A53715:294
Of the Mortification of Sin in Believers
Of the mortification of sin in believers: the 1. Necessity, 2. Nature, and 3. Means of it. With a resolution of sundry cases of conscience thereunto belonging. By John Owen, D.D. a servant of Jesus Christ in the work of the Gospel.
London: printed for Nathanael Ponder, 1668
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.
On this Consideration (as was said) the wise man professeth himself a very Beast, and not to have the understanding of a Man, Prov. 30.2. that is, he knew nothing in comparison of God, so that he seemed to have lost all his Understanding, when once he came to the Consideration of him, his work and his ways. In this Consideration let our Souls descend to some particulars.
On this Consideration (as was said) the wise man professeth himself a very Beast, and not to have the understanding of a Man, Prov. 30.2. that is, he knew nothing in comparison of God, so that he seemed to have lost all his Understanding, when once he came to the Consideration of him, his work and his wayes. In this Consideration let our Souls descend to some particulars.
1. For the Being of God; we are so far ⟨p. 136⟩from a knowledge of it, so as to be able to instruct one another therein, by words and expressions of it, as that to frame any conceptions in our Mind, with such species and impressions of things as we receive the knowledge of all other things by, is to make an Idol to our selves, and so to worship a God of our own making, and not the God that made us. We may as well and as lawfully hew him out of wood, or stone, as form him a being in our Minds suited to our Apprehensions.
The utmost of the best of our thoughts of the being of God is, that we can have no thoughts of it. Our knowledge of a being is but low, when it mounts no higher but only to know that we know it not.