PUBLIC-DOMAIN CHRISTIAN BOOK
The Works of John Owen — Volume 19
John Owen · 284,889 words · 276 reading sections
Section 1
dee ’ f he ahr ‘— Pere is THE WORKS Or JOHN OWEN, D.D. EDITED BY THE REV. WILLIAM H. GOOLD, EDINBURGH, VOL. XIX. SD ewer JOHNSTONE AND HUNTER, LONDON AND EDINBURGH. M.DCCC.LIY. ip aes * e. — = — wv ? Ea = ee =a a Sey a AN EXPOSITION OF THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS. WITH PRELIMINARY EXERCITATIONS. BY…
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2. And this doctrine, concerning the priesthood of Christ and the sacrifice that he offered, is on many accounts deep and mysterious. This our apostle plainly intimates in sundry passages of this Epistle.- With respect hereunto he saith, the discourse he intended was dusep- ponvevros Aye, “ hard to be uttered,”—or rath…
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5. There are also sundry things which may contribute much light SECT. 5. } THE OFFICE OF PRIESTHOOD. 7 unto this doctrine, and be useful in the explication of the terms, no- tions, and expressions, which are applied unto the declaration of it, that cannot directly and orderly be reduced under any singular text or pas…
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33 SECT. 6-8.] THE OFFICE OF PRIESTHOOD. 9 the colour of their garments, or their countenances made black with the soot of their fire and sacrifices. But this is not the proper sig- nification of the word; only, denoting the priesthood to be exercised in beautiful garments and sundry ornaments, it was thence tra- duc…
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10. It is confessed that this name is sometimes used to signify secondary princes, those of a second rank or degree, but is never once applied unto a chief, supreme prince, or a king, though he that SECT. 9-11.] THE OFFICE OF PRIESTHOOD. Il is so was sometimes, by virtue of some special warrant, cohen also. The Jews,…
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SECT. 12.] THE OFFICE OF PRIESTHOOD. 13 took in war. So Camillus framed his yow unto Apollo when he went to destroy the city of Vei: “Tuo ductu Pythice Apollo, tuo- que numine instinctus, pergo ad delendam urbem Veios, tibique hinc decumam partem predz voveo,” Liv., lib. v. cap. xxi. The like instances occur in other…
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SECT. 1, 2.] PRIESTHOOD OF CHRIST. 15 cerning his glory in the salvation of mankind considered—No order of them to be conceived that is consistent with the pre-ordination of the incarnation without respect to sin and redemption. 18. The arguments of Osiander— The Son, how the image of the Father—The order of subsisten…
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A, Thais yap d&pysepeds 2& dvdpimrav AawCavdwevos datp avdpwarwy beitic- Taras Tu Tpos Thy Osby, iva wpoopepn OHpa re nal voiug Uatp dmapriay, saith our apostle, Heb. v. 1. What is here affirmed of the high priest (71733 12) is true in like manner concerning every priest; only, the high priest is here mentioned by way …
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6. The same is the state of things with reference unto sacrifices. There is, as was said before, a relation between them and the SECT.6,7.] - PRIESTHOOD OF CHRIST. 19 priesthood. Hence is that saying in Bereshith Rabba: }2 nams yin3 ;—* As is the altar for sacrifice, so are the priests that belong unto it.” And by sa…
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8. Again, sacrifices require faith in the offerer of them: Heb. xi. 4, “ By faith Abel offered a sacrifice.” And faith in the subject respects its proper object, which is divine revelation. Men can be- lieve no more with divine faith than is revealed, and all our actings in faith must answer the doctrines of faith. Now…
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-and misery, the whole of it is éypugov, or unwritien, and therefore uncertain and curious; yea, dvriypagoy, or contrary to what is writ- ten, and therefore false; and dacyoy, or destitute of any solid spiri- tual reason for the confirmation of it. 11. First, It is wnwritten,—nowhere revealed, nowhere mentioned in the…
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13. Thirdly, This opinion is destitute of spiritual reason, yea, is * 13, 1] PRIESTHOOD OF CHRIST. 25 contrary unto it. The design of God to glorify himself in the crea- tion and the law or covenant of it, and his design of the same end in a way of grace, are distinct; yea, they are so distinct as, with re- ference u…
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(4.) The perfection of the wniverse, or universality of beings, is to be regulated by their state, condition, and end. And this they had in their first creation, without any respect unto the incarnation of the Son of God; for the perfection of all things consisted in their relation unto God, according to the law and or…
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Ans. (1.) It seems to be supposed in this argument that there was indeed a revelation made unto Adam, Gen. ii. 23, of the incar- nation of Christ; so that nothing remains to be proved but that he did not foreknow his fall, whence it would ensue that the pretended revelation belonged unto the state of innocency. But, in…
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All agree that the glory of God is the utmost and supreme end that he intendeth in all his decrees. Although they are free acts of his will and wisdom, yet, on the supposition of them, it is absolutely necessary, from the perfection of his being, that he himself or his glory be their utmost end. His absolute all-suffic…
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Tt is true, indeed, Christ was pre-ordained, or [rather], the Son of God was so, to be incarnate before the foundation of the world, 1 Pet, SECT. 18.] PRIESTHOOD OF CHRIST. 33 i, 20. Buthow? Even as he was “manifested in these last times.” As he was pre-ordained to be incarnate, so he was to be so of the blessed Virg…
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19. First, His principal plea was taken from the “image of God” wherein man was created: “ For this,” he saith, “was that human nature, consisting of soul and body, in the outward shape, lineaments, and proportion, which it hath in our persons, which the Son of God was to take upon him. God having ordained that his Son…
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21. Moreover, it is objected, “That the incarnation of Christ was a thing decreed for itself, and as to its futurition depended only on the immutable counsel of God; but this supposition, that it had respect unto the fall of man and his recovery, makes it to depend on an external accident, which, as to the nature of th…
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24. The invalidity of this argument unto his especial purpose may easily be laid open; for setting aside all consideration of his mass, Christian religion hath not only in it a proper sacrifice, but that SECT. 23, 24.] PRIESTHOOD OF CHRIST. 39 alone and single sacrifice with respect whereunto any services of men in t…
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. SECT. 25, 26. ] PRIESTHOOD OF CHRIST. 41 all sorts of men, even when they had lost allnotion and remembrance of the promise whereunto they were originally annexed; for they had a double advantage for the perpetuating themselves:—First, A suitableness untodhe general principle of giving an acknowledgment unto God, i…
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1. From what hath been discoursed, it is manifest that the counsel of God concerning the priesthood and sacrifice of his Son; to be in- carnate for that purpose, had respect unto sin, and the deliverance of the elect from it, with all the consequents thereof; and the same truth hath also been particularly discussed and…
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5. It is an easy way which some have taken, in the exposition of this place, to solve the difficulty which appears in it. God, they say, Se a eee = SECT. 4, 5.] IN THE COUNSEL OF GOD. 45 in it speaks “ more regio,” “in a kingly manner,” by the plural number. “Mos est,” saith Grotius, “ Hebreeorum de Deo, ut de reg…
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- 0 ee a SECT. 6.] IN THE COUNSEL OF GOD. * 47 fool;” and well refutes it from these words of God himself, Gen. ix. 6, “Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed; for in the image of God made he man,” with other considera- tions of the text. R. Saadias would have it that God spake these words p21 s…
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But these things are sophistical and vain. The unity of the divine nature is always supposed in our disquisitions concerning the persons subsisting therein. And this is so clearly and positively asserted in the Scripture, particularly by Moses, Deut. vi. 4, besides SECT. 7.] IN THE COUNSEL OF GOD. 49 that any apprehe…
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Again, what he concludes from his arbitrary supposition,—namely, that hence “it doth not follow that God took counsel with others besides himself,”—is nothing to the argument in hand; for we prove SECT. 7.] IN THE COUNSEL OF GOD. 51 not hence that God consulted with others besides himself, nor would it be unto our pu…
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Again, man was made in the image and likeness of him that speaks and all that are as it were conferred with: “ Let us make man in our image.” But man was not made in the image and likeness of angels, but in the image and likeness of God,—that is, of God alone, as it is expressed in the next verse. And the image here me…
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plain, according to the analogy thereof. But that one person alone is intended in these words, he proceeds to prove:-— —, “ Primo enim hoc omnibus linguis usitatum est, ut numero plu- rali, cum de se cum de aliis etiam singularibus passim sine diserimine utantur, sic Christus cum de se solo loqueretur. Joh. ui. 11, a…
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‘Nothing can be more effectually pleaded in the behalf of the cause opposed by this man than what is here alleged by him in op- position thereunto; for it is certain that the holy writers would never have ascribed the creation of all unto one, and expressed it in the singular number, as they do most frequently, had it …
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9. The same truth is further revealed and confirmed, Prov. viii. 22-31, “The LorD possessed me in the beginning of his way, be- fore his works of old. I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, or ever the earth was.. When there were no depths, I was brought forth; when there were no fountains abounding with wa…
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The Jews, then, affirm that the wisdom here intended is the wis- dom of the law, as in the law, or the wisdom that God used in giving the law; but how the things here ascribed unto Wisdom can belong unto the law given on Sinai is hard to conceive. To take off this difficulty, they tell us that the law was one of the se…
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“Quod ad primum attinet, ne illud quidem indubitatum est, verba preescripta a sapientia dici. Si enim versio Pagnini, Merceri, et textus Hebraicus consulatur, apparebit verba illa proferri ab in- telligentia vel prudentia, que in hoc capite tum conjuncte, tum separatim, cum sapientia ponitur, ut apparet ex ver. 1 et 14…
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There are in the Scripture, allegories, apologues, parables, but all of them so plainly, evidently, and professedly such, and so unavoid- ably requiring a figurative exposition from the nature of the things themselves (as where stones are said to hear, and trees to speak), that there is no danger of any mistake about t…
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The apostle says not that Jesus Christ spake only in the latter — days, Heb. i. but that God in the last days spake unto us in his — Son. And the immediate speaking unto us by the Son in the last days, as he was incarnate, hinders not but that he spake before by his Spirit in the prophets, as the apostle Peter affirms …
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And we may inquire in what sense this is spoken of the Son with respect unto the Father. The foundation of the allusion lies in the eternal mutual love that is between the Father and the Son. There- unto is added the consideration of the natural dependence of the Son on the Father,—compared unto the love of a father un…
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70 ORIGINAL OF THE PRIESTHOOD OF CHRIST [EXERC. XXVII. the book,” Heb. x. 7, is no other but the counsel of God concerning the salvation of the elect by Jesus Christ, enrolled as it were in the book of life, and thence transcribed into the beginning of the book of truth, in the first promise given unto Adam after the …
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1 Vol. xii, of works, p. 240. 72 ORIGINAL OF THE PRIESTHOOD OF CHRIST [EXERC, XXVII. Peter’s confession, Matt. xvi. 16, John vi. 69, “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God,” was nothing but a due application of the faith ofthe Judaical church unto the person of our Saviour ; which was all that he then called…
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74 ORIGINAL OF THE PRIESTHOOD OF CHRIST [®XERC. XXVIL. bea prophecy of the Messiah (for, as we have showed, the elder mas- ters were of that mind), so he that shall be moved with the autho- rity of the later doctors in the interpretation of those places of Scripture which concern the promised Messiah, that is, Jesus C…
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Fourthly, For that “concourse of people, consultations, and noise and preparation for war,” which though, as he says, “ mentioned in the text, he cannot find in the actings of men against the Lord Christ,” it is all an imagination of the same folly; for there is no mention of any such preparation for war in the text as…
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1. Our next inquiry is after the nature of those eternal transac- tions which, in general, we have declared from the Scripture in our foregoing Exercitation. And these were carried on “per modum foederis,’ “ by way of covenant,” compact, and mutual agreement, between the Father and the Son; for although it should seem …
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“ Cxsa jungebant foedera pored.””—Virg. Ain., viii. 641. And hence was the ancient formula of ratifying covenants by the striking and therewith killing of a hog, mentioned by the Roman historian, Liy. i. 24, “ Qui prior defexit publico consilio dolo malo, tu illum Jupiter sic ferito, ut ego hunc porcum hodie feriam; t…
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Thirdly, An absolute promise is also called 13, “a covenant,” the covenant of God: Isa. lix. 21, “As for me, this is my covenant with them, saith the Lorp; My Spirit that is upon thee, and my words which I have put in thy mouth, shall not depart out of thy mouth.” And God also calls his decree constitutive of the law o…
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Lastly, The end of a covenant is the disposal of the things about which the covenant is made to the mutual content and satisfaction of all persons concerned. Hence was the ancient form, “Quod felix faustumque sit huic et illi populo.” If either party be absolutely and finally detrimented by it, it is no absolute, free,…
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10. Again; the transactions before insisted on and declared are proposed to have been by the way of “ counsel,” for the accomplish- ment of the end designed in a covenant: Zech. vi. 13, Dinw nsy pM p2 IA. The counsel about peace-making between God and man was “between them both;” that is, the two persons spoken of, —na…
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SECT. 11-13.] THE FATHER AND THE SON. _ 87 First, To demonstrate that the things which he underwent in his human nature were just and equal, inasmuch as himself whose it was voluntarily consented thereunto. Secondly, To manifest that those very acts which he had in command from his Father were no less the acts of his …
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(2.) Again, some things are made lawful or good, or suited site the glory, honour, or satisfaction and complacency, of them that make SECT. 14, 15.] THE FATHER AND THE SON. 89 the covenant, by virtue of somewhat arising in or from the covenant itself. And of this sort are most of the things that are disposed in the c…
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SECT. 16, 17.] THE FATHER AND THE SON. 91 and glorify, one or more of his glorious properties, and the rest con- sequentially in and by them. So in some of his works he doth peculiarly glorify justice, in some mercy, in some his power. We may therefore, as to the end of this holy, eternal compact, con- sider what are …
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SECT. 18. | THE FATHER AND THE SON, 93 I shall a little invert the order of these things, that I may not have occasion to return again unto them after we are engaged in our more peculiar design. We may therefore, in the first place, consider the promises that in this compact or covenant were made unto the Son upon his…
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19. The conditions required of, or prescriptions made unto, the undertaker in this covenant, for the end mentioned, and under the promises directed unto, do complete it. And these may be reduced unto three heads:— (1.) That he should asswme or take on him the nature of those whom, according unto the terms of this cove…
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For when God came to reveal this counsel of his will, this branch and part of the eternal compact between him and his Son, and to represent unto the church what had been transacted within the veil, for their faith and edification, as also to give them some previous in- sight into the manner of the accomplishment of the…
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This being a matter of great importance, and without a due stat- ing whereof the doctrine concerning the priesthood of Christ, or the nature and use of this office of his, cannot be rightly conceived or apprehended, I must somewhat largely insist upon it. And I shall do it the rather because the truth in this matter is…
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4, For between the consideration of this righteousness of God and the actual exercise of it, which must respect somewhat without him, to be made by him, somewhat in his creatures, there must be inter- posed a consideration of the right of God, or that which we call “jus dominii,” a right, power, and liberty of rule or …
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became equal, holy, meet, just, and good. And whereas it was neces- sary that the law of God should be accompanied with promises and threatenings, the eternal rectitude of God’s nature acting righteously in their execution or accomplishment is his truth. Hence truth and righteousness are in the Scripture frequently use…
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8. On this state of things, on the necessary exercise of this right- eousness of God upon the supposition mentioned, depend both the necessity and especial nature of the priesthood of Christ. Designed it was in grace, as we have before proved, on supposition that God would save sinners. But it was this justice that mad…
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Fourthly, The justice ef God required a punishment of sin as a punishment. Hereunto do belong the way and degree, the time, season, and manner of it; but these things are not necessarily stated in the justice of God. The assignation and determination of them belong unto his sovereign will and wisdom. So would things ha…
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11. (8.) It is denied that sin and misery do constitute the proper object of mercy. It is required that every thing contrary to the nature of God in sin and the sinner be taken out of the way, or there is no proper object for mercy. Such is the guilt of sin unsatisfied for. And moreover, faith and repentance are requir…
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110 NECESSITY OF THE PRIESTHOOD OF CHRIST [EXERC. XXIX. ment of sin is thence necessary unto God, as he is the holy, supreme governor of the world. Hence this holiness of God is sometimes expressed by jealousy, or hath jealousy joined with it, or accompanying it: Josh. xxiv. 19, © “ He is an holy God; he is a jealous…
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But it is pleaded, “ That the intention of the expression here- used is to plead for mercy, that the just should not be utterly destroyed with the unjust; and that we improve the testimony unto a contrary 4 end, namely, to prove that God must punish all sin.” But all that ~ is hence aimed at is no more but that God …
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This is the foundation of his whole discourse in that place, which he asserts as a thing evident, but undertakes not at all to prove. But this supposition is openly false; for the justice and mercy of God may be considered either in themselves or with respect unto their effects. In neither sense are they contrary or op…
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And the venom hereof hath so infected the minds of many, in these latter days, that they have even rejected the whole mystery of the gospel, and taken up with a religion which hath more of Judaism, Mohammedanism, and Gentilism in it, than of Christianity. And indeed if it be so, that in the remission of sins there is n…
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20. In the first chapter of his third book he again attempts an opposition unto this righteousness of God. “Justitia ista,” saith he, “cui vos satisfaciendum esse omnino contenditis, in Deo non residet, sed effectus est voluntatis ipsius. Cum enim Deus pecca- tores punit, ut digno aliquo nomine hoc opus ejus appellemus…
1,238 wordsSource & rights
Public-domain historical edition (1850–1870); OCR text from Internet Archive. OCR may contain scanning/transcription errors. Verify quotations against page images when precision matters.
Project Gutenberg source record →
Historical Christian writing; not Scripture.