A53713:78
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.
1. That they do receive it. Communion consists in giving and receiving. Until the Love of the Father be received, we have no Communion with him therein. How then is this Love of the Father; to be received, so as to hold fellowship with him? I answer, by Faith. The receiving of it, is the believing of it. God hath so fully, so eminently revealed his Love, that it may be received by Faith. You believe in God, John chap. 14. 1. that is, the Father; and what is to be believed in him? His love; for, he is love 1 John 8. 8.
1. That they doe receive it. Communion consists in giving and receiving. Untill the Love of the Father be received, we have no Communion with him therein. How then is this Love of the Father; to be received, so as to hold fellowship with him? I answer, by Faith. The receiving of it, is the believing of it. God hath so fully, so eminently revealed his Love, that it may be received by Faith. You believe in God, John chap. 14. 1. that is, the Father; and what is to be believed in him? His love; for, he is love 1 John 8. 8.
It is true, there is not an immediate acting of Faith upon the §. 14 Father, but by the Son. He is the Way the Truth and the Life, no man cometh unto the Father but by him: John chap. 14. v. 6. He is the merciful high Priest over the House of God, by whom we have cAccess to the throne of Grace: by him is our manuduction unto the Father. By him we believe in God: 1 Pet. 1. 21. But this is that I say: When by, and through Christ, we have an Access unto the Father, we then behold his Glory also, and see his Love that he peculiarly bears unto us, and act faith thereon. We are then (I say) to Eye it, to believe it, to receive it, as in him; the Issues and fruits thereof, being made out unto us, through Christ alone. Though there be no Light for us, but in the Beams, yet we may by the Beams see the sun, which is the Fountain of it. Though all our Refreshment actually lye in the streams, yet by them we are led up unto the fountain. Jesus Christ, in respect of the love of the Father, is but the Beam, the Stream, wherein though actually all our Light, our Refreshment lies, yet by him we are lead to the Fountain, the Sun of Eternal Love it self. Would Believers exercise themselves herein, they would find it a matter of no small Spiritual improvement in their walking with God.