Tag Archives: worship
Owen on the Importance of Worship
Posted on 22. Feb, 2010 by Danny Hyde.
When one surveys the growing secondary literature on John Owen (1616–1683) the conclusion that can be legitimately drawn is that worship or liturgical theology was just not a major concern for him. After all, virtually nothing has been written on this topic. Sounds like a good ThM thesis to me!
So, just how important was worship to John Owen? One brief place to find an answer is the longest question and answer in his 1667 treatise, A Brief Instruction in the Worship of God. In question and answer fifteen Owen sought to apply and draw out the experiential truth of worshipping God according to Christ’s commands. In doing so, he took his previous principles and asked, “Whence may it appear that the right and due observation of instituted worship is of great importance unto the glory of God, and of high concernment unto the souls of men?” While “the instituted worship of God is neglected and despised in the world,” Owen demonstrated the great importance of the worship of God to the glory of God by citing a catena of biblical passages to demonstrate this, from Genesis through Revelation (Works 15, 471). After tracing this out from Adam, Abel, Abraham, Israel, and the Church, Owen said, “In no state or condition, then, of the church did God ever accept of moral obedience without the observation of some instituted worship, accommodated in his wisdom unto its various states and conditions” (Works 15, 473).
The importance of worship is also seen in that God gave his ordinances to instruct his people in the mysteries of his will and to communicate love, mercy, and grace to them. Owen demonstrated this from circumcision, which instructed in conversion, from the Passover, which instructed in redemption, from baptism, which instructed in union with Christ, and from the Lord’s Supper, which instructed in communion with Christ (Works 15, 473).
Finally, worship was of “high concernment unto the souls of men” because in it God made “blessed promises to his people, to grant them his presence and to bless them in their use.” Even more, Owen said the ordinances of worship were the “tokens of the marriage relation that is between him and them” (Works 15, 471). Owen saw this special presence and the blessings that come from, again, from all of Scripture, in the tabernacle of the Old Covenant and in Christ in the New Covenant (Works 15, 475). Owen reserved his most intimate metaphors for the importance of worship for the end of this question and answer. “Because we are apt to be slothful, and are slow of heart in admitting a due sense of spiritual things” God desires to stir up his people. He has done this in his declaration that our obedience to his ordinances is a part of the “conjugal covenant” he has made with us in Christ. When we come to worship we show that we are married to Christ, but when we neglect his worship or profane it “by inventions or additions of our own, to be spiritual disloyalty, whoredom and adultery, which his soul abhoreth, for which he will cast off any church or people, and that for ever” (Works 15, 475). God has given his people examples of this in Nadab and Abihu, Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, the sons of Eli, Uzza, and Uzziah. “From all which it appears of what concernment it is unto the glory of God, and the salvation of our souls, to attend diligently unto our duty in the strict and sincere observation of the worship of the gospel” (Works 15, 476).
In this, Owen was doing nothing else than following the trajectory of the early Swiss and German Reformed theologians, who saw the reformation not merely in terms of doctrine (a la Luther and sola fide) but in terms of a whole-orbed approach to the Church and the Christian life. Hence John Calvin one wrote to Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor,
If it be inquired, then, by what things chiefly the Christian religion has a standing existence amongst us, and maintains its truth, it will be found that the following two not only occupy the principal place, but comprehend under them all the other parts, and consequently the whole substance of Christianity: that is, a knowledge, first, of the mode in which God is duly worshipped; and, secondly, of the source from which salvation is to be obtained (On the Necessity of Reforming the Church).
As Reformed Christians, right worship of the right God ought still to be our passion. It ought to be of great importance as we seek to glorify God and it ought to be of great concern as we seek the Lord’s salvation. Is it yours?
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Days of Fasting and Prayer in the Reformed Tradition
Posted on 26. Nov, 2009 by Danny Hyde.
In honor of the National Thanksgiving Day here in the U.S. today, I thought it would be beneficial to say a word or two about the history of days of fasting and prayer—whether focusing on penitence or thanksgiving—in the Reformed tradition. I would also like to offer a few reasons why this practice is beneficial but also why it is not followed as often in our time.
Some History
First, let me survey some of the history of days of fasting and prayer. These days have been in the church of Christ since the ancient church. In our Reformed tradition one reads of the Reformed churches in Switzerland (e.g., Ecclesiastical Ordinances of Geneva), the Netherlands, France, and England (see below) engaging in these services often, whether in times of great blessing or curse. One testimony of this in the tradition in which I minister, the Dutch Reformed tradition, is the prayer, “A General Confession of Sins, and Prayer Before the Sermon and on Days of Fasting and Prayer” (Psalter Hymnal, p. 181). This prayer was an application of articles 66–67 of the Church Order of the Synod of Dort, which said,
In times of war, pestilence, calamities, heavy persecution of the Churches, and other general distresses, the Ministers of the Churches shall request the Government to employ their authority and command that public days of Fasting and Prayer be appointed and set aside (art. 66).
The Churches shall observe, in addition to Sunday, also Christmas, Easter, and Pentecost, with the following day, and whereas in most of the cities and provinces of the Netherlands the day of Circumcision and of Ascension of Christ are also observed, Ministers in every place where this is not yet done shall take steps with the Government to have them conform with the others (art. 67).
In our context now, days of prayer are traditionally held on the second Wednesday of March in relation to crops or on the National Day of Prayer (first Thursday in May).
Teaching in the Confessions
The Reformed Confessions also approve of such services and give us prescriptive details about them. In the Second Helvetic Confession, published by Heinrich Bullinger in 1566, he contrasted living a life of drunkenness with fasting:
For fasting is nothing else than the abstinence and temperance of the godly, and a watching and chastising of our flesh, taken up for present necessity, whereby we are humbled before God, and withdraw from the flesh those things with which it is cherished, to the end that it may the more willingly and easily obey the Spirit. Wherefore they do not fast at all that have no regard for those things, but imagine that they fast if they stuff their bellies once a day, and for a set or prescribed time do abstain from certain meats, thinking that by this very work wrought: they please God and acquire merit. Fasting is a help of the prayers of the saints and all virtues; but the fasts wherein the Jews fasted from meat, and not from wickedness, pleased God nothing at all, as we may see in the books of the Prophets.
Fasting, according to Bullinger, is an abstaining of the body with the goal of serving the Spirit. Bullinger then went on to distinguish public and private fasts and the need for both:
Now, fasting is either public or private. In olden times they celebrated public fasts in troublesome times and in the afflictions of the Church; wherein they abstained altogether from meat till the evening, and bestowed all that time in holy prayers, the worship of God, and repentance. These differed little from mournings and lamentations; and of these there is often mention made in the Prophets, and especially in the 2d chapter of Joel. Such a fast should be kept at this day, when the Church is in distress. Private fasts are used by every one of us, according as every one feels the spirit weakened in him; for so he withdraws that which might cherish and strengthen the flesh.
Bullinger applied what happened in ancient days to his own, saying that not only did the people of God “celebrate public fasts” in “olden times” during times of trouble, but “at this day” such fasts “should be kept” by us. Finally, Bullinger characterized the attitude of true Christian fasting in these words:
All fasts ought to proceed from a free and willing spirit, and such a one as is truly humbled, and not framed to win applause and the liking of men, much less to the end that a man might merit righteousness by them. But let every one fast to this end, that he may deprive the flesh of that which would cherish it, and that he may the more zealously serve God.
Fasting is not divine or ecclesiastical law, but the free and willing service of the Christian “that he may the more zealously serve God.”
Later, James Ussher wrote the Irish Articles of Religion in 1615 to express the Puritan faith in Ireland. Three of the 104 articles deal with fasting. Article 49 deals with the context for such days of fasting, humiliation, and prayer:
When almighty God smiteth us with affliction, or some great calamity hangeth over us, or any other weighty cause so requireth, it is our duty to humble ourselves in fasting, to bewail our sins with a sorrowful heart, and to addict ourselves to earnest prayer, that it might please God to turn his wrath from us, or supply us with such graces as we greatly stand in need of.
Ussher went on to describe fasting as “a withholding of meat, drink, and all natural food, with other outward delights, from the body, for the determined time of fasting” (art. 50). He went on to describe the inner aspect of fasting:
We must not fast with this persuasion of mind, that our fasting can bring us to heaven, or ascribe holiness to the outward work wrought; for God alloweth not our fast for the work sake (which of itself is a thing merely indifferent), but simply respecteth the heart, how it is affected therein. It is, therefore, requisite that first, before all things, we cleanse our hearts from sin, and then direct our fast to such ends as God will allow to be good: that the flesh may thereby be chastised, the spirit may be more fervent in prayer, and that our fasting may be a testimony of our humble submission to God’s majesty, when we acknowledge our sins unto him, and are inwardly touched with sorrowfulness of heart, bewailing the same in the affliction of our bodies.
In continuity with Bullinger, Ussher saw fasting as an outward means whereby the soul was made more malleable to the work of the Spirit.
Following Ussher very closely, the Westminster Confession spoke briefly of fasting in the context of public worship:
The reading of the Scriptures with godly fear, the sound preaching and conscionable hearing of the Word, in obedience unto God, with understanding, faith, and reverence, singing of psalms with grace in the heart; as also, the due administration and worthy receiving of the sacraments instituted by Christ, are all parts of the ordinary religious worship of God: beside religious oaths, vows, solemn fastings, and thanksgivings upon special occasions, which are, in their several times and seasons, to be used in an holy and religious manner (21.5; emphasis added).
In the Larger Catechism this is put more strikingly: “What are the duties required in the second commandment? The duties required in the second commandment are . . . religious fasting” (Q&A 108).
In the Assembly’s Directory for the Publick Worship of God, an entire section was taken up with “Publick Solemn Fasting.” The context is either a time of trouble or a time of seeking God’s blessing:
When some great and notable judgments are either inflicted upon a people, or apparently imminent, or by some extraordinary provocations notoriously deserved; as also when some special blessing is to be sought and obtained, publick solemn fasting (which is to continue the whole day) is a duty that God expecteth from that nation or people.
Before the service members prepared privately and were to assemble “early at the congregation.” A “large a portion of the day as conveniently may be” was taken up in “publick reading and preaching of the word, with singing of psalms, fit to quicken affections suitable to such a duty: but especially in prayer.” The Divines went on to give an outline of prayer:
Giving glory to the great Majesty of God, the Creator, Preserver, and supreme Ruler of all the world, the better to affect us thereby with an holy reverence and awe of him; acknowledging his manifold, great, and tender mercies, especially to the church and nation, the more effectually to soften and abase our hearts before him; humbly confessing of sins of all sorts, with their several aggravations; justifying God’s righteous judgments, as being far less than our sins do deserve; yet humbly and earnestly imploring his mercy and grace for ourselves, the church and nation, for our king, and all in authority, and for all others for whom we are bound to pray, (according as the present exigent requireth,) with more special importunity and enlargement than at other times; applying by faith the promises and goodness of God for pardon, help, and deliverance from the evils felt, feared, or deserved; and for obtaining the blessings which we need and expect; together with a giving up of ourselves wholly and for ever unto the Lord.
In prayer, ministers were “to speak from their hearts” so that both they and the people would be “much affected, and even melted thereby, especially with sorrow for their sins; that it may be indeed a day of deep humiliation and afflicting of the soul.”
Preaching texts were to be chosen based on what “may best work the hearts of the hearers to the special business of the day, and most dispose them to humiliation and repentance.”
Today’s Need
1. By instituting days of fasting and prayer today, we will be continually bringing our worship and life under the teaching of Scripture as it has been applied throughout church history.
2. By instituting days of fasting and prayer, we will be reminded of the greatness of our sins and misery in a public way and to be reminded of the necessity of true repentance and seeking the Lord.
3. By instituting days of fasting and prayer, we will publicly and corporately lift up the special needs of our congregations before the Lord. We need to dedicate ourselves to praying for the church’s inward condition and outward focus. Inwardly, we need to plead for our particular congregational needs, to plead for the wayward in our midst, to plead for our marriages, to plead for our children, to plead for godliness, and to plead for the preaching to be powerful. Outwardly we need to plead for passion in effectively witnessing, for the gospel to bear much fruit through us, and to see our congregations grow year by year.
The Impediments
What are some common impediments to holding services of fasting and prayer? Here are a few as I conclude:
1. No doubt the main culprit is our own spiritual laziness. As John Calvin said in his lectures on Joel 2:
. . . this practice has not been abolished by the gospel. And it hence appears how much we have departed from the right and lawful order of things; for at this day it would be new and unusual to proclaim a fast. How so? Because the greater part are become hardened; and as they know not commonly what repentance is, so they understand not what the profession of repentance means; for they understand not what sin is, what the wrath of God is, what grace is. It is then no wonder that they are so secure, and that when praying for pardon is mentioned, it is a thing wholly unknown at this day. But though people in general are thus stupid, it is yet our duty to learn from the Prophets what has always been the actual mode of proceeding among the people of God, and to labor as much as we can, that this may be known, so that when there shall come an occasion for a public repentance, even the most ignorant may understand that this practice has ever prevailed in the Church of God, and that it did not prevail through inconsiderate zeal of men, but through the will of God himself (Calvin, Commentaries on Joel, 14:45).
2. Another culprit are our overly scheduled and busy lives. Sadly, we are too busy to pray.
3. Finally, we are ignorant that one of the ordinary biblical means of seeking the Lord’s blessing is through public congregational fasting and prayers of penitence and thanksgiving.
Brothers and sisters, our light is getting dimmer and our saltiness is losing its savor. Let us seek the Lord through fasting and prayer in congregational services.
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Owen’s Exposition of Galatians 4:6 (Audio)
Posted on 22. Oct, 2009 by Danny Hyde.
Lecture #4 of my series through John Owen’s, A Discourse of the Work of the Holy Spirit in Prayer, is now online. You may also download a .pdf of the outline: Work of the Holy Spirit in Prayer–Handout 5. In this lecture I dealt with chapter 3 and his exposition of Galatians 4:6: “Because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son, into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father” (KJV).
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John Owen on the Work of the Holy Spirit in Prayer—#2
Posted on 17. Sep, 2009 by Danny Hyde.
Last night at our congregation’s Wednesday Study in Theology I continued lecturing through Owen’s treatise on the work of the Spirit in Christian prayer. Our specific topic was his “Preface,” dealing with his purpose, his principles, the problems, and the practice of prayer in the power of the Holy Spirit.
The audio is now available at SermonAudio here.
A .pdf outline is available here.
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Frequency of the Lord’s Supper in 17th Century Britain
Posted on 13. Sep, 2009 by Rowland Ward.
We all know John Calvin (1509–1564) argued for frequent, even weekly communion, but had to settle for less because of his particular situation in Geneva. However, other Reformers did not always share his view. Heinrich Bullinger’s (1504–1575) Decades, which were very influential in England where they were prescribed for preachers, regard frequency as lacking specific direction in Scripture and thus being a matter of the discretion of each church.
John Knox’s (ca. 1505–1572) Liturgy of 1556, reflecting the practice of the congregation of English exiles in Geneva, includes a rubric, ‘The Lord’s Supper is commonly administered once a month, or so oft as the congregation shall think expedient.’ However, the First Book of Discipline of 1560, while recognising the sufficiency of the order of Geneva (II.2), added more specific instruction: ‘Four times a year we think sufficient for the administration of the Lord’s table, which we desire to be distincted [distinguished/specified], that the superstitions of times may be avoided as far as may be…’ (XI.5). Anxious to avoid the observance of the Supper at Easter, which many thought gave special virtue to it, the Book of Discipline specified the first Sunday in each of March, June, September and December. [This is what is common in most Australian Presbyterian churches to this day.] It added, ‘We do not deny but any several kirk for reasonable causes may change the time, and may minister more often, but we study to repress superstition.’
In 1562 the Scottish General Assembly ordained that the Communion be celebrated four times in the year within towns, and twice in the year in the country. Even so, with the shortage of ministers, frequency was often far less, even once a year, sometimes spread over several Sundays if the population was large.
The usage of the Independents of the 1640s of a weekly or monthly communion was one which did not impact in Scotland, and frequency in Scotland was commonly annual for a considerable period. [There was also the factor of cost. Wine, a good mouthful per person, was expensive for a poor country like Scotland given the congregation might number many hundreds.]
Practice in the Church of England could accommodate a greater frequency. The Prayer Book (1559) and Canons (1603) were for at least three times a year, but in practice few communicated more than once, and then at Easter. William Pemble (1591–1623) wrote: “…Satan hath done much by his malicious policy to corrupt men’s hearts in the observance of it: when the Sacrament was administered often he brought it into contempt by the commonness of it; now that it is administered seldom through ignorance, it is abused and neglected as unnecessary.”
Pemble lamented that if there had been no civil law requiring attendance at least once a year, the Lord’s Table would be left without guests. Communion practice declined with the ejection of non-conformists to the new order of 1662, as they were often the more committed people, and monthly communion was found among them.
In the Directory of the Westminster Assembly the term “frequently” has enough elasticity to allow for the quarterly or half yearly practice of the Scots, and the more frequent practice in (some) English Puritan circles. George Gillespie (1613–1648) records: “But the Committee went through in order; and first, objection was made against that first section, which leaves to the discretion of the pastor and elders of each congregation how oft the communion is to be celebrated. It was desired that they might be tied, at least, to four times a-year, since the Apostle and Christ speak of often celebration. I said, There is no ground from Scripture or otherwise to determine four times a year, for this should resolve in the arbitrement of men. If congregations abuse this liberty, the presbytery at visitation of churches can help it. Mr Newcomen declared that all the new gathered churches have the sacrament every Lord’s day in the afternoon. To avoid this debate of the time, it was added in the beginning, The Lord’s Supper is to be administered frequently.” [Notes of Proceedings of the Assembly, 102.]
In the recent Volume 3 of Ligon Duncan (ed.), Westminster Confession into the 21st Century (2009), Wayne Spear has two interesting articles that suggest the general mind of the Assembly was not quite along Calvin’s line where Cavin seems to suggest a Real Presence of a nature that means we get something extra that we do not have in the ordinary preaching. A more general Reformed view would be that we receive in the Supper what we receive in the ordinary ministry but in a different way that stoops to our weak capacity.
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Owen on Weekly Communion
Posted on 12. Sep, 2009 by Danny Hyde.
Just to follow up on Mark’s recent post concerning Thomas Goodwin’s teaching on weekly communion, Goodwin’s fellow Congregationalist, John Owen, also taught that the Lord’s Supper should be administered every Lord’s Day in his A Brief Instruction in the Worship of God and Discipline of the Churches of the New Testament (1667):
Q. 40. How often is that ordinance to be administered?
A. Every first day of the week, or at least as often as opportunity and conveniency may be obtained.—1 Cor. xi.26; Acts xx.7 (Works 15, 512).
What’s fascinating to me is that Owen did not cite Acts 2:42, contra Calvin, Goodwin, et al, as a proof-text for his position.
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Goodwin on Weekly Communion
Posted on 10. Sep, 2009 by Mark Jones.
The question of the Lord’s Supper interests me on a number of levels (e.g. pastoral, personal, theological, and Christological). The “Calvin versus the Calvinists” issue on the Lord’s Supper is admittedly complex. I’m not personally persuaded that the Westminster divines shared the same view of the Lord’s Supper as Calvin. That may surprise some, but there has been some diversity in the Reformed tradition on this question. But, one area where there is complete unanimity with Calvin and the Puritans is on the frequency of Communion. [...]
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William Ames on Singing Imprecatory Psalms
Posted on 09. Sep, 2009 by Danny Hyde.
One of my favorite Puritans is William Ames (1576–1633). Not only is he precise and to the point, he was an English-speaker exiled amidst the Dutch Reformed! Sounds like someone I know.
In his monumental treatise on Puritan casuistry, De Conscientia (1630), translated and printed in London in 1639 as Conscience with the Power and Cases Thereof, he dealt with a question that perplexes Reformed churches. In our insistence upon singing the Psalms of, one issue we face almost in every Psalm are the imprecations (from the Latin, imprecatio, an invoking of a curse) against our enemies. How do we sing these words when our Lord commanded us, “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” (Matt. 5:44), and the apostle Paul said, “Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse” (Rom. 12:14).
Thankfully we can look to our forefathers for guidance.
Quest. 4. How may we sing those Psalms aright, which contain dire imprecations in them?
8. A. 1. We may upon occasion of those imprecations meditate with fear and trembling, on the terrible judgments of God against the sins of impenitent persons.
9. 2. We may thereupon profit in patience and consolation, against the temptations which are wont to [habitually] arise from the prosperity of the wicked, and affliction of the godly.
10. 3. We may also pray to God that he would hasten his revenge (not against our private enemies but) against the wicked and incurable enemies of his Church.
—Conscience with the Power and Cases Thereof, 4.19.8–10. English modernized.
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John Owen on Liturgies and Laziness
Posted on 08. Sep, 2009 by Danny Hyde.
In his Discourse Concerning Liturgies, and Their Imposition (Works 15, 1–55), written just before the Act of Uniformity in 1662, John Owen (1616–1683) made a major point of using Ephesians 4. In fact, in all my reading of Owen and his liturgical writings, Ephesians 4 serves as a recurring passage. What Owen drew out of this passage is the fact that the ascended Jesus Christ by his Holy Spirit has promised to equip his ministers to edify his people. Against the argument of the Angllican prelates, who argued that liturgies were necessary because of their ministers’ lack of ability to pray extemporaneously, Owen retorted with a conundrum: this either is blasphemy because what it says is that Jesus no longer gifts his Church as he did in the days of the apostles as he promised or those in the ministry without such gifts were negligent and careless in not improving whatever gifts they did have. Because of the lack of improvement of gifts, Owen said, “I wish, then, we might, in the fear of the Lord, consider whether the remedy [i.e., composing liturgies] were well suited unto the disease [i.e., negligent and ungifted ministers].”
Throughout this Discourse Owen argued in a typically dispassionate, cogently argued manner, but his experimental theology bursted forth in a passionate way, when he said:
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)
What use are Owen’s words for us today? To my brothers in the ministry and those preparing for the ministry, stir up the gifts that your Lord Jesus Christ has placed within you by the power of his Holy Spirit! Fan your flame (2 Tim. 1:6). Work hard at preaching the law with force and work hard at applying the tender words of the gospel to your people’s souls. And exert yourselves in praying as men standing between God and man, heaven and earth. Administer the sacraments with passion as they are a foretaste of heaven.
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John Owen on Delighting in Worship
Posted on 04. Sep, 2009 by Danny Hyde.
For many of you young reformers like me, I came out of a myriad of non-Reformed but evangelical churches to a Reformed church. Recall the struggle you may have had over the theology and practice of worshipping God in a Reformed church. In former churches we were taught that the effectiveness of any given Sunday’s worship was to be measured by our subjective experience of it in terms of how “uplifted,” “powerful,” and “enlivening” it made us feel. This is why when we walked into a Reformed church for the first time and then walked out of its doors on that Sunday, it seemed as though all emotion was gone and that our subjective experience of worship was a moot point. “How could I have just worshipped God when I don’t feel like it just did?”
So . . . what did the great Puritan, John Owen, say about our level of experiential delight in the weekly worship of God? Do we actually believe that worship should be a delight? Is it okay to feel anything in worship?
I have been making my way through John Owen’s 1667 treatise, A Brief Instruction in the Worship of God and Discipline of the Churches of the New Testament, which came to be known as “The Independents’ Catechism” (Works 15, 447–530). This treatise speaks to us today as we seek a helpful way forward for ourselves and our family, friends, and visitors to our churches who feel like we may be cold.
In one of the more beautiful and practical sections of this treatise, Owen spoke of our delighting in the divine service. Picking up in question and answer seven, we read Owen saying that when we gather for the divine service there are four “chief things that we ought to aim at in our observation” (Works 15, 455–456):
- To sanctify the name of God.
- To own and avow our professed subjection to Christ.
- To build up ourselves in our most holy faith.
- To testify and confirm our mutual love.
Owen went on to explicate this first aim, or, chief end, of the Christians’ observation of the divine service by further dividing it into five parts (Works 15, 456–459):
- to reverence God’s sovereign authority in appointing his gospel institutions.
- to regard God’s special presence in his ordinances.
- to exercise faith in the promises of God annexed to his ordinances.
- to delight in his “will, wisdom, love, and grace” manifested in his gospel ordinances.
- to persevere in our observance of Christ’s ordinances.
For our purposes, here I want to focus in on the fourth point that Owen made, namely, that we sanctify the name of God in worship by our delighting in God’s will, wisdom, love, and grace as they are manifested to us in the gospel ordinances (by which he means, Word, sacraments, prayer, and discipline). So what precisely does it mean to “delight” in worship?
First, Owen says what it does not mean. Our delighting in the service does not mean what he called a “carnal self-pleasing, or satisfaction in the outward modes or manner of the performance of divine worship.” What did Owen mean by this? He was saying that our delight in worship was not to be found in our sinful and experiential delights. In a word, worship is not about you! Further, he was saying this against those in his time who sought for delight in the outward form and beauty of the liturgy itself. Here Owen sought to cut off any idea that worship was for our pleasure, whether in serving our emotions or even serving our eyes, such as in the Mass or the English Prayer Book with its pomp and ceremony in the days of Archbishop Laud’s high church experimentation. So our delighting in the divine service is not about “what we get out of it,” to use an evangelical phrase. For many of us who became Reformed later, we get this. But here is where Owen warns us in a way we need to hear. We are not to find our delight in the divine service in the mere fact that our liturgy might have ancient roots, or in the trappings of candles, banners, crosses, incense, kneeling, coming forward for communion, vestments, the Geneva robe, or the fully printed-out liturgy itself. Owen is saying, be careful of the trappings of high church.
Instead of this, Owen said that our delighting in the divine service was rooted in “contemplation on the will, wisdom, grace, and condescension of God.” Our God has drawn near to us! And he has done so, as Owen wrote, “of his own sovereign mere will and grace.” Why? Owen gave five beautiful reasons:
- “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”
When we gather for the Divine service (meaning, God’s service to us in Word and sacrament and our service to him in prayer), we are to find our delight in our covenant God himself, not in anything else, whether within us or whether external to us that we have contrived. It is our communion with God that brings us delight and the means of grace serve to bring us closer to him that we might glorify him and delight in him.
Christian, God has so stooped down to you that he invites you into his heavenly presence in worship. What a privilege! Believer, delight in worshipping the Lord your God!
