A53708:264
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.
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. BECAUSE it is an act suited unto that glorious Excellency of his Nature, wherein he is Love; for God is Love, 1 John 4. 8, 9. And the first Egress of the Divine Properties must therefore be in an act of communicative Love. And whereas this Election being an Eternal Act of the Will of God, can have no moving cause but what is in himself, if we could look into all the Treasures of the Divine Excellencies, we should find none whereunto it could be so properly ascribed, as unto Love. Wherefore,
2. IT is styled Love, because it was free and undeserved, as unto any thing on our part. For whatever good is done unto any altogether undeserved, if it be with a design of their Profit and Advantage, it is in an Act of Love, and can have no other cause. So is it with us in respect of Eternal Election. There was nothing in us, nothing foreseen, as that which from our selves would be in us, that should any way move the Will of God unto this Election: For whatever is good in the best of men is an effect of it, Ephes. 1. 4. Whereas therefore it tends unto our eternal Good, the spring of it must be Love. And,
2. IT is stiled Love, because it was free and undeserved, as unto any thing on our part. For whatever good is done unto any altogether undeserved, if it be with a design of their Profit and Advantage, it is in an Act of Love, and can have no other cause. So is it with us in respect of Eternal Election. There was nothing in us, nothing foreseen, as that which from our selves would be in us, that should any way move the Will of God unto this Election: For whatever is good in the best of men is an effect of it, Ephes. 1. 4. Whereas therefore it tends unto our eternal Good, the spring of it must be Love. And,