A53708:442
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 12: Differences between our beholding the Glory of Christ by Faith in this World, and by si…
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.
THESE Differences may be referred unto two heads. (1.) Those which arise from the different Natures and Actings of those Means and Instruments whereby we apprehend this glory of Christ, namely, Faith and Vision. And (2.) Those that arise from the different Effects produced by them. Instances in each kind shall be given.
1. THE View which we have of the glory of Christ by Faith in this World, is obscure, dark, inevident, reflexive. So the Apostle declares, 1 Cor. 12. 12. Now we see through a Glass darkly [Greek or Hebrew]. Through or by a Glass in a Riddle, a Parable, a dark Saying. There is a double figurative Limitation put upon our View of the glory of Christ, taken from the two ways of our Perception of what we apprehend, namely, the Sight of things, and the hearing of Words.
1. THE View which we have of the glory of Christ by Faith in this World, is obscure, dark, inevident, reflexive. So the Apostle declares, 1 Cor. 12. 12. Now we see through a Glass darkly 〈non-Latin alphabet〉. Through or by a Glass in a Riddle, a Parable, a dark Saying. There is a double figurative Limitation put upon our View of the glory of Christ, taken from the two ways of our Perception of what we apprehend, namely, the Sight of things, and the hearing of Words.
THE first is, that we have this View not directly, but reflexively, and by way of a Representation, as in a Glass. For I take the Glass here, not to be Optical, or a Prospective which helps the Sight, but a Speculum, or a Glass which reflects an Image of what we do behold. It is a Sight like that which we have of a Man in a Glass, when we see not his Person or Substance, but an Image or Representation of them only, which is imperfect.