A09950:365
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.
First,I I say, faith is effectual, when there is a good way made for it, when the rubbish and false earth is taken away where it should be built; that is, when the humiliation is ⟨p. 30⟩sound and good, when the preparation is perfect, when it is such as makes a man fit for the Kingdom of GOD: For I find that phrase used,2 He that puts his hand to the Plough, and looks back, is unfit for the Kingdom of GOD: As if he had said, there are certain men, which come to the profession of Christianity, as many come to husbandry, which is a hard employment; some there are which do this, and go back again. Why? because they are not fit for the Kingdom of God, that is, they are not throughly prepared for it: that is to say, when a man is not throughly humbled to know what sin is, and what the wrath of God is, he is not fit for the Kingdom of God; but if he do come to Christ, if he do begin to believe, he will go back again. So a man is properly said not to be fit for the Kingdom of GOD,3 till he be throughly humbled, till he have tasted the bitterness of sin, till he have felt what the Devils yoke is.4 As it was with the Israelites, put the case they had been carried out of Egypt before the time that they were,1 indeed they had not been fit for the Land of Canaan, because they would have been ready to have turned back in their hearts into Egypt, and though the LORD laid load on them, though their yoke were hard, though he caused them to wander up and down long, yet all was little enough, still they were lingering after Egypt, and if they had been taken out of Egypt, ⟨p. 31⟩before the tale of Brick was required of them, without giving them straw, before the taskmasters had dealt hardly with them, what would they have done? Might it not truly be said of them, they would not have been fit for Canaan? So in this case, if a man will take CHRIST, it is a laborious work, as laborious as husbandry, as laborious as putting the hand to the Plough, as taking the yoke.