Barrow,
were men who made religion their business; but still they were men who
regarded religion as a life _for_ God rather than a life _from_ God, and
in whose writings recognitions of Divine mercy and atonement and
strengthening grace are comparatively faint and rare. But Bolton, and
Bunyan, and Thomas Goodwin, were men who from a region of carelessness
or ignorance were conducted through a long and darkling labyrinth of
self-reproach and inward misery, and by a way which they knew not were
brought out at last on a bright landing-place of assurance and praise;
and, like Luther in the previous century, and like Halyburton, and
Whitefield, and Jonathan Edwards, in the age succeeding, the strong
sense of their own demerit led them to ascribe the happy change from
first to last to the sovereign grace and good Spirit of God. It was in
deep contrition and much anguish of soul that Owen's career began; and
that creed, which is pre-eminently the religion of "broken hearts,"
became his system of theology.

"Children, live like Christians; I leave you the covenant to feed upon."
Such was the dying exhortation of him who protected so well England and
the Albigenses; and "the convenant" was the food with which the devout
heroic lives of that godly time were nourished. This covenant was the
sublime staple of Owen's theology. It suggested topics for his
parliamentary sermons;--"A Vision of Unchangeable Mercy," and "The
Steadfastness of Promises." It attracted him to that book of the Bible
in which the federal economy is especially unfolded. And,
whether discoursing on the eternal purposes, or the extent of
redemption--whether expounding the Mediatorial office, or the work of
the sanctifying Spirit--branches of this tree of life re-appear in every
treatise. In such discussions some may imagine that there can be nothing
but barren speculation, or, at the best, an arduous and transcendental
theosophy. However, when they come to examine for themselves they will
be astonished at the mass of Scriptural authority on which they are
based; and, unless we greatly err, they will find them peculiarly
subservient to correction and instruction in righteousness. Many writers
have done more for the details of Christian conduct; but for purposes of
heart-discipline and for the nurture of devout affections, there is
little uninspired authorship equal to the more practical publications of
Owen. In the Life of that noble-hearted Christian philosopher