A53708:117
Meditations and Discourses on the Glory of Christ
Meditations and discourses on the glory of Christ, in his person, office, and grace with the differences between faith and sight applied unto the use of them that believe / by the late Reverend John Owen, D.D.
London: printed by B.A., 1691
Title page typeset from the transcription.
Chapter 2: The Glory of the Person of Christ, as the only Representative of God unto the Church.
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. WE may also instance in the Love of God. The Apostle tells us, that God is Love, 1 Joh. 4. 8. Divine Love is not to be considered only in its effects, but in its Nature and Essence; and so it is God himself; For God is Love. And a blessed Revelation this is of the Divine Nature: It casts out Envy, Hatred, Malice, Revenge, with all their Fruits, in Rage, Fierceness, Implacability, Persecution, Murder, into the Territories of Satan. They belong not unto God in his Nature or Actings; for God is Love. So the same Apostle tells us, that he who slew his Brother, was of the wicked one, 1 Joh. 3. 12. He was of the Devil his Father, and his works did he do.
2. WE may also instance in the Love of God. The Apostle tells us, that God is Love, 1 Joh. 4. 8. Divine Love is not to be considered only in its effects, but in its Nature and Essence; and so it is God himself; For God is Love. And a blessed Revelation this is of the Divine Nature: It casts out Envy, Hatred, Malice, Revenge, with all their Fruits, in Rage, Fierceness, Implacability, Persecution, Murther, into the Territories of Satan. They belong not unto God in his Nature or Actings; for God is Love. So the same Apostle tells us, that he who slew his Brother, was of the wicked one, 1 Joh. 3. 12. He was of the Devil his Father, and his works did he do.
BUT the Enquiry is as before; How shall we have a view of this Love, of God as Love? By what way or means shall we behold the Glory of it? It is hidden from all living, in God himself. The Wise Philosophers, who discoursed so much of the Love of God, knew nothing of this, that God is Love. The Most of the Natural Notions of men about it are corrupt, and the best of them weak and imperfect. Generally the Thoughts of men about it, are, that he is of a facile and easy Nature, one that they may make bold withal in all their occasions, as the Psalmist declares,