A53696:1707
Exercitations on the Epistle to the Hebrews
Exercitations on the Epistle to the Hebrews also concerning the Messiah wherein the promises concerning him to be a spiritual redeemer of mankind are explained and vindicated, his coming and accomplishment of his work according to the promises is proved and confirmed, the person, or who he is, is declared, the whole economy of the mosaical law, rites, worship, and sacrifice is explained : and in all the doctrine of the person, office, and work of the Messiah is opened, the nature and demerit of the first sin is unfolded, the opinions and traditions of the ancient and modern Jews are examined, their objections against the Lord Christ and the Gospel are answered, the time of the coming of the Messiah is stated, and the great fundamental truths of the Gospel vindicated : with an exposition and discourses on the two first chapters of the said epistle to the Hebrews / by J. Owen ...Exercitations on the Epistle to the Hebrews also concerning the Messiah wherein the promises concerning him to be a spiritual redeemer of mankind are explained and vindicated, his coming and accomplishment of his work according to the promises is proved and confirmed, the person, or who he is, is declared, the whole oeconomy of the mosaical law, rites, worship, and sacrifice is explained : and in all the doctrine of the person, office, and work of the Messiah is opened, the nature and demerit of the first sin is unfolded, the opinions and traditions of the antient and modern Jews are examined, their objections against the Lord Christ and the Gospel are answered, the time of the coming of the Messiah is stated, and the great fundamental truths of the Gospel vindicated : with an exposition and discourses on the two first chapters of the said epistle to the Hebrews / by J. Owen ...
London: printed by Robert White for Nathaniel Ponder, 1668
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.
but was, as it were, left, especially in the Earth, and the Inhabitants of it, to be a stage for men to act their enmity against God upon, and a means for the fulfilling and satisfaction of their filthy lusts. This state being unsuitable unto its primitive constitution, preternatural, occasional, and forced, it is said to dislike it, to groan under it, to hope for Deliverance; doing that in what it is, by its nature, which it would do voluntarily were it endowed with a rational understanding. But, saith the Apostle, there is a better condition for this Creation; which whilst it was afar of, it put out its head after and unto. What is this better state? Why the glorious liberty of the Sons of God; that is, the new state and condition that all things are restored unto, in order unto the glory of God, by Jesus Christ. The Creation hath, as it were, a natural propensity, yea, a longing to come into a subjection unto Christ, as that which retrieves and frees it from the Vanity, Bondage and Corruption that it was cast into, when put out of its first Order by sin. And this ariseth from that plot and design which God first laid in the Creation of all things; that they being made by the Son, should naturally and willingly, as it were, give up themselves unto Obedience unto him, when he should take the Rule of them upon the new account of his Mediation.
Thirdly, God would hereby instruct us, both in the Use that we are to make of his creatures, and the improvement that we are to make of the work of the Creation unto his glory. For the first, it is his Will that we should not use any thing as merely made and created by him, though originally for that purpose; seeing as they are so left, they are under the curse, and so impure and unclean unto them that use them, Tit. 1.15. But he would have us to look upon them, and receive them as they are given over unto Christ. For the Apostle in his Application of the eighth Psalm unto the Lord Christ, chap. 2.6, 7, 8. manifests, that even the beasts of the field, on which we live, are passed over in a peculiar manner unto his Dominion. And he lays our interest in their use as to a clear, profitable, and sanctified way of it, in the new state of things brought in by Christ.