A49244:625
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.
For the first, the scope of the words, because they are ushered in with an illative or causal particle (For) which carries a reference to somewhat that goeth before, and that you may distinctly take notice of the reference, you must look back to the 18. verse of this chapter, there Job tells you of a strong disease under which he laboured, By the great force of my disease is my garment changed, 1it hindeth me about as the collar of my coat. It seems the disease was so strong upon him, it even strangled his breath, it was as a collar about his neck, upon the sense of this his disease, he breaks out into this holy meditation, For I know that thou wilt bring me to death, and to the house appointed for all living. Now take a hint from the scope and ⟨p. 201⟩context, that sicknesses and diseases they should be remembrancers of us about our dying. Sick men should always think with themselves they are dying men, and they that die daily, need not fear dying suddenly. So I come to the sense of the words, I know. It is not to be understood of a notional or speculative knowledge,2 that doth signify a bare and naked knowledge of a general truth; but such kind of knowledge as is practical and experimental: and so also did Junius translate it. This experimental knowledge wrought in Job holy preparations for death I know, and by experience can tell, I have such a kind of knowledge, that hath practicalness and experience in it. (That thou wilt bring me to death) This showed the holiness of Job in opposition to the doctrine of the Heathens, who guest that all such events fell out by fate and fortune, and not by the determinate decree and counsel of the most High. (And to the house appointed for all living.) Though he doth not speak here where this house is,3 yet it doth in Job. 17. 13. If I wait, the grave is mine house, and I have made my bed in the darkness. Now that which was his house, must be the house of all living, that is, the grave. Now the grave is compared to an house. 1. Alluding to the Egyptian Sepulchres, which were made like a house with several arched rooms. 2. Because there we dwell in silence. Thus ye have the words briefly paraphrased unto you. Now