43. Prefatory note.
Prefatory note.
T he two following discourses appeared posthumously in 1693.
According to a statement of the author at the beginning of them, they complete his design in this exposition of the work of the Holy Spirit. The discourse on His office as a Comforter is valuable, from the exposition of several interesting texts. But the author gives us to understand that it is to be taken in connection with what he has written elsewhere on this office of the Spirit, and he refers especially to his works on Communion with God, and on the Perseverance of the Saints. See vols. II. and XI. The discourse on Spiritual Gifts, though comparatively short, is the second part of the main body of the whole work on the Spirit; and from various allusions to it in other works of the author, he seems to have attached considerable importance to it. See vol. XV. p. 249. 1
1. From Wm. Goold's 1862 edition of Owen's Works, vol XV, p. 249: "Of these officers, in their distinction into apostles and evangelists, with their call, gifts, power, and work, I have treated at large in my "Discourse of Spiritual Gifts." Editors footnote on p. 249: These words are printed in the original edition as if they were the title of a particular treatise by our author.
His treatise under that title will be found in vol. iv. of his Doctrinal Works; but it seems to have been published in 1693, twelve years after the present work appeared. Such a discourse is promised in his preface to his treatise on "the Work of the Holy Spirit in Prayer," which was published in 1682, a year after the publication of the present work. There is some discussion on the subject of spiritual gifts in the first chapter of his great work on the Holy
Spirit; but a special and separate treatise seems alluded to in the text above.
To the " Discourse of Spiritual Gifts," as published in 1693, there is a preface by Nathaniel Mather; from which the reader is led to infer that it was then published for the first time. Perhaps the difficulty may be obviated by the supposition that Owen intended to publish it immediately, and refers to it in this work by anticipation. — Ed.