John Owen (1616-1683) ***
Puritan
theologian committed to the congregational way of church government. Educated
at Queen's College, Oxford, he became sympathetic to the cause of Puritanism
within the Established Church. After his ordination he saw himself first as a
presbyterian Puritan, but after careful study he adopted the congregational way
and became its chief exponent for the rest of his life. He was a parish minister
at Fordham and then Coggeshall in Essex from 1643 to 1651. During this period
he accompanied Cromwell with the armies of Parliament first to Scotland and
then to Ireland. In 1651 he was appointed dean of Christ Church, Oxford, a
position which allowed him to seek to train godly and learned ministers for the
Cromwellian state church, of which he was the senior architect. He added to
this duty that of the vice-chancellorship of the university from 1652 to 1657.
The 1650s saw Owen very influential not only at Oxford but also in matters of
state in London. His commitment to congregational church government is seen in
the part he played in the writing of the Savoy Declaration of Faith and Order
(1658). With the change of political and religious direction in England in
1660, Owen was ejected from Christ Church and became a Nonconformist. He felt
unable to minister within the national church, for not only did he reject
episcopacy but he also rejected the idea of a written liturgy. For the next
twenty years he was a leader of English Nonconformity and a pastor of a
congregational church in London.
He is remembered today not primarily because
of his important career as an educator and statesman but because of his
theological writings, which were numerous and spread over forty years. He wrote
on the major themes, particular redemption, divine election, etc., of
traditional Catholic orthodoxy (Trinitarianism and Christology), of church
polity, and of the pursuit of holiness. While he has great depth and insight as
a writer, his style is heavy and his thoughts are complex.