ABSTRACT

This chapter focuses on how Owen attributed this to both individual and national ingratitude, infidelity and negligence. Rather than the 'universal holiness' he had called for, Owen lamented the appearance of sins which he saw as symptomatic of spiritual backsliding. Furthermore, he believed that in the political sphere, the magistracy upon which he had placed the obligation to be 'the instrument in [God's] hands to perform all his pleasures', had itself succumbed to the very temptations about which he had persistently warned. Such analysis will be used as an interpretative framework for understanding Owen's growing disillusionment with the direction the Protectorate came to take. The chapter describes how, throughout the period 1646 to 59, Owen warned of what would be lost because of sin, discerned tokens of divine wrath, and offered an explanation of God's purposes in such judgments. The chapter explores important persuasive ends to Owen's warnings of judgment.