A09950:995
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.
1I answer, it is not so, the Lord bestows himself wholly on thee.2 Hos. 3, 3. it is a borrowed speech, I will be to thee alone, & I will have thee to be so to me; so the Lord saith to every man, I will be alone to thee, and thou shalt be alone to me. I am my beloveds, and my beloved is mine. This is the match that must be between you. And when you say the Lord is not wholly yours, I say, he is, though he bestow himself on many thousands besides. You will ask, how can that be? I say, that may be by reason of his infiniteness; for that which is infinite hath not parts, and therefore he bestows not himself partly on one, and partly on an other, but he bestows all upon every one: for he is infinite, and hath no parts. To express my self by a similitude,3 a point hath no parts, it is one indivisible, let a thousand lines come to one point, every one hath the whole, and yet there is but one that answers all, because it is indivisible, and every one hath all: So it is with the Lord, though there be many thousands that ⟨p. 159⟩God loves, yet every one hath the Lord wholly, he is to them alone, and he looks for and expects this at thy hands, that thou shouldest be to him alone, that thou bestow thy self wholly on him; thereupon all those words are put in, Thou shalt love thy Lord with all thy mind, with all thy heart, with all thy soul. The meaning is this, when all that is in a man is set a work to serve the Lord, when he looks to the Lord, when he inclines towards the Lord, that is, when the mind is set on work to think on him, to remember his glorious works, to have a right knowledge and opinion of him: again, when the memory is set on work to remember him, and not to forget his benefits, his statutes and his ordinances, and so the rest of his faculties. And therefore if we love the Lord, we will not do this with our selves, to think I love him, and yet I will suffer my mind, in the mean time, to be exercised in contemplating of fornication; not to think, I love the Lord, and yet will suffer my memory, in the mean time, to be recollecting injuries and breeding of them, and recalling my pleasant sins that are formerly past, that I should abhor, thou canst not love him and do this. Again, thou must not say, I love him, and yet let thy affections run after this and that, but thy whole heart must be bestowed on him: