Owen was particularly active and vigorous in defending Nonconformity, in pleading its rights, and in expounding his own views of Church polity. In the year 1667, he published several tracts, the design of which was to promote peaceable obedience to the civil enactments of government; to show the injustice and impolicy of subjecting conscientious and useful men to suffering, on account of their religious sentiments; to expose the unconstitutional nature of the proceedings against them by informers and secret emissaries; to unfold his ideas of the nature and benefits of toleration in former ages, and in other lands; to vindicate it from various charges; and to point out the folly of attempting to settle the peace of the country on the basis of religious conformity.[565]
At a later period, in 1681, Owen published his Enquiry into the Original, Nature, Institution, Power, Order, and Communion of Evangelical Churches, in which he maintains that “unless men by their voluntary choice, and consent, out of a sense of their duty unto the authority of Christ, in His institutions, do enter into a Church-state, they cannot, by any other ways or means, be so framed into it, as to find acceptance with God therein.”
PURITAN ECCLESIASTICAL CONTROVERSY.
A Church he defines to be—“An especial society or congregation of professed believers, joined together according unto his mind, with their officers, guides, or rulers whom he hath appointed; which do or may meet together for the celebration of all the ordinances of Divine worship, the professing and authoritatively proposing the doctrine of the Gospel, with the exercise of the discipline prescribed by himself, unto their own mutual edification, with the glory of Christ, in the preservation and propagation of His kingdom in the world.”[566]
But with all this zeal in defence of particular forms of government, the great Puritan Divines expressed the utmost charity towards all Reformed Churches at home and abroad. The schismatical sentiments of Anglicans, who cut off Presbyterians and Independents from communion, and expressed hopes of their salvation in only cautious, faltering terms, find no echo in the writings of their antagonists. It was the main business of Baxter’s life to unite together Christians of all kinds; for this he wrote numerous books, to this he devoted his best years; and if Owen came behind him in this respect, he has, as in a nut-shell, summed up most truly the cause of all disunion:—
“Men fall to judging and censuring each other as to their interest in Christ, or their eternal condition. By what rule? The Everlasting Gospel? The Covenant of Grace? No, but of the disciples: ‘Master, they follow not with us.’ They that believe not our opinion, we are apt to think believe not in Jesus Christ; and because we delight not in them, that Christ does not delight in them. This digs up the roots of love; weakens prayer; increases evil surmises; which are of the works of the flesh, genders strife and contempt, things that the soul of Christ abhors.”[567]
Able as the Puritans might be in controversy, they appear to much greater advantage in their experimental and practical instructions. And here it ought to be noticed, that whilst the conforming Puritans did not number amongst them any great scientific Divines, they included well-known names of another class. Bishop Hall, by no means an ecclesiastical Puritan, sympathized a good deal with the doctrinal Puritans in their distinctive views, and still more in their evangelical spirit; and this British Seneca, as he is called, always wrote upon moral and practical subjects with the unction characteristic of the best kind of Puritanism. Thomas Fuller, chiefly known as an Historian, employed his matchless wit in the enforcement of religious duties, after a manner which bore much of a Puritan stamp, whilst it fascinated and edified all parties. Dr. Reynolds, the Puritan Bishop of Norwich, wrote books which were once of considerable celebrity, and which contain a great deal of evangelical sentiment and practical piety. The Christian Armour, by Gurnal, the Puritan Incumbent of Framlingham, is perhaps as popular as ever—exhibiting as it does, amidst much perverted ingenuity of arrangement and a vitiated style of expression, a surprising amount of spiritual truth and of genuine wisdom. The Nonconformists, however, outpeer their brethren in this department of literature. John Bunyan has a niche of his own in the temple of literary fame, where the image of his genius has been crowned with chaplets woven by the noblest hands. Other Puritan authors of that age have contributed to the wealth of our spiritual literature. In proof of which I need only mention Owen’s ideal of Christian character, in his Mortification of Sin, and his Spiritual Mindedness; Baxter’s encouragement for believers, in his Saint’s Everlasting Rest; his warnings to the ungodly, in his Now or Never; and Howe’s solace for mourners, in The Redeemer’s Dominion over the Invisible World.
PRACTICAL PURITAN THEOLOGY.
Alleine’s Alarm to the Unconverted—of which it was stated in 1775 that 20,000 copies had been sold, and 50,000 more under the title of The Sure Guide to Heaven—is one of those books which are eminently adapted to awaken deep spiritual convictions. Bates’ Spiritual Perfection Unfolded and Enforced—to mention no other book by this estimable author—is written in his characteristic silvery style: and, if there be sometimes an “abrupt dismissal of a train of thought,” “these breaks in the veins of valuable ore do not appear to be ever very material, and are rarely perceptible except to the eye of a closely-reflecting and examining reader.” But the religious excellencies of the volume surpass those which are literary, and if Alleine’s Alarm be calculated to arrest the godless, Bates’ Spiritual Perfection is equally fitted to guide and edify the godly. The titles of Brooks’ Treatises indicate the quaint kind of talent which he possessed:—“A Box of Precious Ointment”—“An Ark for God’s Noahs”—“A Golden Key to open hidden Treasures”—“Apples of Gold in Pictures of Silver.” “Many of his sentences are proverbs newly coined, shrewd, humorous, and Saxon; and they are provided with an alliterative jingle, which, like a sheep-bell, keeps a good saying from being lost in the wilderness.” It is impossible to read his writings without respecting his character as well as admiring his ingenuity; and whilst he exhibits more originality than Bates, like him he is a teacher fitted to instruct Christian people and to comfort their hearts under the troubles of life.
Flavel is entitled to occupy a niche, not far from that which is filled by John Bunyan; not that he possessed the inventiveness of the Great Dreamer, yet, like him, he delighted to use similitudes, and did it successfully. His Husbandry Spiritualized—suggested by his walks through pleasant farms in Dorset and Devon; and his Navigation Spiritualized, arising from observations on sea-faring life, whilst he resided in the picturesque town of Dartmouth, are full of sweet and healthy allegories.