Description

The Holy Spirit

Considered among the greatest of all Christian books ever penned, Owen on the Holy Spirit deals with the name, nature, personality, and operations of the Holy Spirit. Owen effectively shows the true holiness of life which the Spirit of God imparts as quite superior to merely human morality and will.

Note: this is an abridged version of Owen’s massive work, Pneumatologia: A Discourse Concerning the Holy Spirit, published first in 1674 and available in a 650 page cloth edition: Volume 3 of The Complete Works of Owen.

In it, Owen deals with the name, nature, personality, and operations of the Holy Spirit, and urges the necessity of gospel holiness as distinct from mere morality operating under human will and power. As is always the case with Owen, the writing is both doctrinal and pastoral in character. The exhaustive length of the original book has deterred many in our day from reading it, so we hope that this abridged modern English version will make Owen’s teaching more accessible to today’s readers.

Contents

1. Work of the Holy Spirit
2. The Spirit of God
3. How the Holy Spirit Comes to Us and Does His Work
4. The Special Preparatory Works of the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament
5. The Work of the Holy Spirit in the New Creation
6. The Holy Spirit and the Human Nature of Christ
7. Work of the Holy Spirit on the Mystical Body of Christ, His Church
8. The Holy Spirit’s Work of Regeneration
9. How the Holy Spirit Prepares a Soul for His Work of Regeneration
10. How the Mind is Corrupted and Depraved by Sin
11. Natural and Spiritual Death Compared
12. Regeneration Itself
13. The Work of Conversion
14. The Nature of Sanctification and Gospel Holiness
15. Sanctification a Lifelong Work
16. Believers Only are Sanctified
17. The Work of Sanctification Itself
18. The Work of the Spirit in Purging Believers from Sin
19. Work of the Spirit inn Renewing the Spiritual Life of Believers
20. The Activities and Duties of Holiness
21. Dealing with Sin
22. The Necessity of Holiness
23. Election a Motive to Holiness
24. Commanded to be Holy
25. Holiness and the Work of Christ
26. Holiness in an Unholy World

About John Owen

John Owen (1616-1683) lived 67 years of a life full of spiritual experience, literary accomplishment, and national influence so beyond most of his peers that he continues to merit the accolade of ‘the greatest British theologian of all time.’

No outline of Owen’s life can give an adequate impression of the stature and importance to which he attained in his own day. He was summoned to preach before Parliament on several occasions, most notably on the day after the execution of Charles I. During the Civil War, Owen’s merit was recognized by General Fairfax, then by Cromwell who took him as a Chaplain to Ireland and Scotland. He was adviser to Cromwell, especially though not exclusively on ecclesiastical affairs. However, he lost Cromwell’s favor after opposing the move to make him King. In 1658 he was one of the most influential members of the Savoy Conference of ministers of Independent persuasion. After the Ejection he enjoyed some influence with Charles II who occasionally gave him money to distribute to impoverished ejected ministers. All in all, he was, with Richard Baxter, the most eminent Dissenter of his time.

Despite his other achievements, Owen is best famed for his writings. These cover the range of doctrinal, ecclesiastical and practical subjects. They are characterized by profundity, thoroughness and, consequently, authority. Andrew Thomson said that Owen ‘makes you feel when he has reached the end of his subject, that he has also exhausted it.’ Although many of his works were called forth by the particular needs of his own day they all have a uniform quality of timelessness.