A09950:767
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.
Besides consider,1 you are engaged to love the Lord, and that should be a great motive to us: in Josh. 24.12.2 You are witnesses that you have chosen the Lord this day to serve him: And they said, we are ⟨p. 46⟩witnesses: that is Joshua's speech to the people: As if he should say to them, you are not now to choose, you are now engaged, you cannot go back, you have professed you have chosen the Lord to serve him, therefore you are witnesses against your selves. So I may say to every man that hears me, you are engaged to love the Lord: Why? Because you have chosen him for your husband, you are baptized in his name, you have taken him for your Master, and for your Father, therefore he may challenge it at your hands as right, for he is your Father: and where is his honour then? He is your Master, and where is his fear then? That is, you are engaged, he may challenge it justly, you are his, he hath bought you, yea he hath overbought you, he hath paid a price more worth than we, he hath bought us with his blood: And what hath he bought us for but to be his, that is, to love him? Therefore when we love him not, we rob God of our selves, we do an unnatural thing, it is treachery and injustice in us. As you know, it is one thing in a woman that is free from an husband to neglect a man that is a friend, but when she hath engaged her self, and the match is made, now it is adultery: So every one of us that loves not the Lord, sins the more, because he is engaged to him: Deut. 32.13,3 Thou forsookest the strong God of thy salvation, thou forsakest him to whom thou art engaged, he is the strong God of thy salvation, he hath done thus and thus for thee. Therefore consider this, for seeing you have such an ⟨p. 47⟩affection as love is, you must bestow it somewhere, somewhat you must love: and you must know again it is the best thing you have to bestow, for that commands all in you; and where will you bestow it? Can you find any creature upon whom to bestow it rather than the Lord? Will you bestow it upon any man? The Lord exceeds them, as David saith, Who among the gods is like thee? That is, take the most excellent among them, that therefore are reckoned as gods, yet who among them is like unto thee? or whom will you bestow your love upon, your wealth, or your pleasures or your phantasies?