This volume contains Owen's treatise on the origin, history, and progress of theology from the Fall to the present. The last chapter describes Owen's method of theological study and prospects for the future of theology. The entirety of volume seventeen retains Owen's original, untranslated Latin works.
For solidity, profundity, massiveness and majesty in exhibiting from Scripture God’s ways with sinful mankind there is no one to touch him.
—J. I. Packer, author
To have known the pastoral ministry of John Owen . . . (albeit in written form) has been a rich privilege; to have known Owen’s God an even greater one.
—Sinclair Ferguson, professor, Redeemer Seminary, Dallas, Texas
John [Owen], English theologian, was without doubt not only the greatest theologian of the English Puritan movement but also one of the greatest European Reformed theologians of his day, and quite possibly possessed the finest theological mind that England ever produced.
—C. R. Trueman
John Owen was born at Stadhampton, Oxfordshire in 1616. He entered Queen's College, Oxford, at the age of twelve and completed his M.A. in classics and theology in 1635 at the age of nineteen. He was ordained shortly thereafter and left the university to be a chaplain to the family of a noble lord. His first parish, in 1637, was at Fordham in Essex, to which he went while England was involved in civil war. It was here that he became convinced that the Congregational way was the scriptural form of church government. In the 1640s he became chaplain to Oliver Cromwell, the new "Protector of England," and traveled with him on his expeditions to Ireland and Scotland. Between 1651 and 1660, he played a prominent part in the religious, political, and academic life of the nation. In 1651 he was appointed dean of Christ Church and in 1652 made Vice-Chancellor of Oxford—positions which allowed him to train ministers for the Cromwellian state church. He lost his position in 1660, however, when the restoration of the monarchy began after the death of Cromwell in 1658. Owen moved to London and led the Puritans through the bitter years of religious and political persecution—experiences which shaped his theological inquiry, pastoral reflection, and preaching. He also declined invitations to the ministry in Boston in 1663, and declined an offer to become president of Harvard in 1670. He died in August, 1683.
“Take a company of sticks, some long and some short, some great and some little, some straight and some crooked. As long as there is a good firm band about them, you may carry them where you please, and dispose of them as you will; break this band, and everything will appear crooked that is so.” (Pages 546–547)
“Faith is indispensable, in order to please God; and faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. 4. Eternal life consists in the knowledge of God, and Jesus Christ whom he hath sent.” (Page 4)
“The fundamental and radical principle, therefore, of all evangelical theology is the necessity of that saving light by which the mind of the sinner is disposed and enabled spiritually to understand the things of the Spirit of God. Evangelical theology is defined to be ‘A spiritual gift imparted by the Holy Spirit, in the name of Christ, to the minds of the regenerate, by which they are made wise in the knowledge of the mystery of godliness, conformed to the truth, and directed in the performance of the obedience and the worship due to God in Christ.” (Pages 12–13)
“The Spirit operates for our regeneration by enlightening us into a knowledge of our miserable condition by nature;—by awakening the conscience to a sense of guilt;—by touching the heart with legal grief and fear;—by administering relief to the sinner when he is brought to this extremity, through the proclamations of the gospel, Isa. 55:1, John 7:37; its declarations, John 3:16; its exhortations, Acts 2:38; its invitations, Matt. 11:28, 29; and its promises;—by the exhibition of Christ;—and by implanting a new spiritual life;—till the sinner, softened and subdued under the impressions of grace, consecrates himself entirely to the obedience of the faith.” (Page 12)