The Life of John Owen

It is matter of just regret and complaint that no elaborate contemporary memoir of this great Puritan was ever, written. Twenty years after his death, Cotton Mather, in his "Magnalia Americana Christi," declared "that the church of God was wronged, in that the life of the great John Owen was not written;" and it was only, when twenty years more had elapsed that a life of Owen at length appeared, from the pen of Mr. Asty, a respectable Independent minister in London; which, though written under the eye of Sir John Hartopp, a particular friend of Owen, and for many years a member of his church, is chargeable with numerous inaccuracies, and so scanty withal, as "not to contain so many pages as Owen has, written books." In addition to this, an equally brief anonymous memoir has fallen into our hands, professing to have been, written by one. who had the honor to know this eminent person well, and to hear him frequently; though he must confess that he had not then years and experience enough to conceive a suitable idea of the Doctor's great worth.