's connexion with Wallingford House. Then Andrew Marvell with banter and satire finally disposed of Parker in The Rehearsal Transposed. Owen himself produced a tract On the Trinity (1669), and Christian Love and Peace (1672). At the revival of the Conventicle Acts in 1670, Owen was appointed to draw up a paper of reasons which was submitted to the House of Lords in protest. In this or the following year Harvard College invited him to become its president; he received similar invitations from some of the Dutch universities. When Charles issued his Declaration of Indulgence in 1672, Owen drew up an address of thanks. This indulgence gave the dissenters an opportunity for increasing their churches and services, and Owen was one of the first preachers at the weekly lectures which the Independents and Presbyterians jointly held at Princes' Hall
nobility
chief
Justification
For engraved portraits of Owen see first edition of S. Palmer's Nonconformists' Memorial and Vertue's Sermons and Tracts (1721). The chief authorities for the life are Owen's Works; W. Orme's Memoirs of Owen; A. Wood's Athenae Oxonienses; R. Baxter's Life; D. Neal's History of the Puritans; T. Edwards's Gangraena; and the various histories of the Independents. See also The Golden Book of John Owen, a collection of extracts prefaced by a study of his life and age, by James Moffatt (London, 1904). End of Article: OWEN, JOHN (1616-1683) If you wish, you can link directly to this article.
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