A09950:1047
The Breastplate of Faith and Love
The breast-plate of faith and love. A treatise, wherein the ground and exercise of faith and love, as they are set upon Christ their object, and as they are expressed in good works, is explained. / Delivered in 18 sermons upon three several texts, by the late faithful and worthy minister of Jesus Christ, John Preston, Dr. in Divinity, chaplain in ordinary to his Majesty, Master of Emmanuel College in Cambridge, and sometimes preacher of Lincolns Inn.The breast-plate of faith and love. A treatise, wherein the ground and exercise of faith and love, as they are set upon Christ their object, and as they are expressed in good workes, is explained. / Delivered in 18 sermons upon three severall texts, by the late faithfull and worthy minister of Iesus Christ, Iohn Preston, Dr. in Divinity, chaplaine in ordinary to his Maiesty, Master of Emmanuel Colledge in Cambridge, and sometimes preacher of Lincolnes Inne.
London: printed by W. Jones for Nicolas Bourne, 1630London: printed by W. Iones for Nicolas Bourne, 1630
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.
But you will say, this is afar off, and therefore the less terrible, it is not near at hand.
But you will say, this is afarre off, and therefore the lesse terrible, it is not neere at hand.
1Well, though this curse in which we have showed these four branches, be not presently executed, yet remember this, that when we preach the Gospel to you, as we do from day to day, and are still offering you Christ, beseeching you to come in, and take him and love him, but yet ⟨p. 183⟩you will not, know that there is a thunderbolt always following this lightening: when John Baptist came and preached the Gospel, he tells them presently of the curse that was to follow: You do not know the time when the Lord will execute this curse; Cain was cursed many years before he died: and so Saul, when the Lord had rejected him, and had made a separation between God and him, (for a curse is but a separation, when a man is cast aside and set apart for such a purpose, so Saul was set apart for evil) yet he reigned many years after, notwithstanding he was under the curse. So those that the Lord sware in his wrath they should not enter into his rest, there was a curse upon them, yet they lived many years in the wilderness: Therefore though the execution be not presently, and though thou be in prosperity for the present, yet it is but Cains prosperity, though he had his life continued, yet the curse lay upon him notwithstanding; therefore I say take heed of refusing and deferring, lest he swear in his wrath that ye shall not enter into his rest; it is a dangerous thing to refuse the Lord Jesus when he is offered the first, second, third and fourth time, and still you will not come in, take heed and remember that speech of the Apostle that we named to you, Whosoever loveth not the Lord Jesus let him be accursed. When the Apostle looked upon the men to whom he had preached and written, you Corinthians to whom the Gospel hath been plentifully preached and