A53678:543
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.
And this of particular Churches is an effect of the Wisdom of Christ providing a way for the constant and due exercise of that Love towards some which is to be extended unto all as opportunities are offered. And those who would persuade us to forsake these Assemblies, and to break up their Societies, that returning into the larger Communion of the many, we may have and exercise Love, do but persuade us to cast away our Food that we may be strong, and to throw away our Clothes that we may be warm.
And this of particular Churches is an effect of the Wisdom of Christ providing a way for the constant and due exercise of that Love towards some which is to be extended unto all as opportunities are offered. And those who would perswade us to forsake these Assemblies, and to break up their Societies, that returning into the larger Communion of the many, we may have and exercise Love, do but perswade us to cast away our Food that we may be strong, and to throw away our Cloathes that we may be warm.
Let us therefore not wait for other seasons, nor think any outward thing previously necessary unto the due discharge of this great Duty of the Gospel. We are in our way, let us go about our work. And I shall only at present give a few Cautions against the common hinderances of it, because it must yet be spoken unto again immediately.
1. Take heed of a froward natural temper. Wherever this is predominant, it either weakens Love, or sullies the Glory of its exercise. Some good persons have naturally so much of the Nabal in them, that a man scarce knows how to converse with them. They mingle all the sweet fruits of Love with so much harshness and sourness, as makes them ungrateful unto those who most need them. I think it is a mistake, that Grace only subdues our sinful corruptions; it will if cared for and used as it ought, cure our natural Dispositions, so far as any evil, or occasion of evil is as it were incorporated with them. If it maketh not the froward, meek, the angry, patient, the peevish and morose, sweet and compliant, how doth it make the Leopard lye down with the Kid, and the Wolf dwell with the Lamb,