A53708:417
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 11: The Glory of Christ in the Recapitulation of all things in him.
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 State, all things that were made, depended immediately on God himself, without the Interposition of any other Head of Influence or Rule. They had the Continuance of their Being and its Preservation, from the immediate Actings of these Properties of the Divine Nature whereby they were made; and their Dependence on God was by Virtue of that Law, which was implanted on the Principles and Powers of their several Natures by God himself.
4. IN this State, all things that were made, depended immediately on God himself, without the Interposition of any other Head of Influence or Rule. They had the Continuance of their Being and its Preservation, from the immediate Actings of these Properties of the Divine Nature whereby they were made; and their Dependance on God was by Vertue of that Law, which was implanted on the Principles and Powers of their several Natures by God himself.
5. THUS in the beginning God created the Heavens and the Earth. He provided himself of two distinct Rational Families, that should depend on him according to a Law of Moral Obedience, and thereby give Glory to him; ⟨p. 131⟩with two distinct Habitations for them cognate unto their Nature and Use; Heaven above, and the Earth beneath. The Earth he appointed for the Habitation of Man, which was every way suited unto the Constitution of his Nature, the Preservation of his Being, and the End of his Creation in giving Glory to God. Heaven he prepared for the Habitation of the Angels, which was suited unto the Constitution of their Nature, the Preservation of their Being, and the End of their Creation in giving Glory to God. Wherefore as Man had Power and Dominion over all things here below, and was to use them all unto the Glory of God, by which means God received Glory from them also, though in themselves brute and inanimate; so the Angels had the like Dominion over the Celestial and Ethereal Bodies, wherewith God had fitted the Place of their Habitation, that through the Contemplation and Use of them, God might have a Revenue of Glory and Praise from them also. To suppose any other Race of Intellectual Creatures, besides Angels in Heaven, and Men on Earth, is not only without all Countenance from any Divine Testimony, but it disturbs and disorders the whole Representation of the Glory of God made unto us in the Scripture, and the whole Design of his Wisdom and Grace as declared therein. Intellectual Creatures not comprehended in that Government of God, and Mystery of his Wisdom in Christ, which the Scripture Reveals, are a Chimera framed in the Imaginations of some Men, scarce duly sensible of what it is to be wise unto Sobriety.