A49244:465
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.
Sermon 11: XI. Sermon at Lawrence Jury London. April 13. 1651.
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.
4. A growing cold and lazy, and heedless in holy duties. If we put off God without true service, God may justly put us off without true comfort. This rule holds in spiritual affairs, He that will not work shall not eat. If we abate in the sanctifying work of the Spirit, it is but just that God withhold the comforting work of the Spirit. The sluggard saith Solomon, hath poverty enough, so if we grow lazy and sluggish in holy duties, it is just that our stock of comfort do decay. Though holy duties do not merit comforts, yet comfort usually riseth and falls according to our diligence in duties. True grace is never so apparent to, and sensible in the soul, as when it is in action; and therefore want of exercise must needs cause want of comfort. As fire in the flint is never seen or felt, till it be struck out by the Steel: so is grace and the comfort of grace, never so sensible as when it is exercised much in holy duties.
4. A growing cold and lazy, and heedlesse in holy duties. If we put off God without true service, God may justly put us off without true comfort. This rule holds in spiritual affairs, He that will not work shall not eat. If we abate in the sanctifying work of the Spirit, it is but just that God withhold the comforting work of the Spirit. The sluggard saith Solomon, hath poverty enongh, so if we grow lazy and sluggish in holy duties, it is just that our stock of comfort do decay. Though holy duties do not merit comforts, yet comfort usually riseth and falls according to our diligence in duties. True grace is never so apparent to, and sensible in the soul, as when it is in action; and therefore want of exercise must needs cause want of comfort. As fire in the flint is never seen or felt, till it be struck out by the Steel: so is grace and the comfort of grace, never so sensible as when it is exercised much in holy duties.
5. Any one sin indulged by, or concealed in the conscience, is enough to mar all your comfort. Concealed guilt contracts horror. The Candle will never burn clear whilst there is a thief in it. Sin in the conscience is like Jonah in the ship, which causeth a tempest, that the conscience is like a ⟨p. 137⟩