A09977:447
Life eternalLife eternall
Life eternal or, A treatise of the knowledge of the divine essence and attributes Delivered in XVIII. sermons. By the late faithful and worthy minister of Jesus Christ, John Preston, D. in Divinity, chaplain in ordinary to his Majesty, master of Emmanuel College in Cambridge, and sometimes preacher of Lincolns Inn.Life eternall or, A treatise of the knowledge of the divine essence and attributes Delivered in XVIII. sermons. By the late faithfull and worthy minister of Iesus Christ, Iohn Preston, D. in Divinity, chaplaine in ordinary to his Majestie, master of Emmanuel Colledge in Cambridge, and sometimes preacher of Lincolns Inne.
London: printed by Richard, 1631
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.
There is nothing so pleasing to God as a broken heart, Isa. 57.1 Now the breaking of the heart is nothing else, but the severing between the heart and sin. As when you see an artificers work, wherein many parts are glued together; if it should fall down, or the glue be dissolved, then they all break to pieces: and when the lusts that are in our souls are thus severed, ⟨p. 9⟩this pleaseth the Lord; not that the affliction of a mans spirit is pleasing to the Lord, but the separation of sin from his soul, when the solder that joins a sinful action and the heart together, when this is dissolved, this doth please the Lord. And by the rule of contraries, if this be true, then it is true, on the other side, that when the spirit is glued by any lust to any inordinate thing, it is most hateful to God: for the stronger the lust is, the stronger is the glue; and therefore a man the more he is tied to this world, and hath such strong lusts, the more he hath this uncleanness and pollution of spirit. And therefore as a broken heart is most acceptable to God: so a spirit that is knit to any inordinate object, by the thing, that it cleaves to, it becomes most hateful and abominable to him.
There is nothing so pleasing to God as a broken heart, Isa. 57.1 Now the breaking of the heart is nothing else, but the severing betweene the heart and sin. As when you see an artificers worke, wherein many parts are glued together; if it should fall downe, or the glue be dissolved, then they all breake to pieces: and when the lusts that are in our soules are thus severed, ⟨p. 9⟩this pleaseth the Lord; not that the affliction of a mans spirit is pleasing to the Lord, but the separation of sinne from his soule, when the soder that joynes a sinfull action and the heart together, when this is dissolved, this doth please the Lord. And by the rule of contraries, if this be true, then it is true, on the other side, that when the spirit is glued by any lust to any inordinate thing, it is most hatefull to God: for the stronger the lust is, the stronger is the glue; and therefore a man the more he is tyed to this world, and hath such strong lusts, the more hee hath this uncleannesse and pollution of spirit. And therefore as a broken heart is most acceptable to God: so a spirit that is knit to any inordinate object, by the thing, that it cleaves to, it becomes most hatefull and abominable to him.