A53678:802
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
Exegesis of chapter 6 › Exegesis of verses 17, 18, 19, 20: Verse 17, 18, 19, 20.
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.
(1) There are some of them wherein there is necessarily included a respect unto some antecedent moral Rule, which puts an express condition into the Declarations, although it be not expressed, and is always in like cases to be understood. Thus God Commands the Prophet to declare, that yet forty days and Nineveh should perish, Jonah 3. 4. Here seems to be an absolute Declaration of the Purpose of God without any condition annexed; a positive prediction of what he would do, and should come to pass. Either God must change his Purpose or Nineveh must be overthrown. But whereas this destruction was foretold for fin, and impenitency therein, there was an antecedent moral Rule in the case, which gives it as complete a condition as if it had been expressed in words. And that is, that Repentance from sin, will free from the punishment of sin; so that the prediction had this limitation by an antecedent Rule, unless they Repent; And God declares that this Rule puts a condition into all his Threatenings, Jerem. 18. 7, 8. And this was the course of Gods dealing with the House of Eli, 1 Sam. 2. 30. God doth neither suspend his Purpose on what men will do, nor take up conditional resolutions with respect thereunto; He doth not purpose one thing, and then change his Resolutions upon contingent emergencies; for he is of one mind and who can turn him, Job 23. 13. nor doth he determine, that if men do so on the one hand, that he will do so; and if otherwise, that he will do otherwise. For instance, there was no such Decree or Purpose of God, that if Nineveh did Repent it should not be destroyed; and if it did not Repent it should perish. For he could not so purpose unless he ⟨p. 158⟩did not foresee what Nineveh would do; which to affirm, is to deny his very Being and Godhead. But in order to accomplish his Purpose that Nineveh should not perish at that time, he threatens it with Destruction in a way of prediction, which turned the minds of the Inhabitants to attend unto that antecedent moral Rule which put a condition into the prediction, whereby they were saved.