Witsius Lord's Prayer

SACRED DISSERTATIONS ON THE
LORD’S PRAYER
Herman Witsius
Foreword by
Joel R. Beeke
Reformation Heritage Books

Grand Rapids, Michigan
Job Name: 568641 PDF Page: txt_568641.p1.pdf pmiller

Sacred Dissertations on the Lord’s Prayer
Reprinted 2010
Published by
Reformation Heritage Books
2965 Leonard St., NE
Grand Rapids, MI 49525
616-977-0889 / Fax: 616-285-3246
e-mail: orders@heritagebooks.org
website: www.heritagebooks.org
The facsimile in this volume is of Sacred Dissertations on the Lord’s Prayer

(Edinburgh: Thomas Clark, 1839). The publisher is deeply grateful to
the den Dulk Foundation for making this reprint possible.
ISBN 978-1-60178-097-3
For additional Reformed literature, both new and used, request a free
book list from Reformation Heritage Books at the above address.

FOREWORD
Dutch theologian Herman Witsius was born in 1636 at Enkhuizen to

God-fearing parents who dedicated him to the Lord prior to his birth.
His father was a man of some renown, having been an elder for more
than twenty years and a member of Enkhuizen’s city council.
Witsius commenced his theological studies at Utrecht under the
tutorship of Professor Johannes Leusden, who taught him Hebrew. By the
time he was sixteen years old, he could speak Latin fluently as well as read
Greek and Hebrew. He also studied under Gisbertus Voetius, Johannes
Hoornbeeck, and Andreas Essenius while in Utrecht and obtained addi-
tional theological lessons from Samuel Maresius at Groningen. In 1653
he returned to Utrecht where he was influenced profoundly by the local
pastor, Justus van den Bogaard. According to Witsius’s later testimony,
it was primarily through van den Bogaard’s preaching and fellowship
that he was preserved “from the pride of science, taught to receive the
kingdom of heaven as a little child, led beyond the outer court in which
he had previously been inclined to linger, and conducted to the sacred
recesses of vital Christianity” (cf. memoir of Witsius prefaced to Sacred
Dissertations on the Apostles’ Creed, 1:xiv).
In 1656 Witsius passed his final examinations and was declared to
be a candidate for the ministry. Because of the abundance of ministers,
he had to wait a full year before receiving a pastoral call. On July 8, 1657,
he was ordained into the ministry at Westwoud at the age of twenty-one.
Two years later he published his first book, ’t Bedroefde Nederlant (The
Sad State of the Netherlands).
At Westwoud, Witsius met considerable opposition owing to the
congregation’s ignorance of their Reformed heritage. Many medieval

[4] FOREWORD
customs were still embedded among the people, such as praying for the
dead and Sunday burials.
In 1661 Witsius was installed in his second congregation, at
Wormer, where he labored with Petrus Goddaeus. Both pastors took
turns teaching a doctrinal class on weekday evenings in order to instruct
their hearers how to “defend the truth of our teachings against false
doctrines,” and to inculcate “the sanctity of our teachings in terms of
God-fearing conduct,” for this is “indeed the pith and marrow of Chris-
tianity.” The outgrowth of these class lectures was Witsius’s frequently
reprinted work, Praktijke des Christendoms (The Practice of Christianity).
In this, as well as all his writings, Witsius demonstrates his Nadere Refor-
matie (Dutch Further Reformation) convictions. The Dutch Further
Reformation was a largely seventeenth-century movement within the
Dutch Reformed churches that zealously strove for the inner experience
of Reformed doctrine and personal sanctification as well as the purifica-
tion of all spheres of life.
Witsius accepted a call to Goes in 1666, where he labored for two
fruitful years. In the preface to De Twist des Heeren met Zynen Wijngaert
(The Lord’s Controversy with His Vineyard, [1669]), he states that he
labored in this congregation with much peace together with three col-
leagues—“two of whom were venerated as fathers, and the third was loved
as a brother.” Of these four ministers working together in one congrega-
tion, Witsius notes: “We walked together in fellowship to God’s house.
We did not only attend each other’s services, but also each other’s cate-
chism classes and other public services, so that what one servant of God
might have taught yesterday, the others confirmed and recommended to
the congregation the next day.” Under the influence of these four min-
isters, “all sorts of devotional practices blossomed, piety grew, and the
unity of God’s people was enhanced” (Het blijvende Woord, 243).
After serving Goes, Witsius went to his fourth pastoral charge, Leeu-
warden, where he served for seven years (1668–1675). In 1673 he was
again joined by a renowned colleague—this time, Wilhelmus à Brakel,
with whom he served two years. At Leeuwarden Witsius played a critical
role in mediating the disputes between Voetius and Maresius to a satis-
factory conclusion.

FOREWORD [5]
In 1675 Witsius was called to be a professor of theology—first at

Franeker (1675–1680), subsequently at Utrecht (1680–1698), and finally
at Leiden (1698–1707).
Shortly after his arrival at Franeker, Witsius received his doctorate in
theology. Under his leadership the small Franeker seminary grew, espe-
cially after the arrival of a youthful, twenty-year-old professor, Johannes
à Marck, in 1678. During his Franeker professorship, Witsius produced
his greatest theological classic, De Oeconomia Foederum Dei (The Economy
of the Covenants Between God and Man), now reprinted again by Reforma-
tion Heritage Books. In this classic Witsius utilizes certain Cocceian
methods while maintaining essentially Voetian theology.
Witsius’s next professorial chair was in Utrecht, where he labored
for eighteen years and also found opportunity to preach a few dozen
times each year. Two times he served as president of the Utrecht Uni-
versity; once he took a leave of absence to study Puritan theology in
England. His years at Utrecht were not free from strife, however, as Wit-
sius felt obliged to oppose the erroneous theology of Professor Hermann
A. Roëll, who advocated a unique mixture of the biblical theology of
Johannes Cocceius and the rationalistic philosophy of René Descartes.
Subsequently, Witsius also opposed the seeds of rationalism in the teach-
ings of Balthasar Bekker.
Finally, at sixty-two years of age, Witsius was called to Leiden as
professor. Within a year (1699), he was appointed regent of the state
college—a position which he held until he retired in 1707 because of ill
health. He died on October 22, 1708, at the ripe age of seventy-two.
Witsius held a central place in the Dutch Further Reformation.
He emphasized that the motto “The Reformed church needs to be ever
reforming” (ecclesia reformata, semper reformanda) applied in his day only
to the church’s life and not to doctrine, since Reformation doctrine
was established as foundational truth. Hence his stress on the need for
godly piety, typical of the Dutch Further Reformation. At the same time,
however, he was one of the first covenant theologians among Dutch
Further Reformation divines who drew close ties between the doctrines
of election and covenant. He was a mediating theologian who aimed at
reconciliation between orthodoxy and federalism, while simultaneously

[6] FOREWORD
stressing biblical theology as a proper study in itself far more than most
of his contemporaries.
Witsius had many and varied gifts, as this reprinted volume readily
reveals. As an exegete, he was gifted in bringing history and historical
theology from numerous sources to bear upon his reasoning. As an ethi-
cist, he probed the heart and guided the believer in his walk of life.
Throughout his life as pastor and later as professor, Witsius was a
man of peace and frequently a mediating figure in disputes. He managed
to remain friends with both Voetius and Cocceius. His motto was “In
essentials, unity; in non-essentials, liberty; in all things, prudence and
charity.” He was noted for meekness and patience. One biographer sum-
marizes his life beautifully in this tribute: “With him it was a fundamental
maxim, that Christ ‘in all things must have the pre-eminence’; and free
and sovereign grace, reigning through the person and righteousness of
the great Immanuel, he cordially regarded as at once the source of all our
hope, and the grand incitement to a holy practice” (memoir, xxvii).
More than a century after Witsius’s death, two of his most signifi-
cant works, originally published in the 1680s in Latin, were translated
into English: Sacred Dissertations on What Is Commonly Called the Apostles’
Creed, translated by Donald Fraser, two volumes (Edinburgh, 1823),
recently reprinted by Reformation Heritage Books, and Sacred Disserta-
tions on the Lord’s Prayer, translated by Rev. William Pringle (Edinburgh,
1839). Both of these works are judicious and practical, pointed and edi-
fying. They are meat for the soul.
Like The Apostles’ Creed, Sacred Dissertations on the Lord’s Prayer is a com-
position of lectures delivered to Witsius’s theological students. As such,
it is a bit heavily freighted with Hebrew and Greek words in its more for-
mal parts; happily, however, Pringle’s able translation also incorporates a
rendering of the original languages into English in most instances.
The Lord’s Prayer represents the third part of Witsius’s trilogy
(together with his works on the covenants and the Apostles’ Creed). It
contains more than its title reveals. Prefaced to a 230-page exposition of
the Lord’s Prayer, Witsius devotes six chapters (approximately 150 pages)
to the subject of prayer in general: “First, to explain what is prayer; next,
in what our obligation to it consists; and lastly, in what manner it ought
to be performed” (p. 1). Though certain portions of this introductory

FOREWORD [7]
material may seem a bit outdated (cf. especially chapter 4), the bulk of it
is eminently practical and often very insightful. For example, Witsius’s
third dissertation, “On the Preparation of the Mind for Right Prayer,”
contains much valuable guidance on a subject seldom addressed and lit-
tle thought of in our hectic day in which, for the most part, we approach
prayer far too carelessly.
Throughout this introductory material, Witsius establishes that gen-
uine prayer is the pulse of the renewed soul. The constancy of its beat is
the grand test of spiritual life. For Witsius, prayer is rightly deemed, in
the words of John Bunyan, “a shield to the soul, a sacrifice to God, and
a scourge for Satan.”
Witsius stresses the twofold channel of prayer: those who would
have God hear them when they pray must hear Him when He speaks.
Prayer and work must be unitedly engaged in. To pray without working
is to mock God; to work without praying is to rob Him of His glory.
Witsius’s exposition of the individual petitions of the Lord’s Prayer
itself is a masterpiece. In many instances, the questions grappled with
receive greater scriptural and practical clarity from Witsius’s pen than
from anything else written to date. For example, where else can such
balance and insight be found on the question of whether the infant
believer and the unregenerate should use the name Father in addressing
God (see pp. 168–70)?
Sacred Dissertations on the Lord’s Prayer represents the cream of
Reformed theology. Sound biblical exegesis and practical doctrinal sub-
stance abound. May God bless this reprint abundantly in the lives of
many, such that the Lord’s Prayer may take on a new depth of meaning
for them. Oh, to be more centered upon God—hallowing His name,
longing for the coming of His kingdom, doing His will!
Herman Witsius influenced many theologians and pastors in his
lifetime—particularly Campegius Vitringa and Bernardus Smytegelt in
the Netherlands, Friedrich Lampe in Germany, and Thomas Boston and
the Erskine brothers (Ralph and Ebenezer) in Scotland. I trust that the
influence of his writings—including this reprinted gem, may also have a
God-glorifying impress upon each of us who “take up and read.”
JOEL R. BEEKE
Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary
Grand Rapids, Michigan


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SACRED DISSERTATIONS ON THE

Reformation Heritage Books

Job Name: 568641 PDF Page: txt_568641.p1.pdf pmiller

The facsimile in this volume is of Sacred Dissertations on the Lord’s Prayer

Job Name: 568641 PDF Page: txt_568641.p2.pdf pmiller

Dutch theologian Herman Witsius was born in 1636 at Enkhuizen to

Job Name: 568641 PDF Page: txt_568641.p3.pdf pmiller

Job Name: 568641 PDF Page: txt_568641.p4.pdf pmiller

In 1675 Witsius was called to be a professor of theology—first at

Job Name: 568641 PDF Page: txt_568641.p5.pdf pmiller

Job Name: 568641 PDF Page: txt_568641.p6.pdf pmiller

Job Name: 568641 PDF Page: txt_568641.p7.pdf pmiller

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