003. Preface To The Reader
PREFACE TO THE READER AS CONTAINED IN THE FOLIO EDITION, 1681. The design of this preface is not to acquaint the world with the worth of this great person; his works already extant sufficiently praise him; but to give the reader our just apprehensions of his eminent fitness for so great an undertaking, and of his happy performance of it.
Besides his eminent endowments, as to natural and acquired abilities, he had the happiness of an early and more than ordinary conversion, in which God favoured him with a marvellous light, especially in the mysteries of corrupt nature and of the gospel, which afterward shined through most of his works, and especially through this comment. This light was attended, so far as we can judge, with an inward sense of spiritual things, with a gustus spiritualis judicii, which, after long experience, grew up into senses exercised to discern good and evil, and into an abounding in all knowledge and sense. And, indeed, that person is the best interpreter, who (besides other helps) hath a comment in his own heart; and he best interprets Paul’s Epistles, who is himself the epistle of Christ written by the Spirit of God. He best understands Paul’s Epistles, who hath Paul’s sense, temptations, and experience.
He religiously observed the light he arrived to, and greatly abhorred to hold any truth in unrighteousness; but lived over the truths he knew, even to the hazard of what was most dear to him. And according to Christ’s own aphorisms, the truest way of understanding his doctrine is to do it: as on the other side, there is no great distance between shipwreck of faith and a good conscience.
He had in genius to dive into the bottom of points which he intended to treat of; to “study them down,” as he used to express it, not contenting himself with superficial knowledge, without wading into the depths of things. His way was to consult the weightiest, if not all the authors that had written upon the subject he was upon, greatly valuing the light which every man afforded, according to the manifold grace of God, and the various dispensations of his Spirit; yet confined himself to no man’s sentiments, but made an advance from his own light and experience to the notions of others. As he consulted with books, so he had the advantage of intimate converse with the greatest Christians of his age, those living and walking Bibles And thus from reading the living word in himself and others, he rose up to a great improvement in the truths of God, and was able to speak more particularly and experimentally in cases of conscience and practical points, which did not a little qualify him for this work.
He was a person much addicted to retirements and deep contemplation, by which means he had the advantage of looking round the points and scriptures he was upon, and filling his head and heart with spiritual notions, as the sand of the sea.
He had the happiness of high and intimate communion with God, being a man mighty with him in prayer, to whom he had a frequent recourse in difficult points and cases; and such men wade further into the deep things of God who have such a leader.
He delighted much in searching into points and scriptures which were more abstruse and neglected by others, and removed from vulgar inquiry; and was very successful in opening such difficult texts, in discovering the depths of Satan, in anatomising the old man in himself and others.
He had been much exercised in the controversies that had been agitated in the age he lived in, having a piercing understanding, able to find out where the pinch and stress of controversies lay, when he stated them in his own heart from Scripture and experience, and had a peculiar faculty to bring them down to ordinary capacities in Scripture language, without hard and pedantic terms.
He had a deep insight into the grace of God, and the covenant of grace: a darkness in which was anciently, and still is, the cause of great errors in the Church. The ignorance of the Greek Fathers of the grace of God gave great occasion to the Pelagian errors, as Jansenius observes.
He had, before his undertaking this province, gone over, in the course of his ministry, the grand points of religion, and concocted them in his own head and heart. And this he had done in frequent and intelligent auditories, which greatly draws out the gifts of men, and fits them for such a work as this.
He had this further advantage, that God had exercised him not only with inward conflicts, but with sufferings for the truths he owned, leaving not only preferments, but, which was more precious to him, the exercise of his ministry in his native country: only he had this benefit by his recess, to review and study over again his notions and principles. And we never find God wanting in the discoveries of his secrets to such friends in their retirements.
After his return, he was made choice of to interpret this Epistle, to which work he was eminently suited upon all accounts, having a light into the deep and profound mysteries contained in it, beyond the elevation of those times. As to his comment, it sufficiently commends itself, and therefore needs not our encomium. We shall only give you some remarks on it, which occurred in the perusal of his papers.
According to our observation, no man who hath been exercised in the same province doth more happily pitch upon the true, genuine, and full scope of the text. He is frequently guided to a scope unobserved by others, as to the latitude of it, and was much delighted to interpret Scripture into the most vast and comprehensive sense which the Spirit of God aimed at, adoring still the fulness of the Scripture, being curious and critical in observing the various references and aspects one place had upon others.
We find him dexterous at the opening of dark scriptures, having a peculiar faculty in comparing spiritual things with spiritual, one obscure place with another more clear and perspicuous; fetching light, as men do in optics, by various positions of glasses into a dark place; bringing light to gospel truths from dark types and prophecies, and reflecting back light again upon those dark shadows from gospel truths: that what places singly send out but some small rays, being happily gathered by him into a constellation, give now a glorious light.
He passeth by no difficulty of the text, till he assoils it and makes the place plain. He values the least iota, and makes it appear what great and momentous things depend upon little words in the Scripture, which others too carelessly pass by. His observations are clear, genuine, and natural, and many times not of vulgar and common observation, which he usually confirms by one or more pertinent apposite scriptures, which he interprets as he goes along, to the great benefit and delight of the reader; still founding what he treats of upon Scripture, which is a way most satisfactory and blessed of God, and abides more on men’s hearts.
He brings down the highest controverted point, and the most sublime mysteries of the gospel, in a plain and familiar way to discerning Christians, without affectation of hard and scholastic terms. Having stated those great controversies in his own heart, he makes them easy to the sense and experience of others.
He makes use of variety of learning, though in a concealed way; studying to bring his learning to Scripture, and not Scripture to his learning. His language is natural, and expressive of his conceptions, being adapted to convey truths into the minds of men with clearness and delight.
He speaks the intimacies of things from an inward sense and feeling of them in his own heart, to the particular cases and experience of others.
He hath a vein of strong spiritual reason running through all these discourses, carrying its own light and evidence with it.
He discovers a deep insight into the mysteries of the gospel, and a great light in the discovery of them, such as is great in this age, but was much greater about forty years ago, when he preached these lectures. He breaketh open the mines of the glorious grace of God, and the unsearchable riches of Christ; and the further you search into them the greater treasures you will find: Plenius responsura fodienti, as one saith in a like case. No man’s heart was more taken with the eternal designs of God’s grace than his; and no man makes clearer schemes of it to others. None more clearly resolves the plot of man’s salvation into pure grace than he. His discourses all along are very evangelical, carrying the soul to a higher holiness, and from a higher spring and arguments than what are to be found in philosophers,—from the great pulleys and motives of the gospel, which are higher and nobler springs than what Adam himself had in innocency. In the whole, he shews himself a “man of God throughly furnished to every good work,” skilled in the whole compass of true divinity, speaking fully, clearly, and particularly to the points he undértakes to handle.
He hath frequently things out of the road and vulgar reach, and beyond the elevation of common writers, and unobserved by others; and yet well founded upon Scripture. There are diversities of gifts, dispensed by the same Spirit to divers persons, for the edification of the Church. And if at any time he steps out of the road, he doth it with a due regard to the analogy of faith, and a just veneration for the Reformed religion; wondering greatly at the daring attempts of some men of this age, unskilful in the word of righteousness, upon the great and momentous points of our religion, which are the glory of our Reformation; but these points will prove gold, silver, precious stones, when their wood, hay, and stubble will be burnt up. These will have a verdure and greenness on them, whilst the inventions of others will be blasted and wither. These will be firm, whilst others, wanting somewhat within, it will be with them as it was with the Jewish and heathenish worship, when a fate was upon them, all the efforts and endeavours of men could not make them stand.
Upon the account of what of this excellent author hath been already and will hereafter be published, (by the good providence of God,) we think he may be looked upon as a person raised up by God for some eminent services in that age he lived in; as Augustine and others were in their times. And, therefore, we are not a little astonished at the unworthiness of some persons in this age, who have made use of all their arts and interest to suppress the light of this and other great luminaries of the Church; who have done what in them lay to eclipse stars, and of the first magnitude, and for little niceties and nothings, which the best and purest times of the Church were unacquainted with. But it is hard to dispute men out of corrupt interests; these controversies will have an easier decision at the great day.
We have added in the close some weighty discourses upon some other texts in the Ephesians and Colossians, (a parallel epistle to this of the Ephesians,) and upon some texts in the Hebrews, and other scriptures; either because of their congenialness to this comment, or the suitableness to the times we live in; and because his comment did not rise up to that bulk in the first projection, mentioned in the proposals. That these discourses are his own, we need say no more, than that they bear his own signature; he having drawn to the life the picture of his own heart by his own hand.
THANKFUL OWEN.[32] JAMES BARRON.[33] [32] For notices of these excellent men—
See Owen—“The Nonconformists’ Memorial” of Calamy, (by Palmer, 2d edit., 1802), i. 235, iii. 128.
Hanbury’s “Historical Memorials relating to the Independents,” (1844,) iii. 422, 595.
Also, Wood’s “Athenæ.”
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