A53678:431
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.
Barrenness under the Dispensation of the Gospel is always accompanied with an increase of sin. The Ground which brings not forth Herbs, meet for them by whom it 1is dressed, thrusts forth Thorns and Briars. Let it be observed that spiritual barrenness ⟨p. 78⟩never goes alone. Abounding in sin will accompany it, and doth so. It may be it doth not so openly and visibly for a season, but all things will tend thereunto, and at last it will discover it self. Yea there are no sinners like them, nor sin like theirs, by whom the means of Grace are rejected, or not improved. The first Generation of great provoking sinners, were those of the old World before the Flood. Unto these Noah had been a Preacher of Righteousness, 2 Pet. 2. 5. In his Ministry did the Spirit of Christ strive with them, until God affirmed it should do so no more, Gen. 6. 3. but they were disobedient and barren, 1 Pet. 3. 19, 20. And this issued in those provoking sins, which God could not bear withal but brought the Flood upon the world of ungodly. The next was these Hebrews, unto whom the Gospel had been preached; And they proved a Generation no less wicked than that before the Flood, insomuch as their own Historian affirms that he verily believed, that if the Romans had not come and destroyed them, God would have poured Fire and Brimstone on them from Heaven as he did upon Sodom. And the third Generation of the same kind are the Apostate Christian Churches, whose condition and state is described in the Revelation. This is the issue of Barrenness, under Gods Culture and Watering, and it will be so; For,
Barrenness under the Dispensation of the Gospel is always accompanied with an increase of sin. The Ground which brings not forth Herbs, meet for them by whom it 1is dressed, thrusts forth Thorns and Briars. Let it be observed that spiritual barrenness ⟨p. 78⟩