A09984:41
Mount Ebal, or A heavenly treatise of divine love Showing the equity and necessity…Mount Ebal, or A heavenly treatise of divine love Shewing the equity and necessity…
Mount Ebal, or A heavenly treatise of divine love Showing the equity and necessity of his being accursed that loves not the Lord Jesus Christ. Together with the motives means marks of our love towards him. By that late faithful and worthy divine, John Preston, Doctor in Divinity, chaplain in ordinary to his Majesty, master of Emmanuel College in Cambridge, and sometimes preacher of Lincolns Inn.Mount Ebal, or A heavenly treatise of divine love Shewing the equity and necessity of his being accursed that loves not the Lord Iesus Christ. Together with the motives meanes markes of our love towards him. By that late faithfull and worthy divine, John Preston, Doctor in Divinitie, chaplaine in ordinary to his Majestie, master of Emmanuel Colledge in Cambridge, and sometimes preacher of Lincolnes Inne.
London: printed by Marmaduke for John Stafford, 1638London: printed by Marmaduke for Iohn Stafford, 1638
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.
But now we must take Christ as an husband takes a wife, or a wife an husband, out of love to their persons, not to their portions, and then shall we be the better subject unto him; but except we be first humbled (as was before said) for our sins, and consider in what need thou standest of him, how that without him thou must perish; till then (I say) thou canst not sufficiently set by him, nor love him aright: but when thou knowest how necessary he is for thee, how all-sufficient, and affectionate he is towards thee, then thou beginnest to look at Christ as a condemned person doth at him that brings a pardon for him whom he loves and longs after, joys and rejoiceth in.
But now we must take Christ as an husband takes a wife, or a wife an husband, out of love to their persons, not to their portions, and then shall we be the better subject unto him; but except we be first humbled (as was before said) for our sinnes, and consider in what neede thou standest of him, how that without him thou must perish; till then (I say) thou canst not sufficiently set by him, nor love him aright: but when thou knowest how necessary he is for thee, how alsufficient, and affectionate he is towards thee, then thou beginnest to looke at Christ as a condemned person doth at him that brings a pardon for him whom he loves and longs after, joyes and rejoyceth in.
And yet all this is but a preparative to our love of him; it is faith, that is the first fountain, whereby we so love him, as that we can cleave unto him, with purpose of heart to serve and please him in all things, and this love which thus ariseth from faith, doth not only believe that ⟨p. 9⟩Christ is merciful, and will forgive thee thy sins upon thy supplication and repentance unto him for the same, but also that he is most fit and conformable for thee, so that thou couldst find in thy heart to be anathematized for his sake, and to be divorced from all things in the world for love of him: And so much for the second thing also, I come now to the last; to wit,
And yet all this is but a preparative to our love of him; it is faith, that is the first fountaine, whereby we so love him, as that we can cleave unto him, with purpose of heart to serve and please him in all things, and this love which thus ariseth from faith, doth not onely beleeve that