A Display Of Learning? Citations And Shortcuts In John Owen’s Display Of Arminianisme (1643)

By Richard Snoddy

[Richard Snoddy is an Associate Research Fellow at London School of Theology and a Visiting Research Fellow at Queen’s University Belfast.]

Abstract

A Display of Arminianisme (1643) was John Owen’s first published work. It gained him recognition and preferment. He had set himself forth as a man with an impressive command of continental Remonstrant sources, but close examination of the work reveals a high degree of dependence on two Contra-Remonstrant compendia for access to many of these sources. Owen’s circumstances are taken into consideration in suggesting reasons for his reliance on intermediate sources before evaluating the implications of these findings for the status of this work and for Owen’s reputation.

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In 1643 John Owen published what would be the first of many theological works, going on to produce a body of writing that would establish him as one of the leading theologians of his era and a prominent figure in the Reformed tradition. In Θεομαχία Αὐτεξουσιαστικὴ: or, A Display of Arminianisme,[1] he set out his stall as a theological polemicist and succeeded in gaining the attention, and hence preferment, that he desired. Although the work evidences a competent understanding of the theological and philosophical issues involved in the Arminian controversy, Owen’s mastery of Arminian literature may not be all that it appears at first glance. This article will show that tracing the citations in Owen’s marginal apparatus reveals that many of these came to him via intermediate sources, in particular from two compendia. The display of learning in this early work comes, in part, through shortcuts rather than the laborious return journey ad fontes.

The book’s publication brings to a close a period of Owen’s life about which we know comparatively little.[2] He had left Oxford in 1637, unable to observe or swear to uphold the ceremonies introduced in the Laudian revision of the university’s statutes the previous year. This must have been a crushing blow, the death knell for his ambitions for a career in church or academy. He would later suffer a further blow when his support for the Parliamentarian cause led to his being disinherited by the rich Welsh uncle who had funded his education. The departure from Oxford triggered a spell of deep depression, including a period of three months during which he barely spoke.[3] He was troubled by “many perplexing thoughts about his spiritual state.”[4] Crawford Gribben suggests that feeling compromised by his return to Oxford in 1638 to receive ordination as a priest at the hands of John Bancroft, Bishop of Oxford, an episode silently passed over in the hagiographic biographies, must have been a significant aggravating factor.[5] He found peace listening to an unknown country preacher at Aldermanbury Church in 1642, though whether that experience should be regarded as a “conversion” as described in the biographical tradition or the liberty brought by assurance of faith is difficult to determine.[6] William Orme thought it “highly probable” that “some misunderstanding of the subjects which the Arminian controversy embraces” contributed to his melancholy.[7] A Display of Arminianisme appeared fairly soon after this interval so Orme is surely correct in concluding that Owen had been wrestling with these questions through the period of spiritual darkness.[8]

In publishing A Display of Arminianisme Owen was setting out to be noticed.[9] It was dedicated to the “Lords and Gentlemen of the Committee for Religion,”[10] a body set up by the House of Lords in 1640 to investigate innovations in doctrine. Gribben suggests that even Owen’s choice of publisher, Philemon Stephens of Paul’s Churchyard, was a strategic calculation. As one of the first publishers of the Long Parliament’s fast day sermons, Stephens’s work was known to Parliament. Owen was thus “leveraging for influence by elevating himself above the sudden cacophony of published religious voices.”[11] Owen sought recognition, and recognition could bring preferment in the changing ecclesio-political landscape.

The lengthy title gives some indication of what is to follow: a Θεομαχία, a battle among the gods, between the sovereign God who reveals himself in Scripture, “the old Pelagian idol, free will,” and “the new goddess contingency.” These latter challengers seek to take God’s throne “to the prejudice of his grace, providence, and supreme dominion.” Clearly Owen sees something new in Arminian doctrine, not simply a revival of the same old Pelagian errors. He also announces his intention to show the points wherein the Arminians fall from “the received doctrine of all the Reformed Churches” and specific points at which they controvert “the doctrine established in the Church of England,” and repeatedly Owen will bring his Reformed reading of the Thirty-nine Articles of the Church of England into the discussion as one yardstick by which to judge innovations in doctrine. The errors of the Arminians will be “discovered and laid open out of their own writings and confessions,” so the reader can expect copious documentation of these points mined from his opponents’ published works.[12]

Owen proceeds to engage the Arminians on a broad range of issues but the work is not a comprehensive treatment of Arminian doctrine. He does not, for example, deal with the important issue of the perseverance of the saints. Those errors he does enumerate, however, are “enough to make their abettors incapable of our church-communion.” Those who espouse them, whatever their standing in church or state, are enemies of “God’s providence, Christ’s merit, and the powerful operation of the Spirit.” Rather than offer the hand of fellowship, those who would contend for truth must make a declaration of “holy war” against such enemies. They must root out such tares.[13] Given the state of the nation in 1643, such violent imagery surely goes well beyond metaphor. A Display of Arminianisme reaches beyond the niceties of theological debate and constitutes “a political intervention … an apologia for a Puritan crusade.”[14]

As his first work, A Display of Arminianisme has obviously drawn comments in the literature on Owen, and these comments have been fairly lukewarm. While describing Owen’s defence of Reformed theology on the points treated as “thorough,” Peter Toon judged the book to be “no masterpiece.” It was “lacking any literary elegance” and stamped with the scholasticism of Owen’s education.[15] William Goold noted “some polish” and the occasional “degree of ornament and pleasantry,” but argued that the general plainness of style might be considered more positively, the Puritan author being one “who perhaps prided himself on the studious rejection of literary elegance.” Goold’s reservations related more to the “acerbity of temper and diction” at times manifest in the work.[16] Orme likewise observed occasional passages of considerable “sharpness and severity” which fell well short of a “Christian temper,” suggesting as mitigating circumstances the “licentious freedoms” of the writers Owen opposed and his perception of the danger of Arminian thought.[17] Gribben found it marked by “self-conscious learning, awkwardness in expression, and rigidly structured style and format.”[18] Carl Trueman reminds us that this is the work of a theologian at the beginning of his career and, perhaps predictably, “somewhat overwrought” and marked by “over-confidence.”[19]

Beyond matters of style and tone, there are some obvious causes for concern in Owen’s handling of his material. Orme, writing in 1820, raised the issue of the Arminian quotations, abstracted from their original context: “Some of the passages which he quotes, ought not, perhaps, to be rigidly interpreted, and should, probably, be explained in connexion with other parts of their writings,” although overall he felt that Owen had given a “fair account.”[20] Andrew Thomson, writing a little later, warned that at times Owen is guilty of the “fault … of making individuals responsible, not only for the opinions that they avow, but for all the consequences that you may deduce from them.”[21] Goold makes the same point: “A Calvinistic author is under obvious temptation to run up Arminian views into what he may esteem their legitimate consequences in the extravagance of the Pelagian theory.”[22]

Carl Trueman has recently provided some helpful analysis of the way in which Owen tends to conflate Arminianism and Socinianism, regarding them as manifestations of the same basic moral problem: a desire to deny that human beings are subject to divine sovereignty and to the effects of sin.[23] Owen suspected that Arminians could not rest content with any scheme in which God’s knowledge of future contingents was certain. That would mean that such contingents were predetermined. He followed William Ames in concluding that “certainly, in their most secret judgments, all the Arminians do consent with Socinus in ascribing unto God only a conjectural foreknowledge.”[24] Perhaps this explains why he spends so little time engaging with the question of scientia media or middle knowledge. Nuances and differences thus pale as more conservative and more radical Arminians alike are treated as the crypto-Socinians Owen suspects them to be.

In his comments on Owen’s “copious quotations” from the Dutch Remonstrants, Goold echoed Orme’s point about excerpting, flagging this as a potential methodological problem: “the sentence of any author, detached from the context, may convey a meaning which is essentially modified by it.” He noticed a certain amount of redaction going on in the appropriation and redeployment of this material: “Some of these quotations are so far accommodated by Owen as to present a full statement of a particular opinion, instead of appearing in the parenthetic and incidental form which they present in the original works, as merely parts of a sentence.” As far as he could judge, Goold reckoned that Owen “evinces perfect integrity” in his handling of the Remonstrant sources and that the “slight alterations … never superinduce a dishonest or mistaken gloss.”[25] As will be seen below, in many cases the editorial intervention happened not on Owen’s desk but at the hands of Dutch Contra-Remonstrants upon whom Owen depended for much of his material.

It is clear enough that Owen read his polemical opponents with a hermeneutic of suspicion. While it might be objected that not all Arminians professed all the errors described, Owen insisted “we know the several wayes they have to introduce and insinuate their Heterodoxies into the mindes of men.” They would probe the defences of Reformed doctrine at various points, seeking entry at one disputed point such as reprobation or the freedom of the will, but once a breach was made more would follow: “give but the least admission and the whole poyson must be swallowed.”[26] He cited the Contra-Remonstrant Festus Hommius to this effect: these were artes, tricks to advance the Arminian cause.[27]

The crowded margins of A Display of Arminianisme contain 230 marginal notes, with 278 individual references, some to biblical passages, others to classical, patristic, medieval, or early modern texts. There are 163 references to continental Arminian texts.[28] The range is impressive at first sight; not just the more obvious, widely available publications but, when one peers behind their Latinized titles, a number of works in Dutch, and even some disputations which had yet to be published in their proper form. Some of these references are less specific, perhaps just giving a chapter number of an Arminian work, but 142 are sufficiently substantial for textual comparison against their original source. There are many deviations in Owen’s rendering, and, as this article will proceed to show, many of these deviations can be accounted for by Owen’s use of two compendia.

Owen clearly drew on two Contra-Remonstrant works, Festus Hommius’s Specimen controversiarum Belgicarum,[29] and Johannes Peltius’s Harmonia remonstrantium et socinianorum.[30] He did not advertise his use of these, and they leave little perceptible trace on the surface of his text. Both authors are mentioned in one reference which reads, Venat. apud Fest. Hom. & Peltium,[31] where Owen appears to be confused about the actual title of the work by Adolphus Venator that they refer to, as discussed below. He also quotes from Hommius’s Specimen on the artes or tricks of the Arminians as mentioned above. Otherwise they receive no mention, and the reader would not suspect the extent of Owen’s reliance on them. The extent of that reliance is considerable.

The first category of evidence of dependence on the compendia comes from Owen’s citations of a number of Dutch editions. Owen twice directly cites Adolphus Venator, or Adolf de Jager (c. 1566–1619), pastor of Alkmaar. For one of these citations, representing Venator’s objection to the proposition that there is no means of salvation outside of the life, death, resurrection, and ascension of Christ, Owen openly acknowledges his dependence on the two compendia, the only occasion on which he does so: Venat. apud Fest. Hom. et Peltium. Perhaps Owen was thrown by the different titles given in the compendia: Contra Past[ores] Dord[racensis] by Hommius, and Contr[a] Fratr[es] Dordrac[ensis] by Peltius, neither quite matching Venator’s predicanten (preachers). This is a plausible explanation for making the unusual move of giving both of these sources for his quotation and not giving a title to Venator’s work himself. His rendering of the text closely follows Peltius, with a degree of abbreviation.[32]

Owen cites Venator again, setting out Venator’s view that infants are in the same estate as the pre-lapsarian Adam. There is no confusion this time as the quotation is from a different work, Theologia vera et mera, and again Owen follows Peltius though the differences between Peltius and Hommius are insignificant.[33]

There is, in fact, a third quotation from Venator, but this comes by accident. Owen attributes a denial of the statement that no one can be saved who is not ingrafted into Christ with a true faith to the Remonstrant Petrus Bertius (1565–1629), in his epistolary spat about justification with Contra-Remonstrant Sibrandus Lubbertus (c.1555–1625), professor of theology at Franeker.[34] Owen is led into this error by following Peltius’s Harmonia, where a small gobbet of Bertius has found its way into the middle of a block of material from Venator. The Venator material that follows this intrusion thus appears to stem from Bertius.[35]

There is a single citation from Conrad Vorstius’s Parasceve. Apart from comma placement and the expansion of ampersands, Owen’s Latin matches Festus Hommius’s rather literal translation from the Dutch perfectly, surely too much of a coincidence for this to be a result of independent effort.[36] There is also a solitary reference to a work by Eduardus Poppius. In Owen’s marginal note the title appears as August. port. This could easily be a printer’s error rather than a mistake by Owen, with misreading or an inverted or “flipped” “u,” changing the title from Angust[a] Port[a], “The Narrow Gate,” a correct translation of the Dutch De Enge Poorte. The three-word fragment of Latin text does not give much basis for textual comparison against the compendia, but the reference itself betrays Owen’s debt to Peltius. Owen gives the page as 110 but his Annuntiatio doctrinæ evangelicæ fits with “het werck der vercondiginghe des Euangelii” in the Dutch on p. 367.[37] Peltius gives his reference as “f. 110. & f. 367” so Owen’s misattribution of the page most likely stems from Peltius’s conflation of passages, and precisely this type of error occurs again elsewhere as described below.

On seven occasions Owen cites a work by the title Rem. Coll. Hag., obviously pertaining to the Colloquy at The Hague in 1611. The page numbers given take the reader to the relevant material not in the Latin collections of documents compiled by Hendrik Brand, Petrus Bertius, or Johannes Corvinus, but in the Dutch edition of Corvinus, Schriftelicke conferentie, gehovden in s’Gravenhaghe inden Iare 1611.[38] Owen’s Latin quotation can be traced to its Dutch source, Owen’s page numbers matching the Dutch edition exactly in each case. In six of these cases the relevant passage appears in Latin in either or both of the two compendia. These findings are most easily presented in tabular form.

Display	Goold	Specimen	Harmonia	Source
46i	50n2	45	-	Specimen
53c	55n3	86	86	Harmonia
55h	57n2	-	92	Harmonia
58p	60n1	61	99	Harmonia
87f	84n5	43	42	Harmonia
101n	96n2	-	-	?
111i	104n2	45	167	Harmonia

Where the passage appears in both compendia Owen’s Latin always matches Peltius, barring occasional abbreviation or transposition of words. Even if Owen could read Dutch, and this is far from likely, that he could translate from Dutch and independently arrive at a form of words in Latin which corresponds so closely to translations given by Peltius and Hommius is stretching the imagination. It appears that the two compendia are the source for six of the citations,[39] and the one unaccounted for could have been mediated via another source as yet unidentified. The Latin titles and the translations from all these Dutch works in the compendia may have disguised from Owen the origin of some or all of this material in the Dutch language. One is left wondering if Owen was even aware that the originals were written in Dutch.

Owen’s citations of the disputations of Simon Episcopius evidence further dependence on the compendia. A number of excerpts from Episcopius’s disputations appeared in Festus Hommius’s Specimen controversiarum Belgicarum (1618). It seems that Hommius had obtained these in the form of students’ notes. Episcopius, with some justification, objected to the way this material had been presented. In a short tract entitled Optima fides Festi Hommii (1618) he complained that his position had been grossly misrepresented.[40] Hommius, in response, published a set of Episcopius’s disputations with a self-justifying preface.[41] Three of Owen’s citations of Episcopius’s disputations come from disputations which fall outside of those included in this collection published in 1618, and these would not appear in proper form until 1646, three years after A Display of Arminianisme was published.[42] Owen would have had no direct access to the texts of these disputations and gives no indication that he was conscious of this fact. In all likelihood, his access was mediated by the two compendia.

For example, in the first of the three citations Owen and the compendia give the following readings, summarizing Episcopius on the point that some acts of God’s will cease at a certain time:

Owen: “Volitiones aliquæ Dei cessant certo quodam tempore.” 

Hommius: “Volitiones aliquæ Dei certo quodam tempore desinunt.” 

Peltius: “Quædam quæ Deus vult, cessant certo tempore.”[43]

Owen’s sentence structure closely follows Hommius’s Specimen, but the change of the verb and its position could conceivably reflect influence from Peltius.[44]

Even in the four cases where Owen cites material which can be found in the published collection of 1618, in each instance Owen is found agreeing with the compendia against the reading found there. In one of these quotations it is a matter of a single word’s difference from the source text,[45] but in the others the parallels with the compendia are more significant. For example, in summarizing Episcopius on the cause of election, Owen copies Peltius’s Harmonia verbatim.[46] When Episcopius, in the 1618 collection, disputes the Reformed view that God effects through his power and wisdom that the elect should do what he requires of them, the bland “Denique quod statuat…” (Finally it establishes…) becomes “Absurdum est statuere…” (It is absurd to affirm…) in both Owen and Hommius’s Specimen. This actually paraphrases sentiments expressed in the source three paragraphs previously as the three final points of the disputation are set up. Owen and Hommius both omit the words “ex vi decreti illius primi,” although they otherwise render the text faithfully.[47] Finally, Owen appears to be following Peltius’s Harmonia as he further abbreviates a lengthy passage, including nothing that Peltius omits and likewise moving the words “Disquiri permittimus” from the end to the beginning of the first sentence.[48] It might also be noted that in the seven citations from Episcopius’s disputations, the only consistency Owen observes in giving a short title—whether “disput.,” “disp. pri.,” “disput. pri. de volun. Dei,” etc—is that he is following the form given in the compendia with those particular excerpts.

A further error which appears to reflect dependence on intermediaries comes near the end of A Display of Arminianisme, where Owen gives a quotation from Grevinchovius’s polemical assault on William Ames: “Præcedit aliquid in peccatoribus, quo quamvis nondum justificati sunt, digni efficiantur justificatione,” which Owen translates as “something which is in sinners, whereby though they are not justified, yet they are made worthy of justification.”[49] It is highly probable that this comes via Peltius, for if Owen was working from the original he could hardly have failed to notice that these words are clearly set within a quotation from Augustine’s Eighty-three Diverse Questions.[50] The words are indeed those of Augustine.[51] They are found in a passage where Augustine discusses God’s acts of grace and hardening (cf. Rom 9:18–19) in association with “deeply hidden merits” (de occultissime meritis), yet insists on the sovereignty of God in the sinner’s salvation. Taken in context in Augustine the idea is perhaps not that far removed from the “seeds of piety” which Martin Bucer posited in the elect prior to regeneration as a result of God’s act of election.[52] Grevinchovius obviously only cites what is most helpful to his position from Augustine, and taken in isolation the statement is highly objectionable to Reformed thinking. By failing to mention its origin in Augustine Peltius intentionally or unintentionally makes the statement Grevinchovius’s own. In a sense, of course, it is. But in doing so, it seems that he misleads Owen. It is easier to believe that Owen followed Peltius blindly, than that he made the same moves independently in dealing with this passage. Owen does not engage the text in relation to Augustine’s theology and it is likely that he assumed that the words were those of Grevinchovius. One wonders if he ever realized his mistake.

There are numerous other inconsistencies, for example, in Owen’s citations from Arminius’s Examen modestum libelli, a response to the predestinarian theology of William Perkins and arguably the foundational work of Arminianism.[53] Owen makes 18 references to this work, and apart from the two references to the prefatory material, he always gives it the simple title Antip., Antiper., or Antiperk. It is common to find the work denoted Antiperkins in the literature of the period.[54] Owen does not always supply a page number. When he does, the page numbers can usually be matched to the Basson edition of Examen modestum libelli (1612),[55] but on two occasions they match the material in the Opera of 1635,[56] and once in the Opera of 1629.[57] Owen is referring to three different volumes without discrimination in the title that he gives. This is far from conclusive evidence. He could have used different editions at different times as opportunity afforded, but this finding is certainly consistent with the picture of a scholar drawing on multiple intermediaries, and the failure, or perhaps inability, to settle on a single source, or even to identify which sources are being used, certainly does not help the reader who wishes to trace the quotations back to their origin and study them in their context.

Other evidence of dependence on intermediaries can be found in the replication of errors in the page numbers of citations through Owen’s copying mistakes in pagination.[58] Even more compelling evidence is a mistake in referencing the Arminian Confession of 1622. Owen’s paraphrase of the passage matches that of Peltius barring two word transpositions and the cut of a nine word clause. This is notable enough in itself, but Owen then incorrectly gives the reference as “c. 17. sect. 1.” He appears to have copied this from Peltius as his eye ran along the line immediately after the cited text, and to the reference to the next passage that Peltius cites in that lengthy paragraph, rather than going back to the beginning of the paragraph for the correct reference, and this moment of carelessness betrays his source.[59] On another occasion Owen’s failure to supply a page number is likely due to the fact that Peltius, to whose abridgment of the source passage Owen’s is suspiciously identical, embeds the passage in question in a catena of four excerpts and gives the page numbers together at the beginning of the paragraph.[60] This would certainly explain Owen’s agnosticism on the pagination. Without reference to the original source he would not know where one excerpt ended and another began. Owen even follows Peltius in giving the wrong title for a citation from one of Arminius’s works, attributing to his Declaratio sententiæ what is actually a fairly close paraphrase of words found in Apologia … adversus articulos quosdam theologicos, and again Owen’s words match those of Peltius exactly.[61]

There are numerous instances of Owen following editorial changes made by one of his intermediate sources. A good example is in the handling of Corvinus’s contention against Pierre du Moulin that Christ’s death would have achieved its end even if no one had believed. The Latin of Owen and Peltius matches exactly, the only differences being that the final “u” in Peltius’s “futurum” is inverted or “flipped,” and that Owen adds a comma after “credere.” These differences from each other are insignificant, while the differences with Corvinus are not:

Corvinus: “Quare etsi nemo credidisset, futurum tamen fuisse vt finis mortis Christi constaret, omnino credimus.” 

Peltius: “Se omnino credere futurnm fuisse, ut finis mortis Christi constaret, etiamsi nemo credidisset.” 

Owen: “Se omnino credere, futurum fuisse, ut finis mortis Christi constaret, etiamsi nemo credidisset.”[62]

It stretches the imagination to accept that Peltius and Owen recorded Corvinus’s text in their notes or set about editing it for inclusion in their own work and independently hit upon the same form of words. Another example sees agreement between Owen and Peltius in a more radical paraphrase of an Arminian statement on the nature of God’s knowledge of future contingents.

Remonstrants: “Et sanè ita sentimus, non respectu cognitionis quam Deus habet, de actionum & rerum contingentium certo eventu, sed respectu desiderii quo res & actiones contingentes Deus probat & desiderat: itemque respectu contingentiæ, quam illæ habent cum in sese, tum in divinâ scientia, expectationem Deo tribui.” 

Peltius: “Respectu contingentiæ, quam res habent in sese, tum in divina scientia Deo expectatio tribuitur.” 

Owen: “Respectu contingentiæ quam res habent in se tum in divina scientia Deo expectatio tribuitur.”[63]

The only differences between Owen and Peltius are in the punctuation and in Peltius’s use of “sese” rather than “se,” reflecting the original source. It is clear that Owen is here dependent on Peltius. Again, in a paraphrase of Grevinchovius against Ames on Adam’s ability to believe after the fall:

Grevinchovius: “At verò, si antè lapsum eâ ne uti quidem potuit, certè nec abuti: eòque nec propter abusum auferri potuit, Retinuit ergò post lapsu[m] pote[n]tia[m] crede[n]di & reliqui, etiam reprobi in illo.” 

Peltius: “Adamus post lapsum potentiam credendi retinuit, & reliqui reprobi etiam in illo.” 

Owen: “Adamus post lapsum potentiam credendi retinuit, & reliqui reprobi etiam in illo.”[64]

There is no difference between Owen and Peltius. This must be another clear example of dependence, and there are many more.[65]

It is clear from the evidence presented here that Owen was heavily reliant on the compendia of Festus Hommius and Johannes Peltius for his presentation of Arminianism. This can be proven beyond reasonable doubt for dozens of citations of continental Arminian authors, and it would not be unreasonable to assume that other citations were culled from these intermediate sources. It is also possible that other, yet to be identified, texts were used as intermediaries.

Anthony Grafton, writing of historical scholarship in a later period when such notes had generally completed their slide to the bottom of the page, observes:

Long lists of earlier books and articles and strings of coded references to unpublished documents supposedly prove the solidity of the author’s research by rendering an account of the sources used. In fact, however, only the relatively few readers who have trawled their nets through the same archival waters can identify the catch in any given set of notes with ease and expertise. For most readers, footnotes play a different role. In a modern, impersonal society, in which individuals must rely for vital services on others whom they do not know, credentials perform what used to be the function of guild membership or personal recommendations: they give legitimacy … footnotes confer authority on a writer.[66]

This is true in the case of Owen. The cloud of Arminian witnesses that crowd the margins of A Display of Arminianisme are more than just conversation partners. They are brought into that space to show Owen’s credentials as an authority in matters of theological controversy, to convince others that here was a man in command of the facts, fully conversant in the literature of the Arminian foe. He was, as it were, dressed to impress, and impress he did, gaining the recognition and preferment that he sought. Months after the publication of his first book he accepted the offer of the sequestrated rectory of Fordham in Essex from parliament.[67]

Owen’s circumstances must be borne in mind. He would likely have done some of the work on this book while living in Charterhouse Yard, a rather down-at-heel part of the capital, and perhaps at Scots Hall, the home of Sir Edward Scot, in Smeet, near Ashford in Kent. This would have seemed a world away from the libraries of Oxford, and even from the private collections of Sir Robert Dormer and John Lord Lovelace, both of whom Owen served as chaplain, and whose libraries, suggests Gribben, provided grist for Owen’s mill.[68] The compendia of Hommius and Peltius would have been an affordable and portable library of Arminian material, within reach of a man of limited means. If Owen’s circumstances had been different and he had had easy access to a major library, he might not have been so reliant on intermediate sources, or might at least have taken the trouble to check their references against the source texts.[69]

Previous studies which have examined A Display of Arminianisme have been more interested in the text than the paratext, in the theological profession rather than the technical practice, but this move to the margins casts new light on Owen’s working habits early in his career as an author. As Grafton, again writing of historical rather than theological scholarship, suggests,

One who actually follows historians’ footnotes back to their sources, accordingly taking the time to trace the deep, twisted roots of the blasted tree of scholarly polemic, may well discover much more of human interest that one would expect buried in the acid subsoil.[70]

There is certainly “human interest” here, an insight into the working practices of a man who over the course of a long writing career tells his reader very little about himself. This study illustrates the potential of careful analysis of an author’s references to yield surprises, and in Owen’s case, with the dispersal of his library and the disappearance of his own manuscripts, this becomes more important. Crawford Gribben noted that “we cannot access his reception of other writers through his marginalia: it is now impossible to trace the contents of his library and thus to read his noted comments or the evidence of reading strategies that might be contained in his papers.”[71] This turn to a different type of marginalia, that of Owen’s own publications, is largely an untraveled road that may lead to further discoveries about his reading and reception of other authors.

The evidence presented in this study reveals a pattern of practice that would today be considered plagiarism by almost any definition. Modern canons of scholarship, of course, differ significantly from seventeenth-century attitudes when such liberal borrowing was more widespread.[72] However, even in that context to be revealed as dependant on the work of others could take the lustre off an author’s achievements and undermine their readers’ confidence in their authority. This was obviously the intent of Samuel Parker, later Bishop of Oxford, in some of his attacks on Owen after the Restoration. He complained about Owen’s sprinkling “some Learned Shreds of Latin” in Truth and Innocence Vindicated as “pedantic Impertinences.” These were not, he suggested, evidence of “Encyclopediacal Reading,” and “to his Men of Reading that can trace him, they will bring him under suspicion of filching other Mens Wit.”[73] He also remarked on Owen’s desire

to let us see his deep Stores of Ammunition in Jewish Learning: for some Men are mighty Rabbies at the second hand, and can furnish great Volumes with a power of Hebrew, as Brokers do their Shops with old Cloaths. And I have read a famous Writer (though he shall be nameless) that abounds with Rabbinical Quotations, all which if you would trace them, are trivial in Modern Authors. But though Men by such borrowed Gays may make the Vulgar gaze and admire them, yet they do but expose their Ignorance and Vain-glory to the Learned World.[74]

The anonymous work abounding with rabbinical quotations is probably the first part of Owen’s commentary on Hebrews.[75] This article is not the place to evaluate Parker’s allegations against “the great Scribler,”[76] but merely to make the point that while we cannot easily transport modern concepts of plagiarism into that context, the revelation of heavy dependence on others could affect the public perception of an author’s stature. That was certainly Parker’s belief.

Owen clearly intended that A Display of Arminianisme would speak to religious controversies of the 1640s, but there was also the personal agenda of recognition and advancement. To this end he sought to advertise his credentials as a theological polemicist and put on a display of learning, a good proportion of which was second-hand. He may, as his biographers believe, have spent years studying this controversy. Perhaps it was out of necessity that he relied on the compendia due to straitened circumstances. But the result is a flawed work. On occasion Owen’s marginal notes do not lead the reader to the source, and they often do not represent the source accurately. They can be unhelpful to the enquiring reader, and the stuff of nightmares for his modern editor. His heavy reliance on the work of others must also call into question the impression conveyed by some Reformed hagiography of Owen as an omnicompetent theological behemoth.[77]

“Movet cornicula risum, furtivis nudata coloribus” (The crow, stripped of his stolen colors, awakes laughter). Owen applies these words from the Roman poet Horace, to the Arminians decking out their idol free-will in divine attributes and the embarrassment that will come when the idol is exposed for what it truly is.[78] In their original context, however, these words spoke of literary plagiarism as Horace tells of how he has warned a contemporary many times “to look for stores of his own,” lest the flock of birds return to reclaim their stolen feathers.[79] This was a commonplace in the Renaissance and used in reference to those who pilfered the work of others in their quest for self-promotion and status.[80] The findings of this article are presented not to awake laughter, but to give some insight into the self-fashioning of an emerging theologian, and to reveal how this Reformed icon was human, fallible, and subject to temptations which are still in evidence in the Reformed world today.

Notes

1. Θεομαχία Αὐτεξουσιαστικὴ: or, A Display of Arminianisme. Being a discovery of the old Pelagian idol free-will, with the new goddesse contingency, advancing themselves, into the throne of the God of heaven to the prejudice of his grace, providence, and supreme dominion over the children of men. Wherein the maine errors of the Arminians are laid open, by which they are fallen off from the received doctrine of all the reformed churches, with their opposition in divers particulars to the doctrine established in the Church of England. Discovered out of their owne writings and confessions, and confuted by the word of God (London: Philemon Stephens, 1643); also in The Works of John Owen, ed. William H. Goold, 24 vols. (Edinburgh: Johnstone & Hunter, 1850–1855), 10:1–137 (also at this location in the reprint of the Works in 16 vols. by Banner of Truth [London, 1965–1968]). All references to A Display of Arminianisme below are to the 1643 edition with the page number in vol. 10 of the Goold edition following in brackets.
2. For Owen’s biography, see especially John Asty, “Memoirs of the Life of John Owen, D.D.,” in A Complete Collection of the Sermons of the Reverend and Learned John Owen, D.D. (London: John Clark, 1721), i–xli; William Orme, Memoirs of the Life, Writings, and Religious Connexions, of John Owen, D. D., Vice-Chancellor of Oxford and Dean of Christ Church, during the Commonwealth (London: T. Hamilton, 1820); Andrew Thomson, “Life of Dr. Owen,” in Works of John Owen, 1:xix–cxxii; Peter Toon, God’s Statesman: The Life and Work of John Owen, Pastor, Educator, Theologian (Exeter: Paternoster, 1971); Crawford Gribben, John Owen and English Puritanism: Experiences of Defeat (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016). For an introduction to Owen’s theology, see Carl R. Trueman, The Claims of Truth: John Owen’s Trinitarian Theology (Carlisle: Paternoster, 1998); Carl R. Trueman, John Owen: Reformed Catholic, Renaissance Man (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007).
3. Asty, “Memoirs,” iv.
4. Asty, “Memoirs,” iv.
5. Gribben, John Owen and English Puritanism, 36–37.
6. See Asty, “Memoir,” v; Gribben, John Owen and English Puritanism, 41–42.
7. Orme, Memoirs, 29–30.
8. Orme, Memoirs, 30.
9. Toon, God’s Statesman, 14.
10. Owen, Display, sig. *2r [5].
11. Gribben, John Owen and English Puritanism, 46.
12. Owen, Display, title [1].
13. Owen, Display, sigs Av–A2r [7].
14. Gribben, John Owen and English Puritanism, 53, 54.
15. Toon, God’s Statesman, 15.
16. Goold, prefatory note to “Display of Arminianism,” in Works, 10:4.
17. Orme, Memoirs, 35.
18. Gribben, John Owen and English Puritanism, 46.
19. Trueman, John Owen: Reformed Catholic, Renaissance Man, 86, 92.
20. Orme, Memoirs, 34.
21. Thomson, “Life of Dr. Owen,” in Works, 1.xxxii.
22. Goold, prefatory note, in Works, 10:4.
23. Trueman, John Owen: Reformed Catholic, Renaissance Man, 61–62.
24. Owen, Display, 19 [27]; cf. William Ames, Anti-synodalia scripta, vel animadversiones in dogmatica illa, quæ Remonstrantes in Synodo Dordracena exhibuerunt, et postea divulgarunt (Amsterdam: Willem Blaeu, 1633), 14.
25. Goold, prefatory note, in Works, 10:4.
26. Owen, Display, sig. A2r [7].
27. See Festus Hommius, Specimen controversiarvm Belgicarvm. Seu confessio Ecclesiarvm Reformatarvm in Belgio, cujus singulis articulis subjuncti sunt articvli discrepantes, in quibus nonnulli Ecclesiarum Belgicarum doctores hodie à recepta doctrinâ dissentire videntur (Leiden: Elzivir, 1618), ad lectorem, sig. **2v: “Profitentur Remonst. hasce ad promotionem causæ suæ artes adhibere, ut apud vulgus non ulterius progrediantur quam de articulis vulgo notis, ut pro ingeniorum diversitate quosdam lacte diu alant, alios solidiore cibo, etc.” (The Remonstrants profess, to employ these tricks to the furthering of their cause, so that among the people they advance no further than the articles familiar to the people, so that according to difference of capabilities some might be nursed for a time with milk, others with more solid food, etc.).
28. This figure includes works by Adolphus Venator who should not be regarded as an Arminian but more of a fellow-traveller. See Joel R. Beeke, “Venator, Adolphus Tectander (1569?–1618)” in The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Reformation, ed. Hans J. Hillebrand, 4 vols. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), 4:224–25. He was, however, clearly lumped together with the Arminians by the Contra-Remonstrants on whom Owen relied.
29. This also appeared in Dutch as Monster vande Nederlantsche verschille[n] ofte belydenisse der Ghereformeerde Kercken in Nederlant. Al waer onder elcken artijckel bygevoecht zijn de verschillende artyckelen inde welcke hedensdaechs sommighe leeraers der Nederlantsche kercken, vande aengenome leere schijnen te wijcken (Leiden: David Janse van Ilpendam, 1618).
30. Johannes Peltius, Harmonia Remonstrantivm et Socinianorvm in variis religionis Christianæ dogmatibvs non infimis, quibus post singulos paragraphos opposita est sententia orthodoxa Ecclesiarum verè reformatorum, ex formulis unionum earundem Ecclesiarum, Confessione, Catechismo, Canonibus Synodi Nationalis Durdrechtanæ desumpta, locisque S. Scripturæ confirmata (Leiden: Isaac Commelin, 1633).
31. Owen, Display, 117e [109n5].
32. Owen, Display, 117e [109n5]; cf. Hommius, Specimen, 80; Peltius, Harmonia, 111; Venator, Een besonder tractaet, van de voornaemste leer-stucken, over welcken ten huydigen dage ‘t verschil is: wesende d’oprechte copijen, eerst van het wederleg-schrift der E. wel-gheleerden predicanten der stadt Dordrecht [...] tegens een remonstrantie, uytgegheven (1612), 131.
33. Owen, Display, 70a [70n1]; cf. Hommius, Specimen, 55; Peltius, Harmonia, 65; Venator, Eerste boeck van de hoost-stucken de Christelijcker religie, 2, appended to Theologia vera et mera, lactentium et infantium in Christo ([Alkmaar]: Jacob de Meester, 1617), with separate pagination. Peltius gives Adamus for Adam, and lacks Omnes at the beginning of the quotation. Owen gives the title as Theol. ve. & me., and Peltius as Theolog. ver. & mer.
34. Published in Epistolica Disceptatio de fide justificante deque nostra coram Deo justificatione, habita inter ... D. Sibrandum Lubberti ... et Petrum Bertium (Delft: Johannes Andreae, 1612).
35. Owen, Display, 117d [109n4]; cf. Peltius, Harmonia, 111. The true source is Venator, Een besonder tractaet, 138.
36. Owen, Display, 32i [37n2]; cf. Hommius, Specimen, 35; Vorstius, Parasceve, dat is: voor-bereydinghe van Conradvs Vorstivs ... tot een vriendelijcke conferentie ... met Ioannes Piscator ... over sekere aenwysinghen ... op sommighe plaetsen al over langhe ghetoghen uyt het boeck des autheurs van God (Amsterdam: Willem Jansz, 1612), 4. Owen and Peltius both abbreviate the title to Parasc.
37. Owen, Display, 143c [131n3]; cf. Peltius, Harmonia, 171; Eduardus Poppius, De enge poorte, ofte, predicatien over eenighe voortreffelijcke texten, ofte spreucken der heyligher schrifture (Gouda: Jasper Tournay for A. Burier, 1616), 110, 367.
38. [Johannes Corvinus], Schriftelicke conferentie, gehovden in s’Gravenhaghe inden iare 1611. tusschen sommighe kercken-dienaren: aengaende de godlicke prædestinatie metten aencleven van dien (s’Gravenhage: Hillebrant Iacobsz, 1612).
39. Owen’s short title for this work, Rem. Coll. Hag., could be derived from Remonstr. Colloqu. Hagiens. as given by Peltius, and A. Remonstrantibvs, Coll. Hag. as given by Hommius. For the fifth entry in the table Peltius departs from his normal practice and gives Sex collocu, Hagi, but Owen would have been able to identify the source from Hommius’s Specimen, even though he follows the Latin of Peltius.
40. Simon Episcopius, Optima fides Festi Hommii: cuius specimen in citatione insignium locorum ex thesibus privatis M. Simonis Episcopij SS. theologiæ professoris demonstratur ex libro quem inscripsit Specimen controversiarum Belgicarum (Leiden: Godefrid Basson, 1618).
41. Collegium disputationum theologicarum in Academiâ Leydensi privatim institutarum à M. Simone Episcopio, S. theologiæ in eadem academiâ professore. Addita est præfatio, in quâ demonstratur, in citandis hisce thesibus aliisq[ue] scriptis, Optima Fides Festi Hommii (Dordt: Johannes Berewout, 1618). On the sequence of events, see Frederick Calder, Memoirs of Simon Episcopius (London: Simpkin & Marshall, 1835), 164–65, 244–45; John Platt, Reformed Thought and Scholasticism: The Arguments for the Existence of God in Dutch Theology, 1575–1650 (Leiden: Brill, 1982), 211–18.
42. Simon Episcopius, Disputationes theologiæ tripartæ (Amsterdam: Johannes Blaeu, 1646).
43. Owen, Display, 7f [16n2]; Hommius, Specimen, 5; Peltius, Harmonia, 89. For the other two citations, see Owen, Display, 46h [50n1], although no text is given in this reference; cf. Hommius, Specimen, 36; and Owen, Display, 132 [122n1]; cf. Hommius, Specimen, 42.
44. It is worth noting in passing that Peltius’s Harmonia is actually much closer to the text as published in 1646, suggesting that he was not dependent on Hommius’s Specimen here but had access via another source, perhaps a manuscript copy of the disputation.
45. Owen, Display, 78p [77n 4], agrees with Peltius, Harmonia, 71, on “originis,” against “originale” as found in Collegium disputationum theologicarum in Academiâ Leydensi, 28.
46. Owen, Display, 59r [61n 2]; cf. Peltius, Harmonia, 95. The only difference between the two is Owen’s change of “mera” to “vera,” in all likelihood a misprint. They summarize points made in Collegium disputationum theologicarum in Academiâ Leydensi, 26–27 (theses 2, 3, and 6).
47. Owen, Display, 111k [104n3]; cf. Hommius, Specimen, 50; Collegium disputationum theologicarum in Academiâ Leydensi, 27–28 (thesis 7; cf. thesis 4).
48. Owen, Display, 19u [26n3]; cf. Peltius, Harmonia, 27–28; Collegium disputationum theologicarum in Academiâ Leydensi, 13. Owen numbers his points and in #3 “saluti” must certainly be a misprint for “scitu” (reproduced in the Goold edition).
49. Owen, Display, 136l [125n5].
50. Peltius, Harmonia, 60; Nicolaas Grevinchoven, Dissertatio theologica de dvabvs qvaestionibvs hoc tempore controversis, quarum prima est de reconciliatione per mortem Christi impetrata omnibus ac singulis hominibus: altera, de electione ex fide prævisa. Sermone primùm inchoata, posteà vero scripto continuata, inter Gvilielmvm Amesivm et Nicolavm Grevinchovivm. Non qualem ille eam edidit cum suo, quod agnoscit, auctario; sed genuina illa atque integra: cui accessit ejusdem Grevinchovij responsio ad Amesii instantias (Rotterdam: Mathias Sebastian, 1615), 434.
51. Augustine, De diversis quaestionibus LXXXIII, 68.4, in Augustini … Opera Omnia … Tomus Sextus (PL 40:72); Augustine, Eighty-three Different Questions, trans. David L. Mosher, Fathers of the Church 70 (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1982), 163.
52. For example, Martin Bucer, In sacra qvatvor eua[n]gelia, enarrationes perpetuæ (Geneva: Robert Estienne, 1553), fol. 35r: “Vti ferè semper in electis, etiam ante plenam eorum conuersionem, & dum flagitiis madent, quædam tamen pietatis seminaria subinde elucent.” The idea is firmly rejected in John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, ed. John T. McNeill, trans. Ford Lewis Battles, 2 vols. (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1960), 2:976–78 (3.24.10–11).
53. Carl Bangs describes it as “the basic document of Arminianism” in Arminius: A Study in the Dutch Reformation (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1971), 209.
54. See, for example, Judgment of the Palatine delegation, in Acta Synodi Nationalis … Dordrechti habitæ anno MDCXVIII et MDCXIX (Leiden: Isaac Elsivir, 1620), 2nd pagination, 137.
55. Owen, Display, 6b [15n2], 7g [16n3], 65y [66n1], 99c [94n1], 127t [118n3], 142a [130n1], 145h [133n1]; cf. Arminius, Examen modestvm libelli, quem d. Gvlielmvs Perkinsivs apprimé doctus theologus, edidit ante aliquot annos de prædestinationis modo & ordine, itemque de amplitudine gratiæ divinæ. Addita est propter argumenti convenientiam analysis cap. IX. ad Roman. ante multos annos ab eodem ipso d. Arminio delineata (Leiden: Godefrid Basson, 1612).
56. Owen, Display, 47m [50n5], 56l [58n2]; cf. Iacobi Arminii veteraqvinatis Batavi ... Opera theologica (Frankfurt: Wolfgang Hoffman, 1635).
57. Owen, Display, 19y [27n3]; cf. Iacobi Arminii veteraqvinatis Batavi ... Opera theologica (Leiden: Godefrid Basson, 1629).
58. The following errors might be noted: •Owen, Display, 46g [49n3]; Hommius, Specimen, 34; cf. Conrad Vorstius, Tractatus theologicus de Deo, sive de natura et attributis Dei (Steinfurt: Theophilus Caesar, 1610), 63 (not 64). •Owen, Display, 60u [62n1]; Peltius, Harmonia, 94 (gives reference as “f.21 & f.3, ” Owen misled by the former); cf. Arminius, Articvli nonnvlli diligenti examine perpendi, eò quod inter ipsos reformatæ religionis professores de iis aliqua incidit controversia (s.n., ca. 1620), 3 (not 21). •Owen, Display, 126o [117n2]; Peltius, Harmonia, 54; cf. “Explicatio tertii et qvarti articvli de hominis conversione, ex sententia Remonstrantivm,” in Jan Uytenbogaert, Acta et scripta synodalia Dordracena ministrorvm Remonstrantivm in foederato Belgio (Harderwijk, 1620), 3rd pagination, 6 (not 16; and neither Peltius nor Owen indicate the relevant part of this enormous volume). •Owen, Display, 143f [132n2]; Peltius, Harmonia, 59; cf. [Simon Episcopius], Apologia pro confessione sive declaratione sententiæ eorum, qui in fœderato Belgio vocantur Remonstrantes, super præcipuis articulis religionis Christianæ. Contra censvram quatuor professorvm Leidensivm (s.n., 1630), fol. 162v (not 164).
59. Owen, Display, 143e [132n1]; Peltius, Harmonia, 194; cf. [Simon Episcopius], Confessio, sive declaratio, sententiæ pastorum, qui in fœderato Belgio Remonstrantes vocantur, super præcipuis articulis religionis Christianæ (Harderwijk: Theodorus Danielis, 1622), 36 (cap. 11. sect. 4).
60. Owen, Display, 136k [125n4]; Peltius, Harmonia, 182; “Defensio sententiæ Remonstrantivm circa primvm de prædestinationis decreto articvlvm,” in Uytenbogaert, Acta et scripta, 2nd pagination, 63–64.
61. Owen, Display, 18t [26n2]; Peltius, Harmonia, 35; cf. Arminius, Apologia d. Iacobi Arminii adversus articulos quosdam theologicos, in Opera theologica (1629), 144. Again, Owen does not provide a page number, perhaps confused by Peltius’s “f. 29. 99. 100.”
62. Owen, Display, 101l [95n5]; Peltius, Harmonia, 124 (cf. his different rendering of this passage on p. 130); cf. Corvinus: Petri Molinæi novi anatomici mala encheiresis: sev, Censvra Anatomes Arminianismi (Frankfurt am Main: Johann Friedrich Weiss, 1632), 410 (p. 426 in 1622 ed.). Owen also follows Peltius in giving the reference as “cap. 27, sect. 3. 4.” The passage cited is confined to the latter section, though the former is pertinent to the point being made.
63. Owen, Display, 32l [38n2]; Peltius, Harmonia, 32; cf. “Defensio sententiæ Remonstrantivm circa qvartvm de modo operationis gratiæ articvlvm,” in Uytenbogaert, Acta et scripta, 3rd pagination, 103.
64. Owen, Display, 134a [123n1]; Peltius, Harmonia, 49; cf. Grevinchoven, Dissertatio theologica de dvabvs qvaestionibvs hoc tempore controversis, 183.
65. Other clear examples could be set forth. The following passages can be compared against their sources: •Owen, Display, 46i [50n2]; Peltius, Harmonia, 37; cf. “Defensio sententiæ Remonstrantium de reprobatione,” in Uytenbogaert, Acta et scripta, 2nd pagination, 256. •Owen, Display, 55i [57n3]; Peltius, Harmonia, 95; cf. Corvinus, Defensio sententiae d. Iacobi Arminii, de prædestinatione, gratia Dei, libero hominis arbitrio, &c. adversus eiusdem, a cl. v. d. Daniele Tileno Theologo Sedanensi, editam considerationem (Leiden: Johannes Patius, 1613), 360. •Owen, Display, 78n [77n2]; Peltius, Harmonia, 73; cf. Corvinus, Defensio sententiae d. Iacobi Arminii, 388. •Owen, Display, 127q [117n4]; Peltius, Harmonia, 197; cf. Corvinus, Responsionis ad Ioannis Bogermanni … pars altera (Leiden: Johannes Patius, 1616), 263. •Owen, Display, 134b [123n2]; Peltius, Harmonia, 49; cf. “Defensio sententiæ Remonstrantivm circa qvartvm de modo operationis gratiæ articvlvm,” in Uytenbogaert, Acta et scripta (1620), 3rd pagination, 107. •Owen, Display, 134d [124n2]; Peltius, Harmonia, 51; cf. [Caspar van Baerle], Epistola ecclesiastarvm, quos in Belgio Remonstrantes vocant, ad exterarvm Ecclesiarvm reformatos doctores, pastores, theologos: qua sententiam suam de prædestinatione & annexis ei capitibus exponunt ... opposita epistolæ delegatorum classis Walachrianæ ad eosdem doctores singulatim directae (Leiden: Johannes Patius, 1617), 67.
66. Anthony Grafton, The Footnote: A Curious History (London: Faber & Faber, 1997), 7–8.
67. Gribben, John Owen and English Puritanism, 54.
68. Gribben, John Owen and English Puritanism, 38–41.
69. For a picture of the working practices of a more mature, well-resourced scholar using polemical materials to harvest patristic references but then carefully checking these against standard editions, see Richard Snoddy, “The Sources of James Ussher’s Patristic Citations on the Intent and Sufficiency of Christ’s Satisfaction,” in Learning from the Past: Essays on Reception, Catholicity and Dialogue in Honour of Anthony N. S. Lane, ed. Jon Balserak and Richard Snoddy (London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2015), 107–29.
70. Grafton, Footnote: A Curious History, 13.
71. Gribben, John Owen and English Puritanism, 15.
72. For a good introduction to the issues and the literature, see the essays collected in Paulina Kewes, ed., Plagiarism in Early Modern England (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003).
73. Samuel Parker, A Defence and Continuation of the Ecclesiastical Politie (London: A. Clark for J. Martyn, 1671), 93–95.
74. Parker, Defence and Continuation of the Ecclesiastical Politie, 153.
75. For this identification and a spirited defense of Owen’s credentials in Hebraic scholarship, see Lee Gatiss, “Adoring the Fullness of the Scriptures in John Owen’s Commentary on Hebrews” (PhD diss., University of Cambridge, 2013), 99–135.
76. For this epithet, see Parker’s preface to John Bramhall, Bishop Bramhall’s Vindication of Himself and the Episcopal Clergy, from the Presbyterian Charge of Popery, as it is managed by Mr. Baxter in his Treatise of the Grotian Religion (London: A. C. for James Collins, 1672), sig. a(r).
77. On Owen’s reception, see Crawford Gribben, “Becoming John Owen: The Making of an Evangelical Reputation,” WTJ 79 (2017): 311–25.
78. Owen, Display, 5 [14]; cf. 106 [100].
79. Horace, Epistles, 1.3.19–20 (Fairclough, LCL).
80. These sentiments can be found, for example, in Erasmus’s Adages, 3.6.91, and Collectanea, C 593. See Desiderius Erasmus, Collected Works of Erasmus, Volume 30: Prologomena to the Adages: Adagiorum Collectanea, Indexes to Erasmus’ Adages, trans. John N. Grant (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2017), 291; Collected Works of Erasmus, Volume 35: Adages III iv 1 to IV ii 100, ed. John N. Grant, trans. Denis D. Drysdall (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2005), 171–72.