Reformation 2008

(Lecture Four: Puritan Spirituality)

(Adapted from J. I. Packer’s A Quest for Godliness, pp. 191-218)

I. Introduction.
A. Review.
1. So far we have seen a brief overview and summary of the forerunners of the
Reformation; the Reformation itself under such men as Luther, Zwingli, and
Calvin; and the continuing Reformation in England, beginning with Henry VIII,
and continuing under Edward VI, being setback by Mary Tudor, but progressing
under Elizabeth I and the Puritans.
2. We saw a brief sketch of Puritan preaching: that it is Christ’s communication to
His church, making it of supreme importance; that it is to be based on the life-
giving power of the Word and the sovereignty of the Holy Spirit; that it is to be
aimed at the intellect, since it is through the mind that the Lord affects the heart;
and that it is therefore to be expository, doctrinal, orderly, popular, Christ-
centered, experimental, piercing in its application, and powerful in its manner of
delivery.
3. Last week, we consider Puritan evangelism: that it is not man-centered, as
though man had the ability to convert himself, but is to be God-centered – we
must rely on God for the conversion of the soul, while we earnestly press on
them the dying love of Christ for sinners.

B. We end our series this evening, with a lecture on Puritan spirituality.

1. The lessons we can learn from them in this area are the most valuable.
2. As I mentioned this morning, this is the Puritan secret of spiritual power and
maturity in living the Christian life.
3. We will focus mainly on the life and thought of John Owen, who wrote a great
deal on this subject, but we will consider other authors as well.

II. Lecture: Puritan Spirituality.

A. Background.
1. Biography.
a. John Owen was one of the greatest English theologians, and this is all the
more remarkable when you consider the age in which he lived, since there
were so many theological giants in those days. Spurgeon called him the
“prince of divines.”
(i) He was born in 1616, in the Oxfordshire village of Stadham, of Welsh
descent, the son of an uncompromising Puritan vicar.
(ii) Packer writes, “He entered Queen’s College, Oxford, at the age of
twelve, and took his MA in 1635.” He studied hard, driven by his political
and ecclesiastical ambitions; but though he was in the church, he was not a
Christian.
(iii) “In his early twenties, however, God showed him his sins, and the
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torment of conviction threw him into such a turmoil that for three months
he avoided the company of others and, when addressed, could scarcely
utter a coherent sentence. Slowly he learned to trust Christ, and so found
peace.”
(iv) “In 1637, by reason of conscientious objections to Chancellor Laud’s
statutes, he left the university, and with it, as far as he could foresee, all
hope of advancement. But after Laud’s fall, under the Long Parliament,
he rose rapidly and in 1651 was made Dean of Christ Church, becoming
Vice Chancellor of the university the following year. Oxford had been the
Royalist headquarters during the Civil War, and Owen found the
university bankrupt and in chaos. He reorganised it, however, with
conspicuous success. After 1660, he led the Independents through the
bitter years of persecution. He was offered the presidency of Harvard, but
declined. He died in 1683, after years of martyrdom to asthma and
gallstones!”

b. “The epitaph engraved on the monument that adorns Owen’s tomb in

Bunhill Fields reflects the respect in which he was held by his contempo-
raries, and indicates something of his quality as a man of God and a teacher
of godliness. Here is a translation:
(i) “John Owen, born in Oxfordshire, son of a distinguished theologian,
was himself a more distinguished one, who must be counted among
the most distinguished of this age. Furnished with the recognised
resources of human learning in uncommon measure, he put them all,
as a well-ordered array of handmaids, at the service of theology,
which he served himself. His theology was polemical, practical, and
what is called casuistical, and it cannot be said that anyone of these
was peculiarly his rather than another.
(ii) “In polemical theology, with more than herculean strength, he
strangled three poisonous serpents, the Arminian, the Socinian, and
the Roman.
(iii) “In practical theology, he laid out before others the whole of the
activity of the Holy Spirit, which he had first experienced in his own
heart, according to the rule of the Word. And, leaving other things
aside, he cultivated, and realised in practice, the blissful communion
with God of which he wrote; a traveller on earth who grasped God
like one in heaven.
(iv) “In casuistry, he was valued as an oracle to be consulted on every
complex matter.
(v) “A scribe instructed in every way for the kingdom of God, this pure
lamp of gospel truth shone forth on many in private, on more from
the pulpit, and on all in his printed works, pointing everyone to the
same goal. And in this shining forth he gradually, as he and others
recognized, squandered his strength till it was gone. His holy soul,
longing to enjoy God more, left the shattered ruins of his once-
handsome body, full of permanent weaknesses, attacked by frequent
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diseases, worn out most of all by hard work, and no longer a fit
instrument for serving God, on a day rendered dreadful for many by
earthly powers but now made happy for him through the power of
God, August 25, 1683. He was 67.”

2. Character.
a. Owen had tremendous intellectual power.
(i) His knowledge and memory were vast, and he was unusually gifted at
organizing his thought.
(ii) He did not write for superficial readers, but “for those who, once they
take up a subject, cannot rest till they see to the bottom of it, and who find
exhaustiveness not exhausting, but satisfying and refreshing.”

b. His spirituality matched his intellect.

(i) “‘Holiness’, said David Clarkson in his funeral sermon, ‘gave a divine
lustre to his other accomplishments, it stirred in his whole course, and was
diffused throughout his conversation.’”
(ii) Owen owed his holiness to two things:
(a) First, he was a humble man. He wrote, “There are two things that
are suited to humble the souls of men . . . a due consideration of
God, and then of ourselves. Of God, in his greatness, glory,
holiness, power, majesty and authority; of ourselves, in our mean,
abject and sinful condition.”
(b) Packer writes, “God taught Owen to consider both: to let God, the
Sovereign Creator, be God in his thought and life, and to recognise his
own guilt and uncleanness. The latter, he held, was especially
important: ‘the man that understands the evil of his own heart, how vile
it is, is the only useful, fruitful and solidly believing and obedient
person. . . .’ A man must abhor himself before he can serve God aright.
Owen, proud by nature, had been brought low in and by his conversion,
and thereafter he kept himself low by recurring contemplation of his
inbred sinfulness.”
(c) Second, Owen knew the power of his Gospel. Preachers, “must
have ‘experience of the power of the truth which they preach in
and upon their own souls. . . . A man preacheth that sermon only
well unto others which preacheth itself in his own soul.’”
(d) He made this rule: “I hold myself bound in conscience and in
honour, not even to imagine that I have attained a proper
knowledge of anyone article of truth, much less to publish it, unless
through the Holy Spirit I have had such a taste of it, in its spiritual
sense, that I may be able, from the heart, to say with the psalmist,
‘I have believed, and therefore have I spoken.’”
(e) These convictions gave Owen unusual authority and skill in probing
the human heart. “When Rabbi Duncan told his students to read
Owen' s Indwelling Sin he added: ‘But prepare for the knife.’”
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c. Owen wrote in a difficult style, but this comes from his training in Latin.
(i) If you have difficulty reading it, you should read it aloud for it will make
more sense.
(ii) “‘Owen is said to be prolix [wordy, verbose],’ wrote Spurgeon, ‘but
it would be truer to say that he is condensed. His style is heavy
because he gives notes of what he might have said, and passes on
without fully developing the great thoughts of his capacious mind. He
requires hard study, and none of us ought to grudge it.’”

B. Owen on the Christian life.

1. What is man? (Taken from Indwelling Sin, Mortification of Sin, and
Temptation, and Discourse concerning the Holy Spirit.)
a. The Puritans insisted that self-knowledge is the sine qua non [essential] for
living the Christian life.
b. There were four things under this category that Owen tirelessly reminded the
believer:
(i) “First, the Christian is a man, created for rational action and
equipped to that end with a trinity of faculties: understanding, will
and affection.”
(a) The understanding is that faculty of the soul that guides directs,
chooses and leads. It is the eye of the soul.
(b) The will is the faculty that has the power of action. It is guided by the
mind and by the appetites. It chooses what appears to be good to it.
One who truly appreciates God’s goodness will desire Him.
(c) The affections are the drives or dispositions, both positive and
negative, either drawing man to or repelling him from particular
objects. “No choice is ever made without some degree of affection.”
Owen writes, “Affections are in the soul, as the helm is in the ship;
if it be laid hold on by a skilful hand, it turneth the whole vessel
which way he pleaseth.” “It is in vain to contend with anything
that hath the power of our affections in its disposal; it will prevail
at the last.”
(d) Packer writes, “Man was made to know good with his mind, to desire
it, once he has come to know it, with his affections, and to cleave to it,
once he has felt its attraction, with his will; the good in this case being
God, his truth and his law. God accordingly moves us, not by direct
action on the affections or will, but by addressing our mind with his
word, and so bringing to bear on us the force of truth. Our first task,
therefore, if we would serve God, is to learn the contents of ‘God’s
Word written’. Affection may be the helm of the ship, but the mind
must steer; and the chart to steer by is God’s revealed truth.”
(e) Therefore, it is the preacher’s primary task to teach God’s people the
doctrines of Scripture. He must avoid emotionalism and address
himself directly to the mind. “Owen habitually spoke of himself as a
teacher, and conducted his own ministry on these principles, as his
published sermons and practical treaties show.”
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(ii) “Second, the Christian is a fallen man.” Sin has alienated him from
God and from himself. Sin causes disorder in the soul and destroys
character: “the faculties move cross and contrary one to another; the
will chooseth not the good which the mind discovers. . . commonly the
affections. . . get the sovereignty, and draw the whole soul captive
after them.”
(a) Fallen man is no longer rational, but unstable, distracted by various
and conflicting passions, and lacks the strength to obey God. Sin is an
irrational hatred of God, a desire to avoid, rebel and disobey Him.
(b) Owen wrote concerning indwelling sin, “It’s nature and formal
design is to oppose God; God as a lawgiver, God as holy, God as
the author of the gospel, a way of salvation by grace and not by
works, are the direct object of the law of sin.”
(c) Sin expresses itself in ungodliness, unbelief and heresy. It pollutes the
whole man, “it adheres as a depraved principle unto our minds, in
darkness and vanity; unto our affections in sensuality; unto our
wills, in a loathing of, and aversion from, that which is good; and. .
. is continually putting itself upon us, in inclinations, motions, or
suggestions, to evi1.” It resists the whole work of grace, “when
Christ comes with his spiritual power upon the soul to conquer it to
himself, he hath no quiet landing place. He can set foot on no
ground but what he must fight for.”
(d) Packer writes, “Christian living, therefore, must be founded upon self-
abhorrence and self-distrust because of indwelling sin’s presence and
power. Self-confidence and self-satisfaction argue self-ignorance. The
only healthy Christian is the humble, broken-hearted Christian:
(e) Owen writes, “Constant self-abasement, condemnation, and
abhorrency, is another duty that is directly opposed unto the. . .
rule of sin in the soul. No frame of mind is a better antidote against
the poison of sin. . . . It is the soil wherein all grace will thrive and
flourish. A constant due sense of sin as sin, of our interest therein
by nature, and in the course of our lives, with a continual afflictive
remembrance of . . . instances of it . . . is the soul’s best posture. . . .
To keep our souls in a constant state of mourning and self-abase-
ment is the most necessary part of our wisdom. . . and it is so far
from having any inconsistency with those consolations and joys,
which the gospel tenders unto us in believing, as that it is the only
way to let them into the soul in a due manner.”

(iii) “Third, the Christian is a redeemed man.”

(a) Christ became his guaranty in the covenant of redemption to pay his
debts and to merit him life, to free him from guilt and deliver him from
the power of sin.
(b) “Redemption by Christ is the heart of Christian doctrine, and faith and
love to Christ must be the heart of Christian devotion.”
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(c) Owen writes, “They know nothing of the life and power of the
gospel, nothing of the reality of the grace of God, nor do they
believe aright one article of the Christian faith, whose hearts are
not sensible of the love of Christ herein. Nor is he sensible of the
love of Christ, whose affections are not therein drawn out unto
him. I say, they make a pageant of religion. . . whose hearts are not
really affected with the love of Christ, in the susception [reception]
and discharge of the work of mediation, so as to have real and
spiritually sensible affections for him. Men. . . have no real
acquaintance with Christianity, who imagine that the placing of the
most intense affections of our souls on the person of Christ, the
loving him with all our hearts because of his love, our being
overcome thereby, until we are sick of love, the constant motions of
our souls towards him with delight and adherence, are but fancies
and imaginations.”

(iv) “Fourth, the Christian is a regenerate man, a new creature in

Christ.”
(a) He has a new principle of life, a habit of obedience, implanted in him.
This is the circumcision of the heart, the Spirit’s regenerating work in
the depths of our being. Owen writes, “Whereas the blindness,
obstinacy, and stubbornness in sin, that is in us by nature, with the
prejudices which possess our minds and affections, hinder us from
conversion unto God, by this circumcision they are taken away.”
Our first and immediate act will be a true, saving faith in Jesus Christ.
(b) Packer writes, “Regeneration makes man’s heart a battlefield,
where ‘the flesh’ (the old man) tirelessly disputes the supremacy of
‘the spirit’ (the new man). The Christian cannot gratify the one
without interference from the other (Gal 5:17; Rom 7:23). Sin,
from which by repentance he has formally dissociated himself,
seems to take on a life of its own; Paul likens it ‘to a person, a living
person, called “the old man,” with his faculties and properties, his
wisdom, craft, subtlety, strength.’ It is always at work in the heart;
a temporary lull in its assaults means, not that it is dead, but that it
is very much alive. “Sin is never less quiet, than when it seems to
be most quiet, and its waters are for the most part deep, when they
are still.’ Its strategy is to induce a false sense of security as a
prelude to a surprise attack.”
(c) Owen writes, “By sin we are oftentimes, ere we are aware, carried
into distempered affections, foolish imaginations, and pleasing
delightfulness in things that are not good nor profitable. When the
soul is doing . . . quite another thing . . . sin starts that in the heart .
. . that carries it away into that which is evil and sinful. Yea, to
manifest its power, sometimes when the soul is seriously engaged in
the mortification of any sin, it will, by one means or other, lead it
away into a dalliance with that very sin whose ruin it is seeking. . . .
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I know no greater burden in the life of a believer than these

involuntary surprisals. . . . And it is in respect unto them, that the
apostle makes his complaint, Rom. 7:24. . . .”
(d) This battle continues throughout our lives: “Sometimes a soul thinks
or hopes that it may through grace be utterly free from this
troublesome inmate. Upon some secret enjoyment of God, some
full supply of grace, some return from wandering, some deep
affliction, some thorough humiliation, the poor soul begins to hope
that it shall now be freed from the law of sin. But after a while. . .
sin acts again, makes good its old station.”
(e) Packer writes, “And the man who claims perfection is self-
deceived, and riding for a fall. ‘You’ll never get out of the seventh
of Romans while I'm your minister,’ Alexander Whyte once told
his Edinburgh congregation; and Owen, could he have stepped
forward two and a half centuries to stand in Whyte’s shoes, would
have told them the same.”

2. God’s will: our sanctification.

a. Owen believed, as Calvin, as Scripture teaches, that God’s purpose for us as
Christians in this life is sanctification: (1 Thes. 4:3; 1 Pet. 1:15f).
(i) “For this is the will of God, your sanctification” (1 Thes. 4:3).
(ii) ‘But like the Holy One who called you, be holy yourselves also in all
your behavior; because it is written, ‘You shall be holy, for I am holy’” (1
Pet. 1:15-16).

b. He writes, “Sanctification is an immediate work of the Spirit of God on

the souls of believers, purifying and cleansing of their natures from the
pollution and uncleanness of sin, renewing in them the image of God,
and thereby enabling them from a spiritual and habitual principle of
grace, to yield obedience unto God. . . . Or more briefly; it is the
universal renovation of our natures by the Holy Spirit into the image of
God, through Jesus Christ. Hence it follows, that our holiness, which is
the fruit and effect of this work . . . as it compriseth the renewed. . .
image of God wrought in us, so it consists in a holy obedience unto God,
by Jesus Christ, according to the terms of the covenant of grace.”
(i) “Holiness is nothing but the implanting, writing and realising of the
gospel in our souls . . . the word changed into grace in our hearts. . .
the Spirit worketh nothing in us, but what the word first requireth of
us . . . growth is nothing but. . . increase in conformity to that word.”
(ii) It is a progressive work throughout the Christian’s life. It is the gift of
God and the duty God requires of us. “Neither can we perform our duty
herein without the grace of God; nor doth God give us this grace unto
any other end but that we may rightly perform our duty.”
(iii) Packer writes, “He who would be holy must have a due regard both to
God’s law, which is itself holy, just, good and binding, and peremptorily
requires of him all those good works of which holiness consists, and to
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God’s promise of strength through Christ to keep this law.”

(iv) Owen adds, “And we have a due regard unto the promise. . . when
(1) we walk in a constant sense of our inability to comply with the
command. . . from any power in ourselves. . . . (2) When we adore that
grace which hath provided help and relief for us. . . . (3) When we act
faith in prayer and expectation on the promise for supplies of grace
enabling us to holy obedience.”
(v) And again, Packer, “We must pray for help, and fight the good fight of
faith in God’s strength, and give thanks to him for the victories we win.”

c. Sanctification has two aspects. Positively, the new man is to grow into the
image of Christ. Negatively, the old man must be put to death.
(i) First, the new man is to grow in grace.
(a) We grow in grace when we stir up the new principle the Lord has put
in us by His Spirit. Owen writes, “Frequency of acts doth naturally
increase and strengthen the habits whence they proceed. And in
spiritual habits [e.g., faith, hope, love] it is so, moreover, by God’s
appointment. . . . They grow and thrive in and by their exercise. . .
the want thereof is the principal means of their decay.”
(b) The more we exercise them, the stronger we’ll be. And so we must
hear the Word preached, read the Word, meditate on it, pray, worship,
seek to obey all of God’s commands, persevering in these things; all
the while remembering that the power comes from God and not
ourselves, or we will fail. Owen writes, “the actual aid, assistance
and internal operation of the Spirit of God is necessary . . . unto the
producing of every holy act of our minds, wills and affection, in
every duty whatsoever. . . . Notwithstanding the power or ability
which believers have received by habitual grace, they still stand in
need of actual grace in . . . every single. . . act or duty towards
God.”
(c) Growing in grace also means fighting against the world. Owen writes,
“The world is at present in a mighty hurry, and being in many
places cut off from all foundations of steadfastness, it makes the
minds of men giddy with its revolutions, or disorderly in the
expectations of them. . . hence men walk and talk as if the world
were all, when comparatively it is nothing. And when men come
with their warmed affections, reeking with thoughts of these things,
unto the performance of or attendance unto any spiritual duty, it is
very difficult for them, if not impossible, to stir up any grace unto a
due and vigorous exercise.”
(d) We must guard our hearts and minds, and cultivate meditation, or we
will not be able to maintain the spiritual-mindedness necessary to grow
in grace.

(ii) Further, we need to mortify our old man, our sinful nature.
(a) This is more than suppressing or fighting against our sinful impulses;
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it is the gradual eradication of them. Mortify means to kill and the goal
is to kill all the remnants of sin in our hearts. Owen writes, “the end
aimed at in this duty is destruction, as it is in all killing: the utter
ruin, destruction and gradual annihilation of all the remainders of
this cursed life of sin. . . to leave sin with neither being, nor life, nor
operation. . . .”
(b) Our sin was killed on the cross in principle. Christ’s death will
eventually kill it. It was dethroned in regeneration. Now, with the
Spirit’s help, we are to spend our lifetime draining its lifeblood. Owen
writes, “The whole work is by degrees to be carried on towards
perfection all our days.”
(c) We must never let up for sin “will no otherwise die, but by being
gradually and constantly weakened; spare it, and it heals its
wounds, and recovers strength. . . . The work. . . consists in a
constant taking part with grace . . . against the principle, acts and
fruits of sin.”
(d) Packer writes, “It is often painful and ungrateful; Christ compared it to
plucking out an eye, or cutting off a limb; but it is the way of life, and it
is disastrous to neglect it.”

d. How can we overcome sin? Two things are necessary:

(i) First, humility – it is the best frame of mind against the poison of sin.
(ii) Second, continual growth in grace. Owen writes, “Growing, thriving
and improving in universal holiness is the great way of the
mortification of sin. The more vigorous the principle of holiness is in
us, the more weak, infirm and dying will be that of sin. . . . This is
that which will ruin sin, and without it nothing else will contribute
anything thereunto.” Especially, “live and abound in the actual
exercise of all those graces, which are most directly opposed to those .
. . corruptions that we are most exercised withal.”
(a) That means of grace that most directly kills sin is prayer, including
both confessing our sins and acknowledging just how worthy we are of
God’s wrath, and pleading with God, on the basis of His promises,
while remembering His faithfulness in past petitions.
(b) This will bring two results:
(1) First, grace will be strengthened Owen writes, “The soul of a
believer is never raised to a higher intension of spirit in the
pursuit of, love unto, and delight in, holiness, nor is more
confirmed unto it or cast into the mould of it, than it is in
prayer.”
(2) And second, sin will be weakened as we look to Christ, “Let faith
look on Christ in the gospel as he is set forth dying and crucified
for us. Look on him under the weight of our sins, praying,
bleeding, dying: bring him in that condition into the heart by
faith; apply his blood so shed to thy corruptions; do this daily. . .
.”
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(3) Owen continues, “Christ as crucified is the great object of our

love, or should be . . . in the death of Christ do his love, his
grace, his condescension, most gloriously shine forth. . . the
effects of love, as of all true love, are first, Adherence; secondly,
Assimilation:-[First] Adherence: Love in the Scriptures is
frequently expressed by this effect; the soul of one did cleave, or
was knit, unto another. . . . So it produceth a firm adherence
unto Christ crucified, that makes a soul to be in some sense
always present with Christ on the cross. And hence ensues,
[Secondly], Assimilation, or conformity. . . . Love . . . begets a
likeness between the mind loving and the object beloved. . . . A
mind filled with the love of Christ as crucified. . . will be
changed into its image and likeness, by the effectual
mortification of sin. . . .”
(4) Packer writes, “The cross and the Spirit are thus the two focal
realities in Owen’s teaching about the Christian life. Christ
merited the gift of the Spirit to the elect sinner by dying for him;
the Spirit comes to him to show him what the cross reveals of
Christ’s love for him, to bring home to him the pardon Christ
won for him, to change his heart, and to make him love his
Saviour. The Spirit leads us to Christ’s cross, God’s guarantee
to us that our sins, so far from bringing about our death
eternally, shall themselves die, and brings the cross of Christ
into our hearts, with its sin-killing power, so ensuring that our
sins do die.
(5) “It ought to be said before we go further, that this
dichotomised scheme of sanctification as a matter of vivifying
our graces and mortifying our sins, which Owen sets forth with
such masterful and searching brilliance, is not in any way
peculiar to him. It is conventional Puritan teaching, going back
through Calvin to Romans 6 and Colossians 2:20-3:17. Here, as
elsewhere, Owen stands in the main Puritan stream.”

3. Communion with God.

a. To Owen and the Puritans, sanctification was only one facet of the more
important reality of communion with God – the very heart of Puritan
theology.
(i) The Puritan were concerned with the many-sided problem of man. They
were concerned with the many facets of the covenant of grace. They
never tired of preaching about the mediation of Christ in his three-fold
offices. And of course, they pressed for the reformation of public
worship. But all of these were means to an end, God’s end, that man
might glorify God and enjoy Him forever, that man might have
communion with God. Packer writes, “To the Puritans, communion
between God and man is the end to which both creation and
redemption are the means; it is the goal to which both theology and
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preaching must ever point; it is the essence of true religion; it is,

indeed, the definition of Christianity.”
(ii) It was to this subject Owen devoted his treatise, Of Communion with God
the Father, Son and Holy Ghost, each person distinctly, in love, grace and
consolation; or, the Saint's Fellowship with the Father, Son, and Holy
Ghost, unfolded,” first published in 1657.

b. Owen sets out his exposition of communion with God in five points:
(i) “1. Communion with God is a relationship of mutual interchange
between God and man.”
(a) This is the meaning of the Greek word koinonia, which is generally
translated “fellowship” or “communion.” It means a joint participation
in something by two or more parties. It consists in giving and
receiving. It implies the prior existence of a bond between the parties.
(b) Owen writes, “Our communion. . . with God consisteth in his
communication of himself unto us, with our returnal unto him of
that which he requireth and accepteth, flowing from that union
which in Jesus Christ we have with him . . . [a] mutual
communication in giving and receiving, after a most holy and
spiritual manner, which is between God and the saints, while they
walk together in a covenant of peace, ratified by the blood of
Jesus.”

(ii) “2. Communion with God is a relationship in which the initiative and
power are with God.”
(a) Owen identifies God as the starting point of this ‘communion,’ man
simply responds. God creates the relationship by giving Himself to us,
so that we might know Him and respond to Him. On the one hand, it is
our duty to commune with God. On the other, God’s communicating
Himself to us is a divine gift. Today, we tend to think of communion
with God from a man-centered perspective – to our subjective
experience of God, our approach to Him. The Puritans considered it in
a God-centered way, considering God’s approach to us first in
regenerating and pardoning grace, by which He makes us alive to
Himself; then to His giving of Himself to us; and only then broadening
the subject to our own seeking after and enjoying of His gracious
presence. They weren’t less interesting in our experiential relationship
with God, but more. But they didn’t separate their understanding of
communion from the doctrine of God’s divine grace. In this way, they
avoided the pitfall of false mysticism, something that has polluted a
great deal of would-be Christian devotion in our day.
(b) Packer writes, “The idea of communion with God thus covers the
whole of the grace-and-faith relationship with God in which we
stand, a relationship which God himself initiates and in which at
each stage the initiative remains in his hands.”
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(iii) “3. Communion with God is a relationship in which Christians receive

love from, and respond in love to, all three Persons of the Trinity.”
(a) Owen continually insisted on the doctrine of the Trinity as the
foundation of the Christian faith – if it fell, everything fell. The reason
was that salvation was Trinitarian, each of the three persons are
involved. The Father initiates it, chooses a people to save and sends
His Son to save them. The Son comes to do the Father’s will by living
and dying to redeem sinners. The Spirit takes what the Son has done
and applies it to those the Father has chosen. All three are involved in
fulfilling a common purpose to love unlovely men, all three give their
gifts to those who are chosen, and therefore all three should be
acknowledged in faith and loved in return. This is Owen’s theme in his
work, Of Communion.”
(b) How should we respond to the Father’s love, but by loving Him in
return? Owen writes, “By a peculiar delight and acquiescing in the
Father, revealed effectually as love unto the soul.”
(c) How should we respond to Son’s love, but “by maintaining
marital chastity towards him, says Owen: that is, by refusing to
trust or hanker after any but him for our acceptance with God; by
cherishing his Holy Spirit, sent to us for our eternal benefit; and by
maintaining his worship undefiled, according to the Scripture
pattern. This necessitates a daily deliberate submission to him as
our gracious Lord. Daily we should rejoice before him in the
knowledge of his perfection as a Saviour from sin; daily we should
take the sins and infirmities of that day to his cross to receive
forgiveness (‘this is every day’s work; I know not how any peace
can be maintained with God without it’); daily we should look to
Christ, and wait on him, for the supply of his Spirit to purify our
hearts and work holiness in us. Holiness, according to the
Puritans, cannot be attained without the exercise of faith, any more
than it can be perfected without the effort of fighting sin. The
saints, says Owen: ‘look upon him [Christ] as . . . the only
dispenser of the Spirit and of all grace of sanctification and holiness.
. . he is to sprinkle that blood upon their souls; he is to create the
holiness in them that they long after. . . . In this state they look to
Jesus; here faith fixes itself, in expectation of his giving out the
Spirit for all these ends and purposes; mixing the promises with
faith and so becoming actual partakers of all this grace. This is . . .
their communion with Christ; this is the life of faith as to grace and
holiness. Blessed is the soul that is exercised therein.”
(d) Packer writes, “How are we to respond to the comforting work of
the Spirit? By taking care not to grieve him by negligence or sin
(Eph 4:30), nor to quench him by opposing or hindering his work
(1 Thess 5:19), nor to resist him by refusing the word (Acts 7:51),
but to give him constant thanks, and to pray to him for a
continuance of his peace and goodness.”
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(e) “This then, according to Owen, should be the pattern of our regular
communion with the three Persons of the Godhead, in meditation,
prayer, and a duly ordered life. We should dwell on the special mercy
and ministry of each Person towards us, and make our proper response
of love and submission distinctly to each. Thus we are to maintain a
full-orbed communion with God.”
(f) Thomas Goodwin wrote something similar, “There is communion
and fellowship with all the persons, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost,
and their love, severally and distinctly. . . . Christ putteth you upon
labouring after a distinct knowing of, and communion with all
three persons. . . rest not until all three persons manifest their love
to thee. . . in assurance, sometimes a man’s communion and
converse is with the one, sometimes with the other; sometimes with
the Father, then with the Son, and then with the help of the Holy
Ghost; sometimes his heart is drawn out to consider the Father’s
love in choosing, and then the love of Christ in redeeming, and so
the love of the Holy Ghost, that searcheth the deep things of God,
and revealeth them to us, and taketh all the pains with us; and so a
man goes from one witness to another distinctly, which I say, is the
communion that John would have us to have. . . . And this
assurance it is not a knowledge by way of argumentation or
deduction, whereby we infer that if one loveth me then the other
loveth me, but it is intuitive, as I may so express it, and we should
never be satisfied till we have attained it, and till all three persons
lie level in us, and all make their abode with us, and we sit as it
were in the midst of them, while they all manifest their love to us . .
. this is the highest that ever Christ promised in this life (in his last
sermon, John 14).”

(iv) “4. Communion with God is a relation of active, forward-looking

friendship between God and man.”
(a) Packer writes, “This thought brings into perspective at once the whole
of John Owen’s complex analysis. Communion with God means
simply behaving as a friend of the God who has called you his friend.
Thomas Goodwin dwells on the love of Christ, who, when we had
fallen into sin and enmity against God, died to make us his friends
again-though ‘he could have created new ones cheaper’- and develops
powerfully the thought that friendship is not a means to an end, but an
end in itself, and that true friendship is expressed in the cultivation of
our friend’s company for its own sake:
(b) “Mutual communion is the soul of all true friendship and a
familiar converse with a friend hath the greatest sweetness in it . . .
[so] besides the common tribute of daily worship you owe to [God],
take occasion to come into his presence on purpose to have
communion with him. This is truly friendly, for friendship is most
maintained and kept up by visits; and these, the more free and less
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occasioned by urgent business . . . they are, the more friendly they

are. . . . We use to check our friends with this upbraiding, You still
[always] come when you have some business, but when will you
come to see me? . . . When thou comest into his presence, be telling
him still how well thou lovest him; labour to abound in expressions
of that kind, than which . . . there is nothing more taking with the
heart of any friend. . . .”
(c) Such a friendship cultivated on earth will be the best preparation for
the day of our death. Owen walked with God on earth, as his friend,
and so was prepared for his death bed. Packer writes, “How Owen
had prepared himself appears from his deathbed reply on the
morning of 24 August 1683 to the news which a fellow minister,
William Payne, had brought him that his last work, entitled
appropriately enough Meditations and Discourses of the Glory of
Christ, was now in the press. ‘I am glad to hear it,’ said Owen, ‘but
O brother Payne! The long wished for day is come at last, in which
I shall see that glory in another manner than I have ever done, or
was capable of doing, in this world.’” Before the day was over,
Owen was with the Lord.

(v) Finally, “5. Communion with God in Christ is enjoyed in a special way
at the Lord's Table.”
(a) The Puritans did not view the Lord’s Supper as a mere memorial, nor
as a means to receive grace they could have in no other way, but, as
Packer writes, “there is a special exercise of faith proper to the Lord’s
Table, where Christ’s supreme act of love is set before us with unique
vividness in the sacramental sign; and from this should spring a
specially close communion with the Father and the Son.”
(b) Richard Baxter writes, “Also in the sacrament of the body and
blood of Christ, we are called to a familiar converse with God. He
there appeareth to us by a wonderful condescension in the
representing, communicating signs of the flesh and blood of his
Son, in which he hath most conspicuously revealed his love and
goodness to believers: there Christ himself with his covenant gifts
are all delivered to us by these investing signs of his own
institution. . . . No where is God so near to man as in Jesus Christ;
and no where is Christ so familiarly represented to us, as in his
holy sacrament. Here we are called to sit with him at his table, as
his invited, welcome guests; to commemorate his sacrifice, to feed
upon his very flesh and blood; that is, with our mouths upon his
representative flesh and blood, by such a feeding as belongs to
faith. The marriage covenant betwixt God incarnate and his
espoused ones, is there publicly sealed, celebrated and solemnized.
There we are entertained by God as friends . . . and that at the
most precious costly feast. If ever a believer may on earth expect
his kindest entertainment, and near access, and a humble intimacy
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with his Lord, it is in the participation of this sacrifice feast, which

is called The Communion, because it is appointed as well for our
special communion with Christ as with one another. It is here that
we have the fullest intimation, expression, and communication of
the wondrous love of God; and therefore it is here that we have the
loudest call, and best assistance, to make a large return of love; and
where there is most of this love between God and man, there is
most communion, and most of heaven, that can be had on earth.”
(c) Packer writes, “Owen and Baxter did not see eye to eye on
everything – on the nature of the atonement, the ground of
justification, and a number of church questions, they were in fact a
fair distance apart – but in regarding the Lord’s Supper as an
occasion and means of communion with Christ they were truly at
one. Owen never wrote about the Lord’s Supper, but from a series
of informal sacramental sermons that were taken down in
shorthand as he preached his view of the matter becomes plain.
The last sentence of the last sermon expresses his basic position:
‘We say, we have in these things experience of a peculiar
communion with Christ, in a way made proper to this ordinance,
which is not to be found in any other ordinance.’”

c. To sum up what we’ve seen:

(i) Communion with God was at the very heart of Puritan theology.
(a) It is mutual – God communicates His goodness to us and we
return love to Him.
(b) He initiates it – God begins and we respond.
(c) It is having fellowship and entering into a relationship with all
three members of the Godhead: Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
(d) It is a friendship in which we walk with God, and He with us.
(e) And it is something which we may particularly enjoy in the Lord’s
Supper.
(f) Sanctification is a means to this end: that we might be like God
and walk with Him.

(ii) Let me close with Packer’s closing comments: “A word to the wise?
There was once a day when God sent Jeremiah to say to Israel, ‘Ask
for the ancient paths, ask where the good way is, and walk in it, and
you will find rest for your souls’ (Jer 6:16). As we study Owen on the
spiritual life, may it be that God is speaking in similar terms to us?
Owen’s instructions and directions are indeed ‘old paths’, as old as
the Bible, but they are paths which the Puritans as a body found to be
in truth ‘the good way’. We shall do well to seek for grace to start
walking in them ourselves. ‘And you will find rest for your souls.’”