A53721:685
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.
4. Consider, that you are sinners, great sinners, cursed sinners; Some of you it may be, worse than innumerable of your fellow sinners were, who are now in Hell. God might long since have cast you off everlastingly, from all expectation of mercy, and have caused all your hopes to perish. Or he might have lest you alive, and yet have refused to deal with you any more. He could have caused your Son to go down at noon day, and have given you darkness instead of vision. He could respite your lives for a season, and yet swear ⟨p. 247⟩in his wrath, that you should never enter into his rest. It is now otherwise. How long it may be so, nor you, nor I know any thing at all. God only knows what will be your time, what your continuance. We are to speak whilst it is called to day. And this is that for the present which I have to offer unto you. God declares that there is forgiveness with him; that your condition is not desperate nor helpless. There are yet terms of Peace proposed unto you. Methinks it cannot but seem strange, that poor sinners should not at the least stir up themselves to enquire after them. When a poor man had sold himself of old, and his Children to be servants, and parted with the land of his inheritance unto another because of his poverty; with what heart do you think did he hear the sound of the Trumpet, when it began to proclaim the year of Jubilee, wherein he and all his were to go out at liberty, and to return unto his possession and Inheritance? And shall not poor servants of sin, slaves unto Satan, that have forfeited all their Inheritance in this world, and that which is to come, attend unto any Proclamation of the year of Rest, of the acceptable year of the Lord? And this is done in the tender of terms of Peace with God in this matter. Do not put it off; this thing belongs unto you; The great concernment of your souls lies in it. And it is a great matter; for consider,
4. Consider, that you are sinners, great sinners, cursed sinners; Some of you it may be, worse than innumerable of your fellow sinners were, who are now in Hell. God might long since have cast you off everlastingly, from all expectation of mercy, and have caused all your hopes to perish. Or he might have lest you alive, and yet have refused to deal with you any more. He could have caused your Son to go down at noon day, and have given you darkness instead of vision. He could respite your lives for a season, and yet swear ⟨p. 247⟩