FT1 The Christian Ministry, p. 42-44, by the Rev. Charles Bridges, A.M.

FT2 See his interesting History of the British Churches in the Netherlands.

FT3 Mr. Ryland of Northampton entertained a strong opinion in regard to the value of the same work. In a tract entitled, “A Select Library for the Student of Divinity,” he gives an estimate of its merits with an amusing intensity of expression. “This book,” says he, “bears the same rank, and has the same relation to the study of divinity, which the ‘Principia’ of Sir Isaac Newton bears to the true system of the world, in the study of natural philocephy and it is of equal importance to all young divines which that great man’s work is to young philosophers. — Dr. Owen wrote this most learned of all his works in the meridian of his life, when he was vice-chancellor of Oxford, and published it soon after he quitted that office. This book gives an account of the nature, source and study of true divinity in all ages, but especially since the Christian dispensation of the glorious Gospel. The last chapters of the book are peculiarly sweet and excellent; his directions to students how to proceed in attaining furniture for their sacred office, are wine, serious, and evangelical in the highest degree. Nothing can be more rich, savoury, and divine. I am ashamed of my countryment for their ignorance this incomparable work, — perhaps the very greatest of the kind that ever was written by a British divine; and it now lies buried in dust, amidst the lumber of a booksellers garret, whilst a thousand volumes of wretched trash in divinity, with their pompous bindings armed us monuments of human folly, in our book cases and libraries. See Dr. Cotton Mather’s “Student and Preacher,” republished by John Ryland, A.M. of Northampton, 1781.

FT4 A statement occurs in the “Encyclopaedia Britannica” that Owen’s works are printed in seven folio volumes. If it be meant that there are seven folio volumes of Owen’s works, there is a sense in which the statement is true; but the folios must be of unprecedented size which could include all the works of our author in this number. It is an obvious mistake.

FT5 Katoptri>zw does not admit of the signification here ascribed to it by Dr Owen. It denotes looking into a mirror, not through a telescope: “Beholding the glory of the Lord as reflected and radiant in the Gospel.” See Dr Robinson’s Lexicon. Another view is taken of the passage, by which a tacit antithesis is instituted between ka>toptron and ejikw>n : “Dominus nos katoptri>zei , splendorem faciei suae in corda nostram, tanquam in specula immittens: nos illum splendorem suscipimus et referimus. Elegans antitheton ad ejntetupwme>nh , insculpta. Nam quae insculpuntur fiunt paullatim: quae in speculo repraesentantur, fiunt celerrime.” Bengelii Gnomon in locum. Owen himself gives a correct explanation of the passage in his work on the Mortification of Sin, chap. 12. Ed.

FT6 Peter Lombard. Born near Novara in Lombardy died in 1164, bishop of Paris called “Magister Sententiarum,” from one of his works, which is a compilation of sentences from the Fathers, arranged so as to form a system of Divinity, and held in high repute during mediaeval times. It appeared in 1172. ED.

FT7 The first four of these terms were adopted by the Fourth OEcumenical Council, held a Chalcedon, A.D. 451. ED.

FT8 Eutyches was a prsbyter and abbot at Constantinople, and distinguished himself by his opposition to the Nestorians, A.D. 448, asserting that in Christ there is but one nature, and was condemned by the General Council at Chalcedon, A.D. 451. In the preface to this work, p. 11, he is called “The Archimandrite.” Mandrite is a Syriac word for “monk.” Archimandrite corresponds with the term “abbot” in Europe. ED.

FT9 Born at Germanicia, in the north or Syria ordained a presbyter at Antioch appointed patriarch of Constantinople A.D.428 objected to the epithet Qeoto>kov , as applied to the Virgin Mary, because “that God should be born of a human being is impossible” charged in consequence with maintaining that Christ was a mere man held in reality the distinct separation of the divine and human natures of Christ, insisting on a connection between them by suna>feia (junction), or ejnoi>khsiv (indwelling), in opposition to e[nwsiv (union) deposed by the Third General Council of Ephesus, A.D.431, and died probably before A.D. 450. ED.

FT10 The expression quoted by Dr Owen is founded upon the phrase in the original language, dielhluqo>ta touuv “having passed through,” not “into the heavens,” as it stands in our version. ED.

FT11 Dr Owen refers to the Emperor Hadrian, who, among other short poems which have been ascribed to him, is said to have composed, towards his death, the following lines:- “Animula, vagula, blandula, Hospes comesque corporis, Quae nunc abibis in loca?

Pallidula, rigida, nudula, Nec, ut soles, dabis joca.” FT12 See the preceding treatise, “Christologia; or, a Declaration of the Glorious Mystery of the Person of Christ.”

FT13 The DOCETAE, to whom Dr. Owen refers, were a sect of the Asiatic Gnostics. The founder of the sect was Marcion, who was born in Pontus, near the beginning of the second century. He held that Christ was a manifestation of God under the appearance of man. The name was applied to some who, in the beginning of the sixth century, held that the body of Christ was not created, and therefore, that he only appeared to sleep, hunger, thirst, and suffer. ED.

FT14 In Dr Owen’s work entitled, “Exposition of the Epistle to the Hebrews.”

FT15 See his “Christologia,” &c., chap. 4., p. 54 of this volume.

FT16 The “Vindiciae Evangelicae” is a work which Dr Owen wrote in reply to Biddle the Socinian, and which will be found in another department of this edition of his works. ED.

FT17 See note, p. 222 of this volume. Telescopes were not invented till the close of the sixteenth century. ED.

FT18 The Discourses that follow were first printed in 1691, eight years after the death of Dr. Owen. This circumstance may explain the absence of the Italics, of which he generally made free use in all his publications. — Ed.

FT19 Every one out of this way everlastingly damned.

FT20 The life of religion is in the Life.

FT21 Popish traditions are false lights, leading from God.

FT22 The authority of the Scripture dependeth not on the authority of the church, as the Papists blaspheme.

FT23 All human inventions unnecessary helps in the worship of God.

FT24 The word thereof is the sole directory for faith, worship, and life.

FT25 This alone persuadeth and inwardly convinceth the heart of the divine verity of the Scripture; other motives, also, there are from without, and unanswerable arguments to prove the truth of them; as, 1. Their antiquity; 2. Preservation from fury; 3. Prophecies in them; 4. The holiness and majesty of their doctrine, agreeable to the nature of God; 5. Miracles; 6. The testimony of the church of all ages; 7. The blood of innumerable martyrs, &c.

FT26 The perfection of God’s being is known of us chiefly by removing all imperfections.

FT27 Hence the abominable vanity of idolaters, and of the blasphemous Papists, that picture God.

FT28 Let us prostrate ourselves in holy adoration of that which we cannot comprehend.

FT29 The divers names of God signify one and the same thing, but under diverse notions in repect of our conception.

FT30 Some of these attributes belong so unto God, as that they are in no sort to be ascribed to any else, as infiniteness, eternity, &c. Others are after a sort attributed to some of his creatures, in that he communicateth unto them some of the effects of them in himself, as life, goodness, &c.

FT31 The first of these are motives to humble adoration, fear, selfabhorrency; the other, to faith, hope, love, and confidence, through Jesus Christ.

FT32 Nothing is to be ascribed unto God, nor imagined of him, but what is exactly agreeable to those his glorious properties.

FT33 These last are no less essential unto God than the former; only we thus distinguish them, because these are chiefly seen in his works.

FT34 This is that mysterious ark that must not be pried into, nor the least little spoken about it, wherein plain Scripture goeth not before.

FT35 To deny the Deity of any one person, is in effect to deny the whole Godhead; for whosoever hath not the Son, hath not the Father.

FT36 This only doctrine remained undefiled in the Papacy.

FT37 We must labour to make out comfort from the proper work of every person towards us.

FT38 The purposes and decrees of God, so far as by him revealed, are objects of our faith, and full of comfort.

FT39 Farther reasons of God’s decrees than his own will, not to be inquired after.

FT40 The changes in the Scripture ascribed unto God are only in the outward dispensations and works, variously tending to one infallible event, by him proposed.

FT41 The Arminians’ blasphemy, in saying God sometimes fails of his purposes.

FT42 The decree of election is the fountain of all spiritual graces, for they are bestowed only on the elect.

FT43 In nothing doth natural corruption more exalt itself against God, than in opposing the freedom of his grace in his eternal decrees.

FT44 From the execution of these decrees flows that variety and difference we see in the dispensation of the means of grace, God sending the Gospel where he hath a remnant according to election.

FT45 The very outward works of God are sufficient to convince men of his eternal power and Godhead, and to leave them inexcusable, if they serve him not.

FT46 The glory of God is to be preferred above our own either being or well-being, as the supreme end of them.

FT47 The approaching unto God in his service is the chief exaltation of our nature above the beasts that perish.

FT48 God never allowed, from the beginning, that the will of the creature should be the measure of his worship and honour.

FT49 Though we have all lost our right unto the promise of the fist covenant, yet all not restored by Christ are under the commination and curse thereof.

FT50 To this providence is to be ascribed all the good we do enjoy, and all the afflictions we undergo.

FT51 Fortune, chance, and the like, are names without things, scarce fit to be used among Christians, seeing Providence certainly ruleth all to appointed ends.

FT52 No free-will in man exempted either from the eternal decree or the overruling providence of God.

FT53 Though the dispensations of God’s providence towards his people be various, yet every issue and act of it tends to one certain end, their good in his glory.

FT54 Almighty God knows how to bring light out of darkness, good out of evil, the salvation of his elect out of Judas’s treachery, the Jews’ cruelty, and Pilate’s injustice.

FT55 This law of God bindeth us now, not because delivered to the Jews on Mount Horeb, but because written in the hearts of all by the finger of God at the first.

FT56 After the fall, the law ceased to be a rule of justification, and became a rule for sanctification only.

FT57 It is of free grace that God giveth power to yield any obedience, and accepteth of any obedience that is not perfect.

FT58 This is that which commonly is called original sin, which in general denoteth the whole misery and corruption of our nature; as, 1. The guilt of Adam’s actual sin to us imputed; 2. Loss of God’s glorious image, innocency and holiness; 3. Deriving by propagation a nature (1.)

Defiled with the pollution, (2.) Laden with the guilt, (3.) Subdued to the power of sin; 4. A being exposed to all temporal miseries, leading to and procuring death; 5. An alienation from God, with voluntary obedience to Satan and lust; 6. An utter disability to good, or to labour for mercy; 7. Eternal damnation of body and soul in hell.

FT59 All that a natural man hath on this side hell is free mercy.

FT60 The end of this is Jesus Christ, to all that fly for refuge to the hope set before them.

FT61 This is that great mystery of godliness that the angels themselves admire; the most transcendent expression of God’s infinite love, the laying forth of all the treasure of his wisdom and goodness.

FT62 1. Though our Saviour Christ be one God with his Father, he is not one person with him. 2. Jesus Christ is God and man in one, not a God and a man; God incarnate, not a man deified. 3. The essential properties of either nature remain in his person theirs still, not communicated unto the other; as of the Deity to be eternal, everywhere; of the humanity, to be born and die. 4. Whatever may be said of either nature may be said of his whole person; so God may be said to die, but not the Godhead; the man Christ to be everywhere, but not his humanity; for his one person is all this. 5. The monstrous figment of transubstantiation, or Christ’s corporeal presence in the sacrament, fully overthrows our Saviour’s human nature, and makes him a mere shadow. 6. All natural properties are double in Christ, as will, &c., still distinct; all personal, as subsistence, single.

FT63 In the exercise of these offices, Christ is also the sole head, husband, and firstborn of the church.

FT64 Papal usurpation upon these offices of Christ manifests the pope to be the Man of Sin.

FT65 Christ’s subjects are all born rebels, and are stubborn, until he make them obedient by his Word and Spirit.

FT66 Christ hath not delegated his kingly power of law-making for his church to any here below.

FT67 The end of Christ in exercising his kingly power over his enemies, is the glory of his gospel and the good of his people.

FT68 Against both these the Papists are exceedingly blasphemous; against the one, by making their mass a sacrifice for sins, the other, by making saints mediators of intercession.

FT69 Chris’s undergoing punishment for us was, first, typified by the old sacrifices; secondly, foretold in the fist promise; thirdly, made lawful and valid in itself, first, by God’s determination, the supreme lawgiver; secondly, his own voluntary undergoing it; thirdly, by a relaxation of the law in regard of the subject punished; fourthly, beneficial to us, because united to us; as, first, our head; secondly, our elder brother; thirdly, our sponsor or surety; fourthly, our husband; fifthly, our God, or Redeemer, &c.

FT70 No change in all these, but what necessarily follows the change of the persons sustaining.

FT71 The death that Christ underwent was eternal in its own nature and tendence, not so to him, because of his holiness, power, and the unity of his person.

FT72 He suffered not as God, but he suffered who was God.

FT73 We are freed from the anger of God, by a perfect rendering to the full value of what he required, from the power of Satan, by absolute conquest on our behalf.

FT74 The new covenant is Christ’s legacy, in his last will unto his people, the eternal inheritance of glory being conveyed thereby.

FT75 The death of Christ was satisfactory in respect of the strict justice of God, meritorious in respect of the covenant between him and his Father.

FT76 All these holy truths are directly denied bgy the blasphemous Socinians; and by the Papists, with their merits, masses, penance, and purgatory, by consequent, overthrown.

FT77 To make saints our intercessors, is to renounce Jesus Christ from being a sufficient Saviour.

FT78 Christ differed from all other prophets; first, in his sending, which was immediately from the bosom of his Father; secondly, his assistance, which was the fulness of the Spirit; thirdly, his manner of teaching, with authority.

FT79 To accuse his Word of imperfection, in doctrine or discipline, is to deny him a perfect prophet, or to have borne witness unto all truth.

FT80 The humiliation of Christ shows us what we must here do and suffer, his exaltation, what we may hope for.

FT81 The first of these holds forth his mighty love to us, the other his mighty power in himself.

FT82 The only way to heaven is by the cross.

FT83 Christ giveth life to all that world for whom he gave his life.

FT84 None that he died for shall ever die.

FT85 To say that Christ died for every man universally, is to affirm that he did no more for the elect than the reprobates, for them that are saved than for them that are damned; which is the Arminian blasphemy.

FT86 The elect angels belong to this church.

FT87 No distance of time or place breaks the unity of this church: heaven and earth, from the beginning of the world unto the end, are comprised in it.

FT88 No mention in Scripture of any church in purgatory.

FT89 This is the catholic church; though that term be not to be found in the Word in this sense, the thing itself is obvious.

FT90 The pope, challenging unto himself the title of the head of the catholic church, is blasphemously rebellious against Jesus Christ.

FT91 This is that ark out of which whosoever is shall surely perish.

FT92 Of this faith the Holy Spirit is the efficient cause, the Word, the instrumental; the Law indirectly, by discovering our misery; the Gospel immediately, by holding forth a Saviour.

FT93 Faith is in the understanding, in respect of its being and subsistence, in the will and heart, in repect of its effectual working.

FT94 Our effectual calling is the first effect of our everlasting election.

FT95 We have no actual interest in nor right unto Christ, until we are thus called.

FT96 They who so boast of the strenght of free-will in the work of our conversion, are themselves and example what it is being given up to so vile an error, destitute of the grace of God.

FT97 Legal and evangelical justification differ; first, on the part of the persons to be justified, the one requiring a person legally and perfectly righteous, the other a believing sinner; secondly, on the part of God, who in the one is a severe, righteous judge, in the other, a merciful, reconciled Father; thirdly, in the sentence, which in the one acquitteth, as having done nothing amiss, in the other, as having all amiss pardoned.

FT98 Repentance includeth, first, alteration of the mind into a hatred of sin, before loved; secondly, sorrow of the affections for sin committed; thirdly, change of the actions arising from both.

FT99 Repentance is either legal, servile, and terrifying, from the spirit of bondage; or evangelical, filial, and comforting, from the spirit of free grace and liberty, which only is available.

FT100 Every part of Popish repentance viz., contrition, confession, and satisfaction was performed by Judas.

FT101 All faith and profession, without this holiness, is vain and of no effect.

FT102 True faith can no more be without true hoiness than true fire without heat.

FT103 Merit of works in unprofitable servants, no way able to do their duty, is a Popish miracle.

FT104 In Christ are our persons accepted freely, and for him our obedience.

FT105 The best duties of unbelievers are but white sins.

FT106 By virtue of this union, Christ suffereth in our afflictions; and we fill up in our bodies what remaineth as his.

FT107 From Christ, as head of the church, we have spiritual life, sense, and motion, or growth in grace; secondly, as the husband of the church, love and redemption; thirdly, as the foundation thereof, stability and perseverance.

FT108 This is that great honour and dignity of believers, which exalts them to a despising all earthly thrones.

FT109 Our liberty is our inheritance here below, which we ought to contend for, against all opposers.

FT110 Nothing makes men condemn the law as a rule, but hatred of that universal holiness which it doth require.

FT111 Rule and authority are as necessary for human society as fire and water for our lives.

FT112 This is one of the greatest mysteries of the Roman magic and juggling, that corporeal elements should have a power to forgive sins, and confer spiritual grace.

FT113 Not the want, but the contempt of this sacrement, is damnable.

FT114 It is hard to say whether the error of the Papists, requiring baptism of absolute, indispensable necessity to the salvation of every infant, or that of the Anabaptists, debarring them from it altogether, be the most uncharitable.

FT115 Baptism is the sacrament of our new birth, this of our farther growth in Christ.

FT116 No part of Christian religion was ever so vilely contaminated and abused by profane wretches, as this pure, holy, plain action and institution of our Saviour: witness the Popish horrid monster of transubstantiation, and their idolatrous mass.

FT117 Whatever is more than these, is of our own.

FT118 Faith in God’s promises, which it doth confirm, union with Christ, whereof it is a seal, and obedience to the right use of the ordinance itself, are required of all receivers.

FT119 There is not any one action pertaining to the spiritual nature of this sacrament, not any end put upon it by Christ, as, first, the partaking of his body and blood; secondly, setting forth his death for us; thirdly, declaring of our union with him and his, but requires faith, grace, and holiness, in the receivers.

FT120 By virtue of this, we partake in all the good and evil of the people of God throughout the world.

FT121 Every corruption doth not presently unchuch a people.

FT122 Unholiness of fellow-worshippers defileth not God’s ordinances.

FT123 Ministers are the bishops of the Lord; lord-bishops came from Rome.