A53678:1348
A continuation of the exposition of the Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the…
A continuation of the exposition of the Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Hebrews viz, on the sixth, seventh, eight, ninth, and tenth chapters : wherein together with the explication of the text and context, the priesthood of Christ ... are declared, explained and confirmed : as also, the pleas of the Jews for the continuance and perpetuity of their legal worship, with the doctrine of the principal writers of the Socinians about these things, are examined and disproved / by J. Owen ...
London: printed for Nathaniel Ponder, 1680
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
5. God in his Wisdom so Ordered all things, that the taking away of the Priesthood of the Law, gave it its greatest Glory. For it ceased not before it had fully and absolutely accomplished the End whereunto it was designed, which is the Glory and Perfection of any Ordinance: even the Mediation of Christ himself shall cease, when all the Ends of it are fulfilled. And this End of the Priesthood was most Glorious; namely, the bringing in that of Christ, and therein of the Eternal Salvation of the Church. And what more Honourable Issue could it come unto? The Jews by their pretended Adherence unto it, are they which cast the highest dishonour upon it; for they own that it is laid aside, at least that it hath been so for 1600 Years, and yet neither the End of it effected, nor any thing brought in by it, unto the greater advantage of the Church.
The next thing considerable in these words, is the Inference which the Apostle makes from his Assertion and the Proof of it: There is made of Necessity a change also of the Law, [Greek or Hebrew], Of Necessity. It is not a note of the necessity of the Inference 1from the Proposition in the way of Argument, but the necessary dependence of the things mentioned, the one on the other. For whereas the whole Administration of the Law so far as it concerned the Expiation of sin by Sacrifices, and the Solemn Worship of God in the Tabernacle or Temple, depended absolutely on, and was confined unto the Aaronical Priesthood, so as that without it no one Sacrifice could be offered unto God, nor any Ordinance of Divine Worship be observed; that Priesthood being abolished and taken out of the way, the Law it self of Necessity and unavoidably ceaseth and becometh useless. It doth so, I say, as unto all the proper Ends of it, as a Law Obligatory unto the Duties required in it.
The next thing considerable in these words, is the Inference which the Apostle makes from his Assertion and the Proof of it: There is made of Necessity a change also of the Law, 〈non-Latin alphabet〉, Of Necessity. It is not a note of the necessity of the Inference