A09950:1073
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.
We learn at schools what to say in such a controversy, how to dispute rather than how to live: and that is the complaint we may take up ⟨p. 200⟩in these knowing times, where knowledge (I confess) abounds as water in the sea, but practise is thin and rare, like grass upon the house top, of which the mower cannot fill his hand: and that is the burden of us that are Ministers, that we teach much, and see little fruit, we see no amendment of mens lives, men do the same things that they were wont to do, the duties they were wont to be defective in, they are defective in still. Alas my brethren, the end of our preaching is not that you should know, but that you should do and practise: as it is not the desire of the shepherd that his sheep should return their meat in hay again, but he would have it in their milk and fleece; so it is not our desire that you should only know, though indeed many come short of that, but that you should show it in your fleece and milk, show it in your lives, that all the world may see it there. It is not enough for him that desires to write, to see the copy, and to know it, and the fashion of the letters, but then he hath learned it when he can write after it: so you must know sciences are of two sorts,1 indeed some there are the end of which is only contemplation and knowledge, but some there are the end whereof is action, and they are no further good than we practise them. What is music, but the practise of it? what is physic? the knowledge of all will not heal a man, but the taking of it: so it is with Divinity, the knowledge that we teach is nothing worth, if you know as much as could be known, it were all nothing worth without ⟨p. 201⟩practise, practise is all in all; so much as ye practise, so much you know. It is a great matter to have your judgement true in this case, for when men shall applaud themselves merely in this, that they know and have right purposes and honest desires, and shall esteem their estates by this, it causeth men to content themselves with a loose and a negligent life; but we must know that God judgeth us by our actions, and that is our best rule to judge by too, therefore we should learn thus to judge our selves.
We learne at schooles what to say in such a controversie, how to dispute rather than how to live: and that is the complaint wee may take up