John Owen · 41 of 73

Chapter VIII. The indwelling of the Spirit. · Part 3

5. This indwelling Spirit gives restraint. Restraining grace doth mainly consist in moral persuasion, from the causes, circumstances, and ends of things. When a man is dissuaded from sin, upon considerations taken from any such head or place as is apt to prevail with him, that persuasion, so applied and intended of God for that end, is unto him restraining grace. By this means doth the Lord keep within bounds the most of the sons of men, notwithstanding all their violent and impetuous lusts. Hell, shame, bitterness, disappointment, on the one hand, credit, repute, quietness of conscience, and the like, on the other, bind them to their good behaviour. God through these things drops an awe upon their spirits, binding them up from running out unto that compass of excess and riot in sinning which otherwise their lusts would carry them unto. This is not his way of dealing with the saints; he “puts his law in their inward parts, and writes it in their hearts,” Jer. xxxi. 33, that they may not depart from him, making them a willing people through his own power, Ps. cx. 3. By his effectually restraining grace he carries them out kindly, cheerfully, willingly, to do his whole will, “working in them both to will and to do of his good pleasure.” Yet, notwithstanding all this, oftentimes, through the strength of temptation, the subtlety of Satan, and his readiness to improve all advantages to the utmost, and the treachery and deceitfulness of indwelling sin and corruption, they are carried beyond the bounds and lines of that principle or law of life and love whereby they are led. What now doth the Lord do? They are ready to run quite out of the pasture of Christ; doth he then let them go, and give them up to themselves? Nay; but he sets a hedge about them, that they shall not find their way; he leads them as the “wild ass in her month,” that they may be found; he, puts a restraint upon their spirits, by setting home some sad considerations of the evil of their hearts and ways, whither they are going, what they are doing, and what shall be the issue of their walking so loosely, even in this life, — what shame, what scandal, what dishonour to themselves, their profession, the gospel, their brethren, it would prove; and so hampers them, quiets their spirits, and gently brings them again under obedience unto that principle of love that is in them, and to the Spirit of grace (whose yoke they were casting off) whereby they are led. Many times, then, even the saints of God are kept from sins, especially outward, actual sins, upon such outward motives, reasonings, and considerations as other men are. Peter was broken loose, and running down hill apace, denying and forswearing his Master; Christ puts a restraint upon his spirit by a look towards him. This minds him of his folly, unkindness, his former rash confidence and engagement to die with his Master, and sets him on such considerations as stirred up the principle of grace in him to take its place and rule again; and, in obedience thereunto, he not only desists from any farther denial, but faith, repentance, love, all exerting themselves, he “went out, and wept bitterly.” It is so frequently with the saints of God, though in lesser evils. By neglect and omission of duty, or inclination to evil, and closing with temptations, they break out of the pure and perfect rule and guidance of the Spirit, whereby they ought to be led. Instantly some considerations or other are pressed in upon their spirits, taken, perhaps, from outward things, which recover them to that obediential frame from whence, through violence of corruption and temptation, they had broken; like [as] a hawk sitting on a man’s hand, eating her meat in quietness, is suddenly, by the original wildness of her nature, carried out to an attempt of flying away with speed, but is checked by the string at her heels, upon which she returns to her meat again. We have an innate wildness in us, provoking and stirring us up to run from God. Were we not recovered by some clog fastened on us for our restraint, we should often run into the most desperate paths. And this restraint, I say, is from the indwelling Spirit. He stirs up one thing or other to smite the heart and conscience, when it is under the power of any temptation to sin and folly. So it was with David in the attempt he made upon Saul, when he cut off the lap of his garment. Temptation and opportunity had almost turned him loose from under the power of faith, waiting, and dependence on God, wherein lay the general frame of his spirit; he is recovered to it by a blow upon the heart, from some dismal consideration of the issue and scandal of that which he was about.

6. We have hereby also the renewal, daily renewal, of sanctifying grace. Inherent grace is a thing in its own nature apt to decay and die; it is compared to things ready to die: Rev. iii. 2, “Strengthen the things that remain,” saith Christ to the church of Sardis, “that are ready to die.” It is a thing that may wither and decline from its vigour, and the soul may thereby be betrayed into manifold weaknesses and backslidings. It is not merely from the nature of the trees in the garden of God that their fruit fails not nor their leaves wither, but from their “planting by the rivers of water,” Ps. i. 3. Hence are the sicknesses, weaknesses, and decays of the spirit, mentioned in the Scripture. Should he who had the richest stock of any living be left to spend of it without new supplies, he would quickly be a bankrupt. This also is prevented by the indwelling Spirit. He is the fatness of the olive, that is communicated to the branches continually, to keep them fruitful and flourishing. He is that golden oil which passes through the branches and empties itself in the fruitfulness of the church. He continually fills our lamps with new oil, and puts new vigour into our spirits: Ps. xcii. 10, “My horn shalt thou exalt like the horn of an unicorn: I shall be anointed with fresh oil,” or renewed supplies of the Spirit. And this, Ps. ciii. 5, is called a renewing of youth like the eagle’s, — a recovery of former strength and vigour, new power and ability for new duties and performances. And how comes that about? Saith the psalmist, “It is by God’s satisfying my mouth with good things.” He satisfied his mouth with good things, or answered his prayers. What these good things are which the saints pray for, and wherewith their mouths are satisfied, our Saviour tells us: “Your Father,” saith he, “knoweth how to give good things to them that ask them of him;” which expressing in another place, he saith, “Your Father will give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him of him.” He is given us, and he renews our strength as the eagle’s, making our souls, which were ready to languish, prompt, ready, cheerful, strong in the ways of God. To this purpose is that prayer of the spouse, Cant. iv. 16, “Awake, O north wind; and come, thou south; and blow upon my garden, that the savour of my spices may flow out. Let my Beloved come into his garden, that he may eat of the fruit of his precious things.” She is sensible of the withering of her spices, the decays of her graces, and her disability thereupon to give any suitable entertainment unto Jesus Christ. Hence is her earnestness for new breathings and operations of the Spirit of grace, to renew, and revive, and set on work again, her graces in her, which without it could not be done. All graces are the fruits of the Spirit: Gal. v. 22, 23, “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance.” If the root do not communicate fresh juice and sap continually, the fruit will quickly wither. Were there not a continual communication of new life and freshness unto our graces from the indwelling Spirit, we should soon be poor withered branches. This our Saviour tells us, John xv. 4, 5, “Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me. I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for severed, from me ye can do nothing.” Our abiding in Christ and his in us, is, as was declared, by the indwelling of the same Spirit in him and us. Hence, saith Christ, have ye all your fruit-bearing virtue. And unless that be continued to us, we shall wither and consume to nothing. David, in his spiritually-declined condition, entangled under the power and guilt of sin, cries out for the continuance of the Spirit and the restoring him, as to those ends and purposes in reference whereunto he was departed from him, Ps. li. 11, 12. This the apostle prays earnestly that the Ephesians may receive: Chap. iii. 14, 16, 17, “I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, that he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man; that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love,” etc. The inner man is the same with the new creature, the new principle of grace in the heart. This is apt to be sick, to faint, and decay. The apostle prays that it might be strengthened. How is this to be done? how is it to be renewed, increased, enlivened? It is, saith he, by the mighty power of the Spirit; and he then gives you particular instances in the graces which flourish and spring up effectually upon that strengthening they receive by the might and power of the Spirit, as of faith, love, knowledge, and assurance, the increasing and establishing of all which are ascribed there unto him. He who bestows these graces on us and works them in us doth also carry them on unto perfection. Were it not for our inflowings from that spring, our cisterns would quickly be dry. Therefore our Saviour tells us that he, the Spirit, is unto believers as rivers of living water flowing out of their bowels, John vii. 38, 39; as a never-failing fountain, that continually puts forth living waters of grace in us.

This may a little farther be considered and insisted on, being directly to our main purpose in hand. It is true, indeed, it doth more properly belong unto that which I have assigned for the second part of this treatise, concerning the ground or principle of the saints’ abiding with God for ever; but falling in conveniently in this order, I shall farther press it from John iv. 14: “Whosoever,” saith our Saviour, “shall drink of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst: but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.”

The occasion of these words is known; they are part of our Saviour’s colloquy with the poor Samaritan harlot. Having told her that he could give her another manner of water, and infinitely better than that which she drew out of Jacob’s well, (for which the poor creature did almost contemn him, and asked him whence he had that water whereof he spake, how he came by it, or what he made of himself, — did he think himself a better man than Jacob, who drank of that well which she was drawing water out of?) to convince her of the truth and reality of his promise, he compares the water that he would and could give with that which she drew out of the well, especially as to one eminent effect, wherein the water of his promise did infinitely surmount that which she so magnified: for, verse 13, he tells her, [as] for that water in the well, though it allayed thirst for a season, yet within a little while she would thirst again, and must come thither to draw; “But,” saith he, “whosoever shall drink of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst.” And this he proverb from the condition of the water he giveth: “It is a well of water; not a draught, not a pitcherful, as that thou carriest away, but it is a fountain, a well.” “Yea, perhaps in itself it is so, a fountain or well, but he that drinks of it, he hath but one draught of that water.” “Nay,” saith Christ, “it shall become a well in him; not a well whereunto he may go, but a well that he shall carry about in him. He that hath a continual spring of living water in him shall doubtless have no occasion of fainting for thirst any more.” This our Saviour amplifies and clears up unto her, from the nature and energy of this well of water, “It springeth up into everlasting life;” in these last words instructing the poor sinful creature in the use of the parable that he had used with her. Having taken an occasion to speak to her of heavenly things from the nature of the employment that she was engaged in at present, two or three things may be observed from the words, to give light into their tendency to the confirmation of the truth we have under consideration:—

(1.) The water here promised by our Saviour is the holy and blessed Spirit; this needs no labour to demonstrate. The Spirit himself so interprets it, John vii. 38, 39, “He that believeth on me,” saith our Saviour, “as the Scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. But this spake he of the Spirit, which they that believe on him should receive.” That which in one place he calleth “a well of water springing up into everlasting life in us,” is in the other, in equivalent terms, called “rivers of living water flowing out of our bellies;” and the Holy Ghost tells us that he himself, the blessed Spirit, is signified by that expression. Neither is there any thing bestowed on us that can be compared to a spring of water rising up, increasing, and flowing out abundantly, upon its own account, but the Spirit only. It is only the Spirit that is a fountain of refreshment, from whence all grace doth abundantly flow. It is, I say, the Spirit whereof we have been speaking, who is procured for us and bestowed upon us by Jesus Christ, which, as an everlasting fountain, continually supplies us with refreshing streams of grace, and fills us anew therewith, when the channels thereof in our souls are ready to become dry. And, —

(2.) The state and condition of them on whom this living water is bestowed, in reference thereunto, is described. Saith our Saviour, “He that hath this Spirit of grace, this well of living water, shall never thirst.” It is most emphatically expressed by two negatives, and an exegetical additional term for weight and certainty: Οὐ μὴ διψήσῃ, “He shall never thirst to eternity;” or, as it is expressed, John vi. 35, “He shall never thirst at any time.” There is a twofold thirst:—

[1.] There is a thirst totalis indigentiæ, of a whole and entire want of that men thirst after; and this is the thirst that returns upon men in their natural lives. After they have allayed it once with natural water, they thirst again; and their want of water returns as entire and full as if they had never drank in their lives. Such a spiritual thirst doth God ascribe to wicked men, Isa. lxv. 13, “My servants shall eat, but ye shall be hungry; my servants shall drink, but ye shall be thirsty.” Their hunger and thirst is the total want of grace; not that they do desire it, but that they have it not. And this thirst of total want of grace is that that never shall nor can befall them who have received the Spirit of grace as a well of water in them. They can never so thirst as to be returned again into the condition wherein they were before they drank of that Spirit.

[2.] There is also a thirst of desire and complacency of the good things thirsted after. In this sense they are pronounced blessed who “hunger and thirst after righteousness,” Matt. v. 6. And Peter instructs us to grow in this thirst more and more: 1 Pet. ii. 2, “As new-born babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby.” The enjoyment of the Spirit doth not take away this thirst, but begin it and increase it; and by this thirst, as one means, are we preserved from that total want and indigency, which shall never again befall us.

(3.) Our Saviour gives the reason why and whence it is that they who drink of this water, are made partakers of his Spirit, shall thirst no more, or never be brought to the condition of total want of grace, which they were in before they received him: “Because the water which I shall give them,” saith he, “the Spirit which I shall bestow upon them, dwelleth in them,” as we have showed, “shall be a well of water,” a fountain of grace, “springing up in them to everlasting life,” continuing and perpetuating the grace communicated, unto the full fruition of God in glory. There are, among others, three eminent things in this reason to confirm us in the faith of the former assertion:—

[1.] The condition or nature of the Spirit in believers. He is a “well, a fountain, a spring,” that never can nor will be dry to eternity.

[2.] The constant supplies of grace that this Spirit affords them in whom he is; he is water always “springing up.” So that to say he will refresh saints and believers with his grace, provided that they turn not profligately, wicked, is openly to contradict our Saviour Christ, with as direct opposition to the design in the words, as can be imagined. This springing up of grace, which from him is had and received, which is his work in us, is that whereunto this profligate wickedness is opposed; and whilst that is, this cannot be. There is an everlasting inconsistency between profligate wickedness and a never-failing spring of grace.

[3.] His permanency in this work, and efficacy by it. This living water springs up to “everlasting life.” He ceases not until our spiritual life be consummated in eternity.

This, then, is the sum of this promise of our Saviour: He gives his Holy Spirit to his; who lives in them, and gives them such continual supplies of grace, that they shall never come to a total want of it, as they do of elementary water who have once drunk thereof. And from this spring doth this argument flow: They on whom the Spirit is bestowed to abide with them for ever, and to whom he constantly yields such supplies of grace as that they shall never be reduced to a total want for ever, they shall certainly and infallibly persevere; but that this is the condition of all that come to Christ by believing, or that Christ hath promised that so it shall be with them, is clear from his own testimony now insisted on: ergo.

Unto this argument from the promise of our Saviour, Mr Goodwin endeavours an answer, chap. xi. sect. 10–12, pp. 232, 233, and in the preface of it tells us, “That this scripture doth but face (if so much) the business in hand.” To “face” it, I suppose, is to appear at first view in its defence; and this, indeed, cannot well or colourably be denied, the words of it punctually expressing the very truth we intend to prove thereby; and this, notwithstanding the allaying qualification, “If so much,” must needs somewhat prejudice the ensuing evasions. But we are yet farther confident that upon the more diligent and strict examination, it will be found to speak to the very heart and soul of the business in hand. And the consideration of his reasons to the contrary doth seem only to give us farther light herein and assurance hereof. He says, then, —

“Here is no promise made that they who once believe, how unworthily soever they shall behave themselves, shall still be preserved by God, or the Spirit of God, in believing, or that they shall be necessitated always to believe.”

Ans. This is the old play still. It is not at all our intendment to produce any promise of safeguarding men in the love of God, how vile soever they may prove, but of preserving them from all such unworthiness as should render them utterly incapable thereof. And this is plainly here asserted, in the assurance given of the perpetual residence of the Spirit in them, with such continual supplies of grace from him as shall certainly preserve them from any such state or condition as is imagined. Of being necessitated to believe, I have spoken formerly. The expression is neither used by us, nor proper to the thing itself about which it is used, nor known in the Scripture as to this purpose; and therefore we justly reject it as to its signifying any thing of the way and manner whereby we are preserved by the power of God through faith unto salvation. If it denotes only the certainty and infallibility of the event, as the phrase or locution is improper, so to deny that there is a promise of our being preserved by the Spirit of God in believing is not to answer our argument, but to beg the thing in question, yea, to deny the positive assertion of the Lord Christ. But if there be not such a promise in the words, what then is in them? what do they contain? Saith he, —

“They are only a declaration and assertion made by Christ of the excellency and desirableness of that life which he comes to give unto the world, above the life of nature, which is common unto all. This, by comparing the words with those in the former verse, is evident. ‘Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again; but whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him,’ etc. That is, ‘The best means that can be had and enjoyed to render this present life free from inconveniencies will not effect it; but whosoever shall drink, enjoy, receive, and believe, the doctrine which I shall administer unto him, shall hereby be made partaker of such a life, which shall within a short time, if men be careful in the interim to preserve it, by reason of the nature, and perfect condition, and constitution of it, be exempt from all sorrow, trouble, and inconvenience whatsoever, as being eternal.’ ”

Ans. [1.] That these words are only an assertion of the excellency and desirableness of that eternal life which Christ would give above the natural, that the woman sued to sustain, and that this appears from the context, is said, indeed, but no more. It is true, our Saviour doth divert the thoughts of the woman from the natural life, and care for provision about it, with an insinuation of a better life to be attained. But is this all he doth? or is this the intendment of the words under consideration? Doth not the main of the opposition or difference which at present he speaks unto lie in the supplies that are given for the two kinds of life whereof he speaks? The water, he tells her, which she drew from that well by which he sat, for the supply of her natural life, was such that, after her drinking of it, she should quickly return to the same condition of thirst as formerly before she drank of it; but that which he gave was such as that whoever drank of it should thirst no more, but be certainly preserved in and unto the full fruition of that life whereof it is the means and supply. The opposition is not between the lives continued, but the mean of consolation and its efficacy.

[2.] It is not the condition of the life natural, which is subject to dissolution and not capable of perfection, that is the reason why they thirst again and again that have water natural for the refreshment thereof; but it is the nature of the means itself which is supplied, that is not fitted or suited to permanency and abiding usefulness (as the water which Christ promises is), that he insists on. There is not any thing [which] leads us to suppose that it is the imperfection of life, and not the condition of the means of natural life, that is primarily intended in the instituted comparison, though the frailty and nothingness of that life also be afterward intimated in the substitution of eternal life unto the thoughts of the poor woman in the room thereof.

[3.] I say that it is not the doctrine of Christ, but his Spirit principally, that he is here said to give as water; and that this is not promised to make men partakers of eternal life if in the interim they be careful to preserve it, but to preserve them to it, and to give them that care which as a grace is needful thereunto. The plain intendment of the promise is, that by the water they drink they shall be kept and preserved in the life whereof they are made partakers, unto the fullness and perfection of it; which preservation, by the parenthesis, “If any be careful in the interim to preserve it,” is directly taken away from the Spirit that Christ promiseth, and assigned to men’s own care, even in contradistinction to all the benefits which they receive by him being so bestowed on them. The difference, then, here between Jesus Christ and Mr Goodwin is this:— Christ saith, “The water that he shall give will be a well springing up to everlasting life;” Mr Goodwin, “That it is the care of men to preserve themselves that produces that effect.”

[4.] The present exemption which we have by the water of Christ’s giving is not from sorrow and trouble, but from thirst; that is, from what is opposed unto and is destructive of that life which he also gives, as natural thirst is unto natural life. But of this thirst and our exemption from it I have spoken before. It is not, then, the nature and condition of the life promised that he points unto, no farther than as it is coincident with the means of it here spoken of. Indeed, this means of life is our life, as to the inchoation of it here below, and its daily growing up unto perfection. But he adds, sect. 11, —

“That he doth not oppose that life, which accrues unto men by drinking theft water which he gives them, unto the natural life, which they live by other means in respect of the present condition or constitution of it, or as it is enjoyed by men in this present world, is evident from hence, because he asserts it free from thirst (‘Shall never thirst’). Now, we know that the saints themselves, notwithstanding that life of grace which is in them, by drinking that water that Christ hath given them, are yet subject to both kinds of thirst, as well that which is corporeal or natural as that which is spiritual; yea, the spiritual thirst unto which they are now subject, though it argues a deficiency of what they would farther have or desire to be, and in that respect is troublesome, yet is it argumentative of the goodness of their condition, Matt. v. 6.”

Ans. [1.] The sum of this answer is, That the life here spoken of and promised is not that spiritual life whereof we are here made partakers, but eternal life, which is for to come, which, when any attain, they shall never fail in or fall from; but whether they may or shall attain it or no, here is nothing spoken. But here is no notice taken of the main opposition insisted on by our Saviour, between the supplies of the Spirit for life eternal, which fail not, nor suffer them to thirst to whom they are given, and the supplies of natural life by elementary water, notwithstanding which they who are made partakers thereof do in a short season come to a total want of it again. Instead of answers to our argument from this place, we meet with nothing but perpetual diversions from the whole scope and intendment of it, and at last are told that the promise signifies only that men should not want grace when they come to heaven!

[2.] To prove that there is no promise of any abiding spiritual life here, these words, “They shall never thirst,” are produced. That we shall have our life continued to the full enjoyment of it unto eternity, because such are the supplies of the Spirit bestowed on us that we shall never thirst, is the argument of our Saviour. That there is no such life promised or here to be attained, because in it we shall not thirst, is Mr Goodwin’s.

[3.] It is not the intendment of our Saviour to prove that we shall not thirst because we shall have such a life, but the quite contrary, that we shall have such a life, and shall assuredly be preserved, because the supplies of the Spirit which he gives will certainly take away the thirst, which is so opposite to it as to be destructive of it.