A49244:131
Grace: the truth and growth and different degrees thereof. The sum and substance of…Grace: the truth and growth and different degrees thereof. The summe and substance of…
Grace: the truth and growth and different degrees thereof. The sum and substance of XV. sermons. Preached by that faithful and painful servant of Jesus Christ, Mr. Christopher Love, late minister of Lawrence Jury, London. They being his last sermons. To which is added a funeral sermon, being the very last sermon he ever preached.Grace: the truth and growth and different degrees thereof. The summe and substance of XV. sermons. Preached by that faithful and painful servant of Jesus Christ, Mr. Christopher Love, late minister of Lawrence Jury, London. They being his last sermons. To which is added a funerall sermon, being the very last sermon he ever preached.
London: printed by E.G. for J. Rothwell, 1652
Title page typeset from the transcription.
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.
2. This is to make men live in a continual dependence upon divine influx and supplies from the Spirit of God. If children should be born perfect men as Adam was created, we should not then see that continual need of, & dependence on our Parents. We are bred in the womb, and afterward born in the world, and then by degrees grow up from stature to stature; and so it is in grace, God deals thus—Converting grace doth not make us so perfect as we shall be afterward. At the first Creation he made the trees all fruitful, and at their full growth; but now 'tis otherwise, they are first kernels or seeds, then plants before they are grown trees, and they have dependence on the influences of heaven: so we are first babes, then young men, and then strong men in Christ, to keep our souls in a dependence on Gods grace.
2. This is to make men live in a continual dependance upon divine influxe and supplies from the Spirit of God. If children should be born perfect men as Adam was created, we should not then see that continual need of, & dependance on our Parents. We are bred in the womb, and afterward born in the world, and then by degrees grow up from stature to stature; and so it is in grace, God deals thus—Converting grace doth not make us so perfect as we shall be afterward. At the first Creation he made the trees all fruitful, and at their full growth; but now 'tis otherwise, they are first kernels or seeds, then plants before they are grown trees, and they have dependance on the influences of heaven: so we are first babes, then young men, and then strong men in Christ, to keep our souls in a dependance on Gods grace.
3. For the greater ornament of the mystical body of Christ. In a natural body, if every member should be of an equal bigness, the body would be monstrous: but the body is so proportioned in its different members, that the lesser become serviceable to the greater, and so they all orderly discharge their mutual operations. As in Music there would be no harmony, if the strings were all of an equal bigness; but one string being the base, and the other the treble, that makes the Music to be more melodious; so it is in grace, the different degrees of grace makes the body of Christ more harmonious. It is here as in some curious piece of needle work; if all the silks were of one colour, it would not set out the work with so much lustre and amiableness, as the variety of colours will do.