John Owen on private revelations... or, was it Packer?

Perhaps you've seen the absolutely wonderful quotation from John Owen:

What a great quotation! Mic drop!

If you're a regular, you know what a stickler I am for sourcing quotations. So I wanted to source this one in Owen.

My search, however, was fruitless. No online quotation that I found sourced the quotation, and my search of Logos' Owen collection turned up nothing.

But then I hit on this quotation, which I can source. Speaking of Quakers, "if their ‘private revelations’ agree with Scripture, they are needless, and if they disagree, they are false."

That's it, right? Pretty much the exact wording.

One problem: it isn't Owen.

Close, though. It's actually J. I. Packer writing about Owen, from the book A Quest for Godliness. He isn't quoting Owen, he's summarizing him.

Still, it's a great quotation, though leaky canoneers try hard to evade its point.

UPDATE: All that said, here is an actual and terrific quotation from Owen which does sound some similar notes. It is from volume 4 of Owen's Works:

Since the finishing of the canon of the Scripture, the church is not under that conduct as to stand in need of such new extraordinary revelations. It doth, indeed, live upon the internal gracious operations of the Spirit, enabling us to understand, believe, and obey the perfect, complete revelation of the will of God already made; but new revelations it hath neither need nor use of;—and to suppose them, or a necessity of them, not only overthrows the perfection of the Scripture, but also leaveth us uncertain whether we know all that is to be believed in order unto salvation, or our whole duty, or when we may do so; for it would be our duty to live all our days in expectation of new revelations, wherewith neither peace, assurance, nor consolation is consistent. 

[John Owen, The Works of John Owen, ed. William H. Goold, vol. 4 (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, n.d.), 62]

Pat Robertson: still a bill, still unpaid

Long ago and more than once I singled out Pat Robertson as one of the church's unpaid bills. He only exists because Charismaticism is accepted. Therefore his endless pop-offecies are tolerated.

I know some of our great, sound — okay, I have to say otherwise-sound — Charismatic bros and sises will say, "Are you nuts? I've got nothing to do with Pat Robertson! I think he's a barking loon!" Yeah, but, you've pried open the Canon enough to allow that some sort of new revelation is ongoing, and your otherwise-sound faith and practice has falsely legitimatized the notion that God is muttering, hinting, insinuating, and eyebrow-waggling semi-revelation to believers' sanctified gizzards.

So, given that — who knows? Maybe God is talking to Pat Robertson... on the Charismatic premise. (I affirm a very different premise.)

So now you can see on this this video where Pat links the earthquake to a pact Haitians made with the Devil. Yes, that's right: they made a deal with the Devil, the Devil delivered on his part of the bargain, but now God's mad at them and has cursed them. That's why they're poor, and nearby countries are rich.

At least he restrained the gleeful grinning and borderline giggling he often does when delivering oracles of doom.

So here's the things we "learn" from the prophet Pat:

1. A nation can make a deal with the Devil
2. The Devil can be trusted to deliver on the deal
3. The Devil drove the French out of Haiti
   
4. Unborn generations will be punished for a deal made back in the 1800s.
   
5. Punishment looks like poverty and earthquakes; or, put another way
6. Earthquakes and poverty mean your nation is cursed by God
7. Conversely, a nation that is financially prosperous and doesn't have ruinous earthquakes is blessed by God
8. Not only can Robertson read God's mind and speak for him, Robertson can read Satan's mind, too, and speak for him. (Quote: They said, “We will serve you if you get us free from the prince.” True story. And so the devil said, “OK, it’s a deal.” )
   

 I still agree with myself: Pat Robertson! That thing you do with your mouth! STO-O-O-O-OP!

UPDATE: Sometimes irony can be pretty ironic. Robertson caps his little yarn with the words, "True story." Yeah, except it turns out it isn't. Turns out it's a legend. Oopsie.

Another chuckle on being observant, and how we aren't

This was suggested to me by reader Pam Siegfried. (Thanks, Pam!)

But this is pure chuckles... and a bit thought-provoking. Unfortunately, it's a video that doesn't allow "embedding" (i.e. I can't post it directly here), so you'll have to go to YouTube to see it.

This reminded me of the other video I put up about how observant we aren't, and some implications for Biblical exegesis. (Thanks to faithful readers Missionaries in La Ceiba, Honduras, for jogging my memory).

It's a challenge. Of course, our default setting is unobservant in the most fatal way. We're born into a universe with God's fingerprints all over it, signposts to His glory everywhere (Psalm 8:1-4; 19:1-6). What's more, inside, we know it — but we suppress that knowledge (Romans 1:18-25). It doesn't serve our drive to put ourselves in God's throne (Romans 3:11-12). We're blinded (Ephesians 4:17-19). We insist that we don't see any sign of God... as we hold our hands over our eyes.

When God draws us to Himself in Christ, He gives life to our dead spirits and sight to our blind eyes (Ephesians 2:1-10; 4:20-24).

But that doesn't mean we're "done"!

We — Christians! — are continually needy. That is, we continually need to humble ourselves before God, to pray that He opens our eyes to see what's before us (Psalm 119:18), to open the eyes of our understanding to what we have in Christ (Ephesians 1:15-23), to reward our thoughtful study with understanding we'd not otherwise have (2 Timothy 2:7).

Otherwise, we're just as easily distracted and duped as the folks we're chuckling at, in that video.