Who Was John Owen? The Puritan Prince of Theologians
John Owen was an English Puritan pastor and theologian who lived from 1616 to 1683. Many count him the greatest theologian the English Puritans produced. He served as a chaplain to Oliver Cromwell, as Dean of Christ Church and Vice-Chancellor of Oxford University, and, after the return of the king in 1660, as a persecuted Nonconformist pastor in London. He wrote a great deal: a huge commentary on Hebrews, books on the Trinity, the atonement and the Holy Spirit, and the searching little books on sin and temptation that most readers meet first, above all The Mortification of Sin.
Here's a fuller look at his life, what he taught, and which of his books to start with.
A Puritan boy at Oxford
Owen was born in 1616 at Stadhampton, a village near Oxford, the second son of Henry Owen, the local Puritan minister. The family was of Welsh descent. He went up to Queen's College, Oxford, at about twelve, and earned his B.A. and M.A. there. The old account of his life printed in our edition of his works on Christ says he worked so hard that for several years he allowed himself only four hours of sleep a night.
His ambition then, by his own later confession, was to get on in the world. But when Archbishop Laud imposed new ceremonies on the university, Owen's conscience wouldn't let him submit, and around 1637 he left Oxford. He worked for a few years as a chaplain and tutor in noble households.
Peace after five dark years
This was also a time of deep spiritual trouble. For a long while Owen had no settled assurance that he was a Christian, and the same account says it was nearly five years before he found peace. It came in London, when he went one Sunday to St Mary Aldermanbury to hear the famous preacher Edmund Calamy. Calamy didn't come. A country minister nobody knew took the pulpit and preached on Matthew 8:26, where Jesus asks His frightened disciples, "Why are ye fearful, O ye of little faith?" That sermon lifted Owen's doubts, and he never learned the preacher's name.
Pastor, preacher to Parliament, chaplain to Cromwell
In 1642 Owen published his first book, against Arminian teaching, and was given the parish of Fordham in Essex. From there he moved to nearby Coggeshall, where large congregations came to hear him. He began as a Presbyterian but became convinced from the New Testament that each congregation should govern itself, and he was a leading Independent, or Congregationalist, from then on.
In 1647 he published The Death of Death in the Death of Christ, his great defense of the teaching that Christ died to actually save His people. Parliament called on him to preach more than once, including the day after the execution of King Charles I in 1649. Oliver Cromwell heard him, sought him out, and took him as a chaplain on his campaigns in Ireland and Scotland.
Oxford
In 1651 Owen was made Dean of Christ Church, Oxford, and the next year Vice-Chancellor of the university, a post he held for five years. He brought order and discipline back to a university unsettled by war, preached regularly, and kept writing. These years gave the world two of his most loved books, Of the Mortification of Sin in Believers (1656), first preached as sermons to students, and Of Temptation (1658). In 1658 he also helped write the Savoy Declaration, the confession of faith of the Congregational churches.
Years of persecution
After the monarchy came back in 1660, Owen lost his place at Christ Church. Laws against Nonconformist worship soon followed, and he had to move from place to place. He was invited to lead Harvard College in New England and offered posts in the Netherlands, but he wouldn't leave England. In time he gathered a congregation in London and pastored it for the rest of his life.
His learning won him respect even from his opponents. King Charles II once gave him a thousand guineas to help Nonconformists who had suffered under the laws. Owen also spoke up for John Bunyan, whose preaching he admired, and helped win his release from Bedford jail.
His home life was full of sorrow. He and his first wife, Mary, had eleven children. Ten died young, and the one daughter who grew up died not long after her marriage. Mary died in 1675, and Owen later remarried.
These were also the years of his richest writing: Indwelling Sin and his exposition of Psalm 130 in 1668, the long commentary on Hebrews, The Grace and Duty of Being Spiritually Minded in 1681, and his works on the person and the glory of Christ.
His last days
Owen spent his final months at Ealing, near London, ill and in pain, thinking much about heaven. Two days before he died he dictated a letter to a friend:
I am going to him whom my soul has loved, or rather who has loved me with an everlasting love, which is the whole ground of all my consolation.
The Glorious Mystery of the Person of Christ, The Life of the Author
He died on August 24, 1683, and was buried in Bunhill Fields in London, where Bunyan was later buried too. His Meditations on the Glory of Christ came out the next year.
What he taught
Sin is real, and it must be fought daily. Owen is best known today for his books on the sin that remains in believers. He took it with deadly seriousness, and he wouldn't let anyone off:
Do you mortify; do you make it your daily work; be always at it whilst you live; cease not a day from this work; be killing sin or it will be killing you.
Of the Mortification of Sin in Believers, chapter 2
Only the Spirit and the cross can kill sin. He had no patience with self-help religion. The power to put sin to death comes from the Holy Spirit, through faith in Christ crucified:
There is no death of sin without the death of Christ.
Of the Mortification of Sin in Believers, chapter 7
There is forgiveness with God. Owen wrote just as much for the troubled conscience. His book on Psalm 130 spends hundreds of pages proving to doubting sinners that God truly pardons.
Christ is everything. Above all, Owen wrote about Jesus Christ, His person, His love, His work as priest, and His glory, which believers see now by faith and will see by sight in heaven.
Why he's still read
Owen isn't easy. His sentences are long and his style is old. But readers keep coming back because he knows the human heart so well, and because he always takes them to Christ. Pastors and ordinary Christians alike say that no one has helped them more in the fight against sin.
Where to start
TheWay Library has six of his books, all free to read. Start with On Temptation and the Mortification of Sin, two short treatises in one volume. If your conscience is troubled, read The Forgiveness of Sin. For his writing on Christ, go to The Glorious Mystery of the Person of Christ, which includes his Meditations on the Glory of Christ.
Our guide to John Owen's books explains all six and the order to read them, and our collection of John Owen quotes gathers his best lines. For Owen among the other Puritans, see our list of the best Puritan books. You'll find his books on the John Owen author page.