A90296:46
A vision of unchangeable free mercy, in sending the means of grace to undeserved…A vision of vnchangeable free mercy, in sending the means of grace to undeserved…
A vision of unchangeable free mercy, in sending the means of grace to undeserved sinners: wherein Gods uncontrollable eternal purpose, in sending, and continuing the gospel unto this nation, in the middest of oppositions and contingencies, is discovered: his distinguishing mercy, in this great work, exalted, asserted, against opposers, repiners: in a sermon preached before the Honourable House of Commons, April. 29. being the day of public humiliation. Whereunto is annexed, a short defensative about church-government, (with a country essay for the practice of church-government there) toleration and petitions about these things. / By John Owen, minister of the gospel at Coggeshall in Essex.A vision of vnchangeable free mercy, in sending the means of grace to undeserved sinners: wherein Gods uncontrollable eternall purpose, in sending, and continuing the gospel unto this nation, in the middest of oppositions and contingencies, is discovered: his distinguishing mercy, in this great work, exalted, asserted, against opposers, repiners: in a sermon preached before the Honourable House of Commons, April. 29. being the day of publike humiliation. Whereunto is annexed, a short defensative about church-government, (with a countrey essay for the practice of church-government there) toleration and petitions about these things. / By Iohn Owen, minister of the gospel at Coggeshall in Essex.
London: printed by G.M. for Philemon Stephens, 1646
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.
4. The message it self is a discovery of the want of the Macedonians, and the assistance they required, which the Lord was willing should be imparted unto them: their want is not expressed, but included in the assistance desired, and the person unto whom for it they were directed. Had it been to help them in their estates, they should scarcely have been sent to Paul, 1who I believe, might for the most-part say with Peter, Silver and Gold have I none. Or had it been with a complaint, that they, who from a province of Greece, in a corner of Europe, had on a sudden been exalted into the Empire of the Eastern World, were now enslaved to the Roman power and oppression, they might better have gone to the Parthians, then the only state in the world, formidable to the Romans: Paul, though a military man, yet fought not with Nero's Legions, the then visible Devil of the upper world,2 but with Legions of Hell, of whom the earth was now to be cleared; It must be a soulwant, if he be entrusted with the supplying of it. And such this was, help from death, hell, Satan, from the jaws of that devouring Lion: of this the Lord makes them here to speak, what every one in that condition ought to speak, help for the Lords sake, it was a call to preach the Gospel.
4. The message it self is a discovery of the want of the Macedonians, and the assistance they required, which the Lord was willing should be imparted unto them: their want is not expressed, but included in the assistance desired, and the person unto whom for it they were directed. Had it been to help them in their estates, they should scarcely have been sent to Paul, 1who I believe, might for the most-part say with Peter, Silver and Gold have I none. Or had it been with a complaint, that they, who from a province of Greece, in a corner of Europe, had on a sudden been exalted into the Empire of the Eastern World, were now enslaved to the Roman power and oppression, they might better have gon to the Parthians, then the only state in the world, formidable to the Romans: Paul, though a military man, yet fought not with Neroe's Legions, the then visible Devil of the upper world,2 but with Legions of Hell, of whom the earth was now to be cleared; It must be a soulwant, if he be entrusted with the supplying of it. And such this was, help from death, hell, Satan, from the jaws of that devouring Lion: of this the Lord makes them here to speak, what every one in that condition ought to speak, help for the Lords sake, it was a call to preach the Gospel.