One main point that flowed out of this liberty and that is of immense practical relevance today is in regards to pastoral prayer. Owen’s point was simple and powerful: Jesus Christ gifts those who serve as his ministers with all they need to accomplish their ministry, not only in terms of preaching, but also in terms of praying publicly. In what follows let me present Owen’s argument and then make some applications for us today.

Owen’s Teaching

Owen contrasted the ordinances of worship under Moses, which were many and burdensome, with those ordinances instituted under Christ in the New Covenant, which were few, and consisted of “preaching of the word, administration of the sacraments, and the exercise of discipline,” and all “with prayer and thanksgiving”(Works, 15:8, 10).

Importance of Ephesians 4

In proposing this, Owen went on to substantiate this spiritual ability of prayer that Christ has given pastors to administer his worship in an exposition of one of his favorite texts: Ephesians 4. How were pastors enabled to build up the Church? Based on Ephesians 4 Owen said, “by the communication of grace and spiritual gifts from heaven unto them by Christ himself” (Works, 15:11). God had done this with the Levites of the Old Testament, enabling their shoulders to bear the ark and their arms to slay the sacrifices. Now that these ordinance were removed and the gospel’s spiritual worship put in their place, God again has “undertaken to supply the administrators of it with spiritual strength and abilities for the discharge of their work, allowing them supply of the defect of that which he hath taken upon himself to perform” (Works, 15:11). In summary, Owen’s point was that since the Lord Jesus Christ delivered his disciples from the yoke of Mosaic ceremonies, God has appointed the ordinances, those to be ordained to administer them, and the gifts necessary to administer these ordinances in the New Covenant (Works, 15:12).

Why was this so important to Owen? It was because of the context in which he pastored and wrote. The prelates of the restored Church of England justified their imposition of the Book of Common Prayer by insisting that the apostles used liturgies. Owen saw this as a denigrating of the ministry, and therefore of Christ himself. In a moment of sarcastic humor, Owen said that anyone who believed Peter composed forms of prayer and homilies for the disciples “must fetch his evidence out of the same authors that he used who affirmed that Jesus Christ himself went up and down singing masses!” (Works, 15:16) Underlying the prelates’ position was the objection that while the apostles had extraordinary gifts, ordinary ministers did not have these gifts and therefore needed the Prayer Book. Those who desired to impose a liturgy said the ministers of England had a disability “to celebrate and administer the ordinances of the gospel, to the honour of God and edification of the church, without the use of them” (Works, 15:17). Owen responded by saying that if the bishops and pastors after the apostles did not need forms of prayer, from where did their ability to pray and lead the people of God come? If their ability came from Jesus Christ, did these ordinary bishops and pastors have any gifts beyond what Jesus promised? Moreover, if this was the case with these ordinary ministers, did Jesus promise these gifts for all ordinary ministers to the end of the world? (Works, 15:17–18) Again, Owen said that to say Christ’s provision was not sufficient for goals of edification and glorification or that he no longer gifted ministers as he did with the apostles were both “equally blasphemous; the one injurious to his wisdom, the other to his truth, both to his love and care of his church” (Works, 15:48).

Evidence from the Church Fathers

In refuting the imminent imposition of the Prayer Book, Owen delved into patristic history to show that there was not “any attempt to invent, frame, and compose any liturgies for prescribed forms of administering the ordinances of the gospel.” He even cited the Roman cardinal, Baronius, who said the ancient churches’ practice of prayer “is wholly silent as to the use of any forms amongst them” (Works, 15:21, 22). Owen adduced the writings of Eusebius, Polycarp, Clement, Justin Martyr, Tertullian, Origen, and Cyprian, especially noting that Origen, Tertullian, and Justin Martyr spoke not of imposed prayers, but only described prayers that were offered. Justin even spoke of prayer “according to our abilities” (Works, 15:22, 23; cf. Justin Martyr, First Apology, ch. 67).

Improving Christ’s Gifts

To say that Christ no longer gifted his ministers as he did the apostles was either blasphemy because it meant he no longer kept his promise or it was an indictment upon ministers who were negligent and careless in not improving whatever gifts they did have. It was incumbent, then, upon ministers to stir up and make effectual their gifts. As Owen said, in an expression of his experimental theology,

I suppose all impartial men will grant that there ought to have been a return unto Him endeavoured from whom that were gone astray . . . Finding themselves at the loss wherein they were, should they not have searched their hearts and ways, to consider wherefore it was that the presence of Christ was so withdrawn from them, that they were so left without the assistance which other ministering in their places before them had received? Should not they have pulled out their single talent, and fallen to trading with it, that it might have increased under their care? Was not this the remedy and cure of the breach made by them, that God and man expected from them? Was it just, then, and according to the mind of Christ, that, instead of an humble returnal unto a holy, evangelical dependence on himself, they should invent an expedient to support them in the condition wherein they were, and so make all such returnal for hereafter needless? (Works, 15:27–28).

So what of those in the ministry who seemed not to be gifted as others? Owen’s first response was to question their calling: “I shall desire them to consider whether indeed such persons be rightly called unto the ministry . . . there seems to be a direct failure of the promise of Christ, which is blasphemy to imagine” (Works, 15:48–49). Owen’s second response was more positive. Those who were truly called but did not feel they had the requisite gifts needed were called upon “to stir up the gifts that they have received by the use and exercise of them” (Works, 15:49).

Since the using of Christ’s gifts edifies the church, Owen inquired how these gifts “may be improved, so that they may ‘excel to the edifying of the church,’ which is expressly required of them” (Works, 15:52). The word “improve” was used in the seventeenth century to mean using something in a profitable way; to benefit from something (e.g., Westminster Larger Catechism, Q&A 167). How does a minister do this? “Edification, then, depends on the improvement of gifts, and the improvement of gifts on their due exercise according to the mind of Christ” (Works, 15:52). To improve the gift of prayer a minister had to use his gift. This meant he needed to pray, and not merely to read. This was essential as any lack of exercise of these gifts, whether by neglect or hindrance of them by others, was to hinder the church’s edification (Works, 15:53).

Contemporary Application

What can we learn from John Owen’s teaching on pastoral prayer in A Discourse Concerning Liturgies, and Their Imposition? There are four areas of application that I believe are good and necessary for us to draw from his work.

First, he would have us as pastors and those studying for the ministry pray fervently that the Lord would enable us to “fan into flame the gift of God” within us (2 Tim. 1:6; ESV). We must not neglect our gifts (1 Tim. 4:14) but must improve them. Paul uses a word here in 2 Timothy 1:6, anazopurein, that is used nowhere else in the New Testament. This word signifies giving new life to a fire; to rekindle it. We fan our gift, which is likened to a flame, as Owen said, by using our gift. One of his contemporaries, Matthew Poole (1624–1679), elucidated upon this idea when he said,

He adviseth him to put new life unto that holy fire (the word signifies the recovering of fire choked with ashes or decaying) which God had kindled in him, by daily prayer, and meditating on the things of God and use of his gifts, improving those spiritual abilities which God had given him (A Commentary on the Holy Bible, Volume III: Matthew–Revelation, 791).

To fan into flame our gift of prayer we need to pray in private, we need to mediate upon the Word and the Lord, and we need to use our gift in public.

Second, Owen would have pastors and ministerial students study prayer and pray during their study. To study prayer may seem an odd suggestion, but it is helpful. While the Holy Spirit teaches us how to pray by praying through us (Rom. 8:26), he also uses the means of other ministers as models of prayer. The studious pastor and student should be acquainted with the development of liturgical prayer from the patristic era through the modern period by acquaintance with Bard Thompson, Liturgies of the Western Church, and William D. Maxwell, An Outline of Christian Worship: Its Development and Forms. To read some of the best prayers in the Reformed tradition, we need to read Charles W. Baird, The Presbyterian Liturgies: Historical Sketches. Two of the great Puritan works that deal with public prayer are William Perkins, The Art of Prophesying, and Matthew Henry, A Method for Prayer. Finally, two recent works that discuss and give samples of prayer are Hughes Oliphant Old, Leading in Prayer: A Workbook for Worship, and Terry Johnson, Leading in Worship.

We also need to pray during our study. Reading and translating Hebrew and Greek, reading commentaries, and writing sermons must not be academic or perfunctory. It must be saturated in prayer. I have found the longer I am in the ministry the less time I take in actually reading and writing and the more time I spend praying over what I have read and written as I prepare for preaching on the Lord’s Day.

Third, Owen would have us challenge ourselves. If fanning into flame our gift of prayer means that we need to exercise ourselves in public prayer, then we need to challenge ourselves week after week to pray in public and not merely to read prayers. To young ministers I would issue this challenge: at the beginning of your ministry write out your prayers as you do your sermons, but little by little take less and less into the pulpit until you are able to pray extemporaneously. When we challenge ourselves in this holy manner, we decrease and the Lord increases; we are humbled and he is exalted; we are weak but he is strong. And in doing this, the Lord will begin to use us in leading our people before the throne of grace (Heb. 4:16).

Fourth and finally, Owen would have our institutions that prepare men for the ministry to teach public prayer. Speaking from a North American vantage point, the “art of prophesying” has been falsely divided. Our seminaries teach preaching, but not prayer. For the Puritan father William Perkins, these two were held together. The art of prophesying meant both the art of preaching as well as praying. In the former, students need to be taught how to speak from God to his people, but in the latter, how to speak from the people to their God.

According to John Owen, then, Jesus Christ as head of the Church has gifted those who minister in his name to exercise their ministry for his people’s edification and for the glory of God. We need to believe this; and believing, we need to act upon it, working hard to fan our flame in studied prayer, in challenging ourselves to pray in the power of the Holy Spirit, and in teaching our students to do so as doctors, professors, theologians, and pastors.

One perennial passage Pentecostals (myself being one formerly) turn to as evidence of their belief and practice is Jude 20. In the King Jimmy it says, “But ye, beloved, building up yourselves on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Ghost.” Although John Owen did not exposit this passage as far as I can tell, one of his contemporaries did. In his A Practical Commentary; or An Exposition with Notes on the Epistle of Jude, Thomas Manton gave a clear exposition (Manton, Works 5, 334–341). According to Manton, the importance of praying “in the Holy Ghost” was that “God will own nothing in prayer but what cometh from his Spirit; any other voice is strange and barbarous to him” (Manton, Works 5, 336). This was a common Puritan theme, which John Owen also expressed in these words: “It is the language of faith and love alone, and the like graces of his Spirit, that God hears in his worship. Other voices, cries, and noises he regards not; yea, at least, if not some of them in themselves, yet all of them when these are wanting, are an abomination unto him” (Owen, Works 9, 74). In sum, since prayer in the Spirit is the only kind of prayer God receives, believers need to offer it. Yet Manton went on to say that it is “a work too hard for us.” This is why believers need the Holy Spirit: “we can babble of ourselves, but we cannot pray without the Holy Ghost; we can put words into prayer, but it is the Spirit puts affections, without which it is but a little cold prattle and spiritless talk” (Manton, Works 5, 337).

Manton went on to explain this Spirit-filled prayer in some detail in terms of what the Christian was given by the Spirit in Christ in contrast with what mankind lost in Adam. Adam “maimed” humanity in terms of God’s gifts and graces. Because of this, and in order that believers’ prayers “may be answerable, the Spirit bestoweth upon us the gift of prayer” (Manton, Works 5, 337–338). These gifts were both extraordinary in the days of the apostles as well as ordinary now in the lives of all believers. Of these ordinary gifts in relation to prayer, Manton described them as “special dexterity whereby men are able to put their meaning into apt words.” As ordinary gifts, the Holy Spirit uses the ordinary means of the lives of Christians to bring them about: hearing, reading, and meditating upon the Word, as well as conference with believers and other ordinary habits (Manton, Works 5, 338).

Finally, Manton detailed how the gracious work of the Holy Spirit in prayer was either habitual or actual. The habitual assistance of the Spirit was his work whereby he implanted a new habitus into his new creatures that they might pray to him as they ought; a duty they could not perform previously. He “createth and preserveth these gracious habits in the soul, and doth excite the soul to act, and doth assist it in acting according to them” (Manton, Works 5, 233; cf. 12, 235). This habitus he described elsewhere as “the renewed soul” that was “the proper inward and vital principle” of all the new actions of believers (Manton, Works 5, 232). Manton’s concern, though, was with the actual assistance of the Spirit, saying that although believers are regenerated and have a new habitus of prayer, they still needed to be “moved and assisted by the Holy Ghost” (Manton, Works 5, 339). His movement of the believer was in terms of the time of prayer, the matter of prayer, as well as the manner of prayer in affection, confidence, and reverence (Manton, Works 5, 339–340).

In a word, praying “in the Spirit” for Puritans such as Manton, meant that the child of God prayed because the Spirit of God gave him the ability to pray and to do so in complete reliance upon the Spirit himself.

For a man solemnly to undertake the interpretation of any portion of Scripture without invocation of God, to be taught and instructed by his Spirit, is a high provocation of him; nor shall I expect the discovery of truth from any one who thus proudly engages in a work so much above his ability (The Word Become Fresh, 1).

Davis cites this in endnote one as coming from Richard L. Pratt, Jr., He Gave Us Stories (Brentwood, TN: Wolgemuth & Hyatt, 1990), 404. So I pulled out my Pratt (1993 reprint from P&R), turned to page 404, and noticed in endnote fifteen the above quote. Pratt then cites this as coming from J. Owen, Pneumatology: Or a Discourse Concerning the Holy Spirit (Philadelphia: Towar and Hogan, 1827), 204–5. He also says to see Owen’s Works 4:121–234. Tracking this work down was a piece of cake, given the wonder of Google Books. Yet what I discovered was the work Pratt cites that Davis cites is “Abridged by the Rev. G. Burder.” Reading it is obvious.

I finally was able to track the real quote down in Owen. It is found in his massive work called Pneumatologia and specifically book seven of that work, which is entitled, Synesis Pneumatike: Or, The Causes, Ways, and Means of Understanding the Mind of God as Revealed in His Word, With Assurance Therein. This can be found, as Pratt cites correctly, in Owen’s Works 4:121–234. Here is the real quote. It’s basically the same, but I offer it up for purity’s sake:

Yea, I must say, that for a man to undertake the interpretation of any part or portion of Scripture in a solemn manner, without invocation of God to be taught and instructed by his Spirit, is a high provocation to him; nor shall I expect the discovery of truth from any one who so proudly and ignorantly engageth in a work so much above his ability to manage. (Works 4:204)

• A Foundation of Mortification
• The Business of Mortification
• The Spirit and Mortification

It’s what he goes on to say, though, that is really the substantive material. If the Spirit is Christ’s vicar in this age, what does that mean for us? Let me let Owen speak for himself:

Some begin to say in our days, that Christ is no otherwise present than by the outward ordinances of it [the church],—his word and sacraments. I grant he is present with them, as pledges of his presence, and instruments wherewith, by his Spirit, he doth effectually work; but to make them the whole presence of Christ with us, I do not know what better church-state we have than the Jews, when they had the law of old (Works 9, 444).

Is Christ with us today by the word and sacraments or by the Holy Spirit? Too often we who have come to the Reformed church from all forms and manifestations of evangelicalism have replaced the Holy Spirit with the word and sacraments. I have been guilty of this. Of course Owen shows that this is a false dichotomy, but the emphasis needs to be on the Holy Spirit, and not the instruments of his presence. I once heard Hywel Jones give a lecture at Westminster Seminary California on this very point as he said his coming to the States was a shock to him. He said he heard so much emphasis on the sacraments, on law-gospel preaching, on biblical theological preaching, on Christ-centered preaching, but almost no talk of what makes those methods effectual: the Holy Spirit. May God give us the sensitivity to the need of the work of the Spirit in our churches today with and through the word and sacraments.

Lecture 6 dealt with chapter 5, “The Matter of Prayer,” and Lecture 7 dealt with chapter 6, “The Manner of Prayer.”

You may also download a .pdf of the outlines: Work of the Holy Spirit in Prayer–chapter 5 and Work of the Holy Spirit in Prayer–chapter 6.

The audio is available at Sermon Audio.

You may also download a .pdf of the outline: Work of the Holy Spirit in Prayer–Handout 6.