stage of religion and politics. Hear how he speaks against the Covenanters of Scotland; who were only greater fools than the faction to which he was himself attached, inasmuch as they were less clever knaves, and less ably directed.

With what deceivableness of unrighteousness and lies in hypocrisy, the late grand attempt in Scotland was carried on, is in some measure now made naked to the loathing of its abominations. In digging deep to lay a foundation for blood and revenge, in covering private and sordid ends with à pretence of things glorious, in limning a face of religion upon a worldly stock, in concealing distant aims and bloody animosities, to compass one common end, that a theatre might be provided to act several parts upon, in pleading a necessity for an oath of God to most desperate undertakings against God, it does not give place to any former ages I have been acquainted with.'

"

In the Spring of 1652, Owen was called upon to preach a funeral sermon over the body of Henry' Ireton, son-in-law of Cromwell; a character, of whom Burnet says, that " he had the principles and temper of à Cassius," and whom Noble represents as the most artful, dark, deliberate man of all the republicans." To the sermon delivered on this occasion, the accommodating Dean of Christ Church gave the following title: The labouring Saint's Dismission to his rest." A precious saint indeed! But în those days, as well, perhaps, as in the present, the epithet holy was not meant to imply any degree of self-denial or affection for the truth, or any thing, in short, besides a certain personal influence among the leaders of popular opinion, and a firm resolution to promote the interests of party.

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Cromwell having been elected chancellor of the University of Oxford in 1651, nominated Owen the following year to fill the place of vice-chancellor, in the room of Dr. Greenwood. He was chosen, says his biographer, by the unanimous suffrage of the senate, notwithstanding his urgent request to the contrary." In the course of twelve months the university conferred upon him the further honours of the degree of Doctor in Divinity, an honour to which hẹ submitted "with great reluctance." In short this saint of the commonwealth, though he took every thing that was offered to him, and made the best use of all his advantages, whether to procure riches or influence, made a point of prefacing every act of acceptance with a canting profession of unworthiness, and a modest request to be saved the pain of a blush. He even condescended to become member of Parliament for the university, notwithstanding the disqualification under which he stood by having been admitted into holy

orders. Cawdry says, that when he was asked whether he was a minister or not, he refused to answer; and Wood, in his Athene Oxonienses, assures us that "rather than he would be set aside because he was a theologist, he renounced his orders and pleaded that he was a mere layman, notwithstanding he had been actually created D.D. in the year. before." The author of South's life, too, repeats the story of the renunciation, and ascribes to Doctor South the merit of "so managing matters with the doctors, bachelors of divinity and masters of arts, the electors, that he was returned with great difficulty, and after a few days sitting had his election declared null and void, because his renunciation was not reputed valid."

Mr. Orme is a good deal perplexed with this incident in the life of the pious Dean of Christ Church. He describes the statements just made as infamous misrepresentations; but he cannot deny the fact that Dr. Owen was returned for the university, and that his election was shortly afterwards set aside by the Committee of Privileges, on the ground of his being in the ministry;-a circumstance which must have been either concealed or overruled when he was recommended to his constituents. But why, says Mr. Orme, put such a question to the candidate? To what purpose ask the vice-chancellor of Oxford and Dean of Christ Church, whether he were a minister? Did not all the world know it? The answer is ready; and the subterfuge of which the Reverend member wished to avail himself is not more difficult to be found. To be a minister, and to be in holy orders, were not, in those days of confusion, expressions of equivalent import; and of all men a partizan of the Cromwellian government would have the least hesitation in renouncing the validity of an ordinance which was held so little essential to the exercise of spiritual functions. Considering the spirit of the age, as well as the prevailing motives which appear to have actuated Owen throughout the whole of his public life, the most candid reader will find it impossible not to suspect that the Dean would answer no questions which were likely to impede the progress of his ambition.

Owen was one of the ministers chosen by the Parliamentary Committee to assist them in determining what doctrines ought to be held fundamentals in religion, and thereby to fix the limits of the toleration which Cromwell and his officers might think it expedient to grant. This instrument of government as it was called, appears to have extended freedom of conscience only to the Presbyterians and Independents; all others being indirectly excluded from the credit of holding

essentials, as also from every such civil immunity and political privilege as that qualification was intended to confer. So ample, forsooth, was the boasted liberality of that unhappy period, that Papists, Protestant Episcopalians, Socinians, Arians, Antinomians and Quakers were liable to be restrained from the exercise of their religion, and to be deprived of that protection in the profession of their faith; which was granted to the more favoured sects!

The Dean of Christ Church next appears as one of the Tryers, as they were called, who were thirty-eight in number and consisted of Independents, Presbyterians, and Baptists. The conduct of these inquisitors has been every where denounced as most arbitrary and tyrannical. They were commissioned to inquire particularly "into the grace of God in the candidate, also into his knowledge, and utterance, and fitness to preach the gospel." They were, as the poet expresses it,

"To find, in lines of beard and face

The physiognomy of grace;

And by the sound of twang and nose
If all be sound within disclose."

The celebrated Dr. Pococke, Professor of Arabic in Oxford, was brought before the commissioners for the county of Berks, on account of a living he had there, and would certainly have received hard measure from them, had not Owen, to save the Tryers from indelible disgrace, as well perhaps as from a more generous motive, interposed his good offices on behalf of the great orientalist. In a letter to secretary Thurloe, he thus speaks of these commissoners.

"There are in Berkshire some few men of mean quality and condition, rash, heady enemies of tythes, who are the commissioners for the ejecting of ministers. They alone sit and act, and are at this time casting out on slight pretences very worthy men; one especially they intend to eject next week, whose name is Pococke, a man of as unblameable a conversation as any that I know living, of repute for learning throughout the world, being the professor of Arabic in our university. So that they do exceedingly exasperate all men and provoke them to the height. If any thing could be done to cause them to suspend acting till this storm be over *, I cannot but think it would be good service to His Highness and the Commonwealth +.".

Not certain of realizing his object in this way, he went accompanied by Doctors Ward, Wilkins, and Wallis,

Penruddock's rising..

+Thurloe's State Papers.

to the place where those precious Tryers were sitting; and there they all laboured with the utmost earnestness to convince them of the strange absurdity of their conduct. Dr. Owen in particular with some warmth, endeavoured to make them sensible of the infinite contempt and reproach which would certainly fall upon them, when it should be said that they had turned out a man for insufficiency, whom all the learned, not of England only, but of all Europe, so justly admired for his vast knowledge and extraordinary accomplishments. The commissioners being very much mortified at the remonstrances of so many eminent men, especially of Dr. Owen, in whom they had a particular confidence, thought it best to put an end to the matter, and discharge Pococke from further attendance.

A great deal has been said on the characters and proceedings of the Tryers, as well by those who defend this measure of Cromwell's government as by those who condemn its rigour and partiality. To us no stronger proof could be supplied both of their incapacity and prejudices than that which has just been presented to us from the writings of Owen himself. He describes them as men of mean quality and condition, rash, heady enemies of tythes;" and adds, that "they aloné sit and act, and are at this time casting out on very slight pretences, very worthy men." Walker and Bates have denounced that inquisitorial tribunal as ignorant, vindictive, and selfish, bringing forward many instances of their tyrannical decisions; but nowhere have we met with so strong and pointed a condemnation of their proceedings as that which appears in Dr. Owen's letter to secretary Thurloe. It is worthy of remark too, that the pious Dean vituperates the conduct of the Tryers, inasmuch as they had become enemies to tythes, and of course hostilely disposed towards all such pensionaries as himself, who enjoyed the revenue of an ecclesiastical office without doing any of its duties. If their zeal led them to eject for insufficiency such a scholar as Pococke, though elevated to the high station of Arabic professor, what security could be entertained by the Dean himself that a similar fit of fanatical inquisition might not endanger his own rich and dignified sinecure. Like all reformers who employ the passions of the multitude to further their cause, he already found that his instruments were about to be used in levelling to the earth the fabric which they had been the means of raising; and therefore he was most desirous to discountenanee the doings of those men of mean quality and condition, those rash and heady inquisitors, the enemies of tythes and of

learning, who were ejecting for insufficiency a body of clergy whose acquirements they were unable either to estimate or to approve.

Penruddock's rising afforded to Dr. Owen an opportunity for manifesting his attachment to Cromwell's interests and his readiness to act in its defence. In a letter to Thurloe he says,

"I have raised and now well settled a troop of sixty horse beside their officers. The town also has raised some foot for their defence. We have some persons in custody, on very good grounds of suspicion, and shall yet secure them. There is much

riding to and fro in the villages near us; but as yet I cannot learn any certain place of their meeting: so I keep a continual guard, and hope some good service has been effected by our arming ourselves. The gentlemen of the county have met, are backward and cold; but something we have gotten them to engage for, towards the raising of some troops. Had I a blank commission or two for horse, I could as I suppose on good grounds raise a troop in Berk shire; sundry good ministers and others have been with me to assist you for that purpose. Pray send me down one or two commissions."

There is some ground therefore for the satirical remarks which were made on the sanctified Dean of Christ Church by a contemporary writer, whom Mr. Orme is pleased to call a “virulent reviler.”

"When those loyal gentlemen of the west made an attempt to redeem their native soil from the bondage of the Cromwellian task-masters, how did this Cromwellian Doctor, rather like a major general than vice-chancellor, carry God in his scabbard and religion at his sword's point! How did he make his beadles exchange their staves for fighting irons! How did he turn his gown into a cloak, and vaunt it with white powder in his hair and black in his pocket, threatening every one with disaffection to the government who would not join with him in his designs! And so he rode up and down like a spiritual Abaddon, breathing out against those brave souls outrage and fury, slaughter and blood !"

In 1656 the Protector summoned a parliament with the view of having his power as chief magistrate placed on a firmer basis than that on which it had hitherto stood; and for this: purpose he employed Owen to enlighten the minds of his faithful commons by preaching on the advantages of a fixed! and stable government. The politic Dean printed his ser mon, with a dedication, as usual, to Cromwell and the Par liament, under the title of "God's work in founding Zion and his People's Duty thereupon":