Analogy," would
not have numbered many more readers, although they had been composed in
the language of Addison. We must, therefore, notice another obstacle
which has hindered our author's popularity, and it is a fault of which
the world is daily becoming more and more intolerant. That fault is
prolixity. Dr. Owen did not take time to be brief; and in his polemical
writings, he was so anxious to leave no cavil unanswered, that he spent,
in closing loop-holes, the strength which would have crushed the foe in
open battle. No misgiving as to the champion's powers will ever cross
the mind of the spectators; but movements more rapid would render the
conflict more interesting, and the victory not less conclusive.[L] In
the same way, that the effectiveness of his controversial works is
injured by this excursive tendency, so the practical impression of his
other works is too often suspended by inopportune digressions; whilst
every treatise would have commanded a wider circulation if divested of
its irrelevant incumbrances. Within the entire range of British
authorship there exists no grander contributions toward a systematic
Christology than the Exposition of the Hebrews, with its dissertations
on the Saviour's priesthood; but whilst there are few theologians who
have not occasionally consulted it, those are still fewer who have
mastered its ponderous contents; and we have frequently known valiant
students who addressed themselves to the "Perseverance of the Saints,"
or the "Justification," but like settlers put ashore in a cane-brake, or
in a jungle of prickly pears, after struggling for hours through the
Preface or the General Considerations, they were glad to regain the
water's edge, and take to their boat once more.

It was their own loss, however, that they did not reach the interior;
for there they would have found themselves in the presence of one of the
greatest of Theological intellects. Black and Cavendish were born
ready-made chemists, and Linnaeus and Cuvier were naturalists, in spite
of themselves; and so, there is a mental conformation which almost
necessitated Augustine and Athanasius, Calvin and Arminius, to be
dogmatists and systematic divines. With the opposite aptitudes for large
generalization and subtile distinction, as soon as some master-principle
had gained possession of their devout understandings, they had no
greater joy than to develop its all-embracing applications, and they
sought to subjugate Chri