A53713:101
Of Communion with God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost
Of communion with God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, each person distinctly in love, grace, and consolation, or, The saints fellowship with the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, unfolded by John Owen ...Of communion with God the Father, Sonne, and Holy Ghost, each person distinctly in love, grace, and consolation, or, The saints fellowship with the Father, Sonne, and Holy Ghost, unfolded by John Owen ...
Oxford: printed by A. Lichfield for Tho. Robinson, 1657
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.
2. Our love is consequential in both these regards. 1. In Respect of the Love of God. Never did Creature turn his Affectitious §. 23 towards God, if the heart of God were not first set upon him. 2. In Respect of sufficient causes of Love. God must be revealed unto us as lovely & desirable, as a fit & suitable object unto the soul to set up its Rest upon, before we can bear any love ⟨p. 29⟩unto him. The Saints (in this sense) do not love God for nothing, but for that Excellency, Loveliness, and desirableness that is in him. As the Psalmist says in one particular, Psal. 116. 19. I love the Lord BECAUSE! so may we in general, we love the Lord BECAUSE! Or as David in another case, what have I now done, is there not a cause? If any man enquire about our love to God, we may say, what have we now done, is there not a cause?
2. Our love is consequentiall in both these regardes. 1. In Respect of the Love of God. Never did Creature turne his Affectitious §. 23 towards God, if the heart of God were not first set upon him. 2. In Respect of sufficient causes of Love. God must be revealed unto us as lovely & desireable, as a fit & suitable object unto the soule to set up its Rest upon, before we can beare any love ⟨p. 29⟩unto him. The Saints (in this sense) doe not love God for nothing, but for that Excellency, Lovelinesse, and desireablenesse that is in him. As the Psalmist says in one particular, Psal. 116. 19. I love the Lord BECAUSE! so may we in generall, we love the Lord BECAUSE! Or as David in another case, what have I now done, is there not a cause? If any man enquire about our love to God, we may say, what have we now done, is there not a cause?
3. They differ in this also. The Love of God is like himself, equal, constant, not capable of Augmentation, or Diminution: Our love §. 24 is like our selves, unequal, increasing, waning, growing, declining. His like the Sun, always the same in its light, though a cloud may sometimes interpose: Ours, as the Moon, hath its Enlargements and streightnings.