“Charles II once asked John Owen (1616-1683), “the prince of Puritans,” why he went  to hear the preaching of the unlearned tinker of Bedford, John Bunyan. Owen responded, “May it please your majesty, could I possess the tinker’s abilities for preaching, I would willingly relinquish all my learning” (Andrew Thomson, “Life of Dr. Owen,” in The Works of John Owen, 1:xcii, quoted in Joel R. Beeke and Mark Jones, A Puritan Theology, 712).