3. Is there a full Yes, generally Usually not, for few
3. Is there a full
Yes, generally Usually not, for few degree of assurance
speaking, though come up to this for believers that
such believers gospel assurance. comes in a more
remained subject Those who experience regular, abiding,
to many assaults this have found it strengthening manner, and much varidifficult to retain; and which reaps a
ation with regards they remain subject comfortable sense of to their full
to assaults and variations daily favor except
assurance.
on full assurance. in uncommon periods of divine desertion?
Owen's approach to full assurance was in harmony with that of the Westminster Confession, though he moved beyond it by distinguishing full assurance in an abiding sense from a more fleeting sense; and by distinguishing the state of adherence from the state of assurance.133
How Assurance is Obtained Owen's theology on how assurance is obtained is very much like that of the Westminster
Confession, section 18.2, which says assurance is obtained through the promises of salvation in Jesus Christ, as well as through inward evidences of saving grace and the testimony of the Spirit of adoption. Specifically, Owen taught the following:
(1) The primary ground of assurance is the promises of God, specifically the satisfying blood and righteousness of Jesus Christ, embraced by faith. Owen wrote: "The soul, by a direct act of faith, believes its own forgiveness, without making inferences or gathering conclusions; and may do so upon the proposition of it to be believed in the promise."134
Aside from stressing the Christ-centered focus of these promises as previously discussed,135 Owen had nothing new to add to this ground of assurance.
(2) The primary ground of assurance leads the believer to the secondary ground, for he who trusts in the objective promises of God in Jesus Christ will yearn to have those promises to be subjectively "testified unto his conscience in a word of promise mixed by faith."136
According to Owen, that testimony is one of two secondary grounds of assurance and is based on inward evidences of saving grace realized syllogistically. Here Owen's view varied slightly from the Westminster Confession, which left open the possibility that the secondary grounds of assurance could be treated as a single unity. Along with his recognition of the immediate witness of the Spirit, Owen validated the practical syllogism as God's ordinary way of bestowing assurance. He wrote, "A due spiritual consideration of the causes and effects of
133 6:426-27. Cf. 6:413-25, 593-95, and 3:388.
134 6:413; cf. 6:407.
135 See pp. 187-88 above.
136 6:424.
regeneration is the ordinary way and means whereby the souls of believers come to be satisfied concerning that work of God in them and upon them."137
Owen then added three warnings about the practical syllogism. He said, first, direct acts of faith do not excuse the individual from seeking the certainty of the Spirit's work.138 Second,
Owen emphasized that the Holy Spirit sheds light upon His own work in the soul by the Word, thereby giving the believer liberty to embrace the "evidence of those graces unto which these promises are made" (Westminster Confession, 18.2). Owen wrote:
The Spirit of Christ acquaints the soul that this and that grace is from him, that this or that duty was performed in his strength. He brings to mind what at such and such times was wrought in men by himself, to give them supportment and relief in the times of depths and darkness. And when it hath been clearly discovered unto the soul at any time by the Holy Ghost, that any thing wrought in it or done by it hath been truly saving, the comfort of it will abide in the midst of many shakings and temptations.139
Third, Owen insisted that this form of assurance may be consciously absent from the believer, regardless of whether the Spirit's graces are presently active within him. He explained:
A man may have grace, and yet not have it at sometimes much acting; he may have grace for life, when he hath it not for fruitfulness and comfort, though it be his duty so to have it, Rev. iii. 2; 2 Tim. i. 6. And a man may have grace acting in him, and yet not know, not be sensible, that he hath acting grace. We see persons frequently under great temptations of apprehension that they have no grace at all, and yet at the same time, to the clearest conviction of all who are able to discern spiritual things, sweetly and genuinely to act faith, love, submission unto God, and that in a high and eminent manner.140
(3) In advocating an immediate witness of the Spirit, Owen prevented this experience from becoming too mystical in the following ways. First, he said the Holy Spirit applies His immediate witness through the Word, not beyond the Word. Thus this witness, which is the direct, miraculous, and powerful application of the Word in God's sovereign time and way, is both Spirit-applied and Word-centered.141
Second, Owen said the immediate witness wasn't always separated from the practical syllogism; consequently, they often supported each other. Owen illustrated that in his dialogue with a "poor soul that now walks comfortably under the light of God's countenance." In answer to the question "But how are you confirmed in this persuasion?" he wrote:
137 6:5; cf. 6:8, 455-60.
138 6:413.
139 6:546; cf. 6:407.
140 6:564.
141 Cf. Nuttall, The Holy Spirit in Puritan Faith and Practice, pp. 41, 43 and John Murray's review of Nuttall,
Collected Writings 3:328.
That sense of it which I have in my heart; that sweetness and rest which I have experience of; that influence it hath upon my soul; that obligation I find laid upon me by it unto all thankful obedience; that relief, supportment, and consolation that it hath afforded me in trials and troubles, in the mouth of the grave and entrances of eternity,—all answering what is declared concerning these things in the word,—will not suffer me to be deceived. I could not, indeed, receive it until God was pleased to speak it unto me; but now let Satan do his utmost, I shall never cease to bear this testimony, that there is mercy and forgiveness with him.142
Third, Owen said that the immediate testimony of the Spirit should not be expected or depended upon because of its extraordinary role as a sovereign gift. Moreover, because the Spirit's immediate testimony is sovereign, no one can say exactly how full assurance should be experienced. Owen thus wrote:
If you are doubtful concerning your state and condition, do not expect an extraordinary determination of it by an immediate testimony of the Spirit of God. I do grant that God doth sometimes, by this means, bring in peace and satisfaction unto the soul. He gives his own Spirit immediately "to bear witness with ours that we are the children of God," both upon the account of regeneration and adoption.
He doth so; but, as far as we can observe, in a way of sovereignty, when and to whom he pleaseth. . . . No one man's experience is a rule unto others, and an undue apprehension of it is a matter of great danger. Yet it is certain that humble souls in extraordinary cases may have recourse unto it with benefit and relief thereby. This, then, you may desire, you may pray for, but not with such a frame of spirit as to refuse that other satisfaction which in the ways of truth and peace you may find. This is the putting of the hand into the side of Christ; but "blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed."143
Retaining, Renewing, and Improving Assurance Finally, in Psalm CXXX, Owen showed how a believer may retain, renew, and improve personal assurance of grace. He said that can be done through three activities of faith: "recalling" grace, "waiting on" grace, and fruitful obedience.144
The Christian must first seek grace to recall the Spirit's past, assuring work in order to improve upon his present degree of assurance. Owen indicated in the following passage that he knew the typical believer seeks such grace far too seldom:
142 6:460.
143 6:594.
144 Owen also gave guidelines for richer discoveries of assurance. He advised: allow Christ to be the judge of your spiritual condition; remember that "self-condemnation and abhorrency do very well consist with gospel justification and peace"; consider that patient waiting will reap a fuller sense of forgiveness in due season; engage in selfexamination, "even to the sins of youth"; learn to distinguish between unbelief and jealousy, as well as between faith and spiritual sense; do not mix "foundation [Christ alone] and building work [holiness and obedience] too much together"; "take heed of spending time in complaints when vigorous actings of grace are your duty"; beware of hard thoughts against God; make use of every appearance of God (2:542-74).
The true use of [past assurances of divine favor] is, to lay them up and ponder them in our hearts, that they may be supportments and testimonies unto us in a time of need. Have you, then, who are now in the dark as to your state or conditions, whether you are regenerate or no, ever received any such refreshing and cheering testimony from God given unto your integrity, and your acceptance with him thereupon? Call it over again, and make use of it against those discouragements which arise from your present darkness in this matter, and which keep you off from sharing in the consolation tendered unto you in this word of grace.145
Recalling grace may also reveal defects in the believer that thwart assurance. As Owen said:
Call to mind whether you have broken off the treaty with God, and refused his terms. What is the reason, since God hath graciously begun to deal thus with you, that you are not yet come to a thorough close with him in the work and design of his grace? The defect must of necessity lie on your parts. God doth nothing in vain. Had he not been willing to receive you, he would not have dealt with you so far as he hath done. There is nothing, then, remains to firm your condition but a resolved act of your own wills in answering the mind and will of God. And by this search may the soul come to satisfaction in this matter, or at least find out and discover where the stick is whence their uncertainty doth arise, and what is wanting to complete their desire.146
Next, the Christian must wait for grace in order to renew and improve assurance. As Owen wrote: "Whatever your condition be, and your apprehension of it, yet continue waiting for a better issue, and give not over through weariness or impatience. . . . Waiting is the only way to establishment and assurance; we cannot speed by haste; yea, nothing puts the end so far away as making too much haste. . . . Doth not the nature of [assurance] require humble waiting? . . . No disappointment, then, no tediousness or weariness, should make the soul leave waiting on God, if it intend to attain consolation and establishment."147
Finally, while recalling and waiting for grace, the Christian must strive for obedience.
Indeed, faith and obedience are ultimately inseparable. Said Owen, "The more faith that is true and of the right kind, the more obedience; for all our obedience is the obedience of faith."148
According to Owen, such obedience manifests itself in "the choicest actings of our souls towards God,—as love, delight, rejoicing in the Lord, peace, joy, and consolation in ourselves, readiness to do or suffer, cheerfulness in so doing. If they grow not from this root, yet their flourishing wholly depends upon it; so that surely it is the duty of every believer to break through
145 6:595.
146 6:596.
147 6:553-55; cf. 6:563.
148 6:414.
all difficulties in pressing after this particular assurance."149 In short, the way to retain and improve assurance is through obedience, which is also the fruit of assurance.
Pneumatologia:
A Discourse on the Holy Spirit (1674ff.)
In the preface of his most influential work, Pneumatologia, Owen admitted he was doing pioneer work. He wrote: "Whereas I know not any who ever went before me in this design of representing the whole economy of the Holy Spirit, with all his adjuncts, operations, and effects, whereof this is the first part, . . . as the difficulty of my work was increased thereby so it may plead my excuse if anything be found not to answer so regular a projection or just a method as the nature of the subject requireth and as was aimed at."150
Later theologians weren't so modest about Owen's 1,200-page treatise on the Holy Spirit.
George Smeaton called it "the most important work on the Spirit in any literature."151 Abraham
Kuyper said the work was incomparable and unsurpassed.152 Geoffrey Nuttall affirmed Owen's pioneer attempt, particularly in the domain of experimental theology;153 while Jerry Brauer acknowledged that Owen wrote "the most comprehensive treatise on the Spirit since the days of the Church fathers."154 Though Puritan writers produced many works on the Spirit, Owen was unquestionably the leader in this field.
Most of Pneumatologia was published in 1674.155 Other parts were published piecemeal.
Owen himself was never certain that he would complete the project, which would include "The Reason of Faith" (1677), "The Causes, Ways, and Means of Understanding the Mind of God"
(1678), "The Work of the Holy Spirit in Prayer" (1682), "On the Work of the Spirit as a Comforter," and "Spiritual Gifts" (both published in 1693 after Owen's death). That completed, according to Owen's notes, his entire schema on the Holy Spirit.
In his section on the Spirit as Comforter, Owen addressed the question of assurance by dealing with two aspects of the Spirit's work not yet examined: sealing and unction.
149 Ibid.; cf. 6:551-53 where hope, casting out fear, and dying for Christ are also expounded as marks of the obedience of faith.
150 3:7.
151 Work of the Holy Spirit (reprint ed., Edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust, 1974), p. 329.
152 Work of the Holy Spirit, trans. Henri de Vries (New York: Funk & Wagnalls, 1900), p. x.
153 The Holy Spirit in Puritan Faith and Experience, p. 7.
154 "Reflections on the Nature of English Puritanism," Church History 23 (1954):102.
155 Volume 3 of the Goold edition, which may be subsumed under doctrinal and experimental theology. Under doctrinal theology, Owen considered the deity of the Spirit and His relation to creation and the Person of Christ; under experimental theology, he examined regeneration and sanctification. Little of this volume relates directly to assurance, however, with the exception of two passages on sanctification.
The Sealing of the Spirit
The sealing of the Spirit was a common theme in the seventeenth century. Most Puritan writers believed that sealing came with assurance,156 even though early Reformers had clearly maintained a one-to-one correlation between those regenerated by the Spirit and those sealed by the Spirit. Calvin, for example, would have refuted the Puritan notion that it was possible to believe without being sealed with the Spirit by declaring that the seal is the Holy Spirit
Himself157 and that the sealing work of the Spirit belongs to the essence of faith.158 Beza also appeared to have that belief. He wrote: "Now he maketh the Ephesians (or rather all the Gentiles) equall to the Jewes, because that notwithstanding they came last, yet being called by the same
Gospel, they embraced it by faith and were sealed up with the same Spirit, which is the pledge of election until the inheritance it selfe be seene."159
By the time of Perkins, however, theologians were devoting less time to the Spirit as sealer and more to the Spirit's activity in sealing the promise to the believer. As Perkins noted:
"Things that passe too and fro among men, though they be in question, yet when the seale is put too, they are made out of doubt: and therefore when God by his spirit is said to seale the promise in the heart of every particular beleever, it signifieth that hee gives unto them evident assurance that the promise of life belongs unto them."160 Thus, in sealing, Perkins taught that the Spirit begets an assured "trust and confidence" in the promises so that the believer is moved to experimentally embrace the promises as his own.161
Paul Baynes, who succeeded Perkins at Cambridge University,162 attempted to unite the Spirit's roles as indweller and seal in an attempt to bring harmony between the Reformed and Puritan views.163 "The Holy Spirit, and the graces of the Spirit are the seale assuring our redemption," he wrote.164 For Baynes, the Spirit was thus both "the seale and the sealer."165 He wrote: "We are confirmed touching salvation, both by the Spirit of God, who is as it were the
156 Cf. Ferguson, John Owen on the Christian Life, pp. 116-24; Robert Martin Boyle, "The Doctrine of the Witness of the Holy Spirit in John Calvin's Theology against an Historical Background" (M.A. thesis, Abilene Christian
College, 1967).
157 E.g., Commentary (on Ephesians 1:13-14, 3:12); Inst. 3.2.11, 34, 41. Cf. Parratt, "The Witness of the Holy Spirit:
Calvin, the Puritans and St. Paul," pp. 161ff.
158 Graafland, "Waarheid in het Binnenste," p. 58.
159 Beza, Novum Testamentum (on Ephesians 1:13).
160 Merrill, William Perkins, 1558-1602, on Discourse on Conscience, pp. 50-51.
161 Perkins, Works 1:104-105. Cf. Preston, The Breast-Plate of Faith and Love 2:53-55.
162 As Baynes published no writings himself, we are indebted to William Ames and others for seeing his writings to press posthumously (cf. bibliography). See Kendall, Calvin and English Calvinism to 1649, pp. 94-102, for a brief biography and synopsis of Baynes's doctrine of faith and assurance.
163 Paul Baynes, An Entire Commentary upon the whole Epistle of the Apostle Paul to the Ephesians (London: M. F. for Milbourne and I. Bartlet, 1643), pp. 80-81.
164 Ibid., eighth unnumbered prefatory page.
165 Ibid., p. 137.
seale sealing, and by the graces of the Spirit, which is as it were the seal sealed and printed upon us; yea, these two, both of them, are together as a seal."166
Baynes distinguished being sealed by the Spirit (which all believers possess) and being made conscious of such sealing (which only those who are conscious of the graces of the Spirit possess). Baynes thus could speak of an immediate witness in the sealing of the Holy Spirit, while linking such a witness to the practical syllogism, since only a sanctified conscience could echo the Spirit's testimony. He wrote: "This certainty is no other thing than the testimony of a renewed conscience, which doth witnesse through the spirit, that we are in a state of grace. . . . I call it a testimony of the conscience . . . for the conscience doth but speake it as an echo; that it testifieth to us both our present state of Grace."167
Though the Spirit's sealing grants the believer infallible assurance,168 many years may pass before the believer experiences it. Baynes pictured the Christian's growth in assurance as stages. "Childhoode or infancie" lacks full assurance, "middle age" has some measure of assurance, and "olde age, or the experienced estate hath assurance accompanying it for the most part usually."169
Richard Sibbes (1577-1635),170 agreed with his predecessor Baynes, though he emphasized the sealing of the Spirit as a "superadded work and confirmation" of the believer's faith.171 In so doing, Sibbes turned the doctrine of the sealing of the Spirit in a direction that would gain prominence among the Puritans for several decades.172
Sibbes thought of the Spirit's sealing in two ways: (1) a one-time sealing, and (2) a sealing that came later as one matured in the Christian life. The once-and-for-all sealing of salvation is granted when a person first believes in Christ and God's promises. Sibbes taught that as a king's image is stamped upon wax, so the Spirit stamps believers' souls with the image of Christ from the very moment of believing. Such sealing produces in every believer a lifelong desire to be transformed fully into the image of Christ.173
166 Ibid., p. 143.
167 Ibid., p. 146.
168 Ibid., p. 143.
169 Briefe Directions unto a Godly Life: wherein every Christian is furnished with most Necessary Helps for the Furthering of him in a godly Course here upon Earth, so that He may Attaine Eternall Happiness in Heaven
(London: A. Griffins for J. Norton, 1637), pp. 44-46, 92-94.
170 See The Complete Works of Richard Sibbes 1:xix-cxxi for a biographical sketch of Sibbes. (Hereafter, Complete
Works.) Cf. Mark Dever, "Richard Sibbes and the 'Truly Evangelicall Church of England': A Study in Reformed
Divinity and Early Stuart Conformity" (Ph.D. dissertation, Cambridge University, 1992).
171 Sibbes preached often on the Spirit's sealing. First, a series of sermons transcribed by a noblewoman, Lady
Elizabeth Brooke, was published in 1637 as A Fountain Sealed (Complete Works 5:409-456). Second, sermons on 2
Corinthians 1:21-22 in the Exposition of Second Corinthians Chapter 1, were published in 1655 (Complete Works
3:420-84). Third, a sermon on Romans 8:15-16, The Witness of the Spirit, was first published in 1692 (Complete
Works 7:367-85). Cf. ibid., 2:453-64, 4:132ff., 6:374-79, 428-30.
172 Ferguson, John Owen on the Christian Life, p. 118. Cf. Eaton, Baptism with the Spirit, pp. 67-75.
173 Complete Works 3:453.
The second aspect of Sibbes's doctrine of sealing is more elusive. Owen argued that Sibbes said sealing had to occur twice in the life of the believer. But Sibbes was not arguing for a second measure of positional assurance, as if to imply that God was not altogether sure of our stance with Him or His stance towards us upon conversion. Sibbes plainly stated: "Sealing of us by the Spirit is not in regard of God but ourselves. God knoweth who are His, but we know not that we are His but by sealing. The sealing then is for our benefit exclusively, and not for God."174
So the second kind of sealing Sibbes wrote about was a process. It was the kind of assurance that could increase gradually throughout believers' lives by means of singular experiences and by daily, spiritual growth. This sealing had degrees; it could grow with spiritual maturity. Sibbes wrote: "The Spirit sealeth by degrees. As our care of pleasing the Spirit increaseth so our comfort increaseth. Our light will increase as the morning light unto the perfect day. Yielding to the Spirit in one holy motion will cause him to lead us to another, and so on forwards, until we be more deeply acquainted with the whole counsel of God concerning our salvation."175
Sibbes learned through pastoral experience that many believers are content with the measure of faith and assurance they receive upon their conversion and do not labor for further growth. That prompted Sibbes to suggest that there are three kinds of Christians: First, those who have the seed of saving faith but live under a spirit of bondage;176 those who are sealed with "sanctifying grace" by means of Spirit-worked evidences of faith but are often beset with doubt; and established believers, "who are carried with large spirits to obey their Father"177 as the fruit of the direct seal of the Spirit which provides a conscious persuasion of their sonship to God.178
"Large spirits" receive a "privy seal," or the unmistakable, conclusive, inward witness of the Spirit179 that is a "stablishing, confirming grace."180 That seal grants believers freedom to appropriate full assurance through the work of each Person in the Trinity. The emphasis here is on the Spirit in His saving activity. Sibbes thus wrote:
Every person in the blessed Trinity hath their several work. The Father chooseth us and passeth a decree upon the whole groundwork of our salvation. The Son executeth it to the full.
The Spirit applieth it, and witnesseth our interest in it by leading our souls to lay hold upon him, and by raising up our souls in the assurance of it, and by breeding and cherishing sweet communion with Father and Son, who both of them seal us likewise by the Spirit. This joy and comfort is so appropriated to the Spirit, as it carrieth the very name of the Spirit.181
174 Complete Works 3:453ff.
175 Ibid.
176 Complete Works 5:437.
177 Ibid., 3:110ff.; 5:488.
178 Ibid., 7:382-83.
179 Ibid., 4:138-39, 5:433.
180 Ibid., 3:422.
181 Ibid., 5:439.
Sibbes sounds mystical at times in describing this special sealing, particularly in statements such as "the Holy Ghost slides and insinuates and infuseth himself into our souls."182
But Sibbes warded off mysticism in two ways. First, he maintained that this special sealing must never be divorced from the Word of God. By speaking of sealing in degrees, Sibbes linked all advancement in grace to the Spirit and Word, for any consciousness of sealing by the Spirit is always through the applied Word.183
Second, Sibbes said that the genuineness of such sealing may be readily examined. One may know the voice of the Spirit of God by inquiring what went before, what went with, and what followed "this ravishing joy" of experimental sealing, Sibbes wrote.184 Fruits of sanctification, such as peace of conscience, the spirit of adoption, prayers of fervent supplication, conformity with the heavenly image of Christ,185 and applying ourselves to holy duties rather than old lusts inevitably result from such "a secret whispering and intimation to the soul.186
Sibbes thus emphasized both the intuitive testimony of the Spirit and the sanctifying fruits of the Spirit.187 The Spirit's sealing is inward in its essence and outward in its fruit.
Owen understood why Sibbes and other Puritans in his era proposed what he considered a second kind of sealing. He recognized that Sibbes and others were attempting to call believers to a life of assuredness. Owen affirmed the call for this kind of assurance, yet he argued against equating full assurance with the sealing of the Spirit. He felt that the exegesis of Ephesians 1:13 didn't support such a view.
Moving a step beyond Sibbes, John Preston (1587-1628)188 taught that the sealing of the Spirit was a second work given to those who overcome.189 The seal was so "high" in the Christian's experience that when pressed for a definition, Preston could only write: "It is a thing that we cannot expresse, it is a certain divine expression of light, a certain unexpressable
182 Ibid., 1:24; cf. 4:215, 295.
183 Cary Weisiger III neglected Sibbes's connection between Word and Spirit when he concluded that "the sealing of the Spirit in Sibbes is as close as Puritanism came to the Pentecostal emphasis on the baptism of the Spirit" ("The Doctrine of the Holy Spirit in the Preaching of Richard Sibbes" [Ph.D. dissertation, Fuller Theological Seminary,
1984], pp. i, 327ff.). Cf. Bert Affleck, Jr., "The Theology of Richard Sibbes, 1577-1635" (Ph.D. dissertation, Drew
University, 1968), pp. 166-203; Frank E. Farrell, "Richard Sibbes: A Study in Early Seventeenth Century English
Puritanism" (Ph.D. dissertation, Edinburgh, 1955).
184 Complete Works 5:441-44.
185 The sealing Spirit "makes them every way like Christ in their proportion" (ibid., 3:453-54; 4:132-33).
186 Ibid., 4:134-36, 5:409. Cf. Weisiger, "The Doctrine of the Holy Spirit in the Preaching of Richard Sibbes," pp.
290-95.
187 For Sibbes on assurance of sanctification, see Affleck, "The Theology of Richard Sibbes," pp. 323-27.
188 For the life and times of Preston, see Irvonwy Morgan, Puritan Spirituality (London: Epworth Press, 1973).
Preston was Cotton's most renowned "Old England" convert. Due in part to the antinomian controversy in conjunction with Anne Hutchinson, Cotton would not commit himself definitively on whether the sealing of the Spirit should be regarded as including all believers or only those who received full assurance of faith (Ferguson,
John Owen on the Christian Life, p. 119).
189 The New Covenant, or the Saint's Portion 2:416-17.
assurance that we are the sonnes of God; a certaine secret manifestation, that God hath received us and put away our sinnes; I say, it is such a thing, that no man knowes, but they that have it."190
Thomas Goodwin191 developed the thinking of Sibbes and Preston on the sealing of the Spirit even more, defining it as a "light beyond the light of ordinary faith."192 Goodwin wrote:
"There is an immediate assurance of the Holy Ghost, by a heavenly and divine light, of a divine authority, which the Holy Ghost sheddeth in a man's heart, (not having relation to grace wrought or anything in a man's self,) whereby he sealeth him up to the day of redemption."193 He added,
"It is the next thing to heaven . . . you can have no more until you come thither."194
Furthermore, the "whispering" of the Holy Spirit tells the believer that he is elect of God, has his sins forgiven, and belongs to Him forever—both intuitively and directly.195
Richard Baxter, David Clarkson (formerly Owen's assistant), and several Puritan writers followed in varying degrees Goodwin's teaching, making a direct tie between the sealing of the Spirit and full assurance of faith.
As late as 1657, Owen had not resolved the matter of the Spirit's sealing. "I am not very clear in the certain peculiar intendment of this metaphor," he wrote.196 Ultimately, however,
Owen did resolve the matter. In Pneumatologia, he explained how:
First, unlike Calvin, Owen said that the sealing of the Spirit applies to persons, not promises.197 Moreover, he added, "When we seal a deed or grant to any one, we do not say the man is sealed, but the deed or grant."198
Second, like Calvin, Owen said the Spirit's sealing, representing the presence of the Spirit in His Person rather than an act of the Spirit within a believer, serves as the ground of assurance. He explained: "It is not said that the Holy Spirit seals us, but that we are sealed with him. He is God's seal unto us. . . . The effects of this sealing are gracious operations of the Holy
Spirit in and upon believers; but the sealing itself is the communication of the Spirit unto them."199
Third, because Owen took issue with the idea that the seal of the Spirit was a particular act instead of the gift of the Spirit Himself, it was exegetically impossible to say that sealing was restricted to some believers rather than to all, for sealing accompanies regeneration.200
190 Ibid., 2:416; cf. 2:400-421.
191 See chapter 9 below.
192 The Works of Thomas Goodwin 1:236.
193 Ibid., p. 233.
194 Ibid., p. 236.
195 Ibid., pp. 236-37.
196 2:242.
197 1:400; cf. 2:242-43.
198 1:243.
199 4:401, 404.
200 4:400.
Finally, the sealing of the Christian points directly to the sealing of Christ by the Father,
Owen said. As Christ was sealed with the Spirit without measure, so each believer is sealed with the Spirit in proper measure sufficient to salvation.201
Owen clearly recognized a difference between "full assurance by the immediate witness of the Spirit" and "the sealing of the Spirit," despite the opinions of some of his closest friends.202 The former is related to the latter as effect to cause, i.e., the sealing of the Spirit is not assurance in itself, but produces assurance. As Owen wrote:
It hath been generally conceived that this sealing with the Spirit is that which gives assurance unto believers—and so indeed, it doth, although the way whereby it doth it hath not been rightly apprehended; and, therefore, none have been able to declare the especial nature of that act of the Spirit whereby he seals us, whence such assurance should ensue. . . . That God abideth in us and we in him is the subject-matter of our assurance. . . . The Spirit himself . . . is the great evidence, the great ground of assurance, which we have that God hath taken us into a near and dear relation unto himself, "because he hath given us of his Spirit" (1 John
4:13).203
In short, Spirit-sealing is no special act of assurance, but reaps the special effect of assurance, which, by grace, grows in degrees of consciousness to a full and firm persuasion within the believer.204 Hence, assurance is not the same as the gift of the Spirit (the seal), even though it may accompany the gift. Though he would not deny the joy resulting from the Spirit's immediate witness of full assurance,205 Owen downplayed the unusual manifestations of the Spirit in favor of a more normal recognition of the presence of the Spirit.
The Unction of the Spirit
In Book VIII, chapter 4 of Pneumatologia, Owen also explained the Spirit's unction. He said the Spirit anoints all believers;206 such anointing happens by Christ's own anointing with the Spirit without measure and by believers receiving their unction "immediately from Christ" as efficient cause;207 and it is the Spirit of Christ Himself who is the anointing.208 All of this takes place
201 4:403-406.
202 4:400-401.
203 4:405. Cf. Eaton, Baptism with the Spirit, pp. 104ff.
204 This merges well with Owen's conviction that the case may hang "for years" in justification in the court of conscience (2:241).
205 J. I. Packer, "The Witness of the Spirit: The Puritan Teaching," The Wisdom of Our Fathers (Puritan Conference,
1956), p. 25.
206 4:391.
207 4:391-93.
within a Trinitarian framework: the "supreme donation" of the Spirit as unction is from the Father; the "immediate collation" from the Son; and the "actual anointing" from the Spirit.209
Nevertheless, the Spirit's unction has special effects: "Spiritual instruction, by saving illumination in the mind of God and the mysteries of the gospel; and a special dedication unto
God, in the way of a spiritual privilege."210 These effects serve as assistants to assurance, particularly when the soul is attacked by seducers of faith. As Owen wrote: "It is hereon that our stability in believing doth depend; for it is pleaded unto this purpose in a peculiar manner by the apostle, I John ii. 20, 27. It was the 'unction from the Holy One' which then kept believers from being carried from the faith by the craft of seducers. Hereby he makes men, according unto their measure, 'of quick understanding in the fear of the Lord.'"211
In sum, the Spirit in His divine Person is the believer's seal and his unction, resulting in the solidifying of assurance.
The Doctrine of Justification by Faith (1677)
In his work on justifying faith, Owen presented his theologically mature definition of faith. He wrote, "It is the heart's approbation of the way of justification and salvation of sinners by Jesus
Christ, proposed in the gospel, as proceeding from the grace, wisdom, and love of God, with its acquiescency therein as unto its own concernment and condition."212
Here Owen lessened his earlier emphasis on "resting" assurance as essential to faith, while he was simultaneously cautious not to exclude a trust of acquiescency. Without trust, the soul must despair, he said. Nevertheless, such trust is not necessarily persuasion of one's own salvation, for that is not of the essence of faith. What is essential to faith is that the soul recognizes that the only way of salvation is in Jesus Christ and acquiesces to being included in that redemption. Hence, the soul is not bound to believe the pardon of its own sins antecedent to justification.213 Here Owen parted ways with the early Reformers, as David Lachman noted:
[Owen] objects to the doctrine of the first Reformers not on the grounds that an assurance was included in justifying faith, but on the grounds that they made the pardon of our own sins in particular the object of justifying faith, making faith itself to be a fiduciary trust. But, denying that any of them affirmed that every true believer always had a full assurance and commending their objective of directing men to seek for peace with God by placing their trust and confidence in his mercy
208 4:396.
209 4:393, 396.
210 4:395.
211 Ibid.
212 5:93.
213 5:75, 76, 102.
by Christ alone, he refuses to oppose or reject their judgments, and leaves them as he finds them, "unto the use of the church."214
Indeed, Owen had concluded: "For I shall not contend with any about the way and manner of expressing the truth, where the substance of it is retained. That which in these things is aimed at, is the advancement and glory of the grace of God in Christ, with the conduct of the souls of men unto rest and peace with him. Where this is attained or aimed at, and that in the way of truth for the substance of it, variety of apprehensions and expressions concerning the same things may tend unto the useful exercise of faith and the edification of the church."215
Robert Letham took issue with Lachman's position, citing Owen's assertion that assurance is a fruit of faith, not of its essence. He concluded that Owen fundamentally differed from the Reformers. Letham, however, failed to notice two things: first, that Owen's assertion—
"All these things are rather fruits or effects of faith, as under exercise and improvement, than of the essence of it, as it is the instrument in our justification"216—dealt with full assurance of faith that one's own sins are forgiven, not with all degrees of assurance. Second, concerning "lower degrees" of assurance, Owen did not think it necessary to determine whether such trust or confidence is of the essence of faith or the first fruits of it, but he did describe it as "that which belongs to justifying faith, and is inseparable from it."217 Owen refused to repudiate the position of the Reformers but accepted it as a variation of his own.
In Gospel Grounds and Evidences of the Faith of God's Elect (published in 1695), Owen defined full assurance as a step forward in faith. He wrote: "Faith is not an especial assurance of a man's own justification and salvation by Christ; that it will produce, but not until another step or two in its progress be over; but faith is a satisfactory persuasion that the way of God proposed in the gospel is fitted, suited, and able to save the soul in particular that doth believe,—not only that it is a blessed way to save sinners in general, but that it is such a way to save him in particular."218
This distinction between trusting that Christ is perfectly suited to save the individual and being assured that he has forgiven the individual allowed Owen to accommodate the Reformers somewhat. It allowed him to accept a measure of assurance in saving faith, while enabling him to remain faithful to the Westminster Confession's statement "This infallible assurance doth not so belong to the essence of faith." Second, it freed him to teach advancement in the steps of grace, while avoiding a two-tier approach to the experience of salvation. Finally, this distinction allowed Owen to retain Christological centrality in the notion of faith without quenching the smoking flax or breaking bruised reeds.219
214 The Marrow Controversy, p. 18; cf. 5:85.
215 5:85.
216 5:102, and Letham, "The Relationship Between Saving Faith and Assurance," pp. 49ff.
217 5:101.
218 5:419.
219 For Owen, not breaking "bruised reeds" did not intend to promote carelessness in self-examination. In fact, Keith
Sprunger states that Owen's meetings held to examine consciences were referred to by the students as "the scruple shop" (The Learned Doctor William Ames: Dutch Backgrounds of English and American Puritanism [Chicago:
University of Illinois Press, 1972], p. 163).
An Exposition of the Epistle to the Hebrews (1668-1684)220
Owen's comments on assurance in his seven-volume work on Hebrews reaffirmed earlier writings.221 Two quotations are particularly enlightening.
First, Owen's notes on Hebrews 6:11 offered one of his clearest statements on full assurance as a high degree of faith that yields strength for the holy warfare of daily life. Owen wrote:
This "full assurance" is not of the nature or essence of [hope], but an especial degree of it in its own improvement. A weak, imperfect hope, will give but weak and imperfect relief under trouble; but that which riseth up unto the full assurance will complete our relief. Wherefore, as hope itself is necessary, so is this degree of it, especially where trials do abound. Yet neither is hope in this degree absolute, or absolutely perfect. Our minds in this world are not capable of such a degree of assurance in spiritual things as to free us from assaults to the contrary, and impressions of fear sometimes from those assaults: but there is such a degree attainable as is always victorious; which will give the soul peace at all times, and sometimes fill it with joy.222
Second, in his comments on Hebrews 3:12-14, Owen provided a striking conclusion on sacramental assurance. He wrote:
[Salvation] is also confirmed unto us from the nature and use of the sacraments. . .
. In the one of them God sets his seal unto our initiation into Christ: for it is, as circumcision was of old, the "seal of the righteousness of faith," Rom. iv. 11. . . .
The other expressly confirms our participation of Christ, and our interest in the pardon of sins through his blood; being appointed of God as the way whereby mutually is testified his grace unto us and our faith in him. . . . And if we may not, if we ought not, to rest assured of what God testifies unto us and sets his seal unto, it cannot but be our duty sometimes to make God a liar; for so we do when we believe not his testimony.223
220 Owen's four volume work in original folios was dated 1668, 1674, 1680, and 1684 respectively (Toon,
Correspondence of John Owen, 1616-1683, pp. 176-77).
221 E.g., cf. Hebrews 4:152-55 and 5:192, 198-202, 270-75.
222 Ibid., 5:200.
223 Ibid., 4:155. For a summary of Owen on the Lord's Supper as a "covenant seal," see Ferguson, John Owen on the Christian Life, pp. 220-24.
Conclusion: Owen's Influence and Pneumatological Emphasis
Owen's writings on faith and assurance have been incalculably influential. Thomas Halyburton defended Owen's final definition of faith.224 John Wesley appealed to Owen to support his own emphasis on the Holy Spirit's testimony in assurance.225 Theologians supportive of the "Marrow theology," such as James Hog and Thomas Boston, confessed their debt to Owen's views on assurance.226 Dutch theologians translated all of Owen's pertinent treatises related to faith.227
In short, scores of Reformed theologians from Owen's day to ours, have honored him as a theologian among theologians. His doctrine of assurance is but one more proof of his pervasive probing of Christian experience. The beauty of Owen's theology is his accent on the Spirit's work without a loss of biblical and theological grounding. Far from reducing experimental theology to anthropological notes, Owen retained a rich God-centeredness by stressing that Christian experience is always the fruit of the Spirit's efficacious work. As Godfrey Vose noted:
Where doctrine and life meet and fuse in human experience, and the elements of that experience are properly delineated, the result is "experimental" theology. In Owen's eyes, no man was a Christian unless he had "the root of the matter" within him; that is, unless he had inwardly appropriated the doctrinal truths he professed. But this did not mean that such theology was merely an elevated form of psychology. The puritan theologian certainly had psychological insights, but in studying the experiential side of doctrine, his emphasis was always Godward:
Christian experience was the experience of God the Holy Spirit within the arena of the human soul.228
Throughout his writings, Owen's concern for a vital spirituality, without which "Christianity is plucked up by the roots,"229 enabled him to present a vital "treatment of the objective-subjective tensions in revelational theology,"230 particularly in his doctrine of assurance. For Owen, those tensions could only be resolved by preserving both a Christological and a pneumatological emphasis.
Owen's pneumatological concern was also polemical, for he defended a biblical and truly spiritual pneumatology against the polarizing extremes of Socinianism (which rejected experimental pneumatology) and Quakerism (which viewed such pneumatology as a rapturous end in itself). Furthermore, as Andrew Thomson stated:
224 The Works of Thomas Halyburton, ed. Robert Burns (Glasgow: Blackie & Son, 1837), p. 567.
225 Zens, "The Doctrine of Assurance," pp. 41-42.
226 Lachman, "The Marrow Controversy: An Historical Survey," pp. 126-27.
227 Van der Haar, From Abbadie to Young, pp. 89-94.
228 Vose, "Profile of a Puritan: John Owen," p. 153.
229 3:8.
230 Stover, "The Pneumatology of John Owen," p. 27.
There was a third class of writers at that time, from whom Owen apprehended more danger than either,—men who, in their preaching, dwelt much upon the credentials of the Bible, but little upon its truths,—who would have defended even the doctrine of the Holy Spirit as an article of their creed, and at the same time would have derided all reference to the actual work of divine grace upon a human heart as the "weak imagination of distempered minds." Much of Owen's writing has reference to these accommodating and courtly divines, and is, in fact, a vindication of the reality of the spiritual life.231
Within the context of these concerns, it is understandable that Owen's most important contribution to the doctrine of assurance was the primacy of the Holy Spirit. He viewed the Spirit as intimately involved with each of the three foundations of assurance stipulated by The Savoy
Declaration: "the blood and righteousness of Christ"; "the inward evidence of . . . graces"; and "the immediate witness of the Spirit."232 Although his stress on the Spirit was within an experimental, doctrinal, and Trinitarian framework (witness Communion with God), Owen accented the variety of Spirit workings that reinforced the believer's assurance—whether in sealing, anointing, comforting, pronouncement of justification, earnest of inheritance, confirmation of adoption, persevering grace, gift of recalling and waiting on grace, direct or reflex acts of faith initiated within the believer, or immediate Word-applied testimony of full assurance of faith. In every case, Owen shed light on the Spirit's internal activities. Hence, if Puritanism has been defined as "the feeling of which Protestantism was the argument,"233 then in Owen's theology—particularly so in assurance—"Protestant Puritanism" and "Puritan
Protestantism" are permanently interwoven.
231 Thomson, "Life of Dr. Owen," l:cxi.
232 Savoy 18.2.
233 Thomson, "Life of Dr. Owen," 1:cxi.