A09950:779
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.
Secondly, another special means to enable ⟨p. 52⟩you to love the Lord,2 is to consider your own condition, to consider your sins, what you are, what hearts you have, and what lives you have lead?
Secondly, another speciall meanes to enable ⟨p. 52⟩you to love the Lord,2 is to consider your owne condition, to consider your sinnes, what you are, what hearts you have, and what lives you have lead?
- 2means to consider our sins.meanes to consider our sinnes.
1You will say, how doth this beget love?
- 1Object.
1Yes, this is a great means: Mary loved much, because much was forgiven her, that is, Mary Magdalen had great sense of her sins, the Lord had opened her eyes to see what a one she had been, what sins she had committed: And because she had that sense of her sins, her eyes were open to see her own vileness: thence it is, saith he, she loved much. For when we are humble and poor in spirit, when we are little in our own eyes, then the Lord will come and show mercy on us; when a man shall see his sin, and shall think with himself, I am worthy to be destroyed, I can expect nothing but death, then the Lord shall come suddenly as it were, and shall tell us you shall live, and shall reconcile himself to us, this will command love. We shall never receive the Gospel as to love Christ, till we come to poverty of spirit, till we be thus humbled: as in the first of Luke, it is the speech of Mary, My soul doth magnify the Lord: and why? because he had respect to the poor estate of his handmaiden: When she was little in her own eyes, and made no account of her self, and thought not her self worthy to be looked after, the Lord comes and takes her, and vouchsafes her such an honour as to cause his own Son to be borne of her: now she could not hold, but that was it that inflamed