A49258:417
A treatise of effectual calling and election In XVI. sermons, on 2 Peter 1.10.…
A treatise of effectual calling and election In XVI. sermons, on 2 Peter 1.10. Wherein a Christian may discern, whether yet he be effectually called and elected. And what course he ought to take that he may attain the assurance thereof. Preached by that faithful servant of Christ, Mr. Christopher Love, late minister of Laurence Jury, London.A treatise of effectual calling and election In XVI. sermons, on 2 Peter 1.10. Wherein a Christian may discern, whether yet he be effectually called and elected. And what course he ought to take that he may attain the assurance thereof. Preached by that faithfull servant of Christ, Mr. Christopher Love, late minister of Laurence Jury, London.
London: printed for John Rothwell, 1655
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.
Thirdly, Your assurance must make you to live with a weaned heart from the comforts of this world, 2 Cor. 4. the last verse, compared with Chapt. 5.1. The Apostle tells you, We do not look after the things that are seen, that are temporal. What made the Apostle not to look after worldly things; he gives the reason, For when this house of ours is dissolved, we have a dwelling with God, eternal in the heavens. As if he should say, That's the reason we do not look after the world as worldly men do; for we know that when we leave this world, we have a heaven to go to. The assurance of the blessedness of their future being, did make them undervalue the world, as a thing not worthy the glance of the eye; Persons that have assurance, can say as Philip said to Christ, John 14.8. Show us saith Philip, the Father, and it sufficeth us. Thus saith a gracious heart, O sweet Jesus, show us but thy favour; assure but my soul, that thy Father is a reconciled Father to me in thy self, that he is my Father as well as thy Father; Show me but the Father, and it sufficeth me; though I have little or nothing in the world, this shall suffice me. Gracious hearts, that live in the enjoyment of assurance, they ought to live with a weaned heart from the comforts of this world. Men that have tasted honey or some other sweet morsel, they do distaste all other things, though of themselves very pleasant: So men that have tasted of this honey of Gods love, and the sweetness of this grace of assurance; it will make them distaste and disrelish all the things of this world, though of themselves pleasant and good. If a man look on the Sun it dazzles hi• eyes, that he cannot discern colours about him; so he that beholds the light of Gods countenance, will not look upon the things here below. I may allude to that place, Luke 5.39. No man saith Christ, having drunk old wine, straight way desireth new; for he saith, The old is better. His meaning is this, No man that hath had a taste of Jesus ⟨p. 136⟩Christ, and hath had communion and fellowship with Jesus Christ, and lain under the Ministry of Jesus Christ; no man that hath drunk of this old wine, will say, new is better; to have other comforts, and other pleasures, is better; no man will say this, saith Christ. And so he compares his Ministry, and his Doctrine, and the comfort Gods people have thereby, to old wine: