In recent decades, post-Reformation English Calvinism has come under considerable attack. Seeing the Puritans in theological discon­tinuity with the early Reformation, many scholars have indicted them on charges of hijacking the warm, scriptural theology of Calvin with a cold scholasticism, Aristotelianism, and rationalism.¹ Members of this so-called 'Calvin against the Calvinists' school have accused sev­enteenth-century English Calvinism of making a qualitative departure from Calvin in a variety of doctrines related to assurance. R. T. Kendall argued in his Calvin and the English Calvinists to 1649 that, through their affirmation of the doctrine of limited atonement, the Westminster Assembly was actually 'crypto-Arminian', making it almost impossible for one to be assured of saving faith apart from laborious works.² He criticizes the syllogistic reasoning of Beza, Ursinus, and the later Eng­lish Calvinists, saying that it was introspective, speculative, and that it ultimately made faith an act of man located in the human will.³

A growing number of historical theologians, led primarily by Richard Muller, have risen to defend the post-Reformation scholastics as the legitimate and faithful theological heirs of Calvin.⁴ This school, sometimes labelled the 'Calvin and the Calvinists' school, has offered a positive historical assessment of the internal developments of post-Reformation scholasticism including the doctrine of assurance.⁵ It has argued that English Calvinism, while possessing certain nuances in its doctrine of assurance that were distinct from Calvin, in no way made qualitative departures from the Genevan Reformer. As one scholar of the period has pointed out, 'Too much has been made' of the difference between Calvin and the English Puritans on 'the matter of whether as­surance is of the essence of faith.'⁶

No study of the historical development of the doctrine of assurance is complete, however, without a consideration of the English Puritan John Owen (1616-83), possibly the greatest theologian England ever produced. If the discontinuity thesis of the 'Calvin against the Calvinists' school is true, then surely evidence to that effect should be clear in the works of such an eminent and influential English Calvinist of the seven­teenth century. Owen turned out the most complete treatise of his time on the doctrine of limited atonement.⁷ Should we not expect to see in Owen's theology, therefore, evidence of a 'crypto-Arminianism' leading to morbid introspection in pursuit of assurance? As the 'Calvin and the Calvinists' school has shown, however, this is simply not the case. What­ever nuances he had in distinction from Calvin's understanding of the relationship between faith and assurance, Owen remained a Reformed theologian and preacher who, in his writing, teaching, and preaching, emphasized the objective and finished work of Christ on behalf of sin­ners. This article will focus on how Owen applied a foundational part of his theology in that most pastoral and practical of all means, namely, the pulpit. In particular, it will pursue the question of how Owen's theology had an effect on his preaching of the Person and Work of Christ with the pastoral aim of increasing the assurance of his listeners. This essay argues that Owen was a preacher of assurance because of his doctrine of the Pactum Salutis, or Covenant of Redemption.

Owen's Doctrine of the Pactum Salutis ⤒🔗

Carl Trueman has said, 'The covenant of redemption is the foundation of the economy of salvation and of the Incarnation and it is this, there­fore, that should be the starting-point of any discussion of the person of Jesus Christ in Owen's theology.'⁸ Owen saw in the Pactum Salutis the driving purpose of redemptive history, the covenant of grace, and the gospel. The English Calvinist firmly adopted the view of Christ's media­tion on behalf of the church as the fulfilment of an eternal covenant among the Persons of the Trinity.⁹

Owen understood a covenant to consist of four primary criteria:

1. It must involve distinct persons, 'for it is a mutual compact'.
2. It must be a voluntary arrangement.
3. It must deal with the matters within the power of the covenanting parties.
4. It must dispose matters to the mutual satisfaction of the parties.

To this Owen added a subset of criteria: a proposal of service; a promise of reward; and an acceptance of the proposal.¹⁰ This did not involve a subordination of the being of one party to another; rather, it is an economic, that is, functional, sub­ordination, voluntary in its terms.

Within the Pactum Salutis Owen saw five major elements:

The Father and the Son, as distinct Persons, voluntarily agreed together in divine council from all eternity to bring about the accomplishment of a common end, namely, the glory of God and the salvation of the elect.¹¹

1. The conditions of the covenant, which consisted of the Son's assum­ing human nature, fulfilling the demands of the law through his obedi­ence, and suffering the just judgment of God for the elect in order to satisfy God's justice on their behalf.¹²
    
2. The promises of the covenant which were two: First, the Father's assisting the Son in the accomplish­ment of his redeeming work by continually being present with him as he underwent the afflictions and trials of his earthly life. Secondly, if the Son did what was required of him, the work itself would prosper by bringing about the deliverance and glorification of those for whom he obeyed and suffered.¹³
    
3. The Son voluntarily accepted the condi­tions, and thus assumed the work as surety of the covenant.¹⁴
    
4. The Father, as 'promiser'¹⁵ did approve and accept the performance of the 'undertaker,'¹⁶ namely, the Son, who likewise laid claim to the promises made.¹⁷

Thus, for Owen, the Pactum Salutis is linked both to the Covenant of Works, which establishes the penalty to be suffered by sinful humanity, and to the Covenant of Grace, which determines to whom the benefits of Christ's work are to be given.

Owen not only articulated the roles of the Father and Son in the Pactum Salutis, but also showed the Spirit's role in this covenant, there­by demonstrating its Trinitarian structure. 'In relation to the work of the Son, it was by the Holy Spirit that the virgin Mary conceived the incarnate Christ, that the Son offered himself to the Father, and that the Son was raised from the dead.'¹⁸ In relation to the church, it is the Spirit who efficaciously brings the elect into union with Christ their Saviour and keeps them secure.¹⁹ As the only person in the Godhead who acts immediately in the post-Ascension created realm, the Holy Spirit had great significance for Owen's understanding of the historical execution of the covenant of redemption. This Trinitarian emphasis upon salva­tion served Owen well as a polemical weapon against the Socinianism of his day.

Although Owen made significant contributions to the doctrine of the Pactum Salutis by highlighting the Holy Spirit's function in that covenant, his primary emphasis in this doctrine was upon the role of Christ as Mediator and Priest. For Owen the Pactum Salutis made explicit Christ's role as the Second Adam, the one who acts on behalf of those given to him by the Father. In a debate with Richard Baxter, Owen stressed that Christ's death atoned for sins and has redemptive value only because it was accomplished in the context of the Pactum Salutis.²⁰ This covenant between the Persons of the Trinity played an essential role in determining who Christ is and the work he was to perform. It utterly highlighted the gospel of Jesus Christ. Indeed, it was for this post-Reformation Reformed thinker the very foundation of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Owen's Method as a Preacher ←⤒🔗

Like most Puritans of his day Owen understood preaching to be more significant than any other means of imparting saving knowledge. Hor­ton Davies makes the point that for the Puritans, 'The preacher was the man of God, the prophet, who declared to the congregation the "mystery" of the Gospel, unfolding the whole plan of salvation ... by his preaching of the Gospel he was actually, under Christ, binding and loosing the souls of men.'²¹ Owen was no exception; he thoroughly subscribed to this view of preaching. In a sermon preached at an ordination of a minister on January 23, 1673, Owen took as his text Ephesians 4:8: 'Wherefore he saith, When he ascended up on high, he led captivity cap­tive, and gave gifts to men.' He began his sermon by saying:

The design of these words is to show that the gift of the minis­try, and of ministers – of the office, and persons to discharge that office – is an eminent fruit of the exaltation of Christ, and a great expression and pledge of his care and love towards his church; and that is my doctrine, which I shall speak unto from them.²²

He then went on to explain in the sermon how the minister was a gift from the exalted Christ to his church, even saying:

There is a greater glory in giving a minister to a poor congregation, than there is in the instalment and enthroning of all the popes, and cardinals, and metropolitans, that ever were in the world: let their glory be what it will, Christ is upon his theatre of glory in the communication of this office and these officers.²³

The same was evident from an ordination sermon he delivered on April 3, 1678. Preaching on 1 Corinthians 12:11, Owen made the point that Christ was present with his church and communicated his Spirit through the means of preaching of the gospel.²⁴ In addition Owen made it clear in another ordination sermon, which he preached on September 8, 1682, that the pastor's first duty was to feed his congregation and that 'this feeding is by preaching of the gospel. 'He is no pastor who doth not feed his flock'. So important was this work for Owen that he said the minister was 'to make all things subservient to this work of preaching and instructing the church'.²⁵

As for his method of preaching, it can be said that, in general, Owen embraced the method prescribed by the Westminster Directory for the Publick Worship of God. The subjects of his sermons were taken from texts of Scripture, often suitable to 'some special occasion emergent', were thoroughly textual and doctrinal, and demonstrated much analysis and application. Thus they were in line with the standard Puritan divi­sion into 'Doctrine, Reason and Use'.²⁶ Generally, a sermon by Owen was, as J. I. Packer says of Puritan preaching in general, 'expository in method ... doctrinal in content … orderly in arrangement ... popular in style ... Christ-centered in orientation ... experimental in its inter­ests ... piercing in its applications'.²⁷

While the numerous sermons he delivered before Parliament were significantly different in style and structure from those given to local congregations, even in the ones delivered before Parliament, Owen remained a preacher of the gospel and the assurance it brings to the believer. An example of such a sermon is one which Owen preached on Romans 4:20 at St Margaret's in Westminster, before the Parliament on February 28, 1649, titled, 'The Steadfastness of the Promises, and the Sinfulness of Staggering'. We turn now to this sermon for a closer examination.²⁸

Owen's Preaching of the Pactum ←⤒🔗

Owen preached 'Steadfastness' after his return from the expedition to Ireland in which he accompanied Oliver Cromwell. While the expedi­tion had been politically successful, Owen 'had set his heart upon secur­ing for it (Ireland) higher blessings than outward peace, enforced by the conquering sword of the Protector'.²⁹ The sermon is perhaps most memorable because of Owen's bold exhortation to Parliament not to engage merely in the work of bringing temporal and outward peace to Ireland, but also, and more importantly, in that work of bringing the gospel of peace to that land:

Be faithful in doing all the work of God whereunto you are en­gaged ... God's work, whereunto you are engaged, is the propa­gating of the kingdom of Christ, and the setting up of the standard of the gospel. So far as you find God going on with your work, go you on with his. How is it that Jesus Christ is in Ireland as a lion staining all his garments with the blood of his enemies; and none to hold him out as a lamb sprinkled with his own blood to his friends? Is it the sovereignty and interest of England that is alone to be there transacted? For my part, I see no farther into the mys­tery of these things but that I could heartily rejoice, that innocent blood being expiated, the Irish might enjoy Ireland so long as the moon endureth, so that Jesus Christ might possess the Irish.³⁰

What is relevant to this article, however, is the way in which Owen preached assurance from this text. After setting the context of Romans 4:20, Owen explained that the foundation of Abraham's faith rested upon God's objective promise. He then expounded this promise, and what it is to stagger at it. With regard to the former he said:

Abraham was not clear in the accomplishment of former prom­ises about the blessed seed; and so, though he have all outward advancements, yet he cannot rest in them. Until a child of God be clear in the main in the matter of the great promise – the business of Christ – the greatest outward successes and advantages will be so far from quieting and settling his mind, that they rather increase his perplexities.³¹

A child of God must be clear in the promise, the 'business of Christ' as Owen put it, to have assurance of faith. This was evident in the case of Abraham, as Paul makes clear in Romans 4. Owen then explained how the Person and Work of Christ were contained in that promise:

This, I say, was the promise whereof we spake – that he should have a seed of his own, 'like the stars that cannot be numbered' ... the purely spiritual part of it ... concerned his own soul in Christ. God engaging about his seed, minds him of his own inter­est in that seed which brings the blessing. Jesus Christ, with his whole mediation, and his whole work of redemption, is in this promise, with the enjoyment of God in covenant, 'as a shield, and as an exceeding great reward' (Emphasis added).³²

Thus, for Christians, as the children of Abraham, we are to look to the same promise. 'The first thing you are to believe for,' said Owen as he applied this text to his hearers, 'is the interest of your own souls in the covenant of grace by Christ. As to this, I shall only point unto that promise of the covenant, Heb. 8:12, I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more.'³³

For Owen lack of assurance came from a failure to look to and trust in the promise contained in the covenant of grace: 'A poor soul, that hath been long perplexed in trouble and anxiety of mind, finds a sweet promise – Christ in a promise suited to all his wants, coming with mercy to pardon him, with love to embrace him, with blood to purge him – and is raised up to roll himself in some measure upon this promise.'³⁴ But how can one be sure that God's promise is trustworthy and true? What assurance can the troubled soul have that God will act on what he has promised? Owen showed four ways in which God has condescended to his people in order that souls might not stagger at his promise, but rest in assurance. First, said Owen, God has repeated his promise throughout redemptive history. Secondly, God has confirmed his promise with an oath. Third, he has entered into covenant in order to accomplish what he has spoken. All three of these are ways in which humans often seek to confirm the truth of what they have promised by their words. God has condescended in multiple ways in order to assure our faith in his promise.

To these, however, Owen added a fourth way:

In things of very great weight and concernment, such as whereon lives and the peace of nations do depend, men use to give hos­tages for the securing each other of the faith and truth of all their engagements, that they may be mutual pledges of their truth and fidelity. Neither hath the Lord left this way unused to confirm his promise. He hath given us a hostage to secure us of his truth – one exceedingly dear to him, one always in his bosom, of whose hon­our he is as careful as of his own. Jesus Christ is the great hostage of his Father's truth, the pledge of his fidelity in his promises. God hath set him forth, and given him to us for this end ... Thus also to his saints he gives the further hostage of his Spirit, and the first­fruits of glory; that the full accomplishment of all his promises may be contracted in a little, and presented to their view, as the Israelites had the pleasures of Canaan in the clusters of grapes brought from thence.³⁵

Behind this statement is Owen's doctrine of the Pactum Salutis. Christ as 'the great hostage' and 'pledge' of God's fidelity in his promises is a clear reference to Christ's mediatorial role in the covenant of redemp­tion. It was because of his doctrine of the Pactum Salutis that Owen was able to preach this sermon and make the application for our assurance: 'Now, from all this it is apparent, not only that there is truth in all the promises of God, but also that truth so confirmed, so made out, estab­lished, that not the least occasion imaginable is thence administered to staggering or doubting.'³⁶

Owen continued to preach assurance from his doctrine of Pactum Salutis in this sermon by explaining that there is no want of power in God's promise or the means therein for the accomplishment of the thing promised. He said that it is Christ who has purchased all the good things contained in the promise. 'And of him the apostle affirms ex­pressly, that "he is able to save them to the uttermost that come to God by him," Heb. 7:25. No want here, no defect; he is able to save to the uttermost – able to save them that are tempted, Heb. 2:18.' Owen gave the same assurance of the Holy Spirit's role in the Pactum Salutis:

There is the great means of operation, and that is the Spirit of grace. He works the mercy of the promise upon the soul. He also is able, exceeding powerful, to effect the end appointed. He hath no bounds nor measure of operation but only his own will, 1 Cor. 12:11. Hence, then, it is apparent, in the second place, that there is no occasion for doubting; yea that all staggering is excluded, from the consideration of the ability of the promiser, and the means whereby he worketh.³⁷

Two other sermons in which Owen's doctrine of Pactum Salutis is brought out for the assurance of believers are titled 'The Everlasting Covenant, the Believer's Support under Distress', and 'On the Ever­lasting Covenant'.³⁸ The first was preached on June 27, 1669 and the second on January 1, 1670. Both sermons were on 2 Samuel 23:5: 'Although my house be not so with God; yet he hath made with me an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things, and sure: for this is all my salvation, and all my desire, although he make it not to grow.' Like the sermon 'Steadfastness' these were chiefly about assurance. What makes them particularly interesting, however, is the explicitness with which Owen spoke about the Pactum Salutis. In the first of the two Owen said that God has made known his covenant for the relief of believers. It is great relief to our souls, said Owen, 'because it is "an everlasting covenant"'. He then gave three ways in which this covenant was everlasting, the first of which was as follows:

It is everlasting in respect of the beginning of it; it ... comes from ev­erlasting love, Jer. 31:3, 'I have loved thee with an everlasting love.' What then? 'Therefore with loving-kindness I have drawn thee.' This drawing with lovingkindness is the covenant here mentioned. And whence doth it proceed? From everlasting love. We had never had the drawing of the covenant, had not that been the spring. I will betake myself unto that covenant which hath its spring in eternity. This covenant had not its spring when I laid hold upon it; but it had its beginning in God's love from all eternity (Emphasis added).³⁹

He then described the order within this covenant as projecting from three heads. The first was 'its infinitely wise projection' in the 'love and eternal wisdom of the Father'. The second was 'its solemn confirmation in the blood and sacrifice of the Son.' The third was 'its powerful ex­ecution in the efficacy of the Holy Ghost'.⁴⁰ Owen then unpacked each of these three in detail, connecting the work of the Son to the priestly work described in Hebrews 10. The rest of this sermon, and the second sermon preached six months later, appeal to God's promises made with the patriarchs and that greater revelation which the patriarchs did not have, the finished work of Christ. Both sermons call upon the believer to look to what God has done in and through our Mediator Christ so that we may have assurance and comfort.

Conclusion←⤒🔗

As a young man Owen had struggled for personal assurance of his sal­vation. While a student at Oxford University he was frequently troubled with questions about his spiritual state. Even after he graduated M.A. in 1635 Owen became so despondent that at one point he spent nearly three months avoiding conversation with others.⁴¹ It was not until 1643, after he heard a sermon from an unknown preacher at Aldermanbury Chapel, that Owen began to enjoy a true sense of assurance. The text was Matthew 8:26, 'Why are ye fearful, O ye of little faith?' According to one Owen scholar, 'This sermon ... was blest for the removing of all his doubts, and laid the foundation of that solid peace, and comfort which he enjoyed as long as he lived.'⁴² In addition to this experience was the relief Owen found from Psalm 130:4: 'But there is forgiveness with thee, that thou mayest be feared.' He recalled a time in his life in which God graciously relieved his spirit by powerfully applying this promise so that he found 'peace and comfort in drawing near to God through the Mediator'.⁴³

Consequently Owen had great sympathy for the Christian who lacked assurance. Like Calvin before him Owen knew firsthand that the way in which assurance was obtained was by the Holy Spirit's ap­plying the promises of God's Word, particularly the preached Word, to the conscience of the believer and thus confirming faith. His doctrine of the Pactum Salutis was not immaterial to this practical, pastoral con­cern. His preaching that aimed at comforting the troubled conscience and producing assurance in the heart was driven by this great covenant among the Persons of the Trinity which so highlighted the priestly work of Christ. Like most of Owen's theology his doctrine of the Pactum Salutis, both stated and applied, was immensely pastoral.