A53715:298
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.
Who can declare the Generation of the Son, the procession of the Spirit, or the difference of the one from the other? but I shall not farther instance in particulars. That infinite and inconceivable distance that is between Him and us, keeps us in the dark as to any sight of his face, or clear Apprehension of his Perfections.
We know him rather by what he does, than by what he is: by his doing us good, than by his essential Goodness; and how little a portion of him (as Job speaks) is hereby discovered?
Secondly, We know little of God, because it is Faith alone whereby here we know him; ⟨p. 138⟩I shall not now discourse about the remaining Impressions on the Hearts of all men by Nature that there is a God, nor what they may Rationally be taught concerning that God, from the works of his Creation and Providence, which they see and behold; it is confessedly (and that upon the woeful experience of all Ages) so weak, low, dark, confused, that none ever on that account glorified God as they ought, but notwithstanding all their knowledge of God, were indeed without God in the world.
Secondly, We know little of God, because it is Faith alone whereby here we know him; ⟨p. 138⟩I shall not now discourse about the remaining Impressions on the Hearts of all men by Nature that there is a God, nor what they may Rationally be taught concerning that God, from the works of his Creation and Providence, which they see and behold; it is confessedly (and that upon the wofull experience of all Ages) so weak, low, dark, confused, that none ever on that account glorified God as they ought, but notwithstanding all their knowledge of God, were indeed without God in the world.