A53708:361
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 9: The Glory of Christ in his intimate Conjunction with 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.
IT is a foolish thing to argue, that because a mere participation of the same Nature among Men, is not sufficient to warrant the Righteousness of punishing one for another; that therefore the conjunction in the same Nature betwixt Christ and the Church, is not a sufficient and just foundation of his suffering for us, and in our Stead! For by an act of his own will and choice, he did partake of of our Nature, and that for this very end, that therein he might suffer for us, as the Holy Ghost expressly declares. Amongst others there neither is nor can be any thing of this Nature, and so no objection from what is equal or inequal amongst them, can arise against what is equal between Christ and the Church. And herein is he glorious and precious unto them that believe, as we shall see immediately.
IT is a foolish thing to argue, that because a mere participation of the same Nature among Men, is not sufficient to warrant the Righteousness of punishing one for another; that therefore the conjunction in the same Nature betwixt Christ and the Church, is not a sufficient and just foundation of his suffering for us, and in our Stead! For by an act of his own will and choice, he did partake of of our Nature, and that for this very end, that therein he might suffer for us, as the Holy Ghost expresly declares. Amongst others there neither is nor can be any thing of this Nature, and so no objection from what is equal or inequal amongst them, can arise against what is equal between Christ and the Church. And herein is he glorious and precious unto them that believe, as we shall see immediately.
2. THERE is a Mystical Conjunction between Christ and the Church, which answers all the most strict real or moral Unions or Conjunctions between other persons or things. Such is the Conjunction between the head of a ⟨p. 111⟩body and its members, or the tree of the vine and its branches which are real; or between an Husband and Wife, which is moral and real also. That there is such a Conjunction between Christ and his Church, the Scripture plentifully declares, as also that it is the Foundation of the Equity of his suffering in its stead. So speaks the Apostle,