CONTENTS OF VOL. I. II.-Opposition made unto the Church as built on the Person of Christ III.-The Person of Christ the most ineffable Effect of Divine Wisdom and Good- ness-Thence the next Cause of all True Religion-In what sense it is so IV. The Person of Christ the Foundation of all the Counsels of God V.-The Person of Christ the great Representative of God and his Will VI.-The Person of Christ the, great Repository of Sacred Truth-Its Relation IX.-Honour due to the Person of Christ-The Nature and Causes of it X.-The Principle of the Assignation of Divine Honour unto the Person of Christ, in both the Branches of it; which is Faith in him XI.-Obedience unto Christ-The Nature and Causes of it XII.The especial Principle of Obedience unto the Person of Christ; which is XV.-Conformity unto Christ, and Following his Example XVI.—An humble Inquiry into, and Prospect of, the infinite Wisdom of God, in the Constitution of the Person of Christ, and the Way of Salvation thereby XVII.-Other Evidences of Divine Wisdom in the Contrivance of the Work of Re- demption in and by the Person of Christ, in Effects evidencing a conde- III. The Glory of Christ in the mysterious Constitution of his Person IV.—The Glory of Christ in his Susception of the Office of a Mediator.-First, VIII.-Representations of the Glory of Christ under the Old Testament IX.-The Glory of Christ in his intimate Conjunction with the Church . X.-The Glory of Christ in the Communication of himself unto Believers XI.-The Glory of Christ in the Recapitulation of all things in him XII.-Differences between our Beholding the Glory of Christ by Faith in this XIII. The Second Difference between our Beholding the Glory of Christ by Faith in this World and by Sight in Heaven XIV.-Other Differences between our Beholding the Glory of Christ by Faith in I.—Application of the foregoing Meditations concerning the Glory of Christ- First, in an Exhortation unto such as are not yet Partakers of him II.-The Way and Means of the Recovery of Spiritual Decays, and of Obtaining GENERAL PREFACE. It would be presumption to enter upon any commendation of John Owen as an author and divine. His works will continue to gather round them the respect and admiration of the Church of Christ, so long as reverence is cherished for the Christian faith. They have defects, which it is impossible to disguise. His style in general is deficient in grace and vivacity. His mode of discussing a subject is often tedious and prolix. Whatever amount of imaginative power his mind possessed, it seems to have been little cultivated and developed; and his chief excellence as an author, it must be admitted, consists "non in flosculis verborum,-sed in pondere rerum." In the department of Biblical criticism, he himself disclaimed any pretensions to extensive learning. That science had made slender progress in his day, and the necessity for a careful revision of the text of Scripture, as well as the abundance of the materials which providentially existed for the accomplishment of the task, were scarcely known. We feel the less surprise that he should have committed himself to a strain of animadversion, full of prejudice and misapprehension, on the principles asserted in the Prolegomena and Appendix to Walton's Polyglott, when it is remembered that, after the lapse of half a century, and with all his eminent scholarship and erudition, Whitby, on the criticism of the sacred text, was not a step in advance of the Puritan divine. With all this abatement on the praise which is due to Owen, his signal merits as an author have shed lustre on his name. He was great in the higher attributes of erudition; for he excelled, if not in the learning that is conversant about dates, and facts, and words, most assuredly in the learning of thought; and his sentences are sometimes impregnated with an amount of meaning that indicates vast stores of information on the views prevalent in past ages regarding the doctrines of Christianity. His treatises on experimental religion are yet unrivalled; and it is wonderful with what ease |