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.

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?

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.

The audio is now available at SermonAudio here.

A .pdf outline is available here.

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.

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.

Both Thomas Goodwin and John Owen held to weekly communion.  In Owen’s work, Brief Instruction in the Worship of God (1667), he writes: ‘How often is that ordinance to be administered? …. Every first day of the week, or at least as often as opportunity and conveniency may be obtained’ (Works, 15:512).  For the most part, however, the Supper was administered once a month where Owen ministered.

Goodwin’s point of departure for discussing the how often the Lord’s Supper ought to be administered is Acts 2:42. The ‘breaking of bread’ is a reference to the Lord’s Supper. Acts 2:42ff speaks of the customs of Christians, that is, what they did continually (Works, 11:390). Goodwin’s argument proceeds along the lines of the regulative principle. He makes the distinction between the elements of worship (e.g. prayer, reading of Scripture, preaching, sacraments) and the circumstances (time, place, etc.). Regarding the circumstances, in his time, 9am was the best time for meeting on the Lord’s day to allow for preparation before.

The congregation should also meet in the afternoon (after meals), ‘to prevent dulness, or hurt by indigestion’ (Ibid, 391). The question Goodwin sets before the reader is whether the Lord’s Supper falls under an element or a circumstance of worship. And this has constitutive significance, for ‘when God hath once stamped his institution on a thing, about his worship, man is not to stamp his, for it were a false coinage, which is against God’s prerogative’ (Ibid, 393).

Regarding how often the Lord’s Supper should be administered, ‘there must necessarily be an institution somewhere in Scripture left and to be found. This has reference to many aspects of congregational life, like the Lord’s day. God commands the setting apart of the Lord’s day because if it were left to man, ‘the public worship of God would soon have fallen to the ground’ (Ibid, 398). Another point of interest concerns ‘… the papists, who alone bore the face of the church many hundred years, … because they thought the institution thereof every week to be apostolical (being sounder in the point than many of our divines), therefore they have transmitted the observation of it every week, down unto our times’ (Ibid). The sacrament of the Lord’s Supper is a continual standing ordinance that finds its root in the Lord’s day itself which gives rise to the ordinances of God.

The Lord’s Supper is the ‘only proper badge of the church’s communion; and in this respect church members are called ‘one bread,’ as well as ‘one body,’ and therefore they are to take it together’ (Ibid, 402). But does this mean ‘every week’? After all, as Goodwin recognizes, ‘The Apostle seems there (1 Cor. 11:26) to speak of it as an indefinite ordinance, and not as a continual …’ (Ibid, 403). However, 1 Cor. 11:26 does not refer to the frequency of the supper, ‘but only to inform them of the high end, and nature, and intention of this ordinance …. It is a manner of speech’ explaining to them what actually happens when they partake of the Lord. Therefore, Acts 2:42 is determinative for the life of the church and has pointed application (demands) for the church and how, each Lord’s day, she is to conduct herself. The logical result, then, is that God commands the ‘breaking of bread’ as an ordinance of perpetual administration for the building of his church.

Further, if the Lord’s Supper is not to be administered each week, , ‘there would be nothing to determine and call for ordinances, so as to oblige the conscience. And so such ordinances … should have become the most uncertain …’ (Ibid, 406). And the weekly observance of the Lord’s Supper is for the good of the church:

As good housekeepers have some constant provision of store, as corn, beef, and the like, beside all occasional dainties that, like fowl and fish, come in to their tables, so God hath laid up all spiritual provisions for us; and to be sure you have Christ himself for one standing dish continually served up to you … a dish that fills all, and serves all tastes … Many things in a sermon thou understandest not … but here to be sure (in the Lord’s Supper) thou mayest … Of sermons, some are for comfort, some to inform, and some to excite; but here in the sacrament is all thou canst expect’ (Ibid, 408).

Goodwin, who is usually quite irenic in his writings, becomes rather polemic in suggesting that those who determine when the Lord’s Supper should be, whether yearly, as the papists, or quarterly, are arrogant.

‘I will never believe that God would trust officers with settling such circumstances of worship … No; God would never have left matters of so great importance at uncertainties; he would never have left the revenues of his crown lands to those landlords … And the fruit of their assuming power you may see in the Lord’s Supper, which is absolutely by them commanded to be received at some certain times of the year, no oftener than necessary to be received, which is their poor allowance for that ordinance’ (408).

Incidentally, in the church where I minister we only observe the Lord’s Supper monthly.  But, clearly, the desire of Goodwin and Owen was for weekly observance.  The question I have for those who practice weekly communion is this: if Word and Sacrament must go together, then why don’t you practice communion twice on Sundays, assuming you have a morning and evening service?

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.

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.