The Puritan Hope

Iain Murray

The Outpouring of the Holy Spirit:The Prosperous State of the Christian Interest Before the End of Time, by a Plentiful Effusion of the Holy Spirit.

JOHN HOWE

John Howe (1630-1705), a graduate of Cambridge and Oxford, rose to prominence as a preacher in the 1650’s despite his youth and, though of the presbyterial way in church polity, he became a domestic chaplain to Oliver Cromwell. Ejected from Torrington, Devon, in 1662, Howe was one of the central figures in the troublous period for nonconformity which began at that date. He was settled in London from 1678. A hearer who listened to Howe in 1695 says that he ‘preached incomparably’. The following material is extracted from his fifteen sermons on Ezekiel 39.29 preached in 1678 and first published in 1725. They are contained in the large one-volume edition of Howe’s Works, reprinted in 1837 but not, curiously, in the three-volume edition of 1848. About the same period they were also reprinted separately by the Religious Tract Society under the title The Outpouring of the Holy Spirit. The sub-title, given above, was the original title.

‘Neither will I hide my face any more from them. for I have poured out my Spirit upon the house of Israel, s’aith the Lord God.’
Ezekiel 32.29

That which is reasonable to be designed and expected in discourses of this nature, and concerning such a subject as we have here before us, should be comprised within such particulars as these:
1. To establish the belief of this thing in the substance of it, being a thing so very plain in the scripture, that there shall be a permanent state of tranquillity and prosperity unto the church of Christ on earth.
2. To settle the apprehension fully on the connexion between an external prosperity and this internal flourishing of religion in the church by the communication of the Holy
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Ghost in larger and fuller measure; the connexion of these with one another reciprocally, so as that there can never be an externally happy state unto the church without that communication of the Spirit, and that with it there cannot but be prosperity.
Take the former part of this connexion, that is, that without such a communication of the Spirit an external state of tranquillity and prosperity to the church can never be, we should design the fixing of this apprehension well; for certainly they are but vain expectations, fond wishes, to look for such prosperity without reference unto that large and general communication of the Spirit. Experience hath done very much in several parts of the world, if we had no prospect nearer us, to discover and refute the folly of any such hope, that any external good state of things can make the church happy. How apparent is it that if there should be never so much a favourable aspect of time, yet if men are left to their own spirits, all the business will presently be for one person to endeavour to lurch* another and to grasp and get power in their hands! And then they will presently run into sensuality, or make it their business to serve carnal and secular interests, grasping at this world, mingling with the spirit of it. Thus it cannot but be, it must be, if an effusion of the Spirit be not conjunct in time with any such external smiles of time. There can be no good time unto the church of God without the giving of another Spirit, his own Spirit; that, or nothing, must make the church happy.
And that cannot but do it; which is the other side of the connexion. For, let us but recount with ourselves, what it must needs be, when such a Spirit shall be poured forth, as by which all shall be disposed and inclined to love God, and to devote themselves to him, and to serve his interest, and to love one another as themselves, and each one to rejoice in another’s welfare, so as that the good and advantage of one shall be the joy and delight of all! When men shall have no designs one upon another, no endeavours of tripping up one another’s heels, nor of raising themselves upon one another’s ruins! This cannot but
* Defeat, pilfer.

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infer a good state of things, excepting what may be from external enemies. It is true, indeed, that when there was the largest communication of the Spirit that ever was in the church, yet it was molested by pagans; but then it was not troublesome in itself, it did not contend part by part with itself. And if the communication of the Spirit, as we have reason to expect in the latter days, be very general, so as not only to improve and heighten the church in respect of internal liveliness and vigour, but also to increase it in extent as no doubt it will, then less of trouble is to be feared from without.
There is a very great aptness to distrust the efficacy of such an effusion of the Spirit unto this purpose and to entertain very cold thoughts about it. The Spirit! How should this Spirit do such a thing as this; bring about a universal tranquillity and peace, and in all respects a more prosperous and flourishing state for the church of God in the world? That same expression of the prophet, ‘Is the Spirit of the Lord straitened?’ Micah 2.7, imports a very great aptitude even in a professing people, to have a great deal of distrust about the Spirit, and the effects to be accomplished and brought about by him. It is a keen and pungent way of speaking to speak expostulatorily, as here. ‘What! have you learned no better, you house of Jacob, than to think that the Spirit of the Lord can be straitened? that there can be any limits and bounds set unto his power and influence?’
There is as great an aptness to trust in other means and let out our hearts to them. An arm of flesh signifies a great deal, when the power of an almighty Spirit is reckoned as nothing. And persons are apt to be very contriving, and prone to forecast, how such and such external forms would do our business and make the church and the christian interest hugely prosperous. As great an extravagancy as if we would suppose that fine sights would fill a hungry stomach, or that gay clothes would cure an ulcerous body. It is a very vain thing to think that anything that is merely external can reach this end, or do this business. For it cannot be done by any other way, by any might or power, but by the Spirit of the living God.
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There is nothing that is so genuine and natural a product of the effusion of the Spirit as the life of religion in the world. And it may be shown how the Spirit may have an influence to this purpose, both mediately and immediately.
I. Mediately: He may have an influence to the promoting of the life, and vigour, and power of religion, by the intervention of some other things: as,
(i) By means of the kings and potentates of the earth. We have had experience how, in all times and ages, our own nation hath felt the different influences of the princes under which we have been. But we are not now to be confined within such narrow bounds; for we are speaking of the state of the church of God in general. And think how it will be if such scriptures ever come to have a fuller accomplishment than they have yet had; when in all the parts of the christian world kings shall be nursing fathers, queens nursing mothers, when the church shall suck the breasts of kings, when the glory of the Gentiles shall, by them, be brought into it! How much will it make for the prosperity of religion everywhere in the world when these shall become, in all places, the proper characteristics of princes, that they scatter the wicked with their eyes, that they are just, ruling in the fear of the Lord, and are upon the people, as showers upon the mown grass and as clear shinings after rain; are men of courage, men fearing God and hating covetousness! Think whether this will not do much to the making of a happy state as to the interest of religion in the world, when they shall universally concur, or very generally, in the practical acknowledgment that Christ is King of kings, and Lord of lords, willingly resign, as it were, their sceptres, or hold them only in a direct and designed subordination and subserviency to him and his sceptre!
(2) By and through them, upon whom the work of the gospel is incumbent in the church, the ministers of it. In such a time, when,the Spirit shall be poured forth plentifully, surely they shall have their proportionable share. And when such a time as that shall once come, I believe you will hear much other kind of sermons, or they will who shall live to such a time, than you
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are wont to do now-a-days. Souls will surely be dealt with at another kind of rate. It is plain, too sadly plain, there is a great retraction of the Spirit of God even from us. We know not how to speak living sense unto souls, how to get within you: our words die in our mouths, or drop and die between you and us. We even faint, when we speak; long experienced unsuccessful-ness makes us despond. We speak not as persons that hope to prevail, that expect to make you serious, heavenly, mindful of God, and to walk more like christians. The methods of alluring and convincing souls, even that some of us have known, are lost from amongst us in a great part. There have been other ways taken, than we can tell how now to fall upon, for the mollifying of the obdurate, and the awakening of the secure, and the convincing and the persuading of the obstinate, and the winning of the disaffected. Sure there will be a larger share that will come even to the part of ministers when such an effusion of the Spirit shall be as is here signified. They shall know how to speak to better purpose, with more compassion and sense, with more seriousness, with more authority and allurement, than we now find we can.
We go on to speak,
II. Of the Holy Spirit’s more immediate and direct influence upon the souls themselves to be wrought upon; which was the second head propounded to be spoken to. And so we are to reckon that his greater influence (when there shall be such an effusion of the Spirit as we have been speaking of) will show itself in these two great and noble effects. (I) In numerous conversions; and (2) In the high improvement and growth of those who sincerely embrace religion, their eminent holiness: which, when we consider, will make the matter we were last speaking of more apprehensible to us, what example may do to the spreading of it yet further and further; as things once growing, grow apace, especially such things as are themselves of a very growing and diffusive nature. The scripture speaks very much in many places to both these purposes.
(i) There are many passages of scripture that respect the matter of the church’s increase by numerous conversions;

and say, Come and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, and to the house of the God of Jacob,’ Mic. 4.1, 2. The same words as before, with very little variation. And that passage of a great prince’s dream, of the stone cut out of the mountain without hands, which became a great mountain, and filled the earth, Dan. 2.34, 35. I can, for my part, neither understand it in so carnal a sense as some do, nor in so limited a sense as others. Certainly it must signify some greater thing than we have yet seen. And such numerous accessions to the church by the power of the Holy Ghost in converting work, seem plainly intended and pointed out, Isa. 54.1. ‘sing, 0 barren, thou that didst not bear; break forth into singing and cry aloud, thou that didst not travail with child: for more are the children of the desolate (of her that was so) than the children of the married wife, saith the Lord.’ There should be a far greater fruitfulness than in the time of their more formed, stable church state, when they appeared a people in covenant-relation, married to God. This, though spoken directly and immediately of the Jewish church, means in and by them the universal gospel church, whom that church did in some sort typically represent. ‘Enlarge the place of thy tent, (so it follows, ver. 2, 3.) and let them stretch forth the curtains of thy habitations; spare not, lengthen thy cords, and strengthen thy stakes: for thou shalt break forth on the right hand, and on the left, and thy seed shall inherit the Gentiles, and make the desolate cities to be inhabited.’ The like is in Isa. 66.6, etc. ‘A voice of noise from the city, a voice from the temple, a voice of the Lord that rendereth recompense to his enemies. Before she travailed, she brought forth; before her pain came, she was delivered of a man child. Who hath heard such a thing? Who hath seen such things? shall the earth be made to bring forth in one day? or shall a nation be born at once?’ What can this intend but some such mighty effusion of the Spirit by which there shall be great collections and gatherings in of souls as it were on a sudden? To the same purpose in Isa. 60.5. ‘Thou shalt see and flow together, and thine heart shall fear and be enlarged, because the abundance of the sea shall be converted unto thee, (the islanders, or those that
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inhabit the more maritime places,) and the forces of the Gentiles shall come unto thee.’ This is introduced in ver. 4, ‘Lift up thine eyes round about and see: all they gather themselves together, they come to thee, thy sons shall come from far, and thy daughters shall be nursed at thy side.’ And ver. 8, ‘Who are these that fly as a cloud, and as the doves to their windows?’ Gathering in like great flocks of doves, that, like a dense, opaquous cloud, darken the air as they fly! Which numerous increase is most emphatically signified by the apt and elegant metaphor used, Psa. 110.3, where it is said the subjects of Christ’s kingdom should be multiplied as dew from the ‘womb of the morning’. That is a vast and spacious womb; imagine how innumerable drops of dew distil out from thence; such shall the multitude of the converts be in the christian church.
That such scriptures have been fulfilling ever since the first dawnings of christianity, there is no doubt; but the magnificence of the expressions of many of these prophecies seems yet to be very far from being answered by correspondent effects. The passage in Joel 2.28 where it is said that the Spirit shall be poured forth upon all flesh, we are told, it is true, in Acts 2.16, that it had its accomplishment: ‘This is that which was spoken by the prophet,’ said Peter, when the people began to wonder at what they saw, upon that strange pouring forth of the Spirit on the day of Pentecost. But it is plain that he did not intend that the completion of that prophecy was confined to that point of time: for afterwards, in ver. 38, 39 he tells them that were now awakened, and cried, ‘Men and brethren, what shall we do?’ that they must ‘repent and be baptized, and they should receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. For’, saith he, ‘the promise (that promise, most apparently, that he had reference to before) is unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall calL’ So that all that was intended in that prophecy is not fulfilled, till God hath done calling. And may other scriptures seem to intimate that there shall be a time of far more general calling than there hath been hitherto; when the receiving and gathering in of the Jews shall be as life from the dead, as a
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resurrection from the dead, Rom. 11.15. And when ‘The fulness of the Gentiles shall come in’, ver. 25. The way of speaking implies that that fulness or plenitude was yet behind, to succeed after the apostle’s time; and no such time hath succeeded yet.
(2) There are many scriptures also that speak of the great improvement and growth of christians by the immediate work of the Spirit of God. When I say immediate, I do not mean as if the Spirit works without means; but that by the means he doth himself immediately reach his subject; and therefore that all the operations of the Spirit, whether in converting or in building up of souls, lie not in the instruments, but strike through all, so as to reach their subject. But that only by the by. Many scriptures speak of the great improvement of the church in point of holiness; so that it shall increase not only in extent, but in glory, and in respect of the lustre, loveliness, and splendour of religion in it; that it shall become a much more beautiful and attractive thing, according to the representation which it shall have in the profession and conversation of them that sincerely embrace it. Which I suppose to be more especially pointed at in such passages as these: ‘Arise, shine, for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee. For behold, the darkness shall cover the earth, and gross darkness the people; but the Lord shall arise upon thee, and his glory shall be seen upon thee. And the Gentiles shall come to thy light, and kings to the brightness of thy rising,’ Isa. 6o. 1—3. This speaks that religion should be so glorious a thing in its own subject, as by that means to be inviting and attractive to those who were without the church; and so doth directly and immediately speak of such an effect as should be wrought by the Spirit of God upon persons seriously religious themselves, to make them far to excel and outshine the glory of former times and ages. This also is the more peculiar aspect and reference of that prophecy in Mal. 4.2. ‘But unto you that fear my name, shall the Sun of righteousness arise with healing in his wings.’ That is, in the day of the Lord spoken of in ver. 1 ‘Behold, the day cometh that shall burn as an oven; and all the proud, yea,
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and all that do wickedly shall be stubble, and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the Lord of hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch.’ Here is a prediction of such an operation of the Spirit as hath the actual fearers of God already for the subject of it; upon them the Sun of righteousness shall arise w4h reviving, cherishing beams, and make them spring, and prosper, and flourish, even as calves of the stall, as it is there expressed. Religion will not then be such a faint, languid, impotent thing, as now it is, that makes men differ very little from other men; makes them but to look, and walk, and converse as others do.
(3) Other scriptures speak of both these effects together; and so of the increase of the church both ways at once, both in extent and glory. As I reckon all those may.. be understood to have that import that speak of the new heavens and the new earth that should be in the latter times: which are only metaphorical expressions; the heaven and the earth being the universe, making up the frame and compages* of nature. These expressions are only borrowed, and denote how universal and glorious a change should be in the world; for these new heavens and that new earth are specified by the same adjunct, ‘wherein dwelleth righteousness’, in one of those texts. We have it mentioned twice in the prophecy of Isaiah, that he would ‘create new heavens, and a new earth’, chap. 65.17, 66.22. and in 2 Pet. 3.13 that in these there should dwell righteousness. The renovation should consist in this; and both the universality and the intensive perfection of it are signified. The heavens and the earth, that is, the whole frame of things, should be the subject of the alteration; and this alteration should be a renovation, the making of them new, that is, better; as the newness of things is an ordinary scripture expression of the excellency of them. Now the creation of these must refer to this time of the great restitution: as John speaks, ‘I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away’, Rev. 21.1. The former frame of things was all vanished and gone; nothing was like its former self but ‘all things were
* A system of many parts united.

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tion, and which no man would have thought of! Men are very unapt to entertain the belief and expectation of things that are so much above the verge and sphere of ordinary observation. We expect to see what we have been wont to see; and men are apt to measure their faith by their eyes for the most part in reference to such things. Only that can be done which they have seen done, and men are hardly brought to raise their faith and expectation to higher pitches than this.
I shall shut up the present discourse with desiring you to remind and reflect upon the tendency of all this; that our souls may be possessed with a serious apprehension, and thence have a lively hope begotten in them, of such a time and state of things to come, wherein religion shall prosper and flourish in the world, though it now be at so low an ebb. I may say to you as Paul did to Agrippa, ‘Why should it be thought a thing incredible with you, that God should raise the dead?’ Acts 26.8. Why should it be thought an incredible thing that there should be a resurrection of religion? ‘Thy dead men shall live, and together with my dead body shall they arise.’ He hath said it who knows how to make it good; he who is the resurrection and the life, Isa. 26.19.
And really it would signify much to us, to have our hearts filled with present hope; though we have no hope (as was formerly supposed, admitting that supposition) of seeing it with our own eyes in our own days. Such a hope would however not be unaccompanied with a vital joy. ‘Abraham rejoiced to see my day, and he saw it, and was glad;’ though it was above two thousand years before. Plain it is, there is not a more stupifying, benumbing thing in all the world than mere despair. To look upon such a sad face and aspect of things through the world as we have before our eyes; to look upon it despairingly and with the apprehension that it never will, never can be better; nothing can more stupify and bind up the powers of our souls and sink us into a desponding meanness of spirit. But hope is a kind of anticipated enjoyment and gives a present participation in the expected pleasantness of those days, how long soever they may yet be off from us. By such a lively hope we have a
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presentation, a feeling in our own spirits of what is to come, that should even make our hearts rejoice and our bones to flourish as a herb. Religion shall not be an inglorious thing in the world always; it will not always be ignominious to be serious, to be a fearer of the Lord, to be a designer for heaven and for a blessed eternity. When these things which common and prevailing custom hath made ridiculous, with their own high reasonableness, shall have custom itself and a common reputation concurring, how will religion at that time lift up its head, when there is such a blessed conjunction! It is strange to think that such very absurd things as the neglecting of God and the forgetting of eternity, the disregarding of men’s souls and everlasting concernments, should even be justified by custom, so that nobody is ashamed of them because they do but as other men do in these things.
To be immersed all their lifetime in the world — to mind nothing else but earthly business, as if they were made all of earth and only for earth — such most absurd things even seem to be justified by common practice. Men are not ashamed of them because they are but like their neighbours. But when persons shall agree with one another in being serious, heavenly, avowing the fear of God, in express devotedness and subjection to him; when the concurrence of common practice shall be taken in with the high reasonableness of the things themselves; how magnificently will religion look in that day! If we would but labour so to represent the matter to ourselves beforehand, by a lively hope of such a state of things we should have the anticipated enjoyment of the felicity of those times; and have a great deal of reason, though it may be we are to suffer hard and grievous things in the mean while, to compose ourselves, and to enter upon that state of suffering very cheerfully; to wait patiently and pray earnestly that of so great a harvest of spiritual blessings to come upon the world in future time, we may have some first-fruits in the mean time; as it is not unusual, when some very great and general shower is ready to fall, that some previous scattering drops light here and there as forerunners.
And we should encourage ourselves in the expectation of a
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present portion, sufficient for our present turn and the exigency of our own case: for we have this comfortable consideration before us that there is always so much of the Spirit to be had that will serve the necessities of every christian who seriously seeks it. He will give his Spirit to his children who ask him, as readily, surely, as they that are evil will good gifts to theirs. At all times there is so much of the Spirit to be had, as, though it will not mend the world, it will mend us; if it will not better the external state of things, it will better our spirits; and so if not keep off suffering, yet will prepare and qualify us for it. That surely is a greater thing than to have suffering kept off, for suffering is but an external and natural evil, this internal and spiritual. It would be a great thing if persons would admit the conviction of this (and there is not a plainer thing in all the world), that patience is better than immunity from suffering: that great and noble effect of the Spirit of God upon the soul whereby it is brought into an entire possession of himself! Is that to be compared with a little advantage that only my flesh and outward man is capable of? Good things are to be estimated by the greatness and nobleness of their subjects. Surely the good of the mind, of the soul, must needs be far better than that which is only for the good of the body, of this perishing, external frame. And therefore for us, it is as great a thing as we can reasonably wish, that we may have such a portion of the Spirit imparted to us that will qualify us to pass well and comfortably through any time. And have not we reason to expect this, even on the grounds of what is foretold concerning what shall be done in the world hereafter? May I not look up with a great deal of hope and encouragement and say, ‘Lord, that Spirit of thine that shall one day so flow down upon the world, may not I have some portion of it to answer my present necessities? And that Spirit that can make the world new, that can create new heavens and a new earth, cannot that make new one poor soul? cannot it better one poor heart?’ To have a new heart and a right spirit created and renewed in us is better to us than all the world. And we have no reason to look up diffidently and with despondency, but with hearts full of expectation. He will give his Spirit to them that ask him.
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