A55748:74
The mystical match between Christ and his churchThe mysticall match between Christ and his church
The mystical match between Christ and his church by the late learned and reverend divine, John Preston ... The leading sermon to that treatise of his called The churches marriage.The mysticall match between Christ and his church by the late learned and reverend divine, John Preston ... The leading sermon to that treatise of his called The churches marriage.
London: printed for Francis Eaglesfield, 1648
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.
Again, he serves a kind husband, that takes every thing in good part, that will not pay him with death, as his first husband doth. I say consider this, and let it be the second motive.
Againe, hee serves a kind husband, that takes every thing in good part, that will not pay him with death, as his first husband doth. I say consider this, and let it be the second motive.
The third thing I will conclude with, is, the danger of refusing him, wherein I thought to have bin 1large, but I can but touch it. I say consider this, that if thou refuse, it is the greatest sin that thou ⟨p. 35⟩canst commit: for thou must know this, that when the Lord Jesus Christ shall become a suitor to 2thee, for thee then to refuse, thou provokest him to anger. I dare say, it goes beyond all the sins thou hast committed; for know this, he is not a bare suitor, but a suitor that hath paid dear for his wife; he hath purchased thee at a dear price, with the shedding of his own blood: so that if thou wilt not hear his suit, he looseth not only his labour in suing, but the price that he paid for thee, for the very blood of Jesus Christ shall be put upon thy score. To have the Lord as suing to thee thus despised, you know, Rom. 2. 4. 6. Despising 3the patience of God, treasures up wrath against the day of wrath. Now despising kindness is greater, and the contempt of it, doth more incense the Lord to anger. Now therefore when the Lord shall be a suitor to us, one would think we should rather be suitors to him: but when he shall condescend to be a suitor to us, and be refused, think what a provocation it is; I will give you but one instance, that you may know what it is to refuse this suit. The Jews when Christ came in the flesh, it is said, He came to his own, he made offer of himself, but his own received him not, but refused him, they would none of him.