# Owen, volume 2: Communion with God



## RamistThomist (Aug 7, 2017)

My copy of Owen was from his Works, volume 2. Nonetheless, this review will also serve for the shorter Puritan Paperbacks edition. following the review is an outline on the book in order to aid the brethren and sisteren in reading Owen.

Owen gives us a dense, thorough, yet manageable snapshot, not only of Reformed prolegomena, but of Trinitarian piety as well. Given the current popularity of the YRR crowd–who know not Turretin nor his principia–yet strangely seek Owen, Owen can give them a taste of proper Reformed theologomena. In many ways, this can function as a primer to systematic theology. 

Readers are also encouraged to begin their Owen reading with this volume and not with others. Here we have the foundation for Owen's Trinitarian piety. If you read Owen and don't pick up the Trinitarian groundwork, you have misread Owen.

So here it goes:

Basic definitions:

communion: A mutual communication of such good things grounded upon some union (Owen, II:8). The person of Christ, as head of the Church, communicates grace to us via his Holy Spirit, to the members of his body. Our communion with God is his communication of himself to us, flowing from our union which we have in Christ. Our union with Christ is mystical and spiritual, not hypostatic (313). He is the Head, we the members and he freely communicates “grace, righteousness, and salvation, in the several and distinct ways whereby we are capable to receive them from him.”

Sealing the Union

Any act of sealing always imparts the character of the seal to the thing (242). Owen is clear: The Spirit really communicates the image of God unto us. “To have the stamp of the Holy Ghost…is to be sealed in the Spirit.”

This isn’t the most concise treatment of the issues, but Owen is quite fine in his own way. His writing is only difficult when he gets off topic (as in his otherwise fine Vindication of the Trinity at the end of the volume). Some in the YRR make it seem like Owen is borderline incomprehensible. He isn’t.

Short Outline:


That the saints have communion with God
Communion as to state and Communion as to condition
Things internal and spiritual
Outward things

Communion fellowship and action.
Definition: A mutual communication of such good things grounded upon some union (Owen, II:8). The person of Christ, as head of the Church, communicates grace to us via his Holy Spirit, to the members of his body. Our communion with God is his communication of himself to us, flowing from our union which we have in Christ.

The saints have this communion with the Trinity.
The way and means of this communion:
Moral and worship of God: faith, hope, love.
For the Father: He gives testimony and beareth witness to the Son (1 John 5.9).
For the Son:
For the Holy Spirit:

The Persons communicate good things to us:
Grace and peace (Rev. 1.4-5)
The Father communicates all grace by way of original authority (Owen 17).
The Son by way of making a purchased treasury (John 1.16; Isa. 53.10-11).
The Spirit doth it by way of immediate efficacy (Rom. 8.11).



Peculiar and Distinct Communion with the Father:
Our communion with the Father is principialy and by way of eminence (18).
There is a concurrence of actings and operations of the whole Deity in that dispensation, wherein each person concurs to the work of salvation.
If we speak particularly of a person, it does not exclude other media of communion.
God’s love (19).
God’s love is antecedent to the purchase of Christ.
The apostles particularly ascribe love to God the father (2 Cor. 13).
Love itself is free and needs no intercession. Jesus doesn’t even bother to pray that the Father will love his own (John 16.26-27).
Twofold divine love
Beneplaciti: Love of good destination for us
Amicitiae: love of friendship (21).

The father is the fountain of all following gracious dispensations:

Communion with the Father in love
That they receive it of him
That they make suitable returns unto him.


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## Cymro (Aug 7, 2017)

Thanks for that Jacob, it reminded me of an experience I was given when a young christian laid aside with pleurisy. I had just bought Owen's 2nd volume as I could not afford to buy the set at the time. So being confined to bed this book engaged me for a few weeks. And as I read, the beauty, glory and spiritual reality of the hypostatical union of the blessed Redeemer, was so overwhelming that I did not know whether I was in the body or out of it. That volume now has pride of place amongst the set.

Reactions: Like 1


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