John Owen (theologian) - Later Life

Later Life

The chief of these were On Apostasy (1676), a sad account of religion under the Restoration; On the Holy Spirit (1677-1678) and The Doctrine of Justification (1677). In 1680, however, Stillingfleet having on 11 May preached his sermon on "The Mischief of Separation," Owen defended the Nonconformists from the charge of schism in his Brief Vindication. Baxter and Howe also answered Stillingfleet, who replied in The Unreasonableness of Separation. Owen again answered this, and then left the controversy to a swarm of eager combatants. From this time to his death he was occupied with continual writing, disturbed only by suffering from stone and asthma, and by the absurd charge of being concerned in the Rye House Plot. His most important work was his Treatise on Evangelical Churches, in which were contained his latest views regarding church government. He died at Ealing, just twenty-one years after he had gone out with so many others on St Bartholomew's day in 1662, and was buried on 4 September 1683 in Bunhill Fields.