Moving through John Owen's On Communion with God, one sentence recently grabbed me, shook me, turned me round, and set me going in a new direction concerning God's merciful providences. In a section from chapter 5 speaking of Jesus' conjugal tenderness and compassion toward the saints, Owen says a desperately needed word for a North American church in the grip of Arminianism (or, in many instances, Pelagianism) and functional deism:
"Believers are unacquainted with their own condition, if they look upon their mercies as dispensed in a way of common providence" (italics mine).
I don't think we usually even get as far as acknowledging the mercies sent our way from the hand of God moment by moment, day by day, as common, let alone particular. So we have a long way to go. Thus I think we're starting further back and lower down from the position Owen targets.
But Owen's sentence grips me and holds me because I'm appreciating more nowadays how shot through are the daily mercies I enjoy under the particular love and care of God. To be sure, God causes his rain to fall on just and unjust alike, his sun to shine upon all alike. And yet, for those who stand in grace, these sorts of "common" mercies are not common, but manifestations and instances of God's particular love and care of those whom he purchased by the death of his Son. And the purchase of eternal mercies by Christ is applied through his moment by moment intercessory work on behalf of his own. All the kindnesses, care, provisions, pity, relief, deliverences, delights, and freedoms we enjoy daily are the fruit of Jesus' high priestly heavenly ministry for the elect, the manifestations of God's peculiar providential care of his children.
Oh the depths of mercy and love! How many divine mercies are untold! How many not noted, enjoyed, praised!
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