A53678:546
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.
2. Watch against the disadvantages of an outward condition. Those of high degree are usually encompassed with so many circumstances of distance, that they know not how to break through them unto that familiarity of Love that ought to be among Believers. But as the Gospel on all civil or secular accounts leaves unto men all their Advantages of Birth, Education, Offices, Power, manner of converse, free and entire, so with respect unto things purely Spiritual it lays all level among Believers. In Jesus Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek, Barbarian nor Scythian, bond nor free, but all are one in Christ, and it is the new Creature alone that makes the difference. Hence in all affairs of the Church we are forbid to have any respect unto the outward state and condition of men, Jam. 2. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. We all serve the same common Lord and Master, who when he was rich, for our sakes became poor. And if we for his sake lay not aside the consideration of all our Riches with that distance of mind and conversation from the poorest Saints, his Disciples. I speak not now of the laying out of mens wealth for the use of the poor, but of lowliness of mind in condescending unto a Brotherly Communion in Love with the meanest of them. Let therefore the greatest know, that there is no Duty of Spiritual Love that unbecomes them. And if their state and condition keep them ⟨p. 108⟩from that Communion of Love which is required of all Believers, it is their Snare and Temptation. If they converse not familiarly with the lowest of them as they have occasion, if they visit them not when it is requisite, if they bear them not in their Hearts and Minds as their especial Church Relation requires, they sin against the Law of this holy Love.
3. Watch against provocations. Whilst we and others are encompassed with the Body of our Infirmities, we shall meet with what we may be prone so to esteem. Where men are apt to turn every Infirmity, every failing, every neglect, and it may be every mistake, into a provocation and to take offence thereat, never expect any thing of Love from such Persons. For as their frame is a fruit of pride, and self-conceit, so it is diametrically opposite unto all the principal actings of Love described by our Apostle,