, the late
Dr. Welsh, it is mentioned that in his latter days, besides the Bible,
he read nothing but "Owen on Spiritual-Mindedness," and the "Olney
Hymns;" and we shall never despair of the Christianity of a country
which finds numerous readers for his "Meditations on the Glory of
Christ," and his "Exposition of the hundred and thirtieth Psalm."

And here we may notice a peculiarity of Owen's treatises, which is at
once an excellence and a main cause of their redundancies. So systematic
was his mind that he could only discuss a special topic with reference
to the entire scheme of truth; and so constructive was his mind, that,
not content with the confutation of his adversary, he loved to state and
establish positively the truth impugned: to which we may add, so devout
was his disposition, that, instead of leaving his thesis a dry
demonstration, he was anxious to suffuse its doctrine with those
spiritual charms which it wore to his own contemplation. All this adds
to the bulk of his polemical writings. At the same time it adds to their
value. Dr. Owen makes his reader feel that the point in debate is not an
isolated dogma, but a part of the "whole counsel of God;" and by the
positive as well as practical form in which he presents it, he does all
which a disputant can to counteract the skeptical and pragmatical
tendencies of religious controversy. Hence, too, it comes to pass that,
with one of the commonplaces of Protestantism or Calvinism for
a nucleus, his works are most of them virtual systems of
doctrino-practical divinity.

The alluvial surface of a country takes its complexion from the
prevailing rock-formation. The Essays of Foster, and the Sermons of
Chalmers excepted, the evangelical theology of the last hundred years
has been chiefly alluvial; and in its miscellaneous composition the
element which we chiefly recognize is a detritus from Mount Owen. To be
sure, a good deal of it is the decomposition of a more recent
conglomerate, but a conglomerate in which larger boulders of the
original formation are still discernible. The sermon-makers of the
present day may read Cecil and Romaine and Andrew Fuller; and in doing
this they are studying the men who studied Owen. But why not study the
original? It does good to an ordinary understanding to hold fellowship
with a master mind; and it would greatly freshen the ministrations of
our pulpits, if, with the electric eye of modern culture, and with minds
alive to our mo