Sermons from the Commonwealth and Protectorate (1650–1659) (Volume 19) E-Book

John Owen

• Herausgeber: Crossway
• Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 1031

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2025

Beschreibung

Edited for Modern Readers, This Volume Includes Nine of John Owen's Most Important Sermons on Holy Living, Union with Christ, and More Regarded as one of the greatest theologians in history, 17th-century pastor John Owen wrote extensively on holiness, Scripture, the Trinity, missions, and ecclesiology. His classic works—which have inspired Christian thinkers including Charles Spurgeon, J. I. Packer, and John Piper—remain influential, but until now haven't been offered in an easy-to-read collection. The Complete Works of John Owen is a 40-volume project that brings together all of Owen's original theological writing, reformatted for modern readers. Volume 19 includes some of his most important sermons—delivered during the English Revolution—on faith and unbelief, abiding in God, holy living, and more. With extensive introductions by editor Martyn C. Cowan, this volume also includes outlines, footnotes, and other supporting resources. - Edited and Formatted for Modern Readers: Presents Owen's original writing, newly typeset with insightful introductions, outlines, text breaks, headings, and footnotes - Part of the Complete Works of John Owen Project: This collection, which includes material not previously published, will release 40 hardcover volumes over a number of years - Perfect for Churches and Schools: Written for students, pastors, theologians, and those interested in the sermons of John Owen

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The Complete Works of John Owen

The Complete Works of John Owen

The Trinity

Vol. 1  Communion with God

Vol. 2  The Trinity Defended: Part 1

Vol. 3  The Trinity Defended: Part 2

Vol. 4  The Person of Christ

Vol. 5  The Holy Spirit—His Person and Work: Part 1

Vol. 6  The Holy Spirit—His Person and Work: Part 2

Vol. 7  The Holy Spirit—The Helper

Vol. 8  The Holy Spirit—The Comforter

The Gospel

Vol. 9The Death of Christ

Vol. 10Sovereign Grace and Justice

Vol. 11Justification by Faith Alone

Vol. 12The Saints’ Perseverance: Part 1

Vol. 13The Saints’ Perseverance: Part 2

Vol. 14Apostasy from the Gospel

The Christian Life

Vol. 15Sin and Temptation

Vol. 16An Exposition of Psalm 130

Vol. 17Heavenly-Mindedness

Vol. 18Sermons and Tracts from the Civil Wars (1646–1649)

Vol. 19Sermons from the Commonwealth and Protectorate (1650–1659)

Vol. 20Sermons from the Early Restoration Years (1669–1675)

Vol. 21Sermons from the Later Restoration Years (1676–1682)

Vol. 22Miscellaneous Sermons and Lectures

The Church

Vol. 23The Nature of the Church: Part 1

Vol. 24The Nature of the Church: Part 2

Vol. 25The Church Defended: Part 1

Vol. 26The Church Defended: Part 2

Vol. 27The Church’s Worship

Vol. 28The Church, the Scriptures, and the Sacraments

Hebrews

Vol. 29An Exposition of Hebrews: Part 1, Introduction to Hebrews

Vol. 30An Exposition of Hebrews: Part 2, Christ’s Priesthood and the Sabbath

Vol. 31An Exposition of Hebrews: Part 3, Jesus the Messiah

Vol. 32An Exposition of Hebrews: Part 4, Hebrews 1–2

Vol. 33An Exposition of Hebrews: Part 5, Hebrews 3–4

Vol. 34An Exposition of Hebrews: Part 6, Hebrews 5–6

Vol. 35An Exposition of Hebrews: Part 7, Hebrews 7–8

Vol. 36An Exposition of Hebrews: Part 8, Hebrews 9–10

Vol. 37An Exposition of Hebrews: Part 9, Hebrews 11–13

Latin Works

Vol. 38The Study of True Theology

Shorter Works

Vol. 39The Shorter Works of John Owen

Indexes

Vol. 40Indexes

The Complete Works of John Owen

The Christian Life

Volume 19

Sermons from the Commonwealth and Protectorate (1650–1659)

John Owen

Introduced and Edited by

Martyn C. Cowan

General Editors

Lee Gatiss and Shawn D. Wright

Sermons from the Commonwealth and Protectorate (1650–1659)

© 2025 by Crossway

Published by Crossway1300 Crescent StreetWheaton, Illinois 60187

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher, except as provided for by USA copyright law. Crossway® is a registered trademark in the United States of America.

Cover design: Jordan Singer

Cover image: Marble Paper Artist: Vanessa Reynoso, Marbled Paper Studio

First printing 2025

Printed in China

Scripture quotations marked GNV are from the Geneva Bible. Public domain.

Scripture quotations marked KJV are from the King James Version of the Bible. Public domain.

Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-4335-6048-4 ePub ISBN: 978-1-4335-8612-5 PDF ISBN: 978-1-4335-8610-1

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Owen, John, 1616–1683, author. | Cowan, Martyn C., editor.

Title: Sermons from the Commonwealth and Protectorate (1650–1659) / John Owen ; introduced and edited by Martyn C. Cowan ; general editors Lee Gatiss and Shawn D. Wright.

Description: Wheaton, Illinois : Crossway, [2025] | Series: The complete works of John Owen ; volume 19 | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2024028364 (print) | LCCN 2024028365 (ebook) | ISBN 9781433560484 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781433586101 (pdf) | ISBN 9781433586125 (epub)

Subjects: LCSH: Sermons, English—17th century.

Classification: LCC BX5201 .O496 2025 (print) | LCC BX5201 (ebook) | DDC 252/.059—dc23/eng/20240923

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2024028364

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2024028365

Crossway is a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.

2025-02-19 04:33:16 PM

Volume 19

Contents

Works Preface

Editor’s Introduction

Outlines

The Steadfastness of the Promises, and the Sinfulness of Staggering

The Branch of the Lord, the Beauty of Sion

The Advantage of the Kingdom of Christ in the Shaking of the Kingdoms of the World

The Laboring Saint’s Dismission to Rest

Concerning the Kingdom of Christ, and the Power of the Civil Magistrate about the Things of the Worship of God

God’s Work in Founding Zion, and His People’s Duty Thereupon

God’s Presence with a People, the Spring of Their Prosperity

Providential Changes, an Argument for Universal Holiness

The Glory and Interest of Nations Professing the Gospel

General Index

Scripture Index

Works Preface

John Owen (1616–1683) is one of the most significant, influential, and prolific theologians that England has ever produced. His work is of such a high caliber that it is no surprise to find it still in demand more than four centuries after his birth. As a son of the Church of England, a Puritan preacher, a statesman, a Reformed theologian and Bible commentator, and later a prominent Nonconformist and advocate of toleration, he is widely read and appreciated by Christians of different types all over the globe, not only for the profundity of his thinking but also for the depth of his spiritual insight.

Owen was born in the year that William Shakespeare died, and in terms of his public influence, he was a rising star in the 1640s and at the height of his power in the 1650s. As chaplain to Oliver Cromwell, dean of Christ Church, and vice-chancellor of Oxford University, he wielded a substantial degree of power and influence within the short-lived English republic. Yet he eventually found himself on the losing side of the epic struggles of the seventeenth century and was ousted from his position of national preeminence. The Act of Uniformity in 1662 effectively barred him from any role in the established church, yet it was in the wilderness of those turbulent post-Restoration years that he wrote many of his most momentous contributions to the world of theological literature, despite being burdened by opposition, persecution, family tragedies, and illness.

There was an abortive endeavor to publish a uniform edition of Owen’s works in the early eighteenth century, but this progressed no further than a single folio volume in 1721. A century later (1826), Thomas Russell met with much more success when he produced a collection in twenty-one volumes. The appetite for Owen only grew; more than three hundred people had subscribed to the 1721 and 1826 editions of his works, but almost three thousand subscribed to the twenty-four-volume set produced by William H. Goold from 1850 onward. That collection, with Goold’s learned introductions and notes, became the standard edition. It was given a new lease on life when the Banner of Truth Trust reprinted it several times beginning in 1965, though without some of Owen’s Latin works, which had appeared in Goold’s edition, or his massive Hebrews commentary, which Banner did eventually reprint in 1991. Goold corrected various errors in the original seventeenth- and eighteenth-century publications, some of which Owen himself had complained of, as well as certain grammatical errors. He thoroughly revised the punctuation, numeration of points, and Scripture references in Owen and presented him in a way acceptable to nineteenth-century readers without taking liberties with the text.

Since the mid-nineteenth century, and especially since the reprinting of Goold’s edition in the mid-twentieth century, there has been a great flowering of interest in seventeenth-century Puritanism and Reformed theology. The recent profusion of scholarship in this area has resulted in a huge increase of attention given to Owen and his contribution to these movements. The time has therefore come to attempt another presentation of Owen’s body of work for a new century. This new edition is more than a reprint of earlier collections of Owen’s writings. As useful as those have been to us and many others, they fail to meet the needs of modern readers who are often familiar with neither the theological context nor the syntax and rhetorical style of seventeenth-century English divinity.

For that reason, we have returned again to the original editions of Owen’s texts to ensure the accuracy of their presentation here but have conformed the spelling to modern American standards, modernized older verb endings, updated some punctuation for clarity, reduced the use of italics where they do not clarify meaning, updated some hyphenation forms, modernized capitalization both for select terms in the text and for titles of Owen’s works, refreshed the typesetting, set lengthy quotations in block format, and both checked and added Scripture references in a consistent format where necessary. Owen’s quotations of others, however, including the various editions of the Bible he used or translated, are kept as they appear in his original. His marginal notes and footnotes have been clearly marked in footnotes as his (with “—Owen” appearing at the end of his content) to distinguish them from editorial comments. Foreign languages such as Greek, Hebrew, and Latin (which Owen knew and used extensively) have been translated into modern English, with the original languages retained in footnotes for scholarly reference (also followed by “—Owen”). If Goold omitted parts of the original text in his edition, we have restored them to their rightful place. Additionally, we have attempted to regularize the numbering system Owen employed, which was often imprecise and inconsistent; our order is 1, (1), [1], {1}, and 1st. We have also included various features to aid readers’ comprehension of Owen’s writings, including extensive introductions and outlines by established scholars in the field today, new paragraph breaks marked by a pilcrow (¶), chapter titles and appropriate headings (either entirely new or adapted from Goold), and explanatory footnotes that define archaic or obscure words and point out scriptural and other allusions in the text. When a contents page was not included in the original publication, we have provided one. On the rare occasions when we have added words to the text for readability, we have clearly marked them using square brackets. Having a team of experts involved, along with the benefit of modern online database technology, has also enabled us to make the prodigious effort to identify sources and citations in Owen that Russell and Goold deliberately avoided or were unable to locate for their editions.

Owen did not use only one English translation of the Bible. At various times, he employed the Great Bible, the Geneva Bible, or the Authorized Version (KJV), as well as his own paraphrases or translations from the original languages. We have not sought to harmonize his biblical quotations to any single version. Similarly, we have left his Hebrew and Greek quotations exactly as he recorded them, including the unpointed Hebrew text. When it appears that he has misspelled the Hebrew or Greek, we have acknowledged that in a footnote with reference to either Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia or Novum Testamentum Graece, though Greek accents and breathing marks have been silently corrected.

This new edition presents fresh translations of Owen’s works that were originally published in Latin, such as his Θεολογούμενα Παντοδαπά (1661) and A Dissertation on Divine Justice (which Goold published in an amended eighteenth-century translation). It also includes certain shorter works that have never before been collected in one place, such as Owen’s prefaces to other people’s works and many of his letters, with an extensive index to the whole set.

Our hope and prayer in presenting this new edition of John Owen’s complete works is that it will equip and enable new generations of readers to appreciate the spiritual insights he accumulated over the course of his remarkable life. Those with a merely historical interest will find here a testimony to the exceptional labors of one extraordinary figure from a tumultuous age, in a modern and usable critical edition. Those who seek to learn from Owen about the God he worshiped and served will, we trust, find even greater riches in his doctrine of salvation, his passion for evangelism and missions, his Christ-centered vision of all reality, his realistic pursuit of holiness, his belief that theology matters, his concern for right worship and religious freedom, and his careful exegetical engagement with the text of God’s word. We echo the words of the apostle Paul that Owen inscribed on the title page of his book Χριστολογία (1679), “I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung that I may win Christ” (Phil. 3:8).

Lee Gatiss

Cambridge, England

Shawn D. Wright

Louisville, Kentucky, United States

Editor’s Introduction

This volume contains some of the most important sermons delivered by Owen in the 1650s. Many of these sermons were delivered on the national stage and address the turbulent events associated with a search for a lasting settlement for the English Revolution. Some of his other important sermons from Westminster have not come down to us. For example, there is no known record of the following: Owen’s weekly preaching to the executive of the new regime, the Council of State, in 1649–1651; his sermons to the Rump Parliament in June 1649, the Nominated Assembly in August 1653, and the Recalled Rump in May 1659; and finally, there is no known record of his preaching to the Council of State at Whitehall each Sunday in the highly fraught months of October and November 1659 (something Crawford Gribben described as the Council “keeping its friends close, and its enemies even closer”).1

The sermons in volume 19 are not to be regarded as representative of all Owen’s preaching during that decade. For example, we have no extant record of the sermons he preached while in Ireland. Writing from Dublin Castle in December 1649, Owen described how he was constantly preaching to “a numerous multitude, of as thirsting a people after the Gospel as ever yet I conversed withal.”2 Indeed, there is some evidence that a number of people were converted through his ministry in and around Dublin.3

There are, however, numerous examples of the fruit of Owen’s pulpit ministry in Cromwellian Oxford that are found in other volumes in this edition of Owen’s works. These help provide a fuller record of the themes that Owen addressed in preaching. In Oxford, Owen was preaching at Christ Church and delivering fortnightly Sunday afternoon sermons at the University Church of St Mary’s. Around the middle of the decade, a new wooden pulpit was installed in St Mary’s on the old stone pedestal.4 Some of this expository material was adapted into treatises for the press. For example, the material in important treatises such as Communion with God (1657) and Mortification of Sin in Believers (1656) found its first expression in Owen’s preaching in the 1650s. The former was a series of sermons from 1651 that took a number of years, and some persuasion from others, to finally make its way into print.5 In the latter Owen notes in passing that his preaching on the doctrine of mortification had enjoyed “some comfortable success” and that it was adapted for publication “with such additions and alterations as I should judge necessary.”6 Nonetheless, in works like these Gribben has detected “the strategies of the pulpit” in Owen’s “pithy soundbites.”7 Unlike much of what is contained in this volume, the application in the preaching from which these treatises evolved was often aimed at the individual believer rather than being directed to the duties and responsibilities of those in government. Nonetheless, the content of Owen’s political preaching ought not to be too sharply distinguished from his other preaching. For example, Owen’s work Of Temptation (1658) was based on sermons from Cromwellian Oxford delivered at the time when Owen was losing influence both at Oxford and Westminster. Owen emphasized that his message was particularly “suited to the times that pass over us,”8 in which “providential dispensations, in reference to the public concernments of these nations” had seen all things “shaken.”9It is striking to note that Owen himself stated that he was not dealing with temptation in a general sense: he was providing a probing analysis of the “hour of temptation” that comes to “try them that dwell upon the earth” (Rev. 3:10). He spoke of a time of “backsliding” in which “thousands” had apostatized “within a few years.”10 Now increasingly alienated, he highlighted how “the prevailing party of these nations, many of those in rule, power [and] favour” had formerly been regarded as lowly “Puritans,” but their attitudes had changed once they had been “translated by a high hand to the mountains they now possess.” Owen lamented, “How soon they have forgot the customs, manners, ways, of their own old people, and are cast into the mould of them that went before them.”11 He specifically referred to those “in high places” who were particularly tempted to pursue “Crownes, Glories, Thrones, pleasures, [and] profits of the world.”12 Owen’s litany of sins resonated with the temptations that he believed accompanied the monarchical drift of the Protectorate.13 Thus, even something like Of Temptation displays many of the hallmarks of the sermons contained in this volume. The potentially subversive tenor of some of his pulpit ministry helps explain why he was replaced at St Mary’s. Owen’s rather provocative response was to set up a rival lecture at St Peter’s in the East.14 In the summer of 1659, John Locke mocked the dispirited preaching about the state of the nation that he, as a student, presumably heard from Owen’s other pulpit in Christ Church.15 It is highly plausible that the undated sermon Providential Changes, an Argument for Universal Holiness was preached in Cromwellian Oxford, most likely in the first half of 1657, and this is included in this volume to help readers follow the development of Owen’s preaching across the decade. Some of the sermons from volume 22 may tentatively be assigned a date in the 1650s, but the lack of certainty means that they are included among the other undated sermons.16

Owen’s sermons from this decade are best described as a form of “prophetic preaching.”17 Taking the voices and assuming tropes of the biblical prophets, Owen offered an explanation of the events of the English Revolution and urged his hearers and readers to make a proper response. Patrick Collinson helpfully summarizes the message of this genre as “always the same: most favoured, more obligated, most negligent.”18 This pattern is certainly evident in Owen’s preaching as he drew attention to the undeserved blessings of apocalyptic significance that the nation had experienced, set forth the obligation incumbent upon it to respond appropriately to this unique providential moment, and as he lamented the nation’s failures to do so, with warnings of the consequent threat of divine judgment.

The Steadfastness of the Promises, and the Sinfulness of Staggering

Context of Owen’s Parliamentary Fast Sermon

Recently returned from the Irish expedition, where he had served as a military chaplain, Owen preached to the Parliament on the occasion of a national fast. On January 29, 1650, the Rump had ordered a committee to draw up a declaration for this solemn day of fasting and public humiliation. The act appointing that a fast be held on Thursday, February 28, was read on February 2 and approved after two readings on February 4.19 As regular monthly humiliations had now been abolished, public fasts were now called only for specific purposes. Those reasons were set out in the published act.20 It began by making reference to the Lord, “who Ruleth over the Nations, who disposeth and ordereth all things, according to the Good pleasure of his own Will.” It explained how God’s intention was to “warn and awaken the inhabitants of the Earth” to live faithfully and fruitfully before him. It rehearsed how, in recent days, God had intervened decisively to deliver England from “Tyranny, Popery and Superstition.” The receipt of such goodness and mercy should evoke duty and obedience. The nervous new regime had introduced a test of loyalty that took the form of the Engagement Oath, and in January 1650 an act for nationwide subscription to this engagement was passed. This required all men to declare their allegiance to the Commonwealth “as now established without a single person, kingship or the house of peers.”21 This was the cause of significant debate at the time when this sermon was delivered and prepared for publication.22 In an attempt to broaden the support base for the new regime, particularly among Presbyterians, the engagement cautiously avoided religious language; indeed, people were told to regard it “not as a thing of Religion, but a civill action,” and some who promoted it encouraged subscribers to swear “equivocally.”23 As a result, some Presbyterians made much less than half-hearted promises of loyalty to the new republic.24 In this sermon, Owen appears to commend the Engagement Oath of fealty to the new regime.

The act establishing the fast lamented how “we finde . . . crying sins, hideous Blasphemies, and unheard of Abominations (and that by some under pretence of Liberty, and greater measure of Light).”25 This was, most likely, a reference to the uproar caused by groups such as the so-called Ranters. Of particular relevance for this sermon was this act’s call for prayer and supplication concerning the propagation of the gospel, and this was a major theme that Owen chose to address in this sermon by offering “more specific guidance than heretofore” about how this might be done, all informed by his own recent experience across the Irish Sea.26

The other preacher that day was the Welsh radical Vavasor Powell (1617–1670), whose sermon, like Owen’s, was also published. Powell was listed as one of the approvers of a parliamentary act that had established the Commission for Better Propagation of the Gospel in Wales and that had been passed the week beforehand, on February 22.27 This was part of a wider scheme designed to advance the gospel in Wales and the north of England.28 Powell appears to have been sponsored by Thomas Harrison, who had a key role in this propagation scheme.29 Powell’s sermon was distinctly millenarian, announcing that 1650 was “to be the Saints yeare of Jubilee.” He rejoiced in God’s providence both in England and Ireland and pleaded with members of Parliament to examine themselves to ensure that they were favoring the cause of the saints and being gentle to those with “tender consciences, who peradventure cannot subscribe and submit to your power and authoritie.”30

If the choice of Powell as a preacher was linked to the Welsh scheme for the propagation of the gospel, then this was something of a two-pronged movement, with Owen’s sermon concentrating on the need for similar action in Ireland. Toby Barnard comments that the Rump Parliament had to be “goaded into action” by Cromwell through the action of some of his military chaplains from the Irish expedition and claims that this sermon by Owen “breathed new life” into the ordinance first read at the end of November 1649.31

Somewhat unusually, the parliamentary order was not included in the printed version of the sermon. On Friday, March 1, the Commons instructed Sir William Masham to communicate thanks to Owen for the sermon he delivered at the previous day’s fast and requested that the sermon be published.32 Masham, a well-established member of the Essex gentry, had been the most prominent prisoner during the siege of Colchester and one of those to whom Owen dedicated Ebenezer (1648).33 He was readmitted to the House in February 1649 and elected to the new Council of State.34

The sermon was printed by Peter Cole (ca. 1613–1665) to be sold at his shop at the sign of the printing press in Cornhill, near the Royal Exchange, where he had been operating since 1643.35Cole was a prominent London bookseller and printer, best remembered for printing works on medicine, particularly those of Nicholas Culpeper. In the year that he printed this sermon, Cole also produced Owen’s Of the Death of Christ, the Price He Paid (1650) and works by a variety of ministers such as Jeremiah Burroughes, William Bridge, and John Cardell. The book collector George Thomason acquired his copy on April 30.

Summary and Analysis of the Sermon

Owen took as his text Paul’s description of Abraham’s faith: “He staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief” (Rom. 4:20).36 He called the saints to follow Abraham, setting out with trustworthy promises, even if they were unsure of exactly where their journey might lead. While Owen’s exposition of the text addressed the application to individual believers, given his context, his concerns lay with members of Parliament. Parliament had, like Abraham, triumphed over a king and enjoyed “outward success and glory” and yet was in many ways perplexed and in danger of stumbling in unbelief because of a refusal to believe the promises, not least about the “propagation and establishment” of the kingdom of Christ, because of “all the difficulties that lie in the way for the accomplishment of it.” Owen explained how this led to hesitation and indecision. The need was for “consolation and establishment” so that as rulers they would embrace the promise that “peace and prosperity” would be “the inheritance of the nation” in due “subordination to the kingdom of Christ” (Isa. 60:11; Jer. 30:20–21). Owen set about doing this by demonstrating the reliability of the promises of God because of “the ability of the promiser” and “the means whereby he works.” Consequently, the cause of staggering was unbelief. Opposition may, “for a season,” impede the fulfillment of the promise, but “the appointed hour” would come, and, like water welling up behind a dam, the promise would break through in great power.

Owen turned to illustrate this by means of “the affair of Ireland,” where, despite the “mountains of opposition” seeming so great, he was confident of “deliverance for Ireland.” He believed that the “mountains” there included the following: the English Civil Wars that had delayed the Long Parliament’s plans to take action in Ireland; the Levellers (“that mighty mountain” that some “misnamed a Level”) who had tried to influence a significant part of the army soldiers not to participate in the expedition; and the “many congregations in this nation” failing to engage in “prayers, tears, and supplications for carrying on of the work of God in Ireland.” Owen claimed that even with respect to the “choicest and most rational advices of the army,” had they not been “overswayed” by providence, the cause would not have been as far advanced as it was. According to Patrick Little, the commanders of the expeditionary force initially planned that the main assault would land in Munster, but events took a different course, and the entire force eventually disembarked at Ringsend in Dublin.37

This change of plan, which Owen attributed to the hand of God, had significant bearings on the outcome of the invasion because of three events. First, the Marquess of Ormond took the fateful decision to divide his army, sending his most able commander, Murrough O’Brien (d. 1674), the Earl of Inchiquin, south in the belief that Cromwell would land in Munster.38Second, Colonel Michael Jones (d. 1649) won a remarkable victory at Rathmines, outside Dublin, over Lieutenant General Purcell’s royalists, killing up to four thousand, capturing two thousand five hundred, and seizing Ormond’s artillery, ciphers, and supplies. This was “a stupendous reversal of royalist fortunes, with incalculable psychological and strategic consequences.”39 From a parliamentarian perspective, this was hugely significant: according to Whitelocke, “There never was any day in Ireland like this.”40 The invasion force heard of this “astonishinge mercie” just before embarkation and believed it provided clear evidence of God’s favor.41Third, although Henry Ireton set sail with a smaller force to the original target of Kinsale, unable to land, he diverted to Dublin. Thus, with no field army to face them, Cromwell’s full army assembled with its large train of siege artillery at Dublin. Once Drogheda had been taken, and the area north of Dublin secured, the main army marched south and met Lord Broghill (d. 1679), who had by this stage managed the successful mutiny of the garrisons in Munster against Lord Inchiquin.42 It is likely that these are the unplanned events in which Owen saw the hand of providence advancing the cause of the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland. Powell concurred in his sermon, telling members of Parliament that one of the “signes of the Lords presence, with you” was the “concurrence of Gods Providence in effecting those great things which you have undertaken, both in this land and in Ireland.”43 The members of Parliament whom Owen addressed, as well as the wider public hungry for news, would have been well aware of the ongoing successes that Cromwell was enjoying early on in the campaigning season of the year since news had been read to members of Parliament on February 25 and then subsequently published.44

The final “mountain” was the “combined opposition” that arose. He depicted the royalist coalition as a strong “Fivefold Cord” of ill-matched associates in an unholy alliance: (1) the Scottish Covenanters in Ulster under Sir George Monro;45 (2) the Ormond Party united in its desire to maintain prelacy and the Book of Common Prayer; (3) the Roman Catholics of the Kilkenny Confederation; (4) the self-interested in the southern ports of Munster who had temporarily abandoned the parliamentary cause in April 1648 and who would need to be bribed to return; and (5) the native Irish rebels. These five groups now had joined forces after having spent the last seven years fighting one another in various combinations. For Owen, their union was reminiscent of the pact between the northern kingdom of Israel and Syria. This Syro-Ephraimite bloc had aimed to force Judah into alignment with them (Isa. 7–9), just as the enemies of the Commonwealth had been intent on doing. Owen cast their role in the drama as that of a monstrous “hydra” of “covenant,” “prelacy, popery,” “treachery,” and “blood.”46 In these examples, Owen’s portrayal of the enemy served to emphasize their strength that, in turn, highlighted the providential nature of their defeat.

Owen’s first point of application was “unto temporals.” He called members of Parliament to live by faith when “called out to public actings.” Throughout the sermon, Owen was concerned with reliance on “carnal wisdom” and “carnal policy.” He linked this to those who “plot, and contrive, and design.” This is possibly an allusion to the continuing links that the Presbyterians maintained with Charles II. By this stage Charles had given up on securing help from Ireland and was turning to the Scots. In March 1650, negotiations began between Charles and the Covenanters in Breda in the Netherlands. Some London Presbyterians wished for “the presbyterian party in England” to be represented at Breda.47 Another area in which Owen detected the operation of such “carnal wisdom” was in the parliamentary “management of religion.” Here Owen criticized those for whom religious policy was simply a means to an end—for example, those who adopted policies specifically designed to gain the “assistance and compliance” of others. This could well be a reference to those in Parliament who were wishing to make concessions to the Presbyterian interest.48 Owen appeared to commend the Engagement Oath but was preaching for much more than a merely de facto acceptance of the legitimacy of the new regime; he exhorted his hearers to “Engage your hearts” and to believe that God was fulfilling his promises.

Owen’s second use was to ensure appropriate engagement in “the propagating of the kingdom of Christ.” Thus, with respect to the reconquest of Ireland, members of Parliament ought not only consider “the sovereignty and interest of England” but should do their “utmost for the preaching of the gospel in Ireland.” He exhorted them not to conceive of the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland simply in terms of the destruction of the influence of the antichrist in that place but instead to see it as an opportunity for Christ “to take possession of his long since promised inheritance” in that place. He believed Parliament’s enemies in Ireland were “vassals of the man of sin” and “followers after the beast,” and justice required that they be given “a cup of blood” to drink. Referring to the Irish Rebellion of 1641, he likened Irish rebels to the Amalekites, the first of the nations that attacked God’s people who were seeking to enter their promised rest (Ex. 17). In doing so, they disobeyed the command “touch not mine anointed” and invited God’s pronouncement that all Amalekites would “perish forever” (Num. 24:20).49 Nonetheless, after the violence in which he claimed to see Christ “as a lion staining all his garments with the blood of his Enemies,” he pressed Parliament to send preachers to the island in order to “hold [Christ] out as a lamb sprinkled with his own blood to his friends.” He presented an impassioned firsthand account of what he had witnessed, speaking of the “tears and cries of the inhabitants of Dublin after the manifestations of Christ.”50 Elsewhere, he revealed how in Dublin he had been constantly preaching to “a numerous multitude, of as thirsting a People after the Gospel, as ever yet I conversed withal.”51 This concern was accentuated by his fears about preachers who had already traveled to Ireland “without call, without employments,” who were, he believed, “seducers and blasphemers” (he had previously called the magistrate to bring under his cognizance those who wander about with “no calling . . . under a pretense of teaching the truth, without mission, without call, without warrant”).52 Owen was suggesting that preachers who had been ejected in England could easily move to Ireland, bringing their heretical ideas with them.53 If they do not to their utmost sow the “Seed of the word,” then surely numerous “seducers and blasphemers” will sow their tares in “those fallowed fields.”

Owen pressed for talk to turn into action: “This thing is often spoken of, seldom driven to any close!” He called his hearers and readers to pray that God would send “laborers” to Ireland (Matt. 9:38). Owen’s sermon proposed that Parliament should send “one gospel preacher, for every walled town in the English possession in Ireland.” Practically, he suggested that a committee be appointed to “hear what sober proposals” might come regarding how best to further this aim.

The day after Owen delivered the sermon, Whitelocke reported on amendments to the bill for “Advancement of the Gospel, and Learning, in Ireland,” and the relevant committee was authorized to receive proposals for how to advance and maintain a preaching ministry in Ireland.54 That Owen thought himself among those bringing sober proposals is clear from the sermon’s dedicatory epistle, which describes the printed tract as “a serious proposal for the advancement and propagation of the Gospel in another nation.” The ordinance for the propagation of the gospel in Ireland was passed on March 8, the day Owen penned his preface.55 The rather sketchy ordinance was, according to Underdown, “uncontroversial” and lacked direct provisions beyond increasing the endowment of Trinity College Dublin, vesting the property of the late archbishop of Dublin and the dean and chapter of the cathedral in fifteen commissioners (of whom Owen was one).56 It was supplemented by a decision to “send over Six able Ministers” to Dublin, the place whose plight Owen had highlighted.57 Barnard concludes that “compared with Ireland’s needs, and with treatment of Wales and the north, the Rump’s legislation was meagre, and had been achieved only at Cromwell’s and his entourage’s prompting.”58

Owen appeared to be particularly concerned about the so-called Ranter threat: those preachers of a “high and heavenly notion which have an open and experimented tendency to earthly, fleshly, dunghill practices.”59 He told Parliament that if it failed to act, Ireland in particular was in danger of becoming a “frippery of monstrous, enormous, contradictious opinions.”60 Owen warned that some have fallen into “downright atheism.” Care needs to be taken with the language because, according to Michael Buckley, early modern accusations of atheism “possessed all the accuracy of the newly developed musket.”61 It is unclear whether Owen was addressing practical or speculative atheism.62 Several pieces of Parliamentary legislation that year would go some way to addressing his concerns. In June there was an act “for the better preventing and suppressing of the detestable sins of prophane swearing and cursing,” which was intended to suppress the Ranters.63 This was closely followed in August with the “Act against several Atheistical, Blasphemous and Execrable Opinions, derogatory to the honor of God, and destructive to humane Society.” There was an anti-Ranter element to this legislation against blasphemy.64 It was against “divers men and women . . . most monstrous in their opinions, and loose in all wicked and abominable practices . . . not only to the notorious corrupting and disordering, but even to the dissolution of all humane society; who rejecting the use of any gospel ordinances, do deny the necessity of civil and moral righteousness among men.”65

Owen was also horrified by “poor parentless children, that lie begging, starving, rotting in the streets, and find no relief.” In particular, he called on Parliament to provide for the families of soldiers who had “lost their dearest relations in your service” but who were now “seeking for bread, and finding none.” Powell concurred with the sentiments about the poor in his sermon, urging members of Parliament to remember prisoners and poor “Beggers.”66 By the summer of 1649, the Rump had resolved to reform the excise but would only complete those plans in September 1650.67

His final three uses were “purely spiritual” and involved calling his hearers to learn how “to believe for your own souls” so that they would, in turn, be able “to believe for a nation.” Owen believed that there had been too many excuses for inactivity that were nothing but the consequences of the sin of unbelief, a sin that grieved, provoked, and dishonored God. It was unbelief and “carnal reasonings” that threatened the fulfillment of the promise: “Oh stop not success from Ireland, by unbelief.”

Owen’s influence as a spokesman for the regime continued to increase in the wake of this sermon. On the day he penned the dedication to the version intended for publication, the Council of State appointed him to deliver sermons to it for the next year “every Lord’s day in the afternoon,” and to facilitate this it provided him with “fit lodgings” in Whitehall.68

The Branch of the Lord, the Beauty of Sion

Context of Owen’s Preaching in Scotland as an Army Chaplain

After the defeat of the Scottish Engagers’ army at Preston in August 1648, the government of Scotland that had sanctioned the Engagement with the king was overthrown with the establishment of the more militant Kirk Party regime. Following the execution of Charles I, the Covenanters proclaimed his son to be Charles II on February 5, 1649, but they did not permit him to return to Scotland to exercise his authority until he subscribed to the Covenant and promised to implement Presbyterianism across his three kingdoms. By mid-1650, the king knew that any real hope of support from Ireland had disappeared, and he grudgingly consented to Scottish demands, signing the Covenant and sailing into the Moray Firth in June.69 It now seemed as if another Scottish invasion was likely in order to recapture England for Charles, and so the Council of State, having recalled Cromwell from Ireland, decided to conduct a preemptive invasion of Scotland with Cromwell as commander in chief. The invasion was unpopular with many; indeed, General Fairfax resigned rather than lead the army into Scotland.70 Owen was to serve on the Scottish expedition, and on June 26 the Council of State dealt with “his employment with the Lord General in the expedition to the North.”71 In mid-July, Cromwell’s forces had reached Newcastle, where A Declaration of the Army of England upon Their March into Scotland (1650) was composed and printed; it is possible that Owen had a hand in it since it set out to justify the invasion in largely religious terms. Rather than being directed to the Committee of Estates or the institutional Kirk, it was addressed to “all that are Saints and Partakers of the Faith of Gods Elect in Scotland.”72 It sought to distinguish the godly elect from those who refused to recognize the “finger of God” in recent acts of providence.73 The English Parliament’s recourse to providence angered the Kirk, which complained that the English used providence as a pretext to justify its invasion.74

At the border in Berwick on July 21, just before the English army crossed into Scotland, Owen delivered a sermon that would, with another sermon delivered in several months, evolve into what was published as The Branch of the Lord, the Beauty of Sion: or, The Glory of the Church, in Its Relation unto Christ (1650).75 The text for the sermon was Isaiah 56:7, but the title of the published work drew on language used earlier in the prophecy: “In that day shall the branch of the Lord be beautiful and glorious, and the fruit of the earth shall be excellent and comely for them that are escaped of Israel” (Isa. 4:2 KJV). Owen would explain his understanding of the purpose of these verses from Isaiah 4 in his treatise The Doctrine of the Saints’ Perseverance (1654). He summarized how they laid out God’s gracious promises to Israel in the context of her present painful experience of exile. In particular, there were promises of justification (4:2), sanctification (4:3–4), and perseverance (4:5–6). All these were given on account of Christ, who is both “the branch of the Lord” and “the fruit of the earth.”76

The text of scripture emblazoned on the title page of the printed sermon was Psalm 48:12–14. (In his 1649 sermon Human Power Defeated, Owen had expressed confidence that those who embarked for Ireland would be made “sensible” of the truth of these verses—in particular, that it was far more dangerous to fight against Christ than to fight against the antichrist.)77 The leading Scottish Covenanter, Archibald Johnston of Wariston (1611–1663), heard a report about the sermon and noted in his diary that Owen had warned that “God would bring doun Cromwell and his airmy, who was so proud as to say that at the sight of his face wee would all flye.”78 According to Whitelocke, when orders were given for the army to march, “they went on shouting as they entered Scotland.”79

Cromwell’s invasion force of some sixteen thousand troops found the land stripped bare of crops, with even the animals driven north, and the weather was cold and wet.80 Despite Cromwell’s best efforts to bring the Scots to battle, the Covenanter army remained entrenched behind the fortified line of earthworks and gun emplacements that they had built from Edinburgh to Leith.81Owen wrote to the Lord Commissioner John Lisle (ca. 1609–1664), a member of the Council of State, about a skirmish that took place at the end of July. This short letter reveals something of Owen’s understanding of how the Scottish army viewed their own cause and the invasion of the army of “sectaries.”82 Cromwell took the time to engage in a further theological offensive against the Scottish Presbyterian clergy. Writing to the Commissioners of the Kirk, he asserted the providential mandate that Owen had done so much to construct: “The Lord hath not hid his face from us since our approach so near unto you.”83 He accused them of pride and “Spirituall Drunkennesse” and urged them to read Isaiah 28:5–15 with its stinging denunciation of “dissolute priests.”84 (Owen would quote from this chapter in this sermon.) Cromwell told them that the Scots had made a covenant with “wicked and carnall men,” one that amounted to “a Covenant . . . with Death and Hell.”85 Owen may well have had a hand in The Declaration of the English Army Now in Scotland, written from Musselburgh on August 1, and a number of ideas from that tract are found in this sermon.86

Following the Cromwellian invasion, a number of significant leaders within the Covenanter movement denounced the king for his manifest insincerity in subscribing to the covenant and called for the Scottish army to be purged of all known royalists and former Engagers according to the 1646 and 1649 Acts of Classis.87 In August, the Kirk Party insisted that Charles issue a declaration making clear his commitment to the covenanting cause by repudiating popery and prelacy and his alliance with the Irish Roman Catholics. He was also forced to express shame concerning the faults of his father and the idolatry of his mother. By the end of the month, a significant (and damaging) purge of the army had been carried out, perhaps reducing it in size by as much as one third.88

Five weeks after the invasion commenced, the English army withdrew to Dunbar. Cromwell’s forces were reduced to some eleven thousand men because of sickness and desertion, and they were significantly outnumbered and effectively stranded on the coast, with the Scots occupying a more strategic defensive position. Nonetheless, among the English army there was a significant culture of prayer and preaching and confidence in the intercessions of the godly in England.89 Cromwell launched his attack before first light on September 3 by calling out “let God arise and his enemies be scattered” (Ps. 68:1). (Owen had quoted from this Psalm in two of his published sermons: Ebenezer [1648] and The Shaking and Translating of Heaven and Earth [1649].) In what was a stunning victory, the English apparently lost only twenty soldiers, compared to the loss of some three thousand Scots (according to Cromwell “the enemy made by the Lord of Hosts as stubble” to his cavalry) and the capture of around ten thousand prisoners.90 It was taken to be “an especially significant declaration of God’s favour.”91 According to Cromwell, it was “one of the most signal mercies God hath done for England and His people”92 and an act of divine punishment on the Scots for “not beholding the glory of Gods wonderfull dispensations in this Series of his Providences in England, Ireland and Scotland.”93

It appears that Owen’s responsibilities as a preacher to the Council of State had necessitated a return to Westminster, so he was not present to witness this victory, against all the odds, at Dunbar. On September 10, the House of Commons ordered that he and Joseph Caryl would preach a thanksgiving sermon for the victory on October 8 at St Margaret’s, Westminster.94 However, two days later, on September 12, the Council of State determined that Owen and Caryl were needed in Scotland, and the following day the Commons ordered both preachers to go “forthwith” to Scotland “according to the Desire of the Lord General.”95 Accordingly, on September 20, £50 was to be paid to Owen, Caryl, and two other ministers who were to serve in Scotland.96 Their presence was necessary because in the aftermath of Dunbar Cromwell “renewed his theological offensive,” and the “religious warfare” began in earnest; he clearly wished to have Owen and other ministers alongside him.97 Owen “embraced his call” and traveled north with “thoughts of peace,” intending “to pour out a savour of the gospel upon the sons of peace in this place.” Back in Scotland, he was involved in “a vigorous culture of preaching” in which it also appears that officers including Cromwell and his second in command, the brilliant cavalry officer Major General John Lambert (ca. 1619–1684), participated.98However, as R. Glynne Lloyd notes, Owen’s preaching did not seem to be as well received in Scotland as it was in Dublin.99 While few specifics are known, part of that preaching in Edinburgh involved a celebration of the submission of the city to the Cromwellians.

When the Cromwellians had entered the capitol in September, they quickly seized control of Edinburgh’s presses.100 Cromwell prayed that the Lord would give the Scots “a cleare sight of the great worke, he is now in these last dayes carrying on.”101 In order to facilitate this, he had his press in Leith printed this sermon by Owen and another by fellow English Congregationalist minister Nicholas Lockyer (1611–1685). This sermon was published in November under the name of the printer Evan Tyler.102The London book collector George Thomason acquired his copy on November 26. Owen’s sermons were, as Gribben describes, combined into “one seamless discourse” that was both a “celebration of Independent ecclesiology” and a “searing critique of the Presbyterian position.”103 Tellingly, the title page of the sermon contained the text of Psalm 48:12–14, a text whose interpretation for matters of ecclesiology was contested—for example, it had appeared on the title page of Samuel Rutherford’s A Peaceable and Temperate Plea for Pauls Presbyterie in Scotland (1642).104 The goal of these sermons was the same: to help define the purpose behind the Commonwealth invasion and persuade the Scots to accept it.105The Branch of the Lord would help answer Cromwell’s desire that the Lord would give the Scots a clear vision of the work that he was doing through the revolutionary English regime.

Alongside it, Cromwell’s Scottish press would publish Nicholas Lockyer’s sermon titled A Litle Stone, Out of the Mountain. Church-Order Briefly Opened (1652). It revealed his eager expectation of the church being “raised from its corruptions, intrusions and ruine made by unsound men.”106 Lockyer’s polemical description of the Scottish church shows remarkable similarities to what Owen had preached during the Scottish campaign.107 Both contrasted gathered churches comprised of “living stones” with the churches of the Kirk, which they believed to be comprised of “dead, rotten stones.” Lockyer declared the Kirk to be beyond hope of regeneration and rejected the idea that a national church could be purged. Instead, he called for the gathering of “Gospell Churches out of a Legall Nationall Church.”108 As Scott Spurlock recognizes, Owen’s sermon was subtler than Lockyer’s “openly anti-Kirk” sermon, but both would have been provocative, especially given that, since 1647, the Kirk had enforced strict censorship on the writings of the English Congregationalists.109

The Kirk Party’s ascendancy was coming to an end, and as the sermon was published the party split between its more extreme and moderate members. For the more radical Covenanters, their defeat at Dunbar was a sign not of divine favor toward the English but of divine judgment on the ungodly Scots because the purging had not gone far enough.110 The emerging ideological differences within the Kirk Party came to the fore in the Western Association’s Remonstrance of October 1650. This announced that support for Charles II should not be forthcoming until he demonstrated sincere repentance and genuine commitment to the Covenant. The Branch of the Lord was published in the context of the November debates on the Western Remonstrance, which brought about open division of the Kirk Party. On November 28, the moderate Commission of the Kirk condemned this Remonstrance. Soon after Owen’s sermon was published, on December 1, the English defeated the forces of the Western Association at Hamilton. Later in the month, public resolutions led to the repeal of the Acts of Classes, thus allowing royalists and Engagers back into the Covenanter armies and public office. This was condemned by the minority Remonstrants, later termed Protesters.

Owen’s published sermons found a warm reception from at least some in Scotland. In early January 1651, the officer and regicide Robert Lilburne wrote to Cromwell asking “that some able minister were here to speake in publique, and that I had some of Mr Owen’s sermons, and other books to disperse.” Many of the Scots had apparently told Lilburne that “they would gladly see and reade them,” particularly because “they have been keptt from them, and have not beene truely informed concerning our proceedings.”111 Cromwell would, presumably, have been delighted to receive Lilburne’s request since it was in line with his existing policy of disseminating preaching, which supported the regime.

One of Owen’s perhaps most paradigmatic conversions occurred during this time—namely, that of the Scottish politician Alexander Jaffray (1614–1673).112 In his diary, Jaffray, a member of the Scottish Committee of Estates, described being seriously wounded in the fighting at Dunbar and his subsequent imprisonment by the English, during which months he “had good opportunity of frequent conference” with both Cromwell and Owen. Through these encounters, he came to understand the “dreadful appearance of God against us at Dunbar,” in which the Covenanters were “visibly forsaken.” Previously, Jaffray had been “zealous for presbytery,” but he came to abandon it, instead adopting Congregationalism. Significantly, Jaffray even appealed to a text frequently employed by Owen: Revelation 11:1–2.113 Owen persuaded Alexander Jaffray that “the sinful mistake of the good men of this [Scottish] nation” concerned “the knowledge and mind of God as to the exercise of the magistrate’s power in matters of religion—what the due bounds and limits of it are.”114 He accepted Owen’s interpretation of providence, particularly in regard to its civil and ecclesiastical implications. This accords with the Declaration of the Army upon the March into Scotland (July 15, 1650), which stated that ministers should preach rather than “medling with, or engaging the Authorities of the World.” Too many clergy had “seduced” the people by mingling “the Presbyterian with the Kingly Interest.”115 In other words, they had failed to recognize the due bounds of church and state. Similarly, Jaffray’s testimony resonates with Cromwell’s comments to Speaker William Lenthall after the battle of Dunbar, in which he described how God had dealt a blow to the “Ministers of Scotland” for “medling with worldly Pollicies & mixtures of earthly power, to sett up, that which they call the Kingdome of Christ.”116

Summary and Analysis of the Sermon

Owen took the text as a description of “Christ’s church of saints,” gathered out of the nations, with its appointed ordinances and worship. This was, in the first instance, the church universal but, in a secondary sense, “every particular church of his saints,” which Owen styled as “every holy assembly of mount Zion.” This house is built on the foundation of Jesus Christ and is made up of living stones—that is, elect believers. The principal builder of God’s house is the Holy Spirit, who makes instrumental use of “the prophets and apostles,” first in their labors and then in the apostolic doctrine.

The resultant house is living, strong, and glorious: living because “Christ the foundation is a living stone, and they that are built upon him, are living stones”; strong because of the rock on which it is built; and glorious because Christ is present in each assembly and the glory of the ordinances of the gospel surpass all the glory of the worship of the tabernacle and temple. No opposition to this house has arisen or will arise that will not be broken in pieces. Owen listed persecutors of the church such as Pharaoh, Nebuchadnezzar, the pagan Roman emperors, the persecuting Laudian bishops, and others who had recently had their garments “rolled in blood.” Owen was seeking to justify the invasion on account of freeing the saints in Scotland from those who were seeking to impose religious tyranny. At Musselburgh on August 1, the officers spoke of “the Antichristian Tyranny that was exercised by the late king and His Prelates” over “the True Spiritual Church of Jesus Christ; namely, Those that were born again, and united to him by his Spirit.” They knew that “a time of Deliverance was to be expected to the Church of Christ, and destruction and ruine to Babylon.”117 They were “called forth by the Lord” to be “instrumental” in the “destruction of Antichrist” and the “Deliverance and Reformation of Christ’s Church and people.”118 Owen depicted the true church of the saints as “a house, a palace hung round about with ensigns, spoils, and banners taken from the enemies.” This is especially poignant given that in the rout, all the Scottish artillery and baggage were captured along with over two hundred regimental colors emblazoned with such slogans as “Covenant: for Religion, King and Kingdomes” and “Covenant: for Religion, Croune and Countrie.” Parliament ordered them to be hung in Westminster Hall alongside those taken at Marston Moor, Naseby, and Preston.119 Ian Gentles has analyzed banners from the civil wars to demonstrate how they were often “wrought from expensive materials,” regularly with religious or political slogans, and thus had “high symbolic importance.”120 This action was well-known and controversial. For example, Mercurius Politicus reported on the images and mottos on some of the flags.121 William Prynne was greatly exercised that Cromwell sent “all the Scots Colours to Westminster” in order to “hang up the Ensignes taken from them in Westminster Hall, as publicke trophies and testimonies to succeeding ages.”122

Owen’s main intention was to speak of how this house stands in a twofold relation to Jesus Christ. In the first instance, he developed four relevant motifs from the architecture and furnishings of this house. He began by considering what it means for Christ to be the foundation, distinguishing the different senses in which he is foundational for the church. From all eternity, God purposed that Christ would be the church’s foundation. Christ is also first in that in the protevangelium he was announced as the one through whom grace would be given to the elect. Christ is first in that he is “laid in the heart of every individual stone, before they are laid up in this building.” Finally, he is to be first and preeminent in every particular congregation. Owen developed this architectural metaphor by considering how foundations “must be hidden, and out of sight unto all those that outwardly look upon the house.” He extended the illustration by describing the ornamental features of a great house—for example, impressive carvings on the exterior of the building. Here he refers to a type of decorative plaster work particularly associated with Essex known as pargework. A foolish person may believe that these outward structures are load bearing when in reality “they bear not the house,” but “there is a foundation in the bottom, which bears up the whole.” Owen confessed that he himself had at times mistakenly thought that the church would not survive without the assistance of the civil magistrate or the army. The reality was the other way round. The “very best” in civil government and the army realized that they were supported and held up by the church. Those who were worldly had no apprehension of the hidden foundation and made the mistake of thinking that they could easily demolish the church, not realizing that in doing so they would “dash themselves all to pieces.” His final use of the motif of the foundation is to say that without the foundation of faith “a man [may] be hewed and squared by the word and ordinances into outward conformity,” but the stone has no support and “will quickly fall to the ground,” leaving only a heap of rubbish.

In terms of the furnishings of this house, Christ is the ark, altar, and candlestick. He is the ark and “the mercy seat covering it” in the sense that he hides the law with its condemning power and contains in himself the new covenant. Furthermore, he is the altar of this house—that is, the altar of sacrifice and atonement as well as the golden altar of incense. Finally, he is the “one eminent candlestick” of the church, giving out the light that is necessary for the church’s worship in revealing all that is necessary of the doctrine, worship, and discipline of the house. Others had attempted to “set up light in this house” by appeal to tradition, prudence, and ceremonies. The Commissioners of the Kirk had alluded to Jeremiah 9:14 and Isaiah 50:11 in regard to those who would tolerate error. They sought to portray the English army as comprised of those who “love to walk in the Immaginations of their own hearts, and in the light of their own fire, and in the sparkes that they have kindled, corrupting the truth of God, approving errors in themselves, and tolerating them in others.”