A49244:524
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 13: XIII. Sermon at Lawrence Jury London. April 20. 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.
3. Be not discouraged, though men of glorious gifts fall away: for the poorest Christian that hath but the smallest measure of grace shall never fall away. The gifts of a Formalist may quickly wither, for they have their root in nature: but the graces of a true Christian shall never perish, because they have their root ⟨p. 159⟩in Christ, A Christians life is hid with Christ, hid in him as in a root,1 as in the fountain of life. A painted face may soon fade, so doth not a true and natural complexion; the varnish of a formal hypocrite is soon washed out, but when true grace like a colour in grain, hath grown habitual in the soul, it is not removable; sooner will the Sun discard its own beams, then Christ will desert and destroy the least measure of true grace, which is a beam from that Sun of Righteousness.
3. Be not discouraged, though men of glorious gifts fall away: for the poorest Christian that hath but the smallest measure of grace shal never fall away. The gifts of a Formalist may quickly wither, for they have their root in nature: but the graces of a true Christian shal never perish, because they have their root ⟨p. 159⟩in Christ, A Christians life is hid with Christ, hid in him as in a root,1 as in the fountain of life. A painted face may soon fade, so doth not a true and natural complexion; the varnish of a formal hypocrite is soon wash't out, but when true grace like a colour in grain, hath grown habitual in the soul, it is not removeable; sooner will the Sun discard its own beams, then Christ will desert and destroy the least measure of true grace, which is a beam from that Sun of Righteousnesse.
- 1Col. 33.