A53721:452
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.
Poor souls are apt to think that all those whom they read or hear of to be gone to Heaven, went thither because they were so good and so holy. It is true many of them were eminently and exemplarily so in their generations. All of them were so according to their degrees and measures: for without holiness no man can see God. And it is our duty to labour to be like unto them in Holiness, if ever we intend to be so in Happiness and Glory. But yet not one of them, not any one that is now in Heaven, Jesus Christ alone excepted, did ever come thither any other way but by forgiveness of sin; and that will also bring us thither, though we come short of many of them in Holiness and Grace.
And this Evidence of forgiveness I the rather urge, because I find the Apostle Paul doing of it eminently in his own person, 1 Tim. 1. 12, 13, 14, 15, 16. I thank Christ Jesus our Lord who hath enabled me, for that he counted me faithful, putting me ⟨p. 157⟩into the Ministry; who was before a Blasphemer and a Persecutor and injurious. But I obtained mercy, because I did it ignorantly in unbelief. This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief. Howbeit for this cause I obtained mercy, that in me first Jesus Christ might show forth all long-suffering for a pattern to them that should hereafter believe on him to life everlasting. A great sinner saith he, the chiefest of sinners I was, which he manifests by some notable instances of his sin. I was saith he a blasphemer, the highest sin against God; a Persecutor, the highest sin against the Saints; Injurious, the highest wickedness, towards mankind. But saith he, I obtained mercy, I am pardoned, and that with a blessed effect. First, That he should after all this be so accounted faithful as to be put into the Ministry. And then that the Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ in him and towards him was exceeding abundant. And what was the Reason, what was the cause, that he was thus dealt withal? Why it was that he might be a pattern, an Evidence, an Argument, that there was Grace, Mercy, Forgiveness to be had for all sorts of sinners that would believe to life Everlasting.