John Owen on the Christian Sabbath and Worship

Chapter 41 John Owen on the Christian Sabbath and Worship $9 he light of nature showeth that there is a God, who hath lordship and sovereignty over all, is just, good, and doth good unto all, and is therefore to be feared, loved, praised, called upon, trusted in, and served with all the heart, and all the soul, and with all the might. But the acceptable way of worshipping the true God is instituted by himself, and so limited by his own revealed will, that he may not be worshipped according to the imaginations and devices of men, or the suggestions of Satan, under any visible representations, or any other way not prescribed in the holy Scripture. —SaVoy declaraTIon, 22.1 For John owen (1616–1683) defending the continuing validity of the fourth commandment and the christian Sabbath as the weekly day of spiritual rest was a hugely important aspect of his views on worship. Protestant theologians have not always agreed upon the fourth commandment. luminaries such as John calvin and Johannes cocceius (1603–1669) airmed a Sabbath for christians, but they did not understand Sabbath-keeping quite like the Puritans did.1 neither calvin nor cocceius rooted the Sabbath in creation. For them, the weekly day of rest was not instituted in the garden of eden, but rather was peculiar to the nation of Israel, instituted at Sinai when they received the Torah.2 In Holland there was signiicant controversy on this point between the followers of cocceius and the followers of Gijsbert Voetius (1589–1676).3 owen was clearly aware of the diferences among reformed theologians concerning the Sabbath, and his detailed defense of the concept not only answers the various objections leveled against the position he defends but also makes a positive case for the continuance of a holy day of rest in relation to christian worship. he title of his work on this subject shows this to be true: Exercitations Concerning the Name, Original, Nature, Use, and Continuance of a Day of Sacred Rest: Wherein the Original of the Sabbath from the Foundation of the World, the Morality of the Fourth Commandment, with the Change of the Seventh Day, 1. For an analysis and critique of calvin’s doctrine of the Sabbath, see richard B. Gain, Calvin and the Sabbath (Fearn, Scotland: Mentor, 1998). he idea that calvin was a “nascent Sabbatarian” in the Puritan sense simply will not stand up to the evidence in our opinion, particularly as one considers his comments on Hebrews 4 and the fact that keeping the Sabbath was something that could be done on other days of the week because the believer is resting in christ. 2. In response to cocceius, see the work of Johannes Hoornbeeck, Heyliginghe van Gods Naam en dagh… (leiden, 1655). 3. See H. B. Visser, De geschiedenis van den sabbatsstrijd onder de gereformeerden in de seventiende eeeuw (utrecht: kemink, 1939). 654 a PurITan THeoloGy are Inquired Into; Together with an Assertion of the Divine Institution of the Lord’s Day, and Practical Directions for its Due Observation.4 owen certainly spoke for the vast majority of the Puritans by insisting upon a speciic day (i.e., the irst day of the week) as a day for rest and worship.5 a full-scale treatment of owen’s position within his religio-political context remains a desideratum in the secondary literature. his chapter will concentrate speciically on aspects of owen’s theological basis for the lord’s day, or christian Sabbath, and what was done on the day in christian worship. Before that, however, a brief background concerning the so-called “rise of the Puritan Sabbath” is in order. Historical Context J. I. Packer credits the Puritans with creating the “english christian Sunday—that is, the conception and observance of the irst day of the week as one on which both business and organized recreations should be in abeyance, and the whole time left free for worship, fellowship, and ‘good works.’”6 Puritan-style Sabbath-keeping may have been strongest in Britain, but nonetheless there were many reformed theologians on the continent who held the same position as the english and Scottish theologians. as keith Sprunger has noted, a number of “prominent reformed theologians…(Tremellius, Zanchius, Junius, to name a few), airmed aspects of Sabbatarianism. However, they did not spark a full-scale Sabbath observance movement in their areas.”7 Strict Sabbath-keeping was certainly a hallmark of the Puritans in their quest for further reformation of the church of england during the latter part of the sixteenth century and well into the seventeenth century. homas Shepard’s (1605–1649) comments on this phenomenon are telling: “But why the lord christ should keep his servants in england, and Scotland, to clear up and vindicate this point of the Sabbath, and welcome it with more love then some precious ones in foreign churches, no man can imagine any other cause then God’s own Free Grace and tender love, whose wind blows where and when it will.”8 In sum, the Sabbath cause on the continent did not reach quite the fervor that one inds in england during the seventeenth century. 4. John owen, Exercitations Concerning the Name, Original, Nature, Use, and Continuance of a Day of Sacred Rest…, in he Works of John Owen, D.D. (edinburgh: Johnstone & Hunter, 1850–1855), 19:265–546. Besides owen’s lengthy defense of the christian Sabbath, other signiicant works of the period include: nicholas Bownd, he Doctrine of the Sabbath Plainely Layde Forth… (london: Widdow orwin for Iohn Porter and homas Man, 1595); William Twisse, Of the Morality of the Fourth Commandement as Still in Force to Binde Christians…(london: e. G. for John rothwell, 1641); and homas Shepard, heses Sabbaticae… (london: S. G. for John rothwell, 1655). he most detailed defense that we know of comes from the Westminster divines daniel cawdrey and Hebert Palmer, Sabbatum Redivivum: or he Christian Sabbath Vindicated: he First Part (london: robert White for homas underhill, 1645); and Sabbatum Redivivum: or, he Christian Sabbath Vindicated, he Second Part (london: homas Maxey for Samuel Gellibrand and homas underhill, 1651). 5. In the secondary literature, James T. dennison’s work on the Sabbath in Puritan england provides a fascinating analysis of the Puritan view of the Sabbath in relation to the position of theologians in the sixteenth century as well as the various threats to the doctrine in england during the seventeenth century. he Market Day of the Soul: he Puritan Doctrine of the Sabbath in England, 1532–1700 (lanham, Md.: university Press of america, 1983). See also kenneth l. Parker, he English Sabbath: A Study of Doctrine and Discipline from the Reformation to the Civil War (cambridge: cambridge university Press, 1988); keith l. Sprunger, “english and dutch Sabbatarianism and the development of Puritan Social heology (1600–1660),” Church History 51, no. 1 (March 1982): 24–38; Patrick collinson, “he Beginnings of english Sabbatarianism,” in Studies in Church History, vol. 1, ed. c. W. dugmore and c. duggan (london: nelson, 1964), 211–14; and Winton u. Solberg, Redeem the Time: he Puritan Sabbath in Early America (cambridge: Harvard university Press, 1977). 6. J. I. Packer, A Quest for Godliness: he Puritan Vision of the Christian Life (Wheaton, Ill.: crossway, 1990), 235. 7. Sprunger, “english and dutch Sabbatarianism,” 25. 8. Shepard, preface to the reader, in heses Sabbaticae. John Owen on the Christian Sabbath and Worship 655 a weekly day of rest from work was not a controverted point in civil life, but the Puritans went further than that. charles e. Hambrick-Stowe provides an accurate account of the Sabbath as very much a hallmark of Puritanism: While rest from work was a long-accepted social norm, the notion of devoting the day to worship, family and private devotions, and other religious practices had never been required of the laity, who were entitled to spend at least portions of the day in physical recreation. Puritans were ridiculed as fanatics for embracing for themselves a rigorous spiritual regimen more typical of the monastery. hey were derided even more harshly when they lobbied for such Sabbath reform as national policy. In the Book of Sports, promulgated by James I in 1617 (reissued by charles I in 1633) and by law announced in every parish, the church of england rejected the Puritan programme for the Sabbath by oicially endorsing such activities as archery and dancing for Sunday recreation. When the Puritans gained the opportunity to plan their own Sunday schedules...they typically committed themselves to six full hours of public worship, three hours in the morning and three in the afternoon. he seriousness with which the saints approached the work of glorifying God on the Sabbath set them apart as a peculiar people. Indeed, it was such rigour that irst earned them the snide epithet ‘Puritan’ in the early days of the movement.9 It was in this context that the Puritans attempted their reform of the church of england. hey were largely successful in achieving not simply a day of rest during the week—after all, that was something that existed long before the rise of Puritanism, as early as the seventh century— but a day of rest given to worshiping the triune God according to the requirements of His Word. From about 1600 to 1650 the Puritan understanding of the Sabbath gained in popularity, though there was some backlash from several quarters (e.g., Seventh-day Sabbatarians). Puritanism may have failed in many respects, but Packer points out that in 1677, well after the Great ejection (1662), the anti-Puritan Parliament passed the Sunday observance act. his act “prescribed that all should spend Sunday, not in trading, travelling, ‘worldly labour, business, or work of their ordinary callings,’ but in ‘exercising themselves…in the duties of piety and true religion, publicly and privately.’”10 he passing of this act should not be understated. antiPuritans, including those who did not believe that Sunday should be a day given to worship in the Scriptures, still advocated a day of rest that was Puritanesque. his was an advance on the earlier view that a day of rest should be mandated on social and political grounds. In the words of leland ryken, “he Puritans provided the theological basis for Sunday observance. hus, although all Puritans were Sabbatarians, not all Sabbatarians were Puritans.”11 What were those theological reasons? To answer that question, John owen’s rigorous defense of the lord’s day Sabbath will be examined, with some of his central arguments brought into focus. A Creation Ordinance a major source of contention between the Puritan view espoused by owen and his fellow Puritans and the so-called “continental” view was whether the Sabbath was instituted in the garden of 9. charles e. Hambrick-Stowe, “Practical divinity and Spirituality,” in he Cambridge Companion to Puritanism, ed. John cofey and Paul c. H. lim (cambridge: cambridge university Press, 2008), 199. 10. Packer, Quest for Godliness, 236. 11. leland ryken, Worldly Saints: he Puritans as hey Really Were (Grand rapids: Zondervan, 1986), 129. 656 a PurITan THeoloGy eden or not.12 William Gouge (1575–1653), for example, begins his short treatise on the Sabbath with an appeal to Genesis 2, rooting the doctrine in creation.13 likewise, John Prideaux (1578– 1650) spends a great deal of time countering the various arguments against seeing Genesis 2 as the origin of the Sabbath.14 In owen’s view, the institution of the Sabbath at creation is based on two texts in the Bible, one from the old Testament and one from the new. “and,” writes owen, “both of them seem to me of so uncontrollable an evidence that I have often wondered how ever any sober and learned persons undertook to evade their force or eicacy in this cause.”15 hese two texts are, of course, Genesis 2:1–2 and Hebrews 3–4. concerning Genesis 2:1–2, owen notes that God “sanctiied” this day: “not that he kept it holy himself, which in no sense the divine nature is capable of; nor that he celebrated that which in itself was holy, as we sanctify his name, which is the act of an inferior towards a superior; but that he set it apart to sacred use authoritatively, requiring us to sanctify it in that use obedientially.”16 Some “learned men” posit that Genesis 2:3 was not actually part of the historical narrative, but that the text (“and God blessed the seventh day…”) was inserted “by way of prolepsis or anticipation.”17 hat is to say, these authors contend that God rested after the seventh day, that is, the next day (the “8th”), which may be an indeinite time after the initial seven-day week of creation. In owen’s mind, he simply cannot understand how such learned men can provide such an unnatural reading of the text: “so monstrous and uncouth a prolepsis as this would be…[the like of which] no instance can be given in the Scripture.”18 owen develops this argument more fully in his exposition of Hebrews 4, but he clearly understands all of the various arguments that had been made against his position; therefore, he responds with his characteristic precision, with devastating efect, often without explicitly naming those he is refuting, partly out of respect for those who were reformed luminaries in their own right. Some divines argued that the Sabbath was introduced to Israel as part of the giving of the law. If so, for owen, it would have been introduced with a “strange abruptness.”19 as noted, he was fully aware of the arguments of reformed divines who held that the Sabbath commandment was irst given to the Israelites at Sinai because this command, unlike the other ten, was partly ceremonial.20 owen responds by suggesting that this commandment was “accommodated unto the pedagogical state of the church of the Israelites.”21 Whatever modiications (i.e., positive laws) were made to the fourth commandment, owen argues that that is no reason for suggesting that the substance of the commandment was not given to adam and the patriarchs after him. richard Gain shows that for calvin the “meaning of the Sabbath institution prior to the fall seems not 12. While the Puritans almost unanimously held to the lord’s day Sabbath, there was a great deal more diversity among the continental theologians. So any talk of a “continental” position on the Sabbath should be guarded, perhaps even abandoned. hat said, it is clear from owen’s treatise on the Sabbath and the works of other Puritans that they were in dialogue with many continental reformed theologians with whom they agreed and disagreed on this much disputed topic. 13. William Gouge, he Sabbaths Sanctiication... (london, 1641). 14. John Prideaux, he Doctrine of the Sabbath... (london: e. P. for Henry Seile, 1634), 5f. 15. owen, Day of Sacred Rest, in Works, 19:294. 16. owen, Day of Sacred Rest, in Works, 19:298. 17. owen, Day of Sacred Rest, in Works, 19:299. Prideaux brings this up and refers to the Papist exegete Tostatus abulensis, who argued that Moses spoke in Genesis 2:1–3 “by way of anticipation.” he Doctrine of the Sabbath, 10. 18. owen, Day of Sacred Rest, in Works, 19:300. 19. owen, Day of Sacred Rest, in Works, 19:298. 20. owen, Day of Sacred Rest, in Works, 19:313. 21. owen, Day of Sacred Rest, in Works, 19:314. John Owen on the Christian Sabbath and Worship 657 to have crossed his mind.”22 For calvin, the Sabbath was given as an antidote to sin, and believers keep the fourth commandment by resting from their sinful works. In contrast, owen views the Sabbath more positively than calvin and certainly as a more fundamental aspect of creation law. In arguing that the Sabbath was a creation ordinance given to adam in eden, owen considers the diference between positive laws and moral laws. Positive laws are those that “have no reason for them in themselves”; they are commanded by God out of His own mere will, such as the sacriices in the old Testament.23 conversely, moral laws are grounded in the nature of God Himself and cannot be abrogated, whereas positive laws, which are ixed by the determination of God, can be changed if God so desires. In the controversy over the Sabbath, owen claims that his opponents airm that the Sabbath commandment is a positive law in general, and speciically, both ceremonial and typical; but owen views the Sabbath as a moral law in its substance, which means the obligation to keep this commandment is universal. yet the speciic day to be sanctiied is positive, thus explaining how the Sabbath can be moved from the seventh day to the irst day of the week. owen grounds his defense of the Sabbath in natural law. First, for him, the Sabbath is a time set apart for the solemn worship of God, appointed according to the law of nature. Indeed, there was universal consent among the Puritans that this law or light of nature requires humans to set apart certain times for worship. owen then proceeds to show that the principle of one day in seven is a perpetual command because the Sabbath is a moral law, inding its basis in God Himself. In giving the commandment, God reminds His people that He rested from His work on the seventh day (ex. 20:11), having completed His work of creation. God’s work may be understood naturally (the efects of His power and wisdom) and morally (the glory He receives from the obedience of rational creatures). So, when God “rests” on the seventh day He does not cease working altogether. rather, His rest “is of a moral, and not a natural signiication; for it consists in the satisfaction and complacency that he took in his works.”24 consequently, men are bound to glorify God “according to the revelation that he makes of himself unto us, whether by his works of nature or of grace.”25 Puritan theologians discoursing on this subject typically held that adam’s Sabbathkeeping in the garden consisted in meditating on the works of creation and thanking God for them. he primary purpose of Sabbath-keeping after the fall focuses on sinners worshiping God in light of redemption (deut. 5:15). not only adam and eve, but also their descendants are bound to keep God’s commands, including the Sabbath, because the law of nature is constant. all other laws “are but deductions from it and applications of it.”26 For this reason, the Sabbath (i.e., the weekly setting apart of a day to worship God) is a command that is natural and therefore moral. yet it may also be understood as a “moral-positive law,” because in certain contexts, such as the old covenant, additions are made to the duties required by God.27 hus owen turns to the meaning of the fourth commandment as written in the decalogue to further vindicate his Sabbath argument. 22. Gain, Calvin and the Sabbath, 146. 23. owen, Day of Sacred Rest, in Works, 19:328. 24. owen, Day of Sacred Rest, in Works, 19:334. 25. owen, Day of Sacred Rest, in Works, 19:335. 26. owen, Day of Sacred Rest, in Works, 19:339. 27. owen, Day of Sacred Rest, in Works, 19:355. 658 a PurITan THeoloGy he Decalogue he decalogue had a deinite political use and was a part of the old covenant that the Israelites were under. In this particular redemptive-historical context, the law functioned as a schoolmaster to lead the Israelites to christ. Moreover, some of the commandments (irst, fourth, ifth) had additions peculiar to the state of the church at that time. nonetheless, the applications added to these commands did not prove that they were merely positive commands, which were subject to change or abolition. With this context in mind, owen makes his case that the fourth commandment has “an equal share with the other nine in all the privileges of the whole,” thus showing the perpetuity of the fourth commandment.28 He provides a number of reasons to show that the fourth commandment is distinguished, along with the other nine, from the ceremonial laws given to Israel, some of which are worth listing. For one thing, the Ten commandments, unlike the ceremonial or judicial laws, were spoken immediately by the voice of God. In addition, the fourth commandment, along with the other nine, was written down twice by God’s “inger” on the tablets of stone. God did this, irst, in order to republish objectively the law that was irst implanted in adam’s heart in the state of innocence. his was necessary because the intrusion of sin meant that the law written on adam’s heart, and the hearts of his descendants, had been efaced. Furthermore, the objective law of God written on tablets of stone pointed to the spiritual reality of the law being written by the Spirit on the hearts of the elect. he promise of the new covenant includes God’s law being written on the hearts of God’s people. and since the Sabbath commandment is part of the moral law, it is necessarily written upon the hearts of the elect under the new covenant. Finally, the Ten commandments, unlike the ceremonial ordinances, were preserved in the ark of the covenant. “and the reason of the diferent disposal, of the moral law in the ark, and of the ceremonial in a book by the side of it, was to manifest…accomplishment, and answering of the one law in christ, with the removal and abolishing of the other by him.”29 owen cannot be tentative about these points, for his whole argument rests on this premise, namely, that the Sabbath is intrinsically moral and not ceremonial, and therefore perpetually binding upon humans in all dispensations. he “learned” opponents of owen’s position typically argued that since christ has come, the type has been abrogated. Believers now ind their rest in christ, by resting from their evil works and resting in and living for Him. J. I. Packer sums up the basic position of owen and his Puritan contemporaries, saying they “insisted, with virtual unanimity, that, although the reformers were right to see a merely typical and temporary signiicance in certain of the detailed prescriptions of the Jewish Sabbath, yet the principle of one day’s rest for public and private worship of God at the end of each six days’ work was a law of creation, made for man as such, and therefore binding upon man as long as he lives in this world. hey pointed out that, standing as it does with nine undoubtedly moral and permanently binding laws in the decalogue, it could hardly be of a merely typical and temporary nature itself.”30 he force of this argument was powerful, but, in itself, it is not complete. owen would turn to Hebrews 4 to solidify his position and thus prove that the Sabbath, which experienced a change of day, was binding on christians in the church under the new covenant. 28. owen, Day of Sacred Rest, in Works, 19:366. 29. owen, Day of Sacred Rest, in Works, 19:368. 30. Packer, Quest for Godliness, 237. John Owen on the Christian Sabbath and Worship 659 Hebrews 4 Both those who argue for the christian Sabbath and those who argue against it have often turned to Hebrews 4 to prove their case.31 owen, of course, continues his argument for the christian Sabbath in his commentary on Hebrews 4. a full analysis of his exegetical argument lies beyond the scope of this chapter, but a number of his points give us the general picture of his argument from the new Testament on this subject. he interpretation of Hebrews 4:3 historically has provided a signiicant impact upon the position taken on the Sabbath. he question concerns whether, with the inauguration of the new covenant through the death and resurrection of Jesus christ, believers have entered into their Sabbath rest—albeit in an “already and not yet” way—or whether that rest is still future. Should the emphatic be understood as a real present or as futuristic? With verbs of movement we might prefer to understand eiserchometha as futuristic, which means that a weekly Sabbath-rest remains (v. 9) for the people as a type of the future Sabbath rest that awaits them in eternity. John owen wrestled with this verse as he put forth his case for the christian Sabbath. owen takes the view that the rest spoken of in verse 3 is “that spiritual rest of God, which believers obtain an entrance into by Jesus Christ, in the faith and worship of the gospel, and is not to be restrained unto their eternal rest in heaven.”32 For the constitution of a rest, three things are required: (1) a work that God accomplishes and inishes so that He rests Himself; (2) a spiritual rest for believers to enter into that relects God’s own resting; and (3) a new or renewed day of rest “to express the rest of God unto us, and to be a means and pledge of our entering into it.”33 according to owen, the church has been under three diferent types of rests: the church in the garden of eden; the church in the old covenant, with canaan acting as a type of gospel rest; and the rest that the church enters into under the gospel. In the gospel, a new rest is established because of the new work that God performed. hus christ, who rested after His work, enables believers to enter into His rest. he new or renewed day of rest is now the christian Sabbath. a new creation has taken place, and a new church-state is founded. Before commenting on verse 10, “For he that is entered into his rest, he also hath ceased from his works, as God did from his,” owen reairms from Hebrews 4:9 that God established a day for worship and rest from labor at the very beginning of creation, which He reestablished formally in the land of canaan so that His people could worship Him at the appointed time of the week, the seventh day. owen has no doubt in his mind that the apostle Paul, whom owen considers to be the author of Hebrews, “proves and asserts the granting of an evangelical Sabbath, or day of rest, for the worship of God to be constantly observed.”34 In the threefold state of the church there is always a rest promised to believers that they may worship God; hence the “constancy” of the Sabbath in the new covenant. 31. Interested readers may wish to consult andrew T. lincoln’s article, “Sabbath, rest, and eschatology in the new Testament,” in From Sabbath to Lord’s Day: A Biblical, Historical, and heological Investigation, ed. d. a. carson (Grand rapids: Zondervan, 1982), 197–220. lincoln makes use of Hebrews 3:7–4:13 in an attempt to show that the lord’s day is not the Sabbath. In response, richard Gain provides what may be the best treatment of Hebrews 3–4 from a Sabbatarian perspective. Incidentally, Gain’s exegesis difers from owen’s at several points, even though they are arguing for the same position. See “a Sabbath rest Still awaits the People of God,” in Pressing Toward the Mark: Essays Commemorating Fifty Years of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, ed. charles G. dennison and richard c. Gamble (Philadelphia: he committee for the Historian of the orthodox Presbyterian church, 1986), 33–51. 32. John owen, “an exposition of the epistle to the Hebrews with Preliminary exercitations,” in he Works of John Owen, D.D. (edinburgh: Johnstone & Hunter, 1850–1855), 21:256. 33. owen, Exposition of Hebrews, in Works, 21:276. 34. owen, Exposition of Hebrews, in Works, 21:327. 660 a PurITan THeoloGy owen holds that verse 10 does not refer to believers, though many expositors difer from him on this point. If believers are intended in verse 10, owen questions what works they are resting from. Some argue that believers are resting from their sinful works by inding their rest in christ, who empowers them to do good works. owen rejects this position because believers do not rest from their works “as God did from His,” since God delighted in His works, whereas believers do not delight in their sinful works. God “so rested from them as that he rested in them, and blessed them, and blessed and sanctiied the time wherein they were inished.”35 To suggest that believers enter this rest only in heaven excludes the rest that Paul is talking about, which is gospel rest. For that reason, verse 10 has reference to God and christ, not God and believers. christ rested from His works, which suits the analogy with God resting from His works at creation and delighting in them. his provides the basis for the change of the Sabbath day from the seventh day to the irst day of the week: “For as that rest which all the world was to observe was founded in his works and rest who built or made the world and all things in it; so the rest of the church of the gospel is to be founded in his works and rest by whom the church itself was built, that is Jesus christ; for he, on the account of his works and rest, is also lord of the Sabbath, to abrogate one day of rest and to institute another.”36 upon His resurrection, christ entered into His rest; He ceased from His works, and “the foundation of the new creation [was] laid and perfected.”37 herefore, when the apostle informs his readers in verse 9 that there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God, owen contends that he does not exhort them to enter into that “sabbatism” (sabbatismos). By using “sabbatism” he intends “to express the rest of the gospel not absolutely, but with respect unto the pledge of it in the day of rest” whereby they worship God on the christian Sabbath.38 If Paul had wanted to speak of the eternal heavenly rest he would have used the Greek word katapausis, which is found in Hebrews 3:11, 18 and 4:1, 3, 5, 10. By using sabbatismos in 4:9 Paul intends the christian Sabbath.39 Because there remains a Sabbath for the people of God, it is not merely a day of rest from six days of labor, but rather a time appointed for corporate and private worship. In the christian Sabbath, the Puritan vision for worshiping God was not limited to attending the public services of the church, but the whole day was set apart for worshiping God in public as the church, as households or families, and in private, with the necessary proviso that works of necessity and mercy were permitted, according to christ’s own teaching and example. hus, the Puritans believed that those who wanted to ind proof-texts that would support recreation on the Sabbath would look in vain. Sanctifying the Sabbath Peter Heylyn (1599–1662), chaplain to king charles and historian of the church of england, wrote against the Puritan understanding of the Sabbath, decrying their overzealous application 35. owen, Exposition of Hebrews, in Works, 21:332. 36. owen, Exposition of Hebrews, in Works, 21:332–33. 37. owen, Exposition of Hebrews, in Works, 21:335. owen explains how christ rested from His works after His resurrection and yet continues to work by means of His graces and the Holy Spirit in Day of Sacred Rest, in Works, 19:409. 38. owen, Exposition of Hebrews, in Works, 21:338. 39. owen, Exposition of Hebrews, in Works, 21:327. John Owen on the Christian Sabbath and Worship 661 of spiritual duties to be practiced on that day.40 He was reacting against the Puritan efort to sanctify the entire day as a day of worship. George Swinnock (c. 1627–1673), in answering the question whether the Sabbath is a time for secular or temporal afairs, writes, “reader, as thy duty is to rest the whole day from wickedness and worldly work, so also to employ the whole day in God’s worship, be either praying, or reading, or hearing, or singing, or meditating, or discoursing with others about the works or word of God. Be always taken up either with public, private, or secret duties.”41 and John Flavel (1628–1691) echoes Swinnock’s thoughts by contending that on the Sabbath the “mind is most active and busy in the work of God, though the body be at rest.”42 here is no question that Swinnock and Flavel are advocating the standard Puritan position on the application of the Sabbath. even before the Sabbath, christians are to prepare their hearts and minds to worship God. as the Westminster confession of Faith makes clear, the lord’s day Sabbath “is to be kept holy unto the lord when men, after a due preparing of their hearts, and ordering of their common afairs beforehand, do not only observe an holy rest all the day from their own works, words, and thoughts about their worldly employments and recreations; but also are taken up the whole time in the public and private exercises of his worship, and in the duties of necessity and mercy” (21.8).43 owen was aware that some “learned” men complained that there “hath been some excess in the directions of many given about the due sanctiication of the lord’s day.”44 and he candidly admits that it is possible to be overzealous on this matter. owen wants to avoid the error of the Pharisees as well as the error of an antinomian view of the lord’s day. nevertheless, he understands that the world does not naturally embrace the commandments of God, particularly Sabbath-keeping. “But,” writes owen, “the way to put a stop to this declension, is not by accommodating the commands of God to the corrupt courses and ways of men.”45 What owen pleads for is Sabbath-keeping (and worship) that is founded upon nothing else but God’s Word. From various portions of Scripture, owen posits that Sabbath-keeping should be “commensurate unto the use of our natural strength on any day, from morning to night.”46 He gives a number of practical guidelines for christians as they seek to do their duty before God in terms of keeping the fourth commandment. he Sabbath is a day when saints have the privilege and duty to worship God because He is God. on this day, the people of God, relecting their Maker, rest; speciically, they rest in God and use the day to meditate upon the eternal Sabbath rest that awaits them. he elect also rest as those who are participants in God’s covenant of grace. God Himself “rests and is refreshed in christ, in his person, in his works, in his law…in all these things is his soul well pleased.”47 accordingly, those who have been purchased by the blood of the lamb have a duty to rest and be refreshed in Him, just as God does and is. 40. Peter Heylyn, he History of the Sabbath. In Two Books (london, 1636). 41. George Swinnock, he Christian Man’s Calling, in he Works of George Swinnock (edinburgh: James nichol, 1849), 1:245. 42. John Flavel, An Exposition of the Assembly’s Catechism, in he Works of John Flavel (edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust, 1968), 6:235. 43. Flavel speaks of recreations of the body, which are otherwise lawful the rest of the week, as sinful. he works that are permissible are those of necessity and mercy, according to the example of christ (Matt. 12:3–4). See An Exposition, in Works, 6:236. 44. owen, Day of Sacred Rest, in Works, 19:438. 45. owen, Day of Sacred Rest, in Works, 19:440. 46. owen, Day of Sacred Rest, in Works, 19:443. 47. owen, Day of Sacred Rest, in Works, 19:448. 662 a PurITan THeoloGy owen also speaks of the speciic duties christians are to perform on the Sabbath. In the irst place, they are to prepare. he evening before is not part of the Sabbath in owen’s mind, but owen suggests, not based upon a command but only in order to help the saints of God, that meditation, prayer, and instruction are useful duties that prepare a soul to worship God on the lord’s day. on the day of worship, owen divides duties up into public and private, with the former taking precedence over the latter.48 Private duties, which may be done before or after public worship, include the exercises of “prayer, reading the Scripture, meditation, family instructions from the advantage of the public ordinances…to be recommended unto every one’s conscience, ability, and opportunity, as they shall ind strength and assistance for them.”49 Public Worship: Introduction one of the great themes that forms John owen’s theology of worship is the suiciency of Scripture (suicientia Scripturae).50 as a theologian of high reformed orthodoxy, owen viewed Scripture as the principium cognoscendi, or foundation, of knowing true theology.51 his was most succinctly stated by the early orthodox theologian in Basel, amandus Polanus von Polansdorf (1561–1610): Principium heologiaenostrae est Verbum Dei (“he foundation of our theology is the Word of God”).52 he Franeker theologian, Johannes Maccovius (1588–1644), wrote in his posthumously published Distinctiones et Regulae heologicae ac Philosophicae (1652) that the Word of God was the “irst truth” (prima veritas) and “the irst rule for all things that must be believed and done” (regula prima omnium credendorum et faciendorum).53 owen viewed Scripture in the same way, as “the central integrating point of his intellectual 54 life.” He described Scripture’s role as principium cognoscendi with the imagery of a spring: “our belief of the Scriptures to be the word of God, or a divine revelation, and our understanding of the mind and will of God as revealed in them, are the two springs of all our interest in christian religion. From them are all those streams of light and truth derived whereby our souls are watered, refreshed, and made fruitful unto God.”55 his foundational place of Scripture in his thought can be seen in heologoumena Pantodapa (1661), where Scripture supplied not only the substance 48. cf. david clarkson, “Public Worship to Be Prefered Before Private,” in he Works of David Clarkson (1864; repr., edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1988), 3:187–209. 49. owen, Day of Sacred Rest, in Works, 19:460. See also Flavel, An Exposition, in Works, 6:236–37. 50. on owen’s liturgical theology, see daniel r. Hyde, “‘of Great Importance and of High concernment’: he liturgical heology of John owen (1616–1683)” (hM thesis, Puritan reformed heological Seminary, 2010). 51. richard a. Muller, Dictionary of Latin and Greek heological Terms: Drawn Principally from Protestant Scholastic heology (Grand rapids: Baker, 1985), 245–46; richard a. Muller, Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics (Grand rapids: Baker, 2003), 2:151–223. 52. amandus Polanus von Polansdorf, Syntagma heologiae Christianae (Hanau, 1615), Synopsis, libri 1. on Polanus, see robert W. a. letham, “amandus Polanus: a neglected heologian?”, Sixteenth Century Journal 21, no. 3 (1990): 463–76. 53. Johannes Maccovius, Scholastic Discourse: Johannes Maccovius (1588–1644) on heological and Philosophical Distinctions and Rules, trans. Willem J. van asselt, Michael d. Bell, Gert van den Brink and rein Ferwerda (apeldoorn, he netherlands: Instituut voor reformatieonderzoek, 2009), 57. 54. carl r. Trueman, “John owen as a heologian,” in John Owen: he Man and His heology, ed. robert W. oliver (Phillipsburg, n.J.: P&r, 2002), 47. on owen’s doctrine of Scripture, see Trueman, he Claims of Truth: John Owen’s Trinitarian heology (carlisle, england: Paternoster Press, 1998), 64–101. 55. John owen, he Causes, Ways, and Means of Understanding the Mind of God as Revealed in His Word, with Assurance herein…, in he Works of John Owen, D.D. (edinburgh: Johnstone & Hunter, 1850–1855), 4:121. John Owen on the Christian Sabbath and Worship 663 but the structure of his entire project as he described these “theological airmations of all sorts” according to the covenants God made with man.56 For the reformed in general, and for owen especially, Scripture is suicient to determine and regulate the church’s worship. his was true in the period of early orthodoxy, as expressed in documents such as the Belgic confession of Faith: “We believe that these Holy Scriptures fully contain the will of God, and that whatsoever man ought to believe unto salvation, is suiciently taught therein. For since the whole manner of worship which God requires of us is written in them at large” (art. 7).57 In the era of high orthodoxy, homas Watson (c. 1620–1686) stated in his typically memorable way, that “[Scripture] shows the Credenda, what we are to believe; and the Agenda, what we are to practise.”58 owen believed in this doctrine of the suiciency of Scripture for worship, as will be shown principally from his Lesser and Greater Catechisms59 as well as A Brief Instruction in the Worship of God.60 A Puritan Doctrine? Is this conviction that Scripture is suicient for both salvation and worship only a Puritan doctrine? Was owen an inheritor of an idiosyncratic belief in relation to the rest of reformed orthodoxy? r. J. Gore and J. I. Packer have recently explained owen’s doctrine of the suiciency of Scripture as it applies to worship as uniquely a “Puritan approach to worship.”61 Packer, for example, argues that “the idea that direct biblical warrant…is required to sanction every substantive item included in the public worship of God was a Puritan innovation.”62 Before examining owen’s doctrine, he must be contextualized in order to refute this oversimpliication on the part of Gore and Packer. It is without controversy that owen stood in harmony with the “spiritual brotherhood” of Puritans on this doctrine. For example, in his 1605 polemical tract, English Puritanism, William Bradshaw (1571–1618) summarized the Puritans’ concern that because the Scriptures of the old and new Testaments are the Word of God, they should be viewed as suicient for serving God in public worship, because “they hold and maintain, hat the Word of God contained in the writings of the Prophets and apostles, is of absolute perfection, given by christ the head of the church, to be unto the same, the sole canon and rule of all matters of religion, and the worship and service of God whatsoever. and that whatsoever done in the same service and worship cannot be justiied 56. Trueman, “John owen as a heologian,” 52–53. For a similar treatment of christian doctrine via the unfolding of God’s covenants with man, see John Ball, A Treatise of the Covenant of Grace… (london: Simeon ash, 1645). on the issue of theological methodology in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, see Sebastian rehnman, Divine Discourse: he heological Methodology of John Owen (Grand rapids: Baker, 2002), 155–77. 57. he latin text reads “Credimus Sacram hanc Scripturam Dei voluntatem perfecte complecti et quodcumque ab hominibus, ut salutem consequantur, credi necesse est, in illa suicienter edoceri. Nam cum illic omnis divini cultus ratio, quem Deus a nobis exigit, fusissime descripta sit.” De Nederlandse belijdenisgeschriften, ed. J. n. Bakhuizen van den Brink (amsterdam: uitgeverij Ton Bolland, 1976), 79. 58. homas Watson, A Body of Divinity (1692; repr., edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust, 1986), 30. on Watson, see Barry Till, “Watson, homas (d. 1686),” in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, ed. H. c. G. Matthew and Brian Harrison (oxford: oxford university Press, 2004), 57:671–72. For a typical Puritan sermon on the suiciency of the Word, see homas Manton, “he Scripture Suicient without unwritten Tradition,” in he Complete Works of homas Manton (london: James nisbet, 1870), 5:487–500. 59. John owen, in he Works of John Owen, D.D. (edinburgh: Johnstone & Hunter, 1850–1855), 1:465–94. 60. John owen, in he Works of John Owen, D.D. (edinburgh: Johnstone & Hunter, 1850–1855), 15:447–530. 61. r. J. Gore, Covenantal Worship: Reconsidering the Puritan Regulative Principle (Phillipsburg, n.J.: P&r, 2002), 93–95; Packer, Quest for Godliness, 245–57. 62. Packer, Quest for Godliness, 247. 664 a PurITan THeoloGy by the said word, is unlawful. and therefore that it is a sin, to force any christian to do any act of religion or divine service, that cannot evidently be warranted by the same.”63 Bradshaw’s argument was a standard Puritan one. Positively, because christ gave His Word to His church, it is “perfect,” that is, suicient for the “worship and service of God.” negatively, what is not commanded in the Word is “unlawful” in public worship. he practical result is that christians are freed from being bound to serve God in ways contrary to His Word. In 1601, William Perkins (1558–1602) wrote A Warning against the Idolatry of the Last Times in order to instruct an “ignorant multitude touching the true worship of God. For the remainders of Popery yet stick in the minds of many of them, and they think, that to serve God, is nothing else but to deal truly with men, and to babble a few words morning and evening, at home, or in the church, though there be no understanding.”64 In order to instruct the ignorant, Perkins irst had to warn against idolatry. Besides the idolatry of false conceptions of God and christ, Perkins said the second kind of idolatry was “when God is worshipped otherwise, and by other means, than he hath revealed in the word. For when men set up a devised worship, they set up also a devised God.”65 For Perkins, to worship according to the Word was to worship the true God; to worship contrary to the Word was to worship another God entirely. after warning against such idolatry Perkins concluded this treatise with a positive instruction about the rule of divine worship, in which he wrote, “that nothing may go under the name of the worship of God, which he hath not ordained in his own word, and commanded to us as his own worship.”66 according to Perkins, then, the Word of God is the source and rule of true worship. another example comes from homas Watson. In expositing the answer to Shorter catechism Question 1, that “man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him for ever,” Watson explained that “glorifying God consists in adoration, or worship.”67 his worship was twofold, either civil reverence to persons of honor, or divine worship given to God. of divine worship Watson eloquently and passionately wrote: his divine worship God is very jealous of; this is the apple of his eye, this is the pearl of his crown, which he guards, as he did the tree of life, with cherubims and a laming sword, that no man may come near it to violate it: divine worship must be such as God himself hath appointed, else it is ofering strange ire, lev. x. 2. he lord would have Moses make the tabernacle, “according to the pattern in the Mount,” exod. xxv. 40.; he must not leave out any thing in the pattern, nor add to it. If God was so exact and curious about the place of worship, how exact will he be about the matter of his worship! Surely here every thing must be according to the pattern prescribed in his word.68 For Watson, divine regulation of worship was an extension of the jealousy of God. his led Watson to ask rhetorically that if God cared about the place of His worship, how much more so the matter of His worship? 63. William Bradshaw, English Puritanism, Containing the Main Opinions of the Ridgedest Sort of hose Called Puritans in the Realm of England, 1.1, in Several Treatises of Worship & Ceremonies (london: Printed for cambridge and oxford, 1660), 35. 64. William Perkins, A Warning against the Idolatry of the Last Times, in he Workes of hat Famous and Worthy Minister of Christ… (london: John legatt and cantrell ligge, 1612–13), 1:670. 65. Perkins, Warning against Idolatry, in Workes, 1:672, col. 2. 66. Perkins, Warning against Idolatry, in Workes, 1:698, col. 2. 67. Watson, A Body of Divinity, 7. 68. Watson, A Body of Divinity, 8. John Owen on the Christian Sabbath and Worship 665 owen stood in this line of Puritan tradition on the issue of worship. While his understanding of the suiciency of Scripture as it applied to worship was in harmony with his Puritan brotherhood, it was not unique either to him or to them. admittedly, John calvin was not the touchstone of reformed orthodoxy in this or any other period,69 but since Gore and Packer invoke him to show the alleged discontinuity between earlier reformed theology and that of owen and the Puritans, calvin’s doctrine needs to be stated succinctly. here was unanimity between calvin and the reformers and owen and the Puritans on this subject. Scholars have considered in detail calvin’s doctrine of worship, but a few brief selections from his writings will nevertheless be helpful.70 calvin’s basic stance on worship, in terms of why it needed to be reformed and how that reform was to take place, was not better stated than in his 1544 letter to emperor charles V titled he Necessity of Reforming the Church: I know how diicult it is to persuade the world that God disapproves of all modes of worship not expressly sanctioned by His Word. he opposite persuasion which cleaves to them, being seated, as it were, in their very bones and marrow, is, that whatever they do, has in itself, a suicient sanction, provided it exhibits some kind of zeal for the honour of God. But since God not only regards as fruitless, but also plainly abominates, whatever we undertake from zeal to His worship, if at variance with His command, what do we gain by a contrary course? he words of God are clear and distinct, “obedience is better than sacriice.” “In vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men,” (1 Sam. xv. 22; Matt. xv. 9.) every addition to His word, especially in this matter, is a lie. Mere “will worship”… is vanity. his is the decision, and when once the judge has decided, it is no longer time to debate.71 For calvin, like the Puritans, all worship not commanded in the Word of God was disapproved, fruitless, an abomination, and “will worship.” He later deined “will worship” in his commentary on colossians as “a voluntary worship which men choose of their own will without a command from God.”72 Without God’s command, worship is merely devised from the minds of men. He stated this in his commentary on Psalm 9:11: Farther, we see that the holy fathers, when they resorted to Sion to ofer sacriices to God, did not act merely according to the suggestion of their own minds; but what 69. See richard a. Muller, “Was calvin a calvinist? or, did calvin (or anyone else in the early Modern era) Plant the ‘TulIP’?” calvin college, accessed March 10, 2011, http://www.calvin.edu/meeter/lectures/richard%20 Muller%20-%20Was%20calvin%20a%20calvinist.pdf. 70. on calvin’s doctrine, see W. robert Godfrey, “calvin and the Worship of God,” in he Worship of God: Reformed Concepts of Biblical Worship (Fearn, Scotland: christian Focus, 2005), 31–49; and John Calvin: Pilgrim and Pastor (Wheaton, Ill.: crossway, 2009); Hughes oliphant old, “calvin’s heology of Worship,” in Give Praise to God, ed. Philip G. ryken, derek W. H. homas, and J. ligon duncan III (Phillipsburg, n.J.: P&r, 2003), 412–35; John d. Witvliet, “Images and hemes in John calvin’s heology of liturgy,” in he Legacy of John Calvin: Calvin Studies Society Papers 1999, ed. david Foxgrover (Grand rapids: calvin Studies Society, 2000), 130–52. on calvin’s doctrine vis-àvis the Puritans, see William young, “he Puritan Principle of Worship,” in Puritan Papers, Volume 1: 1956–1959, ed. d. Martyn lloyd-Jones (Phillipsburg, n.J.: P&r, 2000), 141–53. 71. John calvin, “he necessity of reforming the church,” in Selected Works of John Calvin: Tracts and Letters, ed. Henry Beveridge and Jules Bonnet (Grand rapids: Baker, 1983), 1:128–29. 72. John calvin, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, and Colossians, trans. T. H. l. Parker, in Calvin’s New Testament Commentaries, ed. david W. Torrance and homas F. Torrance (1965; repr., Grand rapids: eerdmans, 1972), 11:343. cf. John calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, ed. John T. Mcneill, trans. Ford lewis Battles (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1960), 2.8.17. 666 a PurITan THeoloGy they did proceeded from faith in the word of God, and was done in obedience to his command; and they were, therefore, approved of by him for their religious service. Whence it follows, that there is no ground whatever to make use of their example as an argument or excuse for the religious observances which superstitious men have, by their own fancy, invented for themselves…. let us know and be fully persuaded, that wherever the faithful, who worship him purely and in due form, according to the appointment of his word, are assembled together to engage in the solemn acts of religious worship, he is graciously present, and presides in the midst of them.73 again, calvin clearly contrasted worship according to the minds of men and worship proceeding from faith in the Word of God. he former is superstition, while the latter is approved by God. his led calvin to enjoin his sixteenth-century hearers to worship God according to the commands of His Word and to receive the spiritual blessings of that worship. In this it is clear that calvin was as concerned to apply Scripture to public worship as any of the Puritans, including owen, who said in a posthumously published work, “religious worship not divinely instituted and appointed is false worship, not accepted with God.”74 For owen, this approach to Scripture and worship was a part of his inheritance as an international reformed theologian and not a doctrine that was peculiar either to him or to english Puritanism. his will be seen in greater detail from the examination of owen’s Lesser and Greater Catechisms, as well as his post-1662 catechism, A Brief Instruction in the Worship of God. Background to Owen’s Catechisms after becoming minister of the parish in Fordham on July 16, 1643, John owen encountered the pastoral problem of doctrinal ignorance. His impressions were grim: Fordham was “full of grossly ignorant persons.”75 Besides public preaching, his remedy was to catechize his people from house to house. his was a classic pastoral strategy rooted in Paul’s ministry among the ephesians (acts 20:20) and the medieval and reformation method of catechizing. In 1645, he wrote a Lesser Catechism and Greater Catechism, published together as Two Short Catechisms: Wherein the Principles of the Doctrine of Christ are Unfolded and Explained. More than two decades later, he wrote another catechism consisting of ifty-three questions and answers. he irst eighteen questions of A Brief Instruction in the Worship of God pertain to instituted worship, while questions 19 to 53 deal with instituted discipline. While all three of these documents are catechisms, the diferences between the Lesser Catechism and Greater Catechism, on the one hand, and A Brief Instruction, on the other, are many. he former were written for “ignorant persons” in Fordham, while the latter was composed for a national audience. he former contained the minimum knowledge necessary to partake of communion, while the latter was written as a doctrinal treatise in the midst of political turmoil. his fact gives great clarity to A Brief Instruction. despite the clarendon code, dissenting congregations were growing in the early years of charles II’s reign. Brief Instruction became one of the sources congregational churches looked to for guidance. as a summary of congregational 73. John calvin, Commentary on the Book of Psalms, trans. James anderson, in Commentaries (1845–1849; repr., Grand rapids: Baker, 1996), 4:121–22. 74. John owen, “an answer unto Two Questions: with Twelve arguments against any conformity to Worship not of divine Institution,” in he Works of John Owen, D.D. (edinburgh: Johnstone & Hunter, 1850–1855), 16:249. 75. owen, Lesser Catechism, in Works, 1:465. John Owen on the Christian Sabbath and Worship 667 doctrine and polity, it became so popular that it was known as the Independents’ catechism.76 Its inluence is also seen in the negative response it received. In 1668 Benjamin camield, rector of Whitby, in derbyshire, attacked it in an octavo volume of 347 pages, A Serious Examination of the Independents’ Catechism, and herein of the Chief Principles of Nonconformity to, and Separation from, the Church of England.77 later, in 1670, another attack came in the form of George Vernon’s (c. 1638–1720) A Letter to a Friend Concerning some of Dr Owen’s Principles and Practices.78 Man’s Chief End In A Brief Instruction in the Worship of God, owen begins where calvin and the Westminster assembly of divines began,79 with the question of man’s chief or highest end: “What doth God require of us in our dependence on him, that he may be gloriied by us, and we accepted with him?” note that this question is formulated in the language of covenant relationship. although the term covenant is not explicitly used, when owen spoke of what God requires of us, “that he may be gloriied in us, and we accepted of him,” he alludes to the basic idea of the covenant: “ye shall be my people, and I will be your God” ( Jer. 30:22). owen’s answer to this question was twofold. First, believers are to worship God. Second, believers are to do so “by the ways of his own appointment.” his worship was not the “natural or moral” worship relected in the irst commandment—natural because it depended upon the nature of God Himself and because it was “concreted with the nature of man”—instead, owen’s treatise concerned “those outward ways and means whereby God hath appointed that faith, and love, and fear of him to be exercised and expressed unto his glory…upon his free and arbitrary disposal.”80 his instituted worship was not merely an internal act; it also required external actions. as he went on to say, sinners cannot ind acceptance with God if they neglect His external and freely appointed worship. If they do, they are like adam, who also transgressed an institution of God. Further, by external worship, believers are helped and assisted in their natural worship, having the habit of natural worship strengthened and the practice of it increased.81 Worship and the Word In his Greater Catechism, owen clearly taught that Scripture was the principium cognoscendi in chapter 1, “of the Scripture.” He described the christian religion as “the only way of knowing God aright, and living unto him,” that is, worshiping Him (Greater Catechism, Q. 1). In this description, owen follows in the line of english Puritans such as William ames (1576–1633), who conceived of theology in practical terms: theologia est doctrina Deo vivendi (theology is the doctrine of living to God).82 76. not to be confused with an earlier catechism of the same name by J. c.: he Independants Catechism (london, 1654). 77. Benjamin camield, A Serious Examination of the Independents’ Catechism, and herein of the Chief Principles of Nonconformity to, and Separation from, the Church of England (london: J. redmayne, 1668). 78. George Vernon, A Letter to a Friend Concerning Some of Dr Owen’s Principles and Practices (london: J. redmayne for Spencer Hickman, 1670). 79. See Q. 1, catechism of the church of Geneva, larger catechism, Shorter catechism. 80. John owen, A Brief Instruction in the Worship of God and Discipline of the Churches of the New Testament, in he Works of John Owen, D.D. (edinburgh: Johnstone & Hunter, 1850–1855), 15:447. 81. owen, Brief Instruction, in Works, 15:448. 82. William ames, Medulla theologica (amsterdam: apud robertum allotum, 1627), 1. on this practical aspect of theology, see a. c. neele, “Post-reformation reformed Sources and children,” Hervormde teologiese studies 64, no. 1 (2008): 653–64. 668 a PurITan THeoloGy How were men to know God aright and live unto Him? In the Lesser Catechism, owen opened with this overall basic question, “Whence is all truth concerning God and ourselves to be learned?” His answer was, “From the holy Scriptures, the Word of God.”83 Writing in english for those whom he described as “grossly ignorant,” he expressed in a catechetical way that Scripture is the principium cognoscendi. So also in his Greater Catechism: “Whence is this to be learned? From the holy Scripture only” (Q. 2). he fullest description in owen’s catechisms, however, comes from A Brief Instruction in the Worship of God, which asked, “How, then, are these ways and means of the worship of God made known to us? In and by the written word only, which contains a full and perfect revelation of the will of God as to his whole worship and all the concernments of it” (Q. 3). hese questions and answers show his belief that both the knowledge of God and the knowledge of how to live unto Him in a life of worship was derived ex Scriptura sola. his led to the question of the nature of Scripture that allowed him to speak of it as he did in terms of knowledge and worship: “What is the Scripture? he books of the old and new Testament, given by inspiration from God, containing all things necessary to be believed and done, that God may be worshipped and our souls saved” (Greater Catechism, Q. 3). He not only limited Scripture to the canonical books of the two Testaments but also limited the scope of its suiciency to the objects of faith leading to salvation and the objects of duty leading to right worship.84 of note concerning Scripture’s suiciency in worship are his marginalia. concerning question 3 he wrote, “all human inventions unnecessary helps in the worship of God.” He could say this because of what he said about the nature of Scripture. He also drew this conclusion: “he word thereof is the sole directory for faith, worship, and life.”85 Far from being a meager or partial source for the knowledge of worship, he said that sola Scriptura implied suicientia Scripturae, as the Word was “full” and “perfect” concerning worship (Brief Instruction, Q. 3). he all-suiciency of Scripture, then, was the place to ind the matter and manner of true worship. as he earlier airmed in the Savoy declaration, taken from the Westminster confession of Faith (22.1): he light of nature showeth that there is a God, who hath lordship and sovereignty over all, is just, good, and doth good unto all, and is therefore to be feared, loved, praised, called upon, trusted in, and served with all the heart, and all the soul, and with all the might. But the acceptable way of worshipping the true God is instituted by himself, and so limited by his own revealed will, that he may not be worshipped according to the imaginations and devices of men, or the suggestions of Satan, under any visible representations, or any other way not prescribed in the holy Scripture. God’s purpose in giving His Word was that His people might know His mind and will as to the worship and obedience He requires of them. his instruction was necessitated by the darkened state of the mind of fallen man, so that “of ourselves we are ignorant [of ] how God is, how he ought to be, worshipped.”86 owen rooted God’s right to determine His own worship in the fact 83. owen, Lesser Catechism, in Works, 1:467. For some of the history of catechisms, see Fred H. klooster, he Heidelberg Catechism: Origin and History (Grand rapids: calvin heological Seminary, 1981), 171–72; Gottfried G. krodel, “luther’s Work on the catechism in the context of late Medieval catechetical literature,” Concordia Journal 25, no. 4 (october 1999): 364–404. 84. For a brief introduction to the scope of Scripture’s suiciency, see Muller, Post-Reformation, 2:318–22. 85. owen, Greater Catechism, in Works, 1:470. 86. owen, Brief Instruction, in Works, 15:450. John Owen on the Christian Sabbath and Worship 669 that He is a jealous God, which he described as “that holy property of his nature in an especial manner about his worship.”87 What exactly is the church to do in worship, according to the Word? owen spoke of the calling of assemblies for worship, prayer, singing of psalms, preaching, sacraments, and discipline as the principal institutions of new covenant worship (Brief Instruction, Q. 17).88 With regard to the singing of psalms, owen joined twenty-four others in authoring a preface to he Psalms of David in Meeter (1673).89 according to this preface, “now though spiritual songs of mere human composure may have their use, yet our devotion is best secured, where the matter and words are of immediately divine inspiration; and to us David’s Psalms seem plainly intended by those terms of ‘psalms and hymns and spiritual songs,’ which the apostle useth (eph. 5:19; col. 3:16).”90 Creation, Worship, and the Word after chapters on God, the Trinity, and the internal works of God (opera ad intra), chapter 5 of the Greater Catechism moves on to “of the Works of God that outwardly are of Him.” In this chapter, owen dealt with the creation of man and his purpose: worshiping his creator. In this connection, he explained why the Word was necessary to lead man in his worship even before the fall. He briely wrote about the works of creation and providence (Greater Catechism, Q. 1, 2) and their relevance to worship and the Word: “Wherefore did God make man? For his own glory in his service and obedience” (Greater Catechism, Q. 3). he Lesser Catechism follows this same line of teaching, applying its opening question concerning the Word to the truth that man’s entire life was to be one of worship: “Q. What is required from us towards almighty God? a. Holy and spiritual obedience, according to his law given unto us.”91 We were made to obey and glorify God (cf. Westminster larger catechism and Westminster Shorter catechism, Q. 1). he key phrase in the Lesser Catechism is that man is to do this “according to his law given unto us.” he Word rules man’s life of worship. his was a rudimentary polemic for his parishioners, not only against roman catholicism but also against one of owen’s other polemical targets, the Quakers. as he explained in some detail in heologoumena Pantodapa, the Quakers rejected Scripture as their guide for worship.92 Man was created to glorify God through service and obedience, that is, worship in its widest meaning. In the garden, man’s worship was of the “state of pure, uncorrupted nature.”93 He was made to be a servant, wholly devoted to his creator, “in his person—in his soul and body—in all 87. owen, Brief Instruction, in Works, 15:450. 88. owen, Brief Instruction, in Works, 15:477. 89. he list of signatories includes homas Manton, Henry langley, John owen, William Jenkyn, James Innes, homas Watson, homas lye, Matthew Poole, John Milward, John chester, George cokayn, Matthew Meade, robert Francklin, homas dooelittle, homas Vincent, nathanael Vincent, John ryther, William Tomson, nicolas Blaikie, charles Morton, edmund calamy, William carslake, James Janeway, John Hickes, and John Baker. 90. he Psalms of David in Meeter. Newly Translated and Diligently Compared with the Original Text, and Former Translations: More Plain, Smooth and Agreeable to the Text, han Any Heretofore (london: for the company of Stationers, 1673). 91. owen, Lesser Catechism, in Works, 1:467. 92. John owen, Biblical heology, trans. Stephen P. Westcott (Morgan, Pa.: Soli deo Gloria Publications, 1994), 823–24, 833–35. For owen’s refutation see 824–25. on the dating of A Defense of Sacred Scripture, see donald k. Mckim, “John owen’s doctrine of Scripture in Historical Perspective,” he Evangelical Quarterly 45 (Fall 1973): 198. 93. John owen, Christologia: or, A Declaration of the Glorious Mystery of the Person of Christ—God and Man, in he Works of John Owen, D.D. (edinburgh: Johnstone & Hunter, 1850–1855), 1:48. In this state, the original religion was “orderly, beautiful, and glorious.” 670 a PurITan THeoloGy his faculties, powers, and senses—in all that was given unto him or intrusted with him.”94 every aspect of his created state was to be engaged in worship. owen used the classic aristotelian categories of man’s constitution: mind, will, and afections.95 originally, all these parts or faculties were in what owen called “an habitual conformity unto God…an habitual disposition unto all the duties of that obedience that was required of him.”96 he fact that God was to be worshiped according to His own will and appointment was “a principle branch of the law of our creation” that was written on the heart and restated and conirmed in the second commandment (Brief Instruction, Q. 2). Here owen linked worship both to the law of nature, citing the classic texts to that efect (rom. 1:21; 2:14–15; acts 14:16–17; 17:23– 31),97 and also to the Mosaic law, in the second commandment (ex. 20:4–6). as owen said, no matter what conception people had of God, they knew naturally that God was to be “worshipped with some outward solemn worship,” and not merely as individuals but as societies.98 although this was true naturally, he did specify one way in which the old covenant law was distinct from natural law: the means of knowing precisely how to worship God. his aspect was most important to him: “he ways and means of that worship depend merely on God’s sovereign pleasure and institution.”99 In explaining the second commandment, owen followed the standard reformed argument that man was “severely forbidden” to add worship “of our own inventions.”100 God’s purpose in this command was to send believers to Jesus christ as our chief prophet, the one whom God “hath endowed with sovereign authority to reveal his will and ordain his worship.” one of the proofs owen gave for this assertion was John 1:18: “no man hath seen God at any time, the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.”101 In the marginal notes to Greater Catechism, question 3, owen explained one of the implications for man’s creation for the purpose of worship, saying, “he approaching unto God in his service is the chief exaltation of our nature above the beasts that perish.”102 owen connected man’s original ability to perform this service of worship with the imago Dei in man that distinguished him from animals: “Was man able to yield the service and worship that God required of him? yea, to the uttermost, being created upright in the image of God, in purity, innocence, righteousness, and holiness” (Greater Catechism, Q. 4). God gave man the ability to worship by virtue of his created nature.103 kapic has recently made the claim that, like many of the church fathers, owen distinguished the image of God from the likeness of God in Genesis 1:26. He says that while “image” denoted man’s original faculties properly oriented toward God, likeness denoted righ94. owen, Person of Christ, in Works, 1:206. 95. kelly M. kapic, Communion with God: he Divine and the Human in the heology of John Owen (Grand rapids: Baker, 2007), 45–56. 96. John owen, Discourse on the Holy Spirit, in he Works of John Owen, D.D. (edinburgh: Johnstone & Hunter, 1850–1855), 3:285. cf. Sinclair B. Ferguson, John Owen on the Christian Life (edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust, 1987), 274. 97. on the use of these passages and others in relation to natural law as sedes doctrinae, see J. V. Fesko and Guy M. richard, “natural heology and the Westminster confession of Faith,” in he Westminster Confession into the 21st Century, Volume 3: Essays in Remembrance of the 350th Anniversary of the Westminster Assembly, ed. J. ligon duncan (Fearn, Scotland: christian Focus, 2009), 223–66; david Vandrunen, “Medieval natural law and the reformation: a comparison of aquinas and calvin,” American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 80, no. 1 (2006): 77–98. 98. owen, Brief Instruction, in Works, 15:448, 449. 99. owen, Brief Instruction, in Works, 15:448. 100. e.g., the Heidelberg catechism, Q. 96–98; the Westminster larger catechism, Q. 108–109. 101. owen, Brief Instruction, in Works, 15:449. 102. owen, Brief Instruction, in Works, 1:474. 103. See Ferguson, John Owen on the Christian Life, 156–58. John Owen on the Christian Sabbath and Worship 671 teousness and the ability to respond to God in obedience.104 yet the citations kapic ofers from owen’s Works (10:80; 12:156–58; 22:158) do not clearly show this distinction, a point Mcdonald has made in response.105 evidence that owen used these terms interchangeably is found in his 1679 treatise, Christologia: “We had by sin lost the image of God, and thereby all gracious acceptance with him,—all interest in his love and favour. In our recovery, as we have declared, this image is again to be restored unto us, or we are to be renewed into the likeness of God.”106 he importance of the foregoing for worship and the suiciency of Scripture is then brought to a conclusion in these words: “What was the rule whereby man was at irst to be directed in his obedience? he moral or eternal law of God, implanted in his nature and written in his heart by creation, being the tenor of the covenant between God and him, sacramentally typiied by the tree of knowledge of good and evil” (Greater Catechism, Q. 5).107 according to owen, even in the state of innocence adam’s worship was directed by God by means of a rule He gave. as his marginal note stated: “God never allowed, from the beginning, that the will of the creature should be the measure of his worship and honour.”108 By virtue of his creation, man had the moral law written on his heart to direct him in glorifying God. Being in covenant with God, man was to follow the law of his lord. owen would later state in his Hebrews commentary that the covenant between God and man always has had external worship annexed to it.109 Behind this teaching lay a key distinction. he reformed orthodox adopted a distinction from the medieval church to describe theology in terms of theologia archetypa (archetypal theology) and theologia ectypa (ectypal theology). Franciscus Junius (1545–1602) was the irst to use these terms.110 his distinction is between theology as God knows it (theologia archetypa), as the original, and theology as man knows it (theologia ectypa), as a copy. hese categories express not only the nature of theological knowledge but also how man comes to know it.111 owen also adopted this terminology.112 rehnman asserts that “reformed scholars regard man’s knowledge of God properly as ectypal, not a copy of the ininite divine knowledge and, since human knowledge rests upon the revelatory initiative of God, it seems to imply that man cannot conceive a theology by way of analogia entis” (the analogy of being).113 his statement illuminates owen’s point that 104. kapic, Communion with God, 37–42. 105. Suzanne Mcdonald, “he Pneumatology of the ‘lost’ Image in John owen,” Westminster heological Journal 71, no. 2 (Fall 2009): 324–25. 106. owen, Person of Christ, in Works, 1:218. 107. owen, Greater Catechism, in Works, 1:474. 108. owen, Greater Catechism, in Works, 1:474. 109. owen, Exposition of Hebrews, in Works, 6:185. In Brief Instruction, in Works, 15:473, he 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.” cf. Ferguson, John Owen on the Christian Life, 22. 110. a. kuyper, ed., De Vera heologia IV–V, in Opera Selecta (amsterdam, 1882), 51–56; cf. H. Bavinck, ed., Synopsis purioris theologiae…, 6th ed. (1625; repr., leiden: d. donner, 1881), 1:3–4; Francis Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic heology, ed. James T. dennison Jr., trans. George Musgrave Giger (Phillipsburg, n.J.: P&r, 1992), 3.2.6. 111. See Muller, Post-Reformation, 1:225–38; Willem van asselt, “he Fundamental Meaning of heology: archetypal and ectypal heology in Seventeenth-century hought,” Westminster heological Journal 64, no. 2 (Fall 2002): 319–35; r. Scott clark, “Janus, the Well-Meant ofer of the Gospel and Westminster heology,” in he Pattern of Sound Words: A Festschrift for Robert B. Strimple, ed. david Vandrunen (Phillipsburg, n.J.: P&r, 2004), 149–80; and Recovering the Reformed Confession: Our heology, Piety, and Practice (Phillipsburg, n.J.: P&r, 2008), 142–50. 112. Trueman, “John owen as a heologian,” 49–51; cf. Trueman, he Claims of Truth, 54–56; rehnman, Divine Discourse, 57–71. 113. rehnman, Divine Discourse, 63. 672 a PurITan THeoloGy even before the fall, before original sin and its noetic efects, man still needed revelation to guide him in his duties toward God, because man’s knowledge of God, of His will and worship, is always a creaturely knowledge, a derived knowledge.114 Before the fall, this revelation was the innate sense of God either from creation or providence. after the fall, this knowledge was greatly diminished and therefore insuicient to lead humanity to worship properly. hus, there was a necessity for further revelation regarding true worship.115 his necessity is located in the fact that the fall has efaced the image of God in humans who are now unrighteous; it has marred the image and rendered man unable to worship naturally as he could before. at the same time, the faculties that enabled adam to have a relationship with God remained in humanity.116 Worship and the Patriarchs In his 1643 work,117 he Duties of Pastors and People Distinguished, owen traced the theme of worship from adam to christ, showing the necessity of the Word to divine service. one of the questions he seeks to answer concerning the patriarchs before the giving of the law was how they worshiped since they had no canon of Scripture. His answer was that families and their neighbors gathered to “perform those things which they knew to be required, by the law of nature, tradition, or special revelation (the unwritten word of those times), in the service of God.”118 He did not see these three as difering sources of revelation but as diferent modes of the one revelation by which humanity worshiped its creator, even apart from any order of ministers, for “God would never allow that in any regard the will of the creature should be the measure of his honour and worship.”119 concerning the law of nature, he said the earliest family worshiped by means of adam’s oral instruction, while the church later did what had become tradition, which was sporadically “helped forward by such which received particular revelations in their generation, such as noah.”120 after the giving of the law, worship was much more clearly regulated by the special revelation of the Word of God. In contrast, during the period before the law, “we sought for the manner of God’s worship from the practice of men.” When God’s covenant began to be administered diferently in the time of Israel, the content and forms of worship were determined “from the prescription of God.” He went so far as to say that from post-fall adam to Moses, humanity “guessed at what was commanded by what was done,” reasoning a posteriori. From Moses onward, “what was done [was determined] by what was commanded,” reasoning a priori.121 While much of the worship in the Mosaic period of covenant administration was the ceremonial worship of sacriices and 114. cf. John owen, Of Communion with God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, in he Works of John Owen, D.D. (edinburgh: Johnstone & Hunter, 1850–1855), 2:150. 115. on this, see rehnman, Divine Discourse, 73–89; Trueman, he Claims of Truth, 56–60. 116. John owen, Vindiciae Evangelicae; or he Mystery of the Gospel Vindicated and Socianism Examined, in he Works of John Owen, D.D. (edinburgh: Johnstone & Hunter, 1850–1855), 12:143; John owen, An Exposition of the Epistle to the Hebrews, in he Works of John Owen, D.D. (edinburgh: Johnstone & Hunter, 1850–1855), 18:387. 117. While the title page says 1644 (Works, 13:1), owen corrected that in he Duty of Pastors and People Distinguished, in he Works of John Owen, D.D. (edinburgh: Johnstone & Hunter, 1850–1855), 13:222. 118. owen, Pastors and People, in Works, 13:7. 119. owen, Pastors and People, in Works, 13:8. 120. owen, Pastors and People, in Works, 13:8. 121. owen, Pastors and People, in Works, 13:11. owen dismisses the speculations of augustine, Josephus, Sixtus Senesis, and chrysostom whether there was a written Word of God in the patriarchal period as “not worth contending about.” Pastors and People, in Works, 13:11. John Owen on the Christian Sabbath and Worship 673 oferings performed by priests in the tabernacle or temple, the people of God still had an interest in worship in two primary ways: hearing the Word read and expounded, and meditating upon it.122 Worship from Old Covenant to the New another of owen’s major concerns was the issue of continuity and discontinuity between worship under the old covenant and under the new. He asked whether “these ways and means have been always the same from the beginning.”123 His answer was that while the “internal” acts of worship remained the same, the “external” forms of worship difered greatly.124 his was a common Puritan distinction. owen’s contemporary, homas Manton (1620–1677), drew upon the same distinction in expounding Philippians 3:3, “For we are the circumcision, which worship God in the spirit.” his implied, Manton said, that believers worshiped God “with the inward and spiritual afections of a renewed heart.”125 his internal worship consisted of faith, reverence, love, and delight in God.126 In contrast, external worship is “those oices and duties by which our honour and respect to God is signiied and expressed.” It consists in the Word, prayer, praise, thanksgiving, and the sacraments, as well as the entire christian life, which was “a constant hymn to God, or a continual act of worship.”127 his distinction showed “therefore a christian should not rest in an external form,”128 but should realize that “external worship is but a means to the internal.”129 Manton gave a rhetorical way of remembering his point with a latin phrase, inis est nobilior mediis (the end is more excellent than the means). What owen drew from Scripture was that God worked in diferent ways at diferent times throughout the history of redemption (cf. Heb. 1:1–2). after the promise was given in Genesis 3:15, worship was ofered by means of sacriice in the days of cain and abel (Genesis 4), then by circumcision in the days of abraham (Gen. 17:10), then by the Passover (exodus 12), then by the law and all its ordinances (exodus 20).130 Since God ordained all these external forms of worship by His authority, by that same authority they ceased after the coming of christ.131 Would there be further alterations under the gospel since God had once changed the external form of worship? no, because God’s inal revelation of His will came in and through His incarnate Son, and “all his commands and institutions are to be observed inviolably unto the end of the world, without alteration, diminution, or addition.”132 he old forms of worship were abolished since they pointed forward to christ, “the end of the law” (rom. 10:4), and because He came as lord over the house of God with full authority unlike those before Him. Here owen went on to expound the words of Hebrews 3:1–6, locating the authority of christ to change the worship of the house of God in 122. owen, Pastors and People, in Works, 13:12–13. 123. owen, Brief Instruction, in Works, 15:450. 124. cf. John owen, A Discourse Concerning Liturgies, and heir Imposition, in he Works of John Owen, D.D. (edinburgh: Johnstone & Hunter, 1850–1855), 15:8, where he said, “he worship of God is either moral and internal, or external and of sovereign or arbitrary institution.” 125. homas Manton “a description of the True circumcision,” in he Complete Works of homas Manton (london: James nisbet, 1870), 2:24. 126. Manton, “True circumcision,” in Works, 2:24–25. 127. Manton, “True circumcision,” in Works, 2:25; cf. 2:29. 128. Manton, “True circumcision,” in Works, 2:24. 129. Manton, “True circumcision,” in Works, 2:27. 130. owen, Brief Instruction, in Works, 15:450–51. 131. owen, Brief Instruction, in Works, 15:451–52. 132. owen, Brief Instruction, in Works, 15:452; cf. 7, 217. 674 a PurITan THeoloGy His being the Son. christ came as one greater than the angels, the prophets, and Moses himself.133 christology, then, was and remains the key to the worship of the new covenant.134 Worship and Antinomianism In light of the distinction between old and new covenant worship, one key question for the Puritans was whether the abolishing of the old covenant and its forms of worship meant that new covenant christians are freed from all obligations. chad van dixhoorn has shown in his doctoral dissertation that one of the great challenges facing the Westminster assembly and the reformed churches of the seventeenth century was antinomianism.135 he precise question owen asked was whether believers could enter “an estate of faith and perfection in obedience” and so be freed from “the observation of gospel institutions” (Brief Instruction, Q. 6). His answer was an appeal to covenant theology.136 His rejection of such a possibility was based on the reality that the ordinances of gospel worship were “inseparably annexed unto the evangelical administration of the covenant of grace,” and any rejection of these ordinances was a rejection, not only of the covenant, but also of the “wisdom and authority of Jesus christ.”137 owen went on to make the following points. First, the christian life is one of walking with God in the covenant of grace. all faith and obedience belongs to this covenant and “other ways of communion with him, of obedience unto him, of enjoyment of him, on this side of heaven and glory, he hath not appointed nor revealed.”138 owen cited Hebrews 8:9–12 as the substance of this covenant, which consists of the law being put into the minds of God’s people and inscribed onto their hearts.139 However, in this life there is no grace promised “to give them up unto a state of perfection, short of glory.”140 Second, annexed to this covenant are the institutions of gospel worship. If these institutions were “omitted or deserted,” the covenant itself and its grace would be renounced and relinquished.141 owen could not imagine a situation in which christians thought they did not need “the grace of God, nor the mercy of God, nor the blood of christ, nor the Spirit of christ.” hose 133. owen, Brief Instruction, in Works, 15:453–54. For owen’s exposition of Hebrews 3:1–6, see An Exposition of the Epistle to the Hebrews, ed. W. H. Goold (1855; repr., Grand rapids: Baker, 1980), 3:487–572. 134. See owen, Hebrews, 3:521. 135. chad B. van dixhoorn, “reforming the reformation: heological debate at the Westminster assembly, 1642–1652” (Phd diss., university of cambridge, 2004), 1:276–96, 302–3, 307–9, 342–44; cf. david r. como, Blown by the Spirit: Puritanism and the Emergence of an Antinomian Underground in Pre-Civil-War England (Stanford, calif.: Stanford university Press, 2004); “radical Puritanism, c. 1558–1660,” in he Cambridge Companion to Puritanism, ed. John cofey and Paul c. H. lim (cambridge: cambridge university Press, 2008), 241–58; heodore dwight Bozeman, he Precisionist Strain: Disciplinary Religion and Antinomian Backlash in Puritanism to 1638 (chapel Hill: university of north carolina Press, 2004). 136. In Hebrews, 6:71–73, owen contrasted the worship of the old covenant with that of the new covenant in ive ways (cf. Ferguson, John Owen on the Christian Life, 29–30): 1. he distinct way christ’s love is declared; 2. he distinct way grace is communicated; 3. he distinct way access was opened to God; 4. he distinct way worship was legal in the old and is gracious in the new; 5. he distinct way the gospel is spread universally in the new covenant. 137. owen, Brief Instruction, in Works, 15:454. 138. owen, Brief Instruction, in Works, 15:454. on owen’s doctrine of the covenant grace, see Trueman, John Owen, 76–80. 139. See owen’s comments on the law being put into the mind and written on the heart in Hebrews, 6:147–51. 140. owen, Brief Instruction, in Works, 15:454. 141. owen, Brief Instruction, in Works, 15:454–55. John Owen on the Christian Sabbath and Worship 675 that thought so had no standing with owen: “It is not much material what they think of the ordinances of worship.… heir pride and folly…will speedily be their ruin.”142 hird, owen once again cited Hebrews 3:3–6 to demonstrate that “the lord christ is the absolute lord ‘over his own house’… and he has given out the laws whereby he will have it guided and ruled whilst it is in this world.” he result of pleading “exemption from the obligation of those laws…is nothing but to cast of the lordship and dominion of christ himself.”143 For owen, then, refusing to worship according to the commands of christ is a concrete refusal to submit to the lordship of christ revealed in His Word. Worship and the Believer’s Experience as a Puritan, owen’s doctrine of the suiciency of the Word for worship was no mere intellectual exercise but one intended to efect change in the churches of england and evoke devotion in the hearts of believers. In A Brief Instruction, he taught that the believer was to have several aims in worship. he irst aim was sanctifying of the name of God (Brief Instruction, Q. 8). Believers were to reverence God’s sovereign authority as God. his reverence should arise out of the consideration that God has appointed His own worship in His Word and should lead to submission and not worship that is a matter of adhering to form, custom, or the precepts of men.144 another reason God’s name is to be sanctiied is that where He has commanded worship there He has placed His special presence. God made “blessed promises to his people, to grant them his presence and to bless them in their use” of His ordinances (Brief Instruction, Q.15). He went on to use the imagery of marriage to describe this special presence and its blessings, since the ordinances of worship were the “tokens of the marriage relation that is between him and them.”145 he believer’s obedience to God’s ordinances is a part of the “conjugal covenant” He has made with him in christ. When he comes to worship he shows that he is married to christ, but when he neglects His worship or profanes it “by inventions or additions of [his] own,” he commits “spiritual disloyalty, whoredom and adultery, which his soul abhorreth, for which he will cast of any church or people, and that for ever.”146 Believers also sanctify God’s name by exercising faith in the promises He annexed to His ordinances. Faith was necessary. owen reached into reformed sacramental theology to explain “that sacred relation which, by virtue of divine institution, is between the sacramental elements and the especial graces of the covenant which they exhibit and conirm; and the mixing of these promises with faith.”147 christians also sanctify God’s name by delighting in His “will, wisdom, love, and grace” as manifested in the gospel ordinances.148 his delight is not to be a “carnal selfpleasing” or a “satisfaction in the outward modes or manner of the performance of divine worship.” Here owen sought to cut of any idea that worship was for personal pleasure, whether in serving 142. owen, Brief Instruction, in Works, 15:455. 143. owen, Brief Instruction, in Works, 15:455. 144. owen, Brief Instruction, in Works, 15:456. 145. owen, Brief Instruction, in Works, 15:471. owen saw this special presence and the blessings that come from, again, all of Scripture, in the tabernacle of the old covenant and in christ in the new covenant. Brief Instruction, in Works, 15:475. 146. owen, Brief Instruction, in Works, 15:475. 147. owen, Brief Instruction, in Works, 15:458. on owen’s theology of the lord’s Supper see Jon d. Payne, John Owen on the Lord’s Supper (edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust, 2004). 148. owen, Brief Instruction, in Works, 15:456. 676 a PurITan THeoloGy the emotions or even serving the eyes, such as in the roman Mass or the ceremonies associated with the Book of common Prayer. Instead, to delight in worship sanctiies the name of God when believers engage in “contemplation on the will, wisdom, grace, and condescension of God” who was pleased “of his own sovereign mere will and grace, so to manifest himself unto such poor sinful creatures as we are, so to condescend unto our weakness, so to communicate himself unto us, so to excite and draw forth our souls unto himself, and to give us such pledges of his gracious intercourse with us by Jesus christ.”149 Finally, to persevere in obeying God’s ordinances sanctiies God’s name. owen’s pastoral heart can be seen in this point. Perseverance was necessary in the times in which the congregationalists lived. hey followed the pure worship of God and were persecuted because of it and were tempted to turn away to an easier path.150 hose who persevered like antipas (rev. 2:13), took up their crosses (Matt. 10:38–39), and held on to what they had done (2 John 8) would “receive a full reward.”151 he second aim of the believer in worship is “owning a profession of christ as lord” (Brief Instruction, Q. 9). he term “owning” was used by the Puritans to speak of a personal appropriation of the gospel promises God has made, so as to make them their very own. Believers “owned” or embraced their profession when they subjected themselves to christ by observing His gospel ordinances.152 his profession, “so much abused and mistaken in the world, consists in the keeping of his commandments.”153 Because He is lord of the church and the institutions of worship “are his most especial commands,” believers’ obedience of them is a profession of His lordship and their subjection to Him.154 In he Duties of Pastors and People Distinguished, owen contrasted sincere believers’ submission with that of false professors in a striking way. He said, “here be many uzzahs amongst us, who have an itching desire to be ingering of the ark.” hese, he said, wanted to worship in their own way. He warned, though, that none should “under a pretence of christian liberty and freedom of conscience, cast away all brotherly amity, and cut themselves of from the communion of the church.”155 For owen, then, submission to God’s commands in worship was a mark of true godliness. he third aim is the building up of faith. By observing christ’s institutions, God builds up His people’s faith (Brief Instruction, Q. 10). later in the treatise, he said that true devotion is the efect of faith—faith in the precepts and promises of God. his is a crucial point. only when used in faith do the institutions of God build up faith. on the contrary, one cannot put true faith in human additions to worship that have no authority in the Word of God, and so they cannot build up true faith and true devotion.156 owen clearly evidences that he believed the institutions of gospel worship to be instrumental causes of ediication. He said “in and by them” believers’ faith was built up. he eicient cause of ediication, though, was “the exercise of that communion with God in christ Jesus, which, in their due observation, he graciously invites and admits us unto.”157 as owen went on to say, all the eicacy of these institutions depends upon God Himself.158 149. owen, Brief Instruction, in Works, 15:458. 150. owen, Brief Instruction, in Works, 15:458. 151. owen, Brief Instruction, in Works, 15:459. 152. owen, Brief Instruction, in Works, 15:459. 153. owen, Brief Instruction, in Works, 15:460. 154. owen, Brief Instruction, in Works, 15:460. 155. owen, Brief Instruction, in Works, 15:45. 156. owen, Brief Instruction, in Works, 15:467–68. 157. owen, Brief Instruction, in Works, 15:460. 158. owen, Brief Instruction, in Works, 15:461. John Owen on the Christian Sabbath and Worship 677 he fourth aim is mutual love and communion among believers. God’s ordinances accomplish this for two reasons. First, in their appointment to this purpose: for example, the fact that the lord’s Supper is intended to unite believers as one bread. Second, by their nature they bring believers into communion with each person of the holy Trinity.159 Believers should be concerned to worship according to the Word (Brief Instruction, Q. 12). his means observing everything the lord commanded (cf. Matt. 28:18–20), since “if we are his friends and disciples, we will keep his commandments.”160 owen drew a lesson for his own time from the days of the reformation, saying despite “the deilement of all the ordinances of the gospel, under the antichristian apostasy, yet the temple and the altar are to be measured again, rev. xi.1, and the tabernacle of God was again to be raised amongst men, chap. xxi.3.”161 every member of christ’s church, then, is “to search the Scriptures, to inquire into the mind of christ, and to ind out whatever is appointed by him, or required of his disciples, and that with hearts and minds prepared unto a due observation of whatever shall be discovered to be his will.”162 In commenting upon Hebrews 8:3, “For every high priest is ordained,” owen stated the injunction to worship according to the Word in negative terms: “Whoever undertakes any thing in religion or divine worship without it [God’s appointment or ordination], besides it, beyond it, is a transgressor, and therein worshippeth God in vain. He whom God doth not ordain in his service, is an intruder; and that which he doth not appoint is a usurpation. nor will he accept of any duties, but what he himself hath made so.”163 God’s worship is serious business to the believer, since by ofering worship according to God’s Word, he will be accepted; but worship contrary to that Word will cause him to be rejected. owen also appealed to sincere christians to be mindful that they are living in the last days and to respond appropriately in worship. His eschatological expectation is found not only in his post-ejection treatise, A Brief Instruction, but also in his pre-ejection treatises. as Jefrey Jue has demonstrated, this eschatological understanding permeated the age of the Puritans and was a continued expectation even after the act of uniformity and Great ejection on St. Bartholomew’s day 1662.164 as an example, in he Duty of Pastors and People Distinguished, owen’s preface began with these words: “he glass of our lives seems to run and keep pace with the extremity of time. he end of those ‘ends of the world’ which began with the gospel is doubtless coming upon us…. Much sand cannot be behind, and christ shakes the glass; many minutes of that hour cannot 159. owen, Brief Instruction, in Works, 15:461–62. 160. owen, Brief Instruction, in Works, 15:463. 161. owen, Brief Instruction, in Works, 15:463. on the corruptions of worship in the roman Mass, see John owen, he Work of the Holy Spirit in Prayer…, in he Works of John Owen, D.D. (edinburgh: Johnstone & Hunter, 1850–1855), 4:241–49. 162. owen, Brief Instruction, in Works, 15:464. 163. owen, Hebrews, 6:25. 164. Jefrey k. Jue, “Puritan Millenarianism in old and new england,” in he Cambridge Companion to Puritanism, ed. John cofey and Paul c. H. lim (cambridge: cambridge university Press, 2008), 257–76. on the topic of eschatology in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Protestantism, see Irena Backus, Reformation Readings of the Apocalypse: Geneva, Zurich, and Wittenburg (oxford: oxford university Press, 2000); Bryan W. Ball, Great Expectation: Eschatological hought in England Protestantism to 1660 (leiden: e. J. Brill, 1975); richard Bauckham, Tudor Apocalypse (oxford: Sutton courtenay Press, 1978); Bernard capp, he Fifth Monarchy Men: A Study in Seventeenth-Century English Millenarianism (london: Faber and Faber, 1972); katherine Firth, he Apocalyptic Tradition in Reformation Britain 1530–1645 (oxford: oxford university Press, 1979); crawford Gribben, he Puritan Millennium (dublin: Four courts Press, 2000); Howard B. Hotson, Paradise Postponed: Johann Heinrich Alsted and the Birth of Calvinist Millenarianism (dordrecht: kluwer, 2001); Jefrey k. Jue, Heaven upon Earth: Joseph Mede (1586–1638) and the Legacy of Millenarianism (dordrecht: Springer, 2006). 678 a PurITan THeoloGy remain.”165 again, his end-time expectations can be seen in the title of his 1649 sermon before Parliament, “he Shaking and Translating of Heaven and earth.”166 owen spoke of the relationship between eschatology and worship, saying, “he great apostasy of the church in the last days…consists principally in false worship and a departure from the institutions of christ—rev. xiii. 4, 5, xvii. 1–5” (Brief Instruction, Q.16).167 In his 1676 treatise, he Nature of Apostasy from the Profession of the Gospel and the Punishment of Apostates Declared, he spoke of apostasy from evangelical worship being “that great defection foretold by our apostle, 2 hess. ii.3–12, which is also prophesied of in the revelation, and did accordingly come to pass.”168 It came to pass because men lost faith in the gospel. his led Satan in his craftiness to cause men to “introduce a carnal, visible, pompous worship, suited unto that inward principle and light whereby they were acted.”169 In A Brief Instruction, he described this false worship as “fornication” and “whoredom” that consisted in the “adulterating of the worship of God, and the admission of false, self-invented worship.”170 Because of this, he said, “it is easy, then, to gather of how great concernment unto us it is, especially in these latter days.”171 The True Beauty of Worship In connection with the change in worship from old covenant to new, owen discusses the beauty of worship. In A Brief Instruction in the Worship of God, one of the objections he sought to answer was that since some of christ’s commandments such as the holy kiss and foot washing have ceased, this meant that the church was free to appoint new rites in order to further devotion by making worship “more decent, beautiful, and orderly” (Brief Instruction, Q. 14).172 yet for owen, the beauty of gospel worship is not to be found in the outward ceremonies and rites of men but in the triune God Himself: “It consisteth in its relation unto God by Jesus christ, as the merciful high priest over his house, with the glorious administration of the Spirit therein.”173 In his sermon “he nature and Beauty of Gospel Worship,” he cited ephesians 2:18 as conirmation of this beauty. earlier in his ministry, he described this passage as a “heavenly directory.”174 “In the spiritual worship of the gospel the whole blessed Trinity, and each person therein distinctly, do in that economy and dispensation wherein they act severally and peculiarly in the work of our redemption, aford distinct communion with themselves unto the souls of the worshippers.”175 If worship is not trinitarian, then it is not christian worship. he trinitarian nature of salvation cannot be 165. owen, Pastors and People, in Works, 13:5. 166. John owen, “he Shaking and Translating of Heaven and earth,” in he Works of John Owen, D.D. (edinburgh: Johnstone & Hunter, 1850–1855), 8:247–79. 167. owen, Brief Instruction, in Works, 15:476; cf. owen’s sermon on 2 Timothy 3:1 in he Works of John Owen, D.D. (edinburgh: Johnstone & Hunter, 1850–1855), 9:320–34. 168. John owen, he Nature of Apostasy from the Profession of the Gospel and the Punishment of Apostates Declared, in he Works of John Owen, D.D. (edinburgh: Johnstone & Hunter, 1850–1855), 7:217. 169. owen, Nature of Apostasy, in Works, 7:221. 170. owen, Brief Instruction, in Works, 15:477. 171. owen, Brief Instruction, in Works, 15:477. 172. owen, Brief Instruction, in Works, 15:467. 173. owen, Brief Instruction, in Works, 15:467. 174. owen, Communion with God, in Works, 2:269; cf. Works, 9:57; Ferguson, John Owen on the Christian Life, 275. 175. John owen, “he nature and Beauty of Gospel Worship,” in he Works of John Owen, D.D. (edinburgh: Johnstone & Hunter, 1850–1855), 9:56–57; cf. 9:73–74. on communion with God see J. I. Packer, “he Puritan Idea of communion with God,” in Puritan Papers, Volume Two: 1960–1962, ed. J. I. Packer (Phillipsburg, n.J.: P&r, 2001), 103–18. John Owen on the Christian Sabbath and Worship 679 divorced from worship. Both are organically related so that our worship of the triune God is a relection of our trinitarian salvation. owen expounded this fellowship with the triune God most fully in his treatise Communion with God. he apex of the christian’s fellowship with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit was found in worship according to the rule of Scripture. owen warned, however, that the Holy Spirit should not be worshiped without worshiping the Trinity. In his polemic against the Book of common Prayer, he said, “Hence is that way of praying to the Trinity, by the repetition of the same petition to the several persons (as in the litany), groundless, if not impious.”176 Furthermore, he argued that worshiping the Father through christ in the Spirit, according to the language of ephesians 2:18, was “the great rubric of our service,” and “this is the great canon, which if it be neglected, there is no decency in whatever else is done in this way.”177 owen cited passages such as Hebrews 9:1, 2 corinthians 3:7–11, ephesians 2:18, and Hebrews 10:19–21 to contrast the worldly and carnal worship of the old covenant with the heavenly and spiritual worship of the new covenant.178 owen at once concludes, “his is the glory of gospel worship and the beauty of it; whose consideration whilst the minds of men are diverted from, to look for beauty in the outward preparation of ceremonies, they lose the privilege purchased for believers by the blood of christ.”179 In this way, owen connected the beauty of worship to that which is spiritual, simple, and heavenly. Conclusion In discussing the Sabbath and worship in the thought of John owen, we have touched on two distinctive features of seventeenth-century Puritan theology. Perhaps nowhere else in history do we ind such profound concern for keeping the lord’s day holy. his concern sprang from the Puritan belief that the lord’s day was the christian Sabbath, rooted in creation and hence a universal ordinance that was conirmed in the second commandment and solidiied in redemption, which accounts for the change of day. as the christian Sabbath, corporate worship on that day for owen was the height of christian experience. In the new covenant, believers have the light of the completed Scriptures to provide the rule for worshiping God in a spiritual and not carnal way. as noted, owen’s views on worship were formed in the context of debates with roman catholics, laudians, antinomians, and Quakers. hese debates did not, however, lend themselves to a purely negative apologetic for reformed worship. rather, in this context, owen was able to set forth with remarkable clarity the nature, content, and form of biblical worship under the new covenant, relecting all of the glorious beauty of God’s inal revelation in christ. 176. owen, Communion with God, in Works 2:268. 177. owen, “Gospel Worship,” in Works 9:57. 178. For an expansion of owen’s comments on the “worldly” worship of the old covenant in contrast to the heavenly of the new, see owen, Hebrews, 23:186–89, 498–509. 179. owen, Brief Instruction, in Works, 15:469.