A49244:175
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.
Now lest men should rest in lazy and sluggish desires, and thereby neglect the exercise of grace, I shall give you an account in what sense the Scripture reckons upon desires after grace, to be grace.
1. They are supernatural desires. 'Tis true there are natural desires in the soul after that which is good,—it is the language of nature,1 Who will show us any good; now these desires may and do arise from the motion of the natural and unsanctified will of man; and these desires are after happiness, and not after holiness; such were the desires of Balaam: who said,2 Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like his. This was but a natural desire. But true desires in ⟨p. 44⟩the soul are after heaven, for holiness sake.3 Bernard notably sets out these desires of natural men,—That they have a desire of the End, and not of the Means.
1. They are supernatural desires. 'Tis true there are natural desires in the soul after that which is good,—it is the language of nature,1 Who wil show us any good; now these desires may and do arise from the motion of the natural and unsanctified will of man; and these desires are after happinesse, and not after holinesse; such were the desires of Balaam: who said,2 Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like his. This was but a natural desire. But true desires in ⟨p. 44⟩the soul are after heaven, for holinesse sake.