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Pastor Scott Brown, on the left in the video above, is the Director of the National Center for Family-Integrated Churches (NCFIC)

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JOHN OWEN ON WORSHIP (11 FREE MP3s)


Scroll down for 11 free MP3s by John Owen on worship, and five additional free bonus MP3s on Puritan and Reformed worship.

All of the Reformation resources below, by John Owen on worship, are on the Puritan Hard Drive, along with hundreds more on classic Puritan and Reformed worship.

"But such is the corrupt nature of man, that there is scarce any thing whereabout men have been more apt to contend with God from the foundation of the world. That their will and wisdom may have a share (some at least) in the ordering of his worship, is that which of all things they seem to desire. Wherefore, to obviate their pride and folly, to his asserting of his own prerogative in this matter, he subjoins severe interdictions against all or any man's interposing therein, so as to take away any thing by him commanded, or to add any thing to what is by him appointed. This also the testimonies recited fully express. The prohibition is plain, "Thou shalt not add to what I have commanded.'"

- John Owen, Concerning Liturgies and Their Imposition (emphases added).

Question 107: Which is the second commandment?
Answer: The second commandment is, Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me; and showing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments.

Question 108: What are the duties required in the second commandment?
Answer: The duties required in the second commandment are, the receiving, observing, and keeping pure and entire, all such religious worship and ordinances as God has instituted in his Word; particularly prayer and thanksgiving in the name of Christ; the reading, preaching, and hearing of the Word; the administration and receiving of the sacraments; church government and discipline; the ministry and maintenance thereof; religious fasting; swearing by the name of God, and vowing unto him: as also the disapproving, detesting, opposing, all false worship; and, according to each one's place and calling, removing it, and all monuments of idolatry.

Question 109: What are the sins forbidden in the second commandment?
Answer: The sins forbidden in the second commandment are, all devising, counseling, commanding, using, and anywise approving, any religious worship not instituted by God himself; tolerating a false religion; the making any representation of God, of all or of any of the three persons, either inwardly in our mind, or outwardly in any kind of image or likeness of any creature: Whatsoever; all worshiping of it, or God in it or by it; the making of any representation of feigned deities, and all worship of them, or service belonging to them; all superstitious devices, corrupting the worship of God, adding to it, or taking from it, whether invented and taken up of ourselves, or received by tradition from others, though under the title of antiquity, custom, devotion, good intent, or any other pretense: Whatsoever; simony; sacrilege; all neglect, contempt, hindering, and opposing the worship and ordinances which God has appointed.

- Westminster Larger Catechism, Original Edition (emphases added)

JOHN OWEN ON WORSHIP (11 FREE MP3s)

Antichrist's (Rome's) Idolatry Rebuked 1/2 (Chamber of Imagery) by John Owen (Free MP3)

In these two MP3s, John Owen shows the futility of "ceremonies, vestments, gestures, ornaments, music, altars, images, paintings and bodily veneration," as proceeding from the will of man, and not God, in His own worship! A real spiritual feast defending the Reformation's regulative principle of worship.


Antichrist's (Rome's) Idolatry Rebuked 2/2 (Chamber of Imagery) by John Owen (Free MP3)



The Chamber of Imagery in the Church of Rome Laid Open by John Owen (Web, Sermon)

The Chamber Of Imagery In The Church Of Rome Laid Open Or An Antidote Against Popery: A Sermon by John Owen (Hardcover and Paperback at Amazon.com)

The Chamber Of Imagery In The Church Of Rome Laid Open Or An Antidote Against Popery: A Sermon by John Owen (Google Books)

Reformation Worship & Separation by the Puritan John Owen (Free MP3)



Concerning Liturgies and Their Imposition (1 of 4) Puritan/Reformation Worship Vs. the Innovations of Antichrist/Rome and Her Harlot Daughters by John Owen (Free MP3)

First published anonymously in 1662, this edition is from the mid nineteenth-century printing. This discourse by John Owen contains the judgement of our author in regard to measures which gave rise to the most important events in the ecclesiastical history of England. Owen argues against the liturgy, the imposition of which caused (to the astonishment of the Prelatical hierarchy) nearly two thousand Puritan ministers of the Church of England to resign from their pulpits -- rather than sacrifice a clear conscience concerning the commanded worship of God. These men sacrificed their livelihood, families, and even their own lives rather than offend God by practising the false worship propagated by the idolatrous prelates of their day. In conjunction with this, Girardeau, in his Instrumental Music in the Public Worship of the Church (pp. 24-25) notes, "The words of the great theologian, John Owen 'and the British Isles have produced no greater' are solemn and deserve to be seriously pondered: 'The principle that the church hath power to institute any thing or ceremony belonging to the worship of God, either as to matter or manner, beyond the observance of such circumstances as necessarily attend such ordinances as Christ Himself hath instituted, lies at the bottom of all the horrible superstition and idolatry, of all the confusion, blood, persecution, and wars, that have for so long a season spread themselves over the face of the Christian world.'" Worship is a life and death matter -- eternal life and eternal death, and the regulative principle of worship (as it is based on the second commandment) is ultimately at the heart of any biblically faithful discussion of the questions Owen deals with here. Bannerman concurs (in his two volume set The Church of Christ), when he summarizes this book by Owen as "giving the Scriptural argument against the imposition of liturgies as well as of other humanely devised elements in Divine worship, with great clearness and force" (p. 435). Furthermore, the Westminster Theological Journal (55, 1993, p. 322, 3n) notes, "Owen discusses the true nature of NT worship, especially focusing on the challenge made to it by the Church of England. His discourse regarding the imposition of liturgies is one of the most thorough and forceful arguments for the regulative principle of worship as the only principle which safely guards the Christian conscience from the abuse of church power." All this shows that Owen clearly understood that the regulative principle of worship (sometimes called the Scriptural law of worship) was foundational to all true Reformation. Anyone who publicly opposes the regulative principle of worship is not only an idolater (who encourages others to violate the second commandment), but a deceiver also -- and in some cases, this may be evidence of an unregenerate heart. Moreover, Scripture and history clearly demonstrate that Satan always fights with all his might to overthrow this foundational biblical truth concerning worship.



Concerning Liturgies and Their Imposition (2 of 4) Puritan/Reformation Worship Vs. the Innovations of Antichrist/Rome and Her Harlot Daughters by John Owen (Free MP3)



Concerning Liturgies and Their Imposition (3 of 4) Puritan/Reformation Worship Vs. the Innovations of Antichrist/Rome and Her Harlot Daughters by John Owen (Free MP3)



Concerning Liturgies and Their Imposition (4 of 4) Puritan/Reformation Worship Vs. the Innovations of Antichrist/Rome and Her Harlot Daughters by John Owen (Free MP3)



A Discourse Concerning Liturgies and Their Imposition (and the Regulative Principle of Worship) by John Owen (PDF)

A Discourse Concerning Liturgies and Their Imposition by John Owen (Paperback and Kindle Edition at Amazon.com

A Discourse Concerning Liturgies and Their Imposition by John Owen (Web)
Prefatory note.
Chapter I. The liberty given by Christ.
Chapter II. The institutions of the gospel.
Chapter III. The Lord's prayer considered.
Chapter IV. The worship of God as conducted by the apostles.
Chapter V. The practice in the first three centuries.
Chapter VI. Pretended antiquity of liturgies disproved.
Chapter VII. Arguments against liturgies.
Chapter VIII. The authority imposing liturgies considered.
Chapter IX. Liturgies exclude the means appointed by Christ.
Chapter X. Other considerations about the imposition of liturgies.

A Discourse Concerning Liturgies, and Their Imposition by John Owen (Google Books)

The Sin and Judgment of Spiritual Barrenness: Fruitlessness, Unprofitableness and Ruin by John Owen (Free MP3)



Instrumental Music in the Public Worship of the Church (1/3) The Second Commandment In Covenanter, Puritan and Reformation Worship by John Owen, John Calvin, Jonathan Edwards, Samuel Rutherford, et al. (Free MP3)

Instrumental music in public worship was a regulated circumstance of Old Covenant worship and thus Calvin writes, "From this it appears that the Papists, as I shall have occasion to show elsewhere, in employing instrumental music cannot be said so much to imitate the practice of God's ancient people as to ape it in a senseless and absurd manner, exhibiting a silly delight in that worship of the Old Testament which was figurative and terminated with the gospel." Martin Luther also wrote, "The organ in the worship is the insignia of Baal! The Roman Catholics borrowed it from the Jews." You may be shocked to see the strong and unanimous testimony, given by many famous and much respected Protestant Reformers, against the use of musical instruments in the public worship of the one true and living God, found in these MP3s. Moreover, in these MP3s, you will see how clear it was that these Reformers knew that using musical instruments in public worship, after the first coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, was to deny (whether by teaching or practice) Christ's work. It has been said that we should no more use musical instruments in the public worship of God (after Christ's first coming), than we should take a lamb to the front of the church during public worship, to sacrifice it, as if the Lord's coming, and the greater gospel light He brought, had not done away with such shadows of the old administration of the one covenant of grace - or, as John Calvin so aptly wrote about the Papist of his day, that in using musical instruments in the public worship of God they exhibit "a silly delight in that worship of the Old Testament which was figurative and terminated with the gospel." Has Rome's false worship entered you church is this area, contrary to the teaching of the Bible, the Apostles and the best Puritans and Reformers throughout history? If so, these three MP3s are "must listening" material!



Instrumental Music in the Public Worship of the Church (2/3) The Second Commandment In Covenanter, Puritan and Reformation Worship by John Owen, John Calvin, Jonathan Edwards, Samuel Rutherford, et al. (Free MP3)



Instrumental Music in the Public Worship of the Church (3/3) The Second Commandment In Covenanter, Puritan and Reformation Worship by John Owen, John Calvin, Jonathan Edwards, Samuel Rutherford, et al. (Free MP3)


Five Related Free MP3s on Puritan and Reformed Worship

The Regulative Principle of Worship in the New Testament (The Second Commandment In Covenanter, Puritan and Reformation Worship) by Greg Price (Free MP3)

This sermons defends the Biblical (Reformation, Puritan, Covenanter) regulative principle of worship from the New Testament. It also exposes Arminianism in worship (or will-worship). John Calvin wrote, "If it be asked, then, by what things chiefly the Christian religion has a standing amongst us, and maintains its truth, it will be found that the following two not only occupy the principal place, but comprehend under them all the other parts, and consequently the whole substance of Christianity, viz., a knowledge first, of the right way to worship God; and secondly of the source from which salvation is to be sought. When these are kept out of view, though we may glory in the name of Christians, our profession is empty and vain." (Cited in, Carlos, Eire, War Against the Idols:
The Reformation of Worship from Erasmus to Calvin, p. 198, citing from John Calvin's On the Necessity of Reforming the Church, which is free online at https://www.swrb.com/newslett/actualnls/NRC_ch00.htm.).


The Regulative Principle of Worship in the Old Testament (The Second Commandment In Covenanter, Puritan and Reformation Worship) by Greg Price (Free MP3)



Calvinism, Reformation (Reformed) Worship, the Second Commandment and the Regulative Principle of Worship (1 of 2) by Dr. Steven Dilday (Free MP3)



Calvinism, Reformation (Reformed) Worship, the Second Commandment and the Regulative Principle of Worship (2 of 2) by Dr. Steven Dilday (Free MP3)


War Against The Idols: The Reformation of Worship From Erasmus to Calvin by Carlos Eire and John Calvin (Free MP3)

Regarding John Calvin's On the Necessity of Reforming the Church Carlos Eire, in War Against the Idols, notes, "Calvin speaks about the nature of worship and about the seriousness of the sin of idolatry in his 1543 treatise, On the Necessity of Reforming the Church, where he concentrates on the significance of worship for the Christian religion. Calvin's argument, as indicated by the title of the treatise, is that the Church had reached such a corrupt state that its reform could wait no longer. The most significant aspect of corruption singled out by Calvin is the perversion of worship, and it is in explaining this issue that he set forth the basis for his attack on idolatry. Calvin begins by studying the place that worship holds in the Christian faith, and he concludes that it is one of the two elements that define Christianity..."


JohnOwen.org

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John Owen

JOHN OWEN ON WORSHIP (11 FREE MP3s)