A53708:271
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.
4. IN this Condition, the first Act of Love in Christ towards us, was in Pity and Compassion. A Creature made in the Image of God, and fallen into Misery, yet capable of Recovery, is the proper Object of Divine Compassion. That which is so celebrated in the Scripture, as the Bowels, the Pity, the Compassion of God, is the acting of Divine Love towards us, on the consideration of our Distress and Misery. But all Compassion ceaseth towards them whose condition is irrecoverable. Wherefore the Lord Christ pitied not the Angels that fell, because their Nature was not to be relieved. Of this Compassion in Christ, see Heb. 2. 14, 15, 16. Isa. 63. 9.
5. AS then we lay under the Eye of Christ in our Misery, we were the Objects of his Pity and Compassion: But as he looketh on us as recoverable out of that state, his Love worketh in and by Delight. It was an inconceivable Delight unto him to take a prospect of the deliverance ⟨p. 78⟩of mankind unto the Glory of God, which is also an act of Love, see this divinely expressed, Prov. 8. 30, 31; as that place hath been elsewhere explained.
6. IF it be enquired, whence this compassion and delight in him should arise, what should be the cause of them; that he who was eternally blessed in his own self-sufficiency should so deeply concern himself in our lost forlorn Condition? I say it did so, merely from the Infinite Love and Goodness of his own Nature, without the least procuring inducement from us, or any thing in us,