A53721:399
A practical exposition on the 130th Psalm
A practical exposition on the 130th Psalm wherein the nature of the forgiveness of sin is declared, the truth and reality of it asserted, and the case of a soul distressed with the guilt of sin and relieved by a discovery of forgiveness with God is at large discoursed / by John Owen.
London: printed by Robert White for Nathaniel Ponder, 1669
AN EXPOSITION UPON PSALM CXXX. › General Scope of the whole Psalm. › Verse 4 › Section
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 it is a great and rare thing to have forgiveness in God discovered unto a sinful soul. A thing it is, that, as hath been showed, Conscience and Law, with the inbred Notions that are in the heart of man about Gods Holiness and Vindictive Justice do lye against. A matter whereof we have no natural presumption; whereof there is no common notion in the mind of man. A thing which no consideration of the Works of God, either of Creation or Providence will reveal, and which the great Instance of Gods dealing with sinning Angels renders deep, admirable and mysterious. Men who have common and slight ⟨p. 137⟩thoughts of God, of themselves, of Sin, of Obedience, of the Judgement to come, of Eternity, that feed upon the ashes of rumours, reports, hearsays, traditions, without looking into the reality of things, may, and do take this to be an ordinary and acknowledged truth, easy to be entertained, which upon the matter no man disbelieves. But convinced sinners, who make a trial of these things, as running into Eternity, have other thoughts of them. And as to that which it is pretended every one believes, we have great cause to cry out, Lord who hath believed our report, to whom hath this arm of the Lord been revealed?
1. That it is a great and rare thing to have forgiveness in God discovered unto a sinful soul. A thing it is, that, as hath been shewed, Conscience and Law, with the inbred Notions that are in the heart of man about Gods Holiness and Vindictive Justice do lye against. A matter whereof we have no natural presumption; whereof there is no common notion in the mind of man. A thing which no consideration of the Works of God, either of Creation or Providence will reveal, and which the great Instance of Gods dealing with sinning Angels renders deep, admirable and mysterious. Men who have common and slight ⟨p. 137⟩thoughts of God, of themselves, of Sin, of Obedience, of the Judgement to come, of Eternity, that feed upon the ashes of rumors, reports, hearsayes, traditions, without looking into the reality of things, may, and do take this to be an ordinary and acknowledged truth, easie to be entertained, which upon the matter no man disbelieves. But convinced sinners, who make a tryal of these things, as running into Eternity, have other thoughts of them. And as to that which it is pretended every one believes, we have great cause to cry out, Lord who hath believed our report, to whom hath this arm of the Lord been revealed?