Owen on Spiritual gifts

Prepping for a sermon series in 1 Corinthians 12-14, I've been re-reading John Owen on the gifts of the Spirit (end of volume 4 of his Works, if you're interested).  There's lots of good stuff in there, but there are some big negatives which are interesting in and of themselves.  It can be instructive to see, at a few centuries' remove, the errors made by theologians, and to think how these ideas might have had an impact on the course of church history!

Here are the two biggest problems with Owen's account of spiritual gifts:

1.  He ties gifting almost exclusively to the ordained ministry.  Although there are occasional hints that the Spirit gives gifts to the average layman, Owen has almost no interest in those gifts.  He sees Spiritual gifting and ecclesiastical office as almost completely correlated.  This has some definite positive effects: he is pretty damning when it comes to the appointment of persons not clearly gifted for Christian ministry to ecclesiastical office.  Without the gifting of the Spirit, nobody can be legitimately appointed to a church office, no matter what human calling they receive, and the human attempt to construct a ministry independent of the Spirit's equipping represents a revolt against the authority of Christ.  But negatively, where is the body?  Where is every-member ministry?

I think we can trace this problem to Owen's historical situation.  The Magisterial Reformation never did quite escape the clericalism of the mediæval period.  Moreover, Owen was concerned, in the face of various groups of 'enthusiasts', for the maintenance of order in the church - a concern which he read from 1 Corinthians.  But for the 17th century Englishman, order meant constitutional order, and that meant officers.  One wonders how the over-reliance on church officers which this view implies has affected church life in the English speaking world for the last 300 years.

2.  He doesn't think the church is on mission.  That might be stating it too baldly, but one of Owen's arguments for the cessation of the 'extraordinary' gifts (prophecy, healings, miracles, tongues etc.) and some of the 'extraordinary' offices (prophets and evangelists) is that they were necessary during the initial period of mission, when the gospel was new to the world and much opposed.  When the churches are planted, there is no more need for such things.  The regular work of the ministry is upbuilding within the church, not mission.  The churches, being established, have in the Word written and preached by Spirit-empowered ministers everything that they need to maintain (and if lost, recover) their identity and life in Christ.  There is no need for miracles anymore.

Owen had other reasons for cessationism, but this one at least will hardly stand up to scrutiny.  The church, in so far as it is true to its given identity according to the witness of the NT, is always being sent.  One could say it is always being established.  The gospel is always new to the world, even if the world has been hearing it for centuries.  Even if the whole population of the world were nominally Christian, the church would still be sent by her Lord - would still be on mission.  I wonder how the loss of this perspective contributed to the inner weakness of the churches and their vulnerability to a rising secularism.