Yesterday, Ken Minkema (Yale), Paul Helm (King's College, London), and Michael McClenahan (Union Theological College, Belfast) addressed the inaugural conference of the Jonathan Edwards Centre (UK), which links researchers in the University of Liverpool and Queen's University Belfast with colleagues in the Jonathan Edwards Center at Yale. Each of these presenters referenced John Owen. Quite apart…
Bibliography: Lee Gatiss on “Socinianism and John Owen”
Lee Gatiss, "Socinianism and John Owen," Southern Baptist Journal of Theology 20:4 (2016), pp. 43-62. Lee Gatiss completed his Cambridge PhD on Owen's commentary on Hebrews, and this recent publication delves into its representation of the controversy between orthodox Catholics and protestants and the new religious movement led by Faustus Socinus. Socinian arguments reached beyond debates about Christology…
Owen on “filling your hearts with the cross of Christ”
“Labour, therefore, to fill your hearts with the cross of Christ. Consider the sorrows he underwent, the curse he bore, the blood he shed, the cries he put forth, the love that was in all this to your souls, and the mystery of the grace of God therein.” Works, 6: 250.
Owen on Christ’s making peace
John Owen, Doctrine of the saints perseverance, in Works, 11:398. This doctrine renders Jesus Christ lovely to our souls, to the souls of believers. It represents him to them as the “standard-bearer to ten thousand,” as one “altogether lovely,” as exceeding desirable in the work of his oblation, and lovely and amiable in the work of his intercession, as hath…
William Kelly on John Owen
"... it is refreshing to turn to the excellent and learned Dr. John Owen. None can say that Cromwell's Vice-Chancellor of Oxford Plymouthized; none can deny that for spiritual judgment he is incomparably beyond any of the adversaries of the "Brethren." His orthodoxy and his piety are unimpeachable; yet his doctrine (as far as it…
Events: “John Owen and English puritanism” ThM module, John Owen Centre, London Seminary, 9-13 January 2017
Students on the Westminster Theological Seminary ThM module on "John Owen and English puritanism," which is part of the academic programme of the John Owen Centre, London Seminary, spent time in Dr Williams's Library reading manuscripts of Owen's sermons.
Bibliography: Christopher Haigh on “Socinians and “Antinomians” in Restoration England
Christopher Haigh, "'Theological wars': 'Socinians' v. 'Antinomians' in Restoration England," Journal of Ecclesiastical History 67:2 (2016), pp. 325-50. Christopher Haigh's most recent publication focuses on exchanges between conformists and nonconformists in the 1660s and 1670s. Appealing for toleration outside the national church (following Owen) or comprehension within it (following Baxter), dissenters were repudiated as antinomians, and responded…
The “Reverend Doctor” John Owen?
“Can any man think that ... I should thank him for calling me 'reverend author' or 'reverend doctor,' or be troubled for his not using these expressions? Can the mind of an honest man be thought to be conversant with such mean and low thoughts? For the title of 'reverend,' I do give him notice that…
Bibliography: De Freitas and Raath on Rutherford and the protection of religious freedom
Shaun de Freitas and Andries Raath, "Samuel Rutherford and the protection of religious freedom in early seventeenth-century Scotland," Westminster Theological Journal 78 (2016), pp. 231-48 [this article is available on open access here] In this article, De Freitas and Raath, who are professors of law at the University of the Free State, South Africa, set out to…
Bibliography: Pederson on “Reformed orthodoxy in Puritanism”
Randall J. Pederson, "Reformed orthodoxy in Puritanism," Perichoresis 14:3 (2016), pp. 45-59. [This essay is available on open access.] Focusing on Richard Baxter, John Goodwin, and John Owen ("who typifies a rigorous and eclectic Reformed orthodoxy," p. 47), Randall Pederson's new essay complicates older accounts of the theological formation of English puritanism by illustrating significant patterns of…
