A90265:53
The duty of pastors and people distinguished [sic]. Or A brief discourse, touching the…The duty of pastors and people distingushed [sic]. Or A briefe discourse, touching the…
The duty of pastors and people distinguished [sic]. Or A brief discourse, touching the administration of things commanded in religion. Especially concerning the means to be used by the people of God (distinct from church-officers) for the increasing of divine knowledge in themselves and others. Wherein bounds are prescribed to their performances, their liberty is enlarged to the utmost extent of the dictates of nature and rules of charity: their duty laid down in directions, drawn from Scripture-precepts, and the practise of Gods people in all ages. Together with the several ways of extraordinary calling to the office of public teaching, with what assurance such teachers may have of their calling, and what evidence they can give of it, unto others. / By John Owen, M.A. of Q. Col. O.The duty of pastors and people distingushed [sic]. Or A briefe discourse, touching the administration of things commanded in religion. Especially concerning the means to be used by the people of God (distinct from church-officers) for the increasing of divine knowledge in themselves and others. Wherein bounds are prescribed to their peformances, their liberty is enlarged to the utmost extent of the dictates of nature and rules of charity: their duty laid downe in directions, drawn from Scripture-precepts, and the practise of Gods people in all ages. Together with the severall wayes of extraordinary calling to the office of publike teaching, with what assurance such teachers may have of their calling, and what evidence they can give of it, unto others. / By John Ovven, M.A. of Q. Col. O.
London: printed by L. N. for Philemon Stephens, 1644
Title page typeset from the transcription.
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.
Fourthly, that whosoever maintaineth any Priests of the New ⟨p. 26⟩stament, as properly so called in relation to any Altar or Sacrifice, by them to be offered, doth as much as in him lieth disannul the Covenant of grace, and is blasphemously injurious to the Priesthood of Christ; the Priest and the Sacrifice under the new Testament are one, and the same: and therefore they who make themselves Priests, must also make themselves Christs, or get another sacrifice of their own. As there is but one God, so there is but one Mediator of God and man, the man Jesus Christ, 1 Tim. 2. 5. now he became the Mediator of the New Testament chiefly by his Priesthood, because by the eternal spirit he offered up himself unto God, Heb. 9. 14. 15. neither is any now called of God to be a Priest as was Aaron, and without such divine vocation to this office, none ought to undertake it, as the Apostle argues, Heb. 5. now, the end of any such vocation, and office is quite ceased; being nothing but to offer gifts and sacrifices unto God, Heb. 8. 3. for Christ hath offered one Sacrifice for sin for ever, and is sate down at the right hand of God, Heb. 10. 12. yea by one offering he hath perfected them that are sanctified, v. 14. and if that did procure remission of sins, there must be no more offering for sin, v. 18. and the surrogation of another makes the blood of Christ to be no better then that of bulls and goats. Now one of those they must do, who make themselves Priests, (in that sense concerning which we now treat) either get them a new sacrifice of their own,1 or pretend to offer Christ again; the first seems to have been the fault, of those of ours, who made a sacrifice of the Sacrament, yet pretended not to believe the real presence of Christ in, or under the outward elements or species of them; the other of the Romanists, whose Priests in their Mass, blasphemously make themselves Mediators, between God and his Son, and offering up Christ Jesus for a Sacrifice, desire God to accept him; so charging that sacrifice with imperfection, which he offered on the Altar of the Cross, and making it necessary not only that he should annually, but daily, ye hourly suffer afresh, so recrucifying unto themselves, the Lord of glory.