Meet The Puritans

Owen on the Importance of Worship

Posted on 22. Feb, 2010 by Danny Hyde.

When one surveys the growing secondary literature on John Owen (1616–1683) the conclusion that can be legitimately drawn is that worship or liturgical theology was just not a major concern for him. After all, virtually nothing has been written on this topic. Sounds like a good ThM thesis to me!

So, just how important was worship to John Owen? One brief place to find an answer is the longest question and answer in his 1667 treatise, A Brief Instruction in the Worship of God. In question and answer fifteen Owen sought to apply and draw out the experiential truth of worshipping God according to Christ’s commands. In doing so, he took his previous principles and asked, “Whence may it appear that the right and due observation of instituted worship is of great importance unto the glory of God, and of high concernment unto the souls of men?” While “the instituted worship of God is neglected and despised in the world,” Owen demonstrated the great importance of the worship of God to the glory of God by citing a catena of biblical passages to demonstrate this, from Genesis through Revelation (Works 15, 471). After tracing this out from Adam, Abel, Abraham, Israel, and the Church, Owen said, “In no state or condition, then, of the church did God ever accept of moral obedience without the observation of some instituted worship, accommodated in his wisdom unto its various states and conditions” (Works 15, 473).

The importance of worship is also seen in that God gave his ordinances to instruct his people in the mysteries of his will and to communicate love, mercy, and grace to them. Owen demonstrated this from circumcision, which instructed in conversion, from the Passover, which instructed in redemption, from baptism, which instructed in union with Christ, and from the Lord’s Supper, which instructed in communion with Christ (Works 15, 473).

Finally, worship was of “high concernment unto the souls of men” because in it God made “blessed promises to his people, to grant them his presence and to bless them in their use.” Even more, Owen said the ordinances of worship were the “tokens of the marriage relation that is between him and them” (Works 15, 471). Owen saw this special presence and the blessings that come from, again, from all of Scripture, in the tabernacle of the Old Covenant and in Christ in the New Covenant (Works 15, 475). Owen reserved his most intimate metaphors for the importance of worship for the end of this question and answer. “Because we are apt to be slothful, and are slow of heart in admitting a due sense of spiritual things” God desires to stir up his people. He has done this in his declaration that our obedience to his ordinances is a part of the “conjugal covenant” he has made with us in Christ. When we come to worship we show that we are married to Christ, but when we neglect his worship or profane it “by inventions or additions of our own, to be spiritual disloyalty, whoredom and adultery, which his soul abhoreth, for which he will cast off any church or people, and that for ever” (Works 15, 475). God has given his people examples of this in Nadab and Abihu, Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, the sons of Eli, Uzza, and Uzziah. “From all which it appears of what concernment it is unto the glory of God, and the salvation of our souls, to attend diligently unto our duty in the strict and sincere observation of the worship of the gospel” (Works 15, 476).

In this, Owen was doing nothing else than following the trajectory of the early Swiss and German Reformed theologians, who saw the reformation not merely in terms of doctrine (a la Luther and sola fide) but in terms of a whole-orbed approach to the Church and the Christian life. Hence John Calvin one wrote to Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor,

If it be inquired, then, by what things chiefly the Christian religion has a standing existence amongst us, and maintains its truth, it will be found that the following two not only occupy the principal place, but comprehend under them all the other parts, and consequently the whole substance of Christianity: that is, a knowledge, first, of the mode in which God is duly worshipped; and, secondly, of the source from which salvation is to be obtained (On the Necessity of Reforming the Church).

As Reformed Christians, right worship of the right God ought still to be our passion. It ought to be of great importance as we seek to glorify God and it ought to be of great concern as we seek the Lord’s salvation. Is it yours?

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John Owen on Revival

Posted on 15. Feb, 2010 by Danny Hyde.

If you listen to some in the Reformed churches today, you would think that the concept of revival is an 18th century phenomenon and that everyone who believes in revival is a “revivalist,” no different than Charles Finney and his ilk in the 19th century. Unfortunately this does not fit the evidence of history. The concept of revival is not an 18th century concoction. Case in point is John Owen’s “Letter 85: To Charles Fleetwood” from 1674 (The Correspondence of John Owen, 159–160). He wrote this letter at a time when he and his wife were sick, and Owen thought the Lord was preparing him for death:

“The truth is, if we cannot see the latter rain in its season as we have seen the former, and a latter spring thereon, death, that will turne in the streams of glory unto our poor withering souls, is the best relief. I begin to feare that we shall die in this wilderness; yet ought we to labour and pray continually that the heavens would drop downe from above, and the skies poure downe righteousness—that the earth may open and bring forth salvation, and that righteousness may spring up together. If ever I return to you in this world, I beseech you to contend yet more earnestly than ever I have done, with God, with my own heart, with the church, to labour after spiritual revivalls.”

Notice that last phrase: “to labour after spiritual revivalls.” This exhortation was not penned by some 17th century Quaker or Shaker or 19th century advocate of “new measures,” but the greatest of English Reformed theologians. As a Reformed theologian this meant Owen believed Scripture to be principium cognoscendi—the basis of knowledge of God, his world, and his redemptive plan. We see that here in Owen’s letter as he looks to the pattern of the biblical prophets for spiritual revival, citing Isaiah 45:8, “Drop down, ye heavens, from above, and let the skies pour down righteousness: let the earth open, and let them bring forth salvation, and let righteousness spring up together; I the LORD have created it.”

Later, in his posthumous treatise of 1684, Meditations and Discourses on the Glory of Christ, in His Person, Office, and Grace: with the Differences Between Faith and Sight; Applied unto the Use of Them That Believe (Works 1, 395–396).

Do any of us find decays in grace prevailing in us;—deadness, coldness, lukewarmness, a kind of spiritual stupidity and senselessness coming upon us? Do we find an unreadiness unto the exercise of grace in its proper season, and the vigorous acting of it in duties of communion with God? and would we have our souls recovered from these dangerous diseases? Let us assure ourselves there is no better way for our healing and deliverance, yea, no other way but this alone,—namely, the obtaining a fresh view of the glory of Christ by faith, and a steady abiding therein. Constant contemplation of Christ and his glory, putting forth its transforming power unto the revival of all grace, is the only relief in this case; as shall farther be showed afterward.

Some will say, that this must be effected by fresh supplies and renewed communications of the Holy Spirit. Unless he fall as dew and showers on our dry and barren hearts,—unless he cause our graces to spring, thrive, and bring forth fruit,—unless he revive and increase faith, love, and holiness in our souls,—our backslidings will not be healed, nor our spiritual state be recovered. Unto this end is he prayed for and promised in the Scripture. See Cant. iv. 16; Isa, xliv. 3, 4; Ezek, xl 19, xxxvi. 26; Hos. xiv. 5, 6. And so it is. The immediate efficiency of the revival of our souls is from and by the Holy Spirit. But the inquiry is, in what way, or by what means, we may obtain the supplies and communications of him unto this end. This the apostle declares in the place insisted on: We, beholding the glory of Christ in a glass, “are changed into the same image, from glory to glory, even by the Spirit of the Lord.” It is in the exercise of faith on Christ, in the way before described, that the Holy Spirit puts forth his renewing, transforming power in and upon our souls. This, therefore, is that alone which will retrieve Christians from their present decays and deadness.

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“A Habitual Sight of Him” for $5

Posted on 12. Feb, 2010 by Danny Hyde.

Mark Jones

Reformation Heritage Books has offered a coupon code for a book that our own Mark Jones has edited and introduced, A Habitual Sight of Him: The Christ-Centered Piety of Thomas Goodwin. If you listen to the aforementioned Covenant Radio interview with Mark Jones there will be a coupon code offered that drops the price down from $7.50 to only $5.

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Audio—The Piety of Thomas Goodwin

Posted on 12. Feb, 2010 by Danny Hyde.

Our own Mark Jones was interviewed for Covenant Radio on the wonderful topic, “The Piety of Thomas Goodwin.” You can have a listen here.

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Puritan Reformed Journal 2:1

Posted on 02. Feb, 2010 by Danny Hyde.

The latest Puritan Reformed Journal 2:1 (January 2010) is now in-print and available for $10 through Reformation Heritage Books. This volume is 396 pages and contains the following (not including book reviews and notices):

Biblical Studies

The Jews’ View of the Old Testament—David Murray

An Everlasting House: An Exegesis of 2 Samuel 7—Maarten Kuivenhoven

Applying Christ’s Supremacy: Learning from Hebrews—Gerald M. Bilkes

Systematic and Historical Theology

“Hot Protestants”: A Taxonomy of English Puritanism—Ian Hugh Clary

John Bunyan and His Relevance for Today—Pieter Devries

Samuel Petto (c. 1624 –1711): A Portrait of a Puritan Pastor Theologian—Michael G.Brown

James Durham (1622–1658) and the Free Offer of the Gospel—Donald John MaClean

The Ceremonial or Moral Law: Jonathan Edwards’s Old Perspective on an Old Error—Craig Biehl

Experiential Theology

The Theological Foundation and Goal of Piety in Calvin and Erasmus—Timothy J.Gwin

Thomas Watson: The Necessity of Meditation Jennifer C.Neimeyer

Was Samuel Rutherford a Mystic?—Robert Arnold

The “Sense of the Heart”: Edwards’s Public Expression of His Pietistic Understanding of Religious Experience—Karin Spiecker Stetina

Pastoral Theology and Missions

John Owen and the Third Mark of the Church— Stephen Yuille

Jeremiah Burroughs on Worship—James Davison

Samuel Davies: One of America’s Greatest Revival Preachers—John E. Skidmore

A Pastor’s Analysis of Emphases in Preaching: Two False Dichotomies and Three Conclusions—Ryan M. McGraw

“For God’s Glory (and) for the Good of Precious Souls”: Calvinism and Missions in the Piety of Samuel Pearce (1766–1799)—Michael A. G. Haykin

Contemporary and Cultural Issues

Handling Error in the Church: Martin Downes Interviewing Joel R. Beeke

Interview with Geoff Thomas

Practical Lessons from the Life of Idelette Calvin— Joel R. Beeke

The “Little Church”: Raising a Spiritual Family with Jonathan Edwards—Peter Beck

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